Andrew Jackson

NAME Andrew Jackson. He was affectionately known by his troops and the American public as "Old Hickory" due to his legendary toughness, and sometimes disparagingly by political opponents as "King Andrew I" for his assertive use of presidential power. 

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States (1829–1837) and the founder of the modern Democratic Party. He is famous for his victory at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, his fierce opposition to the Second Bank of the United States, and his controversial policy of Indian Removal. He was the first "frontier president" and the first to survive an assassination attempt.

BIRTH Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Waxhaws region on the border of North and South Carolina, southwest of the Uwharrie Mountains. The exact location of his birth — whether on the North or South Carolina side of the border — has been disputed, and both states have historically claimed him. (1)

FAMILY BACKGROUND His parents were Andrew Jackson Sr. and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Scots-Irish Presbyterian colonists who had emigrated from Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Ireland, approximately two years before his birth. Jackson's father died in a logging accident in February 1767, at the age of 29 — three weeks before his son Andrew was born. 

Jackson was raised by his mother and was the youngest of three sons. His brothers Hugh and Robert also served in the American Revolution; Hugh died from heat exhaustion after the Battle of Stono Ferry in 1779, and Robert died from smallpox contracted while a British prisoner of war in 1781. His mother Elizabeth died of cholera later that same year while nursing American prisoners of war in Charleston, leaving the fourteen-year-old Jackson an orphan. (2)

CHILDHOOD Jackson grew up in poverty on the Carolina frontier. 

As a boy, he served as a courier and messenger for the Continental Army during the American Revolution. At the age of thirteen, he and his brother Robert were captured by British forces. When a British officer ordered Jackson to clean his boots, he refused, and the officer struck him with a sword, leaving permanent scars on his left hand and head — an act Jackson never forgave. He was taken prisoner and held in harsh conditions before being released, partly due to his mother's intervention. (3)

Below is The Brave Boy of the Waxhaws, an 1876 Currier and Ives lithograph depicting the story of a young Andrew Jackson defending himself from a British officer during the American Revolutionary War

EDUCATION Jackson received only a rudimentary frontier education at local schools in the Waxhaws. He was taught to read and was known as a child to read newspapers aloud to illiterate neighbors. 

He later studied law in Salisbury, North Carolina, reading in the offices of local attorneys Spruce Macay and John Stokes. He was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1787. 

He was the first U.S. President who did not have a college education and was not born into a wealthy family. (2)

CAREER RECORD 1788: Appointed prosecutor of the Western District of North Carolina (now Tennessee); he moved to Nashville to begin his legal career.

1796: Served as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention and was elected as the state’s first U.S. Representative.

1797–1798: Served briefly as a U.S. Senator before resigning to return to Tennessee.

1798–1804: Served as a judge on the Tennessee Superior Court.

1802: Elected major general of the Tennessee militia.

1814–1815: Led U.S. forces to victory in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and the Battle of New Orleans, becoming a national hero.

1821: Served as the first military governor of Florida after its acquisition from Spain.

1823–1825: Returned to the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee.

1829–1837: Served two terms as the 7th President of the United States.

APPEARANCE Jackson was tall and lean, standing approximately 6 feet 1 inch, with a thin, angular face, a strong jaw, and piercing blue eyes. He had a shock of thick, silver-white hair that stood nearly upright, giving him a distinctive and commanding appearance. 

His face bore the scar on his forehead from the British officer's sword blow during his captivity as a boy. 

Jackson had a tomahawk tattoo on his thigh. (2), (4)

Formal portrait, c. 1835

FASHION Jackson was known for dressing in the style of a Southern gentleman planter — dark, well-tailored frock coats, high cravats, and tall hats. In his later years as President, his white hair and stately, formal dress gave him an almost aristocratic bearing that contrasted sharply with his rough frontier origins. He favored the fashions befitting a man of his hard-won social standing. (2)

CHARACTER Jackson had a fierce, volcanic temperament. He was quick to anger and slow to forgive, holding grudges for decades. He was intensely loyal to friends and allies and equally ferocious toward enemies. 

