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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch": The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry. Author(s): Elliott J. Gorn Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 18-43 Published by: on behalf of the Oxford University Press American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1860747 Accessed: 17-08-2015 04:12 UTC

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch": The Social Significance of Fighting in the

Southern Backcountry

ELLIOTTJ. GORN

"I WOULD ADVISE YOU when You do fight Not to act like Tygers and Bears as these Virginians do-Biting one anothers Lips and Noses off, and gowging one another- that is, thrusting out one anothers Eyes, and kicking one another on the Cods, to the Great damage of many a Poor Woman."' Thus, Charles Woodmason, an itinerant Anglican minister born of English gentry stock, described the brutal form of combat he found in the Virginia backcountry shortly before the American Revolution. Although historians are more likely to study people thinking, govern- ing, worshiping, or working, how men fight-who participates, who observes, which rules are followed, what is at stake, what tactics are allowed-reveals much about past cultures and societies.

The evolution of southern backwoods brawling from the late eighteenth century through the antebellum era can be reconstructed from oral traditions and travelers' accounts. As in most cultural history, broad patterns and uneven trends rather than specific dates mark the way. The sources are often problematic and must be used with care; some speculation is required. But the lives of common people cannot be ignored merely because they leave few records. "To feel for a feller's eyestrings and make him tell the news" was not just mayhem but an act freighted with significance for both social and cultural history.2

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation provided generous support for my research on violence. Many people read and commented on the manuscript, among them David Brion Davis, Jean Agnew, Kai Erikson, Fred Hobson, Gerald Burns, John Endean, and Allen Tullos. I thank them all for their aid. I also wish to thank the anonymous readers and the editors of the American Historical Review whose comments proved invaluable. My wife, Anna, critiqued and edited the text, while our baby, Jade, gouged and chewed the pages-and those were the least of their contributions.

l Woodmason, "Burlesque Sermon," in Richard J. Hooker, ed., The Carolia Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953), xi-xxxvi, 158. The "Burlesque Sermon" was written in the late 1760s or early 1770s. For the quotation that appears in the title of the essay, see "A Kentucky Fight," New York Spirit of the Times, December 12, 1835, p. 2.

2 Harden E. Taliaferro, Fisher's River Scenes and Characters (New York, 1839), 198. Let me state explicitly that this is a study in male culture, but it is informed by central insights of recent women's history-that gender definitions are malleable, that they have a formative impact on the past, and that to ignore them is to misrepresent social and cultural development.

18

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair alnd Scratch" 19

As EARLY AS 1735, BOXING was "much in f;ashion" in parts of Chesapeake Bay, and forty years later a visitor from the North declared that, along with dancing, fiddling, small swords, and card playing, it was an essential skill for all young Virginia gentlemen.3 TIhe term "boxing," however, did not necessarily refer to the comparatively tame style of bare-knuckle fighting familiar to eighteenth-century Englishmen. In 1746, four deaths pr-ompted the governor of North Carolina to ask for legislation against "the barbarous and inhuman manner of boxing which so much prevails among the lower sort of people." The colonial assemnbly responded by making it a felony "to cut out the Tongue or pull out the eyes of the King's Liege People." Five years later the assembly added slitting, biting, and cutting ofi noses to the list of offenses. Virginia passed similar legislation in 1748 and revised these statutes in 1772 explicitly to discourage men from "gouging, plucking, or putting out an eye, biting or kicking or stomping upon" quiet peaceable citizens. By 1786 South (Carolina had made premeditated mayhenm a capital offense, defining the crime as severing another's bodily parts.4

Laws notwithstanding, the carnage continued. P'hilip Vickers Fithian, a New Jerseyite serving as tutor for an aristocratic Virginia famnily, confided to his journal on September 3, 1774:

By appointment is to be fought this Day near Mr. Lanes two fist Battles between four young Fellows. The Cause of the battles I have not yet known; I suppose either that they are lovers, and one has in Jest or reality some way supplanted the other; or has in a merry hour called him a Lubber or a thick-Skull, or a Buckskin, or a Scotsmani, or perhaps one has mislaid the other's hat., or knocked a peach out of his Hand, oI- offeIred hlim a diram without wiping the mouth of the Bottle; all these, and ten thousand moIe qllte as trifling and ridiculous are thought and accepted as just Causes of immediate Quarrels, in which every dliabolical Strategem for Mastery is allowed and practiced.

The "trifling and ridiculous" reasons for these fights had an unreal quality for the matter-of-fact Yankee. Not assaults on persons or property but slights, insults, and thoughtless gestures set young southerners against each other. To call a man a "buckskin," for example, was to accuse him of the poverty associated with leather clothing, while the epithet "Scotsman" tied him to the low-caste Scots-Irish who settled the southern highlands. Fithian could not understand how such trivial offenses caused the bloody battles. But his incomprehension turned to rage when he realized that spectators attended these "odious and filthy anmusemnenits" and that the fighters allayed their spontaneous passions in order to fix convenient dates and places, which allowed time for rumors to spread and crowds to gather. The Yankee concluded that only devils, prostitutes, or monkeys could sire creatures so unfit for human society.6

3 Williaim Gooch to thc Bishol) of Lon(don], JLl'v 8, 17 35, in (. NMcLarciin Bryden, e(l., "'IhCe Virginial (Clergy: Governor Gooch's Letters to the Bisho) of Lonldoni, 1727-1749, fromii the FLilhamI N uLnscr-ipts,- 1ogs'mla Mazgazios oJflotors and Biogarplh', 32 (1924); 219, 332; and P'hilip Vicker s Fithi'ani to John Peck, AuguLst 12, 1774, inI Fithian, Journal and Letters, ed. Hloloiter Dickinson Farish (Williamslburg, Va., 1943 ), 212.

TFom Parratinore, "(GoLgitg inI Early North Carolina," Nodst Carolinia Folklorej oarn(l, 22 (1974): 38; Jane Carson, Colonial VsI,rosiiTa (it Pl/a' (WilliamisbuLrg, Va., 1965), 166-67; and Jack Kenniiy Williamiis, 1oges inI VillaMin': (orime and RIettiblbtiotn itl Antte-Bellomrti Soot/h C(irolisia (ColUmnia, S.C., 1959), 33. 1 h'e SoLth Carolina law included finigers and eyes but excluded nioses anlld ears.

5 Fithian, Journaloe assd Letters, 240-4 1. 6 Ibid.; anid Rhys Isaac, TIse Tsrasmssfosrsatioii o/ VoVisrsia, 1740-1 790 (Chapel Hill, 1982), 44.

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Descriptions of these "fist battles," as Fithian called them, indicate that they generally began like English prize fights. Two men, surrounded by onlookers, parried blows until one was knocked or thrown down. But there the similarity ceased. Whereas "Broughton's Rules" of the English ring specified that a rounld ended when either antatgonist fell, southern bruisers only began fighting at this point. Enclosed not inside a formal ring-the "magic circle" defining a special place with its own norms of conduct-but within whatever space the spectators left vacant, fighters battled each other until one calle(d enough or was unable to continue. Combatants boasted, howled, and cursed. As words gave way to action, they tripped and threw, gouged and butted, scratched and choke(d each other. "But what is worse than all," Isaac Weld observed, "these wretches in their conmbat endeavor to their utnmost to tear out each other's testicles."7

Around the beginning of the nineteenth century, men sought original labels for their brutal style of fighting. "Rough-and-tumble" or simply "gouging" graclually replaced "boxing" as the name for these contests.8 Before two bruisers attacked each other, spectators might demand whether they proposed to fight fair- according to Broughton's Rules-or rough-and-tumible. Honor dictated that all techniques be permitted. Except for a ban on weapons, most nmen chose to fight "no holts barred," doing what they wished to each other without interference, until one gave up or was incapacitated.",

The emphasis on maximum disfiguremnent, on severing bodily parts, made this fighting style unique. Amid the gener-al mayhem, however, gouging out an opponent's eye becamiie the sine qua nori of rough-and-tumble f-ighting, imuch like the knockout punch in modern boxing. TIhe best gougers, of course, were adept at other fighting skills. Somne allegedly filecd their teeth to bite off an enemy's appendages more efficiently. Still, liberatinig ani eyeball quickly became a fighter's surest route to victory and his mnost prestigious accomplishment. To this end, celebrated heroes fired their fingerniails hlard, honed them-i sharp, anid oiled them slick. " 'You have conme off badly this timie, I doubt?' ' declared an alarmed passerby on seeing the piteous condition of a renowned fighter. " 'Have I,' says he triumphantly, shewing ftoin his pocket at the samne time an eye,

Weld, TraveLs Througrh the Sttes of Nort/li Asmeti (, 1 (3d e(liL., 1Lndon, 1800(): 191. Weldl claillc(l he s Aw for or five IIIeII castrated an(ld co(nfined to their' sick l)eds (IIinilng hiS trlVs sin Virginia ai(nd Maryland.

Thle Comport Edition oJfthle OxfOrd otig/il Dirtiooisi (Ne.xw Yo)rk, 1971), 1: 1180, 2: 2582. T'Thomas Ashe, Tsrave/.i ini Amserica (LondoI, 1809), 86. IhoImas AllnlhreC, vvfio serve(d iII Vir-gillial (Lrillg thlC

ReVOILtion, oA)served that hightecrs agreed ahIead of tinc on wh ihch tactics to alhv, then ahided hy theii OW11 rleCs: Allb)rey, Tsraels Throligh thl l nter)ior Pariti of Alierria, 2 (1789; iepnint c(fiL, Bostoii, 182'3), 215-1 8. Gouginig aniother mani's evc was IIot native to thlC C(uhiIICS hnt d(l nlteCe(ldeits in the iiiotlhCr CiOLnnt,y. A few repor-ts lacecl the practice in Lancashire and \o'rikslire; tlet Iocwlaild its aisri t lensandilats ill l'isterde .IS)

used these taetics. GOLIgimg Wlas c(imion emll(ogll iII EllgliSh Irillng figlhtS t1hat the 1838 'RlIICS of the Lonclo Prize Ring" bannccl it BLit Whilt had heemn anl ocasimioal practiCC iIe BFI3itiII Wias CIesCdto( tO LIIliqsln highltimxg styVle in the Americain SoL II. See Dr. Bearlsley, "(O)1 ttme l'sc and(1 bInSe of Po)n)UlaII Sl)OI-tS ami LXCeises, Resemnbling r hose of the Greeks an(d Roniaiiiis," NicholoOi's Ph/on osofi/orl blogozoir, 15, ex(cerptel in Poitf/ lo, 1, ser. 4 (1 8 16): 407-09; JeInie Hlinlinaia, Amser sica S)ortsi 1 785-1835 (1)DU rlmiam, N.(., 193 1), chap. 10(; New I oris Spirit (f th/i Tiunwi JcmlI 4 1840). 20(7; Henry Adams, Te Formatiote +(rso, e(l. Hlerhert Agar (1 iloix, 1918), 28; "'Kick and(t Bite' in Lancashire," New(, Y'ork SportingA lXogozin, Novemnber I83-1, ). 188; Jolmi Ford(l, Pr'iegJliti'l,g: ThueAge oJ'Regeors Boximoniai (New York, 1971), 1 16-18; 1J C. FLII-IiS, '/1e A 4su1esA (Ii.iS A Sori sl liji.toe ofthle U n'sitedl Stites, 1587-1914 (Ncrw York, 1969), 216; JaIncs (J. Lex hum. The .Siotds I.ih: A1 Sooil lijitoi (Ghac'l Hill, 1962), 263-66; Am-thlLr K. Miu Frme, 7/is Ps ouitier Xliod (New \Y-k, 1957), 11 1; and Parraniiru c, "G(,olgilg in Nor tlh Cal olilmlia, 6.O

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch" 21

which he had extracted during the combat, and preserved for a trophy."''0 As the new style of fighting evolved, its geographical distribution changed.

