Part 18

Upon the whole, if Mr. Holtzclaw will hold out as he has begun I think he will make you a good crop, if he has a good stand of cotton and the season suits, and take very good care of your stock. He feels, however, considerable uneasiness with regard to his cotton crop--he is afraid his stand will not be a good one. His seed, he says, were not good, nor could he get those that were good anywhere. He finished planting yesterday, the 20th of April, while I was at the Hermitage. He says he could have planted a week earlier, but not having confidence in the soundness of his seed he did not like to risk them sooner. He will finish planting his corn tomorrow. He tells me he has 200 acres in cotton, considerably upwards of 300 acres in corn, and something like 120 or 130 acres in oats. He has his sweet potatoes planted, and in the piece of fresh land on the left hand of the gate as you approach the house. I enquired of him particularly about your meadows and timothy. He says no hay, he is afraid, can be made off them. Indeed, he says one piece (adjoining the lot Dunn's stables are in) was so taken with weeds that he found it necessary to plow it up and put it in corn. He thinks that by tending it well this summer the weeds may be killed; and then, by sowing it down again in timothy, it might bring good grass. I looked at the ground, and by its appearance I have no doubt he done right in ploughing it up--it must have been very much taken by weeds. He has not ploughed up the other, but he is afraid it will not make hay. He say it was badly rooted up by the pigs and hogs last fall, and has now more weeds than grass in it. Your two fields of clover look very well, and a good deal of hay can be made off one of them (the one opposite the cotton gin) as Mr. Holtzclaw intends mowing it. The other, he says, he is obliged to pasture.

I enquired of Mr. Holtzclaw about the sickness on the place in the early part of the spring and the cause of so many negroes dying. He told me that he thought the cholera had visited that neighborhood, and that some of your negroes had died of that disease, particularly Titus, whose death he seemed very much to regret as he was a fine hand and a most valuable servant. He did not seem, however, to be satisfied in his own mind that either the girl or the two Samsons died of that disease. He says Dr. McCorkle saw Titus on the Sunday evening before his death and said he was well again and would be able to go to work on Monday morning. At 11 o'clock Sunday night he was a corpse. Now, my dear sir. I doubt very much whether the cholera has ever been at the Hermitage or its neighborhood. I heard of its being nowhere else, except a reported case on Major Donelson's farm. Mr. Donelson's negro, who was supposed to be attacked with the cholera, recovered and is now well. I think Titus must have died of some other disease.

I had heard at Nashville that Mr. Holtzclaw was very severe with the negroes, but from my own observation and what the negroes themselves told me while there I think probably he is not more so than is necessary. Where there are so many negroes there must be a pretty rigid police. I told him that I had heard of his severity, but I hoped he had given no foundation for such reports about him. I added that you knew the necessity of keeping order on the place and among the negroes, but that I was sure that you did not wish nor would you permit your negroes knowingly to be treated with cruelty. I hoped therefore that he would not use towards them an unnecessary severity. He assured me that he had not and would not. I told him if an overseer would be constantly himself with his hands very little whipping would be required. The best way of managing negroes, according to my experience, was to treat them kindly when they done well, and to punish them reasonably when they misbehaved; but that he might be assured that no negroes would conduct themselves well who were left too much to themselves--that someone for whom they had either respect or fear should always be near at hand. He concurred with me in this opinion and said that he scarcely ever was off the place unless obliged by business.

Your negroes evidently are better clad than they were under Mr. Steele's administration. They informed me that they all got their quantum of winter clothing, and most of them have already been furnished with their summer clothing. I did not see a single child even on the place that was not well clad, and Mr. Holtzclaw informed me that there were 58 of them. He keeps his wheel constantly going, and he informed me that it spins six or seven yards every day--besides the spinning ginney that he says he keeps constantly going.

I believe, my dear General, I have given you all the information I have with regard to the Hermitage, its culture and management. If there should be anything else you wish me to attend to, let me know and it shall be done.

The old General was mollified by Major Lewis's painstaking report of conditions at the Hermitage, and wrote him thanking him for relieving him of the "great anxiety and pain" under which he had been laboring as a result of the reports he had been receiving of the overseer's excessive severity. Regarding Hannah, the little girl with the sore hip, he wrote:

I will thank you to get Dr. Hogg to see Hannah. I would be sorry she would become a cripple. You may say to Dr. Hogg that her lameness was occasioned by a stroke from Betty, or jumping over a rope in which her feet became entangled and she fell and hurt her hip. I will thank you to say to the overseer to prevent Betty from beating or cruelly using the little negroes that are under her about the kitchen. A small switch only ought to be used, but sometimes she uses any weapon she can get, and chokes and abuses them and brings on disease. Give such directions about the negro girl as though she was your own.

