USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 65
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"Hang it, Watkins, I thought I could give you another shot." t
Though a small appropriation was secured for the "Watkins Digest," the book was never authorized. Capt. Horatio Marbury, then secretary of state, with two commissioners, was subsequently appointed to make a digest. William H. Crawford and George Watkins were chosen to assist him; but the latter, on account of his aggrieved feelings, declined to serve. Marbury and Crawford prosecuted the task alone and, in due time, completed the undertaking. It is known to this day as "Mar- bury and Crawford's Digest of Georgia Laws."
Besides the formal encounters which took place between Jackson and Watkins, they met somewhat unceremoniously on certain occasions and engaged in fisticuff fights. One of these occurred soon after the Yazoo Act was rescinded, showing that the enmity between the two men ran back to the famous land speculation in which some of the most influential men of Georgia were involved. The difficulty occurred in Louisville, at the close of the legislative session. We quote this paragraph from a letter describing the affair : "This was done to bring on dispute. Flesh and blood of such texture as mine would not bear it (i. e., the provoca- tion offered by Watkins), and the lie and stick involuntarily flew on
* Shipp: "Life of Crawford," pp. 38-39.
t Dutcher : "History of Augusta, " p. 227.
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him." # In this encounter, Governor Jackson was stabbed in several places, and for a time his wounds were thought to be mortal.
Thomas Gibbons, a lawyer of Savannah, who as early as the year 1800 is said to have earned $15,000 per annum from the practice of law, an income equivalent to $60,000 at the present time, was frequently on opposing sides to Governor Jackson in civil litigation before the courts. He was also extensively engaged in land speculations. Consequently, there was little in common between the two men except a violent temper, the effect of which was to hasten them to the field. But they appear to have met only once, at which time three shots were exchanged be- tween them, without effect.
There is nothing in the records on which to base any positive state- ment to the effect that Governor Jackson ever became involved in per- sonal difficulties with General Gunn, but the latter was a notorious Yazooist and was a colleague of Governor Jackson in the United States Senate when the latter relinquished the toga to begin his fight against the speculators. If they did not meet on the field of honor, it is little short of marvelous. In the opinion of not a few commentators upon the subject, the Yazoo Fraud has been overworked by historians. Some of the leading men of the state were concerned in it on the ground that it was merely a real estate transaction; and when we remember that it was before the days of railway and telegraph communication, we must admit that Georgia's western lands were comparatively worthless. Even so pronounced a patriot as Patrick Henry headed one of the Yazoo com- panies organized in Virginia.
But Governor Jackson was undoubtedly sincere in his fight against the Yazooists, whom he regarded in the light of conspirators. No man was ever more inflamed with the ardor of a righteous indignation. But he paid the penalty. According to Thomas Hart Benton, with whom he served in the United States Senate, his death, in 1806, was due directly to wounds received in a duel, the last of many caused by his opposition to the Yazoo Fraud. More than any other man in Georgia, Governor Jackson was distinguished for his prowess in personal combat; and he carried to his grave the scars of countless hostile meetings on the field of honor.
Even the bench became infected by this homicidal mania. Col. Ben- jamin Taliaferro, a comrade-in-arms of the fiery Jackson, was also a duellist, though he is credited-in the authentie records-with only one encounter. Colonel Taliaferro lived at a time when lawyers were searce in Upper Georgia. He was not himself a disciple of Blackstone, but such was his reputation, throughout the County of Wilkes, both for sound business judgment and for strict probity of character that, layman though he was, the Legislature which rescinded the Yazoo Aet elevated him to the bench and made him the first judge of what was then known as the Western Circuit. He was a man whose sense of decorum was unusually acute, but such was the ethical standard of the times with respect to duelling that his position on the bench did not prevent him from meeting Col. Francis Willis for a round of buckshot.
* Charlton : "Life of Jackson, " p. 161.
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This was in 1796. Colonel Willis was a man of means. He was also a prominent Yazooist. Aggrieved by some decision adverse either to his political faction or to his personal interests, he challenged Colonel Taliaferro to a duel, which the latter lost no time in accepting. The judge's aim was unerring; and, in the encounter which followed, Colonel Willis received a wound in his right breast, so near the vital center, that he declined a second shot. Colonel Taliaferro, in this engagement, used the old horseman's pistols worn by him when he belonged to Lee's Legion.
