In one of several violent incidents involving future U.S. president Andrew Jackson, Charles Dickinson was killed in a duel; Jackson was wounded and carried the bullet for the rest of his life.

Andrew Jackson, later seventh president of the United States, was involved in a series of altercations in his personal and professional life. Jackson killed a man, was shot in a duel, was shot in a tavern brawl, and was charged, in separate incidents, with assault and battery, and assault with intent to kill. In multiple incidents over several decades Jackson and his underlings reportedly brandished or deployed a wide array of weapons against their opponents, including horsewhips, knives secreted in canes, canes used as melee weapons, clubs, axes, pistols, and rifles. In the words of biographer Mark R. Cheathem, "Jackson's propensity toward violence was a lifelong characteristic. Borne partly out of his cultural ancestry, partly out of his personality, and partly out of his childhood in the Waxhaws, the expectations of the southern gentry accentuated this tendency. Jackson used violence during these years to establish his reputation as an honorable gentleman. These affairs of honor ignited not from the flamboyant chest pounding of a wild frontiersman but from the deliberate calculation of an aspiring southern planter determined to force recognition of his place among the elite."