History Ch_Andrew Jackson

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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.

00:02:35And for 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 suffice 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

00:03:46Wapsaw 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.

00:04:51I mean, he fought.

00:04:52He cursed.

00:04:53He drank.

00:04:54He smoked tobacco.

00:04:55He did everything he wasn't supposed to do.

00:04:57And his mama wanted him to be a Presbyterian preacher.

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.

00:05:36He 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, they're not well-constructed always, and he would misspell a word and misspell

00:06:49it 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.

00:07:18Turn 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.

00:07:46Jackson 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

00:10:40to 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.

00:11:33In 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

00:11:45founders.

00:11:46It worked well for the Donaldsons in Nashville at that time, which was on the edge of Indian

00:11:52country, which was 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.

00:12:49But in the context of that day, even if you realize you married the wrong man, you had

00:12:55to stay with that man for 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.

00:13:49Would 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.

00:14:38The reason why history records that Andrew and Rachel Jackson accidentally committed

00:14:45bigamy is that in 1828, when Jackson was running for president, a new moral imperative

00:14:52had taken hold.

00:14:53And the standards, modern standards of middle-class marriage, bourgeois marriage, prevailed.

00:15:00So 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,

00:15:48and should be 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

00:18:01job 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.

00:20:02Dickinson is supposed to have put his hand to his chest to stanch the bleeding.

00:20:07And very slowly, 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,

00:20:39Andrew Jackson spent three months recuperating.

00:20:43He began studying military strategies, hoping to one day prove his abilities as major general

00:20:49of the Tennessee militia.

00:20:54When the United States declared war against Britain in 1812, no one wanted to be part of

00:21:00the fight more than Jackson.

00:21:03Even though military commanders in Washington had doubts about the militia, Jackson was

00:21:07ordered to march his 2,000 volunteers toward the port of New Orleans in preparation for

00:21:13a possible British landing and assault.

00:21:17Jackson and his troops set out in January 1813.

00:21:21It took three months to cover the first 500 miles.

00:21:25But when the army arrived in Natchez, then part of the Mississippi Territory,

00:21:30Jackson received infuriating news.

00:21:34He got an order to disband the troops.

00:21:36They weren't needed and to send them home.

00:21:39The War Department didn't want the troops there.

00:21:41The War Department didn't want to pay to march them back, to provision and march them back.

00:21:45And Jackson was outraged by all of this.

00:21:48How were they going to get home?

00:21:49They didn't have any money.

00:21:50Many of them were sick.

00:21:51So Jackson did what Jackson was pretty good at doing under similar circumstances.

00:21:54He simply defied the orders.

00:21:56And 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,

00:22:06Jackson paid for provisions 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,

00:22:17his childhood smallpox, and old gunshot wounds.

00:22:22Even so, the 46-year-old general gave up his horse

00:22:26to transport volunteers too sick to walk on their own.

00:22:31He 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.

00:22:36But Jackson got up there with the rest of them and got muddy and got to brambles,

00:22:41all of them cut in his face and so forth.

00:22:43And one of these boys, these soldiers, said,

00:22:45Old 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.

00:22:55And 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.

00:23:06But another bitter conflict, unknown to most Americans at the time,

00:23:11changed Jackson's fate in dramatic fashion.

00:23:17At the same time the British attacked America in the War of 1812,

00:23:21Red Stick Indians in the southeast, so named for the color of their war clubs,

00:23:26ceremoniously consumed the black drink,

00:23:30a form of coffee charged with caffeine.

00:23:34Its purpose? To purify and energize warriors before battle.

00:23:39For the Red Sticks, that battle would, in fact, be all-out war.

00:23:47Following the lead of legendary northern Shawnee chief Tecumseh,

00:23:51Red Sticks were prepared to fight to the death to control their land.

00:23:56Tecumseh felt strongly that American Indian survival

00:23:59depended on the unity of all tribes fighting white encroachment.

00:24:04But his views caused division within tribes.

00:24:08What Tecumseh was preaching was frankly nothing less than a race war.

00:24:12This was going to be Indians against whites.

00:24:14Not all the Creeks buy into this.

00:24:16Other Creeks decide that Tecumseh is dreaming,

00:24:20that the Indians will never be able to reclaim their 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

00:24:29is to split the Creek Nation with the Red Sticks going on the offensive

00:24:34and the other Creeks deciding they don't want to have anything to do with it.

00:24:38Many Creeks had already adopted the white man's ways.

00:24:43Some of them actually, if you saw them on the streets,

00:24:46you wouldn't think they were Creek Indians back at that time.

00:24:49You would think they were just plantation owners.

00:24:52Since Europeans first came to America,

00:24:55many whites married Indians, creating mixed-blood generations.

00:25:00As soon as white men start to appear,

00:25:03they don't leave their emotions and their lust behind.

00:25:07And frequently they married,

00:25:10especially those who planned to stay for a reasonable length of time.

00:25:15One of the most respected mixed-bloods in the Creek tribe

00:25:18was William Weatherford, 7 8th Scottish and 1 8th Creek.

00:25:23Weatherford believed in Tecumseh

00:25:25and became a leader of the Red Stick Warriors,

00:25:28known as Chief Red Eagle.

00:25:31He spoke, of course, both the Creek language and English,

00:25:35and he was adept to some extent in both worlds,

00:25:38certainly the Creek world.

00:25:40And he was a very dynamic, well-respected man.

00:25:47In August 1813, after Red Sticks began attacking settlers and Indian sympathizers,

00:25:53some 550 sought protection inside Fort Mims in what would become Alabama.

00:25:59300 were white, including 175 militia,

00:26:03and 250, nearly half, were mixed-bloods and Creek Indians.

00:26:09It was a civil war.

00:26:11You know, in the civil war the United States had,

00:26:13we had brothers on both sides.

00:26:15This was just another civil war,

00:26:17and 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

00:26:25before they attacked Fort Mims,

00:26:27and then it just happened.

00:26:41On August 30th, Red Sticks invaded the fort,

00:26:44pouring through a gate stuck open by drifting dirt and sand.

00:26:49Woo!

00:26:55They systematically slaughtered whomever they found.

00:26:59They took infants by the feet

00:27:02and slammed their heads against the walls of the fort.

00:27:05It was pretty awful,

00:27:07and it's like a terrorist attack today.

00:27:15When news spread of the attack,

00:27:17it was described as a massacre of whites by Indians.

00:27:21No mention was made of the Indian victims

00:27:24or about a tribal civil war.

