1836-1844

1836: A New Nation, Old Problems

On August 30, 1836 Augustus and John Allen ran an advertisement in the Telegraph and Texas Register for the "Town of Houston."

The post-San Jacinto army of the Republic of Texas was well-stocked with officers who appeared to make their career from bickering amongst themselves. One such was a Col. Milroy, an officer in Brigadier General Thomas Jefferson Green's brigade. After enjoying a dispute with one Lt. Col. Thomas W. Ward in August of 1836, he promptly accused one H. Moscross of falsely reporting that he had apologized to Ward.

Milroy demanded instant denial or satisfaction. Moscross refused to make denial and accepted a pistol. Fortunately, another officer intervened and the duel was aborted.

A mere six days later Milroy had a fracas with Captain William R. Hays, in which the Hay's sword belt was dented by a sword thrust and his face was scratched. Hays, however, had the satisfaction of reporting that Milroy eventually begged for mercy.

Obviously, quite a few Texians came from the American south, where the culture of dueling was widespread. The Republic, however, because of its diverse immigrant population, was not yet essentially "Southern," and not everyone wanted the new nation to emulate this quirk of Southern character.

According to a law approved by the Texas Congress on December 21, 1836, ‘Every person who shall kill another in a duel, shall be deemed guilty of murder, and on conviction thereof shall suffer death,' and ‘Every person who shall be the bearer of any challenge for a duel, or shall in any way assist in any duel, shall, on conviction thereof, be fined and imprisoned at the discretion of the court before whom such conviction may be had.'

Texians had already developed a reputation as a people who would fight over any slight and, to a degree, that reputation was earned. Duelling was a very real problem in Texas, particularly among the military. Leon Dyer noted that, while the soldiers of Gen. Green's brigade were well disciplined, his officers were, "quite the reverse--on the 23 [rd of September] there was not less than three fist fights."

In 1836 a Captain Graham sent a bullet into the head of one Captain Stanley in a duel on Galveston Island over the question of precedence in choosing cuts of beef for their respective companies.

1837: Dueling Rampant

On January 1, 1837, the town of Houston was comprised of twelve residents and one log cabin. Four months later there were 1,500 people and 100 houses.

Gail and Thomas H. Borden surveyed and mapped the town in typical grid fashion, with broad streets running parallel and perpendicular to the bayou. The legislature first met in Houston on May 1, 1837, and, despite the efforts of Masons who greeted one another in 1837 and the Presbyterians and Episcopalians who formed churches in 1839, the town remained infamous for drunkenness, duelling, brawling, prostitution, and profanity. The legislature granted incorporation on June 5, 1837, and James S. Holman became the first mayor. The same year, Houston also became the county seat of Harrisburg County, which was renamed Harris County in 1839.

One early dispute, using firearms, is indicative of the sentiment of many to settling issues on a personal level. In December 1836 Felix Huston, a swashbuckling Mississippi planter, slave trader, and soldier of fortune, was appointed junior brigadier of the army. He held the command of the army briefly, until superseded by Albert Sydney Johnston in January 1837. Huston considered Johnston's appointment an attempt "to ruin my reputation and inflict a stigma on my character." Accordingly, on February 4, 1837, Huston issued his new commander a challenge.

Huston and Johnston met the following day on the Lavaca River. Huston, according to Linn, was "a most expert marksman," and Johnston "made no pretension at all in that line." After three exchanges of fire a ball passing through Johnston's his hips, seriously wounding him. He lingered near death for days and recovered only after months of suffering. Johnston nevertheless, never resented Huston's challenge or his wound, since he considered their meeting "a public duty" and believed that he could never have commanded the respect of the army if he had "shown the least hesitation in meeting General Huston's challenge."

In late March of 1837, problems within the Texas Army garrison at Velasco under Capt. Martin K. Snell were coming to a head. The garrison had become unruly and disobedient. A Lieutenant Sprowl sided with the mutineers and left the post without permission. Snell and a squad of soldiers followed him to a billiard room to apprehend him. He resisted arrest and the two officers traded blows. Sprowl reached for his sword but Snell drew his pistol first and shot him dead.

It must be noted that the war at sea did not end at the Battle of San Jacinto. On April 17 the Republic of Texas lost one of its naval warships, the Independence, captured by two Mexican brigs of war: the Libertador and the Vincedor del Alamo. The Texas captain, Wheelwright, was wounded in the action and command had fallen to one Lt. J. W. Taylor, who performed the official surrender to Captain Davis, one of many British military men hired by the Republic of Mexico to staff their navy. Upon Davis' demand to surrender Taylor said to him, "Sir, I am your prisoner, but my sword you shall never receive," and he threw it overboard.

The navy yard had been established at Galveston the previous year. As Charles Hayes noted in Galveston: History of the Island and the City:

"During the month of June, 1837, several naval officers were here, and a dispute of some character arose between two of them, which could not be settled without recourse to the code. All the preliminaries having been arranged, the parties resorted to the beach, where all such difficulties were settled, determined to wipe out the insult in each other's blood. The ground was carefully measured, the antagonists were placed facing each other, and announced themselves ‘ready.' When the ominous ‘one, two, three' was called off, both fired simultaneously, which resulted in spoiling a ‘new brass button on the pantaloons' of one of the agrieved [sic] parties. After the first fire, their bloodthirsty desire cooled down, and the difference was amicably settled without the loss of any more buttons."

In another incident in 1837, within the Texas army, a lieutenant killed a sergeant in a duel. In still another from that year Maj. Stiles Leroy shot and killed Maj. James W. Tinsley in a duel over a horse.

On June 5^th, Houston's first charter was issued and it was incorporated as a city. The population stood at about 1,200. Certainly, this was an exciting time to be in Houston.

For some, it was too exciting.

One local businessman had convinced his uncle to visit from New Jersey and look at the prospect of establishing a carriage-manufacturing plant in Houston. The relative made the trip. While in Houston, then the capital of Texas, he played the tourist and took in a session of the Texas Congress. Unfortunately, the session erupted in angry words between congressmen and gunshots rang out. The easterner fled the building only to have a soldier, who had just been shot in a saloon, almost fall upon him. Just a little later, a man, whose bowels were protruding from a Bowie knife wound, bumped into him. The uncle from New Jersey fled Houston and never set up the factory.