He possessed enormous personal courage and iron determination. Contemporaries described him as simultaneously warm and generous to those he loved and ruthlessly vindictive toward those who crossed him. His troops said he was "tough as old hickory" wood on the battlefield, and the nickname "Old Hickory" stuck for life. 

Jackson had an imperious streak and a deep conviction that his own judgment was superior — qualities that made him a decisive leader but also a polarizing one. (3)

SPEAKING VOICE Jackson spoke with a strong Scots-Irish frontier accent. He was not a polished orator in the classical tradition of earlier presidents but was known for direct, forceful speech that resonated with ordinary Americans. His communication style was blunt and personal, which helped forge his image as a man of the people. (2)

SENSE OF HUMOUR Jackson had a dry, sardonic wit. He was capable of warmth and humor in private company, particularly with close friends and family. However, he was also deeply sensitive to slights and insults, and humor at his or his wife Rachel's expense could provoke explosive fury. (4)

RELATIONSHIPS Shortly after arriving in Nashville in 1788, Jackson boarded with Rachel Stockley Donelson, widow of pioneer John Donelson. There he met her daughter Rachel Donelson Robards, who was in an unhappy marriage with Captain Lewis Robards, a man subject to fits of jealous rage. The couple separated in 1790. Jackson and Rachel went through a marriage ceremony, but it was not legally valid because her divorce from Robards had not yet been finalized. They married legally on January 17, 1794, once the divorce was confirmed. The controversy over their marriage — with political opponents branding Rachel a bigamist and adulteress — was a lifelong wound for Jackson, who fought numerous duels defending her honor.

Rachel Jackson. Portrait by Ralph E. W. Earl, 1823

Rachel died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, two weeks after Jackson's presidential election victory and two months before his inauguration. A distraught Jackson had to be physically pulled away from her body so the undertaker could prepare it. He never fully recovered from her death and wore a miniature portrait of her around his neck for the rest of his life. He blamed her death on the stress caused by his political enemies' attacks on her character during the campaign.  (2)

MONEY AND FAME Jackson rose from poverty to become a wealthy Tennessee planter and slave owner. He acquired his plantation, The Hermitage, near Nashville, and at the height of his prosperity owned over 100 enslaved people. 

His fame, particularly after the Battle of New Orleans, made him arguably the most popular American public figure of his era. 

He paradoxically opposed paper money and championed hard currency — gold and silver coins — yet his portrait has appeared on the U.S. $20 bill since 1928, replacing Grover Cleveland. (3)

FOOD AND DRINK Jackson was a man of the frontier in his eating habits, at least in theory. Breakfast at The Hermitage typically consisted of corn cakes with blackberry jam, chicken hash, and strong black coffee. He preferred plain American cooking over the French cuisine that was fashionable in Washington, which probably says as much about his feelings toward France as it does about his palate.

In practice, however, his tastes were broader than the frontier legend suggests. He was also fond of tenderloin, lamb chops, oysters, wild duck and goose, and fried ham, washed down with French wines — a detail his political image-makers presumably kept quiet. He was also known to enjoy whiskey.

His most celebrated food moment came when a New York dairy farmer sent him a 635-kilogram wheel of cheddar cheese as a gift. Jackson, in a characteristic act of populist generosity — or possibly because he had absolutely no idea what else to do with 635 kilograms of cheese — opened the White House to the public. Two thousand visitors arrived and consumed the entire thing in two hours, leaving the carpets and curtains smelling of cheese for weeks. 

