The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-09-26
SOME NOTED DUELS.

insults have been avenged on the field
of honor.
The French have from early times
been the most Jealous promoters of the
code.
In fact, Francis /. declared that any
Ffenchman who would be called liar
and then not fight, was a base born
ehurl, a precept that President Floquet
appears to have not only borne in mind,
but carried out to the letter.
Duels were not known to the Greeks
and Romans, but originated in the mid
die ages, when devotion to women,
chivalry and knight-errantry were the
customs Of the times. In the middle
ages, when there was scarcely vestige
left of the glories of art, science and
polite accomplishments, when their
scattered ruins and the traditions of
them alone remained, then the duel was
born. Swarms of barbariaus overran
the great empires, and the right of the
sword was the only one recogni, ed. The
deity was supposed to be propitiated by
deeds of blood. Tribes and individuals
avenged the wrongs offered to them, and
the ordeal was considered as the only
way to settle dispute or difference of
any kind. In the sixteenth century
duels, like the age, were bloodthirsty
and ferocious. Everybody wore sword
and fought at the drop oil hat. Lives
were romance of war. love and con-
spiracies. The dueling blade was heavy,
fat, straight, double. edged, pointed,
and about three feet in length. The
combatants handled it with one hand or
two. Cut and thrust were equally per-
missible, but the thrust was made at the
face and not at the breast.l:
General Boulanger called Floquet q
liar, and they fought. This was serious
charge with serious results, but men
have often fought for the most trivial of
causes. There is story of an Irishman
who called man out for doubling that
he had seen anchovies grow on trees, and
when his opponent lay wounded on the
ground repentantly owned that it was
capers, not anchovies, that he meant.
One of Louis XNIlI.'s guard
fought three times in one day, first with
. gentleman who had given otfense by
looking cross at him; second, with a
stranger who looked hard at him, and
third with man who passed by and
didn't look at him at all.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN
was once challenged by General Shields
to fight duel on account of letter
written in newspaper rejecting on the
General, which Lincoln claimed to have
written so as to save the real author from
the consequences. Tie latter having the
choice of weapons selected to fight with
the broadsword, not that he was skilled
In its use, but having such tremendous
length of arm, combined with great
muscular power, that he calculated upon
being able to chop his adversary's head
off before he could give him scientific
thrust. Lincoln was the first on the
field, and when Shields arrived was hard
at work with hatchet cleaning away
the bushes.
1t was decided to sink a plank per-
pendicularly in the ground, leaving four
feet of it protruding from the earth.
The combatants to fight up to, but. not
beyond it. Shields examined the
swords, then looked doubtingly at Lin
coins arm. Colonel Hardin, Lincoln's
second, saw the look, and urged the
combatants not to make fools of them
selves, and, like wise men, they con-
cluded they would not, and played a
game of "old sledge" to decide who
should pay the expenses of the trip, a
pleasure that fell to Shields.
QUEER WEAPONS.
There have been many queer weapons
selected by duelists. A Missouri back
woodsman insisted on a combat with
raw hides, limiting the time to half an
hours duration. An old whaling cap
tain said he would fight with harpoons
or not at all, proposition that his op-
ponent declined. A French journalist.
more fond of fun than fight, accepted q
challenge, saying: "Of course l claim
the choice of weapon. You want to
kill me. l will do my best to kill you.
Good. 1 have in my house twenty loaves
of siege bread, which I have kept for
souvenirs. We will sit down and eat
against each other. One of us is sure to
die" The challenger, who knew what
siege-bread was, declined to run the risk.
General Isaac Putnam, of revolutionary
fame, was challenged 10 fight duel by
q young officer, and proposed that each
should sit on powder key with light
ed fuse in the bung. As he would hear
of no other terms, the general had his
way. At the appointed time the belig-
erents took thir seats astride the kegs,
and the fuse was lighted. The veteran
watched the progress of the burning
fuse with unmoved countenance, but his
oppon ent was not 80 cool. He took in
tense interest in the fast lessening match,
and when it got sugge lively near the
bung- hole, deeming discretion the bet
ter part of valor, he jumped off and ran
for the woods, when old General Putnam
yelled out: Hold on, man, it's only
onion seed"
When Egau and Curran met to decide
their quarrel with the ristols aid, the
former complained that he might as we'll
FIRE at azor's'edge rs his #dyersary's
thin body, while he offered rs fair mark
as turfstack; whereupon his ready
witted foe declared that he had no de-
sire to take an undue advantage, and was
willing to let his size be chalked out on
Mr.. Fgan's side, and agree that every
shot outside the mark should 90 for
nothing.
NOTED AMERICAN DUES.
The four most noted fatal duels ever
fought in the United States were those
between Ale Wander Hamilton and Aaron
Burr at Wcehawken, n. j., July II,
1904; Stephen Decatur and James Bar
ron at Bladensburg, Md. March %, 1920;