Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1875 — A Duel at Foot Feet [ARTICLE]

A Duel at Foot Feet

Dr 1837 Col. Duvall, a candidate for the Senate in one of the upper Senatorial districts of Mississippi, became involved in a personal affair with young Cunningham, of the famous fighting’ Cunninghams of South Carolina. Cunningham was not twenty-one. He was a small, handsome youth, with long flaxen hair, bright blue eyes, and veir amiable, gentle manners, but of most dauntless determination and cool courage, Cunningham had challenged Duvall, who had fought before, and was regarded as an adept in the duello. Duvall, in a spirit which was considered as bordering on braggadocio, accepted the challenge, hut prescribed the terms that they should fight with pistols at four feet off. He evidently mistook his man if he imagined that such terms would be rejected by Cunningham. The parties met opposite Vicksburg. An immense concourse assembled to witness the affair. The boyish Cunningham excited universal sympathy, mingled with pity and admiration, when he appeared in the field. He looked younger and more boyish than he really was. There was a serious design on the part of the spectators to interfere and prevent the fight between a full-grown man and a mere boy. But Cunningham and his friends, by their determined conduct, prevented all such interference. The parties were soon stationed in their places, just four feet apart by exact rheasurement. Cunningham fixed his eye upon his antagonist with that peculiarly gentle smile characteristic of him. Duvall, though doubtless a brave man, could not but feel and manifest some nervousness on the occasion, as he had prescribed the perilous and desperate terms on which the combat was to be determined. “Attention” was called, and, the parties declaring that they were “ ready," the word was given, and both fired at the word “one.” Duvall fell, shot through the heart: Cunningham stood coolly in his place, unscathed. An involuntary “hurrah” arose from the spectators at the issue of an affair which had enlisted their feelings so warmly in behalf of this young David of this combat. —New Orleans Bulletin.