Read Ebook: Trotwood's Monthly Vol. II No. 1 April 1906 by Various Moore John Trotwood Editor

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Jackson arrived in Nashville in 1788 with scarcely more than a horse and his saddlebags. In ten years he was a rich man and had laid the foundation for his large estate including the land around the Hermitage. He was a fighter and a worker by nature. He jumped at once into a large law practice, "and in those days a lawyer's fee for conducting a suit of no great importance," says an old historian, "might be a square mile of land or, in Western phrase, a six-forty." Jackson appears frequently in the records as the purchaser of wild lands. He bought the 640 acres which afterwards formed the nucleus of the Hermitage for 0, a high price for those days. In 1797 he sold more than ,000 worth of land to a gentleman in Philadelphia and had several thousand acres left. The secret of his wealth is that he bought large tracts of land when they could be bought for a horse or a cow bell and held them until the torrent of immigration made them valuable.

Surely in this there is more than a hint for the Southerner of to-day. When we consider the richness and cheapness of our soil, the salubriousness of our climate and the fact that immigration has not really yet started toward the South, the man who has the forethought now to invest in Southern land will lay the foundation of a future fortune more surely than in any other way.

He hated debt, yet his notes would raise money in Boston when nothing else in Tennessee would. In 1804, when he lived at Hunter's Hill, thirteen miles from Nashville and two miles beyond the present Hermitage and came so nearly being ruined financially by the failure of David Allison, of Philadelphia, who had passed Jackson his notes for land and which Jackson had endorsed and exchanged for goods, he sold 25,000 acres of land in one body, paid all his debts and moved to the log cabin at the Hermitage reproduced in this issue.

He made money on his horses and no living man knew a horse better than Jackson. We have told before in Trotwood's of his races at Clover Bottom. He rode to Virginia and back to find a Truxton. He imported horse after horse to beat Haynie's Maria, and never did it. When he was President he drove to his carriage in Washington two beautiful iron-grays, descendants of Truxton. "General," said a lady who journeyed from the far East to see him in his old age at the Hermitage, "you ought to be the happiest of living men. Every honor in life has been given you. You have accomplished every thing you have ever undertaken."

"On the contrary, madam, my life has been a dismal failure," he replied. "The one great object I have worked for has never been accomplished. I was never able to beat Haynie's Maria," and he smiled at her astonishment.

The tragedy, as well as the sweetness of Jackson's life lies around his love for Rachel Donelson.

This paper will tell of the tragedy.

Before she was twenty Rachel Donelson first married Lewis Robards and went with him, as stated, to live in pioneer Kentucky. He was a jealous, drinking, ill-tempered fool. Horsemen have a term which fits him better than any thing elegant I can think of--sour-headed. Robards soon became jealous of his wife and made her life unhappy. Finally he wrote to Rachel's mother, the widow Donelson, then living near Nashville, that he would send her daughter back to her. This he did, but soon afterward repented and on the promise of better behavior was reunited to his wife by the intervention of Judge Overton and went to live with her near Nashville. Jackson and Judge Overton, both were lawyers, boarded in the same home, the widow Donelson's, with Robards and his wife, and in a lengthy article written 1827, when Jackson was a candidate for President, Judge Overton tells pointedly and graphically of the affair. He says that after Robards sent his wife back to Tennessee he became unhappy and induced Overton, who was then boarding at old Mrs. Robards' near Nashville, to beg his wife to let him come back to her, agreeing to live in Tennessee and to treat her better. This Overton did, and Robards and his wife were reunited. In the meanwhile Jackson, a young lawyer, came to board in the house, and in a few months Robards began to treat his wife ill again, even accusing her of liking Jackson. Jackson left the house, to avoid any unpleasantness, but Robards finally left his wife, went to Virginia and applied to the legislature in the winter of 1790 for a divorce. This the legislature granted and Jackson married Mrs. Robards in the summer of 1791, believing the marriage between her and Robards was annulled. But it seems under the Virginia law a final decree of the court was necessary, which Robards did not apply for until 1793. Jackson, learning this, was remarried to his wife in 1794.

"It was a happy marriage," says Parton, the biographer, "a very happy marriage--one of the very happiest ever contracted. They loved one another dearly. They held each other in the highest respect. They testified the love and respect they entertained for one another by those polite attentions which lovers cannot but exchange before marriage and after marriage.

"Their love grew as their age increased and became warmer as their blood became colder.

"No one ever heard either address to the other a disrespectful, an irritating or unsympathizing word. They were not as familiar as is now the fashion. He remained 'Mr. Jackson' to her always never 'General,' still less 'Andrew.' And he never called her 'Rachel,' but 'Mrs. Jackson,' or 'wife.' The reader shall become better acquainted with their domestic life by and by. Meanwhile, let it be understood that our hero has now a Home where lives a Friend, true and fond, to welcome his return from 'wilderness courts,' to cheer his stay, to lament his departure, yet give him a motive for going forth; a home wherein--whatever manner of man he might be elsewhere--he was always gentle, kind and patient.

