The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-09-23
RECOLLECTIONs OF THE CODE.
A Duel Twenty Years Ago Between
Thomas c. Reynolds and B. GratE
Brown.

Correspondence OF the Chicago Timss.l
So LOUIS, Mo-, September Sat-
urday's affair of honor ipnWinnebagc
County recalls to memory what unit
then was the last political duel between
1lissOurians. In few months more il
would have been twenty years since the
code was appealed to in Missouri to set
tie personal trouble growing out of po-
litical difference. The parties directly
or indirectly concerned in this former
renconter are, most of them, alive.
Nearly all of them, since then, have
played prominent parts in the history
of the State and the West. In 1856,
Thomas c. Reynolds, who is now recog-
nized as one of the leading lawyers of
the State, and who was at the last elec-
tlon prominent candidate for the Unit
ed States Senatorship, led the Demo
cratic party of st Louis. The country
was then Just entering well upon the
fierce partisan era in American politics.
The Kansas question loomed up sharp
and well defined, while beyond these
were dim hints of the impending cri-
sis" and an irrepressible conflict. In
Missouri the political warfare was ex-
ceedingly bitter. 1t was Benton and
anti-Benton, with the Whigplat form as
a side issue. Reynolds, rs the leader of
the anti-Benton party, had been forced
by his party to accept the nomination
| for Congress and make the race against
| Frank p Blair, the Benton candidate in
| the st. Louis District. This was done,
not because there was ghost of n
chance for Reynolds, but because it was
believed he could bring up the rest of
the ticket, and through his personal
popularity perhaps secure it. The sup
position was well based. Reynolds
raised the Democratic vote in the st.
Louis District from 600, as it had been
in 1854, to $500 in 1856, and secured
the election of the anti-Benton State
ticket, which was headed by Trusten
Polk, while old Bullion himself was his
party's candidate for Governor.
The fight was all in the st. Louis Dis
trict. Luther NJ. Kennett, who was the
Wing candidate for Congress, kept out
of the way, and Blair and Reynolds,
from the nominations, in May, to the
election on the first Monday in August,
kept up the canvass in city and county.
IhChGt ~ L TlSuDdCh NGIt luGll
the Democrat rs the Free-sOil organ,
and B. Gratz Brown was the editor.
Blair held an interest in the paper, and
naturally it espOused his cause. As the
canvass progressed toward the end,
Brown wrote an editorial, mercilesslv
caustic and personal, rejecting upon
Reynolds The latter replied in a brief
but pointed card. Brown promptly chal-
lenged and Reynolds as promptly ac-
cepted. In those days the code was in
favor. Men as near Mason and Dixon's
line as this went out to shoot for ideas,
and a leaden argument went long way
in a political fight.
Brown chose as one of his seconds
Leo Walker, a high-spirited South Car
Gilman, who had married into wealthy
family here, and was then a resident of
St. Louis. His other friend was Colonel
David D. Mitchell, once Superintend-
ent of Indian Affairs, and well known as
an Indian and plain fighter. But be-
sides these there clustered about Brown,
as the party's champion, Thomas II.
Benton, Frank p. Blair and all their
powerful coterie.
Reynolds seconds were Colonel Ferd.
Kennett, the best pistol shot in Missou-
ri, who lived in lordly style at Selma
Hall, and Captain Thomas B. Hudson,
a Democratic politician, who figured fa-
mously in the Doniphan expedition to
Mexico. As advisors and cOunselOrs
Reynolds had such men as Colonel David
H. Armstrong, now invariably referred
to as - the old war-horse of the party
in Missouri; Colonel VIM. A. Linn, who
was then Collector of Customs for St.
Louis General Isaac II. Sturgeon, one
of the faithful of the present National
Administration.
John How was then Mayor, and Judge
Henry A. Glover the Prosecuting AttOr-
ney. The expected meeting was limited
at, but there was no interference, and
the arrangements were all perfected.
Forty miles below St. Louis, on high
river bluffs, is Selma Hall, built of stone,
and much after the style of the German
baronial castles which look down on the
Rhine. 1t is one of the favorite land
marks, and is always pointed out and
commented on by the lettering passen-
gers on passing steamers. 1t was fa
NOUS place before the war, and a South
erner, in Southern style, once wrote of
it: "Here nature and art had combined
to make the spot one of the lOveliest in
the West. Flowers and fountains
abounded everywhere. In the August
noon huge forest trees made grateful
shade, under which deer rested at ease,
cropping the rich grass at intervals, and
crouching low at intervals, as the mem
orv of the old, wild days of horn and
huntsman came up from the low lands |
of the river. There were steeds ever in
stall for the young bloods who swOre by
Kennett and his hounds; books for the
medicine and law to sleep one night
with the hills and the clover; costly
wines for whosoever would drink, and
an open door and ready latch-string
for every wayfarer benighted through |
chance or inclination"
The once powerful Kennetts are scat
tered now. Some are dead, others are
living abroad, and the family scarcely
is known save in the history of Missouri. !
The castle seems almost out of place
now, for enterprising men from the
East nave ulScONeTeu dlIuOSG ullCItI IHc
windows of Selma inexhaustible beds of
white sand, and day and night the puff
fing of engines is heard, keeping com
panv with the glare of the glass fur
naces. But the picture given above was
a faithful one when, on the 23d of Au-
gust, the parties left st. Louis for this,
the rendezvous for the duel. Reynolds
passed the night before leaving st. Louis
at the residence of Isaac II. Sturgeon,
and he slept so late and so soundly that
he had to be called loudly in the morn
ing. With his surgeon, DIR. j. II.
Shore, and his friends Kennett and Iud-
son, Reynolds went over the river and
journeyed leisurely down the Illinois
side.
There was no haste; every thing was
done calmly and deliberately. Rey-
nolds remained on the Illinois side un-
til Monday evening, the 25th of August,
and then crossed over to Selma and be-
came the guest for the night of q. w.
Chadbourne, now the President OF the
Ct o,,;s Shot tourer. COmDanv hUt who