USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 37
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" Accept, gentlemen, yourselves, and present to the honorable body you represent, assurances of my high consideration and respect.
" ANDREW JACKSON."
He did not serve two years longer, as he proposed, his health continuing to fail and his position becoming daily more irksome and embarrassing. He resigned in July, 1804, and never held civil employment again until his ap- pointment as Governor of Florida in 1821.
Two and a half years after the occurrences I have nar- rated, Mr. Charles Dickinson fell at the hands of Gen. Jackson in a duel for the same offense that he so persist- ently sought a meeting with Governor Sevier, although its immediate occasion was differently assigned. Dickinson had spoken disrespectfully of Mrs. Jackson.
DUEL WITH DICKINSON.
The duel between Gen. Jackson and Mr. Charles Dick- inson occurred in 1806. The newspapers of that date are full of the correspondence. Mr. Dickinson was a young lawyer residing in Nashville, respectably connected, but somewhat dissipated in his habits. He was a son-in-law of Capt. Joseph Erwin. The quarrel between them arose from some disparaging remarks made by Dickinson respect- ing Mrs. Jackson, which were repeated in a very insulting manner in the hearing of Mrs. Jackson herself at one of the races in Nashville. Of course the insult highly in- censed Gen. Jackson, but he was nevertheless anxious to avoid a personal difficulty, and to this end called upon Capt. Erwin and desired him to remonstrate with his son-in-law, as he was confident Dickinson was urged on to this course by his enemies. It soon appeared that a man by the name of Thomas Swann, a young lawyer in Nashville, a Mary- lander by birth, as was also Dickinson, but lately from Vir- ginia, was making himself officious in the affair. Dickin- son and his father-in-law, Capt. Erwin, had matched " Plough-Boy" against Gen. Jackson's famous horse "Trux- ton" in a stake of two thousand dollars, with a forfeit of eight hundred dollars, and had lost the race. The stake and forfeit were to be paid in cash notes on the days of the race. The backers of " Plough-Boy" paid the forfeit, but it was reported that the notes in which the forfeit was paid were different from those specified in the articles of the race. Swann made himself busy in circulating the story, and in giving Gen. Jackson as his authority. Gen. Jack- son, on hearing it, denounced Swann to Dickinson as a "d-d liar." Swann demanded an apology. "The
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harshness of the expression," he wrote to the general, " has deeply wounded my feelings. It is language to which I am a stranger, which no man who is acquainted with my character would venture to apply to me, and which, should the information of Mr. Dickinson be correct, I shall be under the necessity of taking proper notice of."
General acknowledged the receipt of the letter, and answered as follows :
" Was it not," he replied, " for the attention due a stranger, taking into view its tenor and style, I should not notice it. Had the information you have received from Mr. Dickinson stated a direct application of harsh language to you ; had not Mr. Dickinson been applied to by me to bring you for- ward when your name was mentioned, which he declined ; had I not the next morning had a conversation with you on the same subject; and, lastly, did not your letter hold forth a threat of ' proper notice,'-I should give your letter a di- rect answer. . . . I never wantonly sport with the feelings of innocence, nor am I ever awed into measures. If in- cautiously I inflict a wound, I always hasten to remove it ; if offense is taken where none is offered or intended, it gives me no pain. If a tale is listened to many days after the discourse should have taken place, I always leave the person to judge of the motives that induced the informa- tion, and leave them to draw their own conclusions and act accordingly. There are certain traits that always ac- company the gentleman and man of truth. The moment he hears harsh expressions applied to a friend he will im- mediately communicate it that explanation may take place, when the base poltroon and cowardly tale-bearer will always act in the background. You can apply the latter to Mr. Dickinson. I write it for his eye and emphatically intend it for him. . . . When the conversation dropped between Mr. Dickinson and myself I thought it was at an end. As he wishes to blow the coal, I am ready to light it to a blaze that it may be consumed at once and finally extinguished. Mr. Dickinson has given you the information, the subject of your letter. In return, and in justice to him, I request you to show him this. I set out this morning for South- west Point. I will return at a short day, and at all times I hold myself answerable for any of my conduct; and should anything herein contained give Mr. Dickinson the spleen, I will furnish him with an anodyne as soon as I return."
