Dueling in Charleston: Violence Refined in the Holy City
....In his book, Long doesn't deny the impulse for romance and comedy in retelling stories of hidebound dandies blowing each other's kneecaps off. And while he's no dueling apologist, he does mention that defending personal reputation was far more important and difficult in 19th-century Charleston than it is today. (As evidence of this, one need look no further than philandering ex-Gov. Mark Sanford's mere two-year hiatus from running for office.) Long points out that 10 years after South Carolina banned dueling, the state's homicide rate took off, tripling the rate of all New England states combined, according to other history books.But he also reminds readers that about one in five duels ended in death, and many duelists were maimed for life. The book's bleakest passage describes a 1786 duel in which Dr. Joseph Brown Ladd, a son of New England pacifists, exchanged hateful words in a Charleston newspaper with his close friend Ralph Isaacs. Ladd's sister, Elizabeth Haskins, later wrote that her brother was "averse to dueling in principle," but that "the tyranny of public sentiment was such that to decline [the challenge] would have made him the mark of public scorn." When the day of the duel finally came, Ladd fired into the ground rather than harm his friend, but Isaacs shot Ladd in the knee, causing a gangrenous wound that would later claim Ladd's life at his Church Street home."I think he gets kind of caught up in high-society Charleston," Long says, reflecting on the dark episode in his office at the museum. "He gets thrust into Charleston, which is a very urban place with massive wealth, and I think he just kind of loses track of his upbringing."Long says a few old Charleston families still keep dueling pistols in their downtown homes. Thankfully, they haven't seen action in years. --Charleston City Paper