Let’s say that at the Friday night social down at the country club, someone you thought was a friend had one too many drinks and blabbed it around that during his and your wife’s college days, your wife was a loose-moraled fluzzie and party animal. You are extremely upset, and you challenge him to a duel. Well, that would have worked 150 years ago, but not today.

Up until the mid-1800’s, dueling with handguns was about as popular a shooting sport as hunting and clay birds are today. It peaked in Britain, but the French carried it into the next century. Dueling was outlawed in America by 1880, but up until that time it was fairly common. Swords were once the weapon of choice, but swords favored the strong and athletic. Pistols were the great equalizer.

We all know about Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton ridiculed Burr in public, and Burr challenged him to a duel. Hamilton’s shot, fired after Burr’s fatal shot, hit a tree branch 12 feet high and 4 feet wide of Burr. Burr’s shot hit Hamilton’s side 4 inches above the hip, and Hamilton died the following day. Future president Andrew Jackson dueled Charles Dickinson in 1806 after Dickinson made some disparaging comments about Jackson’s wife. Dickinson was killed. Today Hamilton and Jackson appear on our ten and twenty dollar bills respectively.

Last May, the Rock Island Auction Company sold Hamilton’s holster pistols, not his dueling pistols, for $1,150,000. They also sold John Wayne’s Single-Action Army Colt, the Colt he carried in “The Cowboys” as well as “True Grit,” for $517,000. A while back I wrote about guns as an investment. That same John Wayne Colt sold for $85,000 back in June 2004. In May, Rock Island will be auctioning a cased pair of factory engraved Remington New Model Army percussion revolvers presented to then General Ulysses S. Grant. It will be interesting to see what these bring. Now back to dueling.

Though dueling was illegal in most countries, duels were mainly contested by men of power and influence, and the authorities generally looked the other way. Duels had their unofficial rules. There had to be an affront or wrong, and a challenge had to be made and affirmatively responded to. A “second” or “best man” arranged for the weapons, place and time of the meeting, and the presence of a surgeon. Each contestant brought his own set of cased pistols along with accessories and used his own pistol.

Shooters stood on pre-arranged spots across from one another. These spots ranged from 12 to 20 yards, and the duelers stood sideways as it presented a smaller target. The duelers fired at a signal – usually a dropped handkerchief and sometimes a verbal command. Three or four seconds were generally needed to get on target. If neither were stuck, a decision was made to continue or not. If continued, the second pistol of the set was called into play. If a shot was fired before the signal, the opponent was given the opportunity to fire at his leisure. It wasn’t uncommon for the opponents to somewhat grudgingly call off continuing if neither was struck after two shots.

Pistol calibers varied, but all were capable of taking down an opponent at close range. Flintlocks continued to be popular even after the advent of percussion caps in the 1820’s. If you are interested in owning a genuine set of cased dueling pistols, the Rock Island Auction Company has many listed in their frequent auctions. Expect to pay at least $5000 for a beautiful pair as they tend to show little wear. I suspect that a pair of these would stay in front of today’s rapidly escalating inflation. Today’s information came from the December 2021 issue of Guns & Ammo magazine. The article, “An Affair of Honor,” was written by Garry James.

One might look back at the dueling era as brutal times, but when you consider the burning, murder, vandalism, and lawlessness in general tolerated by many of our mayors last spring, our society’s behavior is worse now than it was then. I can think of some politicians I’d like to see duel, but I best keep that to myself.

See you next week.