This was not the first time he had had cause to complain to the conduct of Betty, the cook. Back in 1821, while he was in Florida at grips with the Spanish officials, word reached him from the Hermitage that this same Betty, then Mrs. Jackson's maid, had been misbehaving; and he set aside his dispute with Señor Calava long enough to write to A. J. Donelson:

Mrs. Jackson informs me that her maid Betty has been putting on some airs and has been guilty of a great deal of impudence. On this subject I have wrote Dr. Brunaugh and Mr. Blair. I have said to Mr. Blair that I hold him responsible for the control of the servants, and I have directed that the first impertinence she uses or the first disobedience of orders that she is to be publicly whipped. It is humiliating to me to have to resort to this, but I have to request of you to observe her conduct and the first disobedience or impudence order Mr. Blair to give her fifty lashes. If he does not perform it, dismiss him, and as soon as I get possession I will order a corporal to give it to her publicly. I am determined to cure her.

This evidence of firmness on General Jackson's part in the discipline of the slaves was very unusual, and indicates that the offending Betty must have worn out his patience with her incorrigibility. Seldom indeed was whipping resorted to on the Hermitage plantation. In fact, the principal criticism of Jackson around Nashville, regarding his treatment of his slaves, was that he was too lenient with them; and out of this leniency grew a tragedy in 1827 that became one of the minor controversial issues of the 1828 Presidential campaign.

One of Jackson's slaves, a man named Gilbert, was a chronic and incurable runaway; but upon every such offense he was always forgiven by the General upon his promise of better behavior. This went on until at length Jackson's patience was exhausted and when Gilbert was recaptured after running away in 1827 the General ordered him taken to Nashville and sold, with the stipulation that he must be sold as a runaway so that any purchaser would know of that defect. The overseer, Ira Walton, however, gave it as his opinion that this would not do, inasmuch as it was the prevailing idea that the Hermitage negroes had been detrimentally affected by their master's indulgence and that one of them would be correspondingly hard to sell. Walton further said that if some example were not made of an habitual offender like Gilbert he could not promise to keep the slaves under control, and that Gilbert was a fit subject for punishment inasmuch as he was the most insolent slave on the place.

Jackson, over-persuaded, reluctantly instructed Walton to take Gilbert away from the house to a near-by woods lot that adjoined a cotton field where other negroes were working and there to "whip him moderately with switches." Arriving at the woods lot, Gilbert who was described as "a very stout, strong man, possessed of a most violent and ungovernable temper," suddenly turned on the overseer and knocked him to the ground. Walton hastily drew a knife from his pocket, but it was only after a long and bloody struggle that he succeeded in stabbing the negro sufficiently to free himself. Jackson was quickly summoned from the house, and he ordered the wounded slave carried back there where he was given attention by the family doctor. In spite of this attention, however, he died the next day.

Jackson was very much upset by the tragic episode and, for some reason, did not believe the overseer's story of the affray. He not only discharged the overseer summarily the next morning, but went to Nashville and swore out a warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder. The grand jury, however, after hearing all the evidence including the testimony of a negro eye-witness, discharged Walton on the grounds of self-defense.

It is characteristic of the nature of the Presidential campaign of 1828 that this incident was taken up by Jackson's political enemies and tortured into the charge that he had deliberately and heartlessly encouraged and condoned the murder of one of his defenseless slaves; but this charge was quickly exploded when Walton, who certainly had no reason to distort the facts in Jackson's favor, made a sworn public statement telling just what took place.

Jackson's benevolent attitude toward his slaves was strikingly illustrated early in 1839 when four of them, including his personal servant, George, were prosecuted for the alleged murder of another negro, a slave named Frank belonging to Stockley Donelson. Donelson had Jackson's four negroes indicted for the murder, but the General rushed to their defense and successfully engineered their case. The best legal talent was employed and the General attended court in person every day while the trial lasted. The affair cost him $1,500 in money, in addition to his loss of time and injury to his then feeble health, but his negroes were acquitted and he felt amply repaid.

During Jackson's lifetime, and long afterwards, in Tennessee his kindness and indulgence in his relations with his slaves were proverbial. It was a standing joke with the overseers during the days when he was active in politics and spending much of his time away from home that whenever he returned and spent much time at the Hermitage he spoiled the slaves by his leniency to such an extent that it took a good while to get them back into working shape after he had left. He would brook no imposition on any of them, and it is recorded that he one day made a special trip to Lebanon to seek out and thrash a man named Grayson who had had the temerity to strike with a whip Truxton's black groom, Ephriam. No wonder the slaves all crowded around him and literally wept with joy when he returned to the Hermitage in the summer of 1830, his first visit home after his election to the Presidency.

