American History Hit - The Real Hamilton: Downfall, Duel & Death

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

When Alexander Hamilton took a bullet to the abdomen on the morning of the 11th July 1804, he joined a long list of people who had fallen foul of this very strange practice. So where did duelling come from? And how did these two revolutionary American politicians find themselves with pistols in their hands?Don is joined for this third episode of our Real Hamilton series by Mike Loades, British author and presenter of History Hit's new series of documentaries about the tradition of duelling, first with swords, then with pistols.Find 'Duelling, with Mike Loades' on History Hit TV.Produced and edited by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career. To begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality.

So begins a letter from Alexander Hamilton to his beloved wife, Eliza, full of apprehension and remorse. Its words express reason, laced with ambiguity, as Hamilton attempts to justify a shooting duel. against his rival, someone he loads, but does not wish to kill. If it had been possible for me to have avoided this interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible, without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me.

The letter is dated July 4, 1804. In one week, Hamilton will be rowed across the Hudson River to New Jersey, where he will suffer a mortal wound at the hand of Aaron Burr, a man he once called his friend. Adieu, best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. ever yours, A.H. Greetings all, you're listening to American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman.

In the early dawn of July 11, 1804, two boats rode by four men each, departed from separate docks on the west side of Manhattan, heading across the Hudson River. Aboard each boat was a passenger, very preoccupied with destiny and fate. In short order, the men would arrive in Weehawken, New Jersey, where they climbed ashore to settle a score, by facing one another and firing pistols, according to the rules set down by a long tradition.

The two men would decide their dispute by dueling. Today, this circumstance seems absurd to us. Two grown men, accomplished lawyers even, crossing state lines in secrecy to shoot at each other rather than reasonably negotiating the matter elsewhere, perhaps in court. But this was more than a legal feud. This was about honor.

An honor for a founding father and the opponent he had allegedly done wrong by was a matter of life and death. Today is the penultimate episode of our four-part Alexander Hamilton series, but it concerns the final act of Hamilton's life, his deadly duel with Aaron Burr. And in this discussion, we are joined by Mike Lodes, author of several books and of the new history hit documentary series, dueling with Mike Lodes.

Mike, I am dying to have this conversation. We in America learn about the duel of Hamilton and Burr from kindergarten. It's the only duel we ever hear about until we discover suddenly as adults that there was this whole tradition that this world of dueling exists. And that's what I want to talk about. I want to put this in the context of the broader European tradition of dueling. So let's start at the beginning. What is a duel?

What was the function of a duel? When did it begin? Well, it doesn't really have a beginning. It's a slow evolution out of the mists. So we've done for history hit two films. Part one is dueling with swords and part two, dueling with pistols. That's our dividing point. And in dealing with swords or other-aged weapons,

we start with the Norse Holmgang, the Viking Holmgang, which was practiced throughout the Scandinavian and Germanic, that includes British world. So home gangs happened in Britain. And what a home gang is, it's a legal proceeding. So if you kill my brother, the state in the sort of 9th century, 10th century, had no interest in prosecuting you for murder, but they did have an interest in keeping the peace.

And to keep the peace, they could facilitate, if you didn't pay me enough money, compensation, depending on how much I think my brother's worth, then I could challenge you to a wager of battle, to a home gang. So you have this ritualized fight, and they would usually row out to an island, and it's all very codified, and there's a measured ground with hazel sticks,

and it's part courtroom, part theater. And it's a way of allowing people to settle grievances. And a normal home gang was just a first blood. There was another version called the Einvigi, which was to the death. But that's where it started. So it's that notion started that if somebody owed compensation to somebody for a grievance

and if they weren't satisfied or the party didn't pay up, then you could have this fight. Right. But there's this sort of glorified aspect to it. Oh, there is. So the picture unfolds and develops. But I think one of the first things to say

before we leave the Vikings is that the word dual, we always think of as if it was spelled D-U-A-L, two people. But it's not, it's D-U-E-L. And in old Latin, D-U often substituted for B. So it was actually a contraction of bellum, which means war. So you actually could have several people on your side. So in those earlier contests, you can have three or four cousins at your back. So it could be this little mini battle.