This letter brought about an interview between the gen- eral and Swann. An angry conversation was had. Swann expressed his determination to have "satisfaction." The general answered that if he (Swann) challenged him he would cane him. Swann retorted that if he attempted to do that he would instantly kill him. The challenge was duly sent. It is a unique sample of dueling literature. " Think not," is the text of the cartel, " that I am to be intimidated by your threats. No power terrestrial shall prevent the settled purpose of my soul. The statement I have made in respect to the notes is substantially correct. The torrent of abusive language with which you have as- sailed me is such as every gentleman should blush to hear. Your menace I set at defiance ; and I now demand of you that reparation which one gentleman is entitled to receive from another. My friend, the bearer of this,
is authorized to make complete arrangements in the field of honor."
Gen. Jackson kept his word and publicly caned Mr. Swann, nor did he suffer the instant death of which he was admonished for that performance.
The letter to Swann, so pointedly and severely alluding to Dickinson as instigating the former in his course, was duly shown to the latter, as Jackson had requested. He immediately wrote the general, reviewing the whole con- troversy, and acquitting himself of any blame or responsi- bility in the matter. His letter concluded as follows : " As to the word coward, I think it as applicable to yourself as any one I know, and I shall be very glad when an opportu- nity serves to know in what manner you give your ano- dynes, and I hope you will take payment in one of my most moderate cathartics."
The terms of the meeting between Gen. Jackson and Mr. Dickinson were : Distance, eight paces, or twenty-four fect ; the parties to stand facing cach other, with their pistols held perpendicularly downwards; when "ready," the single word " fire" to be given ; they were then to fire as they pleased; but should either do so before the word, the seconds were pledged to shoot him down.
Jackson and his friend, Gen. Thomas Overton, had re- flected very gravely over these conditions, and had decided to receive Dickinson's fire first. They relied, as Jackson's only chance for safety, upon the remarkable thinness of his person, which was unknown to his antagonist, and a loosely- fitting coat that tended still further to deceive the accu- racy of Dickinson's aim, for the latter declared and, it is said, wagered that he would hit Jackson near a certain button, at a spot directly over his heart. Jackson heard and believed this.
The men were placed in position and the word given. Dickinson fired instantly, and precisely where he had every reason to suppose Jackson's heart to be, but missed. His bullet struck the breast-bone and broke two of the general's ribs, but failed to bring him down. " Erect and grim as fate he stood," says Parton, " his teeth clenched, raising his pistol. Overton glanced at Dickinson. Amazed at the un- wonted failure of his aim, and apparently appalled at the awful figure and face before him, he had unconsciously recoiled a pace or two. . . . ' Back to the mark, sir,' he shrieked, with his hand upon his pistol. Dickinson recov- ered his composure, stepped forward to the peg, and stood with his eyes averted from his antagonist. . . . Gen. Jack. son took deliberate aim and pulled the trigger. The pistol neither snapped nor went off. He looked at the trigger, and discovered that it had stopped at half-cock. He drew it back to its place and took aim a second time. He fired. Dickinson's face blanched; he reeled; his friends rushed towards him, caught him in their arms, and gently seated him on the ground, leaning against a bush. His trousers reddened. They stripped off his clothes. The blood was gushing from his side in a torrent. And, alas ! here is the ball, but above the opposite hip, just under the skin. It had passed through the body just below the ribs."
The general and his friends immediately left the field, and repaired to the house where he had spent the previous night. Here his wound was carefully dressed. Dickinson
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survived for twenty hours, and died in great agony. Jack- son's injury was more serious than he had apprehended, and on his return home it confined him to the house for a fortnight. It falsely healed, and gave him trouble as long as he lived. The hemorrhages from the lungs, which sev- eral times during his life reduced him to death's door, were the effects of Dickinson's bullet. In the opinion of his physicians, it finally killed him, although he lived to an advanced age.
