John Randolph and the Field of Honor



At 4:30 p.m. on April 8, 1826, near the Chain Bridge on the Virginia shore of the Potomac, the United States secretary of state kept an engagement with a famous United States senator from Virginia. The cabinet officer had not come to chat; this was not a social call. He had not come to conduct business; this would not be a policy discussion. As the waiting senator knew, this encounter would be utterly straightforward, even primal: the secretary of state was coming to shoot him.
Though the participants on this occasion were unusually exalted, a visit to the field of honor was hardly rare for American gentlemen, especially from the 1770s to the Civil War. In Virginia, the first documented duel—that is, with a challenge and seconds and a pre-arranged date and a choice of weapons—had occurred in 1619 in Jamestown; the last would be fought in Fincastle in 1883. After Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1804, a backlash of revulsion had made dueling increasingly unacceptable in the North. But in the 1820s it was still considered a legitimate remedy for a gentleman’s grievance in the more martial, more honor-obsessed South.
Entire article available only in printed version. Lynch's Ferry is on sale at the following Lynchburg locations: Bookshop on the Avenue, Givens Books, Lynchburg Visitors Center, Old City Cemetery, Point of Honor, Market at Main, and Lynch's Ferry office at The Design Group, 1318 Church Street, Lynchburg.
Though the participants on this occasion were unusually exalted, a visit to the field of honor was hardly rare for American gentlemen, especially from the 1770s to the Civil War. In Virginia, the first documented duel—that is, with a challenge and seconds and a pre-arranged date and a choice of weapons—had occurred in 1619 in Jamestown; the last would be fought in Fincastle in 1883. After Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1804, a backlash of revulsion had made dueling increasingly unacceptable in the North. But in the 1820s it was still considered a legitimate remedy for a gentleman’s grievance in the more martial, more honor-obsessed South.
Entire article available only in printed version. Lynch's Ferry is on sale at the following Lynchburg locations: Bookshop on the Avenue, Givens Books, Lynchburg Visitors Center, Old City Cemetery, Point of Honor, Market at Main, and Lynch's Ferry office at The Design Group, 1318 Church Street, Lynchburg.
^ Top
Previous page: Fall 2007
Next page: Oxford Iron Works
Site Map