GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON
Born March 15, 1767
Died June 8, 1845

There would have been no such simplicity as this about Old Hickory’s final resting place, however, if some of his admirers had had their way. Early in 1845, only a few months before Jackson died, Commodore J. D. Elliott of the United States Navy, commander of the old Constitution, brought home from Palestine the marble sarcophagus in which had rested the remains of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus. Commodore Elliott wrote to General Jackson, advising him that he had brought home this handsome relic and deposited it with the National Institute with the suggestion that it be tendered Jackson for his own tomb. “I pray you, General,” wrote Elliott, “to live on in the fear of the Lord; dying the death of a Roman soldier, an emperor’s coffin awaits you.”

But General Jackson, as might have been expected, while courteously expressing his appreciation of the spirit of veneration that prompted the proffer, firmly declared that: “I can not consent that my mortal remains shall be laid in a repository prepared for an emperor or king.”

“My republican feelings and principles forbid it;” Jackson’s letter continues, “the simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity of our republican institutions and of the plainness of our republican citizens, who are the sovereigns of our glorious Union and whose virtue is to perpetuate it. True virtue can not exist where pomp and parade are the governing passions. It can only dwell with the people—the great laboring and producing classes—that form the bone and sinew of our confederacy.... I have prepared an humble depository for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife where, without any pomp or parade, I have requested, when my God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid; for both of us there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to judgment when we, I hope, shall rise together clothed with that heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer who died for us that we might live, and by whose atonement I hope for a blessed immortality.”

When the new Hermitage was built in 1819 and the garden was laid out, one of General Jackson’s first acts was to walk out into the garden with Rachel and select the spot where their remains would rest side by side when life had passed. At this time the General’s health was precarious, racked as he was by eight years of almost continuous campaigning while in a debilitated physical condition, and he frankly expressed the belief that he would not live long. At that time it seemed highly improbable that he would outlive the blooming Rachel by nearly seventeen years.

This burying ground in the corner of the garden is not, legally speaking, now a part of the Hermitage property. To insure its permanent care, General Jackson on September 17, 1832, executed a formal indenture with John H. Eaton, John Coffee, and Andrew Jackson, junior, “and their heirs forever,” whereby he “bargained, sold, conveyed and delivered” to them in trust “one-fourth part of an acre of ground, out of the Hermitage tract, to be laid off and run out so as to include the tomb or monument placed on the remains of his dear departed wife, Rachel Jackson, and designed as the deposit of the remains of the said Andrew Jackson when it pleases God to take him hence, and the family of Andrew Jackson, junior, and his heirs.” It is provided that the trustees and their heirs shall preserve the sacred deposit made upon said ground and let the tomb or monument remain undisturbed and “hold the ground subject to the use and purpose mentioned, forever.” This conveyance is duly registered in the courthouse at Nashville, and was taken into consideration when the Hermitage property was transferred to the state in 1857.

Here in this quiet corner, sheltered by the heavy green foliage of the old magnolias that guard the tomb of the General and Rachel, are the graves of the adopted son and his family connections. Here lie Andrew Jackson, junior (the adopted son), and his wife, Sarah York Jackson; Colonel Andrew Jackson (the adopted son’s son), his wife Amy A. Jackson and his younger brother Captain Samuel Jackson, who was killed at Chickamauga; also the two other sons of Andrew Jackson, junior, who died in infancy; Rachel Jackson Lawrence, daughter of Andrew Jackson, junior, her husband, Dr. J. M. Lawrence and their son and daughter, John Marshall Lawrence and Sazie Lawrence Winn; Mrs. Marion Adams, sister of Sarah York Jackson; and R. E. W. Earle, the artist.

On the other side of the General’s monumental tomb, just across the graveled walk, is a single mound with a plain, low marble headstone on which is carved: “Uncle Alfred. Died September 4,1901, aged 98 years. Faithful servant of Andrew Jackson.” It was Uncle Alfred’s fondest wish in his old days that his mortal remains might be laid to rest as closely as possible by the side of his old master, the General; and the promise that he would be so buried lent solace to his declining years. So long as “the Gin’ral” lived, Alfred kept as closely by his side as possible; and close by his side he remains as master and servant sleep their long sleep in the dark magnolias’ shade.

When General Jackson in his letters spoke of returning to the Hermitage to cast a tear on the tomb of his departed wife it was no mere figure of speech. After his retirement from public life in 1837 he went back to the home place and spent the rest of his days on the farm in pleasant association with the family of his adopted son. Here a part of his daily routine consisted in a long walk in the afternoon which invariably wound up at the side of Rachel’s tomb, where he was wont to sit in contemplative reflection. His little granddaughter, Rachel, was his customary companion on these walks; but she soon learned that when his steps turned toward the tomb he wished to be alone, and when they reached the garden gate she always withdrew her hand from his and ran away about her childish diversions, leaving him to his thoughts. Even after he became bedridden in the last year of his life, on pleasant days he required that his chair be carried to the garden and placed by the side of the tomb; and there he sat through the hours, dreaming of the stormy and pleasant days of the past.

