BY JOHN P. FOLEY.
III.—ANDREW JACKSON.
THE life of Andrew Jackson has been tersely described as “a battle and a march.” Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, were all born in the purple of slavery. They were the sons of wealthy planters; educated at the best schools; provided with private tutors, and, with one exception, graduated from the leading colleges of the period. They moved in the best circles of society, and could choose whatever profession or pursuit they pleased. Seats in the House of Burgesses of Virginia awaited them as soon as they became of age, and whatever other political preferment young native-born Americans could obtain under the colonial régime was easily within their reach. Very different the early life and fortune of Andrew Jackson, the fifth of the Southern Presidents.
Two years before he was born his father was a poor linen weaver in the North of Ireland, beaten in the struggle for existence and preparing with some of his relatives to emigrate to the new world. This little colony, made up of Jacksons and Crawfords, landed at Charleston, in 1765, and immediately started for the Waxhaw settlement, which lay partly in North and partly in South Carolina, in the region bordering on the Catawba River. This point, no doubt, was chosen because a number of colonists from the same part of Ireland had already made their homes there. The Crawfords bought good land in the centre of the settlement, while the Jacksons, not having the means to purchase, went on new land some miles distant. There Jackson, senior, built a hut and began to clear the woods around him. At the end of two years he became ill and died. Mr. Parton, in his excellent life of President Jackson, tells us that the widow, accompanied by her little family, brought the remains of her husband in a rude wagon out of the wilderness to the Waxhaw churchyard, and did not again return home after the interment. Instead, she went to the house of a brother-in-law, and in a few days gave birth to a son, whom she named Andrew. The log-house, where this event took place on March 15, 1767, was at a point on the North Carolina side, less than a quarter of a mile from the boundary line between the two provinces; so that the hero of New Orleans, many years later, erred in the matter of his nativity, when, in his celebrated manifesto to the nullifiers of South Carolina, he addressed them as “Fellow-Citizens of my native State.” Mrs. Jackson, at the end of three weeks, left her eldest son to assist this relative on his farm and went with her second son and the infant Andrew to the house of her brother-in-law, the Mr. Crawford with whom she and her husband crossed the Atlantic two years before. Crawford was then in comfortable circumstances. He had some capital when he arrived, and, in addition, was a good, thrifty and successful farmer. This was young Jackson’s home during the next ten or twelve years. His life was indeed “a battle and a march,” and march and battle began with his very infancy.
North Carolinians have long and tenacious memories, and when, more than a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Parton made a pilgrimage into Mecklenberg County to collect materials for the life of the great democratic chieftain, he was able to gather many an anecdote of the early life of his hero. “He was a wild, frolicksome, wilful, mischievous, daring, reckless boy, who loved his friends and detested his enemies.” Truly, the boy was father of the man. He allowed no one to impose upon him. On one occasion, we are told, some boys gave him a gun loaded to the muzzle in order to see him knocked over when he fired it. He was kicked over, and springing to his feet exclaimed: “If one of you laughs I’ll kill him!” And there was no laughter. It is said that the larger boys had trouble in getting along with him; but that he was idolized by the smaller ones, who always found in him a protector and a champion. “He was,” said one who knew him in youth, “a bully, but never a coward.” In boyish games and sports of every description he was thoroughly proficient. It was easy to make a wrestling match when “Andy” Jackson was present; but, although tall and active, he was not strong in proportion to his height, and was frequently thrown. He was fond of running and jumping, feats in which he excelled. He was addicted to gibberish or slang, and one of his favorite expressions was this: “Set de case: You are Shauney Kerr’s mare and me Billy Buck; and I should mount you and you should kick, fall, fling and break your neck, should I be to blame for that?” Young John Quincy Adams, who was born in the same year as Jackson, and who was at this time studying diplomacy under his father in Europe, would probably have fled in as great horror from his successor in the Presidency, if he then propounded to him this problem, as in after years he fled from him on the day of his inauguration. The woods of Waxhaw were full of deer, wild turkey and other game, and owing to the household demands of the colony, to hunt and kill them was much more of a necessity than a pleasure. Jackson, it is needless to say, became expert with the rifle, and the bird or animal that came within range rarely escaped with its life.
His mother’s ambition was to make him a clergyman, and in due time he was sent to what in those days was called “an old field school.” By and by he attended schools of a better class, at which lads were prepared for college. Where the means to pay for this superior education came from is not known, but it is believed that his mother was assisted by members of her family in Ireland. Jackson was not a studious boy, so he learned little except reading, writing, and arithmetic. His educational equipment all through life was very light, but, nevertheless, his name stands on the roll of the learned Doctors of Harvard, an act for which the younger Adams never forgave his old university. When the colonies decided to draw the sword, Jackson was a child nine years old, and the war was half over before its tide rolled along to the banks of the Catawba. From the very beginning, however, the Scotch-Irish settlers of Waxhaw were as loyal and devoted to the patriotic cause as the descendants of the Puritans who fell at Lexington and Bunker Hill. Many of them and their children went into the army, among others Hugh Jackson, Andrew’s eldest brother, who was “a man in stature if not in years.” He was killed in the battle of Stono. Robert Jackson, the second son, too young to bear arms, and Andrew were with their mother when Tarleton’s dragoons swept along to Waxhaw. A body of militia was taken by surprise and a large number killed and wounded. This was Jackson’s first lesson in war. He was then about thirteen, and he and his brother aided their mother in nursing the unfortunate victims of the raid. Tarleton’s troopers rode hard and fast over the Waxhaw farms, little dreaming that in one of its log-cabins they had left behind them a rough, ungainly boy who in after years was destined to defeat one of England’s ablest generals at the head of veteran soldiers bearing on their conquering banners the memorable names of Talavera and Badajos. Next came Lord Rawdon threatening to imprison all who refused to promise not to participate in the war. Mrs. Jackson fled with her two boys into the wilderness rather than make the pledge. A short time after both sons were present in the engagement at Hanging Rock, near Waxhaw, where the patriots were so nearly victorious. The defeat of Gates brought the victorious Cornwallis to the little settlement, and the terrified inhabitants, Mrs. Jackson and her children among them, again fled before the soldiery. Andrew found a refuge in a temporary home on a farm where he gave his services in exchange for his board. His principal duties were fetching wood, driving cattle, picking beans, going to the mill and the blacksmith’s shop. “He never,” says Mr. Parton, “went to the blacksmith’s without bringing home something with which to kill the enemy. Once he fastened the blade of a scythe to a pole, and on reaching home began to cut down the weeds, exclaiming, ‘Oh! if I were a man I would sweep down the British with my grass blade.’” The Jacksons were all home again in 1781, when the Waxhaw country became quiet.
Andrew was now fourteen, tall as a man, but without much bodily strength. He and his brother thought, however, that they could be of some service to their country, and from time to time joined small raiding parties, organized to retaliate on the enemy. Cornwallis sent a body of troops to suppress these disorders, and in a conflict the Jackson boys were captured. Then occurred that memorable incident in his life which so embittered him ever afterward against England. The officer who had captured him, ordered him to clean his boots. Jackson indignantly refused, declaring that he was a prisoner of war and expected to be treated as one. A fierce sword-blow aimed at his head was the answer. He warded it off with his arm, but the weapon struck his skull, inflicting a wound on arm and head, the marks of which remained to the day of his death. The brutal officer then gave the same order to the brother. He, too, refused to obey and was prostrated with a blow which nearly killed him. One day, while a prisoner, Andrew was threatened with death unless he guided the troops to the house of an obnoxious patriot. He pretended to comply, but went by a route which gave the intended victim notice of their approach and enabled him to escape. The two brothers were next marched off prisoners of war to Camden, forty miles distant. They and their companions were treated with horrible barbarity on the way. Forced to walk the entire distance without food, they were not even allowed to drink the muddy water by the wayside. In Camden jail they were nearly starved to death. Small-pox broke out among the ill-fed and ill-clothed captives and it became a very pest-hole. At length General Greene appeared before the place and there were hopes of a rescue. Jackson cut through a knot-hole in the fence and saw the operations in the field, which he reported to his fellow-prisoners. The Continental troops were defeated and the captives were in despair. But the faithful mother had not forgotten or abandoned them, and one day she appeared offering to exchange for her boys and some other prisoners, thirteen soldiers who had been captured by the men of Waxhaw. Her sons were so worn-out by starvation and disease that she scarcely knew them. What a journey that was home to the Waxhaw! They could procure only two horses for the entire party. The mother rode one; on the other was her son Robert, stricken with small-pox and held in his seat by the exchanged prisoners. By their side trudged Andrew, shivering with fever and ague, shoeless, almost naked, his feet and legs bleeding and torn by rocks and briers. Still the battle and the march!
