CHAPTER III.

Pages 166-179

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Now comes the story of how it happened that Jackson was married twice to the same lady. I will give the circumstances surrounding this remarkable case, as I learned them from the people of Tennessee when I was there in 1843, and from his biographies. It was the one event in his long, noble and useful life that gave his enemies a chance to blast his good name and that of his pure and lovely wife. The slanders stirred the tiger in him until nothing but human blood would quench his hate. They were the cause of most of his many encounters and duels. It is said that for thirty years he kept his pistols ready for instant use in defense of his wife’s good name.

Jackson’s wife was a daughter of John Donelson, an old Virginia farmer, who settled five miles from Nashville in 1780, eight years before Jackson came to Tennessee. Donelson had family of sons and daughters, and was a man of considerable wealth. He was engaged in raising stock and horses. But one year there came a great drought that destroyed crops and pastures, and he was compelled to move his family and stock to Mercer county, Ky., 200 miles away, where the drought had been less severe. While here his daughter Rachel (afterwards Mrs. Jackson) was married to Lewis Robards, who lived with his

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widowed mother, who at that time was keeping a boarding house; and he took his bride to live with his mother. Boarding with her were some young men, and it was not long until Robards, being of a jealous disposition, and his bride being very handsome, sprightly and jovial, became very jealous of one of the young men and behaved in such an ungentlemanly manner that her indignation was aroused and she wrote to one of her brothers at Nashville to come and take her home—her father and family having returned there. And so she left Robards; but she had only been at home a few weeks when her father, while out surveying, was killed by the Indians. But Mrs. Robards continued to live with her mother, and in about six months her husband relented and made many apologies for his conduct and begged her to come back and live with him. This she consented to do on his promise that he would thereafter treat her with the confidence and respect due a wife; but she refused to return to Kentucky, as it was sparsely settled and the Indians were very troublesome. So instead of her going to Kentucky he came to live with her at Nashville at her mother’s house. While they were all living together Gen. Jackson made his first appearance at Nashville. Mrs. Donelson occupied one of the largest houses in the place and was keeping boarders, and it so happened that Jackson became one of her boarders with another young lawyer from South Carolina. And here Gen. Jackson first met the charming bride who was to figure so prominently thereafter in his own life. They could not very well help getting acquainted while they were living in the same house and eating at the same table. It was not long until the green-eyed monster again seized Robards, and this time it was Gen. Jackson who he thought was paying too much attention to his wife. The result was very scandalous actions on the part of Robards. It grieved the wife terribly, and Gen. Jackson seriously remonstrated with Robards against his cruel and unjust conduct towards his wife and himself, and Jackson at once sought another boarding house. In great indignation the wife again left her husband and took up her abode with a married sister. Robards soon returned to his former

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home in Kentucky, and commenced proceedings to secure a divorce. The procedure in such cases at that time will interest the reader. I copy from one of Jackson’s biographies some of the details:

"In Virginia in the olden time if a man convinced of his wife’s infidelity desired to be divorced from her he was required to procure from the legislature an act authorizing an investigation of the charge before a jury and pronouncing the marriage bond dissolved, providing the jury shall find her guilty. In the winter of 1790-91 Lewis Robards of Kentucky, originally part of Virginia, the husband of Rachel Donelson, appeared before the legislature of Virginia with a declaration to the effect that his wife Rachel had deserted him and had lived and was living in adultery with another man, to wit, Andrew Jackson, an attorney at law, whereupon the legislature of Virginia passed an act entitled ‘An act concerning the marriage of Lewis Robards,’ of which the following is a copy:

"’Be it enacted by the general assembly that it shall and may be lawful for Lewis Robards to sue out of the office of the supreme court of the district of Kentucky a writ against Rachel Robards, which writ shall be framed by the clerk and express the nature of the case, and shall be published for eight weeks in the Kentucky Gazette, whereupon the plaintiff may file his declaration in the same cause, and the defendant may appear and plead to issue, in which case, or if she does not appear within two months after such publication, it shall be set for trail by the clerk on some day in the succeeding court, but may for good cause shown to the court be continued until the succeeding term.’"

Now after the legislature had passed this act Lewis Robards did go on with a suit against his wife for a divorce, and the charge alleged was of desertion and the living in adultery with Andrew Jackson. The legal notice was given in the Gazette, and Mrs. Robards had read it, but she did not attend court or make

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any defense was she wished him to get the divorce so she could get rid of him. She could have proven by scores of witnesses in Nashville that his allegations were false, for all this time she was living with her mother or sister, while Jackson was living at a hotel.

Some months after this a company of Nashville people made up to take a trip down the river to Natchez. Among these were Col. Stark and wife, friends of the Donelson family, and Mrs. Robards was asked to go with them, and she did so to visit some friends she had in Natchez. While there she heard the news that Robards had secured a divorce from her. As soon as Jackson heard the news he took a steamboat for Natchez and married Mrs. Robards and took her back to Nashville. The marriage was on a license and in due form of law. After they had lived happily together for six months the astonishing word came to them that the divorce had just been granted, that the first report was a mistake. It was really about two years after Robards had commenced divorce proceedings before the divorce was granted. At that time there were no mails being carried between Hardin county, Kentucky, and Nashville, and it was difficult to get news from one section to another. Gen. and Mrs. Jackson were greatly shocked when this news came to them. There was but one thing to do. All their friends agreed to that. They must procure another license and be married the second time according to the due forms of law. This was done at once. It did not affect their high social position in Nashville, for all the people knew they had done no intentional wrong. Thereafter inside of six years Gen Jackson was elected one of the trustees of the Davidson University with the most eminent ministers and other citizens as his colleagues; then as a member of Tennessee’s first constitutional convention; then to the lower house of Congress; then to the United States Senate, and finally to be a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. All these high honors and responsibilities came to him within six years after his marriage to Mrs. Robards and without protest or criticism as to that act.

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It was not until the opening of the vile presidential campaign of 1828 that politicians and the newspapers opened the vials of scandal and detraction upon the old hero and his pure and noble wife. The old records were searched and the worst possible construction put upon every act. As I have said in a former article, there were no great national issues in that campaign, but the men were voted for on their records, and this vile abuse was resorted to defeat the old hero of many wars.

I will now tell of my visit to the battle-ground of New Orleans, where Gen. Jackson defeated Major Edward Packingham on the 8^th of January, 1815, and will describe its appearance, and give some of the circumstances of the battle as I gleaned them from citizens who lived there in New Orleans at the time.

It was in the fall of 1856 that, with my wife and little boy Joseph, I took a trip by river to New Orleans, and thence by the gulf to Texas. We took a steamer at Browning on the Illinois river to St. Louis, and there took another steamer for the long river trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans. We stopped there a week, and put up at the Planters’ Hotel. I found that the landlord was an old hotel keeper and well acquainted with the older residents of that country, and he found for me a man that was in the city when the battle was fought, to go with me and show me the battlefield, and explain the circumstances connected with it. The battlefield was then about five miles from the city, and hacks were running there every day at fifty cents for the trip. So under the guide we had a good view of the whole situation. A ditch had been dug and breastworks thrown up from the Mississippi river a distance of a mile to a low, swampy land. At the time of the battle the ditch contained five feet of water, and the breastworks were from five to six feet high, made from the dirt that was taken out of the ditch. There was also many cotton bales used in building the fortification. When I was there the greater part of the breastworks had been leveled off and the ditch filled up; but still there was enough left to show its location and how it had been constructed. It appeared that Gen. Jackson had

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used a great deal of skill and ingenuity in constructing the fortifications to shield his men from the fire of their enemies. On the back side of the breastworks a platform of earth had been constructed a foot high and five feet wide, upon which the men could step to fire over the works and then step down out of range of the enemies’ bullets to reload their guns.

From the best information I could get from old citizens and other sources, I have no doubt that in this battle the British forces numbered about 7,000 men, while Jackson’s army numbered 5,000. Gen. Jackson had declared martial law at New Orleans because of the many enemies in the city, and he had conscripted some thousand Frenchmen, Creoles, etc., that knew very little about military matters.