00:27:30As the closest military unit to Fort Mims,

00:27:33Jackson's Tennessee militia was ordered to Alabama

00:27:36to fight the Red Sticks.

00:27:38Their first encounter at the Creek village of Talasachie

00:27:42was as brutal as the attack on Fort Mims.

00:27:48Jackson enticed the Indians to come out and to attack him.

00:27:53His boys came out on either side with their guns from the woods,

00:27:57and they had the Indians on three sides, surrounded.

00:28:01There was great bloodshed.

00:28:17I think 400 or 500 Indians were killed at that point,

00:28:20and very few of Jackson's people.

00:28:23In the aftermath of this battle,

00:28:26Jackson's men come across this very small child.

00:28:29He's an orphan, and he's sitting there,

00:28:31surrounded by the smoke and ruin and bodies of the battlefield.

00:28:35And the child is brought to Jackson,

00:28:39and he's asked, what do you do with the kid?

00:28:42And Jackson decides to adopt the child,

00:28:45sends him to Nashville,

00:28:47and he and Rachel raise the child as their own.

00:28:50I think, as he said, this child was sent to me for some purpose,

00:28:55and he saw in that child himself as a boy, an orphan.

00:29:01There's this odd combination of the ferocious warrior

00:29:06who can kill tens, dozens, hundreds of Indians in a battle,

00:29:11and then this tender father who is going to take the helpless child,

00:29:16take him into his family and raise him as his own.

00:29:19Remarkable character, this Jackson.

00:29:22Rachel and Andrew raised the child

00:29:24at 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

00:29:45as evidence of his benevolent attitude toward Native people.

00:29:50These historians who say how wonderful he was,

00:29:53well, he adopted an Indian boy.

00:29:56They don't put in there he adopted that Indian boy

00:29:58after he slaughtered their mom and dad.

00:30:02Following months of fighting with the Indians,

00:30:05Jackson was ready for the climactic battle of his Red Stick Wars.

00:30:10It would take place in an area of the Mississippi Territory

00:30:14which later became Alabama,

00:30:16where a strip of land was surrounded by the Tallapoosa River

00:30:20on three sides, Horseshoe Bend.

00:30:24There, 1,000 Red Sticks had built their home

00:30:28There, 1,000 Red Sticks had built what they hoped

00:30:31was an impenetrable defensive fortification.

00:30:35Jackson wrote about the imposing structure

00:30:38in one of his earliest first-person accounts of his battles.

00:30:43Nature finishes few situations so eligible for defense.

00:30:47Across the neck of the land,

00:30:48they had erected a breastwork of greatest compactness and strength.

00:30:52From five to eight feet high

00:30:53and prepared with rows of portholes very artfully arranged.

00:30:57An army could not approach it

00:30:58without being exposed to a double crossfire

00:31:00from the enemy who lay in perfect security behind it.

00:31:06Jackson had only two small cannons to attack the fortress,

00:31:10but he had a powerful 1,500-man army

00:31:13which included his militia as well as U.S. Army regulars

00:31:17and strong officers.

00:31:19Lieutenant Sam Houston was among the bravest.

00:31:23General John Coffey,

00:31:24with the aid of Indian interpreter Salukta,

00:31:27would lead an additional force of more than 1,500 Cherokee,

00:31:31Creek, and Choctaw Indians

00:31:33who had agreed to fight for Jackson.

00:31:37There were a lot of Indians

00:31:38that were considering their own tribe's self-interest

00:31:42above anything else.

00:31:44Others thought it was worth the gamble

00:31:46that if they allied themselves with the Americans

00:31:49against the Red Sticks

00:31:50that maybe the Americans then would leave them alone.

00:31:53Let's do it, gentlemen.

00:31:54There is an old Indian expression

00:31:57that if Jackson made war on you,

00:32:01all he had to do was look at you,

00:32:03and you dropped dead.

00:32:05Jackson was not the man that you quarreled with.

00:32:08He's not the man you fought.

00:32:10He's a man who can do great things for you

00:32:14if he has a mind to.

00:32:16He is not a man to be challenged

00:32:19and certainly not a man to fight against.

00:32:23Gentlemen, move on down the hill.

00:32:25On March 27, 1814,

00:32:28the Battle of Horseshoe Bend began.

00:32:31I detailed Coffey with the Indian force

00:32:33to pass the river at a ford about three miles

00:32:36below their encampment

00:32:37and to surround the bend in such a manner

00:32:39that none of them should escape

00:32:41by attempting to cross the river.

00:32:43With the remainder of the forces,

00:32:45I proceeded along the point of land

00:32:47which leads to the front of the breastwork.

00:32:50And at half past 10 o'clock a.m.,

00:32:53I had planted my artillery

00:32:55and immediately opened a brisk fire upon its center.

00:32:59Fire!

00:33:06It was no surprise to Jackson

00:33:08that his small cannons did little damage

00:33:10to the walls of the Red Stick defense.

00:33:18Jackson's Indian allies chose to distract the Red Sticks

00:33:22by attacking from the rear.

00:33:26Jackson then launched his main army

00:33:28against the heart of the Indian fortification.

00:33:33This frontal assault was led by Houston,

00:33:36who later gained fame in the fight for Texas independence.

00:33:40A large body of Jackson's force charged this breastwork

00:33:47and Houston himself got up on it.

00:33:53Got shot twice, got sabered, got speared,

00:33:56got shot with bows and arrows and everything.

00:34:01The Red Sticks are simply right behind the walls

00:34:04and so it's at point-blank range.

00:34:06Sam Houston has to be dragged off of the field,

00:34:09bleeding, it looks like he's going to die from his wounds.

00:34:12But through numbers, through determination,

00:34:15Jackson's men managed to force their way

00:34:18across the top of the wall.

00:34:20It's the most bitter fighting imaginable.

00:34:23In fact, it's kind of hard to imagine how it all took place

00:34:26because it went on for hours.

00:34:35The carnage that ensued was horrific.

00:34:40According to eyewitness accounts,

00:34:42the river ran red with the blood of the Indians killed.

00:34:47Out of Jackson's force of 3,000 Americans and Indians,

00:34:51only six men died in the five-hour battle.

00:34:55But for the Red Sticks, Horseshoe Bend was a complete disaster.

00:35:00Officers who had the best opportunities of judging

00:35:03believed the loss of the enemy not to fall short of 800.

00:35:08Jackson did not describe in his reports

00:35:10the methods used to determine the exact number of enemy dead.

00:35:15What we have at the end of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend

00:35:19is Jackson's men doing a reliable body count

00:35:22among the hundreds of the slain Indians

00:35:24that lay there on the battlefield

00:35:27by slicing off parts of their noses to keep a reliable count.

