The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-02-05
ONE SIDE OF OLD HICKORY,
The Hero OF New Orleans as a Fighting
Han.
WASHINGTON Post.

Han.
Washington Post.
January s is the anniversary Of the
day when the trained peninsula veter'
ans Of Pakenham went down before
the eight-square rifles and keen eyes
Of a band Of Kentucky and Tennessee
bear hunters at New Orleans. 1t was
the sorest defeat Eel meted out to
English armies; sorer still because i:
fell about many days after peace had
been ratified. Pakenham reached
Jackson before the news reacL1d
either, and it was all very sal TO:
Pakenham and the people who accom-:
panied him. But for these, as well
as a host Of other good reasons, it is
we'll at this crisis to thrash over q
stack of old straw, tell a thrice-told
tale, perchance, just to remind the
present generation of a few facts
touching a hero Of the past:
jackson was born in the Wa1haW
settlements, N. O., in 1857. His
mothers name before marriage was
Hutchinson, and both she and Jack.
son pere came from the north Of Ire.
land. They were Scotch-Irish, natives
of Carrickfergus, Presbyterians, and
weavers of linen. Andrews father
died three days before the coming
Judge, general and statesman was
born. The poverty of Andrews
mother during his whole youth was Of
the sort called utter. He had two
brothers, six and three years older
than he, named Hugh and Robert.
They went to work as farm hands at
an early age, and are presumed to
have finally farmed themselves from
youth to manhood, manhood TO old
age, old age to the grave. At any
rate, no one ever caught them disturb
ing history.
Andrew jackson grew up, sandy
haired, gray-eyed, slight in form, and
sickly as to health. He was intense
ly nervous; honest, impulsive, invet-
crate. He hated and he loved. He
did both as few people ever do. His
vibrant nature made it impossible to
do too much for a friend, too much to
an enemy. No nj was Indifferent TO
him. He was a foe or close to Jack
sons heart. His courage was abso.
lutte, and he always told the truth.
If a man always tells the truth, he
had better be q good fighter. II he
isn't he'll get killed telling some par
ticular truth some day. Well, jack
son was as indomitable a fighter as
ever stripped for contest. 1t was as
we'll. He would otherwise have been
ploughed under in his first public
year.
Old Hickory was 8 years old when
the cracked old bell rung out liberty
to the world in Philadelphia. Before
Washington got through with Corn"
wallis, at Yorktown, seven years more
had elapsed, and Jackson was Is.
The war of the Revolution made a
weighty impression on young Andrew,
the more, perhaps, because he was
held as a boy prisoner by some ambi-
tious Britons for q season, and when
they had time to waste they were
wont to cuff and kick and buffet the
young rebel about, just to show him,
as the Milesian policeman did the
colored prisoner, that they had author
ity over him. The account. opened
with England on this revolutionary
occasion the ardent Jackson succeeded
in squaring thirty-three years later at
the battle of New Orleans. Paken-
ham would have shown wisdom had
he pleaded the statue of limitations.
The same year that Jackson was
rocked in his North Carolina cradle
the cradle of John Quincy Adams was
being rocked up in New England. No
one could then foresee the combats of
these two red-faced human bits.
About midway between, in Virginia,
was Baby Rachael Donaldson in her
cradle, afterward to marry jackson
and be the indirect cause of a great
deal Of history, some of it blood red,
too.
It is not the present purpose, nor ia
there space, to write a history Of Jack
son. His mother hoped to make a
preacher of him, but her ambitions
slipped. Jackson got a sort of an ed
ucation, and was alleged to be a law,
yer. He had a keen, apprehensive
intelligence and a natural conception
of right and justice unsurpassed
These last, rather than the books he
read, were his chief lights and safe
guards as an advocate and a Judge.
But Jackson couldn't spell a little
bit. In a day when bad spelling ran
riot in the land Jackson was far and
away the worst speller in Tennessee.
Jerry Simpson once exulted yer the
invention and introduction into hui
man affairs Of the common stenograph.
er of commerce.
"You say what you please eays
Simpson, without lodging a word,
and you throw the responsibility Of
the spelling on the stenographer.
But there were no shorthand people
when Tennessee was young, and Jack
son had to bear the brunt Of his OWN
awful photography. But he succeeded
in making himself understood as we'll
as any mau Of his own or any other
day.
Our hero killed a young man named
Dickinson in a duel. All Of the con-
ditions which surrounded this killing
served to make it n of the most
celebrated of single combats. This
fight, as many allege and believe,
grew out Of Jackson's marriage. Jack
sons wife, however, vas merely an
excuse, a pretext. The duel was che
plain fruit Of a political plot to kill
Jackson and get him out of the way.
He was too powerful, too popular, too
much the idol of the people. Many
there were who would have preferred
him as an angel off this earth alto,
gether and out Of politics. So they
set up a dark game to kill Jackson and
put Dickinson forward to do it. TIE
pretext was Mrs. Jackson-as ami,
able, as virtuous and as loving a wife
as ever walked down any aisle to any
altar to the music of any wedding
march.