History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 94

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013

USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 94

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HISTORY OF DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE.

gained admission to the prison-ships, and administered to the wants and necessities of their distressed and suffering kindred and friends. Mrs. Jackson never again saw her only child, whom she left behind her, and he was never again to catch the light of a mother's eye or enjoy the hallowed boon of a mother's sympathy and love. She con- tracted the ship-fever, and soon after died and was buried in an unknown and unrecorded grave. Such a woman was worthy to be the mother of such a son. Andrew Jackson at the time of his mother's death was not fifteen years old. Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, moneyless, could any situation be more forlorn and cheerless than that which now clouded the young life of this desolate and stricken boy ? Look upon him then, and look upon this scene to- day, and thank God for a country that holds out her honors to all who have the heart and nerve and genius to grasp them.

" It was an eventful day in the history of the little colony here that saw Andrew Jackson added to their number, and the people among whom he cast his lot were not slow in discovering and appreciating his merit. He was born an orphan, but they took him by the hand and stood in loco pa- rentis during the struggles of his early manhood. He was not a man to remain long in any community without im- pressing himself upon its people. For the first eight or ten years after his arrival he was engaged in practicing his pro- fession and discharging the duties of prosecuting attorney, to which he had been appointed. When, in 1796, a convention was called to meet at Knoxville to frame a constitution for Tennessee, preparatory to her admission into the Union, we find the name of Andrew Jackson associated with the hon- orable names of John McNairy, James Robertson, Thomas Hardeman, and Joel Lewis as one of the five delegates that Davidson County sent to the Knoxville convention to lay the foundation of our future State. And when it was resolved by the convention to appoint two members from each county to draft a constitution, Judge McNairy and Andrew Jackson represented Davidson County on that committee. Soon after the formation of her constitution, Tennessee was admitted into the Union, and her name was enrolled among the sis- terhood of States. Upon her admission she was entitled to only one Representative in Congress, and Andrew Jack- son was elected by the people to that position. Crowned with this honor of the young commonwealth, he mounted his horse for an eight-hundred-mile journey through what was then little better than a howling wilderness, to Phila- delphia, to represent his people in the national councils. Ilis brief career as a member of Congress was marked by watchful devotion to the interests of his constituents, and fearless and independent action on all measures that came up for consideration. Before his term as a member of the House of Representatives expired a vacancy occurred in the Senate, and he was appointed to represent the State in the Senate of the United States. This was a high honor to confer upon one who, less than ten years before that time, had come among the people who thus honored him as a briefless, friendless young lawyer. He was only thirty years old when he took his seat in the Senate. These high posi- tions to which he was so soon elevated after his arrival here are unmistakable evidences of the fact that he had made

a deep impression upon the public mind and effected a firm lodgment in the popular heart. Yet he was not a man of any great learning or eloquence. In these respects he doubtless had superiors among his fellow-citizens,-men better qualified to shine in all these positions than himself. But there was that about him which marked him as a man to be trusted and a leader to be safely followed, and the people, with that keen, intuitive insight into the real char- acter of public men, discovered and appropriated it. He seems not to have liked the duties and modes of procedure of the Senate. It is not strange that he did not. In a few months after his appointment he resigned the position. He would, in all probability, never have risen to any great eminence in that body if he had remained a member of it. It was an arena unsuited for the development and display of the gifts with which nature had endowed him. It was simply impossible for him to consent to remain in a place where he could hope to reach and maintain nothing more than the common level of mediocrity. It was wholly for- eign to his nature to sit down quietly and day by day watch his intense individuality sink in the dead sea of senatorial dignity. Soon after his retirement from the Senate he was elected by the Legislature to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State. The people scemed unwilling to dispense with his services altogether, and determined to have the benefit of his labors in some public capacity. No reports of his decisions have come down to us, as the first volume of reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Tennessee commences with the decisions of Judge Over -. ton, Jackson's successor. That Judge Jackson brought any great amount of law-learning to the performance of his duties while on the bench cannot be safely assumed, but that he displayed a clear judgment and a high sense of right cannot be fairly questioned.

