previous next
‘ [220] as any our cause can boast.’ In the same regiment, Lieut. W. H. Bowers was killed, Capt. W. H. Crawford and Lieut. David Morgan wounded.

On the morning of September 6th, a lamentable tragedy occurred in the vicinity of the cavalry camp. Evading arrest, which had been attempted, the general then commanding the cavalry and his next in command met in personal encounter, by appointment, attended by friends, and the senior in rank fell at the first fire. Both were officers of experience, bred to arms, of handsome presence and distinguished address, and chivalrous lovers of their native South. It was one of the incidents of army life, in which a high sense of honor forbids a stain or offers to efface it with blood. As gallant a soldier and kindly a gentleman as ever fought for the defense of his home here lost his life, and the Confederacy was deprived of one of its most accomplished defenders through the officious partisanship of over-zealous friends. Generals Walker and Marmaduke were educated in the military academy at West Point. The first named was a brother of J. Knox and Samuel Walker, bankers and business men of Memphis, Tenn. J. Knox Walker had been private secretary of James K. Polk, his uncle, when President of the United States. Marmaduke was the son of a former governor of Missouri. He forever sincerely deplored the unhappy altercation. To a gentleman with whom, as a member of General Hindman's staff, he had been associated, but who was absent at the time of the duel, he said: ‘How I prayed for you to be here. If you had been present, that meeting would never have taken place.’ This friend says the meeting was brought about by misinterpretations. Generous and full of dash, Walker, when told that a movement of his command had been censured, only laughed. When persuaded that the charge was having an injurious effect, he grew serious, then angry and demanded an apology. Marmaduke, to whom the criticism was attributed—cool, precise and unyielding

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)
hide People (automatically extracted)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
September 6th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: