Much Like a Lunatic: The 1860 Pardon of William A. Choice and the Debate around His Alcohol Use, Head Injury, and the Murder He Committed

In 1850, a young man in Rome, Georgia fell off a buggy and crashed into the ground, severely injuring his head. In subsequent months, the friends and family of William A. Choice noticed a significant change in his behavior, made worse when he became intoxicated. Ignoring all advice, Choice relocated to Atlanta and became a prominent stage actor. He lived in hotels, drank at hotel bars, and drew crowds to the stage. In late December 1858, he was approached by Calvin Webb, a bailiff who demanded an owed debt. The next morning, an insulted Choice drunkenly confronted Webb, shot at him twice, and struck him once, instantly killing him.

            The next two years invited Georgia’s best lawyers, its state legislature, its Supreme Court, and its Governor into William A. Choice’s tumultuous head. Everything rested on Choice’s insanity: most believed that the actor had indeed suffered a brain injury but argued that he willingly chose madness by drinking. His ‘self-induced insanity’ was not excusable; even if he had a “inordinate thirst for liquor,” he should not have indulged “in such an appetite.” Choice’s supporters countered that alcohol was only the exciting cause; the head injury from 1850 was the real reason for the murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death, which the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. Due to a legislature bill passed over the Governor’s veto, Choice escaped the gallows and entered the Georgia Lunatic Asylum. The debate over his alcoholism and head injury resonated in unusual ways in the state, both legally and politically. On the eve of secession, the murderer of a state official vanished among other suffering women and men. Choice’s life demonstrates the complex battles waged around violence and insanity in pre-war Georgia, and his death reveals that infamy can be subsumed in sectional crisis.