And so it all came about:--the exchange of letters--haughty,
courteously insolent, utterly unyielding on both sides--then the
challenge, and finally the duel.
I am glad to think that Theo Alston was safe among her husband's rice
fields at that time. She worshipped her father, and everything that
hurt him stabbed her to her devoted heart.
It was in an early, fragrant dawn--Friday the sixth of July,
1804--that Burr and his seconds left our beautiful Richmond Hill,
where the birds were singing and the pond just waking to the morning
light, for Weehawken Heights on the Jersey shore.
At about seven, Burr reached the ground which had been appointed. Just
after came Hamilton with his seconds, and the surgeon, Dr. Hosack. The
distance was punctiliously measured, and these directions read
solemnly to the principals:
"The parties, being placed at their stations, shall present and fire
when they please. If one fires before the other, the opposite second
shall say 1--2--3--fire; and he shall then fire or lose his fire.
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