It evolved in the Middle Ages, the medieval period as we know it, as the trial by combat. And the central principle of that remained a settling of grievances for people of equivalent social status. This is very important. You have to be of the same class. and the idea is that God was judge and jury and that if you were innocent of what was charged, then God would look after you and didn't matter who the better fighter was, you would win.

And in fact, you could even go to the extent that you could hire somebody to fight for you. Right. Because God was making the judgment about who would win. So you could have a professional fight master stand in your stead for this trial by combat and God in his infinite wisdom and justice would ensure the outcome. So that's the prevailing idea that has now existed for several centuries.

And we go into the 16th century, into the Renaissance. And several things are happening at once in this rather long period, the Renaissance has started earlier, but by the 16th century, the Northern Europe Renaissance. you are getting a lot of social mobility. People are becoming gentlemen. More people are earning their money from trade or professions. It isn't just the nightly classes. What they're sort of doing is they're sort of imitating these old ancestral rights

that they have a vague sort of folk memory of. And for the first time, they are wearing swords to go about their daily business. This did not happen before. So the rapier, which is a long, slender weapon, often used with a companion dagger because it's so long and got rich, as you will know, being an ex-student of my very good friend when you were at drama school, rapier and dagger is very much the fighting system of the 16th century. And people are wearing these rapiers for the first time. The word rapier, incidentally, is an anglicisation.

of the Spanish term, Espada Rupera, which simply means dress sword. So in other words, they're wearing a sword with their civilian clothing, which had never been done before, because people only wore swords when they were travelling through dangerous country or strapping on with their war gear to go into battle. So this new fancy fashion of wearing swords, this bravado of proclaiming, I am a gentleman, and having this idea that as a gentleman,

gentleman, you should have this ancestral right. So it started informally and illegally. There weren't so much laws against dueling, but there were laws against murder. If you killed someone under the it, it remained an offence. So I understand it was only between gentlemen. Yes. You had to be of the equal classes to fight each other. Peasants didn't do this sort of thing anyway, right? That was not part of their world. Correct. Too busy for such foolishness. Yes, right. And was it only ever men or or did women also take part? There are some famous instances of women dueling, but it isn't mainstream.

At some point, you mentioned Codify. There is literally a code written out in several different versions, I guess, over time. Explain that code and how specific it was. One of the things I did was I went to the College of Arms. Now, the College of Arms in London, as the name suggests, is where people go to get their coat of arms, to get their grant of arms.

And that is one of the things that defines the gentleman from a non-gentleman. Do you have a coat of arms? What's your coat of arms? And you have to have that granted. And it's based on your hereditary status and also your financial status, etc.

So that's... The College of Arms is somewhere that officially defines who's a gentleman and who's not. And in the 17th century, James I first and subsequently Charles I first were very against the cult of Julie. It had become an epidemic.

It was a craze. It was out of... of control and all his courtiers, everybody was killing each other and he wanted to try and restrain it a bit. So he set up at the College of Arms the Court of Chivalry, which still exists there. And with Professor Cust who studied this, we fished into the records. So James I's idea, followed up by Charles I first, was that words provocative of a duel could be arbitrated by a court. So this is hugely analogous to the issues we have with social media today. This is hugely analysis to cases of slander and libel and all of these things

that are settled in the courts, but are not punished by the state, but they are a way the court arbitrates civil goings on in our societies. So at the court of chivalry, we dived into records and, you know, it mattered if the words were spoken in public, if they were witnessed, that was provocative of a duel. If there's just the two of you in the room and you said something unpleasant, that's okay. But if you say it in front of the servants, if you say it in front of the servants, if you say it in front of somebody, then you've offended somebody's honour and they can demand satisfaction. So the sort of things they say, you are the squirt of a kite and the spawn of a crab louse, which we found out of the record. And one of the fun things about presenting history

programmes is you can go to posh places and say rude things. There were some much ruder insults in these court records. So it was about. protecting your reputation about standing up for your honor, about not letting somebody say these things about you without consequence. So someone, there has been a social transgression that has stepped on your honor. Yes. And at this point, it is very important in these social strata to maintain that reputation and honor.

