Mrs. Jackson sighed for her quiet home and her little church during her stay in Florida. Pensacola was so different, and the people so entirely divided in all their tastes and pursuits from the devout Christian matron, that she could not be satisfied. “Three Sabbaths,” she says, “I spent in this house before the country was in possession under American government. The Sabbath profanely kept, a great deal of noise and swearing in the streets; shops kept open, trade going on I think more than on any other day. They were so boisterous on that day I sent Major Stanton to say to them that the approaching Sunday would be differently kept. And must I say, the worst people here are the outcast Americans and negroes! Yesterday I had the happiness of witnessing the truth of what I had said. Great order was observed; the doors kept shut; the gambling houses demolished; fiddling and dancing not heard any more on the Lord’s day; cursing not to be heard.
“Pensacola is a perfect plain: the land nearly as white as flour, yet productive of fine peaches, oranges in abundance, grapes, figs, pomegranates, etc. Fine flowers grow spontaneously, for they have neglected the gardens, expecting a change of government. The town is immediately on the bay—the most beautiful water prospect I ever saw; and from 10 o’clock in the morning until 10 at night we have the finest sea-breeze. There is something in it so exhilarating, so pure, so wholesome, it enlivens the whole system. All the houses look in ruins, old as time. Many squares of the town appear grown over with the thickest shrubs, weeping-willows, and the Pride of China: all look neglected. The inhabitants all speak Spanish and French. Some speak four or five languages. Such a mixed multitude you nor any of us ever had an idea of. There are fewer white people far than any other, mixed with all nations under the canopy of heaven, almost in nature’s darkness.”
On the 3d of November, General and Mrs. Jackson arrived at the Hermitage, delighted to be again at that home within whose doors the angels, Peace and Happiness, awaited their return, and sat with folded wings.
General Jackson set out for Washington, accompanied by his wife, in 1824, going all the way in their own coach and four, and being twenty-eight days on the journey. In a letter to a friend in Nashville she says: “We are boarding in the same house with the nation’s guest, General Lafayette. When we first came to this house, General Jackson said he would go and pay the Marquis the first visit. Both having the same desire, and at the same time, they met on the entry of the stairs. It was truly interesting. At Charleston, General Jackson saw him on the field of battle; the one a boy of twelve, the Marquis, twenty-three.”
A great many persons paid their respects to Mrs. Jackson. She says, “there are not less than from fifty to a hundred persons calling in one day.” While wondering at “the extravagance of the people in dressing and running to parties,” she speaks with enthusiasm of the churches and the able ministers.
Soon after their return home, Mrs. Jackson’s health began to decline, and in the succeeding years of General Jackson’s campaign for the Presidency, it continued delicate. She went with the General to New Orleans, in the beginning of the year 1828, and witnessed his splendid reception there. “She was waited on by Mrs. Marigny and other ladies, the moment she landed from the Pocahontas, and conducted to Mr. Marigny’s house, where refreshments had been prepared, and where she received the salutations of a large and brilliant circle. The festivities continued four days, at the end of which, the General and Mrs. Jackson and their friends re-embarked on board the Pocahontas and returned homeward.”
Mrs. Jackson’s health continued to fail, and no excursions or remedies were found availing. She had suffered from an affection of the heart; a disease which, increased and heightened by every undue excitement, was, in her case, exposed to the most alarming extremes and continually liable to aggravation. The painful paragraphs in regard to her character with which the papers of the country abounded, wounded and grieved her sorely. The circumstances of her marriage, so easily misconstrued and so lamentably misunderstood by many whom distance and meagre information had kept in ignorance, were used by the political enemies of General Jackson as lawful weapons wherewith they might assail his fair fame and obstruct his rapid progress to the highest place in the land. Considered in all its bearings, there is not in the whole world a position more honorable, more important, or more responsible, than that of the President of the United States. Well were it needful to choose with circumspection the Chief Magistrate of a country so vast, of a people so intelligent and brave, and possessing the elements of such greatness and glory; who holds in his grasp such a multitude of destinies; and who is able, by his decisions, to continue the sunshine of prosperity, or to bring the bitter blasts of adversity and discord. Hence the ardor and even the desperation of the struggles for victory in each Presidential campaign. The same enthusiasm which actuated the friends of General Jackson, actuated also his enemies; and nothing could exceed the earnestness and rancor with which they attacked him. Not content with reviling him, they must needs drag before the public the long-forgotten circumstances of his marriage, and wrest them to suit their unworthy purposes. The kind heart of Mrs. Jackson, though wrung with mortification and grief, prompted no utterance of impatience. She said very little, but was often found in tears. Meanwhile, her health continued to decline. It was too hard to bear that he to whom she had devoted the affections and energies of her long life, should be taunted, for her sake; that he should, for her sake, be considered unworthy of the trust of that nation for whose defence and honor he had undergone unnumbered fatigues and conflicts and perils. This silent suffering told upon her spirits, but anxiety to know the event sustained her.
