1845: Statehood

Mexico protested the pending annexation of Texas into the United States. With such tensions rising, some U.S. troops were deployed closer to the scene. One was a young Ulysses S. Grant, who found himself in Louisiana. Here he was to witness some of their particular customs. In his memoirs, he recalled:

"Early in July the long expected orders were received, but they only took the regiment to New Orleans Barracks. We reached there before the middle of the month, and again waited weeks for still further orders. The yellow fever was raging in New Orleans during the time we remained there, and the streets of the city had the appearance of a continuous well-observed Sunday. I recollect but one occasion when this observance seemed to be broken by the inhabitants. One morning about daylight I happened to be awake, and, hearing the discharge of a rifle not far off, I looked out to ascertain where the sound came from. I observed a couple of clusters of men near by, and learned afterwards that "it was nothing; only a couple of gentlemen deciding a difference of opinion with rifles, at twenty paces. "I do not remember if either was killed, or even hurt, but no doubt the question of difference was settled satisfactorily, and "honorably," in the estimation of the parties engaged. I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to kill him, I would not be willing to give him the choice of weapons with which it should be done, and of the time, place and distance separating us, when I executed him. If I should do another such a wrong as to justify him in killing me, I would make any reasonable atonement within my power, if convinced of the wrong done. I place my opposition to duelling on higher grounds than here stated. No doubt a majority of the duels fought have been for want of moral courage on the part of those engaged to decline."

Not all military officers took such exception to duelling. Grant was an American, and a northerner at that. Augustus Carl Buchel, a soldier, was born at Guntersblum, near Mainz, Hesse, on October 8, 1813. At 14 he entered the military academy at Darmstadt. At 18 he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the First Infantry Regiment of Hesse-Darmstadt. His next military training was at L'École Militaire in Paris. He served as a lieutenant in the French Foreign Legion and fought in the Carlist War in Spain. He was decorated and knighted by Queen Maria Christina in 1838 for bravery at the battle of Huesca in 1837. For several years he was an instructor in the Turkish army and attained the rank of colonel, the highest allowed a Christian. He was offered the rank of general if he would accept Islam. He refused and subsequently resigned. There is some indication that he was designated a pasha, a title of respect given officers of high rank. 

Buchel had a reputation for dueling and, according to family tradition, is said to have gone to Texas because he killed a nobleman in a duel of honor after his return to Germany. In late 1845 he arrived at Carlshafen, later known as Indianola, where he established residence.

On December 29, 1845, U. S. President James K. Polk followed through on a campaign platform promising to annex Texas, and signed legislation making Texas the 28th state of the United States.

The Constitution of 1845, which provided for the government of Texas as a state in the United States, was almost twice as long as the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. The longest article of the constitution was Article VII, on General Provisions. Most of its thirty-seven sections were limitations on the legislature. One section forbade the holding of office by any citizen who had ever participated in a duel. Apparently the legislature decided, however, that it had no power to regulate concealed weapons. The constitutional convention of 1845 defeated proposals to authorize exactly such power. 

1846: The U.S.-Mexican War  

Augustus Buchel was far from the only German immigrant in Texas. One that was far less respectable was a character known as Dr. Schubbert. A native of Kassel, Germany, he was learned and erudite, and certainly had frontier sense. Schubbert was a crack marksman with a pistol or a rifle. Schubbert, however, was an alias. The good doctor's name was really Frederic Armand Strubberg. Strubberg did have something in common with Buchel. He had fled Germany because he had killed a man in a duel. Unlike Buchel, however, he was also wanted in New York State for killing another man in an illegal duel. There was also no proof that he was even a real doctor. Life on the frontier was never certain. 

In fact, the largely German settlers of New Braunfels had their own militia for protection. Baron John Meusebach described their appearance, stating they wore, "hats bedecked with a cockade of rooster feathers, gauntlet gloves, and long clanking sabres." 

Herman Selle remembered that they dressed in "long riding boots, gray woolen blouses, black velvet collars decorated with brass buttons, broad-brimmed hats trimmed with long black feathers, tilted back on their heads, swords buckled on, and armed with rifles."

