Stories of the ball are still recounted with delight in Nashville, and in many of the old families are fans, combs, dresses, and the gay little slippers of belles who “danced with Lafayette.” But most interesting of all is the description of Lafayette’s reception at the Hermitage, from the pen of his secretary, M. Levasseur:
“At one o’clock we embarked with a numerous company to proceed to dine with General Jackson, whose residence is a few miles up the river. We there found numbers of ladies and farmers from the neighborhood, whom Mrs. Jackson had invited to partake of the entertainment she had prepared for General Lafayette. The first thing that struck me on arriving at the General’s was the simplicity of his house. Still somewhat influenced by my European habits, I asked myself if this could really be the dwelling of the most popular man in the United States, of him whom the country proclaimed one of her most illustrious defenders; of him, finally, who by the will of the people was on the point of becoming her Chief Magistrate....
“General Jackson,” Levasseur continues, “successively showed us his garden and farm, which appeared to be well cultivated. We everywhere remarked the greatest order and most perfect neatness; and we might have believed ourselves on the property of one of the richest and most skillful German farmers, if, at every step, our eyes had not been afflicted by the sad spectacle of slavery. Everybody told us that General Jackson’s slaves were treated with the greatest humanity....”
In this setting Rachel was at her best. She was now fifty-eight years old. Stout, kindly, motherly, and frankly growing old; but always the gracious hostess and always deeply interested in the gay doings of the young people who were drawn into the charmed circle of her hospitable household. Her garden had taken deeper root. Her house was more elegantly furnished and her acquaintance with the outside world had been greatly extended; but aside from the fact that she took her religion a little more solemnly and that she had been saddened by the malicious attacks made upon her, her nature had changed but little with the passing years. She never lost her love of people, her keen interest in things about her, nor her gentle sympathy.
The famous Frenchman and his entourage had hardly left when the Hermitage became the gathering place for a great corps of notables, who entered heart and soul into the campaign which placed its master in the President’s chair and which completely vindicated its mistress. Never in the history of the nation has such a bitter, unscrupulous attack been waged against a candidate for public office; and never, under any circumstances, has an American woman received such shameful treatment at the hands of a political party. It is a page in history which is best overlooked.
However the storms raged on the outside, they did not change the happy atmosphere of the Hermitage. If the mistress suffered—as of course she did—she kept up a brave front for the General and the other members of her household. Henry A. Wise, later governor of Virginia, who was a guest at the Hermitage of this period, gives in his Seven Decades of the Union, an interesting picture of the house itself, as well as the social life which centered about it. This description is especially important, for it supplies the only known description of the interior of the brick house which was erected in 1819.
Wise had just been married to Anne Jennings, daughter of the Rev. Obadiah Jennings, Jackson’s Presbyterian minister in Nashville, and the bride and groom, with their bridal party, had been invited to spend the honeymoon at the Hermitage.
“We arrived at the Hermitage to dinner,” Wise wrote, “and were shown to a bridal chamber magnificently furnished with articles which were the rich and costly presents of the city of New Orleans to its noble defender.
“Had we not seen General Jackson before, we would have taken him for a visitor, not the host of the mansion. He greeted us cordially and bade us feel at home, but gave us to distinctly understand that he took no trouble to look after any but his lady guests; as for the gentlemen, there were the parlor, the dining-room, the library, the side-board and its refreshments; there were the servants, and, if anything was wanting, all that was necessary was to ring. He was as good as his word. He did not sit at the head of his table, but mingled with his guests, and always preferred a seat between two ladies, obviously seeking a chair between different ones at various times. He was very easy and graceful in his attentions; free, and often playful, but always dignified and earnest in his conversation. He was quick to perceive every point of word or manner, was gracious in approval, but did not hesitate to dissent with courtesy when he differed. He obviously had a hidden vein of humor, loved aphorism, and could politely convey a sense of smart travesty. If put upon his mettle he was very positive, but gravely respectful. He conversed freely, and seemed to be absorbed in attention to what the ladies were saying; but if a word of note was uttered at any distance from him audibly, he caught it by a quick and pertinent comment, without losing or leaving the subject about which he was talking to another person—such was his ease of sociability, without levity or lightness of activity, and without being oracular or heavy in his remarks. He had a great power of attention and concentration, without being prying, curt, or brusque. Strong good sense and warm kindness of manner put every word of his pleasantly and pointedly in its right place.
Andrew Jackson, the Country Gentleman at the Hermitage
(Original presented to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association in 1944 by Mrs. C. W. Frear, of Troy, N. Y., in memory of her husband.)