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= This paper is heavily copied from one source...thehermitage.com. You did not give credit to the sources and therefore is plagiarism. 60/100 = = = = 8th Grade Project = = = = = = = = = =[] =

Childhood-

Andrew Jackson was born in Waxhaw, on the border of North and South Carolina, on March 15, 1767. Andrew Jackson was the third child. He had 2 older brothers by the names of Hugh and Robert.  His oldest brother Hugh died of heat stroke following the Battle of Stono Ferry in 1779. In 1781, Jackson and his brother Robert were captured. One of the British officers struck him with his sword, after Jackson and his brothers refused to clean the officer's boots.  His hand was cut to the bone. The wound left a scar on Jackson's hand for the rest of his life. He and his brother Robert were taken prisoner-of-war and both contracted smallpox in prison. Jackson’s mother arranged for their release in a prisoner exchange. Jackson eventually recovered; however, his brother had died. After Andrew had recovered from small pox, his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Hutchison Jackson,  left to become a nurse in the war, and later on was fatally stricken by cholera.  Andrew, an only child and orphan was left back at home. Andrew had actually joined as a courier in the Continental Army at age thirteen! Andrew Jackson's parents, (Andrew Jackson, Sr. and Elizabeth "Betty" Hutchinson), were Scotch-Irish folks that immigrated to the US from Carrickfergus two years before his birth. His mother was widowed while pregnant with him. Before Andrew was born, his father had died from a lodging accident. He never really had a father figure. As a kid, Jackson attended a good school and his mother had high hopes of him becoming a Presbyterian minister. However, young Jackson’s propensity for pranks, cursing, and fighting quickly dashed those hopes. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> LIFE-

<span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-tab-count: 1; msobidifontweight: bold; msotabcount: 1; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> In the fall of 1788, Jackson took up his post as Western District public prosecutor in Nashville. Over the next two years, Jackson divided his time between courthouses in Nashville and Jonesborough and resided in frontier forts, including John Donelson’s Station where he met Rachel Donelson Robards. Rachel and her husband Lewis Robards clearly had a broken marriage. During a later visit, after hearing that Robards had divorced Rachel, they supposedly married. No one has ever located any written record of the Natchez wedding. When the couple returned to Nashville in 1791, they found that Robards had only initiated the divorce proceedings. With new evidence based on the Natchez “marriage”, Robards completed the divorce by charging Rachel with bigamy ( <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; msobidifontfamily: Arial;">the offense of marrying someone while you have a living spouse from whom no valid divorce has occurred). Andrew and Rachel re-married in Nashville in 1794. Such events sometimes happened on the frontier where communications were difficult. Little notice was made of the two marriages among Nashville society. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> In 1791, he was appointed Attorney General of the Mero District (the present day area around Nashville). Jackson also made a name for himself in the world of politics. In his first elected position, he served as a delegate to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention in Knoxville where he helped draft a state constitution and bill of rights. In 1796, Jackson traveled to Philadelphia to lobby Congress to approve Tennessee as the 16th U.S. state. Over the next two years, Tennesseans elected him their first member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1796- 1797) and he was selected by the Tennessee General Assembly as U.S. Senator (1797-1798). Jackson, however, cut his senatorial career short because of mounting financial difficulties at home. Jackson returned to Tennessee and in 1799 took a well paid position as a circuit judge on Tennessee’s Superior Court, a post that required him to travel throughout the state, including the state capital at Knoxville. Simultaneously, Jackson maintained a law practice in Nashville and established several commercial business ventures--including general merchandise stores, whiskey distilleries, and boat making--at his plantations in northeastern Davidson County. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">

<span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> He and Rachel lived first at Poplar Grove and then Hunter’s Hill, a 640-acre riverfront plantation worked by fifteen African-American slaves. In 1802, Jackson received an honor he had long coveted; the Tennessee militia elected him their Major General. On July 5, 1804, Jackson purchased his neighbor Nathaniel Hays’ 425-acre farm, which he named “The Hermitage.” Soon after, Jackson established a new riverfront enterprise at nearby Clover Bottom where he operated a general store, tavern, and tracks for racing thoroughbred horses. Jackson also quit his Superior Court judgeship.

