$20: Jackson - Founding Son
During the Revolutionary War, 14 year old Andrew Jackson and his older brother Robert were captured by British soldiers in the Battle of Hanging Rock. The officer in command ordered Jackson to clean his boots. Jackson refused. The officer raised his sword to strike a violent blow at the boy's head. Jackson ducked and threw up his left hand. "It was cut to the bone, and a gash on his head left a white scar that Andrew Jackson carried through a long life that profited little to England or any Englishman."
Jackson's mother persuaded the British to release her boys, but by this time both had contracted smallpox. Jackson's mother and his critically ill brother rode horseback on the 45 mile journey home. Andrew walked barefoot and without a jacket, despite a driving rain the last day of the trek. Robert died two days later. Andrew was delirious and in mortal danger. Over several months, he slowly recovered. When Andrew seemed out of danger, his mother left to nurse prisoners of war in Charleston, but contracted cholera there and died.
"The American Revolution was one long agony for Andrew Jackson.... He experienced hardship, pain, disease, multiple wounds of the head and fingers, and grief arising from the annihilation of his immediate family. [His oldest brother, Hugh, had died of heat stroke after the Battle of Stono Ferry.] He emerged from the Revolution burdened with sorrow and a deep-seated depression.... He never forgot the price that he and others had paid" to secure Liberty.