One singular thing happened at this battle that is worth recording. Packingham had caused to be constructed a supply of ladders and plank platforms to be used in crossing the ditch and climbing the earthworks to Jackson’s stronghold; but when the battle commenced and Packingham made his assault and came to the ditch, they had forgotten to bring along those platforms and ladders. So the only way they had of crossing the ditch was for one man to take another on this shoulders and wade through the water that was five feet deep. While they were crossing the ditch in this absurd manner hundreds of them were shot down, and the forces repulsed. A second assault was then made, but with no better success. Then Gen. Packingham made a third attempt to rally his men, leading them himself; but as he came near the ditch he was shot off his horse, one ball going through his arm and another piercing his thigh, and his horse was killed under him. The British army found it impossible to endure such a fire, that had slaughtered them by hundreds at a time, so they gave up the fight and fled. It was found after the battle that over 2,000 British soldiers lay prostrate on the battlefield—500 dead and 1,500 wounded. Jackson’s loss was six men killed and seven wounded. It was the greatest victory ever achieved in the United States, when we take into consideration the fact the battle was fought in less than an hour.

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I can remember away back in the year 1828, when Gen. Jackson ran for president, that one of the means resorted to thrill and inspire the hearts of the people was the war songs. At that time they had no brass bands or French horns. The only martial music was the fife and drum supplemented with patriotic songs. One of these was called "The Battle of New Orleans." It described the parts that the Kentucky and Tennessee boys had taken in the battle, and when sung by a dozen or more strong voices it had a most animating effect on the old soldiers and the crowds of people that would gather to listen to them.

When I was on the battlefield I was anxious to get some relics to carry home with me. While trying to get a spade to hunt for bullets, etc., I was told that the ground had been dug over so often that I would find nothing. But I met a Dutchman who had many relics of the battle. He had three bullets which he called the "Packingham Balls," which he claimed to have found near the spot where Gen. Packingham was slain. One was a rifle ball, one a large musket ball and the other a grape shot about the size of a black walnut. His supposition was that the rifle ball was the one that had gone through Packingham’s arm, that the musket ball was the one that had gone through his thigh and that the large ball had killed his horse. I believed that he was an honest Dutchman and did find the balls on the battlefield, though I did not take much stock in the tale about the balls killing Packingham, although it might have happened. But I thought it would be a good story to tell when I got home, so I paid $2 for the balls.

After remaining a week at New Orleans we took boat over the gulf for Galveston, Texas, where we remained for a few days, and then went down to Port Lavaca, where I bought a span of ponies and a light carriage, and spent the winter traveling over the country. If a storm, or what is called in Texas a "norther," came up, we would stop a few days at some town or farm house until it was over. It so happened that when we got to Austin, the capital of the state, on the 8^th of January, we found the people were holding a grand demonstration in honor of Jackson and the victory of New Orleans. I learned that the 8^th of January was

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celebrated as a regular holiday in most of the towns and cities in the state.

Here in California the 8^th of January has been observed as a public holiday since the state was settled. Here in the City of Oakland we had one of the grandest celebrations January 8^th, 1897, that has ever taken place in the city, in honor of Gen. Jackson and his great victory. It was the occasion of the dedication of a fine school house that we had just completed at a cost of $200,000. We were not able to procure a hickory pole large enough to bear the national flag, as hickory timber does not grow wild here as it does in Illinois. But it happened that a family came out from Illinois several years ago and brought with them some hickory nuts, one of which was planted in her father’s door yard by a little daughter, and it grew to be a fine tree. On the day of the dedication the young lady presented this tree to the school board, and they planted it on the school grounds in honor of "Old Hickory."

Many eloquent speeches were made on this occasion, but one of the speakers, after a grand eulogy of Gen. Jackson, declared that after he was elected president he turned every whig out of office, and put a democrat in his place, and that no whig could hold an office under his administration. It was a great mistake. I remember that my father who was a strong whig, and did all he could for the election of Adams, soon after the election of 1828 moved to Havana, Illinois, when Jackson appointed him postmaster at that place. He also appointed Abraham Lincoln, another ardent whig, to be postmaster at New Salem, in the place of Samuel Hill, who was a democrat. I knew of many other cases in which Gen. Jackson had appointed whigs to office. The great question with him was, "Is he honest, and is he capable?" which had more to do with his appointments than the question of politics.