"He was most prompt to defend his wife's good name. The peculiar circumstances attending his marriage made him touchy on this point. His temper, with regard to other causes of offense, was tinder; with respect to this it was gunpowder. His worst quarrels arose from this cause or were greatly aggravated by it. He became sore on the subject, so that at last I think he could scarcely hate anyone very heartily without fancying that the obnoxious person had said something or caused something to be said which reflected on the character of Mrs. Jackson. For the man who dared breathe her name except in honor he kept pistols in perfect condition for thirty-seven years."

There is a fool and a meddler in every tragedy between men. For a fool is naturally a meddler.

"T. Swann, Esq., lately of Virginia," filled the role above mentioned and brought on the duel between Jackson and Charles Dickinson. T. Swann, Esq., was a young lawyer who came from Virginia to the Western settlement. He was a quarter horse with wheels in his head who entered himself with the Four-milers. He strutted and would be a man. He wore fine clothes and volunteered to loan money he never possessed. He used strange oaths and professed knowledge of horses. He posed as a fighting gentleman and carried tales. He butted in and backed out, of course.

In the fall of 1805 General Jackson matched his horse, Truxton, against Captain Joseph Ervin's Plowboy, for ,000, payable in notes on the day of the race, the notes to be then due. If either party failed to race he was to pay a forfeit of 0. Six persons were interested in the race for Truxton: General Jackson, Maj. W. P. Anderson, Major Verrell and Captain Pryor. For Plowboy: Captain W. P. Ervin and Charles Dickinson, his son-in-law. Before the day of the race arrived Dickinson and Ervin found that Plowboy was not fit, withdrew him and paid forfeit. It was done to the satisfaction of all, amicably done and settled.

Charles Dickinson was a young lawyer of talent and fine connections. He would drink at times and was then wild and reckless, but he was not unamiable and was a gentleman when sober, but when excited by drink he swore violently and was loose in his talk. Soon after paying forfeit in the Truxton-Plowboy race he "got in his cups" and spoke disparagingly of Mrs. Jackson. In fact all of Jackson's enemies, even from John Sevier down , used the unfortunate haste of Jackson's marriage whenever they wished to offend him most deeply. Jackson called on Dickinson and quickly took him to task. Dickinson apologized, said if he had used the words he was drunk and was sorry, and they separated in a friendly manner.

But Dickinson soon got into his cups again, and in the Nashville Inn used most offensive words concerning Mrs. Jackson. Jackson was always most cool and thoughtful in the closest places. This time he went to Captain Ervin and advised him to use his influence with his son-in-law to control his tongue, and added: "I wish no quarrel with him; he is being used by my enemies to pick a quarrel with me. Advise him to stop in time."

Here it would have ended but for "T. Swann, Esq., late of Virginia," and as so many foolish reports of the famous duel have been published I shall go into details to tell how it was really fought. Every year it is published--how Dickinson at the famous race said in the presence of Jackson that "Truxton ran away from Plowboy like Jackson ran away with another man's wife," and so on. All of which is untrue. The Impartial Review and Cumberland Repository, edited by Thomas Eastin, of January, 1806, and now in the library of the Tennessee Historical Society, is full of all the letters and communications leading up to the tragedy, and without going into lengthy details, the main facts of which are these:

All of which shows that Jackson had decided to strike over the head of T. Swann to the real power behind him--the man who had twice publicly abused Mrs. Jackson.

"General Andrew Jackson: Think not that I am to be intimidated by your threats. No power terrestrial shall prevent the settled purpose of my soul. The statement I have made in respect to the notes is substantially correct. The torrent of abusive language with which you have assailed me is such as every gentleman should blush to hear. Your menaces I set at defiance, and now demand of you that reparation which one gentleman is entitled to receive of another. My friend, the bearer of this, is authorized to make complete arrangements in the field of honor."

THOMAS SWANN.

"Nashville, Jany. 12th, 1806."

"As to the word 'coward,' I think it is as applicable to yourself as to any one I know, and I shall be very glad when an opportunity serves to know in what manner you give your medicines, and I hope you will take in payment one of my most moderate cathartics.

"Yours at command,

"CHARLES DICKINSON.

"Jany 10, 1806."

Dickinson wrote this and took a flatboat for New Orleans, spending the time to and fro practicing with a pistol.

Under the code of honor T. Swann may not have been a gentleman, but in full cognizance of the record of S. Jackson, Esq., for borrowing, we are in honor bound to reverse our former assertion as to the said T. Swann being a fool!

Here was a fight for Jackson, but as he was booked for Dickinson, John Coffee took the job off his hands and fought the duel with McNairy, and they fought to kill in those days. Witness the graphic account of this duel in the Impartial Review, written by Maj. Robert Purdy, the second of John Coffee.

The editor of the paper showed this to Thomas Overton before it was published and that gentleman rode to the Hermitage. "General Jackson," he said, "it is a thing you cannot pass over. You must fight him."

"General Overton," said his friend "this is an affair of life and death. I will take the responsibility myself. I will ride to town and see the piece and form my own judgment of it."

