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John Sedgwick's In My Blood

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The University of Mary Washington hosted John Sedgwick, a historian, journalist, and memoirist, on February 2nd, 2017. Educated at Harvard College, Sedgwick is well-known for his brilliant skill of story-telling, as he has published twelve books. These twelve books may be broken down into several categories. He published three works of nonfiction, including an analysis of the Philadelphia Zoo, entitled, The Peaceable Kingdom, which provided the basis for a dramatic television series aired on CBS. His two psychological novels, The Dark House and The Education of Mrs. Bemis, are both critically acclaimed. In My Blood, a family memoir, involved investigating six generations of his family as a component of research. Sedgwick has also collaborated …show more content…

However, it acts in the reverse. A duel is an uncoupling; it contains strict rules of etiquette, but it is a parting as opposed to a joining. A marriage proposal involves extensive ritualized planning, as does a duel to the death. During this time, most gentlemen in New York possessed dueling pistols, which were often very elegant, only adding to the similarities between marriage and a duel. Furthermore, though two lovers may stand at the altar, those who duel stand ten paces apart. The relatively small distance allows the two people to peer into each other’s eyes, noticing any signs of distress and malice. It is bizarre to compare this practice of dueling to modern society’s means of resolving conflict or legal …show more content…

Interestingly enough, only one person survived who actually observed the duel. The seconds and the doctor were obliged to avert their gaze when the guns went off, for the duel was a crime, and they did not want to be eyewitnesses, and thus complicit, to the crime. Thus, these two men looked away, while Hamilton and Burr faced each other. One of the men, Hamilton, died, leaving Burr as the only person to see what happened. All of them, however, could year. Normally, two shots are fired quickly after the duel begins, as each man attempts to be the first to shoot the other and survive unscathed. In this case, there was a significant gap between the two shots. Perhaps what is truly fascinating is the history that took place in that gap, in that silent span of time. It is clear that once the first bullet was fired, Hamilton was struck in the side, as the bullet pierced his liver. He rushed to his doctor, stating in a very characteristic phrase, “Doctor, I fear it is a mortal wound.” He died the following morning of a hemorrhage, to which his wife and children bore horrible

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