ment the
word was given, raising his arm deliberately and taking aim. The ball
struck Hamilton on the side, and, as he reeled under the blow, his
pistol was discharged into the air. "I should have shot him through the
heart," said Burr, afterwards, "but, at the moment I was about to fire,
my aim was confused by a vapor." Burr stepped forward with a gesture of
regret, when he saw his adversary fall; but his second hurried him from
the field, screening him with an umbrella from the recognition of the
surgeon and bargemen.

Hamilton was carried to the house of Mr. Bayard, in the suburbs of the
city. The news flew through the town, producing intense excitement.
Bulletins were posted at the Tontine, and changed with every new report.
Crowds soon gathered around Mr. Bayard's house, and in the grounds. So
deep was the feeling, that visitors were permitted to pass one by one
through the room where Gen. Hamilton was lying. From the first, there
was no hope of his recovery. This opinion of the most eminent surgeons
in the city was concurred in by the surgeons of two French frigates in
the harbor, who were consulted. Gen. Hamilton was a man of slight frame,
and a disorder, from which he had recently suffered, prevented the use
of the ordinary remedies. He retained his composure to the last; nor was
his fortitude disturbed until his seven children approached his bedside.
He gave them one look, and, closing his eyes, did not open them again
while they remained in the room. He expired at two o'clock on the day
after the duel.

He was not the only victim. His oldest daughter, a girl of twenty, whose
education he had carefully directed, and whose musical talents gave him
great pleasure, never recovered from the shock of her father's death.
In her disordered fancy, she visited by night the fatal ground at
Weehawken, and told her friends that she crossed the river and returned
before morning. Her mind soon gave way entirely; and only last spring
death released her from a total, though gentle insanity of fifty years'
duration.

The sudden and tragic death of Alexander Hamilton produced a universal
feeling of sympathy and sorrow. As the leader of the bar, the advocate
of the Constitution, the statesman who had given the law to American
commerce, the most accomplished soldier in the army, and connected
with the still recent glories of the Revolution,--his name had become
familiar to every ear, and was associated with every subject of pop