Political Rivalry During America's Founding Fathers Era and the Bullet that Ended Up in Alexander Hamilton's Upper Lumbar Spine

Abstract

On the morning of July 11, 1804, Major General Alexander Hamilton, an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, boarded a barge from Manhattan to the New Jersey shore. There, he met his personal and political opponent, Aaron Burr, for a duel during which Burr shot a bullet that entered Hamilton's torso, fractured a false rib, passed through internal organs, and lodged itself in one of his upper lumbar vertebrae. In this unique historical analysis of a pivotal event in American history, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the spinal injuries sustained by Alexander Hamilton, with special consideration of anatomic details and the ballistics of the time. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first thorough examination of the spinal injuries sustained by the prolific Founding Father and great mind behind the American financial system, Alexander Hamilton.

Keywords: Alexander Hamilton; American history; Duel; Spinal cord injury; Spine injury; Vertebral fracture.