Justifying the Affair
A casual inspection of 19th century dueling will likely show the emphasis on honor and dignity, but the connection this conception of honor had to public opinion (or fears of public opinion) is not always as readily apparent. As Freeman explains, dueling was both an intensely personal matter and a highly publicized affair—to refuse a challenge was to invite yourself to public ridicule. Public ridicule may include accusations in a local paper or “posting”, the practice of posting a notice in a central location calling attention to the subject’s cowardice and lack of honor.[1]
John Lyde Wilson, South Carolina Governor and Senator, wrote a short treatise on dueling entitled The Code of Honor. Wilson’s stated purpose is to provide proper instruction on the code of conduct to stop spurious duels before they happen (“ninety-nine out of a hundred” duels happen due to ignorance or inexperience) or, in the event of a duel, ensure that it is carried out properly.[2] Despite his beneficent aims, he still exemplifies the honor-bound mindset as described by Freeman. According to Wilson, if either participant at any point during a duel decides to not fight when required, his second may be spared from shame by informing the other party that "I have come upon the ground with a coward, and do tender you my apology for an ignorance of his character; you are at liberty to post him."[3]
Few examples reflect the publicization of duels better than the one between Gen. Armistead Thomson Mason of Loudon County and his cousin, Col. John Mason McCarty. Their dispute began with a private letter from McCarty containing his grievances late 1817 and would not truly end until Mason’s death in February 1819. In the intervening year, the men exchanged increasingly hostile letters which were then published to the local newspaper. Just as often, if not more frequently, the men directly published letters addressed to the public.
In at least one instance Mason had the Genius of Liberty, a Loudoun county newspaper friendly to him, print a piece providing proper context to one of McCarty’s recently published statements.[4] In September 1818, five months before the duel, McCarty published a [volume] titled “A View of the Whole Ground”. In it, McCarty explains the context of the dispute and presents the entirety of their correspondence up to that point with some added footnotes to counter claims. At one point he indirectly accuses the Genius of Liberty of favoring Mason in a footnote: "This language was never heard of until it appeared in the Genius of Liberty, what he really said on that occasion was only a puerile retort."[5] Though there is no indication that either man was directly encouraged by anyone but himself, (if anything, they were both discouraged by colleagues[6]) their frequent publicization of letters and issuances of grievances in the local newspaper support the idea that the issue of upholding public honor served to exacerbate the conflict.
