The advertised day, in the summer or early fall of 1788, came at last, and with it the popular excitement pitched to the highest tension. And such a heterogeneous mass as swarmed into that sequestered valley—the old, the young, farmers, workers in wood and iron, lawyers, doctors, saints, sinners, and even preachers; on foot and horseback, singly, in groups and in vast cavalcades, from Washington, Greene, Hawkins, Sullivan, and from the Wolf Hills of Virginia. Civilization had not yet reached a sufficient development to produce a “moonshiner,” but “the rosy” flowed as copiously as if some magician had changed the neighboring streamlets into the crystal elixir, and the number of fisticuffs was in proportion to its consumption. As was the custom of the day, the fellows “spilin’ for a fight” stripped to the waist line and fought in a ring, and when one cried, “Take him off!” the mill ended, the bitten, gouged and bleeding combatants “made up,” washed, dressed, and sealed the pact of peace with a drink of whiskey from the same gourd. The men who met at Sycamore shoals, followed “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon” across the Alleghanies under Sevier and Shelby, drove the Hessian hordes from King’s Mountain and closed the final chapter of the Revolution with one of its grandest triumphs, were there. The pioneer who built his fort-cabin in the wilderness and shot the prowling savage through a chink in the wall, was there, with his faithful spouse and the rest of the family. The lovesick swain in his flax linen, with his bonnie lass in a gown of snowy cotton, who caused the mountain roses to pale with envy as she glided like a sylph among them, was there also. But the horse-race overshadowed everything else in interest and importance.
Jackson had been training his horse for months in advance in “Kit” Taylor’s neighborhood, and the racer knew his master’s imperious will perfectly. He “smelt the battle afar off,” and perhaps at the same time “danger in the tainted air”; but when the test came, the determination to be first under the string thrilled every fiber and sinew in his lithe and wiry body.
The betting was fast and furious, and the reckless readiness of the gamblers, following the example of the contestants, to risk all on their favorite steed, would have taken away the breath of even the “plunger” of today. Guns, furs, iron, clothing, cattle, horses, negroes, crops, lands and all the money procurable were staked on the result. No “boom” period in that section saw so much property change hands in so short a time.
A week or ten days before the race, Jackson was overtaken by a serious disappointment. His jockey, a negro boy belonging to Taylor, was taken down with a violent fever. Jackson announced his determination to ride the race himself, and Love readily agreed to the proposition. When this arrangement became known, the throng became delirious with enthusiasm and delight. The judges, who had been selected after a good deal of finesse and some wrangling, were stationed half and half at each end of the semicircular track. Jackson appeared on his restless and impatient flyer, with a haughty air of confidence and self-possession, the rival steed prancing at his side, under the control of a born jockey, who well knew the responsibility resting upon him and how to act his part on the momentous occasion. They were started with a shout that shook the azure vault above and reverberated in answering echoes from the surrounding mountains. The horses were marvels of symmetry and beauty, and in fine condition for speed and endurance. At the word “Go!” they shot out on the smooth track as if they had been hurled from two monster mortars. On they sped, neck and neck. The jockey was the hazy outline of a boy printed on the air: Jackson rode as if he were part of his spectral horse. The yells of the onlookers packed around the crescent course would have drowned the blending screams of a hundred steam-whistles. All at once, the Love horse spurted ahead. The partisans of Jackson got their breath in gasps. The victor whizzed under the string like an arrow, leaving Old Hickory to make the goal at his leisure. If Jackson’s horse was a wind-splitter that left a blue line behind him, Love’s was the same as a belated streak of lightning chasing a hurricane that had outrun it. Just for a moment there was the deep, ominous hush that precedes the crash of the tempest; then a pandemonium of noise and tumult that might have been heard in the two neighboring states broke loose. It awoke the black bear from his siesta, and the frightened red deer “sprang from his heathery couch in haste” and sought the distant heights. The loud, long and deep profanity would have discounted the “army in Flanders.” Jackson was the star actor in this riot of passion and frenzy. His brow was corrugated with wrath. His tall, sinewy form shook like an aspen leaf. His face was the livid color of the storm-cloud when it is hurling its bolts of thunder. His Irish blood was up to the boiling-point, and his eyes flashed with the fire of war. He was an overflowing Vesuvius of rage, pouring the hot lava of denunciation on the Love family in general and his victorious rival in particular. Col. Love stood before this storm unblanched and unappalled—for he too had plenty of “sand,” and as lightly esteemed the value of life—and answered burning invective with invective hissing with the same degree of heat and exasperation. Jackson denounced the Loves as a “band of land pirates,” because they held the ownership of nearly all the choice lands in that section. Love retorted by calling Jackson “a damned long, gangling, sorrel-topped soap-stick.” The exasperating offensiveness of this retort may be better understood when it is explained that in those days women “conjured” their soap by stirring it with a long sassafras stick.