And so this device has been created and codified and ritualized in order to give that sort of backdrop for the upper classes, for these men particularly. You know, the iconic thing is the glove across the face or whatever. Was all of this written out for them? At various stages, at various stages. The thing about the glove across the face is for all the words provocative of a duel, one thing was certainly provocative of a duel, and that was to strike a blow.

So the glove across the face is a symbolic blow. It doesn't have to be a great punch. It could be just... And actually, in film two, we have... have a wonderful interview with James Landale, who is the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, and his ancestor, David Landale, fought a duel with his bank manager in 1826. And I know who you're all rooting for. But what he did to provoke the duel because the bank manager, George Morgan, was trying to provoke this duel with Landale. He said all sorts of insults, and Landau

just blanked it. But finally, one day, he walked up to him in the public street, and whacked him with his umbrella. That was it. That was enough for this otherwise calm and measured man to fight a duel. Yeah, exactly. So yes, there were codes. They were written down. And most famously, in America, we have in 1838,

John Lide Wilson, who was governor of South Carolina previously. He wrote the Code of Honor, which detailed what offenses were provocative of a duel. what the procedure should be, the duty than the job of the seconds. Seconds are very important. If there aren't seconds, it isn't a duel. It's just a fight. So you have to adhere to these various codified formalities

for it to be a duel. There's a difference between a duel and a fight and a brawl. Yeah. I mean, it goes back, Mike, to the 1400s and beyond, as we've already discussed, to the Vikings. But 1410, there is the Floss Dullatorium in Italy. Charles V. gets involved in France 1527. It's a very important ritual, I think is what I'm saying,

so much so that the Italians are writing it down, the French are writing it down. Everybody understands that this has to be a device. Otherwise, they have no place to go. There aren't the courts. These conflicts don't belong in the courts. They belong between honorable men, and therefore it exists. But my grander point here, if I have one, is that what happens in America started in Europe and it went way back. back. And so we are carrying forth a tradition. Oh, that's absolutely right, because we should make the distinction between the Wild West shootout and what tended to happen in the original 13 colonies and then what also tended to happen in the South. And, you know, John Lide Wilson's Code of Honor

1838 is very much saying what's going on in the South. And that's quite different to the Western shootout, which is guns and two people, but it tends to be, you know, without the formality. without the same codes that provoke it, without the same formalities of how it's conducted, and so it can't really be classified as a duel. So it is its own different species. But on the East Coast, if we're talking about America,

Andrew Jackson, you know, is believed to afford over 100 duels. Now, he was hot, tempered, intemperate. Oh, my God, very famously, yeah. And in one duel in 1906 against Charles Dickinson, Jackson's pistol misfired, flintlock pistols, you know, notoriously unreliable mechanisms. Now, if your pistol misfired, that's considered your shot. Yeah.

That's it. You've taken your shot. But no, Jackson re-cocked his pistol and shot Dickinson dead, which was a most heinous breach of that etiquette and the rules and the code. Sure. So, yes, it is very codified. Ultimately, and more commonly, this was really meant to be a chance for people to apologize to each other, right?

I mean, this was a kind of forum for getting out of hurting the other person. Well, John Lloyd Wilson says this. You know, he says his motivation for writing the Code of Honor. And he based it on an old Irish Code of Honor written in 1777, and he really took most of the information from there. Again, Americans drawing from Europe of what they think is supposed to be what the code is in the old world. And his rationale for doing it was not to promote dueling, but because he hoped if people understood the rules, there would be fewer duels

because the seconds would do their duty better by becoming more involved in persuading their principles to reason. And all that was required, all that was required was a public apology. If you'd received public insult, the remedy was public apology. And that could get you out of any duel. I think it so often comes down to the fact, you know, we forget that nothing was going on in those You know, you had some broadsides coming out. You had a lot of chatter in the coffee houses. Life was very simple, media-wise. For anything to be noticed, it needed to be a piece of theater. You know, this was just a way of creating an event in some ways. Well, that's why some of these insults, when we went to the court records at the Court of

Chivalry, there are some pretty hefty scatological stuff in that. And it's, that's what they're doing. They're trying to make sure it gets published in the broadsheet that gets posted up in the coffee house. Yeah. So they become extremely inventive with how they insult one another. And of course, if you look at famous jewels, you get a huge number of politicians. We've mentioned Andrew Jackson. And is it because politicians are preternaturally intemperate?

