Hamilton's final letter to his wife does not make me cry. It irritates me, with a dull ache of frustration and an occasional flash of anger at this unnecessary and cruel waste of life. Yes, cruel to Eliza, who'd surely suffered enough with his excruciatingly detailed public confession of his multi-year dalliance with Maria Reynolds and the concomitant siphoning off of the family finances to pay off his lover's husband. Heartless to offer himself up for suicide-by-duel, to ensure that his wife lost her husband on the very same dueling ground where their first son had died 3 years earlier. To leave her and their other children bereft of their protector and provider.
