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CHAPTER XXXVII.

Two Narrowly Averted Duels.

HE field of honor during the pre-revolutionary and early commonwealth days of Georgia was the favorite appellate court with public men in this State for the final adjudication of angry issues and the venerable authority which was cited before this high tribunal was the code duello, whose hoary margins were annotated in red with precedents which extended beyond the time of the Norman Conquest and reached to the armory of Tubal Cain.

But the practice of crossing swords and leveling pistols over the deadline with seconds standing near by and medical experts dancing attendance has long since declined in popularity, with the enactment of statutory measures seeking to suppress this kind of litigation. Two narrowly-averted duels which involved the lives of four of the most distinguished men which this State has ever produced has probably helped to crystallize the sentiment which to-day sternly forbids such dangerous combats. The first grew out of the challenge which Alexander H. Stephens sent to Benjamin H. Hill several years before the war, while the second rose out of the message which Joseph E. Brown received from Robert Toombs soon after the days of reconstruction in Georgia.

Alexander H. Stephens was far from being an athlete in muscular build; but in spite of the physical weakness that kept him from weighing much more than ninety-six pounds-which was his weight on entering Congress, with perhaps some few grains left over in the scaleshe was nevertheless unflinchingly courageous; and every ounce of flesh which gripped his spare bones to keep from falling evinced as true a pluck as Cæsar ever displayed in Gaul.

This was clearly proven as far back as the fall of 1848, when Mr. Stephens had his celebrated encounter with Judge Francis H. Cone. Judge. Cone had severely criticized Mr. Stephens for something which he had said or done in Congress, it matters not exactly what, and among other choice epithets which he used in speaking of Mr. Stephens one was "traitor." As soon as Mr. Stephens heard of the compliments which he was receiving from Judge Cone an exchange of correspondence followed without producing satisfactory results; but it chanced that the two men confronted each other rather unexpectedly at Dr. Thompson's hotel in Atlanta soon afterwards.

Difficulties almost immediately ensued. Mr. Stephens probably infuriated Judge Cone by returning his vituperative adjectives and thereupon Judge Cone, delving underneath his broadcloth, drew out a knife with which he made a leap toward Mr. Stephens. Now, Mr. Stephens was doubly at a disadvantage, not only because in avoirdupois he was a pigmy beside Judge Cone, but also because he was unarmed, except for an umbrella which shot out from his left elbow. With this somewhat unheroic weapon Mr. Stephens sought to parry the aim of Judge Cone, whose uplifted hand was about to descend upon him like

the blood-thirsty steel of the guillotine. But he was soon overpowered and fell bleeding upon the floor.

"Retract!" cried the incensed jurist, who now bent over the body of his prostrate foe with his arm raised for another deadly stroke.

"Never!" replied Mr. Stephens, the blood trickling from his wounds, but the proud spirit still unconquered and the fearless eye full of calm defiance. Again the knife descended, severing an intercostal artery, but Mr. Stephens still refused to retract. He continued to grapple with his stout antagonist, growing momentarily weaker and weaker with the loss of blood until rescue came from some of the hotel guests, who now came upon the scene of encounter and separated the belligerents.

Mr. Stephens received prompt and skillful medical attention, but he lay for weeks and weeks hovering between life and death. At last he arose from his sick bed and resumed amid the wildest enthusiasm the campaign for reelection to Congress which he had just commenced when the difficulty occurred. But he never fully regained the use of his right hand which was frightfully lacerated in the struggle, and his penmanship as well as his person bore the marks of the encounter as long as he lived. Shortly after this he ordered two dagon plows from the hardware store and received two dozen plows the next week; while he ordered from the grocer fifty pounds of ice one hot day in July, and received fifty pounds of rice.

In justice to Judge Cone who was one of the ablest lawyers at the Georgia bar, it may be said that he was completely upset by his violent anger and did not perhaps stop to think of the physical disparity between himself and Mr. Stephens. They had once been good friends in spite

of professional tilts and rivalries; and later on in life the cordial relations of earlier years were resumed.

But this is only an incidental story. The circumstances which called forth the challenge which Mr. Stephens sent to Mr. Hill grew out of the joint debate which occurred between these two Georgians at Lexington during the presidential campaign of 1856. Mr. Stephens and Mr. Toombs had both left the old Whig party in the disruptive smoke of the new political issues, and had now come into the Democratic ranks; while Mr. Hill stood squarely upon the American platform.

With merciless oratory Mr. Hill pilloried Mr. Stephens at Lexington with being disloyal to the Whig party. Mr. Stephens in the course of his speech had spoken of the American candidate for President in rather uncomplimentary terms, characterizing him as Judas, and Hill retorted by saying in bitter stricture of Mr. Stephens for using this harsh language concerning the American candidate, that while Judas did betray his Master for thirty pieces of silver he did not abuse his Master after he betrayed Him. Mr. Stephens felt the stinging effect of the retort, but he dismissed it at the time as only an eloquent rejoinder which he had called forth and which he need not fur

ther regard. At Washington Mr. Hill scored Mr. Toombs in very much the same fashion. It was something unusual for the multitudes who had long witnessed the exciting polemics of the hustings to behold the spectacle of an unterrified youngster like Mr. Hill touching the breastplates of old veterans like Mr. Toombs and Mr. Stephens; and stories of Jack the Giant-Killer began to

move up and down the State, perhaps exaggerating the facts to embellish the legends.

What Mr. Toombs thought does not appear, but Mr. Stephens was by no means pleased with the garbled accounts which reached him within the next few days, and putting some vitriol into his inkbottle he wrote to Mr. Hill for information. Said he in substance: "I have been informed that in your speeches at Thomson and Augusta you declared that you had charged upon Mr. Toombs and myself that we had betrayed the Whig party and had acted toward it worse than Judas Iscariot, for though he betrayed his Master he did not abuse Him afterward; that you had thundered this in our ears and that we had cowered under your charges. Please let me know if this be true, at least so far as I am concerned."

Without itemizing Mr. Hill's reply literally, he wrote in substance that he had repeated at Thomson and Augusta exactly what had taken place at Lexington and Washington, no more and no less; that he met argument with argument, sarcasm with sarcasm and ridicule with ridicule; that he disclaimed any personal ill will and made shots only at those who built batteries.

Mr. Stephens was not satisfied with the terms in which this reply was couched, and several additional love-letters were exchanged in which Judas was the only one of the disciples whose name was mentioned; and finally Mr. Stephens, incensed and exasperated by what he considered an admission of the rumors with an effort to escape the consequences, issued the challenge to mortal combat.

Mr. Hill clearly foresaw what the result of the correspondence was to be; but reflecting upon the matter deliberately he saw no reason why he should be drawn into