A Duel in the Dark.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume I, Issue 17, 4 November 1879, Page 4

A Duel in the Dark.

The Washington correspondent of the

“Boston Journal” writes: —“Among the many bloody duels on record as having been fought by Congressmen was one in which James Jackson, of Georgia, who had been and who was afterwards a United States senator, was the ohallenged party. He was an Englishman by birth, but he went to Savannah when a lad, studied law, was a leading Freemason, and fought gallantly in the revolutionary war. He killed Lieutenant Governor Wells in 1780 in a duel, and was engaged in several other ‘ affairs of honour,’ until he finally determined to accept a challenge on such terms as would make it his last duel. So he prescribed as the terms that each party armed with a double barrelled gun loaded with buckshot and with a hunting knife, should row himself in a skiff to designated points on opposite sides of the Savannah River. When the city clock struck 12, each should row his skiff to a a mall island in the middle of the river, ..Inch was wooded and covered with underbrush. On arriving at the island each, was moor his skiff, stand by it for ten minutes, and then go about on the island until the meeting took place. The seconds waited on the mainland until after one o’clock, when they heard three gunshots, and loud and angry cries. Then all was still. At daylight as had been agreed on, the seconds went to the island and found Jackson lying on the ground and his antagonist lying across him dead. ” Jackson recovered, but would never relate his experience on that night ; nor was he ever challenged again. He died while serving hia second term as United States Senator, March 19, 1806.