The many high and important offices that Gen. Jackson was elected to and appointed to, and some of them at a time when he was quite a young man, will show the confidence and the high regard in which he was held, not only by his own state, but by the whole nation, for he was elected State’s Attorney, Judge of

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the Circuit Court, and also Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, a member of Congress and a United States Senator, all before he was thirty-one years of age. In 1824 he ran for president, his opponents being John Quincy Adams, W. H. Crawford and Henry Clay, and out of 261 electoral votes cast he got 99, Adams 84, Crawford 47 and Clay 37, and in the popular vote he got a majority over Adams of 50,551 votes. Neither of the candidates having received a majority of all the votes, it was carried into the House, and by some maneuvering Adams was counted in and Jackson counted out. In 1828 he ran again for president against John Quincy Adams, receiving 178 of the electoral votes to Adams 83, and a majority over Adams of the popular vote of 158,134. He ran again in 1832 against Henry Clay, Jackson receiving 218 of the electoral votes and Clay 49, and a majority of the popular vote of 157,313.

I must close these sketches of Gen. Jackson with a brief review of his childhood. I have taken great pains to get these interesting facts in a reliable form.

Gen. Jackson’s parents were Scotch-Irish, coming from the north of Ireland. His father’s name was Andrew Jackson; his mother’s, Elizabeth Hutchinson. When they came to American they had two sons, Hugh and Robert. Mrs. J. had three sisters who came with them to America. They settled in the Waxhaw settlement on Waxhaw creek, named for an Indian tribe that occupied the country. It is now Union county, North Carolina. They settled on a farm as a renter (this was in 1765), and within two years the father died. The mother then moved in with her brother-in-law, George McCamis, and in a week after the father’s death Andrew was born, March 15, 1767. In two months she went with her children to live another brother-in-law, Thomas Crawford, who had married another sister of hers. This sister was an invalid, and Mrs. Jackson took charge of the family and lived there most of the time until her death fifteen years later. Her son Hugh worked for his uncle, McCamis, until the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, when he enlisted as a patriot and soon died of the hardships and privations of army life. Her

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remaining sons, Robert and Andrew, were not old enough to go into the army, but were called into the service, with many other boys of the settlement, to guard and protect their homes and property against the British soldiers who were making raids upon them, destroying property, stealing horses, etc. All the older men had gone to war, leaving the women and boys to stand guard about their homes. While Robert and Andrew and other boys were thus engaged a company of red-coats came upon them and took them prisoners and marched them off to Camden, a British garrison forty miles away. After they had been prisoners a few weeks, Mrs. Jackson, who was a brave and resolute woman, determined that she would go to Camden and try to get her sons released. So she set out for the British garrison on horseback and alone. When she got to the fort she found her two boys in a terrible predicament. They had had an encounter with one of the British officers and had been cruelly treated. The officer had ordered Andrew to clean and black his boots, which he refused to do, telling the officer that although he was a prisoner of war, he would not black his boots. The officer struck him on the head with his sword, when Andrew threw up his hands to guard off the blow he received a cut on his arm, and also on the side of his head, the scars of which he carried to his grave. The officer then ordered Robert to clean and black his boots; he also refused to do it, and the officer knocked him down and beat him terribly. So when Mrs. Jackson found her boys in prison, she found that in addition to their wounds that both had taken the small-pox, which was raging at a terrible rate in the prison. She went to the chief officer and plead for their deliverance, and succeeded in getting them released. She then procured another horse, and they started home on their forty-mile ride. When they got within an hour’s ride of their home there came up a dreadful rain that drenched them to the skin. It very greatly aggravated the small-pox, and Robert died a few days after she had gotten him home. Andrew barely escaped death by the kind and careful nursing of his mother.

Two months after word came to the settlement from Charleston, S. C., which was then in possession of the British

