The reign of Andrew Jackson : a chronicle of the frontier in politics
Ogg, Frederic Austin, 1878-1951
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In the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans. Charles Henry Hart says: “Its fine characterization has made it the standard portrait of Jackson. ” THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON A CHRONICLE OF THE FRONTIER IN POLITICS BY FREDERIC AUSTIN OGG NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1921 I 4 t k • J : w 'U Copyright, 1919, by Yale University Press cACoe v.^o REMOTE SrORAG' BOOKSTACKS OFFiU CONTENTS I. II. III. V IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XL JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN THE CREEK WAR AND THE VICTORY OF NEW ORLEANS THE “CONQUEST” OF FLORIDA THE DEATH OF “KING CAUCUS” THE DEMOCRATIC TRIUMPH THE “REIGN” BEGINS THE WEBSTER-HAYNE DEBATE TARIFF AND NULLIFICATION THE WAR ON THE UNITED STATES BANK THE REMOVAL OF THE SOUTHERN INDIANS THE JACKSONIAN SUCCESSION BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE INDEX Page 1 “ 23 “ 45 “ 68 “ 95 “ 113 “ 137 “ 158 “ 181 “ 201 “ 217 “ 237 “ 241 •• vu Q Q \ O ILLUSTRATIONS ANDREW JACKSON Engraving by J. B. Longacre, after a drawing by himself from life, 1829. In the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, Charles Henry Hart says : “ Its fine character¬ ization has made it the standard portrait of Jackson. ’’ Frontispiece THE HERMITAGE, HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON Drawing from a photograph. Facing page 22 MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE Painting by S. F. B. Morse. In the Mayor’s office, owned by the Corporation of the City of New York. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York. “While Morse was painting the portrait of Lafayette in Washington, in 1825, he received news of the death of his wife. He sent a message to Lafayette saying that it would be impossible for him to go on with the work at present and received the following note of sympathy: “‘I have feared to intrude upon you, my dear sir, but want to tell you how deeply I sym¬ pathise in your grief — a grief of which nobody can better than me appreciate the cruel feel¬ ings. You will hear from me, as soon as 1 find myself again near you, to finish the work you have so well begun. Accept my affection¬ ate and mournful sentiment. — Lafayette. “‘February 11, 1825* IX X ILLUSTRATIONS *‘This portrait was finished later on, and now hangs in the City Hall in New, York. ” — Edward L. Morse, Scribner's Magazine, March, 1912. Facing page 70 THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, FROM BEYOND THE NAVY YARD Aquatint engraving by W. J. Bennett, after a painting by G. Cooke. Published by Lewis G. Clover, New York, 1834. In the collection of I. N. Phelps Stokes, Esq., New York. “ “ 118 DANIEL WEBSTER Daguerreotype from life, taken in 1851. In the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. “ “ 150 THE UNITED STATES BANK, PHILADELPHIA. NOW THE UNITED STATES CUSTOM HOUSE Engraving. “ “ 182 HENRY CLAY Engraving by J. B. Longacre, after a painting by W. J. Hubard, exhibited in the National Academy of Design, 1832. In the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans. “ “ 198 THOMAS H. BENTON Engraving by W. G. Armstrong, after a drawing by Fendrick. In the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Amerwans. “ “ 230 » 4 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON • • CHAPTER I JACKSON THE FEONTIEBSMAN Among the thousands of stout-hearted British subjects who decided to try their fortune in the Western World after the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1763 was one Andrew Jackson, a Scotch- Irish Presbyterian of the tenant class, sprung from a family long resident in or near the quaint town of Carrickfergus, on the northern coast of Ire¬ land, close by the newer and more progressive city of Belfast. With Jackson went his wife and two infant sons, a brother-in-law, and two neighbors with their families, who thus made up a typical eighteenth- century emigrant group. Arrived at Charleston, the travelers fitted themselves out for an overland journey, awaited a stretch of favorable weather, 1 2 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON and set off for the Waxhaw settlement, one hun¬ dred and eighty miles to the northwest, where numbers of their kinsmen and countrymen were already established. There the Jacksons were re¬ ceived with open arms by the family of a second brother-in-law, who had migrated a few years earlier and who now had a comfortable log house and a good-sized clearing. The settlement lay on the banks of the upper Catawba, near the junction of that stream with Waxhaw Creek; and as it occupied a fertile oasis in a vast waste of pine woods, it was for decades largely cut off from touch with the outside world. The settlement was situated, too, partly in North Carolina and partly in South Carolina, so that in the pre-Revolutionary days many of the inhabit¬ ants