# List of violent incidents involving Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson, later seventh president of the United States, was involved in a series of altercations in his personal and professional life. Jackson killed a man, was shot in a duel (in 1806), was shot in a tavern brawl (in 1813), and was charged, in separate incidents, with assault and battery (convicted), and assault with intent to kill (acquitted).
According to historian J. M. Opal, "[Jackson's] willingness to kill, assault, or threaten people was a constant theme in his adult life and a central component of the reputation he cultivated."$^{:70}$ One writer who investigated Jackson's brief residence circa 1788–89 in what is now East Tennessee reported, "He was recognized from the first as a man who 'would fight at the drop of a hat, and drop the hat himself.'" Per biographer Robert V. Remini, Jackson had a "vicious temper that frequently exploded into ugly language and acts,"$^{:7}$ and such a temper tantrum, "so furious and startlingly sudden, intimidated his victims by its abruptness and its noisiness."$^{:162}$ One historian wrote of his pre-war years, "By his mingled tact and daring he soon became a power in the sparsely settled community. His temper was nothing less than volcanic. His oaths were varied, numerous, and highly effective. Yet after he reached middle life both were less frequently in evidence, and except upon extraordinary occasions were more moderate than in youth." A Methodist chaplain—who correctly intuited Jackson's inability to live in egalitarian humility, or to admit to any fault whatsoever—wrote in his journal of the Natchez Expedition, "I find the Gen. cannot bare much opposition. He is a good General but a very incorrect divine."
It has been hyperbolically claimed that Jackson "participated in more than 100 duels over his lifetime" but that is not correct. That said, in 1828 a man named Dr. James L. Armstrong, who had been a surgeon in Jackson's militia in the War of 1812, claimed that he had started making a list of altercations involving Jackson and the final list "accumulated to nearly ONE HUNDRED FIGHTS or violent and abusive quarrels," although Armstrong's index, published under the title General Jackson's "juvenile indiscretions" between the ages of 23 and 60, listed but 14 instances. Shortly after the publication of this document, a Kentucky newspaper claimed that four men, including Archibald Yell, stopped by to "assassinate" Dr. Armstrong in Bedford County for writing anti-Jackson columns, chasing him down and clubbing him. A comment from another correspondent was appended to the report which stated, "This is Jacksonism in its true colors such as the Hero in early times has often acted himself!" Similarly, during the 1824 presidential election, Jesse Benton, brother of U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton (and very much an interested party in questions of Jacksonian violence, as he was the one who shot Jackson in 1813), published a pamphlet that stated, "...it is a notorious fact, that he was scarce ever known to leave a [horse racing] round without having participated in an affray or riot, or at least a quarrel."
Jackson's apparent propensity for physical violence was very much an issue for the anti-Jacksonians in the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections. One Delaware voter wrote his local newspaper to this effect:
   They do not deny, that Andrew Jackson has often been engaged in the most disgraceful broils and riots in the streets and taverns of Nashville, shooting with pistols and stabbing with dirks on all hands of him. But they tell you that we have no right to investigate his private character, and that his quarrels, duels, adulteries and murders, furnish no arguments against his fitness for an office, where patience, ability and virtuous principles are indispensable requisites to the continuance of the good Government and liberties of our country.
News reports about Jackson's history of violence seem to have at least caught the attention of the voting public. Thomas E. Waggaman of Washington, D.C. wrote Felix Robertson in November 1828 that he had received a letter from a "corresponding committee in Harrisburg Pa. requesting me to give them a history of the Genl's 'trading in negroes cutting off ears' and other acts of violence ascribed to him by the tools of corruption." Jackson was a interstate slave trader active for 20–25 years (c. 1789–c. 1812); whether or not he ever cut off anyone's ears is unrecorded by history, although he repeatedly threatened it. In the United States this practice, called ear cropping, was one of a number of livestock-management practices—including branding, castration, chaining, and whipping—that were used against the enslaved. Ear cropping, toe removal, and castration were amongst the most extreme measures used to enforce subservience. The intent behind cropping ears, specifically, was permanent, visible mutilation, and thus implied ongoing shaming and contempt of the person so mutilated.
Despite Jackson's leadership of militia in the War of 1812, the Creek War, and the Seminole War, historians have found that "there is no explicit account of his actually firing at an enemy in standard battle." Nonetheless, his military violence (not currently included on this list) "was considerable."$^{:30}$

