Old times in Tennessee, with historical, personal, and political scraps and sketches, Part 22

Author: Guild, Jo. C. (Josephus Conn), 1802-1883
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Nashville, Tavel, Eastman & Howell
Number of Pages: 1012


USA > Tennessee > Old times in Tennessee, with historical, personal, and political scraps and sketches > Part 22


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45


But the contest between those great political captains was not at an end. Gen. Jackson was yet to win two or three more fields from Mr. Clay, even though in the quiet retirement of the Her- mitage.


When John Tyler, the Vice President, succeeded to the Pres- idency on the death of President Harrison, he was expected by the Whig party to obey all orders he might receive from the ac- knowledged embodiment of its principles, Mr. Clay. In this, however, that party was doomed to disappointment. There were two great questions before the country on which there was a car-


--


236


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


dinal difference between them-the annexation of Texas and the re-charter of the United States Bank.


President Tyler was in favor of the former and opposed to the latter. It was Mr. Clay's own bill to re-charter the Bank, that passed both branches of Congress and was vetoed by President Tyler, who also became the champion of the annexation of Texas, while Mr. Clay and his party were opposed to it.


The lively interest taken by Gen. Jackson in the Bank ques- tion while Mr. Clay's bill for its re-charter was pending before Congress, showed that his ancient hostility to that monster, as he called it, had in no measure abated. Although Mr. Tyler, when a Senator from Virginia, had cut loose from President Jackson on account of what was known as the Force Bill, the personal relations between them were never unpleasantly disturbed, and when he manifested a disposition to veto Mr. Clay's bank bill, the old chief made a grab at him by the fair and honorable means of friendly correspondence and private messages sent by mutual friends, complimenting his independence and patriotism. Presi- dent Tyler appreciated and was proud of the renewed friendship of Gen. Jackson, who, from that moment, really had more influ- ence with him and his administration than any other man in the country.


President Tyler's veto of the bank bill was a decided triumph of Gen. Jackson over Mr. Clay-another field fairly won while quietly laying back in the ancient arm-chair of Gen. Washington at the Hermitage. But there was still another and another in reserve for him. Notwithstanding the opposition of Mr. Clay and his party, Texas must be annexed. The golden moment, as he said, had arrived. President Tyler had made it the leading measure of his administration, had appointed Mr. Calhoun Sec- retary of State to manage it, and sent Major Andrew J. Donelson. the neighbor, kinsman, and old private secretary of Gen. Jackson, to Texas as ambassador to consummate it if possible. In this there was perfect accord between President Tyler and Gen. Jack- son, and on the day that the former gracefully turned over the White House to his successor, President Polk, a hundred guns were fired from Capitol Hill at Washington, rejoicing over the annexation of Texas, just then completed. It had been the lead- ing question at issue in the campaign of 1844 at the South and


-


237


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


West, and the entire Democratic party joined the corporal's guard of President Tyler in bringing it about, while the discomfiture of Mr. Clay and the Whig party was very great.


In the course of that campaign President Tyler was exceed- ingly anxious to identify himself and his administration with the Democratic party, and more especially with Gen. Jackson. He caused Col. Harris, the editor of the Union, to be invited to Washington as editor of the Madisonian, his official organ, which invitation was declined, of course, as Gen. Jackson's man at the lever of the press in Washington was then and had ever been the veteran Frank P. Blair of the Globe. And then the Union editor at Nashville had as much on his hands as he could attend to in shadowing forth the plan and policy of the presidential campaign. And for the sake of truth in history here should be added the well-known fact, that although President Polk had his own reasons for it, no step of his at the opening of his adminis- tration gave Gen. Jackson so much grief as the dropping of Mr. Blair and the Globe from the confidence of the party at Washing- ton, and the substitution of the venerable Mr. Ritchie, of Vir- ginia, in liis place.


The triumphant election of President Polk over Mr. Clay was the final and last great victory of Gen. Jackson over the distin- guished statesman of Kentucky. He felt it, and freely expressed his feelings on all occasions. A month or two after the election, when the State of Louisiana and City of New Orleans sent a joint committee in a special steamer to Nashville to invite him to re- visit the scenes of his early struggles on the then approaching 8th of January, he received them with great kindness at the Her- mitage, but said he was compelled to decline their invitation on account of his precarious health. In his letter to the committee he said in conclusion, that since the Democratic party had so sig- nally triumphed in the election of Mr. Polk to the Presidency, he felt like saying with Simeon of old, "Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace."