IX: CHURCH AND RELIGION, AND FINAL DAYS

One of the most picturesque adjuncts to the Hermitage is the little Presbyterian church, known far and wide as the Hermitage Church, although in the formal Presbyterian records it was officially designated Ephesus. The visitor coming out from Nashville sees it in a grove of trees on the right-hand side of the present road just before he turns off to the left into the lane that leads down to the Hermitage. It is a severely plain and simple little brick structure, the homeliest sort of example of ecclesiastical architecture, without steeple or tower or portico. Inside there are stiff pews of sturdy oak (the one in which Jackson sat is marked with a silver plate) facing a plain and unadorned pulpit, and there is a fireplace at each end. It is floored with bricks, and originally the only lighting fixtures were candlesticks; but in late years Mrs. Sarah York Jackson presented the church with the handsome bronze lamps which are still in use.

There is a graveyard facing the road in front of the church, but this is not the familiar churchyard burying-ground so often seen in connection with country churches. It is the cemetery of the near-by Confederate Soldiers' Home. The Hermitage church's members all had family burying-grounds on their farms, and the church had no need for such facilities. It is said, as a matter of fact, that there was never but one funeral ceremony held at the church and this was in 1906 when the remains of Colonel Andrew Jackson, III, were brought from Knoxville where he died to be buried in the garden at the Hermitage. The Hermitage church had little to do with funerals, although it was draped in crepe for three years in honor of General Jackson when he died.

The traditional story is that General Jackson built this church for his wife, but this is hardly accurate, although the General himself customarily referred to it as "Mrs. Jackson's church." The fact is that the church was built in 1823 by popular subscription by the people of the neighborhood. The cost of the building was $800, but when the subscription paper was circulated it raised only $120. The remaining $680 was subscribed by seven men; and Jackson, being about the wealthiest and most prominent resident of the community, naturally contributed most liberally. Active with him in promoting the church was Colonel Edward Ward, the neighbor who bought the Hunter's Hill place from him; the various members of the Donelson family paid a share of the expense; and all the other neighbors contributed more or less. The money was not raised without difficulty, however; and in December, 1823, Jackson wrote to his wife asking how the work of building progressed and bidding her to see Colonel Ward and urge him to push the work along. "Tell him," wrote the General, "that it must be finished, if him and myself pay for it."

Earlier in the year Colonel Ward had written General Jackson at some length about the new church, particularly about the best method of raising the money for the minister's salary. It had been proposed that they follow the plan of renting pews, but Colonel Ward expressed doubt as to the practicability of this plan. "I can not think of more than 12 or 15 persons that would purchase seats," he wrote, "and from the very good neighborhood feelings that prevail with us there would be no competition excited in the sale of them. The consequence would be that the seats would sell for just as little as each person would think proper to bid for them. I am fearful that a plan of this sort is not well calculated for the country, particularly in a thinly populated neighborhood like ours; furthermore, I should fear that it would not be generally pleasing and might frequently operate against the attendance of persons not immediately interested in or connected with the church." The Colonel closed by saying that he would "with promptitude" subscribe to whatever plan was decided on for the church's support. General Jackson also evidently did not take to the idea of selling pews--it is easy to believe that he wouldn't--and the record shows that this idea was dropped.

As originally built, the entrance to the church was on the eastern side of the building, facing the old Sanders Ferry Road, traces of which may still be seen today; but in 1838 when that road was abandoned and the Lebanon Turnpike was built, it was considered necessary to move the doors to their present location in the south end so as to avoid having the church present its back to the new road. To defray the expense of this remodeling work another subscription list was passed among the congregation; and, as usual, General Jackson's name headed the list. Jackson also instilled some of his characteristic energy into the remodeling work; and when it was suggested that a committee be appointed to look after it he promptly and vigorously dissented, emphatically voicing the view that responsibility for getting the work done should be vested in one man rather than in a committee. "When the Lord wanted the Ark built," he told the astonished elders, "He gave the job to one man. If He had appointed a committee to attend to it, the Ark wouldn't have been built yet." Jackson at this time, it will be recalled, was just back from eight years in Washington with all its red tape and circumlocutionary delays.

