by Noah Hammond
I chose the letters of correspondence between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr before their duel. Specifically I chose Hamilton’s first response to Burr’s initial letter since I was interested in the events leading up to their duel. They started out seeing each other as a sort of respected rival, but gradually went in different directions in their political careers. Hearing that Hamilton died in a duel with Burr piqued my interest. To me it felt like a story line from a movie, so the fact that it actually happened to Alexander Hamilton drew me to their letters.
This letter is important because it shows what was going through Hamilton’s head right before his death. It gives a unique look at history that you wouldn’t get normally through a secondary source. Without documents like this we would have only a one dimensional knowledge of history.
To research deeper into Hamilton’s letter, I’ve been reading up on historical documents from 1800-1804 and attaching them to what Hamilton talks about or references in his letter. Since I already have the letter itself, and therefore Hamilton’s insight, pairing that with articles and other documents from that time period will give me a idea of the history behind Hamilton’s eventual death.
The biggest challenge so far with my research is finding documents that were extremely close to the dates on the letter. I’ve been able to find documents around the turn of the century, but I can’t find them with specific enough dates. My plan for getting over this challenge is to ask questions to the Librarian comes to talk on Thursday. With the resources that Georgia Tech provides, I should be able to find more relevant documents.