" Member of the Constitutional Convention, a represen- tative in Congress, a senator of the United States, a judge of the Supreme Court of the State,-these were high posi- tions, and worthy the ambition of the best men in the State. But Jackson had not yet reached the theatre where the genius with which the God of nature had so richly endowed him could fitly expand its wonderful power. True, on a field where he was not peculiarly qualified to excel, he had won the prize of honor from the men by whom he was surrounded. But these positions and honors did not possess for him the attractions they have for most men, and their uncongeniality doubtless had much to do in his retiring to the shades of the Hermitage, intending thereby to shake hands with public life forever. How little we know what the future has in store for us! If this conviction of his had been verified, we would not be here to-day engaged in these august ceremonies. His services already rendered to the State would have preserved his name among her archives and rescued it from oblivion, but few save the students of her history would have known that such a man as Andrew Jackson ever lived.

" But the time and the occasion were approaching which would call for the man, and in that call the name of An- drew Jackson would be heard.

In June, 1812, war was declared against Great Britain. Gen. Jackson (he had been elected a major-general of

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militia) tendered his services, with two thousand five hun- dred men, to the government. Their services were promptly accepted, and in November Governor Blount was requested to send fifteen hundred men to reinforce Gen. Wilkinson at New Orleans. The Governor at once issued orders to Gen. Jackson, and the work of preparation commenced to transport the troops to their point of destination. Jackson issued to his troops one of those stirring addresses which, considering the times and circumstances that called them forth, whatever critics may say of their literary merits, are models of their kind. Nothing shows more clearly his thorough comprehension of the instincts and character of the men he commanded than the addresses he issued to them from time to time, as the occasion or emergency sug- gested. After receiving this order to repair with his troops to the reinforcement of Wilkinson, he was all animation, excitement, and energy. By the 7th of January he had everything ready to leave. He wrote to the Secretary of War: 'I have the pleasure to inform you that I am now at the head of two thousand and seventy volunteers, the choicest of our citizens, who go at the call of their country to execute the will of the government, who have no con- stitutional scruples, and if the government orders will re- joice at the opportunity of placing the American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine, effectually banishing from the Southern coasts all British influence.' These confident and enthusiastic utterances, coming from some men, might be considered as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. But Andrew Jackson felt it, and meant it all.

At the head of two thousand choice Tennesseeans ! At last he had found his destined element. At last he stood upon a field where the guerdon of deathless fame was to be won and the garlands of immortality were to be gath- ered. At last he planted his feet upon the pathway of glory, and every instinct of his nature told him it was the road that destiny had marked out for him to travel.

"Soon his infantry was floating down the Cumberland, and his cavalry was on the march through the country to their destination, full of the hope and patriotism and martial pride that burned in the heart of their leader. But this was doomed to be a brief and bloodless campaign. After Hull's surrender the government, fearing that the enemy might direct his attention to the Southern coast, thought it advisable, as a precautionary measure, to reinforce the command at New Orleans. Hence the call on the Gover- nor of Tennessee for troops. On reaching Natchez, Gen. Jackson was commanded to halt at that place for further orders. The contemplated necessity not arising which had caused the government to call these troops to the field, an order came to Gen. Jackson from the Secretary of War to disband them. This seemed a strange order, dismissing troops five hundred miles from home, without pay, without transportation, or any provision for the sick. Now was dis- played that iron will, that promptness and readiness to assume responsibility, so characteristic of the man. Gen. Jackson at once resolved not to obey the order, and deter- mined not to dismiss his troops in a strange country with- out the means of returning to their homes, but to march them back in a body to Tennessee. He at once set about

