His judicial administration was signalized by clear discernment, keen analysis, deep penetration, ready and correct decision, and an instinct to trail the sly and devious cunning of wrong and guilt.
Jackson lacked the refinements of fashion and the polished graces of the courtier, but his quick grasp of every situation and his instinctive sense of the proprieties bore him with composure and dignity through all the social ordeals through which he had to pass. Still, in these functions he had a will and a way of his own, and little he recked whether others were pleased or affronted.
Jackson’s figure, like the shadow of the Brocken, grows more colossal as we recede from it.
This is one side of Jackson’s life—the sober, serious side—an unblurred career of honor, usefulness and triumph, for which the truth-loving muse of history never tires of garlanding his name with the most loving eulogies. As is usually the case with mortals, there was a reverse side of Jackson’s character. Here we find a few spots on the otherwise white flower of a blameless life.
In the years before honors thrust themselves so thick and fast upon him, he was what would now be called a “sport.” The semi-civilization of the time, his rugged environment, the lack of training consequent upon the loss of his natural guardians, his absolute dependence upon himself, and his high-born spirit that could brook no control, combine to form an eloquent plea in extenuation of the few “indiscretions” that were mingled with so many commendable traits. He loved the excitement and wild abandon of the chase, and the deep-mouthed pack’s “heavy bay, resounding up the rocky way” and mountain solitudes, was sweeter music to his enraptured ear than a thunderous jumble of Dutch diapasons to a Wagnerian devotee.
Jackson was fond of adventure and games requiring daring, alertness, skill and strength, and engaged with the heartiest zeal in all the rude hilarities of pioneer life; but horse-racing was his special weakness. At the time spoken of, he knew a great deal more about the “points” of a flyer than he did about Blackstone, the science of government or the ten commandments. A fleet-footed horse was his idol, and when he saw one equal or break the record made by Maggie on the night when she outstripped the witches of Kirk Alloway with frightened Tam O’Shanter clinging to her mane, his was the ecstasy of the swain in his earliest love. On this “weak point” hangs an o’er-true tale, and the event gives a true insight into Jackson’s character when he was at his worst.
It happened along in the eighties of the last century, when Jackson was a resident of Washington county and boarded with Christopher Taylor (familiarly known as “Kit Taylor,” and grandfather of Skelton Taylor of Chattanooga), who lived, as stated in an earlier chapter, about one mile below Jonesboro, on the road to the Brown settlement. At this time, Jackson’s “weakness” was at its weakest, and horse-racing was his most delightful occupation. He had a racer upon which he lavished his time and his affections, and which he imagined was the fastest in all the country; and he was eager to “back his judgment” with all the means at his command. Col. Love, who lived in Greasy Cove, then a part of Washington county and now of Unicoi, owned the champion flyer of the new country, having even defeated the fastest horses over in Virginia, about Wolf Hills, where Abingdon now stands. Jackson envied Love, and was determined to rob him of his laurels and becloud the reputation of his horse. He sent a challenge, which was promptly accepted.
The race was widely and graphically advertised. In all the contests of equine speed, it would have no prototype in the past and no rival in the future. All upper East Tennessee was stirred into a ferment of excitement, which grew more intense every day, from the time of the announcement until the event took place. The coming horse-race became the absorbing, exclusive topic of conversation at the log-rollings, house-raisings, quiltings, distilleries, stores, school-houses, firesides, inns and before and after “meetin’.” Children caught the infection from the adults, and the dogs, if they have the intelligence with which they are credited, doubtless cast knowing winks at each other when their respective owners discussed the universal theme and speculated upon the outcome of the to-be-incomparable event.
The place selected for the race was in Greasy Cove, on the farm now owned by the Loves. Tall mountains looked down on lower heights, and these in turn on the spot to be made historic—a poem of nature, a dream of beauty in a setting of scenic grandeur, embroidered with the silver fretwork of the Nolichucky’s restless billows.
The track was a half-circle, half a mile long.