00:35:35Following the battle at Horseshoe Bend,

00:35:37one 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,

00:35:47the mixed-blood Red Stick leader.

00:35:50Weatherford decides that he is going to

00:35:53essentially take responsibility for the uprising, for the rebellion,

00:35:56and presents himself to Jackson and says,

00:35:59Here I am, essentially as a defeated general.

00:36:03Mr. Weatherford, I've brought you an offering.

00:36:08And Jackson doesn't know quite what to make of this at first,

00:36:12but treats Weatherford as defeated, honorable enemy

00:36:18and lets him go.

00:36:20Many of Jackson's troops were surprised and angry

00:36:24that Jackson spared Weatherford's life.

00:36:27Jackson was quite an egomaniac

00:36:32and he recognized the leadership and the courage of the opponents

00:36:36because that made him more the man.

00:36:40So when William Weatherford came in and talked with him,

00:36:43I have heard through some of the oral traditions

00:36:45that Weatherford said to him,

00:36:47If I had another 800 troops, I would still be fighting you.

00:36:53He would not have given up.

00:36:55And Jackson perhaps took Weatherford's attitude

00:37:00and saw something in it of himself.

00:37:04Whatever his motivation for releasing Weatherford,

00:37:07Jackson had achieved what white settlers sorely desired,

00:37:11the ability to move west without fear of Indian reprisal.

00:37:16On August 9, 1814, the Treaty of Fort Jackson

00:37:20took from the tribal nations 23 million acres in Georgia and Alabama.

00:37:26The treaty made no allowance for loyalty.

00:37:29Included in the white territory was land belonging to the very Indians

00:37:34who had fought as Jackson's allies.

00:37:38The terms of that treaty were monstrously unfair

00:37:41and it took away half the lands of the Creek Nation,

00:37:44very much to the satisfaction, of course, of Jackson.

00:37:48He didn't see it as you've done for me

00:37:51and therefore I have to do for you in repayment.

00:37:55All I know is that the creeks live in this area

00:38:01and they have to be punished and we are taking away this amount of land.

00:38:06And if you're affected, that's too bad.

00:38:08I'm first, you know, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

00:38:13In 1814, as Jackson and his forces were battling the Red Sticks in the south,

00:38:19the regular U.S. Army was under intense attack by the British in the northeast.

00:38:24The War of 1812 has been going on now for almost three years

00:38:27and it hasn't been going well for the United States at all.

00:38:30Culminating in a horribly humiliating invasion of the United States

00:38:35by the British in the northeast.

00:38:39So the country was extremely unhappy.

00:38:42What they saw was, we're losing this war and we're losing our economy

00:38:47and it is likely that this little experiment in democracy

00:38:53is not going to survive this conflict.

00:38:56The United States had to do something about it.

00:38:59The United States had to do something about it.

00:39:02This little experiment in democracy is not going to survive this conflict.

00:39:09Andrew Jackson was promoted from Major General of the Tennessee Militia

00:39:13to the same position in the regular U.S. Army.

00:39:17When military leaders in Washington learned Britain might attempt a landing by sea

00:39:21near the 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,

00:39:38but he's the only one they've got and he's in the area.

00:39:42And so they say, New Orleans, this is your place to shine,

00:39:46this is your place to win or 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 River.

00:39:57One army, moving north up the river, would join another moving south from Canada,

00:40:02splitting the country in half.

00:40:05With the Northeast already under British control,

00:40:08the capture of New Orleans was critical to their plan.

00:40:12No 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,

00:40:25led by the same officer who commanded them now, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham.

00:40:31Jackson desperately needed well-trained, organized, combat-tested troops.

00:40:36But what he had was quite different.

00:40:39A 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.

00:40:58Of Jackson's 4,000 troops, less than 10% were U.S. regulars.

00:41:05Jackson was outnumbered more than two to one.

00:41:08But his most critical need was artillery.

00:41:11He cleverly sought help from an unlikely man, Jean Lafitte, a French pirate

00:41:17who had plundered hundreds of merchant ships off the shores of Louisiana and Texas.

00:41:22Though Lafitte insisted, never an American vessel.

00:41:26Lafitte offered not only his service as an intelligence officer,

00:41:31but he offered something that Jackson didn't have and could not resist.

00:41:36An almost endless store of gunpowder, flints for the muskets, cannonballs.

00:41:45Things that Jackson didn't have and had no way to get.

00:41:49Despite this new source of weaponry,

00:41:52the odds were stacked against the American mismatched collection of fighters.

00:41:57This didn't bother Jackson.

00:42:00Jackson 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 he could win.

00:42:10And gradually he made his troops, his motley array constituted his army,

00:42:16believe that they could win too.

00:42:19And in military affairs, confidence, the expectation of victory is more than half the battle.

00:42:26On December 23, 1814, British troops came ashore south of New Orleans

00:42:32and encamped on sugar plantations at the edge of the Mississippi River.

00:42:39Jackson took the offensive.

00:42:41As night fell, he marshaled his ragtag army and headed directly for the British camp.

00:42:56Cannoneers opened fire from a ship on the Mississippi,

00:42:59sending the Redcoats scrambling for cover.

00:43:09Before the British could react, Jackson's troops were among them,

00:43:13fighting with anything that could be used as a weapon.

00:43:17Jackson attacked.

00:43:19In the pitch black dark, there was no moon.

00:43:22And what ensued was a melee.

00:43:25Whether it was rifle butts, rifle fire, swords, knives, fists, rocks, guns, strangling hands.

00:43:35This was not the kind of warfare the British expected.

00:43:38They were accustomed to fighting in daylight,

00:43:41charging in waves that intimidated their enemy.

00:43:44But these were guerrilla type tactics.

00:43:47After the successful surprise attack,

00:43:49Jackson pulled back and moved to fortify the city's major defenses.

00:43:55Jackson planned to stop the British by taking advantage of the canals,

00:43:59swamps, and terrain surrounding New Orleans.

00:44:02He chose to make his stand one mile north of the British camp,

00:44:06which put his army between the city and the enemy,

00:44:09with a river and a swamp protecting his flanks.

00:44:13A drainage canal provided the perfect position to build a parapet,

00:44:17a wall of earth and wood,

00:44:19which could hopefully be built strong enough to repel the most vicious British attack.

00:44:24Jackson ordered his militia to start digging trenches.

00:44:28Faster, men! Faster!

00:44:31But the men complained and worked slowly.

00:44:34Jackson realized that time is of the essence,

00:44:37so he brings in some slaves and has the slaves start doing the work.

