Georgetown’s Dueling Past

Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress

GM was digging through some histories of Georgetown recently and found out that Georgetown was the scene of several duels as late as 1859 involving such characters as Henry Clay and two of Francis Scott Key’s sons.

According to the Chronicles of Georgetown, in 1826 Senator John Randolph of Virginia dueled Henry Clay in Georgetown. Senator Randolph was a vocal opponent to a strong federal government and apparently a total weirdo. From the Senate floor he said some pretty nasty things about Henry Clay for his activities as John Quincy Adams’ Secretary of State. He even went so far as to call him a “black-leg” which according to Dictionary.com means either a swindler (especially in gambling) or an infectious and fatal bovine disease causing gaseous swellings of the muscles.

They met for the duel on the banks of the Potomac. Apparently Clay took the first shot and missed. Randolph then acted as a true gentlemen and intentionally shot away from Clay. After which Randolph spoke “I trust in God, my dear sir, that you are untouched. After what has occurred I would not have harmed you for a thousand worlds.” But did he still call him a black-leg? We’ll never know.

Other Notable Duels in Georgetown:

• On Feb. 16 1844, Julian May and J.W. Cochrane  dueled with rifles. Not surprisingly the first shot won the day when May shot Cochrane in the head.
• Francis Scott Key lost two sons to dueling. Daniel Key was shot in 1836, which led Congress to finally ban dueling in 1838. Notwithstanding this law, another son, Philip Barton Key, was killed in 1859.

This information was provided by The Chronicles of Georgetown published in 1878 by Richard P. Jackson.