Hamilton threw his shot away. He fired at a nearby tree, leaving himself at Burr's mercy. Burr, then shot Hamilton in cold blood.
It was no "gentleman's duel".
Burr is a POS who killed the true genius of the American Founding.
I was always taught Hamilton was simply not a very good marksman - thanks for the info.
He didn't throw it away intentionally. Biographies and other research I read 15 years ago proved that Hamilton had the hair trigger set on the gun to get his shot off first. The result was that the gun went off early. There is still some question as to whether or not this was considered "cheating" at the time.
Actually, it was. A duelist who chose to intentionally miss was thereby voluntarily taking the chance that his opponent would not choose to do the same. A duelist had no moral or ethical obligation to miss simply because his opponent did.
Were this not true, any lousy shot could just fire his pistol into the sky and thereby obligate his opponent to do the same. Kind of takes the point out of dueling.
It was said that Burr aimed for Alex's leg, but the shot went high and hit his lower abdomen ("belly shot"). Peritonitis ensues, game over.