Oass. Book..._^/^2£ LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. MR. PARTON'S WORKS Life of General Jackson. — A Life of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. 3 Vols., Octavo, with Portraits on Steel $6 00 A Library Edition of the same.— 3 Vols., Royal Octavo 7 5o Life of General Jackson, abridged.— Life of Andrew Jackson, condensed from the author's complete work in three volumes, 1 Vol., Octavo, with Portrait on Steel 1 75 Life of Burr. — The Life and Times of Aaron Burr, Lieut.-Colonel in the Arni}^ of the Revolution, United States Senator, Third Vice-President of the United States, etc. 1 Vol., Crown Octavo ; with Portraits on Steel, and Wood illustrations. 14th edition ' 2 00 Humorous Poetry. — The Humorous Poetry of the English Language, from Chaucer to Saxe. Crown Octavo; with Steel Plate; 700 pages 2 00 LIFE OP Ai^DREW JACKSON, CONDENSED FROM THE ArTHMt's " LIFE OF ANDEEW JAOKBON, IN THREE VOLUMES. BY JAMES I^ARTON, AUTHOR OF THE "LIFE OP AARON BURR," " HTTMOEOUS POETRY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE," ETC. 1^ NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS. BOSTON: MASON & HAMLIN. PHILADELPHIA: .J. B LIPPINCOTT & CO. LONDON: D. APPLETON & CO.. 16 LITTLE (BRITAIN. 1863. ' , , r Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, BY MASON BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. 2.1-1 rD l'EI>TEB. "i- ■^ PREFACE This volume is a condensation of the " Life of Andrew Jack- son," in three volumes, octavo, which was published by the author in 1860. Nearly every thing in the way of document, letter, episode, disquisition, note, or appendix, has been omit- ted ; but the story of the life has been retained, and the more interesting narratives, scenes, and anecdotes, are preserved entire. There is much in the larger work which the student of recent history, the statesman, the politician, the soldier, and the citizen who desires to understand the interior working of his country's institutions, cannot dispense with. But the present volume contains all of Jackson which young readers need know, or readers in general will care to know. It is proper to state, that a great part of the information given in these pages respecting the childhood, the youth, the frontier experiences, the White House life, and the last years of General Jackson, was derived by the author, in the course of an extensive tour in the Southern States, from the general's surviving relations, comrades, and political associates. The events of the last two years have invested with new interest the character of the man to whom we owed the post- ponement of civil war for thirty years. Mr. Webster thought the issue should have been met then^ the strength of the gov- ernment tested then^ not postponed till the mighty spell of the Union had lost its potency over a third of the country ; and -y^t 6 PREFA CE. Jackson himself .constantly regretted, to his dying hour, that he had not dealt to Calhoun the penalty due to one whom balked ambition alone made a disturber of his country's pea'6e. jSTevertheless, thirty years of peace was a boon for which the country is the more warmly grateful from knowing what civil war is. The reader will find the Jackson of these pages a hero with- out fear, but, unhappily, not without reproach. He was a faulty man, like the rest of us, and committed, in his life, some most grievous sins. As his virtues and his good deeds are distinctly set forth and duly extolled, so his errors and weaknesses are not concealed. New York, December, 1862. / OOl^TEI^TS. Chapter Pag' I. — Birth and Parentage 9 II. — Childhood and Education 13 III. — During the Revolutionary War 19 IV. — He Studies Law , 34 ¥. — Hemotal to Tennessee 45 VI.— Jackson Practices Law 53 VII. — Jackson in Congress 62 VIII. — Judge of the Supreme Court 69 IX. — Jackson as a Man op Business 75 X. — Duel with Charles Dickinson - 82 XI. — General Jackson at Home 95 XII. — General Jackson in Service 106 XIII.— Affray with the Bentons : 116 XIV. — The Massacre at Fort Mims 124 XV. — Tennessee in the Field 132 XVI. — Mutiny in the Camp 147 XVIL — The Finishing Blow 1 65 ) XVIII — Defense of Molile 181 i XIX. — Jackson Expels the English from Pensacola 191 XX. — Jackson's First Measures at New Orleans 197 XXI. — Approach of the British 205 XXII.— Night Battle op December Twenty-Third 215 XXIII. — Jackson Fortifies 226 XXIV. — The British Advance a Second Time 240 XXV. — The Eighth op January 253 XXVI. — End of the Campaign 272 / XXVIL— Rest and Glory 291 8 CONTENTS. Chapter Pash XXVIII.— The Seminole War 295 XXIX. — A Governor in the Calaboose , . 316 XXX. — A Candidate for the Presidency *^30 XXXI. — Elected President 339 XXXII. — Inauguration. — Mrs. Eaton 348 XXXIII. — Terror among the Office-Holders 354 XXXIV. — The Bank of the United States 359 XXXV. — Congress in Session 363 XXXVI. — Mr. Van Buben Calls upon Mrs. Eaton 371 XXXVII. — Dissolution op the Cabinet 384 XXXVIIL— The Bank Bill Vetoed 391 XXXIX.— Nullification. 398 XL. — Removal of the Deposits ■.-. 420 XLT. — The French Imbroglio 433 XLII. — Close of the Administration 441 XLIII. — In Retirement 441 XLIV. — The Closing Scenes 457 XLV. — Conclusion 464 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. In 1V65, Andrew Jackson, the father of the Andrew Jackson whose career we are about to relate, emigrated, with his wife and two sons, from Carrickfergus, in the north of Ireland, . to South Carolina. His sons were named Hugh and Robert ; Andrew was not yet born. In his native country he had cultivated a few hired • acres, and his wife had been a weaver of linen. Like most of the / inhabitants of the North of Ireland, he was of Scottish origin; but his ancestors had lived for live generations in the neighborhood of Carrickfergus ; lowly, honest people, tillers of the soil and weavers ; radical whigs in politics, Presbyterians in religion. He was accompanied to America by three of his neighbors, James, Robert, *and Joseph Crawford, the first-named of whom was his brother-in-law. The peace between France and England, signed two years before, which ended the " old French war" — the war in which Braddock was defeated and Canada Avon — had restored to niankmd their highway, the ocean, and given an impulse to emigration from the old world to the new. From the north of Ireland large numbers