Well, I leave that for people to decide. But it's more to do with the fact that their existence does depend on reputation. And historically, politicians have been known to, say, unkindly. things about other politicians and to give them nicknames and all sorts of strange behaviours. And the Duke of Wellington fought a duel. William Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister of England brought a duel. Several British Prime Minister. Lord Canning fought a duel as Prime Minister and shot his opponent in the leg. George Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France during the First World War. He fought at least a dozen duels because he was a great for Landerer.

He had many cuckolded husbands to account to. But these are other words. wise, intelligent, measured, thoughtful men. Whatever we think about their policies or whatever, these are grownups. But they all succumbed to this social pressure, this hold that the dual had on society. So I don't like it that when we look at this, we look back and we go, oh, aren't we wonderful, we've come so far, because if you have a quick glance around the world, I don't think we've come very far. And, oh, weren't they strange? They were just living in a different world.

and this was a very real social pressure for people in that position. Hence, Hamilton fights the duel. And I want to know where in the history of things does this fall? I mean, is dueling as popular as ever when this most famous of duels happens in America? Yes, it still is, yeah. Because dueling lasts in America longer than it does in Britain. It's a last fatal duel in Britain's 1843. And the last sort of formal duel, if you like, in America is 1859, which takes place at

San Francisco, Senator Broderick, and a chief justice on Terry who killed him. Oh, okay. So that's as late as 1859. So more than 50 years after that Burr-Hamilton duel, which is 1804. And Lincoln turned up to fight a duel. Right. But only with swords, as I understand it, right? Well, only with swords, because he was the challenged.

And so he had the right of picking the weapons. And he instructed a pit to be dug. They were going to be down in a pit with a plank divide. And, of course, he was enormously tall. also he had great reach. And this was 1842. And in 1840, a new sword had been issued to American cavalry, which was nicknamed Old Riskbreaker.

It was so heavy, eight and a half pounds, 35-inch blade, tremendous reach. So he, big, powerful Lincoln would have had huge advantage. And he turned up to the duel, because for shame he could not turn up. You know, he was a politician. He could not risk his reputation being damaged by not turning up. But he'd created a situation. his opponent was a slighter man, and he stood there with this giant sword,

which he could handle with ease, lopping branches off a nearby tree. And his opponent, James Shields, eventually sort of saw sense and apologized, and they reconciled. What about George Washington? Was he a famous dweller or no? No, he wasn't.

He was very against it, vociferously against it. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. So within this European tradition, The most famous American duel ever takes place. But the Burr-Hamilton duel is unique in many regards. First of all, it is a violent duel, which most duels are not.

It means business, it turns out. I just want to understand how this duel stands apart from the rest and thus become so famous. So there are various aspects to the Burr-Hamilton duel. One is the pistols themselves. The pistols still exist. They belong to J.P. Morgan Chase Bank. and they kindly allowed us images of those pistols. So the actual pistols exist.

And the tragic thing about those pistols is, once it accepted the challenge, Hamilton borrowed the pistols from his father-in-law, John Barker Church, who had previously lent those pistols to Hamilton's son, Philip Hamilton the previous year, who was only 19, and he was killed in that duel. Hamilton was an avowed opponent of dueling.

His son had been killed in dueling. Right. There's a quote from something he wrote in the weeks leading up to the day entitled, Statement on Impending Dual with Aaron Burr. It's right on the nose. These are his words. The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or affecting good, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular. Not exactly clarifying prose, but it seems like he's saying he can't accept the charge and apologize because that means he loses face. And if he wants to be useful, he can't do that.

