Alexander Keith McClung (June 14, 1811March 23, 1855) was an attorney from Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Mississippi, a lieutenant colonel of the Mississippi Rifles during the Mexican-American War, and briefly chargé d'affaires to Bolivia in President Zachary Taylor's administration. He is best known today for his participation in a series of antebellum duels, or gunfights. He became a folkloric figure of the 19th-century United States, a dead shot with mental health problems known as "the Black Knight of the South," with claims made to the effect that he killed 18 people, or participated in 14 duels and had killed 10 men, or killed seven brothers in one family. (The historical record suggests four duels with two killings. A New History of Mississippi states that by the end of his term as U.S. marshal he "had probably killed 10 men.")
Born the seventh child of a Kentucky judge and "the most brilliant" female scion of the Marshall political family, McClung moved to Mississippi in 1832, where he built a lonely, storied, troubled life. He considered himself "Death's Ramrod." Amongst his contemporaries, he was considered a courageous soldier, a passionate Whig (devoted to Henry Clay, and opposed to Andrew Jackson), an excellent writer, an excellent shot, sensitive, melancholic, Byronic, erratic, alcoholic, and eventually, insane. He died by self-inflicted gunshot in a Mississippi boarding house in 1855, leaving a Romantic poem as a suicide note.
Early life and naval career McClung was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, and was the nephew of United States Chief Justice John Marshall. His father was William Alexander McClung, and his mother was Sarah Tarleton Marshall. Judge McClung was a Virginia native, related to the Breckinridges, who represented Kentucky in the Virginia legislature, represented Nelson County in the Kentucky Senate from 1796 to 1800, and attended the Constitutional Convention that met in Danville, Kentucky, in 1787. Sarah Marshall was remembered as the "brilliant daughter of distinguished Revolutionary War veteran Col. Thomas Marshall...Susan was carrying her seventh child when she left her Mason County home in 1811 to visit a gravely ill sister in Virginia. That memorable year witnessed the birth of a son, Alexander Keith, on June 14th in the Old Dominion, and the death of her husband on their Kentucky estate that same summer." Several of McClung's siblings died young.
At age 14, he was sent to a "classical school conducted in Woodford Co., Ky., by his uncle, Dr. Louis Marshall. To escape punishment he leaped from a second-story window and fled to his home in Mason County. He attended the New York Naval Academy, where he once threatened fellow student Benjamin F. Sands at sword point. He was commissioned as a midshipman on April 1, 1828. He set sail on the on October 15, 1828, and promptly showed further evidence of behavioral issues, getting into a fight with fellow midshipman J. T. Williams. At the port of Montevideo, Uruguay, his first duel was with midshipman Addison C. Hinton, later of the Republic of Texas Navy. Hinton wounded McClung in the arm, McClung nicked Hinton's thumb. McClung's naval career ended August 20, 1829, when his captain put him ashore in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Upon returning to Kentucky, he initially studied medicine but then turned to the law. His second duel was in Frankfort, Kentucky, opposite his cousin James W. Marshall; he fired into the air, concluding the matter of honor. There may or may not have been another shooting in here somewhere. A Marshall cousin wrote in the 1880s, "I know little of the circumstances under which he killed Baker." The McClungs deny the claim that he killed a man named Baker.
Mississippi duels
McClung moved first to Columbus, in northeastern Mississippi, in about 1832. He began working as a "not too successful" attorney but regardless of his lawyering skill he still managed to move within the circle of the state's most prominent politicians. Regarding his legal career, "A Mississippian" writing in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1855 commented, "notwithstanding his acknowledged talents and decided professional acumen, we have not been able to learn that he took any prominent stand at the bar, or transacted any considerable amount of professional business." Moving further south in 1833, in short order he served as "second" to Henry S. Foote in a duel with Sergeant S. Prentiss. At this duel, one of the typically baroque Southern duel cycles of gossip, rumor, slander, and melodrama was kicked off, in this case involving one Gen. Allen and a man named George W. Coffee. Thus, on July 14, 1834, McClung dueled and killed Mississippi state legislator Augustus Albert Allen. The duel was on the banks of the Pearl River, and McClung shot Allen in the mouth from . McClung's shot amputated Allen's tongue and smashed "several teeth...leaving a horrific wound from which he died in great agony." As many as 3,000 people were present at the Jackson duelling grounds to witness this event.
In 1837 there was supposed to be a fight between McClung and H. C. Stewart, with the weapons being knives but McClung "absolutely refused to agree to the binding of their respective left arms with cords. Gentlemen, he contended, did not bind themselves like slaves and criminals. While the duel never took place, the barbaric terms were circulated in the Northern press as yet another example of Southern savagery."
