Sedgwick - War of two Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the duel that stunned the nation

O NE FALL AFTERNOON several years ago, I was in the reading room of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a splendid brick bastion in Bostons leafy Fenway neighborhood. I was prowling through the societys extensive collection of Sedgwick family papers for a book I was writing about my familys history when the head librarian, Peter Drummey, came up and tapped me on the shoulder and said he had something to show me.

Weve got this one on display up front, he whispered. Come, you should see it. He led me through a series of rooms to an exhibition space showing the societys prized holdings in long glass cases. Peter stopped beside one of them and pointed toward a wrinkled letter, yellowed with age, its once-black ink long since faded to brown, that was propped up on glass. There. Take a look.

I bent over the case. New York, July 10, 1804, I read out.

My Dear Sir

I have received two letters from you since we last saw each otherthat of the latest date being the 24 of May. I have had in hand for some time a long letter to you, explaining my view of the course and tendency of our Politics, and my intentions as to my own future conduct. But my plan embraced so large a range that owing to much avocation, some indifferent health, and a growing distaste for Politics, the letter is still considerably short of being finishedI write this now to satisfy you, that want of regard for you has not been the cause of my silence

Wait, this isnt? I asked.

Peter nodded. YesAlexander Hamiltons last letter. Written the night before he was shot. By the sitting vice president Aaron Burr, he need hardly have added, in the famous duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, in 1804, an event that Henry Adams called the most dramatic moment in the politics of the early Republic.

And look, its to one of yours. He beamed. His good friend and legislative ally Theodore Sedgwick. Of coursethe name was scrawled hastily across the bottom.

Id known about the letter, but Id never seen it. Theodore was my great-great-great-grandfather. A career politician, hed helped push Hamiltons economic agenda through the House when he was a representative from Massachusetts, and ultimately rose to become Speaker of the House for the fateful election of 1800 that wrested control away from his Federalist Party and turned it over to Thomas Jefferson and the Republican Jacobins, as he thought of them, alluding to the bloodthirsty radicals of the French Revolution. Much to Hamiltons distress, Theodore had tried fruitlessly to steer the election to Burr, a friend from the Berkshires. Still, Theodore had been one of the only politicians whod remained a trusted friend of both men, which was why Hamilton was writing him then.

We will return to the letter later, in its time. Taken out of context, it may seem tangential and, unusually for Hamilton, wildly overblown. It is likely to defy expectations as to why Hamilton crossed the Hudson at daybreak and faced his doom. In a few choice sentences, Hamilton offered a better explanation about his part in the duel, and a better prediction of what would come from it, than he did anywhere else. Theodore Sedgwick never responded, since by then there was no one to respond to.

When earlier members of the family encountered the letter, they could see its value to history, for several added urgent notations on the back before they passed the letter down to the next generation. All conveyed the same message: