Jackson's Way
Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Praise for Jackson's Way
"A compelling account of Jackson's Indian-fighting days . . . as well a grand sweep of the conquest of the trans-Appalachian West, a more complex, bloody, and intrigue-filled episode than is generally appreciated. . . . Mr. Buchanan writes with style and insight. . . . This is history at its best."
-The Wall Street Journal
"An excellent study . . . of an area and a time period too long neglected by historians . . . provides valuable new information, particularly on the Indians."
-Robert Remini, author of Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
"John Buchanan has written a book that explodes with action and drama on virtually every page. Yet the complex story of the birth of the American West never loses its focus-Andrew Jackson's improbable rise to fame and power. This is an American saga, brilliantly told by a master of historical narrative."
-Thomas Fleming, author of Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America
From John Buchanan, the highly acclaimed author of The Road to Guilford Courthouse, comes a compulsively readable account that begins in 1780 amidst the maelstrom of revolution and continues throughout the three tumultuous decades that would decide the future course of this nation. Jackson's Way artfully reconstructs the era and the region that made Andrew Jackson's reputation as "Old Hickory," a man who was so beloved that men voted for him fifteen years after his death. Buchanan resurrects the remarkable man behind the legend, bringing to life the thrilling details of frontier warfare and of Jackson's exploits as an Indian fighter-and reassessing the vilification that has since been heaped on him because of his Indian policy. Culminating with Jackson's defeat of the British at New Orleans-the stunning victory that made him a national hero-this gripping narrative shows us how a people's obsession with land and opportunity and their charismatic leader's quest for an empire produced what would become the United States of America that we know today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With tremendous admiration, even reverence, for his subject, Buchanan (The Road to Guilford Courthouse) recounts Andrew Jackson's early career and rise to American war hero. He focuses on the westward expansion from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, which he describes as a "folk movement" or mass migration of rough, often lawless people determined to lay claim to a new land and to fight until they prevailed. With graphic first-person accounts of Indian massacres and the retaliatory strikes of settlers, the author provides a very detailed military history of Jackson's defeat of the Chicamunga Cherokees and the Creek tribes who claimed sovereignty, until 1814, over the southeastern United States, and of his victory at the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Buchanan uses quotations from primary sources so well that they blend almost seamlessly with his own writing, which can sound oddly archaic and overwrought to modern ears (soldiers are "released by death"; British ships bound "eaglelike over the waves"). In Buchanan's eyes, Jackson is nothing short of "superhuman," and there is little balance in his treatment of Jackson's controversial views on Indians (the future president eschewed the idea of Indian sovereignty, although Buchanan argues that it was the English, and not the Indians, whom Jackson hated) or his invasion of Florida, a possession of neutral Spain, at the close of the Creek Indian war. Buchanan is unabashedly nostalgic for the days when battlefields were "fields of honor" and the ungoverned individualism and hunger for expansion of the frontier was at the forefront of the American experience. This account will appeal mainly to those who enjoy military history. Illus.
