The extraordinarily STUPID custom of duelling was popular in the US from about 1800 to 1840. It is hard for us (today) to understand why two grown men would shoot at eachother…over some imagined insult. Anyway, given the inacurracy of pistols in the early 19oo’s, was it common for both sides to survive a dual? Also, I understand that most people had cold feetabout duelling…so much so that they actually agreed to NOT have the dual…and so shook hands and left the field. Of course, the Arron Burr vs Alexander Hamilton duel was a double tragedy…the US was deprived of a brilliant Secretary of the Treasurry, and a terrible racist (Burr) survived.
Dueling has been around for a lot longer than that.
During the renaissance for example, the rules for a duel were extremely complicated. The reason though wa usually the same: an insult or some dishonorable action.
Not sure how duels wer handled in america in the 1800’s, but AFAIK it did not end until one or the other party was dead, or they came to an agreement (an apology was made or debt repayed for example).
In the 18th century when pistols were being used for this purpose, the two parties would trade shots. They would flip a coin or somehow decided who went first. The person who was to shot stood some distance away and presented a profile to the shooter, who then took his shot. If he missed, the the other guy got a turn.
Scary buisness.
I’m almost certain that the actual rules varied from culture to culture.
There’s a great dueling scene in the movie Barry Lyndon, though that takes place in Britain a bit before the golden age of deulin’ in America.
Here is the “Code Duello” which laid out the rules for dueling that were followed with some variation in most of Europe and America by people who wished to settle their disputes by “gentlemanly means.”
I don’t think it was that stupid. Back then they had a stronger concept of “Honor” than we do today.
The point of duelling wasn’t to kill someone who affrontd you; it was to prove how far you were willing to go for the sake of your own Honor. To prove you were willing to die for your Honor.
Yes, they usually did survive. Back then pistols were very inaccurate. However, that wasn’t the point of duelling. Yes, it would have been an insult to the ‘target’ if one of the involved parties deliberately missed.
I’m not sure what you mean about the " terrible racist" Burr comment, but both were very interesting characters in American History. Their duel was not a spur of the moment thing, instead of was the culmination of years and years of rivalry and hatred, often publicized.
First:
Emphasis mine. Duelling was over by then. It’d been outlawed for at least a century or two, although still practiced with a wink and a turn of the back in some places and by some people.
Kinthalis, that’s interesting - I’d read (don’t recall where, unfortunately) that the very act of duelling ended the matter, whether a participant was injured or killed or not. Being willing to defend your honor unto death, regardless of whether you actually ended up doing so, comprised satisfaction. Maybe things differed from place to place or time to time?
Also, regarding the inaccuracy of those guns… Normal 18th-century guns were NOT horribly inaccurate. They’re not nearly as precise as modern pistols, but it’s not like throwing rocks left-handed while wearing a blindfold and spun 'til you’re dizzy! I own an early-19th-century style flintlock pistol, and it’s the very first gun I’ve ever handled in my entire life, and on only my second time shooting it I managed to hit a targer roughly the size of a human torso at a distance approximating that of a duelling opponent. (It was not set up that way on purpose; we only discovered the distance after measuring paces when going out to mark our hits.) The average gun was reasonably accurate at close distances, and the rifles were good enough to allow hunters to provide for their entire families without buying a single beefsteak at the store all year.
Duelling pistols were made horribly inaccurate ON PURPOSE, and their innacuracy should not be a judgment on other firearms of the period. Duelling pistols were made unrifled - smoothbore - so they’d not aim true. This’d level the field between two opponents of differing marksmanship. It doesn’t matter how good you are at pointing the thing; a round ball shot from a smoothbore pistol is going to go every which way but straight, due to air resistance. Rifling (spiral grooves cut in the inside of the barrel) sets the ball to spinning as it comes out, making the lead shot a little more aerodynamically stable - just like a football wobbles when you throw it, unless you put some spin into it.
A not-uncommon dirty trick among duellists was to have a pistol made which was rifled for half the bore, but smooth as far down as you could see when you looked down the barrel.
