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while before Andrew was born. Mrs. Jackson had two other little boys, Hugh and Robert. After her husband died she got a position as housekeeper with one of her friends and put the two older boys to work on neighboring farms. Mrs. Jackson was a very religious woman, and she prayed that Andrew

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might be a minister of the gospel. The strong, religious character of his mother, it would seem, made a deep impression on him. He had a profound appreciation of religion and was a member of the church when he died.

In 1780, when he was thirteen years old, he volunteered as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. He was soon captured by the British; and when in prison he took the smallpox. While suffering with

this disease, he was taken home by his mother. He was seriously ill, and had a very narrow escape from death. Soon after this his mother died. When he recovered from the smallpox, he went to work in a saddler's shop and followed this business for some time. At seventeen he became a country school teacher. Of course he had little education, yet it required but slight training to become a country school teacher at this time. When eighteen years old, he went to Salisbury, North Carolina, and began the study of law in the office of a noted lawyer of that place. He was admitted to the bar at Salisbury a few weeks before he was twenty-one years old. He practiced law for a short time in North Carolina, and then decided to move to Tennessee. He came to Jonesboro, East Tennessee, and was admitted to the bar at this place in February, 1788. He lived at Jonesboro for a year or more; and while here fought a bloodless duel with Colonel Avery, a noted lawyer, who insulted him during a legal contest in which they were engaged on opposite sides.

He came to Nashville from Jonesboro, and took up his duties as district attorney, an office to which he had been appointed some time before. In 1796, he was chosen the first representative in Congress from Tennessee. In 1797, he was appointed to the United States senate by Governor Sevier to fill a vacancy caused by the expulsion of Senator Blount. After serving one year he resigned his position as senator. He returned to Tennessee and opened a store near the present site of the Hermitage. But

soon after this he was elected judge of the superior court. His salary in this position was six hundred dollars a year. The salary of the governor at this time was seven hundred and fifty dollars a year. In 1806, a young lawyer of Nashville by the name of Charles Dickinson made some insulting remarks

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about Mrs. Jackson. This led to a duel between Jackson and Dickinson, and Dickinson was killed. The duel was fought in Logan County, Kentucky. In the duel, Jackson received a serious wound, but he was able to ride back to Nashville.

When the war of 1812 opened, Jackson volunteered his services, and those of twenty-five hundred soldiers in Tennessee under his command. He was

major general of militia at this time. At the head of more than two thousand volunteers on January the 7th, 1813, he started down the Cumberland River on flat boats, bound for New Orleans to meet the British. But when he reached Natchez he was informed that the British were nowhere to be seen in this section. He marched his troops back to Tennessee and disbanded them.

On August 20th, 1813, one thousand Creek Indians surrounded Fort Mims in Alabama, and within a few hours had killed four hundred of the five hundred and fifty persons in the fort. Not a single white woman or white child escaped. This massacre so stirred the people of Tennessee that the legislature empowered the governor to put a large army in the field, and appropriated $300,000 to pay the expenses of the expedition against the Creeks. The troops met at Fayetteville, Tennessee, on October 4th, to begin the march to Alabama. General Jackson was in command. He had not recovered from the serious wounds he had received in a fight with the Bentons a short while before; his arm was in a sling, and he had to be assisted in mounting his horse. But, supported by an iron will, he assumed command and started on the long and perilous trip.

When Jackson reached Alabama with twenty-five hundred men and thirteen hundred horses, he found himself one hundred and fifty miles from any proper supply of provisions. He was really in great danger of famine. He sent back for provisions, but for some reason they did not come. For ten weeks he

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