The father-in-law of Dickinson, Capt. Erwin, charged Gen. Jackson with unfairness in recocking his pistol after its failures to go off in the first attempt to fire. He claimed that there was a " snap," which should have been consid- ered a "fire." The charge was repeated by Dickinson's friends, and much exasperated the general. The seconds of the parties, Gen. Overton and Dr. Catlett, united in a card certifying that " every circumstance in the affair was agreeable to the impressions" themselves and their prin- ciples " were under." General Jackson procured several additional certificates to the same effect. Mr. George Rid- ley, a highly respectable citizen of Tennessee, stated that a few days after the duel he met with Mr. Corben Lee, a friend of Dickinson, who was present on the ground and with him when he expired. In talking of the affair, Mr. Lee admitted that Gen. Jackson " behaved with a great deal of honor on the occasion, for which he should always respect him." Capt. Morrison, in 1824, certified that subsequent to the duel Dr. Catlett-Dickinson's second- descended the river with him; that during the passage down the river he frequently conversed with him upon the subject of the duel. " He gave me," he says, " a detailed account of the rise, progress, and fatal termination of the dispute, and uniformly declared to me that the fight was fairly and honorably conducted. . . . On no occasion did he ever give a different version of the affair. . . . I was also acquainted with Gen. Overton, the friend of Gen. Jackson on the occasion. Not long before his death I called to see him and found him ill in bed. In the course of conversation he mentioned the duel between Gen. Jackson and Dickin- son and the various rumors that had been put in circula- tion. He spoke particularly in reference to a report that Gen. Jackson had snapped his pistol at Dickinson, and pronounced it with much vehemence, rising up in his bed when he spoke, a positive falsehood, and affirmed most solemnly that the affair was honorably conducted, no unfair advantage having been taken, or sought to be taken, by Gen. Jackson."
Mr. Edward Ward certified " to the world, and particu- larly to all whom it may concern," that he had for twenty years lived a near neighbor of Gen. Jackson and of Gen. Thomas Overton until the death of the latter ; that they were in the habits of friendship and neighborly intercourse, and never were more so than about the time of the duel ; that Gen. Overton had soon after its occurrence, while visiting his house, minutely described it to him. He represented Gen. Jackson as having acted with cool deliberation and with the utmost propriety. Not one word did he hear from him about the snapping of the general's pistol. He stated that Dickinson fired very quickly when the word was given, and that Gen. Jackson immediately after the fire
crossed his breast with his left arm and hand (being wounded through the lung), leveled his pistol, and fired.
A like statement was also made by Gen. Coffee and Maj. Purdy, which completed the general's exoneration from the imputation of unfairness.
Some admonitory letters were at this time written to Gen. Jackson by his friends. Col. W. P. Anderson, after- wards a member of his military staff, and whose resignation made room for the appointment of Col. Thomas H. Benton, wrote him under date of Nashville, June 13, 1806:
" GENERAL JACKSON : My dearest friend : Had you not better send out after Doctor Dickson to-morrow when you come here, to the end that he may be present at some of your intended interviews ? Such men as he, Dan. McGa- vock Randall, Capt. Ward, Thos. Stewart, Capt. Colemain, and Robt. White ought also to be in hearing. For God's sake, my dear friend, use no hot or rash measures ! I well know you can, when necessary, govern yourself into calm- ness and cool deliberation. Now is the time for you to do so. You see it is improper for you to challenge any of those people, or persecutors of yours. You are tied down to defensive measures alone. Some of them would not be too good to prosecute you at law. There is one of this lamentable group, T. S. [Swann evidently], that you ought not to notice more than the meanest reptile that crawls on the ground.
" It was indispensably necessary from your situation and difference with this and that rascal that you [should] fight. You have done so, and the champion and man of highest and best standing among them has fallen. Be it so. Your course is plain. Do get yr friends together & advise with them. This is right particularly as seeking a fght with anybody ; but only to defend yr honor & feelings, and to vindicate principle."
Judge Overton wrote from Jonesboro', Sept. 12, 1806 :
" DEAR GENERAL,-This day week a report arrived here that you and Swann had fought ; that both fell, Swann shot through the heart, of which he died in six minutes, and you through the head, from which instant death ensued.
" Though I did not believe it, great uneasiness arose, knowing the rascals' conspiracy, of which Swann is a part. You have several warm friends here, and if you knew the uneasiness they suffered and their impressions, I am sure it would have some effect. Not only on this occasion, but before, the opinion of your sensible friends, of whom you have many, was unanimously that nothing can justify your fighting Swann or any of the pioneers of this dirty band.
