DON'T WEAR MY WATCH!

7/21/1865 - Establishing the template that novelists and screen writers will use for years and years to come when in need of a story ending big gunfight, two former friends, gambler Davis Kasey Tutt (better known as just Dave Tutt) and Union Civil War scout, James Butler Hickok (the first "Wild Bill" of the West), meet in the downtown square of Springfield, Missouri to settle their differences over an unpaid loan of $25 and a valued Waltham repeater gold pocket watch.  Facing off standing sideways at 75 yards, two shots ring out just before 6:00 in the evening, but only one finds it's mark and hits meat, with Tutt dying in the street from a round that enters into his left side, piercing his heart.

Hickok Vs. Tutt

Not yet the legendary figure he will become, in 1865, Hickok is a six-foot tall, mustached, red-headed twenty-eight-year-old young adult, freshly returned to civilian life after completing his service to the Union cause as a teamster and then a wagon master for the North in the Sedalia, Missouri region, serving in the Kansas Jayhawker militia brigade of Brigadier General James Henry Lane (the man Quantrill's raiders are seeking when they launch their brutal attack on Lawrence, Kansas in 1863), working as a provost marshal in southwest Missouri for the town of Springfield's police department identifying Federal soldiers drinking on-duty, verifying hotel liquor licenses, and tracking down scofflaws owing money to the Union Army (during this period of his life he earns the sobriquet "Wild Bill" he will be best known for, when after stopping a mob intent on lynching a Independence, Missouri bartender by firing two bullets over the heads of would-be miscreants, prompts a woman witness to call out "Good for you, Wild Bill!"), participating in the Union victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862 that takes place northeast of Fayetteville, Arkansas, masquerading as a Confederate officer while serving as a spy and scout for Union General Samuel R. Curtis, and scouting for the command of Northern General John Benjamin Sanborn.  Out of the service after receiving his walking papers in April of 1865 in Springfield, Hickok remains in town while trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life, supporting himself by gambling almost every day in the city's bars and saloons, as does his friend, fellow gambler Dave Tutt.

Young Hickok

Pea Ridge

Surviving the war while serving as a member of Company A of the 27th Arkansas Infantry Regiment in its battles in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, Davis Kasey "Little Dave" Tutt is twenty-nine-years-old in the summer of 1865 and a veteran of violence, having watched members of his family engage in an Arkansas political blood feud called the Tutt-Everett War that takes place between 1844 and 1850 (the Whig supporting Tutts versus the Democrat favoring supporters of John "Slim," Jesse, and Bart Everett) ... a conflict that costs the youth four of his relatives, including his father, family leader Hansford "Hamp" Tutt.  Bumping into each other while playing poker, Tutt and Hickok, despite supporting opposite sides in the just concluded war, become friends (Tutt will even lend Hickok money for his gambling endeavors) until their feelings for each other sour over rumors of Hickok fathering an illegitimate child with Tutt's sister and Tutt courting Hickok's paramour, Susanna Moore.  Soon, the men begin getting in arguments with each other every time they meet, with Hickok refusing to play in any card game that Tutt is also playing in, and Tutt starts loaning money and card shark advice to gamblers going up against the former Union scout.   The building animus between the two men finally boils over on the evening of July 20, 1865.  Playing high stakes poker in an upstairs room at Lyon House Hotel (now Springfield's Old Southern Hotel just south of the city's downtown square on South Street) with a group of well off locals, Hickok wins $200 (in 2023 dollar power, a nice payday of $3,823), an outcome that makes Tutt livid (money Tutt has loaned other players has made it's way into Hickok's pockets and his advise hasn't helped anybody beat the man).  Seeking a way to get under the gambler's skin, Tutt reminds Hickok of the $40 Wild Bill owes him from a previous horse trade, a debt Hickok immediately pays off from his poker winnings.  Unappeased, Tutt then brings up another unpaid obligation of the Union card player, a debt of $35 Tutt says he is owed for from a previous poker game.  Hickok acknowledges the debt, but states that it is only for $25 per his reckoning, based on a note he carries with him so he can keep his wins and losses current.  Neither man willing to budge from the total of the debt, Tutt grabs Hickok's gold pocket watch off the table and states he will keep the time keeper as collateral until he is payed in full (the gold keepsake watch is worth more than $100).  Like pouring gasoline on an already raging fire, outgunned and outnumbered by Tutt's friends, Hickok refrains from doing anything rash and tells his former friend to put the watch back on the table, but Tutt only grins as he pockets the watch and leaves the hotel.  Taunted by Tutt's friends with boasts that the Confederate will enjoy telling time on the morrow with Hickok's watch, the Kansas shootist states to anyone who will listen that Tutt better not wear the watch in the square the next day or he will be a "dead man."  A few minutes later, Hickok leaves the poker game and returns to his hotel where he cleans, oils, and reloads his pistols in anticipation of the weapons being used the next day.