Just to the east of the tomb the visitor to the garden today sees a group of hickory trees closely together in a straight row; and concerning these trees there is an interesting little story. On December 18, 1830, President Jackson received from an admirer in Ulster, New York, Colonel Charles E. Dudley, a parcel of hickory nuts (“nutts” in Jackson’s free-and-easy orthography) from a tree in Ulster said to be the only one of its kind known in New York. Colonel Dudley doubtless felt that he was the author of a delicate compliment in sending these unique hickory nuts to Old Hickory himself; and the President in his formal note of thanks, seemed duly appreciative of the honor intended. “To perpetuate this memento of the kind regard of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley,” he wrote in the formal official third person of the period, “he has sent one dozen of these nutts to be planted in his garden at the Hermitage, to encircle the tomb of his departed wife, and to have the following inscription engraved on the marble. ‘The Dudley hickory of Ulster, New York, presented by Mr. and Mrs. Dudley to the President.’”

Further reference to the nuts is seen in a letter written by President Jackson in the spring of 1831 to his adopted son, who was about to return to Tennessee: “I sent to Mr. Daniel Donelson some hickory nutts with a request that he would hand them to the overseer with a letter directing Steele to plant them around your mother’s tomb.” That they were duly planted is attested by the attention-attracting row of tall, straight trees seen there today; but there is no sign of the inscription mentioned in General Jackson’s letter to Colonel Dudley. No one now living remembers whether the trees were planted in strict accordance with the General’s expressed wish that they encircle the tomb, although one of Jackson’s biographers does mention that “some fine hickory trees that grew in the garden” were at one time removed in a mistaken effort to improve the appearance of the place.

Despite the careful and painstaking preparations made by General Jackson to insure that the last resting place of his mortal remains would be by the side of his beloved wife in the tomb in the Hermitage garden, it was only by the interposition of the governor of the state that there was frustrated an effort to nullify this last wish of the old General.

When the state purchased the property in 1856 and then began to make plans to tender it to the Federal government as a suitable site for a military academy in the South, somebody had the bright idea of digging up the bodies of the General and Mrs. Jackson and removing them from the Hermitage to Capitol Hill in Nashville. Accordingly a bill was introduced in the General Assembly in 1860 providing for such removal, and it was promptly passed by the Senate. Before the lower house could act on it, however, Andrew Jackson, junior, heard of the plan and immediately raised a loud and well-justified protest. Directly to Governor Harris he went to remonstrate against the enactment of the bill, pointing out that upon his death-bed General Jackson had expressed the hope that the remains of himself and his wife should under no circumstances be removed from the Hermitage. Governor Harris thereupon sent a special message to the Senate and House of Representatives “respectfully recommending” that the bill be rejected and that Old Hickory’s wishes be respected. In those days a respectful recommendation from Governor Harris was just about equivalent to an edict, and nothing more was heard about disturbing the Jackson remains.

But, although this plan for the official removal of the remains was defeated, there was another mysterious and criminal attempt on General Jackson’s body several years later. It was late in the summer of 1894 that a visitor appeared at the Hermitage one morning and, as was the customary procedure with visitors, was courteously conducted through the house and about the grounds. It was noted at the time that he displayed an unusual interest in the Jackson family and home life and talked with Uncle Alfred at great length about his old master. He showed particular interest in the tomb; although, at the time, no sinister intent was attached to his interest. After spending the morning on the place he went to a near-by country store for a bite to eat during the middle of the day and then returned and loitered about the premises throughout the afternoon until nearly dark. At length, to the relief of the custodian who was growing vaguely apprehensive, the stranger departed; and it was thought he had gone for good.

It is easy to imagine the custodian’s horrified astonishment, on visiting the garden next morning, to find a large and gaping hole in the ground on the west side of the tomb near the head of General Jackson’s grave. The hole was deep enough to expose the stone foundations of the tomb; but fortunately the burial vaults were enclosed in a solid wall of masonry, and the grave-robber’s felonious intentions were defeated. It developed, upon inquiry, that the mysterious stranger had borrowed a spade from the near-by Donelson home at Tulip Grove the preceding afternoon and that it had been carefully returned and left at the door of the house in the early morning hours. The ghoul had evidently, from the extent of his operations, worked all night in opening the big excavation; and he was doubtless exasperated to discover that the careful and substantial work of the builder of the tomb in 1831 had made the General’s last home impregnable to such assaults.

The Ladies’ Hermitage Association made every effort to ferret out the mystery; but, with the limited means at their disposal, they were able to learn nothing at the time. But several months later a man died in a hospital in New York who confessed that he was a professional body-snatcher (a practice not uncommon at that time) and that among other exploits of his infamous career he had made the ineffectual attempt on the Jackson tomb. Just what he intended to do with the body if his efforts had been successful was not revealed; and today it is hard to imagine how the body of an ex-President would command any premium even in the grave-robbers’ underworld; but the fact remains that the attempt was made, and it was only because of the staunch construction of the tomb that the body of the General remained undisturbed.

