The Field of Blood

by Joanne B. Freeman

  Cilley had no desire to inflict that sort of damage. Yet he couldn’t treat with Webb without dishonoring himself and all that he represented, as his advisors noted more than once in the days before the duel. Even merely insulting Webb required careful calculations. When Duncan—not a man of subtleties—suggested that Cilley write Webb a letter denouncing him as “an unprincipled scoundrel, a degraded coward, and a bought-up vassal” who was unworthy of meeting, even through Graves, Pierce quickly said no. Such an answer might do for a “Southwestern man,” he advised, but given New England’s hatred of dueling, it was “of the first importance that Mr. Cilley should only act in the defensive, and be clearly in the right.” If Cilley ended up fighting a duel, “it must clearly appear that he is forced to do so in defence of his honor and of his rights.”82

  In the end, struggling to defend his honor without offending his constituents, Cilley decided he’d have to fight if challenged. “My people will be better pleased if I stand the test, than disgrace myself by humiliating concessions,” he reasoned.83 That said, he insisted that no “Northern friend” risk his reputation back home by acting as his second. He wouldn’t even let Pierce join him on the dueling ground; with elections coming in the fall, the risk to Pierce’s career was too great. “I’ll never be able to get any recognition in Maine after this,” Cilley told his second, even as he headed to the dueling ground.84 It’s easy to understand Cilley’s takeaway lesson about being in Congress, written to his wife in the midst of his wrangle: “[A] man, if he think free & boldly must take his life in his hand.”85

  And so on the morning on February 23, Graves sent Cilley a formal challenge, noting that he was “left no other alternative but to ask that satisfaction which is recognized among gentlemen.”86 That evening, Cilley accepted. And the duel that no one wanted advanced to the dueling ground.

  “AN AGITATION IN THE HOUSE”

  By the day of the duel—February 24—both men had assembled teams of advisors to guide them through the coming confrontation. As a Southerner, Graves didn’t have to go far to find duel-savvy men whom he knew and trusted. He ultimately chose frequent fighter Henry Wise as his second, U.S. Navy surgeon Jonathan M. Foltz as his doctor, and Richard H. Menefee (W-KY) and John J. Crittenden (W-KY) as his secondary “friends,” the latter a mild-mannered senior senator with a national reputation who might be able to wield his influence to settle the fight.87 As Graves explained it, Crittenden’s presence “would be the best evidence I could offer at home, that I did not intend to act rashly.”88

  As a congressional newcomer, Cilley had a harder time of it. With no close duel-savvy friends, he assembled a team of relative strangers with a history of fighting: his second was George W. Jones, a delegate from the Wisconsin territory, recommended by Missouri men as an experienced second (he had four duels under his belt); his doctor was the rifle-ready Alexander Duncan; and his secondary “friends” on the field were Jesse Bynum (D-NC), a veteran of two congressional duels, once as a second and once as a principal (plus a fistfight with Henry Wise two years past); and Jones’s college friend Colonel James W. Schaumburg, a hot-tempered Louisianan renowned for fighting a duel with swords on horseback and accidentally killing his unfortunate horse. Schaumburg became involved only because Pierce spotted the famous duelist on Pennsylvania Avenue and sought his advice. Well aware of Schaumburg’s hair-trigger temper, Jones blurted out, “For God’s sake, don’t take him,” but he was too late.89 Whigs had good reason to question the influence of Cilley’s “violent political friends.”90 As for Cilley’s closest nonviolent friend, Franklin Pierce, by the morning of the duel, he was beside himself with worry, walking into Cilley’s room and immediately walking out, too disturbed to speak.91

  A few hours later at a little past noon, Cilley, Jones, Bynum, and Schaumburg met Duncan at his boardinghouse and set out for the Anacostia bridge, where they were to meet Graves and his friends and leave the District together. After a brief wait at the bridge, two carriages drove up, one carrying Graves, Wise, and Menefee, the other Crittenden and Foltz. All three carriages then set out for Maryland. A short time later, Whig representatives John Calhoon and Richard Hawes of Kentucky followed in their tracks, equipped with blankets in case Graves was shot.92 All told, ten congressmen were present that day.

