The tale of Andrew Jackson’s dueling days reads like a clash of courage and consequence. Across as many as a hundred challenges, Jackson carried the grit that would someday shape a nation’s leader. His endurance is notable not just for surviving these confrontations, but for living with a bullet in his body afterward.

In Logan County, Kentucky, on May 30, 1806, a dispute over a horse-race wager and a heated insult to his wife, Rachel, culminated in a pistol duel with Charles Dickinson. Dickinson fired first, striking Jackson near the heart, yet Jackson, after a misfire, steadied himself, rearmed, and shot back, ending Dickinson’s life.

The duel, and the era’s many others, often ended with participants firing into the air, a gesture aimed at avoiding what was perceived as cowardice. Jackson’s reputation as a swift, passionate figure persisted—so much so that an online archive even notes a list of violent incidents involving him. Yet this temper did not derail his rise to the presidency; if anything, it contributed to the aura of a man who faced danger head-on.