00:44:42Well, that makes the white soldiers even more reluctant to get down in the mud,

00:44:45get down in the ditches next to the slaves.

00:44:48You will dig together, and we will fight together.

00:44:52But Jackson isn't going to brook that kind of finickiness,

00:44:56and so he insists, you know, on pain of being declared a mutineer.

00:45:01Insists you're going to get down and you're going to dig the trenches.

00:45:04Under Jackson's stern direction, his parapet fortification began to take shape.

00:45:09Slaves and soldiers worked day and night, side by side.

00:45:14Dirt dug to form the trench became a mound to support the parapet, reinforced with wood.

00:45:20The 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

00:45:37thanks to a telescope given him by a local astronomer.

00:45:41At night, he continued his guerrilla-style attacks,

00:45:45sending Indians and malicious sharpshooters to pick off British sentries.

00:45:54This constant irritation and stinging operations that would come at you

00:46:01kept you on edge night and day. It was awful.

00:46:06It was very hard on the nerves and on the temperament.

00:46:10And, you know, it's really demoralizing.

00:46:14The British reaction to this was to send a note to Jackson

00:46:19that this behavior was ungentlemanly.

00:46:22And Jackson's response to that was that it was ungentlemanly

00:46:25for the British to be occupying American soil and they should go back where they came from.

00:46:31On December 28, 1814, five days after the Redcoats landed,

00:46:37they first tested Jackson's defensive line.

00:46:40The maneuver began with the British firing newly developed Congreve rockets.

00:46:45It was really a glorified bottle rocket.

00:46:48The British brought them down to New Orleans thinking,

00:46:51these poor bumpkins from Louisiana had never seen one of these,

00:46:55and if we shoot off enough of them, they're going to turn and run.

00:46:59In fact, the consensus among the Americans was that they thought they were rather pretty.

00:47:09The initial British offensive lasted less than three hours.

00:47:17Small cannons and muskets fired from a distance made no impact whatsoever on Jackson's wall.

00:47:24Pakenham withdrew to devise another plan.

00:47:28He ordered heavier cannons brought in from ships anchored offshore.

00:47:33On the morning of January 1, 1815,

00:47:36Pakenham waited for a heavy fog to lift before unleashing his bombardment.

00:47:45The New Year's Day battle was, in reality, a duel of cannon and musket.

00:47:50The famed, powerful British on one side,

00:47:53and a band of pirates on the other.

00:47:57Despite the heavier shot fired by the British naval guns,

00:48:01Jackson's parapet held firm.

00:48:04The aim of Jean Lafitte's pirate cannoneers proved incredibly accurate.

00:48:09The British had used barrels of sugar to fortify their batteries.

00:48:14Not a good idea.

00:48:16When you hit a barrel of sugar with a cannonball,

00:48:20the sugar goes everywhere.

00:48:22It does not stop the cannonball, but also gets everywhere,

00:48:26including in the breeches of the cannons and in the firing holes and everywhere else,

00:48:31and melts or crystallizes or whatever sugar does when it gets really stressed.

00:48:37So the great artillerymen,

00:48:39who were the most powerful in the world at the time,

00:48:43So the great artillery duel did not work for the British,

00:48:47and the Americans were greatly cheered to see the British run away from their guns

00:48:52or drag whatever they could of them off.

00:48:55Pakenham was again forced to rethink his strategy.

00:48:58He had been reluctant to storm the American defenses

00:49:01because of the potential for high casualties.

00:49:04But the failed bombardment forced his hand.

00:49:07On the morning of January 8th,

00:49:10Jackson's troops watched with fear

00:49:13as wave after wave of Redcoats marched toward the parapet.

00:49:17Hold your fire, men.

00:49:20Jackson has to calm his men, his militia in particular,

00:49:24are used to firing from a distance of 300 yards

00:49:27and then taking up a new position if necessary.

00:49:30Well, there's no new position. You've got to stay where you are.

00:49:33And if they fire too great a distance, much of their fire will be wasted.

00:49:37So Jackson has to convince them

00:49:40that they need to wait until the British get close enough

00:49:43that their fire can have a real effect.

00:49:45Hold your fire.

00:49:48Just before the British infantry came within range of Jackson's riflemen,

00:49:52Lafitte's cannons let loose on the approaching mass of Redcoats

00:49:56with newly crafted types of ammunition.

00:50:01The American artillery fire has this terrific, horrendous effect

00:50:05on the ranks of British infantry as they come,

00:50:08just mowing down large numbers.

00:50:11The artillery they're firing, grapeshot,

00:50:13they're firing just loose pieces of metal.

00:50:15It's anti-personnel stuff.

00:50:17And it wipes out dozens or hundreds of the British at a blow.

00:50:20But the British keep coming. They keep coming.

00:50:23Jackson managed to hold back his anxious sharpshooters

00:50:26until the last possible moment.

00:50:29Finally, he gave the command.

00:50:31Fire!

00:50:35Then they unleash this horribly punishing volley,

00:50:38one volley after another.

00:50:40In this case, it's the British ranks that break,

00:50:42and the British are forced to find shelter wherever they can.

00:50:46Pakenham told his men not to rush the parapet

00:50:49until ladders were in place.

00:50:52He would order the launch of a Congreve rocket

00:50:55to signal a Redcoat charge.

00:50:58But the smoke obscured his view.

00:51:01Finally, out of desperation, he gave the order.

00:51:04Fire the rocket!

00:51:13The Redcoats ran directly into a ceaseless barrage

00:51:16of musket fire from Jackson's troops.

00:51:19No ladders were waiting for them.

00:51:25American sharpshooters opened up at near point-blank range

00:51:28on the British soldiers as they futilely tried to cross the moat

00:51:32and climb the earthen parapet.

00:51:35Just then, a bullet struck General Pakenham in the leg,

00:51:39and right after that, another bullet struck Pakenham

00:51:42and killed him dead.

00:51:44So the British at that point were without any commanders

00:51:47of the general rank.

00:51:49The regimental commanders were not sure what to do.

00:51:54In less than an hour,

00:51:56the British assault had completely disintegrated.

00:51:59Those who could ran for their lives.

00:52:02Others laid on the ground using the bodies of dead comrades

00:52:05as barriers against the continued onslaught of American gunfire.

00:52:10When that smoke finally drifted away,

00:52:13a horrendous scene revealed itself

00:52:17as a sea of red right before Jackson's rampart.

00:52:23It was the red coats of the British who had been killed,

00:52:28and a silence came over the battlefield

00:52:31because the Americans had stopped shooting.

