“Which is Congressman Polk, the great champion of General Jackson?” the Kentuckian asked.
“I’m proud to accept that title, sir,” Polk said.
“Which of these is your wife?” the fellow said, looking insolently at Caroline and Sarah. “Or are you like General Jackson when it comes to the fair sex—and never bother to ask who’s married to who?”
For Caroline and George, it was a stunning glimpse of the way the opposition was using the story of Jackson’s marriage to smear him. “Sir,” Polk said, “you’ve just insulted two ladies in one breath. On their behalf, I hope you’ll immediately apologize—or I’ll be forced to ask you for satisfaction.”
Now Sarah Polk was looking horrified. Her husband had just challenged this man to a duel. “I wouldn’t waste a bullet on a pismire like you,” the Kentuckian said.
George Stapleton stood up and tapped him on the shoulder. “This lady happens to be my wife,” he said, pointing to Caroline. “I’m afraid I must ask you for satisfaction too.”
The Kentuckian rose to his feet. He was as tall as George and a good deal heavier. “You’re a bigger pismire. But you get the same answer. Anyone who votes for Andrew Jackson is a de facto convicted whoremaster! If you want satisfaction, swallow this.”
He balled his big hand into a fist in George’s face.
“That suits me just fine,” George said.
He sank his right fist into the Kentuckian’s bulging belly, then clouted him in the jaw with a left hook. The man flew half the length of the dining room. All the women except Caroline and Sarah fled screaming to the outer decks.
Scrambling to his feet, the Kentuckian came at George in a roaring rush, eager to fight in the kicking, gouging Western style. George caught him in a wrestler’s grip and threw him over his shoulder. The Kentuckian came down with a crash that shook the steamboat.
“Had enough?” George said.
The Kentuckian’s answer was a kick in the groin. As George staggered back in pain, the man came after him, his thumb thrust like a knife blade at George’s eyes. George caught the fellow’s wrist and again threw him over his shoulder. This time George seized him by the shirtfront and slugged him until the man lay groaning at his feet.
“I still haven’t heard you apologize to these ladies,” George said, his fist raised for another punch.
“’Pologize,” the fellow said through loosened teeth.
James Polk led the way to the steamboat bar, where he bought drinks for all the male passengers. He explained that George was traveling to Nashville to meet General Jackson and decide whether to support him.
“If this fellow isn’t a Jackson Democrat already, I’ll eat my shoes,” Polk said.
Four days later, the Polks and Stapletons debarked at a Cumberland River dock about eight miles above Nashville. A half dozen small black boys were lounging against the piling. “Which one of you fellows can run fastest?” Polk asked.
They pointed to a lanky boy of about ten. Polk gave him a nickel. “Get up to the Hermitage and ask them to send down the coach.”
In ten minutes a yellow coach with glassed windows and lace curtains, as fine as any vehicle in the Stapleton carriage house, came rumbling down the hill, drawn by four white horses. The coachman was a big black man in overalls and bare feet—not exactly a match for the spiffily uniformed blacks who drove the Stapleton coaches. George and Caroline were getting their first glimpse of luxury, Western style.
The Polks greeted “Hannibal” as an old friend. When they introduced the Stapletons to him as friends from New Jersey, the big fellow’s eyes glowed. “That’s where my daddy come from. Always talked about gettin’ back there someday.”
In another ten minutes they were debarking in front of the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s white-pillared brick mansion. It was an imitation of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, with a central hall dividing the house into east and west wings. The broad front lawn was shaded by a dozen gigantic trees. On the east side was an acre of lovely flowers, interspersed by brick walks. George was amazed. Like most Easterners, he imagined Westerners living in crude log dwellings, only a. step above Indian longhouses.
General Jackson emerged from a small brick building on the west side that he used for an office. Although he was wearing a plain blue coat and faded tan pantaloons folded into riding boots, never had Caroline seen a man who looked more like a soldier. His white hair bristled straight up like the crest of a hussar’s helmet. He approached them with a long swinging stride, his back straight as a gun barrel, a pleased smile on his lined, angular face. With him was a shorter, more mundane-looking red-haired man, whom Sarah Polk identified in a quick whisper as Senator John Henry Eaton.
Jackson shook Polk’s hand and embraced Sarah. “And these are the Stapletons from New Jersey?” he said to her. “Your letter came to hand yesterday. I’m impressed by anyone who’d travel a thousand miles to meet a broken-down old soldier.”
“They’re on their honeymoon, General,” James Polk said as Jackson shook George’s hand. “They’re looking for any excuse to prolong their pleasure.”
The General laughed heartily. “That’s exactly the sort of medicine a Democratic candidate needs to keep his head on his shoulders.
“Mrs. Stapleton,” Jackson said, kissing Caroline’s hand with a courtly bow. “As an old codger who remembers every moment of his own honeymoon, may I say that a single glance at your loveliness should have been enough to make Congressman Polk’s explanation unnecessary?”
“That’s a compliment I’ll always remember, General,” Caroline said.
Jackson introduced the Stapletons to Senator Eaton, and Sarah Polk produced Peggy O’Neale’s letter. The senator seemed momentarily flustered. “How is beautiful Peggy?” Jackson asked.