SAND BAR FERRY: A FAMOUS DUELLING GROUND .- Four miles southeast of Augusta lies one of the most famous duelling grounds in America : Sand Bar Ferry. It occupies both banks of the Savannah River at a point which in past years, before the old ferry gave place to the present model steel bridge, was well adapted by reason of its peculiar environment to the purposes of a field of honor. Here, in the days gone by, personal combats without number have been fought under the Code Duello, Georgians resorting to the Carolina side and Carolinians betaking themselves to the Georgia side, each to adjust their differences according to the only mode of arbitra- ment which then prevailed among gentlemen. Happily this method of redress has long since passed. For more than a generation not a drop of blood has been spilled on the old duelling ground, and its hostile meetings are today recalled only by the gray-beards whose memories reach back to the old regime, when the duelling pistol dominated the public life of the South. But we are fortunate in finding for our readers an article which describes this noted resort of the duellist as it appeared forty years ago. It was written by Col. James T. Bacon, editor of the Edgefield Chronicle, who often visited the spot; and, without reproducing the article in full, its salient paragraphs are as follows:
"There is not a spot of greater interest in any part of our country than the secluded glade known in the history of the South, of South Carolina and Georgia, especially, as Sand Bar Ferry. A commonplace name enough, but attached to a glade or fairy ring set apart for the conventional duelling ground when the Code Dnello was the first resort of gentlemen in settling personal difficulties.
"In some respects it would seem that this spot were fashioned for some such pur- pose, so quiet, so perfectly secluded, so easy of access and at the same time so out of the way that a most bloody duel could be fought to a finish before authority from ยท any point could arrive to interfere.
"This historic dnelling arena lies three miles southeast of the City of Augusta, over what was once a wheel-scarred and rugged road, heavy in places with fine sand, and again, marshy where it dipped into a bit of low land or struggled through a tongne of undrained swamp. The road lies along pleasant farm lands, and plume- like elms meet in leafy arches overhead. Now it runs deep into the heart of the dim swamp, now close along the margin of the rushing, muddy, turbulent Savannah, bor- dered by thousands of the trailing water willow.
"This duelling ground lies on either side of the river. With the belligerents of the Carolina side, who wished to settle differences with leaden arguments, the fairy ring beneath the hoary moss-draped trees on the Georgia side was chosen as the scene of action. With those already in trouble on the latter side, the clean, firm sands of the wide river bank were preferred. On the Georgia side the famous spot might well be mistaken for the artificial work of man, fashioned with a view to the purpose which it served. The ground is as level as a dancing floor; a soft carpet of moss covers it, through which the vivid fruit of the partridge vine or ground ivy glows like the crimson stain of blood. All around tall cedars, feathery elms and towering gums, interspersed with a few black-boled pines, draped with long streamers of the funeral gray moss, shade the traveler from the too-ardent rays of the semi-tropical sun.
"On the left the river runs, broadening out into wide shallows, the sand bars shoaling out from either bank, until at low water, or during the summer months, per- sons standing on the further end of the bar could clasp hands across the bed of the then placid river. On the right a thick hedge of flowering juniper shuts off the view
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of a most prosaic object, a railroad trestle poised high, and spanning the river from bank to bank. On the Carolina side white chalk cliffs loom up, cut by a road that winds up and up until lost to sight over the high brow of the white bare hills.
"It is a singularly quiet place, this famous Southern duelling ground; the natural face of which seems never to change. No sound breaks the stillness, but the occa- sional flutter of the winged inhabitant of the bushes, the lap of the water over the sand bars, or the grinding wheels of an occasional vehicle that has just been ferried over.
"Many of the lagoons have never been explored, and just how many there are cannot, seemingly, be ascertained. Dense canebrakes, absolutely as impregnable as a stone wall, shutting out daylight in their vicinity, cut off communication except where the tilled lands skirt them, or where a narrow and tortuous passage leads into the Savannah. It is a curious phenomenon that, however high the river rises, or however low it sinks, the waters in the lagoon remain the same-weird, ghostly, mysterious, a freak of nature in her most somber mood-spots of eternal mourning, mayhap for bygone transgressions-blots upon the fair face of nature beneath the ardent South- ern sun.
