11. America’s Toughest President?
As to John Quincy Adams’ successor, Andrew Jackson was probably the toughest president in the history of the United States. Not necessarily a good person. As a general, Jackson had been all too eager to hang his men for disciplinary infractions at the drop of a hat. He was also the only American president to have made his wealth primarily as a wholesale slave dealer – a career that even many slave owners thought was disreputable. Additionally, he led crusades against the American Indians. All of that horrid behavior and morals aside, we begrudgingly admit Jackson could kick butt and take names. And in his era, that could take a man quite far.
Jackson began his career in the midst of the American Revolution when he enlisted in his local militia at age thirteen. A year later, a fourteen-year-old Jackson defiantly refused to shine a British officer’s shoes and got slashed with a sword across his face and hand as a result. That left the future president with a seething hatred of the British, and he paid them back in spades at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. There, Jackson’s men killed, wounded, and captured about 2,500 British, while they suffered only 300 casualties of their own.