## Fights, duels, beatdowns, and attempts at same

* Duel with Waightstill Avery, 1788, both men fired into the air; the cause seems to have been Avery ridiculing a legal argument made by Jackson in court, with one variation being "that Jackson had ridiculed Avery's pet authority—Bacon's Abridgment, and Avery's reply was "sarcastic...intimating that Jackson had much to learn before he would be competent to criticize any law book whatever." Avery reportedly gave Jackson a fatherly lecture after the duel was over and kept the written challenge filed amongst his myriad papers as "Challenge from Andrew Jackson." John Adair was Avery's second.
* Duel with unidentified opponent near Jonesboro, Tennessee, probably 1789, but sometime before November 1790, "'in the long meadow,' as it was then called (formerly the 'hollow'), on the north side of town, and they all asserted that the duel with Avery was fought on the hill on the south side...He said that Jackson hit his man, but he was not seriously wounded, and soon recovered and left the community; that Jackson was not touched."
* Allegedly, in approximately 1797, while Jackson was serving as a Representative to Congress, Founding Father, former North Carolina governor, and U.S. Senator Alexander Martin mentioned Jackson's brother-in-law Stockley Donelson's connection to North Carolina's Glasgow land frauds (just for one thing Donelson was married to a daughter of James Glasgow), in response to which Jackson "charged the Legislature, Executive and Citizens of North-Carolina, at a public dining table, with being a set of Rogues and Rascals, and challenged the Governor to a duel." Martin verbally deescalated the situation.
* Allegedly, according to an Adams-aligned paper in 1826, while Jackson was a judge (between 1798 and 1804), "it so happened that a man, with whom he had previously been at variance, and who had insulted him, made his appearance in the Court Room. The Judge, on recognising him, threw off his coat, assailed him with a cow-hide, and whipped him to his heart's satisfaction!"
* Roadside standoff in 1803 between Jackson and John Sevier, pistols and a sword were drawn; Remini speculated that "with all this dallying it is possible that neither man really wanted to risk his life and career on a duel but that both wished to stigmatize the other with a refusal to fight. Perhaps it should be pointed out that Sevier had eighteen children."
* February 13, 1804 - "Assaulted John C. Henderson"
* January 13, 1806 - Jackson beat Virginia attorney Thomas Swann with a cane at a tavern, part of the long lead-up to the fatal-for-Dickinson Jackson–Dickinson duel
* January 27, 1806 - "Found guilty of assault and battery upon Thomas Baird"
* May 30, 1806 - Duel with Charles Dickinson, Jackson killed Dickinson; Dickinson hit Jackson first, and Jackson may have later suffered lead poisoning as a result of the unremoved bullet, but "concealed his own injury from Dickinson's associates to spite Dickinson in his death."$^{:31}$
* March 6, 1807 - Jackson chased down fellow land speculator Samuel Dorsey Jackson in the street over an unpaid debt, S. Jackson was evidently unarmed but reached for a rock to defend himself, and A. Jackson deployed a knife hidden inside a cane. Jackson was tried and acquitted on charges of assault with intent to kill against Samuel Jackson (no relation, as far as historians can tell). S. Jackson was not seriously injured, if at all, and the pair later did business with one another. The indictment, written by future U.S. Senator Jenkin Whiteside, stated that the stab wound was .5 inches (13 millimeters) across and 4 inches (100 millimeters) deep. The exact language was that Andrew Jackson "an assault did make in & upon one Samuel Jackson, in the peace of the State then and there being, and that the said Andrew Jackson, with a certain drawn Sword which he said Andrew Jackson in his right hand then & there had & held in and upon the Left side of him the said Samuel Jackson above the Short ribs of him the said Samuel did Strike & thrust, giving to the Said Samuel Jackson then & there with the Sword aforesaid in & upon the aforesaid left side of him the said Samuel above the short ribs of him the said Samuel a wound of the breadth of half an Inch and of the depth of four inches with an Intent him the said Samuel Jackson then & there feloniously wilfully and of his malice aforethought, to kill & murder, and other wrongs & enormities to Said Samuel Jackson then and there did to the great damage of the said Samuel Jackson and against the peace & dignity of the State."
* According to various reliable sources, threatened a federal agent in 1812. One description has it that "when he approached the Agency, he armed his negroes with axes, hired some half breed Indians with their arms—marched by the agency in military order, himself at their head with the cap of his holsters thrown back, and his rifle cocked", and later successfully campaigned to have the agent's boss, Silas Dismoor, fired from his job.
* In 1813 Jackson participated in brawl at Nashville tavern with Thomas Hart Benton (great-great-uncle of the painter), Jesse Benton, John Coffee, Stockley Hays, and Alexander Donelson. The men deployed knives, and whips, and shot each other with pistols; Jesse Benton shot Jackson in the shoulder or arm and Jackson was seriously injured. At age 46, this was Jackson's last gunfight. According to Remini in 1977, "Like the others, there was something petty about it. None of Jackson's quarrels did him credit; all diminished him."$^{:186}$ As of 1826, there were still two bullets from this fight embedded in the wall of the tavern "to which some of the hot headed Tennesseans daily offer repeated and hearty libations."
* Date unclear (1810s?), Jackson allegedly caned a man who suggested that he was the father of a girl called Sally Meagher who lived near the Third Chickasaw Bluff (now Memphis) and what is now called President's Island; "the account published of this caning by his enemies, some fifteen years later, was very prejudicial to Jackson. It was even stated that several of his friends stood by with cocked pistols, threatening to kill the fellow if he moved. The General gave some grounds for this charge by his excessive fondness for Sally, and the common opinion was that he would either adopt her or do something handsome for her." Paddy Meagher was some kind of vassal to Jackson, although no one entirely understood the arrangement. As for Sally, "Jackson once thrashed a fellow for talking about Sally. Sally was short and thick, and had red hair and a ready wit, all of which she inherited from Paddy. She had talented legs as well as a talented tongue, and could outdance the rest of the young women of the neighborhood. She drew custom to Paddy's bar, where a free and easy manner reigned." In 1822, either the first or second property deed ever registered in Memphis (a town that began as a land speculation of Jackson, John Overton, and James Winchester) was lot 43, recorded in the name of Sally Meagher. Both Paddy Meagher and Sally Meagher eventually died of alcohol dependence-related illnesses.
* In 1817, Jackson "challenged" Winfield Scott, after Scott confirmed that he considered Jackson to have "committed an act of mutiny" when he "ordered disobedience by his troops" to War Department orders. Apparently they did not fight but Jackson called Scott a "hectoring bully" and one of the War Department's "intermeddling pimps and spies."
* In 1828, Jackson and Jesse Benton had a sequel to their 1813 Nashville tavern brawl, only this time the venue was the Bell Tavern in Memphis. The second time around Jesse Benton was beaten.
* During an assassination attempt while he was president, at age 68, Jackson "armed only with a cane, he had valiantly charged forth to do battle with an assassin carrying two pistols."$^{:211}$

