Christian's Flight

Covered in blood from the knife wound to his throat, Tom Blackburn stood up, looked at the man with whom he had just been wrestling in the mud on Nelson Street, and fell on his face.

Charles Christian ran, stopping, starting, hesitant as if, at first, trying to decide what to do. Steps away from his downed opponent he stopped to face Jim Massie, paused, said nothing, and ran on.

A few steps later he stopped again, in front of Thomas Taylor, before sprinting on, tossing aside his stick and the Bowie knife he had borrowed from John Winn as he ran.

Passing James Kirkpatrick, he rounded the corner of Nelson and Main, passing Cadet John Howard Sharp, among others, as he made for the shelter of his hotel room.

At McDowell's Hotel he clattered up the stairs and burst into B. D. Chenowith's room. He had left that room only twenty minutes or so earlier and both Chenowith and Winn, the owner of the fatal Bowie knife, were still there.

"What is the matter?!"" Christian's friends shouted in unison as he burst into the room.

His hair, they said, was "very full of blood." There was blood on his face and mud all over the back of his coat, mud on the back of his trousers, and blood all over the front of his shirt and on his shirt sleeves.

Christian tossed his pepperbox and his rifled single-shot pistol, on Chenowith's bed and said, "he had just had a fight with Blackburn."

Chenowith asked if he'd shot him.

No, said Christian. They had struggled, he said, and "Blackburn had him down" and was choking him."

Christian said he had "cut him in the face," and that Blackburn "had bled on him" while he had him down.

Christian then asked Winn and Chenowith to go down to the street to "see if Blackburn was hurt seriously" telling both his friends he hoped not.

Winn demurred. Noting the angry VMI cadets already in the street, he suggested that Christian go to his own room and clean up.

Christian agreed.

Winn went with him, and once inside Christian's room, locked the door behind them.

As Christian began to wash away some of the blood and mud, someone knocked at his door.

Winn opened it.

Standing in the hall was a VMI Cadet, most likely William Alexander Thompson, from Amherst, Christian's home town.

Christian, "with hands uplifted" asked Thompson, 'How is Blackburn? Please go and see if he is hurt!'

Thompson, without entering Christian's room, turned and ran to see.

Robert Seevers, one of Christian's law school classmates then "burst in."

Christian begged him to go check on Blackburn as well.

With several friends dispatched for news of Blackburn, Christian appeared to regain some of his composure and began to tell his friends what he remembered.

According to John Winn, Christian said that he had simply gone to church and when he arrived "in the vestibule . . . saw Blackburn standing with two Cadets."

Blackburn gave Christian "a scornful look," Winn later testified, then "tapped him on the shoulder and said that he wished to have some private talk with him."

Thus, according to Christian, it was at Blackburn's request that "they went out and proceeded up the cross street."

When they got "near the Baptist Church," according to Christian, Blackburn essentially called him out, saying that if he "had anything to say to him he had as well say it there."

Christian's first goal, he said was to find out if Blackburn was "responsible for the slander" against him, or for only advising his cousin upon rumor."

Thus, Christian said, he "asked Blackburn to explain what he meant by his remark at their former interview: that he was responsible for the communication made to his cousin."

When Blackburn told him "he would give no explanation or apology; but that he was responsible for all he had said or done," Christian told him "he was no gentleman."

Blackburn snapped back, "Don't repeat it, sir!"

Christian said he replied, "You know it is true."

At that point, Christian insisted, Blackburn "rushed on him."

Christian "gave back several paces" as Blackburn came on, and then "struck at him with his stick."

Blackburn bulled his way through the assault, "got hold" of Christian and "took his stick from him."

As Winn remembered the story, Christian then said Blackburn "tripped him, fell upon him, and choked him violently."

At that point, Christian "cut him with the knife, attempting to cut him in the face, to make him loose [sic] his grasp."

Winn clearly remembered the blood on Christian's face and clothes, and later swore Christian told the group "his only object was to make Blackburn loose his grasp, not to kill him."

Christian had just finished telling his story to Winn and Chenowith when William Morris and Taliaferro Stribling, two of the law students whose advice Christian had sought the day before, entered the room.

Christian, who still had no idea Blackburn was dead, immediately asked both if they'd know anything.

They said no, and Christian repeated his hope that he hadn't hurt Blackburn.

He then repeated for Morris and Stribling the story he'd just told to Winn and Chenowith.

Morris said that, given Christian's early indecision about standing up for himself, he was frankly "gratified when he first heard of the fight."

Still unaware of Blackburn's condition, Morris then advised Christian to apologize, "to express regrets" not only because he believed Christian was truly remorseful, but because there were Cadets, friends of Blackburn, everywhere and no one could predict what they might do.

At that moment a VMI cadet banged on Christian's door. Happily it was a friend, Cadet Edward Langhorne, probably the last person to have talked to Christian before he set off for church and his confrontation with Blackburn.

Langhorne had walked a young lady to church, but had not stayed for services. Instead, he had chatted for a while with some Cadets on the church's front portico, and then headed back to Christian's room at McDowell's Hotel.

When he got back to the hotel, he said, he found it "unusual" to find "several law students on the steps of the passage" upstairs.

When he got to Christian's room, again to his surprise, he "found it locked."

When Winn finally opened the door, Langhorne said he saw Christian standing there with his coat still in his hands.

"There was blood and mud on Christian's coat," he said. "His face was also very bloody, and his shirt, the left sleeve, very bloody."

Langhorne also remembered that Christian "had not pulled off his vest" but when he did so there was "blood on the bosom, near the collar."

Christian, he said, seemed "greatly excited" and asked immediately about Blackburn.

He received only puzzled silence in reply from the 17-year old Langhorne.

When Christian asked for a second time, "How is Blackburn?" Langhorne told him he didn't know.

Langhorne then asked his blood-covered friend where he was hurt.

To Langhorne's amazement, Christian replied, "Nowhere."

Christian then told Langhorne about the fight, said he had cut Blackburn "in the face," and demonstrated for Langhorne's benefit just how and where.

The blood all over his face and clothes, Christian speculated, "must have come from Blackburn's jaw."

Hearing another knock at the door Christian asked if it were Phillips, presumably Martin Phillips, a friend who would later be a witness at Christian's trial.

Instead, it was Robert Seevers, one of the scouts sent earlier to check on Blackburn's condition.

Seevers reported that Blackburn was dead, or as Cadet Langhorne remembered it, would die "in a few minutes."

Seevers suggested strongly that Christian should run for his life.

Those words were barely out of Seevers' mouth when Winn, apparently still acting as doorkeeper, heard something in the hall: "the noise of steps coming up the stairs."