Andrew Jackson History Channel Documentary

Documentary World

Watch Andrew Jackson History Channel Documentary - Documentary World on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00:00They called him Old Hickory, America's first working-class president, a hero to the common

00:00:17man, a barbarian to the upper class, a cold-hearted demon to Indians, a steely-eyed fighter who

00:00:26made every battle personal, on dueling grounds, battlefields, and in the White House, a shrewd

00:00:34politician who branded his own form of democracy, who despised paper money, yet ended up on

00:00:43the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson.

00:00:56On January 8, 1815, Major General Andrew Jackson faced the challenge of a lifetime.

00:01:04In the climactic battle of the War of 1812, 10,000 British Redcoats invaded the South

00:01:10at New Orleans.

00:01:12One obstacle stood in the way of the British regaining their former colonies, Jackson and

00:01:17his ragged army of 4,000 militia, pirates, Indians, Creoles, and slaves.

00:01:25The British expected an easy victory, but they knew little of the man they were facing,

00:01:31whose determination to win was fueled by a deep personal hatred that went back more than

00:01:3630 years.

00:01:40In 1781, when Jackson was 14 and the Revolutionary War was raging, British soldiers stormed a

00:01:47cabin where he and his brother Robert tried to hide.

00:01:53The boys were taken prisoner for serving as couriers in the Continental Army.

00:01:58Three words from a British officer would light a fuse in Jackson that burned for a lifetime,

00:02:05Clean my boots.

00:02:08Jackson, with that insolence that would characterize him for his entire life, refused.

00:02:14He said, I'm a prisoner of war and I demand to be treated accordingly.

00:02:18Jackson had always been a sassy kid, and now he was miffed at having been taken prisoner.

00:02:23And the officer pulls his sword and takes a swipe at Jackson's head.

00:02:27And Jackson throws up his arm and caught the sword on the side of his hand, but it didn't

00:02:31quite prevent the sword from hitting him in the head.

00:02:34Blood runs down.

00:02:35For the rest of his life, he had this scar on his hand and a crease in his skull.

00:02:43Andrew and his brother were taken to a squalid British prison camp where they both contracted

00:02:47smallpox.

00:02:50They probably would have died there if not for their widowed mother, Elizabeth.

00:02:55She essentially made her case to the British officers in charge of the camp.

00:03:00These are only boys.

00:03:01You got to let them out.

00:03:02A mother's love, a mother's anger ultimately sufficed to spring Jackson and his brother.

00:03:08When she received her two sons, they were both desperately ill.

00:03:13She had only one horse, so she put the older boy, who was far worse, on the horse.

00:03:21And they walked about 40 miles.

00:03:24Jackson had to walk that distance behind them, still suffering from smallpox.

00:03:31And by the time they got home, the older boy was dead.

00:03:36And Jackson was delirious.

00:03:41For six months, Elizabeth struggled to keep Andrew alive at their cabin in the Carolinas

00:03:46Waxhaw region.

00:03:48Her husband was killed in a logging accident.

00:03:51Her oldest son died fighting for the Continental Army.

00:03:54They were typical of frontier families.

00:03:58The Westerners, the frontiersmen, they weren't people who were born to privilege or born

00:04:03to property.

00:04:04They were out on the frontier because they hadn't been doing so well where they came

00:04:08from.

00:04:09And they got used to the idea that whatever they were going to get in life, they were

00:04:12going to have to take.

00:04:14Andrew survived the smallpox.

00:04:16But six months later, his mother died of cholera, leaving Andrew a bitter, tough young orphan.

00:04:23He's taken up by one of the relatives, and he lives in the house.

00:04:28And there was some visitor who threatened him at one time, as I recall, and raised his

00:04:37hand to strike him.

00:04:39And the kid says to him, if you touch me, if you strike me, you're a dead man.

00:04:49As a young boy, he was a real hellion.

00:04:52I mean, he fought, he cursed, he drank, he smoked tobacco.

00:04:55He did everything he wasn't supposed to do, and his mama wanted him to be a Presbyterian

00:04:58preacher.

00:05:00That didn't work out.

00:05:04As a teenager, Jackson had no interest in any particular vocation or education.

00:05:11Money was earned by gambling on horse races and dice games.

00:05:15But as he matured, Jackson realized his life had to change.

00:05:21He wanted to better himself.

00:05:23He wanted more out of life.

00:05:26He decided that staying in the Waxhaws after the war offered nothing.

00:05:33So he decided to do what, at times, it seemed half the population of the frontier did.

00:05:37He decided to become a lawyer.

00:05:38It was a natural for Jackson.

00:05:40He was an argumentative sort, and lawyers argue for a living.

00:05:45He eventually found his way to Salisbury, North Carolina, where he studied the law under

00:05:51the highly esteemed attorney Spruce McKay.

00:05:56Spruce McKay had already taught the law to William Richardson Davy, a hero, Jackson's

00:06:03hero in the Revolutionary War.

00:06:06So you found a lawyer who was well-established and who had a law library, and you'd read.

00:06:11And if you had any kind of ambition, you'd gradually learn what lawyers did.

00:06:16You'd draw up wills.

00:06:17You'd draw up contracts.

00:06:18You'd learn the process.

00:06:20And if the clients wanted to risk their lawsuits on this young guy with very little experience,

00:06:26then it was their risk.

00:06:29And after a while, they discovered that Jackson was reasonably good at this.

00:06:33Jackson, although poorly educated, had a great command of the language.

00:06:42And if you read his letters, you know, they're not well-constructed always, and he would

00:06:47misspell a word, misspell it in four or five different ways on the same page.

00:06:54Spelling meant nothing.

00:06:56It was the conviction.

00:06:57It was the passion.

00:07:00It was the temper that he wished to communicate.

00:07:05For the first time in his life, 20-year-old Jackson had gained some respect.

00:07:10He began to shed the skin of his lower-class upbringing.

00:07:14But the suit of a gentleman proved an awkward fit.

00:07:19Turn the circle halfway round.

00:07:23After three years in Salisbury, North Carolina, Jackson had gained acceptance into town society.

00:07:29He wore the right clothes, said the right things.

00:07:33He even learned to dance.

00:07:36He had a kind of charisma.

00:07:38It was a kind of personality that drew people to him because they thought, if you stick

00:07:44with this guy, you can accomplish great things.

00:07:47Jackson had high expectations for himself.

00:07:50And he let people know that he was somebody who was going somewhere, and that once he

00:07:56set his mind to something, he was almost certain to accomplish it.

00:08:03Jackson attended the local dancing school so frequently, he was asked to manage Salisbury's

00:08:08annual Christmas ball.

00:08:10He invited all the proper young ladies and gentlemen to come, and as a joke, he invited

00:08:19the town's notorious prostitutes, thinking they would never come, understanding that

00:08:26it was a dance for the gentry.

00:08:31And they showed up in all their finery to the astonishment, if not the anger and outrage

00:08:39of the more genteel individuals at the dance, and they were really angry.

00:08:46Jackson could do outrageous things from time to time.

00:08:55Jackson's boisterous personality began to reveal itself in other ways as well.

00:09:00He fell in with a crowd of young guys about his own age, who decided the most exciting

00:09:05thing they could do was carouse at every opportunity.

00:09:08In one case, they got drunk and they somehow or other decided that they were going to build

00:09:14a fire, and the fire eventually got bigger, and they were going to throw more things in

00:09:18the fire, and they ultimately almost burned down the tavern where they were.

00:09:22Later on, after Jackson became famous, there were a whole lot of people who said, Jackson?

00:09:27Andrew Jackson?

00:09:28That guy we knew back then?

00:09:30It utterly boggled their minds to think that anything good had come from that young guy.

00:09:36In 1788, Jackson headed west to Tennessee, not yet a state, but a territory.

00:09:42He settled in Nashville, where, within a year, a superior court judge made 21-year-old

00:09:48Jackson a prosecutor, a prestigious appointment that did not go over well with many of his

00:09:54more experienced peers, including a lawyer named Waitstill Avery.

00:10:00He probably said, you don't really know the law, and I would suspect that might be true.

00:10:06Jackson took offense, and so he challenged him to a duel.

00:10:13When Jackson was a very young boy, just prior to his mother's passing away, one of the things

00:10:19she told him was, don't tell lies and don't accept slanders, but settle those problems

00:10:26yourself, by which she meant, don't sue for slander, call them out on the dueling fee.

