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00:00:00They called him Old Hickory, America's first working-class president, a hero to the common
00:00:17man, a barbarian to the upper class, a cold-hearted demon to Indians, a steely-eyed fighter who
00:00:26made every battle personal, on dueling grounds, battlefields, and in the White House, a shrewd
00:00:34politician who branded his own form of democracy, who despised paper money, yet ended up on
00:00:43the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson.
00:00:56On January 8, 1815, Major General Andrew Jackson faced the challenge of a lifetime.
00:01:04In the climactic battle of the War of 1812, 10,000 British Redcoats invaded the South
00:01:10at New Orleans.
00:01:12One obstacle stood in the way of the British regaining their former colonies, Jackson and
00:01:17his ragged army of 4,000 militia, pirates, Indians, Creoles, and slaves.
00:01:25The British expected an easy victory, but they knew little of the man they were facing,
00:01:31whose determination to win was fueled by a deep personal hatred that went back more than
00:01:3630 years.
00:01:40In 1781, when Jackson was 14 and the Revolutionary War was raging, British soldiers stormed a
00:01:47cabin where he and his brother Robert tried to hide.
00:01:53The boys were taken prisoner for serving as couriers in the Continental Army.
00:01:58Three words from a British officer would light a fuse in Jackson that burned for a lifetime,
00:02:05Clean my boots.
00:02:08Jackson, with that insolence that would characterize him for his entire life, refused.
00:02:14He said, I'm a prisoner of war and I demand to be treated accordingly.
00:02:18Jackson had always been a sassy kid, and now he was miffed at having been taken prisoner.
00:02:23And the officer pulls his sword and takes a swipe at Jackson's head.
00:02:27And Jackson throws up his arm and caught the sword on the side of his hand, but it didn't
00:02:31quite prevent the sword from hitting him in the head.
00:02:34Blood runs down.
00:02:35For the rest of his life, he had this scar on his hand and a crease in his skull.
00:02:43Andrew and his brother were taken to a squalid British prison camp where they both contracted
00:02:47smallpox.
00:02:50They probably would have died there if not for their widowed mother, Elizabeth.
00:02:55She essentially made her case to the British officers in charge of the camp.
00:03:00These are only boys.
00:03:01You got to let them out.
00:03:02A mother's love, a mother's anger ultimately sufficed to spring Jackson and his brother.
00:03:08When she received her two sons, they were both desperately ill.
00:03:13She had only one horse, so she put the older boy, who was far worse, on the horse.
00:03:21And they walked about 40 miles.
00:03:24Jackson had to walk that distance behind them, still suffering from smallpox.
00:03:31And by the time they got home, the older boy was dead.
00:03:36And Jackson was delirious.
00:03:41For six months, Elizabeth struggled to keep Andrew alive at their cabin in the Carolinas
00:03:46Waxhaw region.
00:03:48Her husband was killed in a logging accident.
00:03:51Her oldest son died fighting for the Continental Army.
00:03:54They were typical of frontier families.
00:03:58The Westerners, the frontiersmen, they weren't people who were born to privilege or born
00:04:03to property.
00:04:04They were out on the frontier because they hadn't been doing so well where they came
00:04:08from.
00:04:09And they got used to the idea that whatever they were going to get in life, they were
00:04:12going to have to take.
00:04:14Andrew survived the smallpox.
00:04:16But six months later, his mother died of cholera, leaving Andrew a bitter, tough young orphan.
00:04:23He's taken up by one of the relatives, and he lives in the house.
00:04:28And there was some visitor who threatened him at one time, as I recall, and raised his
00:04:37hand to strike him.
00:04:39And the kid says to him, if you touch me, if you strike me, you're a dead man.
00:04:49As a young boy, he was a real hellion.
00:04:52I mean, he fought, he cursed, he drank, he smoked tobacco.
00:04:55He did everything he wasn't supposed to do, and his mama wanted him to be a Presbyterian
00:04:58preacher.
00:05:00That didn't work out.
00:05:04As a teenager, Jackson had no interest in any particular vocation or education.
00:05:11Money was earned by gambling on horse races and dice games.
00:05:15But as he matured, Jackson realized his life had to change.
00:05:21He wanted to better himself.
00:05:23He wanted more out of life.
00:05:26He decided that staying in the Waxhaws after the war offered nothing.
00:05:33So he decided to do what, at times, it seemed half the population of the frontier did.
00:05:37He decided to become a lawyer.
00:05:38It was a natural for Jackson.
00:05:40He was an argumentative sort, and lawyers argue for a living.
00:05:45He eventually found his way to Salisbury, North Carolina, where he studied the law under
00:05:51the highly esteemed attorney Spruce McKay.
00:05:56Spruce McKay had already taught the law to William Richardson Davy, a hero, Jackson's
00:06:03hero in the Revolutionary War.
00:06:06So you found a lawyer who was well-established and who had a law library, and you'd read.
00:06:11And if you had any kind of ambition, you'd gradually learn what lawyers did.
00:06:16You'd draw up wills.
00:06:17You'd draw up contracts.
00:06:18You'd learn the process.
00:06:20And if the clients wanted to risk their lawsuits on this young guy with very little experience,
00:06:26then it was their risk.
00:06:29And after a while, they discovered that Jackson was reasonably good at this.
00:06:33Jackson, although poorly educated, had a great command of the language.
00:06:42And if you read his letters, you know, they're not well-constructed always, and he would
00:06:47misspell a word, misspell it in four or five different ways on the same page.
00:06:54Spelling meant nothing.
00:06:56It was the conviction.
00:06:57It was the passion.
00:07:00It was the temper that he wished to communicate.
00:07:05For the first time in his life, 20-year-old Jackson had gained some respect.
00:07:10He began to shed the skin of his lower-class upbringing.
00:07:14But the suit of a gentleman proved an awkward fit.
00:07:19Turn the circle halfway round.
00:07:23After three years in Salisbury, North Carolina, Jackson had gained acceptance into town society.
00:07:29He wore the right clothes, said the right things.
00:07:33He even learned to dance.
00:07:36He had a kind of charisma.
00:07:38It was a kind of personality that drew people to him because they thought, if you stick
00:07:44with this guy, you can accomplish great things.
00:07:47Jackson had high expectations for himself.
00:07:50And he let people know that he was somebody who was going somewhere, and that once he
00:07:56set his mind to something, he was almost certain to accomplish it.
00:08:03Jackson attended the local dancing school so frequently, he was asked to manage Salisbury's
00:08:08annual Christmas ball.
00:08:10He invited all the proper young ladies and gentlemen to come, and as a joke, he invited
00:08:19the town's notorious prostitutes, thinking they would never come, understanding that
00:08:26it was a dance for the gentry.
00:08:31And they showed up in all their finery to the astonishment, if not the anger and outrage
00:08:39of the more genteel individuals at the dance, and they were really angry.
00:08:46Jackson could do outrageous things from time to time.
00:08:55Jackson's boisterous personality began to reveal itself in other ways as well.
00:09:00He fell in with a crowd of young guys about his own age, who decided the most exciting
00:09:05thing they could do was carouse at every opportunity.
00:09:08In one case, they got drunk and they somehow or other decided that they were going to build
00:09:14a fire, and the fire eventually got bigger, and they were going to throw more things in
00:09:18the fire, and they ultimately almost burned down the tavern where they were.
00:09:22Later on, after Jackson became famous, there were a whole lot of people who said, Jackson?
00:09:27Andrew Jackson?
00:09:28That guy we knew back then?
00:09:30It utterly boggled their minds to think that anything good had come from that young guy.
00:09:36In 1788, Jackson headed west to Tennessee, not yet a state, but a territory.
00:09:42He settled in Nashville, where, within a year, a superior court judge made 21-year-old
00:09:48Jackson a prosecutor, a prestigious appointment that did not go over well with many of his
00:09:54more experienced peers, including a lawyer named Waitstill Avery.
00:10:00He probably said, you don't really know the law, and I would suspect that might be true.
00:10:06Jackson took offense, and so he challenged him to a duel.
00:10:13When Jackson was a very young boy, just prior to his mother's passing away, one of the things
00:10:19she told him was, don't tell lies and don't accept slanders, but settle those problems
00:10:26yourself, by which she meant, don't sue for slander, call them out on the dueling fee.
00:10:32Jackson was somebody who often acted as though he had something to prove, and he did.
00:10:36I mean, what he had to prove was that he was worthy of people's respect, that folks ought
00:10:41to pay attention to him.
00:10:42And dueling, especially on that part of the frontier, was a way somebody earned respect.
00:10:48It was the first duel of Jackson's life.
00:10:51He was not a good shot, and he knew it.
00:10:54But since he had made the challenge, he had to go through with it.
00:10:57To save his own honor, Avery could not back down.
00:11:02Both aimed and fired, straight up into the air.
00:11:07Without anyone's knowledge, the men had privately agreed beforehand to avoid direct shots.
