37. Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 12, 1838, 174–75.
38. Ibid., 176.
39. “Nominis in Umbra” [French], “Washington Correspondence,” Chicago Democrat, dateline February 12, 1838, clipping in BBFFP.
40. Silbey, American Political Nation.
41. Greenleaf Cilley to Jonathan Cilley, January 21, 1838; Jonathan Cilley to Greenleaf Cilley, January 26, 1838, in Anderson, Breach of Privilege, 107–108.
42. French, diary entry, January 10, 1842, Witness, 135. Although a Whig, Tyler had vetoed a bank bill because it violated his sense of states’ rights. On “heading Captain Tyler,” see Dan Monroe, The Republican Vision of John Tyler (College Station: Texas A&M, 2003), 101–106.
43. Niles’ National Register (Washington, D.C.), August 4, 1838; Extra Globe (Washington, D.C.), July 16, 1838.
44. Ibid., The Times (Hartford); New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth), July 24, 1838.
45. Globe, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., April 27, 1840, 362–63. Black had attacked Whigs for insisting on reduction, reform, and less government spending, and then squawking when a Whig committee chair’s salary would be reduced as a result.
46. On the hold of manliness, loyalty, and “in-group honor,” see Patricia Roberts-Miller, Fanatical Schemes: Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009), 194.
47. John Fairfield to Anna Fairfield, June 1, 1838, John Fairfield Papers, LC. On their fight generally, see Globe, 25th Congress, 2nd Sess., June 1, 1838, 422–23; William Cabell Rives to his wife, June 2, 1838, William Cabell Rives Papers, LC; Isaac Fletcher to General E. B. Chase, June 5, 1838, MSS 838355, Dartmouth College; Kirby, “Limits of Honor,” 199–200.
48. Balie Peyton to Henry Wise, June 17, 1838, in The Collector: A Magazine for Autograph and Historical Collectors 20 (January 1907): 26–27.
49. This isn’t to say that manly honor was a Southern construct or that non-Southerners were unmanly, oblivious to honor culture, or nonviolent by nature. Rather, modes of fighting and ideas of manhood differed in North, South, and West, and the code duello—a defined set of rites and rituals centered on the practice of dueling—was seen as explicitly and defiantly Southern for much of the nineteenth century. During that same period, Northerners increasingly found the code both alien and extreme, though not entirely unfamiliar; indeed, Northern moral and sectional discomfort with dueling, joined with their understanding of dueling’s implications, was precisely what gave the code of honor its power in the national arena of Congress. See notes 141, 146, and 151 in chapter 2.
50. Daily National Intelligencer (Washington), February 16, 1838; “Washington Correspondent,” Chicago Democrat, undated [April 1838], BBFFP.
51. On the importance of manliness in Southern rhetoric, see Roberts-Miller, Fanatical Schemes, 103–26; on Wise as a manly champion of the South, see ibid., 203.
52. Jones told the investigative committee that Cilley had been handed an article from a Baltimore paper dated February 22 or 23. Based on his summary, this one seems likely. Baltimore Sun, February 22, 1838; H. Rpt. 825, 49. See also Baltimore Sun, February 23, 1838.
53. Register of Debates, 25th Cong., 1st Sess., September 23, 1837, 766.
54. Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., December 4, 1837, 284.
55. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Duncan (quoting Pierce), 102–103; ibid., testimony of Pierce, 121. On Northern ambivalence about dueling in this period, see Foote, Gentlemen and the Roughs, 93–118.
56. For example, William Duer (W-NY) had Charles Conrad (W-LA) by his side after Richard Kidder Meade (D-VA) challenged him in 1849; Jonathan Cilley was advised by Jesse Bynum (D-NC) among others when William Graves (W-KY) challenged him in 1838; George Kremer (J-PA) was advised by George McDuffie (D-SC) among others during his 1825 honor dispute with Henry Clay (W-KY); Leonard Jarvis (J-ME) chose Robert Lytle (J-OH)—who spent his young adulthood in Kentucky—as his second when he challenged F.O.J. Smith (J-ME) to a duel in 1835, and Smith chose James Love (AJ-KY) as his second; and Kentucky-born Francis Blair (R-MO) advised New York–born Charles James, Anson Burlingame’s second, in his near-duel with Preston Brooks in 1856. James almost refused the job because he knew “almost nothing of the code.” “Passing of a Remarkable Man,” Washington Post, October 27, 1901, 29.
57. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Andrew Jackson’s Honor,” in Wyatt-Brown, Shaping of Southern Culture, 56–80; John William Ward, Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955). On the nonenforcement of anti-dueling laws, see esp. Matthew A. Byron, “Crime and Punishment: The Impotency of Dueling Laws in the United States” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arkansas, 2008); Harwell Wells, “The End of the Affair? Anti-Dueling Laws and Social Norms in Antebellum America,” Vanderbilt Law Review 54, 1805–47 (see esp. 1831–37).
58. Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 5, 1838, 282. On dueling as a civilizing force, see John Hope Franklin, The Militant South: 1800–1861 (Chicago: University of Illinois, 2002; orig. ed. 1956), 59–62; Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 353.
59. Daily National Intelligencer, March 9, 1839, reporting February 21, 1839, speech of Wise.
60. Franklin, Militant South, 61.
61. Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1873), 353–54; W. Stephen Belko, The Invincible Duff Green: Whig of the West (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 245–46. Green raised the matter in his paper two years later when he published (and sneered at) Webb’s private letter discussing the incident. Webb tried to challenge Green to a duel, but when Green cowhided Webb’s second, Webb posted Green as a “SCOUNDREL and a COWARD” in broadsides pasted all over Washington. See Webb, “To the Public” (Washington, D.C., 1832), American Broadsides and Ephemera, infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=ABEA&p_theme=abea&p_nbid=C4AB50NEMTMyMDUwODM2OS40MzY1MTE6MToxMzoxMzAuMTMyLjIxLjc3&p_action=doc&p_queryname=4412&p_docref=v2:0F2B1FCB879B099B@ABEA-10F453EC151070D8@4412-10DEEFA6F1F28B78@1, accessed November 5, 2011.
62. Daily National Intelligencer, September 12 and 13, 1837; Globe, September 13, 1837; Morning Herald (N.Y.), September 13, 1837; Pennsylvania Inquirer and Daily Courier, September 14, 1837.
63. Report, testimony of Schaumburg, 86. Emphasis in original.
64. “The Cilley Duel,” Niles’ National Register, July 27, 1839. The quote comes from a speech by Graves to his constituents in the wake of the duel.
65. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Wise, 55.
66. Ibid., testimony of Bynum, 66.
67. Ibid., testimony of Graves, 127; Niles’ National Register, July 27, 1839. For the note, see H. Rpt. 825, 40; Graves presented the committee with the letter, which Wise endorsed on the back as Graves’s second, noting that he hadn’t known that Graves had borne the letter until after he had tried to deliver it to Cilley.
68. Details in these paragraphs are from H. Rpt. 825. See chapter 5 for more on street fights as northern duels.
69. Adams, diary entry, June 29, 1840, Memoirs, 10:324.
70. H. Rpt. 825, 126–27.
71. Shelden, Washington Brotherhood, discusses this extensively.
72. Ibid., 105; Thomas Hart Benton to Editor of Globe, March 6, 1838, Washington Globe, March 7, 1838; Niles’ Weekly Register, March 10, 1838; Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst, N.H.), March 16, 1836. Three of Cilley’s advisors—George Jones (delegate-WI), Alexander Duncan (D-OH), and Jesse Bynum (D-NC)—sought Benton’s advice on their way to the dueling ground; Benton thought that because Cilley and Graves were family men with no ill will between them, the matter should be settled without gunplay or at most with one exch
ange of fire. H. Rpt. 825, 105.
73. On Clay’s involvement, see Melba Porter Hay, “Henry Clay and the Graves-Cilley Duel,” in A Mythic Land Apart: Reassessing Southerners and Their History, ed. John David Smith, Thomas H. Appleton, and Charles Pierce Roland (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997), 57–80; as well as Wise’s later statement and the resulting correspondence. See chapter 4 for details.
