Jackson
took two columns in Nashville's only newspaper to call Dickenson a "worthless,
drunken, blackguard scoundrel", amoung other things.
In the
meantime another race had been arranged between Jackson's and Erwin's mighty
stallions. The stakes were $3000 between the rival owners. On race day,
Jackson's horse was seen to have a swollen leg and the odds were against
him. Jackson refused to forfeit, and his horse won an upset victory over
Erwin's. The news of Dickenson's quarrel with Jackson had built tremendous
interest in the race; Erwin saw himself publicly humiliated.
Suddenly,
Dickenson returned to Nashville. A friend brought Jackson a copy of an
item Dickenson planned for the next issue of the paper. It announced that
Jackson, "the Major-General of the Mero District is a worthless scoundrel,
a patroon and a coward". The only reply suitable in Tennessee at that time
to remarks like these was a challenge.
It took
a week before the final arrangements could be made,but, on the morning
of May 29, Dickenson rose early, said goodbye to his wife, who was expecting
a child, and rode off for the Kentucky border with his friends to meet
Jackson.
Duelling
was illegal in Tennessee, so both duelling parties had a day's ride and
an overnight stay ahead before they met. Dickenson was in a cheerful frame
of mind, and amused himself on the trip by shooting cards his man-servant
put up ahead of the riders. Jackson's party rode along in gloom;
they were afraid their principal was as good as dead for Dickenson was
a crack shot and Jackson was a slow and a mediocre marksman. Diickenson
had been seen to snap-shoot four bullets one after the other, into a small
target from 24 feet, grouping his shots so tightly that the bullet holes
touched. Jackson had once fired a brace of pistols point-blank at a rushing
Indian, missed, and was forced to brain the man with a pistol butt. In
Nashville, Dickenson had offered to wager that he would kill Jackson with
his first shot.
The duelling
ground was across the Red River at Harrison's Mills, Kentucky, and the
two parties met there before the sun was over the trees on May 30. While
Jackson and Dickenson glared at one another at a distance, their seconds
carefully loaded the pistols. There was a matched pair belonging to Jackson,
plain as duellers should be, with nine-inch barrels and a shockingly big
.70-calibre bore. One-ounce soft lead balls, carefully patched, were rammed
down the smooth barrels on top of light charges of FFFg black powder, the
flintlocks primed and the loaded weapons inspected by the seconds before
they were offered to Dickenson and Jackson.
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The two men
stood facing one another in the thin morning light, pistols held half-cocked
down at their sides. General Overton, Jackson's old friend and second,
called the shot.
Instantly,
Dickenson raised his pistol, cocking it as it came up. He found the large
brass coat button over Jackson's heart in his sights and fired. Dickenson's
view of his target was covered by the smoke of his shot for an instant,
but bystanders saw a puff of dust fly from Jackson's coat and saw him clutch
at his chest with his left hand. He was still on his feet when Dickenson
could see through the smoke.
"My God,
have I missed him?" Dickenson stepped back in shock.
The seconds
shouted him back to the mark, and Jackson was taking aim. Whatever else
he was, Dickenson was no coward. Still holding his empty pistol, he folded
his arms and stared Jackson's pistol in the eye. Jackson pulled the trigger,
but the pistol's hammer stopped at half-cock. Jackson cocked it again and
fired. Dickenson fell with a ragged wound torn clear through his middle
by the soft bullet.
After
one look at the damage, Dickenson's friend knew he wouldn't last out the
day.
Jackson
walked stiffly back to his horse, claiming that Dickenson "pinked me",
but Overton saw that his boot was filled with blood. "I don't want these
people to know", he said, looking at Dickenson's group. Jackson's doctor
found that Dickenson's shot had been dead on it's mark; the brass coat
button was gone. Jackson's life had been saved by the loose fit of his
coat over his lean body. The bullet lodged so close to his heart that Jackson's
doctor was afraid to remove it. Presumably, he carried it to the White
House and his grave.
As for
Charles Dickenson, there was nothing the doctors of that day could
do to save him, and little they could do to ease his pain. He died that
evening around ten. He was 27.
A history
of Caroline county in the county library says that Dickenson was buried
in what is now nashville, but a story heard in Caroline county says that
the body embalmbed in a lead casket, was brought north by his Negro man-servant
and buried on WiltshireManor, Dickenson's Caroline county Home.
If so,
the location of the grave is unknown, the markers destroyed long ago. There
is no sign of Charles Dickenson's grave in the old Dickenson burying ground.
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