00:11:13It was a first sign that Jackson could control his temper.
00:11:17The young Hellion was beginning to mature.
00:11:20Whether or not it ultimately led to the exchange of gunfire, the real duel itself, it let people
00:11:25know that Jackson, Andrew Jackson, this young guy, wasn't somebody to be trifled with.
00:11:36In Nashville, Tennessee, Andrew Jackson felt at home.
00:11:40He lived at a boarding house owned by Rachel Stockley Donaldson, widow of one of Nashville's
00:11:46founders.
00:11:47It worked well for the Donaldsons in Nashville at that time, which was on the edge of Indian
00:11:52country, which is under constant threat of Indian attack.
00:11:55Every male body that you had, every person who could heft a gun, gave you a little bit
00:12:00more sense of security.
00:12:03Jackson became very fond of his landlord's daughter, Rachel Donaldson Robards.
00:12:08She was attractive, well-educated, and unlike most women at the time, openly spoke her mind.
00:12:16There was only one problem.
00:12:18She was already married to a man by the name of Louis Robards, who was a very suspicious
00:12:24type and who really believed the worst about his wife.
00:12:30His relationship with her was so bad that it was abusive.
00:12:35I don't know that she was physically abused, and probably not, but the mental abuse, I'm
00:12:42convinced, was excessive.
00:12:45Rachel had determined that she had probably married the wrong man, but in the context
00:12:50of that day, even if you realize you married the wrong man, you had to stay with that man
00:12:56for the rest of your life because there was no way out.
00:13:03By 1790, Rachel had moved to the Spanish-controlled territory of Natchez, Mississippi, without
00:13:09her husband.
00:13:11Jackson was a frequent visitor.
00:13:14The next year, the couple claimed they married in Natchez, believing that Rachel's husband
00:13:19had divorced her.
00:13:21What they resorted to was self-divorce, something that was not uncommon among the Scotch-Irish
00:13:29in Scotland, not uncommon on the American frontier.
00:13:36Andrew and Rachel's decision to marry would create controversy throughout their married
00:13:40life.
00:13:41Who married them?
00:13:44We don't know.
00:13:45There is absolutely no evidence.
00:13:48Could it have been a migrant preacher of some kind?
00:13:53Sure.
00:13:54But they were in Spanish territory, and only marriages conducted by a Catholic priest were
00:14:00legitimate.
00:14:03The Jacksons returned to Nashville and bought a small plantation with 15 slaves.
00:14:09But two years later, in 1793, they learned that Rachel's first husband had not divorced
00:14:15her, and he was now charging Rachel with adultery.
00:14:19Only then did a divorce become final.
00:14:22In January 1794, Andrew and Rachel were wed in a second, more legal ceremony in Tennessee.
00:14:31Years later, Jackson's political advisers would spin what happened as accidental bigamy.
00:14:39The reason why history records that Andrew and Rachel Jackson accidentally committed
00:14:46bigamy is that in 1828, when Jackson was running for president, a new moral imperative had
00:14:52taken hold.
00:14:53And the standards, modern standards of middle-class marriage, bourgeois marriage, prevailed.
00:15:01So no one wanted to hear anymore about an irregular frontier marriage, a self-divorce.
00:15:06It wouldn't stand up.
00:15:09Jackson's life as a plantation owner wouldn't last long.
00:15:13In 1796, at age 29, he was appointed Tennessee's first member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
00:15:20He soon made his presence known when he voted against a resolution of thanks to George Washington.
00:15:28He voted against it because George Washington had accepted the Jay Treaty, a treaty with
00:15:36Great Britain that humiliated this country.
00:15:42Washington was more and more seen as the great hero, which he was, of this nation, and should
00:15:49be revered.
00:15:50To have said and done anything against him made you something like a traitor to the country.
00:15:57But Jackson acted out of his own conviction.
00:16:01He was suspicious of the effete Easterner.
00:16:04He was suspicious of the devious congressman.
00:16:08He considered himself the antithesis of that.
00:16:12They were complicated.
00:16:13He was simple.
00:16:15After one year in the House and another in the Senate, Jackson quit and returned to Nashville.
00:16:21Jackson discovered that his wasn't what you could call a legislative personality.
00:16:27To succeed in a legislature, you have to, well, you know, sort of play well with other
00:16:32children, as the kindergarten teachers say.
00:16:35He had a lifelong antipathy toward professional politicians, even though he was one.
00:16:43And he benefited from them.
00:16:45At the age of 31, Jackson was appointed to another job, this time as circuit judge in
00:16:51Tennessee's Superior Court.
00:16:55As a judge, he was very effective.
00:16:58You knew by God what he meant and what he wanted you to do, and you did it.
00:17:06Sometimes that meant taking the law into his own hands.
00:17:10Like the time he went after a man who had resisted arrest by the local sheriff.
00:17:16People came to him and they said, why did you do that?
00:17:20And this man said, I looked at Jackson, and there was shoot in his eyes, and there wasn't
00:17:30shoot in the eyes of any of those other men.
00:17:34And so I said to myself, Haas, you better drop your weapons, and I did.
00:17:45Jackson had achieved a position in life far beyond his expectations.
00:17:50As years passed, he increasingly gained the respect of the people of Tennessee.
00:17:56While still a judge, Jackson participated in his first election and won the part-time
00:18:02job as Major General of Tennessee's Volunteer Militia.
00:18:07This may well have been the most important public office in the state, because the commander
00:18:12of the militia was the person charged with defending the community against external attack,
00:18:18which meant typically Indian attack or conceivably attack by the British or the Spanish.
00:18:28In 1804, Jackson resigned his judgeship to return to his plantation, oversee general
00:18:34merchandise stores and whiskey distilleries he had accumulated, and pursue his real passion,
00:18:40breeding and racing horses.
00:18:44But before Jackson could be tested as a military leader against Indians or the British, his
00:18:50honor would be called into question by a fellow racehorse owner.
00:18:56In 1806, a prominent Tennessee attorney, Charles Dickinson, got into a dispute with Jackson
00:19:02over a bet on a horse.
00:19:04In the heat of the argument, Dickinson called Rachel an adulteress.
00:19:09Dickinson challenged him to a duel.
00:19:11Jackson's honor incorporated everything, including the reputation of his wife.
00:19:15If Jackson did not address it immediately, then his honor would be lost.
00:19:23Many thought Jackson a fool, as Dickinson was known as the best shot in Tennessee.
00:19:28But Jackson had a daring and risky plan.
00:19:33Jackson decided in this duel that he wasn't going to try to fire first, because he wasn't
00:19:36confident enough of his aim to think that he could hit Dickinson in the heart or in
00:19:41the brain.
00:19:42So he decides ahead of time that he's simply going to stand there and let Dickinson take
00:19:45the first shot at him.
00:19:49Now as it happened, Dickinson had missed Jackson's heart by no more than about half an inch.
00:19:54The bullet was lodged in Jackson's ribcage.
00:19:57It's amazing.
00:19:58Just a short distance away and Jackson would have been dead.
00:20:02Jackson is supposed to have put his hand to his chest to stanch the bleeding, and very
00:20:08slowly, very carefully, very deliberately, he took aim, fired, and killed him.
00:20:21Jackson of course had this chest wound, and he kept the bullet for the rest of his life.
00:20:33After narrowly surviving his deadly duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806, Andrew Jackson
00:20:41spent three months recuperating.
00:20:44He began studying military strategies, hoping to one day prove his abilities as Major General
00:20:50of the Tennessee Militia.
00:20:55When the United States declared war against Britain in 1812, no one wanted to be part
00:21:01of the fight more than Jackson.
00:21:03Even though military commanders in Washington had doubts about the militia, Jackson was
00:21:08ordered to march his 2,000 volunteers toward the port of New Orleans in preparation for
00:21:14a possible British landing and assault.
00:21:18Jackson and his troops set out in January 1813.
00:21:22It took three months to cover the first 500 miles, but when the army arrived in Natchez,
00:21:28a strong part of the Mississippi Territory, Jackson received infuriating news.
00:21:35He got an order to disband the troops.
00:21:37They weren't needed, and to send them home.
00:21:39The War Department didn't want the troops there.
00:21:42The War Department didn't want to pay to march them back, to provision and march them back.
00:21:46And Jackson was outraged by all of this.
00:21:49How were they going to get home?
00:21:50They didn't have any money.
00:21:51Many of them were sick.
00:21:52So Jackson did what Jackson was pretty good at doing under similar circumstances.
00:21:55He simply defied the orders.
00:21:57And he decided, he announced that he was going to march the troops home himself.
00:22:01A father figure to his troops, most of whom were not yet 20 years old, Jackson paid for
00:22:07provisions out of his own pocket to get his boys home.
00:22:12Jackson himself was in ill health, brought on by the cumulative effects of dysentery,
00:22:18his childhood smallpox, and old gunshot wounds.
00:22:23Even so, the 46-year-old general gave up his horse to transport volunteers too sick
00:22:29to walk on their own.
