Wounded for life or not, Andrew Jackson won that duel. And what was the cause of the duel that got him a bullet in the lung? An argument about a horse race. He later chose to duel the first governor of Tennessee, a political rival, when that man accused him of adultery-technically true as Jackson’s wife’s divorce from her first husband wasn’t finalized when she remarried. What did he duel over? His first opponent was an attorney who made him look foolish in court. ![]() ![]() But are the scenarios laid out in fiction exaggerated for our amusement? Surely, no civilized people would resort to such violence over mere words-or, would they?Īndrew Jackson, later the seventh President of the United States, fought in more than a dozen duels and received a bullet in his lung from one of them that remained there until his death nineteen years later. ![]() From Alexandre Dumas’ D'artagnan to the Firefly episode, “Shindig,” the deadly side of an old and polite society remains fascinating to today’s audiences. To fight a duel, whether with swords or pistols, remains one of the most romantic and violent tropes of the 17th through the 19th centuries.
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