Leadership quickly passed from the southern seaboard to upcountry counties and the western frontier." I Although examples could be found throughout the South, rough-and-tumbling was best suited to the backwoods, where hunting, herding, and semisubsistence agriculture predominated over market-oriented, staple crop production. Thus, the settlers of western Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as upland Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, became especially known for their pugnacity.'2

The social base of rough-and-tumbling also shifted with the passage of time. Although brawling was always considered a vice of the "lower sort," eighteenth- century Tidewater gentlemen sometimes found themselves in brutal fights. These combats grew out of challenges to men's honor-to their status in patriarchal, kin-

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The "Hands of Celebrated Gougers. Drawings reproduced from Richard M. Dorson, Davy Crockett: American Comic Legend (New York, 1939), 42.

based, small-scale communities-and were woven into the very fabric of daily life. Rhys Isaac has observed that the Virginia gentry set the tone for a fiercely competitive style of living. Although they valued hierarchy, individual status was never permanently fixed, so men frantically sought to assert their prowess-by grand boasts over tavern gaming tables laden with money, by whipping and

10 Anburey, Travels Through the Interior Parts of Amernca, 203; Parramore, "Gouging in North Carolina," 57-58; and Adland Ashby, A Visit to North America (London, 1821), 73. In colonial days, an eye could be saved by calling out "king's curse"; Guion Griffs Johnson, Antebelum North Carolina: A Social History (Chapel Hill, 1937), 16-17.

11 The tradition lingered in pockets along the coast. A Florida grand jury member watched outside the courthouse as his son fought another boy. Not yet a decade old, the youngster received some manly advice when the battle ended: "Now you little devil, if you catch him down again bite him, chaw his lip or you never'll be a man." Henry Benjamin Whipple, as quoted in John Hope Franklin, The Militant South (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), 11-12.

12 Tom Parramore, the most thorough student of rough-and-tumble fighting, offered only southern sources and argued that gouging spread as far as the Louisiana Territory early in the century; "Gouging in North Carolina," 56, 58. Gouging was occasionally practiced above the Ohio, but it was not elevated to a characteristic fighting style. Lumbermen in the northern forests practiced some of the rough-and-tumbler's arts, but they were noted for marking a fallen opponent by stomping his face with caulked boots, leaving scars similar to those

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22 EliiottJ. Gorn

tripping each other's horses in violent quarter-races, by wagering one-half year's earnings on the flash of a fighting cock's gaff. Great planters and small shared an ethos that extolled courage bordering on foolhardiness and cherished magnificent, if irrational, displays of largess. ' 3

Piety, hard work, and steady habits had their adherents, but in this society aggressive self-assertion and manly pride were the real rrmarks of status. Even the gentry's vaunted hospitality demonstrated a f'amily's community standing, so conviviality itself became a vehicle for rivalry and emulation. Rich and poor might revel together during "public times,'" but gentry patronage of sports and festivities kept the focus of power clear. Above all, brutal recreations toughened men for a violent social life in which the exploitation of labor, the specter of poverty, and a fierce struggle for status were daily realities.'4

During the final decades of the eighteenth century, however, individuals like Fithian's young gentlemen became less inclined to engage in rough-and-tumbling. Many in the planter class now wanted to distinguish themselves from social inferiors more by genteel manners, gracious living, and paternal prestige than by patriarchal prowess. They sought alternatives to brawling and found them by imitating the English aristocracy. A few gentlemen took boxing lessons f'rom professors of pugilism or attended sparring exhibitions given by touring exponents of the manly art.'5 More important, dueling gradually replaced hand-to-hand combat. The code of honor offered a genteel, though deadly, way to settle personal disputes while demonstrating one's elevated status. Ceremony distinguished anti- septic duels from lower-class brawls. Cool restraint and customary decorum proved a man's ability to shed blood while remaining emotionally detached, to act as mercilessly as the poor whites but to do so with chilling gentility.'I6

produced by smrallpox. "The ltitmberjack code," as folklorist Richard Dorsoni calleti it, grew out of' a pattern of' living sinilar to that of the rough-anti-tumblers. Drinking, treating f'rienids, imilpttlsive pleasuLre seekillg, hel-oi labor, and ViCiOttS fightiing were part of all-miiale peer groLps tIn the niorthernl woods; personal ht)nt)r anti valtor were the touchstones of ltltnberjactk life. See Dorson, BloodtopperS antd Bearwalkeri: Folk Traelitions of the Upper Peninsula (Catmbridge, Mass., 1952), clhap. 9; Fiurnas, The Amenria in, 215-16; and(i Alan Lotinax, Illkougs of /Naort/h America (New York, 1975), 106-07, 1 19-20. Fred Harvey Hattington has pointet( outt inI private correspon- deuice that leaders of' New Yor-k City gangs in the mid-nineteenth cenlttLrv were somiietimies ref'erred to as gougers or routgh-and-turmblers. Moreover, in 182 1, Ohio passedc a law againist gottging OLtt eyes, b)iting off' facial parts, anii so ftrth. Nevertheless, miieni in the East and MitIdle Wecst rlid iot glorify malylyhemii aitI mutilation in practice and folklore to the same extetit as rid the souLthernii backwoodstmen. See Gabriel FLrtrmani, "The Customs, Amusemenits, Style of Living antI Manniers of the People of thel ' United States fromii the Fir-st Settlemienit to the Presenlt lite," New Y'ork Historial Society, NewN, York, N.Y., MS. 2673, typescript copy, pp. 303-05; and Elliott J. Gorn, " I he Manily Art: Bar-e-Kinuckle lPrize Fighting antI the Rise of Amierican Sports" (Ph.D. dissert.ation, Yale University, 1983), chap. 5.

3 Isaac brilliantly evoked life in mid-eighteenth-CentUry Virginia. Sc-c Traifo-'rmationi of J'irginia, chaps. 5, 6. On play, competitiveniess, anct prowess in southesrni CtltrtIe, sCee . H. Breenl, "Hor-ses anld (Gentletmen: Ihe Ctiltural Signifiharte of' Gambling aimionig thhe Gentry of Virginia," William (alnd AJary Quiarterl/. 3nd ser., 34 (1977): 256-57; C'arson, Colonial Uirgnmaim (it Play, cha1p. 3; Hollimiats, Amiericcani Sporius, chap. 12; C. Vaininl Woodward, "Ihe Southerni Ethic in a PLiritanl World," inl his Aimeiicao Coonteipoiolt (Bostoni, 1971), 13-46; andcl Bertram Wyatt-Browni, Sothern IIonor: Ethliis and(l Behcaior in the 01(c Soutthl (Newt York, 1 982).

Oni these tlhemies, see Breeni, "Horses and (,Gentlemen," 256-57; Isaact, Transflormah .otio of)1 7siginia, 94-104; and Wyatt-Browni, Soutthern-l Monor, chaps. 2, 3, 6, 11, 13.

15 Isaac traced this chanige; Traf,n,Joorinationi of 1ngingiaim, pts. 2, 3. Also sece Lotlise Jordian Wtalmsley, Sport Attittudes and Practices of'Representative Anisricas Befoire 1870 (Farmiville, Va., 1938), 296; anId (Gorn, "I'lhe Manlyx Art," 141-54.

l6 Isaac, Transformation f VirginTia, 319, 322. Also see D)ickson BrUtre, 1i"oli nte and Cu'ltuiie in tlne Attbehelluni South (Austin, 1979), introdUlt(0tion antd chap. 1; Wyatt-Boswn, Souithler-ni Iaotiol, nlal). 13; antI Johnson, Antebellum Nortl Uairolinci, 42-46.

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull H-alir arid Scr(atch" 23

Slowly, then, rough-and-tumble fighting found specific locus in both human and geographical landscapes. We can watch men grapple with the transition. When an attemnpt at a formal duel aborted, Savannah politician Robert Watkins and United States Senator James Jackson resorted to gouging. Jackson bit Watson's finger to save his eye.7 ~Similarly, when "a low fellow who pretends to gentility" insulted a distinguished doctor, the gentlenman responded with a proper challenge. "He had scarcely uttered these words, before the other flew at him, and in an instant turned his eye out of the socket, and while it hung upon his cheek, the fellow was barbarous enough to endeavor to pluck it entirely out."'8 By the new century, such ambiguity had lessened, as rough-and-tunmble fighting was relegated to inldividuals in backwoods settlemeents. For the next several decades, eye-gouging matches were focal events in the culture of lower-class males who still relished the wild ways of old.

"I SAW MORE THAN ONE MAN WHO WANTED AN EYE, and ascertained that I was now in the region of 'gouging,"' reported young Timothy Flint, a Harvard educated, Presbyterian minister bound for Louisiana missionary work in 1816. His spirits buckled as his party turned down the Mississippi from the Ohio Valley. Enterpris- ing farmers gave way to slothful and vulgar folk whom Flint considered barely civilized. Only vicious fighting and disgusting accounts of battles past disturbed their inertia. Residents assured him that the "blackguards" excluded gentlemen from gouging matches. Flint was therefore perplexed when told that a barbarous- looking man was the "best" in one settlement, until he learned that best in this context meant not the most moral, prosperous, or pious but the local chamipior who had whipped all the rest, the rnan most dexterous at extracting eyes.'9

Because rough-and-tumble fighting declined in settled areas, somne of the most valuable accounts were written by visitors who penetr-ated the backcountry. Travel literature was quite popular during America's infanicy, and many profit-minded authors undoubtedly wrote with their audience's expectations in mind. Imnages of heroic frontiersmen, of crude but unencumbered natural men, enthralled both writers and readers. Some who toured the new republic ini the decades following

17 William Oliver Stevenis, Pistols at Tenr Paces (Bostoni, 1 940), 33-37; (;eorge G. Smith, The Story of (eorgia and the Georia People, 1 732-1860 (Atlanta, 1 900), 184; antld "Jones' Fight," Neztw Vnr-k Spinnt of thle Timties, January 25, 1840, pp. 559-60, i-eprinted in ibid., JuLnIe 15, 1844, p. 181 . Ihe anlLthol of "Jonies' Fight" was anonymoutts, hot clearly the story was derived f'rom oral traditioni. Althotughi dLeslillg hecame a m ark of genitlemranily statuLS, SoC)ial elites sometim-ies backslid inito street brawling dturinig the antehellum period. For eXamlples, see WilliamIs, Vogues in Villainy, 23.

18Anburey, Travels Throagh the Iinterior- Partos a/Amttieiica, 201-02. Goulgers occasionally threatened their social betters. An Eniglish tr-aveler- in Virginiia recalled that his patty Hed fromii a stiall gang-headcd hy a "veteran cyclops"-that tried to provoke a battle. In KentUcky, year-s later, Adlland Ashby clar-ed niot ot)ject to the company of one he considered beneath him. tIo (to so0, he feared, miight cost anl eye; ViWsit to North Amernca, 73. Also see the Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in Nor-th Amnerica int the Yetars 1 780-1782 (New York, 1828), which was "translated by ani English genitleman who resided in America at that periotl" (translator's note is on pages 292- 93).

19 Flint, Recollections ojfthe Last Ten Years (Bostoni, 1 826), 97-98. I he r-ight and left baniks of the Ohio became a common symhol of the contrast between slave anid free states in the writinigs of foreign travelers. America's miost perceptive visitor, Alexis de Tocqueville, included this nmotif. See DeiaiorraryN, in Amternca, ed. Phillips Bradley, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), 1: 376-79.

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(24 ElliottJ. Gorn

the Revolution had strong prejudices against America's democratic pretensions. English travelers in particular doubted that the upstart nation-in which the lower class shouted its equality and the upper class was unable or unwilling to exercise proper authority-could survive. Ironically, backcountry fighting became a symbol for both those who inflated and those who punctured America's expansive national ego.