Sarah Polk said she was fine. Jackson pronounced her one of the most charming young women in Washington and led them into the Hermitage. In the west parlor he introduced them to Mrs. Jackson, a fat sweet-faced woman who spoke in a sad wheezing voice, but could not have been more hospitable. With her was her handsome nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, and his pretty blond wife, Emily, and two other young women, who were as well-gowned as Caroline and Sarah Polk. Only Mrs. Jackson wore frontier calico—and puffed cheerfully on a pipe.
“The rules of this house are very simple,” she said. “The General and I undertake to look after none but our lady guests. The gentlemen make do as they can. If they want anything from a gun to a cigar, they need only ring for a servant. The sideboard is always ready to provide them with refreshments.”
At dinner two hours later, Caroline was surprised to discover General Jackson did not sit at the head of the table. He left the place of honor to his biographer, Senator Eaton. The General sat between Sarah Polk and Caroline and demanded a detailed accounting of Washington’s latest romances. Sarah had a veritable roster of names at her command, and the General had a shrewd or witty comment for almost every match.
While he seemed to be giving them his full attention, he suddenly turned away to hurl a delighted growl toward James Polk. The congressman was entertaining the rest of the table with an account of George Stapleton’s thrashing of the insulting Kentuckian. “I wish I’d been there,” Jackson said. “What was the nature of his insult?”
Glancing nervously toward Mrs. Jackson, who was absorbed in conversation with Emily Donelson, Polk gave the General a hurried version of what had been said.
Jackson’s blue eyes blazed white fire. His whole countenance became almost incandescent. “Mr. Stapleton,” he said, “you have put me and mine in your debt. You may call upon me for any favor at any time and it shall be yours—including the deed to this property!”
The General gulped some claret with a trembling hand. Alarm spread over every face. He looked as if he might be on the brink of apoplexy. “That men could sink as low as Adams and Clay and their detestable gang almost destroys my faith in this country,” he said. “To wage war against an innocent woman—and to involve you
nger innocent women in their slanders! If I win this election, by God I’m tempted to celebrate my inauguration with a hanging!”
“Pappy, Pappy,” Mrs. Jackson said. She understood the reason for his rage without hearing the grisly details. “Calm yourself. As long as I have my Bible and my pipe, no arrows can harm me, no matter how dipped they are in gall and wormwood.”
She turned her plaintive eyes to the other guests. “But I will say this here and now. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than live in that palace in Washington.”
“If I didn’t believe our country was teetering on the brink of destruction from internal enemies, I’d never ask you to endure it, my dearest,” Jackson said.
Both Caroline and George were amazed and touched by the passionate sincerity of the old warrior. He truly believed that Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams were destroying the country. Their campaign of slander against him and Rachel was de facto proof that they were criminals with gross misdeeds to hide. Their policies became not merely mistaken but corrupt and evil. In Jackson’s presence it was hard if not impossible to resist sharing this conviction.
The contrast between the General’s hot-blooded passion and Hugh Stapleton’s cool intellect was, Caroline suspected, more than a difference in personalities. It was an index of a profound change in American politics from the era of Washington and Jefferson to the age of Jackson. She and George were face-to-face with more than a man in the dining room of the Hermitage. History spilled from Andrew Jackson’s hard lips and leaped in his electrifying eyes.
FOUR
AFTER DINNER, THE PARTY DIVIDED by sexes. The ladies gathered in the east parlor around Mrs. Jackson while the men followed the General into the west parlor. Mrs. Jackson talked at length about her life with the General. In thirty-seven years they had never exchanged a difficult word. Their only disagreement was about his acceptance of numerous public assignments that took him away from home. She viewed the presidential contest as the ultimate disruption of their private lives.
Caroline listened to this plaintive recital with a mixture of sympathy and impatience. She yearned to be in the west parlor with the men, discussing politics. She was sure Sarah Polk felt the same way.
Later that night, in their bedroom, Caroline asked George what the men had talked about. George scratched his head and admitted to being confused. “The Polks, who seem to be quintessential Jacksonians, are against the tariff and internal improvements. The General says he’s for them.”
“What else did he say?”
“At first he seemed to lump Grandfather in with John Quincy Adams and President Monroe. The old aristocrats, he called them. His friend Eaton must have given him an earful about the family, painting us as power hungry as well as rich. But the General changed his mind when I told him about Great-Grandfather Malcolm hobnobbing with the Senecas and shooting up the French and their Indians. When he heard my father’d gone to West Point and died at Lundy’s Lane, his eyes filled with tears and he said, ‘Now I, know why I liked you on sight. You’re one of the Roman breed. We need men like you in Congress.’”
“Wonderful!” Caroline said. “Did Mr. Polk speak up on your behalf?”
“Most definitely. I get the feeling that Polk’s not thrilled by Eaton, who more or less keeps everyone else a good distance from the General. He’s managing the campaign.”
“So it all went swimmingly?”
“Not completely. The General got onto banks and paper money. He talked as if they were creations of the devil. I was afraid to tell him we’re majority stockholders in the biggest bank in New Jersey.”