sailed away to the land of promise. Five sisters of Mrs. Jackson had gone, or were soon going. Samuel Jackson, a brother of Andrew, afterward went, and established himself in Philadelphia, where he long lif ed, a respectable citizen. Mrs. SuflVen, a daughter of another brother, followed in later years, and settled in New York, where she has living descendants. Andrew Jackson was a poor man, and his Avife, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Avas a poor man's daughter. The tradition is clear among the numerous descendants of Mrs. Jackson's sisters, that their lot in Ireland was a hard one. The grandchildren of the 10 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. [Il67. Hutchinson sisters remember hearing their mothers often say, that in Ireland some of these girls were compelled to labor half the night, and sometimes all night, in order to produce the requisite quantity of linen. Linen-weaving was their employment both before and after marriage; the men of the families tilling small farms at high rents, and the women toiling at the loom. The members of this circle were not all equally poor. There is reason to believe that some of them brought to America sums of money which were considerable for that day, and sufficient to enable them to buy negroes as well as lands in the southern wilderness. But all accounts concur in this : that Andrew Jackson was very poor, both in Ireland and in America. The Hirtchinson sisters are remembered as among the most thrifty, industrious, and capable of a race remarkable for those qualities. There is a smack of the North-Irish brogue still to be observed in the speech of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The party of emigrants from Carrickfergus landed at Charleston, and proceeded, without delay, to the Waxhaw settlement, a hun- dred and sixty miles to the north- v^'est of Charleston, where many of their kindred and countrymen were already establislied. This settlement was, or had been the seat of the Waxhaw tribe of Indians. It is the region watered by the Catawba river, since pleasantly famous for its grapes. A branch of the Catawba, called the Waxhaw Creek, a small and not ornamental stream, much choked with logs and overgrowth to this day, runs through it, fertilizing a consider- able extent of bottom laud. It is a pleasant enough xmdulating region, an oasis of fertility in a waste of pine woods ; much " worn" now by incessant cotton-raising, but .showing still some fine and profitable plantations. The word Waxhaw, be it observed, has no geographical or political meaning. The settlement so called was [lartly in North Carolina and partly in South Carolina. Many of the settlers, probably, scarcely knew in which of the two provinces they lived, nor cared to, know. At this" day, the name Waxhaw has vanished from the maps and gazetteers, but in the country round about the old settlement, the lands along the creek are stil called " the Waxhaws." Another proof of the poverty of Andrew Jackson is this : the Crawfords, who came with him from Ii-eland, bought lands near the center of the settlement, on the Waxhaw Creek itself, lands X.. 1767.] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. ^ Which stiU attest the wisdom of their choice- hnt T..T.. a ". P,:ilrGrr'"r°' "-Catawba. The pla.3 is «;Lfw «ih JTieabant urove Camp Ground " nnri +1iq,.o. ■• i i mmculty The best information now attainable confirms the tra ' n tb?S^ '""■"'' '" *'" '^"^"''■^^^ «°™*'-3'' "-' AnZw Jai; T^'l M? ^,"'r'' "'"'"^ '" ^™'^"'=» o'"^ aere of land On wTth his f^iu:"'-, ^"'™'-' ^"-- J-'-™ plated hts^f! and a bom? Tb ?""-'° ''"^ °'" of the wilderness a farm North c1h„ f f '!.' "'"" ■'^ "°"' °''"''<' Union connty, JNoith Caiolma, a few miles from Monroe, the conntv seat The county was named Union, a few years ngo, in lonoi of The U^K,n's indomitable defender, and in rebuke of ' neighboring nut Z,:J\ ™^ P^PO^ed to eall the county Jacfaon, but Uni°on was :':;;fy1i7n::'s:rsr: '-"-"-'^ - ^^^ «« "^-^ and raised a crop. Then, the father of the family, h s wofk a I mcomplete sickened and died: bis two boys bring still very .crs;X-"m..'^'- ^''•"""^'' '" '-'"■ ™^ was e,,:;? _ In a rude farm-wagon the coi-pse, accompanied, as it seems, in , ZZ: lb r '^ i" *1 ""'^ '■"""'5'' ™' --W^d to the 'o d f ^.i.vhw church-y.ard, and interred. No stone marks the spot beneath w-hich the bones have moldered; but tradition poLH ttie place where Andrew Jackson lies is known by the gravestones ss:^:id':t"hr " ''- ^^^'^ ^«'^«°- *^' «--f-*. »-^ A little church (the third that has stood near that spot), havi/- bli rf^tt: r'' f /'" -«'-!-*-! - its appeaii^^" rese„° bling mther a neat farm-house, stands, not in the church-yard. 12 LIFE OF ANDKEW JACKSOJSr. [1767. but a short distance from it. Huge trees, with smaller pines among them, rise singly and in clumps, as they were originally left by those who first subdued the wilderness there. Great roots of trees roughen the red clay roads. Old as the settlement is, the country is but thinly inhabited, and the few houses near look like those of a just-peopled country in the Northern States. Miles and miles and miles, you may ride in the pine woods and " old fields" of that country, without meeting a vehicle or seeing a living crea- ture. So that when the stranger stands in that church-;yjard among the old graves, though there is a house or two not far off, but not in sight, he has the feeling of one who comes upon the ancient burial-place of a race extinct. Rude old stones are there that were placed over graves when as yet a stone-cutter was not in the province ; stones upon which, coats-of-arms were once engraved, still partly decipherable ; stones which are modern compared with these, yet record the exploits of revolutionary soldiers ; stones so old that every trace of inscription is lost, and stones as new as the new year. The inscriptions on the gravestones are unusually sim- ple and direct, and free from sniveling and cant. A large number of them end with Pope's line (incorrectly quoted) which declares an honest man to be the noblest woi'k of God. The bereaved family of the Jacksons never returned to their home on the banks of Twelve Mile Creek, but went from the church-yard to the house, not far off, of one of Mrs. Jackson's brothers-in-law, George McKemey by name, whose remains now re])ose in