In Gold Rush-era California, gunfighters weren't outlaws or desperadoes
-- they were were prominent journalists, legislators, governors, and
judges. Choose Your Weapon brings to life a now-forgotten time,
when California was a raw new state with politics as violent as any
banana republic. This was the Golden Age of dueling, when prominent
citizens would settle their political and personal disputes with
gunfire, according to the venerable law of the code duello. Choose
Your Weapon documents every notable duel to have occurred in
California, from the arrival of U.S. dueling culture with the first
American settlers to the end of dueling's popularity on the eve of the
Civil War.
In the heyday of dueling culture, men from all walks of life, from
politicians to manual laborers, fought formal duels. Duels could be
triggered by political battles to shape state government--or they could
be fought over a woman or a personal slight. Braggarts often proved to
be cowards on the field of honor, and many a quiet and peaceable man
could shoot with deadly accuracy when reputation was at stake. For the
California gentlemen of the 1850s, honor or dishonor--and life or
death--could be decided with a single shot.