Alexander Hamilton
Duel with Burr and death

Soon after Lewis' gubernatorial victory, the Albany Register published Charles D. Cooper 's letters, citing Hamilton's opposition to Burr and alleging that Hamilton had expressed "a still more despicable opinion" of the vice president at an upstate New York dinner party. Cooper claimed that the letter was intercepted after relaying the information, but stated he was "unusually cautious" in recollecting the information from the dinner.

Burr, sensing an attack on his honor, and recovering from his defeat, demanded an apology in the form of a letter. Hamilton wrote a letter in response and ultimately refused because he could not recall the instance of insulting Burr. Hamilton would also have been accused of recanting Cooper's letter out of cowardice. After a series of attempts to reconcile were to no avail, a duel was arranged through liaisons on June 27, 1804.

The concept of honor was fundamental to Hamilton's vision of himself and of the nation. Historians have noted, as evidence of the importance that honor held in Hamilton's value system, that Hamilton had previously been a party to seven "affairs of honor" as a principal, and to three as an advisor or second. Such affairs of honor were often concluded prior to reaching the final stage of a duel.

Before the duel, Hamilton wrote an explanation of his decision to participate while at the same time intending to " throw away " his shot. His desire to be available for future political matters also played a factor. A week before the duel, at an annual Independence Day dinner of the Society of the Cincinnati, both Hamilton and Burr were in attendance. Separate accounts confirm that Hamilton was uncharacteristically effusive while Burr was, by contrast, uncharacteristically withdrawn. Accounts also agree that Burr became roused when Hamilton, again uncharacteristically, sang a favorite song, which recent scholarship indicates that it was " How Stands the Glass Around ", an anthem sung by military troops about fighting and dying in war.

The duel began at dawn on July 11, 1804, along the west bank of the Hudson River on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey. Both opponents were rowed over from Manhattan separately from different locations, as the spot was not accessible from the west due to the steepness of the adjoining cliffs. Coincidentally, the duel took place relatively close to the location of the duel that had ended the life of Hamilton's eldest son, Philip, three years earlier. Lots were cast for the choice of position and which second should start the duel. Both were won by Hamilton's second, who chose the upper edge of the ledge for Hamilton facing the city to the east, toward the rising sun. After the seconds had measured the paces Hamilton, according to both William P. Van Ness and Burr, raised his pistol "as if to try the light" and had to wear his glasses to prevent his vision from being obscured. Hamilton also refused the more sensitive hairspring setting for the dueling pistols offered by Nathaniel Pendleton, and Burr was unaware of the option.

Vice President Burr shot Hamilton, delivering what proved to be a fatal wound. Hamilton's shot was said to have broken a tree branch directly above Burr's head. Neither of the seconds, Pendleton nor Van Ness, could determine who fired first, as each claimed that the other man had fired first.

Soon after, they measured and triangulated the shooting, but could not determine from which angle Hamilton had fired. Burr's shot hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above his right hip. The bullet ricocheted off Hamilton's second or third false rib, fracturing it and causing considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and diaphragm, before becoming lodged in his first or second lumbar vertebra. The biographer Ron Chernow considers the circumstances to indicate that, after taking deliberate aim, Burr fired second, while the biographer James Earnest Cooke suggests that Burr took careful aim and shot first, and Hamilton fired while falling, after being struck by Burr's bullet.

The paralyzed Hamilton was immediately attended by the same surgeon who tended Philip Hamilton, and ferried to the Greenwich Village boarding house of his friend William Bayard Jr., who had been waiting on the dock. On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Moore, to give him holy communion. Moore initially declined to do so on the grounds that participating in a duel was a mortal sin and that Hamilton, although undoubtedly sincere in his faith, was not a member of the Episcopalian denomination. After leaving, Moore was persuaded to return that afternoon by the urgent pleas of Hamilton's friends. Upon receiving Hamilton's solemn assurance that he repented for his part in the duel, Moore gave him communion.

After final visits from his family, friends, and considerable suffering for at least 31 hours, Hamilton died at two o'clock the following afternoon, July 12, 1804, at Bayard's home just below the present Gansevoort Street. The city fathers halted all business at noon two days later for Hamilton's funeral. The procession route of about two miles organized by the Society of the Cincinnati had so many participants of every class of citizen that it took hours to complete and was widely reported nationwide by newspapers. Moore conducted the funeral service at Trinity Church. Gouverneur Morris gave the eulogy and secretly established a fund to support his widow and children. Hamilton was buried in the church's cemetery.
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