The Grounds

The most attractive feature of the Hermitage grounds, aside from the mansion house itself and the garden, is the guitar-shaped driveway leading up to the front door from the entrance gate. All along both sides of the drive the General planted cedar seedlings, brought in from the near-by glades, and most of these original cedars, now grown into stately trees, still remain. The few that have succumbed to the stress of the years and the storms have been replaced with younger brothers, thus preserving the General’s original plan. The wood of the old trees uprooted by storms has been carefully preserved and is used for the manufacture of souvenirs and novelties which are sold to visitors.

Until very recently the front drive was still used as the visitors’ approach to the house; but it was feared that the continued every-day use of the drive might shorten the life of the old cedar trees, and so entrance and exit are now afforded by a modernly built driveway on the western edge of the front lawn. This drive is lined with young hardwood trees of historical significance, they having been transplanted from the historic battlefields of New Orleans and Alabama where Jackson made himself a world figure. There are thrifty young oaks here from Chalmette Plain, and from The Horseshoe, Fort Jackson, and Talladega—names indelibly associated in history with General Jackson’s ever-victorious combats with the British and with the Creek Indians. This step in the beautification of the grounds was made possible through the liberality of Mrs. B. F. Wilson of Nashville, when she was regent of the association.

Just to the rear of the dining-room wing of the house is the semi-detached brick kitchen, with its big open fireplace, where all the family’s meals were prepared during the years of the old house’s occupancy. The kitchen separate from the house served to eliminate the noise and heat and odors of cooking, so far as the family and guests were concerned. It multiplied the task of serving the meals, but of what importance was that when labor was so plentiful? In the kitchen may be seen the cooking appliances used in the early days when there were fowls and huge roasts on the spits in front of the fire, potatoes boiling in the big pot on the crane, and doubtless hoecakes on the griddle and hot biscuits in the oven. Aunt Betty was the cook during the early days and up until the time she died in 1852; and in those days the cook ruled the kitchen with an iron hand. There were swarms of little black girls to keep the fire going and turn the spits and sweep the ashes and bring water from the springhouse and carry dishes to the dining room—and Aunt Betty was their boss. Housewives of today, accustomed to the culinary conveniences afforded by electric ranges and other modern trappings, wonder how Aunt Betty, cooking on an open fireplace, could prepare the food for a big family and a house generally full of guests. But those were the days of simple fare, simply prepared; and Aunt Betty was a master of that art.

Behind the kitchen is the big brick smokehouse—empty now, but a century ago filled with the great supply of hams and bacon needed for the feeding of a large household and a hundred slaves—not to mention the numerous guests. A normal supply of meat when hogs were killed and the hams and sides salted down and smoked was from 20,000 to 25,000 pounds. Today only its dark, smoke-stained rafters remain to tell of all the succulent country hams that once hung there, but there still clings about it an elusive and entrancing aroma reminiscent of the days when it was stocked with the plantation’s supply of meat. At hog-killing time—the first freezing weather in the early winter—a big fireplace in the cellar of the big house was used to heat water to scald the hogs and also for rendering the lard in the big black iron kettles.

The carriage house, to the rear of the smokehouse, is not the original building used for this purpose. It was put there during comparatively recent years for the purpose of conveniently displaying the old Jackson family carriage. This old family carriage looks rusty and faded now, but a century ago it was the vehicular equivalent of the finest eight-cylindered limousine available today. Nothing but the best was good enough for General Jackson, whether he was buying a broadcloth suit or a horse or a carriage. Even before he was President he had an eye for style and a modest display of pomp. Old residents of Nashville used to tell of how the General would drive into town “in a carriage drawn by four handsome iron-gray horses, attended by servants in blue livery with brass buttons, glazed hats and silver bands.” These carriage horses were the apple of the old man’s eye, and whenever he referred to “my grays” it was with a note of real pride.

In the carriage house is also to be seen the framework, all that now remains of the handsome phaeton presented to General Jackson by the admiring citizens of New York. Unfortunately this vehicle was burned while Colonel Andrew Jackson, III, was living in Cincinnati, before he had sold all the family relics to the association. The wooden parts of this phaeton were made from timbers taken from the historic old ship Constitution, and it was very highly cherished by the General. It was in this phaeton that he and Martin Van Buren rode to the Capitol together for the inauguration March 4, 1837; and when he left Washington for Nashville he took the most elaborate pains to see that it was properly crated and shipped to him at home. It was carried across the river to Alexandria and thence by boat to Philadelphia. There it was shipped on a coastwise vessel to New Orleans, and thence by river boats to the Hermitage.

A good description of this historic vehicle is embraced in the account of the Van Buren inauguration written for the New York Mirror by Nathaniel P. Willis. Mr. Willis, who speaks of it as “the elegant phaeton made of the wood of the old frigate Constitution,” describes it in these words: “it has a seat for two, with a driver’s box, covered with a superb hammercloth, and set up rather high in front; the wheels and body are low, and there are bars for baggage behind; altogether, for lightness and elegance, it would be a creditable turn-out for Long Acre. The material is excessively beautiful—a fine-grained oak, polished to a very high degree, with its colours delicately brought out by a coat of varnish. The wheels are very slender and light, but strong; and, with all its finish, it looks a vehicle capable of a great deal of service. A portrait of the Constitution, under full sail, is painted on the pannels.” In this article Mr. Willis refers to another vehicle presented to the retiring President by “an eccentrick mechanick”—a sulky made entirely of rough-cut hickory with the bark on, with some curiously twisted and gnarled branches ingeniously turned into handles and whip-box. It must have been a vehicular monstrosity. At any rate, Old Hickory avoided bringing such an outlandish rig back to the Hermitage by generously presenting it to his successor, Mr. Van Buren.