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army, that great distress and suffering and sickness were prevailing among the American prisoners there. A number of the prisoners were from the Waxhaw settlement, and among them were several of her nephews. Mrs. Jackson was prevailed upon to go with two other ladies to Charleston with clothing, medicines, etc., for the prisoners, and also to secure, if possible, their release or exchange. So she started with her two friends on the long journey of 150 miles, on horseback; and when they got there they found that the prisoners were confined on ship, and that the ship fever was prevailing among them. So after ministering to the wants of the soldiers and doing what they could for their relief, they started on their journey home. They stopped one night at a farm house, when Mrs. Jackson was taken down with the ship fever contracted while on the ship, and growing worse, died in a few days, and was buried in that locality. It was sad news to take back to Andrew and their friends. Nothing could be done about bringing back her remains, because it was a long distance, and the weather was hot, and besides that they were poor people. Andrew, at the time of her death, was fifteen years old, and his father, mother, brothers and sisters were all dead. But he continued to live with his uncle, Thomas Crawford, and attended the school in the log school house. The branches taught were reading, writing, geography and arithmetic. Hs mother had often spoken of her wish to educate him for a Presbyterian minister, and would have tried to do so if she had lived. He often spoke of his good, Christian mother, and with much sorrow of her sad death and burial, for she sacrificed her life for others.

When Gen. Jackson was a member of Congress the first time he employed two men to go and see if they could find his mother’s grave, and if so, to remove her body to the place where his father was buried. But the men could not find her grave. There was no stone to mark the spot, and the country had undergone many changes, so that there was no clue to her burial place. It was all the loving and loyal son could do.

When he was a candidate for the presidency in 1828, and every vile thing that could be hatched up was told about him, it

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was said that his wife came into his room one day when he was reading a newspaper, and found him in tears. On her inquiry about what the trouble was, he showed her a paragraph in the newspaper stating that his mother had been a washer-woman and filled a pauper’s grave. He said to his wife:

"I can defend your character and mine; but when they assail my devoted mother, it almost breaks my heart."

There was one grand and noble trait of character in the General that drew people to him with hooks of steel. I was told by men who had been with him in the army how kind and considerate he was to his soldiers. In one of their long marches from Natchez to Nashville, a distance of 500 miles through a wilderness country, the officers, of course, were on horseback, while the soldiers were afoot. Often the General would fall back to the rear to look after the sick and disabled soldiers, and it was common for him to dismount and place some sick or lame soldier on his horse, while he trudged along on foot with the men day after day through the miry road, gay and cheerful, inspiring his men with his splendid courage and unselfishness. It was on this long and dreadful march that he got the name of "Hickory." In the first place one of the soldiers remarked: "The general is tough." Then another said: "He is as tough as hickory." Then they commenced to call him "Hickory Jackson," and as he advanced in age, they applied to him the name "Old Hickory," and the honored name followed him to his death.

In tracing the life of Gen. Jackson we find many things to admire. In the first place he was born into the world with a good, strong constitution, with good common-sense, and with a good back-bone, so that he was always ready to stand up for the rights of the people. But the great and crowning glory of his life was his grand and glorious victory at New Orleans with his Kentucky and Tennessee militia, over the renowned Major-General Sir Edward Packingham of the British army with his chosen and well drilled soldiers. No doubt the General, in looking over that battlefield, strewn with the bodies of 2,000 enemies slain and wounded, while his loss was but five killed and seven wounded, must have felt something of exultation over the foe that had so

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cruelly treated him and his brothers and caused the death of his beloved mother.

General Jackson’s parents were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and he inherited their reverence for religion and for ministers.

He was always a generous contributor to the church and religious institutions. Previous to his wife’s death he gave her a solemn promise that he would unite with the church and live a Christian’s life. This promise he complied with about five years before his death. He united with the Presbyterian church, and was asked to accept the office of ruling elder, but declined the office. He said:

" I am too young in the church for such an office. My countrymen," he said, " have given me high honors, but I should esteem the office of ruling elder in the church of Jesus Christ a far higher honor than any I have ever received."

He was strongly attached to his slaves, and in his will he distributed them among his wife’s relatives, so that they should not be sold outside the family. But the time came for him to die. His faculties were clear and bright up to

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the hour of his death. He called his family and servants about his bed and said he wanted to meet them all in Heaven, back and white. He said he was ready and prepared to go, that death was only the dark pathway opening into a blessed and endless life. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Edgar, of Nashville, from the text, "These are they which came out of great tribulation and washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb." It was the largest funeral ever known in Nashville, except that of his beloved wife.

The county had had few men honored and beloved by the masses of the people as was Gen. Jackson. For many long years will his noble deeds and sacrifices and his sacred memory be cherished deep down in the hearts of a grateful country and a generous people.

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