#jacksonian

[shmegmilton]

The funniest thing I think has ever said about Burr was when Andrew Jackson essentially said “I have never met a man who could be more of a genius and more of a dumbass at the exact same time.”

[cincinnatusvirtue]

Battle of New Orleans and the rise of Andrew Jackson

 205 years ago today the Battle of New Orleans was fought in the War of 1812.  The battle is probably among the most remembered events in the War of 1812, along with the Burning of Washington DC and the Battles of Baltimore and Lake Erie.  The war itself and its reasons for fighting are largely gone in the public’s memory, even in the participating countries.  However, the war was consequential in some ways and this battle though fought after the peace treaty was signed and before news of its signing reached American shores would be consequential not in a military sense but a psychological one.

When one thinks of the War of 1812, most in the world might think of that year as being exclusively about Napoleon Bonaparte’s Invasion of Russia and the Patriotic War fought there which turned the tide of the Napoleonic Wars, but related to those wars and namely due to Britain and France’s rivalry was the War of 1812 fought in North America between the United States and Great Britain.  It was the second and final bloody war fought between the two nations. 

The war resulted as part of unresolved issues from the American Revolutionary War which ended in 1783 and granted the US all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes, with common shared usage of all these waterways.  The issues were in part the refusal of the British to abandon all their forts in these areas, namely in the current upper Midwest of the United States, then known as US Northwestern Territory and later the Indiana and Illinois Territories.  The modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin were the very threshold of the American wilderness and not widely settled aside from the fur trade and Native American tribes.  This lead to another issue, Native American tribes in this territory had taken issue with increasing American settlement.  1785-1795 saw a ten year war between the US and a confederacy of various tribes in this area, called the Western or Miami Confederacy, which the Americans defeated after the Battle of Fallen Timbers.  Increasing tensions between the Native tribes and a new confederacy formed under a Shawnee named Tecumseh (1768-1813) against American settlement and being armed by the British who sought to create a Native American controlled buffer state between its Canadian colonies and the US was another source of tension. 

The final issue and most pressing was that of impressment, the act of taking sailors from a foreign nation and forcing them to serve in another against their will.  America had remained neutral during the French Revolutionary Wars and subsequent Napoleonic Wars but the British Royal Navy being the world’s most powerful was largely making it harder and harder for America to remain neutral.  It sought to disrupt American trade with France and it also sought to shore up its manpower shortages in naval service.  To do this it began the act of impressment by stopping American merchant and naval vessels and seizing sailors and forcing them into British naval service.  At first it was done on the grounds that some British sailors had ran away into American service and therefore they were collecting them back.  The reality became by 1807 though, namely the famed Chesapeake Affair that American sailors themselves were also being taken against their will.  Thomas Jefferson had the  Embargo Act of 1807 passed in an effort to prevent trade with both France and Britain by removing crucial American markets and hit their economies to the point they would stop.  America saw impressment as a violation of a neutral nation’s rights and national dishonor.  The act only hurt American trading interests instead and was repealed 15 months later.

By June 1812, these combination of events lead to the declaration of war by the United States under President James Madison against Britain which was locked in the Peninsular War in Spain against Napoleonic France at the time.  The war really caught both sides unprepared and what followed were two and a half years of blundered offensives by both sides and mostly successful defenses as well.  America still used a state militia system to supplement it’s small regular army which gave it numerical superiority to the British regular army in Canada.  However, the British navy effected a blockade of the American Atlantic Coast which hurt shipping and trade.  However, despite America’s numerical superiority and Britain’s best troops being in Spain, the US leadership was incompetent in many ways and the militias often only followed state loyalty rather than national and this over and over bungled American plans to overtake Canada.  The British to make up for a lack of regular support had Canadian militia and Native American tribes serve as auxiliary forces which fought with great success in several early campaigns.  By 1813 however, America fought back in some notable ways.  The Americans retook Fort Detroit in Michigan after its capture and notably defeated the Royal Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie.  Interestingly the US won many single ship duels against the Royal Navy all throughout the war which somewhat tarnished the Royal Navy’s reputation and confounded the British, giving America sorely needed bright spots for its failed offensives into Canada.  The Americans then killed Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames ending his confederacy and British support for an Native American buffer state.  To top it off, America burned York (Toronto) the capital of the British colony of Upper Canada destroying its parliamentary buildings and taking the Speaker’s mace, which America kept as a war trophy until 1934 when President Franklin Roosevelt gave it back as a goodwill gesture. 

