Before she was twenty Rachel Donelson first married Lewis Robards and went with him, as stated, to live in pioneer Kentucky. He was a jealous, drinking, ill-tempered fool. Horsemen have a term which fits him better than any thing elegant I can think of—sour-headed. Robards soon became jealous of his wife and made her life unhappy. Finally he wrote to Rachel’s mother, the widow Donelson, then living near Nashville, that he would send her daughter back to her. This he did, but soon afterward repented and on the promise of better behavior was reunited to his wife by the intervention of Judge Overton and went to live with her near Nashville. Jackson and Judge Overton, both were lawyers, boarded in the same home, the widow Donelson’s, with Robards and his wife, and in a lengthy article written 1827, when Jackson was a candidate for President, Judge Overton tells pointedly and graphically of the affair. He says that after Robards sent his wife back to Tennessee he became unhappy and induced Overton, who was then boarding at old Mrs. Robards’ near Nashville, to beg his wife to let him come back to her, agreeing to live in Tennessee and to treat her better. This Overton did, and Robards and his wife were reunited. In the meanwhile Jackson, a young lawyer, came to board in the house, and in a few months Robards began to treat his wife ill again, even accusing her of liking Jackson. Jackson left the house, to avoid any unpleasantness, but Robards finally left his wife, went to Virginia and applied to the legislature in the winter of 1790 for a divorce. This the legislature granted and Jackson married Mrs. Robards in the summer of 1791, believing the marriage between her and Robards was annulled. But it seems under the Virginia law a final decree of the court was necessary, which Robards did not apply for until 1793. Jackson, learning this, was remarried to his wife in 1794.
“It was a happy marriage,” says Parton, the biographer, “a very happy marriage—one of the very happiest ever contracted. They loved one another dearly. They held each other in the highest respect. They testified the love and respect they entertained for one another by those polite attentions which lovers cannot but exchange before marriage and after marriage.
“Their love grew as their age increased and became warmer as their blood became colder.
“No one ever heard either address to the other a disrespectful, an irritating or unsympathizing word. They were not as familiar as is now the fashion. He remained ‘Mr. Jackson’ to her always never ‘General,’ still less ‘Andrew.’ And he never called her ‘Rachel,’ but ‘Mrs. Jackson,’ or ‘wife.’ The reader shall become better acquainted with their domestic life by and by. Meanwhile, let it be understood that our hero has now a Home where lives a Friend, true and fond, to welcome his return from ‘wilderness courts,’ to cheer his stay, to lament his departure, yet give him a motive for going forth; a home wherein—whatever manner of man he might be elsewhere—he was always gentle, kind and patient.
“He was most prompt to defend his wife’s good name. The peculiar circumstances attending his marriage made him touchy on this point. His temper, with regard to other causes of offense, was tinder; with respect to this it was gunpowder. His worst quarrels arose from this cause or were greatly aggravated by it. He became sore on the subject, so that at last I think he could scarcely hate anyone very heartily without fancying that the obnoxious person had said something or caused something to be said which reflected on the character of Mrs. Jackson. For the man who dared breathe her name except in honor he kept pistols in perfect condition for thirty-seven years.”
There is a fool and a meddler in every tragedy between men. For a fool is naturally a meddler.
“T. Swann, Esq., lately of Virginia,” filled the role above mentioned and brought on the duel between Jackson and Charles Dickinson. T. Swann, Esq., was a young lawyer who came from Virginia to the Western settlement. He was a quarter horse with wheels in his head who entered himself with the Four-milers. He strutted and would be a man. He wore fine clothes and volunteered to loan money he never possessed. He used strange oaths and professed knowledge of horses. He posed as a fighting gentleman and carried tales. He butted in and backed out, of course.
In the fall of 1805 General Jackson matched his horse, Truxton, against Captain Joseph Ervin’s Plowboy, for $2,000, payable in notes on the day of the race, the notes to be then due. If either party failed to race he was to pay a forfeit of $800. Six persons were interested in the race for Truxton: General Jackson, Maj. W. P. Anderson, Major Verrell and Captain Pryor. For Plowboy: Captain W. P. Ervin and Charles Dickinson, his son-in-law. Before the day of the race arrived Dickinson and Ervin found that Plowboy was not fit, withdrew him and paid forfeit. It was done to the satisfaction of all, amicably done and settled.