A Frenchman, M. Maris also saw them and described their appearance. He stated, "the uniform consisted of high boots, gray pantaloons, gray blouse, and large white, broad-brimmed hat mounted by wild turkey feathers. Their arms consisted of a large cavalry sabre, a brace of horse pistols and a carbine ‘Auswander in Texas'."

Fritz Goldbeck, a fourteen-year-old boy with the original settlers, remembered "dark gray uniforms, swords swinging at their sides."

"Dr. Schubbert" had been hired to transport German colonists to the site of modern Fredericksburg. Just about the time Schubbert and the first wagons were finally delivering their sick, weary riders to the site, Mexican dictator Santa Anna sent army units under Gen. Pedro Ampudia north of the Rio Grande to lay the groundwork for another all-out invasion of Texas. Ampudia's cavalry quickly encountered elements of the United States Army under General Zachary Taylor - sent to Texas just prior to formal annexation -- near Brownsville, and the Mexican War erupted as Taylor notified Washington that "hostilities may now be considered as commenced."

President Polk, a wholly-unapologetic Expansionist and believer in Manifest Destiny, had made it his primary goal and a campaign promise to wrest the entire Southwest - all the territory from Texas to the Pacific coast of California - from Mexico, and present it, as his legacy, to the United States. Santa Anna's invasion gave him all the ammunition he needed to implement his plans. Polk made Taylor's notification official, with a declaration of war, on May 12, 1846. This time, the United States of America had intervened on behalf of its most recent family addition to protect a disputed border (and, as a consequence, occupy Mexican territory). 

Augustus Buchel raised a company in the First Regiment of Texas Foot Rifles and served as its captain. He was present at the battle of Buena Vista, where he served as aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. Zachary Taylor. After the war President Franklin Pierce appointed him collector of customs at Port Lavaca, a position he held for many years. 

Another colorful Texan serving in that war was John "Jack" Hays. At one point he ran into a lancer regiment led by Lt. Colonel Juan Najera of the Mexican army. Brandishing his saber, Hays challenged Najera to a duel, which totally shocked his men, since he was a deadly shot with a pistol, but totally unskilled with a saber. The Mexican leader eagerly accepted the challenge, drew his long saber, and charged. As they raced toward each other, in a singular example of bad form, Hays abruptly swayed in his saddle, drew his Colt revolver, fired under his horse's neck, and killed Najera with a single shot.

Sabres and cutlasses continued to serve as primary weapons of hand-to-hand engagements. The primary cutlass of the Mexican War era was the Ames 1841 model, produced from about 1841-1846. It was similar to the M1832 Foot Artillery Sword, though with a broad brass knuckle-bow on it, rather than the cross hilt of the M1832. The blades were different in that the cutlass had no fullers, while the '32 had two. Both had the same basic grip with an eagle cut into the pommel. Both were inspired by the French NCO and Artillery swords and they, in turn, by romantic visions of the Roman Gladius.

The war with Mexico not withstanding, both Texans and their counterparts in New Orleans remained as passionate as ever for duelling. A maritime-oriented newspaper, the Roman Citizen, out of Rome, New York, reported in its November 3, 1846 issue, "At Cunargo two affairs of honor were expected to come off. Brigadier Thomas Marshall had called Col. Bailie Peyton to account and a meeting was expected between them on the 11th. Another duel was expected at the same place, between Captain Musson of New Orleans, and Capt. Sheveus of Texas." 

1847: Dolliver's Doubloons 

Among the many well known Galveston ex-pirates at this time was Benjamin Dollivar. "Crazy Ben" had sailed for Laffite on the Vengeance and the Hotspur. He lived year-round in an open sailcloth hovel on the north shore of Galveston Island, opposite Pelican Spit. He frequented the Oyster Saloon during his weekly drunken sprees...always paying for his drinks with a single gold doubloon. He was arrested and jailed in New Orleans in July 1847. The New Orleans Delta wrote of him: "...His nose is sharp and crooked enough to serve as a boat hook in an emergency... His little gray eyes twinkled in their sockets with a semi-piratical ferocity..." Even in the January cold, Dollivar could be found dragging his seine in the surf for the fish that were his principal diet. Once every three months, "Crazy Ben" would sail away in his whaleboat to replenish his supply of doubloons. Galvestonians sought by every means for two decades to learn the secret location of Dollivar's gold cache. He died with his secret as every true buccaneer should. 

