In the Howard Library, New Orleans, the librarian of which is William Beers, undoubtedly the best living authority of Jacksonia, and a scholar and natural-born bibliophile, I was shown many courtesies and gathered some most interesting facts. Mr. Beers ranks Judge Walker’s book first on Jackson, because he was an accurate, scholarly historian, who got his information first-hand from survivors of the great battle who lived with him in his native city. “Parton’s book was not even secondary, but tertiary,” said Mr. Beers. “He took freely from Walker and gave but scant credit.” Here is Judge Walker’s description of Jackson’s arrival in New Orleans, written while many eye-witnesses were living, in 1855:
“Along the road leading from Ft. St. John to the city, early in the morning of December 2d, 1814, a party of gentlemen rode at a brisk trot from the lake towards the city. The mist which during the night broods over the city had not cleared off. The air was chilly, damp, uncomfortable. The travelers, however, were hardy men, accustomed to exposure and intent upon purposes too absorbing to leave any consciousness of external discomfort. The chief of the party, which was composed of five or six persons, was a tall, gaunt man, of very erect carriage, with a countenance full of stern decision and fearless energy, but furrowed with care and anxiety. His complexion was sallow and unhealthy; his hair was iron gray, and his body thin and emaciated, as of one just recovered from a lingering sickness. But the fierce glare of his bright and hawk-like eye betrayed a soul and spirit which triumphed over all the infirmities of the body. His dress was simple and nearly threadbare. A small leather cap protected his head, and a short Spanish blue cloak his body, whilst his feet and legs were encased in high dragoon boots, long ignorant of polish or blacking, which reached to his knees. In age he appeared to have passed about forty-five winters—the season for which his stern and hardy nature seemed peculiarly adapted.”
One of the strange things about the lives of all great men is the almost certain fact that some grossly untrue story, picturesque lie or exaggerated half-truth of some personal trait will be started and cling to them for all time.
For a half-bred lie always outruns a full-blood truth.
The universally accepted misrepresentation of Jackson’s character is that he was an uncouth backwoodsman, half-spelled, ill-bred and a bragging bully.
“The beautiful old homes on the banks peeped sleepily from pecan and oaks.”
As a matter of fact there never lived a man of greater natural dignity, of finer manners or more courtly grace when he wished than Andrew Jackson, in spite of his violent outbursts of passion at times. In 1858, one of the finest old ladies of New Orleans told this story to James Parton:
The new aide-de-camp, Mr. Livingston, as he rode from the parade ground by the General’s side, invited him home to dinner. The General promptly accepted the invitation. It chanced that the beautiful and gay Mrs. Livingston, the leader of society then at New Orleans, both Creole and American, had a little dinner party that day, composed only of ladies, most of whom were young and lively Creole belles. Livingston had sent home word that General Jackson had arrived, and that he should ask him to dinner, a piece of news that threw the hospitable lady into consternation. “What shall we do with this wild General from Tennessee?” whispered the girls to one another, for they had all conceived that General Jackson, however becoming he might comport himself in an Indian fight, would be most distressingly out of place at a fashionable dinner party in the first drawing-room of the most polite city in America. He was announced. The young ladies were seated about the room. Mrs. Livingston sat upon a sofa at the head of the apartment, anxiously awaiting the inroad of the wild fighter into the regions sacred hitherto to elegance and grace. He entered, erect, composed, bronzed with long exposure to the sun, his hair just beginning to turn gray, clad in his uniform of coarse blue cloth and yellow buckskin, his high boots flapping loosely about his slender legs, he looked the very picture of a war-worn noble commander. He bowed to the ladies magnificently, who all arose at his entrance as much in amazement as politeness. Mrs. Livingston advanced to meet him. With a dignity and grace seldom equaled, never surpassed, he went forward to meet her, conducted her back to the sofa and sat by her side. The fair Creoles were dumb with astonishment. In a few minutes dinner was served and the General continued during the progress of the meal to converse in an easy, agreeable manner, in the tone of society, of the sole topic of the time—the coming invasion. He assured the ladies that he felt perfectly confident of defending the city, and begged that they would give themselves no uneasiness in regard to it. He arose soon and left the table with Mr. Livingston. In one chorus the young ladies exclaimed: “Is this your backwoodsman? Why, madam, he is a prince.”
Jackson had indeed arrived, but never did a defender find so helpless and utterly unprepared a city. The city was a bickering, divided thing, not a fortification, not a battery mounted, not an idea even, and scarcely any law.