A Duel in the Middle of a Battle! May 22, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
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***Thanks to Chris S for sending this story in***
Attentive readers may have noted that StrangeHistory has recently been indulging in duel stories. Today’s duel comes from the American Civil War and involves a confederate and a union soldier. Of course, the first reaction to any such story is the sheer redundance of this kind of a fight: I mean you are fighting a war for God’s sake, do you really need more excuses for killing? The duel took place in the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864 at the Battle of Saunders Field. The witness was John H. Worsham whose racy memoirs (with a rather leaden title) were published in 1912: One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry: His Experience and what He Saw During the War 1861-1865, Including a History of ‘F Company,’ Richmond, Va., 21st Regiment Virginia Infantry, Second Brigade, Jackson’s Division, Second Corps, A. N. Va. I’ve read parts of this book previously because it includes an interesting references to Bibles saving Confederate soldiers by physically stopping bullets. In any case, onto the duel:
We were then treated to a rare sight! Running midway across the little field was a gully that had been washed by the rains. In their retreat, many of the enemy went into this gully for a protection from our fire, and when we advanced to it, we ordered them out and to the rear; all came out except one, who had hidden under an overhanging bank, and was overlooked. When we fell back across the field the Yankees, who followed us to the edge of the woods, shot at us as we crossed. One of our men, thinking the fire too warm, dropped into the gully for protection. It will be noticed that there were then a Yankee and a Confederate in the gully, and each was ignorant of the presence of the other! After a while they commenced to move about in the gully, there being no danger as long as they did not show themselves. Soon they came in view of each other, and commenced to banter one another. Then they decided that they would go into the road and have a regular fist and skull fight, the best man to have the other as his prisoner.
So far this story is entirely natural: my only concern was that both men had presumably lost their weapons? What is incredible is that instead of just rolling about in the gully the two men decided to make their duel public. This was unnecessary and it was dangerous, but it paid off.
When the two men came into the road about midway between the lines of battle, in full view of both sides around the field, one a Yankee, the other ‘a Johnny,’ while both sides were firing, they surely created a commotion! This was true in our line and I suppose in the enemy’s line, because both sides ceased firing! When the two men took off their coats (!) and commenced to fight with their fists, a yell went up along each line, and men rushed to the edge of the opening for a better view! The ‘Johnny’ soon had the ‘Yank’ down, who surrendered, and both quietly rolled into the gully, where they remained until night, when ‘the Johnny’ brought ‘the Yank’ into our line. The disappearance of the two men was the signal for the resumption of firing! Such is war! (203-204)
Can we trust this account? There is no other reference to this peculiar scrap in the wilderness. But it is credible. The reluctance of the soldier on either side to fire probably came down to two factors: first, the danger of hitting their own men; and, second, a bit of residual sportsmanship. It is surprising that there are not more records of these kinds of events in modern warfare. Perhaps they are rare because at least this was a proper pre-arranged rules and both sides agreeing to rules? If a German and Poliou had set about each other with fists in WW1, say, it would have been unlikely that either side could communicate before the hitting began and it would be assumed to be a fight to the death. Other modern examples: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
30 Apr 2017 Bruce T. kindly writes in. ‘I’ve heard versions of that one all of my life. Sometimes it involves random soldiers unknown to each more often it involves friends or relatives (often brothers) as they jump into a shell hole,behind a log/wall, or into an overrun trench for cover and try to decide what to do. Up pops the idea of the fight between the lines, the winner making sure the other isn’t harmed as a prisoner. I’ve even seen it used as a device in movies and literature about the Civil War. My normal guess would be the genesis of the tales started as wartime whopper about what a couple of guys in veteran unit told some replacement they’d witnessed or heard about happening with some other unit they’d ran into at a notable battle and later evolved into post-war urban legend. However, as you have a good number of rank and file troops in the war from border regions, some fighting in local irregular militias that often acted as auxiliary troops at larger regional battles. Many would have encountered relatives and men they knew on the other side. A version of mid-battle fist-fight to settle things, calling out each other in a lull instead of having to shoot or bayonet the other may have actually happened a time or two. The tale gets out, ever multiplying in form from unit to unit, spinning into life from there. Men did encounter other men they knew fighting for the other side regularly. Why not give Bill from down the road a way out of a tough situation instead of killing him outright?
30 Apr 2017 Fred Lobb from Chinesefolktales.blogspot.com writes in with this gem,
The link is to Axis History.