The incident that had the greatest effect in galvanizing public opinion in Houston against dueling was the Goodrich-Laurens duel of June 25, 1837. Dr. Chauncey Goodrich, of Mississippi, was a surgeon in the Texas army. Levi Laurens was the reporter of the proceedings of the House of Representatives and a protege of M. M. Noah, founder of the New York Evening Star. The duel resulted from a misunderstanding.

Several men, including Laurens and Goodrich, were sharing a single room in the Mansion House. This was not a particularly unusual circumstance in the few crowded Texas hotels of the era. During the night of June 23, a thousand-dollar bill was stolen from Goodrich. On the following morning the physician accused Laurens, "a suspicion utterly false [according to Goodrich's superior, Dr. Ashbel Smith] & groundless and gratuitous as it was false and infamous... and it is so deemed by every person here, by Dr. G. himself now [after the duel] equally with others."

The culture and class of the two men required that Laurens demand of Goodrich a retraction of the accusation. Goodrich refused. Laurens was now obligated and challenged the doctor. The terms were set: rifles at twenty yards. Laurens second was another of the party who shared the room, one Marcus Cicero Stanley, of a prominent North Carolina family.

They met at 6:00 AM. Laurens fell with both thighs pierced with the first fire of his more experienced adversary. He died forty-seven hours later. Appropriate to the sentiments of the era, his physician testified, "the wound of the spirit was more fatal than that of the body."

The young men of early Houston held a public meeting and passed resolutions of regret. They agreed to wear the customary badge of mourning for thirty days. Editor Francis Moore, Jr., carried the Laurens death story in a column outlined in black, a custom usually reserved for the deaths of major public figures. He also wrote a blistering editorial condemning the practice of the duel as, "one of the most fiendish, foulest practices that ever disgraced a civilized society." Though he possessed no wealth, Laurens held the friendship of many influential persons in the community. His death gave the opponents of dueling an unanswerable argument.

Justice and irony, if not present at the duel, trailed the surviving participants.

Dr. Goodrich found it prudent to withdraw from Houston. Early in August 1838, Goodrich arrived in San Antonio. Six weeks later he became embroiled in an affray with a gambler named Allen. Shortly thereafter, Allen killed Goodrich in his bed, plunging a bowie knife through him so as to pin him to the mattress. The Telegraph and Texas Register trumpeted: "Whoso sheddeth man's Blood, by Man shall his Blood be shed."

But the Telegraph had not found the real villain. Circumstance later indicated that it was young Marcus Cicero Stanley who had taken the thousand dollars from Goodrich and thenappeared a Laurens' second and sympathizer. In 1839 he was arrested for stealing five hundred dollars from a Texas friend, but managed to procure bail and left for England where he was sent to the House of Correction in London for robbing a man.

The new Republic of Texas still held on to some ghosts from its swashbuckling past. From 1822 until the Civil War, some of Laffite's pirates remained in or near Galveston. The old buccaneers stayed, for the most part, close-mouthed. Many of them, such as Capt. James Campbell, would admit that they had sailed for Laffite, but otherwise they told little about themselves, perhaps fearing that a charge of piracy could still be leveled against them. One ex-pirate was Steven Churchill, who had served as Jean Laffite's bar pilot for Galveston Bay. For ten years he lived in the only house on Galveston Island, while he was bar pilot for the Mexican government and later for the Republic of Texas. When M. B. Menard surveyed the City of Galveston in 1837, he deeded to Churchill the house that stood upon Lot 4, Block 730, of the Galveston town site.

Mary Campbell made the following deposition in 1880 about their stay on Deer Island. It follows, "...that in June, 1837, James Campbell, after visiting New Orleans, returned from there on the schooner Creole with a cargo of groceries and general merchandise, having put all his capital in said stock, that in the fall of the year 1837, all of our goods with everything else we possessed was swept away by a severe storm, and after that, we left said Deer Island and moved on Galveston Bay...on Swan Lake near Virginia Point (now Texas City)..."

The great Southern vogue in dueling reached its peak in Texas in 1837 and 1838. The practice, though strictly forbidden by regulations, was most popular among the officers of the Army of the Republic of Texas. "We would opine," wrote the editor of the Austin Texas Sentinel in the wake of one duel between army officers, "that there was fighting enough to be had on our frontier without resorting to private combats." The custom was enthusiastically cultivated, however, and the journalist, in common with most Texans of his day, concluded, "not...to sermonize on the subject."

In late 1837, the Texas Army was disbanded. 

1838: The Campaign against Dueling

In 1777, a group of Irishmen had codified dueling practices, as they understood them, in a document titled the "Code Duello." Primarily focused on duels with firearms, it contained 26 specific rules outlining all aspects of the duel, from the time of day during which challenges could be received to the number of shots or wounds required for satisfaction of honor. An Americanized version of the Code, written by South Carolina Governor John Lyle Wilson, appeared in 1838. Prior to that, Americans made do with European rules.

In Texas and America, the pistol remained the weapon of choice for duels, with the sword only occasionally called upon. One reason was, doubtless, that success with the sword took considerably greater levels of skill and time spent in practice. The gun was quicker to master. As well, in the early 19^th century, the chance of dying in a pistol duel was relatively slim. Flintlocks often misfired. And even in the hands of an experienced shooter, accuracy was difficult. Generally, pistols had to be discharged within three seconds; to take aim for a longer time period was considered dishonorable. Some men, accurate shots in particular, practically made careers of the duel.

Noted historian Daniel J. Boorstin, in his book, Hidden History: Exploring our Secret Past (Harper & Row, NY, 1987) examined the phenomena of the duel in the culture of the south. He examined its relationship to the concept of an "immanent" or "higher" unwritten law, whose authority superceded the written law of man and the state.

"The rise in the South of belief in immanent law must be explained by two dominant facts of Southern life in this period. The first was the institution of slavery; the second was the defensive spirit, the feeling that the whole Southern society was under attack from the outside."

"The great planters ran their affairs by informal understandings, gentlemen's agreements, and pledges of honor. Surprisingly little legal paper was used in the conduct of the Southern plantation and Southern commerce in the early years of the 19th century. This is, of course, one of the reasons why it is hard to learn as much as we would like about the daily life of the time. The tendency to rely on unwritten rules was accentuated by the existence of slavery and by the very character of that institution. Slavery was a labor system in which the rules were local custom or the arbitrary decision of the master. Since the common law of England did not recognize the status of slavery, there was no developed body of law concerning slavery, the rights of the slave, or the duties of the master in the English slaveholding colonies. By contrast, as has often been noted, Latin America and the Caribbean areas, governed by the Roman law transmitted through Spain or Portugal, had a highly developed law of slavery with traditions and practices reaching back to ancient times."