Although their personal relations were never reconciled, those who remember to have heard the old chief speak of Mr. Clay in his latter days will also remember that he always seemed to re- gard that distinguished statesman as a combatant right worthy of his steel, and sometimes plumed himself not a little in having


.


238


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


so completely outrun him in every political race they had run together.


GEN. JACKSON'S WRITINGS.


He was a man of deeds rather than of words. He was a deep and thorough thinker, studied public opinion, and freely con- sulted others, but formed his own conclusions according to his own convictions, and knew right well how to declare his convic- tions in old round Saxon. He never pretended to be a fluent speech-maker or classical writer-never desired to be considered what is called a man of letters. But the scraps in his portfolio showed that he was the author of his own messages and of all his letters of any public importance. He always had men about him who had brains in their heads and ready and willing hands to assist him in the preparation of his papers, but he did all the thinking himself.


It was simply contemptible in Parton, the historian, to publish verbatim et literatum his letters of private correspondence written confidentially and in haste, without proper capitals or punctua- tion, as attempting to show that he was illiterate. All his old personal friends know that he could write as well as think and act when emergencies required it, and for the times in which he lived he wrote remarkably well. His trenchant style was not only powerful but eloquent. And when we reflect that language ' is but the instrument with which great and good thoughts are expressed, there is more in the force of an expression than in the mere manner or method of making it. Those who have often acted as his amanuensis in his latter days when too feeble to write himself, say he would pace the room, wrapped in his loose gown, and dictate every idea and much of the language of his original papers.


ALWAYS MASTER OF THE SITUATION.


Gen. Jackson took the initiative in the Creek war, and fought it all the way through, as it were, on his own hook. He sug- gested, the government authorized, He did not wait for orders, but in 1812 raised more than two thousand troops, and then wrote the Secretary of War he was ready to go with them wher- ever duty and danger called. He was ordered down the Missis- sippi, left Nashville with them Jan. 7, 1813, reached Natchez by .


239


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


flatboats, and there was surprised, not by the enemy, but by or- ders from the Secretary of War to dismiss his command. He replied, "These brave men have followed me to the field. I will not dismiss them, but will march them through the country home to Tennessee, and if need be muster them out of service there." He could not do otherwise, for he had promised to share their fortunes. One hundred and fifty of them were on the sick list-fifty-six could not hold up their heads. He borrowed five thousand dollars, marched them back home, and thus disobeyed the order. But the Government subsequently approved the act as justified by the emergency, and reimbursed him. After this good faith kept with his soldiers he had no difficulty in raising troops whenever he wanted them. When the massacre of men, women, and children took place at Fort Mims, Sept. 1, 1813, he hastened with a hurriedly organized force to that fort, and in thirty-five days reported "one hundred and eighty-six of the en- emy are dead on the field, and eighty of them taken prisoners," proceeding thence to Mobile and Pensacola. The Spanish Gov- ernor refused to recognize him, and asked for his diplomatic cre- dentials. His reply was, "Unless my reasonable requests are respectfully considered, I will announce my diplomatic authority by the mouth of my cannon." His strategy at Emucfau was peculiarly his own. He lit up a circle of fires outside of his camp, and held his force within gunshot range in ambush and in the dark. The Indians, mistaking the location of his camp, rushed to the fires, and his men picked them off with rifles as fast as they appeared, without exposing themselves. The slaugh- ter was immense. His tact at Emucfau was very like him. After that engagement of hard fighting, when Coffee and Armstrong were supposed to have been mortally wounded, and Quarles and others lay dead on the field, they rallied again impetuously and carried the day. When Coffee leaped from his litter, mounted his horse and dashed forward, and Armstrong, of the artillery, exclaimed, as he lay with the dead and dying, "Save the gun, boys," the old chief pressed onward exclaiming, "We'll whip 'em, we'll whip 'em-even the dead have risen from their graves to help us!" When the Governor of Tennessee wrote him to abandon Fort Strother and send home his troops in consequence of want of supplies and the expiration of terms of enlistment,


210


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


he replied, " I shall do my duty. I will retain the post or die in the struggle to do so. I have long since determined when I die to leave my reputation untarnished."


