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The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

Page 13

by H. W. Brands


  The discussion grew more animated. “It happened that some gentlemen who belonged to the bar, had commenced a controversy on some critical point in law, very near the old gentleman. He occasionally regarded them with a look, as if to penetrate the recesses of their souls; and then resumed his posture. At length, a young smart, with a significant glance, accosted him: ‘Old gentleman, what is your opinion?’

  “The man of silence and mystery spoke—and lo! what was our astonishment! His countenance, which was before shaded with the gloom of melancholy, brightened with intelligence; the loftiest eloquence flowed from his tongue, which was so long silent; and those eyes which were vacantly fixed upon the passing wave, now beamed with the fire of his soul! The transcendent brightness of his mind now broke forth—the halo of genius shone around him. The disputants viewed him with silent wonder. The importance of the sons and daughters of fashion vanished like mist before the rising sun. All eyes were fixed upon the extraordinary stranger—all were desirous to know his name.

  “Inquiry was made—and, reader! that stranger was AARON BURR!”

  SOURCES

  The principal source for the present book is the correspondence between Aaron Burr and Theodosia Burr Alston. Surviving letters between the two appear primarily in Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous Selections from His Correspondence, edited by Matthew L. Davis, two volumes (1836); and Correspondence of Aaron Burr and His Daughter Theodosia, edited by Mark Van Doren (1929). The Private Journal of Aaron Burr During His Residence of Four Years in Europe, With Selections from His Correspondence, edited by Matthew L. Davis, two volumes (1838), covers the exile years. The Memoirs contain letters from Aaron Burr to many other correspondents, as do the Papers of Aaron Burr, twenty-seven reels of microfilm (1977), and Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, edited by Mary-Jo Kline, two volumes (1983). Trial of Aaron Burr for Treason, Printed from the Report Taken in Short Hand, edited by David Robertson, two volumes (1875), reproduces arguments and testimony from the 1807 trial.

  Aaron Burr has been the subject of many biographies, of which the serious ones began with James Parton’s The Life and Times of Aaron Burr (1857) and continue through Nancy Isenberg’s Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (2007). Thomas Fleming’s Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America (1999) is the most revealing recent telling of the fateful encounter at Weehawken.

  Theodosia Burr Alston has received much less attention than her father. Charles F. Pidgin’s Theodosia: The First Gentlewoman of Her Time (1907) and Richard Côté’s Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy (2003) are the most thorough biographies in a small field.

  The events and individuals surrounding Burr and Theo are the subject of many hundreds of worthy volumes, for they constitute the story of America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

 

 

 


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