Chatham County GaArchives History .....Savannah Duels - Chapter XVII 1923
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 26, 2004, 10:08 pm

CHAPTER XVII

 WITH RIFLES AT TWENTY-FIVE PACES.

DISPUTE OVER GAME OF BILLIARDS AT CLUB LEAD TO DEATH OF TOM DANIELL AT THE OLD
SCREVEN FERRY GROUND—A WEEK LATER HENDRICKS SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AT THE SAME
SPOT—AN OUTBURST OF POPULAR DISAPPROVAL THAT SOON WANED— SCREVEN FERRY A
DUELLING GROUND FOR SEVENTY YEARS.

    During the decade before the secession of Georgia the upper floor of the
building at the southwest corner of Bull and Congress streets was the home of
the Chatham Club. There the young bloods of the city met at nights to drink and
chat and play pool and billiards or cards—poker was a favorite game then, as
now, with many.

    It was a period here, as elsewhere, when drinking was almost the invariable
rule among men, and in the heat of wine or whisky young men's irascibilities
were aggravated and friendships were seriously estranged at times. More than one
prospective duel resulted from contentious disputes at the old club rooms, only
to be settled by the intervention of elders, or the cooling influence of the
next day's sobriety. In some instances, though, the results were more tragical,
and one particular meeting that developed from the clash of two erstwhile
friends was the topic of widespread talk for years thereafter.

    One night a party of well-known young men, scions of prominent families of
the city, had an encounter at the club over a billiard game. The details have
passed beyond the ken of men's memories, but the death records of the city are a
sad witness to the resulting fatality.

    Stewart Elliott and Tom Daniell were the players. The table was surrounded
by friends. A dispute arose. Flushed with anger and alcohol, Daniell seized a
glass of wine from which he had been drinking and dashed the contents into
Elliott's face, at the same time applying an insulting epithet. The spectators
prevented immediate hostilities. The insult was one that could not be ignored or
satisfied except by a complete apology or recourse to the duelling ground across
the river.

    Elliott was willing to accept a reasonable apology. Daniell's friends urged
him to accept the opportunity to withdraw his utterances and have his action
pardoned. With some men the appeals might have gathered strength from the fact
that Elliott was admittedly an expert shot, but Daniell preferred to ignore the
danger which was so evident to his family and friends. The challenge from
Elliott was accepted.

    Two or three mornings after the encounter at the club two little parties
made their way through the cut and over the back river into Carolina, the "No
man's land," so far as the laws against duelling were concerned.

    One can imagine the little procession slowly wending its way from the ferry
landing along the old corduroy, dirt-covered road through the Carolina lowlands,
through a section of country better cultivated then than now, with the rice
fields on either side, at that time of the year a drab and sombre painting in
browns and yellows, a picture of the desolation that is the aftermath of the
golden crop and the prelude to the spring resurrection of green promise. Perhaps
a bunch of negro slaves working on the dikes and ditches in preparation for the
coming spring planting ceased their labors to watch them pass, knowing
intuitively that two more white men were to settle a difference near by, and
then, perchance, waiting with eager interest for the cracks of the weapons
coming faintly through the quiet morning air.

    There could be no levity on a walk like that, a walk the memory of which
would linger for untold years and be among the thrillingly interesting
reminiscences of old age. Only the principals and their seconds and one or two
intimate friends of each principal, and a surgeon or two with their black bags
of instruments and bandages and stimulants.

    The sharp breath of the morn fans their faces. The twitter of birds in the
brush is the only sound that breaks upon their thoughts. The sunshine that
illumines the roadway and the zest that comes from the bracing air of midwinter
stimulate the hope of life and suggest its sweetness. But the stern faces of the
men reflect naught of the placid-ness which surrounds them. Passions and hatreds
and fear of public sentiment are the driving forces that urge them on.

    The spot for the duel is not far from the river. All too soon the little
distance has been covered. The broad flat top of an embankment is selected and
arrangements proceed.

    As the principals and their friends grouped together, Elliott turned to his
second, son of a prominent Carolina family.

    "I don't want to kill Tom Daniell," said he. "I am willing to accept any
reasonable amende from him."

    The suggestion for such an amicable adjustment goes again to Daniell, but he
is obdurate.

    Perhaps the idea occurred to him from his antagonist's overtures that
Elliott was really afraid.

    While Daniell and his advisers are conversing, Elliott has taken what
occurred to him as a more practical step toward peace, a striking illustration
of his skill in marksmanship.

    As the story goes, picking up a heavy clod of earth and tying a string about
it, he requested his second to suspend it from a low tree near by.

    "I will try out my rifle," said he loudly, but in an indifferent way, and
then in a lower tone to his second, "I will cut the cord with the bullet so
Daniell and his second can see what I can do with this weapon."

    Raising the rifle to his shoulder, Elliott, almost without aim, severed the
string.

    Daniell's second brought back word to Elliott's second that the proposed
adjustment of the difficulty was not agreeable. It was afterwards told that
Daniell's sharp answer had been: "Damn it! He must fight."


    And the sight of the severed cord, swinging in the light morning breeze, had
no effect unless it had been that of aggravating the hot tempered Savannahian
like an insult or threat.

    The subsequent preliminaries were brief. Stepping off twenty-five paces is a
matter of a moment or two—a mere seventy-five feet over which the bullets must
speed on their deadly mission. The rifles are examined by the seconds as a
matter of form. Too well they know they are in perfect order. Then the
cartridges are glanced at and each second has placed the one for his principal
in his rifle.

    There is a pause, and each second, feeling as he does its utter futility,
asks his principal once more if an adjustment of this difference with his
opponent is not possible. It is a sop to their own consciences, this last step
toward a reconciliation.

    "What shall I do?" Elliott is said to have asked his second.

    "You must shoot to kill, or he will certainly kill you," is the reply.

    The principals take their positions facing each other, rifles held loosely
in hand. How close they must have seemed to each other. The friends and surgeons
have taken their places at one side. The seconds have assumed their proper
places. It is like the stage setting for a drama, a picturesque grouping where
other men in other years have faced each other, pistols or rifles in hand; where
still other men are to similarly meet in coming days.

    One might think the very soil into which had already soaked the life blood
of the impetuous would cry out against further sacrifice.

    Perhaps the sighing of the wind, as it swayed the browned marsh grass and
the scattered clumps of rice straw that had escaped the reapers, is nature's
vain protest.

    To one of the seconds has come the doubtful honor of giving the signal. If
of sensitive temperaments the tension to duellists, to seconds, to all the
onlookers of the tragedy, must have been excruciatingly intense.

    "Are you ready, gentlemen?"

    How sharp and painful must the words have fallen on all ears.

    Death, hovering near, draws closer.

    The rifles are brought to the duellists' shoulders. Not a quiver of eyelid,
not a tremor of muscle, speaks of fear.

    The little party on the side line grips itself in a suspense that is almost
mental anguish. Their bodies are tense, their ears are strained.

    “Fire! One, two, three.   Stop!"

    Did one fire before the other ?

    No one can tell.

    The reports seem like one. But before the first word has died upon the
second's lips, one of the duellists has sprung a foot in the air, his rifle has
fallen to one side, and his body has pitched backward to the ground.

    Tom Daniell is dead, bullet-pierced through the heart.

    Through the long lapse of years has come from eyewitnesses the sad story of
the home coming.

    Slowly the corpse-burdened boat made its way across the river to the East
Broad street dock. The news had gone swiftly before. In the crowd that assembled
was the young man's father, Dr. Wm. C. Daniell, one of the most prominent
physicians of his day, a former mayor of the city.

    All fell back as he went forward with a friend or two to receive the body of
his boy.

    "His face was as fixed as stone," many years afterward said one who was
present. "Not a tear was shed."

    But beneath the mask of passivity there hid the agony of the soul from the
eye of the curious.

    Curtained by that mask was a heart crying to its Maker, like David of old,
"Absalom, my son! my son!"

    It may have been that when Tom Daniell left home that February morning his
father had a premonition that death would ensue. It is hardly possible that he
was not aware of the preparations for the duel. Such meetings were commonly
known by too many for information not to reach members of the families
immediately concerned. It was not possible, under the rules of the code, for the
father to accompany his son. All that he could do was to await in anxiety for
the outcome.

    Five years before this young Daniell had fought another duel—perhaps that
may not have been even the first, for he is described as headstrong and
impetuous, as a young man of intense friendships and intense antagonisms, quick
to take offence and slow to forget. This previous meeting had been with Dr.
Charles Ganahl, another well-known Savannahian, prominently identified with the
local military and with his profession, and active in local Democratic politics,
serving as health officer in 1850 and as an alderman in 1853-54. He and Dr.
Wildman had a private hospital on Indian street.

    What brought about the trouble between him and Daniell in 1852 is not now
ascertainable. It may have been about politics, or it may have been the result
of a military dispute. Daniell was first lieutenant of the DeKalb Rifles in 1850
and Ganahl was captain in 1850-52. Both had been active in the organization of
that company, but Daniell's lieutenancy was of brief duration. All that is known
of their duel is that two shots were exchanged between them, that neither found
its mark, and that then an amicable settlement of their differences was reached.

    But the fact that Daniell was willing to fight, that he was not prone to
apologies and adjustments before an exchange of shots, and that he was
aggressively inclined at a period when there was much to provoke angry dispute,
must have prepared his friends in a measure for the snuffing out of his life in
1857.

    His father, Dr. Daniell, was a man of very strong traits of character, said
to have been almost fierce at times in the intensity of his convictions, a trait
which passed to his son, those who knew them said, and even found vent in the
practice of his profession. It was a period when bilious fever made serious
inroads on the people of Savannah. Dr. Daniell used "red pepper tea" to a much
greater extent than others as a stimulant, so much so that he became known among
the other physicians as "Old Doctor Capsicum." He was one of the Nestors of the
medical profession here and regarded as one of the ablest practitioners. He had
been quite a power in local politics, an alderman in 1818, 1821-24, and mayor in
1824-26. It was in his administration that the first great step toward the
promotion of the health of Savannah came in legislation prohibiting wet rice
culture within two miles of the city. Other progressive measures showed the
vision of the man and his devotion to his town. He was among those who left the
city with the Confederate forces under Gen. Hardee, but returning he lived
several years longer, dying on December 30, 1868.

    It is a commentary on the newspaper attitude toward duels at that time, or
to the editorial willingness to spare relatives and friends from the harrowing
details, that the killing of Daniell was told in a few lines in the "Morning
News" of the day following:

    "FATAL DUEL: A hostile meeting took place yesterday at Screven's Ferry, on
the Carolina side of the river, between D. Stewart Elliott, Esq., and Thomas S.
Daniell, Esq. The weapons used were rifles—distance twenty-five paces. On the
first round Daniell was killed."

    The following day the body was borne to Laurel Grove Cemetery. In the
cemetery record book appears the simple statement: "Thomas S. Daniell, aged 30
years, February 16, 1857; (buried) February 17. Brought dead from South Carolina."

    Elliott never ceased to deplore the death of Daniell. Some now living of his
close friends tell how he confided to those who knew him intimately that after
Daniell fell the horror of the killing came with frightful force upon him.

    To his last day the memory of the quarrel and its fatal ending hung like a
perpetual shadow over Elliott's life. Yet there was no doubt in his mind, or the
minds of his friends, that if he had not slain Daniell in all probability his
own life would have been forfeited.

    Was it the law of suggestion that lead to the use of rifles in the next
duel, and that but a week later? Investigation does not show that it was the
rule to resort to that weapon. Yet seven days after the bullet from Elliott's
rifle found its mark in Daniell's heart a bullet from another rifle sped on
equally as fatal a mission, and perhaps on the same plot of ground another young
man lay stretched a victim to the code duello. In this instance the newspaper
account was more circumstantial, but gave no inkling as to the nature of the
grievance, or which was the challenger. The difference between the journalism
before the Civil War and that of the present time is in nowise more strikingly
illustrated than in the perfunctory baldness of the item, bare of display
headings, with an utter indifference to their natural desire to know the whys
and the wherefores, that told the* readers of the "News" of this tragedy.