1814 was intended to be the year of British revenge.  In spring 1814, Britain had finished the Peninsular War with the defeat and first abdication of Napoleon in France and his exile to Elba.  New and experienced troops were transferred to North America.  Three British offensives were planned to end the war in their favor.  The first was the August 1814 invasion of Washington DC and Maryland.  The British entered Washington DC and in revenge for the burning of York, Upper Canada by America the year before, they burnt the abandoned US Capitol building after holding a mock legislative session, they also burnt the abandoned White House after holding dinner there along with other government buildings.  The US government however had evacuated ahead of time to evade capture, so the act of burning Washington was less a strategic win and more of a symbolic revenge.  A hurricane hit right after the burning and its rains put out the fires.  The British then attacked Baltimore, Maryland hoping to destroy the important American commercial center and its naval facilities but were defeated and from this battle, America’s national anthem the Star Spangled Banner came, written by witness, Francis Scott Key.  The second offensive, was the Battle of Lake Champlain fought in upstate New York and Vermont.  Its goal was to weaken American naval power on the lake and the St. Lawrence River and to cutoff public support for the war in New England from the rest of the US (New England was against the war in many ways due to their lucrative trade with Britain being hurt).  A combined land and naval battle took place in September 1814 at Plattsburgh, New York.  The Americans were like at Baltimore triumphant and the British repulsed.  The third and final planned offensive was to take place in the American South, by taking its major commercial center at New Orleans, Louisiana.

As the plans for New Orleans to be attacked were being made in autumn 1814 and the British and Americans were diplomatically trying to find a resolution to the war’s end in a neutral location.  The chose the city of Ghent, then in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and now modern Belgium.  Even as negotiations for peace were under way, the British Secretary of War, Henry Bathurst instructed Major General Edward Pakenham to lead the attack.  Pakenham was a veteran of the Peninsular War and brother in law of General Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and soon to be hero of Waterloo.  Bathurst was concerned the Americans would not ratify any peace deal and so he thought an attack and occupation of New Orleans might strengthen the British position to end the war in terms favorable to them.  The attack was planned for late December 1814 or early 1815.  As it turned out the British and American delegations lead by Lord Gambier and future US President John Quincy Adams respectively signed a peace treaty on Christmas Eve 1814, the treaty essentially restored the status quo before the war.  Neither side would gain new territory or lose any territory, a true military and political stalemate.  Though unarguably, the British allied Native American tribes lost the war militarily and politically when British support for them having their own state dropped and the British abandoned all held forts captured during the war and held prior to the war in American territory.  American settlement and military encroachment on these lands would be overwhelming and irreversible to the Native tribes in the coming years.  With the Treaty of Ghent signed, it now awaited ratification in Britain’s Parliament and America’s Congress.  News being what it was in those days traveled by ship and would take weeks to reach American shores.  Pakenham’s attack on New Orleans would commence even though the war was technically over unbeknownst to him or his troops.  In New Orleans they would run into the man in charge of its defense and a man with personal vendetta against Britain, Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was born the son of Scots-Irish immigrants from Ulster, Ireland in the Carolinas prior to the American Revolution.  His father died shortly before his birth and during the American Revolution he served as a courier for the American Patriot army along with his brother.  However, a few events during the Revolution would shape his life ever after.  He first lost his brother Hugh to heat exhaustion in the wake of British victory, then Jackson and his brother Robert were taken prisoner by the British in 1781 and famously was ordered by a British officer to clean their muddied boots, Jackson refused and was slashed at with a sword by the officer, it left scars on his arms and face the rest of his life.  Their mother however secured their release and on the return journey home, nearly starved to death when Robert contracted small pox and died.  Then his mother volunteering as a nurse for American prisoners in British custody in Charleston, South Carolina contracted the same disease and died herself.  Andrew Jackson was complete orphan by the age of 14.  He always blamed the British for the loss of his family and his personal wounds and near death experiences.  Jackson was man to hold grudges all his life.  Overtime, Jackson became a self-made lawyer, landholder and businessman of some success, moving to Tennessee.  There he became a member of US Congress briefly and became a wealthy slave plantation owner and earned a reputation a a tough man, fighting in a duel when his wife’s honor was insulted, he killed his opponent and suffered a bullet lodged in his chest near his heart the rest of his life, never to be removed.  He also was elected to the lead the Tennessee militia and during the War of 1812 fought in the Southern Theater against the British allied Creek tribe in the Creek War.  This war ended in American victory which destroyed Creek resistance in the Southeastern US.  This gained Jackson some level of fame, but he was made ultimately given the responsibility of defending New Orleans against any impending British attack and rushed to its defense following a brief occupation of Pensacola Florida, then a Spanish colony.  He earned the nickname, Old Hickory from these campaigns, his men named him this affectionately for his fierce temper and personal toughness, tough like hickory wood