00:10:32Jackson was somebody who often acted as though he had something to prove, and he did.

00:10:36I mean, what he had to prove was that he was worthy of people's respect, that folks ought

00:10:41to pay attention to him.

00:10:42And dueling, especially on that part of the frontier, was a way somebody earned respect.

00:10:48It was the first duel of Jackson's life.

00:10:51He was not a good shot, and he knew it.

00:10:54But since he had made the challenge, he had to go through with it.

00:10:57To save his own honor, Avery could not back down.

00:11:02Both aimed and fired, straight up into the air.

00:11:07Without anyone's knowledge, the men had privately agreed beforehand to avoid direct shots.

00:11:13It was a first sign that Jackson could control his temper.

00:11:17The young Hellion was beginning to mature.

00:11:20Whether or not it ultimately led to the exchange of gunfire, the real duel itself, it let people

00:11:25know that Jackson, Andrew Jackson, this young guy, wasn't somebody to be trifled with.

00:11:36In Nashville, Tennessee, Andrew Jackson felt at home.

00:11:40He lived at a boarding house owned by Rachel Stockley Donaldson, widow of one of Nashville's

00:11:46founders.

00:11:47It worked well for the Donaldsons in Nashville at that time, which was on the edge of Indian

00:11:52country, which is under constant threat of Indian attack.

00:11:55Every male body that you had, every person who could heft a gun, gave you a little bit

00:12:00more sense of security.

00:12:03Jackson became very fond of his landlord's daughter, Rachel Donaldson Robards.

00:12:08She was attractive, well-educated, and unlike most women at the time, openly spoke her mind.

00:12:16There was only one problem.

00:12:18She was already married to a man by the name of Louis Robards, who was a very suspicious

00:12:24type and who really believed the worst about his wife.

00:12:30His relationship with her was so bad that it was abusive.

00:12:35I don't know that she was physically abused, and probably not, but the mental abuse, I'm

00:12:42convinced, was excessive.

00:12:45Rachel had determined that she had probably married the wrong man, but in the context

00:12:50of that day, even if you realize you married the wrong man, you had to stay with that man

00:12:56for the rest of your life because there was no way out.

00:13:03By 1790, Rachel had moved to the Spanish-controlled territory of Natchez, Mississippi, without

00:13:09her husband.

00:13:11Jackson was a frequent visitor.

00:13:14The next year, the couple claimed they married in Natchez, believing that Rachel's husband

00:13:19had divorced her.

00:13:21What they resorted to was self-divorce, something that was not uncommon among the Scotch-Irish

00:13:29in Scotland, not uncommon on the American frontier.

00:13:36Andrew and Rachel's decision to marry would create controversy throughout their married

00:13:40life.

00:13:41Who married them?

00:13:44We don't know.

00:13:45There is absolutely no evidence.

00:13:48Could it have been a migrant preacher of some kind?

00:13:53Sure.

00:13:54But they were in Spanish territory, and only marriages conducted by a Catholic priest were

00:14:00legitimate.

00:14:03The Jacksons returned to Nashville and bought a small plantation with 15 slaves.

00:14:09But two years later, in 1793, they learned that Rachel's first husband had not divorced

00:14:15her, and he was now charging Rachel with adultery.

00:14:19Only then did a divorce become final.

00:14:22In January 1794, Andrew and Rachel were wed in a second, more legal ceremony in Tennessee.

00:14:31Years later, Jackson's political advisers would spin what happened as accidental bigamy.

00:14:39The reason why history records that Andrew and Rachel Jackson accidentally committed

00:14:46bigamy is that in 1828, when Jackson was running for president, a new moral imperative had

00:14:52taken hold.

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

00:15:01So no one wanted to hear anymore about an irregular frontier marriage, a self-divorce.

00:15:06It wouldn't stand up.

00:15:09Jackson's life as a plantation owner wouldn't last long.

00:15:13In 1796, at age 29, he was appointed Tennessee's first member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

00:15:20He soon made his presence known when he voted against a resolution of thanks to George Washington.

00:15:28He voted against it because George Washington had accepted the Jay Treaty, a treaty with

00:15:36Great Britain that humiliated this country.

00:15:42Washington was more and more seen as the great hero, which he was, of this nation, and should

00:15:49be revered.

00:15:50To have said and done anything against him made you something like a traitor to the country.

00:15:57But Jackson acted out of his own conviction.

00:16:01He was suspicious of the effete Easterner.

00:16:04He was suspicious of the devious congressman.

00:16:08He considered himself the antithesis of that.

00:16:12They were complicated.

00:16:13He was simple.

00:16:15After one year in the House and another in the Senate, Jackson quit and returned to Nashville.

00:16:21Jackson discovered that his wasn't what you could call a legislative personality.

00:16:27To succeed in a legislature, you have to, well, you know, sort of play well with other

00:16:32children, as the kindergarten teachers say.

00:16:35He had a lifelong antipathy toward professional politicians, even though he was one.

00:16:43And he benefited from them.

00:16:45At the age of 31, Jackson was appointed to another job, this time as circuit judge in

00:16:51Tennessee's Superior Court.

00:16:55As a judge, he was very effective.

00:16:58You knew by God what he meant and what he wanted you to do, and you did it.

00:17:06Sometimes that meant taking the law into his own hands.

00:17:10Like the time he went after a man who had resisted arrest by the local sheriff.

00:17:16People came to him and they said, why did you do that?

00:17:20And this man said, I looked at Jackson, and there was shoot in his eyes, and there wasn't

00:17:30shoot in the eyes of any of those other men.

00:17:34And so I said to myself, Haas, you better drop your weapons, and I did.

00:17:45Jackson had achieved a position in life far beyond his expectations.

00:17:50As years passed, he increasingly gained the respect of the people of Tennessee.

00:17:56While still a judge, Jackson participated in his first election and won the part-time

00:18:02job as Major General of Tennessee's Volunteer Militia.

00:18:07This may well have been the most important public office in the state, because the commander

00:18:12of the militia was the person charged with defending the community against external attack,

00:18:18which meant typically Indian attack or conceivably attack by the British or the Spanish.

00:18:28In 1804, Jackson resigned his judgeship to return to his plantation, oversee general

00:18:34merchandise stores and whiskey distilleries he had accumulated, and pursue his real passion,

00:18:40breeding and racing horses.

00:18:44But before Jackson could be tested as a military leader against Indians or the British, his

00:18:50honor would be called into question by a fellow racehorse owner.

00:18:56In 1806, a prominent Tennessee attorney, Charles Dickinson, got into a dispute with Jackson

00:19:02over a bet on a horse.

00:19:04In the heat of the argument, Dickinson called Rachel an adulteress.

00:19:09Dickinson challenged him to a duel.

00:19:11Jackson's honor incorporated everything, including the reputation of his wife.

00:19:15If Jackson did not address it immediately, then his honor would be lost.

00:19:23Many thought Jackson a fool, as Dickinson was known as the best shot in Tennessee.

00:19:28But Jackson had a daring and risky plan.

00:19:33Jackson decided in this duel that he wasn't going to try to fire first, because he wasn't

00:19:36confident enough of his aim to think that he could hit Dickinson in the heart or in

00:19:41the brain.

00:19:42So he decides ahead of time that he's simply going to stand there and let Dickinson take

00:19:45the first shot at him.

00:19:49Now as it happened, Dickinson had missed Jackson's heart by no more than about half an inch.

00:19:54The bullet was lodged in Jackson's ribcage.

00:19:57It's amazing.

00:19:58Just a short distance away and Jackson would have been dead.

00:20:02Jackson is supposed to have put his hand to his chest to stanch the bleeding, and very

00:20:08slowly, very carefully, very deliberately, he took aim, fired, and killed him.

00:20:21Jackson of course had this chest wound, and he kept the bullet for the rest of his life.

00:20:33After narrowly surviving his deadly duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806, Andrew Jackson

00:20:41spent three months recuperating.

00:20:44He began studying military strategies, hoping to one day prove his abilities as Major General

00:20:50of the Tennessee Militia.

00:20:55When the United States declared war against Britain in 1812, no one wanted to be part

00:21:01of the fight more than Jackson.

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

00:21:08ordered to march his 2,000 volunteers toward the port of New Orleans in preparation for

00:21:14a possible British landing and assault.

