Ask the Author: Tony L. Turnbow
Answered Questions (3)
Tony L. Turnbow
I had the opportunity to be part of living history reenactments of several of the events portrayed in Hardened to Hickory at the locations where they occurred. That experience helped make more sense of the primary source documents. I spent time at those sites thinking about the challenges the soldiers faced as they camped or traveled through those same sites.
Tony L. Turnbow
I am creating a version of Hardened to Hickory for young readers. It will focus on Andrew Jackson's training of young Tennessee Volunteers to become soldiers and to survive the Mississippi River and Natchez Trace. Most of soldiers were teenagers. Some were as young as twelve, and the expedition was their first time away from home. Jackson promised to be a father to them, and he had to decide whether to abandon them or face a firing squad.
Tony L. Turnbow
The idea for Hardened to Hickory began with a question my high school history teacher Jim Milan planted as a seed 40 years ago. He gave a few details of Andrew Jackson's Natchez Expedition as part of a history presentation. I turned to biographies on Jackson but few added any additional details. Seven years ago, when I discovered unpublished journals and letters from that period of Jackson's life, I decided to pause work on a book about Meriwether Lewis's death and tell the story of Andrew Jackson's transformation to "Old Hickory."
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