He continued:

"To understand the Southern law of slavery, then, you could not look at the lawbooks, but instead had to observe the actual ways of the community. The defense of slavery became more and more a defense of the unwritten law, the immanent law, the ways which dwelt in the ongoing Southern society, or as it was sometimes said, in the Southern Way of Life. The South then came to idealize the unwritten law, which was said to be the only proper law for a Christian society, an ennobling influence on all who allowed themselves to be ruled by it. Just as slavery made it possible for the relations between superior and inferior to be governed in this fashion, so, too, a code of "honor" made it possible for relations among equals to be similarly governed. And the gentlemen of the Southern ruling class spurned the letter of the law which, in the Southern States, as elsewhere, forbade the duel and punished it as homicide. They actually made resort to the duel (the Code of Honor) a symbol of their respect for the immanent as against the instrumental law of the community. In the South, en the half-century before the Civil War, there was hardly a leader in public life who had not fought a duel. Much as a war-record nowadays attests a man's high devotion to his community, and is supposed to help qualify him for public office, so in those days, having fought an "affair of honor" proved a gentleman to be a "man of honor," for it showed that he held the unwritten law of the society above its petty explicit rules."

The concept of noblesse oblige occupied the moral center, about which the English and continental aristocratic world revolved. In the South this concept would take the form of paternalism, and it would justify the morality of slavery and the entire Southern social order. At its simplest, it was the notion that superior people must take care of their inferiors like a father would care for his children. It was based on the patriarchal model of the family where the father/husband ruled the wife/mother and the children. In many ways, it mirrored the outlook of feudal Europe.

There was, indeed, a highly romantic character existing about southern culture, which walked side-by-side with the barbarism of slavery, which contributed to the duel. In fact, such diverse cultural facets as duelling, slavery, gift giving and the placement of women on pedestals created the constant dynamic of southern thought. To properly appreciate the duel's role in southern chivalric thought, it must be kept in mind that participation in a duel was not about "winning," not about killing, but about risking one's life for honor. Even the communications preceding a duel were designed to assure tidiness in an otherwise messy, even chaotic situation. The performance or drama of the duel at once suggests that the objective in the contest could not be the killing of an opponent. A hired assassin would be a much less risky way to remove an enemy. Instead, it was a means to prove one's masculinity and right to claim respect, possibly leadership. In other words, dueling helped the participant to establish a special identity that included one's kin as well as one's self. Southern honor was almost an art form and a ritual.

Indeed, much like the corrida, or "bullfight," of Spain, Portugal and Latin America, the duel was largely a societal ritual, reinforcing the values that society held in high esteem. True, the duel was generally and more private affair, but an audience in the form of seconds, surgeon and, occasionally, a president or director, assured that there would exist a testimony in the social discourse among equals in Southern society.

In her memoir, A Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth (1919), Rebecca Latimer Felton wrote:

"An aged statesman, now deceased, once advocated the code duello in my presence. He said there were some wrongs that the law could not remedy, some wounds money could not heal. 'If I had a young daughter,' said he, 'and her betrayer left her in shame and humiliation, I could not live on the planet with him. He would have to go or I would know the reason why. I could not shoot him down, like an assassin from behind. I could not go to the courthouse for a money value on her wrecked life. I would meet him, let him understand what he had to answer for, in open day."

Southerner John Randolph lavished gifts on his friends and enemies alike as he calmly faced the prospect of death in a duel with Secretary of State Henry Clay. This generosity had a paternalistic meaning derived from medieval feudal society. The liege-serf relationship was echoed by the master-slave relationship and reflected in the pro-slavery argument. Such acts, performances for society a whole, together with the way a gentleman chose to lend money, drink with strangers, dispose of property, give insult, and die; all formed a vision of what it meant to live as a courageous free white male, or gentleman.

Arguably no author was read more avidly in this time and place than Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, Rob Roy and Kenilworth, among others. The novels reinforced an undercurrent in white southern society that was enamored of, and attempted to emulate, concepts of chivalry. Lives, social position and fortunes depended on close-knit, loyal relationships, all the more so since the social structure was hierarchical, peaking with a few scarce positions at the top. True gentlemen, many of them attorneys, whom one might expect to adhere to statutes, including those forbidding duelling, settled their differences over points of honor with duels. There also existed the belief that a man was more disposed to chivalric conduct if he might be called to defend his actions in a duel.

One point of honor was a woman's honor, and that issue was often raised as part of a provocative formula. Sadly, often it was merely to create a vacancy in an important office that a loyal friend would be glad to fill. No less a figure than Andrew Jackson, himself a notorious duellist, kept his pistols ready to defend Mrs. Jackson accordingly.

No less a figure than Mark Twain, in his work, Life on the Mississippi laid the blame squarely on a mis-placed romanticism and the devotion in the American South to the works of Sir Walter Scott:

"Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the world in love with dreams and phantoms; with betrayed and swinish forms of religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with the silliness and emptiness, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps than any other individual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived a good part of these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South they flourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a generation ago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and wholesome civilization of the 19th century is curiously confused and commingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization, and so you have practical common sense, progressive ideas, and progressive works, mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune romanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought to be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the Southerner--or Southron, according to Sir Walker's starchier way of phrasing it--would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval mixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than it is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a major or a colonel, or a general or a judge, before the war; and it was he, also that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on slavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of Sir Walter."

Carrying his argument further:

"Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so did the Southerner of the Civil War; but the former resembles the latter as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be traced rather more easily to Sir Walter's influence than to that of any other thing or person."

Even Sir Walter Scott himself recognized the threat that chivalry posed to good order and Christian practice. As for the morality of dueling, Scott declared that its "usage, at once so ridiculous, and so detrimental to the peace and happiness of society, must give way in proportion to the progress of common sense." In the South, however, the mold was cast.

Even the petite bourgeoisie might aspire to the Code Duello. The diary of Adolphus Stearne noted in Houston, on February 18, 1838, "Pepin, the Saw Mill man was shot in a duel by a confectioner this evening."

