Bladensburg Dueling Grounds is a small spit of land, along Dueling Creek formerly, in the town of Bladensburg, Maryland and now within the town of Colmar Manor, which is northeast of Washington, D.C., United States, an area which hosted over fifty bloody pistol duels mostly fought using a duelling pistol.
In 1819, Colonel John McCarty killed his cousin, General Armistead Mason. McCarty was haunted for years by his experience after surviving the twelve pace musket duel.
Stephen Decatur was mortally wounded here in 1820 by James Barron.
In June 1836, 22-year-old Daniel Key, a son of Francis Scott Key, was killed in a senseless duel with a fellow Annapolis Naval Academy cadet, John Sherbourne, over a question regarding steamboat speed.
Jonathan Cilley, a Representative from Maine, was a reluctant participant in another duel here. In February 1838, Cilley was killed by Congressman William J. Graves of Kentucky. Graves was a stand-in for New York newspaper editor James Webb, whom Cilley had called corrupt. Cilley was inexperienced with guns, and Graves was allowed to use a powerful rifle. A shot to an artery in Cilley's leg caused him to bleed to death in ninety seconds. This duel prompted passage of a Congressional act of February 20, 1839, prohibiting the giving or accepting, within the District of Columbia, of challenges to a duel.
Dueling Creek, formerly known as Blood Run, was the site of the Bladensburg Dueling Grounds, Bladensburg, Maryland, now called Eastern Branch because, it is a tributary of the Anacostia River in southern Maryland in the United States. Dueling Creek is located in what is now Colmar Manor, Maryland.[1] As a place of infamy, beginning in 1808, the grove witnessed, approximately, fifty duels in its fifty years of continuous use by gentlemen, military and naval officers, and politicians, who performed dramatically, violent, public displays, in settling affairs of personal reputation and honor. A formalized set of rules dealing with dueling etiquette referred to as a Code duello was usually enforced by the duelers and their seconds, even though dueling was illegal in the District of Columbia and in most U.S. states and territories.
In 1819, Colonel John McCarty killed his cousin, General Armistead Mason. McCarty was haunted for years by his experience after surviving the twelve pace musket duel. On the national scene, after the duellist's death of Alexander Hamilton at the hands of Aaron Burr, America's second most shocking dueling death was of, naval hero, Stephen Decatur mortally wounded, here in 1820, by James Barron.
In June, 1836, 22-year-old Daniel Key, a son of Francis Scott Key, was killed in a senseless duel with a fellow Annapolis cadet, of the United States Naval Academy, John Sherbourne, over a question regarding steamboat speed.
Jonathan Cilley, a Representative from Maine, was a reluctant participant in another duel here. In February 1838, Cilley was killed by Congressman William J. Graves of Kentucky. Graves was a stand-in for New York newspaper editor James Webb, whom Cilley had called corrupt. Cilley was inexperienced with guns, and Graves was allowed to use a powerful rifle. A shot to an artery in Cilley's leg caused him to bleed to death in ninety seconds. This duel prompted passage of a congressional act of February 20, 1839, prohibiting the giving or accepting, within the District of Columbia, of challenges to a duel. Following the bloody U.S. Civil War, duelling fell out of favor as a means of settling personal grievances and declined rapidly; the last known duel was fought here in 1868.
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Haunted Places, The National Directory by Dennis William Hauck
Gentlemen's blood: a history of dueling from swords at dawn to pistols at dusk by Barbara Holland
The Bladensburg dueling ground by Armistead Thompson Mason, Harper's Magazine