Many of his declarations were like prophecies. Referring to the entire destruction of the Indians at Emucfau, he said, " In their places a new generation will arise, the weapons of warfare will be exchanged for utensils of husbandry, and the wilderness which now withers in sterility will blossom as the rose, and be- come the nursery of arts." "We must and will be victorious," said he when addressing his troops before starting for the Creek war. "Tell the alarmed people of New Orleans," said he to Livingston, "that the enemy, though on shore, shall never reach the city-tell it to them in both English and French." And his victory on that occasion astonished the world. It was not be- lieved in Europe or at the North that we could hold New Or- leans. Lord Castlereagh, the British Premier, told a member of the French Government in January that the English had then no doubt captured all our coast and burnt our seaports. The Washington newspapers in all that month expressed belief that the Executive was in possession of intelligence that New Orleans had been captured by the British. The New York papers de- clared if it had not fallen it must fall. Since the odds against us were so great, it was regarded as a matter of course. Is it too much to say, then, that the victory astonished the world ?


His endurance of the fatigue of the march, when sometimes subsisting on nothing but parched corn and acorus, was wonder- ful. One of his old soldiers described him as riding along in the column when his health was broken and his eye lustreless, with his body bent forward and his head resting on the neck of his horse, but let the whoop of an Indian or the crack of a rifle be heard, and he would spring up erect in his saddle, well braced in his stirrups, and look around with an eye flashing like a fire coal.


The anecdote told of him when on his way over the Cumber- land mountains on his first visit to Nashville as a young lawyer, was an early illustration of that character for firmness and cour- age which his subsequent career established. There was a woman in the party on the way to join her husband at Lexington, who was taken so ill that they had to stop and pitch their tents. Be-


-----


241


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


fore she recovered some of them were about to mount their horses to move onward without her. Jackson remonstrated against their inhumanity; they insisted, and he levelled his loaded rifle at their heads, declaring he would shoot the first man that put his foot in a stirrup. The woman recovered next day, and the party moved on together.


These incidents in the career of Gen. Jackson are enumerated as showing that he was always master of the situation into which duty called him.


JACKSON'S FORESIGHT.


His forecast as a statesman was always apparent, and never more so than in his desire to open up Texas and the great West to our people. As soon as all preliminaries for annexation were arranged, he wrote to a friend in one of his very last letters, " all is safe." Harris, in his eulogy (thirty-three years ago) says he often declared "that nothing short of the Pacific shore could stop our westward march, and often predicted that the influence of our institutions would yet be felt in the eastern portion of the Old World, fireing the hearts of men there with the enthusiasm. of civil and religious liberty." When we reflect that these decla- rations were made by Jackson, and published by his Tennessee eulogist years before a pathway was found over the Rocky Moun- tains, years before our acquisition of Mexican territory and set- tlement of the Pacific slope, many years before our treaty with Japan, and the wonderful influence of our commerce and civiliza- tion there, we are bound to recognize his great wisdom as a statesman as well as a degree of forecast almost prophetic. And his benign policy in the removal of the Indians to new homes beyond the Mississippi bears testimony to his high order of states- manship.


When at the close of the Revolution Georgia ceded to the United States all the territory now constituting Alabama and Mississippi, the cession was made on condition that the Goveru- ment should remove all the Indians from her reserved or present limits, but the condition was never fulfilled until JJackson became President. Cartwright, in his eulogy, said, "A large part of Tennessee and a good portion of Kentucky, nearly the whole of Alabama, and more than three-fourths of Mississippi were, in 1813, occupied by Indians, most of whom were bitterly hostile,


242


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


and continued to be thus occupied until Gen. Jackson came into power." Such was the state of things when Jackson opened up the Creek war. The population of these regions was too small to yield a very large force of volunteers for the field. The cen- sus of 1810 shows that in all the territory now occupied by Ala- bama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, there was not then a popula- tion of more than seventy-five thousand. Gen. Jackson's Indian policy, from the time he first took the field against the Indians to the time he had located them in their new homes beyond the Mississippi, exhibits a measure of valor and statesmanship not surpassed by any one in the annals of our country's history.


OLD HICKORY'S GALLANTRY.


There is an authentic anecdote of Gen. Jackson which has never appeared in print, and which is so illustrative of his chiv- alric character that it should be preserved. All who remember him know how remarkable he was for gallantry on all occasions, and how all other things must give place, according to the old law, when there was a lady in the case.


