Andrew Jackson Trivia
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129 free Andrew Jackson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
73 free Andrew Jackson trivia questions with answers. Andrew Jackson is the president Americans argue about most: the orphan who took a British sword to the face at 14, the duelist who carried another man's bullet in his chest for 39 years, the general who won the Battle of New Orleans after the war was technically over, and the president who paid off the national debt, killed the national bank and signed the Indian Removal Act. This quiz covers all of it, from the Waxhaws to the Hermitage. The 129 questions run from easy warm-ups (which bill is he on, what was his nickname) through the Nullification Crisis, the Petticoat affair, the Kitchen Cabinet and the Bank War, to genuinely hard ones about his horse, his parrot, his adopted son and the first bronze statue cast in America. Expect a mix that suits a classroom, a pub-quiz history round or anyone who just watched a documentary and wants to test what stuck. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and shows its confirming sentence once you answer, so you can trust what you learn here even when it is uncomfortable.
30 of 129 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before Jackson, every U.S. president had come from Massachusetts or which other state?
Virginia
Virginia. Four of the first five presidents were Virginia planters, a run nicknamed the Virginia dynasty; Jackson, the seventh, was a self-made Tennessee frontier lawyer and general.
Q 02Which nickname did Jackson earn for marching his volunteers home from Natchez in 1813?
Old Hickory
Old Hickory. Told to disband his volunteers far from home without pay or supplies, Jackson refused and led them back to Tennessee himself; the men said he was as tough as hickory.
Q 03The Battle of New Orleans was fought fifteen days after a peace treaty was signed in which European city?
Ghent
Ghent. The treaty was signed there on Christmas Eve 1814, but word took weeks to cross the Atlantic, so the armies at New Orleans fought on with the peace already agreed.
Q 04What was the name of Jackson's plantation home near Nashville, where he is buried?
The Hermitage
The Hermitage. Jackson bought the 425-acre farm in 1804 after failed land deals nearly bankrupted him and forced the sale of a larger estate, then grew it into a 1,000-acre cotton plantation.
Q 05The Waxhaws region, Jackson's 1767 birthplace, straddles the border of which two states?
North and South Carolina
North and South Carolina. Nobody is sure which side of the line he was born on: Jackson himself said South Carolina, at an uncle's plantation, so both states still claim him.
Q 06Jackson's Scots-Irish parents emigrated to America in 1765 from which province of Ireland?
Ulster
Ulster. The family left Carrickfergus with two small sons, and Jackson's mother passed on a hatred of the British that the Revolution, which cost him her and both brothers, made lifelong.
Q 07Jackson was named after which relative, who died shortly before his birth?
His father
His father. Andrew Jackson Sr. died shortly before the birth, so his widow and her three boys moved in with her relatives, the Crawfords.
Q 08As a British prisoner in 1781, Jackson was slashed with a sword after refusing to do what for an officer?
Polish his boots
Polish his boots. The slash scarred Jackson for life, and the scene became patriotic legend: a popular print later sold it as 'The Brave Boy of the Waxhaws'.
Q 09Which disease did Jackson and his brother Robert contract in the British prisoner-of-war camp at Camden?
Smallpox
Smallpox. Their mother arranged the boys' release in a prisoner exchange, but Robert died within days of leaving the camp and Andrew, gravely ill, barely survived.
Q 10Jackson's mother died in 1781 after going to nurse American prisoners of war in which port city?
Charleston
Charleston. Elizabeth Jackson went to nurse prisoners held on British ships in the harbor, two nephews among them, caught cholera and died, leaving Andrew an orphan at 14.
Q 11How did Jackson's first duel, against lawyer Waightstill Avery in 1788, end without anyone being hurt?
Both men fired into the air
Both men fired into the air. Jackson had accused Avery of insulting his character, but with honor satisfied the two shook hands and walked away unhurt.
Q 12What was the name of Jackson's wife, whose earlier divorce became a scandal in the 1828 campaign?
Rachel Donelson
Rachel Donelson. The pair lived as man and wife before her first husband's divorce was final; she died weeks after the 1828 election, and Jackson blamed the campaign's slanders for it.
Q 13After the House denied him the presidency in 1825, Jackson called for abolishing which institution?
Q 21Edward Pakenham, the British general killed attacking Jackson's line at New Orleans, was brother-in-law to which commander?
Wellington
Wellington. Pakenham had fought under him in Spain, and many of his men were veterans of the wars against Napoleon, which made their rout by Jackson's patchwork army a sensation.
