To those people
he was as a god-like hero of antiquity. Single-handed he defeated the
British at New Orleans. Nicholas Biddle, a great banker somewhere away
off yonder, had gathered all the money in the land, and it was Jackson
who compelled him to disgorge, thus not only establishing himself as the
master of war, but as the crusher of men who oppress the poor.
* * * * *
Prominent in the neighborhood of Smithfield, a town of three or four
hundred inhabitants, was Jasper Starbuck. Earlier in his life he had
whipped every man who stood in need of that kind of training. Usually
of a blythesome nature, he was subject to fits of melancholy, only to be
relieved by some sort of physical entanglement with an enemy. Then, his
"spell" having passed, he would betake himself to genial affairs, help a
neighbor with his work, lend his chattels to shiftless farmers, cut wood
and haul it for widows, and gathering children about him entertain them
with stories of the great war.
And how dearly that war had cost him.
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