Grabbing The Watch

Cornered by their actions and words, Hickok now must show he is not an insolvent gambler that can't be trusted to make good on his debts (and that his challenges are to be taken seriously), while Tutt must wear the watch into the square so there are no questions of whether he can be buffaloed by his fear of another gambler or gunman.  Yet, neither man is willing to go to their guns without first discussing the situation, and so the two men are brought together by mutual friends to see if a peaceful resolution can be agreed on.  Unfortunately, though both men say they don't want to fight, Tutt raises the price to what he is owed to being $45, a number Hickok can not accept.  Stepping into a nearby saloon, the pair share a final drink of whiskey together before parting with another round of threats about the watch and where it better not be displayed.  Positions cemented by another round of ire, at around 6:00 in the evening of Friday, July 21, 1865, Tutt makes his way into the square with Hickok's gold watch fully on display, hanging from a waist pocket of the vest he is wearing.  People scattering from close proximity to either man recognizing what is coming, Tutt strolls into the northwest corner of the square from a livery stable on Baker Alley, while Hickok enters the square from South Street, opposite the ex-Confederate's position.  At a distance of about 75 yards from Tutt, with gun in hand, Hickok stops walking and loudly states, "Dave, here I am," as he cocks his right hand pistol, returns it, ivory handle forward (throughout his career as a shootist, Hickok prefers to cross pull his weapon using a "cavalry draw" in which he can get to his guns underhanded, with a spin forward into a reverse draw, and a cross body draw, maneuvers that can also be performed while sitting down at a card table), to the red sash around his waist and turns sideways, assuming a duelist's stance.  "Don't you come across here with that watch," is Hickok's last warning to Tutt, who responds to the threat by stirring up the animosity stew just a little more by pulling the said implement from his pocket and consulting it to see what time it is.  Hesitating briefly and then also turning sideways, Tutt pulls his gun and brings it up to a firing position, prompting Hickok to also draw his weapon, rest it on his left forearm, and target his opponent.

1860s Wild Bill

Tutt

Both men are using the Samuel Colt designed, 1851 .36-calibur Colt Navy cap & ball revolvers (six shots available if fully loaded, the lead bullets within weigh 80 grains and when fired, move at a rate of 1,000 feet per second after being set off by a fulminate percussion cap), weighing 2.6 pounds apiece.  No one in the square is sure who fires first, the twin reports produced by each man's gun sound like one large bang, but no one is in doubt as to which man is victorious in the duel ... Tutt's shot misses, passing over Hickok's head, Hickok's bullet is much more accurate, striking the Confederate veteran between the fifth and seventh rib on his right side, the lead ball passes through Tutt's heart, and exits the losing gunman's body between the fifth and seventh rib on his left side.  Screaming, "Boys, I'm killed!" (Tutt's last words), the gambler stumbles on to porch of the town's nearby courthouse, before reeling back into the street and collapsing into death.  Satisfied that his shot has taken care of his antagonist, holding his pistol at the ready, Hickok then pivots away from Tutt and yell's at a group of the gamblers associates reaching for their pistols, "Aren't yer satisfied, gentlemen?  Put up your shootin-irons, or there'll be more dead men here!"  Crowd cowed into submission for the moment by Hickok, the victor of the gunfight now sure that he won't be assassinated or lynched walks off the square and back to his hotel room after someone in the crowd brings him his still ticking gold watch.  The loser in the battle, Tutt, is carried to a local doctor that documents the gambler's fatal wound before turning the body over to the town's local undertaker for burial (the former Confederate will first be interred in the town's Old City Cemetery before being exhumed and buried in the town's newest body repository, the Maple Park Cemetery, next to his half-brother, Lewis Tutt, in March 1883, a headstone is not added until 1991).       

Hickok Revolver - Sold For A Quarter To Help

Pay For The Gunslinger's Funeral In 1876

Hickok Crowd Control

Federal troops in charge of law-and-order in Springfield after the Civil War concludes, under the name William Haycocke (the name Hickok is using to keep creditors off his trail), Hickok is charged with murder (it will soon be changed to manslaughter), arrested, and placed in custody by troops under the command of 7th United States Cavalry Captain Albert Trorillo Siders Barnitz.  Bail for Hickok is at first denied, but on July 22nd, the price for getting out of jail immediately is set at $2,000 (a sum in 2023 dollars of $38,200), which the gunfighter posts the same day with help from friends.  Brought to trial on August 3, 1865, Hickok is prosecuted by Major Robert Washington Fyan (a future Missouri congressman) in the courtroom of Judge Sempronius Hamilton Boyd (the former mayor of Springfield and a future Missouri congressman and United States minister to Siam), defending the gambler's plea of self-defense is former Union military governor of Arkansas, Colonel John Smith Phelps (a future Missouri congressman and 23rd governor of the state).  The big event in town for the three days it lasts, twenty-two witnesses are called to testify as to the events of the 21st, with four giving accounts of the actual fight.  On August 6, 1865, the decision on the matter is turned over to a Springfield jury after Judge Boyd gives the panel contradictory instructions, telling it's members that the jury could use the state law on "mutual combat" to convict Hickok, or they can free him using jury nullification of the law based on no one being able to say who shot first, Tutt being the person who grabbed the watch and went for his pistol first, and the fact that the scout had given Tutt several opportunities to not fight.  Sent away to deliberate, it takes the men only an hour to decide that Hickok was merely defending himself, and so it is that he is found not guilty of the manslaughter charges and acquitted (a verdict that there are mixed feelings about in Springfield).      