Q 22Under martial law in New Orleans in 1815, Jackson arrested which official for ordering a jailed critic released?
A U.S. district judge
A U.S. district judge. Jackson had jailed a legislator for attacking his martial law in a newspaper; when the judge ordered the man freed, Jackson arrested the judge too, pleading military necessity.
Q 23What honor was voted to Jackson in February 1815 for his victory at New Orleans?
The Electoral College
The Electoral College. Jackson had won the most popular votes in 1824 and still lost, so in his first annual message as president he urged Congress to let voters choose the president directly.
Q 14Jackson's 1806 duel with Charles Dickinson began as a quarrel over the forfeit owed on what contest?
A horse race
A horse race. Dickinson, a crack shot, fired first and hit Jackson in the chest; Jackson stood his ground, took careful aim and killed him, a death that shadowed his reputation for years.
Q 15Which former vice president's western scheme did Jackson briefly back in 1806 before breaking with him?
Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr. He stayed with the Jacksons in 1805 while recruiting for a shadowy plan of conquest in the West; Jackson befriended him, then cut loose in time to avoid any charge of treason.
Q 16Jackson was shot in an 1813 Nashville brawl with which man, later his leading ally in the Senate?
Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton. A bullet from the brawl stayed in Jackson's arm for years, yet Benton, by then a Missouri senator, became his staunchest ally; a surgeon removed it during Jackson's presidency.
Q 17Which March 1814 battle on the Tallapoosa River broke the power of the Red Stick Creeks?
Horseshoe Bend
Horseshoe Bend. Jackson's army, with Cherokee and allied Creek warriors, stormed the Red Sticks' fortified loop of the river and killed most of its defenders, which effectively ended the Creek War.
Q 18The 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson stripped the Creek of over 20 million acres, mostly in which present-day state?
Alabama
Alabama. Jackson dictated the terms to the whole Creek nation, so the allies who had fought beside him against the Red Sticks lost millions of acres too.
Q 19To defend New Orleans in 1814, Jackson allied with which Barataria smuggler?
Jean Lafitte
Jean Lafitte. The pirate chief offered to fight in exchange for a pardon; Jackson accepted, the Baratarians fought with distinction, and President Madison pardoned them all.
Q 20Roughly how many casualties did Jackson's army suffer at New Orleans in 1815, against over 2,000 British?
71
71. The British made a frontal assault on Jackson's fortified line and were cut down by cannon and rifle fire in about half an hour; only 13 Americans were killed.
Congressional Gold Medal
Congressional Gold Medal. The peace treaty signed weeks earlier required the Creek territory Jackson had seized to be handed back, but the United States ignored that article.
Q 24Which Spanish colonial town did Jackson seize twice, in 1814 and again in 1818?
Pensacola
Pensacola. Both raids went beyond his orders; the second outraged Madrid, yet it helped persuade Spain that it could no longer hold the colony, which it ceded the next year.
Q 25Jackson's 1818 execution of two British subjects set off an international incident during which conflict?
The First Seminole War
The First Seminole War. Jackson had the two men tried and executed for aiding the Seminoles; Britain protested and Congress investigated, but he was cleared.
Q 26In 1821 Jackson briefly served as the first territorial governor of which future state?
Florida
Florida. Jackson accepted the handover from Spain that July, soon tired of the climate and the swarm of office-seekers, and resigned within months to go home to Tennessee.
Q 27Jackson, John Overton and James Winchester founded which Tennessee city as a land venture in 1819?
Memphis
Memphis. Jackson had just negotiated the Chickasaw treaty that opened West Tennessee, and within months he and his partners laid out a town on the river bluffs, named for ancient Egypt's capital.
Q 28Whom did the House choose over Jackson for the presidency in 1824?
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams. Jackson had led the field in votes but lacked a majority, so the House chose among the top three, and Adams carried 13 of the 24 state delegations on the first ballot.
Q 29What name did Jackson's camp give the alleged 1825 deal that made Speaker Henry Clay secretary of state?
The corrupt bargain
The corrupt bargain. Clay, shut out of the House runoff, backed Jackson's rival and was named secretary of state days after the vote; the charge dogged him for life and powered Jackson's 1828 campaign.
Q 30As of 2025, Jackson's portrait appears on the front of which U.S. banknote?
$20
$20. Nobody knows why he is there: Treasury records give no reason for the portraits it chose, an odd honor for a president who made war on the national bank.