The grief of her husband amounted to agony. It seemed for a time that his frame must break under such grief, but he lived to worship and serve her memory for many years. December 23, 1828, a great ball and banquet was to have been given in Nashville, in honor of General Jackson’s victory at New Orleans. The whole city was gay with preparations, when the word came from the Hermitage: “The President’s wife is dead!”
From that hour her husband seemed to live to avenge her wrongs and to honor her memory. Probably into no other administration of the government, from its first to the present, has personal feeling had so much to do with official appointments as in the offices emptied and filled by Andrew Jackson. It had only to enter his suspicion that a man had failed to espouse the cause of the beloved Rachel, and his unlucky official head immediately came off. It was told him that Mr. Watterson, the Librarian of Congress, had told, or listened to something to the detriment of Mrs. Jackson, and Mr. Watterson was immediately deposed. Thus she was avenged at times, probably in acts of personal injustice, but in her own pure tones she spoke through him in all the higher acts of his administration. Thus it was in spirit that Rachel Jackson lived and reigned at the White House.
The “lovely Emily” Donelson, wife of Andrew Jackson Donelson, Mrs. Jackson’s nephew and adopted son, with Mrs. Andrew Jackson, Jr., the wife of another adopted son, shared together the social honors of the White House during the administration of President Jackson. The delicate question of precedence between them was thus settled by him. He said to Mrs. Jackson: “You, my dear, are mistress of the Hermitage, and Emily is hostess of the White House.”
This Emily was of remarkable beauty, strongly resembling Mary, Queen of Scots. Her manners were of singular fascination, and she dressed with exquisite taste. The dress she wore at the first inauguration is still preserved. It is an amber-colored satin, brocaded with bouquets of rose-leaves and violets, trimmed with white lace and pearls. It was a present from General Jackson, and even at that day, before “Jenkins” supposed birth, it was described in every paper of the Union. General Jackson always called her “my daughter.” She was the child of Mrs. Jackson’s brother, and married to her cousin. She was quick at repartee, and possessed the rare gift of being able to listen gracefully. A foreign minister once said: “Madame, you dance with the grace of a Parisian. I can hardly realize that you were educated in Tennessee.”
“Count, you forget,” was the spirited reply, “that grace is a cosmopolite, and, like a wild flower, is found oftener in the woods than in the streets of a city.”
Her four children were all born in the White House. But in the midst of its honors, in the flower of her youth, “the lovely Emily” went out from its portals to die. She sought the softer airs of “Tulip Grove,” her home in Tennessee, where she died of consumption, December, 1836. A lady gives the following picture of an evening scene at the White House, in the early part of Jackson’s administration:
“The large parlor was scantily furnished; there was light from the chandelier, and a blazing fire in the grate; four or five ladies sewing around it; Mrs. Donelson, Mrs. Andrew Jackson, Jr., Mrs. Edward Livingston. Five or six children were playing about, regardless of documents or work-baskets. At the farther end of the room sat the President, in his arm-chair, wearing a long loose coat, and smoking a long reed pipe, with bowl of red clay—combining the dignity of the patriarch, monarch, and Indian chief. Just behind, was Edward Livingston, the Secretary of State, reading a dispatch from the French Minister for Foreign Affairs. The ladies glance admiringly, now and then, at the President, who listens, waving his pipe toward the children, when they become too boisterous.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
SCENES AT THE WHITE HOUSE—MEN AND WOMEN OF NOTE.
Widows “at par”—Four Sonless Presidents—Supported by Flattery—A Delicate Constitution—Living to a Respectable Age—Teaching Her Grandsons How to Fight—Inheriting Religion—“Another Sensitive, Saintly Soul”—A Pathetic Reminiscence—A Perfect Gentlewoman—A Stately Black-eyed Matron—A Lady of the Old School—Obeying St. Paul—A Woman Who “Kept Silence”—“Sarah Knows Where It Is”—Commanding “Superlative Respect”—An English Lady “Impressed”—Three Queens in the Background—A Very Handsome Woman—Retiring from Active Life—A Lady’s Heroism—“My Home, the Battle-field”—A Man Who Kept to His Post—A Life in the Savage Wilderness—A Life’s Devotion—The Colonel’s Brave Wife—The Conquering Hero from Mexico—Objecting to the Presidency—“Betty Bliss”—The Reigning Lady—An Overpowering Reception—“A Bright and Beaming Creature, Dressed Simply in White”—An Inclination for Retirement—The Penalty of Greatness—Death in the White House—A Wife’s Prayers—A New Regime—The Clothier’s Apprentice and the School Teacher—The Future President Builds His Own House—Becomes a Lawyer—Chosen Representative—Domestic Happiness—Twenty-seven Years of Married Life—“A Matron of Commanding Person”—A Scarcity of Books—Home “Comforts” at the White House—The Memory of a Loving Wife—A Well Balanced Young Lady.
Three of the first four Presidents of the United States married widows. Jefferson, Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Tyler, were all widowers while occupying the White House. Neither Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe, left sons to succeed them. The wife of Martin Van Buren died in her youth, long before he had grown to high political honors. She had been dead seventeen years when, as the eighth President of the United States, he entered the White House. During his administration, its social honors were dispensed by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Abram Van Buren, born Angelica Singleton, of South Carolina, who entered upon her duties and pleasures as a bride. She was of illustrious lineage, possessed finely cultivated powers, and “is said to have borne the fatigue of a three hours’ levée with a patience and pleasantry inexhaustible.” Doubtless she shared some of the help which bore Mr. Monroe triumphantly through a similar scene.