Barnitz

Judge Boyd

Phelps

Afterwards, in September of 1865, Hickok runs for election as Springfield's city marshal, but loses, coming in second out of five candidates, a city decision that sends him off to Fort Riley, Kansas where he can gamble, enforce laws as a Federal deputy marshal, and scout for Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry.  But not before he gives an interview on the gunfight and his activities to Colonel George Ward Nichols, a journalist writing for Harper's New Monthly Magazine (at roughly the same time, an interview with Hickok featuring questions from journalist Henry Morton Stanley, the same fellow that will utter the question in 1872, "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" while wandering through central Africa, is published in the Weekly Missouri Democrat),  Articles published in 1867 (Hickok will also provide the writer's with a show of his marksmanship by pumping lead into the pattern of a heart from over fifty yards away, the skills his horse, Black Nell, possesses, by having the creature gracefully climb up and stand on a saloon's billiard table, and a lying discussion of his hundred plus victims) in a time before the James Brothers, the Daltons, and the Wild Bunch begin robbing banks and trains, before Custer and his command are slaughtered by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse along the shores of Montana's Greasy Grass River, before Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett have their fatal "Quien es?" meeting in New Mexico, before John Wesley Hardin begins gunning down snoring neighbors, before Leland Stanford drives in the golden spike that symbolically completes the build of America's first trans-continental railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah, before Apache legends Cochise and Geronimo raid through vast areas of Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico, before William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody scalps Sioux Chief Yellow Hair at Warbonnet Creek, before any of it, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok becomes the most famous Western celebrity in the country, one still discussed and written about over a century later ... and he is just beginning.  Eleven years left to live before being murdered by Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood's Nuttal and Mann's Saloon No. 10, Hickok will burnish his legendary status as an American gunfighter with stints as U.S. deputy marshal in Kansas, scouting for the 7th and 10th Cavalry and fighting Cheyenne and Sioux warriors, getting elected the city marshal of Hays, Kansas, fatally besting in gunfights a drunken cavalryman John Mulrey (8/24/1869) and a inebriated teamster named Samuel Strawhim (9/27/1869), subtracting two individuals from Custer's command during a Hays bar brawl in which Private John Kile is killed and Private Jeremiah Lonegan is grievously wounded (7/17/1870, the other three soldiers involved flee when Hickok begins firing his revolvers), surviving gunman John Wesley Hardin's 1871 visit to Abilene, Kansas (where once again he is the town marshal), killing two men in Abilene in 1871, gambler Phil Coe is a deliberate action, while shooting Deputy Marshal Mike Williams to death is a total accident, brought on by Williams running out of a crowd to help his boss, resulting in Wild Bill putting two lead balls fatally into his helpmate's head (the death of Williams will haunt the gambler for the rest of his life), performing for East Coast audiences with friends "Buffalo Bill" Cody and John Baker "Texas Jack" Omohundro in a Wild West production called "Scouts of the Plains," having his eyesight begin to fail between 1871 and 1876, marrying 50-year-old circus proprietress Agnes Thatcher Lake in 1876 in Cheyenne, Wyoming (her specialty is walking a tightrope and lion taming), and prospecting for gold in the Deadwood area (where he becomes involved with wagon master Charlie Utter and army scout Martha "Calamity" Jane Canary and does a lot of poker playing). 

Mrs. Hickok

Calamity Jane

In The Wrong Seat

Establishing the calling of western gunfighter and gambler, and the unwritten codes that order the occupation (like leaving the hammer of a pistolero's weapon on an empty chamber, only sitting somewhere that a gunslinger can have his back to a wall, etc.), "Wild Bill" Hickok (still with us in 2023, some of the actors that will portray Hickok over the years include Guy Madison, Lloyd Bridges, Josh Brolin, Keith Carradine, William S. Hart, Gary Cooper, "Wild Bill" Elliott, Roy Rogers, Bruce Cabot, Howard Keel, Forrest Tucker, Robert Culp, Don Murray, Jeff Corey, Charles Bronson, Richard Farnsworth, Jeff Bridges, Sam Elliot, Sam Shepard, and Luke Helmsworth, will kill Dave Tutt in a face-to-face gunfight in downtown Springfield, Missouri on July 21, 1865.

Gary Cooper As Hickok

The Real McCoy

    

      

    

  

A DEADLY DUEL - 7/11/1804

7/11/1804 - The most famous duel in American history takes place at a spot in New Jersey overlooking the Hudson River called the Heights of Weehawken (a cheery location below the towering cliffs of the Palisades where eighteen known duels take place between 1700 and 1845).  Dueling at dawn on a Wednesday from ten paces away with Wogdon & Barton flintlock pistols (they can be seen on display at the headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank on Park Avenue in New York City) belonging to John Baker Church (a friend and business associate of both men), the third and acting vice-president of the United States, Aaron Burr Jr., takes on the former first secretary of the United States Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.  A disaster for both duelists, 49-year-old Hamilton will be mortally wounded and Burr will have his life destroyed by the outcome of the clash.