But this statement he has written is almost 900 words long. You know, for a guy who's made a decision, he certainly seems reluctant to take part. As you say, he fundamentally opposes the practice. And now he takes the same pair of pistols to be rode out to that dueling ground in Weehawken in 1804. You know, the same pistols killed father and son. It'd be unbelievably great.

You can't write the stuff, But people try all the time. You really can't. It's an extraordinary set of circumstances. And it's come about through the usual pettiness of public insults. You know, Hamilton's insulted Burr at a dinner party. Then there's inflammatory correspondence, and it builds and builds. And Burr issues a challenge to duel.

Let's go through the specifics of that insult. 1791, Burr wins Philip Schuyler's seat in the Senate. Philip Schuyler being Hamilton's father. mother-in-law. This was an affront. I don't know that it was, you know, dual-worthy, but it was bad form for this former friend of Hamilton, Burr, and colleague, to have done this. It was a bit of an underhanded thing. He switched parties in order to do it. It also scratched away at the legacy of the Skyler's. So, therefore, Honor is on the table there. 1801, Burr obtains and publishes a document authored by Hamilton, the public conduct of the character of John Adams, Esquire,

President of the United States, embarrassing to Hamilton, it widens the rift in the Federalist Party. There's a lot at stake between these two individuals politically and certainly personally even. That's what's so famous about the musical, of course. But all of this builds up over time. What's the thing that really triggers, no pun intended, the duel? Public insult. You know, as you're indicating, they've long been antagonistic rivals. There's a deep grudge been going on for years with these two.

There's a problem. But in this correspondence, which gets leaked, published, they're being abusive to each other. And Burr says enough. You can't say these things about me. I challenge you to a duel. Once the challenge is issued, that's a formal challenge. And as we've discussed, you know, the politician can't risk being publicly branded a coward and has to turn up. But the interesting thing to me about this duel is what happened?

Because accounts vary. Hamilton had said that he intended to. dilope. And that is a system by which you turn up, you're going to take fire, but you deliberately fire wide. You know, you hold your hand out at right angles, up in the air. You know, it's quite clear that you're not trying. And you take your shot and you stand and receive whatever the other person decides to do. All the reports agree there were two shots. Some say Hamilton deloped and then Burr shot him. Others say that Burr's ball struck Hamilton first and that as the ball struck, Hamilton's pistol went off, because as he, you know, reacted to that. And others say that

as Hamilton was lowering his pistol, his hair trigger went off by accident. So I wanted, and I said, well, hang on, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington's aide-de-combe in the Revolutionary War, this is a veteran, this is a soldier, this is somebody used to handling firearms, does he make such a similar? How sensitive are these hair triggers? How likely is that? So we set up a test, and I don't think anyone's ever done it, and we from that test have exact measurements that show the different amount of pressure required for pulling a normal trigger, and then you click the trigger forward and put it onto the hair trigger setting, and that hair trigger setting. And it is quite dramatically different, the difference between the two. Now, why would Hamilton have his set trigger on? If he tends to. to delope. Probably his seconds when handing him the pistol, just, you know, you're fighting a duel, I'll give you

the hair trigger. And he may have thought, well, I'm going to elope, I won't be needing it. So it's a little bit of original investigation that we did on the mechanics of how Hamilton's pistol worked, and we had exactly the same make of pistol, original, and did that little test. Fascinating.

You'll have to watch the film to understand it fully and see the resolution of that little experiment. Let's be sure about the details of where this happens. The date is July 11th, 1804. Location was Weehawk in New Jersey. Why Weehawk and Mike?

What was so famous about this place? Well, at least 18 duels had been recorded there before. It was in New Jersey, as opposed to New York, and the laws about dueling were slightly more lenient. So it was the convenience of it being right there. You know, you row across. Yeah, it's not far. It's a short row across the Hudson.

