Jackson Square (Updated)

The famous eques

trian statue of Andrew Jackson in the eponymous square at the heart of the French Quarter.

From the pedestal: "The Union must and shall be preserved." Stirring declaration from a man whose public statements and acts regarding the union might strike the reader of history as pro-South. His actions vis a vis indigenous peoples in the southeast are less conflicted or complex, for Andrew was the architect of the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of tribes such as the Seminole and Choctaw. A sad and despicable history it is. There stands the Cathedral in the background, as if in benediction. From Hearn's "New Orleans in Wet Weather": I wandered through the French Quarter into Jackson Square and proceeded to examine the great equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, erect upon a rampant steed. Upon the eastern face of the stone I beheld characters deeply graven, and I discovered that the characters were even these: "The Union Must And Shall Be Preserved." Thrn I inquired what might be the history of these extraordinary inscriptions, and received this pithy, trisyllabic and all-satisfying reply: "Beast Butler" (much despised Union general who seized and occupied NO in 1862)