Gadsden joined the U.S. Army in December 1812 . He served as a commissioned officer commanded by General Andrew Jackson , who was to elected president in 1828 . Gadsden served Gen. Jackson both during the War of 1812 against the British Army , and , from 1816 to 1821 , in protecting the southern U.S. border from raiders — Native Americans , maroons ( escaped slaves and their descendants ) — based in Spanish Florida . As part of this effort , Jackson directed Gadsden , a member of the Army Corps of Engineers , to build a fort on the Prospect Bluff site . Jackson subsequently named it Fort Gadsden . Gadsden also helped to establish Fort Brooke with George Mercer Brooke at the site of the present-day city of Tampa , Florida . He was appointed Adjutant General in August 1821 , but this appointment was not confirmed by the Senate , causing it to expire the following year . Gadsden next decided to quit the U.S. Army , and became a planter in Florida ; he served in the Florida Territorial Legislature . Gadsden was appointed as a commissioner during 1823 to help with the organization and the expulsion of most of the Seminole Indian Tribe from their homes in Florida and southern Georgia , along the so-called " Trail of Tears " to land reservations that had been reserved for them in what is now Oklahoma
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
James Gadsden