The mother could get only two horses. One she rode, and Robert was put
on the other, and held in the saddle by two of the men just freed.
Andrew dragged himself wearily behind, without hat, coat, or shoes.
Forty miles of wilderness lay between Camden and the boys' old home at
Waxhaw near the Catawba. The little party trudged along as best it
could, and were only two miles from home when a cold, drenching rain
started to fall. The boys, ill already, suffered terribly. Finally they
reached home, and were put to bed. The cold rain had proved too severe
for Robert, and two days later he died. Andrew, stricken with smallpox,
as was his brother, was very ill for a long time.

While Andrew was still sick word came to Waxhaw that the condition of
some of the men and boys in the Charleston prison ships was even worse
than that of the men at Camden. Mrs. Jackson's nephews and many of her
friends and neighbors were in the ships, and she felt that she must do
something to relieve them. As soon as she could leave Andrew, she
started with two other women to travel the hundred and sixty miles to
Charleston.

The three women carried medicines and country delicacies and gifts for
the prisoners. It was a most heroic journey. They had no protectors, and
they were going into the enemy's lines. They succeeded, however, finally
managing to gain admittance to the ships, and to deliver the messages
from home, the food, and the medicines that were so greatly needed. No
one can say how much happiness they brought to those ships in Charleston
harbor.

Mrs. Jackson stayed in the neighborhood of the city some time, doing
what she could to help her countrymen. Unfortunately disease was only
too rife in the prisons, and it was not long before she became ill with
the ship fever, and after a very short illness died. The news was
brought to Andrew, now fifteen years old, as he lay at home, just
recovering a little of his strength. He had always been devoted to his
mother and worshipped her memory all the days of his life.

The British under Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, October 19, 1781,
and the war in the south practically came to an end. Andrew Jackson came
out of the Revolution without father or mother or brother, a
convalescent in the house of a cousin, with bitter memories of the war.
For a long time he was exceedingly weak and dispirited, and that
fighting aggressive nature which had marked his early boyhood did not
return to him for