Butts County GaArchives News.....A Duel Stopped July 1889 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 December 23, 2003, 10:53 am Middle Ga Argus A DUEL STOPPED And the Waters of Tussahaw and Big Sandy are Clear Again For some time talk of a most bloody duel between two parties, one living on Tussahaw and the other on Big Sandy Creek, has been freely indulged in, and the more the talk the hotter would become the blood of the irate and bloodthirsty men, who claimed that the other had grossly wronged him. Finally a challenge was passed and accepted and the weapons chosen were double barrel shot guns loaded with buckshot and the combatants were to stand thirty feet apart and at the word “fire” were to send each other’s angry souls into the happy hunting grounds at lightning speed. The causes that led to this unhappy state of affairs were about as follows: A year our Tussahaw friend was candidate for the important office as coroner, and after a thorough canvass of the county found that he could easily carry all the votes in the county but Coody’s district. Accordingly he went down to see his Sandy creek friend to get is assistance in formulating some plan by which he could secure a majority of votes at that precinct. After a thorough talk over the matter his friend told him that he had considerable influence over his native people and if he, the candidate, would pay him twenty-five cents and do him two days hoeing he would insure him every vote in his district. This the candidate willingly agreed to. He went to the field, did the work and left the required twenty-five cents and went back to his quiet home and slept with that happy quiet sleep that candidate only know to enjoy after a consciousness that the battle has been won. On Election Day our candidate friend made no special effort to induce the voters to cast their ballots for him, thinking that his plans had been so nicely worked that he would sweep the field without the usual buttonholing common on such days. But imagine his disappointment and heart broken feelings when the votes had been counted and he had received the lowest votes of any man in the race. In looking over the lists he found, to his astonishment, that not a single vote had been cast for him in Coody’s district, and upon investigation found his money had been spent for whiskey and not a nickel of it nor one word had been used in his behalf and he was left to his old trade of following the plow for a living. He first thought to take the result quietly and say nothing about it, but the more he thought over it the bigger would the little spark of anger grow until his whole being had been wrought up to a white heat and he determined to have revenge. When he would think of the two long hot July days that he pulled the grass from the cotton rows of his trusted friend and the cart wheel of twenty five cents he could not hold himself, and like the young man in Georgia Scenes he would often find himself gouging the eyes of an imaginative man from their sockets, while his mouth would foam with rage. Finding that he could hold himself no longer he hastily sent a demand that his money should be returned an fifty cents a day should be paid for the two days hoeing. This the Big Sandy man peremptorily refused to do and then the challenge to fight it out of the field of honor was sent and accepted. The place for the deadly combat was chosen to be in the middle of a large swamp near Weaver’s mill and only one friend of each party should witness the fight. No seconds were chosen. Two coffins were purchase and two narrow graves yawned under the willows. On the day before the fight was to have taken place by some means unknown to any of the parties interested, the chief of the Jackson Detective Agency got wind of the expected duel and began his work to bring the irate parties to a compromise, and in case of a failure to satisfactorily adjust their differences a posse of his men would be on hand to arrest the duelist and bring them before the proper authorities for trial. He put his best foot foremost and quietly but hastily did his work. Through the aid of a well-known red haired farmer, who lives not far south of Jackson, he succeeded in interfering with the duelist plans. He brought them together and an honorable understanding was arranged, the tomahawk was buried and peace again reigns where hatred venom and deadly revenge but a few days ago had full sway. The graves have been filled with mud and the coffins were transformed into baby cradles, and the waters of the beautiful Tussahaw and Big Sandy run along as smoothly as in the day of yote. Middle Ga Argus – Week of July 16, 1889 This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 5.1 Kb