Pod Insights The Rest Is History 685. Hamilton: Duel to the Death (Part 3) About this episode How did Alexander Hamilton go from impoverished orphan to one of the most important figures in the creation of the American constitution? Why was his relationship with Thomas Jefferson so strained? And, what happened in the famous duel that would ultimately claim his life…?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss one of America’s most fiery founding fathers: Alexander Hamilton, and his duel with Aaron Burr.
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Transcript 13,883 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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3:18 Tom Holland? 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.
3:34 Tom Holland? If it had been possible for me to have avoided the 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. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted.
4:07 Tom Holland? With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu, best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours, Alexander Hamilton. So that was the farewell letter written by Alexander Hamilton to his wife Eliza. And he wrote it exactly a week before his fatal duel with Aaron Burr on the 11th of July 1804. And I think that for anyone today who may be inspired to challenge someone to a duel.
4:50 Tom Holland? It's an excellent model. And I think that should one day I similarly find myself writing to my own beloved wife Sadie. Nouncing my intention to fight a duel, I shall sign myself off Thomas Holland in capital letters, which is what Alexander Hamilton did there. And Dominic, we haven't really done many duels on the rest of history. In fact, I don't think we've done any, have we? And this is an absolute banger with which to kick off the history of duels on the rest of history. Undoubtedly the most celebrated duel in American history, perhaps in in all of history. And Henry Adams called it the most dramatic moment in the early politics of the Union.
5:27 Tom Holland? And it's, I guess, kind of reached a new audience over the past few years because it's featured very prominently in a celebrated musical, hasn't it?
5:37 Dominic Sandbrook? It has Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip hop musical. So that opened off Broadway in 2015. And Lin-Manuel Miranda, he's had a lot of praise. So we should introduce a tiny note of criticism. So he doesn't get too big headed. The one mistake he made was not to emulate your tremendous accent work there with the portrayal of Hamilton. Because of course, Hamilton would have spoken with a slightly comical, semi Scottish, semi Caribbean.
6:03 Dominic Sandbrook? But ultimately, West Country voice, wouldn't he? Like all Americans.
6:06 Tom Holland? Yes, which is what I was evoking there. I think it's fair to say that an emphasis on strict realism isn't a keynote of the musical, is it?
6:14 Dominic Sandbrook? No, it's true. In some ways, it was an unexpected triumph because Alexander Hamilton is not the most celebrated of the founding fathers. But of course, the duel is a really great moment, and the duel is a good story. The duel is a brilliant window into the factionalism of the 1790s, the factionalism that follows American independence in 1776. So you've got the rivalry between Hamilton's Federalists and top villain, Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Republicans.
6:40 Tom Holland? Well, you say top villain. We're going to be looking at him in our next episode.
6:43 Dominic Sandbrook? You know my views.
6:44 Tom Holland? I know your views, but people can find out mine in the next episode.
6:48 Dominic Sandbrook? So this rivalry between Hamilton and Jefferson gives rise to what historians call the first party system. So it's the beginnings, really, of American party politics. But what the musical does that's so clever, its story is not just a political one, it's a personal one. So you have Hamilton, the forgotten star of American independence, the forgotten tax rebel. And he's this sort of noble tragic.
7:13 Tom Holland? He loves fiscal policy, doesn't he? I mean, he's all about banks and money and that kind of thing.
7:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, should have loved the Bank of England. That's the bank he should have been interested in. Anyway, well, he's sort of Othello. And then you have Burr, Aaron Burr, the man who kills him at the duel, spoiler alert. And he's the antagonist to the musical. He's jealous, he's scheming, and he's cast very much as Iago, isn't he, to Hamilton's hero? And actually, that draws on a long tradition in American writing. So Burr has always been seen, you know, the bloke who pulls the trigger, has always been seen as one of American history's great villains. Although there have always been iconoclasts who have said, actually, we've got this the wrong way around. Hamilton is the bad guy and Burr has been smeared by history.
8:01 Dominic Sandbrook? So I don't know if you've read any of Gore Vidal's historical novels about 19th century American politics.
8:08 Tom Holland? They're impenetrable. Oh, God. He wrote a book about Zarasta.
8:12 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, yes, yeah.
8:13 Tom Holland? Which was like wading through very thick treacle.
8:17 Dominic Sandbrook? I quite enjoyed that. But he wrote one called Burr, where he told the whole story from Burr's perspective. And basically, in Gore Vidal's book, Burr is the man of honour and Hamilton is this sort of duplicitous cheating opportunist.
8:29 Tom Holland? I find everything about Gore Vidal annoying.
8:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Do you?
8:31 Tom Holland? Incredibly pleased with himself.
8:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Do you know what?
8:34 Tom Holland? Oh, he's so witty. He's so witty. Ha, ha, ha.
8:37 Dominic Sandbrook? You're like William F Buckley, who punched him, I think, in a
8:41 Tom Holland? Yeah.
8:42 Dominic Sandbrook? In an interview or something.
8:44 Tom Holland? I am the William Buckley of Gorbachev criticism.
8:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. And then there are other historians, to be fair, who followed the sort of Gorbachev line. So there's a very recent book on Burr by Nancy Eisenberg, and she argues that basically Burr, our view of Burr is completely wrong.
8:57 Tom Holland? Can I just say, I mean, so obviously in this period, all the insults derived from Roman history, which I approve of.
9:03 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
9:04 Tom Holland? And Hamilton calls Burr Cataline. Cataline is this kind of seedy gangster figure who emerges in the late Republic and goes off to lead an uprising.
9:13 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, this is very Burr.
9:14 Tom Holland? And basically, as we will see, this is accurate. It happens after Hamilton has been killed. So, you know, he's, I'm, I'm team Hamilton on this. I think Burr's a terrible man.
9:25 Dominic Sandbrook? We're getting a bit deeper into the Hamilton Burr issue, and you can see if you change your view of Burr. Frankly, I don't think you will, but I'll give it my best shot. So let's start actually with Hamilton. So Hamilton is the man on the $10 bill. And in the opening scene of the musical, the opening number, the song is called Alexander Hamilton, and the lines go like this. How does a bastard orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
9:56 Tom Holland? Nice rapping, Dominic. In the musical, that is sung by Burr, isn't it? And it's the conceit of the musical that Burr and Hamilton are kind of great mates when they're young. That is not true, is it?
10:08 Dominic Sandbrook? No, no, not true at all. Anyway, the answer to the question is, Hamilton got ahead through ambition, through talent, through hard work and through good luck. So he's born, we don't know exactly when he was born, because the circumstances in which he was born, he was probably born in 1755, on the island of Nevis, which is one of the very lucrative sugar islands of the Caribbean, part of British, the British American holdings. His father came from Ayrshire, who was called James Hamilton, and his mother, Rachel Forset, hence the name that Americans give their taps. So she was a Huguenot. James and Rachel were not married. And James ran off when Alexander was very small. So that was the end of James. Alexander grows up, he's a very bookish boy. He's a big fan of Plutarch and Machiavelli.
10:53 Tom Holland? I mean, Machiavelli, so Plutarch is boilerplate founding father classicism. Machiavelli is slightly more interesting, isn't it?
10:59 Dominic Sandbrook? Do you know what? I think Hamilton is slightly more interesting than lots of the founding fathers.
11:03 Tom Holland? John Adams was a big fan of Machiavelli as well, just.
11:05 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. Oh, was he?
11:06 Tom Holland? Yeah.
11:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Paul Giamatti. We haven't done John Adams on this. We should do John, because you love that series.
11:11 Tom Holland? I do love that series, yeah.
11:13 Dominic Sandbrook? In which your wife fell asleep and my wife refused to watch it. Anyway.
11:17 Tom Holland? It might be, it might be a slightly boy oriented series.
11:20 Dominic Sandbrook? So, um, Hamilton, his mother died when Rachel, when he was in his early teens, which is a bad blow. But he was basically adopted by a local merchant and the people of Nevis recognised that Hamilton was very bright. And they sent him to the mainland, to North America for his education. And he ended up in New York. This point, it was the mid 1770s and as might be expected with a kind of idealistic clever young man trying to make something of himself.
11:45 Tom Holland? He sides with his anointed king.
11:48 Dominic Sandbrook? No, sadly.
11:49 Tom Holland? Oh.
11:50 Dominic Sandbrook? He makes a poor choice. He becomes intoxicated with this tax dodging.
11:54 Tom Holland? With rebellion and treason.
11:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Rebellion and treason. He writes a lot of pamphlets attacking his mother country. And then he joined the Continental Army and he was basically talent spotted to become the chief staff aide to George Washington of teeth fame. And Hamilton sees action at some of these, I think Americans like to call them battles, but we called them basically brawls in fields, Trenton and Princeton and Yorktown. But he has this quite complicated relationship with Washington because Hamilton is very much his protege and they're, they're close. There's a sense, especially as the war, you know, in the later years of the war, that Hamilton is always kind of itching for more. Basically, Hamilton wants to see his own name in lights as well as Washington's.
12:38 Tom Holland? It's conceivable.
12:39 Dominic Sandbrook? I think a little bit. Both Hamilton and Burr, one of their defining characteristics is this burning ambition, probably fuelled by reading too much Plutarch. You know, they want to have, they want to be in a book of great lives of their own. And so basically being Washington's, you know, bag carrier is not enough for him. And I think that gives you a sense of his personality. He's very clever. He's very energetic. He's a brilliant writer. Yeah, there's lots of admirable things about him. The one thing everyone says, though, is that he's very sharp tongued, Hamilton. He's very arrogant and he's very acerbic. He has a knack throughout his career of alienating people and of turning potential allies into enemies.
13:20 Dominic Sandbrook? And the Yale historian, Joanne Freeman, says of him, "He was too extreme in his politics, too impulsive, too unwilling to suffer fools, too convinced he was always right and too wary of the workings of democracy and the politics of the streets to really get on in the politics of the 1790s." So although he does very well, and of course he becomes Treasury Secretary, would he ever have become president? Probably not, because there were too many people who just don't like him. And he's just rubbed them up the wrong way. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead. It's really after the war that he writes his name into the history books. Because he's a big figure in the debates that leads to the adoption of the Constitution, 1789. And then he writes the majority of the essays in the Federalist Papers that explain the thinking behind the Constitution.
14:05 Dominic Sandbrook? And I think all Americans are forced to read some of these papers when they're at school and find them incredibly boring.
14:10 Tom Holland? Do Americans generally hate Hamilton?
14:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Surely you would, wouldn't you? I mean, it's the way that these things work, that you you grow up. It's like people who do A-level English end up hating Milton. So, autumn 1789, Washington is the first president and he gets his old aide to be his first Treasury Secretary. And this is where Hamilton really kind of, his name is seared into the American political consciousness. Basically, in the 1790s, they've got this new country and they can't decide what kind of country it's going to be.
14:38 Tom Holland? Thirteen states and they've all got debts, haven't they?
14:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, they've all got debts. And and the 13 states are quite different. They don't all necessarily agree with each other. And whether they will actually stay in their new country forever is very unclear. Now, there are some people who say... The new United States should basically be a very loose confederation. We should have a very limited central government. I mean, the central government basically shouldn't really exist at all. We are a rural country. We are an agrarian country of farmers and plantations. And the people who are saying this often live in southern states like Virginia and the Carolinas.
15:14 Tom Holland? And Jefferson is their great spokesman.
15:17 Dominic Sandbrook? And then you have people, especially from the northeast. So people from the cities of Boston and New York. And they say, no, that's not the sort of country you want at all. We should have a much more cohesive country. We need a strong government that unites us. Well, let's have a dynamic federal government. Let us think about trade and manufacturing and commerce with Great Britain and all these things.
15:39 Tom Holland? And this makes them seem to their southern critics, both overly pro-British and overly monarchist. That's the criticism.
15:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, exactly. And what's interesting, they say that they're too British, they're too, they basically want to bring the monarchy back under another name. And all they care about is the balance sheet. Now, Hamilton is very much of the northeastern persuasion. He wants a strong central government, a strong executive. He wants aid to manufacturing. He wants a national bank. So this bank would assume the debts of the states. It would lend money to the federal government. It would improve America's credit abroad. He says, let's be pals with the British. They're our natural allies after all. And the worst people actually are the French because they've had the revolution and that's disorder and it's chaos and all of this.
16:25 Dominic Sandbrook? And obviously the other people, as you said, this bloke is just basically, you know, he's a, what was the point in having the revolution at all? He just wants to bring the British back. And the champion of these people, Hamilton's critics, is, as you say, Thomas Jefferson. And we'll talk about him more on Thursday. So during Washington's first term, this argument begins to turn into something recognizable as party politics. So in 1792, you have the first congressional elections that fall under kind of party lines. Jefferson's party called themselves the Democratic Republicans, which is slightly confusing for people who think about politics today. And Hamilton's party are called the Federalists. George Washington, he stays above it. He sees his role as being that of a constitutional monarch.
17:07 Tom Holland? But also he can't talk, can he? Because he's show his teeth. He just sits there.
17:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Who knows, who knows.
17:12 Tom Holland? Silently.
17:13 Dominic Sandbrook? Who knows what he thinks, if he thinks anything at all. Um, so he says nothing. And because of this, this is very useful for the new republic. It works very well. He is re-elected unopposed in seventeen ninety-two. But in seventeen ninety-six, so four years later, Washington steps down, establishes the two-term precedent. And there's a proper contest to replace him. And John Adams, moderate federalist, he runs against, I verged on the West Country Voice, they were John Adams, just a John Adams. He runs against Thomas Jefferson and he beats him. So John Adams is in and he's a kind of moderate federalist, as I said. And he has a terrible time. He has an awful time as president.
17:58 Tom Holland? Well, he keeps America out of the war, doesn't he, between Britain and France, which is his great achievement. But it comes at massive cost to his reputation.
18:06 Dominic Sandbrook? He's one of these people who basically, you know, you see it so often in politics. He tries to hold the middle ground. It's a bit of a lib dem and everyone says, ah, he's useless. He's a wishy-washy, he doesn't stand for anything.
18:16 Tom Holland? I mean, part of the criticism of him is precisely that he has aspirations to be a monarchist. I mean, this is why he, he and Jefferson were great pals. They'd been in France together and they completely break up over it.
18:27 Dominic Sandbrook? They do. But the tragedy for Adams is the federalists don't despise him as well. So Hamilton and the federalists say, oh, he's weak. He's not enough of a federalist. So you get to eighteen hundred and Jefferson's going to run again. And this really is Jefferson's election to win. Everyone thinks Jefferson's going to win. Now, we'll say more about this next time, so I don't want to tread on your toes, Tom, for the Jefferson episode. But basically what happens is the Democratic Republicans do win the presidential election as expected. But for very complicated reasons, which we don't need to go into.
18:56 Tom Holland? Very complicated.
18:58 Dominic Sandbrook? There is a tie in the electoral college. So basically the Democratic Republican electors, the members of this electoral college, have to choose the president from the joint ticket on which they've kind of voted. And when they, people count all the votes, Jefferson and his running mate are tied for the presidency on seventy-three votes each. One of them's clearly going to be president and one of them's going to be vice president, but it's going to fall to the House of Representatives to choose which is which. And the House of Representatives is controlled at this point by Hamilton's Federalist Party. And they have to decide they want to have Thomas Jefferson as president or his running mate,
19:42 Dominic Sandbrook? who is a man called Aaron Burr. And this brings us to Burr, who is, I think, one of the most fascinating and ambiguous characters in American history. There's something slightly Nixonian about Burr, I think, a sort of brooding, sort of sardonic intellect. He's born in New Jersey, 1756. He too was orphaned. He was orphaned at the age of two. He went to live with an abusive uncle. He went to Princeton.
20:08 Tom Holland? Can I just say, Dominic, he's for fans of 18th century American theology, which I know there are lots out there. He's the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, as in the Great Awakening.
20:16 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, well, he studied theology. He was, he was interested in it.
20:19 Tom Holland? Yeah.
20:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, Jonathan Edwards make of his subsequent dueling career, I wonder.
20:22 Tom Holland? I did not, I don't think you'd approve at all.
20:24 Dominic Sandbrook? No, I don't think you would.
20:25 Tom Holland? No, that's a definite black mark.
20:27 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, definitely. So Burr enlisted in the Continental Army in 1775. He fought with great courage. He was at Valley Forge from our first episode.
20:35 Tom Holland? Also kneeling in the snow.
20:37 Dominic Sandbrook? Kneeling in the snow. He commanded a company there, playing cricket, surely, and also wearing like rags on his feet and stuff and eating those fire cakes or whatever they were called. And he was a strict disciplinarian. He's, he faced down a mutiny at Valley Forge. Everyone said he had a good war. After the war, he became a very successful lawyer and politician in New York. New York in the 1780s and 1790s got very, very fierce factional politics. And Burr takes Jefferson's side and not Hamilton's.
21:04 Tom Holland? He basically delivers New York to Jefferson.
21:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly so. And Burr and Hamilton, really their feud, I think, began in 1791. And this is when Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, was running for reelection, a senator from New York, and Burr beat him. And so from that point onwards, there's a bit of bad blood. But this is more than, it's far more than the bad blood between Hamilton and Jefferson. And I think part of this is because if Hamilton, I'm going to irritate our American listeners by using a British idiom now. If Hamilton is marmite, Burr is very much bovril.
21:42 Tom Holland? What does that mean?
21:43 Dominic Sandbrook? It means that basically, you know, people love or loathe marmite.
21:47 Tom Holland? Yeah, and people love or hate marmite.
21:49 Dominic Sandbrook? But bovril is even more divisive, no?
21:51 Tom Holland? No, everyone loves bovril.
21:53 Dominic Sandbrook? No, wrong.
21:54 Tom Holland? I've never met anyone who doesn't love bovril.
21:55 Dominic Sandbrook? I'll tell you who's cancelling their subscriptions now. Vegetarians and vegans.
21:59 Tom Holland? They still love it.
22:00 Dominic Sandbrook? They don't. They might like the idea of it, but not the reality.
22:03 Tom Holland? I mean, it's like, you know, you love bacon, but you don't eat it.
22:06 Dominic Sandbrook? I don't think that's how veganism works. Right, okay. Burr. Burr is like his fellow orphan, Hamilton. He's very clever, he's very ambitious, he's hardworking, he's very acerbic, he's generous to his friends. In some ways, he's quite progressive by modern standards. So he's very critical of slavery. He is opposed to nativism. And he favors votes for women. So he's very ahead of his time.
22:29 Tom Holland? He also has a very groovily named wife and daughter, doesn't he? Theodosia.
22:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Theodosia, they're both called Theodosia. Yes, although he's not the most loyal husband in the world. So I think Burr was such a philanderer, he's basically a sex addict. So he was said, he was said to have frequented all 20 of the finest prostitutes in New York. And these women apparently were of the view that Burr was their finest customer. Anyway, Burr is, he's very wily, he's self-interested. And I think the thing about him is, he doesn't really stand for anything other than Aaron Burr.
23:00 Tom Holland? So no wonder you like him.
23:01 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, exactly. Hamilton is very stubborn. And, you know, he's a man of fixed principles. Burr is changeable. Burr will do whatever it takes to get ahead. So in an age when people are basically cosplaying as Cato the Younger, Burr stands out.
23:18 Tom Holland? He is Catiline.
23:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, well, there you go.
23:20 Tom Holland? Very changeable.
23:21 Dominic Sandbrook? So let's get back to the year 1800. Burr, as you said, is Jefferson's number two. So the electoral college is deadlocked. Now, some people might say, well, I was obviously always going to be the running mate. So I should just say to everybody, well, vote for Jefferson, you know, I'll be the number two. Burr thinks, no, this is my chance to be the number one. If I suck up now to the Federalists, they will pick me as the lesser of two evils and I will be president. The problem for Burr though, Hamilton has taken a deep dislike to him. And through the winter of 1801, Hamilton tells all his friends, "Look, I know we're not Jefferson fans, but we have to stop this bloke Burr at all costs." So this is a letter from December 1800.
24:05 Dominic Sandbrook? "Jefferson is not so dangerous a man, but as to Burr, there is nothing in his favour. He is bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country. His public principles have no other spring than his own aggrandizement." And then another letter, January 1801, a few weeks later, Hamilton says to a friend, "Burr is a profligate, a bankrupt, a voluptuary in the extreme. No mortal can tell what his political principles are. He's talked all around the compass. At times he's dealt in all the jargon of Jacobinism. At other times he's proclaimed decidedly the total insufficiency of the federal government and the necessity of changes to one far more energetic. The truth seems to be that he, meaning Burr, has no plan but that of getting power by
24:46 Dominic Sandbrook? any means and keeping it by all means. He will court and employ able and daring scoundrels of every party, and by availing himself of their assistance and of all the bad passions of society, he will in all likelihood attempt a usurpation."
25:02 Tom Holland? So he is the Andy Burnham of post-revolutionary America. That is such a good comparison. Andy Burnham has no fixed principles, does he? He just kind of makes up, say whatever he thinks people want.
25:12 Dominic Sandbrook? He'll just say any stuff and flutter his eyelashes, right? And put on an anorak. So this is very much Burr's vibe. Anyway, Hamilton's campaigned against him. After 36 ballots, the House of Representatives chooses Jefferson, and Burr is gutted. And he blames Hamilton for this. He says, "Hamilton intrigued against me." And he's not wrong. And much later, he said to a friend, he said, "I was tempted to challenge Hamilton to a duel, but he anticipated me by voluntarily coming forward and making apologies. From delicacy to him and from a sincere desire for peace, I have never mentioned these circumstances, always hoping that the generosity of my conduct would have some influence on his." Isn't that nice? Whether actually this is true, it's impossible to say. I mean, did
25:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Hamilton really come and apologise to him? I think it's highly unlikely.
26:01 Tom Holland? Does Burr have a track record as telling fibs?
26:03 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, tall stories, I think, maybe. Let's move on to 1804. Burr has become vice president. Jefferson, of course, doesn't trust him now because he knows that Burr basically tried to snatch the top job. So he's sidelined Burr, and when he runs for reelection in 1804, he's planning to drop Burr from the ticket. So Burr needs a new job, and he decides to get one back in New York. And that spring, 1804, he makes a bid for the New York governorship. Now, although technically he's still a Democratic Republican, because of his changeable nature and because he's blotted his copybook with the Democratic Republicans, he decides he will run as the champion of the Federalists. There's a very bitter campaign, and even though
26:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Burr has now changed his coat, Hamilton is still opposed to him. And part of this is personal, but also Hamilton is actually worried that Burr, he genuinely thinks Burr is a threat to the survival of the Union. It's easy for us to forget that in the early 1800s, the Republic still feels very fragile. The division between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians runs very deep, and there's a lot of Hamiltonians, Federalists, in New England who kind of like the idea of breaking away, are tempted to break away. Why are we in a country with all these people from Virginia who are just wittering on about farming all the time? Let's get rid of them, go off on our own. And there's actually in early 1804, a very, very tentative sort
27:31 Dominic Sandbrook? of separatist plot that is focused on Washington's old Secretary of State, a man called Timothy Pickering. And Hamilton finds out about this, and he says, oh, this is terrible. Don't do this. Keep the Union together at all costs. Burr, on the other hand, seems to have sensed signals, I could be open to this, you know, there could be a little mileage in this. If I become governor of New York, if you help me become governor of New York, I would very much be interested in talking to you more about this excellent project.
28:00 Tom Holland? Should the ball come loose at the back of the scrub?
28:02 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. And Hamilton says to these people, Burr is a snake. Don't trust Burr. Don't vote for Burr. All of this.
28:10 Tom Holland? Well, he's not wrong, is he?
28:11 Dominic Sandbrook? He's a bit of a snake. Or is he just a very adept, modern politician?
28:14 Tom Holland? No, he's a snake.
28:16 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, the result is a landslide victory for.
28:20 Dominic Sandbrook? The Democratic Republican opponent to Burr, who's a bloke called Morgan Lewis, who, you know, quite obscure. Burr has been humiliated yet again. And of course, he blames Hamilton. And then, seven weeks after the election, Burr is shown an old newspaper, The Albany Register, from the 24th of April 1804. And this was the day that voting opened in the election. And the paper had printed a letter from a man called Dr. Charles D. Cooper, opposing Burr's candidacy. And Cooper said in the letter, he said, I've heard Hamilton talking about Burr. I heard Hamilton say that he, and I quote, "He looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government."
29:02 Dominic Sandbrook? And Cooper goes on to say, "If you pushed me," and I quote, "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." Burr reads this, and he's absolutely furious. And a few days after his read it, on the 18th of June, his great pal, Maggabeen Van Ness, delivers a letter to Hamilton. Burr says, "I'm absolutely outraged by this word in particular, 'despicable.' I want a prompt and unqualified acknowledgement or denial that you ever use this word, 'despicable,' about me."
29:38 Tom Holland? See, I find this quite odd, because surely in the rough and tumble of politics, people are allowed to insult their opponents, aren't they?
29:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, you would think so.
29:46 Tom Holland? Was he just looking for a reason to get into a punch-up with him?