In 1806, he quarreled with Charles Dickinson over a horse race, but it soon turned violent when Dickinson cast aspersion’s on Rachel’s character, Jackson challenged Dickinson to a duel. In the duel, Dickinson shot first and wounded Jackson in the chest, but Jackson still managed to fire and mortally wound Dickinson. After several months, Jackson recovered from his wound. With his reputation wounded by scandals and duels, Jackson retreated to The Hermitage to recover. Then, in 1812, his country called on him to serve. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; msobidifontweight: bold; msotabcount: 1;"> Jackson offered his services, but President Madison’s administration hesitated to call on Jackson because of his reputation for rashness and his friendship with Aaron Burr. Finally in December 1812, Madison commissioned Jackson Major General of U.S. Volunteers and ordered him to lead 1,500 troops south to Natchez and eventually to defend New Orleans. Jackson led his troops to Natchez, but in March the War Department believing the threat to New Orleans abated ordered the immediate dismissal of Jackson’s force and made no offer to compensate the troops or provide for their return to Tennessee. Outraged, Jackson decided that he would march his force home intact through hostile Indian lands even if he had to pay the expense himself. Jackson successfully led his poorly provisioned army back to Tennessee sharing in all the hardships his troops faced and encouraging them all the way by his example. His troops compared Jackson’s toughness to that of the hickory tree and nicknamed him “Old Hickory.” <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; msobidifontweight: bold; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-tab-count: 1; msoasciithemefont: minor-latin; msohansithemefont: minor-latin; msobidifontweight: bold; msotabcount: 1;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; msoasciithemefont: minor-latin; msohansithemefont: minor-latin;">At last, Jackson had begun to move out of the shadow of his past, but his temper once again got him into trouble. Jackson chose sides in a dispute between two of his officers when he should have acted as a peacemaker. As result, the argument expanded leading to a gunfight in the streets of Nashville that left Jackson horribly wounded in the upper left arm. While recovering from his wound, Jackson gathered his forces together in early October 1813 and marched south. In November 1813, Jackson won significant battles against the Creeks at Tallushatchee and Talladega. In May, the War Department rewarded Jackson with a commission as Major General in the U.S. Army over the 7th Military District, which included Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Mississippi Territory. Jackson’s immediate orders were to negotiate a peace treaty with the Creek Nation. In August 1814, Jackson met with chiefs of the Creek Nation and imposed the Treaty of Fort Jackson that forced the Creeks to give up nearly 23 million acres and remove their settlements to a smaller area of land that American forces could more easily patrol. In 1818, Jackson once again acting with questionable authority from Washington invaded Spanish Florida to attack the Seminole Indians. After three months, Jackson declared the Seminole threat over and withdrew. The Spanish realized that Jackson and the United States were determined to take Spanish Florida. In 1819, Spain and the United States agreed to the Adams-Onís Treaty that turned over Florida to the United States and advantageously settled the boundaries between the respective governments’ holdings in North America in favor of the United States. In June 1821, Jackson hesitantly resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to become Governor of the Florida Territory. From 1812 to 1821, Jackson’s military career made him a national hero and brought him increased wealth and opportunities. For the United States, Jackson’s actions secured its southern lands, acquired millions of acres of lands for settlement that fueled the cotton boom, and gave Americans a new found confidence or “go ahead” spirit that began an unbridled expansion in agriculture and manufacturing. Soon, Jackson’s countrymen would mention him as a candidate for President of the United States. In the 1824 Presidential Campaign, Jackson did not publicly advocate for his election as was the tradition of the day. He espoused no platform and actually all the serious candidates who ran, Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay, were from Jackson’s own Republican Party. However, through his campaign managers, Jackson made it clear that he was determined to cleanse government of corruption and return it to its earlier values. Americans went to the polls in the fall of 1824, handing Jackson a victory in the popular vote, but not enough Electoral College votes to win. The decision fell to the House of Representatives who met on February 9, 1825 and elected John Quincy Adams with House Speaker Henry Clay as Adams’ chief supporter. Jackson graciously accepted his defeat until rumors began to fly that Clay and Adams had struck a deal to ensure Adams’ election. When Adams’ named Henry Clay as his Secretary of State, it confirmed Jackson’s suspicions that the two men had reached a “corrupt bargain” and deprived the American people of their popular choice for president.

By 1828, Jackson was ready to win the White House, but first he had to suffer through a bruising campaign that to this day is still recognized as one of the meanest in American history. Adams’ supporters accused Jackson of being a military tyrant who would use the presidency as a springboard for his own Napoleonic ambitions of empire. For proof they ran out every skeleton in Jackson’s closet, his duels and brawls, his execution of troops for desertion during the War of 1812, his declaration of marshal law in New Orleans, his friendship with Aaron Burr, and his invasions of Spanish Florida in 1814 and 1818. But by far, the most painful personally for Jackson was the attack on his and Rachel’s character over their marriage. Technically, Rachel was a bigamist and Jackson her partner in it. Adams’ supporters attacked not only Jackson, but Rachel as morally unfit to hold the nation’s highest office.

In the fall of 1828, the decision fell to the voters and they overwhelmingly elected Jackson. Jackson’s victory was seen as a complete repudiation of Adams and his vision for America. <span class="navtext21" style="font-size: 14pt; color: #000000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: center; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'mso-bidi-font-family;"> = =

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