feet. Colonel McCarty killed General Mason at the first fire, the ball passing through his breast.

The following sequel to this deadly feud, which never appeared in print, is from the pen of one of the oldest citizens of Washington, who writes from personal knowledge:

"On the 6th day of February, 1819, at Bladensburg, in the District of Columbia, was fought one of the most remarkable duels known in the annals of the bloody code. The parties were Colonel Armistead Thomson Mason, then Senator of Virginia, and Colonel John McCarty. The parties to this sanguinary conflict were near neighbors in the county of Loudon, and brothers-in-law, and the difficulties between them grew out of the political questions of that day. The fight was pressed by Colonel Mason, against many protestations and expedients of Colonel McCarty to avoid it. The distance finally settled upon was six paces, with muskets, rendering death to one or both certain; and at the first fire Colonel Mason fell mortally wounded. He left a widow with one son, then fifteen months old; and the first intelligence which the wife had of the sad event or the controversy was the announcement of her husband's death accompanied with his remains, from that bloody field called the 'field of honor.' Even at that day there were many Christian people who held the duelling code in abhorrence, and thereupon arose a grave question-whether within the consecrated ground of the old Episcopal church the remains of a duellist should have Christian burial. These scruples were finally overcome, and the remains of Colonel Mason now repose in the Old Church burying-grounds at Leesburg, Virginia; but, singularly enough, no head-stone or other monument denotes the spot where the once distinguished and honored Senator Mason's remains now repose. Before the duel, Colonel Mason made his will, devising his entire estate, consisting of some five thousand acres of land under a high state of cultivation, with a large retinue of slaves and other personal

property, to his wife and infant son, Stephen Mason, share and share alike. From the date of Colonel Mason's death until his widow's demise, she was never known to speak his name or personally to allude to her late husband, whose end was so tragic. The popular reason assigned for her singular course was that she thought that her husband had done her a great wrong by engaging in a mortal combat, without any intimation to her under the circumstances in which she was placed. The widow remained in the family mansion, which was capacious, elegantly furnished, and everything thereto appertaining was on a scale of regal magnificence; but during the minority of her son, embracing a period of twenty years, she retired to the back apartments of the house, and never put her foot in the front part until her son became of full age, when, with some ceremony, she took the arm of her son and walked into the rooms so long deserted. At this time Mrs. Mason, with her son, Stephen, was the rightful owner of this immense estate, now very much enhanced in value ; but in their possession it was destined to remain only a few years.

"The son, together with his mother, very soon became involved by sundry endorsements and other obligations, by which the entire estate was sold under the sheriff's hammer. From thenceforth the widowed mother and her only son were without shelter and reduced to penury and want. The son, Stephen, being thus without employment or means, sought and obtained a captain's commission in the army, and was killed in the war with Mexico, at Cerro Gordo. Such were the sad results inflicted upon an eminent family and the sacrifice of high position and the wasting of a palatial estate to that which has been falsely called the code of honor. Now as to his antagonist upon that bloody field, Colonel McCarty. His family consisted of a wife, one son, and daughter. His son, a highly educated and promising young man, was accidentally shot while upon the premises of Colonel Mason, whom his father had so cruelly

slain. Although there was nothing especially blameworthy, according to the duelling code, on the part of Colonel McCarty, yet he ever after led a miserably dissolute life, wandering over different parts of the country; everywhere avoided, dissolute, and unprincipled, he died detested and unmourned."

In some former "Anecdotes of Public Men," we referred to the duel in which General J. W. Denver was concerned, but did not, as perhaps we ought to have done, speak of his high character. General Denver, while in Congress, as chairman of the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, in 1854-55, presented in an authoritative manner the facts demonstrating the practibility of that great enterprise and the advantages to be derived from it. He was afterwards Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and subsequently Governor of Kansas, in both of which positions he secured the confidence of the Government. In 1861 he left California and entered the Union army, and, we believe, is now a resident of Washington, and in the prosperous practice of his profession. One of his old comrades-inarms, who served with him in Mexico twenty-seven years ago, calls attention to these facts, and we cheerfully give them publicity as an act of justice to an old friend.

