WAS THERE EVER A PRESIDENT like Andrew Jackson? This lean and predatory Tennessean, with his bristling mane of gray hair, resembled nothing so much as a hungry wolf, a creature of ferocious passion and territorial instincts, whether defending his inner landscape of honor or the physical boundaries of the United States. The only chief executive to have killed a man in a duel, this former general had defeated the British at New Orleans in 1815, crushed Indian tribes, and essentially conquered Florida. His presidency saw the last conflict with Native Americans in the Old Northwest (the Black Hawk
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