The Hermitage, Home of Old Hickory

by Stanley F. Horn

This very appreciation of the political value of a reputation for piety renders all the more admirable his firm determination not to join the church during his active days in politics when it might have been suspected that he was using membership in the church for political effect. General Jackson had his faults and he had his share of the vices of the day; but he was not a hypocrite. Fundamentally he was a firm believer in the tenets of the Christian religion, but so long as he felt any question as to his ability to adhere strictly to the creed of the church without in any way drawing discredit on it or attracting suspicion to his motives, just so long did he choose to follow his religious beliefs outside the fold.

Although he had been slow about joining the church, Jackson enjoyed his association with it during his declining years and was a regular attendant at its services, joining lustily in the singing of his favorite hymns and listening attentively to the expounding of the gospel. But at last there came a day when he was no longer physically able to make even the short journey from the Hermitage to the little church down the road. The multiplied infirmities of old age at last forced him to capitulate.

It is a fact not sufficiently emphasized in most of the published biographies of Andrew Jackson that during almost his entire life he was in bad health—not merely debilitated, but actually tortured with pain. His constitution, never particularly robust, was undermined by the grueling hardships of the early campaigns against the Indians from which he returned afflicted with chronic dysentery. Throughout his life he was a victim of severe, nerve-racking headaches, of which there is passing mention in many of his letters. During his last years he fell a victim of tuberculosis which, according to one of his biographers, entirely destroyed one of his lungs; and, as though that were not sufficient bodily ailments, dropsy attacked him during the last six months of his life and caused him such agony as to make his existence a burden to him. He had been dangerously wounded with pistol balls twice—in his duel with Dickinson and his brawl with the Bentons—and from the effects of these wounds he never entirely recovered. He was confined to his room in the White House during almost the whole of his last four months of his administration, and during that time he suffered a hemorrhage of the lungs so severe that attending physicians despaired of his life. He rallied all his strength and bravely rode to the inauguration with his successor, Martin Van Buren; but he returned to the Hermitage in 1837 a broken-down and seriously ill old man. At the time he frankly expressed doubt whether he would long survive; but the return home exerted a beneficial influence on his health, and he improved to such an extent that it was eight years before the end came.

During this entire eight-year span, up almost to the very moment of his death, he never relaxed his active interest and participation in public affairs. Tennessee’s gubernatorial campaign of 1838 almost immediately engaged his attention, and he worked with all that was left of his old-time energy to elect his newest political protege, James K. Polk. Following the election all the Democratic big-wigs of Tennessee, including Jackson and Felix Grundy, repaired to Tyree Springs for a vacation and celebration of Polk’s victory.

Again in 1840, despite his age and the enfeebled state of his health, he left the quiet shades of the Hermitage and went on an ill-advised stump-speaking trip through West Tennessee in support of Martin Van Buren who had been re-nominated for the Presidency by the Democrats. It was a bitter blow to the old man when, in spite of his active support of his favorite, the Whigs carried Tennessee for Harrison by a majority of more than 12,000 votes; but he accepted the blow philosophically, stating that his belief in the soundness of the republic was so great that he felt that it would survive even the terrible experience of four years under Harrison’s rule.

Jackson conscientiously believed that Harrison was unfitted for the Presidency—so much so that he frankly expressed the belief that Harrison’s early death was a direct interposition of God to save the country from misrule. The Democratic defeat of 1840 only served to stimulate the old General to extra efforts to retrieve the loss in 1844. The selection of a standard bearer in this campaign was the subject of much intra-party deliberation and negotiation. General Jackson favored James K. Polk, and he was finally made the nominee. The General, although now 77 years old, buckled on his armor and actively engaged himself in the campaign for his young fellow Tennesseean. Too old and ill to take the stump again he resorted to a ceaseless campaign of letter writing, and the work he did from the Hermitage was largely instrumental in placing the relatively unknown Polk in the White House.

So elated was he at the success of his hand-picked candidate that he gave a stupendous garden party and barbecue at the Hermitage in celebration of Polk’s election; and in the afternoon he tottered out on the upstairs portico and, leaning over the railing, harangued his several hundred guests with an old-time, fiery political speech. It was a gala occasion.

He took an intense interest in the developments of Polk’s administration, particularly the annexation of Texas, and he followed this closely through correspondence with his old friend, Sam Houston, and with Andrew Jackson Donelson who was then representing the United States in the Republic of Texas. Houston visited the Hermitage during this period, and on one of these visits Jackson entertained with a big dinner at which the piece de resistance was a haunch of bear meat. Some admirer of the General’s in Arkansas had sent him a live bear cub as a token of his esteem, and for a while the animal was kept on the front lawn of the Hermitage tied to one of the big holly trees. When Houston came to town Jackson decided that the bear should be a sacrifice to the distinguished visitor, and so the political leaders and neighbors were invited to come and partake of the bear-meat dinner.

These closing years of the old statesman’s life were complicated by the stream of visitors at the Hermitage—office seekers and hero worshipers. The General tried to see them all, even up to the last few weeks before his death, lying propped up on a sofa in his room, with a black boy fanning him with a bush to keep the flies away. Patiently he received them: wrote his name in autograph albums, patted the heads of small boys brought to look on his countenance, heard the pleas of those seeking his support in their efforts to get political appointments. Generally he was patient; but, on at least one occasion, he blurted out: “I am dying as fast as I can and they all know it; but they will keep swarming upon me in crowds, seeking for office—intriguing for office.”

One distinguished visitor of this period was G. P. A. Healy, the celebrated artist commissioned by Louis Phillipe to paint a portrait of Jackson to hang beside that of Washington in the king’s gallery at Paris. The story of Healy’s arrival at the Hermitage is a dramatic one. Arriving unannounced at the house, he found no one there but the desperately ill old man and the servants. Ushered into Jackson’s room, where he was sitting propped up in his big chair by the window, Healy, impressed by the fame of the distinguished citizen in whose presence he stood, fell on his knee before him and exclaimed: “I have come to paint your picture.” This obsequiousness did not suit the old democrat, and he sternly bade him to rise, saying: “Kneel to no one but your Maker!” Healy apparently did not succeed in making himself clear as to his purpose, and so he returned to Nashville where he found Andrew, junior, and his wife, explained his intentions to them and returned to the Hermitage with them. Then General Jackson would not consent to sit for his picture unless young Mrs. Jackson would pose also. She consented, and so Healy fell to work. He succeeded in his race with Death, completing the portrait just ten days before the old man gave up the ghost; and the portrait made under these trying circumstances (of which a duplicate made by Healy now hangs in the Hermitage) is considered a good likeness and an excellent piece of work.