They called him The Black Knight of the South.
Col. Alexander Keith McClung of the Mississippi Rifles is one of those rare figures in history that in his own lifetime was regarded as both a national hero and one of the vilest homicidal maniacs to roam the West.
McClung became a hero during the Mexican War, served as ambassador to Bolivia and was the nephew of famed U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall. He was the inspiration for Rhett Butler in “Gone With the Wind” and Keith Alexander in “Taproots.” Yet, he is best remembered for his penchant for dueling.

“He packs so much experience that wasn’t necessarily good. He was certainly infamous more than he was famous,” said historian Grady Howell.
Howell, who is retired from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, will be speaking on McClung’s life of heroics and violence at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday during the annual meeting of the Warren County Historical Society at the Old Court House Museum, said museum curator Bubba Bolm.
“Grady’s written a lot of books and his latest is on McClung,” Bolm said.

Legends say McClung killed 25 — some say as many as 50 — men in duels.
“We don’t know the exact number that he got in,” Howell said.

There are half a dozen documented duels — including ones in Vicksburg and in Madison Parish — involving McClung.
Dueling is what ultimately brought The Black Knight of the South to Mississippi.
McClung’s early life showed much promise. He was born into a wealthy family and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. On an expedition to South America, McClung killed a man in his first duel but was badly wounded, himself.
“The Navy gave him the choice of facing court martial or finding his own way back to the United States,” Howell said.
McClung chose the latter and returned to Kentucky where he killed a cousin in a duel. Family members were outraged, so McClung moved to Jackson where he became an attorney, albeit not a very good one.
“He had all the capability and all the theatrics and he certainly had friends, but he was evidently lazy and didn’t want to do all the background work a lawyer has to do,” Howell said.
In 1834, he killed a rival lawyer in Jackson at the city’s dueling ground near the Pearl River, and that gunfight led to Mississippi outlawing dueling, Howell said. The fatal shot was a world record — more than 100 feet with a smooth bore pistol.
“He soon found that his business had fallen, and he ended up in Vicksburg,” Howell said.
When war with Mexico broke out 1846, McClung was raring for a fight. He raised a company that served under Jefferson Davis. McClung and Davis were often at odds. The gunfighter resented the West Point educated Davis.
At the Battle of Monterrey, McClung grew tired of Davis’ conventional attitude toward war and led his own raid into the city.
“He was the first one over the works,” Howell said.
McClung was badly wounded but refused to leave the battlefield, which elevated him to the status of national hero, Howell said. A few months later, Davis’s service at the Battle of Buena Vista made him the new national hero.
McClung hated it.

“He said he regretted Davis was the only man he had never got to kill in a duel,” Howell said.

After the war, McClung became ambassador to Bolivia under Zachary Taylor, his commanding general during the Mexican War.
When Taylor died of cholera in 1850, McClung shot and killed an English statesman who refused to stand for the Star Spangled Banner in the president’s honor and was removed from the post, Howell said.
McClung returned to Mississippi where the once dashing man began to let himself go. He had lost two fingers in Mexico and his dueling days were over.
“He relied more and more on alcohol which he consumed by the gallons, to be escorted by its friend laudanum,” Howell said.
On March 24, 1855, McClung shot himself in the head in his room at the Eagle Hotel in Jackson.
Broke and broken, McClung did have enough money to afford a grave. The people of Jackson didn’t want him buried there, so he was brought to Vicksburg where he is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.
McClung left behind a suicide note in the form of a poem titled “Invocation to Death,” which is also the title of Howell’s new book.
Howell will have copies of the book available for sale during his presentation Wednesday. For more information on the program, call the Old Court House Museum at 601-636-0741. To reserve a copy of the book, email Howell at gradyhowell@att.net.