Yuletide Duels #449

“Sir! You offend the feminine gender of the state of South Carolina with that careless talk of hoop skirts! I challenge you to a duel!”

And with the slap of a riding glove in Charleston, Count Marcourte set into motion a series of holiday duels unprecedented in American history. His opponent, a rank industrialist from Boston, was shot squarely through the forehead the next morning

A sellout crowd observed from a nearby hill.

The victim’s name was never clear. It was either Hazelrod or Hazelbloom, or something designating yellowish brown or worse. Count Marcourte had won the day and he revelled in his lopsided victory through the holiday season.
“No Yankee can hold a candle to a Southerner when it comes to combat,” said Marcourte. It was early June 1860.

The victorious count fought three more duels that year, winning all of them in the fine fashion displayed on that Charleston morning. In 1861, with the attack on Fort Sumter, Marcourte joined the Confederate Army and later lost an arm at Fredericksburg. After the war, he returned to the sport he loved so well and became a local legend as the finest one-armed dueler east of the Mississippi.

Finally, on Christmas Day 1879, Marcourte was struck between the eyes by an insubordinate clay brick of unknown origin. He lasted only moments.