The statue depicts Andrew Jackson, the general who commanded US forces in the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, and who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837.

He completed a plaster model, and he established a new bronze foundry to produce the casting at his studio on 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, south of the Treasury Building.

Tests in 1993 showed that the rear legs have central cores of iron covered with bronze, giving them additional strength and weight to support and counterbalance the suspended parts of the statue.

It was installed on a tapering rectangular marble base on a raised circular grassed area with railings on the alignment of the North Portico of the White House and 16th Street NW.

The metal barrels of the cannons initially rested on the grass for several years, before they were raised on new wooden gun carriages, subsequently replaced several times.

The statue was dedicated on January 8, 1853, the 38th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, with procession from Judiciary Square followed by an address delivered by Senator Stephen A. Douglas to a crowd of 20,000 people, including President Fillmore, Major General Winfield Scott, members of his cabinet and of Congress, the monument committee, and the sculptor.

Senator of Colorado, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, an American Indian, defended the monument, advocating for it to remain and called for the addition of plaques to explain the complicated history of Andrew Jackson in his proposal.

[10] Several days later, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged four men with destruction of federal property for allegedly trying to bring down the statue.