Alexander Hamilton: Illegitimate Child and Orphan Who Had A Lifelong Obsession With Honor

This 2003 PBS documentary on founding father Alexander Hamilton, produced before the publication of Ron Chernow’s seminal biography and the subsequent Broadway musical, is nevertheless quite interesting. It is less than two hours in length.

Hamilton’s THREE Duels

The History Guy remembers three of Hamilton’s duels, two pistols, and one place. He was a party to no less than 10 “affairs of honor,” seven as a primary and three as someone’s second. He almost fought James Monroe, for allegedly revealing to “journalist” and scandal-monger James Callendar his affair with Maria Reynolds, and of course Hamilton’s son Philip was killed in a duel in 1801, at the same spot that Hamilton himself would die in New Jersey at the hand of Aaron Burr.