" I do not know that there is much danger of any of these flies infesting you-through fear tho'-yet their will is good, and this you may in a measure know, from the re- ports that are industriously circulated. I repeat it again, General, the respect you owe to the opinion of your friends, the duties you owe to your family, and to the world, forbid the idea of your putting yourself upon a footing with boys, especially when they are made the instruments of others. To use an Irish bull, if it was me I should to eternity feel mean to be killed by one of these puppies. Your friends would have to lament your loss, though not able to justify the occasion of it.
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" No man, not even your worst enemies, doubt your per- sonal courage, and you would gain much more by not no- ticing anything that these people may say, than otherwise. Be assured that their slander can do you no harm among your friends.
" These observations, you know, come from a friend who has not only thought maturely upon the subject, but one who has consulted the feelings and opinions of many judi- cious men of honor. Should you be assaulted by any of the younger or inferior gang, repel it with a stick, &c. Those of stability and standing in society you will call upon, should proper occasion occur, in a proper manner. But never, never, my dear sir, hurt the feelings of your friends by putting yourself on a level with boys, instruments-mere tools of others, doing yourself no honor, perhaps losing your life with one of them; and their enmity is bitter enough to even hire it done, if they could get hands. Besides the mortification of your friends, you might in this way deprive yourself of that life which ought to be preserved for better purposes, among which is the chance (upon some proper occasion, which hereafter, by patience, may come) of chas- tising in a proper manner the prompters behind the curtain. "Should any difficulty arise, may I ask you as a friend, before you do anything, to consult your friends ? Patience, deliberation and courage, will surmount all difficulties.
" I am, yr. friend, JNO: OVERTON. "GEN'L JACKSON."
The venerable Gen. Robertson also wrote Gen. Jackson a very sensible letter, which no doubt had a strong influ- ence in checking the impetuosity of his temper and bring- ing him to more calm and sober reflection on the subject of dueling. Public opinion generally turned in his favor as the hidden facts of the affair came to light; and although the better portion of the community could not but condemn the morality of his conduct, yet all admired the unexam- pled nerve he had exhibited in the duel, and when this quality had opportunity for its legitimate and proper dis- play in the defense of his country, as the leader of one of its armies, criticism ceased, and he became, and remained until death, the idol of his fellow-citizens.
It was a peculiarity of General Jackson that he rarely alluded to his personal difficulties when once settled. In all his intimacy with Amos Kendall he never but once re- ferred to his duel with Dickinson, and that was after he had retired from the Presidency, when he mentioned in a letter that he would send him the correspondence relating to it, to aid in the preparation of his biography, upon which Kendall was engaged. He was equally reserved with the elder Blair, another of his closest friends. It became, through some circumstance, a topic of conversation between them on one occasion. Jackson dismissed it with the single remark that he would have killed Dickinson had he (Dick- inson) shot him through the brain.
The editor of the "Jackson Papers," recently published in the Cincinnati Commercial, says,-
" I have felt some curiosity in inquiring into the history of this matter to learn the fate of Swann, whose luckless intermeddling with Jackson's and Dickinson's affairs brought the duel about. In response to inquiries recently addressed
to Col. Willoughby Williams, of Arkansas, I have been fur- nished with the following information. It is written from Nashville :
"' Mr. Swann must have left Nashville about the year 1809, which was the year of my first visit to Nashville, as I knew but little of him after that time. Mr. Charles Dickinson came from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and I think Mr. Swann came from the same county. Mr. Isaac Erwin, the brother-in-law of Charles Dickinson, and myself, married daughters of Captain John Nichols, who was a friend of Dickinson in that unfortunate affair.
"' I have often been at the grave of Mr. Dickinson, and was present fifty years ago when his son had it inclosed with a cedar fence. I was there on yesterday and found the tomb, which is made of stone used at that day for such purposes. The tomb is made of side and end stone about three feet high, and a large stone slab on the top. There is no inscription on it. It stands as square and perfect as when placed there. A grove of trees has grown up around it. No other grave is near. It is in an open lot near a large spring on the farm owned at that time by Captain Jo- seph Erwin, the father-in-law of Dickinson.'