the same old burying-ground. A few nights after, Mrs. Jackson was seized with the pains of labor. There was a swift sen-ding of messengers to the neighbors, and a hurrying across the fields of friendly women; and before the sun rose, a son was born, the son whose career and fortunes we have undertaken to relate. It was in a small log-liouse, in the province of North Carolina, less than a quarter of a mile from the boundary line between North and South Carolina, that the birth took place. Andrew Jackson, then, was born in Union county. North Caro- lina, on the 15th of March, 1767. Geneial Jji,eksou always supposed himself to be a native of South Carolina. *' Fellow citizens of my native State !" he ex- claims, at the close of his proclamation to the nullifiers of South Carolina ; but it is as certain as any fact of the kind can be that 1767.] CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 13 he was mistaken. The clear and uniform tradition of the neigh- borhood, 'supported by a great mass of indisputable testimony, points to a spot in JVorth Carolina, but only a stone's throw from the line that divides it from South CaroUna, as the birthplace of AndreAV Jackson. In a large field, near the edge of a wide, shalloAV ravine, on the plantation of Mr. T. J. Cureton, there is to be seen a great clump, or natural summer-house, of graj)e-vines. Some remains of old fruit trees near by, and a spring a little way down the ravine, indicate that a human habitation once stood near this spot. It is a still and' solitary place, away from the road, in a red, level region, where the young pines are in haste to cover the well-worn cotton fields, and man se^us half inclined to let them do it, and move to Texas. Upon looking under the masses of grape-vine, a heap of large stones showing traces of fire is discovered. These stones once formed the chimney and fireplace of the log-house, wherein George Mckemey lived and Andrew Jackson was born. On that old yellow hearth-stone, Mrs. Jackson lulled her infant to sleep and brooded ovej' her sad bereavement, and thought anxiously respecting the future of her fatherless boys. Sacred spot ! not so much because there a hero was born, as because there a noble mother suffered, sorrowed, and accepted her new lot, and bravely bent herself to her more than double weight of care and toil. Mrs. Jackson remained at this house three weeks. Then, leaving her eldest son behind to aid her brother-in-law on his farm, she removed with her second son and the new-born infant, to the residence of another brother-in-law, Mr. Crawford, with whom P'he had cros'sed the ocean, and who then lived two miles distant. Mrs. Crawford was an invalid, and Mrs. Jackson was permanently established in the family as housekeeper and poor relation. CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION". In the family of his Uncle Crawford, Andy Jackson (for by this familiar name he is still spoken of in the neighborhood), spent the first ten or twelve years of his life. Mr. Crawford was a man of 14 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. [1777. considerable substance for a new country, and his family was large. He lived in South Carolina, just over the boundary hne, near the Waxhaw Creek, and six miles from the Catawba River. The land there lies well for farming; level but not flat;, undu- lating, but without hills of inconvenient hight. The soil is a stiiF, red clay, the stifFest of the stiif, and the reddest of the red ; the kind of soil which bears hard usage, and makes the very worst winter roads anywhere to be found on this planet. Except where there is an interval of fettile soil, the country round about is a boundless continuity of pine woods, wherein to this day, wild turkeys and deer are shot, and the farmers take their cotton to market in immense wagons of antique pattern, a journey of half a week, and camp out every night. As evening closes in, the pass- ing traveler sees the mules, the negro driver, the huge covered wagon, the farmer, and sometimes his wife with an infant, grouped in the most strikingly picturesque manner, in an opening of the forest, around a blazing fire of pine knots, that light up the scene like an illumination. Just so, doubtless, did the farmers in Andy's day transport their produce ; and, many a time, I doubt not, he slept by the camp-fire ; for the Carolina boys like nothing better than to go to market with their fathers, and share in the glorious ad\enture of sleeping out-of-doors. In such a country as this, with horses to ride, and cows to hunt, and journeys to make, and plenty of boys, black and white, to play with, our little friend Andy spent his early years. In due time the boy was sent to an " old-field school," an institu- tion not much unlike the roadside schools in Ireland, of which we read. The northern reader is, perhaps, not aware *that an " old field" is not a field at all, but a pine forest. When crop after crop of cotton, without rotation, has exhausted the soil, the fences are taken away, the land lies waste, the young pines at once spring up, and soon cover the whole field with a thick growth of wood. In one of these old fields, the rudest possible shanty of a log-house is erected, with a fireplace that extends from side to side, and occupies a third of the interior. In winter, the inter- stices of the log walls are filled up with clay, which the restless fingers of the boys make haste to remove, in time to admit the first warm airs of spring. An itinerant schoolmaster presents himself in a neighborhood ; the responsible farmers pledge him a lV7V.] CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 15 certain number of pupils, and an old-field school is established for the season. Such schools, called by the same name, exist to this day in the Carolinas, differing little from those which Andrew Jackson attended in his childhood. Reading, writing and arithmetic were all the branches taught in the early day. Among a crowd of 4irchins, seated on the slab benches of a school like this, fancy a tall, slender boy, with blue bright eyes, a freckled face, au abundance of long sandy hair, and clad in coarse copperas-colored cloth, with bare feet dangling and kicking — and you have in your mind's eye a picture of Ajidy, as he appeared in his old-field school days in the Waxhaw settlement. But