Frontier braggarts enjoyed fulfilling visitors' expectations of backwoods deprav- ity, pumping listeners full of gruesome legends. Their narratives projected a satisfying, if grotesque, image of the American rustic as a fearless, barbaric, larger- than-life democrat. But they also gave Englishmen the satisfaction of seeing their former countrymen run wild in the wilderness. Gyouging matches offered a perfect metaphor for the Hobbesian war of all against all, of men tearing each other apart once institutional restraints evaporated, of a heart of darkness beating in the New World. As they made their way from the northern port towns to the southern countryside, or down the Ohio to southwestern waterways, observers concluded that geographical and moral descent went hand in hand. Brutal fights dramatically confirmed their belief that evil lurked in the deep shadows of America's sunny democratic landscape.

And yet, it would be a mistake to dismiss all travelers' accounts of backwoods fighting as fictions born of prejudice. Many sojourners who were sober and careful observers of America left detailed reports of rough-and-tumbles. Aware of the tradition of frontier boasting, they distinguished apocryphal stories from personal observation, wild tales from eye-witness accounts. Although gouging matches became a sort of literary convention, many travelers compiled credible descriptions of backwoods violence.

"The indolence and dissipation of the middling and lower classes of Virginia are such as to give pain to every reflecting mind," one anonymous visitor declared. "Horse-racing, cock-fighting, and boxing-matches are standing amusements, for which they neglect all business; and in the latter of which they conduct themselves with a barbarity worthy of their savage neighbors."92( Thomas Anburey agreed. He believed that the Revolution's leveling of class distinctions left the "lower people" dangerously independent. Although Anburey found poor whites usually hospitable and generous, he was disturbed by their sudden outbursts of impudence, their aversion to labor and love of drink, their vengefulness and savagery. They shared with their betters a taste for gaming, horse racing, and cockfighting, but "boxing matches, in which they display such barbarity, as fully marks their innate ferocious disposition," were all their own. Anburey concluded that an English prize fight was humanity itself compared to Virginia combat.2'

Another visitor, Charles William janson, decried the loss of social subordination, which caused the rabble to reinterpret liberty and equality as licentiousness. Paternal authority-the font of social and political order-had broken down in

20 Chastellux, Travels in North America, 292-93. 21 Aniburey, Travels Throughl the Interior Parts of America, 215-i18. Also see George W. Featherstonihaugh,

Excursion Through the Slave States from Washington on the Potomaic to the Frontier of Mexico, 2 (Lonidoni, 1844), 329- 30, as cited in Jack K. Williams, Duelling in the 01l South (College Station, VIex., 1980), 73.

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"(;ottge (an(d Bite, Putll lair an(d Scratc h" 25

America, as parents gratified their childreiis' whims, including youthf'ul tastes f'or alcohol and tobacco. A national inistrust of authority had brought civilization to its nadir amnong the poor whites of the South. "'I'he lower classes are the inost abject that, perhaps, ever peopled a Christian land. They live in the woods and desarts and many of them cultivate no more land than will raise themn coI-n and cabbages, which, with fish, and occasionally a piece of pickled pork or bacon, are their constant food. . . . Their habitations are more wretched than can be conceived; the huts of the poor of Ireland, or even the meanest Indian wig-wam, displaying more ingenuity and greater industry."22 Despite their degradation-perhaps because of' it-Janson found the poor whites extremely jealous of' their republican rights and liberties. They considered themselves the equals of' their best-educated neighbors and intruded on whomever they chose.23 The gouging match this f'astidiouis Englishman witnessed in Georgia was the epitome of lower-class depravity:

We found the combatants . . . fast cliiiched by the hair, aind their thumbs endeavoring to force a passage into each other's eyes; while several of the bystander-s were betting upon the first eye to be turned out of its socket. For some time the combatants avoided the thulmb stroke with dexterity. At length they fell to the ground, and in an instant the uppermost sprung up with his antagornist's eye in his hand!!! The savage crowd applauded, while, sick with horroi-, we galloped away from the infernal scene. The name of the sufferrer was John Butlei, a Carolinian, who, it seems, had been dared to the combat by a Georgian; and the first eve was for the honor of the state to which they respectively belonged.

Janson concluded that even I ndian "savages" and London's rabble would be outraged by the beastly Americans.24

While Janson toured the lower South, his countryman TIhotmias Ashe explored the territory around Wheeling, Virginia. A passage, dated April 1806, from his Travels in America gives us a detailed picture of gouging's social context. Ashe expounded on Wheeling's potential to become a ceinter of trade for the Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys, noting that geography made the town a natural rival of Pittsburgh. Yet Wheeling lagged in "worthy commercial pursuits, and industrious and moral dealings." Ashe attributed this backwardness to the town's frontier ways, which attracted men who specialized in drinking, plundering Indian property, racing horses, and watching cockfights. A Wheeling Quaker assured Ashe that mores were changing, that the uinderworld element was about to be driven out. Soon, the godly would gain control of the local governnment, enforce strict observance of' the Sabbath, and outlaw vice. Ashe was sympathetic but doubtful. In Wheeling, only heightened violence and debauchery distinguished Sunday fronm the rest of' the week. The citizens' willingness to close up shop and neglect business on the slightest pretext made it a questionable residence for any respectable group of men, let alone a society of Quakers.25

To convey the rough texture of Wheeling life, Ashe described a gouging match. 22 Janson, Th1e Stranger in America, 1793-1806 (1807; reprint e(ln., New York, 1935), 304-06, 31(0-11. 23 Ibid. Edmund S. Morgani argLued conivinicinigly that the ideology of white eqUAlity was b)ilt oll tile material

base of black slavery; Mor-ganl, Americani Sl/aver, Aminerican Freedomn (New York, 1 975), 376-87, 380-8 1. Also see George Fredericksoni, Thle Black Ima(gae in the 1/White Mind (Newsf York, 1 97 1), cehOaps. 2, 3.

21 Jansoni, Stranger in1 Amierica, 308-09. 25 Ashe, Travels in Amerlzica, 82-85.

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26 ElliottJ. Gornt

Two men drinking at a public house argued over the mnerits of their respective horses. Wagers made, they galloped off to the race course. "Two thirds of the population followed: -blacksmiths, shipwrights, all left work: the town appeared a desert. The stores were shut. I asked a proprietor, why the warehouses did not remnain open? He told me all good was done for the day: that the people would remain on the ground till night, and many stay till the following morning." Determined to witness an event deemed so important that the entire town went on holiday, Ashe headed for the track. He missed the initial heat but arrived in time to watch the crowd raise the stakes to induce a rematch. Six horses competed, and spectators bet a small fortune, but the results were inconclusive. Umpires' opinions were given and rejected. Heated words, then fists flew. Soon, the melee narrowed to two individuals, a Virginian and a Kentuckian. Because fights were commnon in such situations, everyone knew the proper procedures, and the combatants quickly decided to "tear and rend" one another-to rough-anid-tum-ble-rather than "fight fair." Ashe elaborated: "You startle at the words tear and rend, and again do not understand me. You have heard these terms, I allow, applied to beasts of prey and to carnivorous animals; and your humanity cannot conceive them applicable to man: It nevertheless is so, and the fact will not permit me the use of any less expressive term."26

The battle began-size and power on the Kentuckian's side, science and craft on the Virginian's. They exchanged cautious throws and blows, when suddenly the Virginian lunged at his opponent with a panther's ferocity. The crowd roared its approval as the fight reached its violent denouement:

The shock received by the Kentuckyan, and the want of breath, brought hilml instantly to the ground. The Virginian never lost his hold; like those bats of the South who never quit the subject on which they fasteni till they taste blood, he kept his knees in his enemy's body; fixing his claws in his hair, and his thumbs on his eyes, gave them anI instantaneous start from their sockets. The sufferer roared aloud, but uttered nio complaint. The citizens again shouted with joy. Doubts were no longer entertained and bets of three to one were offered on the Virginian.

But the fight continued. The Kentuckian grabbed his smaller opponent and held him in a tight bear hug, forcing the Virginian to relinquish his facial grip. Over and over the two rolled, until, getting the Virginian under him, the big man "snapt off his nose so close to his face that no manner of projection remained." The Virginian quickly recovered, seized the Kentuckian's lower lip in his teeth, and ripped it down over his enemy's chin. This was enough: "The Kentuckyan at length gave out, on which the people carried off the victor, and he preferring a triumph to a doctor, who came to cicatrize his face, suffered himself to be chaired round the ground as the champion of the times, and the first rougher-and-tumbler. The poor wretch, whose eyes were started from their spheres, and whose lip refused its office, returned to the town, to hide his impotence, and get his countenance repaired." The citizens refreshed themselves with whiskey and biscuits, then resumed their races.

2ti Ibid., 85-86.

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"Goiuge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch" 27

Ashe's Quaker friend reported that such spontaneous races occurred two or three times a week and that the annual fall and spring meets lasted fourteen uninterrupted days, "aided by the licentious and profligate of all the neighboring states." As for rough-and-tumbles, the Quaker saw no hope of suppressing them. Few nights passed without such fights; few mornings failed to reveal a new citizen with mutilated features. It was a regional taste, unrestrained by law or authority, an inevitable part of life on the left bank of the Ohio.27

BY THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY, ROUGhI-AND-TUMBLE fighting had generated its own folklore.28 Horror mingled with awe when residents of the Ohio Valley pointed out one-eyed individuals to visitors, when New Englanders referred to an empty eye socket as a "Virginia Brand," when North Carolinians related stories of mass rough-and-tumbles ending with eyeballs covering the ground, and when Kentuckians told of battle-royals so intense that severed eyes, ears, and noses filled bushel baskets. Place names like "Fighting Creek" and "Gouge Eye" perpetuated the memory of heroic encounters, and rustic bombast reached new extremes with estimates from some counties that every third man wanted an eye.291 As much as the style of combat, the rich oral folklore of the backcountry-the legends, tales, ritual boasts, and verbal duels, all of them in regional vernacular-made rough-and- tumble fighting unique.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of the spoken word in southern life. Traditional tales, songs, and beliefs-transmitted orally by blacks as well as whites-formed the cornerstone of culture. Folklore socialized children, inculcated values, and helped forge a distinct regional sensibility. Even wealthy and well-educated planters, raised at the knees of black mammies, imbibed both Afro- American and white traditions, and charismatic politicians secured loyal followers by speaking the people's language. Southern society was based more on personalis- tic, face-to-face, kin-and-community relationships than on legalistic or bureaucratic ones. Interactions between southerners were guided by elaborate rituals of hospitality, demonstrative conviviality, and kinship ties-all of which emphasized personal dependencies and reliance on the spoken word. Through the antebellum period and beyond, the South had an oral as much as a written culture.3Y

Boundaries between talk and action, ideas and behavior, are less clear in spoken than in written contexts. Psychologically, print seemns mnore distanit and abstract than speech, which is inextricably bound to specific individuals, times, and places. In

27 Ibid., 86-88. No doubt Ashe exaggerated the frequency of gouging miiatches. 28 Walter Blair aiid Franiklin J. Mcine, Mike Fink, King' of Masosippi Keelboatmenr (New York, 1933), 105-25. 29 New York Spirit o)f the Times, July 4, 1840, p. 207; Parramore, "Gotuging in North Carolina," 62; Moore,

Frontier Mind, 112; Horace Kephart, Oatr Sout/hern Higldands (New York, 1929), 375; atnd Weld, Travels Throiigh the States of North America, 193.