And as we know, you know, Burr. carried on living and was able to make his getaway. So, yeah, it was a legal expedient that the laws in New Jersey were softer than the laws in New York State. So in painting the picture of how this happens, typically in these duels, these shooting duels, how far apart do the opponents stand? I think the standard 10, 12 paces is about right, much more than that, and you really don't stand much chance of hitting somebody with a smooth ball, flintlock pistol. But it was up. to the seconds to negotiate the terms of the duel. And we, you know, we go through in the film a number of the procedures.

So the standing back to back and walking away, then, you know, set number of paces and turning to fire, it did exist as a possibility, but it happens more in movies than it did in real life. That wasn't in the commandments, the code and all that. No. A measured distance was much more typical. So the seconds, you know, would pace out the distance and give marks. And then once you're on your marks, there's no backing out.

Once you've taken the ground, even an apology won't do. Once you've stood on that spot, you have to then take fire. Okay. Tell me about the seconds. What's their function? The seconds are to be witnesses, which harks back to the fact that this originates in the midst of time as a semi-legal proceeding. The seconds are to be the brokers of the duel, if you like.

So once the challenge has been issued, the principals don't speak to each other anymore. It's all done through the seconds who are obliged to conduct it with civil discourse, just as a lawyer might stand up and advocate for his principal. Their principal job is to try and get an apology and for the duel to be called off. That is their civil moral obligation of the second, is to try and get these two men to make people. with each other. But if you get to the dueling ground, their job is to load the pistols, prime the pistols, pass them to the seconds, establish what the rules are. Is it a time dual way?

You've got one minute and you can each take three shots. Are you walking away? Are you at a set distance? All of these things. And if somebody breaks the rules, shoot them. Yes, there you go. So in the case of this famous duel, the seconds are for Hamilton, Nathaniel Pendleton, and for Burr William Van Ness. There's an image in my mind of a box that's velvet lined in my imagination with these beautiful wooden pistols that is opened by the second, one of those men, and those guns are taken out by each of the opponents, by Burr and Hamilton, at which point they walk away.

Is this sort of mythological image correct? Is that how it really worked? Yes, more or less. So first of all, due to know, Pistols were a thing. In sort of around about 1770, a particular style of pistol was developed. English gunsmiths saw a market because up until about the 1760, duels were conducted with swords. So although the pistol had been invented, you know, the pistol was invented in the 16th century. The wheel lock mechanism wasn't hugely reliable and it was invented for cavalry because horsemen need one hand for the reins and one hand for the,

pistol. But it took, the sword was what you dueled with. That was the weapon of honour for dueling. So it took a long while. But eventually, by the mid-18th century, because the flintlock has arrived, military men are now winning honour and glory on the battlefield with their pistols. So the pistol became elevated as a more gentlemanly weapon. So first of all, you get this transition from sword to pistol, which happens in that military context of it becoming suitable as a weapon of honour. Then, now people are starting to deal with pistols. The gunsmiths say, oh, well, there's a market here. We'll make something very wonderful and expensive.

And they are exquisite. And they come in a box, as you've said, a case of pistols. You have two because, A, you know, they're notoriously unreliable, so you might want to spare. B, you might want to offer one to your opponent to say, well, we're going to be fair, we can be fighting with the same pistols and you choose which one you like. And any gentleman had a case of dueling pistol, showing that he was a gentleman and prepared to defend his honour with a duel. So yes, the image you describe of this elegant mahogany box being opened, velvet lined and these exquisite dueling pistols, which had several features. I mean, it had a slightly longer barrel, and the angle of the grip just allowed the arm to come down straight into the aiming position in such a way. But elegance, high-end craftsmanship, refinement, all of these things were the hallmarks of a dueling pistol.

We've reviewed the varying accounts of what might have happened in terms of how these shots were fired, you know, intentionally or aimed or none of that is for sure. I imagine there must have been very detailed witnessed accounts. I mean, these seconds must have written it all down, right? Very often they did. Very often they did. And because if somebody were killed, then there was a charge of murder to be answered. And so these accounts from seconds, etc., were written down in court. So in our interview with James Landale, where he recounts the duel of his ancestor James

Landale, there was a court trial at the end of that. and we have a lot of detailed information about that. How is there any question about Burr and Hamilton with two such famous men at the time? I would have imagined the accounts would have been very specific. You would, wouldn't you? But then they were famous men who were also partisan. Yeah.

