Bladensburg Dueling Grounds
When the hotheaded politicians of
Washington,
DC wanted to fight each
other, they all knew that the Bladensburg Dueling Grounds,
just
over the
Maryland line,was the best place to meet their adversary. On
the
day of a
duel, the men would set out in the wee hours of the early
morning.
They had
to travel down a dirt road and over a small bridge to an area
about
one mile
from the town of Bladensburg. The bridge ran over a stream
nicknamed
"Blood
Run. Narrow paths ran through waist high weeds. Dense willows
and
sycamores
crowded out the sky. Many prominent men met their deaths
there,
and others
were mentally crippled for life.
Over fifty known duels were fought.
The
earliest seem to be the one
that occured in February of 1819 between former Virginia
senator
Armistead
T. Mason and his cousin Colonel John M. Mcarty. It is believed
that
Mcarty
challenged Mason either over a woman or over Mcarty's right to
vote
in a
Virginia election. Mcarty had all kinds of crazy challenges
for
Mason. He
wanted to fight with daggers or jump from a lighted keg of
powder.
The two
finally settled on dueling with muskets.
The opposing factors met at
Bladensburg,
each bringing their own
supporters. Soon Mcarty and Mason were set up at twelve paces
apart.
When
the shots were fired, Mason was killed instantly. Mcarty was
shot
in the
hand, and in a bizarre twist of fate the bullet traveled up
his
arm and out
his shoulder.
Mcarty lost the ability to use his
right
arm. He also lost his mind. He
never recovered from murdering his cousin. Mcarty stopped
shaving,
cutting
his hair, and even bathing. After he died, people reported his
disheveled
ghost wandering around the weed choked area where he killed
Armistead
Mason.
Stephen Decatur was a Naval hero who
had
distinguished himself in three
different wars, but he too was murdered on the fields of
Bladensburg.
In
1820 Decatur was living the quiet life. He settled on
Lafayette
Square in
Washington, DC with his wife. This was the worst time for
Commodore
James
Barron to challenge him to a duel.
There had been bad blood between
Decatur
and Barron for a long time.
Barron had been put on trial to be court-martialed after an
incident
at sea.
A British ship commander had insisted that Barron turn
over
some Americans
that he believed were British deserters. Barron refused, and
the
British
ship fired on Barron's, killing three men and wounding eight.
The
British
then seized the suspected deserters. This led not only to
Barron's
suspension for five years, but to the War of 1812.
When Barron applied for reinstatement
in
the Navy Decatur was
outspokenly opposed, and he had the power to keep Barron out.
The
two men
corresponded for several years, with Barron growing
increasingly
bitter.
Finally, with Decatur in the same town as he, Barron
challenger
Decatur to a
duel at eight paces with pistols.
The night before the fight Decatur
shut
himself in his bedroom and
spent hours at the window gazing at his property. When dawn
came
the next
morning Decatur slipped out of the house with the black box
containing
his
dueling pistols. It was March 18, 1820.
According to the rules, no man could
fire
before the count of one, or
after the count of three. Two shots were fired at the count of
three.
Barron
took a bullet in his hip. Decatur was struck in the right
side.
His
supporters carried him back to his home on Lafayette Square,
where
he died.
Some believe that Decatur is one of
the
ghosts lurking around the old
dueling area, but he has been spotted more frequently at his
home.
One year
after he was killed he was seen gazing mournfully out of his
window,
just as
he did on the night before he died. His wife was so upset that
she
ordered
the window walled up, but he still appears.
Another spirit known to wander
underneath
the overgrown trees is Daniel
Key, one of the sons of Francis Scott Key. In June of 1836 Key
and
his
friend John Sherborne were returning home aboard a ship.
All
the way home
the two young men argued about the speed of two steam boats.
When
they
arrived in DC, they met at Bladensburg. Key was killed at age
20.
During the period when Key was
killed
the public began to get upset
over the bloodshed at Bladensburg. Unless they had a fight to
go
to, people
avoided the area. tales of ghostly moans and groans
circulated.
Others saw
apparitions wandering around. Dueling was outlawed in
Maryland,
but this did
not affect residents of DC. Washington lawmakers did not want
an
antidueling
law because so many of them believed in the codes associated
with
it.
Congress had no choice but to act
after
February 1838 when Maine
representative John Cilley was killed by Congressman William
Graves.
Graves
was a stand in for James W. Webb, a New York newspaper editor.
Webb
was
offended by some of the remarks Cilley made in the House. He
assigned
the
duel to Graves, who was his friend as well as a noted
marksman.
Cilley was a
hard working man who preferred to spend time with his family.
He
didn't even
really know the men who were challenging him. Cilley quietly
went
about his
business while Graves practiced his shooting.
At dawn on the appointed day Graves
showed
up with a more powerful
rifle that Cilley, but he was allowed to use it. When ready,
the
men fired.
No one was hit. They fired at each other a second time, but
still
no one was
hit. The seconds and spectators tried to end the confrontation
but
Graves
wouldn't consent. The third time Cilley was hit in the leg.
Because
a main
artery was severed he quickly bled to death in front of some
of
Washington's
most prominent citizens and politicians. Cilley's confused
ghost
still
wanders around the area when he died.
Cilley's death finally led to the
outlawing
of dueling in Washington,
DC. Men didn't heed the regulations and they still murdered
each
other in
the fields after dark. Finally, the Civil War put an end to
dueling
in the
area. Everyone had had enough of the bloodshed and violence.
People avoided the area because of
the
history and the ghosts. One day
a boy saw a figure among the trees. The spirit had his head
down
and was
dressed in black. When the boy approached the figure, it
disappeared.
The
ghost could have been anyone of the hundreds of men whose
lives
were changed
there. Not much of the old dueling fields are left now. There
are
some
trees, many weeds, and a lot of ghost stories.
by catmz@theshadowlands.net
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