But her offence was the acceptance of a companion and friend, who would shield her from poverty and unhappiness, and add to her life, what she had never known, a husband and a home. The bonds of a civil marriage had been dissolved, not by her efforts, but by her ungenerous, narrow-minded husband, and she had become the wife of a man eminently suited to her. With all the bitter experience of her short married life, she trustingly confided her happiness into the keeping of one who never betrayed it, and who made her existence a continued source of joy. In the higher courts, in her conscience, but one marriage tie was recognized, and but one possessed the entire affection of her young and chastened heart.
It had been arranged that a grand dinner and ball should be given on the 23d of December, to General and Mrs. Jackson, that day being the anniversary of the night-battle below New Orleans; a day rendered celebrated in the annals of his country by his own heroic achievements.
A week previous to this intended festival, and a few days after her visit to Nashville, Mrs. Jackson was seized with a spasmodic affection of the muscles of the chest and left shoulder, attended with an irregular action of the heart, and great anxiety of countenance. The suspense and uneasiness occasioned by the late political strife being at an end, and the uncertainty of the event no longer torturing her, she could bear up no further. One of the physicians in attendance upon her, gives the following minute and interesting account:
“Being hastily sent for, I lost no time in rendering her all the assistance in my power. Finding she had been bled before my arrival, without any manifest abatement of the symptoms, I repeated the operation, which was again had recourse to in the evening, on the arrival of Dr. Hogg, an eminent physician of Nashville, who had been sent for simultaneously with myself. These successive bleedings, together with other treatment, produced great relief, and an entire subsidence of all the alarming symptoms. The three following days she continued to improve; she was cheerful, and could sit in her chair and converse with her friends. On Monday night, however, she sat up too long, caught cold, and had slight symptoms of pleurisy. These soon yielded to the proper remedies, a profuse perspiration ensued, which it was thought proper to encourage with mild, diluent drinks; everything promised a favorable issue. In this situation, after Dr. Hogg and myself had retired to an adjoining room, our patient unfortunately got up twice and sat by the fire. The perspiration became suddenly checked. She cried out, ‘I am fainting,’ was placed in bed, and in a moment afterwards she was a lifeless corpse!
“All our efforts for her restoration were vain and fruitless. No blood could be obtained either from the arm or the temporal artery. Sensibility had ceased, life had departed; and her meek and quiet spirit sought that rest with her God and her Redeemer, which a cruel world refused to grant.
“From a careful review of the case, there seems to be no doubt but that there was a sudden reflux of the blood from the surface and the extremities, upon the heart and other organs, producing an engorgement and consequent spasm of that important viscus. That her death is to be attributed to this cause, rather than to an effusion of the brain, seems to be inferable from the fact of the total and instantaneous cessation of the functions of the heart. Not a pulsation could be perceived; her lungs labored a minute or two, and then ceased.
“How shall I describe the agony—the heart-rending agony—of the venerable partner of her bosom? He had, in compliance with our earnest entreaties, seconded by those of his wife, left her chamber, which he could seldom be persuaded to do, and had lain down in an adjoining room, to seek repose for his harassed mind and body. A few minutes only had elapsed, when we were hastily summoned to her chamber; and the General, in a moment, followed us. But he was only in time to witness the last convulsive effort of expiring nature. Then it was that all the feelings of the devoted husband burst forth. His breast heaved, and his soul seemed to struggle with a load too oppressive for frail humanity. Nor was he the only mourner on this melancholy occasion. A numerous train of domestics crowded around the bed of their beloved mistress, and filled the room with their piercing cries. They could not bring their minds to a belief of the painful reality that their mistress and friend, for such indeed she was, lay before them a lifeless corpse. ‘Oh! is there no hope?’ was their agonizing question; and vainly would they flatter themselves with the belief, that perhaps ‘she was only fainting.’
“The distressing event spread with the rapidity of the wind; and neighbors and relatives thronged the house from midnight until late the following morning. Soon the painful tidings reached Nashville, twelve miles distant, and a fresh concourse of friends pressed forward to show their respect for the dead and to mourn with the living.”
Early on the morning of the 23d December, while active preparations for the expected banquet were going on, and many bright eyes and gay hearts were already, in anticipation, beginning the pleasures of the day, the afflicting news reached the city, of the President’s unlooked-for and terrible bereavement. This sad paragraph appeared in the papers and cast a gloom over the breakfast-tables where so many had assembled in joy. “In the midst of preparations for festivity and mirth, the knell of death is heard, and on the very day which it was arranged and expected that our town should be a scene of general rejoicing, we are suddenly checked in our career, and are called on to array ourselves in garments of solemnity and woe. Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of General Andrew Jackson, President-elect of the United States, died last night, at the Hermitage, in this vicinity. The intelligence of this awful and unlooked-for event has created a shock in our community almost unparalleled. It was known, a few days since, that Mrs. Jackson was violently attacked by disease; which, however, was supposed to have been checked, so as to afford a prospect of immediate restoration to health. This day, being the anniversary of an interesting and important event in the last war, was appropriately selected to testify the respect and affection of his fellow-citizens and neighbors to the man who was so soon to leave his sweet domestic retirement, to assume the responsibilities and discharge the important duties of Chief Magistrate of the nation. The preparations were already made; the table was well-nigh spread, at which all was expected to be hilarity and joy, and our citizens had sallied forth on the happy morning with spirits light and buoyant, and countenances glowing with animation and hope,—when suddenly the scene is changed, congratulations are converted into expressions of condolence, tears are substituted for smiles, and sincere and general mourning pervades a community where, but a moment before, universal happiness and public rejoicing prevailed. But we have neither time nor room, at present, to indulge in further reflections on this melancholy occurrence. Let us submit with resignation and fortitude to the decrees, however afflicting, of a just and merciful, though mysterious and inscrutable Providence.”
The preparations making for the festivity were immediately stopped, upon the arrival of the melancholy information; and, in their stead, the committee of arrangements, together with the Mayor and Aldermen of the city, recommended to the citizens, as an evidence of their deep regret and sympathy for the calamity which had befallen their honored fellow-citizen, to suspend for one day the ordinary business of life, which was cordially observed. In the course of the morning, a card eight inches long and six inches wide, with a mourning border one-third of an inch in width, was printed, containing the following announcement: