DEATH OF JACKSON'S FATHER.

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and two sons, Hugh and Robert, both quite young. He fixed his residence at the Waxhaw settlement, distant from Camden about forty-five miles; where he purchased a plantation, and where he hoped to spend his old age in peace. It was here, on the 15th of March, 1767, that his third son, Andrew, was born. The father was not destined to behold even the earlier glories of the future hero of the west; about the close of the year which witnessed the birth of his youngest son, he passed to brighter scenes in another and happier world.

By this sudden bereavement, the care of educating the three boys devolved upon Mrs. Jackson; a lady who appears to have been eminently qualified for the task. The two elder children, who were intended for a situation in life similar to that occupied by their father, received their education at a country school, where they acquired only the simpler branches of learning. But Andrew, her youngest and darling child, was intended by his fond parent to fill a more conspicuous station in life. Her plans, however, were far from being realized in his future career of glory; although the position for which she intended him was one of honour and usefulHis superior abilities pointed out a professional life as the one best suited to his nature; and the pious mother decided that he should be educated for the pulpit. Under the tuition of a gentlemen named Humphries, who taught an academy in the Waxhaw meeting-house, Andrew commenced his classical studies. He pursued them for some time with ardour and success, until the commencement of the American Revolution disturbed his peaceful avocations, and from the

ness.

C

academy he was suddenly hurried into those fearful and bloody scenes which marked the partisan warfare of the Carolinas. In this severe school he was to receive the training which gave him that unflinching military courage, and stout, unfailing promptitude of action which characterized his after life. We may figure to ourselves the future pioneer of the west in those his early days, relieving the monotony of his classical studies by frequent excursions in the surrounding forests; where the rifle and the hunting-knife became his boyhood's playthings; the parroquets and wild deer of those Carolinian woods the targets of practice for that unerring aim which was afterward to make him the dread of the murderous savage. He was now commencing that rough training which was to be perfected in the Revolutionary contest. Born but two years after the Stamp Act was passed, his childhood had passed away while the statesmen of America had been contesting the great questions on which the Revolution was based, and conducting it in the council chamber to that point when recourse was had to the final arbiter of national quarrels, the sword. The battle of Lexington had been fought, and the echo of its din had reached the wilds of the Waxhaws without exciting immediate alarm. Later, the defeat of the British at Charleston had been borne to the distant cottage of our hero's mother, on the wings of rumour, and had brought the cheering assurance that for the present her fireside would be safe from the brutality of British soldiers. Next came the news that Independence was declared ; and the young heart of Jackson exulted in the consciousness that he had a country. No longer a mere

HOSTILITIES WITH ENGLAND.

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colonist, he was destined to be a free citizen of the soil on which he was born; and when the din of arms came nearer, and the foot of the invader was already on Carolinian ground, he had become old enough and strong enough to shoulder the partisan rifle, to mount his horse, and become one of those wild rangers of the forest whose ubiquity and valour were alike the dread of Tarleton, Rawdon, and Cornwallis.

Jackson accompanying Marion and Davie in the Southern War.

CHAPTER II.

SERVICES IN THE REVOLUTION.

HE storm which for many years had been gathering in the political horizon of the colonies of America, and whose first fury burst upon the devoted heads of the patriots of Lexington, began in 1778 to agitate

the southern portion of the confederacy; and the peaceful pursuits of the inhabitants were relinquished for the din of arms. While many of them, influenced

PARTISAN WARFARE.

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by fear or interest, turned a deaf ear to the demands of patriotism and joined the royal standard, the sons of Mrs. Jackson ranged themselves under the banner of their country, and staked their lives and their all in the struggle for liberty. Their natural ardour, and attachment to the American cause, was not a little increased by the remembrance of the injuries suffered by their ancestors; and to their zeal for freedom was added a deep and abiding detestation of British tyranny. Their grandfather had been one of the devoted Irish patriots, who vainly struggled to free their country from the yoke of the oppressor; and at the siege of Carrickfergus he had laid down his life for his country. His wrongs and his melancholy fate had formed the frequent subject of the mother's eloquent descriptions; and the lofty patriotism and fervent devotion to the cause of civil liberty with which she inspired her sons, laid the foundation of that elevated and heroic character which marked the subsequent career of Jackson.

While Generals Lincoln, Gates, and Greene commanded in succession the main force of the Americans in the Carolinas, which had now become the chief theatre of war, the detachments who harassed the enemy in partisan warfare were under the direction of Marion, Sumpter, Pickens, and Davie. These leaders were engaged in breaking up the smaller forts of the British, or in repairing losses sustained by action. The troops which followed their fortunes, on their own or their friends' horses, were armed with rifles, in the use of which they had become expert; a small portion only who acted as cavalry being provided with