Photo: Wikipedia |
“He was
loved, loathed, revered, reviled, but never ignored.” He was a giant in his own
right, and a physically tall man (6 ft 1), weighing 144 lbs., with a size seven
shoes that nobody could fill. His courage was legendary, having joined the
Revolutionary battlefield at the age of 13, never shying away from brawls and
duels.
His troops
admired him for his courage and iron will and thus nicknamed him Old Hickory. Without
formal training as a soldier, Jackson was elected general because people liked
his strength, charm, and charisma, he was not a “Sunday Soldier.” He never asked
tasks of his soldiers that he himself was not willing to do.
When Jackson
called for enlistments in the coming war of 1812, he famously said, “… we are the
born sons of America; the citizens of the only republic now existing in the
world; and the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property
which they dare call their own.” (March 12, 1812)
His bold
personality seldom considered consequences and he marched forth. He campaigned
and appealed to the common man ideals thus transforming American politics.
Most
renowned for the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson designed a victory that stunned
the British. He was instrumental in the westward expansion at the cost of Indian
removal from their lands.
Jackson was a firm Unionist, but his grandsons joined the
Confederate Army during the Civil War. When he defeated the Creek Indians in
1814, the U.S. Army rewarded him with a commission as a Major General in the
regular army.
Photo: Ileana Johnson, April 2019
Photo: Ileana Johnson, April 2019
Back side of the mansion
Photo: Ileana Johnson, April 2019
Cows at the Hermitage
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2019
Andrew and Rachel Jackson's tomb at the Hermitage
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2019
Jackson was a war hero and quite popular with “farmers,
mechanics, and laborers.” They supported his presidency for two terms, upsetting
the status quo and the elite Washington establishment. They derided him as
having brought “muddy boots and common voices” into the White House.
Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, the same year and month
his father died. Although very young, he participated in the Battle of Hanging
Rock in 1780. A year later, both he and his brother Robert were prisoners of
war and contracted small pox; unfortunately, his brother died. His mother
Elizabeth died a year later in the cholera epidemic and Jackson was orphaned at
the age of 14.
Jackson’s career included delegate to the Tennessee
Constitutional Convention (1796), Tennessee’s first U.S. Representative (1796),
U.S. Senate First Term (1797-1798), Judge of Tennessee’s Superior Court
(1798-1804), commander of the Tennessee Militia with the rank of Colonel
(1801), Major General of the Tennessee Militia (1802).
Andrew Jackson attained the impossible – he fought
successfully against the world’s greatest power at the time in order to win New
Orleans, the Jewel of the American West and the gateway to control the Mississippi
River. New Orleans was a major trade port which connected America to the Gulf
of Mexico. The British could potentially bring troops from Canada and split the
nation in two parts.
Jackson’s earthworks in New Orleans, “built along a
four-foot ditch stretching from swamp to riverside” for the purpose of
installing cannon, were attacked at dawn on January 8, 1815. The British
troops, 8,392 strong and well trained were overwhelmed by American cannon and
sharpshooters with rifles and muskets. Their casualties mounted quickly, 291
killed, 1,262 wounded, and 484 missing. The American troops (5,359) suffered 13
killed, 39 wounded, and 19 missing.
Jackson’s army was a “ragtag of soldiers, sailors, militia,
volunteers, Indians, and free blacks.” He had a short period of time to train these
Americans to fight in battle as a regimented group.
His victory in New Orleans and the prior Treaty of Ghent (Belgium) that ended the war of 1812 set off a wave of nationalistic pride, celebrations, and parades. Jackson became a national hero, so popular that it carried him all the way to the White House. The wounded pride of America by the burning of Washington, the nation’s dignity, the uncertainty of its existence for three years, had been finally restored by Jackson’s victory.