The Duel

Considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States for his efforts during the American Revolution, for his work putting together a major portion of the Constitution of the United States, and for the services he provides as the country's first Secretary of Treasury (1789 to 1795) under President George Washington, Alexander Hamilton is born out of wedlock on January 11, 1755 (along with his older brother James Jr.) in the port of Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis in the British Caribbean colony of the British Leeward Islands, to a Scottish merchant transplant named James Alexander Hamilton (the fourth son of the laird of Grange, Ayrshire) and Rachel Faucette (a married woman of half-British and half-French Huguenot descent).  Not the easiest of childhoods, Hamilton will be denied membership and an education from the Church of England (his early education will come by way of a private local school taught by a Jewish headmistress and the Hamilton family's library of 34 books) for the supposed perfidies of his parents, the family will be abandoned by his father in January of 1766, his mother will die of yellow fever in 1768, he will be briefly taken in by his cousin Peter Lytton (who will commit suicide over the death of his wife in July of 1769), he will be given a roof over his head by a Nevis merchant named Thomas Stevens (his older brother by this time has become an apprentice with a local carpenter).  Things begin to turn around for the youth when he becomes a clerk for the import-export firm of Beekman & Cruger that so quickly takes to his new responsibilities that the owner leaves him in charge of the firm while he is at sea for five months in 1771.  In 1772, Hamilton writes a letter about a hurricane that hits the city he is living in (Christiansted, the largest town on the island of St. Croix) that so impresses the local community city leaders that they put together a fund to send Alexander to Great Britain's North American colonies to further his education.  Boston to New York City before the close of the year, Hamilton arrives in America just before violence breaks out in New England between tax upset colonists and the government of British monarch, Hanover King George III (George William Frederick).  Continuing his education, Hamilton will spend time studying at the Elizabethtown Academy, a college preparatory school run by Francis Barber, and then at New York City's King's College (now the University of Columbia).  Taking the side of the patriot movement that will eventually break away from Great Britain, he makes his first public appearance discussing the situation in the colonies on July 6, 1773, establishes with four undergraduate friends the precursor of the university's literary society, the Philolexian Society, writes two pamphlets attacking British Parliament's Quebec Act of 1774 (expanding the province of Quebec into southern Ontario, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota), is thought to write anonymous essays for the New York Journal, and garners public favor when he saves King's College President, Myles Cooper, a Loyalist, from a tar-and-feather ride around the campus, by giving a speech to a frenzied mob of patriot supporters that allows the man to flee to a British naval ship anchored in the New York City harbor (from which later in 1775, Cooper will return to Great Britain).  Education temporarily ended with the closing of King's College as British forces occupy New York City, Hamilton joins a New York volunteer militia company called "The Corsicans" after fighting between the colonies and Great Britain begins with the opening Revolutionary War clashes of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts in April of 1775.

Rachel Faucette

Hamilton As Member Of The 

New York Artillery

Practicing drills with the company in the graveyard of St. Paul's Chapel on the Trinity College campus in New York City while conducting his own studies of military history and tactics, Alexander first action takes place when he leads his renamed unit, "Hearts of Oak," on a successful mission to take canons away from the British stationed at The Battery in New York Harbor, bravely defying counter fire that comes from the 64-gun HMS Asia, weapon pilfering that almost instantly turns the group from an infantry unit into an artillery company.  Making things official, in 1776, Hamilton raises sixty men as the New York Provincial Company of Artillery and is elected the unit's captain (and he now makes a study of the history of the use of cannons by the military), as such, the group participates in the Continental Army's fighting retreat out of New York and New Jersey (the unit is never disbanded and today lives on as the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment), serving as the Army's rearguard in it's movements out of Manhattan, fighting at the Battle of Harlem Heights (General George Washington's first battle field victory) and the Battle of White Plains (a loss for the Continentals, but one in which they avoid being cutoff and destroyed by British General William Howe's troops).  Retreating across New Jersey and then moving into Pennsylvania by way of crossing over the Delaware River, the command has some of its finest moments during Washington's war changing miracle victories at the Battle of Trenton (12/26/1776) and the Battle of Princeton (1/3/1777).  At Trenton, Hamilton's guns are stationed at the town's high ground (the current-day intersection of Warren and Broad Streets) and keep Hessian troops pinned down in their barracks, and at Princeton, British troops try to fort up in the town's Nassau Hall (the oldest building on the campus of Princeton University) and rally from Washington's surprise attack, but Hamilton rolls three of his guns up to the structure and opens fire as other troops rush the Hall's front door, soon causing the 194 British soldiers inside to wave a white flag of surrender out of one of the windows, insuring the battle will be an American victory.  Hamilton's leadership abilities noticed and appreciated, the young Continental is asked to serve on the staffs of General William Alexander and General Nathanael Greene, but twice declines, wanting to retain a field command that has the potential to lead to the glory the gunner wishes to achieve to help him rise above his poor Caribbean beginnings.  He cannot refuse however when Washington himself asks Hamilton to be his chief staff aide.                  

