(from James Parton, General Jackson, 1892)
PERHAPS THE MOST NOTORIOUS DUEL in America was in 1804 when Aaron Burr mortally wounded his political rival, Alexander Hamilton, in a remote field across the Hudson River from New York City, in Weehawken, New Jersey. Duels enabled men to respond to a verbal insult when the rule of law might not. Senators, congressmen, and newspaper editors dueled to assuage their wounded honor. Even Abe Lincoln came close to a duel with drawn cutlasses.
Duels were rampant in America between 1790 and 1810, especially in the South. New Orleans, as late as 1834, had more duelists defending their honor than there were days in the year: “fifteen on one Sunday morning; one hundred and two between the 1st of January and the end of April.”
Here Jackson’s nineteenth-century biographer, James Parton, relates the story of how General (and future president) Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson, the best shot in Tennessee, got into an imbroglio and ended up sighting along their pistol barrels and firing at each other’s heart.
FOR THE AUTUMN HORSE RACES of 1805, a great match was arranged between General Jackson’s Truxton and Captain Joseph Ervin’s Plowboy. The stakes were two thousand dollars, payable on the day of the race in notes, which notes were to be then due; forfeit, eight hundred dollars. Six persons were interested in this race: on Truxton’s side, General Jackson, Major W. P. Anderson, Major Verrell, and Captain Pryor; on the side of Plowboy, Captain Ervin and his son-inlaw, Charles Dickinson. Before the day appointed for the race arrived Ervin and Dickinson decided to pay the forfeit and withdraw their horse, which was amicably done, and the affair was supposed to be at an end.
About this time a report reached General Jackson’s ears that Charles Dickinson had uttered disparaging words of Mrs. Jackson, which was with Jackson the sin not to be pardoned. Dickinson was a lawyer by profession, but, like Jackson, speculated in produce, horses, and, it is said, in slaves. He was well connected, possessed considerable property, and had a large circle of friends. He is represented as a somewhat wild, dissipated young man, yet not unamiable, nor disposed wantonly to wound the feelings of others. When excited by drink, or by any other cause, he was prone to talk loosely and swear violently, as drunken men will. He had the reputation of being the best shot in Tennessee. Upon hearing this report, General Jackson called on Dickinson and asked him if he had used the language attributed to him. Dickinson replied that if he had, it must have been when he was drunk. Further explanations and denials removed all ill feeling from General Jackson’s mind, and they separated in a friendly manner.
A second time, it is said Dickinson uttered offensive words respecting Mrs. Jackson in a tavern at Nashville, which were duly conveyed by some meddling parasite to General Jackson. Jackson, I am told, then went to Captain Ervin and advised him to exert his influence over his son-in-law, and induce him to restrain his tongue and comport himself like a gentleman in his cups. “I wish no quarrel with him,” said Jackson; “he is used by my enemies in Nashville, who are urging him on to pick a quarrel with me. Advise him to stop in time.” It appears, however, that enmity grew between these two men. In January, 1806, when the events occurred that are now to be related, there was the worst possible feeling between them.
Deadly enmity existing between Jackson and Dickinson; a very trivial event was sufficient to bring them into collision. A young lawyer of Nashville, named Swann, misled by false information, circulated a report that Jackson had accused the owners of Plowboy of paying their forfeit in notes other than those which had been agreed upon—notes less valuable because not due at the date of settling. General Jackson, in one of his letters to Mr. Swann, went out of his way to assail Charles Dickinson by name, calling him “a base poltroon and cowardly talebearer,” requesting Swann to show Dickinson these offensive words, and offering to meet him in the field if he desired satisfaction for the same. Upon reading the letter, Dickinson published a card which contained these words: “I declare him, notwithstanding he is a major-general of the militia of Mero district, to be a worthless scoundrel, ‘a poltroon and a coward’—a man who, by frivolous and evasive pretexts, avoided giving the satisfaction which was due to a gentleman whom he had injured. This has prevented me from calling on him in the manner I should otherwise have done, for I am well convinced that he is too great a coward to administer any of those anodynes he promised me in his letter to Mr. Swann.”
