This Day in American History: The Duel That Killed Alexander Hamilton (July 11, 1804)
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This Day in American History: July 11, 1804
At dawn on this day in 1804, the sitting Vice President of the United States shot and killed one of the men who built the country he served. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton rowed separately across the Hudson River to a narrow ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey, to settle a years-long political and personal feud the only way two gentlemen of the era were supposed to: with pistols at ten paces.
The bad blood went back over a decade. Burr had beaten Hamilton's father-in-law for a Senate seat in 1791, leaked one of Hamilton's private political attacks to the press in 1800, and nearly stole the presidency from Thomas Jefferson in a 36-ballot tie in the House. Hamilton, for his part, never missed a chance to call Burr dangerous, unprincipled, and unfit for power. When a newspaper printed a secondhand account of Hamilton calling him a "despicable" man at a dinner party, Burr had finally had enough.
Hamilton had already lost a son on that same Weehawken dueling ground three years earlier and personally opposed the practice. But refusing Burr's challenge meant public disgrace, and he felt he had no real choice. According to his own second, Hamilton intended to fire into the air. Burr did not. His shot struck Hamilton in the abdomen; Hamilton was rowed back across the river to Manhattan, where he died the next afternoon surrounded by his family.
HISTORY's own retelling of the rivalry that ended in gunfire on the Hudson.
The fallout was immediate. Burr, indicted for murder in two states, fled south and never faced trial, though his political career was finished. Hamilton's death gutted the Federalist Party he had helped found, and thousands turned out for his funeral procession through New York. More than two centuries later, the man on the ten-dollar bill is remembered as a Founding Father who helped write the Constitution and build the nation's financial system - and whose life ended not on a battlefield fighting for independence, but in a private quarrel over an insult at a dinner party.
Pride killed a Founding Father. Come back tomorrow to see what else happened on July 12 throughout American history.
Also on this day
1767: John Quincy Adams, future sixth president, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts.
1798: The U.S. Marine Corps, first established in 1775, was formally reestablished by Congress.
1905: The Niagara Movement, an early civil rights organization co-founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, held its first meeting.
1914: Babe Ruth pitched seven strong innings in his major league debut for the Boston Red Sox.
1960: Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published.
1979: America's first space station, Skylab, fell back to Earth, scattering debris over Australia without injuring anyone.
Sources: HISTORY.com and the National Park Service
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