In December 1814, Pakenham’s force landed in Louisiana supported by the Royal Navy squadron of the Gulf of Mexico under the command Admiral Alexander Cochrane.  Jackson as acting military governor of New Orleans, placed the city under martial law.  He then began planning its defense and organizing his army.  In late December he heard that British troops had landed, in anger he launched a night attack against their camp, declaring “By the eternal, they shall not spend a night on our soil!”  The night attack didn’t dislodge the British but it inflicted casualties and made them realize what they initially thought would be an easy conquest would be more difficult.  Jackson fell back the city and the British continued their gradual approach which was hampered by the swampy conditions of Louisiana.  Jackson’s new plan was to build a so called Line Jackson, an entrenched position of earthworks, redoubts and parapets four miles south of the city manned by infantry and artillery which would defend the city it stretched from banks of the Mississippi River into a swamp on plantation field, the idea was to block the British and prevent being flanked or outmaneuvered by the river or swamp as natural defenses.  he also placed artillery on high ground opposite side of the river to further defend the line..  Then he had a second line prepared as well.  His army totaled 5,700 men at most.  It was a true American mix of 968 US Army, Marine and Navy regulars from all over the country but mostly consisted of southern militia volunteers from Louisiana and Tennessee primarily but also including Mississippi and Kentucky contingents.  It also included freed and enslaved black Americans, Choctaw Native Americans and even pirate smugglers under French pirate Jean Lafitte who helped man the artillery with great skill.  The army spoke a mix of English, French, Spanish, Choctaw and Louisiana Creole.

The British army would number 8,000 land troops giving them numerical superiority  The composition of the British army was diverse too though it mostly consisted of British regulars including Scottish Highlanders but had some all black regiments from the British Caribbean or West Indies as it was known then and a small set of support from Native American allies too.  Pakenham’s plan was to first have a set of troops cross the river and overtake the American cannons guarding any approach on the river’s west bank.  Those guns would then be swiveled to the east to fire upon Line Jackson and flank the Americans with an enfilade.  Meanwhile, Pakenham somewhat forced by geography due to the swampy terrain on the British right flank would have to use his superior numbers and the flanking enfilade from their left to overwhelm the American lines.  He thought this possible in part because of the discipline and experience of his troops and the low regard for American troops, especially militias that made up Line Jackson’s defense.

