Before his demise, he had drafted only the first four chapters of the General’s life he hadn’t got much farther than the Battle of Enotachopco, in 1814. Reid went to work until, one day in January of 1816, he took suddenly and strangely ill.

(Ramsay had earlier ventured a medical opinion that the tailor was dangerously insane and, on his deathbed, he insisted that his assailant could not be held accountable for his actions.) Jackson next turned to his aide-de-camp John Reid, a man half Ramsay’s age, and very much in Jackson’s thrall. But, before Ramsay had a chance to begin, he was shot in the back, three times, by a mad tailor on the streets of Charleston. He settled on David Ramsay, a sixty-six-year-old South Carolina legislator and physician and gifted historian whose books included a “Life of George Washington,” published in 1807. With a political career in mind, he cast about for a biographer to chronicle his exploits. On January 8, 1815, the General led American forces in a stunning defeat of an invading British Army, winning the Battle of New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812. Illustration by Bruce McCallīiographers of Andrew Jackson used to be cursed. Jon Meacham talked about his book American Lion: Andrew Jacksonin the White House ( Random House, November 1, 2008).John Eaton’s “Life of Jackson” established the genre of the campaign biography almost every one published since varies only in detail. He is the author of Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. Jon Meacham is the editor of Newsweek magazine. Following his remarks he responded to questions from the audience. Meacham contends that President Jackson, the founder of the Democractic party and American’s seventh president, was a man of many contradictions who was responsible for the removal of Indians from their land and alternately encouraged granting greater power to the electorate.

The book recounts the presidential tenure of Andrew Jackson. T17:59:52-04:00 Jon Meacham talked about his book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Random House, November 1, 2008).

Andrew jackson meacham