00:52:35When the Americans went out there,

00:52:37they couldn't believe what they saw.

00:52:39After they counted up the British killed, wounded, prisoners,

00:52:43the number was more than 2,000.

00:52:46When they counted up their own casualties,

00:52:49killed, wounded, captured,

00:52:51it was about two dozen.

00:52:53Jackson and his army of misfits

00:52:55had achieved what the U.S. regular army in Washington could not.

00:52:59They had defeated the most powerful army in the world.

00:53:10Andrew Jackson's victory in New Orleans

00:53:12sparked celebrations throughout the country.

00:53:15Ironically, the war had actually ended

00:53:18two weeks before the defeat of the redcoats,

00:53:21with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent,

00:53:23in what is now Belgium.

00:53:25But the news arrives from the battle first.

00:53:28The news is, Jackson has won.

00:53:31That's what Americans first hear.

00:53:33Next they hear, hey, the war is over.

00:53:35And if you put two and two together in this way,

00:53:38they think, my gosh, Andy Jackson won the war.

00:53:41And it's contributed a great deal to Jackson's subsequent reputation.

00:53:45He became known as the second George Washington.

00:53:48The first George Washington had achieved American independence.

00:53:51The second George Washington, Jackson,

00:53:53had 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,

00:54:14they did not see her through the same loving and kind eyes

00:54:19as Jackson and Rachel's friends saw her.

00:54:22Instead, they saw a woman who was approaching 50,

00:54:26which at that time was well past a woman's prime.

00:54:29And they essentially had a field day

00:54:32making fun of poor Rachel behind her back.

00:54:38When the Army reorganized into northern and southern divisions

00:54:41in the spring of 1815,

00:54:43Jackson was awarded with the command of the southern division.

00:54:46He was permitted to set up headquarters at his home, the Hermitage.

00:54:50Rachel was delighted.

00:54:54Although they never had their own children,

00:54:56they had two adopted sons, the orphaned Indian boy

00:55:00and Rachel's nephew, whose father, Rachel's brother,

00:55:03couldn't afford to raise him.

00:55:05They named that boy Andrew Jackson, Jr.

00:55:09Throughout Rachel's marriage to Andrew Jackson,

00:55:12she always asked him to give up public life and come home.

00:55:16She reminded Jackson very often that earthly honors meant nothing.

00:55:21It was what you expected in regard to reward from heaven.

00:55:26But Jackson's respite at the Hermitage was short-lived.

00:55:30Tensions between Indians and white settlers were still running high.

00:55:35Jackson led his army throughout the southeast,

00:55:38taking control of more Indian land by treaty or bloodshed.

00:55:43In 1817, Jackson was ordered by President James Monroe

00:55:48to stop the Seminole Indians who occupied Spanish-controlled Florida

00:55:52from crossing into U.S. territory.

00:55:56The 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?

00:56:07He bypasses the Secretary of War and goes right to the President,

00:56:12to the main man, and says,

00:56:14Just give me the word and I can take Florida.

00:56:18Now, that's an act of war, and only Congress can declare war.

00:56:23Well, in those days, the President is the commander-in-chief of the army.

00:56:29And Jackson is convinced, and so am I,

00:56:32that Monroe does give him that authority.

00:56:38Jackson found himself skirmishing with Seminole Indians and Spaniards in Florida,

00:56:45but he knew his real enemy was still the British,

00:56:48hoping to keep American borders from expanding.

00:56:52When Jackson distrusted the British, he had every reason for doing so.

00:56:57The British actually had been behind the Indian uprising.

00:57:00The British were encouraging the Spanish to mischief in Florida.

00:57:06The British recognized that the United States was a long-term threat

00:57:11to Britain's power in North America and in the Atlantic,

00:57:14and they were doing everything they could to contain that 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,

00:57:29accepting an appointment as governor to organize the new territorial government.

00:57:33Rachel joined him in Pensacola.

00:57:36There's perception of her that she was perhaps demure

00:57:41and didn't want to involve herself in political affairs.

00:57:44But what we see in Pensacola is her taking a very active role

00:57:49in advising Jackson on how he feels he should govern that city.

00:57:54Jackson needed only 11 weeks to set up Florida's new government.

00:58:00Shortly after returning home, he suffered a physical breakdown.

00:58:05At 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.

00:58:17Though retirement seemed inevitable,

00:58:19Jackson became obsessed about rampant corruption in Washington,

00:58:24and his sense of moral outrage pushed him to consider running for president.

00:58:29What really got Jackson's attention, what really convinced him

00:58:32that he had to put his hat in the ring, was when people said,

00:58:37you are a soldier, you have said that you support the interests of the American people.

00:58:42Well, if you're serious about this, and if the American people call you to office,

00:58:47you have no choice but to answer the call.

00:58:50So 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.

00:59:12It didn't say how the states would choose electors.

00:59:14And in most states, until the 1820s, the electors were chosen by the state legislatures.

00:59:18But during the 1810s and 1820s, increasingly,

00:59:21ordinary voters get to cast their ballots for president,

00:59:24not only for the electors, but in effect, for president.

00:59:27Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, appealed to voters across the nation

00:59:31and easily won the popular vote with a count of 153,000.

00:59:36John Quincy Adams, whose support came primarily from the Northeast, received 108,000 votes.

00:59:43Treasury Secretary William Crawford and House Speaker Henry Clay

00:59:47narrowly split another 90,000 votes.

00:59:50Jackson also received the most electoral votes, 99.

00:59:54But he needed a true majority, 131, to become president.

01:00:02As provided by the Constitution,

01:00:04members of the House of Representatives had to choose among the three frontrunners,

01:00:09Jackson, Adams, and Crawford.

01:00:12The fourth-place finisher, Henry Clay, having received 37 electoral votes,

01:00:17was in a powerful position to sway the election.

01:00:20Clay was the hero of the West.

01:00:22He's from Kentucky, until Jackson comes along.

01:00:25Jackson's from Tennessee.

01:00:27And Jackson is the greater hero, being the military hero.

01:00:30So Clay swings his support to John Quincy Adams,

01:00:33who carries the day, wins the presidency, becomes president,

01:00:37and turns around and names Henry Clay to be Secretary of State.

01:00:42Now, in our day and age, this might not seem like a big deal.

01:00:45But in those days, it was everything.

01:00:47Because a succession of presidents before John Quincy Adams

01:00:51had gone from Secretary of State to President.

01:00:54So in naming Henry Clay to be Secretary of State,

01:00:57John Quincy Adams essentially made him heir apparent to the presidency.