00:21:18Jackson and his troops set out in January 1813.

00:21:22It took three months to cover the first 500 miles, but when the army arrived in Natchez,

00:21:28a strong part of the Mississippi Territory, Jackson received infuriating news.

00:21:35He got an order to disband the troops.

00:21:37They weren't needed, and to send them home.

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

00:21:42The War Department didn't want to pay to march them back, to provision and march them back.

00:21:46And Jackson was outraged by all of this.

00:21:49How were they going to get home?

00:21:50They didn't have any money.

00:21:51Many of them were sick.

00:21:52So Jackson did what Jackson was pretty good at doing under similar circumstances.

00:21:55He simply defied the orders.

00:21:57And he decided, he announced that he was going to march the troops home himself.

00:22:01A father figure to his troops, most of whom were not yet 20 years old, Jackson paid for

00:22:07provisions out of his own pocket to get his boys home.

00:22:12Jackson himself was in ill health, brought on by the cumulative effects of dysentery,

00:22:18his childhood smallpox, and old gunshot wounds.

00:22:23Even so, the 46-year-old general gave up his horse to transport volunteers too sick

00:22:29to walk on their own.

00:22:30He didn't have to.

00:22:32He could have ridden on a horse.

00:22:33He could have not gone at all or taken a boat back.

00:22:37But Jackson got up there with the rest of them and got muddy and got to brambles, all

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

00:22:43And one of these boys, these soldiers said, old Jackson, he's as tough as hickory.

00:22:48Because that was the toughest wood that that soldier knew.

00:22:52And the name stuck, old hickory, and it stayed with Jackson all of his life.

00:22:58Jackson made it back to Nashville with his militia intact.

00:23:02It seemed his short-lived military career was over.

00:23:07But another bitter conflict, unknown to most Americans at the time, would change Jackson's

00:23:12fate in dramatic fashion.

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

00:23:23Southeast, so named for the color of their war clubs, ceremoniously consumed the black

00:23:29drink, a form of coffee charged with caffeine.

00:23:34Its purpose?

00:23:36To purify and energize warriors before battle.

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

00:23:48Following the lead of legendary northern Shawnee chief Tecumseh, redsticks were prepared to

00:23:53fight to the death to control their land.

00:23:57Tecumseh felt strongly that American Indian survival depended on the unity of all tribes

00:24:02fighting white encroachment.

00:24:05But his views caused division within tribes.

00:24:09What Tecumseh was preaching was, frankly, nothing less than a race war.

00:24:13This was going to be Indians against whites.

00:24:15Not all the Creeks buy into this.

00:24:17Other Creeks decide that Tecumseh is dreaming, that the Indians will never be able to reclaim

00:24:22their territory.

00:24:23They'll never be able to drive the whites out.

00:24:25And so one of the first results of Tecumseh's efforts is to split the Creek Nation with

00:24:31the redsticks going on the offensive, and the other Creeks deciding they don't want

00:24:36to have anything to do with it.

00:24:39Many Creeks had already adopted the white man's ways.

00:24:43Some of them, actually, if you saw them on the streets, you wouldn't think they were

00:24:47Creek Indians back at that time.

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

00:24:53Since Europeans first came to America, many whites married Indians, creating mixed-blood

00:24:58generations.

00:25:01As soon as white men start to appear, they don't leave their emotions and their lust

00:25:06behind, and frequently they married, especially those who planned to stay for a reasonable

00:25:13length of time.

00:25:15One of the most respected mixed-bloods in the Creek tribe was William Weatherford, 7

00:25:208th Scottish and 1 8th Creek.

00:25:23Weatherford believed in Tecumseh and became a leader of the redstick warriors, known as

00:25:29Chief Red Eagle.

00:25:32He spoke, of course, both the Creek language and English, and he was adept to some extent

00:25:38in both worlds, certainly the Creek world.

00:25:41And he was a very dynamic, well-respected man.

00:25:48In August 1813, after redsticks began attacking settlers and Indian sympathizers, some 550

00:25:55sought protection inside Fort Mims in what would become Alabama.

00:26:00300 were white, including 175 militia, and 250, nearly half, were mixed-bloods and Creek

00:26:08Indians.

00:26:09It was a civil war.

00:26:12You know, in the civil war the United States had, we had brothers on both sides.

00:26:16This was just another civil war, and I think they probably laid around outside Fort Mims

00:26:21deciding on what they were going to do.

00:26:23They were there in that area for several days before they attacked Fort Mims, and then it

00:26:28just happened.

00:26:41On August 30th, redsticks invaded the fort, pouring through a gate stuck open by drifting

00:26:46dirt and sand.

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

00:26:59They took infants by the feet and slammed their heads against the walls of the fort.

00:27:05It was pretty awful, and it's like a terrorist attack today.

00:27:16When news spread of the attack, it was described as a massacre of whites by Indians.

00:27:21No mention was made of the Indian victims or about a tribal civil war.

00:27:30As the closest military unit to Fort Mims, Jackson's Tennessee militia was ordered to

00:27:35Alabama to fight the redsticks.

00:27:39The first encounter at the creek village of Tallisachie was as brutal as the attack

00:27:44on Fort Mims.

00:27:52Jackson enticed the Indians to come out and to attack him.

00:27:56His boys came out on either side with their guns from the woods, and they had the Indians

00:28:00on three sides, surrounded.

00:28:03There was great bloodshed.

00:28:18I think 400 or 500 Indians were killed at that point, and very few of Jackson's people.

00:28:24In the aftermath of this battle, Jackson's men come across this very small child.

00:28:30He's an orphan.

00:28:31He's standing there, surrounded by the smoke and ruin and bodies of the battlefield.

00:28:37And the child is brought to Jackson, and he's asked, what do you do with the kid?

00:28:43And Jackson decides to adopt the child, sends him to Nashville, and he and Rachel raise

00:28:48the child as their own.

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

00:28:57himself as a boy, an orphan.

00:29:01There's this odd combination of the ferocious warrior who can kill tens, dozens, hundreds

00:29:09of Indians in a battle, and then this tender father who is going to take the helpless child,

00:29:17take him into his family and raise him as his own.

00:29:19Remarkable character, this Jackson.

00:29:22Rachel and Andrew raised the child at their Tennessee home, the Hermitage.

00:29:27But the boy they named Lincoya would die at 15 of tuberculosis.

00:29:32Some historians now question Jackson's motives in adopting Lincoya.

00:29:38Jackson was a good politician.

00:29:40He used this and pointed to it quite a bit in his career as evidence of his benevolent

00:29:47attitude toward Native people.

00:29:50These historians who say how wonderful he was, well, he adopted an Indian boy.

00:29:56They don't put in there he adopted that Indian boy after he slaughtered their mom and dad.

00:30:09Following months of fighting with the Indians, Jackson was ready for the climactic battle

00:30:13of his Red Stick Wars.

00:30:16It would take place in an area of the Mississippi Territory, which later became Alabama, where

00:30:21a strip of land was surrounded by the Tallapoosa River on three sides, horseshoe bend.

00:30:28There, 1,000 Red Sticks had built what they hoped was an impenetrable defensive fortification.

00:30:37Jackson wrote about the imposing structure in one of his earliest first-person accounts

00:30:41of his battles.

00:30:44Nature finishes few situations so eligible for defense.

00:30:48Against the neck of the land, they had erected a breastwork of greatest compactness and strength.

00:30:53From five to eight feet high and prepared with rows of portholes very artfully arranged,

00:30:58an army could not approach it without being exposed to a double crossfire from the enemy

00:31:02who lay in perfect security behind it.

00:31:07Jackson had only two small cannons to attack the fortress, but he had a powerful 1,500-man

00:31:13army, which included his militia, as well as U.S. Army regulars and strong officers.

00:31:20Lieutenant Sam Houston was among the bravest.

00:31:24General John Coffey, with the aid of Indian interpreter Salukta, would lead an additional

00:31:29force of more than 1,500 Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw Indians who had agreed to fight

00:31:35for Jackson.

00:31:36There were a lot of Indians that were considering their own tribe's self-interest above any

00:31:43thing else.

00:31:45Others thought it was worth the gamble that if they allied themselves with the Americans

00:31:49against the Red Sticks, that maybe the Americans then would leave them alone.