Behind the present carriage house is the brick house in which the caretaker lives, this also being of modern construction. The stable standing back of the caretaker’s house was built a few years ago when the log and frame stable burned. This building had replaced the original old brick stable which was built in 1832 and which stood much nearer to the house, about where the carriage house is now located. The old driveway leading back to the stable may still be seen in the lawn to the west of the mansion house. The brick house where souvenirs are now sold is a replica of the original carriage house, being built on its old foundations.

Just to the right of the back door of the house is a deep, rock-lined well, with an old-fashioned cedar windlass and oak bucket. In the early days, however, the water supply was obtained from a never-failing spring which is reached by the long brick walk now leading from the Hermitage’s back door. This gushing spring helped fix the location of the original log Hermitage near by, as a convenient water supply was a primary essential in the pioneer days. One of Jackson’s first acts, after building the log house to live in when he moved from Hunter’s Hill, was to enclose the spring in a stone springhouse which Mrs. Jackson could use for keeping her milk and butter cold. Mrs. Jackson, who took a lively interest in the farm affairs, was especially proud of this spring which was and is an exceptionally good one.

The brick walk down to the springhouse is now shaded by a grove of trees; but originally this was the “colt lot,” the trees having been planted after the house was reclaimed. On the way down to the spring there may be seen close on the other side of the fence to the left the sole remaining relic of Hunter’s Hill—a log cabin which stood there after the old house was burned, and which was in recent years taken down and removed to this location on the Hermitage property where it might be preserved.

There are no slave quarters to be seen at the Hermitage, for in Jackson’s day the slaves who worked in the fields were scattered in their cabins about the plantation and did not all live in one long row of houses as was the prevailing custom in the South generally. There remains, however, a two-roomed log cabin just to the north of the garden which was the home of Uncle Alfred to the day of his death.

Uncle Alfred was born on the Hermitage plantation just about the time Jackson moved there from Hunter’s Hill and lived there all of his days. Living a long lifetime of almost a complete century, the span of his existence covered the years of Andrew Jackson’s whole life after his rise to distinction. He saw the building of the Hermitage, he saw it burned and rebuilt, he witnessed its decline and its rescue and its development into a magnet for visitors from all over the country. As a shiny-eyed boy of twelve he stood with the other slaves, young and old, at the big gate that never-to-be-forgotten day in 1815 when the General returned triumphant from his great victory at New Orleans; and thirty years later it was his strong arms that helped support the emaciated body of the old statesman as he sat up in his bed and gasped out his dying breath.

Born and living sixty years a slave, he was too old to change his ways when the state of Tennessee enacted the emancipation amendment to its Constitution in January, 1865. Freedom meant nothing to him then; he just went on living with the Jacksons until he could get his bearings—and then, in a few weeks, his master died and he stayed on with his old mistress because he felt that she needed him. When the state turned the property over to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association and the next generation of Jacksons moved out, he still went on living there in his same old cabin. Nobody ever seemed to consider the possibility of his moving away. Through the years he seemed to have become an integral part of the property, just as much a fixture as the stout log cabin in which he lived.

Alfred’s mother was Betty the cook; and in his youth his duties were those of a hostler and attendant at the stables. In the caste system of slavery he was undeniably of a higher stratum than the field hands; but the house servants, the real elite, always referred to him contemptuously as being from “across the yard”—their aloof designation of the stable area. At times Alfred rode the General’s horses in some of their important races, drove teams on the farm when needed for that duty, and occasionally served as driver of the family carriage. In all these duties he was noted for the way he had with horses and for his careful manner of handling them. When little Andrew, the adopted son, grew too old to be tied to the apron strings of his black mammy-nurse, Aunt Hannah, he was turned over to the tender care of Alfred—six years his senior—who served him faithfully in the complex rôle of nurse, companion, bodyguard, mentor, valet, and chum—that indescribable relationship known now only as a memory lingering in the recollections of those old men whose youthful days were spent in the loving care and companionship of slaves who were not merely servants but guardians and tutors—and friends.

When Andrew reached young manhood and was old enough to travel about the country, Alfred sometimes was called upon to go with him as his body servant; and the members of the family for years enjoyed telling of how Alfred saw to it that the young master had the best of the available accommodations whenever they went together.

On the occasion of Alfred’s first service in the unfamiliar rôle of valet, young Andrew was setting out on a steamboat trip to New Orleans. His body servant was taken sick just on the eve of their departure, so Alfred was called in from the fields to take his place—not, however, without some misgiving on the master’s part. Alfred was given some superficial coaching in his new duties and off they started. The next morning young Jackson was aroused from his slumbers by the noise of a disturbance on deck, and emerged from his stateroom to find Alfred in bellicose possession of the washbasin, soap, and towels, defying the early-rising passengers who desired to make use of the steamboat’s primitive toilet facilities. “Can’t nobody wash hisself till Massa Andrew’s used these things,” he was declaring stoutly. “Reckon I knows my business better’n dat.”