Washington Crossing The Delaware

Princeton

Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Hamilton will hold the position for four years as he handles Washington's correspondence with the Continental Congress, state governors, and other Continental Army generals, under the general's supervision, drafts Washington's orders and letters (eventually Washington's orders will be issued under Hamilton's personal signature), and a wide variety of high-level duties as Washington's emissary that include intelligence gathering and diplomacy.  During this time period the gunner becomes a fast friend of the Marquis de Lafayette, and while stationed in Morristown, New Jersey, he meets, courts, and marries the well-connected daughter of Continental Army General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler, Elizabeth Schuyler (they will marry at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York on 12/14/1780 and the union will produce eight children ... Philip, Angelica, Alexander, James, John, William, Eliza, and a second Philip).  Though successful in the accomplishment of his staff duties, Hamilton chaffs at not being in the midst of the fighting, and continually peppers Washington for a field command and a return to active combat, eventually blackmailing the general into giving him what he wants by threatening to resign his commission and leave the Army.  Reluctantly, Washington gives Hamilton the command of a battalion of light infantry consisting of the 1st and 2nd New York Regiments and two provisional companies from Connecticut, men that will give Hamilton exactly the glory the colonel is seeking.  During the climatic last days of the Siege of Yorktown, Hamilton, in conjunction with 400 French soldiers of the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment (commanded by Christian Marquis de Deux-Ponts), leads his men on a night bayonet charge against the British defensive position called Redoubt #10 (the French are given the task of taking Redoubt #9).  Redoubt #10 taken at a cost of 9 American dead and 25 wounded (the British lose two critical positions along with an entire garrison of captured troops), the loss of the twin positions allows Washington to begin bombarding Yorktown from three different directions.  The situation untenable when a counterattack fails and the squally weather prevents an evacuation of the town across the York River, essentially ending the war though small battles will continue to be fought for two more years (the war finally officially ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783), to the strains of a British band playing "The World Turned Upside Down," the army of British Lt. General Charles Cornwallis surrenders on October 19, 1781 (a force of 8,000 men, 214 artillery pieces, thousands of muskets, 24 transport ships, along with horses, wagons, and an assortment of ammunition).  Breveted to the rank of full colonel for his actions in the climatic clash of the American Revolution on September 30, 1782, less than three months later Hamilton is a civilian once more.

Elizabeth Hamilton

The Fall Of Redoubt #10

Using his successes in the war and his close association with the conflict's #1 hero, General Washington, Hamilton takes six month to teach himself the law and passes the bar in October of 1782 and is licensed to argue cases before the Supreme Court of New York.  From that springboard, the former gunner becomes New York's representative to the Congress of the Confederation.  Upset with the weaknesses of the new country's central government, less than a year later Hamilton is one of the first voices that begins calling for a plan to revise the Articles of Confederation into a government that can collect taxes, raise armies, and declare war, organized with a separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.  Indeed, no man is more instrumental in giving the United States the Constitution that guides the laws of America.  In 1784, Hamilton resigns from practicing law to found the Bank of New York (still in operation, now as the multi-trillion dollar banking company BNY Mellon) and then, two years later, leads the Annapolis Convention (September 1786) and the Philadelphia Convention (May to September of 1787) that draft the United States Constitution (selling the new concepts to the country, Hamilton puts out the Federalist Papers in 1787 with James Madison and John Jay <the men are personally recruited for the project by Hamilton>).  85 essays on why the new constitution should be ratified, the intelligent gunner will write 51 of the articles in the Papers.  Constitution ratified on June 21, 1788 and George Washington selected to be the first President of the United States, Hamilton is chosen by his former commander to be the first Secretary of the Treasury, a post he will hold from September 11, 1789 to January 31, 1795.  Among Hamilton's failures and accomplishments as a member of Washington's first cabinet will include the creation of a United States Mint (1792), the creation of the United States Revenue Cutter Service (1790 with it eventually morphing into the United States Coast Guard), tax revenue coming from the sales of liquor (a rebellion against the tax will last from 1791 to 1794, founding of a national manufacturing company in New Jersey that goes under, designs the Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain that avoids another war between the two countries and leads to ten years of peace between the English speaking antagonists.  And in 1791, becoming an irritant for the first time, Democrat-Republican Aaron Burr beats Hamilton's father-in-law, Federalist Philip Schuyler, for election to one of New York's seats in the United States Senate and the two men become implacable foes to each other. 