00:22:30He didn't have to.
00:22:32He could have ridden on a horse.
00:22:33He could have not gone at all or taken a boat back.
00:22:37But Jackson got up there with the rest of them and got muddy and got to brambles, all
00:22:41of them cut in his face and so forth.
00:22:43And one of these boys, these soldiers said, old Jackson, he's as tough as hickory.
00:22:48Because that was the toughest wood that that soldier knew.
00:22:52And the name stuck, old hickory, and it stayed with Jackson all of his life.
00:22:58Jackson made it back to Nashville with his militia intact.
00:23:02It seemed his short-lived military career was over.
00:23:07But another bitter conflict, unknown to most Americans at the time, would change Jackson's
00:23:12fate in dramatic fashion.
00:23:17At the same time the British attacked America in the War of 1812, redstick Indians in the
00:23:23Southeast, so named for the color of their war clubs, ceremoniously consumed the black
00:23:29drink, a form of coffee charged with caffeine.
00:23:34Its purpose?
00:23:36To purify and energize warriors before battle.
00:23:39For the redsticks, that battle would, in fact, be all-out war.
00:23:48Following the lead of legendary northern Shawnee chief Tecumseh, redsticks were prepared to
00:23:53fight to the death to control their land.
00:23:57Tecumseh felt strongly that American Indian survival depended on the unity of all tribes
00:24:02fighting white encroachment.
00:24:05But his views caused division within tribes.
00:24:09What Tecumseh was preaching was, frankly, nothing less than a race war.
00:24:13This was going to be Indians against whites.
00:24:15Not all the Creeks buy into this.
00:24:17Other Creeks decide that Tecumseh is dreaming, that the Indians will never be able to reclaim
00:24:22their territory.
00:24:23They'll never be able to drive the whites out.
00:24:25And so one of the first results of Tecumseh's efforts is to split the Creek Nation with
00:24:31the redsticks going on the offensive, and the other Creeks deciding they don't want
00:24:36to have anything to do with it.
00:24:39Many Creeks had already adopted the white man's ways.
00:24:43Some of them, actually, if you saw them on the streets, you wouldn't think they were
00:24:47Creek Indians back at that time.
00:24:49You would think they were just plantation owners.
00:24:53Since Europeans first came to America, many whites married Indians, creating mixed-blood
00:24:58generations.
00:25:01As soon as white men start to appear, they don't leave their emotions and their lust
00:25:06behind, and frequently they married, especially those who planned to stay for a reasonable
00:25:13length of time.
00:25:15One of the most respected mixed-bloods in the Creek tribe was William Weatherford, 7
00:25:208th Scottish and 1 8th Creek.
00:25:23Weatherford believed in Tecumseh and became a leader of the redstick warriors, known as
00:25:29Chief Red Eagle.
00:25:32He spoke, of course, both the Creek language and English, and he was adept to some extent
00:25:38in both worlds, certainly the Creek world.
00:25:41And he was a very dynamic, well-respected man.
00:25:48In August 1813, after redsticks began attacking settlers and Indian sympathizers, some 550
00:25:55sought protection inside Fort Mims in what would become Alabama.
00:26:00300 were white, including 175 militia, and 250, nearly half, were mixed-bloods and Creek
00:26:08Indians.
00:26:09It was a civil war.
00:26:12You know, in the civil war the United States had, we had brothers on both sides.
00:26:16This was just another civil war, and I think they probably laid around outside Fort Mims
00:26:21deciding on what they were going to do.
00:26:23They were there in that area for several days before they attacked Fort Mims, and then it
00:26:28just happened.
00:26:41On August 30th, redsticks invaded the fort, pouring through a gate stuck open by drifting
00:26:46dirt and sand.
00:26:55They systematically slaughtered whomever they found.
00:26:59They took infants by the feet and slammed their heads against the walls of the fort.
00:27:05It was pretty awful, and it's like a terrorist attack today.
00:27:16When news spread of the attack, it was described as a massacre of whites by Indians.
00:27:21No mention was made of the Indian victims or about a tribal civil war.
00:27:30As the closest military unit to Fort Mims, Jackson's Tennessee militia was ordered to
00:27:35Alabama to fight the redsticks.
00:27:39The first encounter at the creek village of Tallisachie was as brutal as the attack
00:27:44on Fort Mims.
00:27:52Jackson enticed the Indians to come out and to attack him.
00:27:56His boys came out on either side with their guns from the woods, and they had the Indians
00:28:00on three sides, surrounded.
00:28:03There was great bloodshed.
00:28:18I think 400 or 500 Indians were killed at that point, and very few of Jackson's people.
00:28:24In the aftermath of this battle, Jackson's men come across this very small child.
00:28:30He's an orphan.
00:28:31He's standing there, surrounded by the smoke and ruin and bodies of the battlefield.
00:28:37And the child is brought to Jackson, and he's asked, what do you do with the kid?
00:28:43And Jackson decides to adopt the child, sends him to Nashville, and he and Rachel raise
00:28:48the child as their own.
00:28:50I think, as he said, this child was sent to me for some purpose, and he saw in that child
00:28:57himself as a boy, an orphan.
00:29:01There's this odd combination of the ferocious warrior who can kill tens, dozens, hundreds
00:29:09of Indians in a battle, and then this tender father who is going to take the helpless child,
00:29:17take him into his family and raise him as his own.
00:29:19Remarkable character, this Jackson.
00:29:22Rachel and Andrew raised the child at their Tennessee home, the Hermitage.
00:29:27But the boy they named Lincoya would die at 15 of tuberculosis.
00:29:32Some historians now question Jackson's motives in adopting Lincoya.
00:29:38Jackson was a good politician.
00:29:40He used this and pointed to it quite a bit in his career as evidence of his benevolent
00:29:47attitude toward Native people.
00:29:50These historians who say how wonderful he was, well, he adopted an Indian boy.
00:29:56They don't put in there he adopted that Indian boy after he slaughtered their mom and dad.
00:30:09Following months of fighting with the Indians, Jackson was ready for the climactic battle
00:30:13of his Red Stick Wars.
00:30:16It would take place in an area of the Mississippi Territory, which later became Alabama, where
00:30:21a strip of land was surrounded by the Tallapoosa River on three sides, horseshoe bend.
00:30:28There, 1,000 Red Sticks had built what they hoped was an impenetrable defensive fortification.
00:30:37Jackson wrote about the imposing structure in one of his earliest first-person accounts
00:30:41of his battles.
00:30:44Nature finishes few situations so eligible for defense.
00:30:48Against the neck of the land, they had erected a breastwork of greatest compactness and strength.
00:30:53From five to eight feet high and prepared with rows of portholes very artfully arranged,
00:30:58an army could not approach it without being exposed to a double crossfire from the enemy
00:31:02who lay in perfect security behind it.
00:31:07Jackson had only two small cannons to attack the fortress, but he had a powerful 1,500-man
00:31:13army, which included his militia, as well as U.S. Army regulars and strong officers.
00:31:20Lieutenant Sam Houston was among the bravest.
00:31:24General John Coffey, with the aid of Indian interpreter Salukta, would lead an additional
00:31:29force of more than 1,500 Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw Indians who had agreed to fight
00:31:35for Jackson.
00:31:36There were a lot of Indians that were considering their own tribe's self-interest above any
00:31:43thing else.
00:31:45Others thought it was worth the gamble that if they allied themselves with the Americans
00:31:49against the Red Sticks, that maybe the Americans then would leave them alone.
00:31:55There is an old Indian expression that if Jackson made war on you, all he had to do
00:32:02was look at you, and you dropped dead.
00:32:06Jackson was not the man that you quarreled with.
00:32:08He's not the man you fought.
00:32:11He's a man who can do great things for you if he has a mind to.
00:32:17He is not a man to be challenged, and certainly not a man to fight against.
00:32:23Gentlemen, move on down the hill.
00:32:26On March 27, 1814, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend began.
00:32:32I detailed Coffey with the Indian force to pass the river at a ford about three miles
00:32:37below their encampment, and to surround the bend in such a manner that none of them should
00:32:41escape by attempting to cross the river.
00:32:45With the remainder of the forces, I proceeded along the point of land which leads to the
00:32:48front of the breastwork, and at half past 10 o'clock a.m., I had planted my artillery
00:32:56and immediately opened a brisk fire upon its center.
00:33:07It was no surprise to Jackson that his small cannons did little damage to the walls of
00:33:12the Red Stick defense.
00:33:19Jackson's Indian allies chose to distract the Red Sticks by attacking from the rear.
00:33:27Jackson then launched his main army against the heart of the Indian fortification.
00:33:34This frontal assault was led by Houston, who later gained fame in the fight for Texas
00:33:39independence.
00:33:40A large body of Jackson's force charged this breastwork, and Houston himself got up on
00:33:50it.
00:33:54Got shot twice, got sabered, got speared, got shot with bows and arrows and everything.
