by Jenny Kile · June 25, 2018
What Happened to Bloody Island?
Article Written by John Davis
1853 Map of Bloody Island
On a brisk morning, with wind wafting off the Mississippi river across from St. Louis, Missouri, the men faced each other with pistols, at barely more than arm’s length. They’d come to shoot at one another because of an ‘offense against honor’.
The place, or ‘field of honor’, was Bloody Island.
It was reached by rowing across the untamed river from 1831 St. Louis, already a major port. Because Thomas Biddle, the challenged, was nearsighted, he had only one hope of survival. Indeed he’d responded to Congressman Spencer Darwin Pettis’ challenge to a duel by accepting. Pettis had reason to believe it was Biddle who beat him in an alley with a horse whip some time earlier. Yet Biddle knew he himself, as the recipient of the letter of invitation to combat under the Code Duello, had the choice of weapon and circumstances.
http://mysteriouswritings.com/what-happened-to-bloody-island-by-john-davis/
