The day of Forrest’s visit happened to be the first anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas, the famous defeat of the Federals known by them as the Battle of Bull Run; and the ladies of the Hermitage neighborhood had gathered there for a picnic and celebration. The sudden appearance of the idolized Forrest and his men added just what was needed to make the affair a stupendous success; and the Confederate calvarymen partook of the picnic dinner under the trees, walked the garden paths with the young ladies and wandered through the halls of Old Hickory’s old home like typical sight-seers, temporarily oblivious of the fact that a detachment of Yankees was hot on their trail.
When the occasion demanded it, the hospitality of the Hermitage could function on a wholesale, large scale basis. For instance, when a regiment of Texas volunteers paid a visit of respect to General Jackson just before his death they did not go away without entertainment or without refreshment. Only a day before their visit did Jackson learn of their impending descent on him and immediately all the plantation’s facilities were directed to the preparations for the visitors. Sheep, beeves and chickens were killed in large quantities, and every fireplace on the plantation was filled to capacity with meats of every description. A wagon was sent to Nashville and brought back a wagonload of bread, for the Hermitage’s ovens couldn’t bake that much bread on such short notice; and when the 900 Texans marched up the driveway the next morning everything was ready for them. The officers were entertained in the dining room while the rank and file were fed, picnic fashion, on the lawn. This occasion was enlivened, during the course of the proceedings, by the chance discovery by Aunt Hannah of one of the camp followers of the regiment making off with two of the Hermitage’s handsome silver pitchers. Cries of “Stop, thief! Stop, thief!” by the faithful old servant quickly attracted the attention of the soldier guests, the thief was promptly apprehended and the pitchers recovered. And while the soldiers were receiving Old Hickory’s congratulations for recovering his highly prized pitchers the thief quietly walked off in the confusion and thus escaped punishment.
Was there ever such a house for hospitality? Peddlers and Presidents, rich men and poor men, famous men and obscure youths, individuals and regiments of soldiers—all looked alike to the Hermitage. Is it any wonder that it was famous, far and wide, as a place where everybody—friend or foe—was always welcome?
VIII: THE TENNESSEE FARMER
Andrew Jackson is known to fame as a statesman and as a military leader who triumphed over the savage Indians and the trained British troops of Pakenham; but primarily Andrew Jackson was a farmer, a man whose livelihood depended on the outcome of his crops and whose prosperity waxed and waned with the fluctuations of the New Orleans cotton market.
After all, it should be remembered, Jackson’s active military career was concentrated in the eight years between 1813 and 1821, and his service as President extended only from 1829 to 1837; but he was a farmer and stock-breeder from the time he bought the Poplar Flat plantation in 1792 until he died at the Hermitage in 1845. Nothing ever gave him such pleasure as to walk about his farm with some visitor and show his growing crops, his stables and barns. The last day he was on his feet before his death he insisted, despite his enfeebled condition, on walking several hundred yards with a visiting friend to show him how well his cotton was doing.
During the eight years he was serving as a soldier he was away from home a large part of the time; but his wife was living then, and all authorities agree that she was thoroughly capable of managing the plantation and doing it well. Mrs. Jackson was not only a good housewife and a genial host, she was really a capable executive—and managing a big plantation in those days required genuine executive ability, for an establishment like the Hermitage was in reality an almost entirely self-contained little principality, capable of sustaining its owners and the slaves who supplied the labor. Not only did the plantation provide all the foodstuffs consumed, with the exception of sugar and coffee; but the slaves made practically everything used on the place. Wool gathered from the flock of 100 sheep was woven by the old slave women into bolts of cloth fifty yards in length, the weavers averaging about five yards a day. A tannery supplied leather for the shoes, there was a grist mill for grinding the wheat and corn into flour and meal, there was a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, a syrup mill, etc. The family, of course, bought clothing in Nashville, or in Philadelphia or Washington; but clothing and shoes for the slaves were made on the place by the slave seamstresses and cobblers and about the only article of wearing apparel that had to be bought for them was hats.
Managing an institution of this kind was no child’s play; but Mrs. Jackson had come to the Cumberland country with the original settlers and she possessed the indomitable, self-reliant spirit of the pioneer. She, to be sure, had the assistance of an overseer; but overseers were for the most part a shifty and unreliable lot, and in those days while Jackson was away fighting the Indians and the redcoats the real managerial ability had to rest on her. It is not recorded anywhere that Mrs. Jackson felt it at all out of the ordinary that she should take charge of the plantation in the General’s absence; and in none of her letters to him did she complain of the responsibilities resting on her shoulders. The General had written her quite candidly while at Fort Strother in January, 1814, in the midst of the campaign against the Creeks: “On the subject of my private and domestic concerns, you and Col. Hays and Mr. John Hutchings must regulate it. I have not time to spend many thoughts upon worldly pelf or gear. My station is arduous and my duty severe.”
In spite of this frank admonition, however, even as he rested before New Orleans on the eve of the battle there that was to make him a figure of world-wide fame, General Jackson had obtruded on him there some of the vexing problems of plantation management—not, it should be noted, by the self-contained Rachel but by her sister’s husband, Colonel Robert Hays, mentioned in Jackson’s letter. Colonel Hays, probably with good intentions but certainly with an atrocious lack of good sense, sat down and wrote him a tediously detailed letter to tell him about all the trouble being experienced in getting a good overseer and the demoralization of the slaves growing out of the inefficient overseer’s lack of capacity. “They did not tread out thirty bushels of oats in three days,” wrote Mr. Hayes of the trifling slaves; and then went on to relate the harrowing experience of one of them who was sent to Nashville on an errand, was waylaid on his return and came home with “a large load of small shot in his back which is still in him.”
Was there ever in the history of the world another General commanding his nation’s troops on the eve of a decisive battle who had to drop his studies of tactical problems in order to consider the case of an overseer back home who “is a good honest man, but drinks too hard”?