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room, and pausing for a few moments, he looked around him, and raising his voice said:

"Friends and neighbors, I thank you for the honor you have done to the sainted one whose remains now repose in yonder grave. She is now in the bliss of heaven, and I know that she can suffer here no more on earth. That is enough for my consolation; my loss is her gain. But I am left without her, to encounter the trials of life alone. I am now the President-elect of the United States, and in a short time must take my way to the metropolis of my country; and, if it has been God's will, I would have been grateful for the privilege of taking her to my post of honor and seating her by my side; but Providence knew what was best for her. For myself, I bow to God's will, and go alone to the place of new and arduous duties, and I shall not go without friends to reward, and I pray God that I may not be allowed to have enemies to punish. I can forgive all who have wronged me, but will have fervently to pray that I may have grace to enable me to forget or forgive any enemy who has ever maligned that blessed one who is now safe from all suffering and sorrow, whom they tried to put to shame for my sake!"

May the author be pardoned if he joins Governor Wise in rescuing from oblivion his kinsman, Dr. Heiskell, who was the first physician to attend Mrs. Jackson? His full name was Dr. Henry Lee Heiskell, and he was born in Winchester, Virginia, March 16, 1803, and graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1828. General Jackson appointed him Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army on July 13, 1832, and he served in the Seminole War in 1835-1837. On July 7, 1838, he was appointed a surgeon in the army with the rank of Major and was assigned as Assistant to Surgeon-General Lawson. On June 9, 1842, he married Elizabeth Gouveneur of New York, granddaughter of President James Monroe. He died August 12, 1855.

MRS. JACKSON'S CHURCH.

General Jackson built a church for his wife in 1823, on the Hermitage Farm, a short distance from the Mansion, and Mrs. Jackson joined the church in 1824 when she was fifty-seven years old. From time to time, down to her death in December, 1828, she urged General Jackson to join her church, and his answer has come down to us. He told her that he could not join the church then, for if he did, it would be said all over the country by his enemies that he had joined for political effect, but that when he was clear of politics, he would join the church, and he made his word good. There is no one thing in the life of "Old

Hickory" more characteristic than this; and for nothing do we accord him more sincere respect. The reason given to his wife demonstrates that there was no hypocrisy in his makeup, and that he would not place himself in the attitude where his enemies could charge hypocrisy on him, however sincere his joining the church might be. He went out of the presidential office in 1837, and in 1839 joined the Hermitage Church. After the death of Mrs. Jackson the church was not able to sustain itself, although it had been incorporated into the Presbytery; but after the General joined, it was reorganized and rendered effective church service down to the time of his death.

Only one funeral has ever been preached in the Hermitage Church, and that was the funeral of Colonel Andrew Jackson, III, who was born and raised at the Hermitage; graduated at West Point; was a Colonel in the Confederate Army, serving at Vicksburg, and died at Knoxville, Tennessee, December 16th, 1906. It would seem perfectly in accord with the fitness of things that a Jackson or a Donelson should be buried from the Hermitage Church.

CHAPTER 28.

Andrew Jackson-The Natchez Expedition-The
Affray with the Bentons-The Carroll-
Benton Duel-Bishop Thomas
F. Gailor on Jackson.

The War of 1812 began with the declaration of hostilities by the United States June 12, 1812, and on June 25th, through Willie Blount, Governor of Tennessee, General Jackson offered to the President his services as Major-General of Tennessee militia and twenty-five hundred Tennessee volunteers. On July 11 the Secretary of War replied and accepted the offer and in his reply to Governor Blount, he paid Jackson the compliment of saying, "In accepting their services the President cannot withhold an expression of his admiration of the zeal and ardor by which they are animated." On October 21st, Governor Blount was requested by the government to send fifteen hundred of the Tennessee volunteres to the aid of General Wilkinson at New Orleans, and on November 1st the Governor ordered General Jackson to comply with the government's commands.