01:01:03Jackson was furious.

01:01:05He publicly damned Clay for what he called a corrupt bargain.

01:01:10He called him Judas of the West.

01:01:13Judas has received his 30 pieces of silver,

01:01:18and he will have the same ending.

01:01:22Jackson and his supporters, they declared that the election had been stolen,

01:01:26the will of the people had been frustrated.

01:01:29And immediately, in the spring of 1825,

01:01:33they began the campaign of 1828.

01:01:36We often think today that elections last a long time.

01:01:39Not at all.

01:01:40They don't have anything on the campaigns of the 1820s.

01:01:45While Jackson remained in Tennessee over the next three years,

01:01:48his surrogates worked tirelessly throughout the country

01:01:51to secure the Democratic Party nomination.

01:01:54Although not officially defined as such,

01:01:57the election of 1828 produced the first choice

01:02:00between a Republican, John Quincy Adams,

01:02:03supported by established power brokers,

01:02:06and Jackson, the Democrat,

01:02:08who championed the cause of the common man.

01:02:12The election campaign of 1820

01:02:14was probably the dirtiest campaign in American political history.

01:02:18Everything that Jackson had done wrong,

01:02:21or that anybody thought had done wrong,

01:02:24was dragged out and used against him.

01:02:26They said some terrible things about his mother, Jackson's mother.

01:02:31They said she was a prostitute

01:02:33who was brought to this country to service British soldiers,

01:02:37and of Rachel Jackson, that she was a bigamist,

01:02:42and by implication, if not otherwise, a whore.

01:02:47Rachel never states that she's aware

01:02:51that she's become a liability for her husband.

01:02:54I think she was always confident in his love for her,

01:03:00even if perhaps she may have sensed

01:03:03that some of those around him might have seen her as baggage.

01:03:10The three years of organized campaigning

01:03:13by Jackson's supporters paid off.

01:03:15In November 1828, Jackson won both the popular vote

01:03:19and the electoral majority,

01:03:21becoming the seventh president of the United States.

01:03:25But his joy was short-lived,

01:03:27as Rachel had a heart attack one month later.

01:03:30General Jackson! General Jackson!

01:03:33What is it?

01:03:34On December 22nd, Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson died.

01:03:40At the moment of his greatest political victory,

01:03:43he suffers the most severe personal blow he could imagine.

01:03:47Rachel had been his lifelong companion,

01:03:50had been the love of his life, and now she's taken from him.

01:03:54On the day that they had originally scheduled to go to Washington,

01:03:57Rachel was buried instead,

01:03:59and Jackson chose to bury her in the garden at the Hermitage,

01:04:03which she had loved so much.

01:04:05Jackson was absolutely convinced that she was murdered

01:04:09by those people who had said these things about her,

01:04:13and on her tombstone he had written

01:04:16that here lies, you know, a sainted being

01:04:20who was viciously attacked

01:04:23but whose virtue could surpass it all.

01:04:33The death of his beloved wife sent President-elect Andrew Jackson

01:04:37plunging from triumph to despair.

01:04:40He couldn't imagine leaving the Hermitage

01:04:42and moving into the White House without Rachel as his first lady.

01:04:47He almost decided not to go to Washington.

01:04:50He believed that his emotional life, in a certain sense, was over,

01:04:54and for months after, he was in a very deep depression.

01:04:57He wrote the one thing that made him decide that he had to go

01:05:00was first of all the people had chosen him,

01:05:02and Jackson had an absolute reverence for the will of the people,

01:05:05but there was also something personal,

01:05:07and that was, my enemies have killed Rachel.

01:05:10They will pay.

01:05:12So off he goes to be inaugurated president.

01:05:16On March 4, 1829,

01:05:19Andrew Jackson took the oath of office as America's seventh president.

01:05:24As was customary at the time, the White House was open to the public

01:05:27following the inaugural ceremony.

01:05:3015,000 ecstatic supporters flocked to Washington to celebrate,

01:05:35and it seemed like every last one of them showed up at the reception.

01:05:40They poured into the rooms,

01:05:44and they thought they would knock the walls down.

01:05:47There were so many of them. They were jammed in.

01:05:50Poor Jackson himself was almost pinned against the wall,

01:05:54and he had to be helped out of the building

01:05:58and to his hotel in order to save him.

01:06:01And finally it got so bad, they thought the man would collapse.

01:06:05So they took the liquor and the other food that was being served out into the lawn,

01:06:11and people jumped through the windows to get to it.

01:06:15It was the people's candidate, the people's celebration.

01:06:24In his first message to Congress,

01:06:26Jackson unveiled the building blocks of what would become known as Jacksonian democracy,

01:06:32a government run by and dedicated to common men.

01:06:37He passionately went to work setting nearly impossible goals,

01:06:41abolish the electoral voting system,

01:06:43relocate all Indians west of the Mississippi River,

01:06:46extinguish the national debt,

01:06:49eliminate the Bank of the United States,

01:06:51a private institution he determined to be corrupt,

01:06:54and do away with paper currency.

01:06:59He dislikes paper money. He hates paper money.

01:07:02Paper money is used to corrupt.

01:07:05They can inflate paper.

01:07:07You know, you go to a printing machine and you can turn it out.

01:07:10It's worthless, and you get people to accept it.

01:07:13The only real money is what you can put between your teeth and feel it, like gold and silver.

01:07:20But Jackson realized his agenda was too ambitious.

01:07:24The trying to both reform election law and abolish paper money would likely be futile.

01:07:30So, he turned his attention to a fundamental constitutional dilemma

01:07:34that could endanger the union itself,

01:07:37the issue of federal versus state authority.

01:07:42South Carolina was threatening to secede if forced to obey federal tariff laws.

01:07:47It was a position supported by Jackson's political foe, Henry Clay,

01:07:51as well as his own vice president, John Calhoun, a native of South Carolina.

01:07:57Jackson was ready for a fight to preserve the sovereignty of the union.

01:08:03Jackson said, tell my friends in South Carolina

01:08:07that if any of them breathe a word of secession, I'm going to come down there

01:08:10and I'm going to hang them from the highest trees in the neighborhood.

01:08:14When Jackson talked that way, people paid attention.

01:08:17The South Carolinians decided, well, maybe we better reconsider.

01:08:20But if not for Jackson, the union might well have fallen apart.

01:08:24With the issue of secession under control,

01:08:27Jackson turned his attention to a private institution he believed was corrupt,

01:08:32the Bank of the United States.

01:08:35Jackson had real reservations about the Bank of the United States on two grounds.

