The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-09
1NDREW eHCK50W.

LIFE minds or most AmerlcanS An drew Jackson is pictured as tall and 4 powerful. slender but strong. wiry and untiring. Maybe his sobriquet "Old Hickory gives color to this view. The real Andrew Jackson was far different. From the day he went forth on his first campaign to the day of his death he was a human wreck, weak in body, shattered in limb and rarely If ever free for twenty four hours from excruciating pain. Only his marvellous will power kept him from being crushed by his physical ills. Of all the great Americans he was the most pug nacious and the most tenacious, the most violent and the most tender, the most generous and the most ungenerous AL though swayed much by his hatreds and prone to fits of furious anger, he never was more prudent and never acted with better judgment than when enraged. He was man of strife. man of turmoil. He had little culture, but dazzling merits. As a soldier he will rank with the great captains of history. His wonderful suc- cesses were achieved with raw militia men and what is more astounding is the fact that he was without military edu- cation Without ever having been even a captain, lieutenant or corporal he became major general. But then he had that rarest of gifts-genius. He gambled and he drank He raced horses and kept game cocks, but he never was known to use a harsh word or profane expression in the presence of woman or child, and his private life was without stain
 It was rude mold in which Andrew Jackson was fashioned. His father, poor Irish farmer, scraped out a living as best he could from few rented acres in Car riclxfergus His mother was weaver With their two sons, Hugh and Robert, the husband and wife came to America in 1765 and settled in the northwestern corner of South Carolina. There they cleared a field built a log caStn and raised a crop Then the father died The widow never returned to the cabin From the grave in which her husband was laid she went with her two little boys to the home of a relative few dozen yards across the line in North Carolina, and there, a few nights after the funeral, Andrew Jackson was born. He lived and died believing he was born in South Carolina. but to North Carolina belongs the honor. What early education he received was such as the wandering schoolmaster of the frontier settlements ;mparted He never was much of lover of books and although he wrote strongly and well, his spelling was away below par
 He was 13 when Tarleton surprised detachment of the frontier militia, killing s6 more than 100 men and wounding 15o. Some of the wounded were cared for by Mrs. Jackson. The story of that massa- ere, as they got 1t from the wounded men, fired the hearts of the Jackson boys Hugh, the eldest, enlisted in the company of Colonel Davie and died. of exhaustion after the battle of Stono. Rob ert and Andrew were at the battle of Hanging Rock, where Sumter, after win ming a gallant victory, lost 1t through his men drinking too much of the rum ! captured in the British camp. Then for a few months the two boys were en- gagged in that wretched partisan warfare that spread desolation through the south when whig and tory neighbors fought like wolves. Through over,onfldence the band of which the boys were members were surprised by British force and the two lads were made prisoners A British of fleer ordered Andrew to clean his boots