29:49 Dominic Sandbrook? I think possibly, although the idea of honour matters enormously to American politicians in this period. So dueling is not uncommon at all, and the punch-ups of this kind are not uncommon. But I think ultimately, you're right, that Burr is looking for a pretext to challenge Hamilton, for reasons that maybe we'll get into. I think it's a way for him to, he sees it as a way to rebuild his credibility. Anyway, Hamilton sends his answer two days later. And Hamilton's answer is extremely long and convoluted. It's hard to tell whether he's A, massively overthinking it, or B, he's basically just making fun of Burr. So he starts by saying, he says, "Well, the word 'despicable' admits of infinite shades, from the very light to
30:33 Dominic Sandbrook? the very dark. How am I to judge of the degree intended?" And then he goes on to say, I don't remember using that word to this bloke, Dr Cooper, and I refuse on principle to consent to be interrogated as to the justness of inferences, which may be drawn from others, from whatever I have said of a political opponent in the course of a 15 year competition. Now, people like you, Tom, you see Hamilton very much as the hero of the story, as a bit of a martyr.
30:57 Tom Holland? I think that's a great letter.
30:59 Dominic Sandbrook? I think it's important to say, this is not at all a conciliatory letter. There's something perhaps a little bit pedantic, a little bit smug about Hamilton's letter.
31:08 Tom Holland? No, it's not smug at all. He's been, you know, he's been sent a ludicrous letter by a ludicrous buffoon and he's pricking the pomposity of Burr in a very delicate and engaging way.
31:20 Dominic Sandbrook? I think Burr is a bit pompous, but I think Hamilton is goading him. And Hamilton ends, this last bit is definitely goading him. I trust on more reflection, you will see the matter in the same light with me. If not, I can only regret the circumstance and must abide the consequences. Well, the next day Burr writes back again. He says, I've read your letter and I regret to find none of the sincerity and delicacy which you profess to value. Political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honour and the rules of decorum. Your letter has furnished me with new reasons for requiring a definite reply. I mean, to be fair to them, they wrote good letters in those days.
32:02 Tom Holland? They did. I mean, it would have been wonderful if the people criticised by Trump had responded to him in similar terms.
32:09 Dominic Sandbrook? If Ted Cruz had written Trump a letter like this.
32:12 Tom Holland? Ron DeSantis.
32:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
32:15 Tom Holland? Low energy Jeb Bush.
32:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Ah brilliant. I'd love to see a duel in which all these men were fighting, frankly.
32:23 Tom Holland? Maybe in that large cage.
32:24 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, in the cage in the White House.
32:26 Tom Holland? In the White House. They kind of run at each other on motorbikes.
32:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Though the final boss is Joe Biden.
32:33 Tom Holland? That would be an unexpected twist.
32:34 Dominic Sandbrook? That would be a twist. Right. The 22nd, the next day, Hamilton replies, and it's a much shorter letter. And Hamilton says, look, if you want a, by a definite reply, you want either the direct avowal or disavowal required in your first letter, I have no other answer to give than that which has already been given. And that's basically that. There's a bit of back and forth now between Burr's mate Van Ness and Hamilton's friend Nathaniel Pendleton. But in essence, this is the story. Burr has asked for an apology. Hamilton has said no. And so this is now a matter of honour, which means a duel. So we should say a little bit about duels. Duels are part of the, they're an essential part, really, of the culture of honour among
33:18 Dominic Sandbrook? gentlemen in North America in the late 18th, early 19th century. They weren't universally popular. Some of the founding fathers hated dueling. So Franklin, who you love, he was very anti-dueling. He said it was a murderous practice.
33:34 Tom Holland? Well, he's a figure of the Enlightenment. He's not going to put up this nonsense.
33:36 Dominic Sandbrook? No, Jefferson doesn't like dueling. John Adams doesn't like dueling. But if you've been in the army, you tend to like dueling. If you're from the South, you're much more likely to like dueling. I mean, it's very hard to get precise figures for duels because duels were, in many states, technically illegal. But there's an estimate that of the men who served in the Senate from southern states in the years before the American Civil War, one in five of them had taken part in duels.
34:05 Tom Holland? I suppose this is all part of the South being the home of chivalry, isn't it?
34:08 Dominic Sandbrook? That's exactly, yeah. I mean, that's certainly their self-image, isn't it? The kind of, the lost cause, the Confederacy kind of vibe. People in gigantic hats with feathers are fighting duels or something and talking about Walter Scott.
34:20 Tom Holland? Attiring for a mint dupe after.
34:22 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly, exactly. While in the background, like, they've got thousands of people, like, being treated abominably.
34:28 Tom Holland? We'll be coming to that in our next episode as well.
34:30 Dominic Sandbrook? So this is how it works. Basically, it's very, very formalised. It's a very ritualised business of duel. There'll be the insult. There will be the exchange of letters. As Burr did, the offended party will say, I want you to avow or disavow your insult to me. If the offender refuses to disavow, then the victim of the insult can challenge.
34:53 Dominic Sandbrook? And he and his antagonist will appoint seconds and the seconds would agree a time and place for the duel.
34:58 Tom Holland? Can I just ask, I mean, Hamilton is, he is representative of the, the kind of the north really, which isn't a big place for dueling. And he's aligned with figures who would despise it. Would it not have been politically possible for him just to say, you know, go screw yourself? I don't care.
35:21 Dominic Sandbrook? It would, but I think he, as we'll discuss, he doesn't really like dueling. But I think there would have been a cost to his reputation. As we shall see, here's one of his rationales for doing the duel is he thinks public opinion would require of him. He will look like less of a man if he had turned down the duel. Anyway, the seconds fix the time and the place. We'll talk after the break about how the duel itself actually works. And one reason for postponing that till after the break is that most duels actually don't get to that point. So most so-called affairs of honour never get to the point where somebody actually fires a gun. It is very typical for the two men to find a solution before then, so that will allow them, a compromise that will allow them both to preserve their honour.
36:06 Dominic Sandbrook? And Hamilton, who is of course, as we've said, a very acerbic, very disputatious man. He has been involved in at least six affairs of honour before, but none of them have got to the point where he actually had to pull the trigger. So in other words, they were settled in a compromise.
36:23 Tom Holland? The equivalent in today's America would be threatening to take someone to court. And that is so financially ruinous that by and large it gets settled before it comes to court.
36:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, that's a good comparison, actually. There's a sort of ritual, there's a, there's a ritualistic element of taking somebody to court, isn't there? And as you say, to push it to the extreme of a confrontation. You know, it's so risky.
36:48 Tom Holland? Generally don't want that.
36:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, exactly.
36:50 Tom Holland? Yeah.
36:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, Hamilton knows, he knows more than most people how risky this is. Because in November eighteen O one, his son Philip had gone into a public row with a bloke called George Ica, who had criticised Alexander Hamilton. And Philip had challenged Ica to a duel. Hamilton said to him, well, if you're going to go and fight this duel, I advise you to miss on purpose. Because then you'll miss and you're the challenger and that will allow the duel to be settled peacefully. But actually, for some peculiar reason, this didn't really work out. Basically, when the duel started, both Philip Hamilton and this bloke Ica just stood there for a full minute or so, not firing, none of them really knowing what to do.
37:36 Dominic Sandbrook? And then they both sort of levelled their pistols, Ica fired, Philip was wounded and Philip died. And Hamilton was absolutely grief stricken.
37:44 Tom Holland? And I suppose Eliza as well.
37:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it must have been.
37:47 Tom Holland? I mean, she's not going to want to lose more people from her family, is she?
37:51 Dominic Sandbrook? No. So, given that Hamilton knows the costs, well, this, we can, this comes to your point, your question. Why did he do it? So we can understand why Burr did it. Burr did it because he's been traduced in the New York papers, he's been humiliated by the election results in New York. Burr is very thin skinned, Burr is very arrogant and he wants to rebuild his reputation. But for Hamilton, this is massively high risk. He's got his wife Eliza, he's got seven kids, he's got massive debts. So he's just built this country house in Upper Manhattan called The Grange. And it's got orchards and it's got thirty five acres of woodland, it's very nice. And he has taken out a massive mortgage to pay for it, which his wife would be unable to repay if he died.
38:35 Dominic Sandbrook? So he really has very little to gain. And what is more, he doesn't even agree with dueling. And we know this because a few days before the duel, he wrote a statement on impending duel with Aaron Burr. And he said in this statement, my religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of dueling. It would even give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws.
39:01 Tom Holland? But maybe he just hates Aaron Burr so much that he's prepared to make an exception.
