17. Andrew Jackson carried a bullet in his lung for most of his adult life
Andrew Jackson survived a sword wound administered by an annoyed British officer during the Revolutionary War after the young Jackson refused to polish his boots. With his brother he was taken prisoner by the British, contracted smallpox, and somehow survived. His brother did not. He was later wounded in a duel, the bullet lodging in his left lung, too near the heart for surgeons to consider its removal. After being hit, Jackson stood his ground and shot and killed his opponent, Charles Dickinson. It was not Jackson’s first foray onto the dueling ground, nor would it be his last. He was also not above entering into a fray on the street, absent the less formal arrangements of the so-called field of honor.
Jackson survived an assassination attempt as President of the United States, believed to be the first attempt on the life of an American president. The assassin, Richard Lawrence, approached Jackson as he was walking with a party of notables leaving the funeral of South Carolina congressman Warren Davis in the Capitol. When Lawrence’s pistols misfired, one after the other, Jackson approached the would-be assassin with his walking stick, striking at either the pistol or Lawrence’s arm to disarm him. He was quickly aided by others attending the service, one of whom was Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee. When Andrew Jackson died in 1845 it was attributed to congestive heart failure, aggravated in part by the bullet which he carried in his lung for so many years.
