The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr by H.W. Brands is not a
classic work of history or a definitive biography but it does more to humanize
America’s most notorious founding father than any book I’ve read. (save perhaps for fiction) It’s a slender volume, 173 pages in paperback,
based primarily on the surviving letters between Aaron Burr and his daughter,
Theodosia. Burr’s relationship with his daughter is at
the center of the story. And while Burr
is remembered by history for audacious things – the killing of Alexander Hamilton
in a duel, his naked political ambition, his bold schemes to annex Western territory
– it is Burr, the loving father who emerges in this book. By focusing on Burr’s private correspondence
rather than his public notoriety, we see Burr in a surprisingly sympathetic
light. Brands’ narrative focuses on
Burr’s many disappointments, the defeat of his political aspirations, the loss
of his fortune, but most poignantly, the loss of his family culminating in his
daughter’s disappearance at sea. But there’s
also a sense of excitement in these pages.
Brands reminds us of how unique and remarkably thrilling Burr’s life
was.
Among the founding fathers, Burr is regarded as a dark
angel. But he has a resume unlike any
other: He was the grandson of colonial
America’s most famous pastor (Jonathan Edwards), a patriot and hero in the
Revolutionary War, New York’s first Attorney General, a Senator to Congress, a
leading attorney in New York City, Thomas Jefferson’s Vice President, a duelist
who killed his political rival (Hamilton), a leading advocate for education and
women’s rights, and an adventurer who was charged with treason for a plan to
annex Spanish territory and establish an independent nation. And we’ve only scratched the surface. But in
reading Brand’s account, one is struck by yet another side of Aaron Burr: Burr the traveler. Aaron Burr might have been the most widely traveled
American in the early years of the republic.
As a soldier in the Continental Army, Burr serves
throughout the Northern colonies and takes part in an expedition through the
Maine wilderness in a failed attack on Quebec. In the 1790s, he makes his
residence at Richmond Hill (roughly three blocks north of the Holland Tunnel
entrance in Manhattan) and over the next decade, politics and law take him from
Albany to Washington DC. But it is not until his middle age years that
the adventure truly begins. After
killing Hamilton in 1804, Burr has to flee.
Dueling is illegal in New York and New Jersey and Burr has many
political enemies who wish to see that law enforced. He
wants to visit his daughter in South Carolina but he’s a political pariah and doesn’t
wish to expose her. He journeys further
south to Saint Simons Island where he stays at the plantation of Senator Pierce
Butler. Eventually, he returns to
Washington where he resumes his duties as Vice President and presides over the
Senate.
But soon his term will be up and he will flee
again. This time from creditors. He goes
where Americans go when they want to escape their past. He goes west, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh
and then a houseboat down the Ohio River. He sees frontier towns – Wheeling, West Virginia, Marietta, Ohio and Louisville,
Kentucky. He visits Andrew Jackson in
Tennessee before continuing down the Mississippi River to Natchez and New
Orleans, the great port of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. President Jefferson has sent Lewis and Clark
to explore this territory and the land further west but they haven’t been heard
from in over year. Meanwhile Burr seems
to be everywhere. He meets Henry Clay in
Kentucky and General James Wilkinson in St. Louis. He sizes up the land and the people of these
western territories and he dreams of great things.
In 1806, Burr is reunited with his daughter and
again goes west to the Ohio River. A plan is hatched to gather an expeditionary
force and seize Spanish territory in the south and west. As far as President Thomas Jefferson is
concerned, this is treasonous. Federal
agents chase Burr and apprehend him in Pensacola. He is brought to Richmond, Virginia and tried
for treason. But whatever it was that
Burr was planning, there was no evidence that he was levying war against the United
States or aiding their enemies. Burr is
acquitted. But his prospects in New York
are limited and his creditors are growing in number. He again takes refuge in flight.
This time, he sails for London where he visits with
the famous writer and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. From across the sea, he still
dreams up plans for Spanish Florida, the territory between St. Augustine and
Baton Rouge. He longs to see his daughter, Theodosia. But it’s a tough time for an American to be in
England. The two nations are on the verge
of war. Burr travels to Scotland and then to Sweden,
where he marvels at the beauty of the women of Stockholm. He travels to Germany and meets the famous
poet, Johann Goethe (an episode curiously omitted from Banks’ book). In 1810, he travels to Paris. But the journey is no longer a grand tour of
romance and adventure. Burr is now a man
of modest means and the Paris of Napoleon is not friendly to him. He wants to return to the United States, but
is unable to secure a passport. He is
cold and must sell books in order to eat.
Eventually, he is able to sail
but only back to England. He finally
lands in Boston and then sails under a fake name to New York City.
Like Odysseus, the wily Burr finally returns home. There, he learns that his only grandson has
died of illness. And the reunion with
his daughter never comes to pass. From South
Carolina, Theodosia boards a schooner bound for New York but the ship never
arrives. There was a bad storm off of Cape Hatteras
which may have been responsible. There
are also suspicions of piracy. No trace
of the ship is found. Burr lives long enough to see his western
schemes realized by Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. But they are remembered as heroes. Burr will forever be a villain. Burr’s life has all the makings of Greek
tragedy. But it also contains something
else, a quintessentially American experience. A great road story.
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