The Hamilton-Burr Duel Explained

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#TheHamiltonBurrDuel #AmericanHistory #Hamilton-BurrDuel #Hamilton #AlexanderHamilton #Burr #AaronBurr #HeightsOfWeehawken #FoundingFathers #ThomasJefferson #1800Election #AmericanDuel #HistoryOfDueling

[wgdavidson]

The Hamilton family sure doesn't have much luck duelling.

[Menace]

Hamiltons story is so crazy, like straight out of a movie type thing

[mifodigital]

"...Death doesn't discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes.."

[mulvi]

Crazy to think that Aaron Burr was still the acting Vice President when this duel took place.

[jordanvangundy]

As someone who sends a lot of strongly-worded letters for a living, it’s kinda insane to think that in the olden days, me and the other guy would end up having a duel

[joehackney]

By the way, Jefferson had asked Burr to run as his Vice-President as the public viewed Jefferson as a coward as he ran off when the British came to Virginia and Burr was a Revolutionary War hero, who had been with Washington in the field and in extensive fighting for 5 years.

[wanderinghistorian]

Hamilton could've just apologized. One historian said that in his letters Burr was practically pleading Hamilton to apologize and restore Burr's public honor so that it wouldn't come to violence. Burr's entire career depended on Hamilton retracting his statements or at least publicly saying the reporter misinterpreted what he said, which would've allowed them both to save face. If Hamilton really opposed dueling on such high grounds, there were plenty of ways to avoid it.

[markcarlisle]

Hamilton did write that he opposed dueling and did not intend to fire on Burr, but his letter was not released until after his death and there is no indication that Burr was aware of this. Hamilton’s behavior prior to the duel gave the impression that he did intend to harm Burr. He choose the better position and he put on his eyeglasses. He fired first and then Burr fired. Hamilton’s shot missed, but he gave no indication to Burr that he intended to miss. Burr followed the code of the time in returning fire on Hamilton. If Hamilton truly opposed the practice of dueling, he should have refused to participate. His conduct led to the duel as much as Burr’s did. As with many events, the witnesses to the duel gave differing accounts of the events at the dueling ground. I think Burr is too often condemned as the villain of this story.

[myfrestuff]

I remember this most famous American duel featured in the first commercial of the "Got Milk?" ad campaign from 1993. Who knew the Hamilton-Burr Duel would be used to sell milk 189 years later? 😂

[danzervos]

This is the Alexander version of the duel. In the Burr version, Hamilton's bullet struck the tree next to Burr about 15 feet above him due to Hamilton squeezing the set trigger too soon. The pictures depicting Hamilton shooting straight up are false. Also the animosity between Burr and Hamilton was due to each other's efforts at rival banking interests in New York City. Both Hamilton's and Burr's banks exist to this day.

[fredrickmarsiello]

About forty years ago they examined the dueling pistols, and they found that the one used by Hamilton had a hair-trigger, which might have caused an unintentional discharge when the pistol was raised.

[ah]

Interesting information, however, it left out one very important fact. In 1976 those pistols were discovered to have a concealed hair trigger. If Hamilton knew of and used this, it could offer another theory to his shot into the air. See Smithsonian Magazine, November 1976...
"The pistols that Hamilton provided had concealed hair triggers - what a modern target shooter would call a single-set trigger. Church had bought the pair in London. By using them, Hamilton could surreptitiously set his hair trigger without anyone's noticing. This would give Hamilton a theoretical advantage by allowing him to shoot very quickly with a tiny, half pound squeeze on the trigger. Burr's gun had the same trigger, but Burr probably didn't know it. He would fire with the ordinary 10 or 12 pound pull.

Although Hamilton owned a fine pair of correct English dueling pistols, he elected to borrow the trick pair from Church."

[lazywallstreetnews]

The rivalry started much sooner than the election of 1800. When they would both start banks in the 1790's where Aaron Burr helped start the Bank of Manhattan (that would later become Chase the largest retail and investment bank in America) and Hamilton helped with founding the Bank of New York (that later became the Bank of New York Mellon, the largest merchant bank in America).

[StraightS]

read about this duel and I never learned any of this; The intrigue and background and build up to the duel. Very well done. Just sub'd.

