Read Online Andrew Jackson by H.W. Brands - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: H.W. Brands
Tags: Fiction
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months of being licensed to practice in the courts of North Carolina, Jackson found himself haled into court to answer a charge of trespass and destruction of property. The details of the case are murky. The fact that Jackson had four codefendants suggests the kind of bacchanalian wrecking that had led him to sacrifice the tavern furniture as a burnt offering. The five young men were released on their own recognizance and the case never went to trial, indicating an out-of-court settlement. Jackson certainly sighed in relief, knowing that conviction could have led to his disbarment before he fairly commenced his legal career.
But business was slow. Jackson traveled many miles across the piedmont searching for clients. He hired himself out to Randolph County when it required the indictment of one Samuel Graves. Jackson described how Graves “did with force and arms affecting to act under the authority of an execution seize into his possession and expose to sale one brown mare & saddle of the price of five pounds.” What came of the indictment is unclear, but apparently the county liked the way Jackson worked, for it retained him in at least one other case. In Richmond, in Surry County, he took the other side of a criminal case, defending a man charged with theft. The accused and his lawyer were about equally hard up, and Jackson consented to take the case for a contingency: he would be paid only if he got an acquittal. He lost the case. He lived for a time in Martinsville, where some friends operated a general store, and he probably helped out there for a small wage.
But his income fell short of his expenses. He departed an inn owned by a man named John Lister, having not paid his bill. Lister halfheartedly tried to collect but then gave up—only to be reminded of the debt and the debtor after Jackson became famous fighting the British. Local tradition indicates that Lister retrieved the old bill and wrote across it: “Paid at the battle of New Orleans.”
T hough he was slow to make his mark as a lawyer, Jackson made an impression as a young man. “I often met him at parties, balls and other social occasions,” Anne Jarret Rutherford recalled many years later. Annie Jarret was a proper young lady of Salisbury during Jackson’s residence there and in fact saw him on the day he received his law license. “We all knew that he was wild among his own sex, that he gambled and was by no means a Christian young man.” But he was far from the worst in the neighborhood. “He had no very bad habits; he was never known to be drunk or boisterous or rude even among his own associates.” The frequency of his quarrels was overstated. “But this I must say—when he did have a quarrel it was apt to be a serious matter.”
Jackson’s appearance stuck in Annie Jarret’s memory.
He always dressed neat and tidy and carried himself as if he was a rich man’s son. The day he was licensed he had on a new suit, with broadcloth coat, ruffled shirt and other garments in the best of fashion. The style of powdering the hair was still in vogue then; but he had his abundant suit of dark red hair combed carefully back from his forehead and temples and, I suspect, made to lay down smooth with bear’s oil. He was full six feet tall and very slender, but yet of such straightness of form and such proud and graceful carriage as to make him look well-proportioned.
In feature he was by no means good-looking. His face was long and narrow, his features sharp and angular and his complexion yellow and freckled. But his eyes were handsome. They were very large, a kind of steel-blue, and when he talked to you he always looked straight into your own eyes. I have talked with him a great many times and never saw him to avert his eyes from me for an instant. It was the same way with men. He always looked them straight in the eye, as much as to say, “I have nothing to be ashamed of and I hope you haven’t.” This and the gentle manner he had made
But business was slow. Jackson traveled many miles across the piedmont searching for clients. He hired himself out to Randolph County when it required the indictment of one Samuel Graves. Jackson described how Graves “did with force and arms affecting to act under the authority of an execution seize into his possession and expose to sale one brown mare & saddle of the price of five pounds.” What came of the indictment is unclear, but apparently the county liked the way Jackson worked, for it retained him in at least one other case. In Richmond, in Surry County, he took the other side of a criminal case, defending a man charged with theft. The accused and his lawyer were about equally hard up, and Jackson consented to take the case for a contingency: he would be paid only if he got an acquittal. He lost the case. He lived for a time in Martinsville, where some friends operated a general store, and he probably helped out there for a small wage.
But his income fell short of his expenses. He departed an inn owned by a man named John Lister, having not paid his bill. Lister halfheartedly tried to collect but then gave up—only to be reminded of the debt and the debtor after Jackson became famous fighting the British. Local tradition indicates that Lister retrieved the old bill and wrote across it: “Paid at the battle of New Orleans.”
T hough he was slow to make his mark as a lawyer, Jackson made an impression as a young man. “I often met him at parties, balls and other social occasions,” Anne Jarret Rutherford recalled many years later. Annie Jarret was a proper young lady of Salisbury during Jackson’s residence there and in fact saw him on the day he received his law license. “We all knew that he was wild among his own sex, that he gambled and was by no means a Christian young man.” But he was far from the worst in the neighborhood. “He had no very bad habits; he was never known to be drunk or boisterous or rude even among his own associates.” The frequency of his quarrels was overstated. “But this I must say—when he did have a quarrel it was apt to be a serious matter.”
Jackson’s appearance stuck in Annie Jarret’s memory.
He always dressed neat and tidy and carried himself as if he was a rich man’s son. The day he was licensed he had on a new suit, with broadcloth coat, ruffled shirt and other garments in the best of fashion. The style of powdering the hair was still in vogue then; but he had his abundant suit of dark red hair combed carefully back from his forehead and temples and, I suspect, made to lay down smooth with bear’s oil. He was full six feet tall and very slender, but yet of such straightness of form and such proud and graceful carriage as to make him look well-proportioned.
In feature he was by no means good-looking. His face was long and narrow, his features sharp and angular and his complexion yellow and freckled. But his eyes were handsome. They were very large, a kind of steel-blue, and when he talked to you he always looked straight into your own eyes. I have talked with him a great many times and never saw him to avert his eyes from me for an instant. It was the same way with men. He always looked them straight in the eye, as much as to say, “I have nothing to be ashamed of and I hope you haven’t.” This and the gentle manner he had made
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