Major Hunter was Marshal of the District of Columbia while he was President, and was a very polite and efficient officer, to whom the General was much devoted. The Major was escort- ing his wife and her sister down Pennsylvania Avenue on a sum- mer afternoon, when they stepped into an auction store where goods were advertised to be sold that evening. A large and beautiful glass chandelier hung from the ceiling in the front room of the store with a card on it, "Don't touch," and while they were looking at it admiringly, it fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces. The storekeeper rushed forth from the back counting-room in a state of great excitement exclaiming, " Why did you touch it ; did you not see the card ?" "We did not touch it; it fell while we were merely looking at it," said Major Hunter. "Impossible, sir," said the storekeeper. "You or your ladies must have touched it, or it would not have fallen." And on that instant the Major hit him a elip under the ear, knocking him to the floor, and giving him additional blows as be fell. Then joining his ladies, who had hastened out to the side- walk, he went back with them to his home.


The storekeeper called a carriage and drove off, with bruised


------


243


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


face and torn coat, to the White House, where, after some per- suasion with Martin, the doorkeeper, he succeeded in getting into the President's reception room, and there reported Major Hun- ter, with his own explanations. The Major had not been at home half an hour before the President's carriage, with his Pri- vate Secretary, Major Donelson, appeared at his door. He went out at once, saying, "I know the President has sent for me, and I will go with you at once." When he entered the reception room, Gen. Jackson rose and expressed his astonishment that his peace officer in the District should have made such a brutal as- sault upon one of its citizens, and warming up with the occasion, exclaimed, " I shall be compelled, Major Hunter, to dismiss you from office. How can it be avoided, sir?" "It cannot be avoided, Mr. President, by any apology from me. The man in- sulted the ladies under my charge, ladies of my own household ; and if he were to do it again, I would again serve him in the same way." " Major Hunter, are you aware, sir, of what you are saying?" "I am, sir," said the Major; " I would serve any man the same way. If you, sir, were capable of insulting ladies under my charge in that way, which I know you are not, I would try to punish you, sir, in the same way for the insult." " Would you ?" exclaimed the President, as he fiercely approached the Major; " would you, sir? Well, well, Major, give me your hand, sir; you are a man after my own heart." And thus the audience closed.


Those who did not know Gen. Jackson intimately would sup- pose that this was an impulsive conclusion to which he had come. But he knew Major Hunter, and from the moment the store- keeper reported him, knew that Hunter had done as he would have done himself under the circumstances; and his apparently impulsive conclusion was only evidence that he admired the gal- lantry of the Major still the more after his manly and satisfactory defense of what he had done.


GEN. JACKSON'S PRIDE IN HIS STOCK.


It was an old saying of his that he believed as much in the blood of men as in that of cattle and horses, and he might have added, as in all other animals upon his plantation, for he was ever


244


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


careful to have the best blooded stock he could obtain, even down to the fowls of the barnyard.


Aleck Sevier, or some other friend of his in Arkansas, had sent him a bear's cub, which he had tethered to one of the holly- trees in the Hermitage lawn until it was well fattened for the table. He then invited three or four of his old friends of Nash- ville to drive out and dine with him on a day indicated. After dinner, as the party were strolling over the grounds in the rear of the Hermitage, he and Gen. Sam. Houston were conversing on the condition of the plantation, when he remarked that in his eight years' absence at Washington his fences had gotten very much out of repair, and what he most regretted was that his stock had run out to a great extent. At that moment Gen. Arm- strong joined in the conversation, when Gen. Houston dropped back with another of the party, and with a significant twinkle in his eye, said, "I wonder if the old chief still retains his love for high blooded chickens-let's try him," and stepping forward again he pointed to a drove of fowls that were feeding by the wayside, saying, " Your fowls seem to be entirely run out, Gen- eral; those look like dunghills." To which the old gentleman . replied, with spirit, "Dunghills, sir! dunghills! No, sir, there never was a dunghill on this plantation !"


Gen. Jackson, as a farmer and planter here in the valley of the Cumberland, contributed a large share to that improvement of the breeds of stock which has given this locality so much ce- lebrity. If he participated in horse-racing and the like in his early days, it was as a patron of the turf, and with a view to ob- taining or improving the breeds of such stock as is both useful and ornamental.


GEN. JACKSON AS A VETERAN OF THE TURF-INTERESTING EVENTS AT GALLATIN, NASHVILLE, CLOVER BOTTOM,


AND WASHINGTON.