Hamilton By John Trumball

Writing The First Draft Of The

U.S. Constitution In 1787

Distraught with guilt when he is away from home trying to stop the country's Whiskey Rebellion while his wife suffers a miscarriage, effective 1/31/1795, Hamilton tenders his resignation from Washington's cabinet.  Returning to the practice of law in New York, he remains heavily involved in the politics of the day and as the country's two party system gains control of the government, finds himself one of the leaders of the Federalist Party, in opposition to the state's rights favoring Democratic-Republican Party controlled by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.  In 1796, Hamilton helps Washington draft the words he will use to retire from further governance and works to have South Carolina's Thomas Pinckney become the nation's second Commander-in-Chief (his plan backfires and John Adams becomes the 2nd President of the United States, with Thomas Jefferson as his vice-president).  Sadly, the following year, the 40-year-old Hamilton becomes the first major American politician to become involved in a public sex scandal when his affair with Maria Reynolds of Philadelphia in 1791 comes to light (the 23-year-old Maria Reynolds is married at the time), along with information on her husband's blackmail of the gunner.  Political life and his marriage barely surviving the scandal, with Washington's backing, President Adams appoints Hamilton a major general in the United States Army, and as such, Hamilton is the Army's inspector general from 7/18/1798 to 6/15/1800, and with Washington's death in 1799, it's senior officer from 12/14/1799 to 6/15/1800, positions which he uses to become involved in all areas of Federal army's development.  And after Burr starts an opposition bank in New York (the Bank of the Manhattan Company) to Hamilton's Bank of New York, the ire between the two men increases when behind the scenes, Hamilton helps Jefferson win the presidency over Burr in the election of 1800 after the two men tie when their votes are totaled (before the Constitution is amended, as the second place finisher, a disgruntled Burr becomes the country' vice-president), and then helps keep his enemy from their state's governorship in 1804 (instead, lawyer Morgan Lewis will be elected).  The twin defeats not enough though, Hamilton in private letters and discussions can't help crowing about his victories or deriding the politics and personality of Aaron Burr Jr.  Private to public, in 1804 with the publication of leaked letters between New York City's Dr. Charles D. Copper and Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, Burr challenges Hamilton to a duel that the Federalist, to his woe, accepts.

Reynolds

Aaron Burr Jr.

The second child of Presbyterian minister and second president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), Reverend Aaron Burr Sr. and Esther Edwards Burr (the daughter of noted theologian Jonathan Edwards), Junior is born in Newark, New Jersey on February 6, 1756.  Less than a year later, Burr loses his 41-year-old father to the stresses of running the College of New Jersey, and seven months later, his 26-year-old mother to a fatal case of smallpox.  Aaron and his 3-year-old sister, Sally, are first taken in by the William Shippen (a doctor and future member of the Continental Congress) family of Philadelphia, before their guardianships are assumed by 21-year-old maternal uncle Timothy Edwards, a physically abusive man that will cause Burr to run away from home several different times during his youth.  Intelligent to a fault, Burr is educated at the Elizabethtown Academy in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.  At 13 he is admitted to Princeton as a sophomore and joins the American Whig Society and the Cliosophic Society, the school's literary and debating societies.  At 16 in 1772, he graduates with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theology.  Continuing his studies to someday become a minister, Burr studies with Presbyterian pastor Joseph Bellamy for two years, but in 1775 decides on a different career path and at the age of nineteen, goes to Connecticut to study law with his brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve.  When the news breaks out of hostilities with the British taking place in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord, the youth puts his study plans on hold and joins the Continental Army.  As a first time soldier, Burr participates in Colonel Benedict Arnold's failed campaign to take Quebec, a 300 mile slog through the wilderness of frontier Maine.  Impressed by how Burr handles the arduous trek, Arnold sends Aaron up the St. Lawrence River to bring General Richard Montgomery, the conqueror of Montreal, to Arnold's position outside of Quebec.  Equally as impressed with Burr as Arnold had been, Montgomery promotes the youngster to captain and makes him a member of his staff.  In the failed attack by Arnold and Montgomery to take Quebec on December 31, 1775, Burr will draw high praise from his peers for his efforts to recover Montgomery's body (the general dies in Burr's arms, but the snow on the ground and Montgomery's size will thwart Burr's efforts to carry Montgomery back to American lines) when the general is gunned down by a blast of grapeshot that hits him in the head and both legs (Arnold will be wounded in the leg during the battle and captured) as he leads an attack on a British blockhouse.

Burr

Montgomery's Death

Back in New York following the Quebec debacle, with the help of his stepbrother, Matthias Ogden, in the spring of 1776, Burr secures an assignment to the staff of General George Washington, but quits only a few weeks later for a battlefield command under General Israel Putnam.  During Washington's retreat from New York City, Burr's leadership skills come to the fore when he saves an entire brigade of the army from capture when the British put troopers ashore in Manhattan ... and begins developing a chip on his shoulder for Washington when Burr's heroic actions aren't mentioned in the next day's General Orders.  Briefly posted to the village of Kingsbridge afterwards, Burr's next assignment is protecting the 14-year-old British daughter of British Major Thomas Moncrieffe (based on a pledge Washington has given to the British officer), Margaret, a lass that Burr falls in love with, but returns to her father to fulfill Washington's orders.  In July of 1777, Burr is promoted to lieutenant colonel and becomes the second-in-command of the 300 soldiers of Colonel William Malcolm's Additional Continental Regiment, a unit that fights several engagements keeping the British off balance in central New Jersey.  During the Continental Army's bitter winter encampment at Valley Forge, Burr's men guard an isolated pass called "The Gulph" that controls one of the approaches into Washington's camp and the lieutenant colonel helps in putting down a mutiny among some of the soldiers.  In the thick of things at the Battle of Monmouth (6/28/1778 ... the battle in which the legend of Molly Pitcher working a cannon in place of her husband and bringing water to front line troops begins), Burr fights his regiment well, but is forced out of action by heatstroke after hours of riding about the battlefield in temperatures over 90 degrees F.  Due to continuing bad health, in March of 1779, Burr resigns his commission in the Continental Army and returns to his law studies, passing the bar and beginning to practice law in Albany, New York in 1782 (though out of the army, Burr will continue to remain active in the war by performing occasional intelligence missions for Washington's generals, and in 1779, by rallying a group of Yale students and local militia belonging to Captain James Hillhouse in the defense of New Haven, Connecticut).  And after a torrid romance lasting over two years, he gets over Margaret Moncrieffe by marrying the widow of a British officer ten years his senior, Theodosia Bartow Prevost (the couple will marry in 1782 and have one child, also named Theodosia, before Burr's wife dies of stomach cancer in 1794 at the age of 47).

