Dueling in the Old West: The Art of the Quick Draw
Although “pistols at twenty paces at high noon” are the staple of Western movies and novels, the reality of American dueling is altogether very different.
The History of Duels
The culture of duels originated as an East Coast phenomenon, mainly cosplaying the culture of France and the British Isles. Unlike Europe, Americans tended to duel with pistols. Most of the boxed two-pistol sets in flintlock or percussion form date from before the Civil War. As the country grew, formal dueling persisted in the areas where settlers from countries with dueling cultures settled.
By the 1850s, the improvement in gun accuracy and the increasing enforcement of anti-dueling statutes led to the decline of the custom. High-profile cases, such as fatal fights with knives and pistols between congressmen, led to restrictions on weapons. At the same time, the high rate of gun ownership meant that many vendettas continued to be prosecuted with shotgun and rifle. In the 1911 novel Adventure by Jack London, men at irreconcilable odds with each other spoke of the affair like this:
“’I’ve often thought that the ideal duel should be somewhat different from the conventional one,” he said. “I’ve fought several of that sort, you know—’
‘French ones,’ Sheldon interrupted.
‘Call them that. But speaking of this ideal duel, here it is. No seconds, of course, and no onlookers. The two principals alone are necessary. They may use any weapons they please, from revolvers and rifles to machine guns and pompoms. They start a mile apart, and advance on each other, taking advantage of cover, retreating, circling, feinting—anything and everything permissible. In short, the principals shall hunt each other.’”
The Firearms in Duels
While many Southern vendettas were thus prosecuted, far more involved ambushes. In the West, the situation was even less formalized. For one, large handguns like the Colt Peacemaker, were relatively uncommon due to weight and cost. A typical cowboy was far more likely to own a shotgun or a rifle, while handguns were usually smaller. For others, guns were also utilitarian items. The West may have been colonized with the Sharps rifle against buffalo and the lever action against the Indigenous peoples, but a humble single-shot shotgun, often percussion rather than centerfire, was the most common implement.
The Legacy of Duels
Violence rates in the West were relative to the thin population, usually less than in the Eastern cities. Disease and exposure killed far more than interpersonal violence, of which formal duels represented a vanishingly small portion. For one, duels were predicated on matched social standing and maintaining a reputation, both phenomena much deficient in a heavily transient population from all walks of life, but predominantly of humble origins. The cream of American society wasn’t pioneering in any great numbers even after the railroads made cross-continental travel tolerable.
As a result, the uncommon gunfights between known personages made it into Western lore. A greater contribution came from the dime novels which came into popularity just as the Wild West itself waned. The perception of honorable dueling maintained by movies was more a product of the storytelling restrictions imposed by censorship and the Hays Code, than of historic reality.
What few fights did occur by agreement tended to be to the death, without any formalities, and certainly without seconds, unless buddies who came to the firefight with one of the principles counted as such. Quick draw from the holster, the classic theme of the American Western, may have saved the day when the ambush wasn’t properly planned, but it came in far more frequently at the card table. Even with the short firefight distances, indifferent accuracy of many handguns, their oft-inebriated users, and the low light in saloons, it’s a wonder that some portion of the shots actually connected. More deaths resulted from wound infections than from instantly incapacitating hits beloved by the film directors.
Written by: Oleg Volk, Firearms Photographer
