The Field of Blood

by Joanne B. Freeman

  Bell was no duelist, so Peyton went further. Wise should take him out shooting and test different stances to see “how he will be most certain” to get his man.48

  This is congressional violence in all its glory: calculated, deadly, and close at hand. Bell had insulted Turney; Turney had insulted Bell; and now Peyton was plotting Turney’s death. Peyton’s tone is so casual and his plans so bloodthirsty that he almost seems to be joking. Except that he wasn’t.

  Most fighting men didn’t seek bloodshed so blatantly, and not all bullying prompted violence; often a display of bravado or a dose of humiliation was enough. Nor was all violence this deliberate. Fatigue, frustration, testy tempers, and the ready availability of booze all played a role. Even so, people who were defiant or confrontational on the floor took their chances and they knew it, which is precisely what congressional bullies counted on: intimidating their opponents into silence.

  “AS I AM FROM NEW ENGLAND, I AM TO BE ‘BLUFFED’”

  Cilley knew what Wise had done when he spoke of “base charges.” He had thrown down the code of honor as a gauntlet to prove Cilley a coward for not taking it up, a cat-and-mouse game that fighting men used to great advantage against non-combatants; indeed, most clashes were sparked by Southerners and Southern-born Westerners who abided by the code.49 Wise’s parting words to Cilley drove this lesson home; as he turned away, he dropped his voice and sneered, “But what’s the use of bandying words with a man who won’t hold himself personally accountable for his words?”50 Wise was all but calling Cilley a coward for being a Northerner, and Cilley felt the sting, a sting felt by many Northerners. Cilley’s subsequent struggle to chart the right course shows the complications of sectionalism in the national arena of Congress, and the ways that it sometimes put Northerners and non-combatants at a disadvantage; with their manhood at stake and their political clout at risk, they were pulled into violence.51

  Within one day of Cilley’s clash with Wise over the Enquirer story, Whig newspapers already were mocking Cilley’s manhood, playing the New England coward card for all it was worth, as in this article from the Baltimore Sun which someone placed in his hand. In Cilley’s part of the country, it scoffed,

  duelling is considered an irresponsible and an irreligious pursuit, and the man who flogs his neighbor with any thing larger or more violent than an ox-gourd is set down for a rap-rascal, and is voted out of church by the pious deacons and deaconesses. As Mr. Cilley is a man of great practical and devotional piety, he may possibly eschew the pistol and seize the ox-gourd.

  The message was clear. As Cilley’s second later put it, the article “was calculated to make the impression that Mr. Cilley was not a gentleman, or brave man.”52

  Cilley had been scorned during debate and now the press was following suit. What should he do? How much damage had been done? And how could he fix it? The answers weren’t clear. Ignoring such insults could have a high price. Cilley’s manhood was at stake, as was the manhood of any congressman in the give-and-take (and push-and-shove) of congressional debate. Fighting men were quick to remind their victims of this fact, as Wise had done during Cilley’s first weeks in the House, lambasting not one but all Democrats as cowards. They reminded him of

  scenes of fright in the haunted house. A ghost is seen—who shall go and see what it is? Will you? will you? or you? No: no: no. At last one poor trembling wretch, by volition or force, accident or half resolve, is pressed or ventures to totter forward, with broom-stick in hand—the rest pressing him on from behind—when, lo! a sound scatters them in backward flight, tumbling one over another in fright.53

  Wise’s attackers “would make very brave starts, and march fiercely up to a certain line, but then they stopped.” Wise, according to Wise, was braver than them all. This was macho posturing to the point of absurdity. But it amply shows how manhood was coin of the realm in Congress.