00:31:55There is an old Indian expression that if Jackson made war on you, all he had to do

00:32:02was look at you, and you dropped dead.

00:32:06Jackson was not the man that you quarreled with.

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

00:32:11He's a man who can do great things for you if he has a mind to.

00:32:17He is not a man to be challenged, and certainly not a man to fight against.

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

00:32:26On March 27, 1814, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend began.

00:32:32I detailed Coffey with the Indian force to pass the river at a ford about three miles

00:32:37below their encampment, and to surround the bend in such a manner that none of them should

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

00:32:45With the remainder of the forces, I proceeded along the point of land which leads to the

00:32:48front of the breastwork, and at half past 10 o'clock a.m., I had planted my artillery

00:32:56and immediately opened a brisk fire upon its center.

00:33:07It was no surprise to Jackson that his small cannons did little damage to the walls of

00:33:12the Red Stick defense.

00:33:19Jackson's Indian allies chose to distract the Red Sticks by attacking from the rear.

00:33:27Jackson then launched his main army against the heart of the Indian fortification.

00:33:34This frontal assault was led by Houston, who later gained fame in the fight for Texas

00:33:39independence.

00:33:40A large body of Jackson's force charged this breastwork, and Houston himself got up on

00:33:50it.

00:33:54Got shot twice, got sabered, got speared, got shot with bows and arrows and everything.

00:34:02The Red Sticks are simply right behind the walls, and so it's at point-blank range.

00:34:07Sam Houston has to be dragged off of the field, bleeding.

00:34:10It looks like he's going to die from his wounds.

00:34:13But through numbers, through determination, Jackson's men managed to force their way across

00:34:19the top of the wall.

00:34:21It's the most bitter fighting imaginable, and in fact, it's kind of hard to imagine

00:34:25how it all took place, because it went on for hours.

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

00:34:40According to eyewitness accounts, the river ran red with the blood of the Indians killed.

00:34:48Out of Jackson's force of 3,000 Americans and Indians, only six men died in the five-hour

00:34:54battle.

00:34:56But for the Red Sticks, Horseshoe Bend was a complete disaster.

00:35:01Officers who had the best opportunities of judging believed the loss of the enemy not

00:35:05to fall short of 800.

00:35:09Jackson did not describe in his reports the methods used to determine the exact number

00:35:13of enemy dead.

00:35:16What we have at the end of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend is Jackson's men doing a reliable body

00:35:22count among the hundreds of the slain Indians that lay there on the battlefield by slicing

00:35:28off parts of their noses to keep a reliable count.

00:35:36Following the battle at Horseshoe Bend, one lone Indian came into Andrew Jackson's camp

00:35:41with a peace offering of a slaughtered deer.

00:35:44It was none other than William Weatherford, the mixed-blood Red Stick leader.

00:35:50Weatherford decides that he is going to essentially take responsibility for the uprising, for

00:35:55the rebellion, and presents himself to Jackson and says, here I am, essentially as a defeated

00:36:02general.

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

00:36:09And Jackson doesn't know quite what to make of this at first, but treats Weatherford as

00:36:16a defeated, honorable enemy, and lets him go.

00:36:21Many of Jackson's troops were surprised and angry that Jackson spared Weatherford's life.

00:36:28Jackson was quite an egomaniac, and he recognized the leadership and the courage of the opponents

00:36:37because that made him more the man.

00:36:40So when William Weatherford came in and talked with him, I have heard through some of the

00:36:45oral traditions that Weatherford said to him, if I had another 800 troops, I would

00:36:51still be fighting you.

00:36:54He would not have given up.

00:36:55And Jackson perhaps took Weatherford's attitude and saw something in it of himself.

00:37:04Whatever his motivation for releasing Weatherford, Jackson had achieved what white settlers sorely

00:37:10desired, the ability to move west without fear of Indian reprisal.

00:37:17On August 9, 1814, the Treaty of Fort Jackson took from the tribal nations 23 million acres

00:37:24in Georgia and Alabama.

00:37:27The treaty made no allowance for loyalty.

00:37:30Included in the white territory was land belonging to the very Indians who had fought as Jackson's

00:37:37allies.

00:37:39The terms of that treaty were monstrously unfair, and it took away half the lands of

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

00:37:48He didn't see it as, you've done for me, and therefore I have to do for you in repayment.

00:37:56All I know is that the Creeks live in this area, and they have to be punished, and we

00:38:04are taking away this amount of land.

00:38:07And if you're affected, that's too bad.

00:38:09I'm first, you know, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

00:38:23In 1814, as Jackson and his forces were battling the Red Sticks in the south, the regular U.S.

00:38:29Army was under intense attack by the British in the northeast.

00:38:34The War of 1812 has been going on now for almost three years.

00:38:36And it hasn't been going well for the United States at all, culminating in a horribly humiliating

00:38:42invasion by the British of the Atlantic seacoast, the occupation of Washington, D.C., the national

00:38:48capital, and the burning of several of the federal buildings.

00:38:51So the country was extremely unhappy.

00:38:55What they saw was, we're losing this war, and we're losing our economy, and it is likely

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

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

00:39:14in the regular U.S. Army.

00:39:18When military leaders in Washington learned Britain might attempt a landing by sea near

00:39:22the city of New Orleans, Jackson and his militia were sent to prepare a defense.

00:39:28He was told an army of 2,000 well-trained soldiers would be waiting for him.

00:39:34He doesn't have any kind of experience commanding large numbers of troops, but he's the only

00:39:39one they've got, and he's in the area.

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

00:39:47or lose.

00:39:49The British strategy was straightforward.

00:39:52If they controlled the port of New Orleans, they would have easy access to the Mississippi

00:39:56River.

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

00:40:03the country in half.

00:40:05With the Northeast already under British control, the capture of New Orleans was critical to

00:40:11their plan.

00:40:13No one understood this better than Jackson.

00:40:16He also knew he was about to take on 10,000 of the toughest troops in the world.

00:40:22These same soldiers had defeated Napoleon, led by the same officer who commanded them

00:40:27now, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham.

00:40:32Jackson desperately needed well-trained, organized, combat-tested troops, but what he had was

00:40:38quite different.

00:40:40A few hundred Creole volunteers from New Orleans.

00:40:43The same number of free men of color who escaped slavery in Haiti.

00:40:48A small band of friendly Choctaw Indians.

00:40:52And a couple of thousand backwoods militiamen from Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

00:40:59Of Jackson's 4,000 troops, less than 10% were U.S. regulars.

00:41:06Jackson was outnumbered more than two to one.

00:41:09But his most critical need was artillery.

00:41:12He cleverly sought help from an unlikely man, Jean Lafitte, a French pirate who had plundered

00:41:18hundreds of merchant ships off the shores of Louisiana and Texas.

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

00:41:27Lafitte offered not only his service as an intelligence officer, but he offered something

00:41:32that Jackson didn't have and could not resist.

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

00:41:46Jackson didn't have and had no way to get.

00:41:50Despite this new source of weaponry, the odds were stacked against the American mismatched

00:41:55collection of fighters.

00:41:58This didn't bother Jackson.

00:42:01Jackson was utterly convinced he could win.

00:42:03I'm not sure exactly why he was convinced he could win.

00:42:06A lot of it had to do with the, he had to win and therefore he got himself to believe

00:42:10he could win.

00:42:11And gradually he made his troops.

00:42:14His motley array constituted his army, believed that they could win too.

00:42:20And in military affairs, confidence, the expectation of victory is more than half the battle.

00:42:28On December 23rd, 1814, British troops came ashore south of New Orleans and encamped on

00:42:34sugar plantations at the edge of the Mississippi River.

00:42:40Jackson took the offensive.

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

00:42:57Cannoneers opened fire from a ship on the Mississippi, sending the Redcoats scrambling

00:43:01for cover.

00:43:10Before the British could react, Jackson's troops were among them, fighting with anything

00:43:15that could be used as a weapon.

00:43:18Jackson attacked.

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

00:43:22And what ensued was a melee, whether it was rifle butts, rifle fire, swords, knives, fists,

00:43:30rocks, guns, strangling hands.

00:43:36This was not the kind of warfare the British expected.

00:43:39They were accustomed to fighting in daylight, charging in waves that intimidated their enemy.

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

00:43:47After the successful surprise attack, Jackson pulled back and moved to fortify the city's

00:43:53major defenses.

