Choose Your Weapon: The Duel in California, 1847-1882

"Choose Your Weapon: The Duel in California, 1847?1861" provides a complete, graphic portrait of 75 notable duels between California's leading politicians and newspaper men during and after the Gold Rush era. In Gold Rush?era California, gunfighters weren't outlaws or desperadoes - they were were prominent journalists, legislators, governors, and judges. Choose Your Weapon brings to life a now-forgotten time, when California was a raw new state with politics as violent as any banana republic. This was the Golden Age of dueling, when prominent citizens would settle their political and personal disputes with gunfire, according to the venerable law of the code duello. Choose Your Weapon documents every notable duel to have occurred in California, from the arrival of U.S. dueling culture with the first American settlers to the end of dueling's popularity on the eve of the Civil War. In the heyday of dueling culture, men from all walks of life, from politicians to manual laborers, fought formal duels. Duels could be triggered by political battles to shape state government - or they could be fought over a woman or a personal slight. Braggarts often proved to be cowards on the field of honour, and many a quiet and peaceable man could shoot with deadly accuracy when reputation was at stake. For the California gentlemen of the 1850s, honour or dishonour - and life or death - could be decided with a single shot. AUTHOR: Christopher Burchfield has been researching and writing about the Gold Rush Era of California for more than thirty years. Over this period he and his wife, Genendal, have traveled up and down the state, scouring its libraries and history centers, from Barstow to Yreka, often camping out under some very inclement weather conditions. He has had over 100 articles published in various magazines.