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Updated: June 1, 2025
Mutual friends, or rather enemies, fanned the trouble between them, which ended in a challenge from Barron which was promptly accepted by Decatur. The duel took place at Bladensburg, on the morning of March 22, 1820, Commodore Bainbridge was Decatur's second, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott served Barron in a similar capacity.
Nevertheless, such was the state of public opinion about questions of "honor" that Decatur felt constrained to accept the challenge. The two naval officers met on the duelling ground at Bladensburg, "the cockpit of Washington duellists," on the 22nd of March, 1820. Barron was near-sighted, and insisted upon a closer distance than the usual ten paces. They were placed a scant eight paces apart.
In August, an expedition under General Ross landed on the coast of Chesapeake Bay, defeated an American force at Bladensburg, took Washington, and burned the capitol and the President's mansion. The enemy was stronger than ever, and the United States were at the point of exhaustion.
As I listened to his description of the men I have named, and of the momentous events with which their names are associated, he seemed indeed the sole connecting link between the present and the long past. But what interested me most deeply in the almost forgotten old man before me, was the fact that he was the second of the unfortunate Cilley upon the ill-fated day at Bladensburg.
Advancing again, they ingeniously discharged flights of rockets and with these novel missiles they not only disorganized the militia in front of them but also stampeded the battery mules. Most of the American army promptly followed the mules and endeavored to set a new record for a foot race from Bladensburg to Washington.
Duels were common among the political leaders at Washington. Many a shot rang out at sunrise in the little valley at Bladensburg, the noted duelling ground. Jackson and Benton and Clay and De Witt Clinton were duellists. After the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, in 1804, the whole country was aroused and an agitation began against the custom, but it yielded slowly.
There was a good deal of drinking and boasting at the hotels that night, Utie and Tiltock telling everybody, as a particular secret, that there was to be "an 'fah honah," otherwise a "juel," at "Bladensburg, sah!" The gin-drinking, cock-fighting, sporting element of the town was aroused, and Utie and Tiltock were invited on all sides to imbibe to the significant toast of "The Field."
The decks were crowded with trained and toughened troops, the divisions which had scattered the Americans at Bladensburg with a volley and a shout, kilted Highlanders, famous regiments which had earned the praise of the Iron Duke in the Spanish Peninsula, and brawny negro detachments recruited in the West Indies.
Brooke good-naturedly; "for he fought against your people for that city at Bladensburg with Ross." "That was the battle," I said, "in which, according to a popular tradition in my country, the Americans took so little interest that they left the field almost as soon as it began."
The grounds are situated about a quarter of a mile off the Bladensburg road, and are reached by devious driveways. About 11 o'clock I heard a rifle shot in the direction of the city, and shortly afterwards I heard approaching hoof-beats. In two or three minutes a horse came dashing-up, and I recognized the belated President. The horse was very spirited, and belonged to Mr.
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