HorseStatues of Washington,DC
By KeatsKennelly
J U N E 2 0 2 4
THE ULYSSES S. GRANT MEMORIAL
A U G U S T 2 0 2 4
THE ANDREW JACKSON MEMORIAL
PHOTOGRAPHY,
EDITED BY
COPYRIGHT 2024 BY KEATS KENNELLY
The Andrew Jackson Memorial
“Takenothingonitslooks;takeeverythingonevidence. Thereisnobetterrule.”
~CharlesDickens,“GreatExpectations”
The year was new when the Battle of New Orleans was won on January 8, 1815. In the aftermath, it proved to be more than a new year or a new victory of the War of 1812 to celebrate. Very few Americans realized in the moment, it was the dawn of a new age for America. History would call this the Age of Jackson after Andrew Jackson, the Major General who led America to victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Though the Age of Jackson traditionally spans from around 1820 to 1845, its birth was on January 8, 1815. The moment, memorialized by the exquisite equestrian statue conceived and cast by sculptor Clark Mills and his enslaved Master Craftsman, Philip Reed, shows Major General Andrew Jackson reviewing his troops as he had done on January 8, 1815 during the Battle.
At New Orleans, the victors of the Napoleonic Wars met a diverse group of Americans on the battlefield. United largely by the work of Andrew Jackson in the lead up to the battle, these ragtag Americans managed to fend off the British. The British were stunned not only at the defeat at the hands of the Americans, but also at how bad that defeat had been. The final toll was 2,034 British deaths and 62 American deaths. In truth, it was a major military disaster at each turn for Great Britain. Their mistakes easily handed Major General Andrew Jackson the most defining victory of his life. It was such a success, most people then and now forget this victory came after a peace treaty between America and Great Britain had been signed in Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812 on paper. Neither side would hear of the Treaty of Ghent until weeks after the Battle of New Orleans was over.
The resounding success of Andrew Jackson's campaigns during the War of 1812 gave the fledgeling nation a brand new war hero to worship. This victory also gave a few prominent men in the then frontier town of Nashville, Tennessee a new personality to push towards the presidency, and ultimately, power.
Major General Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767 in the Waxhaws region of the colonial Carolinas. It was an auspicious birthday for a boy who would be negatively compared to Julius Caesar as a man. His father, Andrew Jackson, Sr., had died in a logging accident just three weeks before Jackson was born. Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson had emigrated from Ulster, Ireland in 1765 settling in the Carolinas.
The Jackson family arrived in the American colonies with virtually nothing except for a burning hatred for the British and a hope for a better life. In less than a decade after the Jackson family arrived in America, the British would be in America trying to quell a building revolution - a revolution that would bring tragedy into Andrew Jackson’s life at a young age, setting in stone aspects of character that would later serve him well on the battlefield, and much less well off the battlefield.
Hugh Jackson, Jackson’s eldest brother, perished in 1780 while fighting against the British. He died from heat exhaustion after a battle. This was a huge blow to the Jackson family. About a year later, on April 9, 1781, Robert and Andrew Jackson were serving with the South Carolina militia as messengers, at ages 16 and 14 respectively, when they were caught in a skirmish with some British redcoats. Robert and Andrew would escape from the skirmish with their lives intact, but had lost a cousin in the fighting. Robert and Andrew went directly to their Uncle’s house to tell him of the death of their cousin. British soldiers saw them there. The soldiers came and destroyed the house to humiliate the family whose son they had already killed that day. At the end, the lead British officer told Andrew to clean his boots. Andrew refused. He said he was a prisoner of war and should be treated as such. The British officer, angry at such impertinence, pulled his sword
and attempted to slash and smash Andrew’s head in. Andrew raised his arm to protect himself. His hand was cut down to the bone, and a slash cut across his forehead. He would wear these scars for the rest of his life. Robert then sustained a severe blow to the head. Neither boy had their wounds dressed. They were left bleeding profusely and marched to a POW camp in Camden, South Carolina.
Upon hearing of the fate of her remaining sons, Elizabeth Jackson set off to Camden to negotiate the boys’ freedom. Amazingly, she was successful. The trip had been trying on her and Robert was in a bad shape. Both boys, in addition to their wounds, had caught illnesses at the POW camp that left them both extremely weak. Still, Andrew insisted on walking the entire way home, barefoot, allowing his mother and brother to ride their one horse.
Robert would not survive the night once they made it home. Andrew would barely survive. Once Elizabeth was sure her youngest and only remaining son was out of harm’s way, she then set off again to Charleston where a ship was holding prisoners of war off shore, including one of her nephews. Elizabeth made it safely to the ship, but caught cholera and died quickly after arriving. At age 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan in the world. Three of his four family members had been taken by the British, who drove the Jacksons to America to begin with. The physical wounds would heal for Andrew, but the wounds left from the tragedies that took his family would never fully heal. His intense hatred for the British would never abate, and only grew sronger with time.
The Most Uncommon Common Man
In 1831, the novelist Mary Shelley wrote, “Every thing must have a beginning... and that beginning must be linked to something that came before... Invention... does not consist in creating out of the void, but out of chaos...” The invention of Andrew Jackson came most definitely from chaos. The chaos of being born into a home filled with new grief. The chaos of war, of unspeakable tragedy. The chaos of facing the world alone at a tender age. The chaos of America’s western frontier. The invention of Jackson began before New Orleans, but greatly grew and continued thereafter, capitalizing on the chaos that comes with any cult of personality.
