Joshua Barton vs. Thomas C. Rector (1823) Thomas Biddle vs. Spencer Darwin Pettis (1831) Charles Lucas, killed in second duel Joshua Barton, killed Thomas Biddle vs. Spencer Darwin Pettis, both killed Bloody Island was a sandbar or "towhead" (river island) in the Mississippi River, opposite St. Louis, Missouri, which became densely wooded and a rendezvous for duelists because it was considered "neutral" and not under Missouri or Illinois control.

Robert E. Lee, of U.S. Army Engineers, devised and established a system of dikes and dams that washed out the western channel and ultimately joined the island to the Illinois shore.

In 1846 as the Miami people were being forcibly removed westward from their traditional homelands; the group stopped on Bloody Island.

[2] According to Miami oral history, the group buried an infant and elderly member of the tribe on or near the island.

[2] The south end of the island is now under the Poplar Street Bridge at the site of a train yard.