00:34:02The Red Sticks are simply right behind the walls, and so it's at point-blank range.
00:34:07Sam Houston has to be dragged off of the field, bleeding.
00:34:10It looks like he's going to die from his wounds.
00:34:13But through numbers, through determination, Jackson's men managed to force their way across
00:34:19the top of the wall.
00:34:21It's the most bitter fighting imaginable, and in fact, it's kind of hard to imagine
00:34:25how it all took place, because it went on for hours.
00:34:35The carnage that ensued was horrific.
00:34:40According to eyewitness accounts, the river ran red with the blood of the Indians killed.
00:34:48Out of Jackson's force of 3,000 Americans and Indians, only six men died in the five-hour
00:34:54battle.
00:34:56But for the Red Sticks, Horseshoe Bend was a complete disaster.
00:35:01Officers who had the best opportunities of judging believed the loss of the enemy not
00:35:05to fall short of 800.
00:35:09Jackson did not describe in his reports the methods used to determine the exact number
00:35:13of enemy dead.
00:35:16What we have at the end of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend is Jackson's men doing a reliable body
00:35:22count among the hundreds of the slain Indians that lay there on the battlefield by slicing
00:35:28off parts of their noses to keep a reliable count.
00:35:36Following the battle at Horseshoe Bend, one lone Indian came into Andrew Jackson's camp
00:35:41with a peace offering of a slaughtered deer.
00:35:44It was none other than William Weatherford, the mixed-blood Red Stick leader.
00:35:50Weatherford decides that he is going to essentially take responsibility for the uprising, for
00:35:55the rebellion, and presents himself to Jackson and says, here I am, essentially as a defeated
00:36:02general.
00:36:03Mr. Weatherford, I've brought you an offering.
00:36:09And Jackson doesn't know quite what to make of this at first, but treats Weatherford as
00:36:16a defeated, honorable enemy, and lets him go.
00:36:21Many of Jackson's troops were surprised and angry that Jackson spared Weatherford's life.
00:36:28Jackson was quite an egomaniac, and he recognized the leadership and the courage of the opponents
00:36:37because that made him more the man.
00:36:40So when William Weatherford came in and talked with him, I have heard through some of the
00:36:45oral traditions that Weatherford said to him, if I had another 800 troops, I would
00:36:51still be fighting you.
00:36:54He would not have given up.
00:36:55And Jackson perhaps took Weatherford's attitude and saw something in it of himself.
00:37:04Whatever his motivation for releasing Weatherford, Jackson had achieved what white settlers sorely
00:37:10desired, the ability to move west without fear of Indian reprisal.
00:37:17On August 9, 1814, the Treaty of Fort Jackson took from the tribal nations 23 million acres
00:37:24in Georgia and Alabama.
00:37:27The treaty made no allowance for loyalty.
00:37:30Included in the white territory was land belonging to the very Indians who had fought as Jackson's
00:37:37allies.
00:37:39The terms of that treaty were monstrously unfair, and it took away half the lands of
00:37:44the Creek Nation, very much to the satisfaction, of course, of Jackson.
00:37:48He didn't see it as, you've done for me, and therefore I have to do for you in repayment.
00:37:56All I know is that the Creeks live in this area, and they have to be punished, and we
00:38:04are taking away this amount of land.
00:38:07And if you're affected, that's too bad.
00:38:09I'm first, you know, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
00:38:23In 1814, as Jackson and his forces were battling the Red Sticks in the south, the regular U.S.
00:38:29Army was under intense attack by the British in the northeast.
00:38:34The War of 1812 has been going on now for almost three years.
00:38:36And it hasn't been going well for the United States at all, culminating in a horribly humiliating
00:38:42invasion by the British of the Atlantic seacoast, the occupation of Washington, D.C., the national
00:38:48capital, and the burning of several of the federal buildings.
00:38:51So the country was extremely unhappy.
00:38:55What they saw was, we're losing this war, and we're losing our economy, and it is likely
00:39:02that this little experiment in democracy is not going to survive this conflict.
00:39:09Andrew Jackson was promoted from Major General of the Tennessee Militia to the same position
00:39:14in the regular U.S. Army.
00:39:18When military leaders in Washington learned Britain might attempt a landing by sea near
00:39:22the city of New Orleans, Jackson and his militia were sent to prepare a defense.
00:39:28He was told an army of 2,000 well-trained soldiers would be waiting for him.
00:39:34He doesn't have any kind of experience commanding large numbers of troops, but he's the only
00:39:39one they've got, and he's in the area.
00:39:42And so they say, New Orleans, this is your place to shine, this is your place to win
00:39:47or lose.
00:39:49The British strategy was straightforward.
00:39:52If they controlled the port of New Orleans, they would have easy access to the Mississippi
00:39:56River.
00:39:57One army, moving north up the river, would join another moving south from Canada, splitting
00:40:03the country in half.
00:40:05With the Northeast already under British control, the capture of New Orleans was critical to
00:40:11their plan.
00:40:13No one understood this better than Jackson.
00:40:16He also knew he was about to take on 10,000 of the toughest troops in the world.
00:40:22These same soldiers had defeated Napoleon, led by the same officer who commanded them
00:40:27now, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham.
00:40:32Jackson desperately needed well-trained, organized, combat-tested troops, but what he had was
00:40:38quite different.
00:40:40A few hundred Creole volunteers from New Orleans.
00:40:43The same number of free men of color who escaped slavery in Haiti.
00:40:48A small band of friendly Choctaw Indians.
00:40:52And a couple of thousand backwoods militiamen from Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
00:40:59Of Jackson's 4,000 troops, less than 10% were U.S. regulars.
00:41:06Jackson was outnumbered more than two to one.
00:41:09But his most critical need was artillery.
00:41:12He cleverly sought help from an unlikely man, Jean Lafitte, a French pirate who had plundered
00:41:18hundreds of merchant ships off the shores of Louisiana and Texas.
00:41:22Though Lafitte insisted, never an American vessel.
00:41:27Lafitte offered not only his service as an intelligence officer, but he offered something
00:41:32that Jackson didn't have and could not resist.
00:41:36An almost endless store of gunpowder, flints for the muskets, cannonballs, things that
00:41:46Jackson didn't have and had no way to get.
00:41:50Despite this new source of weaponry, the odds were stacked against the American mismatched
00:41:55collection of fighters.
00:41:58This didn't bother Jackson.
00:42:01Jackson was utterly convinced he could win.
00:42:03I'm not sure exactly why he was convinced he could win.
00:42:06A lot of it had to do with the, he had to win and therefore he got himself to believe
00:42:10he could win.
00:42:11And gradually he made his troops.
00:42:14His motley array constituted his army, believed that they could win too.
00:42:20And in military affairs, confidence, the expectation of victory is more than half the battle.
00:42:28On December 23rd, 1814, British troops came ashore south of New Orleans and encamped on
00:42:34sugar plantations at the edge of the Mississippi River.
00:42:40Jackson took the offensive.
00:42:42As night fell, he marshaled his ragtag army and headed directly for the British camp.
00:42:57Cannoneers opened fire from a ship on the Mississippi, sending the Redcoats scrambling
00:43:01for cover.
00:43:10Before the British could react, Jackson's troops were among them, fighting with anything
00:43:15that could be used as a weapon.
00:43:18Jackson attacked.
00:43:19In a pitch black dark, there was no moon.
00:43:22And what ensued was a melee, whether it was rifle butts, rifle fire, swords, knives, fists,
00:43:30rocks, guns, strangling hands.
00:43:36This was not the kind of warfare the British expected.
00:43:39They were accustomed to fighting in daylight, charging in waves that intimidated their enemy.
00:43:44But these were guerrilla-type tactics.
00:43:47After the successful surprise attack, Jackson pulled back and moved to fortify the city's
00:43:53major defenses.
00:43:56Jackson planned to stop the British by taking advantage of the canals, swamps, and terrain
00:44:01surrounding New Orleans.
00:44:03He chose to make his stand one mile north of the British camp, which put his army between
00:44:08the city and the enemy, with a river and a swamp protecting his flanks.
00:44:13A drainage canal provided the perfect position to build a parapet, a wall of earth and wood,
00:44:19which could, hopefully, be built strong enough to repel the most vicious British attack.
00:44:25Jackson ordered his militia to start digging trenches.
00:44:28Faster, men!
00:44:29Faster!
00:44:30But the men complained and worked slowly.
00:44:35Jackson realizes that time is of the essence, so he brings in some slaves and has the slaves
00:44:41start doing the work.
00:44:42Well, that makes the white soldiers even more reluctant to get down in the mud, get down
00:44:46in the ditches next to the slaves.
00:44:48You will dig together and we will fight together.
00:44:53But Jackson isn't going to brook that kind of finickiness, and so he insists, you know,
00:44:59on pain of being declared a mutineer, insists you're going to get down and you're going
00:45:03to dig the trenches.
00:45:05Under Jackson's stern direction, his parapet fortification began to take shape.