Many historical accounts, especially those written by the men in his circle during his time, gloss over that he wound up in Tennessee because the extended family he had left in the Carolinas grew tired of his volatile existence. Women, whiskey, gambling, dueling, those were Jackson’s main loves. He went to Nashville, became a lawyer, but more prominently and less openly spoken about, a land speculator. He built a powerful network of connections with shady characters who also happened to be the most powerful and richest men in Nashville and the surrounding areas. He established a plantation, The Hermitage, and after a short stint in Congress, became a horse breeder and racer.
Jackson met the true and ardent love of his life, Rachel Donelson Robards, when she was still married to her estranged husband. That did not stop them from living together as husband and wife, until Mr. Robards came back around. To cover this up later, once he had entered politics with a wife legally branded an adulterer, a story was fabricated telling of how the two went to Natchez, Mississippi to marry, having been told Rachel had been divorced. It was a great shock to learn two years later that the divorce had never been granted. No records of the first marriage ceremony exist, and many consider it a cover story to save both from further embarrassment. His wife’s honor, which he himself sullied, would find him in many a duel during his life, duels which culminated in lifelong injuries for him, and in some instances, the end of life for others. Yet, his honor, throughout all the chaos in his life, would somehow remain largely untarnished.
During the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson would win the love of the men who fought under him when, upon being sent orders in 1813 to disband his militia, take all the guns from his men, and send his men home without supplies, Jackson refused. He instead, marched his men home to Nashville himself. It was hundreds of miles through the dangerous and unpredictable wilderness of America’s western frontier. Many of the men, who had been camping in Natchez, Mississippi for months, were sick. Jackson took out a personal loan and paid for 11 carriages to carry the sick men. When those were not enough to carry all the sick, Jackson, as he did with his mother and brother, dismounted from his horse and allowed the sick to ride as he walked. His officers followed his example.
Yet, these moments in Jackson’s life where he showed sincere and overwhelming compassion were few and far between, though these moments became the most celebrated aspects of his story. The story has molded the man to the office he’d eventually ascend to.
Jackson’s compassion and empathy were largely restricted to white interests. As a General, he used treaties with American Indian tribes as a means to steal their land regardless of if they were allies or foes. He wanted their land for himself and others like himself. Later, Jackson invaded Spanish Florida, starting a war, ignoring not only the Constitution of the United States in doing so, but direct orders not to invade as well. It is the cannons he captured during his illegal war when he invaded at Pensacola, Florida that were previously placed with the monument to Jackson in Washington, DC prior to their removal after successive incidents of vandalism of the monument starting in 2020. Originally, Clark Mills, the sculptor of Jackson’s monument wanted to melt down the cannons to use in the statue, but the tin content was too high. The audacity to display stolen cannons from an illegal war to memorialize a man who caused so much harm to the nation, is truly remarkable.
Jackson owned more than one plantation during his life, some built on stolen tribal lands in Mobile, Alabama, and all worked by enslaved peoples. Later, as president, he would be responsible for the Trail of Tears, marching American Indians off their tribal lands to the west of the Mississippi River, and America’s march towards the Civil War due to his stance on and choice not to deal with the issue of slavery.
The Age of Jackson is truly defined, very ironically, as the beginning of the Democratic Party and true democracy in America. Jackson was contemporarily viewed as a common man and the hero of the common man. A selfmade man who, coming from humble beginnings, beat the odds to live the American Dream. It was a story artfully crafted by men he employed to write it and the newspapers he and his friends shadow founded and funded to take his glorious fiction to the people.
In truth, it is hard to really separate the man from the myth and the ardent manipulation of the American people. While the statue itself is something to be in awe of, the man it celebrates is not. Thomas Jefferson wrote that Andrew Jackson was “unfit” for the office of the presidency. History has shown Jefferson to be correct in his assessment. The many abuses of people and power over petty and ridiculous differences, over not putting country before vanity, over wanting to get and keep power, are too numerous to commit to these short pages.
It is not surprising then, that America’s Caesar, as those who feared a Jackson presidency called him, already had a memorial committee established in less than two years from his death. Jackson and his ilk were master craftsmen of tale tales more than all. He and the men around him crafted a palatable story for a very unpalatable man in order to get and keep power. It is very unfortunate that they succeeded so well in their nefarious designs.
If anything, this monument should serve as a cautionary tale of those who have the power to craft the narrative. It is said, “History is written by the victors.” Jackson and his men used his massive victory, which came not because of his genius but because of major mistakes the British made, to paint him as the new George Washington. Yet, if you move beyond popular accounts, and primary sources fabricated and composed by cronies looking to capitalize, it is easy to see Andrew Jackson as Americans know him - an absolute lie.
Bibliography
Abernethy, Thomas P. “Andrew Jackson and the Rise of Southwestern Democracy.” the American Historical Review, October 1, 1927. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/33.1.64.
Borneman, Walter R. 1812: The War That Forged a Nation. Harper Collins, 2004.
Dickens, Charles. Great EXPECTATIONS: Penguin Classics, 2012.
Goode, James M. “The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.: A Comprehensive Historical Guide: Goode, James M: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1974. https://archive.org/details/outdoorsculpture1974good_p0x0.
Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler. The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics. Basic Books, 2018.
Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, 1989. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA12084781.
Kilmeade, Brian, and Don Yaeger. Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: The Battle That Shaped America’s Destiny. Penguin, 2017.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Penguin, 2003.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. Back Bay Books, 1945.
The Andrew Jackson Memorial