XLIII.

SUDDEN DEATHS OF STRONG MEN: HENRY WINTER DAVIS, HENRY J. RAYMOND, HORACE GREELEY, EDWIN FORREST, CHARLES SUMNER.-LONG LIFE OF FEEBLE MEN: EDWARD HAMMOND, A. H. STEPHENS, W. G. BROWNLOW.- DRAMATIC SCENES IN THE HOUSE BETWEEN A WHITE EX-SLAVEHOLDER AND A BLACK EX-SLAVE.

NOTHING is so impressive as to see the life that animates a healthy body suddenly extinguished. An unexpected death

like that of Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland; Henry J. Raymond and Horace Greeley, of New York; Edwin Forrest, of Philadelphia; and Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, leaves an aching void and a lasting sorrow. I think we remember those longest who leave us quickly. There are other men who keep our solicitude on the stretch by the extraordinary tenacity with which they preserve existence in defiance of protracted ill-health and feeble bodies. My old friend, Edward Hammond, who sat in Congress from the Ellicott's Mills district twenty years ago, and who suffered inconceivable physical agony, even as he dispensed a princely hospitality, is still living in fair health as president judge of his district. The celebrated clergyman Thomas H. Stockton, for many years chaplain of the United States House of Representatives, lingered a long time in poor health, and his intellect burned brightly to the last. But for heroic invalidism, if there is such a word, I know of no cases like Alexander Hamilton Stephens, of Georgia, and William Gannaway Brownlow, of Tennessee. Stephens was sixty-two February 12, 1874; Brownlow sixty-nine August 29th, 1874. Their lives have been crowded with vicissitudes. Born poor, they fought a long and bitter battle with adversity. Stephens was a schoolmaster for eighteen months; Brownlow was apprenticed to a house carpenter. Stephens became a distinguished lawyer; Brownlow an equally distinguished Methodist clergyman. Both were Whigs in the old party divisions; both opponents of General Jackson; both Union men in 1850; and in 1860 both opposed the Breckinridge party, Stephens declaring for S. A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson, and Brownlow for John Bell and Edward Everett. But when the war broke out Stephens joined the Rebellion, and Brownlow denounced it. Both served in the Congress of the United StatesBrownlow in the Senate, an extreme Republican; and Stephens in the House, a decided Democrat.

The mental powers of these two uncommon men have strange

ly resisted the ravages of disease. When Alexander H. Stephens, in 1849-50, sat in Congress with Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs, that triumvirate was ranked among the advanced Union men; and when Cobb became the Union candidate for Governor of Georgia against Charles J. McDonald, in 1850, the issue was made square against the Nullification doctrine, all three standing on the same platform. The election of Cobb was heralded as the victory of the national sentiment. The feeble health of Stephens, his treble or tenor voice, his light and boyish frame, his deadly pale face, were an odd contrast to the stern visage, imperious tones, and fierce swagger of Toombs, and the laughing face and rotund figure of Cobb. They were strong men; but the palm of statesmanship was conceded to the fragile Stephens; and, perhaps, the other two yielded to him more readily because he was so much of an invalid. Cobb died several years ago, and Toombs is in Georgia, a discontented, passionate spirit. But Stephens survives, having outlived thousands who fell in battle and died in their beds. He passed through the fiery tempest of the Rebellion, and was heard in all its councils. That ended, he returned to the House of Representatives, in which he had figured among the leaders for many years. The removal of his disabilities, and his greeting by men of all parties, proved the friendly and forgiving spirit of the new régime; but no scene of the thousands in the drama of his life-and I have been witness of many a tempest in which Toombs or himself led their fiery hosts-equalled that of January, 1874, when his great speech against the Civil Rights bill was answered by Robert Brown Elliott, a black man, representing the famous Columbia (South Carolina) district, for nearly a hundred years the seat of the aristocracy and culture of the Palmetto State.

No picture of the panelled history of the Capitol, whether the bass-reliefs which preserve the early treaties between Penn and the Indians, or the pictured Marriage of Pocahontas, the