They marched with extraordinary speed, averaging eighteen miles a day, and performing the whole journey in less than a month. And yet the sick men rapidly recovered under the reviving influence of a homeward march.
“Where am I?” asked one young fellow who had been lifted to his place in a wagon, when insensible and apparently dying.
“On your way home!” cried the General merrily.
And the young soldier began to improve from that hour, and reached home in good health.
Many of the volunteers had heard so much of Jackson’s violent and hasty temper, that they had joined the corps with a certain dread and hesitation, fearing not the enemy, nor the marches, nor diseases and wounds, so much as the swift wrath of their Commander. How surprised were they to find, that though there was a whole volcano of wrath in their General, yet to the men of his command, so long as they did their duty and longer, he was the most gentle, patient, considerate, and generous of friends.
It was on this homeward march that the nickname of Old Hickory was bestowed upon Andrew Jackson by his men. First of all the remark was made by a soldier, who was struck with his wonderful pedestrian powers, that the General was tough. Next it was observed of him that he was as tough as hickory. Then he was called Hickory. Lastly the affectionate adjective old was prefixed. And ever after he was known as Old Hickory.
James Parton (Retold)
THE COTTON-BALES
We have all heard tell that Andrew Jackson and his riflemen fought the Battle of New Orleans from behind cotton-bales.
This is a mistake. Yet it is true that Old Hickory did commandeer a whole cargo of cotton-bales, and with them built a bastion in front of his guns. But at the very first bombardment, the balls from the British batteries knocked the bales in all directions, while wads from the American guns and spurting flames from the muzzles of the rifles set some of the bales afire. They fell smouldering into the ditch outside, and lay there sending up smoke and choking odours.