1848:  

1849:   

Many Texans still saw no stigma attached to duelling. A prime example can be found in Louis T. Wigfall, a member of the Texas state House of Representatives in 1849. A native of South Carolina, he believed in a society led by the planter class and based on slavery and the chivalric code. As a young man he neglected his law practice for the contentious arena of politics. He killed one Thomas Bird in a duel around 1840. He wounded Representative Preston Brooks, of the South Carolina state House of Representatives, in a second duel in 1841. He was himself wounded in the second duel. Both duels were fought with pistols. Neither of the incidents appeared to prevent his election to a government post once he immigrated to Texas. 

In later years his daughter, Louise Wigfall Wright, wrote A Southern Girl in '61. In it she noted:

"This contest excited unusual interest, from the fact that Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, whose attack on Sumner is known to the world, had fought a duel with my father in 1841, in which they were both wounded. Preston Brooks was shot through the hip, and my father through both thighs. The latter was twenty-three years old and Preston Brooks twenty- two at the time. My father's second was John Laurens Manning, afterward Governor of South Carolina, and the second of Preston Brooks was Pierce M. Butler, afterward also Governor of the State. My father had been in several affairs of honor before this; but never fought another duel after his marriage. He seldom mentioned the subject, but when asked for his opinion would state with an earnestness of conviction, as refreshing as it was real, that he was a firm believer in the code duello as a factor in the improvement of both the morals and the manners of a community! He held that it engendered courtesy of speech and demeanor - had a most restraining tendency on the errant fancy, and as a preservative of the domestic relations was without an equal."

Also in 1849, Brevet Major Henry Wayne published a work called, The Sword Exercise Arranged for Military Instruction. He taught a method for sabre, espadon, and stick, and demonstrated techniques for opposing various combinations of weapons. It devoted some space to foil work especially as a means to learning to use the espadon or small sword. The foil illustrated by Wayne had a short thick grip with a lunette, or figure-8 guard and a very small pommel. Wayne preferred a flat-bladed foil, 31 inches long, which should curve for three-quarters of its length. The foil for the assault should be an inch longer, with a square blade tapering from shoulder to point and should, when bent, curve its whole length. The fencer's costume should consist of a loosely fitting jacket of brown linen, with standing collar, to button on the left side; the right side, with the sleeves of the right arm, from the elbow to the shoulder, to be faced with strong buckskin, or other pliable leather. Over this was to be worn a plastron of soft leather on the outside and strong linen underneath, stuffed to the thickness of half an inch with hair. The jacket should be complemented by loose easy pantaloons, a black silk cravat, an iron wire mask, with wings for the protection of the ears and side face, and a slipper for the right foot and a sandal for the left.  

1850:   

Court records in Jefferson County from 1846-1850 include numerous prosecutions for such 'felonies' as "allowing card-playing in the home," "living in adultery," "bearing a challenge (to duel)," as well as operating a store, saloon, or ferry without a county license.

1851:   

1852: The Houston Academy Chartered 

Military oriented fencing manuals were still common. One published this year was the Manual of Bayonet Exercise Prepared for the Use of the Army of the United States, by George B. McClellan, Commander-In-Chief U.S. Army

On August 29, 1852, the Houston Academy was chartered. Houstonians placed great store on the education of their children. This was actually the second learning institute to bear this name. Among the incorporators was William Marsh Rice, whose name and bequest would grace a later center of learning in Houston.

1853: The Houston Academy Opens  

In Victoria, Texas, physician and druggist Dr. Edward R. Ragland was killed in a duel.