Thomas Jefferson Chambers, for whom Chambers County was later named, was absolutely notorious as a duellist. He was, surprisingly, Texas' first Attorney General and a primary framer of both the Texas constitution and a large part of the original body of Texas jurisprudence. He went to Washington D.C. during the Texas revolution to request artillery and uniforms but was unable to acquire them until after the revolution. The uniforms were distributed to veterans who were essentially threadbare and destitute. Two of the canons were used to ornament the entrance to the Artillery Club in Galveston, the oldest private club in the State of Texas.

Chambers was known as a violent, bloody man due to his success at duelling. When he returned to his homestead in Anahuac, after the revolution, he found a squatter family on his property. He challenged the squatter to a duel and shot the man to death.

Chambers was himself the victim of a gunshot, but he did not have the fortune to fall on the field of honor. He was sent into history by an assassin's gun, shot to death while sitting with his family on the veranda of his home in Anahuac. The murderer was never apprehended.

Dueling was rife in Texas. One popular form of the duel in this era was to blindfold one of the parties and place him in a darkened room armed with a bowie knife. His adversary was similarly armed and blindfolded and sent into the room. The door was closed. Usually one only of the duelists came out alive, and generally he required medical attention.

A noteworthy fracas erupted in the spring of 1838 between Comptroller Francis R. Lubbock and the one-legged Colonel Thomas W. Ward. Ward was described as, "a passionate man" by his adversary. Following a disagreement concerning a business transaction, Lubbock "abused him publicly." Ward challenged Lubbock. Lubbock, however, who refused under the protocols of the Code Duello, because the challenger, Ward, was already under obligation to meet a friend. "A sort of brawl" ensued.

On April 14, 1838, shortly after the adjournment of a joint session of Congress, Colonel Ward attacked the Comptroller with a stick "in the gallery of the capitol, in view of the Senate." Lubbock produced a derringer and fired, but not before a bystander struck the pistol upward. No one was injured and both combatants were arrested and brought before the Senate on the charge of contempt. Lubbock was discharged. Ward was reprimanded. 

In 1838 Major James Kerr was elected to the Texas Congress. He took a lead in the passage of the anti-dueling law and in moving the Capital from Houston to Austin. It was during the debates on the anti-dueling measure that Kerr became exasperated at an opponent and remarked that the gentleman's head was as empty as a paper bag and did not contain a single idea. The gentleman threatened Kerr with a challenge if he did not make a retraction and an apology. Kerr said that he regretted the language he had used and that, in fact, the difficulty with the other gentleman was that his head was so hard a new idea could not get into it! This explanation was bravely accepted and the incident was closed.

In Houston, the new city struggled, torn between being a frontier town and a settlement of early Victorian Society. Mirabeau Lamar founded the Philosophical Society of Texas. The history of local theatre began at this time with the production of two plays at John Carlos' Theater. The city council appointed two constables, beginning law enforcement in the Bayou City, but protection at night largely still fell upon volunteers. One of the constables reported there were about 47 establishments in the small city selling alcoholic beverages.

A preacher of early Houston, W. Y. Allen, wrote in his diary for December 2, 1838:

"At 4 o'clock called on Col. Wharton; found him near the gate of death, more emaciated than any living man I had ever seen; conversed with him about Christianity, and prayed with him. He was in a critical state of mind. His deistical foundations giving way, and he was looking round for a stronger safer support. He asked me to pray for light to his soul. He had been a ring leader of scoffers. His right arm had been shattered in a duel."

As a quirky aside, in1838, Houston residents were able to watch one battle from the relative comfort of a theatre chair, the Battle of Bosworth Field. The city got to enjoy a visit by a Mr. Lewellen, a noted Shakespearean star of the day. He played Richard III to standing room only crowds. Also in 1838, the one-time fencer, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, ran for president of Texas. He had two opponents. Both men committed suicide before the elections. Lamar won. We can only wonder if anyone tried to make a connection.  

1839: Buggy Whips, Bowie Knives, Swords

On January 14, 1839, now-President Mirabeau Lamar approved a bill moving the Texas Capital from Houston to Waterloo (now called Austin.). It was an act guaranteed to anger his political adversary, Sam Houston. There is nothing, however, in the history of Texas politics of this era to indicate restraint of deeds or words enjoyed much popularity.

Early in 1839, the dubious decorum of the Texas Congress was breached once more. Surgeon General Ashbel Smith attacked Senator S. H. Everitt in the chamber of the Senate, which had recessed. In the course of a conversation "respecting some matters not of an official nature," wrote Smith, "he contradicted me in an insulting manner; whereupon as in duty bound I struck him with my buggy whip . . . and I continued to repeat the blows." A "right severe fight" followed, with the nimble physician claiming that "it is allowed on all hands that I had the best of the affair." Testimony showed that the well-equipped Smith also had a knife and a pistol available. The Senate considered that Smith had violated its dignity, and passed a resolution urging the President to fine the doctor and remove him from office. Though the President refused, the Surgeon General resigned.

In 1839, ex-Lafitte pirate Stephen Churchill relocated to the West End of Galveston Island, where he and his son operated the West Pass ferry until Churchill's death in 1855. Since James Campbell resided at Virginia Point, opposite the ferry, he could visit with Churchill weekly, or however often Campbell carried his wagonloads of cotton and farm produce to the Galveston markets. John Lambert, another ex-buccaneer with whom Campbell often visited, was a tall and powerful man, who for many years was one of Galveston's leading butchers. Lambert had only served on Lafitte's privateers operating out of Barataria Bay, Louisiana, prior to 1814. Lambert had also fought at the Battle of New Orleans, but Lambert quit the sea after Lafitte and his men won presidential pardons.

The aging pirate population may have been on the wane in Galveston, but the Texas Navy made that city its base and maintained a swashbuckling character. Many of the officers, midshipmen and seamen cut a roguish appearance. Most carried swords of one type or another. While officers were entitled to wear dress swords, aboard ship the favorite of officers and men was a basket hilt cut-and-thrust sword. The weapon usually was neither more than thirty inches in length nor less than twenty-six inches and the blade was slightly curved. While regulations have it under swords it appears to better fit the description of a cutlass.