hardly knew, or cared to know, in which of the two provinces they dwelt. Upon their arrival Jackson’s friends bought land on the creek and within the bounds of the settle¬ ment. Jackson himself was too poor, however, to do this, and accordingly took up a claim six miles distant on another little stream known as Twelve- mile Creek. Here, in the fall of 1765, he built a small cabin, and during the winter he cleared five or six acres of ground. The next year he was able JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 3 to raise enough corn, vegetables, and pork to keep his little household from want. The tract thus oc¬ cupied cannot be positively identified, but it lay in what is now Union County, North Carolina, a few miles from Monroe, the county seat. Then came tragedy of a sort in which frontier history abounds. In the midst of his efforts to hew out a home and a future for those who were dear to him the father sickened and died, in March, 1767, at the early age of twenty-nine, less than two years after his arrival at the settlement. Tra¬ dition says that his death was the result of a rup¬ ture suffered in attempting to move a heavy log, and that it was so sudden that the distracted wife had no opportunity to seek aid from the distant neighbors. When at last the news got abroad, sympathy and assistance were lavished in true frontier fashion. Borne in a rude farm wagon, the remains were taken to the Waxhaw burying ground and were interred in a spot which tradition, but tradition only, is able today to point out. The widov/ never returned to the desolated home¬ stead. She and her little ones were taken into the family of one of her married sisters, where she spent her few remaining years. On the 15th of March, less than two weeks after her husband’s 4 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON death, she gave birth to a third son; and the child was promptly christened Andrew, in memory of the parent he would never know. Curiously, the seventh President’s birthplace has been a matter of sharp controversy. There is a tradition that the birth occurred while the mother was visiting a neighboring family by the name of McKemy; and Parton, one of Jackson’s principal biographers, adduces a good deal of evidence in support of the story. On the other hand, Jackson always believed that he was born in the home of the aunt with whom his bereaved mother took up her residence; and several biographers, including Bassett, the most recent and the best, accept this contention. It really matters not at all, save for the circumstance that if the one view is correct Jackson was born in North Carolina, while if the other is correct he was born in South Carolina. Both States have persistently claimed the honor. In the famous proclamation which he addressed to the South Carolina nullifiers in 1832 Jackson referred to them as “fellow-citizens of my native state”; in his will he spoke of himself as a South Carolinian; and in correspondence and conversation he repeatedly declared that he was born on South Carolina soil. J ackson was far from infallible, even JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 5 in matters closely touching his own career. But the preponderance of evidence on the point lies decidedly with South Carolina. No one, at all events, can deny to the Waxhaw settlement an honored place in American history. There the father of John C. Calhoun first made his home. There the Revolutionary general, An¬ drew Pickens, met and married Rebecca Calhoun. There grew up the eminent North Carolinian Governor and diplomat, William R. Davie. There William H. Crawford lived as a boy. And there Jackson dwelt until early manhood. For the times, young Andrew was well brought up. His mother was a woman of strong character, who cherished for her last-born the desire that he should become a Presbyterian clergyman. The uncle with whom he lived was a serious-minded man who by his industry had won means ample for the comfortable subsistence of his enlarged house¬ hold. When he was old enough, the boy worked for his living, but no harder than the frontier boys of that day usually worked; and while his advan¬ tages were only such as a backwoods community afforded, they were at least as great as those of most boys similarly situated, and they were far superior to those of the youthful Lincoln. 