So first: hello, my name's America! I'm the land of the free and home of the brave! I stuck it to England in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, hahaha! I mean, I had some help from France and Spain sometimes, but like, dude, it was mostly me. That being said, instead of tyrannical kings, I have presidents and I arranged myself so that it's impossible for him to be another King George (who, by the way, can go suck on my jingle bells) by adding Congress which is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. I won't explain those; if you want more info go look it up.

    A lot of these presidents try to keep their records clean so as not to disturb the public's peace of mind about the guy they're electing into office, but sometimes things slip up and they accidentally give themselves really interesting backstories. One such president happened to be my seventh—Andrew Jackson.

    Lemme tell ya a little somethin' about this man. He. Was. A. Badass. He was also a lawyer once, but he was a badass first. This guy helped out majorly in the War of 1812 in helping drive the British back in the Battle of New Orleans which was also where he got his nickname Old Hickory; his soldiers often said he was "as tough as old hickory" wood while he was fighting and dude, they were totally right. (Also ... he was a big racist (see pg. Trail of Tears). Just to make this clear, he was not my favorite.)

    He participated in a lot of duels in his lifetime. Some say it was just two, some say it was 103 (oddly specific number) and I've even heard some say it was close to 500 (or maybe I was misreading something because 103 to 500 is a big leap). I know, right? Pretty cool. You'd think I'd know all about it because I lived during that time, but you would be mistaken because it's not like we had Twitter back then. News didn't get around as fast as it did today, and if Jackson didn't feel like parading about with the news, then not a lot of people knew. Plus, if you weren't my boss, then, well, it was a long shot I would've met you. (This story takes place in 1806 when Andrew became my boss in 1829.)

Anyways—! Wait, it would probably be a good idea to explain what I mean by "duels" and the like.

Duels were usually "formal" things that you did to defend your honor, not if you were bored and wanted to take someone on just to win. If you killed someone in a duel, you could be charged for murder and manslaughter depending on the damage done, but usually you would get charged and nothing would happen to you. One just had to be mindful of where they duelled. They were "common" things (I put common in quotation marks because they weren't very well liked by the public from practically the very beginning; anti-dueling laws go back to the 13th century and a little farther) but they started going out of practice towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. However, in the early 1800's, especially in the south, duelling was viewed as something honorable by many men and a few more thought it was a rather crude way of solving things.

Also, you couldn't choose your own weapon to fight with. Well, you could, but both the people partaking in the duel had to use the same one. People usually used short swords like rapiers until the 19th century where fencing and pistol duels coexisted for a little while.

Okay, I was gonna move on, but apparently there's something else I'm supposed to say about "seconds". They were basically the dueler's representative and would try to find a peaceful way to fix the problem so there wouldn't have to be any violence—y'know, like saying you're sorry or just giving the guy his money. So once you challenged people to a duel, their seconds would meet to try and work out the problem but if there was no solution, they went ahead with the original plan of duelling. Obviously, they were people you could trust, so usually your second was a close friend or the other.

Alright this is getting boring. There's also something about pacing and stuff but, like, ain't nobody got time for that. There's a whole wikipedia page on it. Just go look it up if you're interested.

So, Andrew Jackson participated in a lot of duels in his lifetime—usually defending his wife's honor—and for this reason, he's said to have kept 37 pistols just for that purpose. Have to give it to him: he was dedicated. One of these duels hit 'im especially hard so that he'd always experience pains from it. He gained that one from a duel with Charles Dickinson.

    Charles Dickinson—not to be confused with Charles Dickens, the famous author whom you might recognize for writing A Christmas Carol—wasn't Andrew's biggest fan. They were pretty much enemies. Charles and Andrew were rival horse-breeders and southern plantation owners and one day Andrew's rival felt so inclined to insult him right to his face after he accused Jackson of cheating in a horse bet that had taken place between Andrew and Charles' father-in-law, Joseph Erwin. Jackson was used to this, he kind of had a lot of people who didn't like him and insulted him a lot, but this was different because this time, Dickinson insulted his wife. (He specifically called her a bigamist which, I guess, technically she was.)

    Andrew probably reacted like, "OH hell no."

    You see, Andrew's wife, Rachel, had previously been married to someone else who was a total dick and abused her. They were getting divorced and when Andrew and Rachel were getting married, they were unaware that Rachel's previous husband hadn't finalized said divorce. As you're probably aware, women didn't have a lot of rights back then (don't give me that look) so only the husband could divorce the wife, not the other way around. Since Andrew and Rachel got married while she was still technically married to someone else, they got a lot of criticism.

Insulting Andrew's wife? Not the best idea. Insulting his wife to his face? Charles was asking to be shot at.

Actually, Andrew confronted Charles was about it:

"Dude, that was not cool! You insulted my wife's honor! I mean, plus you called me a lot of really rude names and stuff, but like, my wife!"

(Ugh, Rose told me to tell you that this was not how people talked in the old days. Apparently, she doesn't want to get sued.)

For some reason, I just imagine Charles being super snooty about it. "Well," he would begin with his nose turned up in the air, "if I did, then I did it while I was drunk and cannot remember. Please, accept my apology." At least he was somewhat of the bigger man. (Honestly, I just thought of Austria even though Charles wasn't even close to being Austrian but, y'know, Austria can just be so snooty sometimes.)

Andrew Jackson shrugged. "Okay."

Wait, so they talked it out and that's it? Haha ... no. I mean, sure, they talked and Charles apologized and Andrew accepted his apology, but they retained some hard feelings towards the other.

Oh, humans, holding grudges. If you're not careful, you'll turn into France and England: not sure if you wanna be their friend so you just argue with them 24/7 to the annoyance and/or entertainment of your peers (yes, we're all peers no matter how many times China tries to say he's above all of us because he's the oldest).

Unsurprisingly, after Charles called him a "worthless scoundrel" in the National Review—a newspaper—and his insult to Rachel, Andrew challenged him to a duel and Charles accepted.

The day was May 30, 1806, in Tennessee ... when they realized they couldn't duel there because duelling was outlawed in Tennessee so they crossed the border into Kentucky.

Alright, let's try again:

The day was May 30, 1806, on the bank of the Red River in Logan, Kentucky. The two men were a mere 24 feet apart. Their breathing slowed as they planned their next moves carefully.

Then they turned and shot! BAM! They used .70 caliber flintlock pistols, and if you don't know anything about guns, that probably meant nothing to you, but goddam .70 caliber! (Okay, sorry, maybe I'll teach you about guns and stuff later.)

HIT! Andrew Jackson was shot in the chest!

He stumbles backwards then puts his hand over the wound, staunching the flow. The doctor on sight and the men's seconds gasped, their adrenaline turning into worry. There was something wrong with this scene, however: Jackson hadn't fallen dead yet.

Charles was surprised and taken aback. He shouts: "My God! Have I missed him?" (Real quote.)

But he hasn't because Jackson's clothes are stained red around the wound. He wobbles on his feet before lifting up his free hand and aiming. Then he shoots Charles dead.

You can imagine the shouts of indignation.

Andrew got help for his wound but the bullet was too close to his heart to operate on. It stayed in his chest for the rest of his life. What's really funny actually is that Jackson was a horrible shot! He's been in so many duels and this is the only time that he's killed someone.

Jackson would go on to win the election and become POTUS in 1829. He would be of the people but create a spoils system. Did you guys hear about everybody storming the White House when he was elected?

Best. House party. Ever.

But that's a whole different story! I have a lot of stories like this and I would love to share 'em!

Oh and speaking of elections I have my own to catch up on!

...

Oh my god. REALLY?

Bye ... gotta go. People are frickin' rioting in the streets.