74. Jones, “Autobiography,” in Parish, George Wallace Jones, 158.
75. Graves to Henry Clay, February 16, 1842, The Papers of Henry Clay: The Whig Leader, January 1, 1837–December 31, 1843, ed. Robert Seager II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 9:657.
76. On privilege of debate, see Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, ed. Thomas M. Cooley, 2 vols. (Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2008: orig. ed. 1833), 1:610–12.
77. For their correspondence, see Daily National Intelligencer, September 13, 1837, and the Globe of the same day.
78. H. Rpt. 825, 10; ibid., testimony of Wise, 59, 64; ibid., testimony of Jones, 46–47.
79. Ibid.
80. Webb to unknown, February 28, 1836, Niles’ National Register, March 10, 1838. Emphasis in original.
81. On the complications of dishonoring Graves, see Chamberlain, Pistols, Politics and the Press, 57–58.
82. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Duncan, 103.
83. Ibid., testimony of Schaumburg, 87.
84. Boyle, “Jonathan Cilley of Maine and William J. Graves of Kentucky,” Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder 6 (1889): 391.
85. Cilley to Deborah Cilley, February 22, 1838, in Anderson, Breach of Privilege, 154.
86. Graves to Cilley, February 23, 1838; Cilley to Graves, February 23, 1838, Congressional Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., 330.
87. Calhoon and Hawes testified that Crittenden was chosen because he was “known to the nation”; because “his efforts to compromise the matter would be more likely than ours to prove successful”; and because if no compromise was reached, his presence would suggest that everything had been done to preserve Graves’s life. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Calhoon and Hawes, 131–32.
88. Graves to Henry Clay, February 16, 1842, Papers of Henry Clay, 9:656–57.
89. On Jones’s duels, see his obituary in the Daily Picayune (New Orleans), July 27, 1896. On Schaumburg’s status as a notorious duelist, see H. Rpt. 825, 170; “Ye Ancient Chivalry,” Macon Telegraph and Messenger, June 14, 1882; John Augustin, “The Oaks. The Old Duelling-Grounds of New Orleans” (1887), in The Louisiana Book: Selection from the Literature of the State, ed. Thomas M’Caleb (New Orleans: R. F. Straughan, 1894), 80. On Pierce noticing him on the street, see H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Pierce, 122. According to Jones, Lewis Linn (D-MO) recommended Jones as Cilley’s second; Jones’s autobiography, Parish, George Wallace Jones, 160.
90. [William Graves’s address to his constituents], Niles’ National Register, July 27, 1839.
91. George W. Jones to H. Prince, March 17, 1838, in Anderson, Breach of Privilege, 178.
92. The next few pages draw on testimony of various duel participants in H. Rpt. 825.
93. Ibid., testimony of Menefee, 79.
94. Ibid., 58, 79.
95. Ibid., testimony of Wise, 60.
96. Ibid., 9.
97. Ibid., testimony of Bynum, March 11, 1838, 71.
98. Ibid., testimony of Duncan, 107.
99. Ibid.
100. Wise to Pierce, June 22, 1852, Franklin Pierce Papers, LC; John C. Wise, Recollections of Thirteen Presidents (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1906), 35–39.
101. Nominis in Umbra [French], “Washington Correspondence,” dateline February 23, 1838, Chicago Democrat, BBFFP.
102. Adams to Charles Francis Adams, March 19, 1838, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, 1899), June Meeting, 1898, 288–92, quote on 289.
103. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Fairfield, 144.
104. French, “Congressional Reminiscences,” National Freemason 2, no. 8 (February 1865).
105. The friends were Charles King and Reverdy Johnson. Statement of Charles King, February 4, 1842, in Clay Papers, 9:644 footnote; also Clay to Webb, January 30, 1842, ibid., 9:643–44; Clay to Wise, February 28, 1842, ibid., 9:662–63. Some of Graves’s advisors slowed down his search for a rifle in the hope of devising a compromise; sadly, Jones’s helpful offer of a rifle foiled this plan. H. Rpt. 825, testimony of Wise, 57.
