Young Hickory

Andrew Jackson was born the youngest son of two Scots-Irish immigrants, who came across the Atlantic to try their fortunes on American shores. Andrew never came to know his father, as three weeks before Jackson’s 1767 birth, he died at the age of twenty-nine after sustaining an injury from carrying a log. But Jackson still had the company of his mother and two elder brothers.

For a time, he received a little education at a local school, but by the age of ten, the American Revolutionary War was underway. Seeking to support his country, he enlisted alongside his brothers as a courier to deliver messages across the battlefield, as using young boys as messengers was the common wartime communication system of the day. It wasn’t long before he and his brother Robert was caught by the British. A common story circulated about Andrew for years afterwards, saying that during his capture, a British officer had ordered him to shine his shoes, to which Jackson refused. The officer then attacked him with a sword and left a scar on Jackson’s face that he bore the rest of his life.

As soon as his mother managed to get Andrew and his brother released, Robert died an infection of smallpox that had hit both boys while prisoners. This was only the start of hardships for Andrew Jackson. All his immediate family disappeared in the span of two years. His eldest brother, Hugh, died two years prior of heat exhaustion in the Battle of Stono Ferry in South Carolina, and his mother perished of cholera the same year as Robert. Suddenly, Jackson, 14, was completely alone in the world.

Nonetheless, there was one more death in the family to come in the following years, this time one that actually benefitted the young man. His grandfather in Ireland died an...

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...as over, he was titled the military governor of Florida, a job which lasted almost a year before he was nominated for presidency.

Though Jackson had come to despise politics, viewing them as greed-ridden cesspools, he accepted the nomination and almost won his 1824 bid for the office. But winning the popular vote was not enough to earn him the seat, as all the electoral college votes were split, the decision was left up to the House of Representatives. By their votes, John Adams won due to Speaker Henry Clay giving his state’s vote just to keep Jackson from winning, to the outrage of much of America.

Works Cited

"Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & The Presidency." pbs.org. 2007. Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Meacham, Jon. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House Trade Paperback, 2009.