By the time he approached his twenty-ninth birthday, Henry George Nixon, first child of Col. William Nixon and his (first) wife Mary, had served as a regiment commander of the South Carolina cavalry, survived an assassination attempt, and was elected for his third term in the state legislature. He was considered, by many in the state and beyond, one of Carolina's most promising young men, a talented orator, member of the bar, and upstanding gentleman.
While William had, according to family lore, arrived in Camden barefoot and penniless, his ambition and frugality in the intervening years resulted in the accumulation of considerable wealth and property. Henry, with the benefits of social and financial status, graduated from South Carolina College, "the breeding ground of the state's planter politicians," in 1819 [2], and the following year entered Litchfield Law School in Connecticut, America's first law school (although by that time, not the only one). Admitted to the bar in 1822, he established a law office in the heart of Camden's business district. At some point, he became engaged to a Ms. Taylor of Columbia.
It was in 1824 that the second-most-interesting occurrence in his life took place. In the middle of a June night, he reported being woken up and, once in the street, provoked into a fight by a gunshot from an unnamed assailant. He nearly missed taking a bullet -- even catching his shirt ruffles on fire he was so close to the gun -- and then pursued the would-be assassin on foot before engaging him in a sword fight that ended when the assailant ran off into the woods.
A few months later, he was elected one of Kershaw District's three state representatives. When General Lafayette came to town, he was selected chairman of Camden's welcoming party, and delivered an address on behalf of the people. [Note that while in Francis Morgan William Owen Nixon Scott records this as "about 1824," it was in March 1825.]
Henry's political life and views reflect the winds of discontent sweeping through South Carolina at the time. Like many southern land-owning politicians, he mixed the doctrines of free trade, states' rights, and slavery. Vehemently anti-tariff, he supported strict constructionism and believed passing abolition laws both unconstitutional and a danger to the union, due to the passion it would ignite in the south. His defense of slavery rested on divine provenance and racist conjectures, as well as a belief that it was not so bad as everyone thought. As a small consolation to modern sensibilities, his character did allow sympathy for the victims of the "necessary evil" and the possibility of eventual liberation, as he remarked in a July Fourth address delivered while at law school in Connecticut [6].
Unlike some of the other statesmen of his day, he deeply feared fellow Carolinians' calls for succession, accusing most of its proponents of seeking personal gain at the expense of life and liberty. He believed that the root of all evils was the general welfare doctrine that allowed Congress to regulate trade and levy the tariffs that, in the minds of South Carolina landowners, were exclusively responsible for their declining economy. Abandoning this principle would, he thought, restore balance to the union and prevent the death and destruction urged by ambitious glory-seekers.
Thus was a darling of the state's social and political scene on the cusp of a, by all expectations, long and successful career when he was tragically ended by a bullet to the heart.
Different theories have been advanced as to the cause of the dispute between Col. Henry Nixon and Maj. Thomas Hopkins:
In current Camden lore, the foundation of the hostilities was a family land dispute. In 1824, the Hopkins family -- by some accounts just Mrs. Hopkins -- sued William Nixon over a land deal, a lawsuit that the Hopkins family won. It is possible that the duel was then prompted by a critical comment Nixon made about the maneuvers of Hopkins's regiment, and Hopkins felt he had to challenge Nixon in order to save face. At the time, a Charleston paper recorded it as a longstanding "political competition," while in Savannah it was reported as a contest over the legislative seat. The latter may be a misreading of the former report, since there are no electoral records suggesting that Hopkins ran in either of Nixon's elections. In their published accounts, Nixon's friends avoid making clear the source of the dispute, and none is given in the Scott family account printed in Francis Morgan.
People close to Henry Nixon may have kept the cause close to the chest in their public accounts, but others must have known about it, because the Camdenites took sides. In Historic Camden, an eyewitness related that William Nixon was, in November 1829, still so aggrieved at some citizens for having sided with Hopkins that he refused their assistance in fighting the flames when his house was caught up in a devastating fire [10].
