A gun fight and knife fight between several historically significant figures of the frontier-era U.S. South took place on September 4, 1813, at a tavern on the public square in Nashville, Tennessee. Future U.S. president Andrew Jackson and three of his Donelson kinsmen (John Coffee, Stockley D. Hays, and Sandy Donelson), fought future U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse Benton Jr. Horsewhipping was threatened. The parties variously stabbed, shot, and beat each another. Jesse Benton shot Jackson, leaving him with a serious shoulder injury. Jackson and T. H. Benton had previously been close, but were estranged as a result of the fight. They eventually reconciled, with Tom Benton acting as a crucial and insistent voice in defense of Jackson and Jacksonian policies in the U.S. Senate throughout the second quarter of the 19th century.
J. Benton–Carroll duel
To begin, Nashville merchant Jesse Benton Jr. had gotten involved in a duel with future Tennessee governor William Carroll that was, reportedly, several steps away from the original insult:
Carroll slapped an officer who had insulted him in some way at a ball; according to historian Elbert Smith this was Littleton Johnson
The officer sent Carroll a duel challenge that was carried by a man named Pilcher
Carroll kicked Pilcher down the stairs for insulting him by bringing him the challenge from the officer
Pilcher challenged Carroll to a duel for kicking him down the stairs, which message he sent by medical doctor Boyd McNairy (brother to federal judge John McNairy and slave trader and planter Nathaniel McNairy)
When Boyd McNairy delivered the message to Carroll, the latter refused to duel Pilcher on the grounds that he was not enough of a gentleman to participate in a duel, and when McNairy offered to duel Carroll in Pilcher's place, Carroll said McNairy had been disqualified from dueling "because you were second in a duel and you made your man fire before the word was given."
McNairy delivered the above information back to Pilcher, who then sent Jesse Benton as his messenger. Benton consulted with Andrew Jackson, who said that Carroll might as well duel Benton as anyone since it seemed like an inevitability anyway.
Carroll and Benton dueled at a place called Sandy Bottom on June 14, 1813. Carroll was hit in the thumb, and Benton took a "long, raking" gunshot wound to the buttocks that was painful, embarrassing, likely contributed to long-term health problems, and was a source of much merriment amongst the local Jacksonians. Jackson served as Carroll's second in the duel that injured Jesse Benton; John M. Armstrong served as Benton's second. In the words of historian Ken Mueller, "Yet to see real combat, Jackson and his subordinates vented their aggression over petty slights and personal jealousies."
While this was going on, future U.S. Senator from Missouri Thomas Hart Benton was in the capital city of the United States, Washington, D.C., trying to get assigned to a more active theater of the war, and lobbying on behalf of Jackson. Earlier in the year, Jackson had launched, by riverine flotilla, the fruitless Natchez Expedition of Tennessee militiamen called up by governor Willie Blount, intending to assist the U.S. regular army in the lower Mississippi River valley with the ongoing War of 1812, but without any specific order from the U.S. Department of War or budget appropriation from the United States Congress. He was rebuffed and stalled by general James Wilkinson, and in February 1813, the "corps under your command" was "dismissed from public service," per message of Secretary of War John Armstrong. Thus, Jackson sought U.S. government reimbursement for his substantial expenses. He had borrowed US$1,000 (equivalent to $16,681 in 2025) from merchant banker James Jackson to buy beef, cornmeal, and flour for the troops on the Natchez Trace home to Nashville, and to rent wagons with draymen to haul the sick. The Natchez campaign was "a disaster for Jackson and his men. Provisions for the unexpectedly cold weather proved inadequate." In the conclusion of one recent researcher, "Few men would remember Washington or James Jackson's names...[but] had the Tennessee bankers refused the General's request, large numbers of Tennessee Volunteers would have suffered, and many more would have died."
Fighting words and fight
When T. H. Benton got back to Nashville from Washington, and discovered that Jackson had aided someone who shot his brother, while he had been endeavoring on Jackson's behalf, a sequel conflict erupted. In the words of historian and Jackson biographer Robert V. Remini, "Beside himself, Thomas threatened vengeance...Now a fierce guardian of his fame and image, Jackson had become extremely sensitive to public criticism. The trouble with Benton, Jackson said, was his inability to keep his mouth shut."
The Fort Mims massacre took place in the lower Alabama section of Mississippi Territory on August 30, 1813. (This event would begin the Red Sticks War in earnest, and ultimately result in Jackson imposing the crushing Treaty of Fort Jackson on the Mvskokvlke, or Creek Confederacy.) Five days later, on September 4, 1813, Jesse Benton shot Andrew Jackson, and Jackson's nephew Stockley D. Hays "nearly killed" Jesse Benton. It was a Saturday when the Benton brothers fought Jackson, Hays, Alexander "Sandy" Donelson (another nephew), and John Coffee (an in-law, Jackson's long-time business partner, and, shortly, American general commanding troops in several critical engagements of the Creek War), at Talbot's Hotel (later the City Hotel) in Nashville. The Nashville Inn (earlier Talbot's Tavern) had been founded around the turn of the century by William Terrell Lewis and was always patronized by Jackson, Lewis' business associate and friend of long acquaintance, so Jackson opponents (such as the latter-day Whigs) usually stayed elsewhere, across the public square. On a visit to central Nashville the Bentons had deliberately stayed elsewhere than the Nashville Inn to avoid encountering Jackson, but "Jackson unhesitatingly assumed the role of aggressor by following Jesse into the hotel," horsewhip in hand, since he had promised to horsewhip Thomas Hart Benton for the perceived insult.
