Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-11-13
The Duel ian The Dark.

EVERY traveller who has descended the
Mississippi within the last twenty-five years,
must remember Yicksburg, so singular in
its situation for town, on the shelving de-
cliyity of the nigh rolling hills, with its
houses scattered in groups on the terraces
Every reader of American newspapers du-
ring the last twenty-five years must remeLn-
Der VIcksburg, so rich has been the fund OF
material it has supplied for the circulating
libraries Of "horrid murders" duels, affrays,
and executions, by ali sorts of summary
process" The public viii not likely soon
forget the hanging of the gamblers and
steam doctors. la fine, everybody knows
that the place has been noted since its ear
lest settlement for the beIligerent character
OF its inhabitants, and the number and atroci-
city Of the violent deeds which may be as
serted, with literal truth, to have stained
It's every street with the blood of human
hearts. ses,.E a
1t is not our purpose, however, to sketch
any of these more celebrated brute battles,
that prove nothing beyond the wilful wick
edness Of the respective combatants. Bat
we viii select for the sake of It's mournfu
moral alone, a solitary tragedy, which was
briefly chronicled Icy the press of the day,
and then faded from the recollection OF all,
save one from whom the writer received the
story in all Its particularly. She, of course,
could never forget The wife of the mur-
deFed hero wept at the sad "reminiscences,
twenty years after the date of the catastro-
phc.
In the year 81, a young lawyer, (whom we
shall call John Thomas, to avoid narrowing
the memory of some relative or friend who
might chance to skim over these columns }
emigrated from Worcester, in Massachusetts,
to the State of Mississippi He was poor,
had recently married beautiful, accom-
plished woman, who had renounced wealthy
parents for his sake, and hence was anxious
TO better his fortune in as little time as pos
able. This consideration determined the
legal adventrrer to locate at Vicksburg, then
considered throughout the west as the para
disc of the bar.
In very short time the new lawyer had
ample reason to congratulate himself on the
choice Of his position. His bland demean-
our, studlous habits, and more than all his
eloquence in debate, won him patronage
and he rose, almost at a single bound, to the
first place in his profession. He was en-
ployed in all the land suits, and in most OF
the still more numerous and equally iucra-
tive cases of homicide, SO that in the brief
period oftwo years after his advent he had
cleared the round sunls Of thirty thousand
dollars. Let no sceptical disciple of Lord
Coke deem this statement Incredible S. S,
prentiss, now of New Orleans, realized cash
in hand, forty ssheusaud dollars by his open
ing speech in Vicksburg. -
During his career thus far young Thomas
was remarkable in one respect He never
went armed, and although in the fierce and
fiery alterations of the; forum, he necessarl-
ly made some enemies, no attack had hith-
TO been ventured upon his person. The ath-
letcism of bis noble form, and the look Of
inyincible determination in his keen blue
eyes, had doubtless warned the desparadoes
that the g Yankee orator. as he was gener-
ally termed, could hit as hard blows in the
court yard as be did in the court ITSELF
However this may be, two years elapsed
years, too, of eminent success, before the
peaceble attorney wag even ineulted. Alas