Jackson now entered upon the military career for which he thought himself fitted by nature and for which he ardently wished. At the time he defeated John Sevier for Major General of the Tennessee militia by the casting vote of Governor Roane, he had taken little, if any, part in military matters, and this, connected with the fact that Sevier had been a military man all of his life, intensified the bitterness of Jackson's victory over him. Jackson's military ambition and the success that he achieved as a commander of troops was finally to land him in the White House, and not only to make him President of the United States, but a maker of Presidents; the era of his dominating influence being known as "the Jackson era," and embracing the time when Tennessee was politically the most influential State in the Union, a position that the State had never achieved before and has never since. We are naturally interested, therefore, in Jackson's first communication to his troops

on this occasion, it being the first of the many addresses in his military career that he made to men under his command. This is his initial military address:

JACKSON TO THE TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS RENDEZVOUSED AT

NASHVILLE.

"In publishing the letter of Governor Blount, the Major General makes known to the valiant volunteers who have tendered their services, everything which is necessary for them at this time to know. In requesting the officers of the respective companies to meet in Nashville, on the 21st inst., the Governor expects to have the benefit of their advice in recommending the field officers, who are to be selected from among the officers who have already volunteered; also to fix upon the time when the expedition shall move, to deliver the definite instructions, and to commission the officers in the name of the President of the United States. Companies which do not contain sixty-six rank and file are required to complete their complement to that number. A second lieutenant should be added where the company contains but one.

"The Major General has now arrived at a crisis when he can address the volunteers with the feelings of a soldier. The State to which he belongs is now to act a part in the honorable contest of securing the rights and liberties of a great and rising republic. In placing before the volunteers the illustrious actions of their fathers in the war of the Revolution, he presumes to hope that they will not prove themselves a degenerate race, nor suffer it to be said that they are unworthy of the blessing which the blood of so many thousand heroes has purchased for them. The theater on which they are required to act is interesting to them in every point of view. Every man of the western country turns his eyes intuitively upon the mouth of the Mississippi. He there beholds the only outlet by which his produce can reach the markets of foreign nations or of the Atlantic States. Blocked up, all the fruits of his industry rot upon his hands; open, and he carries on a commerce with all the nations of the earth. To the people of the western country is then peculiarly committed, by nature, herself, the defense of the lower Mississippi and the city of New Orleans. At the approach of an enemy in that quarter the whole western world should pour forth its sons to meet the invader and drive him back into the sea. Brave volunteers, it is to the defense of this place, so interesting to you, that you are now ordered to repair. Let us show ourselves conscious of the honor and importance of the charge which has been committed to us. By the alacrity with which we obey the orders of the President let us demonstrate to our brothers in all parts of the Union that the people of Tennessee are worthy of being called to the defense of the Republic.

"The Generals of Brigade attached to the Second Division will communicate these orders to the officers commanding volunteer companies with all possible dispatch, 'using expresses, and forwarding a statement of the expense to the Major General. "Andrew Jackson,

"November 14, 1812."

"Major General Second Division T."

Each volunteer was expected to furnish his own rifle, ammunition, camp equipment and blankets, for which it was expected that the government would make an allowance subsequently. The General gave a description of the uniform permissible for the men to wear.

The expedition was organized as follows: Andrew Jackson, Major General, commanding; John Coffee, Colonel in charge of a regiment of Cavalry; William Hall, Colonel one regiment of infantry; Thomas H. Benton, Colonel one regiment of infantry; William B. Lewis, Major and quartermaster; William Carroll, subsequently General and Governor of Tennessee, Brigade Inspector; and John Reid, Aide and Secretary to the General. The troops comprised men from some of the very best families in Tennessee. Jackson wrote to the Secretary of War: "I have the pleasure to inform you that I am now at the head of 2,070 volunteers, the choicest of our citizens, who go at the call of their country to execute the will of the government, who have no constitutional scruples; and if the government orders, will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and Fort St. Augustine, effectually banishing from the southern coasts all British influence."

On February 15, 1813, after traveling a thousand miles by water in thirty-nine days, the expedition came to Natchez where Colonel John Coffee and his cavalry who had taken the land route, had already arrived. The expedition never got any further than Natchez for the reason that General Wilkinson, who was in command at New Orleans, and was Jackson's superior officer, wrote Jackson that the government had provided neither quarters nor provisions for the expedition at New Orleans; hence there was nothing to be done except employ the waiting time in drilling the volunteers, and making trained soldiers out of them. So things went on, until the latter part of March, when the General received an order from the War Department as follows:

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