Jackson instantly challenged Dickinson. The challenge was promptly accepted. Friday, May 30, 1806, was the day appointed for the meeting; the weapons, pistols; the place, a spot on the banks of the Red River, in Kentucky.
The place appointed for the meeting was a long day’s ride from Nashville. Thursday morning, before the dawn of day, Dickinson stole from the side of his young and beautiful wife, and began silently to prepare for the journey.
He mounted his horse and repaired to the rendezvous where his second and half a dozen of the gay blades of Nashville were waiting to escort him on his journey. Away they rode, in the highest spirits, as though they were upon a party of pleasure. Indeed, they made a part of pleasure of it. When they stopped for rest or refreshment, Dickinson is said to have amused the company by displaying his wonderful skill with the pistol. Once, at a distance of twenty-four feet, he fired four balls, each at the word of command, into a space that could be covered by a silver dollar. Several times he cut a string with his bullet from the same distance. It is said that he left a severed string hanging near a tavern, and said to the landlord, as he rode away, “If General Jackson comes along this road, show him that!”
Very different was the demeanor of General Jackson and the party that accompanied him. His second, General Thomas Overton, an old Revolutionary soldier, versed in the science and familiar with the practice of dueling, had reflected deeply upon the conditions of the coming combat, with the view to conclude upon the tactics most likely to save his friend from Dickinson’s unerring bullet. For this duel was not to be the amusing mockery that some modern duels have been. This duel was to be real. It was to be an affair in which each man was to strive with his utmost skill to effect the purpose of the occasion—disable his antagonist and save his own life. As the principal and the second rode apart from the rest, they discussed all the chances and probabilities with the single aim to decide upon a course which should result in the disabling of Dickinson and the saving of Jackson. The mode of fighting which had been agreed upon was somewhat peculiar. The pistols were to be held downward until the word was given to fire; then each man was to fire as soon as he pleased. With such an arrangement it was scarcely possible that both the pistols should be discharged at the same moment. There was a chance, even, that by extreme quickness of movement one man could bring down his antagonist without himself receiving a shot. The question anxiously discussed between Jackson and Overton was this: Shall we try to get the first shot, or shall we permit Dickinson to have it? They agreed, at length, that it would be decidedly better to let Dickinson fire first.
Jackson ate heartily at supper that night, conversing in a lively, pleasant manner, and smoked his evening pipe as usual. Jacob Smith remembers being exceedingly well pleased with his guest, and, on learning the cause of his visit, heartily wishing him a safe deliverance. Before breakfast on the next morning the whole party mounted and rode down the road that wound close along the picturesque banks of the stream. The horsemen rode about a mile along the river, then turned down toward the river to a point on the bank where they had expected to find a ferryman. No ferryman appearing Jackson spurred his horse into the stream and dashed across, followed by all his party. They rode into the poplar forest two hundred yards or less, to a spot near the center of a level platform or river bottom, then covered with forest, now smiling with cultivated fields. The horsemen halted and dismounted just before reaching the appointed place. Jackson, Overton, and a surgeon who had come with them from home walked on together, and the rest led their horses a short distance in an opposite direction.
“How do you feel about it now, General?” asked one of the party, as Jackson turned to go.
“Oh, all right,” replied Jackson, gayly; “I shall wing him, never fear.”
Dickinson’s second won the choice of position, and Jackson’s the office of giving the word. The astute Overton considered this giving of the word a matter of great importance, and he had already determined how he would give it if the lot fell to him. The eight paces were measured off and the men placed. Both were perfectly collected. All the politenesses of such occasions were very strictly and elegantly performed. Jackson was dressed in a loose frock-coat, buttoned carelessly over his chest and concealing in some degree the extreme slenderness of his figure. Dickinson was the younger and handsomer man of the two. But Jackson’s tall, erect figure, and the intensity of his demeanor, it is said, gave him a most superior and commanding air, as he stood under the tall poplars on this bright May morning, silently awaiting the moment.
