Considering he was in as many as 100 duels, the fact that Andrew Jackson lived long enough to be president is a feat in itself. He didn’t escape completely unscathed, however: “Old Hickory” lived with a bullet in his body after being wounded in one of these confrontations. His opponent was Charles Dickinson, with whom he had a dispute over the repayment of a forfeited horse race bet. 

The conflict escalated when Dickinson insulted Jackson’s wife, Rachel. Those were fighting words back then as surely as they are today, and so the two men drew pistols in Logan County, Kentucky, on May 30, 1806. Dickinson’s first shot struck Jackson near the heart, where the bullet would remain for the rest of his life. Jackson, after misfiring the first time, recocked his pistol, fired again, and killed Dickinson. 

If the duel had any effect on Jackson’s subsequent presidential campaign, it certainly wasn’t a negative one. Duels were hardly uncommon at the time, though most resulted in little more than each man firing his pistol into the air to avoid being seen as cowardly for refusing the challenge. The seventh U.S. president, who was so quick-tempered that there’s a Wikipedia article titled “List of violent incidents involving Andrew Jackson,” clearly wasn’t one to turn the other cheek.