When Andrew, junior, married in 1831 and brought his bride to the White House, President Jackson presented to his new daughter-in-law a young slave woman named Gracey to act as her personal maid. When the young couple came on to the Hermitage in the spring of 1832 Gracey came with them, and the young maid from Virginia soon attracted Alfred’s favorable attention. The master and mistress looked with favor on the match, and so they were married in the fall of 1837. Mrs. Jackson made a gala affair of the wedding, having the ceremony performed in the large central hall of the Hermitage and giving the couple a handsome wedding supper.

The story of the fidelity of Alfred and Gracey to their white folk is the familiar idyl of the Old South—the faithful slaves’ devotion to their former masters in the time of the latter’s adversities. Gracey and Alfred had been with the Jacksons when they were in the White House, the first family of the land, they had enjoyed the flush days of the old General’s successes and popularity. And when the evil days came—when Alfred’s young master, now no longer young, cast off the burden of life and was laid to rest in the corner of the garden, and Gracey’s mistress faced life lonely and impoverished, with no farm left to work and no slaves left to work it—then Alfred and Gracey did not go off to set up homes of their own, in their new-found freedom, as did all of the other Hermitage black folks, but stayed there in their cabin to serve the mistress they loved as long as she lived.

Gracey died in 1887, shortly before the death of Mrs. Sarah York Jackson; but Alfred lived until 1901, and played no small part in making the Hermitage a place of interest to visitors. As long as he was physically able he served as a guide, and those who came from afar to visit the Jackson shrine deemed it a rare privilege—as indeed it was—to be shown through the house and garden by one who had been there when the spark of his old master’s vibrant personality made the Hermitage a place alive with his presence.

Alfred was fully conscious of the fact that he was a living connecting link between the departed great man and his living admirers, and he never tired of telling visitors stories illustrative of the greatness of the old General. To Uncle Alfred there was no flaw or blemish in his old master’s character or fame. His idolatrous veneration was well illustrated by his often quoted reply to a visitor who asked him if he thought General Jackson went to Heaven. “Co’se he went to Heaven,” Uncle Alfred answered with vigor, “if he want to. If he want to go dere, who gwine stop him?”

After he grew too feeble to act as a guide he kept to his cabin, and though the ills of his accumulating years bore heavily on him he always enjoyed chatting with visitors who stopped to talk with him as he sat on his doorstep in the summer or by the blazing logs in his big fireplace in the winter. Although never bedridden, his strength slowly faded away and at last he died quietly on September 4, 1901.

Not only was he given the boon of being buried in the garden, near the tomb of his deeply venerated old master, but the added honor was given him of having his funeral held in the hall of the Hermitage, his casket resting on the same spot where he and Gracey had stood to be married more than sixty years before. His funeral was attended by large numbers of his friends, both black and white, and ministers of both races participated in the burial services. Both Alfred and Gracey had originally been members of the little Hermitage church, but after Gracey’s death, Alfred transferred his membership to a near-by church of his own people.

In typically weird cadences Uncle Alfred’s black-skinned friends raised their quavering voices to sing his old favorite:

And so he was borne through the broad front door of the Hermitage and laid to rest in his long home in the garden. “Faithful servant of Andrew Jackson” it says on his modest tombstone; and all those who read the Scripture know of the reward in Heaven promised to the good and faithful servant.

VI: THE HERMITAGE HOUSEHOLD

The true character of a man in public life is often misjudged by the people when only his public acts are taken into consideration; but the facts about his real disposition and inclinations are invariably revealed clearly and infallibly in his home life. Andrew Jackson stands this test admirably; for visitors to the Hermitage were always impressed with the gentle and considerate conduct of the man at home. A contemporary wrote that the Jackson household “was the abode of native dignity, artless good cheer, instinctive courtesy and a hospitality which no adjective is adequate to describe.” And, making due allowance for the permissible hyperbole of a grateful guest, it is a compliment to any family to receive such a warm tribute.

Parton records that Jackson, “so irascible sometimes and sometimes so savage, was never so much as impatient with children, wife or servants. It used to astonish people who came for the first time to the Hermitage to find that its master, of whose fierce ways and words they had heard so much, was indeed the gentlest and tenderest of men.” And then he proceeds to tell of how an unexpected visitor to the Hermitage one evening found the old man seated in his big rocking chair “with a chubby boy wedged in on each side of him and a third, perhaps, in his lap” while he was trying to read his newspaper.