Mrs. Jackson, it is said, had more ambitious views for her youngest son. She aimed to give him a liberal education, in the hope that he would one day become a clergyman in the Presbyte- rian Church. It is probable that her condition was not one of absolute dependence. The tradition of the neighborhood is, that she was noted, the country round, for her skill in spinning flax, and that she earned money by spinning to pay for Andrew's schooling. It is possible, too, that her relations in Ireland may have contributed something to her support. General Jackson had a distinct recollection of her receiving presents of linen from the old country, and, particularly, one parcel, the letter accompanying which was lost, to the sore grief of the old lady; for, in those days, a letter from " home" was a treasure beyond price. The impression that she was not destitute of resources is strengthened by the fact, that Andrew, at an early age, attended some of the better schools of the country — schools kept by clergymen, .in w^hich the languages were taught, and young men prepared for college and for the ministry. The first school of this kind that he attended was an academy in the Waxhaw settlement, of which one Dr. Humphries was master. The site of the large log-house in which Dr. Humphries kept his school is still pointed out, but no traces of it remain ; nor can any information respecting the school, its master, or its pupik be now obtained. There is also a strong tradition that young Jackson attended a school in Charlotte, X. C, then called Queen's College, a school of renown at that day. The inhabitants of the pleasant town of Charlotte all believe this. Jackson himself once bald that he went to school there. When a delegation went from 16 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. [1777. Charlotte to Washington to ask Congress to establish a mint in the gold region, President Jackson was told by one of them that gold had been found in the very hill on which Queen's College had once stood. To which the President replied, " Then it must have grown since I went to school there, for there was no gold there then ;" a remark which the geologists of Charlotte still facetiously quote when the question of the origin of gold is dis- cussed among them. There are yet living several persons whose fathers were school- mates of Andrew Jackson ; and though none of them can say pos- itively where he went to school, nor who were his teachers, nor what he learned, yet all of them derived from their fathers some general and some particular impressions of his character and con- duct as a school-boy. Such incidents and traits as have thus come down to us, will not be regarded, I trust, as too trivial for brief record. Andy was a wild, frolicsome, willful, mischievous, daring, reck- less boy ; generous to a friend, but never content to submit to a stronger enemy. He was passionately fond of those sports which are mimic battles ; above all, wrestling. Being a slender boy, more active than strong, he was often thrown. " I could throw him three times out of four," an old schoolmate used to say; "but he would never stay throwed. He was dead game, even then, and never would give up." He was exceedingly fond of running foot-races, of leaping the bar, and jumping ; and in such sports he was excelled by no one of his years. To younger boys, who never questioned his masteiy, he was a generous protector ; there was nothing he would not do to defend them. His equals and superiors found him self-willed, somewhat overbearing, easily offended, very irascible, and, upon the whole, "difficult to get along with." One of them said, many years after, in the heat of controversy, that of all the boys he had ever known, Andrew Jackson was the only bully who was not also a coward. But the boy, it appears, had a special cause of irritation in a dis- agreeable disease, name unknown, which induces a habit of^ — not to put too fine a point on it — " slobbering," Woe to any boy who presumed to jest at this misfortune ! Andy was upon him incon- tinently, and there was either a fight or a drubbing. There is a 1777.] CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 17 story, too, of some boys secretly loading a gun to the muzzle, and giving it to young Jackson to fire off, that they might have the pleasure of seeing it " kick" him over. They had that pleasure. Springing up from the ground, the boy, in a frenzy of passion, exclaimed : " By G— d, if one of you laughs, I'll kill him !" And no*one dared to laugh. It was a swearing age, the reader will remember. The expression, " By G — d," was almost as fa- miliar to the men of that day as m.o^i Dieu now is to Frenchmen, or mein Gott to Germans. It was used commonly by fox-hunting clergymen, there is reason to believe. So, at least, we may infer from the comedies and novels of the period. Frolic, however, not fight, was the rulmg interest of Jackson's childhood. He pursued his sports with the zeal and energy of his nature. No boy ever lived who liked fun better than he, and his fun, at that day, was of an innocent and rustic character, such as strengthens the constitution, and gives a cheery tone to the feel- ings ever after. I can only add a second-hand reminiscence of a rainy-day de- bate between Andy and one of his uncles, related to me by a son of that uncle. The subject of the discussion Avas, What makes the gentleman ? The boy said. Education ; the uncle. Good Prin- ciples. The question was earnestly debated between them, with- out either being able to convince the other. If our knowledge of the school-life of Jackson is scanty, we are at no loss to say what he learned and what he failed to learn at [ school. He learned to read, to write, and cast accounts — little more. If he began, as he may have done, to learn by heart, in the old-fashioned way, the Latin grammar, he never acquired enough of it to leave any traces of classical knowledge in his mind or his writings. In some of his later letters there may be found, it is true, an occasional Latin phrase of two or three words, but so quoted as to show ignorance rather than knowledge. He was never a well-informed man. He never was addicted to books. f He never learned to write the English lai%uage correctly, though, he often wrote it eloquently and convincingly. He never learned to spell correctly, though he was a better speller than Frederic II., Marlborough, Napoleon, or Washington. Few men of his day, and no women, were correct spellers. And, indeed, we may 18 LIFE OF ANDREW J A C K S O :-' . [iVVT. say that all the most illustrious men have been bad spellers, ex- cept those who could not spell at all. The scrupulous exactness in that respect, which is now so common, ,was scarcely known three generations ago. The schools, then, contributed little to the equipment of this eager boy for the battle of life. He derived much from the honest and pure people among whom he was brought up. Their instinct of hwiesty was strong within him always. He imbibed a rever- ence for the character of Avoman, and a love of purity, which, amid all his wild ways, kept him stainless. In this particular, I believe he was without reproach from youth to old age. He deeply loved his mother, and held her memory sacred to tlie end of his life. He used often to speak of the courage she had displayed when left without a protector in the wilderness, and would some- times clinch a remark or an argument by saying, ^''That I learned from my good old mother." He was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed. By the time the war approached the Waxhaw settle- ment, bringing blood and terror with*it, leaving desolation behind it, closing all school-houses, and putting a stop to the peaceful labors of the people, Andrew Jackson was little more than thir- teen. His brother Hugh, a man of stature, if not in years, had not waited for the war to come near his home, but had mounted his horse a year before, and ridden southward to meet it. He was one of the troopers of that famous regiment, to raise and equip which, its colonel, William Richardson Davie, spent the last guinea of his inherited estate. Under Colonel Davie, Hugh Jackson fought in the ranks of the battle of Stono, and died, after the action, of heat and fatigue. His brother Robert was a strapping lad, but too young for a soldier, and was still at home with his mother and Andrew, when Tarleton and his dragoons thundered along the red roads of the Waxhaws, and dyed them a deeper red with the blood of the surprised militia. 1780.] DURING THE KEVOLUTIONART WAR. 19 CHAPTER III. . * DURING THE REYOLUTIONART "WAR. It was on the 29th of May, 1.780, that Tarleton, with three hun- dred horsemen, surprised a detachment of militia in the Waxhaw settlement, aijd killed one hundred and thirteen of them, and wound- ed a hundred and fifty. The wounded, abandoned to the care of the settlers, were quartered in the houses of the vicinity ; the old log Waxhaw meeting-house itself being converted into a hospital for the most desperate cases. Mrs. Jackson was one of the kind women who ministered to the wounded soldiers in the church, and under that roof her boys first saw what war was.. The men were dreadfully mangled. Some had received as many as thirteen woiinds, and none less than three. For many days Andrew and his brother assisted their mother in v\'aiting upon the sick men ; Andrew, more in rage than pity, burning to avenge their wounds and his brother's death. Tarleton had fiiUen upon the Waxhaws like a summer storm, which bursts upon us unawares, does its destructive work, and rolls thundering {iway. The families who had fled returned soon to their homes, and the wounded men recovered, or found rest in the old church-yard. Then came rumors of the apjjroach of a larger body of royal troops under Lord Rawdon, who soon arrived in the Waxhaw country,, demanding of every one a formal promise not to take part in the war thereafter. Mrs. Jackson, her boys, the Crawfords, and a majority of their neigh- bors, abandoned their homes and retired a few miles to the north, rather than enter into a covenant so abhorrent to their feelings. A few days later, Rawdon was compelled to retrace his steps, and the Waxhaw people returned to their farms again. Once more that summer they were alarmed by a hostil-e assemblage a few miles distant, and prepared for a third flight ; but the " murderous tories " were dispersed in time, and our friends still clung to their homes. The men who were able to bear arms were generally away with* their companies, and the women, chil- dren, and old men passed their days and nights in fear, ready at any moment for flight. 20 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON. [1*780. Tarleton's massacre at the Waxhaws kindled the flames of war in all that re^on of the Carolinas. Many notable actions were fought, and some striking thongh nnimportant advantages were gained by the patriot forces. Andrew Jackson and his brother Robert were present at Sumpter's gallant blundering attack upon the British post of Hanging Rock, near Waxhaw, where the patriots half gained the day, and lost it by beginning too soon to drink tiie rum they captured from the enemy. The Jackson boys rode on this expedition with Colonel Davie, a most brave, self-sacrificing officer, who, as we have said, commanded the troop of which Hugh Jackson was a member when he died, after the battle of Stono. Neither of the boys were attached to Davie's company, nor is it likely that Andrew, a boy of thirteen did more til an witness the afiair at the Hanging Rock. If he was in a jDOsition to observe the movements of the troops, or if he ovei'heard the coTnments of Colonel Davie upon the battle, he received a lesson in the art of war. Colonel Davie attributed the failure of the attack to the circumstance that the men dismounted a hundred yards too late. " Dismounting under fire is an operation that tasks the discipline of the best troops, and is sure to discompose militia," maintained Colonel Davie in the council. Sumpter thought it best to dash in on horseback to a point near the enemy's works; then dismount, and rush upon them on foot. This was attempted, but the attempt was only half successful, owing to the confusion caused by dismounting iinder fire. The rum finished what error began, and the affair ended in a debauch instead of a victory. This Colonel Davie, Hugh Jackson's old commander, was the man, above all others who led Carolina troops in the Revolution, that the Jackson boys admired. He was a man after A-ndrew's own heart; swift, but wary; bold in planning enterprises, but 'most cautious in execution ; sleeplessly vigilant ; untiringly active ; one of those