thedailyfeed:

President Andrew Jackson was either lucky or preternaturally adept when it came to surviving assassination attempts. Here’s how he escaped an assassin’s point-blank pistol shots.

As soon as Jackson heard the first pistol explode, he started toward Lawrence, brandishing his famous hickory cane, “with which I knew I could give such a stroke as to break his pistol arm,” he said in one account. As the 67-year-old president charged forward, a Navy lieutenant knocked Lawrence down, with Jackson right behind him making sure his assailant was fully subdued. Legendary woodsman and Tennessee Rep. Davy Crockett was among the crowd helping to keep the peace. “I wanted to see the damnedest villain in the world,” Crockett would later say, “and now I have seen him.”

He used the same type of gun that Booth used to kill Lincoln.

(via retrocampaigns)