Naturally, the first prospective purchaser to whom the historic property was offered was the State of Tennessee. In fact, General Jackson seems to have foreseen some such contingency and before he died had told his son that if ever it became necessary for him to sell the Hermitage he should first offer it to his native state. The offer was made, and the state General Assembly passed the following act authorizing its purchase:
Whereas, it is good policy in a republican government to encourage the habits of industry and to inculcate sentiments of veneration for those departed heroes who have rendered important services to their country in times of danger; and
Whereas, Tennessee acknowledges no superior in feelings of patriotism and devotion to the Union in whose cause the lamented Andrew Jackson acquired so much distinction; therefore
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee that the governor of the state be empowered and it is hereby made his duty to purchase for the State of Tennessee 500 acres of the late residence of Andrew Jackson, deceased, including the mansion, tomb and other improvements, known as “The Hermitage.”
Be it further enacted that whenever the said purchase is made and the title to said property secured to the state that the governor is hereby authorized to cause the bonds of the state to be issued and to endorse the same in an amount not exceeding $48,000, the proceeds of which to be appropriated by him to carrying into effect the provisions of this act: Provided, that the governor and the secretary of state upon investigation shall be satisfied said price is not exhorbitant.
Be it further enacted that the governor of the state be authorized and required to tender the said property to the General Government of the United States upon the express condition that it be used as a site for a branch of the Military Academy at West Point; and in the event the General Government does not accept the tender thus made in two years from the expiration of this session of the General Assembly, then the governor shall be authorized and required to have fifty acres laid off, including the tomb, mansion and the spring and the spring houses, and expose the balance to public sale either as a whole or in lots, on time or for cash as to him may seem best, and make his report to the legislature of 1859-1860.
Andrew Johnson was governor of the state at this time and was the sponsor of the plan to tender the Hermitage mansion and grounds to the Federal government as a site for a branch of the military academy. In due season he made the tender as instructed, and in 1857 the Committee on Military Affairs of the United States Senate, through Tennessee’s Senator James C. Jones, accepted the offer. But the war clouds were gathering. There was mounting sentiment in the North against a federal military school in the South. Thus, Tennessee retained title to the historic property.
The price the state actually agreed to pay Andrew Jackson, junior, for the property was $50,000; but Mr. Jackson was to continue to occupy it for two years beyond the time of the sale, and so the state held out $2,000 in lieu of rent. Tennessee may not have been willing to recognize any superior in patriotism and devotion to General Jackson, as so eloquently expressed in the enabling act, but she was not above driving a hard bargain with his adopted son. Mr. Jackson, in accordance with the terms of the trade, remained at the Hermitage until 1858 and then removed to Mississippi.
From 1858 to 1860 the Hermitage was without an occupant, and suffered as tenantless houses usually suffer. There was nothing further said about using it as a military school, nor was there any agitation of the plan to offer it for sale “as a whole or in lots.” Fortunately for coming generations of American citizens, the property remained intact; but the old house stood there vacant and decaying until 1860 when Isham G. Harris, the new governor of Tennessee, sent to Mississippi to request Mr. Jackson to return and be its custodian. Mr. Jackson had not been especially prosperous in his new home, and he was glad to return and reëstablish himself in the Hermitage as “tenant at will.” His household at this time consisted of himself and wife, his daughter Rachel, his two sons, Andrew and Samuel, his wife’s widowed sister Mrs. Adams and her three sons.
When Tennessee cast her lot with the Southern Confederacy in July, 1861, it did not take long for the young men of the Hermitage household to join the Confederate forces. Five brave-hearted young soldiers walked out the broad front door of the Hermitage, mounted their horses and rode off to the front. Only one returned. Andrew, III, who had been educated at West Point, was commissioned colonel of the First Tennessee Heavy Artillery, and he was the lone survivor after four years of war, more than half of which was spent in prison at Camp Chase. Samuel, a captain, was killed at Chickamauga and lies buried in the family burial plot in the Hermitage garden. None of the Adams boys survived the war. One was in the Confederate Navy, one was a casualty at the siege of Vicksburg, and the other died in Kentucky fighting with General John Morgan.
Andrew Jackson, junior, with his wife and daughter and Mrs. Adams remained at home in the Hermitage and watched the waves of the war roll back and forth around them. In 1862 after the fall of Fort Donelson (named, incidentally, for Daniel A. Donelson, a general in the Confederate Army and a nephew of Mrs. Rachel Jackson), Nashville fell into the hands of the Federal troops and was never regained by the Confederates. During the Federal occupation of Nashville and the surrounding country, General George H. Thomas placed a cavalry guard over the Hermitage to protect it from damage or despoliation; and to this thoughtful foresight on General Thomas’s part may be attributed the fact that the old home of Andrew Jackson did not suffer the fate of so many other historic houses in the South during the four years of war.
In April, 1865, Andrew Jackson, junior, stepped finally from the stage where he had played such a sad and ineffectual rôle. Just a few days after the news of Lee’s surrender reached the Hermitage he accidentally shot himself while hunting, and died the next day. Perhaps the summons of death was not entirely unwelcome to this saddened and impoverished old man, who had spent his last days as a guest in the decaying old home amid whose pristine splendor he had been the petted and pampered son of its distinguished and honored master. Again the words of the funeral service were heard in the Hermitage parlors, and friends bore his remains to the little graveyard in the corner of the garden. Here he sleeps, with his sons at his side, close in the shadow of the monumental tomb of the great man who adopted him, who gave him his name and who strove so earnestly to make another Andrew Jackson of one in whose veins flowed none of the red Jackson blood.
Mrs. Sarah York Jackson, with her son Andrew, and her sister Mrs. Adams, remained at the Hermitage in the combined position of custodian and guest of the State. The daughter, Rachel, had married Dr. John M. Lawrence and removed to a nearby farm. The state, apparently, forgot that it owned the historic old mansion; and, as the occupants’ means were limited, it gradually deteriorated. Soon after her husband’s death Mrs. Jackson held an auction at which were sold the furnishings of the dining room. These were bought, for the most part, by neighbors and residents of Nashville; and when the Hermitage was rescued and reclaimed most of this furniture was restored to its original place either by purchase or by gift. Mrs. Jackson died in 1887 and she was succeeded as custodian by her son who, in the same year, married Miss Amy Rich, a native of Ohio who was teaching school in the neighborhood.
