Bladensburg Duelling Field
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Bladensburg Duelling Field was situated five miles from Washington, DC but in the jurisdiction of the state of Maryland where statutes against duelling were more lax than in the District of Columbia. Thirty to fifty duels were fought there by statesmen, military and naval officers as well as civilians from 1802 until 1851. The most famous were the mortal wounding of Commodore Stephen Decatur by Commodore James Barron (1820) and the killing of Senator Armistead T. Mason of Virginia by his brother-in-law John Mason McCarty (1819).
Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940