"Charles Dickinson.--Sir: Your conduct and expressions relative to me of late have been of such a nature and so insulting that it requires and shall have my notice.

"Insult may be given by men, and of such a kind that they must be noticed and treated with the respect due a gentleman, although , you do not merit it.

"You have, to disturb my quiet, industriously excited Thomas Swann to quarrel with me, which involved the peace and harmony of society for a while.

"I hope, sir, your courage will be an ample security to me that I will obtain speedily that satisfaction due me for the insults offered, and in the way my friend who hands you this will point out. He waits upon you for that purpose, and with your friend will enter into immediate arrangements for this purpose.

"I am, etc.,

"ANDREW JACKSON."

That was May 20, 1806, nearly a century ago. T. Swann, perhaps, is dead by now. But we will faithfully endeavor to secure a picture of his grave as it looks to-day, that he may still appropriately appear in the tragedy his gunpowder head and hair-trigger mouth brought on. Jackson brushed him aside as a bull would a fly and went after the man he had picked out to fight all the time--Dickinson, the best shot in the West, the man who after one warning had dared to impugn the character of Rachel Donelson Jackson.

And so was brought on the great duel, one of the most famous of all times and which cast its shadow over Jackson's life, even to the portals of death. For the almost fatal wound Dickinson gave him broke out afresh now and then during all his remaining days and helped to carry him off at last.

Jackson always had his bitter enemies. Many people of his own town fought him most bitterly, even when he was saving their lives from Indians and their land from the foreigner. He could stand it himself and suffer, but when they took it out by slandering his wife, then it was that his pistols were ever ready.

A political enemy of Jackson living at Nashville published during his Presidential campaign a pamphlet containing a list of "nearly one hundred fights or violent or abusive quarrels." But Jackson lived seventy-eight years, in an age when personal fights were the law of the land. He always made his friends' quarrels his own, and for the first fifteen years of his life, as District Attorney, Judge and lawyer he was brought into collision with the tough element and rascals of the State.

The challenge was sent May 22, and Dickinson promptly accepted it through his second, Dr. Catlett, and named the day of meeting at seven o'clock Friday morning, May 30, 1806, at Harrison Mills, on Red River, in Logan County, Ky. Jackson objected strenuously to postponing it a week. He wanted to fight the next day and sent Overton, his second, to see Catlett and have the date changed. Catlett said Dickinson did not have his pistols ready. Jackson offered to give him his choice of his own, and added: "For God's sake, let this business be brought to an issue immediately, as I cannot see after publication why Mr. Dickinson should wish to put it off until Friday."

But Dickinson would not yield, and for a week the impetuous Jackson could only chafe and wait.

From Nashville to Harrison Mills, in Logan County, Ky., is fully fifty miles across country. Horseback was the only mode of travel through the new country then, but a ride of fifty miles a day, used to horseback as they were, and riding such horses as he rode, was no unusual thing for him.

Dickinson arose Thursday morning before day. His young wife was sleeping by his side and knew nothing of it. He dressed then awakened her and kissed her with more than usual tenderness: "Good-bye, darling. I shall be sure to be home to-morrow night."

"Where are you going?" she asked, surprised. "Oh, just over into Kentucky on a little matter of business. I will be back to-morrow night."

He started out, but she called him back and kissed him again. He laughed boyishly, recklessly at the look of doubt and fear that had crept into her eyes for she had heard rumors only of what the whole town knew, but it never occurred to her that the tragedy was so near.

It was a gay, rollicking crowd of a half-dozen young men who joined Dickinson for his ride across two counties to Kentucky. Never was a more hilarious party. They took short cuts. They galloped across dangerous places, displaying horsemanship and nerve. They drank and made the woods echo with their shouts. Before he left Nashville, Dickinson had bet 0 that he would kill his man--that he would put his ball within a half-inch of the coat button over Jackson's heart. When they stopped for dinner, he amused the crowd with his wonderful marksmanship. He tied a string between two trees and three times he cut it in twain with his pistol ball. At twenty-four feet he put four bullets in a spot no larger than a silver dollar. "When General Jackson comes along here," he said to the landlord of the little eating house, "show him these."

He thought to weaken Jackson's nerve, but little did he realize the real nerve of the man who was afterwards to send to death and defeat the troops that conquered Bonaparte.

There is no record of Jackson's home-leaving, except that he started early and went quietly along, those two soldiers of the Revolution and of Indian warfare. If his wife knew it, she was not the woman to try to stop him. She had much of the stubborn, solemn, predestined Scotch-Irish nature of her husband. She was used to his fights, for he had many of them, and to her he was always right. She would not stop him if she could, and that no one ever stopped him she knew. There was the dignity of great love and respect between the two. They never questioned each other's motives. The one never trespassed on the other's world. She was intensely religious--of the Presbyterian predestined kind. If she kissed him good-bye, not an eyelash quivered, not a tremor of doubt or fear, and if she said anything, doubtless it was:

"Good-bye, Mr. Jackson. Of course you will kill him. God is on our side!"

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