39:06 Dominic Sandbrook? He basically says, I can't apologise to Burr because I meant what I said. He is despicable, he's terrible. He's a threat to the republic. But also, he says, I have to conform to public prejudice. Because one day I want to be useful, whether in resisting mischief or affecting good in those crises of public affairs which seem likely to happen. Basically, Hamilton's looking ahead, he's saying there are going to be a lot of political ructions in the next few years. The survival of the republic itself is at stake. I need to be popular so that I can have an effect. So I have to fight this duel. So I can fight, I have to fight not just for personal honour, but so that I can have a role in shaping the future of the country. So he agrees to the duel. Very high stakes. The mad thing, though, is they don't immediately get on with it.
39:51 Dominic Sandbrook? They just hang around. And the reason is that Hamilton is still representing clients in court and the New York courts are going to sit until the 6th of July. So they agree that they'll have the duel five days later on the 11th of July, so that he can finish up with all his clients. And what this means is in the meantime, the two of them have to go around New York, which of course is not an enormous place in those days. They have to hang around New York as though nothing is happening. So on Independence Day, there's a dinner organised by the Society of the Cincinnati for the former tax-refuse nicks. And they actually sit at the same table at this dinner.
40:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Another guest who was there said Burr, contrary to his wont, was silent, gloomy, sour, while Hamilton entered with glee into the gayety of a convivial party and even sang an old military song. And this is typical of how they spend their last days before the duel. Burr keeps a low profile. He writes to his daughter Theodosia, who's got married, and he says, let me give you some advice on how to build a library. And he also writes to Theodosia's husband, new husband, he says, I would very much appreciate it if you would allow Theodosia to carry on her studders of Latin and Greek. You should be warming to burnout, Tom.
41:07 Tom Holland? Does he change his will?
41:08 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, he does, to allow Theodosia to inherit his slaves.
41:11 Tom Holland? So he immediately blotted his copybook again, hasn't he?
41:14 Dominic Sandbrook? He has done, yeah. Now, Hamilton, by contrast, he's quite gregarious. He doesn't hang it, he doesn't sort of keep himself to himself. He goes to dinner parties, he visits his friends, he writes a couple of letters to, two letters to Eliza, farewell letters. And he writes that statement about the duel that I mentioned, about how he doesn't know dueling. And in the statement, he says, I've already decided on my tactics. I have resolved to reserve and throw away my first fire. And I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire and thus giving a double opportunity to Colonel Burr to pause and reflect. So this is an interesting thing because some people say, well, this was obviously Hamilton's intention. This is what he was going to do.
41:57 Tom Holland? So just to be clear, what that means to reserve and throw away my first fire. So he's not going to shoot at Burr. That's what that means.
42:04 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, he'll throw away his fire. He will shoot, but he will deliberately miss. He'll fire well wide of Burr. And what this would mean, this is not uncommon. This would give Burr the initiative, but it would also give Burr a chance to say, fair enough, let's shake hands and, you know, settle this. On the other hand, Hamilton did give his son similar advice in 1801 and his son came back dead. Has Hamilton not learned his lesson? Clearly he hasn't.
42:30 Tom Holland? But he's done this six times, has he?
42:31 Dominic Sandbrook? He has had six affairs of honour, but they have not come to the point of shooting at all.
42:36 Tom Holland? So this is his first actual duel.
42:38 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. And I think some historians say that the thing with this letter is this statement is designed to be read only in the event of Hamilton's death. So you could argue it's basically a press release. It would be used after his death to blacken Burr's name, that Hamilton is preparing for the worst. He will be making himself look good and making Burr look bad. That would be a very cynical way of looking at it. But anyway, let's get to the, towards the duel. 7th of July, four days to go. Hamilton and Eliza throw a big garden party. They have 70 guests dining outside. They have musicians hidden in the woods, very like Succession or something. They have all the sort of local Federalist bigwigs and nobody suspects that there's
43:22 Dominic Sandbrook? a duel coming because Hamilton seems in great form. Two days later, the 9th of July, he leaves the Grange for the last time. He kisses Eliza goodbye. He rides into the city. He goes to his townhouse at 54 Cedar Street, Lower Manhattan. And he spends the next two nights there. And early the following morning, Wednesday, the 11th of July, 1804, he wakes for the moment that will define his life and legacy, the climactic duel with Aaron Burr.
43:50 Tom Holland? Unbelievable drama and we will find out what happens after the break.
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44:58 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by the cultural phenomenon, Hamilton the Musical.
45:04 Tom Holland? We know, of course, that history is about much more than dates and titles and constitutional acts. It's also built on and often driven by intense human emotion. Fear, pride, ambition, tragedy, a determination not to pay taxes.
45:22 Dominic Sandbrook? And you know, that is exactly what Lin-Manuel Miranda captures so superbly in his musical, Hamilton. It lifts the curtain on the turbulent life of the founding father, Alexander Hamilton, from impoverished orphan and immigrant to brilliant revolutionary.
45:40 Tom Holland? 250 years on from what Americans persist in calling their quest for freedom, the world has absolutely fallen in love with the story of Hamilton. So it's playing in London in the Victoria Palace Theatre, in New York at the Richard Rogers Theatre, and it is on tour across North America. So book tickets today at hamiltonmusical.com.
46:06 Tom Holland? Hello everyone and welcome back to The Rest Is History, where it is early in the morning of the 11th of July 1804. And in their respective Manhattan townhouses, both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, unsurprisingly, are already up.
46:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, so Burr spent the night at his country house in Richmond Hill, Manhattan. So that's between modern Greenwich Village and Soho. So that was then about a mile and a half from the city of New York. And Burr got up very early. He put on this black silk coat and he had himself driven to the quayside on the River Hudson with his friend William Van Ness, who's going to be his second. And with a couple of other mates, Van Ness and Burr rowed across the river towards Weehawken, New Jersey.
46:57 Tom Holland? Great name.
46:58 Dominic Sandbrook? And Weehawken is the chosen jewelling ground. And the reason for this is that although jewelling is forbidden in both New York and New Jersey, the New Jersey authorities are much more relaxed about prosecuting jewels. So you won't get into so much trouble. The men rowing the boat, the oarsmen, they obviously know why these blokes are there. But the way this works, the oarsmen have their backs to the jewelists throughout so that if they're asked afterwards, they can deny any knowledge. They won't be implicated in it at all. So Burr and his team arrive at about 6:30 AM. And they've chosen this spot. It's a kind of ledge of land about 20 feet above the river.
47:39 Dominic Sandbrook? And if you look at New York on a map, it's roughly level with West 42nd Street today. And it was a very popular spot for jewelists. It was not, it was only a few minutes' walk from the similar spot on the river where Hamilton's son Philip had been killed three years earlier.
47:54 Tom Holland? That must have concentrated his mind.
47:56 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, we'll see, there are a couple of other interesting parallels. So Van Ness and another of Burr's mates start clearing the ledge. They clear the bushes away, so they'll give Burr and Hamilton some space. About half an hour later, just around seven o'clock, a second boat approaches the New Jersey side of the river, and on this boat is Hamilton, his second, who is a judge called Nathaniel Pendleton, and a doctor called David Hosack, who taught medicine at Columbia. Now, usually you would have two doctors as a duel, but when the seconds discussed it with their principals, Burr said, "We don't really need two doctors, let's just get one." Another bad omen, Hosack had been on hand at the duel on the New Jersey side of the
48:41 Dominic Sandbrook? river, where Philip Hamilton had been killed.
48:44 Tom Holland? That's mad.
48:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, of course it's mad, it's insane. I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll have the duel in the same place where my son was killed, I'll have the same doctor, what could possibly go wrong?
48:53 Tom Holland? And I'll row over the Hudson.
48:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
48:56 Tom Holland? It's kind of like crossing the River Styx.
48:58 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. The whole thing is demented. So the seconds draw lots to pick sides, and they decide who's going to run the duel, and then they hand out the pistols. And the pistols, again, were chosen by Hamilton. The pistols were made in London by an excellent London gunsmith called Wogden and Barton, and they belonged to Hamilton's brother-in-law, a man called John Barker Church. He was British, he was the MP for Wendover, and he was married to Hamilton's sister-in-law, Angelica. So Church, now this is a bizarre detail, Church, the bloke who gave him the pistols, had actually fought a duel with Burr himself in 1799, and nobody had been injured.
49:39 Dominic Sandbrook? These probably weren't the same pistols that Church had used, but madly, they may well be the same pistols that Hamilton's son had used in his duel.
49:52 Tom Holland? No.