"But let us climb up to the top of the high white cliffs of Beech Island, on the South Carolina side, whence spreads out the level duelling ground. The September moon is rising, and the silence is intense; almost palpable or tangible, as it were. The reddening gum leaves flutter in the lazy breeze-flurrying lightly over the moss with a sound that might be made by the ghostly footsteps of the things unseen. Even the bird voices seem far away and hushed; the moonlight filters through the whispering pines that complain in far-off hushed undertones; and standing there one feels as though civilization and the fret of life and the strife of man had been left many miles behind, and that the land in which it is always afternoon-if not black night-were well at hand.
"Beech Island is a fair and blessed land, but there hangs a dark and bloody fringe along some of her borders."-"Georgia's Land Marks, Memorials and Legends." L. L. Knight. Vol. II.
CHAPTER IX
BUT THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE DUEL WAS FROM 1800 TO 1830 WHEN Two POWERFUL PERSONALITIES DIVIDED THE STATE INTO HOSTILE CAMPS: JOHN CLARK AND WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD THESE STRONG PERSONALI- TIES PORTRAYED-PETER VAN ALLEN, A CHAMPION OF THE CLARK FAC- TION, FALLS BEFORE MR. CRAWFORD'S PISTOL-GENERAL CLARK AND MR. CRAWFORD EXCHANGE CARDS-DIFFERENCES ARE TEMPORARILY ADJUSTED-BUT THE FIRES BREAK OUT AGAIN-JUDGE TAIT'S CON- NECTION WITH THE AFFAIR-GENERAL CLARK PRESENTS A MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE ASKING FOR JUDGE TAIT'S IMPEACHMENT-THIS BRINGS MR. CRAWFORD TO THE FRONT ONCE MORE-DUEL AT HIGH SHOALS BETWEEN CLARK AND CRAWFORD-RULES UNDER WHICH THE DUEL WAS FOUGHT-MR. CRAWFORD IS WOUNDED-HOW JUDGE DOOLY, THE NOTED WIT, DECLINED A CHALLENGE, WITH HONOR-THE BEE GUM EPISODE-ON DECEMBER 12, 1809, DUELLING IS FORBIDDEN BY STATUTE BUT THE LAW REMAINS A DEAD LETTER-GENERAL FLOYD'S DUEL WITH THREE WEAPONS-DUEL BETWEEN CUMMING AND MCDUFFIE-JOHN FORSYTH WOUNDED BY A SWORD THRUST-DR. AM- BROSE BABER-SURGEON IN THE BEALL-MITCHELL AFFAIR, HE AFTER- WARDS FIGHTS A FATAL DUEL WITH THOMAS D. MITCHELL-DIES SUDDENLY AT THE BEDSIDE OF A PATIENT-DUEL BETWEEN GEORGE W. CRAWFORD AND THOMAS E. BURNSIDE-LAST DUEL FOUGHT IN THE SOUTH-SOME OF THE REDEEMING FEATURES OF THE CODE DUELLO.
But the golden age of the Code Duello in Georgia was the period extending from 1800 to 1830, when the public life of this state was dominated by two powerful personalities: Gen. John Clark and Hon. William H. Crawford. Party spirit has never been more rancorous than during this period; and, indeed, to the feudal animosity between these two noted Georgians, making them the most inveterate personal and political enemies, some writers have even traced the origin of par- ties in Georgia. But this is not entirely accurate. During the Revolu- tionary period, our state was divided between the Whigs and Tories. For a score of years after the Federal Constitution was adopted, the republicans and the federalists were rival political parties in Georgia ; and while the latter was never numerically very strong in this state, due to the fact that some of its leaders were actively involved in the Yazoo transaction, it was nevertheless at one time sufficiently entrenched in the citadel of wealth to force Josiah Meigs from the presidency of Franklin College, on the ground that he was an extreme Jeffersonian .*
At the close of the War for Independence, John Clark, with the
* W. H. Meigs: "Life of Josiah Meigs," p. 92.
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prestige of his gallant record as a soldier, became a dominant figure in the politics of Upper Georgia. When only fourteen years of age, he had fought by his father's side at Kettle Creek and later had won mili- tary renown by his campaigns and forays against the Indians. The battle of Jack's Creek was so called in honor of John Clark, whose nickname among his intimate friends and comrades of the army was "Jack." Trained in the exercise of arms, it is not strange that he should have carried his characteristics as a fighter into the arena of politics; nor is it strange that the veterans who followed his distinguished father and who knew John Clark himself in the perilous days of battle should have remained his loyal supporters to the very last.
Though not an educated man, at least in the academic sense, he was a man of strong intellect, rugged in character, somewhat blunt of ex- pression, full of bold initiative, and with a rare capacity for leadership. According to Governor Gilmer, he possessed the temper of the clansman and was domineering and dictatorial; but Governor Gilmer was identi- fied with the Crawford faction, few of whom could discover any virtue in John Clark. General Jackson, in the lower part of the state, was for years a stumbling block in the way of Clark's ambition, for the old governor did not approve of the latter's land speculations.
But in the politics of Upper Georgia, John Clark was an imperious figure. Here he was on his native heath; and here the frontiersmen flocked to his standard like the Highland Clans to the horn of Roderick Dhu. Here as a leader whose word was law and gospel, he exercised an unopposed sway until a new star began to loom upon the horizon just north of Augusta and a new political Warwick arose to divide with him the honors of public life, in the person of his future hated rival, William H. Crawford.
Mr. Crawford was a man of titanic proportions. At the Court of France, in after years, his majestic figure caught the admiration of the great Napoleon, who impulsively declared that Mr. Crawford was the only man to whom he ever felt constrained to bow. Better educated than John Clark, he was a man of unusual culture for the times, a most effective public speaker, and a born leader of men. These qualities eventually made him United States senator, minister to France, secretary of the treasury, and, except for an unfortunate stroke of paralysis, might have placed him in the presidential chair of the nation.
The settlers of Upper Georgia were at this time, in the main, either from Virginia or from North Carolina; and, according to ancestral bias, took sides in the political wrangles of this early period. As a rule, the North Carolinians attached themselves to Clark, while the Virginians allied themselves with Crawford, who likewise derived strong support from the aristocratie families of the Georgia coast. The elimination of Crawford became naturally the first strategic move of the Clark fac- tion; and to accomplish this end a duel offered the most convenient instrument and promised the most effective results.
Mr. Crawford, unlike General Clark, possessed little knowledge of the use of arms. He was not a child of the' camp. For this reason, his opponents argued that he would, in all likelihood, decline a challenge to
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the field of combat. In fact, such a refusal to fight was exactly what his enemies wanted, since they could then post him as a coward and easily accomplish his political undoing.
To put into effect this proposed plan of strategy, the first champion to represent the Clark faction and to test the mettle of Mr. Crawford's arm was a young Elberton lawyer: Peter Lawrence Van Allen. Mr. Van Allen was by birth a New Yorker. He came of an old Dutch fam- ily of the Empire State and, on the authority of tradition, was a kins- man by marriage to Martin Van Buren, the Sage of Kinderhook. Locat- ing in Georgia for the practice of law, he identified himself with the Clark faction and became solicitor-general of the western circuit. He was also a Yazooist and a federalist. Van Allen was a good speaker, witty and eloquent, and early in the year 1800 began hostile tactics against the opposite faction by bringing a petty suit against Judge Charles Tait, of Elberton, who was then Mr. Crawford's law partner and most intimate friend. In his speech to the jury, Van Allen assailed Judge Tait with merciless satire, and naturally the effect of this tirade was to nettle Judge Tait, who finally challenged him to fight.
But Judge Tait was not the game for which Van Allen was hunting; and on the ground that the judge was not a gentleman and, therefore, beyond the pale of the code, he refused to meet him, expecting Mr. Craw- ford, of course, as Judge Tait's second, to take up the gage of battle and to carry on hostilities. However, Mr. Crawford was loath to step into his principal's shoes, since the quarrel was not one of his own seek- ing; and on this account he exposed himself to animadversion, incurring the well-meant criticism of many of his own faction.
But circumstances soon goaded him into a change of mind. While stopping at the Willis Hotel, in Washington, Georgia, he chanced in an unexpected manner to encounter Van Allen, who grossly insulted him in the lobby of the hotel and challenged him to fight. According to the imperious standard of the times, there was no alternative for Mr. Craw- ford; and, rather than jeopardize his political fortunes by exposing himself to the charge of cowardice, he agreed to meet his antagonist.