Not every visitor to Galveston found them or their ships so appealing. Francis C. Sheridan gave an unflattering description of them in his journal of a visit to Galveston and the Texas coast during 1839-1840. Sheridan found:

"The schooners are pretty vessels but I can't say the same for the others neither can I for the officers of the Texas Navy generally speaking. These take a delight, after the effeminate fashion of the French, in allowing the hair to grow down the back, which of all the damnable fooleries ever introduced is the most damnable. It is neither cleanly or becoming, and is infinitely more ridiculous than if they were to turn it up behind and stick a large tortoise shell comb with gold knobs on it, after the manner of women. But if it is bad when there is an artificial or natural curl, what is it when there is no curl at all and when their hair hangs down like the matted ends of a wet swab - and this is generally the case with these officers."

Meanwhile, Galveston's neighbor, Houston, had grown with breathtaking rapidity. By 1839 it was attracting immigrants from practically every state and over a dozen countries. While the city was small and rough-hewn, the population maintained an eclectic mix of attitudes and interests. The city's first Abstinence Society held its first meeting in February. The same month, Houston's first public school opened. A short-lived subscription library was begun with a collection of 1,300 volumes. In April of 1839 J. R. Codet of New York opened his Dancing and Waltz Academy. Almost immediately a rival appeared in the form of M. Grignon, "accomplished dance master."

Not all Houstonians, however, were advancing the cause of culture. In the spring of 1839 a city constable was stabbed in the chest with a sword cane while trying to quell a commotion in a bordello. A few months later still another fellow was seriously cut by a Bowie knife during another affray in a brothel.

Of course, across the Sabine River in New Orleans, they very much did still duel with swords. They also fought duels to excess. The favorite location for a rendezvous was the famous "Duelling Oaks." In his History of Louisiana, Alcee Fortier states that on one Sunday in 1839 ten duels were fought here.

If the sword was the de rigeur instrument of the gentleman's honor in New Orleans, back in Texas it was the essential accoutrement of the military officers' chivalric persona. In the romantic-tinged worldview of a South steeped in Sir Walter Scott's novels, the sword added powerfully to that image.

Take, for example, the diary-like writing of one Clinton H. Moore, who journeyed from McNairy County Tennessee to Texas in the spring of 1839:

"On the morning of the 17th [of April 1839] we came to Nacogdoches, situated 40 miles west of St. Augustine. The town is in a beautiful place, surrounded by lofty oaks. This is a place of considerable business and contains about 700 inhabitants. It was court week when I was at this place and the night of the 17th there was a ball given in honor of Capt. Riley and his Guards. I had not been there long till I heard the playing of the fife and the beating of the drum, and in a short time they marched up. When night made its appearance the roll was again called. The moon had just arisen over the eastern hills and their uniforms appeared beautiful and their swords glistened in the moonlight. They were marched into a house and up a flight of stairs which were decarated and adorned in pomp and splendor."

Swords were seen a marks of military position and status. As such, they were also prized if taken from an enemy in combat. The battle of the Neches, fought on July 15 and 16, 1839, was the principal engagement of the Cherokee War. The Texan troops numbered 500. The Native American army totaled 700 to 800. The Cherokees were routed, although pursuit continued until July 24. The aged Chief Bowl, "remained on the field on horseback, wearing a handsome sword and sash which had been given him by President Sam Houston...a magnificent picture of barbaric manhood." Robert W. Smith, Indian fighter and soldier at the battle of San Jacinto, is credited with firing the shot that killed Chief Bowl. Bowl, according to some sources, was responsible for the death of Smith's father-in-law. Smith took Bowl's sword and presented it to the Masonic lodge at Henderson. The sword was lent to Col. James H. Jones during the Civil War returned to the Masonic lodge, and finally presented in 1890 to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. 

1840: Dueling and the Military  

The first ship named Texas was a sloop of war commissioned in the Texas Navy on 5 January 1840. Her compliment was to be 24 officers and 147 men, but she was never fully manned. The Texas was allowed 30 muskets, 10 pistols, and 30 cutlasses.

As mentioned earlier, Naval Officers were allowed dress swords, but at sea often carried the same cutlass as the seamen. Most of the few Texas naval swords preserved appear to be ones the officers purchased personally, as there is little conformity of style and they are from several makers. A contemporary description of the sword of Commodore Moore says it was an elaborately decorated one with a big lone star on the hilt.

While the men of the Texas Navy favored cutlasses, the Texas Amy was issued sabres. Specifically, the troopers were issued an Ames sabre in a browned scabbard. Two hundred eighty of these sabres were made for Texas by N. P. Ames of Springfield, Massachusetts, under a contract signed by Texas agent William Henry Daingerfield, February 4, 1840. These were the U.S. Model 1833. The only difference between the ones used by the U.S. cavalry and the Texians was that the Texas version had the words "Texas Dragoons" engraved on the blades and a lone star on the hilts.

As Charles W. Hayes noted in Galveston: History of the Island and the City, "While the navy rendezvoused here, several affairs of honor occurred between the officers themselves and others."

He also wrote:

"Doctor Gardner, a Surgeon in the navy, and Flemming, an officer of the marines, had a dispute, in which high words passed, and a challenge was the result. The duel was fought just below the navy yard. Both were game men. Gardner was a very slim man, and labored under a defect in his sight, which compelled him to wear spectacles. Five shots were exchanged. The fourth shot of Flemming carried the buckle off Doctor Gardner's pants. This, without disconcerting Gardner, made him the more determined, and at the fifth shot he placed a ball in the hip of his antagonist.

"A duel also occurred between two officers, one of the navy and the other of the army. This was fought on the bayside, near Lafitte's old fortifications, which resulted fatally to one of the parties engaged.

"Duels were rather of frequent occurrence between military and naval officers, as well as between citizens. It was the most aristocratic way of settling points of dispute, and quite frequently resulted seriously, and sometimes fatally.

"The United States sloop-of-war Flirt was lying in the harbor, and a young Lieutenant attached to the sloop, feeling himself aggrieved by some remarks of Captain Skerrett, of the Texas Navy, challenged him. Skerrett accepted, and on the arrival upon the ground, Skerrett told the Lieutenant that he would not kill him, but would shoot his heel off, which he did at the first fire."

