“Gen. Jackson and family left town Saturday evening last in the Steam Boat Cumberland, on his way to Pensacola,” says the Nashville Whig of April 18, 1821.
A little later it stated: “Gen. Jackson and family arrived at Natchez on April 21, on board the Steam Boat Rapide, having left Cumberland on account of some accident having happened to her machinery.” The journey was completed in seven days, despite the accident! From Natchez, New Orleans, Blakely, Montpelier, and Mobile came echoes of a triumphant and leisurely progress. But even at that it was several weeks before the General and his suite were finally established in Pensacola—the Spanish governor was inclined to be a bit difficult about relinquishing his sway.
Rachel, however, did not like Pensacola. To her friend, Mrs. Eliza Kingsley, she wrote: “Believe me, this country has been greatly overrated.... One acre of our fine Tennessee land is worth a thousand.... The General, I believe, wants to get home again as much as I do....”
The General was not overly pleased with the situation and, as soon as he was able to settle certain little difficulties, he was determined to return to his beloved Hermitage. Marquis James, in his Andrew Jackson, the Border Captain, writes of this period:
“How peaceful the Hermitage! ‘Our place looks like it had been abandoned for a season, But we have a cheirful fire for our friends, and a prospect of living at it for the ... ballance of our lives. I have sent on my resignation by Doctor Brunaugh.’
“It was over, this uncertain adventure into which Andrew Jackson had been drawn by an unreciprocated sense of loyalty to the President and a wish to help his young friends.... Rachel ... and Andrew undertook to make their home comfortable for the rest of their days. In the great hall stood seven cases of furniture and table silver purchased at New Orleans. However Rachel might deplore the wicked luxury of the complaisant Creole town there was no denying the comfort of good French beds. ‘1 Bedstead, of Mahogany, fluted, $100,’ was for her own and Andrew’s tall south chamber; likewise ‘1 Matress of fine ticking, $45, 1 moschette Bar of Muslin, $16, 1 Counterpane knotted, Marseilles, $24.’ There was also a new sideboard and something to fill the decanters....”
There was dancing in the hallways in these days—dancing to the sound of a flute which “Old Hickory” himself may have played. Horace Holley, writing from Nashville on August 14, 1823, to his father, Luther Holley, Esq., in Salisbury, Connecticut (copy given to the author by the late Judge John H. De Witt), related:
“We have just returned from the Hermitage, ... The General called upon us in town on the evening of our arrival and he is one of the most hospitable men in the state. Mrs. Jackson is not a woman of cultivation, but has seen a great many people, has fine spirits, entertains well, and is benevolent. She is short in her person and quite fat. The General is lean and has been in ill health but is now invigorated and promises to live out his three-score and ten. He has built him a good brick house within the last two years and has finished it handsomely. Mary has taken three views of it in her sketch book. We looked at all the presents which have been made to the old warrior in honour of his military achievements and were gratified not a little.... The General has papers from most parts of the Union, and his study is loaded with piles of them. Considerable company was at his house every day, and our ladies danced every evening in the entry to the sound of the flute....” (“Mary” was Mary Austin Holley, author and cousin of Stephen Austin. Where are the sketches she made of The Hermitage?)
Andrew Jackson was content, Mr. James says, and “the measure of his contentment was in proportion to the sincerity of his resolution to exchange a brilliant career for a quiet one.”
His peace was to be short-lived. On December 5, 1823, he took his seat in the Senate of the United States, to which he had been appointed by the Tennessee legislature. For six weary months he remained in Washington and Rachel, with her usual efficiency, kept the Hermitage household going. She was busy, for the little church which the General was building for her and her pious friends near the Hermitage was being completed. His letter, written in Washington, January 29, 1824 (which has been presented to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association by the late Mr. Leland Hume, a descendant of the Rev. William Hume), states:
“I am truly happy to hear that our church is about to be finished, and that pious good man Mr. Hume, is to dedicate it. If such a mans prayers cannot obtain a blessing upon the neighborhood, I would despair of the efficacy of prayer from any other....”