30 See Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The Worl/l the Slaves Mlade (New York, 1974), esp. bk. 1, pt. 1; Frank Lawreince Owsley, Plain F)olk of the Old Sout/h (Batoni Roulge, 1949); Bruce, Violence atnd Colltare, introduction and chaps. 1-3, 8; Isaac, Tran,oformation of Virgrintia, 121-3 1; and Steven Hahn, The Roots oa/Soot/tern Populism (New York, 1983), chaps. 1, 2. Wyatt-Brown observed that honior- and shame in soulthern cuLltuLre reinforced the importance of the spoken word because they reqllired plersonal con)frontations; S ot/thern HlIonor, 46-48, 56-58, anid pt. 3.

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28 Elliott J. Gorn

becoming part of the realm of sight rather than sound, words leave behind their personal, living qualities, gaining in fixity what they lose in dynamism. Literate peoples separate thought from action, pigeon-holing ideas and behavior. Nonliter- ate ones draw this distinction less sharply, viewing words and the events to which they refer as a single reality. In oral cultures generally, and the Old South in particular, the spoken word was a powerful force in daily life, because ideation and behavior remained closely linked.3'

The oral traditions of hunters, drifters, herdsmen, gamblers, roustabouts, and rural poor who rough-and-tumbled provided a strong social cement. Tall talk around a campfire, in a tavern, in front of a crossroads store, or at countless other meeting places on the southwestern frontier helped establish communal bonds between disparate persons. Because backwoods humorists possessed an unusual ability to draw people together and give expression to shared feelings, they often became the most effective leaders and preachers.,; But words could also divide. Fithian's observation in the eighteenth century-that seenlingly innocuous remarks led to sickening violence-remained true for several generations. Men were so touchy about their personal reputations that any slight required an apology. This failing, only retribution restored public stature and self-esteem. "Saving f'ace" was not just a metaphor.f3

The lore of backwoods combat, however, both inflated and deflated egos. By the early nineteenth century, simple epithets evolved into verbal duels-rituals well known to folklorists. Backcountry men took turns bragging about their prowess, possessions, and accomplishments, spurring each other on to new heights of self- magnification.34 Such exchanges heightened tension and engendered a sense of theatricality and display. But boasting, unlike insults, did not always lead to combat, for, in a culture that valued oral skills, the verbal battle itself-the contest over who best controlled the power of words-was a real quest for domination:

"I am a man; I am a horse; I am a team. I can whip any man in all Kentucky, by G-d!" The oth- er replied, "I am an alligator, half man, half horse; can whip any man on the Mississippi, by G-d!" The first one again, "I am a man; have the best horse, best dog, best gun and handsomest wife in all Kentucky, by G-d." The other, "I am a Mississippi snapping turtle: have bear's claws, alligator's teeth, and the devil's tail; can whip any man, by G-d." 3-

"I Lawrence W. Levine, Black C(ultture anid Black (Comcitansess (Ncw York, 1978), 157. Levinie's work is indispensable for historians stuLdying southerni folk CultuLres, black or white.

32 Kenneth Schulyler Lynni, Mark Twaitn and Southwestem rIunuor (Boston, 1960), 23-32. 33 Harden TI'aliaferro created a character who inicited others to fight by iniadvertently Uttering Latin phrases,

making thenm feel initellectLually inferior; Fis/cr'es RiVer Scenes, 193-94. Mike Finik once challenge(l a mani who failed to laulgh at his stories, claiming that the straniger's suLlletnniess damlpenecl everyone's spirits; Blair anld Meine, Mike Fink, 112-13. For the themne ot defenidinig reptutation, see Ileter Berger et at., Tlhe hIomneless Mitnd (New York, 1973), 83-96; Wyatt-Brown, Southernl Honor, 14-15; and Edward L. Ayers, Venkgeance andJwstice, Crime and Punishment in thte Ninleteenth-Century Amenrican South (New York, 1984), chap. 1.

11 For example, see C. F. Hoffman, A Winter int tile West, By a Neuw Yorker, 2 (New York, 1835), 221-24, as cited in James 1. Robertson, Jr., "Frolics, Fights, and Firewater in Frontier T enn tessee," Tentiessee Ihi.storical Qnarterly, 17 (1958): 97. Whites' sensitivity to affrotnt cani be contrasted with blacks who miiade ritualizecl insult into a dueling game commonly called "the dozens." Playing the doz7ens toulghened blacks for the abuLse that whites inevitably gave them. See, for example, Levine, Black Cultuire and Black Conscio.stiess, 344-58; John Dollard, "The Dozens: Dialect of Insult," American Imagao, 1 (1939): 3-25; anid Roger 1). Abrahatns, "Playinig the D)ozens," Journal oJ Amerisca7 Folklore, 75 (1962): 209-20. Botlh articles are reprinted in Alan Dulnides, Mother Wit firom the Lauglitlng Barrel (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973), 277-94, 295-309.

Thus, C,hristian Schultz, Jr., overheard two drunkeni riverboatnmen aiguing over a Choctaw womain;

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"Goutge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch" 29

Such elaborate boasts were not composed on the spot. Folklorists point out that free-phrase verbal forms, from Homeric epics to contemporary blues, are created through an oral formulaic process. The singer of epics, for example, does not memorize thousands of lines but knows the underlying skeleton of his narrative and, as he sings, fleshes it out with old commonplaces and new turns of phrase. In this way, oral formulaic composition merges cultural continuity with individual creativity. A similar but simplified version of the same process was at work in backwoods bragging.36

A quarter-century after the above exchange made its way into print, several of the same phrases still circulated orally and were worked into new patterns. "'By Gaud, stranger,' said he, 'do you know me?-do you know what stuff I'm made of? Clear steamboat, sea horse, alligator-run agin me, run agin a snag-jam up- whoop! Got the prettiest sister, and biggest whiskers of any man hereabouts-I can lick my weight in wild cats, or any man in all Kentuck!"'37 Style and details changed, but the themes remained the same: comparing oneself to wild animals, boasting of possessions and accomplishments, asserting domination over others. Mike Fink, legendary keelboatman, champion gouger, and fearless hunter, put his own mark on the old form and elevated it to art:

"I'm a salt River roarer! I'm a ring tailed squealer! I'm a regular screamer from the old Massassip! Whoop! I'm the very infant that refused his milk before its eyes were open and called out for a bottle of old Rye! I love the women and I'm chockful o' fight! I'm half wild horse and half cock-eyed alligator and the rest o' me is crooked snags an' red-hot snappin' turtle.... I can out-run, out-jump, out-shoot, out-brag, out-drink, an' out-fight, rough-an'- tumble, no holts barred, any man on both sides the river from Pittsburgh to New Orleans an' back ag'in to St. Louiee. Come on, you flatters, you bargers, you milk white mechanics, an' see how tough I am to chaw! I ain't had a fight for two days an' I'm spilein' for exercise. Cock-a-doodle-doo!"38

Tall talk and ritual boasts were not uniquely American. Folklore indexes are filled with international legends and tales of exaggeration.39 But inflated language did find a secure home in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. Spread- eagle rhetoric was tailor-made for a young nation seeking a secure identity. Bombastic speech helped justify the development of unfamiliar social institutions, flowery oratory salved painful economic changes, and lofty words masked aggres- sive territorial expansion. In a circular pattern of reinforcement, heroic talk spurred heroic deeds, so that great acts found heightened meaning in great words. Alexis de Tocqueville observed during his travels in the 1830s that clearing land, draining swamps, and planting crops were hardly the stuff of literature. But the

Moore, Frontier Mind, 1 15. Also see Richard M. Dorson, edl., Dail Crockett, Americant Comilc Legend (New York, 1939), xv-xvii.

36 Albert B. Lord and Milman Perry found that, despite the passage of decades, Serbo-Croatian epics changed in detail but not in plot or structure. Lord described their field studies in his Thle Singer of Tales (New York, 1971), chaps. 1-3. Also see William R. Ferris, Jr., Blues from the Delta (New York, 1978), sect. 2.

37 Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor, 27. 38 Blair and Meine, Mike Fink, 105-06. 39 Stith Thompson, Thle Folktale (New York, 1946), and(l Motif Index of Folk Literature (Bloomington, Ind.,

1955-58).

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"A Street Fight," The Crockett Almanac, 1841 (Nashville, Tenn., [1840]). Woodcut reproduced courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.

collective vision of democratic multitudes building a great nation formed a grand poetic ideal that haunted men's imaginations.40

The gaudy poetry of the strapping young nation had its equivalent in the exaggeration of individual powers. Folklore placing man at the center of the universe buttressed the emergent ideology of equality. Tocqueville underestimated Americans' ability to celebrate the mundane, for ego magnification was essential in a nation that extolled self-creation. While America prided itself on shattering old boundaries, on liberating individuals from social, geographic, and cultural encum- brances, such freedom left each citizen frighteningly alone to succeed or fail in forging his own identity. To hyperbolize one's achievements was a source of power and control, a means of amplifying the self while bringing human, natural, and social obstacles down to size. The folklore of exaggeration could transform even the most prosaic commercial dealings into great contests. Early in the nineteenth century, legends of crafty Yankee peddlers and unscrupulous livestock traders abounded.4' A horse dealer described an animal to a buyer in the 1840s: "'Sir, he can jump a house or go through a pantry, as it suits him; no hounds are too fast for

40 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2: 75-83. 41 See, for example, Eugene W. Hollon, Frontier Violence, Another Look (New York, 1974), 21; "A Kentucky

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"Gouge artd Bite, P/ll Hfair a(nd Srat(-l" 3 1

himn, no day too long f'or himi. He has the courage of' a lioni, ancl the docility of' a lamb, and you may ride him with a thread. Weight (lid you say? Why, he would carry the niational debt and not bate a penny."' 'f'he miost inisipid marketplalce transactions were transfigured by inflated language, legends of heroic salesmarn- ship, and an ethos of contest and battle. '4

The oral narratives of' the southern backcounti-v drew strenigth f'romn these national traditions yet possessed unique characteristics. Above all, fight legenids portrayed backwoodsmeen reveling in blood. Violence existed for its own sake, unencumbered by romantic conventionis aind claimiing no redeeming social or psychic value. Gouging narratives may have mnasked gv-imness with black humor, but they offered little pretense that violence was a creative or civilizing force.-' Thus, one Kentuckian def'eated a bear by chewing off its nose and scratchinlg out its eyes. "They can't stand Kentucky play," the settler proclaimed, "biting and gouging are too hard ftr thern." Humor quickly slipped toward horror, when Davy Crockett, for example, coolly boasted, "I kept my thuint) in his eye, and was just going to give it a twist and brinig the peeper out, like taking up a gooseberry in a spoon." To Crockett's eternal chagrin, somneone interrupted the battle just at this crucial juncture.44

Sadistic violence gave many frontier- legends a surr-eal quatlity. TI wo Mississippi raftsmen engaged in ritual boasts aind insults after one accidentally nudged the other toward the water, wetting his shoes. Cheered on by their respective gangs, they stripped off their shirts, then pummneled, knocked out teeth, and wore skin from each other's faces. The older combatant askecl if his opponent had had enough. "Yes," he was told, "when I drink your heart's blood, I'll cry enough, and not till then." The younger mian gouged out an eye. just as quickly, his opponenlt was on top, strangling his adversary. But in a final reversal of fortunes, the would- be victor cried out, then rolled over dead, a stab wouind in his side. Protected by his clique, the winner junped in the water, swam to a river island, an-d crowed: "Ruoo- ruoo-o! I can lick a stearmboat. My fingernails is related to a sawnill onI my mother's side and my daddy was a double breasted catamilounlt! I wear a hoop snake k)r a neck-handkerchief, and the brass buttons on my coat have all been boiled in poison."45

Fight," New1it York Spirit o thtle Time.s, December 12, 1833, p. 2; klitcha(1 NI. D)orsoii, Aiei-rica ii, Legend (Newv York, 1973), 57-122; Neil Harr-is, 1hiumibig1,: The Ar-t of P. 7. Beiin no (Bostoni, 197'3), 67-89; ain(l Lawreit e WV. Levine, "William Shakespeare and(l the Amrcr-ican People: A Stndy in (,nhnral Ilransforion,' AHR n89 (1984): 5'3-54.

