Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

In 1801, just after her father had received the famous tied vote for the Presidency and declined to enter into the conspiracy which aimed to prefer him to Jefferson, recipient of the popular majority, Theodosia Burr was married to Joseph Alston, a young Carolina lawyer and planter who later became governor of his state. Thus, about the time her father was being installed as Vice-President, his happy and adoring daughter, his friend and confidante to the end, was making her twenty days’ journey to her new home in South Carolina, where her husband owned a residence in Charleston and several rice plantations in the northern part of the state.

At the time of the famous duel with Hamilton, in 1804, Burr was still Vice-President, still one of the chief political figures and at the very height of his popularity and fortune, an elevation from which that unfortunate encounter began his dislodgment. Theodosia was in the South with her husband at the time and knew nothing either of the challenge or of the duel itself until weeks after Hamilton was dead.

Of the merits of the Burr-Hamilton controversy or the right and wrong of either man’s conduct little need be said here. As time goes on it becomes more and more apparent that Burr in no way exceeded becoming conduct or violated the gentlemanly code as then practised. Hamilton had been his persistent and by no means always honorable enemy. He had attacked and not infrequently belied his opponent, thwarting him where he could politically and even resorting to the use of his personal connections for the private humiliation of his foe. The answer in 1804 to such tactics was the challenge. Burr gave it and insisted on satisfaction. Hamilton met him on the heights at Weehawken, across the Hudson from New York, and fell mortally wounded at the first exchange, dying thirty-one hours later.

It is evident from a reading of the newspapers of the time and from the celebrated sermon on Hamilton’s death delivered by Dr. Nott, later president of Union College, that duelling was then so common that there existed “a preponderance of opinion in favor of it,” and that the spot at which Hamilton fell was so much in use for affairs of honor that Dr. Nott apostrophized it as “ye tragic shores of Hoboken, crimsoned with the richest blood, I tremble at the crimes you record against us, the annual register of murders which you keep and send up to God!” Nevertheless, the town was shocked by the death of Hamilton, and Burr’s enemies seized the moment to circulate all manner of absurd calumnies which gained general credence and served to undo the victorious antagonist.

It was reported that Hamilton had not fired at all, a story which was refuted by his powder-stained empty pistol. Next it was charged that Burr had coldly shot his opponent down after he had fired into the air. The fact seems to be that Hamilton discharged his weapon a fraction of a second after Burr, just as he was struck by his adversary’s ball. Hamilton’s bullet cut a twig over Burr’s head. The many yarns to the general effect that Burr was a dead shot and had practised secretly for months before he sent the challenge seem also to belong to the realm of fiction. Burr was never an expert with fire-arms, but he was courageous, collected and determined. He had every right to believe, from Hamilton’s past conduct, that his opponent would show him no mercy on the field. Both men were soldiers and acquainted with the code and with the use of weapons.

But Hamilton’s friends were numerous, powerful and bitter. They left nothing undone that might bring upon Burr the fullest measure of public and private reprehension. The results of their campaign were peculiar, inasmuch as Burr lost his influence in the states which had formerly been the seat of his power and gained a high popularity in the comparatively weak new western states, where Hamilton and the Federalist leaders were regarded with hostility. At the expiration of his term of office Burr found himself politically dead and practically exiled by the charges of murder which had been lodged against him both in New York and New Jersey.

The duel and its consequences marked the beginning of the Burr misfortunes. Undoubtedly the ostracism which greeted him after his retirement from office was the immediate fact which moved him to undertake his famous enterprise against the West and Mexico, an adventure that resulted in his trial for treason. The fact that he was acquitted, even with the weight of the government and the personal influence of President Jefferson, his onetime friend, thrown against him, did not save him from still further popular dislike, and he was at length forced to leave the country. It was in the course of this exile in Europe that Theodosia wrote him the well known letter from which I quote an illuminating extract:

“I witness your extraordinary fortitude with new wonder at every new misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this subject, you appear to me so superior, so elevated above other men; I contemplate you with such a strange mixture of humility, admiration, reverence, love and pride, that very little superstition would be necessary to make me worship you as a superior being; such enthusiasm does your character excite in me. When I afterwards revert to myself, how insignificant my best qualities appear. My vanity would be greater if I had not been placed so near you; and yet my pride is our relationship. I had rather not live than not be the daughter of such a man.”

Burr remained abroad for four years, trying vainly to interest the British government and then Napoleon in various schemes of privateering. The net result of his activities in England was an order to leave the country. Nor did Burr fare any better in France. Napoleon simply refused to receive him and the American’s past acquaintance with and hospitable treatment of the emperor’s brother, once king of Westphalia, failed to avail him. Consequently, Burr slipped back into the United States in 1812, quite like a thief in the night, not certain what reception he might get and even fearful lest Hamilton’s wildest partisans might actually undertake to throw him into jail and try him for the shooting of their chief. The reception he got was hostile and suspicious enough, but there was no attempt to proceed legally.

Theodosia, who had never ceased to work in her father’s interest, writing to everyone she knew and beseeching all those who had been her friends in the days of Burr’s ascendancy, in an effort to clear the way for his return to his native land, was overjoyed at the homecoming of her parent and expressed her pleasure in various charmingly written letters, wherein she promised herself the excitement of a trip to New York as soon as arrangements could be made.