Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 503
This was in 1796. Colonel Willis was a man of means. He was also
a prominent Yazooist. Aggrieved by some decision adverse either to his
political faction or to his personal interests, he challenged Colonel
Taliaferro to a diiel, which the latter lost no time in accepting. The
judge's aim was unerring; and, in the encounter which followed, Colonel
Willis received a wound in his right breast, so near the vital center,
that he declined a second shot. Colonel Taliaferro, in this engagement,
used the old horseman's pistols worn by him when he belonged to Lee's
Legion.
SAND BAK FERRY: A FAMOUS DUELLING GROUND.—Four miles southeast of
Augusta lies one of the most famous duelling grounds in. America: Sand Bar Ferry.
It occupies both banks of the Savannah Biver at a point which in past years, before
the old ferry gave place to the present model steel bridge, was well adapted by reason
of its peculiar- environment to the purposes of a field of honor. Here, in the days
gone by, personal combats without number have been fought under the Code Duello,
Georgians resorting to the Carolina side and Carolinians betaking themselves to the
Georgia side, each to adjust their differences accoi'ding to the only mode of arbitra
ment which then prevailed among gentlemen. Happily this method of redress has
long since passed. For more than a generation not a drop of blood has been spilled
on the old duelling ground, and its hostile meetings are today recalled only by the
gray-beards whose memories reach back to the old regime, when the duelling pistol
dominated the public life of the South. But we are fortunate in finding for our
readers an article which describes this noted resort of the duellist as it appeared
forty years ago. It was written by Col. James T. Bacon, editoj of the Edgefleld
Chronicle, who often visited the spot; and, without reproducing the article in full,
its salient paragraphs are as follows:
'' There is not a spot of greater interest in any part of our country than the
secluded glade known in the history of the South, of South Carolina and Georgia,
especially, as Sand Bar Ferry. A commonplace name enough, but attached to a glade
or fairy ring set apart for the conventional duelling ground when the Code Duello was
the first resort of gentlemen in settling personal difficulties.
'' In some respects it would seem that this spot were fashioned for some such pur
pose, so quiet, so perfectly secluded, so easy of access and at the same time so out
of the way that a most bloody duel could be fought to a finish before authority from
any point could arrive to interfere.
"This historic duelling arena lies three miles southeast of the City of Augusta,
over what was once a wheel-scarred and rugged road, heavy in places with fine sand,
and again, marshy where it dipped into a bit of low land or struggled through a
tongue of undrained swamp. The road lies along pleasant farm lands, and plume-
like elms meet in leafy arches overhead. Now it runs deep into the heart of the dim
swamp, now close along the margin of the rushing, muddy, turbulent Savannah, bor
dered by thousands of the trailing water willow.
'' This duelling ground lies on either side of the river. With the belligerents of
the Carolina side, who wished to settle differences with leaden arguments, the fairy
ring beneath the hoary moss-draped trees on the Georgia side was chosen as the scene
of action. With those already in trouble on the latter side, the clean, firm sands of
the wide river bank were preferred. On the Georgia side the famous spot might well
be mistaken for the artificial work of man, fashioned with a view to the purpose which
it served. The ground is as level as a dancing floor; a soft carpet of moss covers it,
through which the vivid fruit of the partridge vine or ground ivy glows like the
crimson stain of blood. All around tall cedars, feathery elms and towering gums,
interspersed with a few black-boled pines, draped with long streamers of the funeral
gray moss, shade the traveler from the too-ardent rays of the semi-tropical sun.
"On the left the river runs, broadening out into wide shallows, the sand bars
shoaling out from either bank, until at low water, or during the summer months, per
sons standing on the further end of the bar could clasp hands across the bed of the
then placid river. On the right a thick hedge of flowering juniper shuts off the view