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GEOBGIA AND GEOEGIANS 283
preference to the former; and, chagrined at his subsequent defeat for
governor, Gwinnett challenged Mclntosh, who was quoted to him as
having expressed very great satisfaction with the result of the election.
The combatants met at sunrise within the limits of the present City
of Savannah, measured off twelve paces and fired. Both were wounded
in the thigh. Gwinnett lingered nearly two weeks before death came to
end the struggles of the unfortunate signer. Mclntosh recovered, but
popular feeling in the state was such that, acting upon the advice of
friends, he sought an assignment for the time being in another part of
the .field. He returned soon after the fall of Savannah to aid in the re
capture of the city. However, it was only to find that the smoldering
fires of hostility were ready to break out afresh. Yet he lived to see
the feudal spark extinguished and to represent Georgia in the Conti
nental Congress.
Though popular sentiment was against General Mclntosh, it was
largely because of Mr. Gwinnett's prestige as one of the signers. The
evidence shows that the latter was clearly the aggressor, and that when
president of the executive council, he asserted his authority as eom-
mander-in-chief of the army to the extent of ignoring General Mclntosh,
especially in the ill-advised campaign which he himself organized for
the reduction of East Florida. General Mclntosh was an able tactician.
He distinguished himself under Washington, whose esteem and confi
dence he possessed; and when the latter visited Georgia in 1791, General
Mclntosh acted as special escort. He was president of the Georgia
division of the Society of the Cincinnati, and was an unusually handsome
man, tall and erect, with an impressive military carriage. It is said
that in youth no Indian could compete with him in fieetness of foot.
He belonged to the famous clan which John Moore Mclntosh planted at
Darien, and which was characterized by all the robust traits which
belonged to the parent stock in the distant highlands of Scotland.
On the floor of the Continental Congress Georgia was represented
from time to time by some of her ablest talent, and Dr. Lyman Hall
was not required to sit alone for any great while in the austere councils
at Philadelphia. Included among the delegates who, from first to last,
represented Georgia in the Continental Congress, were Abraham Bald
win, Nathan Bronson, Archibald Bulloch, Joseph Clay, William Few,
William Gibbons, Button Gwinnett, John Habersham, Lyman Hall,
John Houstoun, William Houstoun, Richard Howley, Noble W. Jones,
Edward Langworthy, Lachlan Mclntosh, William Pierce, Edward Tel-
fair, George Walton, John Walton, Joseph Wood and John J. Zubly.
If one member of the group proved himself recreant to the high trust
it must be remembered that even the apostolic band, at the communion
table of the Last Supper, was darkened by the envious brow of an
Iscariot, who marred the gentle brotherhood. But Doctor Zubly was
neither an Iseariot nor an Arnold, and, without brooding upon the
fallen meteor that forsook the trouble heavens, Georgia is content to
rejoice in the fixed stars which, pure and bright and steadfast, illumi
nated the stellar fields.