At his 1829 inauguration, he invited the public to the White House for a "cup of grog," and they arrived in such numbers that the celebration descended into a drunken mob, with revelers standing on furniture and breaking china. The chaos was only dispersed when tubs of punch were moved to the White House lawn. (2)

1829 White House inauguration mob by Perplexity

MUSIC AND ARTS Jackson was not particularly noted for an interest in music or the fine arts. His tastes were those of a frontier-bred Southern gentleman rather than a cultured East Coast aristocrat. (2)

LITERATURE Jackson was a voracious reader of newspapers throughout his life and used the press skillfully as a political tool. He was not a literary man in the conventional sense but wrote extensively in the form of letters — his correspondence is voluminous and reveals a sharp, direct mind. He was reported to have had a poor grasp of spelling throughout his life. (2)

NATURE Jackson spent much of his life on the Tennessee frontier and was deeply connected to the land as a farmer and planter. The Hermitage plantation was his sanctuary and retreat throughout his life. 

PETS Jackson kept a pet parrot named Poll (also recorded as Pol), an African Grey parrot given to him by his wife Rachel. He taught the bird to curse fluently. At Jackson's funeral in June 1845, Poll caused a scene by swearing loudly and continuously at the mourners and had to be removed from the proceedings before the service could begin. (5)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Jackson was passionate about horse racing and bred and raced thoroughbreds at The Hermitage. A duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806 grew partly out of a dispute over a wager on a horse race. 

He was also an avid hunter and enjoyed the outdoor pursuits typical of frontier Southern life. (2)

SCIENCE AND MATHS Jackson showed no particular interest in science or mathematics. His intellectual energies were directed toward law, politics, and military affairs. (2)

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Jackson was raised Presbyterian by his Irish immigrant parents and retained a broadly Protestant faith throughout his life, though he resisted formal church membership for much of his adult years, reportedly not wanting to appear politically opportunistic. He joined the Presbyterian Church formally only in 1838, in his retirement. 

His personal philosophy centered on concepts of honor, personal courage, loyalty, and the sovereignty of the common man over elite interests.  (2)

PRESIDENCY Andrew Jackson arrived at the White House in 1829 as perhaps the first truly self-made American president — a man born in a log cabin before the nation had quite decided whether log cabins were admirable symbols of rugged virtue or merely evidence of poor planning. His supporters adored him with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for victorious generals, miracle tonics, and unusually talented circus dogs.

For his inauguration, Jackson made the bold and catastrophically optimistic decision to invite the public into the White House for refreshments. This sounds charming in theory. In practice, it produced several thousand citizens stampeding through the presidential residence in muddy boots, climbing on furniture, smashing china, and consuming alcohol with the urgency of men preparing for prohibition a century early. One observer described the crowd as resembling a mob that had captured a palace in wartime. White House staff eventually restored order by placing tubs of whiskey punch on the lawn outside, thereby luring the masses away from the building with techniques still commonly employed in dealing with bears at American campgrounds.

Once in office, Jackson governed much as he had fought battles: aggressively, personally, and with a deep conviction that disagreement was a form of sabotage. He introduced what became known as the “spoils system,” cheerfully replacing experienced officeholders with loyal supporters under the comforting theory that government jobs were simple enough for any politically dependable person to perform. This was rather like deciding that because one can sit in a chair, one is qualified to build the chair.

Jackson’s war against the Second Bank of the United States became less a policy dispute than an extended blood feud. Jackson regarded the Bank as a nest of privilege and corruption; the Bank regarded Jackson as a barely housebroken cannonball in human form. Jackson vetoed its recharter, removed federal deposits, and effectively killed it altogether. The Senate censured him for exceeding his authority — still the only presidential censure ever formally issued — whereupon Jackson spent the next several years ensuring the censure itself was erased from the record, an act carrying the unmistakable energy of a man storming back into a saloon because he has just remembered a second insult.

Remarkably, Jackson also managed to eliminate the entire national debt in 1835, the only president ever to do so. Americans have since treated this achievement much as modern people treat the idea of walking to the Moon — technically possible, but not something anyone intends to attempt again.

Yet Jackson’s presidency contains one stain so enormous that no amount of frontier swagger or populist mythology can obscure it. In 1830 he signed the Indian Removal Act, which led to the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. The resulting Trail of Tears brought disease, starvation, and death on a horrifying scale. It remains one of the darkest episodes in American history, carried out with bureaucratic efficiency and moral blindness so complete it is still difficult to comprehend.

