List of Duels - Historical Duels - American Duels

American Duels

• May 16, 1777: Button Gwinnett, signer of the Declaration of Independence, dueled his political opponent Lachlan McIntosh; both were wounded, Gwinnett died three days later.
• July 11, 1804: U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton; Hamilton was killed.

• May 30, 1806: Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson; Dickinson was killed, Jackson wounded, becoming the only President to have killed a man in a duel.
• August 12, 1817: Thomas Hart Benton and Charles Lucas on Bloody Island; Attorneys on opposite sides of a court battle - Lucas challenged Benton's right to vote and Benton accused Lucas of being a "puppy"; Lucas was shot in the throat and Benton shot in the leg; Benton released Lucas from his obligation.
• September 27, 1817: Benton and Lucas rematch on Bloody Island; Benton challenged Lucas after Lucas said the first fight at 30 feet (9.1 m) was unfair because Benton was a better shot. Benton killed Lucas at nine feet and was unhurt.
• March 22, 1820: Stephen Decatur and James Barron; Decatur was killed.
• June 30, 1823 Joshua Barton and Thomas C. Rector on Bloody Island (Mississippi River); Rector was critical of Barton's brother, Senator David Barton's blocking the appointment of Rector's brother William Rector to General Surveyor position. Barton was killed and Rector unhurt.
• April 26, 1826 Henry Clay and John Randolph of Roanoke; at Pimmit Run, Virginia; Both unhurt.
• August 26, 1831: Thomas Biddle and Spencer Darwin Pettis on Bloody Island (Mississippi River); Biddle challenged Pettis for comments about Biddle's brother who was president of the United States bank. Both died after firing from five feet.
• August 10, 1832: Whilst it is not clearly eligible to be on this list, the deceased had claimed his shooting and threatening fell under the law of duels, which is legally giving permission for his opponent to take shelter in the law of duels. Savannah physician Philip Minis shot and killed Georgia state legislator James Stark after Minis claimed that a valid duel had occurred. As well as mentioning the duel, Minis claimed his right to self-defense, as he had not agreed to the duel, he claimed he shot Stark to save his own life, and Minis was found not guilty by a jury.
• September 25, 1832: James Westcott and Thomas Baltzell; Baltzell unhurt, Westcott injured but survived to become a U.S. Senator.
• February 24, 1838: Kentucky Representative William Jordan Graves killed Maine Representative Jonathan Cilley in a pistol duel. Congress then passed a law making it illegal to issue or accept duel challenge in Washington, D.C.
• December 12, 1839: Florida Militia Brigadier General Leigh Read and Colonel Augustus A. Alston, Whig party leader, with rifles at 15 paces. Read had been challenged twice by Col. Alston, an overconfident duelist. Unexpectedly, Read killed Alston. Tallahassee Mayor Francis Eppes, also Thomas Jefferson's grandson, was elected in large part to put down dueling and other lawlessness in the territory.
• September 22, 1842: Future President Abraham Lincoln, at the time an Illinois state legislator, accepted a challenge to a duel by state auditor James Shields. Lincoln apparently had published an inflammatory letter in a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper, the Sangamon Journal, that poked fun at the Illinois State Auditor—Shields. Taking offense, Shields demanded "satisfaction" and the incident escalated with the two parties meeting on a Missouri island called Sunflower Island, near Alton, Illinois, to participate in a duel. Just prior to engaging in combat, the two participants' seconds intervened and were able to convince the two men to cease hostilities, on the grounds that Lincoln had not written the letters.
• July 26, 1847: Albert Pike and John Selden Roane; declared a draw, no injuries.
• June 1, 1853: U.S. Senator William McKendree Gwin and U.S. Congressman J.W. McCorkle, no injuries.
• August 26, 1856: Benjamin Gratz Brown and Thomas C. Reynolds on Bloody Island (Mississippi River); In what would be called the "Duel of the Governors" Brown was then the abolitionist editor of the St. Louis Democrat and Reynolds a pro-slavery St. Louis district attorney fought with Brown being shot in the leg and limping for the rest of his life while Reynolds was unhurt. Brown would become a Missouri Governor and Reynolds would become a Confederate Governor of Missouri.
• September 13, 1859: U.S. Senator David C. Broderick and David S. Terry, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California; Broderick was killed.
• July 21, 1865: Wild Bill Hickok and David Tutt quarrelled over cards and decided to have a gunfight. Tutt was killed.
• June 7, 1882: Louisiana State Treasurer Edward A. Burke was seriously wounded by C. Harrison Parker, the editor of the New Orleans Daily Picayune, in a duel with pistols. After Parker published unflattering remarks about Burke, Burke challenged him to a duel.
• February 8, 1887: Jim Courtright killed by Luke Short during a duel at Fort Worth, Texas.