00:45:10Slaves and soldiers worked day and night, side by side.
00:45:15Dirt, dug to form the trench, became a mound to support the parapet, reinforced with wood.
00:45:21The trench itself was filled with water to form a ten-foot-wide moat.
00:45:28Four days passed.
00:45:30Jackson had no idea when the Redcoats would charge his parapet.
00:45:34He kept watch from the second floor of a plantation house, thanks to a telescope given
00:45:38him by a local astronomer.
00:45:43At night, he continued his guerrilla-style attacks, sending Indians and malicious sharpshooters
00:45:48to pick off British sentries.
00:45:55This constant irritation and stinging operations that would come at you kept you on edge.
00:46:05Night and day.
00:46:06It was awful.
00:46:07It was very hard on the nerves and on the temperament, and, you know, it's really demoralizing.
00:46:14The British reaction to this was to send a note to Jackson that this behavior was ungentlemanly,
00:46:22and Jackson's response to that was that it was ungentlemanly for the British to be occupying
00:46:27American soil and they should go back where they came from.
00:46:33On December 28, 1814, five days after the Redcoats landed, they first tested Jackson's
00:46:40defensive line.
00:46:42The maneuver began with the British firing newly developed Congreve rockets.
00:46:48It was really a glorified bottle rocket.
00:46:50The British brought them down to New Orleans thinking, these poor bumpkins from Louisiana
00:46:55had never seen one of these, and if we shoot off enough of them, they're going to turn
00:47:00and run.
00:47:01In fact, the consensus among the Americans was that they thought they were rather pretty.
00:47:11The initial British offensive lasted less than three hours.
00:47:15Fire!
00:47:16Small cannons and muskets fired from a distance made no impact whatsoever on Jackson's wall.
00:47:29Packenham withdrew to devise another plan.
00:47:32He ordered heavier cannons brought in from ships anchored offshore.
00:47:38On the morning of January 1, 1815, Packenham waited for a heavy fog to lift before unleashing
00:47:44his bombardment.
00:47:50The New Year's Day battle was, in reality, a duel of cannoneers, with the famed powerful
00:47:57British on one side and a band of pirates on the other.
00:48:03Despite the heavier shot fired by the British naval guns, Jackson's parapet held firm.
00:48:09The aim of Jean Lafitte's pirate cannoneers proved incredibly accurate.
00:48:15The British had used barrels of sugar to fortify their batteries.
00:48:20Not a good idea.
00:48:22Fire!
00:48:24When you hit a barrel of sugar with a cannonball, the sugar goes everywhere.
00:48:30It does not stop the cannonball, but also gets everywhere, including in the breeches
00:48:35of the cannons and in the firing holes and everywhere else, and melts or crystallizes
00:48:42or whatever sugar does when it gets really stressed.
00:48:45So the great artillery duel did not work for the British, and the Americans were greatly
00:48:51cheered to see the British run away from their guns or drag whatever they could of them off.
00:48:57Packenham was again forced to rethink his strategy.
00:49:00He had been reluctant to storm the American defenses because of the potential for high
00:49:04casualties, but the failed bombardment forced his hand.
00:49:10On the morning of January 8, Jackson's troops watched with fear as wave after wave of Redcoats
00:49:16marched toward the parapet.
00:49:19Hold your fire, men.
00:49:21Jackson has to calm his men, his militia in particular, are used to firing from a distance
00:49:26of 300 yards and then taking up a new position if necessary.
00:49:30Well, there's no new position.
00:49:32You've got to stay where you are.
00:49:34And if they fire to greater distance, much of their fire will be wasted.
00:49:38So Jackson has to convince them that they need to wait until the British get close enough
00:49:43that their fire can have a real effect.
00:49:46Hold your fire.
00:49:49Just before the British infantry came within range of Jackson's riflemen, Lafitte's cannons
00:49:54let loose on the approaching mass of Redcoats with newly crafted types of ammunition.
00:50:02The American artillery fire has this terrific, horrendous effect on the ranks of British
00:50:07infantry as they come, just mowing down large numbers.
00:50:11The artillery they're firing, grapeshot, they're firing just loose pieces of metal.
00:50:15It's anti-personnel stuff, and it wipes out dozens or hundreds of the British at a blow.
00:50:20The British keep coming, and they keep coming.
00:50:24Jackson managed to hold back his anxious sharpshooters until the last possible moment.
00:50:29Finally, he gave the command.
00:50:32Fire!
00:50:33Then they unleash this horribly punishing volley, one volley after another.
00:50:40In this case, it's the British ranks that break, and the British are forced to find
00:50:44shelter wherever they can.
00:50:47Pakenham told his men not to rush the parapet until ladders were in place.
00:50:53He would order the launch of a Congreve rocket to signal a Redcoat charge, but the smoke
00:50:59obscured his view.
00:51:01Finally, out of desperation, he gave the order.
00:51:05Fire the rocket!
00:51:14The Redcoats ran directly into a ceaseless barrage of musket fire from Jackson's troops.
00:51:20No ladders were waiting for them.
00:51:26American sharpshooters opened up at near point-blank range on the British soldiers as they futilely
00:51:31tried to cross the moat and climb the earthen parapet.
00:51:36Just then, a bullet struck General Pakenham in the leg, and right after that, another
00:51:41bullet struck Pakenham and killed him dead.
00:51:44So the British at that point were without any commanders of the general rank.
00:51:50The regimental commanders were not sure what to do.
00:51:55In less than an hour, the British assault had completely disintegrated.
00:52:00Those who could ran for their lives.
00:52:03Others laid on the ground using the bodies of dead comrades as barriers against the continued
00:52:08onslaught of American gunfire.
00:52:12When that smoke finally drifted away, a horrendous scene revealed itself as a sea of red right
00:52:21before Jackson's rampart.
00:52:23It was the Redcoats of the British who had been killed, and a silence came over the battlefield
00:52:32because the Americans had stopped shooting.
00:52:36When the Americans went out there, they couldn't believe what they saw.
00:52:40After they counted up the British killed, wounded, prisoners, the number was more than
00:52:452,000.
00:52:47When they counted up their own casualties, killed, wounded, captured, it was about two
00:52:52dozen.
00:52:53Jackson and his army of misfits had achieved what the U.S. regular army in Washington could
00:52:59not.
00:53:00They had defeated the most powerful army in the world.
00:53:11Andrew Jackson's victory in New Orleans sparked celebrations throughout the country.
00:53:15Ironically, the war had actually ended two weeks before the defeat of the Redcoats, with
00:53:21the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, in what is now Belgium.
00:53:26But the news arrives from the battle first.
00:53:29The news is, Jackson has won.
00:53:32That's what Americans first hear.
00:53:33Next they hear, hey, the war is over.
00:53:36And if you put two and two together in this way, they think, my gosh, Andy Jackson won
00:53:41the war.
00:53:42And it's contributed a great deal to Jackson's subsequent reputation.
00:53:46He became known as the second George Washington.
00:53:48The first George Washington had achieved American independence.
00:53:51The second George Washington, Jackson, had confirmed American independence.
00:53:55For the rest of his life, Andrew Jackson was known simply as the hero.
00:54:01Rachel Jackson joined her husband in New Orleans to celebrate.
00:54:05But she was not the hero's wife local gentry expected.
00:54:10When they saw Rachel with General Jackson, they did not see her through the same loving
00:54:18and kind eyes as Jackson and Rachel's friend saw her.
00:54:23Instead, they saw a woman who was approaching 50, which at that time was well past a woman's
00:54:29prime.
00:54:30And they essentially had a field day making fun of poor Rachel behind her back.
00:54:38When the army reorganized into northern and southern divisions in the spring of 1815,
00:54:44Jackson was awarded with the command of the southern division.
00:54:46He was permitted to set up headquarters at his home, the Hermitage.
00:54:51Rachel was delighted.
00:54:55Although they never had their own children, they had two adopted sons, the orphaned Indian
00:55:00boy and Rachel's nephew, whose father, Rachel's brother, couldn't afford to raise him.
00:55:06They named that boy Andrew Jackson, Jr.
00:55:10Throughout Rachel's marriage to Andrew Jackson, she always asked him to give up public life
00:55:15and come home.
00:55:17She reminded Jackson very often that earthly honors meant nothing.
00:55:21It was what you expected in regard to reward from heaven.
00:55:28But Jackson's respite at the Hermitage was short-lived.
00:55:31Tensions between Indians and white settlers were still running high.
00:55:36Jackson led his army throughout the southeast, taking control of more Indian land by treaty
00:55:42or bloodshed.
00:55:44In 1817, Jackson was ordered by President James Monroe to stop the Seminole Indians
00:55:50who occupied Spanish-controlled Florida from crossing into U.S. territory.
00:55:57The ever-ambitious Jackson, however, saw a perfect opportunity to do far more.
00:56:02Why not take control of all of Florida and make it part of the United States?
