The

ANDREW JACKSON was descended from a Scotch family which emigrated to the North of Ireland at a very early period. troubled state of that country induced Andrew's father to seek a new home in the land of promise, America. In 1765 he arrived at the port of Charleston, South Carolina, bringing with him a wife and two sons, Hugh and Robert. He settled on a tract of land then called "Waxhaw Settlement," near the boundary-line of North Carolina. Here, two years subsequently, the subject of this memoir was born (15th March, 1767).

Soon after the birth of Andrew, his father died, leaving him and his two brothers to the sole care and guardianship of Mrs. Jackson, an excellent woman, famed for her heroic resolution,

and admirable qualities of head and heart. In early life she had witnessed the tyranny of British rule in Ireland, and the still more tyrannous exactions of the Irish nobility. These reminiscences she recounted to her sons, and their influence was observable in after-life in a sturdy opposition to tyranny and exaction.

The education which the lads received was necessarily of a limited character. The two eldest were simply taught the rudiments of the English language, but Andrew, being intended for the ministry, enjoyed some additional advantages. He was sent to a flourishing academy at the Waxhaw Meeting-house, where he studied the classics and the higher branches of a superior education, until the Revolutionary War had extended itself to the immediate vicinity. South Carolina was invaded by the British in 1779, and in the following year it became necessary for the neighborhood in which Jackson resided to declare itself for or against the enemy. The struggles of the patriot army during five long years of trial were perfectly familiar to Andrew and his little home circle, and the spirit of resistance was strong within them. On the 29th of May, 1780, an engagement took place at Waxhaw Settlement between the British and American forces, in which the latter were defeated, suffering a loss in killed and wounded of nearly three hundred men.

It became necessary to retire before the invading army into North Carolina. Mrs. Jackson, with her two remaining sons (she had lost one at the battle of Stono, from the excessive heat of the weather), abandoned the homestead for a short time, but returned in time to allow the boys to take part in the battle of Hanging Rock (6th of August, 1780), where the corps to which they were attached greatly distinguished itself. They were again compelled to retire to North Carolina, but returned in a few months, when it was known that Lord Cornwallis had crossed the Yadkin.

It was during the trying scenes of this period that Andrew Jackson gave the first illustration of that quickness of thought and instant decision which afterward placed him in the front rank of military commanders. A captain of the American forces named Sands, who had been absent from home for some time, desired to spend a night with his family. Robert and Andrew Jackson, with seven others, consented to act as his body-guard. They numbered seven muskets, and, when night came on, lay down to sleep with