Hamilton arose convulsively on his toes, reeled, and Burr, dropping his smoking pistol, sprang towards him to support him, a look of regret on his face.
Van Ness raised an umbrella over the fallen man, and motioned Burr to be gone.
The ball passed through Hamilton's body, breaking a rib, and lodging in the second lumbar vertebra.
The bullet from Hamilton's pistol cut a twig four feet above Burr's head.
While he was lying on the ground Hamilton saw his pistol near and said, "Look out for that pistol, it is loaded—Pendleton knows I did not intend to fire at him!"
Hamilton died the following day, first declaring that he bore Colonel Burr no ill-will.
Colonel Burr said he very much regretted the whole affair, but the language and attitude of Hamilton forced him to send a challenge or remain quiet and be branded as a coward. He fully realized before the meeting that if he killed Hamilton it would be political death for him, too.
At the time of the deed Burr had no family; Hamilton had a wife and seven children, his oldest son having fallen in a duel fought three years before on the identical spot where he, too, fell.
Burr fled the country.
Three years afterwards, he was arrested for treason in trying to found an independent State within the borders of the United States. He was tried and found not guilty.