The dangerous character of both men was well known, and it was ended by the interference of mutual friends, who led the enraged rivals from the grounds in different directions.
It is probable that this crushing defeat, with its intense mortification and odious memories, gave Jackson a profound distaste for the turf and other time-wasting sports of pioneer life. At all events, he turned his attention to the sober and “weightier matters” of life, and eagerly embraced the “tide in the affairs of men” which led to fame and fortune, and enabled him, on the field of battle, in the forum of law, in the council hall and at the head of a great nation, to make for himself
“One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.”
The incidents and results of this celebrated horse-race did not in the least discredit Jackson in the estimation of the people where it occurred, as was shown long afterward. While it was difficult to exaggerate the great victory gained over the British at New Orleans by Gen. Jackson, still it was somewhat exaggerated by the time the news of it reached Jonesboro. Some few days after the first account of the battle had reached the town—in a letter from a Knoxville gentleman to a friend in Jonesboro—some court day or other public occasion had caused quite a crowd to collect in town, and the gentleman who had received the letter was requested to make a public announcement of its contents to the anxious and excited populace. This he did in front of the court-house. The excitement was at blood heat, but perfect silence and order prevailed while the gentleman was making his speech—for such it was, as he did not actually read the letter. The substance of the speech was that Gen. Jackson had killed the whole of the British army on the battle-field, except a few who were driven into the Mississippi river and drowned; that he had captured all of their arms and ships, and had taken his own army on board the vessels, and was then on the high seas on his way to take possession of England. At this point, which was the conclusion of the speech, an old man of sixty, standing near the speaker, threw his hat into the air, and jumping excitedly up and down, shouted: “Whoop-pee! hurrah for Andy Jackson, hell and thunder! I knowed, the day I seed him ride that hoss-race in Greasy Cove, that he could whup anybody!” The scene that followed was without a precedent in the history of the town, not even the return of Sevier with his conquering heroes from King’s Mountain having caused more rejoicing and celebrating. From and after that time, the exclamation of Gen. Jackson’s enthusiastic admirer became a saying in the country round about; and when news of an earthquake, the burning of a town or city, the sinking of a ship at sea with all on board, would be told to some not over-reverent citizen, he would exclaim, “Andy Jackson, hell and thunder!” as the only words adequate to express his feelings on the reception of news of such a catastrophe.
The deep-rooted, heartfelt, undying hatred of the British which these people nursed, kept alive and handed down, may be illustrated by the recital of a few facts which came within my own knowledge and observation. During the recent war between the states, there was much said and written, at one period, about England recognizing the independence of the Southern Confederacy, and entering into diplomatic or friendly relations with the Confederate government. While this subject was under discussion, I heard old men, who were intense in their loyalty to the Southern cause, and who had sent their sons all into the Confederate army, declare openly and vehemently that, if the Southern Confederacy “made friends with the British,” they would renounce their allegiance to it and bring their boys home; that they had rather be subjugated by the Yankees than to conquer with the aid of “the British”!