And because Andrew Jackson’s life refused to observe ordinary standards of plausibility, he also survived the first attempted assassination of a sitting American president in 1835. The attacker fired two pistols at point-blank range. Both misfired. Statistically, this was astonishing. Jackson’s response was not to flee or seek cover, but to attack the would-be assassin with his cane while bystanders wrestled the man away. Which, in the end, tells you nearly everything about Andrew Jackson: a president who approached politics, warfare, insults, banking policy, and attempted murder with essentially the same emotional setting.

1835 lithograph of the attempted assassination of Andrew Jackson, published by Endicott & Co

POLITICS Jackson was the founding figure of the Democratic Party and championed what became known as Jacksonian Democracy — the expansion of voting rights to all white men, the dismantling of what he saw as corrupt elite institutions, and the supremacy of the will of the ordinary citizen. 

His major political acts included the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the forced displacement of Native American tribes from their ancestral homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River — a policy that resulted in the deaths of thousands along what became known as the Trail of Tears. 

He waged a fierce political war against the Second Bank of the United States, which he regarded as a corrupt institution serving the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans, ultimately vetoing its recharter and removing federal deposits from it.

On March 28, 1834, the U.S. Senate voted to censure President Jackson for violating the Constitution by his removal of federal deposits from the Second Bank — the only time in U.S. history a sitting president was censured by the Senate. Jackson successfully had the censure expunged from the Senate record in 1837.

Jackson was also credited with the first use of a supporter's baby as a political prop, during an 1833 tour of the eastern states — a tradition that has never died. (2), (3)

SCANDAL The most persistent scandal of Jackson's life was the circumstances of his marriage to Rachel Donelson. Their first ceremony took place before her divorce from her first husband, Lewis Robards, was legally finalized, making the union technically bigamous. Though they married legally in 1794, political opponents used the issue relentlessly throughout his career, most viciously during the 1828 presidential campaign, accusing Rachel of adultery and bigamy. Jackson held these attacks responsible for the deterioration of Rachel's health and her death in December 1828. (2)

Jackson was involved in as many as 100 duels over the course of his life — a figure that raises the question of quite how much spare time he had — many fought over matters of personal and political honour, with defending Rachel's reputation among the most celebrated motivations. The most notorious was his duel with Charles Dickinson on May 30, 1806, which began over Dickinson's accusation that Jackson had cheated on a horse race wager, compounded by an insult to Rachel. Dickinson fired first, breaking two of Jackson's ribs and lodging a bullet approximately two inches from his heart. Jackson, in a detail that tells you everything about the man, stayed upright, took careful aim, and fired — only for his pistol to jam at half-cock. He re-cocked it and fired again, killing Dickinson. This second pull of the trigger was widely regarded as a violation of the code duello, and many contemporaries considered it a cold-blooded act rather than a fair fight. Jackson was unmoved by the criticism.

The bullet never came out. It sat two inches from his heart for 39 years, until his death in 1845 — a permanent reminder of the morning he was shot in a field in Kentucky and decided it was the other man's problem. He was never prosecuted for murder. (4)

Andrew Jackson's famous duel over a horse

MILITARY RECORD Jackson served as a teenage messenger for the Continental Army during the American Revolution and was captured by British forces at the age of thirteen. His refusal to clean a British officer's boots earned him a sword blow that left scars he carried for life.

His brothers both died as a result of the war, and his mother died of illness contracted while nursing prisoners — leaving him the sole survivor of his immediate family by age fourteen.

He rose through the Tennessee militia, being elected Major General in 1802. During the War of 1812 he led forces in the Creek War (1813–1814), defeating the Red Stick Creek faction at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814 — a victory that effectively ended the Creek War. He was subsequently given command of U.S. forces in the South.

His greatest military triumph came at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, where his forces — comprising regular army troops, militia from several states and territories, free Black soldiers, Choctaw fighters, and the pirates of Jean Lafitte — decisively defeated a veteran British army, inflicting devastating casualties while sustaining minimal losses. The battle made him a national hero, though it was fought after the Treaty of Ghent had already ended the war (news had not yet reached New Orleans).