As was common practice, the parties set the particulars of the duel several weeks in advance. The old Arsenal near Augusta, Georgia, was chosen for the site, close to the South Carolina state line. This "famous duelling ground" was chosen because duel participants could be tried for murder, but by committing the crime in another state, the party could hastily retreat to South Carolina and any legal ramifications would be delayed by jurisdictional issues. South Carolina was unlikely to try them, and Georgia would have to extract them first. It is possible also that participants believed the area belonged to the United States government, which would avoid trying them. As it turned out, they were incorrect, in that the U.S. Circuit Court issued warrants for their arrest on murder charges, but right in that ultimately their location helped them evade the law (more on that below).
One of the men, and the account varies, practiced in the Quaker cemetery in Camden, firing shots at the gravestone of Neil Smith, leaving marks still visible today.
William called his daughter Rebecca back from her finishing school in New York City, allegedly gathering his family at the time of crisis.
The group and their friends set out for Augusta. A letter printed in the Augusta paper reported they went through town at noon "with as much parade as if Lafayette had been coming. Carriages, gigs, sulkies, and horsemen following to witness the bloody deed" [12]. The local legend has it that Nixon wore a fancy coat with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket, prompting Hopkins to remark, "The man has marked his heart for me to hit" [8]
It was a fateful comment. At one o'clock, having walked their ten paces, Hopkins fired, and -- hit in the right breast -- Nixon fell dead instantly, his gun discharging ineffectually.
Or is that exactly how it happened? Some reports have Nixon dying at second fire, meaning that he made the first shot and missed before taking Hopkins's bullet. One alleged observer in Augusta described Nixon, after taking the hit, able to raise his other pistol before collapsing, dead. This is the version that Wilson, Nixon's second, recalls. In a letter to William Nixon, an excerpt of which was published widely in newspapers, he wrote that Nixon fired his weapon after being shot and then grabbed his other pistol, dying in "the attitude of manly resistance and determined purpose of character" [12]. Given Wilson's affection for Nixon and likely sympathy for his father, he may have added fictitious color to give his friend a death fitting to his noble life. Another friend and military compatriot who was present, Maj. William McWillie, described Nixon with slightly less flourish as having sustained himself firmly in the contest, even as he fell to the ground.
After the fatal shot, Hopkins ran to the Savannah River and crossed back into South Carolina. Nixon's remains were carried to August and then returned to Camden and was buried in the Quaker cemetery.
Mourning for the fallen Nixon was a public affair; it was broadly considered a blow to the town of Camden as well as Carolina society and politics. The Camden Bar passed resolutions honoring his character and service. Newspapers covered developments of the duel and effusions of emotion for the deceased. Reports from Camden were reprinted across the country, from Virginia to Maine, though in the north it was primarily used to shed light on the barbarity of the dueling practice and the misplaced sense of honor in the southern politician.
During the state assembly's session that year, it passed a resolution that commissioned a memorial event to honor two fallen members, with particularly moving testimony delivered on Nixon's talent and contributions to the body. McWillie, who had run and lost in 1828, was elected to replace him as representative, serving until 1845 when he moved to Mississippi, was elected to U.S. Congress, and then became the twenty-second governor of that state.
Despite family claims that the tragedy prompted legislative action, there is no historical evidence of it, and the legal ramifications appear to have been minimal. An Anti-Duelling Society was supposedly formed in Camden, but it wasn't until the 1880 Cash-Shannon duel and the group's reconstitution that public sentiment turned strongly against the practice and anti-dueling laws were formally strengthened.
Meanwhile, across the border, Savannah's Anti-Duelling Association pressured for Governor Forsyth of Georgia to have Hopkins turned over to the Georgia authorities. The 6th District Circuit Court found true bills for murder and misdemeanor against Hopkins and the seconds, but upon issuing bench warrants to extradite them from Carolina, discovered that the U.S. government did not in fact have jurisdiction in the case, because the arsenal did not qualify as a fort or fortification, and thus had not been ceded by the state. The government would not prosecute, and the Georgians had their hands tied by the Carolinian attitude toward dueling. Life continued in South Carolina for the remaining Hopkins-Nixon party.