cool, quick men Avho apply mother-wit to the art of war ; who are good soldiers because they are earnest and clear- sighted men. So far as any man was General Jackson's model soldier, William Richardson Davie, of North Carolina, was the individual. Davie, it is worth mentioning, was a native of England, and lived there till he was five years old. The boys rejoined their mother at the "Waxhaw settlement. On the 16th of August, 1780, occurred the great disaster of the war in 1780.] UURIXG THE RE VOLUTI O N A K Y WAR. 21 the South, the defeat of General Gates. The victor, Cornwallis, moved three weeks after, with his whole army, toward the Wax- haws ; which induced Mrs. Jackson and her boys once more to abandon their home for a safer retreat north of the scene of war. How Mrs. Jackson and her son Robert performed this journey in those terrible days, there is no information. But through the excellent memory of a lady who died only a very few years ago, the reader can have a clear glimpse of Andrew, as he appeared to mortal view while he was on hi§ northward journey, just after the defeat of Gates. The lady referred to was Mrs. Susan Smart, to whose high respectability and careful vei'acity all the people of Charlotte, North Carohna, near which she lived for four score years, will cheerfully testify. Her single reminisceiice of Andrew Jackson I obtained from her intimate friends in Charlotte, to whom she was in the habit of telling it. Time — late in the afternoon of a hot, dusty September day in 1 780. Place — the high road, five miles below Charlotte, where Mrs. Smart then hved, a saucy girl of fourteen, at the home of her parents. The news of Gates' defeat had flown over the country, but every one was gasping for details, especially those who had fathers and brothers in the patriot army. The father and brother of Mrs. Smart were in that army, and the family, as yet, knew nothing of their fate ; a condition of suspense to which the women of the Caroliuas were well used during the revolutionary war. It was the business of Susan, during those days, to take post at one of the windows, and there watch for travelers coming from the South ; and, upon spying one, to fly out upon him and ask him for news of the army, and of the corps to which her father and brother were attached. Thus posted, she descried, on the afternoon to which we have referred, riding rapidly on a 'i grass pony" (one of the ponies of the South Carolina swamps, rough, Shetlandish,wild),a tall, slender, "gangling fellow;" legs long enough to meet under the pony almost ; damaged, wide- brimmed hat flapping down over his face, which was yellow and worn ; the figure covered with dust ; tired-looking, as though the youth had ridden till he could scarcely sit on his pony ; the forlorn- est apparition that ever revealed itself to the eyes of Mrs. Susan Smart during the whole of her long life. She ran out to the road and hailed him. He reined in his pony, when the following brief conversation ensued between them : — 22 LIFE or ANDREW JACKSON. [l781. She. — " "Whei-e ai-e you from ?" He.—" From below." She. — " Where ai-e you going?"* . He.—" Above." She.—" Who are you for ?" He.—" The Congress." She. — " What are you dohig below ?" He. — "Oh, we are popping them still." She (to herself). — " It's mighty poor popping such as you will do, any how." (Aloud). — " What's your name ?" He. — "Andrew Jackson." She asked him respecting her father's regiment, and he gave her what information he possessed. He then galloped away toward Charlotte, and Susan returned to the house to tell his news and ridi- cule the figure he had cut — the gangling fellow on the grass pony. Years after she used to laugh as she told the story ; and later, when the most thrilling news of the time used to come to remote Char- lotte associated with the name of Andrew Jackson, still she would bring out her little tale, until, at last, she made it get votes for him for the presidency. Good fortune gave me the acquaintance, in Charlotte, of a gentle- man who is the grandson of the lady to whose house Andrew was going on this occasion. He was bound to Mrs. Wilson's, a few miles above Charlotte, where he spent several weeks. Mrs. Wilson, a distant connection of Mrs. Jackson, was the mother of an eminent clergyman of North Carolina, Rev. Dr. Wilson, who was a boy when Andrew Jackson rode to his mother's house on the grass pony. The two boys soon became friends and playmates, though the rough ways and wild words of Andrew rather astonished the staid son of Mrs. Wilson, as he used many a time to relate. The gentleman referred to above is a son Of Dr. Wilson, and remembers two or three interesting things which his father and grandmother were accus- tomed to report of the boy. At Mrs. Wilson's, Andrew paid for his board by doing what New England people call "chores." He brought in wood, " pulled fod- der," 2:)icked beans, drove cattle, went to mill, and took the farming utensils to be mended. Respecting the last named duty there is a striking reminiscence. " Never," Dr. Wilson would say, " did An- drew come home from the shops without bringing with him some 1781.] DURING THE K E V O L U T I O N A K Y AV A K . 23 new weaj)on 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 cl^b 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 Avords like these : " ' Oh, if I were a man, how I would sweep down the British with my grass blade !' " Dr. Wilson remembered saying to his mother when they were talking of Andrew one day, "Mother, Andy will fight his way in the world." The doctor lived to see his prediction fulfilled, and, though he would never vote for his old companion, he rejoiced exceedingly when he heard, sixty years after, that this swearing, roystering lad had come to be a contrite old man. In February, 1781, the country about the Waxhaws being tranquil, because subdued, Mrs. Jackson, her sons and many of her neighbors, returned to their ravaged homes. Andrew soon after passed his fourteenth birthday, an overgrown youth, as tall as a man, but weakly from having grown too fast. Then ensued a spring and summer of small, fierce, intestine warfare ; a war of whig and tory, neighbor against neighbor, brother against broth- er, and even father against son. General Jackson used to give, among other instances of the madness that prevailed, the case of a whig, who, having found a friend murdered and mutilated, de- voted hitnself to the slaying of tories. He hunted and lay in wait for them, and before the war ended, had killed twenty ; and then, recovering from that insanity, lived the rest of his days a con- science-sti'icken wretch. The story of Mrs. Motte, who assisted to fire her own house — the finest house in all the country round — rather than it should serve as a British post, was another whicii the General remembered of this period. Without detaining the reader Avitb a detail of the revolutionary history of the Carolinas, I yet desire to show what a war-charged atmosphere it was that young Andrew breathed during this form- ing peftod of his life, especially toward the close of the war, after the great operations ceased. The reader shall, at least, have a glimpse or two of the Carolinas during the Revolution. 