6 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON Jackson’s earlier years, nevertheless, contained little promise of his future distinction. He grew up amidst a rough people whose tastes ran strongly to horse-racing, cockfighting, and heavy drinking, and whose ideal of excellence found expression in a readiness to fight upon any and all occasions in defense of what they considered to be their personal honor. In young Andrew Jackson these character¬ istics appeared in a superlative degree. He was mischievous, willful, daring, reckless. Hardly an escapade took place in the community in which he did not share; and his sensitiveness and quick temper led him continually into trouble. In his early teens he swore like a trooper, chewed tobacco incessantly, acquired a taste for strong drink, and set a pace for wildness which few of his associates could keep up. He was passionately fond of run¬ ning foot races, leaping the bar, jumping, wrestling, and every sort of sport that partook of the charac¬ ter of mimic battle — and he never acknowledged defeat. “I could throw him three times out of four,” testifies an old schoolmate, “but he would never stay throwed. He was dead game even then, and never would give up.” Another early compan¬ ion says that of all the boys he had known Jack- son was the only bully who was not also a coward. JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 7 Of education the boy received only such as was put unavoidably in his way. It is said that his mother taught him to read before he was five years old ; and he attended several terms in the little low- roofed log schoolhouse in the Waxhaw settlement. But his formal instruction never took him beyond the fundamentals of reading, writing, geography, grammar, and “ casting accounts . ” He was neither studious nor teachable. As a boy he preferred sport to study, and as a man he chose to rely on his own fertile ideas rather than to accept guidance from others. He never learned to write the Eng¬ lish language correctly, although he often wrote it eloquently and convincingly. In an age of bad spellers he achieved distinction from the number of ways in which he could spell a word within the space of a single page. He could use no foreign languages; and of the great body of sci¬ ence, literature, history, and the arts he knew next to nothing. He never acquired a taste for books, although vanity prompted him to treasure throughout his public career all correspondence and other documentary materials that might be of use to future biographers. Indeed, he picked as a biographer first his military aide, John Reid, and later his close friend, John H. Eaton, whom 8 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON he had the satisfaction in 1829 of appointing Sec¬ retary of War. When the Revolution came, young Andrew was a boy of ten. For a time the Carolina backwoods did not greatly feel the effect of the change. But in the spring of 1780 all of the revolutionary troops in South Carolina were captured at Charleston, and the lands from the sea to the mountains were left at the mercy of Tarleton’s and Rawdon’s bands of redcoats and their Tory supporters. Twice the Waxhaw settlement was ravaged before the pa¬ triots could make a stand. Young Jackson wit¬ nessed two battles in 1780, without taking part in them, and in the following year he, a brother, and a cousin were taken prisoners in a skirmish. To the day of his death J ackson bore on his head and hand the marks of a saber blow administered by a British lieutenant whose jack boots he refused to polish. When an exchange of prisoners was made, Mrs. Jackson secured the release of her two boys, but not until after they had contracted smallpox in Camden jail. The older one died, but the younger, though reduced to a skeleton, survived. Already the third brother had given up his life in battle; and the crowning disaster came when the mother, going as a volunteer to nurse the wounded JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 9 I ! Waxhaw prisoners on the British vessels in Charles¬ ton harbor, fell ill of yellow fever and perished. Small wonder that Andrew Jackson always hated the British uniform, or that when he sat in the executive chair an anti-British feeling colored all of his dealings with foreign nations! At the age of fourteen, the sandy-haired, pock¬ marked lad of the Waxhaws found himself alone in the world. The death of his relatives had made him heir to a portion of his grandfather’s estate in Carrickf ergus ; but the property was tied up in the hands of an administrator, and the boy was in effect both penniless and homeless. The memory of his mother and her teachings was, as he was sub¬ sequently accustomed to say, the only capital with which he started life. To a natural waywardness and quarrelsomeness had been added a heritage of bitter memories, and the outlook was not bright. Upon one thing the youth was determined: he would no longer be a charge upon his uncle or upon any one else. What to turn to, however, was not so easy to decide. First he tried the saddler’s trade, but that was too monotonous. Then he undertook school-teaching; that proved little better. Desir¬ ous of a ghmpse of the world, he went to Charles¬ ton in the autumn of 1782. There he made the 10 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON acquaintance of some people of wealth and fell into habits of life which were beyond his means. At the race track he bet and swaggered himself into notice; and when he ran into debt he was lucky enough to free himself by winning a large wager. But the proceeds of his little inheritance, which had in the meantime become available, were now entirely used up ; and when in the spring the young spend¬ thrift went back to the Waxhaws, he had only a fine horse with elegant equipment, a costly pair of pistols, a gold watch, and a fair wardrobe — in addition to some familiarity with the usages of fashion — to show for his spent “fortune.” One other thing which Jackson may have carried back with him from Charleston was an ambition to become a lawyer. At all events, in the fall of 1784 he entered the law oflBce of a certain Spruce Macay in the town of Salisbury, North Carolina; and, after three years of intermittent study, he was admitted to practice in the courts of the State. The instruction which he had received was not of a high order, and all accounts agree that the young man took his tasks lightly and that he learned but little law. That he fully sustained the reputation which he had gained in the Waxhaws is indicated by testimony of one of Macay ’s fellow townsmen. JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 11 after Jackson had become famous, to the effect that the former student had been “ the most roar¬ ing, rollicking, game-cocking, card-playing, mis¬ chievous fellow that ever lived in Salisbury.” Upon his admission to the bar the irresponsible young blade hung out his shingle in Martinsville, Guilford County, North Carolina, and sat down to wait for clients. He was still less than twenty years old, without influence, and with only such friends as his irascible disposition permitted him to make and hold. Naturally business came slowly, and it became necessary to eke out a living by serving as a local constable and also by assisting in a mercantile enterprise carried on by two ac¬ quaintances in the town. After a year this hand- to-mouth existence began to pall. Neither then nor in later life did Jackson have any real taste or aptitude for law. He was not of a legal turn of mind, and he was wholly unprepared to suffer the sacrifices and disappointments which a man of different disposition would have been willing to undergo in order to win for himself an established position in his profession. Chagrin in this restless young man was fast yielding to despair when an alluring field of action opened for him in the fast- developing country beyond the moimtains. 12 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON The settlement of white men in that part of North Carolina which lay west of the Alleghanies had begun a year or two after Jackson’s birth. At first the hardy pioneers found lodgment on the Watauga, Holston, Nolichucky, and other streams to the east of modern Knoxville. But in 1779 a colony was planted by James Robertson and John Donelson on the banks of the Cumberland, two hundred miles farther west, and in a brief time the remoter settlement, known as Nashville, became a Mecca for homeseeking Carolinians and Virginians. The intervening hill and forest country abounded in hostile Indians. The settler or trader who un¬ dertook to traverse this region took his life in his hands, and the settlements themselves were sub¬ ject to perennial attack. In 1788, after the collapse of an attempt of the people of the “Western District” to set up an in¬ dependent State by the name of Franklin, the North Carolina Assembly erected the three coun¬ ties included in the Cumberland settlement into a superior court district; and the person selected for judge was a close friend of Jackson, John McNairy, who also had been a law pupil of Spruce Macay in Salisbury. McNairy had been in the Tennessee region two years, but at the time of receiving his JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 13 judicial appointment he was visiting friends in the Carolinas. His description of the opportunities awaiting ambitious young men in the back coun¬ try influenced a half-dozen acquaintances, lawyers and others, to make the return trip with him; and among the number was Jackson. Some went to assume posts which were at McNairy’s disposal, but Jackson went only to see the country. Assembling at Morganton, on the east side of the mountains, in the fall of 1788, the party pro¬ ceeded leisurely to Jonesboro, which, although as yet only a village of fifty or sixty log houses, was the metropolis of the eastern Tennessee settle¬ ments. There the party was obliged to wait for a sufficient band of immigrants to assemble before they could be led by an armed guard with some degree of safety through the dangerous middle country. As a highway had just been opened between Jonesboro and Nashville, the travelers were able to cover the distance in fifteen days. Jackson rode a fine stallion, while a pack mare carried his worldly effects, consisting of spare clothes, blankets, half a dozen law books, and small quantities of ammunition, tea, tobacco, liquor, and salt. For defense he bore a rifle and three pistols; and in his pocket he carried one 14 THE REIGN OF ANDRE W JACKSON hundred and eighty dollars of the much valued hard money. On the second day of November the emigrant train made its appearance in Nashville bringing news of much interest — in particular, that the Federal Constitution