49:53 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. Why would you use the same pistols? Just absolutely insane. They're very blingy, these dueling pistols, as dueling pistols often are. They're covered with sort of brass and gold, they fire these balls, which were designed, dueling pistols were designed not to be very accurate, because basically the ideal is that you'll just shoot, nobody will be hit, nobody will be killed, and you'll both escape with your honour intact and your lives intact. The pistols also, though, have hair triggers. So a hair trigger, you have to set it beforehand. And what it means is that you don't have to put as much pressure on as you normally do to pull the trigger. And that means you can keep your hands steadier and you'll be
50:36 Dominic Sandbrook? more accurate. Pendleton, Hamilton's second, said to Hamilton beforehand, would you like me to set the hair trigger on your pistol, but not Burr's? Because that would give you a big advantage. And Hamilton said, no, not this time. And historians have often wondered why Hamilton said this. I think the answer is obvious. Hamilton is very anxious. He doesn't want to be accused of cheating, because that would be very bad for his reputation. Because the duel is covered by very strict rules. We talked about the sort of ritual of it before the break. There's a thing called the code duello. And the code duello runs like this. Basically, what you'll do is, imagine you're fighting a duel. Who would you fight a duel with? A fight with you. Okay, fine. We'd walk away from each other
51:17 Dominic Sandbrook? for 10 paces, and then we would turn. And then our seconds, Alia and Tabby or whatever, Callum and Dom, they would say, they would say, are you ready? The second who is running it, Alia's running it. She says, are you ready? Then she calls out, present. And present is your signal to fire. You into it quite quickly. One of you fires first. It doesn't really matter who, whoever's quickest. Imagine you fire first. You fire. You missed, shambles, you're shaking like a leaf. You haven't set your hair trigger.
51:49 Tom Holland? No, or maybe I'm just kind of, I'm, I'm very cool handed.
51:53 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
51:53 Tom Holland? But I'm compassionate and kind.
51:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Right.
51:55 Tom Holland? And I don't actually want to shoot you dead.
51:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Okay, so you've missed.
51:58 Tom Holland? So I aim at a kind of angle.
52:02 Dominic Sandbrook? At a tree or something, exactly.
52:03 Tom Holland? And I accidentally shoot Callum.
52:08 Dominic Sandbrook? At this point, right, my second, let's say Dom Johnson. Dom Johnson counts, uh, one, two, three, fire.
52:18 Tom Holland? And then you can shoot me.
52:19 Dominic Sandbrook? And now it's my turn to fire.
52:21 Tom Holland? Are you going to shoot me?
52:22 Dominic Sandbrook? I shoot you through the heart.
52:24 Tom Holland? Of course you would.
52:25 Dominic Sandbrook? But but maybe I wouldn't. If I chose not to, right, then I would lose my turn. Now, at this point, everybody would kind of reconvene. And the seconds would say, have the obligations of honour been satisfied? And we'd probably agree that they had been. And that would be the end of the affair. So the vast majority of duels, probably nine out of 10 duels, really worth stressing, do not end in anybody dying. Because even if you fire the shots, because the pistols are designed to be quite inaccurate, you're likely to miss. Generally, the duelists will agree a deal before a single shot is fired.
53:03 Tom Holland? Who has the choice of weapons?
53:04 Dominic Sandbrook? The person who has been challenged, I think.
53:08 Tom Holland? Hamilton literally has chosen the pistols with which his son was shot.
53:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Hamilton has chosen the pistols. I mean, it would be pretty punchy for Burr to say, I'm choosing the pistols.
53:15 Tom Holland? Yeah, I know. But I wouldn't put it past him.
53:17 Dominic Sandbrook? The pistol that killed your son. I mean, that's really arse. So Hamilton and Burr take their positions. And at this point, it is highly likely that both of them will survive the duel. Now, here's a funny detail. Hamilton aims his pistol and then he says, stop not to apologise to Burr and settle the duel. He says, in certain states of the light, one requires glasses. And he puts on these glasses. And he makes a great show of squinting through them, aiming his pistol, aiming at Burr, aiming at different things. You know, like he's getting his eye in kind of thing. And the puzzle with this is, as we know, Hamilton wrote beforehand, he said, I'm going to throw away my shot.
53:59 Dominic Sandbrook? So why is he making such a fuss about getting his eye in? I think some historians say, well, he had a death wish. He was trying to provoke Burr to kill him. I think that's highly unlikely. I think he's basically just trolling Burr. He's taunting him, he's winding him up. Hamilton can't stop himself doing this. Finally, he's finished. And Pendleton, the alia of the story, Pendleton says, ready? Present. Now, if you've seen the musical, well, you have seen the musical because you saw it about a week ago, you will remember, author of the musical, Hamilton has been singing, I'm not throwing away my shot. But he does throw away his shot at the crucial moment. Hamilton, in the musical, he fires into the sky.
54:43 Dominic Sandbrook? A millisecond later Burr fires straight at him. He shoots and Hamilton falls. That's what happens in the musical, but in reality, what happened is much more ambiguous. So the two seconds Pendleton and Van Ness and the doctor, Hosack, have all turned away from the action. And the reason they turned away is that if they're caught, they can deny having seen anybody firing. "Jewel, really? I was just out for a walk. I didn't..."
55:09 Tom Holland? Bird watching.
55:10 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. But all the witnesses agree that when Pendleton shouted "present", there were two shots fired within a couple of seconds of each other. And when they looked round, Burr was unscathed and Hamilton had been hit just above his right hip. And the ball entered him just above his hip, in his lower abdomen. It ricocheted off his rib, it ripped through his diaphragm and his liver, and it lodged in his spine. And Hamilton immediately slumped to the ground and he dropped his pistol. So this is the point at which they see what's happened. Burr moved towards him straight away. Pendleton said later that Burr had an expression of regret. And Burr seems, it looks like he's going
55:51 Dominic Sandbrook? to talk to Hamilton. But at this point Burr's second, Van Ness rushed towards him. The reason he rushed towards them is that the Oarsmen have heard the shots and they're coming up the slope to see what's going on. And Van Ness wants to preserve the deniability of the whole thing. So rather bizarrely, he at this point opens an umbrella which he's carrying and he hides Burr behind the umbrella and sort of hustles him towards the boats so that people can't see him. When they get to the boats, Burr says to Van Ness, "I must go and speak to him", meaning Hamilton. But Van Ness says, "No, no, no, no. We just have to get out of here as quickly as possible. Like, you've hit him, you've won the jewel, let's go."
56:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Now meanwhile, back on the ledge, the doctor, David Hosack, has rushed to Hamilton's side. And Hosack described the scene a month later, and it's worth quoting this at length. He said, "I found him half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of Mr. Pendleton. His countenance of death I shall never forget. He had at that instant just strength to say, 'This is a mortal wound, doctor', when he sunk away and became to all appearance lifeless. His pulses were not to be felt, his rest..." Inspiration was entirely suspended, and upon laying my hand on his heart and perceiving no motion there, I considered him as irrecoverably gone. I observed to Mr Pendleton that the only chance for his reviving was immediately to get him upon the water. We therefore lifted him up and carried him out of the wood to the margin of the bank,
57:15 Dominic Sandbrook? where the barge men aided us in conveying him into the boat. So they're into the boat, and Hosak gets spirits and he rubs Hamilton's face with the spirits to revive him. And this does the trick, Hamilton opens his eyes, his conscious, and then he says something very interesting. He sees that his pistol is lying in the boat, and he says to the doctor, "Take care of that pistol. It is undischarged and still cocked. It may go off and do harm." Pendleton knows that I did not intend to fire at him, meaning Burr. Now we'll come back to this pistol, because this is part of, you know, there's a mystery about this. And then Hamilton closes his eyes, he looks very calm, very peaceful. He says to Hosak, "How's my pulse?" He says, "I, I have lost all feeling in my legs."
57:59 Dominic Sandbrook? And he says, Hosak said, "He manifested to me that he entertained no hopes that he should long survive." But actually, Hamilton is wrong. They make it back across the river, they make it back to Manhattan, and Hamilton is still breathing. And we'll come back to Hamilton in Manhattan in a second, but let's just pause the story to ask, what actually happened in those crucial moments in the duel? So the most popular version of events is based on Pendleton's accounts. This is Hamilton's second. And he says that Hamilton aimed his pistol above Burr's head, but he did not fire it. Burr fired first, Burr hit Hamilton, and in the shock of being hit, Hamilton accidentally triggered his own gun.
58:43 Dominic Sandbrook? And the ball shot into a cedar tree above Burr's head. Pendleton went back the next day and he found a branch that had been shattered by a bullet that was 12 feet above Burr's head. And that is why Pendleton says on the boat, Hamilton said, take care of my pistol, it's still loaded, it might go off. He didn't actually realise that it had fired. He didn't mean to fire it, but Burr's second Van Ness told a different story. He said, Hamilton fired first. He did fire and he missed.