McClung killed 24-year-old John L. Menefee in 1838. Menefee's first name is variously listed as George, James, and John W., and the family spelling was Menefee although the press generally used Menifee. He was a Vicksburg merchant, and he was the brother of Kentucky congressman Richard H. Menefee, and he was killed on "the second fire" of a duel with Mississippi rifles in Vicksburg in December 1838. The lead-up to the Menefee shooting involved Menefee and George Coffee ("McClung's old enemy") finding the completely inebriated McClung alone and unarmed in a tavern and "savagely beating" him with a pool cue to the point that they fractured his skull. This action led to the duel. As many as 700 people had ridden over to DeSoto Island, the "duelling island" across from Vicksburg, in boats to witness the shootout. Menefee was not killed directly by a bullet, but rather McClung's bullet hit the body of Menefee's gun and either a fragment of the hammer or half of the bullet entered above his right eye, or he was killed when a wooden splinter of the rifle stock cut through his neck. The crowd was against McClung, as Menefee was personally popular, and "the callous sporting crowd had reportedly bet heavily against McClung," since Menefee was a member of the local militia and was known for his excellent shooting skills. Menefee's unit, the Vicksburg Rifles, had all come to the dueling grounds to have a picnic and watch. Nearly 50 years later, in 1886, Menefee was still remembered by a Vicksburg booster as "one of the most brilliant and popular men in the State." After Menefee's death, other Menefees reportedly sought out McClung and he "fought seven of them killing three of the number and wounding the balance." Another version has it that, "As an aftermath, he was forced to methodically slay all six of his victim's brothers, one by one, in the order which they challenged him. One perfectly good family, 'shot to hell'literally." The McClung family history claimed that his "formidable reputation saved him from ever again being challenged.
Writing in December 1854, "A Mississippian" described McClung's history of dueling:
Another account, spun one hundred years after McClung's death, claimed that he killed 18 men, including some conniving gamblers killed in partnership with Jim Bowie in a brawl on the deck of a steamboat, and that the names of 18 victims "are known" (but this account does not name them). His reputed double-digit kill count is possibly predominantly folkloric and not factual, as there is no secondary evidence of McClung killing a succession of Menefees in the wake of their brother's death, etc., but such statements cling to McClung's reputation nonetheless.
Politics McClung was noted for his editorial attacks on the Martin Van Buren presidential administration of 1836 to 1840; Van Buren was Jackson's hand-picked successor and was considered by the Whigs to be a dependent tool of his predecessor. McClung was named editor of the Southern Sun newspaper in 1840. From 1841 to 1845, McClung was U.S. marshal for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. During this period there are hints of a failed courtship of Virginia Caroline Tunstall, later Mrs. Clement Claiborne Clay. They met in Columbus while she was visiting an aunt, Mrs. Fort. She reportedly said that she both loved him and feared him, and he was prone to stunts like threatening to drive their carriage into the river unless she agreed to marry him. She said yes, made him drive her home, told him the next day that her "yes" was made under duress, and "fearful...fled by stagecoach to Tuscaloosa," and never saw him again, marrying Clay shortly thereafter. Some 40 years after the fact a New York newspaper told a possibly apocryphal proto-Old West story about McClung, which may have had its origins in his marshal days:
McClung ran The True Issue newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi in 1844. The following year, he "stumped Lowndes County" for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives and lost the election but "established his reputation as a skilled, dramatic orator."
Mexican–American War McClung served as lieutenant colonel of the 1st Mississippi Regiment during the Mexican–American War. Originally captain of the Tombigbee Volunteers, Company K, which was named for the Tombigbee River, the company was organized at Columbus, Mississippi, and included soldiers recruited from Monroe and Lowdnes Counties. He was elected to be lieutenant colonel, second in command, defeating major general of the 3rd division of the Mississippi militia John M. Duffield, and the captain of Raymond Fencibles (Company G) Reuben E. Downing. William P. Rogers took over as captain of Company K.
McClung's soldiers were frustrated by his decision-making on a steamboat trip up the Rio Grande in August–September 1846. Having one soldier go missing (he was picked up later) during what was supposed to be a brief stop at a woodlot for steamboat fuel, "McClung posted a guard whenever the Colonel Cross docked and forbade the men to leave the boat. On one occasion McClung even armed himself with a brace of pistols and threatened to shoot several volunteers attempting to leave the vessel to find some food suitable for their sick friends on board. His reputation as a duelist made it unlikely anyone took up his challenge. Officers, on the other hand, could come and go freely. The sight of them and their servants going ashore at stops to buy food from the local inhabitants angered the enlisted men." Enlisted men, even the sick, were kept on the deck while officers and their slaves were permitted to enter the cabins. A soldier "N" from the Carroll County Volunteers (Company D) wrote of McClung, "He is the most heartless man I ever saw." The Mississippi Rifles arrived in Carmargo and camped there until September 7, leaving behind them McClung's trunk, which could not fit on the progressing baggage train, and a disorderly camp with abandoned "tents, kettles, and even newly issued rifles" as well as Lieutenant Bostick, who "had been left by himself to care for nearly 100 sick men without any arrangements made for their provisions."