24 LIFE OF ANDREW. JACKSON. [1781. The peoi^le in the upper country of the Carolinas little expected that the war woi^ld ever reach settlements so remote, so ob- scure, so scattered as theirs. And it did not for some years. When at last the storm of war drew near their borders, it found them a divided people. The old sentiment of loyalty was still rooted in many minds. There were many who had taken a recent and special oath of allegiance to the king, which they considered bidding in all circumstances. They were Highlanders, clannish and religiously loyal, who pointed to the text, *' Fear God and honor the king," and overlooked the fact that the biblical narrative con- demns the Jews for desiring a kingly government. There were Moravians and Quakers, who conscientiously opposed all war. There were Catholic Irish, many of whom sided with the king. There were Protestant Scotch-Irish, whigs and agitators in the old country, whigs and fervent patriots in the new. There were place- holders, who adhered to their official bread and dignity. There were trimmers, who espoused the side that chanced to be strongest. The approach and collision of hostile forces converted most of these factions into belligerents, who waged a most fierce and deadly war upon one another, renewing on this new theater the border wars of another age and country. It was a war of chiefs rather than gen- erals, of banditti rather than armies ; a war of exploits, expeditions, surprises, sudden devastation, fierce and long pursuits ; a war half Indian and half Scotch-clannish. Such warfare intensely excites the feelings, and allows no interval of serenity. Who can imagine the state of things when such an occurrence as this c<>uld take place, and be thought quite regular and cor- I'ect? "A few days afterward (1*780), in Rutherford county, N. C. (a hundred miles from Waxhaw), the principal officers held a court-martial over some of the most audacious and murderous tories, and selected thirty-two as victims for destruction, and •commenced hanging three at a time, until they hung nine, and respited the rest." This is mentioned without remark in a matter- of-fact account of the battle of King's Mountain, by an officer who fought in that battle. No boy of the least spirit, could escape the contagion of an animosity so intense and general. There was certainly one who did not. There were others, also, as we may infer from one of Mr. Lossing's anecdotes: — "The British officers were hospitably IVSl.J DUltlNG THE REVOL UTIo;-f AR Y WAR. 25 eutertained by Dr. Anthony Newman, notwithstanding he was a whig. There, in the presence of Tarleton and others, Dr. New- maji's two little sons were engaged in playing the game of the battle of the Cowpens with grains of corn, a red grain repre- senting the British officers, and a white one the Americans. Washington and Tarleton were particularly represented, and as one pursued the other, as in a real battle, the little fellows shouted, 'Hurrah for Washington, Tarleton runs! Hurrah for Washing- ton !' Tarleton looked on for awhile, but becoming irritated, he exclaimed, ' See the cursed little rebels !' " How often must our fiery Andrew have drunk, with greedy ear, the bloody tales that were cxu'rent then, and how they must have nourished in him those feelings which are akin to war and strife ! I wonder if he chanced to hear, that at Charleston, in the early period of the war cotton bales were used in the construction of a fort. I wonder if he heard of the servants of the British officers, thickening their masters' soup with hair powder, in the scarcity of flour; of Marion splitting saws into sword-bl^des ; of the patriot militia going to battle with more men than muskets, and the un- armed ones watching the strife till a comrade fell, and then running in to seize his weapon, and to use it. It is likely. In his. inflamed imagination, the mild Cornwallis figured as a relentless savage ; Tarleton as a devil incarnate, and all red-coated sons of Britain, as the natural enemies of man. " Oh, if I were a man, how I would sweep down the British Svith my grass blade !" Well, the time came, when Andrew and his brother began to play men's parts in the drama. Without enlisting in any organ- ized corps, they joined small parties that Svent out on single enter- prises of retaliation, mounted on their own horses, and carrying their own weapons. Let us see what befell them while serving thus. In that fierce, Scotch-Indian warfare, the absence of a father from home was often a better protection to his family than his presence, because his presence invited attack. The main object of both parties was to kill the fighting men, and to avenge the slaying of partisans. And thus it came to pass, that when a whig soldier of any note desired to spend a night with his family, his neighbors were accustomed to turn out, and serve as a guard to his house while he slept. Behold Robert and. Andrew Jackson, with six others, thus employed one night in the spring of 1781, at the domi- 2 ♦ 26 LIFE O F AN D RE W JACKSON . [l782. cile of a neighbor, Captain Sands. The guard on this occasion was more a friendly tribute to an active partisan than a service consid- ered necessary to liis safety. In short, the night was not far ad- vanced, before the whole party were snugly housed and stretched upon the floor, all sound asleep, except one, a British deserter, who was restless, and dozed at intervals. Danger was near. A band of tories, bent on