providing the means of transportation for the sick, impress- ing whatever he needed, and giving orders on the quarter- master-general for payment. Of course these preparations required the incurring of a liability for a considerable amount of money. He well knew that these expenses, in- curred not only without the authority of the government, but in disobedience of its order, would fall upon him per- sonally if the government should refuse to honor his draft ; but he did not hesitate a moment on that account. It was no spirit of insubordination that prompted him to take this course,-far from it. He placed too high an estimate upon the value of discipline to be swayed by any such motive as that. He felt that he could not obey that order without perpetrating a gross wrong and injustice upon the brave men who had followed him to the field, and he determined not to be a party to it whatever might be the consequences to him personally. Throughout the whole march he was with his troops, often dismounting and giving some sick or exhausted soldier his horse to ride while he trudged along in the mud with his men. It was the firmness and power of endurance displayed on this long march that caused his soldiers to give him the nickname of Old Hickory,-an ap- pellation which he proudly wore through all his subsequent career. He led his army back, and on the public square at Nashville they were disbanded. Their commander had not led them to victory, they brought back no laurels gathered on the field of honor, but they returned to their homes with the proud consciousness of having obeyed their country's call and with unbounded admiration for their commander, who had stood by them even at the risk of bringing down upon his head the displeasure of his gov- ernment and wrecking his private fortune.

" But he was not long permitted to remain inactive. The great Tecumseh, the implacable and unappeasable foe of the white man, having formed an alliance with the Eng- lish, like a herald of fate had visited the different tribes of Indians, and kindled a flame of vengeance and aroused a thirst for blood in the savage heart from the lakes to the Gulf. The massacre of Fort Mimms sent a thrill of horror throughout the entire South. The mother in her troubled sleep dreamed of the war-whoop, the tomahawk, and scalp- ing-knife, as she instinctively pressed her unconscious infunt to her bosom. Consternation seized upon every heart in the Mississippi Territory. Farms and homes were aban- doned, and families fled to block-houses and such other places of safety as offered protection from the barbarity of the Indian. The voice of Jackson like the blast of a trumpet called his brave Tennesseeans to arms to avenge the atrocities of Fort Mimms and protect the country from the horrors of savage brutality. The men who had followed him to Natchez and back were not slow in responding to the summons of their leader. The massacre of Fort Mimms occurred on the 30th of August. Before the middle of October, Jackson, at the head of two thousand five hun- dred Tennesseeans, stood on the south bank of the Tennessee River. I cannot pause to recount the difficulties and per- plexities that now beset him. Disappointed on account of low water in the river in receiving the supplies he expected from East Tennessee, he found himself in that sparsely set- tled region almost wholly without forage for his horses or

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subsistence for his men. Most commanders would have recrossed the river, fallen back to a more plentiful region, and awaited the arrival of supplies before making a forward movement. But Jackson's ways were not the ways of most commanders. He determined to take no step back- ward. Though worn and wasted by disease and a severe wound he had received, from the effects of which he still suffered, nothing could tame his proud spirit or bend his iron will. He seems never to have entertained a doubt of the success of his campaign, and the idea that he might be defeated in a battle with the Indians never cutered into his calculations. He resolved never to recross the Ten- nessee River until he had taught them well the lesson of peace and submission. It was for this object he had taken the field, and he meant to accomplish it. In the face of every difficulty and discouragement he marched boldly for- ward into the untrodden forest in search of the enemy. The victory at. Tulluschatches by the gallant Coffee soon followed, and the warlike Creeks were given the first lesson of the campaign. In a short time this victory was em- phasized by that of Talladega. The want of supplies now forced Gen. Jackson to fall back on Fort Strother. Here new difficulties and complications confronted him. Pressed by hunger and privation, his gallant little army became dis- contented and desired to return to the settlements, the volunteers claiming that their term of service had expired and they were entitled to an honorable discharge. I shall not enter into a discussion of the merits of their claim. They and their commander differed in their construction of the terms of the enlistment. The controversy grew warm and bitter, until it almost reached the point of open mutiny on the part of the troops. He found his army melting away from him, but he stood as firm as the everlasting hills, declaring that he would hold the posts he had estab- lished or perish in the attempt. He called on the Governor of Tennessee for new levies, but the Governor informed him that he had no authority to make such levies, and advised him to disband a portion of his trcops and with the remainder march back to the settlements, where forage and provisions were plentiful, and await the action of the government until men and means could be provided for a vigorous and successful prosecution of the campaign. The situation, indeed, seemed hopeless, and to warrant the pa- triotic Governor in advising a termination of the campaign for the time being. Never did history present a grander spectacle than Andrew Jackson, at this advanced post in the heart of an enemy's country, with a mere handful of men, but resolutely determined to hold the fort or be buried in its ruins. Never did a lofty spirit climb the 'toppling crags of duty' with a firmer step or a sublimer faith. With the instincts of a great soldier he saw that retreat was ruin, and he determined at all hazards to avert it. His letter to Governor Blount is sufficient of itself to im- mortalize him. He called for new troops; he appealed to the Governor to take the responsibility and send forward new levies that he might advance and complete the con- quest which he had so auspiciously inaugurated, and which he felt was so necessary to the peace and safety of all that portion of the country menaced directly by the Indians and prospectively by their British allies. He concludes his