“That was wise,” Caroline said. “I think we should be careful what we say to him.”
“I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s overpowering. When he looks at you, those eyes seem to bore into your soul. He’s a piece of walking, talking history. He fought in the Revolution—at the age of thirteen! He truly loves this country. He’s risked his life for it a hundred times. He wants everybody to feel—not just think—as he does. Maybe that’s a good thing. The tactics of the other side—defaming a sweet old woman like Mrs. Jackson—are truly despicable.”
While they were talking, they were preparing for bed. George said those last words as he lay down beside Caroline. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “You’ve captured him as much as he’s captured you. No one but a man can do that with Andrew Jackson.”
Caroline kissed George passionately. Power emanated from Andrew Jackson. It aroused her more than any imaginable caress or poem or song. She wanted George to emanate some of that power as soon as possible. “Now do you think I can be your political partner as well as your wife?”
“I never really doubted it,” George said, returning her kiss.
Was Caroline aware that they were creating a pattern of rewards in the bedroom for George’s performance outside it? Probably not. She was as mesmerized by Andrew Jackson as George. Both fatherless from an early age, they were easy quarry for a man who took charge of virtually every young person he met.
To understand Jackson, one must study the habits of Irish and Scottish leaders such as William Wallace and Red Hugh O’Neil. It was their hot Celtic blood that boiled in Old Hickory’s veins, their warrior sense of honor and pride that drove his impulsive judgments, the code of the chieftain that made him play father to the whole world.
The next day, General Jackson announced the morning would be spent in the woods, gunning for quail and wild turkey. The men quickly changed to buckskin and boots, except George, who had packed little except dress clothes, thinking he would spend his honeymoon in Washington, D.C. General Jackson sent one of his house servants down to the slave quarters. He came back with the enormous black coachman, Hannibal. He wore a pair of dirty overalls.
“Stand next to Mr. Stapleton,” the General said.
Hannibal obeyed. He and George were roughly the same size. The General asked Hannibal if he had a pair of clean overalls. He nodded. “My mammy done the wash yesterday, massa. But she won’t let me change till Sunday ’cause she say I dirty everything so fast in that stable.”
“Get the clean overalls up here for Mr. Stapleton.”
While they waited for Hannibal to return, George asked Jackson how many slaves he owned. “A hundred here and another fifty on a cotton plantation in Mississippi,” he said. “I wish I could afford free labor. But with the price of cotton so low, I don’t expect to see the day when we can manage without bondmen.”
“We consider ourselves fortunate to have escaped the problem in New Jersey by passing a gradual emancipation law,” George said. He did not mention that Hugh Stapleton was the driving force behind that law, in obedience to the repeated demands of his Quaker wife.
“There’s talk of one here in Tennessee,” Jackson said. “But where will these poor people go? I freed one of my men in 1816 for his service with me at New Orleans. He’s still living here. Only a few months ago, my nephew inherited a plantation from a relative who had freed his blacks if they would agree to go to Liberia with the Colonization Society. They refused to go.”
Hannibal returned with the overalls and George soon appeared wearing them. John Henry Eaton joked about George being sentenced to pick cotton if he did not handle his gun up to the General’s expectations. The men departed in an open carriage with Hannibal and two other blacks following in a buckboard. Caroline settled on the veranda with Sarah Polk, who was visibly nervous and grew more so as guns began booming in the distance. She confessed that James Polk was not adept with a gun. He had been sickly for most of his youth and never had a chance to master the sports that most male Tennesseans enjoyed.
Caroline wondered if George knew how to handle a gun. She got her answer two hours later, when the shooters returned. The smiling blacks in the buckboard held up a dozen birds. “It’s a good thing we didn’t make any bets with this. fellow,” Polk said as they got out of the carriage. “We all would have wound up picking cotton.”
General Jackson beamed at George like a proud father. “No duck ever flittered and skittered like a Tennessee turkey,” he said. “If we have the misfortune to fight another war, I’m going to put you in charge of training sharpshooters.”
“Hannibal deserves at least half the credit,” George said. “He has a sixth sense for which way a bird will go. I had my gun ready for every shot.”
The blacks took the birds around to the kitchen at the back of the house. “By the way,” George said, “Hannibal asked me to buy him and take him back to New Jersey.”
“You can have him at half price,” the General said. “He’s a troublemaker. He’s run away twice. I’ve never whipped a slave, but I told him the next runoff would get him forty lashes.”
“How much would he cost, General? Our family could use a good coachman. The man we have is getting old.”
“A prime young fellow like him? About a thousand dollars. You can have him for five hundred.”
“Agreed,” George said.
In their bedroom, George explained the transaction to Caroline. In the woods Hannibal had told him that his New Jersey owners had sold his father and mother south to escape the state’s emancipation law. The black was bitter because he felt he had lost his chance for freedom. Under the law he would have become free at age twenty-one.
“I didn’t know you were such an emancipationist,” Caroline said. Growing up in Ohio, she had little or no contact with blacks. Slavery was an abstraction to her.
The Wages of Fame Page 11