When the news arrived of General Jackson’s election to the Presidency, it was received with rejoicings and hilarity in Nashville as everywhere else, but with calmness by him and her who were so highly honored. Her gratification must have been too deep and heartfelt to be expressed with noise and mirth. Despite the calumnies which their enemies had heaped upon her and the General, the nation had bestowed upon him its highest gift; and had confided, for a time, the keeping of its honor and well-being into his hands. The sorrows through which she had passed, those clouds that had hung over her thorny way, had been dispersed by the favoring wind of truth, and the bright rays of peace shone upon her heart. But she was not dazzled by the new prospects opening before her. The splendors and gayeties of a life in the White House could offer her no attractions. Her domestic and simple tastes found more pleasure in her own home and family circle at the beloved Hermitage. “For Mr. Jackson’s sake,” said she, “I am glad; for my own part, I never wished it.” She seemed to regret the necessity of a residence in Washington, and remarked to a friend with an expression of the utmost sincerity, “I assure you that I would rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to live in that Palace in Washington.”
Mrs. Jackson always purchased all the clothing and household articles, both for her own and the servants’ use. Desiring to arrange everything comfortable during the winter, for she knew that General Jackson would have many friends at the Hermitage, she made frequent visits to Nashville, and on one occasion heard the thoughtless remarks of persons who probably forgot a moment afterward the words which broke the heart of their victim. It was her custom usually to go to one of her most intimate friends on reaching the city, and have the horses and carriage put in the stable, and then go out shopping; but on this occasion she went early in her cumbrous coach, and as she had many places to visit, determined to send the driver to a livery stable and meet it in the afternoon at the Nashville Inn, then the principal hotel in the city.
Weary and exhausted after a tedious day’s shopping, she went at the appointed hour to the parlor of the hotel, and while waiting there, she heard her name called in the adjoining room. It was impossible for her not to hear, and there she sat, pale and excited, listening to a repetition of calumnies which political strife had magnified and promulgated. The bare truthful outlines of her early unfortunate marriage were given, but so interwoven with false misrepresentations, that she could hardly believe herself the subject of remark. All she did hear was never known, but on her death-bed she told the circumstance to her husband, and then he understood the cause of her violent attack. He had tried to keep every paragraph and abusive line out of her sight, and hoped that now, after the election was decided, this unhappy subject of “her marriage before a divorce was granted,” would be dropped forever. She had acted as she thought was the best, and indeed in every act of her life she discovered the fine sense she displayed in her conduct towards her first husband. But the malicious envy of people who could not bear her elevation, caught at every straw to revile her pure and blameless life. Had she lived unhappily with General Jackson, there might have been some excuse for considering her a weak woman; but her long, happy and beautiful existence as his wife, was a convincing proof of her affectionate nature, and religious, high-minded soul. The fatal error of her youth, in marrying a man her intellectual and moral inferior, was more than atoned for in the miserable years she spent as his unappreciated wife. She was sensitive and refined, and her nature revolted at his coarseness. She had acted rashly in marrying him, but she was loth to part with him. Was she to blame that she did not know his character thoroughly before her marriage? The sigh that heaves from the hearts of thousands of women as they recall a similar experience, attests her innocence. Was she to blame for marrying again, when she and every one who knew her believed her free? He had never provided a home for her, she had always been compelled to live either with her mother or his, thereby sealing her doom, for no wife, however kind her husband may be, can be as happy in the home of her parents as she could in one of her own, be it ever so lowly. Captain Robards never tried to make her comfortable or contented, but augmented the sorrows of her young heart by a course of conduct revolting in even the most degraded of men, and inexcusable in him, since he was of a respectable family, and supposed to be somewhat cultivated.