It was in this kind of a civilization that my mother was born and developed into maturity. Georgia gave her birth and education, and, after marriage, Tennessee gave her a home before slavery was abolished and until she died. I might say, therefore, that she inherited the aspirations and traditions of ante bellum days in two States, and they never entered a nature better adapted to receive them. All that was purest and best in the development of Georgia and Tennessee-which was as good as the earth could give—became hers, and was hers as long as she lived. The Civil War made a vast chasm between the Old South and the New, and there were men and women in the Old South who could not eradicate the development of ante bellum life. They could not change the first trend of their lives; they could not become accustomed to the new order of things; they never succeeded in getting up to date. My mother was one of these, and, while never obtruding her views or feelings upon others, the mystic chord of memory daily reached back to the old life of the long ago, and kept her always in touch with the proud womanhood of those earlier days. The trend and thought of the post bellum South never led her to waver in her proud loyalty to those ideals by which she was always guided, and which the teachings of two States made a part of her yery being. So she lived and so she died. And so upon these pages I inscribe these feeble eulogies of William and Julia Gahagan Heiskell, who through unfading memories of their fine lives now many years ended, are two "who live again in minds made better by their presence." Memorial window to Mrs. Julia Gahagan Heiskell in the Chapel of St. John's Episcopal Church, Knoxville, Tennessee. CHAPTER 32. Andrew Jackson from the Battle of New Orleans to General Jackson arrived in Nashville from New Orleans May 15, 1815, in bad health, and the supposition naturally is that he would devote much time to building up his constitution, but such was not to be the case. In October he started on horseback by way of Southwest Point, Knoxville and Lynchburg, to Washington. In Lynchburg a banquet was tendered him at which Thomas Jefferson, then seventy-two years old, was a guest. Jefferson offered a toast, which, by implication, applied to Jackson, and was highly honorable to the hero of New Orleans: "Honor and gratitude to those who have filled the measure of their country's honor." On November 17, he arrived in Washington, and then began banquets, festivities, speeches and hero-worship, which were to be his delightful portion the rest of his life. The people seemed to spontaneously agree that the victory at New Orleans had made him the national American hero. In Washington it was agreed at a conference between the President, General Jacob Brown and General Jackson, that the army should be reduced to ten thousand men, and that General Brown should command the northern division, and General Jackson the southern, and, hence, Jackson was to retain his position in the army. He did not start home until 1816, and from there went to New Orleans, where he was received in enthusiastic, grand fashion, and he got back to the Hermitage the following October. Down to this time the Caucus had governed the nominations. for President, and it was to govern the nomination of the successor of President Madison whose term expired on March 4th, 1817, but this nomination was the beginning of the end of the reign of the Caucus. While not very loud at first, nor very wide spread, nor very unanimous, suggestions were made at one time and another, and in one place and another, and the thought was in the minds of men who probably did not express it, that the victor of New Orleans was good presidential timber, and that it would not be a bad idea to land him in the White House. Just what Jackson thought of his being President, even as late as 1821, is very strikingly disclosed in a letter of Judge Brackenridge, Jackson's secretary in Florida, quoted by James Parton in the second volume of his Life of Jackson, where Brackenridge uses this language: "I shall never forget the evening in Pensacola, 1821, when, in the presence of Mr. Henry Wilson and some other gentlemen, he took up a New York newspaper in which he was mentioned as a probable candidate for the office of President of the United States. After reading it, he threw it down in anger: 'Do you think,' he said, 'that I am such a d-d fool as to think myself fit for President of the United States? No sir, I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit for President.'' New work was being prepared in Florida by the Seminoles, fugitive Creeks, free negroes, and escaped slaves, and General Jackson was to enter upon one of the most vexatious portions of his life. Florida was in his division as Major General of the army, and it was his duty to conduct all military operations in that section; he undertook to suppress all disorder, outrages and uprisings in Florida, and in doing so approved the execution of Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister. It is not necessary to go into details connected with the Arbuthnot and Ambrister cases, but merely to state that he appointed a court of fourteen officers of which Major General E. P. Gaines of Tennessee was President; Arbuthnot was tried April 28, 1818, on the charges of inciting the Creek Indians to war against the United States, acting as a spy for the British government, and inciting the Indians to murder. The Court found the prisoner guilty and sentenced him to be hung, and this sentence was affirmed by General Jackson. Ambrister was next tried, found guilty, and sentenced by the Court to be shot; and on April 29, 1818, the Commanding General approved the sentences in both cases, and they were carried out. Promptly this action by General Jackson became a political issue, and the storm arose promptly and furiously, and never until the day of his death did the charge cease |