00:56:08He bypasses the Secretary of War and goes right to the President, to the main man, and
00:56:15says, just give me the word and I can take Florida.
00:56:18Now that's an act of war, and only Congress can declare war.
00:56:24Well, in those days, but the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
00:56:30Jackson is convinced, and so am I, that Monroe does give him that authority.
00:56:39Jackson found himself skirmishing with Seminole Indians and Spaniards in Florida, but he knew
00:56:46his real enemy was still the British, hoping to keep American borders from expanding.
00:56:53When Jackson distrusted the British, he had every reason for doing so.
00:56:57The British actually had been behind the Indian uprising.
00:57:01The British were encouraging the Spanish to mischief in Florida.
00:57:07The British recognized that the United States was a long-term threat to Britain's power
00:57:12in North America and in the Atlantic, and they were doing everything they could to contain
00:57:16that power, to keep it bottled up.
00:57:19Again, troops under Jackson's command emerged victorious.
00:57:24When Spain officially gave up Florida, Jackson resigned from the Army, accepting an appointment
00:57:30as governor to organize the new territorial government.
00:57:34Rachel joined him in Pensacola.
00:57:37There's perception of her that she was perhaps demure and didn't want to involve herself
00:57:43in political affairs, but what we see in Pensacola is her taking a very active role in advising
00:57:51Jackson on how he feels he should govern that city.
00:57:55Jackson needed only 11 weeks to set up Florida's new government.
00:58:01Shortly after returning home, he suffered a physical breakdown.
00:58:06At age 55, the years of fighting duels, Indians and the British, had taken their toll.
00:58:12For several months, violent coughing spells and severe dysentery made life miserable.
00:58:18Though retirement seemed inevitable, Jackson became obsessed about rampant corruption in
00:58:23Washington, and his sense of moral outrage pushed him to consider running for president.
00:58:30What really got Jackson's attention, what really convinced him that he had to put his
00:58:34hat in the ring, was when people said, you are a soldier, you have said that you support
00:58:41the interests of the American people, well, if you're serious about this, and if the American
00:58:45people call you to office, you have no choice but to answer the call.
00:58:51So Jackson allowed his name to be put into nomination for the presidency in 1824.
00:58:571824 was a watershed election in the United States.
00:59:02For the first time, a substantial number of commoners could vote for president.
00:59:08The Constitution simply says that the states shall choose electors.
00:59:11It didn't say how the states will choose electors.
00:59:14And in most states, until the 1820s, the electors were chosen by the state legislatures.
00:59:18But during 1810s and 1820s, increasingly, ordinary voters get to cast their ballots
00:59:23for president, technically for the electors, but in effect, for president.
00:59:27Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, appealed to voters across the nation and easily won
00:59:32the popular vote with a count of 153,000.
00:59:37John Quincy Adams, whose support came primarily from the Northeast, received 108,000 votes.
00:59:43Treasury Secretary William Crawford and House Speaker Henry Clay narrowly split another
00:59:4990,000 votes.
00:59:51Jackson also received the most electoral votes, 99.
00:59:55But he needed a true majority, 131, to become president.
01:00:03As provided by the Constitution, members of the House of Representatives had to choose
01:00:07among the three frontrunners, Jackson, Adams, and Crawford.
01:00:12The fourth-place finisher, Henry Clay, having received 37 electoral votes, was in a powerful
01:00:18position to sway the election.
01:00:21Clay was the hero of the West.
01:00:23He's from Kentucky, until Jackson comes along.
01:00:26Jackson's from Tennessee.
01:00:28And Jackson is the greater hero, being the military hero.
01:00:31So Clay swings his support to John Quincy Adams, who carries the day, wins the presidency,
01:00:37becomes president, and turns around and names Henry Clay to be Secretary of State.
01:00:43Now, in our day and age, this might not seem like a big deal.
01:00:46But in those days, it was everything, because a succession of presidents before John Quincy
01:00:51Adams had gone from Secretary of State to president.
01:00:55So in naming Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams essentially made
01:00:59him heir apparent to the presidency.
01:01:04Jackson was furious.
01:01:05He publicly damned Clay for what he called a corrupt bargain.
01:01:10He called him Judas of the West.
01:01:14Judas has received his 30 pieces of silver, and he will have the same ending.
01:01:23Jackson and his supporters, they declared that the election had been stolen.
01:01:27The will of the people had been frustrated.
01:01:30And immediately, in the spring of 1825, they began the campaign of 1828.
01:01:36We often think today that elections last a long time.
01:01:40Not at all.
01:01:41They don't have anything on the campaigns of the 1820s.
01:01:46While Jackson remained in Tennessee over the next three years, his surrogates worked tirelessly
01:01:51throughout the country to secure the Democratic Party nomination.
01:01:55Although not officially defined as such, the election of 1828 produced the first choice
01:02:01between a Republican, John Quincy Adams, supported by established power brokers, and Jackson,
01:02:08the Democrat, who championed the cause of the common man.
01:02:12The election campaign of 1820 was probably the dirtiest campaign in American political
01:02:18history.
01:02:20Everything that Jackson had done wrong, or that anybody thought had done wrong, was dragged
01:02:25out and used against him.
01:02:27They said some terrible things about his mother, Jackson's mother.
01:02:31They said she was a prostitute who was brought to this country to serve as British soldiers.
01:02:38And of Rachel Jackson, that she was a bigamist, and by implication, if not otherwise, a whore.
01:02:48Rachel never states that she's aware that she's become a liability for her husband.
01:02:54I think she was always confident in his love for her, even if perhaps she may have sensed
01:03:03that some of those around him might have seen her as baggage.
01:03:11The three years of organized campaigning by Jackson's supporters paid off.
01:03:15In November 1828, Jackson won both the popular vote and the electoral majority, becoming
01:03:22the seventh president of the United States.
01:03:26But his joy was short-lived, as Rachel had a heart attack one month later.
01:03:31General Jackson?
01:03:32General Jackson!
01:03:33What is it?
01:03:35On December 22nd, Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson died.
01:03:41At the moment of his greatest political victory, he suffers the most severe personal blow he
01:03:46could imagine.
01:03:48Rachel had been his lifelong companion, had been the love of his life, and now she's taken
01:03:54from him.
01:03:55On the day that they had originally scheduled to go to Washington, Rachel was buried instead,
01:04:00and Jackson chose to bury her in the garden at the hermitage, which she had loved so much.
01:04:06Jackson was absolutely convinced that she was murdered by those people who had said
01:04:12these things about her, and on her tombstone he had written that here lies a sainted being
01:04:20who was viciously attacked, but whose virtue could surpass it all.
01:04:31The death of his beloved wife sent President-elect Andrew Jackson plunging from triumph to despair.
01:04:41He couldn't imagine leaving the hermitage and moving into the White House without Rachel
01:04:45as his first lady.
01:04:48He almost decided not to go to Washington.
01:04:51He believed that his emotional life, in a certain sense, was over, and for months after,
01:04:56he was in a very deep depression.
01:04:57He wrote, the one thing that made him decide that he had to go was, first of all, the people
01:05:01had chosen him, and Jackson had an absolute reverence for the will of the people.
01:05:06But there was also something personal, and that was, my enemies have killed Rachel.
01:05:11They will pay.
01:05:13So off he goes to be inaugurated president.
01:05:18On March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson took the oath of office as America's seventh president.
01:05:25As was customary at the time, the White House was open to the public following the inaugural ceremony.
01:05:31Fifteen thousand ecstatic supporters flocked to Washington to celebrate, and it seemed
01:05:36like every last one of them showed up at the reception.
01:05:41They poured into the rooms, and they thought they would knock the walls down.
01:05:48There were so many of them.
01:05:49They were jammed in.
01:05:50Poor Jackson himself was almost pinned against the wall, and he had to be helped out of the
01:05:57building and to his hotel in order to save him.
01:06:02And finally it got so bad, they thought the man would collapse.
01:06:06So they took the liquor and the other food that was being served out into the lawn, and
01:06:12people jumped through the windows to get to it.
01:06:16It was the people's candidate, the people's celebration.
01:06:25In his first message to Congress, Jackson unveiled the building blocks of what would
01:06:29become known as Jacksonian democracy, a government run by and dedicated to common men.
01:06:38He passionately went to work setting nearly impossible goals, abolish the electoral voting
01:06:43system, relocate all Indians west of the Mississippi River, extinguish the national debt, eliminate
01:06:50the Bank of the United States, a private institution he determined to be corrupt, and do away with
01:06:56paper currency.
01:06:59He dislikes paper money.
01:07:01He hates paper money.
01:07:03Paper money is used to corrupt.
01:07:06They can inflate paper.
01:07:07You know, you go to a printing machine, and you can turn it out.
01:07:11It's worthless, and you get people to accept it.
01:07:14The only real money is what you can put between your teeth and feel it, like gold and silver.
01:07:21But Jackson realized his agenda was too ambitious, that trying to both reform election law and
01:07:27abolish paper money would likely be futile.