  Ignoring personal attacks also slashed at a man’s political power and influence. Cilley’s friend Franklin Pierce said as much not long after the duel. “You know well what is the consequence, if personalities are directed to you, and you allow them to pass in silence,” he noted.54 Disrespect and disempowerment in Congress and back home were sure to follow. Yet responding to insults was risky, particularly for a Yankee. By the 1830s, many New Englanders condemned dueling as irresponsible, irreligious, barbaric, and unequivocally Southern. As Pierce put it, on this “the tone of feeling in our section of the country” was quite clear.55 So when it came to dueling, Northern congressmen had a double burden: their constituents disapproved of it and they themselves lacked the expertise and easy familiarity of their Southern-born colleagues; thus the appeal of honor-taunting by fighting men. Those Northerners who did venture into dueling territory virtually all chose duel-savvy Southern or Southern-born Western allies as their seconds or “friends.”56

  The “tone of feeling” was equally clear in the South. Dueling was respected and praised, with a dash of mournful regret thrown in. Although there were anti-dueling laws throughout the region, they were rarely enforced, and duelists were widely respected and routinely raised to high office, as Andrew Jackson’s political career shows all too well.57 The Southern dueling mantra was voiced by Senator William Campbell Preston (N-SC) after the Cilley-Graves duel. “Duelling had undoubtedly produced much folly and much misery,” he admitted, “but at the same time it had mitigated the indulgence of revengeful passions … Was it not … manifestly less outrageous upon receiving offense to send a challenge than to draw a dirk?”58 Dueling restrained violence, Preston argued; indeed, even the mere threat of a duel urged good behavior. Wise agreed. When it came to slander, he noted, “The law cannot restrain it—a pistol sometimes will.”59 All in all, many Southerners considered dueling an unfortunate but necessary civilizing force. It was also becoming a symbol of the South, perhaps even a matter of pride; in response to rising antislavery sentiment in the 1830s, defensive Southerners began aggressively touting all things Southern, including the code of honor.60

  In the national center, charting a middle course between sectional customs and national demands could be challenging, particularly for men who didn’t abide by the code of honor; in a sense, sectionalism was always in play in Congress, shaping how men interacted, if not always shaping their votes. This was cultural federalism with a vengeance.

  As tangled as Cilley’s situation was, the arrival of the Enquirer editor James Watson Webb in Washington brought new challenges. Intent on defending his name against Cilley’s claims about the Bank and bribery, Webb came to the capital ready to fight. Though by no means a Southerner, the native New Yorker was a fighting man’s fighting man. The editor of a powerful and notably aggressive Whig newspaper, he talked big and backed up his words with weapons. Often. Over the course of his eventful career, he threatened, caned, horsewhipped, and dueled with his antagonists and was himself threatened, beaten, and shot, partly a product of his job, partly a product of his temperament, and partly a holdover from his eight years in the army; military men were connoisseurs of the fine art of personal chastisement.

  When it came to threatening violence against Washington politicos, Webb was a repeat offender; he had a habit of racing from New York to the capital to clear his name. In 1830, he had attacked the Washington Telegraph editor Duff Green for insulting Webb in his paper, lunging at Green on the Capitol steps. But Green had greater fire power—literally; when he cocked a pistol, Webb backed down.61 He was foiled again in 1837 when he confronted yet another offender. As was his wont, Wise had insulted the Democrats during debate, and Samuel Gholson (D-MS) had defended them, denouncing Webb in the process. When Webb confronted Gholson and called him a liar—a virtual invitation to fight a duel—Gholson declared Webb too lowly to fight, and there things ended thanks to Webb’s friends, who intervened out of fear that Webb’s second would be forced to fight in his place as demanded by the code of honor.62

  Now, five months later, Webb was trying the same move with Cilley. And like G
holson, Cilley wanted nothing to do with Webb. He didn’t think much of him, didn’t like his politics, was well aware of his fighting record, and didn’t want to be drawn into a “personal difficulty” with every editor who disliked what he said on the floor. Plus, he had the sneaking suspicion that Webb had pegged him as an easy mark. “I see into the whole affair,” Cilley told one of his duel advisors. “Webb has come on here to challenge me, because he, and perhaps others, think that, as I am from New England, I am to be ‘bluffed:’ and Mr. Webb will then proclaim himself a brave man.”63 Here is the logic of bullying in plain view: fighting-man Webb would promote himself by humiliating a non-combatant.