00:43:56Jackson planned to stop the British by taking advantage of the canals, swamps, and terrain

00:44:01surrounding New Orleans.

00:44:03He chose to make his stand one mile north of the British camp, which put his army between

00:44:08the city and the enemy, with a river and a swamp protecting his flanks.

00:44:13A drainage canal provided the perfect position to build a parapet, a wall of earth and wood,

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

00:44:25Jackson ordered his militia to start digging trenches.

00:44:28Faster, men!

00:44:29Faster!

00:44:30But the men complained and worked slowly.

00:44:35Jackson realizes that time is of the essence, so he brings in some slaves and has the slaves

00:44:41start doing the work.

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

00:44:46in the ditches next to the slaves.

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

00:44:53But Jackson isn't going to brook that kind of finickiness, and so he insists, you know,

00:44:59on pain of being declared a mutineer, insists you're going to get down and you're going

00:45:03to dig the trenches.

00:45:05Under Jackson's stern direction, his parapet fortification began to take shape.

00:45:10Slaves and soldiers worked day and night, side by side.

00:45:15Dirt, dug to form the trench, became a mound to support the parapet, reinforced with wood.

00:45:21The trench itself was filled with water to form a ten-foot-wide moat.

00:45:28Four days passed.

00:45:30Jackson had no idea when the Redcoats would charge his parapet.

00:45:34He kept watch from the second floor of a plantation house, thanks to a telescope given

00:45:38him by a local astronomer.

00:45:43At night, he continued his guerrilla-style attacks, sending Indians and malicious sharpshooters

00:45:48to pick off British sentries.

00:45:55This constant irritation and stinging operations that would come at you kept you on edge.

00:46:05Night and day.

00:46:06It was awful.

00:46:07It was very hard on the nerves and on the temperament, and, you know, it's really demoralizing.

00:46:14The British reaction to this was to send a note to Jackson that this behavior was ungentlemanly,

00:46:22and Jackson's response to that was that it was ungentlemanly for the British to be occupying

00:46:27American soil and they should go back where they came from.

00:46:33On December 28, 1814, five days after the Redcoats landed, they first tested Jackson's

00:46:40defensive line.

00:46:42The maneuver began with the British firing newly developed Congreve rockets.

00:46:48It was really a glorified bottle rocket.

00:46:50The British brought them down to New Orleans thinking, these poor bumpkins from Louisiana

00:46:55had never seen one of these, and if we shoot off enough of them, they're going to turn

00:47:00and run.

00:47:01In fact, the consensus among the Americans was that they thought they were rather pretty.

00:47:11The initial British offensive lasted less than three hours.

00:47:15Fire!

00:47:16Small cannons and muskets fired from a distance made no impact whatsoever on Jackson's wall.

00:47:29Packenham withdrew to devise another plan.

00:47:32He ordered heavier cannons brought in from ships anchored offshore.

00:47:38On the morning of January 1, 1815, Packenham waited for a heavy fog to lift before unleashing

00:47:44his bombardment.

00:47:50The New Year's Day battle was, in reality, a duel of cannoneers, with the famed powerful

00:47:57British on one side and a band of pirates on the other.

00:48:03Despite the heavier shot fired by the British naval guns, Jackson's parapet held firm.

00:48:09The aim of Jean Lafitte's pirate cannoneers proved incredibly accurate.

00:48:15The British had used barrels of sugar to fortify their batteries.

00:48:20Not a good idea.

00:48:22Fire!

00:48:24When you hit a barrel of sugar with a cannonball, the sugar goes everywhere.

00:48:30It does not stop the cannonball, but also gets everywhere, including in the breeches

00:48:35of the cannons and in the firing holes and everywhere else, and melts or crystallizes

00:48:42or whatever sugar does when it gets really stressed.

00:48:45So the great artillery duel did not work for the British, and the Americans were greatly

00:48:51cheered to see the British run away from their guns or drag whatever they could of them off.

00:48:57Packenham was again forced to rethink his strategy.

00:49:00He had been reluctant to storm the American defenses because of the potential for high

00:49:04casualties, but the failed bombardment forced his hand.

00:49:10On the morning of January 8, Jackson's troops watched with fear as wave after wave of Redcoats

00:49:16marched toward the parapet.

00:49:19Hold your fire, men.

00:49:21Jackson has to calm his men, his militia in particular, are used to firing from a distance

00:49:26of 300 yards and then taking up a new position if necessary.

00:49:30Well, there's no new position.

00:49:32You've got to stay where you are.

00:49:34And if they fire to greater distance, much of their fire will be wasted.

00:49:38So Jackson has to convince them that they need to wait until the British get close enough

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

00:49:46Hold your fire.

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

00:49:54let loose on the approaching mass of Redcoats with newly crafted types of ammunition.

00:50:02The American artillery fire has this terrific, horrendous effect on the ranks of British

00:50:07infantry as they come, just mowing down large numbers.

00:50:11The artillery they're firing, grapeshot, they're firing just loose pieces of metal.

00:50:15It's anti-personnel stuff, and it wipes out dozens or hundreds of the British at a blow.

00:50:20The British keep coming, and they keep coming.

00:50:24Jackson managed to hold back his anxious sharpshooters until the last possible moment.

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

00:50:32Fire!

00:50:33Then they unleash this horribly punishing volley, one volley after another.

00:50:40In this case, it's the British ranks that break, and the British are forced to find

00:50:44shelter wherever they can.

00:50:47Pakenham told his men not to rush the parapet until ladders were in place.

00:50:53He would order the launch of a Congreve rocket to signal a Redcoat charge, but the smoke

00:50:59obscured his view.

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

00:51:05Fire the rocket!

00:51:14The Redcoats ran directly into a ceaseless barrage of musket fire from Jackson's troops.

00:51:20No ladders were waiting for them.

00:51:26American sharpshooters opened up at near point-blank range on the British soldiers as they futilely

00:51:31tried to cross the moat and climb the earthen parapet.

00:51:36Just then, a bullet struck General Pakenham in the leg, and right after that, another

00:51:41bullet struck Pakenham and killed him dead.

00:51:44So the British at that point were without any commanders of the general rank.

00:51:50The regimental commanders were not sure what to do.

00:51:55In less than an hour, the British assault had completely disintegrated.

00:52:00Those who could ran for their lives.

00:52:03Others laid on the ground using the bodies of dead comrades as barriers against the continued

00:52:08onslaught of American gunfire.

00:52:12When that smoke finally drifted away, a horrendous scene revealed itself as a sea of red right

00:52:21before Jackson's rampart.

00:52:23It was the Redcoats of the British who had been killed, and a silence came over the battlefield

00:52:32because the Americans had stopped shooting.

00:52:36When the Americans went out there, they couldn't believe what they saw.

00:52:40After they counted up the British killed, wounded, prisoners, the number was more than

00:52:452,000.

00:52:47When they counted up their own casualties, killed, wounded, captured, it was about two

00:52:52dozen.

00:52:53Jackson and his army of misfits had achieved what the U.S. regular army in Washington could

00:52:59not.

00:53:00They had defeated the most powerful army in the world.

00:53:11Andrew Jackson's victory in New Orleans sparked celebrations throughout the country.

00:53:15Ironically, the war had actually ended two weeks before the defeat of the Redcoats, with

00:53:21the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, in what is now Belgium.

00:53:26But the news arrives from the battle first.

00:53:29The news is, Jackson has won.

00:53:32That's what Americans first hear.

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

00:53:36And if you put two and two together in this way, they think, my gosh, Andy Jackson won

00:53:41the war.

00:53:42And it's contributed a great deal to Jackson's subsequent reputation.

00:53:46He became known as the second George Washington.

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

00:53:51The second George Washington, Jackson, had confirmed American independence.

00:53:55For the rest of his life, Andrew Jackson was known simply as the hero.

00:54:01Rachel Jackson joined her husband in New Orleans to celebrate.

00:54:05But she was not the hero's wife local gentry expected.

00:54:10When they saw Rachel with General Jackson, they did not see her through the same loving

00:54:18and kind eyes as Jackson and Rachel's friend saw her.

00:54:23Instead, they saw a woman who was approaching 50, which at that time was well past a woman's

00:54:29prime.

00:54:30And they essentially had a field day making fun of poor Rachel behind her back.

