by David Nevin
“Yes, sir! General, you talking full mobilization?”
Jackson hesitated. It would take awhile to put everything together. “I want ’em to know likely there’ll be fighting before long. They want to put their affairs in order where they can go off and leave ’em, families and everything. On a week’s notice, say—weapons, powder and lead, blankets, set to go. Talk to Nat Fosby—let’s see about flatboats to float us downstream. Better set up some drills, too, firing practice, moving through woods, taking cover. Remind ’em they’re soldiers … .”
Rachel Jackson knew there was trouble the moment she saw him coming up the column of yellow poplar saplings he’d planted, saw it in the set of his carriage, the rigidity of his shoulders, that brush of hair now so gray standing up flaglike …
She put the kettle on as he waved and passed on to the barn, and when he came in the tea was ready. Of course he tried to soften it, he always did, but the evidence was stark. The French had closed New Orleans, it was the first step to conquering the West, of course we’d have to fight, he was leaving in the morning—
Leaving! Not next month or even next week, tomorrow at dawn! She saw his hand shake when he lifted his teacup. He was drawn up like a fiddle string, and all at once she forgot her own dismay and the agonies of loneliness that lay ahead and was seized by a boundless dread. That fire always in him, always ready to erupt, was burning brighter than ever.
“Andrew,” she said, but she stopped, swallowing.
“No cause for worry,” he said, watching her. “Governor’s over to Gallatin, by chance. I’ll ride over and see him and then get on up to Lexington and talk to General Sanford about coordinating with Kentucky militia, and then—well, I don’t know, but I’ll be back before you hardly can miss me … .”
But that wasn’t it at all, and she said so. It was his temper, always ready to boil. Sooner or later it would pull him into terrible trouble. His frown grew deeper as he listened to her tremulous expressions of her fears. He said it was his temper, his speed of reaction, his refusal to let a single jackanapes scoundrel traduce him or, God forbid, his wife, that was what had saved them.
“Wasn’t our fault we had a scandal, but we had it. You can’t live with scandal, not in this country. You can’t bow down to it. You have to fight and fight, defy them. They have to know when they go to smirking that you’ll punish ’em … .”
He went on in this vein for some time, growing hotter by the minute. She didn’t answer. At last he ran down, breathing hard.
“We’re beyond that,” she said, keeping her voice a bare whisper so he leaned forward to hear her. “Hasn’t anybody raised that in the longest time. But I’m afraid you’re so ready to fight—well, General Sevier, they’re saying—”
“Who’s saying?”
It was a shout and he leaped up. The idea of anyone talking about him drove him into a frenzy, but she didn’t intend to have him shouting at her and she told him so. Who had mentioned Sevier? She hadn’t the slightest intention of telling him. In fact, as he well knew, the old general had been in a loose-tongued fury ever since Andrew had, as Sevier saw it, stolen the command of Tennessee militia from under his nose.
All at once Andrew’s anger collapsed. He sat down and waved a hand. “Oh, Sevier. Forget Sevier. Old fool. I’ll deal with him one of these days. I’ll pinch his nose.”
He would, too, that was what she feared; it could lead to pistols. And now he was going off to Kentucky and, knowing him, to points way beyond, he’d be meeting all sorts of folks and they wouldn’t all be full of respect … .
“Oh, darling,” she said, “please, please keep a rein. Up yonder, they don’t know anything about our affairs; maybe they’ll cross you but it won’t be because of us—”
“Well, I know that, but—”
“You’ve grown beyond that; judge, major general, whole community looking up to you. You don’t let a horse run wild. Rein yourself, Andrew. Rein yourself.”
And he came over and drew the pipe from her mouth and lifted her and held her hard to his chest and kissed her—and with that she had to be content.
At Gallatin the next day the governor was a mass of nerves. His very voice shook. “I don’t know, Andrew. We’d have to hear something from Washington, wouldn’t we? We couldn’t just go off and attack France all on our own, could we?”
“Archie,” Jackson said, “it’ll be all right. Thing now is to get ready. Then when the word comes, we’ll be all set. We don’t want Tennessee to be caught short, comes the call, do we?”
“No, you’re right about that.”
“I’ll just ride on up and take some soundings. Get things lined up. I come back, we’ll sit down together, you’ll see what needs to be done. It’ll all be clear then.”