A similarly flattering picture of the domestic side of the General’s life is to be found in the published recollections of Thomas H. Benton. Benton knew all sides of Jackson’s character for he was first his admiring young henchman, then his bitter enemy and then his devoted friend again. He was with Jackson on the battlefield, he was with him in the political maelstrom of Washington, he visited him frequently in the quiet seclusion of the Hermitage; and of the latter aspect of the old chieftan’s life, Benton says that “He was gentle in his house and alive to the tenderest emotions.” As an instance of this—an instance, it should be observed, greatly at variance with the popular conception of his character but worth more than a long discourse in showing what that character really was, Colonel Benton tells of how he arrived at the Hermitage one wet, chilly evening in February and came upon the General in the twilight sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and a child between his knees. “He started a little,” says Benton, “called a servant to remove the two innocents to another room, and explained to me how it was. The child had cried because his lamb was out in the cold and begged him to bring it in—which he had done to please the child, his adopted son, then not two years old. The ferocious man does not do that!” This incident made a deep impression on Colonel Benton, and he referred to it again in a eulogy on Jackson’s character delivered after the latter’s death.

Another early visitor at the Hermitage left this observation concerning Jackson, the host: “Had we not seen General Jackson before we would have taken him for a visitor, not the host of the mansion. He greeted us cordially and bade us feel at home, but gave us distinctly to understand that he took no trouble to look after any but his lady guests. As for the gentlemen, there were the parlor, the dining-room, the library, the sideboard and its refreshments, there were the servants; and if anything was wanting all that was necessary was to ring. He was as good as his word. He did not sit at the head of the table, but mingled with his guests, and always preferred a seat between two ladies, obviously seeking a chair between different ones at various times. He was very easy and graceful in his attentions; free and often playful, but always dignified and earnest, in his conversation. He was quick to perceive every point of word or manner, was gracious in approval, but did not hesitate to dissent with courtesy when he differed. He obviously had a hidden vein of humor, loved aphorism, and could politely convey a sense of polite travesty. If put upon his metal he was very positive but gravely respectful. He conversed freely and seemed to be absorbed in attention to what the ladies were saying; but if a word of note was uttered at any distance from him audibly he caught it by a quick and pertinent comment without losing or leaving the subject about which he was talking to another person—such was his ease of sociability without levity or lightness of activity, and without being oracular or heavy in his remarks.” And isn’t that a perfect picture of the gentlemanly host?

As a specific and characteristic instance of Jackson’s attentiveness and courtliness to his guests one of the neighbors used to tell of how a homely young girl who had been taken by Mrs. Jackson to be raised at the Hermitage was acting the part of a wall-flower at an evening’s entertainment there one time. “When all the beautiful women and distinguished men had been introduced around,” she said, “General Jackson, seeing that she had been forgotten, caught her by the arm and introduced her with so much earnestness as to indelibly impress a pleasurable sensation with her until her death and was ever a green spot in her life.”

It is significant of the beneficent influence of Rachel Jackson on the Hermitage and its social life that no guest ever recorded his impressions of a visit there without pleasant mention of her gracious presence. Indeed, no account of the home life of the Hermitage could be complete without a deferential tribute to the spirit of this woman who occupied so large a place in Jackson’s life and whose lovable nature contributed so much to making the Hermitage a delightful place to be. “Her quiet, cheerful and admirable management of her household” made a lasting impression on Colonel Benton, and of her he says in his recollections: “She had the General’s own warm heart, frank manner and hospitable temper; and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. She had the faculty—a rare one—of retaining names and titles in a throng of visitors, addressing each one appropriately, and dispensing hospitality to all with a cordiality which enhanced its value. No bashful youth or plain old man whose modesty sat them down at the lower end of the table could escape her cordial attention any more than the titled gentlemen on her right and left. Young persons were her delight, and she always had her house filled with them—clever young women and clever young men—all calling her affectionately ‘Aunt Rachel.’ I was young then and was one of that number. I owe it to early recollections and to cherished convictions to bear this faithful testimony to the memory of its long mistress, the loved and honored wife of a great man.”

Aunt Rachel, according to another contemporary, was “the childless mother of all the young people of the neighborhood;” and the old house probably didn’t seem much like a hermitage with the young folks making the rafters ring with their laughing and singing, the General gaily joining in the chorus when his old favorite tunes were raised.

The fine ladies of New Orleans, when Rachel went there in 1815 to join in the celebration of the general’s great victory, tittered at her homely appearance and her sun-tanned arms and face; latter-day biographers and magazine writers have written of her with slightly up-tilted noses, overemphasizing her alleged lack of formal education and dwelling unduly on her old-fashioned habit of smoking a pipe by her fireside at night—a practice suggested by her family doctor as a relief from asthma. But if ever a woman had a heart of gold it was Rachel Jackson; and none ever visited the Hermitage while she was alive but went away to sing her praises.

Contrary to the popular impression, perhaps, the Hermitage household was conducted on the lines of an old-fashioned Christian home, with a regular devotional hour in the evening which was attended by the whole family and also by the house servants. This practice was followed after Rachel’s death as well as before. After the son’s marriage his wife always conducted the musical part of the devotional exercises; but when she was not at home the old General himself would line the hymn (“Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed” was one of his favorites) and lead in prayer.

Young Mrs. Jackson’s widowed sister, Mrs. Adams, was musically talented, and during the General’s declining years she gave him much pleasure with her playing of the piano and guitar and with her singing. The General’s favorite song was “Auld Lang Syne;” but when Mrs. Adams would take her guitar of an evening, seated at the fireside, and would play and sing “Johnny Sands” or some of the other humorous songs of the day, Jackson showed his keen enjoyment even though he loved the old songs best.

