War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another special bonus episode of Key Battles of American History.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And recently I sat down with my friend and my fellow podcaster Jerry Landry,

host of the Presidencies of the United States podcast. And we spoke about the career of William

Henry Harrison leading up to the War of 1812 and then his actions during the War of 1812.

This time what we're going to do is look at

another titan of American history. A very controversial man, not much liked today, but in the old

days was considered a great American president and a great military hero. That is, of course,

old hickory, Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson was one of the main

military leaders during the War of 1812, so much so that I felt like we needed to do an entire

episode on his early life and his career during the War of 1812, focusing on the military,

of course. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to

maybe spend the next 45, 50 minutes or so talking about old Hickory. And we are going to,

metaphorically speaking, turn the mic around. Jerry is actually going to conduct the interview.

He'll be asking the questions, and I will at least attempt to provide the answers.

So Jerry's with me again.

...