59:13 Tom Holland? And had he deliberately missed?
59:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, this is the question we don't know. Van Ness actually thought Hamilton hit Burr at first because he noticed that Burr was limping. And he said to Burr afterwards, did Hamilton hit you? And Burr said, actually, no, I twisted my ankle when I was getting out of the boat or something. This is what Van Ness said. Hamilton fired and missed and Burr then waited. Burr did not shoot straight away. Burr waited for Hamilton's, uh, for the, sorry, for the man running the duel Pendleton to count to three as per the rules. But the bloke running the duel, for whatever reason, didn't say anything. Maybe he was, you know, caught up in the moment or whatever. Burr was worried that he was going to lose his turn.
59:56 Dominic Sandbrook? And so only after this sort of one, two, three, four, maybe five second delay, did he then shoot Hamilton because he thought, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose my turn and he might shoot me or who knows what happens. Now, different historians take different views on this. Joseph Ellis, in his book on the founding fathers generation, he thinks this is actually plausible. He thinks that the account by Hamilton's second was deliberately twisted to make Hamilton look like a martyr. What's slightly confusing though is if that's, if that's true, if Hamilton did fire first, if he knew he fired first, why did he think the gun on the boat was still, you know, loaded? Again, Joseph Ellis says, well, maybe he was just in shock or something he didn't realise. I'm not so sure about that.
1:00:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Maybe a way of going through this is to go back to that letter that Hamilton wrote beforehand, where he said, I have resolved to throw away my first fire and then my second fire. And then giving an opportunity to Burr to pause and reflect. I think this is pretty unambiguous and I think it's very plausible that Hamilton did fire first and he ostentatiously missed.
1:01:01 Dominic Sandbrook? That seems most likely to me.
1:01:02 Tom Holland? Because that's what he basically said he was going to do.
1:01:04 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. So then the question is, why does Burr, does Burr realise this and does Burr just deliberately kill him anyway? And the answer hangs on what you think of Burr's character. I know what your answer is going to be straight away.
1:01:16 Tom Holland? Yeah, he guns him down like a dog.
1:01:18 Dominic Sandbrook? So, so Joseph Ellis says, there is no way that Burr could have known that Hamilton was deliberately missing. Remember, he gave Hamilton a chance to apologise and Hamilton said no. Remember that he's also seen Hamilton do all that business with the glasses. He wouldn't do that if you were trying to deliberately miss, maybe. So Hamilton's done all that stuff with his glasses, you know, practising his aim and stuff. So Ellis says Burr was completely within his rights. According to the principles of the Code Duello, Burr was perfectly justified in taking deadly aim at Hamilton and firing to kill. But Ron Chernow, in his book on Hamilton, says this is just rubbish. Chernow says,
1:01:59 Dominic Sandbrook? Hamilton missed by so much, by 12 feet, that it was obvious that he did it deliberately. And Burr just shot him dead like a dog, because Burr was a terrible man. Chernow says, it's telling that Burr said, only bring one doctor, no need for two doctors. Some people might think Burr said this because Burr thought, no one's going to get hurt anyway. So we wouldn't need any doctor. Chernow thinks that Burr wanted to minimise the number of doctors because he wanted to maximise the chances of Hamilton dying. So you're obviously a team Chernow. And actually, there is one other clue that backs this up. So many years later, Burr lived in exile in London, and he became great friends, bizarrely, with the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
1:02:42 Tom Holland? Oh, that is unexpected.
1:02:43 Dominic Sandbrook? It is unexpected. So there's a side to Burr, Tom, that you might have enjoyed.
1:02:47 Tom Holland? I think Jeremy Bentham's incredibly boring.
1:02:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, anyway. Bentham said of Burr, Burr gave me an account of his duel with Hamilton. He was sure of being able to kill him, so I thought it little better than murder. In other words, Burr planned the whole thing. Now, my take on this, do you want to hear my take on this?
1:03:05 Tom Holland? Yeah, give us your take, Dominic.
1:03:06 Dominic Sandbrook? I think it's going to be a profound take. I think it's the unknowability of history.
1:03:09 Tom Holland? Of course.
1:03:10 Dominic Sandbrook? However.
1:03:11 Tom Holland? Such a lib dem response.
1:03:12 Dominic Sandbrook? No, because I'm now going to say, I think it hinges on your understanding of the characters, the two men. The one issue with Burr is his image is so clearly defined by his enemies that we can never really be sure we're seeing him clearly.
1:03:26 Tom Holland? But isn't it telling that he has a lot of enemies who want to paint him black?
1:03:30 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, and I did compare him with Richard Nixon before. And I think what Burr and Nixon have in common is they will, you know, they will just do anything. They will do what it takes.
1:03:41 Tom Holland? I mean, if Nixon was in a duel.
1:03:42 Dominic Sandbrook? He'd kill you. I mean, Nixon would have shot Kennedy, but actually Kennedy would have shot Nixon, I think, as well. I think Nixon and Jimmy Carter duel, that's a duel worth seeing.
1:03:50 Tom Holland? Jimmy Carter would accidentally shoot himself in the foot.
1:03:53 Dominic Sandbrook? He absolutely would.
1:03:55 Tom Holland? And then get attacked by a rabbit.
1:03:56 Dominic Sandbrook? He wouldn't even make it across the river.
1:03:59 Tom Holland? He'd be devoured by, by rabbits as he was trying to reach the dueling ground.
1:04:06 Dominic Sandbrook? Nixon would have shot Reagan in a duel, no question. Reagan will be telling a focus anecdote and then Nixon will just shoot him in the head.
1:04:16 Tom Holland? I mean, Trump would shoot someone in a duel.
1:04:17 Dominic Sandbrook? He undoubtedly would. Trump would behave disgracefully.
1:04:20 Tom Holland? He'd machine gun him.
1:04:23 Dominic Sandbrook? Trump would behave absolutely abominably in a duel and then he'd be unrepentant afterwards. Right, let's get back to the story. What happened to Hamilton? They got back across the Hudson, as I said, Hamilton stood alive, they went to a friend's house at Greenwich Village. It's obvious that Hamilton is dying. They get Eliza to come from the Grange with all seven kids and her sister Angelica, who's staying with her.
1:04:45 Tom Holland? And this has come as a complete surprise to her.
1:04:47 Dominic Sandbrook? I guess when Hamilton left the house, did he say, I'm off to fight a duel? He left her notes and stuff, so maybe she'd read them. I don't know, we just don't know, to be honest. They also got the Bishop of New York, who's a man called Benjamin Moore, and he wrote an account of afterwards what happened. Hamilton greeted him. I mean, Hamilton is dying, he's been shot in the chest. And he's in agony and yet he still manages to say to this bishop, and people, they, he was impressive. He said, "My dear sir, you perceive my unfortunate situation and no doubt have been made acquainted with the circumstances which led to it. It is my desire to receive the communion at your hands. I hope you will not conceive there is any impropriety in my request."
1:05:26 Tom Holland? I mean, there is a reason presumably why he is being so formal with the bishop, which is that he wants communion because he's, he's an Episcopalian, I think, isn't he?
1:05:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes.
1:05:35 Tom Holland? And the bishop might say, "Well, I can't give it to you because you've been fighting duels."
1:05:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, he also surely knows the bishop's going to write this down about two days later and tell everybody about it. So he wants to look good. And Moore said to him, should it please God to restore you the health, sir? Will you never again be engaged in a similar transaction? And will you employ all your influence to discountenance this barbarous custom? And Hamilton said, that, sir, is my deliberate intention. And so this bloke gave him communion. Hamilton later on, again with very much, I think, an eye to posterity, said, I have no ill will against Colonel Burr. I met him with a fixed resolution to do him no harm. I forgive all that happened.
1:06:17 Tom Holland? That's an excellent way to stamp on Burr forever. Put a marker on him.
1:06:22 Dominic Sandbrook? So the following day, the 12th of July, he died at two o'clock in the afternoon. Moore said he expired without a struggle and almost without a groan. And he was buried in the Trinity Church Yard, Lower Manhattan. You can see his grave today. Now ironically, you mentioned how he loves the National Bank. His management of his own finances was poor. He left his family in massive debt. So they owed about $50,000. And if you type that into the measuring worth calculator, I mean, that is millions and millions of dollars today.
1:06:51 Tom Holland? I mean, it's a feature, isn't it, of not all the founding fathers? So Franklin died very rich. John Adams was incredibly frugal, but Washington died with massive debts. Jefferson, as we will see, also has massive debts. I mean, no wonder they didn't want to pay tax.
