On Feb. 24, 1838, two men met on neutral ground in Maryland. One man was from Kentucky, the other man was from Maine. Both men were armed and each determined to kill the other. And both men were members of the Congress of the United States of America.

Jonathan Cilley. Courtesy of U.S. Congress Biographical Directory

Elected to Congress in November 1836, Jonathan Cilley was a United States congressman from Thomaston in what was then Maine’s 3rd District. He was also a member of Bowdoin College’s illustrious Class of 1825.

The Kentuckian was Rep. William Graves, who was elected to Congress in 1834.

By February 1838, the atmosphere within the United States Congress had grown venomous, with bitter partisanship a constant reality. Having just completed his first year in Congress, Cilley was determined to have words with James W. Webb, the editor of the New York Courier & Enquirer and a friend of Rep. Graves, who had been particularly vitriolic in his printed opinions of Congress and of Cilley.

The exchange between Webb and Cilley was acidic and intense, and Cilley took to the floor of Congress to remonstrate Webb. Cilley leveled accusations of corruption against Webb from the floor of Congress, and his bitter rant caught the ear of all in session.

When word of the verbal tirade upon him had reached Webb, he became incensed and demanded satisfaction. Webb sent his friend Graves to serve Cilley with a challenge to a fight, a duel to the death. But Cilley outright refused Webb’s challenge and Graves himself now felt insulted and dishonored by Cilley. Graves then set aside Webb’s challenge in favor of his own and formally challenged Cilley by slapping the Maine congressman in the face with an empty glove. This time, Cilley accepted the challenge.

Dueling was prohibited within the boundaries of District of Columbia. Thus, Graves and Cilley both agreed to meet just over the Washington boundary line at Bladensburg, Maryland.

Having grown up in Kentucky, Graves was known to be a dead-shot with a pistol. But Cilley was considerably weak with small arms, and since he had the choice of weapons, Cilley chose rifles at a distance of 80 yards.

On February 24, 1838, both Cilley and Graves arrived at Bladensburg and stood their ground. Both men paced their distance, cocked, aimed, fired their rifles and each completely missed their targets.

The count then began for a second time as each walked the distance. Both Cilley and Graves stopped, cocked their rifles, aimed carefully and then fired yet again. Once more, both men missed the other.

Now, for the third time, each man stood once more. Both Graves and Cilley aimed carefully and fired. This time, Graves stood alone in a cloud of smoke; the duel was over and Graves had won. Cilley now lay on the cold ground, struck in the thigh of his left leg.

For Cilley, not only had he lost the duel, but he was now in danger of losing his life. The wound in his leg was bleeding profusely as the shot from Graves’ rifle had opened Cilley’s femoral artery. Within minutes of the final shots ringing out, despite the efforts of those present, Cilley bled to death.

Initially, Cilley was laid to rest in the Congressional Cemetery at Washington, D.C., but was later re-interred in the Elm Grove Cemetery on the rocky coast of Maine at Thomaston.

The most famous duel in American political history took place at Weehawken, New Jersey, in 1804. That deadly face-off, between Vice President Aaron Burr and former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, ended with Hamilton’s death.

In the aftermath, the duel between Graves and Cilley was a last straw for Washington lawmakers. By Feb. 20, 1839, just one year after the Graves-Cilley duel, Congress passed a law to prohibit dueling between members of Congress. Thus, the duel between William Graves and Jonathan Cilley was the “duel to end all duels” in our nation’s capitol.

When word of Cilley’s demise had reached American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the writer took pen in hand to write a tribute to his old, dear, Bowdoin College classmate.

In Hawthorne’s “Jonathan Cilley,” the author wrote, “I write with a blunted pen and a head benumbed… Alas, that over the grave of a dear friend my sorrow for the bereavement must be mingled with another grief; that he threw away such a life in so miserable a cause!”

Today, just when we think American partisan politics couldn’t be any more bitter or brutal, all we have to do is look back upon our local history and remember the true tales and legendary events found within the incredible chapters of our Stories from Maine.

Lori-Suzanne Dell is a Brunswick author and historian. She has published four books and runs the “Stories from Maine” Facebook page.