Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/18

 JACKSON

JACKSON

metic. His oldest brother, Hugh, joined the patriot army and after the battle of Stono, S.C. in which he took part, was taken sick and died. His mother, on May 39, 1780, when Tarleton sur- prised the Waxhavv settlement and killed 113 and wounded 150 of the patriot soldiers who opposed him, ministered to the dead and dying, and Robert and Andrew there first saw the horrors of actual war. At the battle of Hanging Rock they rode with Col. William Richardson Davie and received from him their first lessons in mili- tarj' tactics. When Cornwallis entered Waxhaw settlement in September, 1780, Mrs. Jackson took lier two boys to Charlotte, returning to their liome the next year. In the series of sanguinary con- flicts between the patriot army and the Tories and British soldiers, Andrew and Robert were often called out to stand guard, and Andrew Jackson there imbibed liis bitter prejudice against the mother country. The two brothers were cap- tured and carried to Camden, S.C, where they were robbed of their clothing and nearly starved. While confined in the stockade, Andrew, by look- ing through a knot hole, witnessed the battle of Hobkirk's Hill, April 24, 1781, and saw the army of General Greene driven from the place. His mother soon after effected an exchange of pris- oners with the British general, thus rescuing her two sons and five of her neighbors in exchange for thirteen British soldiers, and she carried her boys, stricken with the yellow jaundice, forty miles through the lonely forest to Waxhaw, where Robert died, and Andrew, after several months' nursing, recovered. When his mother could leave him she set out on horseback to Charleston, one hundred sixty miles distant, to succor and try to save the starving patriots confined in the prison ships, among whom, were several of her own kin, and after distributing to them the dainties carried in her saddle bags, she took the ship fever and died at the house of William Barton, a relative. Andrew was thus left an orphan when fourteen years old, his two brothers and his brave mother martyrs to the cause of freedom, through British cruelty as prac- tised in the war of the Revolution. When he recovered from his protracted illness he worked as a saddler, and soon became interested with the young men, refugees from Charleston, in horse-racing, gambling, cock-fighting and drink- ing. When Charleston was evacuated, his com- panions returned to their homes and Andrew soon followed them to the southern metropolis, riding a fine horse, liis only worldly possession except a small sum of money. He staked his horse against $200 at a game of dice, and won, and taking tbe money he paid his debts and immediately returned to his home, resolved never again to throw dice for a wager. He conducted a school at Waxhavv

Church for two years, and studied law with Spruce McCay in Salisbury, N.C., 1785-88, after an unsuccessful application to enter the law office of Col. Waightstill Avery at Morganton in 1784. While at Salisbury, where he boarded at the Rowan house, he indulged freely his passion for horse-racing, hunting and cock- figliting. He completed his preparation for the bar under Col. John Stokes, was licensed to prac- tise in the courts of North Carolina in 1787, and lived for a short time in Martinsville, Guilford county, N.C., where he was a constable and as- sisted in a store in 1788. He became solicitor for the western district of North Carolina and journeyed to Nashville by way of Jouesboro, then the chief settlement in the western district, a town founded ten years before, and when Jackson arrived there in 1788, boasting a new court-house. He reached Nashville, then the out- post of civilization, near the end of October, 1788, and in April following Washington was in- augurated President of the United States. Jack- son found a home with the widow of Col. John Donelson, a North Carolina pioneer settler of the place, who lived in a block-house, the largest in the settlement, and here he met Rachel (Donel- son) Robards, the married daughter of his host- ess. His business as a lawyer and public prose- cutor became immediately lucrative and exten- sive, and he attended every coui"t held in the state, and was the first lawyer to practise in many of the counties, reaching the distant points on horseback through forests beset by savages. He was married to Mrs. Robards at Natchez, Miss., in the fall of 1791, returned to Nashville with her, and they lived in the neighborhood of her mother's home. Captain Robards had pro- cured an act leading to a divorce from his wife from the legislature of Vii'ginia, in the winter of 1790-91, but the legislature had not completed the divorce, referring it to the courts. Neither Mrs. Robards nor Mr. Jackson knew that the legislature had not absolutely granted the divorce till after their marriage, and on obtaining knowledge of the act of the court of Mercer county, on Sept. 27, 1793, a licence was obtained, and the marriage ceremony was performed a second time at Nashville, in January, 1794, and their social standing was in no way affected by the incident. On Oct. 10, 1791, he was elected a trustee of Davidson academy, afterward the University of Nashville, in place of Col. William Polk, removed, and sei-ved till 1805. While attending court at Joues- boro, he peremptorily challenged Col. Waightstill Avery, while the two were tryiiig a case in court, and after giving the case to the jury, they met in a hollow field north of the court-house, after sundown. Following the code, both fired, but neitiier was hurt, and thev shook hands satis-