Early Sunday morning, January 15, 1854, William Brosius and two friends, Sam Conn and David Curry, ran into Christian as he was leaving the bar room "office" of McDowell's Hotel. As usual, Christian had his hands in his pockets and was carrying a cane under one arm.

This time, however, instead of his trademark black, silver-headed cane he was carrying something else, a "hickory cane," that belonged to George Washington Lurty, one of his law school classmates.

Christian, it seems, had "liberated" Lurty's stick, in much the same way he'd "borrowed" Bill Winn's Bowie knife, picking it up after he saw it lying unattended in B.D. Chenowith's room. Lurty, he insisted, had taken his silver-headed cane.

When Brosius grabbed Lurty's stick from under his arm and began to wave it around like a saber, Christian, apparently in the best of humor, reached under his coat, pulled his "borrowed" Bowie knife, assumed a defensive position, calling out to Brosius, "If that is what you are for, come ahead!"

Brosius seemed shocked, both by the size of the blade and Christian's decision to carry such a thing concealed on the streets of Lexington on a Sunday morning.

When Brosius asked him why he carried such a knife, Christian said it did not belong to him, insisted that he was carrying it "for another man" and tried to resheath it.

Christian hadn't had much time to practice putting a very large knife into a sheath that was no longer stuck in the front of his pants, but strapped onto his belt, in the small of his back, under his coat.

After several tries he finally had to ask for help.

Sam Conn obliged.

Later, witnesses reported, Christian flashed the knife again as he walked out through the tavern yard on his way to services at the First Presbyterian Church.

One swore he heard him tell old Mr. Dall, the stage driver, that he intended to use it that night.

After entering the church Christian immediately climbed the stairs to the balcony. There he found a seat beside his good friend Andy Moore, and directly across from the upstairs gallery reserved for VMI Cadets.

He was looking for Tom Blackburn.

According to Cadet John Sharp the odds of finding him were not in Christian's favor. Blackburn, he said, "rarely attended inside of a church." Indeed, some thought he might even be "skeptical" of revealed religion, even though his father was a Presbyterian Ruling Elder.

On this particular Sunday, however, Blackburn showed up, climbed the stairs, and took a seat in the gallery on the other side of the sanctuary.

Why, was anyone's guess.

Some thought it was because Blackburn had just established a new "walking out" relationship with the youngest daughter of Reverend George Junkin, Presbyterian Minister, President of Washington College, and father-in-law to Blackburn's erstwhile nemesis, Major Thomas J. Jackson.

"There is your friend," Andy Moore whispered, pointing out Blackburn sitting opposite them in the Cadet gallery.

"Yes, I see him." Christian replied, then smiled, and, according to Moore, said nothing more for the rest of the morning service.

From the Cadet gallery, near Blackburn, John Howard Sharp was watching Christian.

He noted that Christian's mustache was gone, that Christian was "clean shaven" and that he was "looking daggers" at Blackburn.

Blackburn, by all accounts, didn't appear to notice Christian at all.

That very morning Blackburn, Sandy Bruce, and several other cadets had walked together to the church from the VMI barracks.

Bruce, perhaps because of his own romantic interest in the object of Charles Christian's affections, seemed worried.

After muttering aloud to no one in particular that Christian "would challenge him yet," turned to Blackburn and said, "if he did, . . . I reckon I will have to act as your second."

Blackburn, he said, simply laughed, and told him there was "no danger of anything of that sort coming to pass."

As the morning services drew to a close, Christian rushed past his friend Andy Moore and out of the sanctuary.

Once outside he waited for Blackburn, posting himself just outside the doors, on one end of the church's long, columned, front portico.

Moore had just caught up with Christian when Blackburn emerged on the opposite end of the portico.

When he spotted Blackburn, however, he hesitated, and asked Moore, ". . . if he should go and see him then."

Moore told him "No" in not uncertain terms. It was, he said, ". . . neither the proper time nor place."

Christian seemed relieved, let the moment pass, and went back to his hotel.

He soon received an unexpected caller, wearing a VMI uniform.