The Battle of New Orleans began on early morning January 8, 1815 in darkness and under heavy fog.  Pakenham’s flanking detachment of the 85th Regiment of Foot and Royal Marines under Colonel William Thornton crossed the river and attacked the flank of the American artillery guarding the west bank, successfully they captured the guns despite casualties and logistical difficulties due to bad terrain.  Thornton himself was wounded and this was to be the only British success of the day though it proved inconsequential to what transpired over the next half hour.  There is debate about whether the Americans spiked the guns rendering them useless of it the British actually carried out an ineffective enfilade.  Meanwhile as the fog lifted on the field of battle, the main British force was subject to American artillery and small arms fire.  It quickly laid waste to the British caught out in the open field.  Some British troops reached the 8 foot deep and 15 feet wide canal dug in front of Line Jackson’s earthworks, they were pinned down and the 44th Regiment of Foot tasked with supplying ladders needed to scale the canal and earthworks simply forgot them, this would later land its commander Lt. Colonel Thomas Mullins a court marital for negligence.  As a result the British advance was grinding to a halt in front of Line Jackson, some stayed pinned in place and fought where they could but the 93rd Highlanders Regiment was ordered to attack the furthest redoubt on the American right flank on the banks of the river.  The Highlanders initially took the redoubt but couldn’t hold it without support, all the men on the redoubt were killed, wounded or captured once the American 7th Us Infantry Regiment arrived to retake it.  There were cases of the British simply scaling the earthworks by hand in groups but they too were mowed down by musket fire and grapeshot from the American cannons at close range or they were grabbed and disarmed by the Americans and taken prisoner.  Pakenham and his second in command General Samuel Gibbs were both fatally wounded by American grapeshot.  In Pakenham’s case he was injured in the left knee first which killed his horse as well.  As he was being helped up to a second horse near the front of the line, he was hit a second time in the right arm and finally a third whiff of grapeshot penetrated his spine, killing him as he finally mounted his second horse, Pakenham and Gibbs deaths lead to confusion on the British side, no orders on how to continue to advance in the face of withering American fire and no commands to retreat, many were killed or wounded outright and others are recorded by some sources as simply playing dead to distract from enemy fire.  Finally, General John Lambert in command of the British reserve realized command fell to him ordered a retreat with the reserve called up to cover the British retreat.  Thornton’s detachment on the west bank of the river withdrew from their flanking position unable to change the tide of the battle. 

The battle was over in roughly a half hour though there is some debate on the American casualties, they were comparatively light with most sources saying 55 dead and 185 wounded though Jackson claimed only 13 Americans died.  The British on the other hand suffered 386 dead, 1,521 wounded and 552 captured or missing in action.  The British lost their two top commanders in the field and numerous other officers as well.  The British would withdraw from Louisiana and would fail to take another American fort before successfully capturing Fort Bowyer near Mobile, Alabama in February 1815.  Upon which they planned to attack the city proper when news of the Treaty of Ghent ending the war in stalemate finally arrived, they withdrew.  New Orleans was for the British an abject failure, made all the more gutting now knowing the war was over. 

For the Americans, New Orleans had a galvanizing effect on their psyche, the news of the victory at New Orleans reached many Americans before news of Ghent’s peace treaty did giving the false impression to some that Jackson’s victory contributed to the peace signing.  It helped usher in the so called “Era of Good Feelings” where Americans felt a sense of camaraderie and claimed the War of 1812 had been a victory even though it was a practical stalemate.  Americans had achieved at New Orleans a victory in their “Second War of Independence” against Britain.  In the coming decade mostly under President James Monroe, there would be little internal strife and relative economic prosperity which granted name the “Era of Good Feelings”.  Also the War of 1812 ended the Federalist party, leaving only the Democratic-Republicans in control as a one party system and ending the so called First Party System in American politics.  Britain and America would never go to war despite some occasional scares up through the American Civil War again and go on to become very close allies during the 20th and into the 21st centuries.

 For Andrew Jackson, New Orleans changed everything, he was the national hero of the war and a household name ever after.  His popularity was such that he would become senator for Tennessee and then campaign for President in 1824 in a contentious election against then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the campaign lead to political mudslinging and eventually due to a lack of majority in the Electoral College for any candidate, a vote was held in the US House of Representatives leading to Adams winning the Presidency.  Jackson returned home and networked until the next election, he would win the equally contentious 1828 election decisively against Adams and serve two full terms as President of United States (1829-1837) in very consequential fashion, establishing the modern day Democratic Party and influencing Democrat-Republicans opposed to him to become the Whig Party forming the Second Party System.  The era of good feelings started by Jackson would end with Jackson, the Jacksonian Era had begun...