His victory in New Orleans and the prior Treaty of Ghent (Belgium) that ended the war of 1812 set off a wave of nationalistic pride, celebrations, and parades. Jackson became a national hero, so popular that it carried him all the way to the White House. The wounded pride of America by the burning of Washington, the nation’s dignity, the uncertainty of its existence for three years, had been finally restored by Jackson’s victory.
Composers wrote music to celebrate his unexpected victory
and his face adorned coins, medals, plates, pitchers, silk ribbons, handkerchiefs,
posters, papers, and other memorabilia. He was the rock star of his day.
His success assured his reputation as an aggressive fighter
which allegedly intimidated Indian tribes into ceding millions of acres of
land, “setting the stage for the cotton boom in the American South.” Jackson used bribery and force and pressured
Spain to contract their empire. By 1821
when Jackson resigned his commission, “the United States – for the first time –
stretched from Florida to the Pacific Northwest.” (Museum Archives)
View of the working fields and Uncle Alfred's cabin from Jackson's window
Photo: Ileana Johnson, April 2019
Back porch at Hermitage
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
The Ladies’ Hermitage Association planted a double line of
trees in 1915 as an entryway for visitors coming in cars. Each tree came from a
battlefield where Jackson fought - sugar maple, willow oak, black cherry, sweet
gum, and cedar. It was called the War Road.
Rachel's English garden
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
Hermitage Cemetery
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
Uncle Alfred's headstone
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
To the right of the President’s tomb, a simple headstone
reads “Uncle Alfred.” Alfred Jackson was a former Hermitage enslaved worker who
had requested that the Ladies’ Hermitage Association bury him next to Jackson’s
tomb. He died in 1901 at the age of 98.
Alfred's slave cabin at Hermitage
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
Hermitage Smokehouse
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
Crops of wheat, millet, oats, sorghum, and hemp provided
supplies for the plantation. Cotton fields were planted for the Jackson family profit.
Hermitage Dining Room
Photo: Ileana, April 2019
Jackson built a cotton gin and press and made money by ginning his neighbors’ cotton for a fee. A receipt survives that shows cotton received at his gin and press from one John Donelson, Rachel’s brother.
Based on archive lists, it is known that the enslaved lived in family groups, some of three generations. Duties ranged from tending to the smokehouse, the icehouse, butchered animals, plucked chicken, making soap and candles, doing laundry outdoors and cooking. Others cared for he distillery, the carriage house, the stables, the horse training, the cotton gin, the blacksmith shop, the carpenter’s shop, the corncribs, the weaving shop, the bathhouse, the animal pens, the paddocks, and the wood piles.
Alfred posing with visitors as a free man
Photo: Museum archives
Slaves were property and archival documents show that Jackson
had sold Maria Baker and her family in order to settle Andrew Jackson Jr.’s
debts.
On November 7, 1829, Jackson wrote to Graves W. Steele, “But
I say that I have concluded to retain you another year, it is on the express
conditions that you treat my negroes with humanity, & attention when sick; &
not work them too hard, when well – that you feed & clothe them well, and
that you carefully attend to my stock of all kinds, & particularly to my
mares & colts …”
The Nashville cemetery houses the tomb of Charles Dickinson.
Following a disagreement with Jackson and a subsequent duel thought petty by many
locals, Dickinson, a better marksman by all accounts, drew first and wounded
Jackson in the chest but Jackson fatally shot Dickinson. His death established Jackson’s reputation as
a violent man which was used amply by his opponents during his presidential
run. The incident was printed often on broadsheets.
Love him or hate him, our seventh president, Andrew Jackson,
left a significant mark on the history of our country.
Sources: Museum Archives in Nashville, TN
Great photos! Also fascinating glimpse of the courage of Jackson's black family to chose freedom.
ReplyDeleteSo true, Caro. The archives wrote that one visitor tried to tell Uncle Alfred how lucky he was to have a roof over his head, food, clothes, and a master who cared. Alfred’s alleged answer was, “how would you like to be a slave?”
DeleteGreat story about an American hero who is so controversial, but yet a product of his time.
ReplyDelete