## Threats

* Sometime between 1788 and 1794, Jackson reportedly promised to "cut the ears out of [Robards's] head," meaning Lewis Robards. This was in the course of their conflict over the future Mrs. Jackson.$^{:36}$
* The highest and best use of Jackson's propensity for threatening people was probably in 1798, the first year of his service as a state judge. A man named Russell Bean had returned from an extended trip to the Natchez District, found his wife nursing a child he could not have fathered, and cut the baby's ears off. Despite repeated attempts, the local sheriff failed to successfully execute the arrest warrant for Bean, a hulking and evidently well-armed master gunsmith. Jackson, on hearing this, armed himself with two pistols, found Bean and said something to the effect of "surrender, you infernal villain...or I'll blow you through."$^{:115}$ In reply, Bean reportedly "called out, 'I'll surrender to you, Mr. Devil!' and laid down his arms."
* Allegedly threatened to hang attorney Jonathan Thompson "to the first tree, or highest tree" for pursuing legal action regarding Aaron Burr and/or Harman Blennerhassett's debts.
* Allegedly "swore by god he would shoot all his prisoners" if served a writ of habeas corpus for people detained under his declaration of martial law in New Orleans in 1814–15.
* According to the slave narrative of James Robinson, after Jackson used slaves and free people of color to fight and win the Battle of New Orleans, he made a speech recanting promises to free the slaves who had worked and fought under his command and added, "Before a slave of mine should go free, I would put him in a barn and burn him alive."
* Allegedly "threatened personal violence to several of our senators" who were investigating or criticizing his illegal seizure of Florida, an invasion generally known as the First Seminole War. To be specific, in January 1819 he apparently raged to his advisors that he should challenge Congressman Henry Clay to a duel for speaking out against him on the floor of the house and that he would "cut off [Abner] Lacock's ears" for heading the Senate select committee that "methodically gathered and sifted evidence" in the matter.
* In 1827, while on his way to New Orleans for an electioneering trip, the steamboat Pocahontas on which he was a passenger was playfully "buzzed" by another steamer. According to James Alexander Hamilton (son of Alexander Hamilton), who had invited himself along on the trip to benefit Martin Van Buren, this made Jackson furious, and Jackson "sent for his rifle" and "shouted to the other steamboat that he would shoot the pilot if he continued to show such disrespect." Mrs. Jackson, who was along for the trip, ably defused the situation.$^{:337}$
* Date unclear: Threatened to kill two men who called him "ambitious"
* Date unclear: Threatened to kill a "Secretary of War for advising him, accurately, about rumors that connected him with Aaron Burr."

## Other quarrels, evidently non-violent

* According to one capsule biography of federal judge John McNairy, McNairy supported the removal of James Robertson as U.S. agent to the Chickasaws, and Jackson opposed it, and "Jackson became so enraged at the attitude of his former friend and fellow student and used such 'unparliamentary language' in regard to him that a breach occurred that time never healed."$^{:890}$