[thewollfgang]

Do you get more satisfaction out of posting tiny stories here than on AO3 or does it just feel better not to have 666 stories on AO3 some of which are only a few hundred words. I've been wondering if I should just post drabbles on my tumblr instead of bothering wth AO3. For some reason Hold This has gotten a ridiculous amount of reads for it being my smallest and least favorite and my hard work feels less important then. But IDK... what's your opinion? - Jacksonian-the-writer

It's a bit of a complicated answer! It's sort of like, to me, ao3 is my portfolio as an author, so my work gets a little more polish. Not always, but I try to keep the work up to a certain standard. It's good stuff, properly edited.

Whereas here, on Tumblr, I'm in my pajamas with my friends, you know? I can write shit cause you guys ask me for something or something catches my interest and it can be hastily written, unedited, rough draft type stuff cause it doesn't matter, it's Tumblr, we're having a sleep over. And yeah, the validation is great! I love instant gratification! But that's not really the motivation.

I dunno, it just takes me back to when I was young and my friends and I stayed up late, giggling, as they asked me to write dirty stories for them. Not that all my ficlets here are dirty, just that sense of togetherness and cameradie and how it doesn't matter how silly or stupid or short something is, someone will enjoy it.

And sometimes if I feel a story is good enough, or enough people liked it, then I'll dust it off, scrub it a bit, and transfer it to ao3.

[thewollfgang]

I'd like to ask that you do the same for Body Swap that you did for Eldritch and post one or two lines at a time and let everyone drool over it while you work on it. Even if you never post it con todo, I love your snippets of half-done fanfics. Honestly, I thrive on your updates and it's the only reason I posted any of my stuff. -Jacksonian

oh well, i will definitely still be posting snippets! I just meant that i wouldn’t post chapter one until all the chapters had been written. I am far too weak willed to hold off on snippets. All the snippets. Here’s a little one:

“And you’re just going to pretend to be me?” Chloe shakes her head. “There is no way anyone will believe it.”

Lucifer snorts. “They’ve been working with the Devil for three years and have yet to notice.”

[thewollfgang]

"yall ever reach that point where you are so close to finishing a fic and you. just. cant. work on it." DUDE, Same but opposite. I'm working on the last chapter of Sinking & it won't stop but if I don't cut it off somewhere it'll just go on forever and I don't have the kind of plot consistency needed to make that work. But if you need motivation you can drive us all crazy with anticipation by posting one random line... -Jacksonian... PS is there a non-binary form of "dude"? should be...

oh man, ride that word high for as long as you can! and very well:

He snorts, scattering sparks. “Of course I can, I'm not a vampire.”

And dude is fine! i love dude. Dude is neutral to me. We are all dude. and when it comes to generic referencing of humans, I tend to prefer the masculine anyway. Dude, guy, lad. Or if I’m referred to in a group of friends that ID as girls, by a feminine group term is fine, too. It’s when I get singled out based on gender that I feel icky, you know?

I once read thude as a neutral version of dude, which is hilarious, but not necessary :D 

[puddley-beaver]

my contribution to the PJO series coming out! As a cabin 3 member myself, I had to draw Pudds with some water powers. I forgot I had a tumbr to be honest

[frontmezzjunkies]

#TNGTheJacksonian #frontmezzjunkies is #Streaming The Murderous and Marvelous #Jacksonian part of @thenewgroupnyc #ReunionReading Series #TheJacksonian a play by #BethHenley w/ #JulietBrett #EdHarris #CarolKane #AmyMadigan #BillPullman #GlenneHeadly @raceforward #TheNewGroup https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2020/08/29/streaming-the-jacksonian/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CEhcpvnh2eI/?igshid=1vt418adqduxv

[tammyrenee]

Our Jacksonian President

Presidents get to choose the paintings and portraits that surround them while they are in the Whitehouse. Presidents like to pick pictures of the presidents that came before them, particularly ones they admire. Your president chose four. Three are perfectly good and admirable men, the fourth is horrifying, Andrew Jackson. Let that sink in. He also thought it was cool that his campaign and his rhetoric is Jacksonian.

