As challenged, Hamilton had the right to choose the weapons he brought to Weehawken. Strangely, they belonged to his brother-in-law, John Barker Church, and were the same weapons his son used and that Church used on a separate occasion in a duel against Burr, the biggest injury being Burr losing a button on his coat. . The weapons, produced in London, were a striking matter of brass barrels and gold mounts. Its extremely large .54 caliber rounds had low precision, like any dueling pistol, but were extremely dangerous indoors.
At seven in the morning, Hamilton and Burr took their positions … but before the shooting started, Hamilton requested a delay. “Stop,” he said. “In certain states of light, you need glasses.” Burr patiently agreed. And as his apologists later noted, he gave no indication that Hamilton planned to shoot his shot when he squinted and aimed at several imaginary targets, including possibly Burr. The same apologists also like to point out that Hamilton did not tell Burr that the weapons had a trigger in their hair. However, Pendleton dismisses any suggestion of covert intent by recalling that he asked if he should adjust the hair trigger, and Hamilton replied, “Not this time.”
After Hamilton was satisfied with his vision, the duel began. As soon as Pendleton uttered “present,” two shots rang out, as witnessed by Van Ness, Pendleton, and Hosack. The time between those shots and who fired first is a different matter. However, it was agreed that Hamilton fell almost instantaneously after being hit, and Burr’s first reaction was to start towards his old friend. Even Pendleton recognized when he saw Burr walking towards the fallen, he had “an expression of regret.” However, Burr’s Second, Van Ness, did not allow him to reach Hamilton. Rather the rowers were approaching. To keep that denial ever precious, Van Ness, absurdly enough for the modern eye, was blocking Burr’s vision (and also hiding it from rowers) by opening an umbrella and using it as a shield.
Van Ness brought Burr back into the water, where the victor said, “I must go talk to him,” but Van Ness refused. Meanwhile, as soon as Dr. Hosack arrived in Hamilton, the Treasury secretary is said to have said, “This is a fatal wound, Doctor” before passing out. For his part, Hosack suspected that Hamilton would be dead before arriving in Manhattan. That turned out to be inaccurate. Hamilton even regained consciousness in the boat and asked a rower to be careful with his pistol, because he believed it was “not yet unloaded”, suggesting that Hamilton did not know that he fired the weapon in the duel.
Upon arriving in New York, Hamilton was taken to the home of his friend and loyal James Baynard. It turns out that the bullet had entered two or three inches from his hip, bounced through his rib cage, pierced his liver, and finally settled on the second lumbar vertebra of his spine. He died slowly at Baynard’s mansion over the next 30 hours. At 2 p.m. the following day, he died with Eliza, her seven surviving children, her sister-in-law Angelica, and an Episcopalian bishop present.
