

Bloody Island: "Field of Honor"
Bloody Island, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, became a permanent part of the Illinois shore when the Army Corps of Engineers pushed it back out of the Mississippi using dams and dikes in the 1830s. A mile long and about 500 yards wide, it was once the site for illegal bare fist boxing and the peculiar British tradition of dueling, a means for the two states prominent citizens to settle their scores. In the 1800s, dueling was one visible manifestation of upp