He was a strict officer but was deeply popular with his troops, who gave him the lasting nickname "Old Hickory" for his endurance and toughness on campaign. (2) 

Colored wood engraving of Jackson rallying the troops at New Orleans

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Jackson's health was a long chronicle of injuries and illness. He carried two bullets in his body for most of his adult life — one lodged close to his heart from the Dickinson duel of 1806, which could never be safely removed; a second in his shoulder from a brawl with Thomas Hart Benton in 1813, which was removed without anesthetic after approximately twenty years. 

He suffered from chronic headaches, abdominal pain, and respiratory problems throughout his life, likely related to the bullets and to tuberculosis. 

Jackson was also afflicted by osteomyelitis (bone infection) and dysentery. Despite these ailments, he maintained a powerful physical presence and iron will throughout his public life. 

In his later retirement years his health deteriorated significantly. He died of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy (edema), and heart failure. (2)

HOMES Jackson's primary home was The Hermitage, his plantation estate located near Nashville, Tennessee, which he acquired in stages from 1804 onward. He expanded and improved it throughout his life, and it became a substantial cotton plantation. He retired there after his presidency and died there. The Hermitage is now a museum and National Historic Landmark. (6)

The Hermitage around 1831

Jackson lived briefly in various frontier lodgings in his early years, including as a boarder with the Donelson family when he first arrived in Nashville in 1788. 

During his presidency he resided in the White House in Washington, D.C.

TRAVEL Jackson's life was defined by constant movement across the American frontier, from his early trek from the Carolinas to Nashville to his extensive military campaigns across the South and Southwest. He never traveled to Europe, spending his life instead traversing the emerging American territories by horseback and carriage. 

As President, he conducted a notable tour of the eastern states in 1833, during which he made history on June 6, 1833: he became the first sitting U.S. President to ride a railway, boarding a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train at Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, for a pleasure trip to Baltimore.

DEATH Andrew Jackson died on June 8, 1845, at The Hermitage, at the age of 78. The cause of death was chronic tuberculosis, dropsy, and heart failure. 

He was buried in the garden of The Hermitage, beside his wife Rachel. 

His funeral was attended by family, friends, politicians, and enslaved members of his household — and was disrupted when his pet parrot Poll began swearing so loudly and persistently that it had to be removed before the service could proceed.  (2),

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Jackson has been portrayed in numerous films and television productions. He was portrayed by Charlton Heston in The President's Lady (1953) and The Buccaneer (1958). Brian Keith played him in The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987). 

He has also been portrayed in various historical documentaries. 

In the Broadway musical Hamilton (2015), Jackson is referenced as a successor to Aaron Burr's political legacy. 

Jackson famously appeared on the U.S. $20 bill from 1928 onward, though plans to replace his image with that of Harriet Tubman have been debated and delayed.

The first bronze equestrian statue of Jackson was unveiled in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., in 1853, sculpted by Clark Mills — notably the first equestrian statue cast in the United States. (6)

ACHIEVEMENTS Military hero of the War of 1812; victor at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815

Seventh President of the United States, 1829–1837; founder of the Democratic Party

First President from a non-wealthy, non-elite background; first from west of the Appalachians

Only President under whose administration the United States was entirely debt-free (briefly, around 1835)

Negotiated the Jackson Purchase of Chickasaw lands in western Tennessee (1818); co-founder of Memphis, Tennessee (1819)

Survived the first assassination attempt on a U.S. President (January 30, 1835), when both of Richard Lawrence's pistols misfired — odds estimated at approximately 125,000 to 1

His portrait has appeared on the U.S. $20 bill since 1928

Sources: (1) Wikipedia: Andrew Jackson (2) The White House: Andrew Jackson (3) Encyclopædia Britannica: Andrew Jackson (4) Encyclopaedia of Trivia: Andrew Jackson (5) Smithsonian Magazine: Andrew Jackson's Parrot (6) National Park Service: The Hermitage