Andrew Jackson's personal history

Answer 1

He was born the third son of poor Irish immigrants. His parents and brothers all died by the time he was 14. He was raised by his aunts, studied law and moved to Western TN when he was 21. He met and married a 24 year old divorcee when he was 24. Unfortunately,her divorce was not final when they married, so they had to remarry. He was a successful lawyer, but also speculated on land and started a store. He lost a lot of money on some of his land investments and his store never made money. His marriage was a very happy one, until his wife died in December of 1828, soon after he became president-elect. However they never had any children of their own, although they formally adopted one nephew and had other children living in their house from time to time. His wife was very religious and although he had a church built on his estate for her, he did not join it until he retired. He loved to race horses, trained his own horses and ran a race track for awhile. He bet and won large amounts of money in his horses. One man,Charles Dickinson, from whom he won money , did not pay in accordance with the terms of the bet which led eventually to a duel in which Dickinson was killed and in which Jackson was shot in the chest, too near the heart to be removed. This wound became infected and bled into his lungs intermittently for the rest of his life.