01:07:31So he turned his attention to a fundamental constitutional dilemma that could endanger
01:07:36the union itself, the issue of federal versus state authority.
01:07:43South Carolina was threatening to secede if forced to obey federal tariff laws.
01:07:48It was a position supported by Jackson's political foe, Henry Clay, as well as his own vice president,
01:07:54John Calhoun, a native of South Carolina.
01:07:58Jackson was ready for a fight to preserve the sovereignty of the union.
01:08:04Jackson said, tell my friends in South Carolina that if any of them breathe a word of secession,
01:08:09I'm going to come down there, and I'm going to hang them from the highest trees in the
01:08:13neighborhood.
01:08:14When Jackson talked that way, people paid attention.
01:08:18The South Carolinians decided, well, maybe we better reconsider.
01:08:21But if not for Jackson, the union might well have fallen apart.
01:08:25With the issue of secession under control, Jackson turned his attention to a private
01:08:30institution he believed was corrupt.
01:08:33The Bank of the United States.
01:08:36Jackson had real reservations about the Bank of the United States on two grounds.
01:08:41One is he thought it was unconstitutional.
01:08:43Secondly, he believed that it gave too much power over the American economy to this group
01:08:49of private bankers who would have their own private interests rather than the interests
01:08:54of the country as a whole.
01:08:56The U.S. Bank controlled the flow of silver and gold upon which state banks based the
01:09:01value of their paper money.
01:09:04Jackson despised the bank's ability to alter its value at will.
01:09:08He called the bank's director, Nicholas Biddle, Czar Nicholas, and the bank itself a monster
01:09:14needing to be chained.
01:09:16It was using its money for its own advantage.
01:09:20It was paying to have certain men elected, contributing towards their election, maintaining
01:09:28their position in Congress through their generous contributions.
01:09:34In theory, Biddle had nothing to worry about.
01:09:37The Supreme Court had ruled the bank constitutional, and its charter was not up for renewal until
01:09:421836, which would be the final year of Jackson's second term, if he ran and was re-elected.
01:09:50Henry Clay knew a big opportunity when he saw one.
01:09:54Teaming with Biddle, Clay convinced Congress to pass an early re-charter bill that would
01:09:59endow the bank for an additional 12 years.
01:10:03With the 1832 election just months away, Clay and Biddle drew Jackson into a trap.
01:10:10They essentially dared Andrew Jackson to veto the re-charter bill, thinking that Jackson
01:10:16wouldn't dare.
01:10:17The Bank of the United States was too essential to the economy, too essential to the business
01:10:21classes of the country.
01:10:23Well, they learned that Jackson wasn't somebody who lightly dared to do anything.
01:10:29Jackson knew vetoing the re-charter could pose a risk to his re-election.
01:10:35The stress only worsened his longtime physical maladies.
01:10:40Late at night in his White House bedroom, he frequently bled himself using a small pocket
01:10:45knife.
01:10:46The procedure, believed to cleanse the body of toxins, was normally performed by a physician.
01:10:52But Jackson did it himself.
01:10:56He is also known to have read each evening from his deceased wife Rachel's personal prayer
01:11:00book while holding a miniature portrait bearing her likeness.
01:11:04The loss of Rachel and the rigors of the presidency, particularly the bank issue, were taking their
01:11:10toll on this seemingly indomitable personality.
01:11:16Nonetheless, Jackson decided to veto the re-charter bill, thus making the future of the bank a
01:11:22of the United States the central issue of the 1832 presidential election.
01:11:29Jackson's opponent was none other than Henry Clay, who portrayed Jackson as King Andrew
01:11:35the First, a despot trampling not just the national bank, but the Constitution itself.
01:11:42Biddle and Henry Clay utterly misgaged how it was going to play.
01:11:48Jackson was able to say, I have defended the interests of the people.
01:11:51I have taken on the powerful commercial and financial interests.
01:11:57And he won.
01:11:58He won very handily in 1832, smacking down Biddle, smacking down Henry Clay.
01:12:04But Biddle, with four years remaining in the bank's current charter, struck back in a way
01:12:10many considered foolish.
01:12:12Biddle decides that he's going to teach Jackson a lesson.
01:12:15He's going to show him that a mere elected official, a mere president, shouldn't be dabbling
01:12:20in affairs that should be left to bankers who presumably knew what they were doing.
01:12:25To put pressure on Jackson, Biddle made life difficult for small businessmen, raising interest
01:12:31rates, refusing loan requests, and increasing foreclosures.
01:12:36When business owners appealed to Jackson for help, the president was blunt.
01:12:40Don't come to me, he said.
01:12:42Go to Biddle.
01:12:43He's the man with the money.
01:12:46Meanwhile, Jackson ordered the U.S. Treasury to move its silver and gold reserves from
01:12:51the U.S. bank into state banks.
01:12:55To pull out the federal deposits was, in essence, to drive a stake through the heart of the
01:13:01Bank of the United States.
01:13:03Biddle thinks that because he controls the money, he has the Trump card.
01:13:06But Jackson decides that this is a matter of principle.
01:13:10Democracy must rule.
01:13:11He pulled the deposits out, leaving the bank, leaving Biddle high and dry.
01:13:17Jackson could claim a great victory when the bank expired in 1836.
01:13:22Jackson, the uneducated commoner, was able to not only destroy the U.S. bank, but pay
01:13:30off the national debt, mainly by selling federal land.
01:13:34He has been the only American president in history to do so.
01:13:39Jackson believed that the federal government ought to live within its means, just as an
01:13:42ordinary household did.
01:13:43And when he paid off the national debt, then he was able to go to bed that night with a
01:13:48great deal of satisfaction.
01:13:49Paying off the national debt was Jackson's proudest moment as president.
01:13:59As president, Andrew Jackson worked passionately to fulfill the needs of the common man.
01:14:05One of the strongest needs was new territory for safe settlement without Indian interference.
01:14:11As major general of the Tennessee militia in 1814, Jackson had shown how he used war
01:14:17to handle the Indian issue.
01:14:20In 1830, as president, he decided he would use the law to fight the Indians.
01:14:26He pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress.
01:14:30He believed on the basis of his own experience, what he had seen historically, that whites
01:14:35and Indian tribes could not live together peacefully.
01:14:39And he made it his position from the time he became president to encourage, ultimately
01:14:44to force, the Indian tribes that remained as tribes in the eastern part of the United
01:14:49States to move from the eastern part of the United States across the Mississippi to the
01:14:54unorganized territories west of the Mississippi.
01:14:58The Indian Removal Act effectively nullified all earlier treaties granting tribes control
01:15:03of land as sovereign nations.
01:15:07Cherokee warriors who fought alongside Jackson in Georgia felt betrayed by the man they called
01:15:13Jaksashula Harjo, or Jackson, Old and Fierce.
01:15:18I read an account written by a Cherokee soldier who was with Andrew Jackson at the Battle
01:15:26of Horseshoe Bend, that Cherokee rifleman said, had he known in 1814 what Andrew Jackson
01:15:35was going to do to the Cherokee Nation, he would have shot him in the field that day.
01:15:43The U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, sided with the Cherokees, declaring
01:15:48the Removal Act unconstitutional.
01:15:52Jackson is reported to have said, in response to the 1832 decision, Justice Marshall has
01:15:58delivered his opinion, now let him enforce it.
01:16:02Jackson believed that as president, he had the right and the responsibility to interpret
01:16:08the Constitution as he saw fit.
01:16:10Jackson was not the first president to favor Indian removal.
01:16:13Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams all tried to persuade Indians to move west, but
01:16:20they never forced the issue.
01:16:23Jackson is thought by some to have had intensely personal motivations.
01:16:27There were some people who said that the mother had a great hatred for the Indians, because
01:16:35some members of the family had been killed, and that that hatred, she was able to communicate
01:16:43to her son, that's the enemy, be careful, they're savages.
01:16:49Andrew Jackson hated Indians.
01:16:51He hated them from early on, and he used that issue and his aggressiveness toward Native
01:16:58people to further his own career, and to eventually become president because of it.
01:17:06Jackson hoped that Indians might peacefully oblige his wishes and move west voluntarily.
01:17:12When that didn't happen, he sent out federal agents to deliver a blunt message, Indians
01:17:17must obey state law or leave.
01:17:20Obeying state law meant they had to pay state taxes and serve in the state militia, even
01:17:26fighting other Indians if called upon.
01:17:29If the tribes believed they could stay on their land because of prior treaties, they
01:17:33were wrong.
01:17:34If you look at their treaties, every treaty is signed by these agents and somebody that
01:17:41was an interpreter.
01:17:43And then of course, if the United States didn't like the treaty, they should disregard it.
01:17:48Faced with overwhelming force if they resisted, the tribes slowly began to move west.
01:17:55First to leave were Choctaws from Mississippi, forced along by army soldiers.
01:18:01During a bitter cold winter of 1831, the great, great, great grandmother of University of
01:18:06Nebraska Professor Donna Akers walked 500 miles with her four small children.
