Have we ever had a killer in the White House?
* Andrew Jackson. No surprise here--the hot-tempered Jackson killed
a man in a duel near Nashville in 1806 (not quite two years after Aaron
Burr, then vice president, killed Alexander Hamilton in a similar
confrontation). His opponent was Charles Dickinson, a young lawyer who had
insulted
Jackson's wife, Rachel, in a dispute over a horse-racing debt. Jackson issued
a
challenge, Dickinson accepted, and their seconds arranged the details: The
two men would stand eight paces apart in a forest clearing, pistols
pointed down, and shoot on command. At the signal Dickinson--by reputation the
far superior shot--immediately raised his weapon and blasted away, striking
Jackson near the heart. The wound was serious but not fatal; Jackson clapped
his hand to his chest but otherwise remained motionless. Stepping
backward, Dickinson exclaimed, "My God, have I missed him?" Ordered to return
to
his mark, the doomed man had to stand there while Jackson, who had purposely
let his opponent shoot first so he could take more careful aim, raised his
pistol and pulled the trigger. No go--the hammer stopped at half-cock.
Jackson coolly--some would say cold-bloodedly--recocked the gun and tried
again, this time successfully. Dickinson fell with a bullet hole in his gut
and
slowly bled to death. Many who heard of the incident felt that recocking
the weapon was cheating; Jackson was unrepentant but remained under a cloud
until his success in the War of 1812.
* Grover Cleveland. Elected sheriff of Erie County, New York, in
1870, Cleveland was responsible for the hanging of condemned criminals.
Believing this unpleasant chore was not one he could fob off on a hireling,
Cleveland sprang the trap himself on at least two occasions. Political foes
later called him "the Buffalo Hangman."
* Teddy Roosevelt. During his famous charge with the Rough Riders up
Cuba's San Juan Hill in 1898, Teddy was among the first to reach the enemy
trenches as the Spanish were retreating. Two men shot at him; Teddy fired
back, and one died. At least one historian doubts that in the chaos of
battle anybody could know for certain who had fired the fatal shot, but Teddy
was sure he had done it and the Medal of Honor citation he received 102 years
later (long story) credits him with the death.
* George Washington. Many U.S. presidents have been accused of
capital crimes, mostly by opponents, but in Washington's case some reputable
historians have pointed the finger. As an inexperienced militia officer in
1754 Washington led an ambush on a small French military detachment in the
Ohio Territory in which the French commanding officer and nine others were
killed. Indians in Washington's party then scalped the dead. France and
England weren't at war at the time; the French were on a diplomatic mission to
deliver a message telling the English to clear out of French territory. One
French survivor claimed that his CO had been shot down as he attempted to
read the message while surrounded by English troops. (Nobody says Washington
killed the man himself, but he was there and nominally in charge.) Five
weeks later the French captured Washington and made him sign a document
describing the French officer's death as an "assassination." Washington later
claimed he didn't understand what he was signing because of a poor
translation;
in any case, the incident caused an uproar and precipitated the French and
Indian War. French historians have long regarded the incident as murder.
Even if you don't buy the story that Washington's men blew away the
defenseless emissary, a plausible argument can be made that our first
president
rashly concluded the French were up to no good and supervised the killing of
ten people by mistake.
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