Military
Andrew Jackson was Major-General of Tennessee Militia from 1802 to 1814. It was in the War of 1812 that Jackson became a national figure. This war was the inevitable sequence of the Revolutionary War. It was occasioned by the conduct of England in restricting our commerce, impressing into her service seamen from our ships, acts of contempt intolerable to a free people. It has been called in apt phraseology the War OF American Independence in contra-distinction to the Revolution, which was FOR American Independence. Andrew Jackson, as Major-General of Tennessee Militia, threw himself into the conflict. He inaugurated a campaign against the Creek Indians, who, allied with the British, had been stirred to deeds of atrocity, the most revolting of which was the massacre at Fort Mimms, Alabama, on August 30, 1813. After a series of smaller engagements, General Jackson, finally, on March 27, 1814, overwhelmingly defeated and crushed the Creek Indians at the Great Horseshoe Bend. Two months later, May 31, General Jackson was made Major-General of the United States Army, with command of the Southern and Western Divisions.