The Beginner's American History Part 22

A month after he had gone to Was.h.i.+ngton, President Harrison died (1841), and the whole country was filled with sorrow.

[Footnote 9: Terrier (ter'ri-er): a kind of small hunting-dog.]

205. Summary.--In 1811 General Harrison gained a great victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe, in Indiana. By that victory he saved the west from a terrible Indian war. In the War of 1812 with England General Harrison beat the British in a battle in Canada, and killed Tec.u.mseh, the Indian chief who had made us so much trouble. Many years later General Harrison was elected President of the United States.

Where was a great battle fought with the Indians in 1811? How did the Indians feel about the west? Tell the story of the log. What did Tec.u.mseh determine to do? Tell about the "Prophet." Who was William Henry Harrison? Tell about the battle of Tippecanoe. Tell about the sacred beans. What did the Indians say about the "Prophet" after the battle? What good did the battle of Tippecanoe do? What did Tec.u.mseh do when he got back? Where did he then go? What happened in 1812?

Why did we fight the British? What did General Harrison do in Canada?

What did the people of the west say? How long did General Harrison live after he became President?

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON (1767-1845).

206. Andrew Jackson and the War of 1812; his birthplace; his school; wrestling-matches;[1] firing off the gun.--The greatest battle of our second war with England--the War of 1812--was fought by General Andrew Jackson.

He was the son of a poor emigrant who came from the North of Ireland and settled in North Carolina.[2] When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Andrew was nine years old, and his father had long been dead. He was a tall, slender, freckled-faced, barefooted boy, with eyes full of fun; the neighbors called him "Mischievous little Andy."

He went to school in a log hut in the pine woods; but he learned more things from what he saw in the woods than from the books he studied in school.

He was not a very strong boy, and in wrestling some of his companions could throw him three times out of four; but though they could get him down without much trouble, it was quite another thing to keep him down. No sooner was he laid flat on his back, than he bounded up like a steel spring, and stood ready to try again.

He had a violent[3] temper, and when, as the boys said, "Andy got mad all over," not many cared to face him. Once some of his playmates secretly loaded an old gun almost up to the muzzle, and then dared him to fire it. They wanted to see what he would say when it kicked him over. Andrew fired the gun. It knocked him sprawling; he jumped up with eyes blazing with anger, and shaking his fist, cried out, "If one of you boys laughs, I'll kill him." He looked as though he meant exactly what he said, and the boys thought that perhaps it would be just as well to wait and laugh some other day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDY AND THE GUN.]

[Footnote 1: Wrestling (res'ling).]

[Footnote 2: He settled in Union County, North Carolina, very near the South Carolina line. See map in paragraph 140. Mecklenburg Court House is in the next county west of Union County.]

[Footnote 3: Violent: fierce, furious.]

207. Tarleton's[4] attack on the Americans; how Andrew helped his mother.--When Andrew was thirteen, he learned what war means. The country was then fighting the battles of the Revolution. A British officer named Tarleton came suddenly upon some American soldiers near the place where young Jackson lived. Tarleton had so many men that the Americans saw that it was useless to try to fight, and they made no attempt to do so. The British should have taken them all prisoners; but, instead of that, they attacked them furiously, and hacked and hewed them with their swords. More than a hundred of our men were left dead, and a still larger number were so horribly wounded that they could not be moved any distance. Such an attack was not war, for war means a fair, stand-up fight; it was murder: and when the people in England heard what Tarleton had done, many cried Shame!

There was a little log meeting-house near Andrew's home, and it was turned into a hospital for the wounded men. Mrs. Jackson, with other kind-hearted women, did all she could for the poor fellows who lay there groaning and helpless. Andrew carried food and water to them.

He had forgotten most of the lessons he learned at school, but here was something he would never forget.

[Footnote 4: Tarleton (Tarl'ton).]

208. Andrew's hatred of the "red-coats";[5] Tarleton's soldiers meet their match.--From that time, when young Jackson went to the blacksmith's shop to get a hoe or a spade mended, he was sure to come back with a rude spear, or with some other weapon, which he had hammered out to fight the "red-coats" with.

Tarleton said that no people in America hated the British so much as those who lived where Andrew Jackson did. The reason was that no other British officer was so cruel as "Butcher Tarleton," as he was called. Once, however, his men met their match. They were robbing a farm of its pigs and chickens and corn and hay. When they got through carrying things off, they were going to burn down the farm-house; but one of the "red-coats," in his haste, ran against a big hive of bees and upset it. The bees were mad enough. They swarmed down on the soldiers, got into their ears and eyes, and stung them so terribly that at last the robbers were glad to drop everything and run. If Andrew could have seen that battle, he would have laughed till he cried.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEES BEAT THE "RED-COATS."]

[Footnote 5: Red-coats: this nickname was given by the Americans to the British soldiers because they wore bright red coats.]