In May 1840 "two heroes of San Jacinto," Col. Lysander Wells of the First Cavalry, one of Sam Houston's favorites, and Capt. William D. Redd of the First Infantry, a protégé of Mirabeau B. Lamar, both died after meeting on a field of honor at Seguin's Ranch, a few miles below San Antonio. The difficulty, according to John J. Linn, "was occasioned by some unimportant dispute, and the fiery spirits adjourned the matter to the `code of honor.'" First fire was simultaneous from both pistols. Redd was shot through the heart as his bullet "went crashing through the brain" of Wells.

Less reputable persons also engaged in duels. Shelby County, in the Piney Woods of eastern Texas was the scene of an extended feud or war between armed vigilante groups dubbed "Regulators" and "Moderators" in the years from 1840-1844. Such a violent culture spun off its share of duels, as well.

As one contemporary writer noted:

"Henry [Strickland,  "the bully of the Tenaha"] was cut to pieces in a bowie duel with Riproaring Jim Forsyth... Forsyth is a very resolute man. He... walked into a ring with Henry Strickland, both having knives. All hands were asked if they were ready, and both answered "ready." "Then turn loose" was the word given and-neither flinched. They swung forward and both struck a chopping lick as their hands met. Forsyth struck Strickland's right a little above the knuckles, cleaned all the flesh off of four fingers clear to the bone, and lodged against his knuckles. Strickland's knife fell and he was at the mercy of Forsyth who only hacked Strickland on his arms, cleaving the flesh to the elbow on both arms... He struck him on both arms with a downward lick, calling it trimming his marble...  Strickland turned and ran, but Forsyth followed and cut his shoulder blade in two... He then let him go, declaring that Henry was in good condition to behave himself and repent of his evil ways... I thought that a generous act on Forsyth's part... Forsyth told me he could have killed him but only wanted to cripple him in order to make a pious man out of a rogue, a sponger, a horse thief, and a peace disturber."

By 1840, the anti-duelling faction in Houston, on the other hand, had made significant progress. That year the city council of Houston passed an ordinance that prohibited the carrying of deadly weapons. Texas also passed a revised duelling law that punished not only the combatants, but their seconds, as well. 

1841: With Tomahawks at Goliad 

In 1841, a Harris County (Houston) grand jury reported that the city's moral tone had improved and that dueling was now considered ungentlemanly. Fencing, however, was apparently cosidered quite gentlemanly. Among those who arrived in Houston in at this time was one Louis de France, who arrived to teach fencing.

In a settlers camp near Goliad a quarrel had arisen between a man named Kardige and a young man from Tennessee named Henderson. Kardige suggested they settle their differences with tomahawks. He said he had acquired a pair from a roving tribe of Native Americans and that they seemed apt enough for such a purpose.

Henderson replied that he was unfamiliar with the use of such a weapon. Kardige assured him that he, also, was ignorant of the nuances of the tomahawk. When the fight began, however, Henderson could see at once that his opponent had no difficulty using the weapon. Henderson did as well as he could with an unfamiliar implement. In time, however, Kardige closed on Henderson and crushed his skull with a well-aimed blow.

Kardige, of course, had lied. He had, in fact, lived for years with the Cherokee and had become adept in the use of the tomahawk. Not that this did him much good. As the victor in a fair duel, he was reasonably safe. Once the lie became known, the result was inevitable. Kardige was later shot down by one Alton Carruthers, a friend of Henderson.

Tomahawks were all well and good for a frontier place like Goliad, but the men of the Texas Navy preferred swords of one type or another. A popular model, originally developed in France, resembled a kind of Roman gladius. In a Christmas Eve 1841 letter to the Texas Secretary of the Navy, Louis Cooke, Texas Naval Commodore Edwin Moore noted, "The Roman Swords (more of which are actually required) are as far superior to the old Ship's Cutlass as can possibly be imagined." 

1842: Invasions and Immigration 

The Telegraph and Texas Register reported in 1842 that no duels had occurred in Houston for the last four years. The year 1842, however, saw plenty of combat elsewhere.

According to Austin newspapers of the day, in 1842 the Texas Congressmen were treated to proof that not all of their colleagues had mellowed. The encounter followed a speech on a current judiciary bill made on the floor of the House of Representatives by James S. Mayfield, who mentioned David S. Kaufman, former speaker, "in a very Severe manner Calling him by name."

After the adjournment of the House that evening, Mr. Kaufman was waiting with a cane. Being Texas, Mayfield was prepared and, after a passionate interchange, shot Kaufman twice. The second shot lodged "on the right Side directly under the Suspender button."

On January 19, the Houston Telegraph and Texas Register deplored this and other recent affrays. "We shall be rejoiced when our unhappy republic shall cease to be the arena of private feuds and disgraceful brawls, that tend alike to degrade those who engage in them, and to fasten opprobrium upon the national character."

In the Texas Navy, Midshipman F. R. Culp was killed by Midshipman George R. White in the course of a duel.

On the evening of February 11, 1842, there occurred a mutiny on the Texan war vessel San Antonio, which had just arrived from Sisal and was lying in the Mississippi River opposite the city of New Orleans. When the principal officers had gone ashore, the seamen in some way procured liquor and drank themselves into a state of intoxication. Their suspicious conduct was noted by the officers left on board, who began to prepare for an emergency, but did not suspect a mutiny.

The sergeant of marines asked M. H. Dearborn, officer in charge of the deck, for permission to go ashore. Dearborn replied that no officer then on the vessel was authorized to give such permission and advised the sergeant to wait until the captain returned.

The sergeant continued to argue the point; and Lieutenant Charles Fuller, who was for the time in charge of the vessel, came on deck and inquired the cause of the disturbance. Some of the men told him that they wished to go ashore. He then ordered the sergeant to arm the marine guard. This was done, and the sergeant probably gave arms to the crew also.

He then approached Lieutenant Fuller and, after having first attempted to strike him with a tomahawk, shot and killed him. As Fuller's body lay on the deck, it was beaten with muskets and cutlasses; and two midshipmen were wounded in attempting to protect it. The mutineers then shut up the officers in the cabin, lowered the boats, and went ashore; but they were followed, and several of them were arrested, six at once, and others later.

On March 5^th, A Mexican force of over 500 men under Rafael Vasquez invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They briefly occupied San Antonio, but soon headed back to the Rio Grande.

