The Trial of Aaron Burr

Transcriber’s Note: Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL
Frontispiece
THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR
BY JOSEPH P. BRADY Clerk of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
NEW YORK THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1913
Copyright, 1913, by The Neale Publishing Company
Among the records of the United States Courts at Richmond, Virginia, are the original papers in the case of the “United States versus Aaron Burr, Indictment for Treason.” The tawny fingers of time have dealt gently with these papers, and although more than a century old they are still in a good state of preservation.
The story of the trial of Aaron Burr has often been written, and there is little new that can be added; but these old manuscripts and official documents, so historic in their character, should at least in some form survive the ravages of time. It is with this thought in mind, and with the hope that possibly some fact not already recorded in history might be disclosed by the original papers, that this brief history is written.

On the evening of the 26th of March, 1807, Aaron Burr, attended by a military guard of nine men, under the command of Major Nicholas Perkins, who had been largely instrumental in his arrest, arrived in the City of Richmond, Virginia. Immediately upon his arrival he was lodged in the Eagle Tavern, the leading hostelry of its time in that city, where he remained confined until March 30th, when he was delivered to the civil authorities by virtue of a warrant issued by Chief Justice Marshall.
The preliminary examination of Burr was private. The warrant was served on him in his apartment by Major Scott, the Marshal of the Virginia District, who, after informing him of the object of his visit, conducted him to another room, where he was brought before the Chief Justice. The few persons present were Cæsar A. Rodney, Attorney-General of the United States; George Hay, the United States Attorney for the Virginia District; Edmund Randolph and John Wickham, counsel for the prisoner; the United States Marshal and his two deputies; and a few friends of the counsel for Burr.