Mrs. Adams, with her musical talent, was a valued and enlivening addition to the Hermitage family group, and after her coming she always provided the music for the many impromptu dances in the Hermitage parlors. Despite his advanced years the General took great delight in these affairs; and it was the customary thing for him to start off the festivities of the Virginia Reel by taking his daughter-in-law as a partner and dancing the first round with her.

It was one of the minor tragedies of Jackson’s life that he, who set such store by his home life, should have no family of his own; but to fill the vacant place in his heart left by the lack of children he legally adopted his wife’s nephew and bestowed on him the most sincere and lavish affection a father could give his own son.

It was on December 22, 1809, that the wife of Severn Donelson, Mrs. Jackson’s brother, gave birth to twin boys. The news reached the General and his wife as they sat at the breakfast table in the old Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson, upon receiving the message, looked across the table at the General and said: “I’m afraid brother’s wife will be unable to raise both the little fellows with all those other children—she isn’t very strong, you know. Suppose we take one of them.”

Rachel’s merest suggestion was law to the General; and so after breakfast the horses were brought to the door and away they went to brother Severn’s to see the new twins and suggest the adoption. The mother agreed to the proposal, the General promptly had the infant’s name officially changed to Andrew Jackson, junior; and from that day he treated him as his own son. Aunt Hannah, the most trusted of the house servants, was assigned to his special care; and it was in her strong arms that he was carried two miles through the woods from his birthplace to the Hermitage which was to be his future home. Hannah lived to be 101 years old, and never tired of telling of how she reared the young master. Later she was assigned to the duty of looking after Mrs. Jackson; and then Alfred took charge of little Andrew and helped bring him up to the estate of young manhood. Those were gay days on the Hermitage farm when little Andrew was growing up, and the loyal and loving Alfred was taking him hunting and fishing, along with the little Donelson cousins.

The tender and patient devotion of the old General to his adopted son is one of the most touching chapters of his life. From the day old Hannah brought him in her arms across the threshold of the Hermitage, the General ever referred to him as “my son;” and had the boy actually been his own offspring he could not have treated him with more kindly and enduring affection. In his letters to his wife, while he was off fighting the Indians in Alabama, he never failed to mention little Andrew; and in one of these letters, following the bloody battle with the Creeks at Tallapoosa, he wrote: “Tell Andrew that I have for him a warrior’s bow and arrow.” The picture of the rough, turbulent, Indian-fighting frontiersman painted by conventional history does not tell us much of this side of the old soldier’s nature.

When the General returned from the Indian wars, Mrs. Jackson went to Huntsville to meet him and carried the little boy along; and when she went to New Orleans in 1815 to attend the popular celebration given there by the citizens in honor of her illustrious husband’s great victory over the British, little Andrew again went with her. A current account of visit of the General’s family to New Orleans brings out the fact that little Andrew was a pet at headquarters; and it is easy to believe the statement that the General could not deny him anything and spent every leisure moment in playing with him, often holding him in his arms while he transacted business. One evening, so the story goes, some companies of soldiers stopped beneath the windows of headquarters and the crowd began to cheer the General and call for his appearance. Little Andrew, asleep in the next room, was waked up by the commotion and began to cry. The General had already started to the window to answer the cheers of the people in the street below, but when he heard the boy whimpering he went to his bedside, picked him up, soothed away his tears and carried him along to the balcony where he bowed to the people and, at the same time, amused little Andrew with the scene in the street.

When the General was made Governor of the Florida Territory in 1821, and went there with Mrs. Jackson to take up his residence, they took Andrew with them as Mrs. Jackson would not think of leaving him behind; but the country around Pensacola was not, with its heat and its mosquitoes, an ideal place for a child, and so in August he was sent home when one of Jackson’s staff officers returned to Tennessee.

As the boy grew older he was sent to college in Nashville and was given every opportunity available to the son of a prosperous and distinguished father; and it is easy to see, from what Jackson said and wrote, that he had the greatest ambitions for the boy he had chosen to be his son and to perpetuate his name.

When he went to Washington to be inaugurated President in 1828 he left young Andrew at the Hermitage to help wind up affairs there; but Andrew went on to Washington in a few months, as soon as his foster father had got settled in the White House. After a brief stay in Washington he returned to the Hermitage, however, chiefly because of a love affair with a young lady of the neighborhood, a ward of their neighbor Colonel Ward who lived at Hunter’s Hill and mentioned in one of Jackson’s letters as “the daughter of my deceased friend,” but now known only as “Miss Flora.”

Jackson’s solicitude for his son’s happiness and well-being was never more strongly revealed than in the benevolent letters of fatherly advice he wrote him from Washington during the late summer of 1829 when the young man was back at the Hermitage prosecuting his suit. It is a little amusing to find the President setting aside the affairs of state to dip his oar into the management of the courtship; but Jackson had a flair for match-making, and also his affection for Andrew was so great that he did not want to see him make any mistake. While the love affair was progressing he made no direct objection to it, although he repeatedly expressed the firm conviction that Andrew should not permit the young lady to trifle with him but should press her for a positive answer one way or the other; and he was obviously relieved when his son wrote him at last to say that he had been rejected. The General wrote Andrew a kindly letter of consolation, venturing the sour-grapes comment that Miss Flora was “a fine girl, but a coquette;” and he begged the young man not to enter into any more love affairs without consulting him.

