Where this was said
Philip Hamilton's Death: A Tragic Precedent
At 40:28 · chapter starts 39:40
Three years before Weehawken, Hamilton's eldest son Philip challenged George Eacker to a duel after Eacker publicly criticised Alexander Hamilton. The elder Hamilton's advice: deliberately miss your shot on the first fire, giving the duel a chance to be settled peacefully. Philip followed the advice, but both men stood there for an agonising minute without firing, and when they did, Eacker shot Philip dead. Hamilton was devastated. The parallel with what was about to happen at Weehawken is almost unbearably ironic: Hamilton would give his son precisely the advice that killed him, and then follow that same advice himself. Tom is incredulous; Dominic notes that Hamilton had never actually fired a pistol in an affair of honour before, so perhaps the lesson had not fully landed.
Hamilton had seven children, a massive mortgage on his country house, debts his wife couldn't repay — and he personally opposed dueling on moral grounds. Yet he accepted Burr's challenge because he believed public opinion required it and he needed to preserve his political usefulness for the Republic's future crises.
In a pre-duel statement, Hamilton wrote that he intended to deliberately miss with his first shot and even his second, giving Burr two chances to stand down — a decision that likely cost him his life.
