What was more extraordinary was that Tyler was not among the dead. The vacancies left by Upshur and Gilmer were enough to change the course of events. The accident, caused by a gun malfunction during a celebratory firing, killed more top US government officials in a single day than any other tragedy in American history. Then secretary of state Abel Upshur and the secretary of the navy, Thomas Gilmer, were killed, as were a number of other top officials and then president John Tyler’s personal slave, Armistead, whose family was given $200 in compensation. The next close call took place on 28 February 1844, when an explosion rocked the USS Princeton. Lawrence was apprehended, tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. Jackson beat the assailant with his cane. Humidity caused the gun to malfunction twice, a stroke of luck scientists later put at odds of one in 125,000. Following the funeral of a congressman, Richard Lawrence, a British painter who believed he was King Richard III, stalked Andrew Jackson to the east portico of the Capitol, where he attempted to fire two shots. The first credible attempt on a president’s life occurred on 30 January 1835. Two serious accidents and 10 assassination attempts can be considered close calls.

Dwight Eisenhower suffered three medical emergencies from 1955 to 1956, including a heart attack. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was more or less a dying man by the time he ran for a fourth term in 1944. In 1893, in secret, Grover Cleveland underwent life-threatening surgery to remove a tumor in his mouth. Beginning in 1882, Chester Arthur battled a severe case of Bright’s disease which would kill him a few years after he left office.

In May 1865, Andrew Johnson suffered a serious enough illness that the president pro tempore was put on notice. On 2 July, however, a letter from the first lady, Dolley Madison, exaggerating the president’s recovery put a halt to the discussions. Both houses of Congress engaged in lively discussions about the possibility of Madison’s death and Vice-President Elbridge Gerry’s succession. The first close call came in June 1813, when James Madison fell seriously ill for three weeks. The fact that only eight presidents have died in office is nothing short of a miracle. These include a president being kicked out of his own party and annexing Texas in response, a senator trying to shoot a colleague on the Senate floor, violent brawls in Congress, a vice-president accused of conspiring to murder the president, not to mention the 19 times when a president was almost killed by assassination, accident or illness. Their stories illuminate how America confronted some of its darkest moments.

Jared cohen accidental presidents