Hey @caroljsroth, I was just listening to your podcast with @JesseKellyDC and I wanted correct some errors concerning the Dickinson/Jackson duel of 1806. I am working on my PhD thesis related to Jackson and host the @AgeofJacksonPod. 1/

The origins of their feud begin not with Rachel Jackson’s honor, but rather over horseracing. Jackson was a horseracing enthusiast, as were most southern gentlemen of the planter class. Cutting a long story short, it comes down to money. 2/
Basically, Dickinson was in on a bet against Jackson’s horse but withdrew and paid the forfeit. The problem is rumors began to fly that Jackson wasn’t thrilled about this, because they apparently wanted to use promissory notes as payment. 3/
Things start to get very testy between the two men are insults are exchanged and circulate around Nashville. Eventfully things get even more public when all this gets published in the newspapers, with the two calling each other cowards more or less. 4/
So, what about Rachel? That’s the funny thing, Rachel is not mentioned in any of the newspapers and in the letters between the men and their associates leading up to the duel. I’m not saying it was not a contributing factor, but it hard to find solid evidence for it. 5/
James Patron, Jackson's first professional biographer points to it, but from what we have in the Papers of Andrew Jackson collections are more about the horse racing drama and the insults being exchanged. 6/
As for how many men Dickinson had fought in a duel, the claim that Dickinson fought 27 duels is completely false as far as I can tell. Much like Jackson’s dueling numbers, my guess is they have been grossly exaggerated by the internet. 7/
It is true that he was a respected marksmen. Check out his letter, pretty cool I think. 8/
And here is Jackson with his infamous large coat to hide his slim frame. The man was incredibly skinny, look how slender his uniform was. 9/
Anyway, sorry for being "that guy" on the internet but I gotta use this knowledge for something. Enjoy and I hope you found this helpful. 10/10.

More from Culture

One of the authors of the Policy Exchange report on academic free speech thinks it is "ridiculous" to expect him to accurately portray an incident at Cardiff University in his study, both in the reporting and in a question put to a student sample.


Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:


Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.


Here is the next mention of Greer in the report. The text asks whether the University "should have overruled protestors" and "stepped in...and guaranteed Greer the right to speak". Again the strong implication is that this did not happen and Greer was "no platformed".


The authors could easily have added a footnote at this point explaining what actually happened in Cardiff. They did not.

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