Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-11-23

One That Occurred Long Ag0-Inter-
esting Incidents Connected With 1t.

OAO AhaG ONOuk4Cu LUX AkO-LnIGT-
esting Incidents Connected With 1t.
From the "reminiscences Of an Artist.
My first acquaintance with duels was
entirely historical, being derived from the
Bible account of that between David and
Goliah. In this 1 saw, child as 1 was,
that all the advantage was on the side of
the Hebrew champion, and argued with
my grandmother that though it was in
the Bible, it wasn't a fair fight. The old
lady maintained that it was, and felt
quite annoyed at the tendency to heterO-
dOXy displayed at so early an age in my
position, but failed to convince me, till
she asked me how 1 would do if a big boy
was to come at me with a stick as big as
our carriage pole, and 1 had nothing to
hurt him with but a pile ofbrickbats? This
was conclusive, and l admitted that it
was perfectly fair, though l still held that
all the advantage was on the side OF Da-
Vid, for if he missed GOliah with his sling.
he could run dlCGy and be safe! The old
lady had in her youth lived in Charleston
during its occupation by the British, and
her admiration for Marion and his mode
Of warfare was very great, and this eX-
preston Of mine delighted her. as it
showed a precOciOus and instructive per-
ception of this great rule of war: "BefOre
you advance, look we'll to your retreat;"
and she took advantage of the occasion to
impress on me the value of the DreceDt.
Living in an age when duelS were very
frequent, and often fatal, she could recall
TO mind many, but, according to her
principle to tell me nothing that would
not leave a good moral impression on nv
imagination, she narrated those that had
arisen from trifling causes, and repeated
to me more than once the unfortunate
| affair hnfUUOnn q Fnl0fIUn of hnrc md hTC ]
particular friend, a French officer. Gray
son and his friend being prisoners of war,
their cottages were divided by a picket
fence, on one side of which the American
raised chickens, on the other the French
man cultivated a garden. AS was a
matter of course, the chickens could not
be kept out of the cultivated ground, and
the irascible Frenchman challenged their
master, who killed him. The moral was
not evident to me then, but became plain
to me during the last war, viz: "Diverse
interests will part the best of friends"
RO~chefoucauld's "MaXims," or the Eng
lish edition of "EsOp," would not supply
prOfOunder principles of conduct than my
grandmOther's stories had they been pub
lished in book form. Her version of "Jack
and the Bean-stalk" was instructive to a
high degree.
THE REAL MATURE OF A DUEL.
But 1 never realized the real nature OF
al uuGl I'LL L DGuSlu luC IGSultS Vi one
fought at the spot now called Laurel Hill,
when, hearing a noise very early one
morning, l aWOke to see the servants at
the window, and heard them say: "Oh!
poor white mani Killed dead! and |
wonder what he young wife and little
baby gwine do nOW?" l ran to the win
dow in time to see a barOuehe in which
were three gentlemen, one dead, lying
in the arms of another, who
was weeping and now and then kissing
his forehead, while the other seemed to
comfort him in vain. Who the victim
was l may have heard, but do not remem-
Der, but l saw the eyes of both father and
mother fill with tears when told what we
had seen, and heard them say: "POOr
young man, h will his wife do now
with her young child:" Never since then
have Iheard of a fatal duel without think
ing more of the living friends than of the
dead. Yet it seems that with the decline
of the duel under 1.-The code" assassina-
ton has increased.
The next that interested me was
from a tombstone in the cemetery over
the remains of Lieut. Wilde. brother of
Richard Henry Wilde, the Georgia states
man, poet and author of the Life of Tas-
So" The story as told to me was this,
VIZ:
A military post was established, l
think it was at old Fort Wayne, on the
eastern bluff of the present city, the en-
bankment of which was there in 1885.
Among the officers were Lieut.. Wilde and
Lieut.. johnson. The last was from New
Jersey, the former of Irish descent, living
in Georgia. From some alteration from
military code of honor or duty johnson
was put in coventry" and found himself
obliged either to quit the army or to fight
some one 70 the death. Wilde, with the
generosity of an Irishman, recognizedthe
lll-doer so far as to defend him, or at least
to tolerate him, when the others refused
70 hold sa4anaOv~1n 18th Lsro d.
in stopping short of familiarity
and justification, Wilde, the for
mer friend, although VIGOROUSLY so
near-sighted and unskilled in the use of
the pistol as not to be able to hit a full
grown pine tree with certainty, gave suf-
fcient ground of Offense to render himself
liable to a challenge. 1t was promptly
given, and though it was held that Wilde
was not called upon to accept it. he felt
himself bound by his former defense of
the challenger to do so. The consequence
was a meeting and the death of Wilde at
the third shot.
THE RESULT OF TINS DUEL SAVED HIS
ANTAGONIST
from the fatal charge of cowardice, but
intensified the hatred and contempt of his
fellow officers to such a degree that he
had to leave the army. Before he did
this, however, being a handsome, plausi-
bic and specifically pleasing man, ne
SdAAlCQ IL dnGCbAOuS VI al n6lIeO6 VI GULL
Portable means, married her and removed
to New Jersey, where he converted her
land and negro property into a farm in
his native State. She was a noble, large
hearted woman, fond of literature and
art, practical in her domestic life,
and with all a Southern woman's
detestation of the narrow and mean in
men. She soon found him out, and though
she could not cOndescend to quarrel with
him and bore with him to the last, her SUI
periority was ~insuppOrtable to him, and
converting her property into cash, he de-
serted her, disappeared from view, and
has never been heard of since. On this,
she returned to Carolina, and was at
once taken into the family of him
who was afterward my father-in-law,
as a near relative and honored guest,
and for months at a time would visit her
p~rotege-my Wife-in the mountains of
Georgia, so that l had full opportunity of
judging of her nobility of character and
sOlidity Of mind. Of herself and troubles
she never spoke, nor even limited at her
matrimonial life. But hers was not the
only wreck brought about by this un-
fortunate duel.
Lieut.. Wilde had been stationed for a
short time, or had visited the beautiful
Tampa Bay, on the west coast of Florida,
and had there made the acquaintance of
a Seminole Chief whose tribe and family
had been nearly destroyed in wars with
the whites, His dignified name and
stoical bearing under the influence of deep
and hopeless grief, made such an impress
sion on young Wilde, that with all the
%eloquence and poetry Of his Irish nature
he poured into the ear of his poet brother,
Richard Henry Wilde, such a tale that it
reused his imagination to the production
of a poem, pronounced beautiful by those
who saw the part reduced to writing. OF
this, the beautiful song "My life is like
a summer rOse.O was given to some lady
and thus preserved to US. The work was
never completed, for the death of his
young, high-spirited and much-loyed
brother blighted the spirit of song, and it
persisted like the summer rose, and passed
away with the footsteps washed
from Tampa's silver strand by
the retiring tide. In after
years l met the poet in Augusta. 1 had
known him from bOYhOod, and could
scarcely recognize in the Italian abbot,
with his priestly dress, straightly combed
hair and sensual appearance, caught by
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