Hamilton looking over the river toward the city, and Burr turned toward the heights under which they stood. As Pendleton gave Hamilton his pistol, he asked, "Will you have the hair-spring set?" "Not this time," was the quiet reply. Pendleton then explained to both principals the rules which had been agreed upon with regard to the firing; after the word present they were to fire as soon as they pleased. The seconds then withdrew to the usual distance. "Are you ready?" said Pendleton. Both answered in the affirmative. A moment's pause ensued. The word was given. The word was given. Burr raised his pistol, took aim, and fired. Hamilton sprang upon his toes with a convulsive movement, reeled a little toward the heights, at which moment he involuntarily discharged his pistol, and then fell forward headlong upon his face, and remained motionless on the ground. His ball rustled among the branches, seven feet above the head of his antagonist and four feet wide of him. Burr heard it, looked up, and saw where it had severed a twig. Looking at Hamilton, he beheld him falling, and sprang toward him with an expression of pain upon his face. But at the report of the pistols, Dr. Hosack, Mr. Davis, and the boatman hurried anxiously up the rocks to the scene of the duel; and Van Ness, with presence of mind, seized Burr, shielded him from observation with an umbrella, and urged him down the steep to the boat. It was pushed off immediately, and rowed swiftly back to Richmond Hill, where Swartwout, with feelings that may be imagined, received his unhurt chief-a chief no more! Mr. Pendleton raised his prostrate friend. Dr. Hosack found him sitting on the grass, supported in the arms of his second, with the ghastliness of death upon his countenance. "This is a mortal wound, doctor," he gasped; and then sunk away into a swoon. The doctor stripped off his clothes, and saw at a glance that the ball, which had entered his right side, must have penetrated a mortal part. Scarcely expecting him to revive, they conveyed him down among the large rocks to the shore, placed him tenderly in the boat, and set off for the city. The doctor now used the usual restoratives, and the wounded man gradually revived. "He breathed," to quote the doctor's words; "his eyes, hardly opened, wandered with out fixing upon any object; to our great joy, he at length spoke. 'My vision is indistinct,' were his first words. His pulse became more perceptible, his respiration more regular, his sight returned. Soon after recovering his sight, he happened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and observing the one that he had had in his hand lying on the outside, he said: 'Take care of that pistol; it is undischarged and still cocked; it may go off and do harm. Pendleton knows (attempting to turn his head toward him) that I did not intend to fire at him.' "Then he lay tranquil till he saw that the boat was approaching the wharf. He said: 'Let Mrs. Hamilton be immediately sent for; let the event be gradually broke to her, but give her hopes.' Looking up, he saw his friend, Mr. Bayard, standing on the wharf in great agitation. He had been told by his servant that General Hamilton, Mr. Pendleton, and myself, had crossed the river in a boat together; and too well he conjectured the fatal errand, and foreboded the dreadful result. Perceiving, as we came nearer, that Mr. Pendleton and myself only sat up in the stern-sheets, he clasped his hands together in the most violent apprehensions; but when I called to him to have a cot prepared, and he, at the same moment, saw his poor friend lying in the bottom of the boat, he threw up his eyes, and burst into a flood of tears and lamentations. Hamilton alone appeared tranquil and composed. We then conveyed him as tenderly as possible up to the house. The distress of his amiable family was such that, till the first shock had abated, they were scarcely able to summon fortitude enough to yield sufficient assistance to their dying friend." By nine in the morning the news began to be noised about in the city. A bulletin soon appeared on the board at the Tontine Coffee-House, and the pulse of the town stood still at the shocking intelligence. People started and turned pale as they read the brief announcement: "GENERAL HAMILTON WAS SHOT BY COLONEL BURR THIS MORNING IN A DUEL. THE GENERAL IS SAID TO BE MORTALLY WOUNDED." Bulletins, hourly changed, kept the city in agitation. All the circumstances of the catastrophe were told and retold, and exaggerated at every corner. The thrilling scenes that were passing at the bedside of the dying man-the consultations of the physicians-the arrival of the stricken family-Mrs. Hamilton's overwhelming sorrow-the resignation and calm dignity of the illustrious sufferer-his broken slumbers during the night-the piteous spectacle of the seven children entering together the awful apartment-the single look the dying father gave them before he closed his eyes-were all described with amplifications, and produced an impression that can only be imagined. He lingered thirty-one hours. The duel was fought on Wednesday morning. At two o'clock on Thursday afternoon, Hamilton died. The newspapers everywhere broke into declamation upon these sad events. I suppose that the "poems," the "elegies," and the "lines" which they suggested would fill a duodecimo volume of the size usually appropriated to verse. In the chief cities, the character of the deceased was made the subject of formal eulogium. The popular sympathy was recorded indelibly upon the ever-forming map of the United States, which bears the name of Hamilton forty times repeated. |