  Webb took a step in that direction when he confronted Cilley. But in compliance with the code of honor, rather than approaching Cilley himself, he sent his friend William Graves (W-KY) in his place. Graves and Webb had come to know each other when Graves had visited New York some time past; Webb had been more than welcoming, and Graves wanted to return the favor, but they weren’t close friends.64 Wise later would scold Graves for entangling himself in an honor dispute for anyone less than a bosom friend.65

  On the morning of February 21, Graves spotted Webb hobnobbing in the House lobby and went over to shake his hand. Democrats so detested the Whig press warrior that his mere presence raised hackles; when Jesse Bynum (D-NC) spotted him, he immediately asked the Speaker why Webb had been allowed in the hall.66 A few minutes later, Webb pulled Graves aside, and the two men stepped behind a screen at the edge of the chamber. When Webb asked a favor, Graves was more than willing, but then he handed Graves a letter to deliver to Cilley. “I paused,” Graves later recalled. “It instantly struck me that the paper was a challenge.” If it was, he wanted nothing to do with it, he told Webb. Plus, he was “totally ignorant of the etiquette of duelling,” so he wasn’t the man for the job. Webb assured him that it wasn’t a challenge; it was a letter of inquiry. As the code dictated, before things went further, Webb was giving Cilley a chance to explain or retract his remark about Webb and Bank bribery. If Webb sent a challenge, he assured Graves, someone else would be his second, the man responsible for fighting in Webb’s place if necessary. “Totally unconscious … that any possible mischief could arise out of my carrying a simple paper of interrogation from one gentleman to another,” Graves took the note.67

  He immediately sent a page to fetch Cilley, and the two men stepped behind another screen. (The Cilley-Graves duel negotiations are a prime example of how much was happening around the edges of the bustling House chamber.) Graves held out the letter and Cilley reached for it, but when Graves said that it was from Webb, Cilley dropped his hand. Graves assured him that the note was “respectful,” but Cilley wanted none of it. He didn’t want to be “drawn into personal difficulties with the conductors of public journals” for what he said during debate, and he hadn’t insulted Webb as a gentleman; he didn’t even know Webb.

  So now what to do? Neither man was sure. Acknowledging that he didn’t know much about the code of honor, Graves said that Cilley’s refusal to accept the letter seemed to put him in an “unpleasant” situation. Cilley apologized. He meant no disrespect. But he knew even less than Graves about the code; he needed time to think. A short time later, they met again behind the screen, but Cilley hadn’t changed his mind. He still wouldn’t take the letter. They were at a standoff. And so they parted, two men on dangerous ground without a map. They were fighting a party battle with a sectional weapon that could easily misfire in their hands.

  A COMMUNITY AFFAIR

  Well aware that they had wandered onto the thin ice of an honor dispute, both men immediately turned to knowledgeable friends to lead them to safety, as was the norm in congressional clashes. Cilley went straight to the Senate lobby and beckoned to Franklin Pierce, who had five years of congressional experience. Pierce didn’t know what to do but he knew whom to ask. Darting off to consult with Southern friends, he returned moments later, reporting that Cilley had done right; he shouldn’t accept Webb’s note. But he’d better arm himself, Pierce advised, because with a duel off the table, Webb would probably assault Cilley on the street.68 Such was the conventional alternative to a duel; if someone proffered an insult but refused to meet on the field of honor, a sound beating was the likely result.

  So off Cilley went in search of a pistol. He first tried Alexander Duncan (D-OH), a large man—six feet tall and stout—known for his loud, confrontational style of debate. John Quincy Adams considered him “coarse, vulgar, and impudent … a thorough-going hack demagogue … with a vein of low humor exactly suited to the rabble of a populous city, and equally so to the taste of the majority of the present House of Representatives.”69 (Adams had a way with an insult.) An in-your-face Westerner, Duncan was a likely gun owner, but he only had a rifle, so he brought Cilley to gun provider number two, John F. H. Claiborne (D-MS), Gholson’s second in his dispute with Webb, who was happy to lend his pistols. “Now, Cilley, for God’s sake, don’t be drawn into a duel with Mr. Graves,” Claiborne jokingly advised as they parted. “No danger of that,” replied Cilley. “Mr. Graves and myself are not enemies; I never had a difficulty with but one person in the House”—Henry Wise.70