[artkazyak]

Good job i love American History and the duel of Hamilton and Burr is so deep and intense and so much history between them and ironies too just a great story loved it

Several years ago, I read a description of the Weehawken Dueling Ground. It was a choice location, hidden from the water below, from above by an overhang and from the side by undergrowth. The ground itself was only 60 feet long, approximately 6 feet wide.

[southronjr]

The tradition of dueling remained very much alive into the 20th century down here in the South. My father holds the distinction of being the last man arrested for dueling in Georgia.
In 1973, my mother, oldest sister, and he, were living in a country neighborhood in middle Georgia where the houses were on 5 acre lots so that small farms and livestock could be held on the plots. My father had 2 German shepherds he had raised from puppies and they were treated like family and they often would watch over my sister, who was a baby at the time, like a litter mate. They had a large fenced in back yard and my parents would put them in the back yard when they would go to work where they had water, a back porch and food to keep themselves busy during the day. After several months a home was built next door and the father was from New York and held dispariging opinions of all his Southern neighbors and seemed to be quite vocal about it.
Well my dad ignored the jerk for the most part until he brought 2 horses and built a paddock for them directly against the back yard fence, even failed to build his own fence and simply tied his horses fence into ours. With the neighbor doing this and putting his horses directly against the fence where the dogs were kept during the day caused issues when the horses would kick at the dogs through the fence and then the dogs would bark at the horses. The first time this happened, the neighbor came over screaming at my dad and mom and cussed quite heavily towards my mother, my father being the well brought up Southern gentleman, took issue with this and it almost came to blows. Luckily it didn't and the neighbor seems to calm down for a few days until my dad came home to find one of his German Shepherds dead with a shotgun blast in his back yard. To say he was pissed would be an understatement.
My father was always one to hold his temper and in the 41 years I knew him, can only ever recall seeing him lose his temper on 3 occasions, and all 3 times were over something to do with his family. Well, my father walked next door and the Yankee neighbor answered and he politely asked if he knew how his dog and been killed, the neighbor blew up and him and screamed that he had killed his "damned dog" for barking at his horse. The fact the man's life didn't end there still amazes me to this day knowing my father. Well, dad calmed asked him to choose the weapons for a duel and offered guns, knives, or fist, but either way, the neighbor was going to pay for killing his dog. The neighbor demanded guns and told him he would be in the street in 5 minutes.
Dad calmly walked back into his house, grabbed his 9mm Luger pistol and began to walk outside when he heard the neighbors car start. The neighbor had closed the door, watched dad walk into his house, then grabbed his wife and daughter and threw them in the car and squalled tires leaving.
About 15 minutes later the local sheriff's deputy shows up and asks dad what happened, when he told him he had challenged the neighbor to a duel and that he had accepted and to use guns, the deputy arrested dad.
So there dad was, sitting in jail for about 30 minutes when the sheriff sees him and stops and asks why he was there. It turns out that my dad and the sheriff were aqauintances through both church and the local gun club (dad had been a competition shooter for several years at this point) and dad explained what had happened. This infuriated the sheriff because he trained hunting dogs and loved dogs in general. He let dad out on the spot and walked him up to the office to be released, the neighbor was in the lobby and began getting upset about my dad seeming to be released after he had gotten him arrested. The sherif was next to dad and asked if this was the neighbor, to which dad said yes. Well the sheriff turns around and arrests the neighbor on the spot and throws his butt in jail with charges of cruelty to animals, destruction of private property and a couple of other charges.
Dad walked free and the neighbor ended up moving out of the neighborhood and dad found out that after his jail term and probation was up, he went back up north.

[jamesdelaney]

I can't believe they found boats big enough to hold those GIANT BALLS

[johnrenterprises]

This video ignores the fact that the dueling pistols that belonged the Hamiltons relative had a trick triggers. Dueling pistols had very very heavy trigger pulls. But during a reproduction build during our Bi-Centinial the gun maker found the triggers could be pushed forward very lightly to fire the weapon. This allowed a quick and accurate shot by anyone familiar with the weapons. It is likely the so called shot in the air was a mistake by Hamilton. Burr did not know about it. He fired normally and killed Hamilton. While Burr was no angel Hamiltons gossip and arrogant letters caused the issue. The trick trigger was a despicable breach of honor that would have never been found out if the copy presentation set had not been done.

[jefftaylor]

“I’m gonna get myself murdered out of spite” — Alexander Hamilton