Won the Battle of Talladega against the Creeks, 1813 Won the Battle of New Orleans against the British, January 8, 1815 Was made Governor of Florida, 1821 Was elected President, 1828; again, 1832 He died, June 8, 1845 He is sometimes called “Old Hickory” MISCHIEVOUS ANDY “Set the case! You are Shauney Kerr’s mare, and me Billy Buck. And I should mount you, and you should kick, fall, fling, and break your neck, should I be to blame for that?” Imagine this gibberish, roared out by a sandy-haired boy, as he came leaping from the door of a log-schoolhouse, ready to defy all the other boys to a race, a wrestle, or a jumping match, while he playfully laid sprawling as many of his friends as he could trip unawares. There you have Andy Jackson! Andy, tall, lank, red-headed, blue-eyed, freckled, barefoot, and dressed in coarse copperas-coloured clothes, was the son of a poor Scotch Irish widow. He was born and reared in the Carolinas. He lived with his mother in the Waxhaws Settlement. His home was a log-cabin in a clearing. His mother earned her living and that of her two youngest boys. She had great ambitions for Andy. She sent him to school in the little log-schoolhouse. And, when she had earned enough money, she paid his tuition at a country academy. No boy ever lived who liked fun better than Andy. He ran foot-races, leaped the bar, and high-jumped. To the younger boys, who never questioned his mastery, he was a generous protector. There was nothing he would not do to defend them. But boys of his own age and older, found him self-willed, somewhat overbearing, easily offended, very irascible, and on the whole difficult to get along with. He learned to read, write, and cast accounts--little more. _James Parton_ (_Retold_) READING THE DECLARATION Andy was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed at Philadelphia. In August, some one brought a Philadelphia newspaper to the Waxhaws. It contained a portion of the Declaration. A crowd of Waxhaw Patriots gathered in front of the country store owned by Andy’s Uncle Crawford. They were eager to hear the Declaration read aloud. Andy was chosen to read it. He did so proudly in a shrill, penetrating voice. He read the whole thing through without once stopping to spell out the words. And that was more than many of the grown men of the Waxhaws could do in those pioneer days, when frontier log-schoolhouses were few and far between. OUT AGAINST TARLETON Andrew Jackson was little more than thirteen, when the British Tarleton with his dragoons, thundered along the red roads of the Waxhaws, and dyed them a deeper red with the blood of the surprised Patriot Militia. For Tarleton fell upon the Waxhaws settlement, and killed one hundred and thirteen of the Militia, and wounded a hundred and fifty more.