The Vasquez invasion in 1842 produced "intense excitement" in Galveston. Public meetings were called to muster militia units, most prominent of which were the Galveston Coast Guards. The Coast Guards, one hundred strong, were uniformed in straw hats, red woolen shirts and white pants. Their arms were muskets and pistols, pikes and swords, "but there was no scarcity of hatchets, tomahawks, and Bowie knives for close quarters if necessary."

On March 14, the Coast Guards, together with the fifty Galveston Fusiliers, set forth in the steamer Lafitte, accompanied by two small craft of the Texas Navy. They searched the coast for a rumored Mexican invasion fleet. A third group, the Galveston Guard, was left behind to defend the women and children.

On September 11, San Antonio was again captured, this time by 1400 Mexican troops under General Adrian Woll. A group of Fayette County men assembled quickly. Gathering a few men as they went, they rode swiftly to join another force under Caldwell who had set out from Gonzales with a company of men.

In forty-eight hours they were on the Salado a hundred miles away, and, having failed to connect with Caldwell, they engaged a detachment of Woll's cavalry under Colonel Corasco. Only 53 in number, the chance of victory they might have had vanished utterly with the arrival of 250 additional Mexican cavalry, bringing two cannon.

Dawson undertook to surrender, but some of his men were slow to cease firing and the Mexicans, who had partially ceased, began again. This quickly developed into relentless and bloody battle. Thirty-five of the Texans were killed, Henry Gonsolvo Woods, Alsey Miller and perhaps one other escaped and fifteen, all more or less badly wounded, were taken prisoners.

Again the Mexicans retreated back to Mexico before a major engagement could occur.

The Texans were transported in different groups according to their ability to travel. After several attempts to escape in which two were drowned and one killed by a Mexican guard, the survivors eventually arrived in the moat-surrounded Castle of Perote.

In the fall, Sam Houston authorized Alexander Somervell to lead a retaliatory raid into Mexico. The resulting Somervall Expedition dissolved, however, after briefly taking the border towns of Laredo and Guerreo.

On December 20^th, a splinter group of some 300 men formerly with the Somervall Expedition set out to continue raids into Mexico. Ten days and 20 miles later, the ill-fated "Mier Expedition"surrendered at the Mexican town of Mier. Events were coming to a head.

The Republic of Texas was a violent place and many who would have avoided dealing in violence were left with few alternatives.

In November of 1842, J. Pinckney Henderson wrote to Ashbel Smith that he:

"had been annoyed for more than a year by a desparado named N. B. Garner whom I was at last forced to slay a few weeks since. He had often threatened to kill me and twice when I was unarmed attempted to assassinate me. I had a great abhorance to the sheding of human blood in a street fight and laboured to avoid it as it never in my estimation adds to a mans reputation. A few days before I killed Garner he waylaid me with a double barreled gun to assassinate me as I passed but I learned his movements & avoided him... from that time I marked him as my own. He was preparing to shoot me when I shot him and was closely watching an opportunity to take some advantage of me for he was a coward and would not attack me with pistols when I was similarly armed or on the look out. I regret that the beast forced me to do that which some ruffian ought to have done but I shall never regret that I killed him as I am sure he then would have killed me if I had not slain him. I demanded an investigation of the affaire after I killed Garner & the court of inquiry declared me fully justified."

It should be noted that Henderson's position in society was by no means jeopardized by his actions. This fact is underscored by his later election as first governor of Texas under the United States. The culture and society of this era made a distinction at once fine and blunt between a murder and a "killing" or a "difficulty." This last expression, a sublime example of understatement, was common coinage for gun, pistol and knife fights, as well as duels. Even so-called primitive frontier societies had their subtleties and nuances.

In Germany, meanwhile, overpopulation, poverty and political unrest created an atmosphere of discontent and rebellion. By 1842 this inspired a group of German nobleman to develop the grand scheme of moving thousands of Germans into the vast unsettled territories of the Republic of Texas.

This they reasoned would rid Germany of many malcontents, decrease the surplus population, and quite possibly prove profitable as well. In addition there was no doubt, the thought that the fledgling Republic with its vast natural resources so desired at the onset of the industrial era, might be swayed to one day form close ties to Germany, especially if its' population was primarily of German extraction. The organization was known by many names including The German Immigration Company, The Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, or simply as the Nobel's Society or Adelsverein. Prince Carl of Solm Braunfels was selected to travel to Texas and negotiate for land on which to place the settlements.

German immigration was up in the United States, as well. With them came one of the seeds of modern fencing, in the Turnvereiner. In the 1840s, these organized gymnastic societies began to take root in the New World. They focussed on physical training through healthy exercise, including fencing.

1843:  

Thomas Stephens published a fencing manual in 1843. It was entitled A New System of Broad and Small Sword Exercise, comprising the broad sword exercise for Cavalry and the small sword cut and thrust practice for Infantry, to which are added instructions in horsemanship. Stephens wrote on the development of a system of attack and defense for purely practical combative purposes. He offered a series of observations designed to aid the aspiring swordsman. 

On July 5,1843, Norman Woods, one of the group of Fayette County men captured by Corasco and Woll the previous year, was allowed to write home from his Mexican prison about his experience: 

"As I have never described to you my suffering after leaving you I will now give you a short discription of them I was shot across the hip at the time that captain Dawson ran out with the white flagg it was Corascoes order for his soldiers to d[i]sarm us and put us to death We were released from this by an order from Genl Woll I was left on the ground as dead until they came to stripping us and tearing the clothes off of me I had Recovered enough to ask for quarters which was granted by a sargent who kept off the soldiers with his sword, I had Received five wounds with the sword four on the head and one in the left side which nearly proved fatal. I was carried into Bexar that night and the next morning left for Procedió Río Grande in an open waggon here I was seperated from the Rest of the boys that were not wounded and have never seen them yet."

1844: The Corcoran - De Lominie Affair

In 1844, H. R. Hershberger, the instructor of riding at the United States Military Academy, published a text on horsemanship with a section devoted to sabre training. He recommended bouts between mounted swordsmen for the purpose of military training. His training consisted of seven cuts, two thrusts and three parries. 