01:08:40One is he thought it was unconstitutional.

01:08:42Secondly, he believed that it gave too much power over the American economy

01:08:47to this group of private bankers who would have their own private interests

01:08:52rather than the interests of the country as a whole.

01:08:55The U.S. Bank controlled the flow of silver and gold

01:08:58upon which state banks based the value of their paper money.

01:09:02Jackson despised the bank's ability to alter its value at will.

01:09:07He called the bank's director, Nicholas Biddle, Czar Nicholas,

01:09:11and the bank itself a monster needing to be chained.

01:09:15It was using its money for its own advantage.

01:09:19It was paying to have certain men elected,

01:09:23contributing towards their election,

01:09:26maintaining their position in Congress through their generous contributions.

01:09:33In theory, Biddle had nothing to worry about.

01:09:36The Supreme Court had ruled the bank constitutional,

01:09:39and its charter was not up for renewal until 1836,

01:09:43which would be the final year of Jackson's second term,

01:09:46if he ran and was re-elected.

01:09:49Henry Clay knew a big opportunity when he saw one.

01:09:53Teaming with Biddle, Clay convinced Congress to pass an early re-charter bill

01:09:58that would endow the bank for an additional 12 years.

01:10:02With the 1832 election just months away, Clay and Biddle drew Jackson into a trap.

01:10:09They essentially dared Andrew Jackson to veto the re-charter bill,

01:10:14thinking that Jackson wouldn't dare.

01:10:17The Bank of the United States was too essential to the economy,

01:10:20too essential to the business classes of the country.

01:10:23Well, they learned that Jackson wasn't somebody who lightly dared to do anything.

01:10:28Jackson knew vetoing the re-charter could pose a risk to his re-election.

01:10:35This stress only worsened his long-time physical maladies.

01:10:39Late at night in his White House bedroom,

01:10:42he frequently bled himself using a small pocket knife.

01:10:46The procedure, believed to cleanse the body of toxins,

01:10:49was normally performed by a physician, but Jackson did it himself.

01:10:55He is also known to have read each evening from his deceased wife Rachel's personal prayer book

01:11:01while holding a miniature portrait bearing her likeness.

01:11:04The loss of Rachel and the rigors of the presidency, particularly the bank issue,

01:11:09were taking their toll on this seemingly indomitable personality.

01:11:16Nonetheless, Jackson decided to veto the re-charter bill,

01:11:20thus making the future of the Bank of the United States

01:11:23the central issue of the 1832 presidential election.

01:11:28Jackson's opponent was none other than Henry Clay,

01:11:32who portrayed Jackson as King Andrew I,

01:11:35a despot trampling not just the National Bank, but the Constitution itself.

01:11:41Biddle and Henry Clay utterly misgaged how it was going to play.

01:11:47Jackson was able to say, I have defended the interests of the people.

01:11:51I have taken on the powerful commercial and financial interests.

01:11:56And he won. He won very handily in 1832,

01:12:00smacking down Biddle, smacking down Henry Clay.

01:12:04But Biddle, with four years remaining in the bank's current charter,

01:12:08struck back in a way many 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,

01:12:18shouldn't be dabbling in affairs that should be left to bankers

01:12:22who presumably knew what they were doing.

01:12:25To put pressure on Jackson, Biddle made life difficult for small businessmen,

01:12:30raising interest rates, refusing loan requests, and increasing foreclosures.

01:12:35When business owners appealed to Jackson for help, the president was blunt.

01:12:40Don't come to me, he said. Go to Biddle. He's the man with the money.

01:12:46Meanwhile, Jackson ordered the U.S. Treasury to move its silver and gold reserves

01:12:51from the U.S. bank into state banks.

01:12:55To pull out the federal deposits was in essence to drive a stake

01:12:59through the heart of the Bank of the United States.

01:13:02Biddle thinks that because he controls the money, he has the Trump card.

01:13:06But Jackson decides that this is a matter of principle.

01:13:09Democracy must rule.

01:13:11He pulled the deposits out, leaving the bank, leaving Biddle high and dry.

01:13:16Jackson could claim a great victory when the bank expired in 1836.

01:13:23Jackson, the uneducated commoner, was able to not only destroy the U.S. bank,

01:13:29but pay off the national debt, mainly by selling federal land.

01:13:34He has been the only American president in history to do so.

01:13:38Jackson believed that the federal government ought to live within its means

01:13:41just as an ordinary household did.

01:13:43And when he paid off the national debt,

01:13:45then he was able to go to bed that night with a great deal of satisfaction.

01:13:49Paying off the national debt was Jackson's proudest moment as president.

01:13:58As president, Andrew Jackson worked passionately to fulfill the needs of the common man.

01:14:04One of the strongest needs was new territory for safe settlement without Indian interference.

01:14:10As major general of the Tennessee militia in 1814,

01:14:14Jackson had shown how he used war to handle the Indian issue.

01:14:19In 1830, as president, he decided he would use the law to fight the Indians.

01:14:25He pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress.

01:14:29He believed on the basis of his own experience, what he had seen historically,

01:14:33that whites and Indian tribes could not live together peacefully.

01:14:39And he made it his position from the time he became president

01:14:42to encourage, ultimately to force,

01:14:45the Indian tribes that remained as tribes in the eastern part of the United States

01:14:50to move from the eastern part of the United States across the Mississippi

01:14:53to the unorganized territories west of the Mississippi.

01:14:57The Indian Removal Act effectively nullified all earlier treaties

01:15:02granting tribes control of land as sovereign nations.

01:15:07The Cherokee warriors who fought alongside Jackson in Georgia

01:15:10felt betrayed by the man they called Jaksashula Harjo, or Jackson, Old and Fierce.

01:15:18I read an account written by a Cherokee soldier

01:15:23who was with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

01:15:28That Cherokee rifleman said,

01:15:31Had he known in 1814 what Andrew Jackson was going to do to the Cherokee nation,

01:15:37he would have shot him in the field that day.

01:15:42The U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall,

01:15:45sided with the Cherokees, declaring the Removal Act unconstitutional.

01:15:51Jackson is reported to have said, in response to the 1832 decision,

01:15:57Justice Marshall has delivered his opinion, now let him enforce it.

01:16:02Jackson believed that as president, he had the right and the responsibility

01:16:07to interpret the Constitution as he saw fit.

01:16:10Jackson was not the first president to favor Indian removal.

01:16:14Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams all tried to persuade Indians to move west,

01:16:20but they never forced the issue.

01:16:22Andrew Jackson 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

01:16:34because some members of the family had been killed,

01:16:38and that that hatred she was able to communicate to her son,

01:16:44that's the enemy, be careful, they're savages.

