Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/22

 JACKSON

JACKSON

vinced that Burr intended no treason, and when summoned as a witness to the trial in Richmond, Va., at a public meeting in Capitol square, he publicly denounced Jefferson as a persecutor of Burr. His championship of Burr offended Secre- tary of State Madison, and at the Burr trial Jackson was not called on to testify. In the next Presidential contest Jackson announced his preference to Monroe rather than Madison. About the year 1809 he adopted a twin son of Savern Donelson, Mrs, Jackson's brother, and the child received his fosterfather's name and inherited his estate. A few years later an- other nephew of Mrs. Jackson, Andrew Jack- son Donelson, also became an inmate of the

THE HER/^ITAOE..

" Hermitage." On June 12, 1812, war was de- clared against Great Britain and General Jack- son, on June 25, offered, through the governor, his own services and those of his division of twenty-five hundred state militia, but the troops were not called for by the general government till after Hull's defeat in Canada. On Oct. 21, 1812, when New Orleans was threatened, the governor of Tennessee was requested to dispatch 1500 men to the reinforcement of General Wilkin- son. On December 10 the volunteers, numbering 2000 and upwards, reported to General Jackson at Nashville. On Jan. 7, 1814, the infantry embarked on a flotilla, and were carried down the Cumberland to the Ohio, down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to Natchez. The cavalry marched across the coun- try to Natchez, where, on February 15, they were joined by General Jackson and the infantry. Here, by orders from General Wilkinson, they encamped, and toward the end of March General Jackson received an order from the war depart- ment, dated Feb. 6, 1813, signed by the new secretary of war, John Armstrong, dismissing liim from public service. Jackson at once deter- mined to march his men the five hundred miles back to their homes in Tennessee before disband- ing them, and so wrote to the authorities at Washington, to Governor Blount and to General Wilkinson. He accomplished the journey in le§^

than a month. It was during this march that the name "Old Hickory " was evolved. After a hard day's march one of the soldiers spoke of the general as "tough;" next it was "tough as hickory," and finally " Old Hickory."' On reaching the border of Tennessee he offered the services of his force to conduct an invasion of Canada, but his offer was not accepted, and on May 22, 1813, the army drew up in the public square of Nashville and the men were dismissed. The government refused to honor General Jack- son's drafts for transportation, and not till Colo- nel Benton, who commanded a regiment under General Jackson, went to Washington and threat- ened the administration with the loss of the support of the state of Tennessee was the general relieved of the financial responsibility he had incurred in escorting his soldiers home instead of obeying the government orders and leaving them in the broken camp at Natchez. While Colonel Benton was in Washington, General Jackson acted as second to his friend, Capt. William Carroll in a duel with Jesse, brother of Colonel Benton, and this act of personal friendship brouglit about a feud with the Bentons that resulted in a lively altercation between Colonel Benton and General Jackson, in which Jesse Benton, Col. John Coffee and Stokely Hays also took part. They met in a hotel in Njishville, Sept. 3, 1813, and Jackson was shot in the arm and was disabled for nearly a month. Colonel Benton soon after left Teimes- see and settled in Missouri, and the next time he met Jackson, in 1823, they were both U.S. sena- tors. On Sept. 25, 1813, while still on his sick bed, General Jackson, in response to the call of Governor Blount, began the organization of the troops of West Tennessee for service in the soutli- west after the massacre at Fort Mims, there be- ing a pressing demand for jiutting down the In- dians who threatened Mobile. General Cocke was at the same time organizing the volunteers from East Tennessee, rendezvous at Knoxville. Jackson's force gathered at Fayetteville, and Colonel Coffee, with his cavalry, i-eached Hunts- ville, Mississippi Territory, Oct. 4, 1813, and Gen- eral Jackson joined the infantry at Fayetteville, October 7, where he learned from dispatclies from Colonel Coffee that the Creeks had marched north and were making their way to the borders of Georgia and Tennessee. On October 11 he put his force in motion and marched toward Hunts- ville, making the thirty miles in five hours. Here they joined Colonel Coffee's command, en- camped on the bluff. On the 19th they broke camp and marched over the mountains twenty- two miles to Fort Deposit, Thompson's creek, hoping to intercept General Cocke on his way from East Tennessee with his divisions and pi-o- visions for the entire army. Here he waited for