But the battle was only beginning for this seemingly ill-starred boy. When peace came, sending sunshine and joy through all the land, this heroic North of Ireland mother had been sleeping beside her husband in the Waxhaw graveyard more than a year, and the orphaned Andrew was striving hard to learn the trade of a saddler. His health was bad, and his spirit seemed broken. Perhaps it was grief for the mother whom he so deeply loved, and whose memory he revered all through life. Gradually, however, the spring and buoyancy of his nature asserted themselves. He made the acquaintance of some boys of his own age whose parents had fled from Charleston, when it was captured, to Waxhaw, and who were waiting for the evacuation to return. He was the owner of a horse at this time, but it is not clear whether he obtained him by gift or purchase. At all events, he ran races; very often rode them, and, impartial history bids us say, “gambled a little, drank a little, and fought cocks.” It was a rude age; the little society that existed was demoralized by war, and there was no one to restrain, perhaps no one even to advise, this young orphan boy. He followed his friends to Charleston, “riding his horse, a fine and valuable animal which he had contrived to possess.” His career in that city was wild and reckless. He ran up a long bill with his landlord, which he paid by a lucky throw at dice; the wager being his horse against two hundred dollars. All at once his conscience seems to have smitten him. He resolved to return home and reform. Never again through all his life did he throw dice for a wager. His scheme of reformation did not, however, include the abandonment of horse-racing and chicken-fighting, for during the next two years his biographers continue to record many achievements and adventures in this line. His other pursuits, if he had any, are not known. Some say he taught school. If he did, teachers must have been few and far between at that time in North Carolina. When he was seventeen or eighteen years of age, he went to Salisbury to study law. Unable to find an opening, he went to Morgantown, in Burke County, where he was equally unsuccessful. At length he succeeded in persuading Mr. Spruce McCoy, of Salisbury, a lawyer of eminence, and subsequently a distinguished judge, to undertake his instruction. The story of his career in Salisbury is a sad one, if certain traditions be true. He was, according to some of his biographers, “the most roaring, rollicking, game-cocking, horse-racing, card-playing mischievous fellow that ever lived in Salisbury.” The portrait is probably from the easel of a political enemy, or a well-meaning admirer, who deemed these the highest qualifications a young man could possess. In the first place, a life of this description involved the expenditure of considerable money even in a small North Carolina town a century ago, and Jackson had none. To suppose that he lived by gambling and horse-racing is absurd. It is certain, however, that on one occasion he ran a foot-race there under somewhat ludicrous conditions. The champion runner of the town was one Hugh Montgomery. A match was made between him and Jackson on these terms: Montgomery to carry a man on his back and get a start of half the distance. Jackson won by one or two feet, “amid the laughter of the town.”
He received his license to practice law before he reached his twentieth year. This he could not have accomplished if his life had been the wild and reckless one which some writers would have us believe. He left Salisbury immediately and went to live at Martinsville in Guilford County. Two of his friends kept a store there, and he probably assisted them, although, it is said, he earned a livelihood by serving as a constable. The following year a friend of his was appointed judge of the Superior Court in Tennessee. He appointed Jackson public prosecutor. The position was not one for which there were many applicants. In the first place, it led into the wilderness where the red man was yet very successfully disputing the advance of the pale-faces, and, in the next, the whites whom Jackson was coming to prosecute were not much higher in the scale of civilization than the native savages. Jackson induced some friends to accompany him in quest of fortune and fame, and a start was made for Jonesboro’, then the principal settlement in Eastern Tennessee. Thence they proceeded to Nashville, where they arrived in October, 1788. The journey was full of peril, and were it not for the watchfulness of Jackson one night the whole party would probably have been massacred. Having a presentiment of danger, he determined to sit up on guard. Toward midnight the hooting of an owl fell on his ear. This was followed by another and another, until in a short time all the owls in Tennessee appeared to have collected overhead of them. Jackson suspected that these owls carried scalping-knives and tomahawks, and awoke his companions. They were troubled no more by owls that night. At Nashville he found as much law business as he could attend to, and he set to work with his usual energy and vigor. In his capacity of public prosecutor he was obliged to attend court at Jonesboro’, which compelled him to make frequent journeys through the Indian-infested wilderness. This was hard and perilous work. No one dared attempt the trip alone, and travelers were in the habit of making up parties in order to be the better prepared for attack. Jackson one time was delayed, and his friends started without him. He followed and soon came upon their track, and, at the same time, the unmistakable trail of Indians immediately behind them. This was a situation which would have caused ninety-nine in a hundred men to turn back, but not so Jackson. Although his servant declined to go with him he determined to push ahead, and divided his provisions with his attendant, who turned homeward. Jackson came to a point where the Indians had branched off with the intention of surprising and attacking the whites with a certainty of success. At length he overtook his friends and warned them of their danger. It was snowing heavily at the time, and the entire party were turned away from the camp of some hunters from whom they had asked shelter. When returning home they again stopped at the camp, but every one of the hunters had been scalped.