01:18:13Three died when a tree struck by lightning fell on them while they slept at night.
01:18:20The next morning, the soldiers came back and said that all the people had to start on down
01:18:27the trail.
01:18:28The women were, of course, still hysterical.
01:18:32They were mourning the death of these three little girls, and the men were very upset
01:18:38because they had not been able to do anything to help.
01:18:42And the troops told them that they had to move on anyway.
01:18:47So instead of being able to decently perform the rituals of the dead, they had to bury
01:18:55their bodies in shallow graves along the trail and go on.
01:19:01By the end of the decade, 80,000 Indians would move and 10,000 would die in what collectively
01:19:08became known as the Trail of Tears.
01:19:13Many of them died actually before they even got started on the Trail of Tears because
01:19:16they were in these concentration camps exposed to the weather and crowded together in extremely
01:19:23unsanitary conditions with very little food.
01:19:29First to leave, by force, were the Cherokees.
01:19:33Many were held in prison camps before being made to walk the journey in shackles.
01:19:40I think some of them still thought they had a deal.
01:19:44I think some of them still thought, he's going to honor what he told me.
01:19:48Now, when they felt bad, I'm assuming that was when the bayonet was at their back and
01:19:53they were being marched to that concentration camp prior to being sent out to Oklahoma.
01:19:59And that's what happened to them.
01:20:02Double-crossed.
01:20:03Double-crossed.
01:20:04Promised one thing and another thing happened.
01:20:09Time and time again.
01:20:12Andrew Jackson, to most Native people, is equivalent to Hitler.
01:20:17He's known among the Choctaw people as the Great Devil or Blackheart.
01:20:24Jackson's policy, the policy that culminated in the Trail of Tears, one of the great humanitarian
01:20:27tragedies in American history, was a policy that was of a piece with the policy of administrations
01:20:33before Jackson and after Jackson.
01:20:35It's easy to pin the label on Jackson because he took a more visible position.
01:20:41But Jackson probably would have said, this wasn't merely my policy, this was the policy
01:20:46of the United States government, for better or worse.
01:20:49The Trail of Tears and everything really about the Indian removal is such a horror.
01:20:56When I went to school a long time ago, in grade school and high school, and we studied
01:21:02American history, there was hardly any notice of Indians.
01:21:07Only they were brought in occasionally as a backdrop for what the white man was doing.
01:21:14But now, today, with a renewed interest in all of the people who make up this country,
01:21:22we have found that we have done some terrible things to them.
01:21:28And removal is one of the worst.
01:21:30It's easy for us to attack Jackson for his lack of humanity, for his lack of consideration
01:21:37of the Indians.
01:21:38He should have known better.
01:21:40But it's too easy for us to do that because we don't live in their world.
01:21:46And their world, Jackson's world, was a very brutal world.
01:21:54Jackson provoked extreme feelings of hate and adoration.
01:21:58There was no middle ground.
01:22:00It is remarkable that he survived so many attacks, both physical and political, by so
01:22:06many foes.
01:22:09And many of Jackson's opponents spoke of him as a military dictator, as a despot who
01:22:13was going to destroy democracy and take over the country.
01:22:16Some people, apparently, took this very seriously.
01:22:20And one fellow decided that he was going to save democracy by assassinating Andrew Jackson.
01:22:27On January 30, 1835, Jackson was visiting the Capitol building when he was approached
01:22:33by a deranged, unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence.
01:22:39Lawrence raised a pistol and took dead aim at the president.
01:22:45The gun misfired.
01:22:47Lawrence immediately pulled out a second pistol and shot again, at near point-blank range.
01:22:52Again, the gun misfired.
01:22:57Enraged, Jackson went after Lawrence with his cane and had to be restrained by his aides.
01:23:04At the age of 67, Andrew Jackson had cheated death again.
01:23:16In 1837, Andrew Jackson returned to his Tennessee home, the Hermitage.
01:23:21His hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, had been elected to succeed him as president.
01:23:28As he traveled from Washington, D.C., back to Nashville, all along the route, people
01:23:32came out by the thousands to cheer old Hickory, to cheer the people's president.
01:23:37So he felt honored by the people, he felt the love of the people, but he had to look
01:23:43forward wondering what the next years were going to bring.
01:23:48When Jackson returned home, he was 70 years old.
01:23:51He was shocked to learn the Hermitage had been grossly mismanaged by his adopted son,
01:23:56Andrew Jackson, Jr.
01:23:58Seven thousand dollars in debt, Jackson was deprived of an easy retirement and struggled
01:24:03to survive, economically and physically.
01:24:10Chronic tuberculosis rendered him frail.
01:24:12He abhorred endless queries from political hopefuls seeking advice and favors.
01:24:17I am dying as fast as I can, Jackson reportedly said, and they all know it, but they will
01:24:23keep swarming upon me, crowds seeking for office.
01:24:29Jackson was enraged when Martin Van Buren lost his re-election bid to William Henry
01:24:33Harrison.
01:24:35The new party, Harrison's party, the Whigs, was the party that opposed everything that
01:24:39Jackson had stood for.
01:24:40So Jackson in the early 1840s could believe that much of what he had accomplished as president
01:24:46was now being unraveled.
01:24:50On June 8, 1845, Jackson's condition took a severe turn for the worse.
01:24:55Fearing the end was near, his doctor made him as comfortable as possible.
01:25:00Jackson summoned his son, friends and servants into the room.
01:25:05The slave woman, Hannah, in whose arms Rachel died 17 years earlier, was among those present
01:25:11for Jackson's final moments.
01:25:13Barely conscious, he spoke his last words.
01:25:18I hope to meet you all in heaven, black and white.
01:25:30When he finally expired, somebody turned to one of the servants and said, do you think
01:25:38General Jackson has gone to heaven?
01:25:43The servant thought a minute and said, if General Jackson wants to go to heaven, who's
01:25:49going to stop him?
01:25:54That's Andrew Jackson.
01:25:58As he requested, Jackson was buried beside Rachel in the Garden of the Hermitage.
01:26:03Across America, common men, women and children mourned the loss of a man whom they believed
01:26:09dramatically changed their lives.
01:26:12One measure of Jackson's importance to American history to his age is the fact that of all
01:26:16the common labels or eras in American history, the colonial era, the revolutionary era, the
01:26:22early national period, Reconstruction, the New Deal, Cold War, there's only one that's
01:26:28named for an individual, the Jacksonian era.
01:26:32Jacksonian democracy summarizes the idea that in this country, political power ultimately
01:26:37rests with the people, that ordinary people should run this government.
01:26:43Today, many Americans simply know Andrew Jackson for his likeness of the $20 bill.
01:26:50Fearing his lifelong ill health, it is a romanticized image, inspirational for some, disheartening
01:26:57for others.
01:26:59He's on the $20 bill because he's a great statesman, and at one time, all Americans
01:27:06regarded him as a hero, and they wanted to acknowledge the development of this unique
01:27:14experiment in democracy and freedom.
01:27:17You know, I've suggested to our tribal government we ought not accept $20 bills in the casino
01:27:23because his picture's on it, but that's what everybody's carrying right now.
01:27:27I think generally, the passage of time has softened some of those thoughts.
01:27:32I've told people that he was a criminal, and I believe he was a criminal.
01:27:36I know a lot of Native people that won't use 20s.
01:27:40They, you know, deliberately ask for 10s in change because of Andrew Jackson's face on
01:27:47the $20 bill.
01:27:48Jackson was indeed a person that led Americans down a path that was shameful and that was
01:27:56grossly wrong.
01:27:59And so why in the world we would adulate this man in our textbooks or on our currency is
01:28:06just absurd and unfortunate.
01:28:09Jackson was, he was an American original, and he represented, I think, the very best
01:28:18in American culture.
01:28:20He must have had self-doubts.
01:28:22Every day he would pick up a newspaper, and it would be throwing dead cats at him.
01:28:27But his self-doubt was overcome by this incredible strength of will that told him somewhere deep
01:28:35down, I am right, I will pursue this cause.
01:28:39And I think that's why today Jackson is on the $20 bill.
01:28:45In an age when presidential candidates must rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in
01:28:50campaign funds from wealthy contributors, it would be easy to think that Jacksonian
01:28:55democracy is dead.
01:28:57But many believe that Jackson's ideals are still alive.
01:29:03We still live in the age of Jacksonian democracy.
01:29:06Jacksonian democracy is imperfect now, it was imperfect in Jackson's time.
01:29:11But people still do ultimately control politics.
01:29:16It would have surprised Jackson to know that more than half of American voters don't go
01:29:20to the poll today.
01:29:21He would have been very disappointed in that, because it was something that he devoted his
01:29:25life to making possible.
01:29:28And now for people to just ignore politics would have struck him as mind-boggling.
01:29:34But in that respect, it demonstrates that Jackson simply was too successful.
01:29:39We take for granted much of what Jackson accomplished.