12 Nezra' York Spirit of the Timnse, May 30, 1846, p. 1 59. Legendcls of frolntietr hfglltilng f nl(l thlCilr WsiV ilitO tonllic almanacs aind dime riovels andi onto the urban stage. Grandliose boasts ntl legeii(tdr-v figlhts fectl a ntiOnlal tratlition celebrating larger-than-life her^oes. See Blair and )Mville, Ali'ke Fiik, 105-25; (uiistaiicc Ronlrke, AmericancIii ttor (New York, 1931), 33-55; IDorson, Daz Ci,oekett, x\-xx\i, 34-33, 3i-412. 60-6 1, 127-30; and Robertsoin, "Frolics, Fights, and Firewater," 97-99.

1: Ftor the mo-nst wide-raingin-g discnLssioni of violecnce in Amtni'r ait ftioln, set Ritchard Slotkill, R(eg,e1srt:on Thironlg/i Violence (Middletowni, Conn., 1 973), esp. chaps. 9-1 3. Also see I)ad it Brion I)lavis, IlOsmiilode it A merirein Fictiontt, 1798-1860 (Ithaca, 1957); and KeniIeth StChnvleV LVIInn, 'Violence in ASmerictan literaltLlure anld Folklore," in Htlgh Davis Grahanm antI TIcl Robert Gnrr, etls., Vinoleoo in Ams'ri,,'ei: lirstorieiall eian (ion pelatie Perspectives (New York, 1969), 226-45.

'"James B. Fiiley, as quloted in Moore, Fron,tier iVndid, 87; andt Dorson, I)Dna" C.iork'tt, 83. Anotht'r KCenttick;ail fought anI alligator antI insistetd that liis cotmratles stay hat k anud 'gi xe t lit fclltowv fLilr- play. lsli alligttot-, (if course, lost bottf eves. Moore, hrotntierAl ieln, 87.

45 "An Arkansas Fight," Neziw Yor-k Spirit oj thle Timies, Fcbr-LuIIr 1 8, 18'13, p. 6 1 1. FoIr san nalysis of the graphic realisml Otf SIch stories, see N(irris X.ates, Wdillicimii T. Porter (lald the Spiiit oi/ til Tities (Baton Rouge 13957), 1 1 8-22.

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32 ElliottJ. Gorn

The danger and violence of daily lif'e in the backwoods contributed mightily to sanguinary oral traditions that exalted the strong and deprecated the weak. Early in the nineteenth century, the Southwest contained more than its share of terrifying wild aninmals, powerful and well-organized Indian tribes, and marauding white outlaws. Equally important were high inf'ant mortality rates and short life expectan- cies, agricultural blights, class inequities, and the centuries-old belief' that betrayal and cruelty were man's fate. Emmeline Grangerford's graveyard poetry-set against a backdrop of rural isolatiorn shattered by sadistic clan feuds-is but the best-known expression of the deep loneliness, death longings, and melancholy that permeated backcountry life.46

At first glance, boisterous tall talk and violent legends seem far removed from sadness and alienation. Yet, as Kenneth Lynn has argued, they grew from common origins, and the former allowed men to resist succumbing to the latter. Not passive acceptance but identification with brutes and brawlers characterized frontier legendry. Rather than be overwhelmed by violence, acquiesce in an oppressive environment, or submit to death as an escape from tragedy, why not make a virtue of necessity and flaunt one's unconcern? To revel in the lore of' deformity, mutilation, and death was to beat the wilderness at its own game.47 The storyteller's art dramatized life and converted nameless anxieties into high adventure; bravado helped men f'ace down a threatening world and transform terror into power. To claim that one was sired by wild animals, kin to natural disasters, and tougher than steam engines-which were displacing rivermen in the antebellum era-was to gain a momentary respite f'rom fear, a cathartic, if temnporary, sense of' being in control. Symbolically, wild boasts overwhelmed the very forces that threatened the back- woodsmen.

But there is another level of meaning here. Sometimes fight legends invited an ambiguous response, mingling the celebration of' beastly acts with the rejection of barbarism. By their very nature, tall tales elicit skepticism. Even while men identified with the violence that challenged them, the folklore of eye gouging constantly tested the limits of' credibility.48 "Pretty soon I got the squatter down, and just then he fixed his teeth into my throte, and I f'elt my windpipe begin to loosen."49 'The calculated coolness and understatenment of this description high- lights the outrageousness of the act. The storyteller has artfully maneuvered his audience to the edge of credulity.

Backwoodsmen mocked their animality by exaggerating it, thereby affirming their own humanity. A Kentuckian battled inconclusively from ten in the morning until sundown, when his wife showed up to cheer him on:

"So I gathered all the little strength I had, and I socked my thumb in his eye, and with my

46 For two examiniations of the deep pessimnismr aticl ndelanicholy pervatlinig backwoods life, see Wyatt-Bi-owni, Southern hIlonior, 29-34; and Bruce, Violence (an1d Cidtlre, chap. 4. Also see Mark 'twain, Thle Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884; reprint, New York, 1959), 104-07.

47 Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Hulmtor, 23-32. 48 Rourke, American Humor, chap. 2. Neil Harris arguedi that stretchinig the limits of creduLlity was precisely

the appeal of P. r. Barnum. In a democratic society, inidividuals imiust distillgLish shamii from truLth, the very game BarnuLm played with his auclience; Hlumbuqg, 67-89.

49 Dorson, Davry Crockett, 83.

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Iflair and Scr-atchl" 33

fingers took a twist on his snot box, and with the other hand, I grabbed him by the back of the head; I then caught his ear in my mouth, gin his head a Hirt, atnd out come his ear by the roots! I then flopped his head over, and caught his other ear in my moutlh, and jerked that out in the same way, and it made a hole in his head that I could have rammed my fist through, and I was just goin' to when he hollered: 'Nuff!"'5"

More than realisrm or fantasy alone, fight legends stretched the imagination by blending both. As metaphoric statements, they reconciled contradictory impulses, at once glorifying and parodying barbarity. In this sense, gougilng narratives were commentaries on backwoods life. The legends were texts that allowed plain folk to dramatize the tensions and ambiguities of their lives: they hauled society's goods yet lived on its fringe; they destroyed forests and game while clearing the land for settlement; they killed Indians to make way for the white man's culture; they struggled for self-sufficiency only to become ensnared in economic dependency. Fight narratives articulated the fundamental contradiction of frontier life-the abandonment of "civilized" ways that led to the ultimnate expansiorl of civilized society.5I

FOREIGN TRAVELERS MIGHT EXAGGERATE and backwoods storytellers emibellish, but the most neglected fact about eye-gouging matches is their actuality.2 Circuit Court Judge Aedamus Burke barely contained his astonishment while presiding in South Carolina's upcountry: "Before God, gentlemen of the jury, I never saw such a thing before in the world. There is a plaintiff with an eye out! A juror with an eye out! And two witnesses with an eye out!" If the "ringtailed roarers" did not actually breakfast on stewed Yankee, washed down with spike nails and epsom salts, court records from Sumner County, Arkansas, did describe assault victimns with the words "nose was bit." The gamest "gamecock of the wilderness" never really moved steamboat engines by grinning at them, but Reuben Cheek did receive a three-year sentence to the Tennessee penitentiary for gouging out William Maxey's eye.53 Most backcountrymen went to the grave with their faces intact, just as most of the southern gentry never fought a duel. But as an extreme version of the conmmon tendency toward brawling, street fighting, and seeking personal vengeance, rough-

50 Moore, F rontier Mind, 112. 51 In Regeneration Through Violence, Slotkin argued that this contradiction was the very font of literatuLre anid

folklore on the American frontier. Also sce Lynn, Mark Twairn and Southwesteirn hlumor, 23-32. 52 Folklorists and literary scholars, primarily intereste(d in textLual analysis, too readily dismiss the reality of

these battles. See, for exanmple, Walter Blair and Hamlin Hill, America's Mumor from Poor Richard to Doole.sbuiy (New York, 1978), 113-32; and Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Ilhimor, 23-32.

53 Benjamin F. Perry, as quoted in Williams, Vogues in Villainy, 33; Dorson, Davy Cr-ockett, xv-xvi; anid Robertson, "Frolics, Fights, and Firewater," 109. Perry's diary, 1832-60, is in the Southerni I-listorical Collectioni of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Williams also recounted the case of ajjudge who senteicend two defendants-one missing his lip, the other an ear-to the same cell: "[Now] you may bite onc aniother as mul:ch as you please"; Vogues in Villainy, 33. Wyatt-Brown included the following accoulnt: "In Davi(dson County, North Carolina, a drunken young motuntaineer named William Tippett had bitten off a large piece of ol( Arthur Newsome's chin, almost plucked out his left eye, and grasped Newsome's right eye with his other hand(l. A witness at the tavern scene reported that Tippett 'felt the eyeball slip arounid his fingers,' anid said with a laugh before the crowd watching that 'he reckoned the fire flew mightily' out of that eye. Indeed, the old mnan was left with just one, badly injured, eye when the right one popped out some days later." Southern Honor, 393.

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34 ElliottJ. Gorn

and-tumbling gives us insight into the deep values and assumptions-the mentalit- of backwoods life.54

Observers often accused rough-and-tumblers of fighting like animals. But eye gouging was not instinctive behavior, the human equivalent of two rams vying for dominance. Animals fight to attain specific objectives, such as food, sexual priority, or territory. Precisely where to draw the line between human aggression as a genetically programmed response or as a product of social and cultural learning remains a hotly debated issue. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to make a case for eye gouging as a genetic imperative, coded behavior to maximize individual or species survival. Although rough-and-tumble fighting appears primitive and anar- chic to modern eyes, there can be little doubt that its origins, rituals, techniques, and goals were emphatically conditioned by environment; gouging was learned behav- ior. Humanistic social science more than sociobiology holds the keys to understand- ing this phenomenon.55

What can we conclude about the culture and society that nourished rough-and- tumble fighting? The best place to begin is with the material base of life and the nature of daily work. Gamblers, hunters, herders, roustabouts, rivermen, and yeomen farmers were the sorts of persons usually associated with gouging. Such hallmarks of modernity as large-scale production, complex division of labor, and regular work rhythms were alien to their lives. Recent studies have stressed the premodern character of the southern uplands through most of the antebellum period. Even while cotton production boomed and trade expanded, a relatively small number of planters owned the best lands and most slaves, so huge parts of the South remained outside the flow of international markets or staple crop agricul- ture. Thus, backcountry whites commonly found themselves locked into a semisub- sistent pattern of living. Growing crops for home consumption, supplementing food supplies with abundant game, allowing small herds to fatten in the woods, spending scarce money for essential staples, and bartering goods for the services of part-time or itinerant trades people, the upland folk lived in an intensely local, kin- based society. Rural hamlets, impassable roads, and provincial isolation-not growing towns, internal improvements, or international commerce-characterized the backcountry.56

34On the remarkably high rate of interpersonal violence in the South, see Ayers, Vengeance andJustice, 9-33, 98-101, 111-16, 263-76; Michael S. Hindus, Prison and Plantation: Crime, Justice, and Authority in Massahusetts and South Carolina, 1767-1878 (Chapel Hill, 1980), 42-49, 63-67, 96-98; and Williams, Vogues in Villamy, 6-7, 11-14, 31-38.