Gen. Jackson was one of the earliest patrons of the turf in Tennessee, and stood at the head of it for twenty years. When our racing was inaugurated at Gallatin in the fall of 1801, he was there with a favorite filly called the Indian Queen, and shared the sport. A large company of ladies and gentlemen had assembled from adjacent counties, and the race was very exciting,


245


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE.


insomuch that a venerable preacher who happened to be hunting a cow near the track mounted the fence, waived his hat, and ex- ultingly cried as Polly Medley, the winner, came flying home, "She leaves a blue streak behind her," for which excess of en- thusiasm he was suspended from his parochial duties. It was a gala day in old Sumner. Dr. R. D. Barry's filly swept the stakes. The unsuccessful competitors could well afford to be beaten by the father of the Tennessee turf, for to that consideration Dr. Barry was fully entitled, as before the commencement of the present century he had brought over the mountains from the sta- ble of Gov. Williams, of Virginia, the first thoroughbred stallion that ever appeared in the valley of the Cumberland. It was Gray Medley, the great grandsire of "The Four Tennessee Brothers," of the Tonson family, which are said to have con- quered the best horses of their time in the hardest contests at all distances.


The evening of that memorable commencement day was ren- dered delightful at Gallatin by a handsome ball given at the house of Dr. Barry, which was gracefully opened by Gen. Jack- son and Mrs. Hall, the sister of Mrs. Barry. The ladies partici- pated in hailing the bright prospect of a new and useful amuse- ment on the frontier, and nothing was talked of from day to day but the next races. Gen. Jackson named Indian Queen again in the spring of 1805, and was again unsuccessful. His pride was so chafed by this second defeat that before the year was out he had bought his famous horse Truxton, to which he became so much devoted, and also the fleet Greyhound ; and in the fall of that year he beat, upon his track at Clover Bottom, a celebrated horse belonging to Joseph Erwin, and received forfeit of him for the failure of another.


The late Col. Bailie Peyton, in his accurate and interesting "Reminiscences of the Turf," so handsomely reviewed by a con- tributor to the Spirit of the Times, reminds our old turfmen that "it was about 1818 that the first Jockey Club was established at Nashville, by the most distinguished men of Tennessee, amongst them Gen. Jackson, Col. Ed. Ward, Gen. Carroll, James Jack- son, Dr. Sappington, Dr. Shelby, Dr. McNairy, Dr. Butler, Wm. Williams, Col. Elliott, Newton Cannon, and other leading citi- zens of the State. One of the most celebrated characters of those


246


OLD TIMES IN TENNESSEE,


early times was a negro jockey called Monkey Simon, and, as Simon was distinguished and conspicuous on the turf of Ten- nessee for many years, it may be well to give some account of him. His soubriquet of 'Monkey Simon' conveys a forcible idea of his appearance. He was a native African, and was brought with his parents, when quite young, to South Carolina, before the slave trade was interdicted. In height he was four feet six inches, and weighed one hundred pounds. He had a hunch-back, with very short body and remarkably long arms and legs. His color and hair were African, but his features were not. He had a long head and face, a high, delicate nose, a nar. row but prominent forehead, and a mouth indicative both of humor and firmness. It was rumored that Simon was a prince in his native country. I asked Uncle Berry Williams one day if he thought the report was true. He replied, 'I don't know; they say so, and if the princes there had more sense than others, he must have been one of 'em, for he was the smartest negro I ever saw.' Col. Elliott, speaking of Simon after his death, said he was the coolest, bravest, wisest rider he ever saw mount a horse, in which opinion Uncle Berry fully concurred. Simon was an inimitable banjo player, and improvised his songs, mak- humorous hits at everybody and every thing, even Gen. Jackson did not escape him, and no man was his superior in repartee. On one occasion Col. Elliott and James Jackson, with a view to a match race for $1,000 a side, a dash of two miles, on Paddy Cary against Col. Step's mare, consented to lend Simon to ride the mare. Col. Step not only gave Simon $100 in the race, but stimulated his pride by saying they thought they could win races without him, whereas he knew their success was owing to Simon's riding. Somewhat offended at the idea of being lent out, and by no means indifferent to the money, Simon resolved to win if possible, and nodding his head, said, 'I'll show 'em.' The mare had the speed of Paddy, and took the track, and Simon, by his consummate skill, as well as by intimidating the other rider, managed to run him far out on the turns while he rested his mare for a brush on the stretches. On reaching the last turn Simon found the mare pretty tired, and Paddy, a game four- miler, locked with her, so he boldly swung out so far as to almost leave Paddy in the fence corner. The boy came up and attempted




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.