Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were born antagonists:  their personalities, their ideals, their methods, were as diverse and as implacably divergent as the poles.  Hamilton, as a statesman, believed that Burr was dangerous; and so he was:  sky rockets and geniuses usually are.  Hamilton did his brilliant best to destroy the other’s power (it was chiefly due to his efforts that Burr missed the Presidency), and, being a notably courageous man, he was not afraid to go on warning America against him.

And so it all came about:—­the exchange of letters—­haughty, courteously insolent, utterly unyielding on both sides—­then the challenge, and finally the duel.

I am glad to think that Theo Alston was safe among her husband’s rice fields at that time.  She worshipped her father, and everything that hurt him stabbed her to her devoted heart.

It was in an early, fragrant dawn—­Friday the sixth of July, 1804—­that Burr and his seconds left our beautiful Richmond Hill, where the birds were singing and the pond just waking to the morning light, for Weehawken Heights on the Jersey shore.

At about seven, Burr reached the ground which had been appointed.  Just after came Hamilton with his seconds, and the surgeon, Dr. Hosack.  The distance was punctiliously measured, and these directions read solemnly to the principals: 

“The parties, being placed at their stations, shall present and fire when they please.  If one fires before the other, the opposite second shall say 1—­2—­3—­fire; and he shall then fire or lose his fire.”

Then came the word “Present!” from one of the witnesses.  Both duellists fired and Hamilton dropped.  Burr was untouched.  He stood for a second looking at his fallen adversary, and then (as the story goes), “with a gesture of profound regret, left the ground....”

Back to Richmond Hill and the troubled household gods.  Burr was no butcher, and he did not dislike Hamilton personally.  I wonder how many times he paced the cool dining-room with the balcony outside, and how many times he refused meat or drink, before he despatched his note to Dr. Hosack?  Here it is: 

     “Mr. Burr’s respectful compliments.—­He requests Dr. Hosack
     to inform him of the present state of General H., and of the
     hopes which are entertained of his recovery.

“Mr. Burr begs to know at what hour of the day the Dr. may most probably be found at home, that he may repeat his enquiries.  He would take it very kind if the Dr. would take the trouble of calling on him, as he returns from Mr. Bayard’s.”

On the thirteenth, the New York Herald published: 

     “With emotions that we have not a hand to inscribe, have we
     to announce the death of Alexander Hamilton.

     “He was suddenly cut off in the forty-eighth year of his
     age, in the full vigour of his faculties and in the midst of
     all his usefulness.”