55The nature or nurture debate rages on. For examples, see Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Hua n Destruciveness (New York, 1973), pts. 1, 2; Clifford Geertz, "The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of the Mind," in his The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), chap. 3; Lionel Tiger, Men in Groups (New York, 1969); Richard G. Sipes, "War, Sports, and Aggression: An Empirical Test of Two Rival Theories," American Anthropologist, new ser., 75 (1973): 64-86; Edward 0. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass., 1975); Charles J. Lumsden and Edward 0. Wilson, Promethean Fire: Reflectiom on the Origin of Mind (Cambridge, Mass., 1982); Daniel G. Freedman, Human Sociobiology (New York, 1979); Ashley Montagu, ed., Sociobiology Examined (New York, 1980); Michael S. Gregory et al., Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature (New York, 1984); Marshall Sahlins, The Use and Abuse of Biology (Ann Arbor, 1976); Stephen Jay Gould, "Genes on the Brain," New York Review, June 30, 1983, pp. 5-10; and Peter Marsh and Anne Campbell, eds., Aggression and Violence (Oxford, 1982).

56 Moore, Frontier Mind, 114-18; Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South, chap. 3; and Wyatt-Brown, Southem Honor, esp. chap. 2. Several recent studies have emphasized the premodern, localistic social and cultural

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"Gouge anid Bite, Pull flalir and Scratch" 35

Even men whose livelihoods depended on expanding markets often continued their rough, premodern ways. Characteristic of life on a Mississippi barge, for example, were long periods of' idleness shattered by intense anixiety, as deadly snags, shoals, and storms approached. Running aground on a sandbar mneant backbreaking labor to maneuver a thirty-ton vessel out of' trouble. Boredom weighed as heavily as danger, so tale telling, singing, drinking, and gamnbling filled the empty hours. Once goods were taken on in New Orleans, the men began the thousand-mile return journey against the current. Bef'ore steam power replaced muscle, bad f'ood and whiskey fueled the gangs who day after day, exposed to wind and water, poled the river bottoms or strained at the cordelling ropes until their vessel reached the tributaries of the Missouri or the Ohio. Hunters, trappers, herdsmen, subsistence farmers, aind other backwoodsmen f'aced diff'erent but equally taxing hardships, and those who endured prided themselves on their strength and daring, their stamina, cunning, and f'erocity.57

Such men played as lustily as they worked, counterpointing bouts of' intense labor with strenuous leisure. What travelers mistook for laziness was a ref'usal to work and save with compulsive regularity. "I have seen nothing in human form so profligate as they are," James Flint wrote of the boatmen he met around 1820. "Accomplished in depravity, their habits and education seem to comprehend every vice. They make few pretensions to moral character; and their swearing is excessive and perfectly disgusting. Although earning good wages, they are in the most abject poverty; many of them being without anything like clean or comfortable clothing." A generation later, Mark Twain vividly remnembered those who manned the great timber and coal rafts gliding past his boyhood home in Hannibal, Missouri: "Rude, uneducated, brave, suf'f'ering terrific hardships with sailorlike stoicism; heavy drinkers, course frolickers in moral sties like the Natchez-under-the-hill of' that day, heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, f'oul witted, prof'ane; prodigal of their m-oney, bankrupt at the end of' the trip, fonld of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, f'aithf'ul to promises and duty, and often picaresquely magnanimous." Details might change, but penury, loose morality, and lack of steady habits endured.58

Boatmen, hunters, and herdsmen were often separated f'rom wives and children for long periods. More inmportant, backcountry couples lacked the emotionally intense experience of the bourgeois f'amily. They spent much of' their time apart and found companionship with members of their own sex. The frontier town or crossroads tavern brought males together in surrogate brotherhoods, where rough men paid little deference to the civilizing role of' women and the rnoral uplift of' the domestic family. On the margins of a booming, modernizing society, they shared an

patterns of' thc Llpland South and their transformation dtLriing the micldle dleca(des of the nineteenth CeolttU N. See Hahn, Rooti of Populrsm, pt. 1; J. Mills I'hornton III, Politics (ad Pawnr ia1 a Slave Societ'v: Alabamita, 1800-1860 (Batori Rouge, 1978), chaps. 1, 5; William L. Barney, The Seceasiomist Impilies. Alabama alnd Mis.SI.mipi i'l 1860 (Princeton, 1974), (chap. 1; anld Forrest McDonaldk and Grady McWhineN. "'i'he South fIro)mi Self-StLffi(eincv to Peonage: An Interpretationi," AHR, 85 (1980): 1103-1 1.

57 Moore, Frontier Miind, 117-21; Bruce, Violence anid ( dtCore, chaps. 4, 9; Owslex Plaja Folk of the 0/el Soot/ chap. 3; and Malcolmii j. RohrhotLgh, The Trani-AppIl5alachial kroltier (New York, 1978), 283-84.

58 Flint, as quoted in Moore F rontier Alitd, 1 15; and 'Iwain, Life o07 the Msi8ioipp)i ( 883X3; reprint, Newv York, 1961), 24.

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36 Elliott J. Gorn

intensely communal yet fiercely competitive way of lif'e. Thus, where work was least rationalized and specialized, domesticity weakest, legal institutions primnitive, and the mnarket economy f'eeble, rough-and-tumble fighting found f'ertile soil.`9'

Just as the economy of the southern backcountry remiained locally oriented, the rough-and-tumblers were local heroes, renowned in their communities. There was no professionalization here. Men fought for inf'ormal village and county titles; the red feather in the champion's cap was pay enough because it marked him as first among his peers. Paralleling the primitive division of labor in backwoods society, boundaries between entertainment and daily life, between spectators and partici- pants, were not sharply drawn. "Bully of the Hill" Ab Gaines f'rom the Big Hatchie Country, Neil Brown of Totty's Bend, Vernon's William Holt, and Smithfield's Jim Willis-all of them were renowned Tennessee fighters, local heroes in their day. Legendary champions were real individuals, tested gang leaders who attained their status by being the meanest, toughest, and most ruthless fighters, who faced disfigurement and never backed down. Challenges were ever present; yesterday's spectator was today's chamnpion, today's champion tomorrow's invalid.(""

Given the lives these men led, a world view that embraced fearlessness made sense. Hunters, trappers, Indian fighters, and herdsmen who knew the smell of' warm blood on their hands ref'used to sentimnentalize an environment filled with threatening f'orces. It was not that backwoodsmen lived in constant danger but that violence was unpredictable. Recreations like cockfighting deadened men to cruelty, and the gratuitous savagery of' gouging matches reinforced the daily truth that lif'e was brutal, guided only by the logic of' superior nerve, power, and cunning.6' With families emotionally or physically distant and civil institutions weak, a man's role in the all-nmale society was defined less by his ability as a breadwinner than by his ferocity. The touchstone of masculinity was unflinching toughness, not chivalry, duty, or piety. Violent sports, heavy drinking, and imrpulsive pleasure seeking were appropriate for men whose lives were hard, whose f'utures were unpredictable, and whose opportunities were limited. Gouging champions were group leaders because they embodied the basic values of' their peers. The successful rough-and-tumbler proved his manhood by asserting his dominiance and rendering his opponent "impotent," as Thomas Ashe put it. And the loser, though literally or symbolically castrated, demonstrated his mettle and maintained his honor.62

Here we begin to understand the travelers' refrain about plain f'olk degradation.

59 Robertsoni, "Frolics, Fights, and Firewatter"; Isaac, Troanformotio-n of Virinila, 94-98; ani( Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, esp. chaps. 2, 3, 6, 11 13 . For a speculative disCLssion of the transflornmation of iliale roles f'roint premodern to modlerni tiimies, see Peter N. Stearns, Ben Mani: Mlales 0'i Modern Society, (NewA York, 1979), chaps. 2, 3.

W Robertson, "Frolics, Fights, and Firewater," 109. Robertson inotetl that observers were so aroused duLrinig an 1816 fighL in Elkton, TI'eninessee, that several rouLgh-andi-tumibles qUickly commenced.

61 Bruce, Violence and Cultutre, chap. 9. For a fihne disCUssion of clhaniginig English attitUtldes toward animals, see Keith TFhomas, Man antd the Natiaral W(or-ld (Londoni, 1983), esp, clhaps. 3, 4. Ain Americain Coulinterpart to T homas's work remains to be writtein.

t2 Moore described the group valuLes of these mein; Frontier Minid, 119-22. Ilntellse loyalties alnld frightful initragroup competition at first seem conitradictory. For an excellent disCLssioI of( how nutuially excILISive norms, suLch as depenidenice and independenice, coexist in the souLtherni ImIoulnltainis, see Kai 1. Eriksoni, EveiTthlig iM Its Pathl (New York, 1976), 88-93. Also see Stearni's disCLssion of male values in huLn1tilng societies; Be a Man, chatp. 2.

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair arnd Scratch" 37

Setting out from northern ports, whose inhabitants were increasingly possessed by visions of godly perf'ection and material progress, they found southern upcountry people slothful and backward. Ashe's Quaker friend in Wheeling, Virginia, made the point.63 For Quakers and northern evangelicals, labor was a means of moral self-testing, and earthly success was a sign of God's grace, so hard work and steady habits became acts of piety. But not only Yankees endorsed sober restraint. A growing number of southern evangelicals also embraced a life of decorous self- control, rejecting the hedonistic and self-assertive values of' old. During the late eighteenth century, as Rhys Isaac has observed, many plain f'olk disavowed the hegemonic gentry culture of conspicuous display and found individual worth, group pride, and transcendent meaning in religious revivals. By the antebellum era, new evangelical waves washed over class lines as rich and poor alike forswore such sins as drinking, gambling, cursing, fornication, horse racing, and dancing. But conversion was far from universal, and, for many in backcountry settlements like Wheeling, the evangelical idiom remained a foreign tongue. Men worked hard to feed themselves and their kin, to acquire goods and status, but they lacked the calling to prove their godliness through rigid morality. Salvation and self-denial were culturally less compelling values, and the barriers against leisure and self- gratification were lower here than among the converted.34

Moreover, primitive markets and the semisubsistence basis of upcountry life limited men's dependence on goods produced by others and allowed them to maintain the irregular work rhythms of' a precapitalist economy. The material base of backwoods life was ill suited to social transf'ormation, and the cultural traditions of the past offered alternatives to rigid new ideals. Closing up shop in mid-week for a fight or horse race had always been perfectly acceptable, because men labored so that they might indulge the joys of' the flesh. Neither a compulsive need to save time and money nor an obsession with progress haunted people's imaginations. The backcountry folk who lacked a bourgeois or Protestant sense of duty were little disturbed by exhibitions of human passions and were resigned to violence as part of daily life. Thus, the relative dearth of capitalistic values (such as delayed gratifica- tion and accumulation), the absence of a strict work ethic, and a cultural tradition that winked at lapses in moral rigor limited society's demands for sober self- control.65

Not just unconverted poor whites but also large numbers of the slave-holding gentry still lent their prestige to a regional style that favored conspicuous displays of' leisure. As C. Vann Woodward has pointed out, early observers, such as Robert Beverley and William Byrd, as well as modern-day commentators, have described a distinctly "southern ethic" in American history. Whetherjudged positively as leisure

63 Ashe, Travels in America, 82-88. Also see Williams, Vaiues inr Villainy, 26. 64 Isaac, Transfonration of Virginia, pt. 2; anid Donald G,. Matthews, Relgi7on in1 the Old Soottht (Chicago, 1977),

chap. 3. For an exceptional discussion of the social and religious origins of the niorther-ni work ethic, see Daniel T. Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (Chicago, 1979), esp. chap. 1. OIn crime patternls and social differences in the nineteenith-century North aind SouLth, see Hinidus, Pnson (and Plantation, 34-36, 53- 55, 96-98, 242-55; and Ayers, Vengeance andJustice, 16-33, 119-23.

65 Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, chaps. 2, 3; Rodgers, Work Ethic in Iimd stril America, chap. 1; Hahn, Southern Populism, pt. 1; Ayers, Vengeance and Jutstice, chap. 4; Thorniton, Politics antd Power, chaps. 1-5; anid Bariney, Secessionist Impulse, chap. 1.

