The Hand We're Dealt - Vote: (Patreon)

So, I've been going back and forth on a few things as I finish up the next chapter of Mind Games, which I should have out later today.

Next chapter of The Hand We're Dealt will feature a timeskip and the Spanish-American War will have developed a lot further. I'll keep the exact circumstances under wraps for now, but here's a question. As Patreon supporters, you have a chance to shape some of the stories and details, and this is one such chance.

Should Andrew Jackson survive the war?

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Edit: Short History Lesson on Andrew Jackson...

Andrew Jackson was the last elected President to have served in the Revolutionary War and held a deep and abiding hatred for the British after his time as a young boy (13 IIRC) when he was put on a disease-invested prison ship and nearly died. After nearly dying on the march back home, he recovered and went on to serve in the state militia and make a name for himself.

Jackson was active in local politics and won a seat in the US House and Senate from Tennessee, but left both prematurely because he preferred the military life, hated politics, and was infamously quick to anger. That last characteristic is why he fought at least two dozen duels over the course of his life, eventually dying with several bullets still lodged in his body.

His rise to national fame came during the Battle of New Orleans, where he defended the city from a British invasion using a hodgepodge force of black freedmen, American Indians, Creole militia, regular army, and pirates. It was here that he attained something of a folk hero status as a decisive and intuitive leader as well as a man of the people. Jackson also led military incursions into Spanish Florida and created the fear of a war that led Spain to sell Florida to the US.

Jackson ran in the 1824 election and was narrowly defeated despite receiving a plurality (but not a majority) of the electoral vote. He dubbed the backroom dealing a 'corrupt bargain' and resigned from his senate seat in protest. Running again in 1828, he won and proceeded to move forward with a political agenda that strongly favored the rural agricultural class as well as the slave-holding south. He was staunchly Unionist and wielded the power of the federal government like a cudgel at times, openly arguing with his former Vice President over the issue of a State's Right to Nullify certain tariffs that were economically damaging.

He was, ultimately, a populist who supported small farmers and hated large businesses and banks especially. The first great economic depression in American history arguably led to his election as an anti-elitist candidate who promised to abolish the National Bank and put power back in the hands of the states and local banking institutions.

He's most infamous for the Trail of Tears, in which American military units forcibly drove Native Americans from their land and resettled them in Oklahoma. A significant number of these people died during the forced march during a brutal winter and is generally agreed-upon as an act of genocide or ethnic cleansing today. Many Native Americans felt betrayed by the man who had led them into battle as a militia commanders years prior, but Jackson felt that the Indian population was fundamentally not American. In order to secure the agrarian ideal and supply the increasing population of the young country with land to settle, the Indians had to be moved.