immortal letter to Governor Blount in these memorable words : ' You have only to act with the energy and decision the crisis demands, and all will be well. Send me a force engaged for six months and I will answer for the result, but withhold it and all is lost,-the reputation of the State and yours and mine along with it.' These were brave words. They were the utterances of a patriot unselfishly devoted to his country's welfare, and of a great soldier who felt that her safety at that critical moment hung upon his single arm. This letter changed the whole aspect of affairs. Its trumpet tones stirred the public heart and awoke the slum- bering energies of the people. New levies of troops were soon on the march for the distant front, where their in- trepid leader stood, deaf alike to murmur or mutiny in his own camp and danger from the attack of the foe. Thus reinforced he fought the battle of the Horseshoe, and the Creek war was virtually ended. The unconquered warriors of the tribe who disdained to surrender fled for safety to the everglades of Florida, and those who remained laid down their arms and sued for peace. The hardy settler and bis wife and little ones could now lie down at night in security and repose. The battle of the Horseshoe made the 8th of January a possibility, and the 8th of January made the 4th of March a certainty. In a campaign of a few months he had broken the power of the warlike Creeks and brought them as suppliants at his feet.

" The great value to the country of this brief and bril- liant campaign of Jackson was soon apparent to all. Napo- lean had fallen, and the peace of Europe was restored. England, no longer confronted by an enemy at home, was left free to concentrate her undivided strength and power against us. Gen. Harrison, having resigned his commis- sion as a major-general of the United States, Gen. Jackson was tendered the position by the government, and accepted it. He was ordered to take command of the Southern division of the army, if that could be called an army which was composed of only three skeleton regiments of regular troops. He now had before him a task well calculated to tax to its uttermost the genius and prowess of the greatest commander. He had met the savage in his mountain fastness and conquered him, and therefore, thanks to his foresight and intrepidity, left no enemy in his rear while he went to the perilous front. But he had now to meet a well-appointed army, trained in the best schools of European warfare, and decked with laurels won upon historic fields. The proud mistress of the sea, her bronzed cheek yet glowing with the light of recent triumph, was coming with a formidable force towards our deveted shores. She came breathing vengeance against our people and confident of victory, full of the boastful and invincible spirit so grandly expressed by one of her own poets:

"'Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep ; Her march is o'er the ocean waves, Her home is on the deep.'

" Our government was yet in its infancy ; our treasury was empty, and our credit sorely crippled. Jackson, with no army save raw and inexperienced troops, had a thousand miles of coast to defend, and not a fort garrisoned on the entire line.

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" The situation was far from cheerful and encouraging, and was generally regarded by our government and people with painful anxiety and alarm. But there was one man whose heart never quailed, whose hope never waned, whose faith never wavered, and whose step never faltered in the pres- ence of the dangers that confronted him. That man was Andrew Jackson. How he met the responsibilities and de- mands of the occasion, let Mobile, Pensacola, and New Or- leans answer. The result is too well known ever to fade from the memory of our countrymen, and especially from the recollection of Tennesseeans. The Volunteer State reaped in that grand campaign too large a harvest of glory to ever allow its splendors to fade or suffer its achievements to be forgotten. Peace once more lifted her white wings upon the breeze, and Andrew Jackson stepped into his destined and appointed niche in the temple of Fame. In all our glorious history no page burns with brighter lustre than that which records the genius of Jackson and the prowess of the brave men under his command, who protected our soil from the invader's foot and saved the mouth of the Mis- sissippi and an empire to the Union. A grateful country canonized him as one of her great heroes, and enshrined him in her heart. No West Point had ever laid its anoint- ing hand upon his head, but a mightier than West Point had anointed him for his work and furnished bim with his credentials to immortality. I appeal to history to scan the names of the heroes inscribed upon her roll of honor, and point to one who, with the same means at his command, and the same odds arrayed against him, ever accomplished more than stands to the credit of Andrew Jackson upon the pages that record his achievements.

