Decatur was at the height of his fame for achievements in the War of 1812 and against the Barbary pirates; he was a fine marksman with the pistol, and had had several earlier experiences on the dueling-field. Barren, on the other hand, was under a cloud for some professional mistakes; he was six years Decatur’s senior, had no taste for dueling, and was near-sighted. Down to the last, Barron was plainly disposed to accept any reasonable concession and call the affair off; but Decatur was in high spirits and full of confidence. Two shots rang out simultaneously, and both men fell. Decatur, who was at first supposed to be dead, presently showed signs of returning animation and was lifted to his feet, only to stagger a few paces toward his antagonist and fall again. As the two men lay side by side, Barron turned his face to say to Decatur that he hoped, when they met in another world, they would be better friends than in this. Decatur responded that he had never been Barren’s enemy, and, though he cherished no animosity to Barron for killing him, he found it harder to forgive the men who had goaded them into this quarrel. Both combatants were carried back to Washington, where Barron slowly recovered from his wound; but Decatur, after a day of intense suffering, died in the house which still bears his name, at the corner of Jackson Place and H Street. So habitually was this one ravine chosen for the settlement of affairs of honor that when two Representatives, Jonathan Cilley of Maine and William J. Graves of Kentucky, decided in 1838 to end a dispute with rifles, they outwitted pursuit by choosing for their fight the eastern end of the Anacostia bridge on the high-road to Marlboro, Maryland; and a posse who started out to stop them went to the accustomed ground only to find it empty. This duel had naught of the dramatic quality of that between Decatur and Barren, but its effect on the public mind proved more far-reaching. Cilley was a young man of brilliant promise, highly respected as well as popular, with a wife and three little children. The quarrel was forced upon him because, in the interest of the proper dignity of Congress, he objected to a proposed investigation by the House of some vague and irresponsible insinuations made in a recent newspaper letter against sundry members who were not named or otherwise identified. Graves insisted that this speech was an insult to the author of the article, whose championship he gratuitously undertook.