It was a cold, wet, nasty day in 1835 when someone first attempted to kill a sitting U.S. president.

Death and violence were on Andrew Jackson's mind.

Death, because he was visiting the Capitol to pay respects at a memorial service for a recently

deceased member of South Carolina's delegation.

Violence, because even at 67, violence was always

percolating just below the surface with Andrew Jackson. Violence followed him through life like a

shadow. He had a scar across his forehead from a British saber in the Revolutionary War. Jackson was the last president who had served in

that conflict. In 1781, at the tail end of the war, Andrew and his brother Robert Jackson

had served as couriers and a regular militiamen for the cause. They were captured, and a British

dragoon ordered Jackson to shine his boots. Jackson had replied that he was a prisoner,

not a servant, and for his impudence, the officer slashed a sword across his face.

Robert and Andrew thence went to a British POW camp where they were half-starved and contracted

smallpox, which would also scar Jackson's face for life. Eventually, a prisoner exchange was struck, and Andrew and Robert returned home.

Robert died from smallpox and malnutrition two days after arrival.

Once Andrew recovered, his mother, a widow, volunteered as a nurse at an American POW camp,

where she promptly contracted cholera and died.

At which point, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, a veteran,

and a former POW. He was 14 years old. That was many years ago. And now, at the age of 67,

as President Jackson left the East Portico of the capital, an English house painter named

Richard Lawrence stepped out from behind a pillar, withdrew a derringer pistol, and took aim

at the president's heart.

If the bullet managed to somehow pierce Jackson's grizzled, leathery exterior, he would only be a junior addition of lead

...