As to what followed, we quote an account of the duel from a well- known historical writer: "It was arranged that Van Allen and Craw- ford should meet at Fort Charlotte, the famous old duelling ground, twelve miles below Petersburg, on the Carolina side. Crawford's bravery was not without stoicism, for he went to the place of meeting without the slightest preparation. He had borrowed a pair of old pistols to be used by him, and these he did not examine until the morning of the meeting, and in trying them, they snapped twice. On the first fire neither party was touched. Crawford afterwards stated to Judge Gar- nett Andrews that he was disconcerted on the first fire by an ugly grim- ace made by Van Allen, and that on the second fire he drew down his hat brim so that he could not see it. On the second round both com- batants again fired, and Van Allen was seen to fall mortally wounded. Crawford was unharmed." *
Two years elapsed before Mr. Crawford was again asked to vindi- cate his courage on the field of honor. This time it was John Clark
* Shipp: "Life of Crawford," p. 49.
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himself who stepped into the lime-light and became one of the principals. On the resignation of Judge Thomas P. Carnes from the judgeship of the western circuit, Judge Griffin, a brother-in-law of General Clark- both having married daughters of Col. Micajah Williamson-received from Governor John Milledge an ad interim appointment to the vacant seat. When the regular election was held by the State Legislature some time later, Judge Tait, a member of the Crawford faction, successfully opposed Judge Griffin for this office, though Judge Griffin was unques- tionably a fine lawyer and a man of blameless reputation. Thereupon an acrimonious controversy ensued between General Clark and Mr. Crawford, growing out of the issues of the campaign.
Smarting from the defeat of his candidate, General Clark called Mr. Crawford to task for certain pre-election statements made by him to the effect that he, General Clark, had influenced the grand juries of certain counties to recommend his brother-in-law. This brought forth a reply from Mr. Crawford. With pens dipped in vitriol both men indited bitter diatribes and branded each other with harsh epithets until finally Mr. Crawford, exasperated beyond control, challenged General Clark to a duel, which challenge was, of course, promptly accepted by the impetuous old warrior.
Col. Thomas Flournoy, acting as second to Mr. Crawford, and Capt. Howell Cobb, serving in a like capacity for General Clark, arranged the details for the hostile encounter. As the place of meeting, a secluded spot was chosen on the Carolina side of the Savannah River, just below historic old Petersburg and some eleven miles from where Van Allen, two years previous, fell before Mr. Crawford's deadly fire. But the duel was never fought. At this stage of the proceedings, a number of disinterested friends besought Governor Milledge to intervene, urging the value to the state of both men, whose deadly intent portended fatal results.
With much difficulty Governor Milledge obtained the consent of both principals to the appointment of a board of arbitration, charged with adjusting the difficulties between them. Each belligerent was given the right to choose two friends to represent him, and these in turn selected a fifth arbitrator who was really to hold in his hands the balance of power. Jared Irwin, Abraham Jackson, James Seagrove, David B. Mitchell, and J. Ben Maxwell constituted this court of appeals; and, on December 12, 1804, a plan of arbitration was submitted to which both parties, without loss of prestige, yielded assent.
But the hatchet was only temporarily buried. The smoldering fires of hostility began to leap into renewed flame ere the ink was dry upon the paper which both signed in apparently good faith. Still, more than a year elapsed before matters reached anything like a crisis. On February 24, 1806, Josiah Glass, a North Carolinian, appeared upon the scene in Georgia with a warrant for one Robert Clary, charged with the offense of stealing a negro. Judge Tait, in his capacity as a judge, was called upon to endorse this warrant, which he readily did as a matter of form, expecting a trial of the case to establish the facts.
In a few days thereafter, while on the bench, he received a note from
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Glass in which the latter stated that Clary was ready to make an affida- vit in which there would be some startling revelations. After tea, on the evening of this particular day, Judge Tait, taking with him a Mr. Oliver Skinner, repaired to the room where Clary was held a prisoner in charge of Glass. Thereupon followed a long confession in which state- ments were incidentally made involving Gen. John Clark, who it ap- pears from this affidavit was charged with a land transaction for which the money paid in exchange was counterfeit.
Judge Tait attached no importance to this affidavit, for the de- ponent's character was such that he could not be trusted; and while he was none too friendly with General Clark, he was above listening to a slanderous story in the mouth of a low criminal; so he informed Glass that the matter would not be prosecuted and need not be made public.
But Glass nevertheless took a copy of the affidavit which, in some mysterious way fell into the hands of General Clark. The latter on ascertaining that the affidavit was taken at night, immediately jumped to the conclusion that a foul conspiracy was on foot to wreck him and that back of this dark proceeding was his arch-enemy, William H. Crawford.
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