Yet Camdenites claim that Hopkins felt so guilty over the tragedy that he died of a broken heart on September 10, 1831, shortly after his twenty-eighth birthday. He was buried at Swift Creek Baptist Church cemetery in Boykin, SC, but his grave was demolished by road construction.
The following year, William Nixon enclosed his son's burial plot with a granite wall and iron railing, which remains today.
Wilson in 1836 finally published an account of the event, in a manner of speaking, that he promised to William Nixon, in the form of a poem "Lines Written at the Grave of Henry G. Nixon, Esq, Who Fell in a Duel." The poem was published only under his initials, and not listed in the table of contents, of the Southern Literary Journal and Monthly Magazine, a publication founded and edited by Daniel Kimball Whitaker, who was a former law partner of Wilson's.
Lines Written at the Grave of Henry G. Nixon, Esq. Who Fell in a Duel.
Dear Nixon! near thy lowly bed,
Where now thy mortal ashes rest!
The friend that lov'd, laments you dead,
And feels what cannot be express'd!
Oh! fatal was the deed and day,
That wing'd thy spirit hence, away!
Of honor nice, and dauntless soul,
Too sensitive for human life--
You could not, would not, brook control,
Dishonor'd, fly from mortal strife--
Oh no! thy bosom beat too high,
From danger, or from death, to fly!
And when the fatal hour it came,
Then firm as adamant you stood,
To save from blot your spotless fame,
Or vent in streams your gen'rous blood.
You fell, to speak, to rise no more,
And died upon a bed of gore!
Thy generous heart, enlighten'd mind,
Thy firmness, eloquence and youth;
Thy manners easy, frank, refin'd--
Thy spotless purity and truth--
Were unavailing--could not save
Thy body from the cold, damp grave.
Rest, then, in peace--the day will come
Annihilating time and space,
When victor o'er thy cheerless tomb,
Your friends will see you face to face.
Farewell till then!--you're free from care--
Your friend still toils and lingers here.
-J. L. W. [13]
SELECTED RESOURCES
[1] Scott, William Owen Nixon account in Sims, Annie Noble. Francis Morgan, An Early Virginia Burgess and Some of His Descendants. Braid & Hutton, Inc., 1920. Pages 144-150. Online.
[2] Sinha, Manisha. The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina. University of North Carolina Press, 2000. p. 17. Online.
[3] La Borde, Maximilian. South Carolina College: From Its Incorporation, Dec. 19, 1801, to Nov. 25, 1857. Applewood Books, 1859. p. 441. Online.
[4] Litchfield Historical Society. "The Ledger." Online. References the Catalogue of Litchfield Law School, Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849, p. 17.
[5] Lewis, Kenneth E. The Camden Jail and Market Site: A Report on Preliminary Investigations. University of South Carolina, 1984. p. 9. Online.
[7] City of Camden. "A Brief History of Dueling in Camden." Published 9 Jan 2013. Online.
[8] Bloomsbury Inn. "Duel of Honor! Colonel Henry Nixon and Major Thomas Hopkins." Published 10 Feb 2015. Online.
[9] Find A Grave. "Col Henry G Nixon." Published 14 Mar 2012. Online.
[10] Kirkland, Thomas J. and Robert MacMillan Kennedy. Historic Camden: Colonial and Revolutionary. Columbia, SC, The State Company, 1905. p. 28. Online.
[11] Scott, Edwin J. Random Recollections of a Long Life: 1806 to 1876. Columbia, SC. Charles A. Calvo, Jr. 1884. p. 16. Online.
[12] This was related in a "letter from August" excerpted in the most common notice about the event, which also included a paragraph from Wilson's letter to William Nixon. Example: H. Niles and Son, eds. Niles' Weekly Register, Containing Political, Historical, Geographical, Scientifical, Statistical, Economical, and Biographical Documents, Essays and Facts Together with Notices of the Arts and Manufactures, and a Record of the Events of the Times. Sept. 1828-March 1829, Volume XXV or Volume XI-Third Series. Baltimore. Franklin Press. 1829. p. 405. Online.