01:16:48Andrew Jackson hated Indians.

01:16:50He hated them from early on, and he used that issue

01:16:55and his aggressiveness toward Native people to further his own career

01:17:00and to eventually become president because of it.

01:17:05Jackson hoped that Indians might peacefully oblige his wishes and move west voluntarily.

01:17:11When that didn't happen, he sent out federal agents to deliver a blunt message.

01:17:17Indians must obey state law or leave.

01:17:20Obeying state law meant they had to pay state taxes and serve in the state militia,

01:17:25even fighting other Indians if called upon.

01:17:29If the tribes believed they could stay on their land because of prior treaties,

01:17:33they were wrong.

01:17:35If you look at their treaties, every treaty is signed by these agents

01:17:40and somebody that was an interpreter.

01:17:43And, 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.

01:17:54First to leave were Choctaws from Mississippi, forced along by Army soldiers.

01:18:00During a bitter cold winter of 1831, the great-great-great-grandmother

01:18:05of University of Nebraska Professor Donna Akers

01:18:08walked 500 miles with her four small children,

01:18:12three died when a tree struck by lightning fell on them while they slept at night.

01:18:19The next morning, the soldiers came back and said that all the people had to start on down the trail.

01:18:28The women were, of course, still hysterical.

01:18:32They were mourning the death of these three little girls.

01:18:36And the men were very upset because they had not been able to do anything to help.

01:18:41And the troops told them that they had to move on anyway.

01:18:46So instead of being able to decently perform the rituals of the dead,

01:18:53they had to bury their 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

01:19:07in what collectively became known as the Trail of Tears.

01:19:12Many of them died actually before they even got started on the Trail of Tears

01:19:16because they were in these concentration camps exposed to the weather

01:19:20and crowded together in extremely unsanitary conditions with very little food.

01:19:28Last to leave, by force, were the Cherokees.

01:19:32Many were held in prison camps before being made to walk the journey in shackles.

01:19:39Let's go.

01:19:40I think some of them still thought they had a deal.

01:19:43I 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

01:19:53and they were being marched to that concentration camp prior to being sent out to Oklahoma.

01:19:59And that's what happened to them.

01:20:01Double-crossed. Double-crossed.

01:20:05Promised one thing and another thing happened time 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.

01:20:23Jackson's policy, the policy that culminated in the Trail of Tears,

01:20:26one of the great humanitarian tragedies in American history,

01:20:29was a policy that was of a piece with the policy of administrations before 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,

01:20:45this was the policy of 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.

01:20:56I went to school a long time ago, in grade school and high school, and we studied American history.

01:21:03There 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.

01:21:27And 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 of 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.

01:21:53Jackson 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 many foes.

01:22:09When many of Jackson's opponents spoke of him as a military dictator,

01:22:13yes, but who's 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

01:22:32when he was approached by a deranged, unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence.

01:22:39Lawrence raised a pistol and took dead aim at the president.

01:22:44The gun misfired.

01:22:46Lawrence immediately pulled out a second pistol and shot again at near point-blank range.

01:22:51Again, the gun misfired.

01:22:56Enraged, 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.

01:23:27As he traveled from Washington, D.C., back to Nashville, all along the route,

01:23:32people came out by the thousands to cheer old Hickory, to cheer the people's president.

01:23:37So he felt honored by the people.

01:23:40He felt the love of the people.

01:23:42But he had to look forward wondering what the next years were going to bring.

01:23:47When 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, Andrew Jackson, Jr.

01:23:57$7,000 in debt, Jackson was deprived of an easy retirement

01:24:02and struggled to survive, economically and physically.

01:24:09Chronic 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,

01:24:22but they will keep swarming upon me, crowds seeking for office.

01:24:27Jackson was enraged when Martin Van Buren lost his re-election bid to William Henry Harrison.

01:24:34The new party, Harrison's party, the Whigs, was the party that opposed everything that Jackson had stood for.

01:24:40So Jackson, in the early 1840s, could believe that much of what he had accomplished as president was now being unraveled.

01:24:49On 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.

01:25:04The slave woman, Hannah, in whose arms Rachel died 17 years earlier, was among those present for 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.

01:25:29When he finally expired, somebody turned to one of the servants and said,

01:25:36Do you think General Jackson has gone to heaven?

01:25:42The servant thought a minute and said,

01:25:45If General Jackson wants to go to heaven, who's going to stop him?

01:25:53That's Andrew Jackson.

01:25:57As 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 dramatically changed their lives.

01:26:11One measure of Jackson's importance to American history to his age is the fact that of all the common labels for eras in American history,

01:26:19the colonial era, the revolutionary era, the early national period, reconstruction, the New Deal, Cold War,

01:26:27there's only one that's named for an individual, the Jacksonian era.

01:26:31Jacksonian democracy summarizes the idea that in this country, political power ultimately rests with the people,

01:26:39that ordinary people should run this government.

01:26:43Today, many Americans simply know Andrew Jackson for his likeness on the $20 bill.

01:26:49Considering his lifelong ill health, it is a romanticized image, inspirational for some, disheartening for others.

01:26:59He's on the $20 bill because he's a great statesman.

01:27:03And at one time, all Americans regarded him as a hero.

01:27:08And they wanted to acknowledge the development of this unique experiment in democracy and freedom.

01:27:17You know, I've suggested to our tribal government we ought not accept $20 bills in the casino because his picture's on it.

01:27:24But that's what everybody's carrying right now.

01:27:27Generally, 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 the $20 bill.

01:27:48Jackson was indeed a person that led Americans down a path that was shameful

01:27:55and that was grossly wrong.

01:27:59And so why in the world we would adulate this man in our textbooks or on our currency is just absurd and unfortunate.

01:28:08Jackson was, he was an American original.

01:28:13And he represented, I think, the very best in American culture.

01:28:19He must have had self-doubts.

01:28:21Every 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 down,

01:28:35I 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 campaign funds from wealthy contributors,

01:28:53it would be easy to think that Jacksonian democracy 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.

01:29:09It was imperfect in Jackson's time.

01:29:11But people still do ultimately control politics.

01:29:15It would have surprised Jackson to know that more than half of American voters don't go to the polls today.

01:29:21He would have been very disappointed in that because it was something that he devoted his life to making possible.

01:29:27And now for people to just ignore politics would have struck him as mind-boggling.

01:29:33But in that respect, it demonstrates that Jackson simply was too successful.

01:29:38We take for granted much of what Jackson accomplished.

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