Young Andrew returned to the White House after the shattering of his Tennessee romance; but it wasn’t long before he again fell a victim. This time the object of his affections was Miss Sarah York of Philadelphia, one of three orphan sisters of good family and social standing. Miss Sarah was a spirited young lady and had declared her unwillingness to marry the ordinary run of suitors. Indeed, she was quoted as saying that she “wouldn’t marry less than a prince.” But the sons of kings were hard to find in this republican country, and so she evidently decided to lower her sights sufficiently to be satisfied with a mere President’s son. Jackson approved of the match when told of his son’s new flame, and the wedding took place in Philadelphia on November 24, 1831. Acting on the old General’s instructions, Andrew brought his bride to the White House at once; and, from the moment he clasped his new daughter in his arms at the front door of the White House, she had a place in his affections until the time of his death that was never disputed by anyone.

Andrew and his young wife remained with Jackson in Washington until the spring of 1832, setting out on April 12th to take up their residence in the Hermitage, which was to be their home all the remaining years of their lives. Accompanying them on the journey to Tennessee was Sarah’s cousin, Miss Emma Forbes, who came along to keep Sarah company while she was getting accustomed to her new home, and the General strictly enjoined Andrew to “give all your attention to Sarah and Emma. They are strangers in a strange land.” Evidently Andrew made the strangers feel very much at home, so much so that Miss Emma soon fell in love and married Andrew’s own twin brother, Thomas Jefferson Donelson, and became a resident of the Hermitage community.

Young Andrew was at this time twenty-three years old; and although the General expressed the fullest confidence in him and made it clear to him that he wanted him to take charge of affairs at the Hermitage and run the place, he nevertheless took the precaution to write out for him before he left a memorandum which is a model of thoughtful and thorough suggestions for a young man about to assume the management of an extensive estate. In this memorandum he authorized the son to purchase from Samuel Donelson a tract of 100 acres adjoining the Hermitage for $1,500; instructed him to have a settlement with the contractor, Mr. Morrison, who had been making the additions to the Hermitage and building the tomb in the garden; instructed him to arrive at a settlement of the accounts of Steele, the overseer, giving him a detailed account of all the involved transactions in which that worthy had tangled himself; reminded him that he was expecting Steele to make enough brick to build a new stable for the riding and carriage horses, with suggestions as to the plan for the stable; gave careful instructions about the desired procedure in connection with the horses and other cattle. “When you reach home,” he wrote, “I hope you will find the supplies and furniture which I have sent on safe at the Hermitage. The pipe of Maderia wine you will have placed on its stand and one-half gallon of best French brandy put into it and after two or three days it will be fit for use. You will have the old dining room newly papered for Sarah’s and your bedroom as it will be more convenient than upstairs; but when she sees the house she can judge for herself. The carpet in the portrait room shall be taken for that, and the one in the parlor put in one of the rooms upstairs. Sarah will arrange the rooms and furniture. If the supplies I have sent on reach home in safety you will have an abundant supply of sugar, coffee, Maderia and Sherry wines, etc. Salt and flour will be the only articles to be laid in, but you will have now to begin to learn the wants of a family and supply it. This will require economy and care, which you will have to learn and attend to if you expect to get through life well—by always knowing your means and living within them you will get well through life. This has been my rule and I recommend it to you.”

Sarah undoubtedly enjoyed her new rôle of mistress of the President’s home place, and she immediately set about giving the Hermitage that deft touch of feminine management which it had lacked since Rachel’s death. Within a few days she was writing to the General about the need for a carpet for the dining room, more table linen and some additional silverware for the table. Jackson promptly attended to these matters, doubtless greatly pleased at Sarah’s interest in household affairs.

Sarah’s interest in her new home, however, was apparently not shared to any great extent by her husband. Jackson in his parting memorandum had urged his son to write him fully about the state of affairs on the farm; but Andrew neglected to do so, and from that time forward Jackson’s published correspondence reveals clearly the difficulty he had in impressing on young Andrew the importance of attending strictly to business and the apprehension the absentee planter in Washington was caused by the slack management of the plantation by the young man.

There were forebodings of trouble on this score from the very first. As early as May 25, 1832, Overseer Steele wrote Jackson: “I have prest on Andrew to pay strict attention to the management and manner in which your affairs has been conductied during your absence but it appears that he don’t take the least pride or feel the least intrusted in the farm or aneything there pertaining.”

At this very time Jackson was writing his son: “I have no wish to acquire wealth for myself. If I can add to your and Sarah’s comforts whilst I live and leave you comfortable and independent of the world when I die, I am contented.” A few days later he wrote him: “The jewelry of your dear mother is under your care. Present to Sarah, with my affectionate regard, the pearl necklace, ear rings, etc.”