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4. “If You Will Go with Me outside the Lines”
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| 93 4 “If You Will Go with Me outside the Lines” Dueling and the Degenerate Affair of Honor In June 1863, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was in command of the Department of the Ohio and his headquarters were located in Cincinnati. Several captains who served on his staff shared an office in departmental headquarters. On June 18, Capt. Charles Gordon Hutton was seated at a desk in the front of the room when Capt. J. M. Cutts entered. “You have no right to any desk in this office. You are not on duty,” Cutts told Hutton in an abrupt manner. “I beg your pardon, Capt. Cutts,” Hutton replied. “I have a right to any desk which is unoccupied.” “You have no right to my desk and if you take it again I will report you,” Cutts responded. “You report me? I beg you to understand I do not acknowledge your right to report me. I am not accustomed to that mode of settling difficulties which may arise among gentlemen.” “It may not be the mode among blacklegs and bullies,” Cutts retorted. “Stop, Sir. Do you apply those remarks to me?” Hutton asked. Cutts never answered this question, although Hutton repeated it at least once. “I shall notice these remarks at a proper time and place and I decline having any further conversation with you at present,” Hutton finally told the now silent Cutts.1 Two hours later, in his own room, Hutton wrote Cutts a note requesting an apology and an express retraction of the expression “blacklegs and bullies.” Hutton informed Cutts that he presumed the remarks had been directed at him. The purpose of this note was to give Cutts an opportunity to disclaim any intention of insulting Hutton. Cutts did not take the opportunity given him. Very late in the evening, Cutts returned Hutton’s note with an endorsement that stated he refused to consider the subject. 94 | Dueling and the Degenerate Affair of Honor According to the code of honor by which Hutton lived, injury now had been added to insult.2 Hutton considered his options. He could not file charges against Cutts since the matter was personal and not official. Another option, he thought, was “to use my hand at the first opportunity.” This, however, would create a “public scandal derogatory to private gentlemen, still more so to an officer.” He could send Cutts a challenge to a duel, but this would violate the 25th Article of War. Yet to do nothing was unthinkable. If he submitted to the indignity, he would be “unworthy of my claim to be considered an officer and a gentleman.” The challenge had to be sent. “Under the very gross insult inflicted upon me by Capt. Cutts, his refusal to apologize, or retract the expressions made use of, I had no other course to pursue,” Hutton decided. He had spent many years residing in foreign countries, and he “regarded as the only mode of settling difficulties when gross insults had taken place, the usual recognized code of duello.”3 The next morning Hutton wrote another note: “My note of last evening requesting an apology for and retraction of the insulting expression applied to me in our discussion of yesterday having been returned . . . I presume that you are willing to afford me the satisfaction to which I am entitled and which I now formally demand. This will be handed you by my friend Major Cutting who is authorized to receive any communication from you and to make all necessary arrangements for a meeting.” Maj. William Cutting carried this note, in an open envelope, to Capt. Cutts at ten in the morning. Cutts read it and acknowledged its receipt. “Do you have anything further?” Cutting asked. “I will take action on this, or respond to it at the proper time and place,” Cutts responded.4 As soon as Cutting left the room, Cutts forwarded the note to Major General Burnside and asked him to investigate the subject. Burnside did so, and preferred charges against both Hutton and Cutting. The cases against the two officers should have been open and shut. Hutton pled guilty; the prosecution had the note he had written. Cutting pled not guilty and claimed that he did not know the contents of the note, an absurd statement contradicted by several facts: the wording in the note that Cutting was “authorized to receive any communication,” the open envelope when it was delivered, and Cutting’s manner to Cutts.5 During his...