According to the rules of dueling, I have read, the person challenged gets to choose the weapons to be used in the dual. Dueling pistols, swords, whatever.I am in the process of re-reading a book of short biographies of Old West American gunfighters and lawmen, and came across an unusual duel between one gunslinger-turned-lawman and a nemesis who had challenged him. I thought I would pass it along to you as a novelty.
It took place in El Paso, I think, in the late 1880s. Anyway, according to the challenged, the rules of the duel were that it would take place in an empty room at midnight with all the windows covered so that it would be pitch black in the room. The two duelists stood in opposite corners of the empty room. Each had a knife in each hand. Then the seconds hurriedly turned out the light in the room and locked the door.
Interesting.
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Photo at top of post: John Wesley Hardin. Not the man involved in this duel, but the gunfighter with the highest known tally; he killed 42 men. A bad man and probably a psychopath. These men were an odd lot, but so were the times and places they lived in.
The way most gunfights I've read about occurred, the similarities between that "duel" and more conventional duels were limited, mostly, to the number of participants and the fact both sides used projectile weapons.
ReplyDeleteConventional duels like those fought in Europe and early America were very different beasties with referees and strict rules and with limited expectation of death - that was a very much frowned on result. Aaron Burr lived with the stigma of killing his man (Alexander Hamilton) in a duel for the rest of his life. Not, however, that those earlier duels were any more intelligent and Western gunfights. I have yet to fathom what the hell was supposed to be proved by such things; I suspect women are generally too practical to understand the benefit of two men trying to damage one another to prove a point.
I'd never heard anything like the duel you described. Weird.
You don't say who won, if either. Under those conditions I would have thought it quite possible that neither did. Or did it matter?
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I am someone whose first thought on reading El Paso is of a (poor) brand of Mexican food. I know even less about the American Old West, but I would have thought life was tough there in those days and was likely to attract more than its fair share of bad men and psychopaths. Even still, fighting with knives in the dark seems bizarre.
ReplyDeleteIf no one moved then no one could be killed. Because in the dark, only movement would betray your position. Anyway, all I know about El Paso is that Tarantino's Bride was going to get married there when Bill came akilling. :)
ReplyDeleteI think the author's point was not to speculate who won or if it conformed to accepted rules of dueling, or even if it actually occurred, but rather to point out the interesting ingenuity of the choice of weapons and circumstances by the challenged party. It is a thing of diabolical elegance that I am now guessing only men readers are going to appreciate.
ReplyDeleteWell Max, you little dipshit, then you should have stated your purpose of writing this post in the first place and not made people try to read your barely existent dopey little mind.
ReplyDeleteDiabolical, yes. Elegance? Hmm. I await further discussion. I need to know more, but I know better than to ask questions.
ReplyDeleteI went to Wikipedia on duels. I liked the proposed dual using sausages, one innoculated with cholera.
ReplyDeleteI was once a juror for a murder trial. The accused was actually named John Wesley Hardin and the defense attorney wanted to make sure no one was unduly (pun intended) biased against him because of his unfortunate name. (He claimed self-defense and we agreed. Nasty nasty situation. I heard the victim described afterwards as "a man what needed killin'.)
ReplyDeleteYes, "elegant". As in pleasingly ingenious, yet simple. Don't you agree? I guess not. :)
ReplyDeleteIf no one moves, then no one gets killed. I like that. Simple, effective. :)
That's probably more than one needs to know about El Paso. I rather like the place though.
The cholera sausage is also ingenious, if not quite so elegant. I think.
This post made perfectly good sense to me, btw.
ReplyDeleteI liked the Duel scene in Black Adder involving two small cannons-now that was a proper duel.
ReplyDeleteSmall cannons. Hmmmm. That sounds explosive. Bwahahahaha!
ReplyDelete