Thomas Lanier Clingman, of North Carolina, almost as prolific a coiner of speeches as Senator Stewart or Senator Call, remained in the Senate until the close of the extra session of the Senate which followed the inauguration of Lincoln. The body adjourned on March 28, 1861, and this one lone senator from a seceding State, said good-bye to his associates, and passed away only to meet his Northern friends on the field of battle. Bradbury had ended his career in the Senate several years before Clingman entered the body, and Jones also ante-dated Clingman, the one having been born in 1805 and the other in 1806, while Clingman first saw the light of day in 1812.
Jones was a man of striking appearance, and has attracted much attention during the last few years by his venerable presence. He was a voluble conversationalist and a veritable cyclopedia of the persons and incidents of the '30s, '40s and '50s. After all he was remembered chiefly on account of the fact that he was the second of Cilley in the celebrated Cilley-Graves duel, fought to a finish with rifles, amid the hills of Maryland, and when Jones' principal was practically murdered.
Clingman was not only a second in duels, but he was more than once a principal. His most famous meeting was with one of his Southern colleagues, William L. Yancey, of Alabama, on account of words used by the latter during the famous debate upon the question of Texas' annexation. Clingman had twitted Southern senators harshly for their indifference in regard to a resolution bearing upon the reception of petitions from Abolitionists, he supporting the right of petition. Yancey replied to his reflections with one of the bitterest and most personal of the tirades which made the Congresses of that day remarkable. He declared that Clingman was everwhere viewed as the betrayer of his country. He was looked upon as a renegade recreant to the principles and interests of the South. He had gone over to the ranks of enemy, and then turned and flaunted the colors of that enemy in the faces of his own friends.
Of course, such language could have but one result. Indeed, it was plainly intended to provoke a hostile meeting. Clingman promptly sent a challenge, which was promptly accepted. The place chosen was not the famous ground at Bladensburg, but farther to the south, and but a short distance from the scene of the Cilley-Graves tragedy. Previous to the meeting, however, mutual friends made every attempt to arrange the difficulty, and when the irate gentlemen faced each other, they shot to miss; friends then brought them to-
