7. Andrew Jackson, famously prone to anger, fought multiple duels throughout his life, including cheating in one to kill a man who had (correctly) called his wife a bigamist and adulterer
Andrew Jackson, an American politician and soldier, served as the 7th President of the United States from 1829 to 1837 after stints in both chambers of Congress. Possessing a fierce temper and not adverse to violence, beating his would-be assassin with his cane at the age of sixty-eight, Jackson was involved in multiple duels during his lifetime. Doing so for the first time at the age of twenty-one, in 1788 Jackson dueled fellow lawyer Waightstill Avery after, according to legend, the former had replaced the latter’s copy of Francis Bacon’s Elements of the Common Laws of England with an actual side of bacon.
Marrying Rachel Donelson Robards in 1791, two years later it became apparent Rachel’s divorce to her former husband, Lewis Robards had not been granted. Making her a bigamist and adulterer, the pair were forced to remarry in 1794 after a protracted legal process. This controversy would plague Jackson for decades and, in 1806, Charles Dickinson, a rival race-horse owner, would attack Jackson in the paper for it. Fighting a duel once again, Dickinson shot first and struck Jackson in the chest. In a flagrant breach of etiquette, Jackson returned fire. Misfiring his pistol, thus supposedly ending the contest, Jackson aimed and fired a second shot immediately killing Dickinson.