a long quarrel, beginning, apparently, over a
projected race between Truxton and Plow Bay, a horse in which Dickinson
was interested. Other persons were involved before the quarrel ended.
General Jackson publicly caned one Thomas Swann who had contrived to get
himself mixed up in the affair. Coffee, acting as Jackson's friend, had
a duel with one McNairy, and was severely wounded. Finally, for no
sufficient cause which the printed accounts discover, Jackson and
Dickinson met in Kentucky, each bent on killing his man. The word being
given, Dickinson fired quickly, and with perfect aim; a puff of dust
flew up from the breast of Jackson's coat. But he kept his feet, drew
his left arm across his breast, slowly raised his pistol, and pulled the
trigger. The hammer stopped at the half-cock. He cocked it again, aimed
deliberately, fired, and killed his man. His own life he owed to the
thinness of his body, for Dickinson had hit the spot where he thought
his adversary's heart was beating. Jackson had purposely allowed the
other to fire first, expecting to be hit, and fearing that if he, too,
fired hurriedly, the shock would spoil his aim. "I should have hit him,"
he said afterwards, "had he shot me through the brain." It is supposed
that his hatred of Dickinson was really due, not to the confused dispute
over the race, but to something Dickinson had said in his cups about
Mrs. Jackson. Whatever the provocation, the bloody story is revolting
enough; but the picture of Jackson's grim, erect figure, his hawklike
eyes terrible with hatred, the ball in his breast, the pistol in his
hand, must take its place alongside those other pictures and statues of
him which all Americans know.

But if Jackson was a terrible enemy, he was also the most faithful of
friends. Many men feared and hated him; many also loved him, and he
himself would go as far to help a friend as to crush an enemy. One of
his friends was a certain Patten Anderson, who seems always to have been
getting into trouble, but whom the general never deserted. Once Anderson
got into a fight at one end of a long table where a public dinner was
being served, and was in great danger until Jackson, who sat at the
other end, noticed the scuffle. "I'm coming, Patten," he cried, and
promptly leaped on the table and strode through dinner to the rescue.
Anderson was killed at last, and Jackson was a witness at the trial of
his slayer. He was asked if the unfortunate Anderson was not gi