had been ratified by the ninth State, and that the various legislatures were preparing to choose electors, who would im- doubtedly make George Washington the first President of the Republic. Less than ten years old, Nashville had now a population of not over two hundred. But it was the center of a somewhat settled district extend¬ ing up and down the Cumberland for a distance of eighty or ninety miles, and the young visitor from the Waxhaws quickly found it a promising field for his talents. There was only one lawyer in the place, and creditors who had been outbid for his services by their debtors were glad to put their cases in the hands of the newcomer. It is said that before Jackson had been in the settlement a month he had issued more than seventy writs to defin- quent debtors. When, in 1789, he was appointed “solicitor,” or prosecutor, in Judge McNairy’s jurisdiction with a salary of forty pounds for each court he attended, his fortune seemed made and he forthwith gave up all thought of returning to his JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 15 Carolina home. Instead he took lodgings under the roof of the widow of John Donelson, and in 1791 he married a daughter of that doughty fron¬ tiersman. Land was still cheap, and with the pro¬ ceeds of his fees and salary he purchased a large plantation called Hunter’s Hill, thirteen miles from Nashville, and there he planned to establish a home which would take rank as one of the finest in the western country. The work of a frontier solicitor was diverse and arduous. A turbulent society needed to be kept in order and the business obligations of a shifty and quarrelsome people to be enforced. No great knowledge of law was required, but personal fear¬ lessness, vigor, and incorruptibility were indis¬ pensable. Jackson was just the man for the busi¬ ness. His physical courage was equaled by his moral strength; he was passionately devoted to justice; he was diligent and conscientious; and, as one writer has remarked, bad grammar, incorrect pronunciation, and violent denunciation did not shock the judges of that day or divert the mind of juries from the truth. Traveling almost con¬ stantly over the wretched roads and through the dark forests, dodging Indians, swimming his horse across torrential streams, sleeping alone in the 16 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON woods with hand on rifle, threatened by desperate wrongdoers, Andrew Jackson became the best- known figure in all western Tennessee and won at this time a great measure of that public confidence which later became his chief political asset. Meanwhile the rapid growth of population south of the Ohio River made necessary new arrange¬ ments for purposes of government. In 1790 the region between the Ohio and the present States of Alabama and Mississippi, having been turned over to the Nation by its earlier possessors, was erected into the “Southwest Territory,” and in 1791 the northern half became the State of Kentucky. In 1793 the remainder of the Territory set up a Legis¬ lature, and three years later delegates from the eleven counties met at Knoxville to draw up a new frame of government with a view to admis¬ sion to statehood. Jackson was a member of this convention, and tradition has it that it was he who brought about the selection of the name Tennessee, an Indian term meaning “The Great Crooked River, ” as against Franklin, Washington, and other proposed designations for the new State. At all events, upon the admission of the State in 1796, he was chosen as its sole representative in the lower branch of Congress. JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 17 In the late autumn of that year the young law¬ maker set out for the national capital at Philadel¬ phia, and there he arrived, after a journey of almost eight hundred miles on horseback, just as the tri¬ umphs of the Democrats in the recent presiden¬ tial election were being duly celebrated. He had not been chosen as a party man, but it is altogether probable that his own sympathies and those of most of his constituents lay with the Jeffersonians; and his appearance on the floor of Congress was an omen of the fast-rising tide of western democracy which should never find its ultimate goal until this rough but honest Tennesseean should himself be borne into the presidential chair. Jackson’s career in Congress was brief and un¬ eventful. After a year of service in the House of Representatives he was appointed to fill the un¬ expired term of William Blount in the Senate. But this post he resigned in 1798 in order to devote his energies to his private affairs. While at Phila¬ delphia he made the acquaintance not only of John Adams, Jefferson, Randolph, Gallatin, and Burr, but of his future Secretary of State, Edward Livingston, and of some other persons who were destined to be closely connected with his later career. But Jackson was not fitted for a legislative i 18 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON body either by training or by temperament. He