As an avid museum visitor, I'm amazed at the preponderance of dueling pistols. Did gentlemen keep them as a form of masculine jewelry or were duels really that common in 18th Century Europe, Russia or America? Were duels tantamount to spontaneous road rage of today or were they much more calculated?

Georgy_K_Zhukov

Hi there!

OK, so let's break this down a bit!

Did gentlemen keep them as a form of masculine jewelry or were duels really that common in 18th Century Europe, Russia or America?

Dueling was the prerogative of the aristocracy (or pseudo-aristocracy, as in the case of the United States), and owning a pair of finely made dueling pistols certainly would be something of a status symbol, although I don't know if "jewelry" would be the comparison I'd make, if only since you wouldn't walk around with them on your hip. But yes, many wealthy gentlemen would own a pair of dueling pistols. If you didn't own a pair though, and neither did your opponent, you most likely did know someone who you could borrow from. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, for instance, duelled with a pair of very fine English pistols borrowed from Hamilton's brother-in-law, which he had purchased in London. They were made by Wogdon, considered one of the best manufacturers of dueling pistols of the period, and pretty representative of the "standard" of the time. Smoothbore, with a hair-trigger that could be set if desired (Although some revisionist controversy exists claiming that Hamilton hid this feature from Burr, and that his own early discharge was due to his intent to use it to his advantage, this is almost certainly not true, as its presence was readily admitted to in the correspondence following the duel, and passed without remark then).

If you didn't own a pair, your opponent didn't own a pair, and neither of you or your seconds knew someone with a pair, it was usually possible to borrow or rent. Especially in the UK, near the end of the 'dueling age' (Dueling ended in England in the mid-1840s), fewer and fewer people owned dueling pistols, or rather, those who still duelled didn't. The very wealthy aristocracy might still have a pair of family heirlooms great-uncle Lucius used back in 1805, but dueling was more and more the purview of the military by then, and lower ranked officers at that, so they were unlikely to have spent the hefty sum needed for a pair of dueling pistols.

Were duels tantamount to spontaneous road rage of today or were they much more calculated?

Very much the latter. In fact, that is one of the most important dividing features between a duel and a brawl, at least as the duellists saw it. Delaying gratification and keeping a check on ones passions was very important and a sign of the 'gentle breeding'. Common folk would give into a rage and settle something then and there - with whatever was at hand - while a gentleman would go through the rituals of the code duello and get satisfaction in the "proper way".

There was a whole system of negotiations expected, with the seconds conferring and trying to settle the dispute amicably, and if not, arranging the terms of the duel. The duellists themselves would have no actual part in that. And also keep in mind, the ideal outcome was that there wouldn't be a duel. The role of the seconds was to defuse the situation and find terms that the parties could be reconciled on without loss of honor. A number of dueling manuals of the period repeat the advice that picking a second you trust is the most important thing to do, since many seconds make the situation worse, or even want to see the fight happen. The common saying was that 9 out of 10 duels happened for want of a good second.

How often did duels result in death?

Depends on many factors - time, weapon, location, what did you do to piss the other guy off... The key caveat, as well, is that records suck. What we do have almost certainly is biased towards duels with fatalities and injuries. Many duels likely happened, no one was hurt, and we have no record of it. But that being said, many scholars have tried to estimate nevertheless.

In England, where dueling with pistols was the common method, the fatality rate is estimated to be around 14 percent overall, based on statistics from 1785 through 1850. The interesting thing is that that percent remains consistent, for the most part. It goes up and down at times, but even in the 1840s you still see fatalities, right up to when duelling ceases. Numbers for the US are harder to come by, but also being fought with pistols, the rate is likely to be similar.

In France and Italy, however, duels were fought more and more with swords as you go later and later, and it becomes less and less deadly. 19th century fatality rates for the two are under 2 percent. I actually *just wrote more on this here, but the sum of it is that dueling was more about posturing than revenge in most cases, so there simply wasn't much interest in killing! The numbers for France, and especially Italy, are considered very accurate due to several statisticians of the time keeping excellent records.

In Germany, however, dueling was mostly with pistols, and deadly serious right through the 1914, and estimates I've seen are as high as 1/4 ending in death or serious injury.

Russia is another hard one to get good numbers for. I wrote a little about Russia here recently. Estimates are rough, but it points to about 10 percent for death or serious injury for military duels, with a slightly lower rate for ones involving others.

So that covers your questions here. I'm happy to answer any follow ups as well, although I'd point you to this AMA too, since I covered a lot of ground there. For sources, I'm actually in the middle of trying to assemble a thorough bibliography of dueling works, so I would point you to this very much work in progress list here, but I'm most especially drawing on "A Polite Exchange of Bullets: The Duel and the English Gentleman, 1750-1850 by Stephan Bank.

aphromagic

I was just want to take a moment to note that the wealth of knowledge that resides within the mind of u/georgy_k_zhukov is truly immense. Every single one of your answers in this thread has been top notch.

matap821