Andrew Jackson

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade November 2001

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Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in Waxhaw, South Carolina to Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson. His parents were poor Irish immigrants and he received little formal education. He joined the Army at the age of thirteen to fight in the Revolutionary War. When Jackson was fourteen years old, an angry British officer wielding a sword struck him in the face for being disrespectful. Jackson would carry the scar for the rest of his life, a reminder of his hate for the British.

After the war, Andrew Jackson began practicing law in Tennessee. While there he met and married Rachel Donelson Robards in August of 1791. Jackson developed an interest in public service and looked for ways to promote the rule of the common people. Jackson served as a Member of U.S. House of Representatives from 1796-97, a United States Senator from 1797-98, a Justice on Tennessee Supreme Court from 1798-1804, the Governor of Florida Territory in 1821, and a United States Senator from 1823-25.

When the War of 1812 broke out, Jackson organized a volunteer army to fight the Native American Creek tribe, who had attacked a settlement in Alabama. Jackson and his army destroyed the Creek forces and forced them to surrender 23 million acres of their land. He was promoted to the army's highest rank and given command of the entire, where the British were preparing a full-scale invasion of Louisiana. On January 8, 1815 during the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson destroyed the British forces. The British suffered 1,971 men killed and wounded, and the Americans lost only 70. Jackson was nicknamed Old Hickory, and there was talk that he would run for president some day.

In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson representing the Democrat party, ran against John Quincy Adams...