is recorded as speaking in the House only twice and in the Senate not at all, and he seems to have made no considerable impression upon his colleagues. Gallatin later described him as “a tall, lank, un¬ couth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging over his face, and a queue down his back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment those of a rough backwoodsman.” And Jefferson is represented as saying of Jackson to Webster at Monticello in 1824: “His passions are terrible. When I was president of the Senate he was Senator, and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke with rage.” Return to Tennessee meant, however, only a transfer from one branch of the public service to another, for the ex-Senator was promptly ap¬ pointed to a judgeship of the state supreme court at a salary of six hundred dollars a year. The posi¬ tion he found not uncongenial and he retained it for six years. Now, as earlier, Jackson’s ignorance of law was somewhat compensated by his common sense, courage, and impartiality; and while only one of his decisions of this period is extant, Parton JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 19 reports that the tradition of fifty years ago repre¬ sented them as short, untechnical, unlearned, some¬ times ungrammatical, but generally right. The daily life of Jackson as a frontier judge was hardly less active and exciting than it had been when he was a prosecuting attorney. There were long and arduous horseback journeys “on circuit”; ill- tempered persons often threatened, and sometimes attempted, to deal roughly with the author of an unfavorable decision ; occasionally it was necessary to lay aside his dignity long enough to lend a hand in capturing or controlling a desperate character. For example, on arriving once in a settlement Jackson found that a powerful blacksmith had committed a crime and that the sheriff dared not arrest him. “ Summon me, ” said the judge; where¬ upon he walked down from the bench, found the culprit, led him into court, and sentenced him. In 1804 Jackson resigned his judgeship in order to give exclusive attention again to his private affairs. . He had fallen badly into debt, and his creditors were pressing him hard. One expedient after another failed, and finally Hunter’s Hill had to be given up. He saved enough from the wreck, however, to purchase a small plantation eight miles from Nashville; and there, after several years of 20 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON financial rehabilitation, he erected the handsome brick house which the country came subsequently to know as “ The Hermitage.” In partnership with two of his wife’s relatives, Jackson had opened a store in which, even while still a member of the high¬ est tribunal of the State, he not infrequently passed tea and salt and calico over the counter to his neigh¬ bors. In small trading, however, he was not adept, and the store failed. Nevertheless, from 1804 until 1813 he successfully combined with planting and the stock-raising business enterprises of alarger sort, especially slave and horse dealing. His debts paid off, he now became one of the most prosperous, as he already was one of the most influential, men of the Cumberland country. But it was not given to Andrew Jackson to be a mere money-maker or to dwell in quietness. In 1804 he was denied the governorship of the New Orleans Territory because he was described to Jefferson as “a man of violent passions, arbitrary in his disposition, and frequently engaged in broils and disputes.” During the next decade he fully lived up to this description. He quarreled with Governor John Sevier, and only the intervention of friends prevented the two from doing each other violence. He broke off friendly relations with his JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN 21 old patron, Judge McNairy. In a duel he killed Charles Dickinson, who had spoken disparagingly of Mrs. Jackson, and he himself suffered a wound which weakened him for life. He publicly caned one Thomas Swann. In a rough-and-tumble en¬ counter with Thomas Hart Benton and the lat¬ ter’s brother Jesse he was shot in the shoulder and one of his antagonists was stabbed. This list of quarrels, threats, fights, and other violent out¬ bursts could be extended to an amazing length. “Yes, I had a fight with Jackson, ” Senator Benton admitted late in life; “a fellow was hardly in the fashion then who hadn’t.” At the age of forty-five Jackson had not yet found himself. He was known in his own State as “a successful planter, a breeder and racer of horses, a swearer of mighty oaths, a faithful and generous man to his friends, a chivalrous man to women, a hospitable man at his home, a desperate and re¬ lentless man in personal conflicts, a man who always did the things he set himself to do.” But he had achieved no nation-wide distinction; he had not wrought out a career; he had made almost as many enemies as friends; he had cut himself off from official connections ; he had no desire to return to