Produced by Marvin Hodges, Stan Goodman
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[Frontispiece: A. Burr]
"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
* * * * *
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by
in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.
* * * * *
During a period of forty years I was intimately acquainted withColonel Burr, and have reason to suppose that I possessed his entireconfidence. Some time after his return from Europe in 1812, ondifferent occasions, he suggested casually a wish that I would makenotes of his political life. When the Memoirs and Correspondence ofMr. Jefferson were published, he was much excited at the statementswhich were made in his Ana respecting the presidential contest inCongress in 1801.
He procured and sent me a copy of the work, with a request that Iwould peruse the parts designated by him. From this time forward heevinced an anxiety that I would prepare his Memoirs, offering me theuse of all his private papers, and expressing a willingness to explainany doubtful points, and to dictate such parts of his early history asI might require. These propositions led to frequent and fullconversations. I soon discovered that Colonel Burr was far moretenacious of his military, than of his professional, political, ormoral character. His prejudices against General Washington wereimmoveable. They were formed in the summer of 1776, while he residedat headquarters; and they were confirmed unchangeably by the injusticewhich he said he had experienced at the hands of thecommander-in-chief immediately after the battle of Long Island, andthe retreat of the American army from the city of New-York. Thesegrievances he wished to mingle with his own history; and he wasparticularly anxious to examine the military movements of GeneralWashington on different occasions, but more especially at the battleof Monmouth, in which battle Colonel Burr commanded a brigade in LordStirling's division. I peremptorily refused entering upon any suchdiscussion; and, for some time, all communication on the subjectceased.
Colonel Burr, however, renewed the conversation relative to hisMemoirs, and agreed that any thing which might be written should beconfined to himself. With this understanding I frequently visited him,and made notes under his dictation. I never asked him a question onany subject, or in relation to any man or measure, that he did notpromptly and willingly answer. On his part there was no desire ofconcealment; nor did he ever express to me a wish to suppress anaccount of any act of his whole life. So far as I could judge, hisonly apprehensions were that "kind friends," as he sometimes termedthem, by attempts at explanation, might unintentionally misrepresentacts which they did not understand.
I devoted the summer of 1835 to an examination of his letters andpapers, of which there is an immense quantity. The whole of them wereplaced in my hands, to be used at my discretion. I was authorized totake from among them whatever I supposed would aid me in preparing thecontemplated b