My wife and I have been doing a lot of research on all of South Carolina’s former governors. (We are writing a book)
During our research, we came across Gov. John Lyde Wilson (1784-1849). Gov. Wilson was a prolific dueler. It is said he killed 14 men in duels, including two while in office. He also published a treatsie in 1838 called “The Code of Honor” a manual on dueling.
Remember, this is South Carolina in 1830s, so duels were fairly common.
I think you’re right, satisfaction might have been apeased by the act of showing up and not dying, atleast in some places.
hmm, maybe this very point is what made pistols so popular for dueling in later years?
With swords the better swordsman will almost certainly win. With inaccurate pistols, things are more even.
jplacer, how mant duels is it said that Gov. John Lyde Wilson fought?
Well, one man’s “stronger” is another man’s stupid or childish. Yeah, I’m willing to die because some guy called me a “pup” or said that he saw my married daughter walking along the canal with a ruffian. Pish-tosh.
Often, duelling was based on pretext. Mr. A was a good shot and wanted to get rid of Mr. B (who isn’t a good shot and has a wider profile) for Mr. A’s own nefarious reasons. Mr. A contrives to create a point of honour that Mr. B is compelled to respond to. Thus, Mr. A gets a free shot at Mr. B and maybe gets rid of his legal, business, or personal problem.
It’s the same way charges of witchcraft were used as a pretext to get rid of people (often wealthy widows).
I read the book Gentlemen, Swords, and Pistols, which I suspect was highly sensationalist and probably of dubious veracity.
However, the book did explain that there were many, many different types of duels. Since the terms of the duel were usually agreed upon in negotiations between the parties “seconds,” it was fairly common for there to be a certain amount of reasonableness between the two parties. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to name terms which were highly unlikely to cause injury to either party, because oftentimes the mere formality of engaging in the duel was sufficient to “satisfy” the aggrieved party. Long-range pistol duels were apparently common, and it was thought unsporting in many circles to use large-caliber weapons.
(The Hamilton-Burr duel may have been a one-sided example of this. Hamilton reputedly said that he would accept a challenge from Burr, but would not necessarily try to shoot Burr himself. The pistols Hamilton chose to use were also supposedly modified for an extremely easy trigger pull, which Burr apparently didn’t know–perhaps in an effort to cause Burr to misfire?)
If the stories I’ve read about Jim Bowie are to be believed, then he’s certainly exemplary of the opposite end of the spectrum. Bowie would supposedly goad people into challenging him, then he would name the terms. One “duel” was reputedly agreed to be a knife fight to the death in a darkened room.
Stephen Pile’s The Incomplete Book of Failures includes the story of a duel between two English gentlemen of the 17th century. Apparently the challenger was known to be a rough character, and the challenged man didn’t fancy his chances. As he had the choice of weapons and venue, he picked carpenters’ axes (big, heavy axes which take two to lift) and a pitch-dark cellar.
Amusing as the story is, the moral of the story was that showing up for the duel was sufficient to save face, and also that there were ways of rigging the duel so that neither party actually came to harm.
Cream pies at ten paces. Have at you, varlet!
My opponent is fatter than me by half. Draw my outline on him, and any hits outside that don’t count. 
Not so: I have never shot a smoothbore pistol but I’ve used both blowguns shooting glass marbles and slingshots shooting lead balls. These weapons obviously have no rifling of any type, yet one can hit very small targets with them at 10 to 20 yards. There are people who can hit ping pong balls with successive shots at these distances using a slingshot. I am not that good, but I can hit a 4" target with my blowgun at around 15 yards; more than enough accuracy to put a hole into a man’s forehead. Windage is never the problem, only trajectory. The average black powder charge puts far more velocity into a lead ball than my weapons, so the trajectory is straighter and hitting the target that much easier.
Here are Mark Twain’s recollections of arranging a duel:
http://www.farid-hajji.net/books/en/Twain_Mark/ta-chap08.html
The Code Duello page links to this history of dueling in America:
Some interesting dueling factoids:
- Andrew Jackson once fought a duel against a man who had a reputation as a fast and accurate shot. Supposedly, Jackson knew that he could shoot well, but not fast. He therefore, as the challenged party, elected the risky course of receiving his opponents fire, as opposed to both duelists shooting together, as was the more general custom at that time and place.
