The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1881-01-27
STORY OF A BRAVE MAN.

The telegraph, few years ago, briefly au-
nouneed the suicide, at Jackson, Miss, of Colo
mel Alexander X. MeClung. The manuscript
dispatch read, "Col. McClung, the Daelist," but
he was otherwise distinguished, in n very event
full life in the Southwest, than for his prowess
under the bloody "Code of Honor, ~ and deserves,
in death, TO be remembered as well for the good
which he did, as for the evil which the tele-
graphic record would cause to live after him.
He was n brave man for his country in war; as
well as a desperate one in defense of his own
perhaps too sensitive honor, in peace. He was
prompt, gallant, and distinguished in the Vol
unteer service in Mexico, in 1S47, under Gener-
nj TOylOr. He was the first to scale the Black
Fort, at Monterey, and for his intrepidity in
placing the Stars and Stripes on its captured
walls, was marked and pierced by the enemy,
with wounds under which he suffered the most
agonizing pains, for five or six months, and
chafed that he could not be rid of them to bear
his part on the field of Buena Vista, within q
few miles of which he was invalided.
The personal story of Colonel McClung, though
n sanguinary one, is not without its reliefs He
was called desperate duelst; not that he was
by nature blood-thirsty, loved the practice
for the poor renown it brought him, but because
when he did fight in this way, which was not
often, he made no compromise for the chances Of
life and exacted, as well as granted, the ex-
IRENE terms of the code, as practiced in Missis-
sippi thirty or forty years ago, when extraya-
gance and desperation in every department of
life, appeared for a season TO run riot. His first
meeting was in lS:3 or 1884, with a man by the
name of Allen. The weapons, pistols, to be fired
at ten PAGES, or while advancing nearer to each
other and then the use of the bowie knife. Al:
len fell. The second meeting was five years
afterward, or more, with Young Mennifee, at
Vicksburg, the brother of Richard II. Mennifce,
member of Congress from Kentucky, in 1889
The weapon, the rife; both parties excellent
shots, but Mennifee fell at the second fire.
There may have been other alterations in which
he was engaged, but they not now remem-
bered. These two fatal transactions gave no.
| toriety to the man which he was far from being
proud of, and the public recollection of which
| he endeavorcd to efface, in his ripper years, by
political and military service, first as the head
| of the Wing press in Mississippi, in the Presi-
Dental campaign of 1870; then as Marshal of
| the United States for tine Northern District of
the State, and afterwards as volunteer, to
Mexico, the Lieutenant-C Colonel of his regiment.
After the war, he was the political friend of
General Taylor, not to the exclusion of Mr. Clay,
of whose neighborhood in Kentucky McClung
was a native, bnt in default of his nomination
at Philadelphia. Under his Administration he
was appointed to diplomatic station as Charge
d 1fdires to Bolivia, South America, the Capt.
tai of which, far in the interior of the country,
he no dOubt had too much difficulty to find to be
| impressed by its greatness, or captiyated by its
social political attractions. He returned to
| the United States after two years residence
near the Bolivian Government, in the year ISL,
since when we had heard little of him until the
present dreadful announcement of death by his
orn hand His age must have been about forty
| five years.