00:54:38When the army reorganized into northern and southern divisions in the spring of 1815,

00:54:44Jackson was awarded with the command of the southern division.

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

00:54:51Rachel was delighted.

00:54:55Although they never had their own children, they had two adopted sons, the orphaned Indian

00:55:00boy and Rachel's nephew, whose father, Rachel's brother, couldn't afford to raise him.

00:55:06They named that boy Andrew Jackson, Jr.

00:55:10Throughout Rachel's marriage to Andrew Jackson, she always asked him to give up public life

00:55:15and come home.

00:55:17She reminded Jackson very often that earthly honors meant nothing.

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

00:55:28But Jackson's respite at the Hermitage was short-lived.

00:55:31Tensions between Indians and white settlers were still running high.

00:55:36Jackson led his army throughout the southeast, taking control of more Indian land by treaty

00:55:42or bloodshed.

00:55:44In 1817, Jackson was ordered by President James Monroe to stop the Seminole Indians

00:55:50who occupied Spanish-controlled Florida from crossing into U.S. territory.

00:55:57The ever-ambitious Jackson, however, saw a perfect opportunity to do far more.

00:56:02Why not take control of all of Florida and make it part of the United States?

00:56:08He bypasses the Secretary of War and goes right to the President, to the main man, and

00:56:15says, just give me the word and I can take Florida.

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

00:56:24Well, in those days, but the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

00:56:30Jackson is convinced, and so am I, that Monroe does give him that authority.

00:56:39Jackson found himself skirmishing with Seminole Indians and Spaniards in Florida, but he knew

00:56:46his real enemy was still the British, hoping to keep American borders from expanding.

00:56:53When Jackson distrusted the British, he had every reason for doing so.

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

00:57:01The British were encouraging the Spanish to mischief in Florida.

00:57:07The British recognized that the United States was a long-term threat to Britain's power

00:57:12in North America and in the Atlantic, and they were doing everything they could to contain

00:57:16that power, to keep it bottled up.

00:57:19Again, troops under Jackson's command emerged victorious.

00:57:24When Spain officially gave up Florida, Jackson resigned from the Army, accepting an appointment

00:57:30as governor to organize the new territorial government.

00:57:34Rachel joined him in Pensacola.

00:57:37There's perception of her that she was perhaps demure and didn't want to involve herself

00:57:43in political affairs, but what we see in Pensacola is her taking a very active role in advising

00:57:51Jackson on how he feels he should govern that city.

00:57:55Jackson needed only 11 weeks to set up Florida's new government.

00:58:01Shortly after returning home, he suffered a physical breakdown.

00:58:06At age 55, the years of fighting duels, Indians and the British, had taken their toll.

00:58:12For several months, violent coughing spells and severe dysentery made life miserable.

00:58:18Though retirement seemed inevitable, Jackson became obsessed about rampant corruption in

00:58:23Washington, and his sense of moral outrage pushed him to consider running for president.

00:58:30What really got Jackson's attention, what really convinced him that he had to put his

00:58:34hat in the ring, was when people said, you are a soldier, you have said that you support

00:58:41the interests of the American people, well, if you're serious about this, and if the American

00:58:45people call you to office, you have no choice but to answer the call.

00:58:51So Jackson allowed his name to be put into nomination for the presidency in 1824.

00:58:571824 was a watershed election in the United States.

00:59:02For the first time, a substantial number of commoners could vote for president.

00:59:08The Constitution simply says that the states shall choose electors.

00:59:11It didn't say how the states will choose electors.

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

00:59:18But during 1810s and 1820s, increasingly, ordinary voters get to cast their ballots

00:59:23for president, technically for the electors, but in effect, for president.

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

00:59:32the popular vote with a count of 153,000.

00:59:37John Quincy Adams, whose support came primarily from the Northeast, received 108,000 votes.

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

00:59:4990,000 votes.

00:59:51Jackson also received the most electoral votes, 99.

00:59:55But he needed a true majority, 131, to become president.

01:00:03As provided by the Constitution, members of the House of Representatives had to choose

01:00:07among the three frontrunners, Jackson, Adams, and Crawford.

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

01:00:18position to sway the election.

01:00:21Clay was the hero of the West.

01:00:23He's from Kentucky, until Jackson comes along.

01:00:26Jackson's from Tennessee.

01:00:28And Jackson is the greater hero, being the military hero.

01:00:31So Clay swings his support to John Quincy Adams, who carries the day, wins the presidency,

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

01:00:43Now, in our day and age, this might not seem like a big deal.

01:00:46But in those days, it was everything, because a succession of presidents before John Quincy

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

01:00:55So in naming Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams essentially made

01:00:59him heir apparent to the presidency.

01:01:04Jackson was furious.

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

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

01:01:14Judas has received his 30 pieces of silver, and he will have the same ending.

01:01:23Jackson and his supporters, they declared that the election had been stolen.

01:01:27The will of the people had been frustrated.

01:01:30And immediately, in the spring of 1825, they began the campaign of 1828.

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

01:01:40Not at all.

01:01:41They don't have anything on the campaigns of the 1820s.

01:01:46While Jackson remained in Tennessee over the next three years, his surrogates worked tirelessly

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

01:01:55Although not officially defined as such, the election of 1828 produced the first choice

01:02:01between a Republican, John Quincy Adams, supported by established power brokers, and Jackson,

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

01:02:12The election campaign of 1820 was probably the dirtiest campaign in American political

01:02:18history.

01:02:20Everything that Jackson had done wrong, or that anybody thought had done wrong, was dragged

01:02:25out and used against him.

01:02:27They said some terrible things about his mother, Jackson's mother.

01:02:31They said she was a prostitute who was brought to this country to serve as British soldiers.

01:02:38And of Rachel Jackson, that she was a bigamist, and by implication, if not otherwise, a whore.

01:02:48Rachel never states that she's aware that she's become a liability for her husband.

01:02:54I think she was always confident in his love for her, even if perhaps she may have sensed

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

01:03:11The three years of organized campaigning by Jackson's supporters paid off.

01:03:15In November 1828, Jackson won both the popular vote and the electoral majority, becoming

01:03:22the seventh president of the United States.

01:03:26But his joy was short-lived, as Rachel had a heart attack one month later.

01:03:31General Jackson?

01:03:32General Jackson!

01:03:33What is it?

01:03:35On December 22nd, Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson died.

01:03:41At the moment of his greatest political victory, he suffers the most severe personal blow he

01:03:46could imagine.

01:03:48Rachel had been his lifelong companion, had been the love of his life, and now she's taken

01:03:54from him.

01:03:55On the day that they had originally scheduled to go to Washington, Rachel was buried instead,

01:04:00and Jackson chose to bury her in the garden at the hermitage, which she had loved so much.

01:04:06Jackson was absolutely convinced that she was murdered by those people who had said

01:04:12these things about her, and on her tombstone he had written that here lies a sainted being

01:04:20who was viciously attacked, but whose virtue could surpass it all.

01:04:31The death of his beloved wife sent President-elect Andrew Jackson plunging from triumph to despair.

01:04:41He couldn't imagine leaving the hermitage and moving into the White House without Rachel

01:04:45as his first lady.

01:04:48He almost decided not to go to Washington.

01:04:51He believed that his emotional life, in a certain sense, was over, and for months after,

01:04:56he was in a very deep depression.

01:04:57He wrote, the one thing that made him decide that he had to go was, first of all, the people

01:05:01had chosen him, and Jackson had an absolute reverence for the will of the people.

01:05:06But there was also something personal, and that was, my enemies have killed Rachel.

01:05:11They will pay.

01:05:13So off he goes to be inaugurated president.

01:05:18On March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson took the oath of office as America's seventh president.

01:05:25As was customary at the time, the White House was open to the public following the inaugural ceremony.

01:05:31Fifteen thousand ecstatic supporters flocked to Washington to celebrate, and it seemed

01:05:36like every last one of them showed up at the reception.

01:05:41They poured into the rooms, and they thought they would knock the walls down.

01:05:48There were so many of them.

01:05:49They were jammed in.

01:05:50Poor Jackson himself was almost pinned against the wall, and he had to be helped out of the

01:05:57building and to his hotel in order to save him.

01:06:02And finally it got so bad, they thought the man would collapse.

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

01:06:12people jumped through the windows to get to it.

01:06:16It was the people's candidate, the people's celebration.

01:06:25In his first message to Congress, Jackson unveiled the building blocks of what would

01:06:29become known as Jacksonian democracy, a government run by and dedicated to common men.

01:06:38He passionately went to work setting nearly impossible goals, abolish the electoral voting

01:06:43system, relocate all Indians west of the Mississippi River, extinguish the national debt, eliminate

01:06:50the Bank of the United States, a private institution he determined to be corrupt, and do away with

01:06:56paper currency.

01:06:59He dislikes paper money.

01:07:01He hates paper money.

01:07:03Paper money is used to corrupt.

01:07:06They can inflate paper.

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

01:07:11It's worthless, and you get people to accept it.

01:07:14The only real money is what you can put between your teeth and feel it, like gold and silver.

01:07:21But Jackson realized his agenda was too ambitious, that trying to both reform election law and

01:07:27abolish paper money would likely be futile.

01:07:31So he turned his attention to a fundamental constitutional dilemma that could endanger

01:07:36the union itself, the issue of federal versus state authority.

01:07:43South Carolina was threatening to secede if forced to obey federal tariff laws.

01:07:48It was a position supported by Jackson's political foe, Henry Clay, as well as his own vice president,

01:07:54John Calhoun, a native of South Carolina.

01:07:58Jackson was ready for a fight to preserve the sovereignty of the union.

01:08:04Jackson said, tell my friends in South Carolina that if any of them breathe a word of secession,

01:08:09I'm going to come down there, and I'm going to hang them from the highest trees in the

01:08:13neighborhood.

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

01:08:18The South Carolinians decided, well, maybe we better reconsider.

01:08:21But if not for Jackson, the union might well have fallen apart.

01:08:25With the issue of secession under control, Jackson turned his attention to a private

01:08:30institution he believed was corrupt.

01:08:33The Bank of the United States.

01:08:36Jackson had real reservations about the Bank of the United States on two grounds.

01:08:41One is he thought it was unconstitutional.

01:08:43Secondly, he believed that it gave too much power over the American economy to this group

01:08:49of private bankers who would have their own private interests rather than the interests

01:08:54of the country as a whole.

01:08:56The U.S. Bank controlled the flow of silver and gold upon which state banks based the

01:09:01value of their paper money.

01:09:04Jackson despised the bank's ability to alter its value at will.

01:09:08He called the bank's director, Nicholas Biddle, Czar Nicholas, and the bank itself a monster

01:09:14needing to be chained.

01:09:16It was using its money for its own advantage.

01:09:20It was paying to have certain men elected, contributing towards their election, maintaining

01:09:28their position in Congress through their generous contributions.

01:09:34In theory, Biddle had nothing to worry about.

01:09:37The Supreme Court had ruled the bank constitutional, and its charter was not up for renewal until

01:09:421836, which would be the final year of Jackson's second term, if he ran and was re-elected.

01:09:50Henry Clay knew a big opportunity when he saw one.

01:09:54Teaming with Biddle, Clay convinced Congress to pass an early re-charter bill that would

01:09:59endow the bank for an additional 12 years.

01:10:03With the 1832 election just months away, Clay and Biddle drew Jackson into a trap.

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

01:10:16wouldn't dare.

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

01:10:21classes of the country.

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

01:10:29Jackson knew vetoing the re-charter could pose a risk to his re-election.

01:10:35The stress only worsened his longtime physical maladies.

01:10:40Late at night in his White House bedroom, he frequently bled himself using a small pocket

01:10:45knife.

01:10:46The procedure, believed to cleanse the body of toxins, was normally performed by a physician.

01:10:52But Jackson did it himself.

01:10:56He is also known to have read each evening from his deceased wife Rachel's personal prayer

01:11:00book while holding a miniature portrait bearing her likeness.

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

01:11:10toll on this seemingly indomitable personality.

01:11:16Nonetheless, Jackson decided to veto the re-charter bill, thus making the future of the bank a

01:11:22of the United States the central issue of the 1832 presidential election.

01:11:29Jackson's opponent was none other than Henry Clay, who portrayed Jackson as King Andrew

01:11:35the First, a despot trampling not just the national bank, but the Constitution itself.

01:11:42Biddle and Henry Clay utterly misgaged how it was going to play.

01:11:48Jackson was able to say, I have defended the interests of the people.

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

01:11:57And he won.

01:11:58He won very handily in 1832, smacking down Biddle, smacking down Henry Clay.

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

01:12:10many considered foolish.

01:12:12Biddle decides that he's going to teach Jackson a lesson.

01:12:15He's going to show him that a mere elected official, a mere president, shouldn't be dabbling

01:12:20in affairs that should be left to bankers who presumably knew what they were doing.

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

01:12:31rates, refusing loan requests, and increasing foreclosures.

01:12:36When business owners appealed to Jackson for help, the president was blunt.

01:12:40Don't come to me, he said.

01:12:42Go to Biddle.

01:12:43He's the man with the money.

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

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

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

01:13:01Bank of the United States.

01:13:03Biddle thinks that because he controls the money, he has the Trump card.

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

01:13:10Democracy must rule.

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

01:13:17Jackson could claim a great victory when the bank expired in 1836.

01:13:22Jackson, the uneducated commoner, was able to not only destroy the U.S. bank, but pay

01:13:30off the national debt, mainly by selling federal land.

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

01:13:39Jackson believed that the federal government ought to live within its means, just as an

01:13:42ordinary household did.

01:13:43And when he paid off the national debt, then he was able to go to bed that night with a

01:13:48great deal of satisfaction.

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

01:13:59As president, Andrew Jackson worked passionately to fulfill the needs of the common man.

01:14:05One of the strongest needs was new territory for safe settlement without Indian interference.

01:14:11As major general of the Tennessee militia in 1814, Jackson had shown how he used war

01:14:17to handle the Indian issue.

01:14:20In 1830, as president, he decided he would use the law to fight the Indians.

01:14:26He pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress.

01:14:30He believed on the basis of his own experience, what he had seen historically, that whites

01:14:35and Indian tribes could not live together peacefully.

01:14:39And he made it his position from the time he became president to encourage, ultimately

01:14:44to force, the Indian tribes that remained as tribes in the eastern part of the United

01:14:49States to move from the eastern part of the United States across the Mississippi to the

01:14:54unorganized territories west of the Mississippi.

01:14:58The Indian Removal Act effectively nullified all earlier treaties granting tribes control

01:15:03of land as sovereign nations.

01:15:07Cherokee warriors who fought alongside Jackson in Georgia felt betrayed by the man they called

01:15:13Jaksashula Harjo, or Jackson, Old and Fierce.

01:15:18I read an account written by a Cherokee soldier who was with Andrew Jackson at the Battle

01:15:26of Horseshoe Bend, that Cherokee rifleman said, had he known in 1814 what Andrew Jackson

01:15:35was going to do to the Cherokee Nation, he would have shot him in the field that day.

01:15:43The U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, sided with the Cherokees, declaring

01:15:48the Removal Act unconstitutional.

01:15:52Jackson is reported to have said, in response to the 1832 decision, Justice Marshall has

01:15:58delivered his opinion, now let him enforce it.

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

01:16:08the Constitution as he saw fit.

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

01:16:13Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams all tried to persuade Indians to move west, but

01:16:20they never forced the issue.

01:16:23Jackson is thought by some to have had intensely personal motivations.

01:16:27There were some people who said that the mother had a great hatred for the Indians, because

01:16:35some members of the family had been killed, and that that hatred, she was able to communicate

01:16:43to her son, that's the enemy, be careful, they're savages.

01:16:49Andrew Jackson hated Indians.

01:16:51He hated them from early on, and he used that issue and his aggressiveness toward Native

01:16:58people to further his own career, and to eventually become president because of it.

01:17:06Jackson hoped that Indians might peacefully oblige his wishes and move west voluntarily.

01:17:12When that didn't happen, he sent out federal agents to deliver a blunt message, Indians

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

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

01:17:26fighting other Indians if called upon.

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

01:17:33were wrong.

01:17:34If you look at their treaties, every treaty is signed by these agents and somebody that

01:17:41was an interpreter.

01:17:43And then of course, if the United States didn't like the treaty, they should disregard it.

01:17:48Faced with overwhelming force if they resisted, the tribes slowly began to move west.

01:17:55First to leave were Choctaws from Mississippi, forced along by army soldiers.

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

01:18:06Nebraska Professor Donna Akers walked 500 miles with her four small children.

01:18:13Three died when a tree struck by lightning fell on them while they slept at night.

01:18:20The next morning, the soldiers came back and said that all the people had to start on down

01:18:27the trail.

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

01:18:32They were mourning the death of these three little girls, and the men were very upset

01:18:38because they had not been able to do anything to help.

01:18:42And the troops told them that they had to move on anyway.

01:18:47So instead of being able to decently perform the rituals of the dead, they had to bury

01:18:55their bodies in shallow graves along the trail and go on.

01:19:01By the end of the decade, 80,000 Indians would move and 10,000 would die in what collectively

01:19:08became known as the Trail of Tears.

01:19:13Many of them died actually before they even got started on the Trail of Tears because

01:19:16they were in these concentration camps exposed to the weather and crowded together in extremely

01:19:23unsanitary conditions with very little food.

01:19:29First to leave, by force, were the Cherokees.

01:19:33Many were held in prison camps before being made to walk the journey in shackles.

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

01:19:44I think some of them still thought, he's going to honor what he told me.

01:19:48Now, when they felt bad, I'm assuming that was when the bayonet was at their back and

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

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

01:20:02Double-crossed.

01:20:03Double-crossed.

01:20:04Promised one thing and another thing happened.

01:20:09Time and time again.

01:20:12Andrew Jackson, to most Native people, is equivalent to Hitler.

01:20:17He's known among the Choctaw people as the Great Devil or Blackheart.

01:20:24Jackson's policy, the policy that culminated in the Trail of Tears, one of the great humanitarian

01:20:27tragedies in American history, was a policy that was of a piece with the policy of administrations

01:20:33before Jackson and after Jackson.

01:20:35It's easy to pin the label on Jackson because he took a more visible position.

01:20:41But Jackson probably would have said, this wasn't merely my policy, this was the policy

01:20:46of the United States government, for better or worse.

01:20:49The Trail of Tears and everything really about the Indian removal is such a horror.

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

01:21:02American history, there was hardly any notice of Indians.

01:21:07Only they were brought in occasionally as a backdrop for what the white man was doing.

01:21:14But now, today, with a renewed interest in all of the people who make up this country,

01:21:22we have found that we have done some terrible things to them.

01:21:28And removal is one of the worst.

01:21:30It's easy for us to attack Jackson for his lack of humanity, for his lack of consideration

01:21:37of the Indians.

01:21:38He should have known better.

01:21:40But it's too easy for us to do that because we don't live in their world.

01:21:46And their world, Jackson's world, was a very brutal world.

01:21:54Jackson provoked extreme feelings of hate and adoration.

01:21:58There was no middle ground.

01:22:00It is remarkable that he survived so many attacks, both physical and political, by so

01:22:06many foes.

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

01:22:13was going to destroy democracy and take over the country.

01:22:16Some people, apparently, took this very seriously.

01:22:20And one fellow decided that he was going to save democracy by assassinating Andrew Jackson.

01:22:27On January 30, 1835, Jackson was visiting the Capitol building when he was approached

01:22:33by a deranged, unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence.

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

01:22:45The gun misfired.

01:22:47Lawrence immediately pulled out a second pistol and shot again, at near point-blank range.

01:22:52Again, the gun misfired.

01:22:57Enraged, Jackson went after Lawrence with his cane and had to be restrained by his aides.

01:23:04At the age of 67, Andrew Jackson had cheated death again.

01:23:16In 1837, Andrew Jackson returned to his Tennessee home, the Hermitage.

01:23:21His hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, had been elected to succeed him as president.

01:23:28As he traveled from Washington, D.C., back to Nashville, all along the route, people

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

01:23:37So he felt honored by the people, he felt the love of the people, but he had to look

01:23:43forward wondering what the next years were going to bring.

01:23:48When Jackson returned home, he was 70 years old.

01:23:51He was shocked to learn the Hermitage had been grossly mismanaged by his adopted son,

01:23:56Andrew Jackson, Jr.

01:23:58Seven thousand dollars in debt, Jackson was deprived of an easy retirement and struggled

01:24:03to survive, economically and physically.

01:24:10Chronic tuberculosis rendered him frail.

01:24:12He abhorred endless queries from political hopefuls seeking advice and favors.

01:24:17I am dying as fast as I can, Jackson reportedly said, and they all know it, but they will

01:24:23keep swarming upon me, crowds seeking for office.

01:24:29Jackson was enraged when Martin Van Buren lost his re-election bid to William Henry

01:24:33Harrison.

01:24:35The new party, Harrison's party, the Whigs, was the party that opposed everything that

01:24:39Jackson had stood for.

01:24:40So Jackson in the early 1840s could believe that much of what he had accomplished as president

01:24:46was now being unraveled.

01:24:50On June 8, 1845, Jackson's condition took a severe turn for the worse.

01:24:55Fearing the end was near, his doctor made him as comfortable as possible.

01:25:00Jackson summoned his son, friends and servants into the room.

01:25:05The slave woman, Hannah, in whose arms Rachel died 17 years earlier, was among those present

01:25:11for Jackson's final moments.

01:25:13Barely conscious, he spoke his last words.

01:25:18I hope to meet you all in heaven, black and white.

01:25:30When he finally expired, somebody turned to one of the servants and said, do you think

01:25:38General Jackson has gone to heaven?

01:25:43The servant thought a minute and said, if General Jackson wants to go to heaven, who's

01:25:49going to stop him?

01:25:54That's Andrew Jackson.

01:25:58As he requested, Jackson was buried beside Rachel in the Garden of the Hermitage.

01:26:03Across America, common men, women and children mourned the loss of a man whom they believed

01:26:09dramatically changed their lives.

01:26:12One measure of Jackson's importance to American history to his age is the fact that of all

01:26:16the common labels or eras in American history, the colonial era, the revolutionary era, the

01:26:22early national period, Reconstruction, the New Deal, Cold War, there's only one that's

01:26:28named for an individual, the Jacksonian era.

01:26:32Jacksonian democracy summarizes the idea that in this country, political power ultimately

01:26:37rests with the people, that ordinary people should run this government.

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

01:26:50Fearing his lifelong ill health, it is a romanticized image, inspirational for some, disheartening

01:26:57for others.

01:26:59He's on the $20 bill because he's a great statesman, and at one time, all Americans

01:27:06regarded him as a hero, and they wanted to acknowledge the development of this unique

01:27:14experiment in democracy and freedom.

01:27:17You know, I've suggested to our tribal government we ought not accept $20 bills in the casino

01:27:23because his picture's on it, but that's what everybody's carrying right now.

01:27:27I think generally, the passage of time has softened some of those thoughts.

01:27:32I've told people that he was a criminal, and I believe he was a criminal.

01:27:36I know a lot of Native people that won't use 20s.

01:27:40They, you know, deliberately ask for 10s in change because of Andrew Jackson's face on

01:27:47the $20 bill.

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

01:27:56grossly wrong.

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

01:28:06just absurd and unfortunate.

01:28:09Jackson was, he was an American original, and he represented, I think, the very best

01:28:18in American culture.

01:28:20He must have had self-doubts.

01:28:22Every day he would pick up a newspaper, and it would be throwing dead cats at him.

01:28:27But his self-doubt was overcome by this incredible strength of will that told him somewhere deep

01:28:35down, I am right, I will pursue this cause.

01:28:39And I think that's why today Jackson is on the $20 bill.

01:28:45In an age when presidential candidates must rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in

01:28:50campaign funds from wealthy contributors, it would be easy to think that Jacksonian

01:28:55democracy is dead.

01:28:57But many believe that Jackson's ideals are still alive.

01:29:03We still live in the age of Jacksonian democracy.

01:29:06Jacksonian democracy is imperfect now, it was imperfect in Jackson's time.

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

01:29:16It would have surprised Jackson to know that more than half of American voters don't go

01:29:20to the poll today.

01:29:21He would have been very disappointed in that, because it was something that he devoted his

01:29:25life to making possible.

01:29:28And now for people to just ignore politics would have struck him as mind-boggling.

01:29:34But in that respect, it demonstrates that Jackson simply was too successful.

01:29:39We take for granted much of what Jackson accomplished.

Category

Transcript

Recommended