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38 ElliottJ. Corn

or negatively as laziness, the southern sensibility valued free time anld rejected work as the consuming goal of life. Slavery reinforced this tendency, for how could labor be an unmitigated virtue if so much of it was performed by despised black bondsmen? When southerners did esteern commerce and enterprise, it was less because piling up wealth contained religious or moral value than because produc- tivity facilitated the leisure ethos. Southerners could theref'ore work hard without placing labor at the center of their ethical universe. In important ways, then, the upland folk culture reflected a larger regional style. 66

Thus, the values, ideas, and institutions that rapidly transf'ormed the North into a modern capitalist society came late to the South. Indeed, conspicuous display, heavy drinking, moral casualness, and love of' games and sports had deep roots in mnuclh of Western culture. As Woodward has cautioned, we must take care not to interpret the southern ethic as unique or aberrant. The compulsions to subordinate leisure to productivity, to divide work and play into separate compartmentalized realms, andl to improve each bright and shining hour were the novel ideas. The southern ethic anticipated human evil, tolerated ethical lapses, and accepted the finitude of' nan in contrast to the new style that demanded unprecedented moral rectitude and internalized self-restraint.67

THE AMERICAN SOUTH ALSO SHARED with large parts of the Old World a taste for violence and personal vengeance. Long after the settling of' the southern colonies, powerful patriarchal clans in Celtic and Mediterranean larlds still avenged affronts to family honor with deadly feuds.8 Norbert Elias has pointed out that postmedie- val Europeans routinely spilled blood to settle their private quarrels. Across classes, the story was the same:

Two associates fall out over business; they quarrel, the conHflict grows violenit; one day they meet in a public place and one of them strikes the other dead. An ininkeeper accuses another of stealing his clients; they become mortal enemies. Someone says a few malicious words about another; a family war develops.... Not only ainonig the nobility were there family vengeance, private feuds, vendettas.... The little people too-the hatters, the tailors, the shepards-were all quick to draw their knives.

Emotions were freely expressed: jollity and laughter suddenly gave way to belligerence; guilt and penitence coexisted with hate; cruelty always lurked nearby. The mnodern middle-class individual, with his subdued, rational, calculatinig ways, finds it hard to understand the joy sixteenth-century Frenchmen took in ceremoni- ally burning alive one or two dozen cats every Midsummer Day or the pleasure

66 Woodward, 'Soultherni Ethic in a Puritan World," 36-37, 42. For a fitahe analysis of souLtherners' historic compulsion to discuss their region, see Fred Hobson, Tell Abouit the Sootth: The Soit/hertu Rage to Ex laitin (Batonl Rouge, 1983).

67 For Old World examples, see Robert W. Malcolmnson, Popular- Recreatioms i'w Etug/iO Society, 1700-1850 (Camnbridge, 1973), chatp. 4; and Peter Burke, Popular Cuzltu-e int- Early Moderni Eutrope (New York, 1978), chaps. 7-9.

68 Wyatt-Brown, Souithern lIonor, 366-69; and Julio Caro-Baroja, "H)otoLir antiI Sliame: Ani Historical Accounit of Several Conflicts," trans. R. Johnson, in j. G. Per-istianiy, lIontor antd Shame (Chicago, 1966), 88-9 1.

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Ilair and Scratch" 39

eighteenth-century Englishmen found in watching trained dogs slaughter each other.69

Despite enormous cultural differences, inhabitants of the southern uplands exhibited characteristics of their forebears in the Old World. The Scots-Irish brought their reputation for ferocity to the backcountry, but English migrants, too, had a thirst for violence. Central authority was weak, and men reserved the right to settle differences for themselves. Vengeance was part of daily life. Drunken hilarity, good fellowship, and high spirits, especially at crossroads taverns, suddenly turned to violence. Traveler after traveler remarked on how forthright and friendly but quick to anger the backcountry people were. Like their European ancestors, they had not yet internalized the modern world's demand for tight emotional self- control.70

Above all, the ancient concept of honor helps explain this shared proclivity for violence. According to the sociologist Peter Berger, modern men have difficulty taking seriously the idea of honor. American jurisprudence, for example, offers legal recourse for slander and libel because they involve material damages. But insult-publicly smearing a man's good name and besmirching his honor-implies no palpable injury and so does not exist in the eyes of the law. Honor is an intensely social concept, resting on reputation, community standing, and the esteem of kin and compatriots. To possess honor requires acknowledginent from others; it cannot exist in solitary conscience. Modern man, Berger has argued, is more responsive to dignity-the belief that personal worth inheres equally in each individual, regardless of his status in society. Dignity frees the evangelical to confront God alone, the capitalist to make contracts without customary encum- brances, and the reformer to uplift the lowly. Naked and alone man has dignity; extolled by peers and covered with ribbons, he has honor.7'

Anthropologists have also discovered the centrality of honor in several cultures. According to J. G. Peristiany, honor and shame often preoccupy individuals in small-scale settings, where face-to-face relationships predominate over anonymous or bureaucratic ones. Social standing in such communities is never completely secure, because it must be validated by public opinion whose fickleness compels men constantly to assert and prove their worth. Julian Pitt-Rivers has added that, if'

69Elias, The CivilizintggProcess, trans. EdmtiundJephcott (New York, 1978), 200-04. While I hnd duLbious Elhas's argument on the recent evolutioni of tnani's brain, his contenitiotn that manners, customs, atnd etiquLette become vehicles of status emulation is convincing. For brilliant recenit discussions of rouiitne crUeltV to aitlrnals throuigh the eighteenth centtLiry anid beyond, see Thomas, Matn (anid the Natural World, chaps. 3, 4; ani(d Robert DLarrton, Thle Great Cat Massacre (New York, 1984), chap. 2. For violence in British sports, see Malcolmson, Popular Recreations, chap. 3; and Eric Dunning and Keiniiethl Sheard, Barbarians, Genitlemzen, and Players: A Sociolognical Study of the Developmient of' Rnglv Football (New York, 1979), 32-43.

70 Charles Agustus MuLrr-ay was especially struck by the quixotic character of KentuLcky hunters. See Murray, Travels in North America (1840; reprint, Lotldon, 1854), 175-76. Grady McWhiniey has kinidly lent ruie a tlraf't chapter entitlecl "Violence" from his forthconilng book on the C,eltic originis of' southeri cuLlttLirc (coauthored with Forrest McD)onald). McWhiney's manuscript vividly captulr es the raw texttLre of antebellUM souitherni life. I am not persuaded, however, by the Celtic thesis becatLsc too rnLch evidence, inIcltiding wor-ks cite(d above, indicates that violence was endemic to nmLuchI of' Britain and the Continent. NMoreover, even if' lescenidenits of' C'elts were more violent thani others, class, not CLulture, may bse the reason-a f:actor McWhiney flOls to considler. For other examples of violence, see Darniton, (Greot Cat Massacre, chap. 1 , anid Lawrence Stone, The Crises (of the Aristocracy, 1558-1642 (New York, 1965), 223-34.

71 Berger et al., Homeless Mitnd, 83-94.

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40 ElliottJ. Gorn

society rejects a man's evaluation of' himself and treats his claim to honor with ridicule or contempt, his very identity suffers because it is based on the judgment of peers. Shaming refers to that process by which an insult or any public humiliation impugns an individual's honor and thereby threatens his sense of self. By risking injury in a violent encounter, an affronted man-whether victorious or not- restores his sense of status and thus validates anew his claim to honor. Only valorous action, not words, can redeemn his place in the ranks of his peer group.72

Bertram Wyatt-Brown has argued that this Old World ideal is the key to understanding southern history. Across boundaries of time, geography, and social class, the South was knit together by a prinmal concept of male valor, part of the ancient heritage of Indo-European folk cultures. Honor demanded clan loyalty, hospitality, protection of women, and def'ense of' patriarchal prerogatives. Honor- able men guarded their reputations, bristled at insults, and, where necessary, sought personal vindication through bloodshed. The culture of honor thrived in hierarchical rural communities like the American South and grew out of a fatalistic world view, which assumed that pain and suffering were man's fate. It accounts for the pervasive violence that marked relationships between southerners and explains their insistence on vengeance and their rejection of legal redress in settling quarrels. Honor tied personal identity to public fulfillment of social roles. Neither bourgeois self-control nor internalized conscience determined status; judgment by one's fellows was the wellspring of community standing.73

In this light, the seemingly trivial causes for brawls enumerated as early as Fithian's time-name calling, subtle ridicule, breaches of' decorum, displays of poor manners-make sense. If a man's good name was his most important possession, then any slight cut him deeply. "Having words" precipitated fights because words brought shame and undermined a man's sense of self. Synmbolic acts, such as buying a round of drinks, conf'erred honor on all, while refusing to share a bottle implied some inequality in social status. Honor inhered not only in individuals but also in kin and peers; when members of' two cliques had words, their tested leaders or several men from each side f'ought to uphold group prestige. Inheritors of primal honor, the southern plain f'olk were quick to take off'ense, and any perceived

72 Honor has especially concerned anthropologists of the Mediterranean. In peristiany's hlonouor and Shlame, see, especially, "IntrodUCtion,' 9-18; Pitt-Rivers, "Hon1ouLr anid Social StatuLS," 19-77; anid Caro-Baroja, "Honor and Shame," 81-137. All of the essays in this collectioni ar e informative. Also see Pitt-Rivers, Thte Fate (o Sechenm o- the Politics of Sex (Cambridge, 1977), "Honor," in David Sills, ed., Thle Intterntationa(il fEnc'clopedio oJ thte Social Sciences, 6 (New York, 1968), 503-10; and j. Davis, People (Y the Mediterranean (Lonidoni, 1977), 89-101.

I" Wyatt-Br-ownl's book is brilliant but occasionally exasperating. For example, hle too oftenr treated1 culture as something established millenia ago and barely modified uLntil the nineteenth cClntuLry-thus, his rather- cavalier dismissal of slavery as the major formative fact of souLtherni history. In his urge to trace broad themes, he sometimes oversimplified complex cultuLral diversity. Anid nmarvelouls ethncographic detail and insighttfl analyses of kinship patterns, sexual roles, power relationiships, anid so forth, Wyatt-Brown frequlently fell back on a static and superorganic concept of culture that failed to do julstice to those imnnediate historical chanlges, particularities of social life, anid specific material conditionis that shape values, beliefs, anid ideologies. Southerner s were niot Teutonic tribesmeni; they were not even Celtic herdsmen. TIhus, the conicept of honor, as applied by Wyatt-Brown, is too all-enicompassing. We need to kniow more about how anid why honor varies across economic systems and cultures. Nevertheless, Wyatt-Browni asked the right qtCestions, anid his book is filled with probing discLIssions and brilliant insights. It is a seminlal work because it will frame years of fruture debate. Orlando Patterson has written a penetrating critique of Wyatt-Brown's book. See Reviews in American History, 12 (1984): 24-30. For a probing discussion of the northern conscience versus southern shame, see Ayers, Vengeance and Justice, chap. 1.