Molly Pitcher At Monmouth

Aaron & Theodosia

War over and the British sent back to England, Burr serves in the New York State Assembly from 1784 to 1785.  In 1789, New York governor George Clinton appoints him the state attorney general.  Defeating Hamilton's father-in-law, incumbent Philip Schuyler, Burr is elected to the Federal government as a senator from New York in 1791, a position he holds until 1797.  In the presidential election of 1796, Burr finishes fourth for the government's number one job behind John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Pinckney.  Public service at the Federal level denied, Burr returns to New York politics in 1798 and serves in the state legislature again through the following year.  Running for the national presidency on a ticket with Thomas Jefferson (Burr is on the ballot to insure New York votes for the Democrat-Republican package) in 1800, the pair tie in electoral votes with 73 each.  Election thrown to the House of Representatives to resolve the tie, the presidency goes to Jefferson (largely through the behind-scenes efforts of Hamilton) and Burr becomes the vice-president, but one with little say in the governing of the country due to his machinations to steal the job from Jefferson, except for when Burr presides over the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Chase (the still only impeachment trial of a member of the Supreme Court in United States history ... Chase will be acquitted).  Dropped by Jefferson as his running mate for a second term in office in 1804, Burr runs for governor of New York (George Clinton is now Jefferson's number two), but once more loses (by the widest margin in state history) due to Alexander Hamilton's opposition.

Burr, Hamilton, And Schuyler Strolling Wall Street

Clinton

Jefferson

On Wednesday morning, July 11, 1804, in separate boats, Hamilton and Burr are rowed from Manhattan across the Hudson River to New Jersey (dueling illegal in both states, New Jersey is chosen because the state seems to be less aggressive in prosecuting the activity).  Burr and his associates, including second William Peter Van Ness, arrive at the site at roughly 6:30 in the morning, while Hamilton and his principles (his second is Judge Nathaniel Pendleton) arrive about thirty minutes later.  Verbal traditions followed, lots are cast for choice of position and weapons to be used to start the duel, both picks being won by Judge Pendleton who elects to have Hamilton fire from the upper edge of a ledge facing New York City.  With witnesses facing away from the duelists so that they can deny seeing anything should the event be prosecuted by New Jersey officials, weapons in hand, the two men take up positions ten paces from each other and await the order to "present" before firing.  Burr is 48-years-old and has only defended his honor once before, also against Hamilton, in a matter that was resolved before bullets needed firing to find a solution.  Hamilton on the other hand is quite familiar with dueling, having been involved in over a dozen affairs of honor over the course of his 49 years on earth that include disputes with New Hampshire politician William Gordon (1779), South Carolina politician Aedanus Burke (1790), Maryland politician John Francis Mercer (1792 and again in 1793), Continental naval officer James Nicolson (1795), future 5th American president James Monroe (1797), New York State senator Ebenezer Purdy (1804), and New York governor and future vice-president to both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, George Clinton (1804).  Additionally, Hamilton takes on the role of second to John Laurens in his 1779 duel with Continental Army General Charles Lee and to legal client John Auldjo in his 1787 duel with Georgia politician William Pierce.  And near the spot Hamilton has his duel with Burr upon, the former gunner has already lost his eldest son, Philip, when the 19-year-old boy is killed by New York lawyer George Eacker in an 1801 duel (Hamilton is actually against the practice having lost his son in a duel and for religious and practical reasons involving his roles as father and husband, jeopardizing the welfare of his family, and putting his creditors at risk), Hamilton decides to go forth with the challenge from Burr, but will deliberately delope (throw away his shot) when it is his turn to fire.