This could explain a lot. Andrew Jackson is considered by most historians, even most conservatives (educated ones at least) find him to be one of the worst presidents in the history of this country.

Jackson ran as the voice of the common man and back then it was ok to openly run as the man of the white man.

For those who don't know, Jackson committed genocide he was/is responsible for the Trail of Tears, he ignored Supreme Court Justices of the day who called it unconstitutional. If I recall, Jackson thought there was gold in the mountains and this would be good for the economy of Georgia and the United states. The Indian Removal Act was the only piece of legislation that Jackson signed in his eight years as president. Jackson also had issues with Native Americans because his mother was killed in an Indian Attack. Jackson held a grudge and made an entire people group pay for the actions of a few.

 Trump’s actions thus far are a throwback to Jackson. He has signed an order for moving forward with the Dakota Pipeline because it is good for the economy while ignoring the danger it poses to the Sioux reservation. He also signed an order barring an entire people group because of the actions of a few although those few aren’t even from the countries he banned.  

Jackson made his fortune off the backs of people, quite literally, per information obtained from the Hermitage, the Tennessee home of Andrew Jackson, most of Jackson's wealth was made off the slave trade. At the time of his death he owned around 150 slaves and over the course of this lifetime owned around 300. Jackson used the language that we hear today, it was the "elitist" the "establishment" who were trying to mess with the ways of the common man in the south, as if those slave owners were rich elitist. Jackson used gag-orders to attempt to suppress anti-slavery discussions in the congress. Jackson called abolitionist (activist) monsters and troublemakers, he called law and order and used terminology like "mob-rule" he wanted instigators found and punished. He even suggested that the Post Master could just not deliver anti-slavery materials through the mail.

He attacked the 1st amendment rights of abolitionist when he suggested to congress that distribution of abolitionist literature should be banned. He attacked the press because it went after him for bigamy.

 Steven Bannon, Trump’s chief advisor believes the press should shut up and Donald Trump wants to sue the press if they say bad stuff about him.

 Donald Trump made his fortune but screwing the common man over through not paying his contractors and use of bankruptcy laws, he and his father attempted to keep black people out of their properties by marking their applications with the letter "C". He has ranted against protesters and said he wished were the old days where you could just punch protesters in the face. Trump has outright dismissed Black Lives Matter.

 Jackson was elected by southerners by arguing that trade was bad for the American south, Trump argued that it is bad for the American middle class.

 Jackson is described by biographers and historians as being sharp-tongued and bad tempered. He took attacks personally and demonized his opponents.

 Trump feels attacked and in his words, he, “counter-punches.” He demonizes anybody who says anything about him to the point of making up or spreading baseless stories, i.e. Cruz’ father helped kill Kennedy.

 I wonder if Trump knows all this stuff about Jackson, he has said he doesn’t like to read books so maybe he doesn’t but if he does something is wrong with the fact that he brags about being called “Jacksonian.”

One thing is for sure, if reincarnation is true Jackson has returned in the form of the brash mouthed business man from New York who is currently masquerading as the leader of the free world.

 There is a quote by Jackson that I don’t think he followed too often but I wish the current president would. Jackson said, “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.” It would be nice if the current president would actually think before acts and stop playing to his populist base.

On a final note Jackson couldn’t get along with a party so he founded a party. (sorry to my democrat friends, He is the father) While Trump just wrecked havoc on a party. The only hope from this statement is that eventually something good came from his actions.

 Sources

http://millercenter.org/president/jackson

https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/andrewjackson 

http://thehermitage.com/learn/andrew-jackson/ 

http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Washington-Johnson/Jackson-Andrew.html

AMERICAN LION: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini