Part 10: The "Interview"

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood
Disguise fair nature
with hard-favored rage
-- Henry IV, III, i, I

After searching Lexington in vain for Charles Christian on the morning of January 14, 1854, VMI Cadets Blackburn, Horner and Humes decided to return to Christian's hotel and just wait for him.

They got "within a few paces of the front door leading to the bar-room" at McDowell's when Horner spotted Christian, standing in the doorway with another VMI Cadet, 17-year-old Edward Alexander Langhorne of Cloverdale, Virginia.

Christian later claimed to have been at McDowell's the entire time, telling his friend and fellow law student William Robert Winn he had been upstairs, presumably in his room, when the "servant" sent up to find him told him "some Cadets" were looking for him. When he went downstairs to see who was calling, Christian insisted Blackburn and his two friends had disappeared.

Christian's first instinct was to look for them in the bar, which also served as the hotel "office." There he spotted Langhorne and another Cadet, Joseph Peter Gilliam of Dinwiddie Court House.

Langhorne and Gilliam had checked out the fare at the VMI mess hall, had seen Blackburn's friends, Humes and Horner eating there, and had opted for town, for a place called George's. After dinner they headed for McDowell's bar where they had a drink, talked, and watched the street for passing girls. Both claimed Christian was there when they arrived.

Whatever the case, Christian, Langhorne and Gilliam were soon sitting together, talking and drinking.

Christian knew Langhorne fairly well. Neither of them had been in Lexington very long, and they had met in Langhorne's room "on occasion" so that each might "...see some of his countrymen."

As they talked, Langhorne noticed that Christian was carrying a heavy, black, silver-headed walking stick. He asked to see it, and Christian handed it over without a second thought. Impressed, Langhorne passed the heavy cane to Gilliam; and Gilliam, equally impressed, swore he gave it back to Christian.

Christian, on the other hand, claimed his cane somehow disappeared during the conversation. He never saw it again, he said, and later swore that he believed the conversation in the bar-room had been a set-up, cleverly contrived by the two VMI Cadets to disarm him.

Whatever the case, the timing was perfect. Just as Blackburn, Horner and Humes showed up at McDowell's after their futile search for Christian at Moore's Hotel, Langhorne went to the window.

Casing the street, Langhorne noticed two "young ladies" outside, and called Christian to the window to see if he knew who they were.

By the time Christian reached the window, the girls had "disappeared." Langhorne said they had stepped into John Blair Lyle's "automatic bookstore," an emporium so named for the proprietor's habit of leaving a slate and a note on his counter "to the effect that if anyone wanted anything in the store, he could take it, provided he would make the proper entry on the slate."

While Langhorne and Christian waited at the window for the young ladies to reappear, Blackburn, Humes and Horner walked up.

Blackburn's friend, Horner, later said he didn't remember seeing any "young ladies" but clearly remembered seeing Langhorne and Christian standing together at the door of McDowell's bar.

"There is Christian," he said to Blackburn.

Blackburn removed his hand from the breast of his furlough coat, walked straight up to Christian, and, according to Horner, said "in a respectful tone" that he wished to see him, "or something to that effect."

Christian, he said, made some remark in reply that no one seemed to remember, then walked down the steps of the hotel, and followed Blackburn into a "passage" next to the entrance.

Blackburn buttoned his blue furlough coat tight around him as he and Christian walked down the passageway. Some witnesses said they thought Christian was carrying his silver-headed cane.

Hugh Laughlin, the bartender at McDowell's, said he knew there was going to be trouble, despite Blackburn's "respectful tone." Both boys "seemed excited" as they approached each other, Laughlin said, and he just didn't like it.

As Blackburn and Christian disappeared from view, Laughlin said he too made it a point to disappear, "up the alley towards the stable" to avoid, as one Richmond newspaper reporter put it, "being a witness."

Blackburn's friend, Humes, on the other hand, relaxed. As soon as he saw Christian was alone, he said, he knew there would be no fight.

As Blackburn and Christian stepped into the passageway they left the door to the hotel open behind them. Horner and Humes stood guard: Humes standing close to the open door and Horner about six feet away.

After what everyone remembered as a very short conversation, Blackburn turned to leave the passageway. Just as he reached the door Horner thought he heard Christian say, "Sir, I honor you for your noble principles."

Blackburn, he thought, said only "Good evening, sir," or "Good evening, Mr. Christian" before emerging from the passageway with a big smile on his face.

When Horner asked what had happened, Blackburn spoke to him "...in an ordinary tone of voice."

"Just as I expected," he said, "he has not enough courage to strike a child."

Pressed for details, Blackburn then told his friends what had happened in the passageway.

He told Christian to his face, he said, that he was the "traducer or calumniator" that Christian had denounced in his note to Blackburn's cousin; and that it was he who had advised Mary Evelyn not to accompany Christian to church on the appointed evening.

He also told Christian that he was responsible for both his cousin's conduct and his own; and if Christian wished to know why he advised his cousin to reject his company for church on Sunday, he would be happy to tell him.

When Christian said he would, indeed, like to know, Blackburn was blunt, telling Christian he understood that he had "not a very good reputation in Lexington", and that he "did not wish to see his cousin with any such man."

Blackburn also confirmed what Horner had thought he had overheard Christian say as they left the passageway, namely that he "honored" Blackburn's "noble principles."

With the Christian "interview" now over and done, Blackburn and Humes set off to "call on some ladies" while Horner returned to the VMI barracks.

Humes later claimed that little or nothing more was said of the matter that day, though while he and Blackburn were waiting for "ladies" at McDowell's, Blackburn told him he was "satisfied."

Humes later remembered that on that evening (or maybe the next day) Blackburn told him that "...if he were challenged by anyone he would fight him from a revolver down to a pop gun."

As for Cadet Horner, he said he felt only contempt for Christian after he failed to respond with either a blow or a challenge to Blackburn's insults. "Mr. Christian's conduct dishonored him in my estimation, and in the estimation of every honorable man," Horner later testified. "I did not think Christian a coward previous to that time but thought his character blasted and gone forever by his conduct at that time."

As for Christian, after leaving Blackburn, Humes and Horner, he returned to the bar, met Cadets Langhorne and Gilliam, and asked both to go up to his room with him. Christian's friend, Langhorne did so. Gilliam, on the other hand, stayed downstairs in the bar.

Once he and Christian were upstairs alone, Langhorne asked his friend "...what was the matter between him and Blackburn?"

Christian replied, he said, that it was "something he could not speak of" then asked Cadet Langhorne "...what sort of a fellow Blackburn was." Langhorne told him that he'd only been at the Institute a short time and frankly "...did not know much about him." With that, the conversation ended.

But as Langhorne left Christian's room, headed back to the bar, he thought he heard Christian say "...that the affair was not done with yet."

The Blackburn Murder