Memorial At The Site Of The Duel

Readying To Fire

"Present!"  With the dueling call to fire, acting as he stated he would, Hamilton snaps off his delope, a bullet which hits the limb of a cedar tree behind Burr, thirteen feet off the ground and about four feet wide of where Burr is standing ... a miss.  Unaware of Hamilton's pledge but cognizant that a slug from his opponent has passed by, Burr fires at Hamilton a split-second later, hitting his enemy with a ball that strikes his target's lower abdomen above the right hip, ricochets off a rib, fracturing the bone and sending lethal internal damaging splinters into Hamilton's diaphragm and liver, before coming to rest lodged into the man's second lumbar vertebra.  Dropping his pistol to the ground, Hamilton collapses as Dr. David Hosack rushes to his side, and Burr is walked off the field by his second to hide behind an umbrella.  Supported in the arms of Judge Pendleton, Hamilton tells Dr. Hosack that he believes his wound is mortal before lapsing into unconsciousness.  Treated with spirits of hartshorn (a form of smelling salts featuring ammonia) on Hamilton's face, lips, temples, neck, chest, wrists, the palms of his hands, and even a little in his mouth, Hamilton wakes during the boat ride back to Manhattan, but only talks about taking care of his dueling pistol, asking how his heart rate is, and mentioning that he has no feeling in his lower extremities before drifting into unconsciousness again.  Back on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, Hamilton is taken to the New York City home of William Bayard Jr. where he is given communion by Bishop Benjamin Moore.  Correct in believing he has been dealt a mortal wound, in considerable pain after being shot 31 hours before, Hamilton dies the next day in the presence of 20 friends and family members after saying goodbye to his wife and children (he is buried in the Manhattan's Trinity Churchyard Cemetery).  Burr meanwhile is charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey (from being shot in one state and dying in another), but the killing is never brought to trial, New York will drop the charges and the New Jersey Supreme Court will quash dealing with the matter based on a motion from New Jersey politician and Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Matthias Ogden (a distant relative by marriage to Burr).      

The Pistols Used In The Duel

Mortally Wounded

   Unaware that all charges against him will eventually be dropped, Burr flees to the South Carolina home of his daughter and her husband, wealthy landowner Joseph Alston (during this time period, Burr will use the alias, Roswell King), spends a month at the Georgia plantation (a huge affair of over 500 slaves toiling on 800 acres of land planted for cotton and 300 acres of land dedicated to producing  rice) of South Carolina Senator Pierce Butler, on St. Simons Island.  Nerves regained, he spends some time in Philadelphia before returning to Washington D.C. to complete his duties as vice-president to Thomas Jefferson.  Term ended in 1805, Burr travels about the country's western frontier and puts together an incredible plan to create his own independent country in Texas and Mexico, a new nation capable of besting the land of Santa Anna or capturing Washington D.C. (for the task, he is said to have between 40 and 7,000 men at his disposal).  His main allies in the effort are the unreliable General James Wilkinson, the New Orleans-based commander of the United States Army and lawyer Harman Blennerhassett, and the plot soon becomes public knowledge when Wilkinson tells President Jefferson of what Burr has planned.  Captured at Bayou Pierre in Louisiana with a contingent of his men, Burr will escape, be rearrested, and in 1807 goes on trial in Richmond, Virginia on charges of treason.  Presided over by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, Burr's trial will bring into question the nature of "treason" and what constitutes an "overt" act, the ideas of executive privilege, the independence of the executive branch of government, state secret privileges, blank pardons signed by Jefferson to encourage suspect witnesses giving testimony against Burr, and features over 140 witnesses (one being future United States president, Andrew Jackson), including Jacob Allbright, who perjures himself testifying as to a raid on an island where Burr's militia were purported to be training.  Trial beginning on May 22, 1807, Burr is acquitted of all charges on September 1, 1807.  But acquitted in court does not constitute being found not guilty in the hearts of the public, and Burr will be hung in effigy and his straw representation burnt around the country by angry mobs, along with those of Blennerhassett, lawyer Luther Martin, and Justice Marshall.  A pariah to all but a few friends and his family (and a boogey man for the young nation second only to Benedict Arnold), Burr flees the country and his creditors (he will be loaned money for his passage to Europe, by Dr. David Hosack, the same physician who treated Hamilton after his duel with Burr) and goes into self-imposed exile from 1808 to 1812, time during which he becomes a good friend and confidant of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, spends time in Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and France, is ordered out of England for continuing to seek funds with which to conquer Mexico, and is refused an audience with Napoleon Bonaparte to discuss attacking British interests in the Caribbean.  Returning from Europe, for awhile, Burr will operate under his mother's maiden name of Edwards to avoid creditors, but with the help of friends Samuel Swartwout and Matthew L. Davis is able to practice law again in New York.  Helping the heirs of the Eden family win a financial lawsuit, he will join Eden's widow and his two daughters as a surrogate member of their family until 1833.  On July 1, 1833, at the age of 77, Burr marries for the second time in his life, taking Eliza Jumel as his wife, a wealthy widow 19 years younger than the duelist.  The marriage does not last long however and the pair separate and then divorce when Jumel discovers her fortune dwindling as Burr uses her money for failed land speculations.  And summing up how her feelings have changed for Burr, handling her divorce from the man in 1834 will be Alexander Hamilton Junior.  Not surprisingly, shortly thereafter Burr suffers a massive immobilizing stroke.  He dies on September 14, 1836 in a Port Richmond boardinghouse (that will become the St. James Hotel) on Staten Island at the age of 80 ... on the same day as his divorce from Eliza Jumel becomes final (he will be buried beside his father in Princeton).  

Wilkerson

Marshall

Jumel

Burr's Death Mask

Sending the country (and early American historians) into a tizzy of grief, remorse and anger, the third vice-president of the United States, Aaron Burr Jr., kills brilliant administrator, politician, and military hero, Alexander Hamilton on a New Jersey field of honor in a duel that takes place on  7/11/1804.

The Duel

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