    "DUEL: A meeting took place yesterday noon (February 23, 1857) near
Screven's Ferry, on the Carolina side of the river, between 0. S. Kimbrough and
Mr. Jacob E. Hendricks, both of Columbus, Ga. The weapons used were rifles at
thirty paces. On the second fire Mr. Hendricks was shot, the ball striking above
the hip and entering the abdomen, inflicting what is feared to be a mortal
wound. At a late hour last night he was still alive, but very little hope is
entertained of his recovery."

    Hendricks died from his wound the next morning. The records of the Laurel
Grove Cemetery give his age as 33 years, and his place of nativity as Savannah,
residence on Gordon street, Calhoun ward. He was buried from the house of Mr. A.
A. Solomons, “opposite the Pulaski monument."

    Probably never before in the history of the city had two young men been
slain in such a tragic way within a week. For many days the two duels and their
endings were on men's tongues throughout the state. They gave an impetus for a
time to the demand that duelling be suppressed by the power of public opinion,
but it was a temporary outburst of opposition to the custom, void of
effectiveness. South Carolinians believed even more ardently than Georgians in
recourse to the code of final arbitrament of personal disputes. No indictments
were ever returned, or apparently asked for, in that commonwealth for Georgians
who sought the famous duelling ground near Screven's Ferry. More than one case
of "wounded honor" was yet to be satisfied there, under the pressure of a
challenge backed by the social endorsement of the custom, before the war with
the North came to absorb men's thoughts and energies and sacrifices, and
eventually bring new conditions which tabooed the duel as a means of adjusting
personal differences and put the stigma of actual crime upon what for
generations had been condoned by society, if not commended, despite the statute
classing a fatal outcome as murder.

    The immediate vicinity of Screven's Ferry has changed for the worse since
the years when it was one of the South's most notable duelling grounds. In the
early years of the last century the causeway led through the rice plantation of
Major John Screven, one of the most productive and most profitable on the
Savannah River, its large harvests being marketed here. On his death the
plantation came to his son, Dr. James P. Screven, at one time mayor of Savannah.
Why, and exactly when, this was selected as one of the most available and most
acceptable spots for the final disposition of affairs of honor no one can tell.
Its history in this connection reaches back to the early years of the last
century and its story as a duelling ground probably covers the seven decades
from 1800 to 1870. The gradual decay of the rice growing industry after the
abolition of slavery lead to the final abandonment of the plantation and the
low-lying fields are now a jungle of marsh grass, the ditches filled with rushes
and weeds, the flood gates rotted away. Nature has almost obliterated the
productive handiwork of man. A brick chimney that catches the eye a few hundred
feet from the river marks where a rice barn and cabin once stood. On this bit of
high made land more than one duel took place. Other parties utilized one of the
broad main embankments, and still other affairs were quickly disposed of on the
roadway that leads from the ferry. There was no danger of being disturbed. The
travel by the ferry was light and of a neighborhood type in the main. Closeness
to the river made it easier to handle the dead or wounded on the return trip to
the city. Automobilists now drive over the shelled road from the landing,
indifferent to the fact that in bygone years on this narrow stretch of highway,
and on either side of it, duelling parties gathered from time to time. A
desolate, sun-burned, lonesome stretch of road it is, not a habitation in sight
for miles. Tourists are eager to pass over it, to the flat boat and across the
swift running stream. There is nothing to awaken their interest, to pique their
imaginations, to picture to them even in a shadowy way the dramatic hold the
spot has on those who know its past.


Additional Comments:
From:

ANNALS   OF   SAVANNAH

SAVANNAH DUELS AND DUELLISTS

1733-1877
BY

Thomas Gamble

COPYRIGHT 1923
REVIEW PUBLISHING & PRINTING COMPANY SAVANNAH, GEORGIA


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