INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ANDREW JACKSON

1. His parents were Irish immigrants. Andrew was born on the border between the Carolinas.  Both states claim his birthplace.
2. During the American Revolution, he was a courier for the Continental Army. At age 13, he and his brother were taken captive.  When he refused to shine the boots of a British officer, he was slashed with a sword leaving a permanent scar on his head.  His brother died from small pox contracted in the British camp.  His mother died from cholera contracted while nursing American prisoners.  He was now an orphan.
3. He became a frontier lawyer and then a politician. He was the first Congressman from the new state of Tennessee.
4. He had a cotton plantation called The Hermitage. He ended up owning over 150 slaves.  As President, he opposed abolitionism, but also opposed secession.  His firm leadership kept South Carolina from seceding and postponed the Civil War for 30 years.
5. He was a noted Indian fighter. He fought the Seminole and Creek Indians.  He invaded Spanish Florida to defeat the Seminoles and fugitive slaves that had taken refuge with them.  In the process, he executed two British agents working with the Indians, causing an international incident.
6. He adopted three Indian children (He had no children of his own.) One of them was a baby taken from his dead mother’s arms after his soldiers had attacked her village. 
7. He married a bigamist. He fell in love with Rachel Robards, who was in an unhappy marriage.  Andrew consoled her.  When they learned that her rotten husband had divorced her, they got married. Unfortunately, there had been no divorce, so technically Rachel was married to two men at the same time.  The Jackson’s quickly got the divorce and remarried, but the scandal was used by his political opponents.  Rachel, who smoked a pipe, died soon after he was elected President.  Jackson blamed his opponents for his death.
8. Old Hickory fought at least a dozen duels. Many of them were with men who insulted his wife.  The most famous was with Charles Dickinson, the best duelist in Tennessee.  Dickinson fired first and hit Jackson one inch below the heart.  Jackson remained standing long enough to kill Dickinson.  The bullet stayed in Jackson’s body for the rest of his life.
9. Jackson was the first President to have an attempt on his life. He was approached by an insane house painter who aimed two pistols at him.  Both pistols misfired.  The odds of that have been estimated at 125,000 to 1.  Jackson was beating the man with his cane when he was arrested.
10. Jackson loved to gamble – cards, dice, horse-racing, cockfights.
11. He was put on the $20 bill in 1869. This is ironic because he distrusted paper money.  It was one reason why he destroyed the Second Bank of the United States.  Thrifty with the government’s money, he paid off the national debt.
12. He won the popular vote three times. In 1824, he did not win a majority of the electoral vote, so the House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams to be President.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/10-birthday-facts-about-president-andrew-jackson-2

https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-andrew-jackson

https://blueandgrayeducation.org/2019/03/11-interesting-things-you-might-not-know-about-andrew-jackson/

https://facts.net/andrew-jackson-facts/