Preston Brooks: Punching, Drinking, Truanting, and Shooting His Way Through College
I mentioned earlier that I was requesting a book on the history of South Carolina College. Well, it came in today, and I was able to figure out more about Preston Brooks’s fighting over a school election outcome. Well, the fight wasn’t really about the “outcome” as it turns out:
In Janurary, 1838, Brooks was a candidate for a Clariosophic Society honor, probably the presidency, or the post as anniversary orator, and Lewis R. Simons [a classmate of unknown background] had given Brooks his word that he would not electioneer against him. Brooks believed that Simons had not kept his word and told mutual acquaintances that the latter was a “falsifier.” When word of this reached Simons, he sent Brooks a challenge to a duel, which the latter refused to accept. He replied to Simons that since they were under rules of the college forbidding duels, and both mere boys, that he would not fight a duel, but would instead give Simons a “boy’s satisfaction,” that is, a fist fight. On the following day, as Brooks walked to Steward’s hall [now the site of the Harper College building, location of the honor’s college], friends informed him that Simons had obtained a pair of pistols and urged him to arm himself. This at first he refused to do, but finally he accepted a gun from a friend.
At the hall, Simons again challenged Brooks, who again refused to accept, and renewed his offer to settle the matter by resorting to fisticuffs. Simons pulled a horsewhip from beneath his cloak and began to strike Brooks, whereupon the latter drew his pistol, but when Simons cried that he was unarmed, the Edgefieldian [Brooks] threw the gun away and the long-delayed fist fight ensued. The faculty expelled Simons and sent Brooks back to Edgefield to reflect on the matter until the following April.
From: Daniel Walker Hollis, University of South Carolina, Vol. 1, South Carolina College, (1951), pp. 137-39, 297
Furthermore, the book revealed other tidbits of information, such as:
1. Preston Brooks was enrolled at SC with Louis T. Wigfall, and they even grew up in the same county! Nowhere is this mentioned in any internet research, and the fact is belied by Wigfall’s being a Senator from Texas. This is an important fact, because the two men would eventually face off in a duel under bizarre circumstances.
During the Nullification days, Tom Byrd, eldest son of Daniel Byrd and his second wife Lucinda BROOKS, was killed by Louis Wigfall. Tom Byrd, a youth of eighteen tore from the door of the Edgefield Court House , a curilous attack made by Wigfall on his cousin, PRESTON S. BROOKS, who was Wigfall’s political opponent for the Lower House. PESTON S. BROOKS, son of WHITFIELD BROOKS was Tom Byrds’ first cousin; Louis Wigfall had tacked this paper on the Court House door, and when young Byrd saw it, he attempted to tear it down but was ordered by Wigfall to “stand back”. Regardless of consequences, he reached for the offending paper, and was shot down by Wigfall.
He died a few hours later and the next day Wigfall was challenged for a duel on Sand Bar Ferry (an island in the Savannah River) by PRESTON S. BROOKS. Both antagonist were severely wounded, and were rowed ashore by seconds and physicians. After a long illness both recovered; but the death of Tom Byrd, turned the tide of popular favor and BROOKS was elected. Wigfall left this state (SC) and was later elected to the Senate from the state of Texas.
Another source gives a better understanding of what this mysterious paper was that Wigfall tacked on the courthouse:
In [Wigfall’s] early life, he had differences with Whitfield Brooks, the father of Preston S. Brooks, Congressman from South Carolina, but at the time a student of South Carolina College. While the son was in college, Wigfall challenged the elder Brooks to a duel. Brooks, from his age and infirmities, refused. According to the rules of code duello, Wigfall posted Brooks at Edgefield Court House, and guarded the fatal notice during the day with a loaded pistol. A relative of Brooks, a feeble, retiring, and unassuming young man, braved the vengeance of Wigfall and tore the degrading challenge from the court house door in spite of the warning and threats of the Knight of the Code.
[source], pp. 27-28. See also [cite], and I MUST have this book: The Fire Eaters, pp. 175-177, as it explains why Wigfall and Whitfield were constantly at each other. As I progress, I’ll attempt to find out the particulars of the code duello.
2. Preston Brooks was reprimanded in November, 1836 for leaving campus and going to my hometown of Lexington without permission.
3. Preston Brooks was suspended in his sophomore year from June until September of 1837 for poor class attendance. Even when he got back his attendance was bad, and he spent too much time at Briggs’ tavern (I plan to find a little bit out about this tavern). The poor attendance didn’t improve after his second suspension for his fight with Simon.
4. Though Preston Brooks’s degree was ultimately withheld when he held up the Columbia jail at gunpoint, former governor George McDuffie himself moved to have his degree granted.
(5, 2 votes)
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