The final meeting of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr took place in in 1804. It ended with Burr mortally wounding Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton and Burr first met in 1776, during the American Revolution. Their wartime experiences would shape their lives as Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr recounts. They were both young American officers at the time working to defend New York City against a British attack. Burr was a tough Revolutionary War combat veteran, having fought in the 1775 campaign to seize Canada from the British. In Canada, Burr battled alongside then Colonel Benedict Arnold and attacked the walled city of Quebec with General Richard Montgomery. Burr next accepted an invitation to join Washington’s headquarters staff. This book includes an account of Captain Burr’s brief tenure on the job that led to a lifelong animosity between him and Washington. In 1776, Hamilton was a captain and commander of a New York State artillery company. He leveled his cannons at the British at New York City, White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton before joining Washington’s headquarters staff. Both Hamilton and Burr wintered at Valley Forge and fought in the day-long Battle of Monmouth. After recounting the Revolutionary War exploits of Hamilton and Burr, this book then describes their postwar lives and political rivalry and why Washington told then President John Adams in 1798 that Hamilton was his principal aide de camp. Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr is a fresh approach to the American Revolution from the standpoint of two of its most interesting participants.

A vivid narrative history of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and their infamous duel Duel is a remarkable retelling of the fatal 1804 duel between former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr. Thomas Fleming takes the reader into the post-revolutionary world of the early nineteenth century, a chaotic and fragile time in the young country as well as a time of tremendous global instability. The success of the French Revolution and the proclamation of Napoleon as First Consul for Life had enormous impact on men like Hamilton and Burr, feeding their own political fantasies at a time of perceived Federal government weakness and corrosion. Their hunger for fame spawned antagonisms that wreaked havoc on themselves and their families and threatened to destabilize the fragile young American republic. From that poisonous brew came the tangle of regret and anger and ambition that drove the two men to their murderous confrontation in Weehawken, New Jersey. This is popular narrative history at its most authoritative, and authoritative history at its most readable--a must for readers interested in Hamilton, Burr, and America's early history.

From the bestselling author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series, the epic history of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's illustrious and eccentric political careers and their fateful rivalry. The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was the culmination of a story three decades in the making. Rivals unto Death vividly traces their rivalry back to the earliest days of the American Revolution, when Hamilton and Burr -- both brilliant, restless, and barely twenty years old -- elbowed their way onto the staff of General George Washington. The fast-moving account traces their intricate tug-of war, uncovering surprising details that led to their deadly encounter through battlefields, courtrooms, bedrooms, and the wildest presidential election in history, counting down the years to their fateful rendezvous on the dueling ground. This is politics made personal: shrill accusations, bruising collisions, and a parade of flesh and blood founders struggling--and often failing--to keep their tempers and jealousies in check. Smoldering in the background was a fundamental political divide that threatened to tear the new nation in two, and still persists to this day. The Burr and Hamilton that leap out of these pages are passionate, engaging, and utterly human characters inextricably linked together as Rivals unto Death.