Cadet Edward Langhorne and Cadet Algernon Stith Cousins had spent Sunday afternoon cruising the streets of Lexington, killing time until they could meet two "young ladies" who had agreed to let themselves be escorted to evening church services.

Langhorne was young, had grown up in Amherst County, was distantly related to Christian, and clearly thought they were friends.

Christian, however, was suspicious of the boy and had told several friends that he believed Langhorne had conspired with Blackburn to make sure that when they met the first time, Christian was not carrying his trademark silver-headed cane.

Langhorne appeared to have no idea of Christian's suspicions and innocently asked his friend, Cousins to wait for him while he climbed the stairs to Christian's room "to brush his hair."

He knocked. Christian let him in, and as soon as he entered the room asked if he noticed anything "different."

"I saw he had cut off his mustache," Langhorne later testified, and, "I noticed the cane he had was not the same he had the day before."

Christian then proceeded to grill Langhorne about the preceding day's "difficulty" with Blackburn.

Langhorne said he "knew all about it" and proceeded to recount the story of Christian's now infamous "interview" with Blackburn with reasonable, if embarrassing, accuracy.

Having heard Langhorne recount the tale of his backing down in front of Blackburn, Christian asked if Blackburn were coming to church for evening services.

Langhorne said he didn't know, combed his hair, went back downstairs to the bar and waited with Cousins for the appointed hour to pick up their dates for church.

They were still there when Christian came down just before supper time.

On his way out Christian asked the two to join him.

When they declined, Christian headed for the Compton house, directly across the street from the Presbyterian Church, where some of Judge Brockenbrough's law students were boarders.

When he reached Compton's he sought out J. W. Woolfolk. Happily, there were several other law students waiting there.

Then, in a desperate last attempt to recruit support, he recounted, one more time, his version of his "difficulty" with Blackburn.

Two cadets, he reminded them, were "with" Blackburn when they met at McDowell's and "several" were "approaching the hotel."

He had walked into the passageway with Blackburn, he said, without his silver-headed cane . . . and that only because one of the Cadets, obviously planted at McDowell's for just that purpose, had "asked him for his stick to look at it" just as Blackburn arrived.

Woolfolk, perhaps trying to help Christian make his case, asked why Christian "did not knock Blackburn down?" then and there.

Christian again said it was only because "he had no friends present" and thought the meeting had been "preconcerted among the Cadets."

He also repeated the charge that Blackburn was armed, claiming that "when he approached him he had his right hand in his bosom."

In an effort to debunk the now well-circulated story that he had not only backed down, but had praised Blackburn's sense of honor, he once more insisted that he had really told Cadet that "he would see him another time."

His plan, he said, was to ask Blackburn the next time he met him, either to tell him who was defaming him or, failing that, demand a personal apology.

If Blackburn refused both, he told his law school friends, ". . . he would tell him he was no gentleman, or that he had acted rascally . . ."

And if Blackburn struck him, he would follow Andy Moore's advice and "cane him."

Christian then asked for help.

According to Woolfolk, "He said he would like for witnesses and several other of his friends to be present so that if he should get into a fight with him, he would have fair play."

Otherwise, Christian said, he feared, the Cadets would "double on him."

He would have confronted Blackburn that very morning, he claimed, had not Andy Moore prevented it.

In retrospect, he supposed, it was just as well, for "if he had gotten into a fight he would have had the whole Corps of Cadets upon him."

As Christian talked John Compton, the young son of the owner of the boarding house had been listening.

When he heard Christian say he "would have the whole Corps of Cadets upon him" Compton chimed in.

"The Cadets fight for each other," he said, and told the story of an ill-fated cow drover who had fallen victim to the "spirit of the Corps."

Cows belonging to the drover, Compton said had been "frightened" by two VMI Cadets. When the drover cursed them, they immediately fled and called for help. Soon around thirty Cadets showed up, "whipped the driver pretty badly" and "ducked him in the river."

As Woolfolk later told the tale, young Compton warned them in no uncertain terms that the Cadets fought for one another "like dogs."