“As to the word ‘coward,’ I think it is as applicable to yourself as to any one I know, and I shall be very glad when an opportunity serves to know in what manner you give your medicines, and I hope you will take in payment one of my most moderate cathartics.
“Yours at command,
“CHARLES DICKINSON.
“Jany 10, 1806.”
Dickinson wrote this and took a flatboat for New Orleans, spending the time to and fro practicing with a pistol.
11. Jackson publishes a communication in the town paper, supported by affidavits of John Hutchings and John Coffee, concerning the whole matter, stating that T. Swann brought it all on himself, was an intermeddler and not a gentleman, and raps Mr. McNairy for being in the same class. Bluff old John Coffee writes a page or two telling how Jackson had to cane T. Swann to keep from killing him, and that Mr. McNairy, T. Swann’s friend, told him one thing and did another. The hidden humor of all this preparation for blood-letting is the fact that General Jackson did not consider T. Swann a gentleman, and therefore not entitled to satisfaction with pistols. In proof of it he prints the affidavit of Robert Hays, who solemnly swears and asserts that the said T. Swann volunteered once to loan Sam Jackson $200 but when the said Sam went to get it, T. Swann had loaned it to another man! Several others swear to the same thing, to wit, that T. Swann was no gentleman, because he failed to respond to the touch of the said Samuel.
Under the code of honor T. Swann may not have been a gentleman, but in full cognizance of the record of S. Jackson, Esq., for borrowing, we are in honor bound to reverse our former assertion as to the said T. Swann being a fool!
12. Nathaniel A. McNairy, knight of high renown, now comes into the arena of newspaper controversy and publishes a most abusive and sarcastic letter about General Jackson, saying among other things—they used many italics in those days—that “the brave General is much more pleased in shedding bushels of ink than one ounce of blood, provided there is an equal chance that that one ounce should be extracted from his own dear carcass. But give him an advantage and he is as brave as Julius Caesar, such as this: Give him a large brace of rifled-barreled pistols and he will race a superannuated Governor in the road as he travels (this refers to Jackson’s quarrel with John Sevier), or he will meet Mr. Swann in some sequestered spot, that the alert General may obtain some dishonorable advantage when no eye can see him; or let him have a pistol and he will shoot at a man who has none and drive him off to Kentucky, God knows for what offense!” etc.
Here was a fight for Jackson, but as he was booked for Dickinson, John Coffee took the job off his hands and fought the duel with McNairy, and they fought to kill in those days. Witness the graphic account of this duel in the Impartial Review, written by Maj. Robert Purdy, the second of John Coffee.
13. In the duel it was agreed that if either man fired before word had been given, the second of the other was to shoot him. One, two, three, fire! was the rule, but McNairy fired at two, wounding John Coffee in the hip. Purdy came near killing McNairy for this, but he begged off, claiming it was an accident.