  From start to finish, the duel was a very human affair, as were all duels, but few were documented beyond bare-bones reports by the seconds. The Cilley-Graves committee report offers an intimate view of a duel’s gritty realities: the misunderstandings and mistakes, the offhand jokes, the quirky side stories, the surprises and oversights. It shows a group of men gingerly feeling their way through a deadly encounter, clinging to rules and rituals in the name of fairness, for the sake of honor, but hoping to end things with bloodless gunplay, a parting handshake, and nothing more.

  Some of the duel’s details are almost funny: no one knew where the District’s border was, so they had to ask a stranger; a random tourist with a lifelong desire to witness a duel shadowed the carriages and insisted on watching; Menefee loaded Graves’s rifle incorrectly before the first shot, leading Wise to joke about so-called Kentucky riflemen; Cilley’s carriage driver and the son of the farmer who owned the field chatted with Graves between shots, the boy peppering him with questions (Are you fighting a duel? Are you members of Congress? Where are you from? Are you fighting over a debate?) until Graves asked him to stop.

  The report also reveals that neither Cilley nor Graves was good with a rifle, something that the two seconds deliberately suppressed in their joint post-duel account of their proceedings; it wouldn’t have done much for their principals to expose them as bumblers who misfired. But so they were. As a rifleman, Cilley had a slight advantage, but very slight. He hadn’t shot a gun in at least five years, and even then he’d been hunting squirrels—badly, because he was nearsighted. Graves was so bad with a rifle that his friends felt sure that he’d be killed; thus the presence of Calhoon and Hawes with blankets. (Menefee said that Graves fired “with an awkwardness very remarkable in one educated and residing in Kentucky.”)93 Graves’s friends filed down his gun’s trigger to keep him from firing prematurely, but during the second exchange of fire he did precisely that. Cilley misfired during the first exchange. Both men had practice sessions before the duel and they needed them.94

  But for the most part, events went as planned. The three carriages arrived at the chosen spot, stopping just outside the fence surrounding the field. Wise and Jones, the two seconds, surveyed and measured the ground, linking arms and taking extra-large paces so that what was supposed to be a distance of eighty yards was closer to ninety-two. Then they signaled for everyone to “come on,” with Cilley and Graves arriving last, their places marked, their rifles loaded.

  The two men walked to their designated spots, Cilley standing on a slight rise, Graves standing in front of a fence near a small wood; such things mattered because they might affect one’s aim. Graves faced the sun. There was a strong wind blowing against Cilley; it was a cold winter day.

  The two men angled their left sides toward each other to narrow themselves as targets. They were handed their rifles. Jones, as determined by a coin toss, said, “Gentlemen, are you ready?” and when neither man said no, continued: “Fire—one, two, three, four.” (No one was to fire after the count of four). Cilley fired first before he’d fully raised his gun. Graves fired a second or two later and missed.

  The rifle used by Jonathan Cilley in his duel (Photograph by Hugh Talman and Jaclyn Nash. Courtesy of National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution)

  A few weeks after the Cilley-Graves duel, French visited the dueling ground to chart the duel’s logistics. Later that day, he drew it in his diary. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

  Now, as was customary, the seconds and friends assembled halfway between the principals and conferred; neither Graves nor Cilley could hear them. Jones asked Wise if Graves was satisfied. If so, they could shake hands and leave. “These
gentlemen have come here without animosity towards each other,” Wise replied. “Cannot Mr. Cilley … make some disclaimer which will relieve Mr. Graves from his position?” Jones spoke with Cilley and returned: Cilley said that he meant no disrespect to Graves, “because he entertained for him then, as he now does, the highest respect and the most kind feelings.” He refused Webb’s note because he didn’t want to be drawn into a “controversy” with him, and didn’t “choose to be drawn into an expression of opinion as to him.” After a brief discussion, both men checked with their principals and returned, Wise stating that Cilley’s answer left Graves “precisely in the position in which he stood when the challenge was sent,” Cilley’s friends insisting that the exchange of fire and Cilley’s “peril of life” should satisfy Graves’s honor. Roughly twenty minutes were spent in “earnest conversation,” Graves and Cilley watching from afar.