taldng the life of Captain Sands, approached the house in two divisions ; one party moYing toward the front door, the other toward the back. The wakeful soldier, hearing a suspicious noise, rose, went out of doors to learn its cause, and saw the foe stealthily nearing the house. He ran in in terror, and seizing Andreyv Jackson, who lay next the door, by the hair, exclaimed, " The tories are upon us !" Andrew sprang up, and ran out. Seeing a body of men in the distance, he placed the end of his gun in the low fork of a tree near the door, and hailed them. No reply. He hailed them a second time. No reply. They quickened their pace, and had come within a few rods of the door. By this time, too, the guard in the house had been roused, and were gathered in a group behind the boy. Andrew discharged his musket ; upon which the tories fired a volley, which killed the hapless deserter who had given the alarm. The other party of tories, who were approach- ing the house from the other side, hearing this discharge, and the rush of bullets above their heads, supposed that the firing proceeded from a party that had issued from the house. They now fired a volley, which sent a shower of balls whistling about the heads of their friends on the othfr side. Both parties hesitated, and then halted. Andrew having thus, by his single dischai-ge, puzzled and stopped the enemy, retired to the house, where he and his comrades kept up a brisk fire from the windows. One of the guard fell mortally wounded by his side, and another received a wound less severe. In the midst of this singular contest, a bugie was heard, some distance off", sounding the cavalry charge ; whereupon the tories, concluding that they had come upon an ambush of whigs, and were about to be assailed by horse and foot, fled to where they had left their horses, mounted, dashed pell-mell into the woods, arid were seen no more. It appeared afterward, that the bugle charge was sounded by a neighbor, who judging from the noi.-e of 1781. J DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 27 musketry that Captain Sands was attacked, and having not a man with him in his house, gave the blast upon the trumpet, thinking that even a trick so stale, aided by the darkness of the night, might have some eftect in alarming the assailants. The next time the Jackson boys smelt powder, they were not so fortunate. The activity and zeal of the Waxhaw whigs coming to the ears of Lord Rawdon, whom Cornwallis had left in command, he dispatched a small body of dragoons to aid the tories of that infected neighborhood. The Waxhaw people, hearing of the ap- proach of this hostile force, resolved upon i-esisting it in open fight, and named the Waxhaw meeting-house as the rendezvous.. Forty whigs assembled on the appointed day, mounted and armed ; and among them were Robert and Andrew Jackson. In the grove about the old church, these forty were waiting for the arrival — ■ hourly expected — of another company of whigs from a neighboring settlement. The British officer in command of the dragoons, ap- prised of the r^dezvous by a tory of the neighborhood, determined to surprise the patriot party before the two companies had united. Before coming in sight of the church, he placed a body of tories, wearing the dress of the country, far in advance of his soldiers, and so marched upon the devoted band. The Waxhaw party saw a company of armed men approaching, but concluding them to be their expected friends, made no preparations for defense. Too late the error was discovered. Eleven of the forty were taken prison- ers, and the rest sought safety in flight, fiercely pursued by the dragoons. The brothers were separated. Andrew found himself gallo]jing for life and liberty by the side of his cousin. Lieutenant Thomas Crawford ; a dragoon close behind them, and others com- ing rapidly on. They tore along the road awhile, and then took to a swampy field, where they came soon to a wide slough of water and mire, into which they plunged their horses. Andrew floundered across, and on reaching dry land again, looked round for his com- panion, whose horse had sunk into the mire and fallen. He saw him entangled, and trying vainly to ward off the blows of his pursuers with his sword. Before Andrew could turn to assist him, the lieutenant received a severe wound in the head, which compelled him to give up the contest and surrender. The youth put spurs to his horse and succeeded in eluding pursuit. Robert, too, escaped unhurt, and in the course of the day the brothers were reunited, 28 LIFE O F AN D R E W J ACK S O N. [1781. and took refuge in a thicket, in which they passed a huDgiy and anxious night. The next morning, the pangs of hunger compelled them to leave their safe retreat and go in quest of food. The nearest house Avas that of Lieutenant Crawford. Leaving their horses and arms in the thicket, the lads crept toward the .house, which they reached in safety. Meanwhile, a tbry-traitor of the neighborhood had scented out their lurking-place, found their horses and weapons, and set a party of dragoons upon their track. Before the family had a sus- picion of danger, the house was surrounded, the doors were secur- ed, and the boys were prisoners. A scene ensued which left an impression upon the mind of one of the boys which time never effaced. Regardless of the fact that the house was occupied by the defenseless wife and young children of a wounded soldier, the dragoons, brutalized by this mean parti- san warfare, began to destroy, with wild riot and noise, the con- tents of the house. Crockery, glass, and furniture,* were dashed to pieces ; beds emptied ;* the clothing of the f:^mily torn to rags ; even the clothes of the infant that Mrs. Ci'awford carried in her arms were not spared. While this destruction Avas going on, the officer in command of the party ordered Andrew to clean his high jack-boots, which were well splashed and crusted with mud. The boy replied, not angrily, though Avith a certain firmness and deci- sion, in something like these words : " Sir, I ana a prisoner of war, and claim to be treated as such." The officer glared at him like a wild beast, and aimed a despe- rate blow at tlie boy's head Avith his sword. Andrew broke the force of the blow with his left hand, and thus received two wounds — one deep gash on his head, and another on his