JACKSON, ANDREW, American general and president, was him self a native of the United States ; although his father, of the same name, was an Irishman, the youngest of the four eons of Hugh Jack son, a linendraper near Carrickfergus; and either the linendraper himself, or one of his recent progenitors, had come over from Scotland. Andrew Jackson went over to America in 1705, taking with him a wife and two sons. With them ho established himself in the Waxhaw settlement in South Carolina; and hero his third and youngest son, the subject of the present notice, was born on the 15th of March 1767. Andrew Jackson died five days after the birth of his sou ; and his widow found herself left with a half-cleared farm, without slaves, whereupon to bring up her three sons.
Andrew, her latest born, appears to have been his mother's favourite ; and the original destination of the future general and president of the United States was to be a clergyman. With this view, after having finished his school education, he was sent to the Waxhaw Academy ; and here he seems to have studied theology for some years. When the War of Independence however made all Americans soldiers, the young Jackson.] did not hold back. His eldest brother was killed at Storm. Andrew is recorded to have fought, along with his next eldest brother Robert, under Sumter in his attack on the British garrison at Rocky Mount, on the 6th of August 1780; at which date he would be little more than thirteen. And from this time he is stated to have taken a part in the campaigns as long as the war lasted. Nor did be escape the usual dissipated habits of a military life; but, with the decision of character which was his most remarkable characteristic, he suddenly changed his course beforo it was too late, and, collecting what remained of his means, put himself, In the winter of 1784, into the hands of Spruce Way, Esq., an eminent advocate and afterwards a judge, to be instructed in the practice of the law. This new study he prosecuted with so much success, that in 1787 he was appointed solicitor for what was then called the Western District of North Caro lina, and is now the State of Tennessee. The circumstances of the
time however did not suffer him, even if he had been so inclined, to throw off his military character, or to let the experience he had gained in camps and campaigns go to rust. Although the war with the mother country was over, the borders of the republican territory were still infested with another most troublesome enemy in the original occupants of the soil; and Jackson, although he would only serve as a private, is said to have so much distinguished himself in the contest with these natural rivals of his race, that he was honoured among them with the titles, or descriptive appellations, of Sharp Knife and Pointed Arrow.
lie continued to be thus employed till the year 1790, when, after having first acted as one of the members of the Convention for esta blishing a constitution for tho state of Tennessee, he was, under that new arrangement, elected to a seat In the House of Representatives. The next year he was chosen a senator ; but he resigned his seat after holding it for one session. He was then appointed by the legislature of Tennessee judge of the supreme court in that state; having also been shortly before chosen a major-general of the state forces. But he soon resigned his judicial office ; and, settling himself on a farm, a few miles from Nashville, on the Cumberland River, he resided there in retirement till the breaking out of the war with England iu 1812. With that event commences the most memorable portion of Jackson's career.
His first command was that of a body of between two and three thousand volunteers, who had assembled ou his invitation, and with whom he was directed to proceed down the Mississippi for the defence of the lower country. This was in November 1812. The next year he greatly distinguished himself by a campaign against tho Creek tribes, who were repeatedly afterwards defeated by him. The war was terminated in August 1814 by a treaty, by which they agreed to lay down their arms.