1:07:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, exactly. They didn't have any money. So the mortgage, as I said, on the Grange was impossible for Eliza to pay. However, Hamilton's friends set up a private fund. They bought the Grange and then they sold it to her half price. So she was able to live there with her children till 1833. She devoted herself to her husband's memory. She co-founded the Orphan Asylum Society of New York and she died aged 97, having outlived Hamilton by just over 50 years.
1:07:37 Tom Holland? She didn't marry again?
1:07:38 Dominic Sandbrook? She didn't. She was devoted to his memory. Now Burr.
1:07:41 Tom Holland? What does he get up to?
1:07:43 Dominic Sandbrook? Even before Hamilton died, Hamilton's allies in New York were busy spinning the story and blackening Burr's name. They said that basically while Eliza was crying over her dying husband, Burr was celebrating in the taverns of New York. And they claimed that Burr was standing there at the bar of all these different pubs, you know, flagging of ale in hand, laughing and saying, I only wish I'd shot him in the heart.
1:08:12 Tom Holland? The drinks are on me.
1:08:13 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. I mean, this is actually just totally untrue because actually what happened is that Burr fled New York straight away and he went all the way south to Georgia. Now, of course, one thing we haven't really mentioned, he's actually still the Vice President of the United States. So the only parallel I can think of, remember Dick Cheney shot that man in the face? Yeah, we're on a duck shoot. Don't go shoot, don't go hunting with Dick Cheney because he'll shoot you in the face. Anyway, Burr is Vice President. He goes back to Washington. He's charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey, but the case never came to trial. The reason is they couldn't actually prove it.
1:08:53 Tom Holland? Oh, because all these guys, the boatmen, facing the wrong way and things and the umbrellas and stuff.
1:08:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Genius. Brilliant. God, I said, there were literally no witnesses. So his term as Vice President ended in 1805, but obviously his political career is now totally tainted. And then in the two years after he left office, Burr becomes involved in this absolutely insane conspiracy.
1:09:15 Tom Holland? Literally a Catalinarian conspiracy.
1:09:18 Dominic Sandbrook? So depending on which version you read, he plotted with southern planters and US Army officers to create his own country on the US's southern border. But the mad thing about this story is that no one could agree where his country was going to be.
1:09:33 Tom Holland? What would you call it?
1:09:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Burrria.
1:09:34 Tom Holland? That's a terrible name.
1:09:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Call it Berry.
1:09:37 Tom Holland? Burristan.
1:09:38 Dominic Sandbrook? Burristan. So some people said it was going to be Florida. Some people said it was going to be northern Mexico. Some people said it was going to be northern Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana. It's just not clear at all. Burr, when he was asked, said, I just want to buy myself a nice farm. That's all I've been trying to do. The case actually went to court and he was tried for treason, but it was not proven. Basically, there were no witnesses at all and there's no evidence. Maybe they'd all had, it was the umbrellas again coming handy. So after this Burr went into exile in England and then he was kicked out of England. Because there were rumours that he was planning the conquest of Mexico and set himself up as king of Mexico. He wanted to go to France and Napoleon refused to allow
1:10:20 Dominic Sandbrook? him. Like, if you're too bad a man for Napoleon, Napoleon said, what? This bloke's marauding around, taking other people's countries. We can't have that. There's only room for one of these in my country. So he wasn't allowed into France. He ended up drifting back to New York. He lived there under a false name to escape his creditors and he died in 1836. And there's one little hint that Burr regretted what happened. So at the very end of his life, he'd had loads of strokes, he was bedridden, and he was reading a lot of Tristram Shandy, which is commendable behaviour. And he said, and I think this really is to his credit, if I had read Laurence Stern more and Voltaire less, I should have known that the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me. And that's a lesson to our listeners, that if you have the choice of Laurence Stern or
1:11:05 Dominic Sandbrook? Voltaire, you should always read Laurence Stern.
1:11:07 Tom Holland? And if you want to challenge someone to a deal, think again.
1:11:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, exactly. So, I mean Burr was a very clever man, and he was very brave in the war, but he's very rarely ranked among the founding fathers. He's seen as one of American history's great villains. But of course, that's not the case for Hamilton. Hamilton becomes a martyr. There are all sorts of cities and counties named after him. There's Hamilton Heights in New York, and he's been on the $10 bill since 1929. However, Hamilton's not really as famous, because he wasn't president, as Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and so on. And so in 2015, the Department of the Treasury wanted to have a woman on the currency.
1:11:46 Tom Holland? Who are they going to have? Abigail Adams?
1:11:48 Dominic Sandbrook? No.
1:11:49 Tom Holland? But it's got to be a founding mother. Isn't Abigail Adams the founding mother?
1:11:53 Dominic Sandbrook? She just, people, the people do talk about founding mother, but Harry Bolden, a digital guru, correctly says Harriet Tubman.
1:12:00 Tom Holland? Oh.
1:12:01 Dominic Sandbrook? So Harriet Tubman was going to go on to the currency. Possibly it could have been Rosa Parks or someone, I suppose. Anyway, they were going to put a woman on, and they said, well, obviously the person to make way is Hamilton. He's not as famous as the others. He wasn't president. But then just two months after that, Hamilton the Musical transferred to Broadway, and it became a big cultural phenomenon. And the Treasury, Department of the Treasury changed their mind and said, actually, we'll keep Hamilton after all.
1:12:24 Tom Holland? I mean, the thing is, there wouldn't be a federal bank if it wasn't for Hamilton.
1:12:27 Dominic Sandbrook? So. Right. What I would have done is this. First of all, I'd keep Hamilton on the currency, but I think to be true to the spirit, if you want to be slavish to the musical and to the story, be true to the spirit of it, put Burr on as well and have them on either side, levelling pistols at each other, right? The other thing is, people may say, what, Sam Rupp not want a woman on the currency? You're wrong. I do want a woman on the currency and I know exactly who I would take off. I would take off a man who in his lifetime owned more than 600 human beings, a man of the most shameless and repulsive hypocrisy. And that man is the man we'll be talking about next time. And that is of course, Thomas Jefferson.
1:13:11 Tom Holland? And in that episode, we will be exploring the full complexity of the man who I think is the most remarkable, the most talented of all the founding fathers, but also the most morally compromised, I guess. And members of the Rest of History Club can hear that episode right away, it's sitting there waiting for you. And if you're not a member of the club and you would like to hear Thomas Jefferson and also Dominic, there's a whole range of supplementary benefits.
1:13:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, incredible benefits.
1:13:42 Tom Holland? We must never forget the supplementary benefits. Then go to therestishistory.com and also you'll be able to get the incredible newsletter. So thank you, Dominic. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye bye.
1:13:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Bye.
1:13:55 Tom Holland? Dominic, since it's the summer, I've obviously been thinking a lot about cricket. However, I am aware that the World Cup is on as well. And so occasionally football intrudes on my mind as well. And so I've been thinking about what my historical dream football teams would be.
1:14:13 Dominic Sandbrook? And who would be in your historical dream team?
1:14:16 Tom Holland? I've numbered it down to four, what I think would be the classics. And they are of course, the Aztecs, the Royal Navy, we've got to have the Royal Navy, Austro-Hungary, and of course, ancient Rome.
1:14:31 Dominic Sandbrook? I mean, it's an amazing coincidence because the Rest is History have just launched football shirts for those very teams. So if there are people out there who want to know what Quauteimok would have worn during the siege of Tenochtitlan or Nelson, this is your chance to find out.
1:14:49 Tom Holland? And how would one?
1:14:52 Tom Holland? Or put it bluntly, me, how would I get my hands on one, two, three, or perhaps all of these bespoke kits?
1:15:00 Dominic Sandbrook? You would want to head as quickly as possible to therestishistory.com and you go to the merch tab, then you would be able to preorder one of these fantastic limited edition shirts.
1:15:12 Tom Holland? Would there be a way of personalizing these shirts?
1:15:17 Dominic Sandbrook? I'm going to make you so happy now because actually there would. Each shirt can be personalized with a choice of historical figures, the big names from that particular team. So for example, the Royal Navy, you can go for Horatio Nelson or Emma Hamilton. You can go for Franz Ferdinand or Sophie for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For the Aztecs, you can go for Cuauhtémoc, Montezuma or Malinche.
1:15:40 Tom Holland? Okay, these sound absolutely brilliant. The perfect way for our beloved listeners to celebrate the World Cup. And I will certainly be heading to the website and clicking on the merch page on restishistory.com. I simply cannot wait.
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