He rode off thinking that Archie Roane was almost too easy. Sevier, now, when he’d been governor and when he’d commanded militia, he was a much tougher nut. Jackson had heard he’d been mouthing, pretty much the talk of a man disappointed and offended, but staying away from the personal. Still, one of these days Archie would use the information on Sevier that Jackson had given him and it would go off like a charge of black powder in the old man’s face. Then, Jackson figured, he would have to deal with Sevier. But he’d known that when he gave Archie the information.
He swung north out of Tennessee toward bluegrass country, making good time, a valise lashed behind his saddle with his blanket roll. He remembered the road when it was just a hard-beaten path through the forests; now it was twenty-odd feet wide, brush chopped away, trees felled to eighteen-inch stumps that wagons could clear, only the largest trees left standing in the roadway and them easy enough to step around. He’d picked up a small group, of course, all heavily armed—nobody traveled alone in country where you might go most of the day and hardly see a soul, where those you met probably were salt of the earth but could just turn out to be thieving scum who should be stretching rope. To say nothing of the occasional band of warriors who still roved this country.
There were a lot of folks up in the bluegrass country, where most of Kentucky’s population was concentrated, but southern Kentucky was still pretty much forest, though more and more farms were being chopped out. Before dark they would stop at a farm and contract for supper and a night in the barn rolled in a blanket on a bed of hay and up before dawn.
He made constant notes with a stub pencil as he rode, laying out a campaign and drafting orders to send back to Brigadier Scorsby. Figuring the numbers he could raise, the supplies they would need, the boats to haul them downriver to Fort Adams just below Natchez. It was coming on winter and he knew from experience that New Orleans could be damp and cold, so every man should have a good coat, a change of clothes, a blanket roll. Gourd canteens too, powder horn, bullet pouch. They could run ball from bar lead on the way down, make paper cartridges, deck over part of the flatboat, and hold drill on the deck. Then medicines, ample viands, chaplains and doctors … .
He rode into Lexington somewhat trail whipped, awed despite himself at its size and extent. Nashville, Louisville, even Knoxville would have trouble mustering up five hundred souls, but they said Lexington was already over two thousand and sprouting up like a weed. Courthouse of brick and frame houses all neatly planked with iron fences and gates, half a dozen churches, worship any old way you wanted, sheds with cotton bales stacked and squared, wagons loaded with bar iron, distilleries and breweries, gristmills and potash yards. He saw a tailor’s shop, a cobbler, even a cabinetmaker—high cotton indeed! Still, you were looking at Nashville; give it another few years.
It seemed the news had just hit. Boys were hawking three different sheets. He bought one of each and scanned them—essentially what he already knew. Clumps of men stood talking in loud voices that said rage on the surface, fear underneath. When he dismounted at the hotel, a crone with a huge wad of snuff bulging her lip glared as if it was all his fault and shouted, “My man and my three boys are down the river with everything we own. I’ll tell you, Mister, we
ought to go down and clean them dirty devils out like we’d sweep out a barn!” No answer seemed needed, and in a moment she shot a burst of brown spittle into the dirt at his feet and stormed away, shouting at someone else.
He had a bath at the hotel, ordered his trail clothes washed, brushed out a fresh suit, and made for General Sanford’s store, marching along dirt streets where that same mixture of rage and fear rang in passing voices. He found the commandant of Kentucky militia leaning against his counter in earnest talk with several men. Sanford proved to be a bear of a man, sixty or so, who moved in a shambling walk that bespoke power and authority.
He ignored Jackson till he finished his conversation and the men left. Then he looked him up and down and said, “Doubtless you want to know, will we fight over this? The answer is hell, yes. I’ve already ordered all regiments to muster. Governor wants every man on standby. What’s your regiment?”
“I’m Major General Andrew Jackson, commanding Tennessee militia.” He put out his hand, but Sanford stepped backward.
“Tennessee? Then what’re you …” His voice trailed off. “Oh,” he said. He leaned on his counter, knuckles pressed to the wood. “Oh.” He didn’t offer to shake hands. “State your business,” he said.
It was a long way from the reception Jackson had expected, but he held his temper. He said he too had mustered his troops and looked upon it as his duty to think of coordinating plans.
“I don’t know as I need any instruction in my duty.”