Although a leading spirit in the building of the church and a strict attendant at its services, Jackson was not a regularly enrolled member until late in life. By the time the church was built he was deeply enmeshed in politics, and he feared that any formal religious declaration at that time would be misconstrued by his political enemies. But, although he remained outside the fold of the church, there is every evidence that he was deeply and sincerely religious. He attended services regularly in Washington while he was President, not infrequently walking alone on Sunday morning from the White House to the Presbyterian or Episcopal church to hear the morning sermon. He regularly paid pew rent during his Presidential terms to both the First Presbyterian and St. John's churches.

His private letters are replete with references to the Deity and to the future life, and these pious references are so habitual and so unaffected that there seems to be no reason to doubt his utmost sincerity. In writing of his victory over Pakenham at New Orleans he humbly attributed his triumph to the interposition of God on his side; and while this alone might be dismissed as a mere conformity with what might be the currently popular idea of proper modesty in such matters, his letters are too strongly characterized by expressions of his faith in an omnipotent God to leave room for questioning his expressed convictions.

For instance, while in Washington in January, 1825, awaiting the action of the House of Representatives in the election of the President, he wrote to John Coffee: "I am still in the habit of ascribing the lot of man to the will of an all-wise providence, and should I be brought into the Presidential chair it must be by His influence counteracting the intrigues of men and the union of interests here." That was no mere pious pose. He was always frank with Coffee.

Nor was his religious faith of the fair-weather variety. In the summer of 1828, during an unprecedented drouth, he wrote in the contrite spirit of the psalmist who said: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him:" "We have a very doleful prospect here. We have not had rain enough to wet the earth one inch for three months, every vegetable is burnt up, our cattle starving, the springs in many places dried up, and still no prospects of rain. The earth is so parched that we can sow no fall crop; no turnips, no potatoes, no cabbages. Our crops of cotton and corn are only a half crop. Still I trust in a kind Providence 'who doeth all things well,' that he will not scourge us with famine." And when, later in the same year, that major tragedy of his life befell him in the death of his adored wife, he met his bereavement in a similar spirit of contrition and resignation. Writing John Coffee on January 18th, the day he left the Hermitage for Washington he said: "As rational beings it behooves us so to live as to be prepared for death when it comes, with a reasonable hope of happiness hereafter through the atonement of our blessed Saviour on the cross." But later in this letter there is a poignant paragraph, where human grief breaks through the shell of resignation, and his soul cries out: "My mind is so disturbed and I am even now so perplexed with company that I can scarcely write. In short, my dear friend, my heart is nearly broke. I try to summon up my usual fortitude, but it is vain."

A singular manifestation of Jackson's deep-seated piety is to be found in his frequent inclination to volunteer religious admonitions to his close friends and relatives. Soon after the death of his wife he wrote to his brother-in-law, Captain John Donelson, telling him that "my dear wife had your future state much at heart" and urging him to "withdraw from the busy cares of this world and put your house in order for the next." Early in 1828 he had written to John Coffee to say: "Mrs. Jackson has rejoiced greatly on hearing that Polly has joined the church. I rejoice also. It is what we all ought to do, but men in public business has too much on their minds to conform to the rules of the church, which has prevented me hitherto." Similar evidences of his concern for the piety of his friends and connections continually crop up in his letters.

Rachel, who was profoundly--almost fanatically--religious, had the General's spiritual well-being much at heart; and when the little meeting-house was built he gave her his solemn promise that as soon as he was out of politics he would make a public declaration of his faith and ally himself with the church. He was reminded of his promise in 1838, after he had returned to the Hermitage from Washington, at which time he said: "I would long since have made this solemn public dedication to Almighty God, but knowing the wretchedness of this world and how prone many are to evil, that the scoffer of religion would have cried out 'Hypocrisy! he has joined the church for political effect,' I thought it best to postpone this public act until my retirement to the shades of private life, when no false imputation could be made that might be injurious to religion." The records of the church show, however, that promptly upon his return to private life in 1837 he took the step of public declaration of faith, following a "protracted meeting" at the Hermitage church. His son's wife joined the church at the same time and Parton thus describes the scene:

"The Hermitage church was crowded to the utmost of its small capacity; the very windows were darkened with the eager faces of the servants. After the usual services, the General rose to make the required public declaration of his concurrence with the doctrines, and his resolve to obey the precepts, of the church. He leaned heavily upon his stick with both hands; tears rolled down his cheeks. His daughter, the fair, young matron, stood beside him. Amid a silence the most profound, the General answered the questions proposed to him. When he was formally pronounced a member of the church, and the clergyman was about to continue the services, the long restrained feeling of the congregation burst forth in sobs and exclamations, which compelled him to pause for several minutes. The clergyman himself was speechless with emotion, and abandoned himself to the exultation of the hour."