The Houston Academy opened in 1853. The same year the local Turnverein opened a gymnastics school for girls and boys based on the verein's tenet that, "only in a healthy body dwells a healthy soul."

1854:   

1855: Old Pirates at the Oyster Bar  

As late as 1855, visitors to the Oyster Saloon in Galveston might notice old Jim Campbell, Ben Dollivar, John Lambert, Charlie Cronea, and Stephen Churchill sipping beer in some darkened corner and reminiscing in hushed tones about the events of that last voyage of the Hotspur.  If a stranger approached their table, the old pirates clammed up quickly, the time of day being hard to obtain from any of their lips. The men who lived and survived that era rarely talked about their experiences for fear of self-incrimination that might provoke a charge of piracy against them. As Charles Hayes, an early Galveston Island historian, acknowledged: "...is impossible to get any of those daring privateers to divulge anything throwing any light upon the life and career of their commander (Jean Lafitte) or relate any incidences of their own lives."

Actually, James Campbell related his experiences to Mirabeau B. Lamar in 1855.

At least four former buccaneers, James Campbell, Stephen Churchill, John Lambert, and Benjamin Dollivar lived at Galveston, and a fifth, Charles Cronea, resided on Bolivar Peninsula. And nothing infuriated those men more than to be referred to as former "pirates." Each of them insisted that he was an ex-privateer, while a member of a ship's crew carrying legitimate letters of marque from one of the infant Latin-American republics of Mexico, New Cartegena (Colombia), Venezuela, or La Plata (Argentina). Likewise, they compared their activities against the Spanish with those of many American privateer captains who harassed British merchant shipping during the American Revolution and the War of 1812.

This was the era that witnessed the passing of many of Laffite's old coterie. The pirate's former pilot, Steven Churchill passed away in Galveston in 1855.

1856: The Texas Monumental and Military Institute 

An act passed in Texas in 1856 doubled the punishment for assault with intent to murder if a "bowie-knife or dagger" was used. It also read:

"Article 610. If any person be killed with a bowie-knife or dagger, under circumstances which would otherwise render the homicide a case of manslaughter, the killing shall nevertheless be deemed murder, and punished accordingly.

Article 611. A "bowie-knife" or "dagger," as the terms are here and elsewhere used, means any knife intended to be worn on the person, which is capable of inflicting death, and not commonly known as a pocket knife."

These were rather broad definitions, indeed.

May of 1856 saw the passing of James Campbell, at Virginia Point. His wife Mary would recall the adventures of his youth for journalists for the next few years. After decades of silence, it is just possible that Jim Campbell knew he was terminally ill in 1855, being the reason he finally chose to dictate his memoirs to Mirabeau Lamar.

In Col. J. F. K. Mansfield's report of his inspection of Ft. Brown, he included the following note on May 2, 1856, "Lieut Howard took the company thro' the broad sword exercise on foot handsomely... "

Texas Monumental and Military Institute (formed from the consolidation of Rutersville College, Texas Military Institute, Galveston, and the Texas Monumental Committee at La Grange, Fayette County) opened in October 1856. The physical plant included the Rutersville College buildings on a ten-acre campus and several one-story barracks six miles from La Grange. Caleb G. Forshey was superintendent of the institute and teacher of grammar and literature. Bolivar Timmons, a graduate of the Kentucky Military Institute, was commandant and taught mathematics. Louis Wüllrich of Göttingen, Germany, taught languages, music, and gymnastics. Maj. William Thornton was an assistant professor; Capt. W. H. Russell of the Texas Navy was steward, and Mrs. Fanny Russell was stewardess.

Enrollment was limited to 100 cadets. Tuition for twenty weeks was thirty dollars for preparatory students and fifty dollars for collegiate students. The library was well stocked for the period, and the library fee was five dollars a year. Board, including laundry, lights, and fuel, was twelve dollars monthly. Dress uniforms of gray cost thirty-five or forty dollars; blue broadcloth uniforms and blue cloth top hats with a feather in front were more expensive than the summer uniforms of brown linen with red stripes down the trousers.

