Jackson's Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters [Hardcover]

John Buchanan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471282537 | ISBN-13: 978-0471282532 | Publication Date: January 5, 2001 | Edition: 1

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.

Editorial Reviews

From 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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Not strictly a biography of Jackson, this work rather personifies in Jackson the southern version of the saga of settler expansion and frontier warfare that culminated in the massacre-soaked Creek War of 1813-1814. Buchanan prefaces Jackson's role with a chronicle of the flow into what is now Tennessee and Kentucky of land-hungry whites prior to the Revolution. The young Jackson sluiced over the mountains in 1787, his angry personality already formed from a penurious childhood and a hatred for the British. Buchanan, better at exposition than style, conveys Jackson's fortunes in the rough-and-tumble of raw Tennessee society, where perceived slights would dissolve into duels and ganglike violence: Jackson himself was shot in one duel and again in a street brawl. Jackson's personal story and the victory of the settlers merged in Jackson's ruthless campaign to crush the Creeks forever, followed by his victory over the British at New Orleans in 1815. The thickness of detail may not be to every reader's taste, but overall Buchanan is a capable chronicler of events. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471282537
• ISBN-13: 978-0471282532
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,577,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( J ) > Jackson, Andrew

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jackson's Way, August 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Jackson's Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters (Hardcover)

Jack Buchanan is a great writer! I was enthralled by this book from the moment 15 year-old Andrew Jackson swept onto the page. Buchanan brings to life the saga of the Old Southwest and the American pioneers. The most interesting element of the book is the portrait you get of Andrew Jackson, who was so loved men voted for him fifty years after his death. Anyone interested in the Presidents or the history of the Old Southwest will want to read this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Different Account, December 12, 2003

By 

Michael E. Fitzgerald (Kingwood, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Jackson's Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters (Hardcover)

John Buchanan has written a most interesting book. Spanning the thirty year period 1780-1810 he covers a time of great uncertainty about just what to do with the existing and projected geographical definition of the fledgling United States. Aaron Burr was not the only person to think in terms of separation. Today, driving on Interstate Highways at 70 MPH through the Appalachian Mountains, it is difficult for us to understand just what an impenetrable barrier these mountains really were. No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson thought "whether we remain one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies I believe not very important to the happiness of either part."

No wonder then that the people of the west, as the west was then defined, drew so closely together and became such an interdependent, insular block. Surrounded by enemies (Great Britain on the North, Spain to the South and West and indifference from their own countrymen to the East), land locked with no natural outlet for their goods and agricultural products and at constant war with Native Americans, this, the fastest growing segment of the US population, was threatened with extinction. Thus, the setting was a tinder box with a truly separate people ready for that particular leader whose interests were not just aligned with but also coincident with their own.

Andrew Jackson was such a man. This is a story of survival, a story of great personal courage, of a very independent people who hacked their homes and way of life out of a true wilderness. It is a story of how the foundations of the Jacksonian Era were so firmly laid that the 34 year history of the Virginia Dynasty was so completely crushed in American politics that it never resurrected. An oft overlooked, misunderstood or just plain ignored segment of American history, these thirty years in the west were pivotal to the development of early America. Andrew Jackson was truly THE man, a most amazing force to be reckoned with, and an American to the very core of his soul.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unsubtantiated but Worthwhile Read, August 2, 2004

By 

GradKid (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jackson's Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters (Hardcover)

For someone so supportive of Jackson, his policies and actions (even when Buchanan himself deems them "going too far"), Buchanan fails to support his arguments. Clearly the author is enamored with the former President. Even during his military career when Jackson frequently disobeyed orders or followed his own code of conduct, Buchanan argues that he has sufficient reason for doing so and his actions were justified. But where is the evidence? By arguing that the Monroe administration was acting covertly to takeover the Floridas, he fails to cite from where he gets such information. There are no references to Monroe's history.
Buchanan has done his homework when discussing Jackson. He cites Jackson's papers and other credible biographies. He gives a well-rounded picture of the life and hardships Jackson endured and how electrifying his personality must have been. However, Buchanan goes a tad too far in arguing that Jackson, even when he broke the law, seized sovereign territory, killed two foreign residents, etc. was acting justly or on behalf of the administration where there is only evidence that he acted on his own accord. If those arguments are to be deemed credible in their own right, Buchanan needs to provide ample evidence that supports Jackson's seemingly arrogant decision-making process. He may have done his homework for Jackson, but the basis of his arguments seem based solely on his admiration for the man and not on historical facts or opinions of those present in that time. In other words, he acknowledges that there are those who call Jackson an Indian-hater or say he wanted to govern as a military dictator (ex. Napoleon), but fails to discredit those notions.