“Are you ready?” said Overton.
“I am ready,” replied Dickinson.
“I am ready,” said Jackson.
The words were no sooner pronounced than Overton, with a sudden shout, cried, using his old-country pronunciation:
“FERE!”
Dickinson raised his pistol quickly and fired. Overton, who was looking with anxiety and dread at Jackson, saw a puff of dust fly from the breast of his coat, and saw him raise his left arm and place it tightly across his chest. He is surely hit, thought Overton, and in a bad place, too. But no; he does not fall. He raised his pistol. Overton glanced at Dickinson. Amazed at the unwonted failure of his aim, and apparently appalled at the awful figure and face before him, Dickinson had unconsciously recoiled a pace or two.
“Great God!” he faltered, “have I missed him?”
“Back to the MARK, sir!” shrieked Overton with his hand upon his pistol.
Dickinson recovered his composure, stepped forward to the peg, and stood with his eyes averted from his antagonist. All this was the work of a moment, though it requires many words to tell it.
General Jackson took deliberate aim and pulled the trigger. The pistol neither snapped nor went off. He looked at the trigger, and discovered that it had stopped at half-cock. He drew it back to its place and took aim a second time. He fired. Dickinson’s face blanched; he reeled; his friends rushed toward him, caught him in their arms, and gently seated him on the ground, leaning against a bush. They stripped off his clothes. The blood was gushing from his side in a torrent. The ball had passed through the body, below the ribs. Such a wound could not but be fatal.
Overton went forward and learned the condition of the wounded man. Rejoining his principal, he said, “He won’t want anything more of you, General,” and conducted him from the ground. They had gone a hundred yards, Overton walking on one side of Jackson, the surgeon on the other, and neither speaking a word, when the surgeon observed that one of Jackson’s shoes was full of blood.
“My God! General Jackson, are you hit?” he exclaimed, pointing to the blood.
“Oh! I believe,” replied Jackson, “that he has pinked me a little. Let’s look at it. But say nothing about it there,” pointing to the house.
He opened his coat. Dickinson’s aim had been perfect. He had sent the ball precisely where he supposed Jackson’s heart was beating. But the thinness of his body and the looseness of his coat combining to deceive Dickinson, the ball had only broken a rib or two and raked the breast-bone. It was a somewhat painful, bad-looking wound, but neither severe nor dangerous, and he was able to ride to the tavern without much inconvenience. Upon approaching the house he went up to one of the negro women who was churning and asked her if the butter had come. She said it was just coming. He asked for some buttermilk. While she was getting it for him she observed him furtively open his coat and look within it. She saw that his shirt was soaked with blood, and she stood gazing in. She dipped out a quart measure full of buttermilk and gave it to him. He drank it off at a draught; then went in, took off his coat, and had his wound carefully examined and dressed. That done, he dispatched one of his retinue to Dr. Catlett, to inquire respecting the condition of Dickinson, and to say that the surgeon attending himself would be glad to contribute his aid toward Mr. Dickinson’s relief. Polite reply was returned that Mr. Dickinson’s case was past surgery. In the course of the day General Jackson sent a bottle of wine to Dr. Catlett for the use of his patient.
But there was one gratification which Jackson could not, even in such circumstances, grant him. A very old friend of General Jackson writes to me thus: “Although the general had been wounded, he did not desire it should be known until he had left the neighborhood, and had therefore concealed it at first from his own friends. His reason for this, as he once stated to me, was, that as Dickinson considered himself the best shot in the world, and was certain of killing him at the first fire, he did not want him to have the gratification even of knowing that he had touched him.”
Poor Dickinson bled to death.
General Jackson’s wound proved to be more severe and troublesome than was at first anticipated. It was nearly a month before he could move about without inconvenience, and when the wound healed it healed falsely; that is, some of the viscera were slightly displaced, and so remained. Twenty years after, this forgotten wound forced itself upon his remembrance, and kept itself there for many a year.