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The musical Hamilton (spoiler alert) involves several Duels, and the rules are introduced with a quite formal explanation. (It’s a nicely choreographed piece of
by LeonB 4y ago
The musical Hamilton (spoiler alert) involves several Duels, and the rules are introduced with a quite formal explanation. (It’s a nicely choreographed piece of exposition).
In the musical the first step to having a Duel is to go across the river to Jersey, as it’s legal there (“everything is legal in Jersey”)
Another interesting part is that a doctor attends, and turns his back during the duel itself, in order to provide plausible deniability.
- khy 4y agoDidn't Chernow say that at the time that Hamilton and Burr dueled, that dueling wasn't really a thing anyone did?
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Didn’t Chernow say that at the time that Hamilton and Burr dueled, that dueling wasn’t really a thing anyone did? It was declining in the North (where it occurred), not so much in the South and elsewhere. The last notable political duel in the United States might be the Broderick-Terry duel in San Francisco in 1859.
- ubermonkey 4y agoI suppose it was probably on its way out, but nb. that Hamilton's son had died in a duel only 3 years before. Andrew Jackson fought in at least two, killing a man in 1806, and was later president. Apparently, Mark Twain only narrowly escaped dueling with a rival newspaper editor (!) in 1864. Given the accounts of folks taking bullets to the torso and surviving, it's hard to avoid concluding that dueling perhaps only continued because of the relative inefficacy (lower energy & accuracy) of firearms of the era. Jackson took a bullet to the CHEST and survived, as noted.
- Bad_CRC 4y agoIt's the ten duel commandments! Came here just for the Hamilton reference tbh.
- LeonB 4y ago(But you did not point out that I incorrectly said the first commandment is to go to Jersey, when that’s nowhere near the first. I am a very poor reteller of Ham’)
- ubermonkey 4y agoCan you spoil history? The show is in lots of ways built around those three duels, which makes sense given that the elephant in the room of any story about Hamilton and Burr is their ultimate duel. The first duel, in December of 1778, is between Laurens and Charles Lee, who was challenged by Laurens for running down General Washington's leadership after being relieved of command for his failure at Monmouth. What makes this an inescapable part of the show, IMO, is that Hamilton was Laurens' second and Burr was Lee's. (Charles Lee took a bullet in the duel, but it wasn't apparently serious -- he lived until 1782, and probably died of tuberculosis.) The second, famously, was between Hamilton's son and George Eacker, in 1801. (Eacker, too, died of TB, in 1804.) Obviously, the final one was between Hamilton and Burr, in the summer of 1804.