His opponent shot and hit Jackson, although not seriously. In fact, Jackson showed so little reaction to being shot that his opponent thought he had missed! Jackson then had all the time in the world to set up, shoot, and kill his opponent. His own wound healed well, and he carried the bullet in his body until his death many years later.
By the way, the duel supposedly was over Jackson’s wife, whose divorce from her previous husband may or may not have been final when she married Jackson. This was something of a scandal of the day.
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The History Channel show “Combat” did an episode about dueling and the code of honor from the eighteenth century. Swords rather than pistols, but the concepts were the same. Interestingly, the major function of the “seconds” was to attempt to find a negotiated settlement short of combat, and many duels were avoided by a negotiated public apology with perhaps some other elements of a “settlement” thrown in.
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In the same episode, there was a description of a famous duel between a notable swordsman and a much less skilled person. The novice took what was universally considered a “cheap shot”, seriously wounding the better swordsman. Outraged, the wounded duelist refused medical treatment (which would almost certainly have saved his life, unless infection set in), and bled to death on the spot. This was considered the epitome of honor, and the dead man was publicly lionized, whereas the novice was disgraced. On the other hand, he was still alive…
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There was in the same period at least one woman who made quite a reputation as a duelist, defending her own honor. Apparently it needed quite a bit of defending…
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The fictional character of Lord Peter Wimsey, supposedly born in 1890, claimed to have been challenged three times and to have fought twice. The last challenger didn’t care for his choice of weapon. “A bullet may go anywhere, but steel is almost bound to go somewhere…”
I’m not an expert on aerodynamics, but I think you are drawing a false parallel between bullet behavior and slingshot/blowgun missile behavior - specifically, overlooking the aerodynamic impact of exponentially higher velocity. Imagine throwing a small, perfectly round ball. It would go straight. However, as early golfers quickly discovered, hitting a perfectly round golf ball (imparting much greater velocity than merely throwing) resulted in erratic and unpredictable flight. I suspect that the velocity of your blowgun and slingshot missiles is simply not high enough to show these same effects.
There’s also Ridley Scott’s “the duellists”, taking place during the napoleonic era and based on the story of two real characters (though the reason why they began their everlasting duel and the end are different in the movie).
And by the way, concerning the comments made about showing up at the duel being sufficient to settle the matter : in the real story, the two officers eventually decided to put an end to their habit of duelling because one of them wanted to marry. And, IIRC, none was wounded during their last duel (or at least none was killed) and nevertheless they considered that the issue they have had with each other for, IIRC, more than a decade, was settled.
I saw the same episode of “Conquest”. It was about dueling in the 16th century (not the 18th).
Ahh yes, the duel of Chabot, Baron de Jarnac and François de la Châtaigneraye. It took place in France in the mid 1500’s. Jarnac, the less experienced swordsman tried his best to delay the fight, requesting that unusual weapons be included in the duel (much to Châtaigneraye’s dismay). This was probably to give him time to train with a master of arms at the time, who likely tought him the famous strike. The master also did his best to increase Jarnac’s chances as he made sure of the final choice of weapons which were a Cut and Thrust sword, a buckler, a dagger and a brassard. The dagger was to even the chances should he be disarmed or wrestling ensued (Châtaigneraye was also a good wrestler), and the brassard forced the left arm in a straight position making take downs neigh impossible.
However, Jarnac was certainly not disgraced. The cut was completely legit in a historical fencing match where any exposed body part is fair game. Everyone at the match agreed that JArnac had fought honorably and courteously. Even later on the “coup de Jarnac” as the strike was named, came to mean an unexpected strike that wouldn’t kill you outright, but will win the battle.
Yes, yes, Conquest, not Combat. My mistake.
I was and am not familiar with the duel between Chabot and la Châtaigneraye, beyond what I saw in the show, but the impression I got was that the cut was considered at best low-class…