  But because nothing had changed, Wise and Menefee determined that the fight should continue. Cilley and Graves got back into position, and this time Graves fired before fully raising his gun and Cilley missed. Graves staggered back so violently at the misfire that his friends thought he’d been hit; embarrassed and frustrated, he demanded another shot.95 Again, the seconds and friends conferred. Jones insisted that Cilley had proven himself “a brave man” and had given satisfaction to Graves by risking his life. “The matter should end here.” But Wise, speaking for Graves, wanted Cilley to acknowledge that Webb was a gentleman, otherwise Graves had “borne the note of a man who is not a man of honor” and dishonored himself in the process.96

  Meanwhile, off to the side, Cilley’s carriage driver chatted with Graves. He thought that Graves had been hit during the second fire. “I didn’t feel the ball or hear it,” Graves replied. The driver asked the distance between Graves and Cilley. “Eighty yards,” was the answer. “[I]t was a chance shot to hit a man at that distance, as the wind was blowing.” At that moment, the two seconds began reloading the rifles. “I am very sorry to see them rifles loaded again,” said the driver. Graves dropped his head and murmured, “So it is.”

  As the reloading continued, Wise pulled Jones aside for one last stab at settling matters. Couldn’t Cilley claim privilege of debate? Cilley wouldn’t, Jones knew. Cilley’s team now objected “in the strongest language” to continuing, but Wise and Menefee wanted Cilley to either admit that Webb was a gentleman or plead privilege of debate. When Jones reported this to Cilley, he replied, “They must thirst for my blood mightily.”97 Here, Schaumburg’s hair-trigger temper did its damage. Arguing with Wise and Menefee about whether honor had been satisfied, he snapped, “[G]o on, and load and fire until you are satisfied.” And the two men stalked off and did just that.98

  Again, Jones gave the count. Both men took aim and fired, nearly simultaneously. This time, Graves’s shot rang true. Dropping his rifle and grabbing his abdomen, Cilley reached for his friends and cried, “I am shot,” falling into Schaumburg’s arms. The ball had passed through Cilley’s body, severing his abdominal aorta. He died within minutes, his friends in tears.99 The random tourist (clearly not shy) arrived at Cilley’s side as his friends closed his eyes; walking back to his horse, he passed Wise, then Graves and the others, all of them asking after Cilley. “He is dead, sir,” was the answer. Crittenden asked him to deliver a note to Clay reporting the outcome. Wise, in tears, sent word of the outcome to his drinking buddy Pierce, who shunned Wise for the next fourteen years.100 Graves and his friends walked to their carriages, Graves’s face masked in his cloak. Cilley’s friends carried his body to their carriage. And they all headed back to town.

  Back in Washington, the Capitol was abuzz. The duel was virtually common knowledge, though few had expected it to happen; given the involvement of a non-combatant Northerner and the mere “punctilio” at the heart of the conflict, until the morning of the duel most people had assumed that the combatants would find a way out. Thus French’s ability early in the dispute to joke that Cilley had been invited to “stand up and be shot at.”101

  But there wasn’t much joking on the morning of the duel. Congressmen were clustered on the Capitol grounds, looking up the road, waiting for news. Inside the House chamber no one could concentrate. “There was an agitation in the House, different from that which is occasioned by an irritated debate,” reported John Quincy Adams. “[A] restless, uneasy, whispering disposition, clustering into little groups with inquisitive looks, listening ears, and varying reports as one member or another went out of, or came into the Hall.”102

  Hoping to prevent gunplay, the congressional community kicked into gear. People were scampering all over town trying to intervene. Maine Democrats John Fairfield and Timothy Carter ran to a carriage that they thought contained Cilley and his friends, but were mistaken.103 French tried to pry the duel’s location from Carter, but Carter “pretended not to know anything.” (French’s phrasing would prove significant in events to come.)104 Hearing of the duel early that morning, two of Webb’s friends had rushed to Clay’s boardinghouse, waking him from a dead sleep. Stunned to hear that the duel was taking place (he thought that Whig delaying tactics had kept Graves from finding a rifle), but as Graves’s friend unable to intervene, Clay sent them to the district attorney and to the frequent fight mediator Charles Fenton Mercer (W-VA), who he knew would do all that they could.105 The district attorney promptly rushed to the Capitol to find out where the duel was taking place, then raced off to arrest the participants—at the wrong location.

  And then there was the perennial loose cannon, James Watson Webb. Horrified to find that Graves was fighting in his place, he came up with a series of increasingly outrageous and ungentlemanly plans. First, he and two friends, all of them well armed, went to Cilley’s boardinghouse intending to give him two options: duel Webb immediately or swear to do so before fighting Graves. If Cilley refused, Webb would shatter his right arm so he couldn’t duel Graves. Finding that Cilley had already left, the desperados opted for Plan B: run onto the dueling ground and insist that Webb take Graves’s place. If Cilley resisted, they’d shoot him. If Graves and Wise ordered them off the field … they’d shoot Cilley. The three men spent much of the morning racing to dueling grounds all over the District and beyond with the dignity and aplomb of the Keystone Kops, but after visiting three wrong locations they returned to the city to await the result. (Clearly, congressional duelists had a wide range of playing fields.)

  French’s various writings describe what came next; as always, he witnessed it all. He was lounging at a “billiard saloon” when someone burst in yelling that the parties were returning from the dueling ground, leading French and a pack of billiard loungers to make a mad dash for the windows. Moments later, French emerged from the building as the carriage bearing Cilley’s corpse passed by, trailed by an immense crowd. Rushing around the corner, French watched as the body was carried into Cilley’s boardinghouse. A few moments more and French was home at his window with Bess, watching the angry, milling crowd and the agitated comings and goings at the dead congressman’s door.106

  Cilley’s body lay in state in the Capitol’s rotunda before his funeral, not far from the Trumbull painting that included his grandfather’s portrait, an eerie coincidence that came to light when a little girl, standing before the painting with an explanatory card in her hand, asked her father, “Which is Colonel Cilley?”107 Then came Cilley’s enormous funeral in the House chamber, attended by the president, vice president, cabinet, Congress—and French, followed by a funeral procession to the Congressional Cemetery that extended for half a mile.108 It was a “political parade,” thought Wise.109 “The funeral of a saint,” Adams groused. But with a difference; the Supreme Court refused to attend the funeral of a duelist, as did some Massachusetts congressmen.110 On the opposite end of the dueling spectrum, some Southern congressmen were offended by the preacher’s anti-dueling sermon.111

  Not surprisingly given the uproar, Cilley’s burial didn’t calm things in Washington. French noticed handbills annou
ncing that Wise and Webb were to be burned in effigy near City Hall, Webb for causing the tragedy and Wise for pushing it to its violent close.112 For a short time, there was talk of a mob forming to hang Graves and Wise.113 Webb was threatened with a beating, even a lynching. True to form, he responded by taking a long, deliberate stroll up and down the Avenue—twice—daring his attackers to strike, combative, unrepentant, and heavily armed to the end.114

  An 1838 cartoon mocking James Watson Webb’s post-duel strut up and down the Avenue, daring people to assault him. In reality, he was armed, but not with quite so many weapons. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

  Four years later, Webb finally succeeded in dueling a congressman but it didn’t end well. He and Representative Thomas Marshall (W-KY)—of the “spreeing gentry”—had been sniping at each other for months over a bankruptcy law that Marshall wanted repealed, and that Webb dearly needed. When Marshall went to New York City on business, the sniping got more serious, leading Marshall to issue a duel challenge. In the subsequent duel, Webb was shot in the leg; not long after, New York’s Democratic district attorney indicted him under the state’s anti-dueling law. Arguing that he hadn’t bothered to obey a law that was never enforced, Webb was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years in the notorious Sing Sing penitentiary, but was pardoned by the governor after 14,000 New Yorkers petitioned for his release.115 Clearly, dueling had not yet had its day in the North.

  Nor had it had its day in Washington. How long would “this tragical event” prevent congressional dueling? wondered British visitor Fredrick Marryat. “Well, I reckon three days, or thereabouts,” a stranger sarcastically shot back.116 In fact, it was three years until the next challenge, four years until the next duel, and three months until the next fistfight.117