the legal profession; and he was so dissatisfied 22 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON with his lot and outlook that he seriously con¬ sidered moving to Mississippi in order to make a fresh start. One thread, however, still bound him to the pub¬ lic service. From 1802 he had been major general of militia in the eleven counties of western Ten¬ nessee; and notwithstanding the fact that three calls from the Government during a decade had yielded no real opportunity for action, he clung both to the oflSce and to the hope for a chance to lead his “hardy sons of the West” against a foe worthy of their efforts. This chance came sooner than people expected, and it led in precisely the direction that Jackson would have chosen — to¬ ward the turbulent, misgoverned Spanish depend¬ ency of Florida. THE HERMITAGE, HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON Drawing from a photograph. V 4.1 'r*i , 1 *4.X E*?: .REJGN OF ‘ ' biji-ka: and o1itli>oii "ihat ke ^ '- vTOy coii- - roc-ving to Mlssissipf' -*n -■ ■' .j'., ; av^ke a '-'. •Ci'om start. t&e livrc ad,lioV'ever, sliil bdur/i Hv' sei-vice. Fram 1803 be had be u { of militia in tlic eleven rouaties _ .. nessee; i.nd notwitlis tending the iao. tiSfei three t , ‘ • troin ;h<v Government during a had yield: <1 ;.v -'p'iKjrt.unity for aclior.. ■ -:• i citg ^• ir>vh' to tae fa fr nad to Uie hope for a cfai'.m-i to ’G : n- '1 V ? » V. 1 f \n^ h'\T^\ of West'’ against a foe v.Ofc’AikV ’n'A‘ACi/.i. A(> Avtovi .aoKTiuftatt aut wo?'? !':;. ■ ■ • us cnauce came sooner ib : rH< ^!e V-rheiy the direr-tii.^n "that Jackson V :, 'i/i fiave fl.osea — to¬ ward the ti-^ulent, n'GivVvraf-d ■•; riaiflwh^x-.-Jid- # TSl Vy^-- ^ ^ - ency of Fkinaa* ■ et - // • iSf; '-•kp V ✓ .>« # -'V \ '. • V' J ' 'T ’ • ' V. ,- (• -. - « .••Si i. HA 44 ».. ■Fk if. >•4 t ■< kicrTFiG F'- •■ -F r-F • V Jjs *M A-’ -■ • ,J^s i" F K 4‘ f '■• V - ' T 4^, \ , 'Eiravu.ve. Andersen-Laaii, La N Y I 1 =i a f ■i. i ■( - j CHAPTER II THE CREEK WAR AND THE VICTORY OF NEW ORLEANS Evert schoolboy knows and loves the story of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. But hardly any¬ body has heard of the twenty-day, fifteen-hun¬ dred-mile ride of “Billy” Phillips, the President’s express courier, who in 1812 carried to the South¬ west the news that the people of the United States had entered upon a second war with their British kinsmen. William Phillips was a young, lithe Ten¬ nesseean whom Senator Campbell took to Wash¬ ington in 1811 as secretary. When not more than sixteen years old he had enjoyed the honor of riding Andrew Jackson’s famous steed, Truxton, in a heat race, for the largest purse ever heard of west of the mountains, with the proud owner on one side of the stakes. In Washington he occasionally turned an honest penny by jockey-riding in the races on the old track of Bladensburg, and eventually he became one of a squad of ten or twelve expert 23 24 THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON horsemen employed by the Government in carry¬ ing urgent long-distance messages. After much hesitation. Congress passed a joint resolution at about five o’clock on Friday, June 18, 1812, declaring war against Great Britain. Be¬ fore sundown the express couriers were dashing swiftly on their several courses, some toward re¬ luctant New England, some toward Pennsylvania and New York, some southward, some westward. To Phillips it fell to carry the momentous news to his own Tennessee country and thence down the Mississippi to New Orleans. That the task was undertaken with all due energy is sufficiently attested in a letter written by a Baptist clergy¬ man at Lejgngton, North Carolina, to a friend, who happened to have been one of Jackson’s old teachers at the Waxhaws. “ I have to inform you,” runs the communication, “that just now the Presi¬ dent’s express-rider. Bill Phillips, has tore through this little place without stopping. He came and went in a cloud of dust, his horse’s tail and his own long hair streaming alike in the wind as they flew by. But as he passed the tavern stand where some were gathered he swung his leather wallet by its straps above his head and shouted — ‘ Here’s the Stuff! Wake up! War/ W ar with England! ! THE CREEK WAR 25 War!!!’ Then he disappeared in a cloud of dust down the Salisbury Road like a streak of Greased Lightnin’.” Nine days brought the indefatiga¬ ble courier past Hillsboro, Salisbury, Morganton, Jonesboro, and Knoxville to Nashville — a daily average of ninety-five miles over mountains and through uncleared country. In eleven days more the President’s dispatches were in the hands of Governor Claiborne at New Orleans. The joy of the West was unbounded. The fron¬ tiersman was always ready for a fight, and just now he especially wanted a fight with England. He resented the insults that his country had suffered at the hands of the English authorities and had little patience with the vacillating policy so long pursued by Congress and the Madison Ad¬ ministration. Other grievances came closer home. 