The Poison Duel 3#: Poison at Dawn in Virginia September 19, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Throughout the poison duels series Beach has noted their essential lack of veracity: that is most seem to be made up or at least there is no respectable proof that they took place. Here, however, is one case that seems quite reliable. There was not, admittedly, a poison duel: but someone suggested such a duel with earnestness and poison provided a practical solution to a problem. The events date back to 1821 but they apparently appeared in print in a trial in 1823 and they were (allegedly) excerpted from The Virginia Times by a British newspaper. The trial took place because Archibald Lacy had reported Richard Graves for attempting to start a duel with him. The (New Kent County) court reporter attested that:
…Graves wrote a note to Lacy on the 16th March to meet him at a certain place to settle the difference. They met. That Graves was disabled by an accident in one of his legs and ancle [sic]. Lacy, whose bodily weight, was upwards of 200lb, Graves less than 130 lb, urged a fist fight; when Graves proposed they should put an end to the difference by allotment in the following way – that two cups should be filled, the one with pure water and the other with deadly poison, and on a table covered with a cloth; that two tickets should be rolled up and put into a hat, the one blank, the other marked P.; that he who drew the blank should take his choice of the two cups, and swallow its contents, and he who drew the letter P. should be bound at the peril of his life and honour to swallow the contents of the other cup.
Graves chose poison for hate and for parity in what would have been, otherwise, an unfair fight. Is this the origin of the poison stories of the 1880s and 1890s or had Graves hit upon the idea from earlier stories of poison duels? Beach is torn here. The poison duel is certainly older, as will be seen in the next poison duel post. However, this story could have been a germ and it is interesting that this non-duel took place in the south not that far from Louisiana where the most famous fictional duel of them all took place. In any case, back to sensible old Lacy and Graves, who reveals himself to have been something of a psycho.
Lacy’s answer to this proposition was, ‘I will not drink poison to accommodate you, nor will I hazard my life with you in any manner whatever [sic].’ Graves’ second proposition was, ‘If Captain Lacy insists on a decision by bodily exertion, he shall be accommodated, under a pledge of honour that he will afterwards meet Colonel Graves on equal ground, and lodge no information, nor take advantage of such honourable proposition as he may make.’ To this proposition, Lacy answered in the negative, saying again he would hazard his life in no other way than fist fight. Here Graves under the influence of passion, said, ‘I am not, nor will be afraid of you; and to prove it, I am willing to go into the woods alone, and put a final end to the contest with knives.’
Honestly would you go into the trees with this man?
Anything else on Graves and Lacy? can this apparently contemporary report be confirmed in any way? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com It goes without saying that Graves was found not guilty by a jury of his peers and anyone who knows anything about nineteenth-century duels will not be surprised to learn that both men were legislators. Col Richard Graves (obit 1835) lived at Indian Fields Plantation: he would have been almost fifty when the duel negotiations took place. Archibald Lacy was, one reliable nineteenth century source states, a near neighbour.
