The barefooted boy attended a school kept by Dr. Waddell. He made commendable progress in his studies, from his quick and ardent temperament, but he loved fun even better than books. He was impulsive, ambitious, and persevering. He could run foot-races as rapidly as the bigger boys, and loved to wrestle or engage in anything which seemed like a battle. Says an old schoolmate, "I could throw him three times out of four, but he would never stay throwed. He was dead game, even then, and never would give up."
To the younger boys he was a protector, but from the older he would brook no insult, and was sometimes hasty and overbearing. One of the best traits in the boy's character was his love for his mother. His intense nature knew no change, and he was loyal and single of purpose forever. He used to say in later life, "One of the last injunctions given me by my mother was never to institute a suit for assault and battery or for defamation; never to wound the feelings of others nor suffer my own to be outraged: these were her words of admonition to me; I remember them well, and have never failed to respect them; my settled course through life has been to bear them in mind, and never to insult or wantonly to assail the feelings of any one; and yet many conceive me to be a most ferocious animal, insensible to moral duty and regardless of the laws both of God and man."
He did nothing slowly nor indifferently. He bent his will to his work, even at that early age, and knew no such word as failure. When the boy was thirteen, an incident occurred which made a lasting impression. The British General Tarlton, in the Revolutionary War, with three hundred cavalry, came against Waxhaw, surprised the militia, killing one hundred and thirteen and wounding one hundred and fifty. The little settlement was terrorized. The meeting-house became a hospital, and Mrs. Jackson, with her sons, helped to minister to the wants of the suffering soldiers. Andrew learned not only lessons in war, but to dream of future rewards to the British.
When Cornwallis, after the surrender of General Gates, moved his whole army toward Waxhaw, Mrs. Jackson and her sons were obliged to seek a safe retreat with a distant relative. Here Andrew did "chores" for his board. "Never," said one who knew him well at this time, "did Andrew come home from the shops without bringing with him some new weapon with which to kill the enemy. Sometimes it was a rude spear, which he would forge while waiting for the blacksmith to finish his job. Sometimes it was a club or a tomahawk. Once he fastened the blade of a scythe to a pole, and, on reaching home, began to cut down the weeds with it that grew about the house, assailing them with extreme fury, and occasionally uttering words like these, 'Oh, if I were a man, how I would sweep down the British with my grass blade!'"
A year later, when Mrs. Jackson had returned to Waxhaw, the brothers were both taken prisoners in a skirmish. Being commanded to clean the boots of a British officer, Andrew refused, saying, "Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and claim to be treated as such."
The angry Englishman drew his sword, and rushed at the boy, who, attempting to defend himself from the blow, received a deep gash in his left hand, and also on his head, the scars of which he bore through life. Robert, the brother, also refused to clean the boots, and was prostrated by the sword of the brutal officer. Soon after, the boys were taken with other prisoners to Camden, eighty miles distant, a long and agonizing journey for wounded men.
They found the prison a wretched place, with no medical supplies; the food scanty, and small-pox raging among the inmates. The poor mother, hearing of their forlorn condition, hastened to the place. Both her boys were ill of the dreaded small-pox, and both suffering from their sword-wounds. She arranged for the exchange of prisoners, and took her sons home; Robert to die in her arms two days later, and Andrew to be saved at last after a perilous illness of several months. Her oldest son, Hugh, had already given his life to his country in the war.
Almost broken-hearted with the loss of her two sons, yet intensely patriotic, she hastened to the Charleston prison-ships, to care for the wounded, taking with her provisions and medicine sent by loving wives and daughters. The blessed ministrations proved of short duration. Mrs. Jackson was taken ill of ship-fever, died after a brief illness, and was buried in the open plain near by. The grave is unmarked and unknown. When, years later, her illustrious son had become President, he tried to find the burial-place of the woman he idolized, but it was impossible.
Andrew was now an orphan, and poor; but he had what makes any boy or man rich, the memory of a devoted, heroic mother. Such a person has an inspiration that is like martial music on the field of battle; he is urged onward to duty forevermore. The world is richer for all such instances of ideal womanhood; the womanhood that gives rather than receives; that seeks neither admiration nor self-aggrandizement; that, like the flowers, sends out the same fragrance whether in royal gardens or beside the peasant's door; that lives to lighten others' sorrows, to rest tired humanity, to sweeten the bitterness of life by her loveliness of soul; that is to the world around her
"A new and certain sunrise every day."