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"Gousge and Bite, Pull Ilair and Scratch" 41

affront forced a man either to devalue himself or to strike back violently and avenge the wrong.74

The concept of male honor takes us a long way toward understanding the meaning of eye-gouging matches. But backwoods people did not simply acqulire some primordial notion without modifying it. Definitions of honorable behavior have always varied enormously across cultures. The southern upcountry fostered a particular style of honor, which grew out of the contradiction between equality and hierarchy. Honorific societies tend to be sharply stratified. Honor is apportioned according to rank, and men fight to maintain personal standing withiln their social categories. Because black chattel slavery was the basis f'or the southern hierarchy, slave owners had the most wealth and honor, while other whites scrambled for a bit of' each, and bondsmen were permanently impoverished and dishonored.75 Here was a source of' tension for the plain folk. Men of' honor shared freedom and equality; those denied honor were implicitly less than equal-perilously close to a slave-like condition. But in the eyes of' the gentry, poor whites as well as blacks were outside the circle of' honor, so both groups were subordinate. Thus, a herdsman's insult f'ailed to shame a planter since the two men were not on the same social level. Without a threat to the gentleman's honor, there was no need for a duel; horsewhipping the insolent f'ellow sufficed.713

Southern plain f'olk, then, were caught in a social contr-adiction. Society taught all white men to consider themselves equals, encouraged thenm to conmpete f'or power and status, yet threatened them f'rom below with the specter of' servitude and f'rom above with insistence on obedience to rank and authority.77 Cut off' f'rom upper- class tests of' honor, backcountry people adopted their own. A rough-and-tumble was more than a poor man's duel, a botched version of' geinteel combat. Plain f'olk chose not to ape the dispassionate, antiseptic, gentry style but to invert it. While the gentleman's code of' honor insisted on cool restraint, eye gougers gloried in unvarnished brutality. In contrast to duelists' aloof' silence, backwoods fighters screamed defiance to the world. As their own unique rites of' honor, rough-and- tumble matches allowed backcountry men to shout their equality at each other. And eye-gouging fights also dispelled any stigma of' servility. Ritual boasts, soaring oaths, outrageous f'erocity, unflinching bloodiness-all pioved a marl's freedom. Where the slave acted obsequiously, the backwoodsman resisted the slightest aff'ront; where human chattels accepted blows and never raised a hand, plain folk

Wyatt-Brolvn, Southern Iotlous, chlaps. 2, 3, 13. Also Sec BruLCC, Violence a(ntd (ulte cha tps. 1-4; Isaac, Transfornoation oJ Virginia, chlap. 5; Ayers, Vengeance andjusctice, 9-28, 99-1 () 1; andt Willitini J1. (Coopei, Tlue Soul/h anrd the Politics of Slaverv, 1828-1856 (Baton Routge, 1978), 69-74, 238-44. (Grow)illg nlUicies of evallgelicals, at small bourgeois class, an(I transplanted foreigners anid Yanikees wvere the Imlost cotispiCuLOLuS oppoitents of the southlcrnl concept of honior.

75 By definition, bondsmcn were "meC wNitlloLlt lhonlor" in all slave societies. ()rIlando Patter soin, Slavery anid Social Deat/i ((Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 10-13, anid chap. 3.

76 Williaimis, Duelli/mg it. tlte 01(/ Soot/i, 26-28; andcl Wyatt-Brown, Soul/titernz flotionot )3-57. O7 ()n the amiibiguous position of poor whites with rcspcct to slavery and(1 eqUality, scee X\illinin L. Barney, 7l/e

Road to Secession: A NewuPe perectilve oi t/ie Old Sonitli (New York, 1972), 10-11, 42-43, 62-65, 136-37; Barnev, Secessiolist Imnpuls, 38-48; Fr(lede-icksoni, Black litm(age, ch.ap. 2; Cooper, T/i.e Soutl/ clnd tlle Politirc of Slavers, 370- 74; 'Ihornitotn, Politics and( Power, xv,iii-xx, 55-58, 32-() 21, 443 S0; MIorgan, Amnerican Slavery, 376-87; and PattcrsoII, Slavery and Social Deaitli, 94-97. Ayers, unlikec Wyatt-Bi-owni, argLed(l that slavery wvas essetntial to the soutlierni hionior- ethilc, a positioin I hiiidl persuasive; Vengreance e nd Jnstice, 26-27.

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42 ElliottJ. Gorn

celebrated violence; where blacks could not jeopardize their value as property, poor whites proved their autonomy by risking bodily parts. Symbolically reaffirming their claims to honor, gouging matches helped resolve painful uncertainties arising out of' the ambiguous place of plain folk in the southern social structure.78

Backwoods fighting reminds us of man's capacity for cruelty and is an excellent corrective to romanticizing premodern life. But a close look also keeps us f'rom drawing facile conclusions about innate human aggressiveness. Eye gouging represented neither the "real" human animal emerging on the frontier, nor nature acting through man in a Darwinian struggle f'or survival, nor anarchic disorder and communal breakdown. Rather, rough-and-tumble fighting was ritualized behav- ior-a product of specific cultural assumptions. Men drink together, tongues loosen, a simmering old rivalry begins to boil; insult is given, offense taken, ritual boasts commence; the fight begins, mettle is tested, blood redeems honor, and equilibrium is restored. Eye gouging was the poor and middling whites' own version of a historical southern tendency to consider personal violence socially useful-iindeed, ethically essential.79

ROUGH-AND-TUMBLE FIGHTING EMERGED from the confluence of economllic condi- tions, social relationships, and culture in the southern backcountry. Primitive markets and the semnisubsistence basis of life threw men back on close ties to kin and community. Violence and poverty were part of daily existence, so endurance, even callousness, became f'unctional values. Loyal to their localities, their occupations, and each other, mnen came together and f'ound release f'rom life's hardships in strong drink, tall talk, rude practical jokes, and cruel sports. They craved one another's recognition but rejected genteel, pious, or bourgeois values, awarding esteem on the basis of their own traditional standards. The glue that held men together was an intensely competitive status systemn in which the most prodigious drinker or strongest arm wrestler, the best tale teller, fiddle player, or log roller, the most daring gambler, original liar, skilled hunter, outrageous swearer, or accurate marksman was accorded respect by the others. Reputation was everything, and scars were badges of honor. Rough-and-tumble fighting demonstrated unflinching willingness to inflict pain while risking mutilation-all to def'end one's standing among peers-and became a central expression of the all-nale subculture.

7O nii dLeling, sce Br-tuce, Violence and Cuiltwre, chap. 1; Williams, Dl)elithng itn the 0/el Southl, chaps. 1-4; Wyatt- Brown, So0tthern Honor, 350-6 1; HindLs, Prison and Plt utatioan, 42-48; and Stepheni M. Stowe, " I he 'Ioulchiniess of the Gentlemans Plainter: T he Senise of Esteemn and Continuitv in the Anite-Bellunm Souith," Psychohistor Review, 8 (1979): 6-17. Symlb)lic inversion has received considerable attenition recently from anthropologists. For a wide-ranging saniple of its applications, see Barbara A. Babcock, ed., Thle Reversible World: Symbolic lveroiilo in Art and Society (Ithaca, 1978). By the antebellum period, kniife hights with opponents' arms tied together anldi quick(draw guin battles marked backwoods fighting, which again seems to mock. wsith ouLtrageouls brutality, the decorum of duels. See Williarns, Doelllng in the O(ld South, 7; and L)avis, IIcniiide in Americani Fictionl, 267-72.

R Rohrbaugh documenited the uniusually highi leCel of ViolenCC onl thIC soutlhwCsternIl frontier in conitrast to the northwestern edge of settlement; Train-Appxlachian Fi-ouItici-, I1 7-1 8, 275-84. Also see Sheldon Hacknlev, "Southern Violence," AIIR, 74 (1969): 906-25; BrtLce, ViV{folence and Cultlure; Wyatt-Brownm, Soiuthtlern IHonor, chap. 13; Isaac, Tran.formation of Virginia, cha). 5; Hinclus, Pri.oni cind Plantation, chap. 3; Avxers, Vengeatice and jactice, 98-101, 113-17; Williams, Vogutes in Villainty, 31-38; Franiklini, Militanit Souith, clha). 3; aind McWhiney, "Violence." For violence in the cointemporary SouLth, see John Sheltoni Reed, The E Lduciug Sooit/l (Lexington. Mass., 1972), chap. 5.

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"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch" 43

Eye gouging continued long after the antebellum period. As the market economy absorbed new parts of the backcountry, however, the way of lif'e that supported rough-and-tumbling waned. Certainly by mid-century the number of incidents declined, precisely when expandinig international demand brought ever more upcountry acres into staple production.8"0Towns, schools, churches, revivals, and families gradually overtook the backwoods. In a slow and uneven process, keelboats gave way to steamers, then railroads; squatters, to cash crop f;armers; hunters and trappers, to preachers. The plain folk code of honor was f;ar from dead, but emergent social institutions engendered a moral ethos that warred against the old ways. For many individuals, the justifications f'or personal violence grew stricter, anid nmayhem became unacceptable.8'

Ironically, progress also had a darker side. New technologies and modes of production could enhance men's fighting abilities. "Birmingham and Pittsburgh ar e obliged to complete . . . the equipment of' the 'chivalric Kentuckian,"' Charles Agustus Murray observed in the 1840s, as bowie knives ended more and more rough-and-tumnbles. Equally important, in 1835 the first modern revolver ap- peared, and manufacturers marketed cheap, accurate editions in the comning decade. Dueling weapons had been costly, and Kentucky rifles or horse pistols took a full minute to load and prime. The revolver, however, which fitted neatly into a man's pocket, settled more and more personal disputes. Raw and brutal as rough- and-tumbling was, it could not survive the use of' arms. Yet precisely because eye gouging was so violent-because comnbatants cherished maimings, blindings, even castrations-it unleashed death wishes that invited new technologies of destruc- tion.8'2

With im-proved weaponry, dueling entered its golden age during the antebellum era. Armed comnbat remained both an expression of' gentry sensibility and a mark of social rank. But in a society where status was always shifting and unclear, dueling did not stay confined to the upper class. The habitual carrying of' weapons, once considered a sign of unmanly fear, now lost some of' its stigma. As the backcountry changed, tests of' honor continued, but gunplay rather thani fighting tooth-and-nail appealed to new men with social aspirations.83 Thus, progress and technology slowly circumscribed riough-and-tumble fighting, only to substitute a deadlier option. Violence grew neater and more lethal as men checked their savagery to murder each other.

SO "'I'he next thing I knowed I was a comieni do' wn on him with mtly hanids anid mily teeth like wsheni I was youLnig, fighteni back homiie. I recollect a thinkeni, 'If' I cain't kill him, I'll inark hmll llop good.' So's I goLlge(d at his eve chewved on1 his ver. I'd kniow himii nowv in a nillionI." I'hots, Clovis Nevels descrihed a higlht in thI 1 940s in lIaririet Arnow's niovel The Doll//maker (New York, 195-4). 'lihe contemporary works of' nOvelist Harry Crews also coittain descriptions of' maylhem resembling eye-gouginig matches.

LevbLhu-1, ScotCh i ish, 264-67; Hahii, Roots of Populism, chaps. 1, 2, 4, 5; Barnmey, Secessoiout lmipule, chap. I Avers, t`Veoigeoto (e d ulstijce, coiiclusion; anid TIhornton, Politics iod Powser 291-311, 3 18-2 1.

5'2 Murray. Travels it i\N(o)tll Ameico, 175-78; Holloim, Frontier t'ioleucc, 109-10; Ftraniklini, Militool South, chap. 3; W'yatt-Brown, Souther HonIoroo, 330-61; Brutice, Vriolence ouid C/llure. chap. 1; Davis, Iloioi(le iMl Aeoeico Fiction, clhap. 10; McWhiney, "Violence"; an(d D)orson, Dus (-( Cyockett, 84.

'1 Johnlson, A otebellusl .N'othtl C 0)/o, 46j-47; and1l Bru(e, V -oleoce and (ultire, clhla). 1. Wyatt-B rowvi sutccinctly captLure(l tIe social fUnCtion of the code of honor: "Duelling was a imeans to delm1on1stralte status allnd mIMtaliness amoing those callling themiiselves gentlemiieni, wliethier boin of nohle blood or niot"; Southeroi Iopssm, 3)55. WN'illiamns also saw (lICling as synIhboli social climhbimg; Duiellitng itl the 01(c Soiuth, chia). 3.

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