Why Jackson Was Named Old Hickory
When Andrew Jackson, with his Tennessee riflemen, was camping at Natchez waiting for orders to move on to New Orleans, he received a despatch from the War Department. It ordered him to dismiss his men at once.
Jackson’s indignation and rage knew no bounds. Dismiss them without pay, without means of transportation, without provision for the sick! Never! He himself would march them home again through the savage Wilderness, at his own expense! Such was his determination.
And when his little Army set out from Natchez for its march of five hundred miles through the Wilderness, there were a hundred and fifty men on the sick-list, of whom fifty-six could not raise their heads from the pillow. There were but eleven wagons to convey them. The most desperately ill were placed in the wagons. The rest of the sick were mounted on the horses of the officers.
General Jackson had three fine horses, and gave them up to the sick, himself briskly trudging on foot. Day after day, he tramped gayly along the miry roads, never tired, and always ready with a cheering word for others.
They marched with extraordinary speed, averaging eighteen miles a day, and performing the whole journey in less than a month. And yet the sick men rapidly recovered under the reviving influence of a homeward march.
“Where am I?” asked one young fellow who had been lifted to his place in a wagon, when insensible and apparently dying.
“On your way home!” cried the General merrily.
And the young soldier began to improve from that hour, and reached home in good health.
Many of the volunteers had heard so much of Jackson’s violent and hasty temper, that they had joined the corps with a certain dread and hesitation, fearing not the enemy, nor the marches, nor diseases and wounds, so much as the swift wrath of their Commander. How surprised were they to find, that though there was a whole volcano of wrath in their General, yet to the men of his command, so long as they did their duty and longer, he was the most gentle, patient, considerate, and generous of friends.
It was on this homeward march that the nickname of Old Hickory was bestowed upon Andrew Jackson by his men. First of all the remark was made by a soldier, who was struck with his wonderful pedestrian powers, that the General was tough. Next it was observed of him that he was as tough as hickory. Then he was called Hickory. Lastly the affectionate adjective old was prefixed. And ever after he was known as Old Hickory.
James Parton (Retold)