209. Dangerous state of the country; the roving bands.--Andrew knew that he and his mother lived in constant danger. Part of the people in his state were in favor of the king, and part were for liberty.

Bands of armed men, belonging sometimes to one side, and sometimes to the other, went roving about the country. When they met a farmer, they would stop him and ask, 'Which side are you for?' If he did not answer to suit them, the leader of the party would cry out, Hang him up! In an instant one of the band would cut down a long piece of wild grapevine, twist it into a noose, and throw it over the man's head; the next moment he would be dangling from the limb of a tree.

Sometimes the band would let him down again; sometimes they would ride on and leave him hanging there.

210. Playing at battle; what Tarleton heard about himself.--Even the children saw and heard so much of the war that was going on that they played at war, and fought battles with red and white corn,--red for the British and white for the Americans.

At the battle of Cowpens[6] Colonel William Was.h.i.+ngton[7] fought on the American side, and Tarleton got badly whipped and had to run.

Not long afterward he happened to see some boys squatting on the ground, with a lot of corn instead of marbles. They were playing the battle of Cowpens. A red kernel stood for Tarleton, and a white one for Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton. The boys shoved the corn this way and that; sometimes the red would win, sometimes the white. At last the white kernel gained the victory, and the boys shouted, "Hurrah for Was.h.i.+ngton--Tarleton runs!"

Tarleton had been quietly looking on without their knowing it. When he saw how the game ended, he turned angrily away. He had seen enough of "the little rebels,"[8] as he called them.

[Footnote 6: Cowpens: see paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 7: Colonel William Was.h.i.+ngton was a relative of General George Was.h.i.+ngton.]

[Footnote 8: Rebels: this was the name which the British gave to the Americans because we had been forced to take up arms to overthrow the authority of the English king, who was still lawfully, but not justly, the ruler of this country. Had he been a just and upright ruler, there would probably have been no rebellion against his authority at that time.]

211. Andrew is taken prisoner by the British; "Here, boy, clean those boots"; the two scars.--Not long after our victory at Cowpens, Andrew Jackson was taken prisoner by the British. The officer in command of the soldiers had just taken off his boots, splashed with mud.

Pointing to them, he said to Andrew, Here, boy, clean those boots.

Andrew replied, Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and it is not my place to clean boots. The officer, in a great pa.s.sion, whipped out his sword and struck a blow at the boy. It cut a gash on his head and another on his hand. Andrew Jackson lived to be an old man, but the marks of that blow never disappeared: he carried the scars to his grave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDREW JACKSON AND THE OFFICER'S BOOTS.]

212. The prisoners in the yard of Camden jail; seeing a battle through a knot-hole.--Andrew was sent with other prisoners to Camden, South Carolina,[9] and shut up in the jail-yard. There many fell sick and died of small-pox.

One day some of the prisoners heard that General Greene--the greatest American general in the Revolution, next to Was.h.i.+ngton--was coming to fight the British at Camden. Andrew's heart leaped for joy, for he knew that if General Greene should win he would set all the prisoners at liberty.

General Greene, with his little army, was on a hill in sight Of the jail, but there was a high, tight board fence round the jail-yard, and the prisoners could not see them. With the help of an old razor Andrew managed to dig out a knot from one of the boards. Through that knot-hole he watched the battle.

Our men were beaten in the fight, and Andrew saw their horses, with empty saddles, running wildly about. Then the boy turned away, sick at heart. Soon after that he was seized with the small-pox, and would have died of it if his mother had not succeeded in getting him set free.

[Footnote 9: Camden: see map in paragraph 140.]

213. Mrs. Jackson goes to visit the American prisoners at Charleston; Andrew loses his best friend; what he said of her.--In the summer Mrs. Jackson made a journey on horseback to Charleston, a hundred and sixty miles away. She went to carry some little comforts to the poor American prisoners, who were starving and dying of disease in the crowded and filthy British prison-s.h.i.+ps in the harbor. While visiting these unfortunate men she caught the fever which raged among them. Two weeks later she was in her grave, and Andrew, then a lad of fourteen, stood alone in the world.

Years afterward, when he had risen to be a noted man, people would sometimes praise him because he was never afraid to say and do what he believed to be right; then Jackson would answer, "_That_ I learned from my good old mother."

214. Andrew begins to learn a trade; he studies law and goes west; Judge Jackson; General Jackson.--Andrew set to work to learn the saddler's trade, but gave it up and began to study law. After he became a lawyer he went across the mountains to Nashville, Tennessee.

There he was made a judge. There were plenty of rough men in that part of the country who meant to have their own way in all things; but they soon found that they must respect and obey Judge Jackson.

They could frighten other judges, but it was no use to try to frighten him. Seeing what sort of stuff Jackson was made of, they thought that they should like to have such a man to lead them in battle. And so Judge Andrew Jackson became General Andrew Jackson. When trouble came with the Indians, Jackson proved to be the very man they needed.