Andrew Jackson
...two older brothers and his mother who lived with relatives raised him. He acquired a very small education and didn't go to school for much of his life. At the young age of nine years old he read the Declaration of Independence at a gathering of thirty to forty people. When Andrew Jackson was 14 he fought in the revolutionary war against the British with his fellow patriots. The British captured him and the officer demanded that Andrew clean his boots and when Andrew refused the officer struck him with his sword that left a scar on his head for the remainder of his life. Soon after he was released from prison his mother died and orphaned him.
In the War of 1812 Jackson defeated the Creek warriors at Horseshoe Bend after a strenuous campaign and won the rank of major general in the U.S. army. He was given command of an expedition to defend New Orleans against the British. The decisive victory gained there over seasoned British troops under General Edward Pakenham, though it came after peace had already been signed in Europe, made Jackson the one great military hero of the War of 1812. In 1818 he was sent to take reprisals against the Seminole, who were raiding settlements near the Florida border, but, misinterpreting orders, he crossed the boundary line, captured Pensacola, and executed two British subjects as punishment for their stirring up the Native Americans. He thus involved the United States in serious trouble with both Spain and Britain. John Adams, the Secretary of State, was the only cabinet member to defend him, but the conduct of Old Hickory, as his admirers called Jackson, pleased the people of the West. He moved on to the national scene as the standard-bearer of one wing of the old Republican Party.
Jackson was very popular that almost took him into the presidency in the election of 1824. The vote was split with Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and...
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