Strange stories from US History — If you think Politics is bad now…….

In reading a biography of Henry Clay, I stumbled across this story from our past. Two members of the U.S. House who had never met ended up fighting a duel over a perceived slight, killing one of them. The two had never spoken until Congressman Graves approached Congressman Cilley with a letter on request of a paper editor. Cilley had insulted the editor for taking a bribe in the debate over chartering a new bank. After Cilley refused to take it, the perceived disrespect made Graves challenged Cilley to a duel. Cilley accepted as not to look like a coward. If you wanted to be politically viable, the pressure was never to turn down a challenge. He chose rifles rather than pistols as Graves was an expert shot. Two other congressmen attended the duel as seconds. The duel was to shoot at each other at 94 yards. After both missed, rather than being satisfied, they shortened the distance to 80 yards. They both missed again. They could have stopped at two shots but chose to continue to the third when Graves shot Cilley in the femoral artery, where he died 90 seconds later. The death shocked the nation into passing a law prohibiting the challenging or accepting a duel in the District of Columbia. Strange but true. Bitter partisanship is nothing new as people will always be people.