106. Most details in this paragraph are from “Congressional Reminiscences,” 8 (February 1865); French, diary entry, February 28, March 10, April 4, 1838, Witness, 75–76, 78–79; “Nominis in Umbra” [French], Washington Correspondent No. 10 and No. 12, dateline February 23, 1838, and undated, Chicago Democrat, BBFFP.
107. “Funeral Oration Delivered at the Capitol,” 13.
108. French, diary entry, February 28, 1838, Witness, 75.
109. Condemning the hypocrisy of Cilley’s funeral a year later, Wise said, “[I]f I ever fall on the field of honor whilst a member of this House, I now beseech my friends … not to permit a political parade to be made over my dead body.” Speech of February 21, 1839, Daily National Intelligencer, March 9, 1839. Emphasis in original.
110. [Washington] Niles’ National Register, March 24, 1838. My thanks to R. B. Bernstein for bringing this to my attention. See also John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, March 19, 1838, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 291.
111. John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, March 19, 1838, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 290.
112. “Nominis in Umbra” [French], “Washington Correspondent,” dateline March 3, 1838, Chicago Democrat, March 21, 1838, clipping in BBFFP.
113. Dolley Madison to Elizabeth Coles, February 21 and 26, 1838, The Papers of Dolley Madison Digital Edition, ed. Holly C. Shulman (Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2008), rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/DYMN-01-05-02-0344, accessed October 5, 2011.
114. New York Courier and Enquirer, February 26, 1838; Waldo Patriot (Belfast, Maine), March 9, 1838.
115. They fought in Delaware. New York’s anti-dueling law applied to New Yorkers who left the state. According to Byron, there had been only two previous indictments under that law, which dated back to 1817; both offenders were pardoned. Byron, “Crime and Punishment,” 86–88. On the duel, see also Seitz, Famous American Duels, 283–309; James L. Crouthamel, James Watson Webb: A Biography (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan, 1969), 74–76; Henry Clay to James Watson Webb, February 7, 1842, Papers of Henry Clay, 9:648; correspondence in the Webb Papers; and a remarkable commemorative volume given to Webb by Governor William Seward, containing accounts of Webb’s trial and petitions for his release. James Watson Webb Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
116. Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America, with Remarks on Its Institutions, 3 vols. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman’s, 1839), 2:16.
117. In February 1841, William King (D-AL) challenged Henry Clay (W-KY) to a duel and Clay accepted, but the matter was mediated behind closed doors, though not before both men were arrested and released on bond. The New Yorker, March 13, 1841; Adams, diary entry, March 9, 1841, Memoirs, 10:441–42; Gobright, Recollection of Men and Things, 44–49; Forney, Anecdotes, 300; Perley, Reminiscences, 1:259–60; The New World (N.Y.), March 13, 1841; and for the bond posted against Clay, see Churchman’s Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, September 4, 1844. The Globe mentions only a “very unpleasant collision.” Globe, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 14, 1841, 256–57; for the collision, see ibid., March 9, 1841, 248. The next duel was in spring 1842, when Thomas Marshall (W-KY) challenged J
ames Watson Webb. The next fistfight, on June 1, 1838, pitted Hopkins Turney (D-TN) against John Bell (W-TN).
118. Henry Flagg French to Benjamin Brown French, March 4, 1838, BBFFP.
119. J. Emery to John Fairfield, March 19, 1838, John Fairfield Papers, LC.
120. For a sampling of the petitions, see H. Rpt. 825, 161–62, 174–75.
121. New-Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette (Concord), March 5, 1838.
122. United States Magazine and Democratic Review 1 (March 1838): 493–508. See also Robert Sampson, John L. O’Sullivan and His Times (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2003), 54–57.
123. New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette (Concord), March 5, 1838; Waldo Patriot (Belfast, Maine), March 9, 1838; Portsmouth (N.H.) Journal of Literature and Politics, March 10, 1838.
The Field of Blood Page 42
