Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

502 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
him." * In this encounter, Governor Jackson was stabbed in several
places, and for a time his wounds were thought to be mortal.
Thomas Gibbons, a lawyer of Savannah, who as early as the year
1800 is said to have earned $15,000 per annum from the practice of
law, an income equivalent to $60,000 at the present time, was frequently
on opposing sides to Governor Jackson in civil litigation before the courts.
He was also extensively engaged in land speculations. Consequently,
there was little in common between the two men except a violent temper,
the effect of which was to hasten them to the field. But they appear
to have met only once, at which time three shots were exchanged be
tween them, without effect.
There is nothing in the records on which to base any positive state
ment to the effect that Governor Jackson ever became involved in per
sonal difficulties with General Gunn, but the latter was a notorious
Yazooist and was a colleague of Governor Jackson in the United States
Senate when the latter relinquished the toga to begin his fight against
the speculators. If they did not meet on the field of honor, it is little
short of marvelous. In the opinion of not a few commentators upon the
subject, the Yazoo Fraud has been overworked by historians. Some of
the leading men of the state were concerned in it on the ground that
it was merely a real estate transaction; and when we remember that
it was before the days of railway and telegraph communication, we must
admit that Georgia's western lands were comparatively worthless. Even
so pronounced a patriot as Patrick Henry headed one of the Yazoo com
panies organized in Virginia.
But Governor Jackson was undoubtedly sincere in his fight against
the Yazooists, whom he regarded in the light of conspirators. No man
was ever more inflamed with the ardor of a righteous indignation. But
he paid the penalty. According to Thomas Hart Bentori, with whom he
served in the United States Senate, his death, in 1806, was due directly
to wounds received in a duel, the last of many caused by his opposition
to the Yazoo Fraud. More than any other man in Georgia, Governor
Jackson was distinguished for his prowess in personal combat; and he
carried to his grave the scars of countless hostile meetings on the field of
honor. __
Even the bench became infected by this homicidal mania. Col. Ben
jamin Taliaferro, a comrade-in-arms of the fiery Jackson, was also a
duellist, though he is credited—in the authentic records—with only one
encounter. Colonel Taliaferro lived at a time when lawyers were scarce
in Upper Georgia. He was not himself a disciple of Blackstone, but
such was his reputation, throughout the County of Wilkes, both for
sound business judgment and for strict probity of character that, layman
though he was, the Legislature which rescinded the Yazoo Act elevated
him to the bench and made him the first judge of what was then known
as the Western Circuit. He was a man whose sense of decorum was
unusually acute, but such was the ethical standard of the times with
respect to duelling that his position on the bench did not prevent him
from meeting Col. Francis Willis for a round of buckshot.
' Charlton: "Life of Jackson," p. 161.