Military discipline was the rule: drums summoned cadets for roll call five times a day and to study hall, mess hall, and barracks. Drill alternated with fencing and sword practice. Annually, on April 21, students and teachers marched to Monument Hill for memorial services.

1857: The Helena Duel   

The town of Helena, Texas was a successful agricultural community in Karnes County, east of San Antonio and somewhat south of Seguin and Gonzales. In 1857, The Cart Wars erupted in and around Helena. These wars had both national and international repercussions. The underlying causes were ethnic and racial prejudices of Anglo Texans against Mexican-Americans. Mexican sympathy for slaves along with the Mexican-American's dominance in the prosperous business of hauling food and merchandise from the port of Indianola to San Antonio only increased Anglo envy and harsh treatment of the Mexicans. The Hispanics hauled their freight cheaper and quicker than the Anglo Texans.

The Anglos destroyed the Mexican's carts, stole their freight, and wounded and killed a number of Mexicans. Law enforcement did nothing to stop or punish the criminals and a war ensued. The dramatic increase in violence caused many to fear that a "campaign of death" against the Mexicans was under way. Some viewed the Mexicans as "intolerable nuisances" while others worried the war would increase prices. One prevalent fear was that the war was against a "weak race". If allowed then it was feared that the German-Texans would be next and finally " a war between the poor and the rich".

"The Helena Duel" originated in Helena during the Cart Wars. The "Helena Duel" consists of the left hands of two opponents are tied together and each opponent is given a knife with a 3 inch blade. The blades were too short to kill the opponents. The result was a bloodbath that continued until one man collapsed.On orders from the Governor, the Texas Rangers ended The Cart Wars in December 1857.

1858: Fading Cutlasses, Army Sabers and Fencing Foils   

"Crazy Ben" Dollivar of Galveston died in 1858. He always paid for his drinks with a single gold doubloon from his personal treasure cache, and usually "slept off the fumes" in the alley behind the saloon. He secret horde was never discovered.

In Massachusetts in 1858, the Boston Fencing Club opened its doors. One of its rules provided that "No females shall be admitted to the club-rooms under any pretext whatsoever, except by permission of a member of the government of the club." In addition to females, dogs and beverages were excluded from the salle. The club's mission was "to afford its members, at a small annual assessment, a convenient salle d'armes with a competent instructor, or instructors, free from the objections and inconveniences which apply to Fencing Schools open to the public."

There was interest in fencing in Houston, as well. In 1858, the Houston Academy moved into a new two-story brick building that had cost $20,000.00 and could accommodate four hundred students. It had separate classrooms for girls and boys. In addition to the usual academic subjects, the faculty of five teachers offered classes in painting, gymnastics, dancing and fencing.

While not so necessary in Houston, in New Orleans one could readily find pragmatic uses for fencing skills. On May 6^th, F. W. Seymour and A. Morris met for a frank encounter on the Gentilly Road. Morris was the challenger and the weapons were smallswords. On the second pass Morris was wounded in the groin. Honor was satisfied and the encounter ended.

For those who could attend neither the Houston Academy nor the Boston Fencing Club, November 9, 1858 saw the publication, in New York, of The Militiaman's Manual and Swordplay without a Master, by Captain Matthew W. Berriman. It was advertised as "The most perfect manual ever placed in the soldier's hand. Should be carried in every soldier's knapsack."  

The sword of issue to the soldier was the sabre and, in 1858, an account of the most heinous use of a sabre by a soldier in Texas resurfaced. The Texas Almanac issued a volume that included a first-person account of the Battle of San Jacinto by Dr. Nicholas Labadie, the physician who had attended the wounded Sam Houston on the battlefield. The story of the Texian victory at San Jacinto 22 years earlier was already legend and one more account of the battle would have been unremarkable except that Dr. Labadie once again broached the subject of Col. Forbes and the unknown woman who had been slain by a saber thrust. Forbes, who was now the mayor of Nacogdoches, filed a $25,000 slander suit in district court. The result was a nine-year lawsuit that reopened the issue of the murdered woman and brought forward eyewitnesses making sworn testimony concerning her murder. 

