Hamilton’s son Philip had pretty much the same experience 3 years before: he fired over his opponent’s head and his opponent drilled him. Dueling just wasn’t what the Hamiltons were good at.
I’ve always felt Hamilton was ready to die. He was in financial ruin (had he lived he’d have probably gone to debtor’s prison; his family was saved by the charity of rich friends), he was in mourning for his son (so much so that he named his last baby Philip Schuyler Hamilton II after the eldest) and his daughter’s insanity (blamed on the duel but probably more complicated than that), and his political and legal reversals were mounting. I don’t think he particularly cared whether he left the field alive or not.
Any thoughts on Vidal’s theory as to what provoked the duel? In his novel Burr he used it as a plot device but in interviews he has said it is actually his hypothesis that the unknown insult was
Hamilton accused Aaron Burr of having an incestuous relationship with his own daughter, Theodosia
Most biographers discount it, but you have to admit it would be worth killing a man for repeating.
Few people know that Lincoln also was challenged to a duel and accepted. He chose broadswords or cavalry sabers as the weapon because he felt his height and muscles gave him an advantage over his opponent, James Shields, who had military training and was an excellent shot. The provocation was a series of editorials signed “Rebecca” that Shields believed Lincoln had written (though his on again/off again fiancee Mary Todd was the more likely author). The men both rode 80 miles from Springfield to the tidal island off the shore of Alton, IL (then known as Sunflower Island, later as Smallpox Island, now the Lincoln Shields Recreational Area). Accounts vary as to whether they actually crossed swords or not, but by all accounts it was ultimately resolved peacefully with neither man being harmed, and afterward they became friends (to a degree anyway). Further trivia: while Shields spent most of his career in Minnesota but is one of Illinois’s two statues in the Capitol.