t is doubtful, however, if any better
man than young Jackson could have been found for the place, and that is
almost the same thing as saying that no better place could have been
found for him. To the office and his new surroundings he brought the
qualities they supremely demanded,--a will that no man ever subdued, a
desperate courage which not even the Tennesseans could match, and a
swift, intuitive perception of the way to act in emergencies.

According to all accounts, he was successful from the first in his
trying work, and his success in that brought him other work as a lawyer
and a rapid rise to prominence in the community. He became well
acquainted, for his work required much travelling about. He learned the
country itself. On his long journeys he was frequently in danger from
the Indians, and learned their ways and how to cope with them. Sometimes
he slept alone in the woods, or even lay all night awake, his hand on
his rifle. Once his readiness and nerve alone saved himself and a party
of travellers from surprise and massacre. Whether he dealt with Indians
who beset his pathway through the wilderness, or white men who would not
let the law take its course, it is not on record that he ever turned
aside from his purpose. In ten years he was the possessor of a
considerable estate, chiefly in land. And he had not accumulated
property by neglecting his duties as solicitor. When certain intruders
on Indian lands were giving trouble, Governor Blount said: "Let the
district attorney, Mr. Jackson, be informed. He will be certain to do
his duty, and the offenders will be punished."

But the district attorney did not escape the consequences of his
firmness and courage. He had so many "difficulties" that even in that
country he soon got a reputation for readiness to fight. A mass of
anecdote and tradition about his early quarrels has come down to us.
Some of these affairs seem to have been undignified and rather ludicrous
scuffles: in one of them Jackson overcame a huge antagonist by poking
him with the point--or, as Jackson himself pronounced it, the "pint"--of
a fence rail. Other quarrels followed the dignified procedure of the
duello. They were all subject to the condemnation which our gentler
civilization pronounces on violence as a means of ending disputes, but
no doubt they helped the young lawyer into the prominence he had won by
the time Tennessee was ready to become a State.

The most important event of this ear