1859: The Sabre Trial

Culture and an interest in physical activity continued to seep into Texas. By January 1859, James C. Clelland was running a dancing school in Beaumont which "the citizens are attending tri-weekly."

Another popular pastime in antebellum Texas, as with the rest of the Ivanhoe inspired south was the chivalric joust.

One such event was held in Dallas in 1859 to celebrate the grand opening of a new 40-room hotel. The contestant "knights" would attempt wield a lance and catch a metal ring as they rode by on horseback. As June Peak, who competed in the event, wrote a half-century later, the "tournament was held about where Hall Street now is and between Swiss Avenue and Live Oak Street."

The contestants from Dallas County were: W. J. Marold; John Record; Joe Griffin; J. L. Leonard; Crocket L. McKenzie; W. W. Peak; Ed Bonner; Scott L. Collins; William Burtle; J. E. Grover; W. J. Adams; N. H. Darnell Jr.; J. K. P. Wilson; R. W. Lunday; Robert Sears; R. M. Edmonson; and W. A. Harwood. From Tarrant County came: Ben Johnson; William Fowler; William Terry; and Tom Johnson.

There were also judges, pages and, of course, trumpeters.

Antebellum Texas was remarkably unlike other Southern states in its lack of infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. In this respect it more closely resembled the states from the American northeast. No one in Texas, regardless of race, was denied the right to possess or carry arms in any manner. At a time when slaves in most states were prohibited arms by statute, no such law existed in Texas. Anyone, be they of Anglo, Hispanic or African descent could wear concealed arms. The Texas code as of 1859 allowed that only the misuse of weapons was punishable. The slave code contained no arms regulations. In fact the homicide laws provided that it was permissible to kill a slave only when "a slave uses weapons calculated to produce death, in any case other than those in which he may lawfully resist with arms."

Surprisingly, it was less tolerant of the Bowie Knife. This same year the Texas Supreme Court ruled:

"The bowie-knife is an exceedingly destructive weapon. It is difficult to defend against it, by any degree of bravery, or any amount of skill. The gun or pistol may miss its aim, and when discharged, its dangerous character is lost, or diminished at least. The sword may be parried. With these weapons men fight for the sake of combat, to satisfy the laws of honor, not necessarily with the intention to kill, or with a certainty of killing, when the intention exists. The Bowie-knife differs from these in its device and design; it is an instrument of almost certain death."

In Texas, the big news was the suit between John Forbes and Dr. Labadie over the murder by sword of a woman at San Jacinto. Not surprisingly, Forbes focused upon his exoneration by the battlefield court of inquiry that had been cosigned by Houston, Sherman, Rusk and Hockley. Sam Houston, in his 1859 deposition, again stated he believed the charges were a fabrication and contained not one word of truth.

Labadie subpoenaed depositions from other eyewitnesses including Thomas Corry who stated,

"On the 21st, about an hour before sundown.... there came from the timber onto the prairie where we stood two men in the uniforms of Texas regulars, bringing with them two prisoners, a man and a woman... The two regulars immediately attacked the man prisoner with their bayonetes (sic). At the same time, Colonel Forbes thrust his sword through the woman's breast, the blade entering in front and coming out her back. As the sword was withdrawn, she fell forward upon her face and, quivering, died without a groan. She made no effort to escape or ask for mercy. I have always thought she felt that, as a woman, she was safe."

Another veteran, R. J. Caulder, testified:

"If Colonel Forbes did kill the woman, it was doubtless to him a painful mistake, growing out of her dress approaching so near to that of the other sex that the difference could not be distinguished at a short distance...."

Still, Lt. Summers had stated on the day after the battle that the woman was "young and longhaired and finely dressed." The two statements are difficult to reconcile.

One of the more dramatic depositions came from Sidney Sherman, the same officer who had headed the 1836 inquiry that first cleared Forbes. In 1859, Sherman testified that he believed the object of the 1836 court of inquiry was not to determine whether or not Forbes had killed the woman, but to show that he would not kill a female prisoner intentionally. Sherman further testified that none of Forbes' accusers came forward in 1836, so the Commissary General was acquitted.