"The war ended, he returned to the bosom of his family and the delights of his home to nurse his shattered health and enjoy the confidence and affection of his neighbors and friends. But he had done too much for his country for her people ever to rest satisfied until they had crowned him with the highest position in their gift. Our people have always thus remembered and thus rewarded the heroes of the wars in which we have been engaged, without an excep- tion. Much eloquence and declamation have been expended in the effort to impress the public mind with the danger of elevating successful military chieftains to the Presidency, but Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, stand as monuments of the admiration and gratitude of the American people for the men who have shed glory and re- nown upon our arms.

" It would extend these remarks far beyond the limits of propriety and your patience to attempt a reference in detail to all the notable acts in the life of Andrew Jack- son, crowded as it is with distinguished services to his country and abounding in evidences of the esteem and admiration of his countrymen. After his Seminole cam- paign and the differences with Spain had been satis- factorily adjusted, his country no longer needing his ser- vices in the field, he resigned his commission in the army. Soon the eyes of the people began to turn towards him as a prospective candidate for the Presidency, and the Legisla- ture of Tennessee formally nominated him for that exalted position. As is well known he was defeated in this contest, but it was because the will of a majority of the American

people was defeated in the result reached by the election in the House of Representatives.

" That result, by which another wore the honors which a majority of his countrymen had intended for him, only postponed the inevitable hour. At the end of Mr. Adams' administration, Jackson was again a candidate for Presi- dent. Perhaps no Presidential election in our history has been disgraced by a greater amount of personal defamation than that with which Gen. Jackson was assailed. There was no weapon that slander disdained to forge or calumny to use. Every act of his life was scanned with microscopic care, to discover something that could be set down to his discredit. The reputation of the mother who bore him and the good name of the wife of his bosom were assailed with cruel and merciless mendacity. Could any one acquainted with the genius of the American people doubt what their decision would be in the case of such a man so assailed ? Did his traducers imagine that they could demolish the colossal temples of his fume with such weapons as these, or drive him from the hearts of his countrymen, where the glorious achievements of his life had entrenched him ? All the changes were rung upon the dangerous experiment of elevating a military chieftain to the high office of President of the United States. He was denounced as a tyrant and despot, whose elevation to power would result in the de struction of the liberties of his country. He was repre- sented as a coarse and ignorant man, unacquainted with public affairs and unfitted in every respect to be the chief magistrate of this country. There was no calamity that could befall a country that was not predicted as certain to overtake this unhappy land if its infatuated and misguided citizens should in an evil hour commit the supreme folly of electing him President. But the people remembered that there was a time when the dark clouds of war hung low and threatening over their devoted land, and they recalled the fact that Andrew Jackson was not an enemy to his country then, nor could they be made to believe that he had become so since. He was elected by an overwhelming majority. The people had rendered their verdict, and Andrew Jackson wore the crown of their emphatic and spontaneous endorsement. They crowded to his inaugura- tion in such enthusiastic multitudes as to leave no one room to doubt the firm hold he had upon the masses of his countrymen. This military chieftain, of whose administra- tion so many dire and gloomy prophecies had been made, was now about to be tried upon a new and unaccustomed field. He had never been found wanting in. any position which he had hitherto occupied, but how would he wield the destinies and conduct the vast and complicated affairs of a great country as a civil magistrate ? The fierceness of the conflict through which he had passed, warned him that the ship of State while under his command was not destined to sail upon a tranquil sea or to meet only favor- ing winds. But he knew well that he owed his elevation to the unbought suffrages of a free people. He always said that the people would never desert those who were true to them. If there ever was a man with whom patriotism was an absorbing passion, Andrew Jackson was that man. He never saw the day or the hour, after he came to years of discretion, that he would not have willingly laid down his

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History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 94

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1013

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013