And so there were partisan opinions. Interesting. With all the varying accounts of what happened in the firing, the only surefire thing we have is that, that Hamilton was shot in the abdomen, and therefore the duel ends. He is rode across the river to William Bayard's house in Greenwich Village, which in those days is a tiny little place. And there he dies, having 31 hours to have visits from family and friends and say his goodbyes.

It is quite an ignominious ending to a great life, a very strange and sad and kind of pathetic way to go, isn't it? Yes, it is. And I wouldn't say pathetic. I really wouldn't. I mean, certainly sad, certainly tragic and certainly strange. But, you know, he was a man of his time. And it's very easy for us to look back and sneer and mock and think how foolish they were. And, you know, I certainly would say that dueling is foolish. But at the same time, I'm not living then and I'm not under the same social pressures. But what is interesting about your description is it was a very typical way to die. from a duel because these weapons were not that deadly. And because of this thing about charge of murder, some people were like, well, I'm going to take my shot,

and they instruct their seconds to put a very small charge of powder into the pistol so that you might just wound him, especially if he had a thick coat. So there was no risk of killing him. But the surgeons complained about this, saying, you know, the amount of powder used these days, it's not enough to send a ball through a modern, quadrantly thick gentleman. So the great annoyance of the patient and the great inconvenience of

the surgeon. In other words, they're having to fish out. But the significance of that is you've got a lead ball that's been driven into the flesh with the clothing, with the bacteria contaminated clothing. And that's more often than not, some kind of sepsis that actually killed you. Yeah, exactly. The fascinating twist on this is that for all, the honor and all the, you know, ritual here. Burr actually is in trouble because of this. And the aftermath of the duel for Burr is so interesting. He returns to New York City where instead of being respected for defending his honor,

he is faced with the possibility of murder charges. So he has to flee. He flees to the south. The charges are eventually dropped. And then he returns to Washington to finish his term as vice president. This is the incredible, you know, the tapestry of this is amazing. It's so grand. he does live on and tells his own story, which Hamilton did not.

And that's why we're doing this right now. That's absolutely right. And Burr's journey through life is an extraordinary story in its own right. I mean, at one stage, he goes to try and, you know, separate the western states from the eastern states and he goes to Louisiana and all sorts of things. But he ends up being a lawyer in New York. Say no more. Which is a different kind of fate, exactly. A scoundrel.

I'm being discreet in talking about Burr because I can't wait to do that episode. It's an amazing story, actually, an incredible chapter of American history. I don't like the guy myself, but it's sure an interesting story to tell. Well, he's a very unlikable person, but I would say that although we do go into the Burr-Hamilton duel, particularly with these tests and with the hair trigger, the focus of the two history hit films about dueling is on the origins of the duel and coming to the end of dueling in Europe, and in particular, Britain. And that's really where most of our stories lie. But they absolutely tie into the way the custom transferred to America, because it was on that European model. Hamilton was fighting and lost his life on that old world European model.

Well, it's such a, the value of learning this history is to understand the context of these actions and this is and you've done a great job for us today. Thank you so much, Mike. Mike Lodes is a bit of a polymath, I must say, author of Swords and Swordsman, War, Bowes, and I want to mention especially a great book called Dogs, Working Origins and Traditional Tasks, which Mike authored a few years ago. Throughout this episode, we've been speaking about the history hit documentaries, which you can watch on history hit.com. It's an ongoing series on Dules. Episode 1 is out now, focusing on Blade Dules. Episode two comes out soon on the channel and is all about gun duels, and that's where you see Mike experimenting with his hair triggers. Be careful, Mike.

Thank you so much, Mike Lodes. I will talk to you again, I am sure. My very great pleasure, Don. Thanks for having me on. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. Thanks so much.