Sherman now stated, "Forbes had admitted to the court of inquiry that he killed the woman, ‘but claimed he was excusable for doing so in battle." Sherman, in fact, testified that he had personally ridden up to the woman's body and asked who killed her. Several men, he testified, told him that Col. Forbes had done so because he was anxious to bloody his sword.

Several other witnesses were subpoenaed to testify but much of the testimony was centered on hearing rumors and undocumented charges of plundering and charges of battlefield cowardice.

A more honored veteran of that battle passed away later this same year. Mirabeau B. Lamar, poet, fencer, Texian Calvary commander, President of the Republic of Texas and collector of the pirate tales of Jean Laffite died in Richmond, Texas on Dec. 19, 1859.

Half a world away, the seeds of a grand idea were being planted. Evangelos Zappas, a grain merchant in Greece, convinced the Bavarian-born King Otto I of Greece to host an "Olympic festival" at Athens. Events included running, jumping, as well as standing and ground wrestling. While there was no fencing in this festival, there was fencing of a kind outside the venue. Greek cavalry and police used sheathed sabers to keep the unruly spectators in line.

Additional Hellenic Olympics would be held in 1870, 1875, and 1888.

1860: On the Precipice 

On the morning of July 12th, in New Orleans, two men named Canon and Peree fought a duel using colichemardes in the City Park. The encounter ceased when Paree received a slight wound in the breast.

The cult of the duel of honor, however, was already on the wane.

On the eve of the Civil War, actual duels were no longer so common in the South as they once had been, in part because more often than not friends interceded and prevented the duelists from actually going through with the duel. As Ted Rosengarten observed in Tombee:

"No longer was it necessary to exchange pistol shots. The delivery and acceptance of a challenge was sufficient to give satisfaction. By issuing a challenge, the injured party got to publicize his grievance and show his allegiance to a ritual code. He showed that he belonged. And by accepting the challenge, the offender restored the social balance upset by the original insult."

Likewise, in Rowan County, North Carolina, a number of challenges were issued during the 1850s, but there is no record of an actual duel being fought. And on St. Helena Island, as Rosengarten notes, "At least four times in thirteen years, acquaintances of Chaplin went through the motions of preparing to duel. Significantly, none of the duels came off." Like much about the South's upper class, dueling was a concept borrowed from the aristocratic traditions of England and the continent which Southern gentlemen carefully and self-consciously copied early and late in the history of the antebellum South.

In Texas, a frontier state, the sword was more likely to be wielded by a soldier than a civilian gentleman. General Robert E. Lee was in command of the Department of Texas from February 30 to November 27, 1860. It was there that he had his only field training in command of troops, before the Civil War. His men had several combat encounters with Native American forces. He sent in a report on the actions of some of his men. He noted, "Private Michael Wheelan, of Company B, 1st Cavalry, having been dismounted, was attacked by nine Indians, and although wounded in both legs, he killed two, wounded a third, and broke with his sabre, the heads from three lances, when he was rescued by some gallant men from the [mule] train."

By the summer of 1860 intense anti-union sentiment was generating violene. Sporadic reports of vandalism and lynchings were reported.

In November 1860, William Harris styled himself in the Beaumont Banner as a "teacher of fashionable dances," offering a series of lessons to Beaumont gentlemen for $10. It served a genteel pasttime that was about to be eclipsed by war. The same month Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Texas had voted with ten other slave states for Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.

Sam Houston, Jr. was a student at the Texas Monumental and Military Institute, and his father was invited to attend the review and conduct the examinations in 1860. With the outbreak of the Civil War, cadets and graduates of the institute went into the Confederate Army. The school never reopened.

Sam Houston also gave a speech in December of 1860 at the Houston Academy. The school served 150 pupils at the time. The academy was closed during the Civil War and the building converted into a military hospital. The Civil War and early Reconstruction years virtually obliterated education along the Texas Coast.