  It’s easy to see how the process of collecting duel consultants could snowball; negotiating fights was a community affair. When a fight threatened to escalate, fighting experts often rushed into the breach to forge a compromise or devise a strategy. Indeed, given the high stakes, negotiating a fight often required a virtual board of advisors with varied levels of fighting expertise, institutional savvy, and congressional clout. This was especially true for Northern non-combatants, who relied on Southern party allies to decode the code of honor. In Congress, cross-sectional party bonds did more than win elections or shape legislation; they forged crucial cross-sectional personal bonds as well.71

  Cilley had dire need of such bonds because, like most Northerners, he was unversed in the details of the code duello. Between February 21 and 23, he and his friends consulted at least ten Democrats, including Cilley’s New England messmates, other Maine and New Hampshire representatives, Southerners and Westerners who understood the code of honor, and the Globe editors Francis P. Blair and John C. Rives, who each offered Cilley a rifle, giving an entirely new meaning to the idea of a supportive party press. Cilley and Pierce alone worked their way through much of the Missouri delegation—including the longtime senator and past duelist Thomas Hart Benton—desperate for border-state men who could translate the code and act as Cilley’s second in case of a duel.72

  Aware that Cilley’s refusal to accept Webb’s letter was an affront, Graves also went on a consultation spree, though a modest one given the many duel-savvy fellow Kentuckians offering advice. In that same three-day period, he talked to his three Kentucky messmates—including friend and fight expert Henry Clay (W-KY)—as well as two other Kentuckians and two notoriously confrontational Southerners, Waddy Thompson (W-SC) and Henry Wise, both experienced in the subtleties of duel challenges.73 During negotiations, Clay did his duty as a border-state man, translating the meaning of some of Cilley’s befuddling choices by explaining Yankee logic. For example, after Cilley’s initial refusal of Webb’s letter, Clay supposedly explained that the clueless Northerner probably assumed it was a challenge, and told Graves how to explain things to a Yankee.74

  All told, in a three-day period, at least twenty-four congressmen and sundry congressional staffers, including French, learned of the looming threat of a duel—roughly 10 percent of the House. Not only did the business of Congress spark fights, but negotiating fights was sometimes the business of Congress. The Graves-Cilley tangle was negotiated almost entirely in the Capitol.75 Endorsed by the congressional community, fighting was woven into the fabric of Congress.

  And no endorsement could be more apparent than the routine spurning of “privilege of debate,” a hallowed parliamentary rule that could have quashed any number of disputes. Embedded in Article 1, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution, it gave c
ongressmen the right to “not be questioned in any other place” for words spoken during debate.76 But hiding behind an institutional shield seemed cowardly, so congressmen routinely cast it aside when embroiled in a fight. The 1837 exchange between Gholson and Webb was typical of many. When Webb called Gholson a coward for insulting him on the floor while shielded by his privileges, Gholson renounced them. “I claim no privilege from my situation as a member of the House of Representatives,” he wrote in his formal reply to Webb’s opening letter. Cilley followed Gholson’s lead.77 Even on the dueling ground, when Wise virtually begged him to plead privilege of debate, he refused.78

  Even so, under different circumstances, Cilley might have found a way out. He had every right to refuse to duel with an inferior; the tradition of treating editors like lower-class artisans wasn’t entirely a thing of the past in the 1830s, and duels were fought only between equals. Five months earlier, Gholson had refused to meet Webb on those grounds, scorning him as “unworthy of any notice.”79 This snub was precisely why Webb was so fired up to fight Cilley. As Webb put it, the “true secret of my repeated difficulties, is to be found in … the abominable doctrine, that in becoming an editor I ceased to be a gentleman!”80

  Cilley might have traveled down that path if it hadn’t been for the fact that his encounter with Graves involved the community of Congress. By spurning Webb, Cilley insulted Graves, Webb’s friend and envoy. In past congressional spats, Webb had chosen congressional outsiders as seconds, making it easier for congressmen to snub him without serious repercussions. The involvement of a brother congressman complicated matters.81 Dishonor him and you dishonored all that he represented, as Graves well knew, mentioning it more than once during negotiations. For the honor of himself, of his constituents, of Kentucky, and of the South, Graves felt that he couldn’t let Cilley’s implied insult slide, and his advisors agreed.