" Mr. Samuel D. Morgan, who incloses me this letter, adds : ' I know nothing personally of the duel, as I was at the time a mere child. I was, when a school-boy, quite in- timate in General Jackson's family, but in all the time I am sure I never heard him make the slightest allusion to this or any other of his quarrelsome affairs.'"
CHAPTER XXVI.
PUBLIC LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JACKSON.
How He was Nominated for the Presidency-Major Lewis' Narrative -The Great Race of 1824-Jackson's Defeat with a Large Plural- ity-His Election in 1828-Death of Mrs. Jackson-Characteris- tics of Ilis Great Statesmanship-Second Election and Administra- tion-Fac-Simile of His Writing-His Character and Abilities- His Last Hours-His Death-Monuments at the Hermitage.
THE manner in which Gen. Jackson was nominated for the Presidency is related by Maj. William B. Lewis, one of the chief actors in the events which he describes. The matter will be of especial interest to the people of this county, inasmuch as Maj. Lewis was a prominent and well- known citizen, a life-long friend of Gen. Jackson's, and his most confidential adviser in all his domestic and political affairs. Maj. Lewis was a gentleman of leisure, residing on a fine estate between Nashville and the Hermitage. His house was the place at which the particular friends of Gen. Jackson, and often the general himself, were accustomed to meet and hold those political councils out of which grew the series of events resulting in Jackson's election to the Senate in 1823, and to the Presidency in 1828. The de- votion of Maj. Lewis to Gen. Jackson appears to have been untainted by any motives of emolument or self-inter- est, he being a man of fortune and personally modest and
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Enaspiring. The labor which he devoted through many years to the one object of securing Gen. Jackson's election was a labor of love, and was inspired by a strong desire to see his great friend honored by the highest place in the gift of a grateful nation, which he had so richly merited by his emi- bent and patriotic services to his country. When this ob- ject was accomplished, Maj. Lewis accompanied Gen. Jack- son to Washington, and lived with him in his private apartments in the Presidential mansion. Maj. Lewis relates as follows the indubitable events as they occurred under his own eye, and many of them at his own suggestion :
MAJ. LEWIS' NARRATIVE.
" When Gen. Jackson was fighting the battles of his country and acquiring for himself and it imperishable glory, he never once thought, as I verily believe, of reach- ing the Presidency. He did not dream of such a thing. The idea never entered his imagination. All he aimed at or desired at the time was military renown acquired by pa- triotic services. This he prized far above all civil fame, and does now, if I know anything of the feelings of his heart. He was naturally and essentially a military man,-full of ardor, of indomitable courage ; possessing the rare quality of inspiring every man about him with feelings as enthu- siastic and dauntless as his own ; quick to conceive and as prompt to execute; vigilant and of untiring industry ; and, in addition to all these high and noble qualities, he was endowed with a sound judgment and discriminating mind. In fact, he had all the requisites of a great military com- mander, and, with the same theatre to act upon, he would not, in my opinion, have been inferior to any of the great of either ancient or modern times. This you may consider extravagant, but I assure you I do firmly and conscien- tiously believe that by nature he was not, as a military man, inferior to either Alexander, Julius Caesar, or Napo- leon Bonaparte, and, had he occupied the place of either under like circumstances, would not have been less success- ful or distinguished.
" With these feelings and views, thirsting for military fame, and ambitious of being distinguished as a great com- mander, is it unreasonable to suppose that civil honors were but little coveted or cared for by him ? No, my friend. He did not even dream of the high civic destiny that awaited him, and which was to be the crowning glory of his life and character. The first suggestion of that sort came from Kentucky, and was made in the summer of 1815 by an officer who was under his command and assisted in the de- fense of New Orleans. (Mr. Edward Livingston, too, about this time suggested the same thing.) The letter of this officer was addressed to a third person, a mutual friend, who inclosed it to Gen. Jackson, as was undoubtedly ex- pected by the writer. In this letter it was proposed that he should be forthwith brought out as a candidate; but the general laughed at the idea, and returning the letter to his friend, begged that nothing further might either be said or done in relation to the matter. The proposition was too absurd, he said, to be entertained for a moment. In fact, nothing further was thought or said, as I believe, upon the subject of his being a candidate, until about the close of Mr. Monroe's first term. Thus began and thus ended the first
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