Jackson and Coffee approached the tavern where they knew the Bentons were staying, "Both Bentons were waiting, their pistols loaded with two shots each. As Jackson came abreast of Thomas he suddenly turned toward him, brandished his whip, and cried, 'Now, you damned rascal, I am going to punish you. Defend yourself." Jesse Benton got the better of Jackson, slipping around the back and shooting him in the arm while Jackson had held a gun to his brother's head, leaving Jackson with his left arm and a shoulder shredded. Jackson biographer Sean Wilentz says of the brawl and Jackson's injuries that, "The fracas left Jackson with a serious pistol wound in the shoulder, from which he nearly died." Jackson's wounds were reportedly so severe that the bleeding soaked through two mattresses. Attending doctors recommended amputation, but Jackson refused ("I'll keep my arm").
According to the footnotes of Tom Kanon's history of Tennessee military participation in the War of 1812: "Four other pistols were fired in quick succession—one by Jackson at Benton, two by Benton at Jackson, and one by John Coffee at Thomas Benton—but Jackson was the only one hit. Then daggers were drawn." Coffee and Donelson jumped in and stabbed future Senator Benton five times. Hays stabbed Jesse Benton with a knife concealed within a cane, while Captain Eli Hammond beat J. Benton about the head, but "a large and strong button which broke Hays' blade saved Jesse from being perforated. Jesse placed the muzzle of his remaining pistol against Hays' chest and pulled the trigger, but in a fair exchange of mishaps, the charge failed to explode." James Sumner intervened on behalf of the Bentons, helping them driving off Hays and Donelson. Jackson's urgent need for medical attention ended the fight; T. H. Benton "sealed the victory by breaking Jackson's sword across his knee in the public square" and later pamphleteered about the brawl, explaining his side of the story.
Aftermath
"Every physician in Nashville" treated Jackson's injuries, at either the Nashville Inn, or at Dr. McNairy's house. (Caroline McNairy, McNairy's daughter, later claimed the scene was a "sad spectacle...He lay in the large parlour and by the help of ropes suspended from the ceiling, he was lifted and enabled to rest by change of position.") Dr. McNairy eventually became a dedicated proponent of the anti-Jacksonian Whig Party in Tennessee. Benton's bullet, which "lay against the bone of the left arm," remained in Jackson's body until 1832, when it was removed by U.S. Navy surgeon Thomas Harris. The bullet was "flattened by contusion on bone and hackled on the edge." Benton's bullet and Charles Dickinson's bullet, lodged in Jackson's left lung since 1806, may have contributed to "significantly elevated" levels of lead in samples of Jackson's hair. Since the bullet "shattered" the left shoulder, "contact with synovial fluid in joint space is highly likely," which would increase the exposure to lead subsequent to a "missile" injury, and "bony sequestrum, implying osteomyelitis, was sloughed from this wound in 1814 and presented as a memento to Jackson's wife." Jackson reported "improved health" following the 1832 operation.
News of the Fort Mims massacre reached Nashville on September 12. In October, Jackson took command of 2,500 militiamen and a group of "friendly Creeks," at Fayetteville, Tennessee. Jackson initially sent aide John S. Reid in his stead to address the gathering force. As described by Jackson's first major biographer, James Parton, "He could not mount his horse without assistance when the time came for him to move toward the rendezvous. His left arm was bound and in a sling. He could not wear his coat-sleeve; nor, during any part of his military career, could he long endure on his left shoulder the weight of an epaulette." On October 11, 1813, Jackson departed Fayetteville for the war, heading toward Huntsville. Among the many obstacles Jackson faced during the campaign was "constant physical pain." Kanon, writing in Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812, argued, "Historians should not be too quick in dismissing the fact that Jackson suffered from severe diarrhea and dysentery throughout the war, not to mention a bullet he carried in his left arm from a gunshot received during a fracas in Nashville prior to embarking on the campaign."
Sandy Donelson served as an aide-de-camp to Coffee during the Creek War. Donelson was shot in the head and killed at the Battle of Emuckfaw Creek, four months after the brawl, on January 22, 1814.
In 1830, President Jackson communicated to still another nephew (there were dozens), "I intend to [do] something for [nephew Stockley D. Hays] as soon as it can be with propriety, but you know, under such a pressure for office, how hard it is to get a connection in, without great censure." Jackson's endeavors for Hays triggered a long-running political battle against U.S. Senator from Mississippi George Poindexter and U.S. Representative from Tennessee Davy Crockett, complete with charges of nepotism and abuse of the "spoils system," and Congressional investigations that found evidence of corrupt land speculation by federal officers responsible for the public lands.
In the immediate aftermath of the fight, T. H. Benton is supposed to have written to a friend, "I am literally in hell here...the meanest wretches under heaven to contend with—liars, affidavit-makers, and shameless cowards." T. H. Benton and Jackson reconciled on the eve of the 1824 presidential campaign and were ever after the closest of political allies. "Old Bullion" Benton aided Jackson in smashing Nicholas Biddle's bank, and he was largely responsible for expunging Jackson's Senate censure.
Jesse Benton supported Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford for president in 1824 and "anyone but Jackson" thereafter, publishing detailed public letters criticizing Jackson's alleged corruption and enumerating his perceived character flaws. On the occasion of the 1828 presidential election, Benton declared, "I often told my brother, in 1813, that God was angry with Jackson for his crimes and permitted his attempt to assassinate us on the very spot where I now sit, in order to make us the instrument of his punishment." According to one history of Memphis, Tennessee, Jackson and Jesse Benton had a second fight, at the Bell Tavern in 1828, and Benton was beaten. J. Benton and fellow Jackson opponent Davy Crockett traveled together toward the Alamo in 1836 but Benton peeled off at the last minute to recruit more bodies to garrison the Texas stockade, and thus missed being killed by the Mexican Army.