Dueling Creek

Dueling Creek

Dueling Creek 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]

Notorious as a favorite spot for duelers in the 19th Century, the most infamous of these duels was between Stephen Decatur and James Barron.

Contents

History of the Dark and Bloody Grounds

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. These mortally wounded, national figures were the major celebrities of their time.

In June, 1836, 22-year-old Daniel Key, a son of Francis Scott Key, was killed in a senseless duel with a fellow Midshipman 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.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.pgparks.com/places/nature/dueling.html
  • 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
Potomac River system
Cities and towns | Bridges | Islands | Tributaries | Variant names
District of Columbia | Maryland | Pennsylvania | Virginia | West Virginia
Streams shown as: Major tributaries • subtributaries • (subsubtributaries) • (subsubsubtributaries)

External links

Coordinates: 38°55′43″N 76°56′35″W / 38.92861°N 76.94306°W / 38.92861; -76.94306


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