<Archive Obituary> Alexander Hamilton (July 12th 1804)
Bill Schenley
Portrait:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/RevWar/ss/p095.jpg
FROM: The Balance, Columbian Repository
(Hudson, New-York July 17th 1804) ~
At New-York, on Thursday last, of a wound received the
morning previous, in a duel with Col. Burr,
Gen. ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
We are not able to add particulars, nor are we disposed to
offer any reflections on this melancholy event, at present.
In some future number, we shall endeavor to evince our
respect for this truly great man.
The gentlemen of the bar, who were attending the Circuit at
Claverack, on hearing the confirmation of the above
intelligence, unanimously agreed to wear a crape on the left
arm for one month, as a token of their regard for Gen.
Hamilton.
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Portrait: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/hamilton7.jpg
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Hamilton's letter to his wife (July 10th 1804) ~
My beloved Eliza
Mrs. Mitchel is the person in the world to whom as a
friend I am under the greatest Obligations. I have not
hitherto done my duty to her. But resolved to repair
my omission as much as possible, I have encouraged
her to come to this Country and intend, if it shall be in
my power to render the Evening of her days
comfortable. But if it shall please God to put this out
of my power and to inable you hereafter to be of
service to her, I entreat you to do it and to treat her
with the tenderness of a Sister.
This is my second letter.
The Scruples of a Christian have determined me to
expose my own life to any extent rather than subject
my self to the guilt of taking the life of another. This
must increase my hazards & redoubles my pangs for
you. But you had rather I should die innocent than
live guilty. Heaven can preserve me and I humbly
hope will but in the contrary event I charge you to
remember that you are a Christian. God's Will be
done. The will of a merciful God must be good.
Once more Adieu My Darling darling Wife
AH
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Portrait: http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bioh1/hami1b.jpg
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<Excerpt>
FROM: "Alexander Hamilton"
By Willard Sterne Randall
Alexander Hamilton lasted thirty-one hours after
Aaron Burr shot him. When they finally got him into a
bed on the second floor of Bayard's house on
Chambers Street, he was nearly comatose. The doctor
undressed him and administered a large dose of a
strong anodyne, a painkiller. During the first day,
Hosack gave Hamilton more than an ounce of opoium
and cider potion, called laudanum, washing it down
with watered wine. But, Hosack noted, "his sufferings
during the whole day were almost intolerable." The ball
had lodged inside his second lumbar disk, which had
shattered, paralyzing his legs. His stomach was slowly
filling with blood from severed blood vessels in his liver.
Hosack "had not the shadow of a hope of his recovery,"
but he called in surgeons from French men-of-war
anchored in the harbor who "had much experience in
gunshot wounds." They agreed that Hamilton's condition
was hopeless.
During the night of July 11, the sedated Hamilton "had
some imperfect sleep". He knew he had little time left to
live: he asked Bayard to summon the Reverend Benjamin
Moore, Episcopal bishop of New York and president of
Columbia College, where Hamilton had once been a
scholarship boy. In recent months, Hamilton had prayed
Episcopal Matins and Vespers with his family at home.
He had not attended any church since the Revolution.
When the bishop arrived, he refused Hamilton Holy
Communion after he learened that Hamilton not only had
never been baptized an Episcopalian, but had been
wounded in a duel, something Moore considered a mortal
sin. Instead, the bishop gave Hamilton a lecture on the
meaning of communion and left him to take some "time for
serious reflection". Hamilton, clearheaded and determined
now, asked the Bayards to send for the Reverend John
M. Mason, pastor of the Presbyterian church and son of
the man who had once sponsored him for a place at a
Presbyterian academy when he had arrived in New York,
an orphan from the West Indies. Hamilton as a boy had
undergone a strong Presbyterian conversion experience -
although, as a bastard, he had not been allowed to receive
Presbyterian communion. But this Reverend Mason
informed Hamilton that he could only receive communion
in church, at the altar, during a regular Sunday ceremony.
Hamilton pleaded for Bayard to go once more to Bishop
Moore and try to persuade him.
It was noontime on the twelfth, more than twenty-four hours
after the duel, before Elizabeth Hamilton arrived with their
seven children. No one had told her the truth. Hamilton,
she believed, was suffering only from stomach cramps: he'd
had digestive disorders recently. Now she learned everything.
She became frantic. Hamilton had been semiconscious, his
eyes closed. He opened them, saw his children. His own
grief at seeing his daughter Angelica, half mad since her
brother's death in a duel over his father's politics, swept over
him. He closed his eyes again, only saying to his wife,
"Remember, Eliza, you are a Christian." It was as if he had
banished her. She left with the children, sobbing hysterically.
When Bishop Moore called again, he lectured Hamilton
once more on his own "delicate" situation. He wanted to help
"a fellow mortal in distress," but he must "unequivocally
condemn" dueling. Hamilton agreed with him "with sorrow
and contrition", Moore reported. If Hamilton survived,
would he vow never to duel again and use his influence to
oppose the "barbaric custom"? It was a promise Hamilton
found easy to make. Would he live "in love and charity with
all men"? He answered yes, he bore "no ill will" to Aaron Burr.
"I forgive all that happened." He received communion "with
great devotion," Moore recorded, and "his heart afterwards
appeared to be perfectly at rest."
But Hamilton was now writhing in agony. He could not hear
the commotion downstairs when a note arrived from Aaron
Burr, asking about his condition, and worrying about a rumor
that Hamilton had never intended to fire at him. When Bishop
More returned the morning of the twelfth, he stayed at
Hamilton's bedside - across the bed from another grief-stricken
visitor, Hamilton's sister-in-law, Angelica Schuyler Church.
She did not speak, nor did Hamilton. Over the years, they had
been lovers. For nearly thirty years, Angelica Church had
loved Hamilton more than her own dour, money-grubbing
husband. Church, an expert duelist, had fled England after
believing he had killed a man, changed his identity, grown rich
selling supplies during the Revolution, and then returned to take
a seat in Parliament. He often had left Angelica alone in their
Manhattan mansion near Hamilton's town house while
Elizabeth Schuyler stayed in the country with the children.
John Church's pistols had finally ended the affair. Hamilton
and Angelica could say nothing now. There was nothing more
to say.
On July 12, 1804, shortly after noon, with his mistress and
his bishop at his bedside, Alexander Hamilton died "without a
groan". He was forty-nine.
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Portraits:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13911/13911-h/images/ljv3-8_th.jpg
http://members.aol.com/johnmscalzi/hbduel.jpg
(Burr and Hamilton)
http://ap.grolier.com/images/cache/091/atbp2361.jpg
http://diglib.princeton.edu:8000/EADRBSC/images/bioghist/C0089.jpg
(Aaron Burr)
Alexander Hamilton in art:
http://www.thrall.org/hamilton/alexanderhamilton.jpg