The first of the Germans to feel that there would be an Indian problem in connection with the colonization work of the Adelsverein, or Society of German Noblemen, was Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, its commissioner-general. In his first report to the Adelsverein Prince Solms touched on the subject with the following words:

"Before I close my report, I must urge on the committee to send me weapons so that I shall be able to make an impression on the Indians, with whom I hope to get on good terms, and on marauders and other vagabonds. I propose, therefore, that those members of the Society who have in their arsenals many arms no longer serviceable for Europe may donate them to their emigrating subjects. Since every man here must be mounted, the most serviceable arms would be a rifle of medium length and a sword. The leather accoutrements of the soldier, as well as cartridges, or at least powder from which to make them, are also necessary. If in addition to the two cannon, which I donated to the Society, a small howitzer were sent along, it would be a very desirable supplement."

East of the frontier Prince Solms found himself on, in the more civilized land of Louisiana, an article in the New Orleans Times-Democrat, March 13, 1892, said:

"Blood has been shed under the old cathedral aisles of nature. Between 1834 and 1844 scarcely a day passed without duels being fought at the Oaks. Why, it would not be strange if the very violets blossomed red of this soaked grass! The lover for his mistress, the gentleman for his honor, the courtier for his King; what loyalty has not cried out in pistol shot and scratch of steel! Sometimes two or three hundred people hurried from the city to witness these human baitings. On the occasion of one duel the spectators could stand no more, drew their swords, and there was a general melee."

The Louisiana culture of dueling frequently flowed into Texas as well. On May 18, 1844 a spectacular duel erupted on the streets of San Antonio. The encounter was between one Terence Corcoran and Corbel de Lominie.

Corcoran had sold his plantation in Tennessee in 1840 and had leisurely made his way into Texas, by way of a yearlong diversion in New Orleans. Most of his time was whiled away on Exchange Alley, the locale of numerous salles d'armes. Already a crack shot, in New Orleans Corcoran decided to avail himself of the services of Pepe Llulla, fencing master. At the end of eight months of instruction, Lulla stated he had nothing more to teach Corcoran. By 1841 Corcoran had wandered into San Antonio. A man of some leisure, he tended to pass time by visiting shops, taking scotch in the cantinas and shooting dice with the soldiers, or fencing with them.

On May 18, 1844 Corcoran was in the Jabali Cantina. He was drinking scotch and quietly reading a poem of his own composition to his friend Don Jose Salceda. Corbel de Lominie, who was standing nearby, interrupted and asked if Corcoran was as poor a fighter as he was a poet. Corcoran looked up at the Frenchman and replied, "No. I am at a disadvantage when I pick up the pen; my hands are awkward. They fit nothing but the hilts of swords or the butts of pistols."

De Lominie replied that he had three friends at the inn. He asked if Corcoran could come up with an equal number for his party. Corcoran agreed. They arranged for an encounter at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

At the appointed hour De Lominie arrived with three men, named Souriau, Pavie and Villemessant. Corcoran arrived with two men named Twigg and McDowell, as well has his friend, Don Jose Salceda. The agreement was for each to face off against an adversary from the other party. They also agreed that, the moment one finished off his counterpart, he was free to jump in and assist any of his comrades.

De Lominie faced off against Corcoran.

Souriau faced Salceda.

Pavie squared off against Twigg.

Villemessant opposed McDowell.

Then the melee began.

De Lominie fenced with both skill and ferocity. It initially appeared that he might get the better of his foe. In time, however, Corcoran was able to get de Lominie's measure and found the appropriate parry for each attack.

Salceda, meanwhile, had run Souriau through before two minutes had passed. He then turned to assist Twigg, who was fencing Pavie. Pavie, however, evaded a thrust from Twigg and, at virtually the same time, cut down Salceda. He then turned to face Twigg without missing a beat. Clearly the better swordsman, Pavie soon killed Twigg.

McDowell, meanwhile, had Villemessant hard pressed. Pavie raced to his comrade's aide. Before he reached the scene, however, McDowell disarmed Villemessant, sending the Frenchman's sword flying ten paces away. Villemessant and McDowell each raced for the sword. McDowell arrived first, planting his foot on Villemessant's blade.

By now Pavie had also arrived and thrust his sword at McDowell, who parried it, delivering a riposte that finished Pavie.

Villemessant, deprived of his own sword by McDowell, had used the short time McDowell and Pavie fenced to take the sword from the fallen Souriau. Villemessant raced upon McDowell, whose blade was still in Pavie. McDowell was barely able to extricate his weapon in time to face his new foe. Villemessant, however, got into too much of a rush to deliver a quick cut and left his guard open. McDowell took the opening and ran his point into Villemessant's shoulder.

McDowell then turned to aide Corcoran, who was still crossing blades with de Lominie. Corcoran, however, waved him off. In the next moment, Corcoran ran his adversary through.

When the affair was over Corcoran and McDowell suffered nothing more than minor cuts. Salceda and Twigg were dead.

On the other side, Souriau suffered a serious wound, but recovered after many months in a hospital. Villemessant was injured, but not badly. Pavie and de Lominie died.

This represented the stark cost of the duel. Yet no amount of blood, it seemed, could wash away the romantic attachment the typical southern gentleman held for affairs of honor. In this vein, there was a literary event in 1844. Some twenty-five years after Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Alexandre Dumas pere published The Three Musketeers, creating the romantic modern perception of 17^th Century musketeers. The novel's central character was loosely based on a Gascon captain-lieutenant of musketeers named Charles de Batz-Castlemore, Sieur D'Artagnan, who was repotedly killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Fiction or fact-based, the fact remains that this novel, and many others by Dumas reinforced the romantic fervor in the American South that Sir Walter Scott had helped to generate.

The southern plantation caste did, however, make some solidly brutal adaptations to Scott's romantic vision of feudal, land-based, aristocracy. Henry Bibb, a runaway slave from Shelby County, Kentucky, wrote that, on Sundays, slave owners would give slaves whiskey. In return, the slaves entertained their masters by dancing, playing the banjo, and fighting. As Bibb described it:

"Before fighting the parties choose their seconds to stand by them while fighting; a ring or a circle is formed to fight in, and no one is allowed to enter the ring while they are fighting, but their seconds, and the white gentlemen. They are not allowed to fight a duel, nor to use weapons of any kind. The blows are made by kicking, knocking, and butting with their heads; they grab each other by their ears, and jam their heads together like sheep. If they are likely to hurt each other very bad, their masters would rap them with their walking canes, and make them stop."

Two lieutenants of the United States Navy fought a duel at Galveston on December 8, 1844.