The three women carried medicines and country delicacies and gifts for the prisoners. It was a most heroic journey. They had no protectors, and they were going into the enemy's lines. They succeeded, however, finally managing to gain admittance to the ships, and to deliver the messages from home, the food, and the medicines that were so greatly needed. No one can say how much happiness they brought to those ships in Charleston harbor.
Mrs. Jackson stayed in the neighborhood of the city some time, doing what she could to help her countrymen. Unfortunately disease was only too rife in the prisons, and it was not long before she became ill with the ship fever, and after a very short illness died. The news was brought to Andrew, now fifteen years old, as he lay at home, just recovering a little of his strength. He had always been devoted to his mother and worshipped her memory all the days of his life.
The British under Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, and the war in the south practically came to an end. Andrew Jackson came out of the Revolution without father or mother or brother, a convalescent in the house of a cousin, with bitter memories of the war. For a long time he was exceedingly weak and dispirited, and that fighting aggressive nature which had marked his early boyhood did not return to him for some time.
The boy of sixteen had no one to advise him as to what to do. He tired of life in the primitive Waxhaw country, and when the British evacuated Charleston he went there, and saw something of city life. But his money was soon spent, and he had to decide what he should turn his hand to. The law appealed to him as a good field for advancement, just as it appealed to so many ambitious youths of the new country.
At almost the same time there began the emigration of many Carolina families westward into what was to become the territory of Tennessee. Land was given to all who would emigrate and settle there. The idea of growing up with a new community appealed to Andrew; he knew he had the power to make his way. In 1788 he started on his journey west, traveling in the company of about a hundred settlers. They had many adventures and several times they were in danger of attack from Indians. Once it was Jackson himself, sitting by the camp-fire after the others had gone to sleep, who detected something strange in the hooting of owls about the camp, and waked his friends just in time to save them from being surrounded by a band of redskins on the war-path. At last they reached the small town which had been christened Nashville, and there Andrew decided to settle and practice law.
This was about the time that Washington was being inaugurated first President of the United States.
Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans
Andrew grew up with Tennessee. He became a big figure in the western country. He was known as a shrewd, aggressive man, and was sent to Congress from that district. Later, when the War of 1812 came, he was made a general of the American forces, and finally put an end to that war by winning the battle of New Orleans. Some of the satisfaction of that last campaign may have atoned to him for his own sufferings in the Revolution. When the war ended he had won the reputation of a great general, and was one of the most popular men in the United States. His nickname of "Old Hickory" was given him in deep affection.