It was so hostile that Jackson paused. Carefully, he said, “I mean no offense but if we’re going to fight for the river, and surely we must, then I suppose Kentucky and Tennessee and Ohio troops will be operating together, and I figured—”
“Yes, yes, but I doubt we’ll be looking to you for much. U.S. Army will take the lead; General Wilkinson will command.”
Jackson felt his control eroding. “Not of my troops, by God! We know General Wilkinson.” The villain had been sucking the Spanish tit for years, taking his payment in gold. Everyone downriver knew it even if they couldn’t prove it. Wilkinson gave him any lip, he’d pull the scoundrel’s nose right out of his face. Might do the same for General Sanford too the way things were going, but he figured this was the place to rein himself, like Rachel said, so he contented himself with adding, “General Wilkinson’s much too close to the enemy.”
Sanford glowered. He said Wilkinson had moved to Kentucky these twenty years past, long before he’d reentered the army, lived in Louisville and Lexington and had a host of friends in both, among them Sanford himself … .
Well, Jackson hadn’t come here to quarrel. It felt like he was rolling over and playing dead, but he said in an even enough voice, “He’s your friend, General, I’ll say no more. But in any event. I suppose we’ll be operating together some way.”
“Well, that times comes, I’d expect Tennessee to turn right back to John Sevier.”
Jackson stared at him. The man seemed intent on provoking him. Controlling his breathing, he said, “That’s not likely. I hold the command.”
“Well, a peacetime election is one thing, but it’s another when men look to you to lead ’em in war. Then they want experience. And John said—”
“John said?”
“Him and me’re old friends. We was at King’s Mountain together. He wrote me about you, had plenty to say.”
So that was what this was all about! Jackson’s voice was soft. “What did he have to say about me, sir?”
Sanford paused. His eyes flicked about. He seemed aware for the first time that he’d been … impolitic. “I ain’t called on to say what others may say.”
“You raised it. You said you were basing your opinion on what he said.” Jackson was stepping slowly toward him. The skin on his face felt tight, a vein was throbbing and pounding. “Now, sir, you’d better speak up and damned quick!”
Sanford ducked behind his counter. “That you’re a lawyer,” he said in a burst. “That you had no military experience beyond Indian skirmishes. No command experience. Says he figures you’ll fold under pressure.”
“What else did he say?”
“My, God, ain’t that enough?”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing else! What’s the matter with you? He don’t think you’re fit; thinks the boys made a big mistake. God Almighty!”
Jackson stepped back, momentarily dizzy. His heartbeat slowed, the very skin of his face seemed to ease. “Well,” he said, “you’re General Sevier’s friend and I know he’s not happy; but count on it, you’ll deal with me when the time comes.”
The older man gave him a long, speculative look, then nodded as if to himself. “All right. John Sevier is disappointed and maybe that’s all there is to it. My governor orders an attack on New Orleans, we’ll be ready, and I’ll expect to work with you. We shouldn’t have no trouble.”
They shook hands. There was no warmth, but it was proper. Still, walking away, thinking of Rachel’s admonition, he felt the failure. He’d come with big plans for mutual mobilization and had to fight even for minimum respect. Now, clearly, he would have to go on, to Ohio and probably Pittsburgh as well. He sat at a desk in the hotel lobby and scratched out a careful letter to Rachel.
He went on to Maysville, port town on the Ohio, and found the waterfront in a howling uproar. Merchants with flatboat loads of produce they were afraid to send but knew would rot if they didn’t beseeched him for information, advice, promise of action. Half the town already was out of work, men lounging in the streets, fights more common every day.
“Hell to pay, General,” the mayor told him. “I hope you can do something.”
He rode up to Chillicothe in Ohio and found the militia commander dithering and humbly grateful for advice. Jackson spent half a day sketching procedures to lay before Ohio’s governor, then caught a stage to Wheeling and on to Pittsburgh. The moon was full and the stage ran day and night in this emergency. In short order he was in Pittsburgh, a night in a hotel curing his exhaustion. Next morning he called on Captain Frobrisher, who’d supplied him merchandise for years.
“God, Andrew,” the paunchy old man cried, “you’re a sight for sore eyes. Tell me you can do something about this outrage.”
“Whole West is pulling together, Captain, everywhere I’ve been.”
Plugging the river stopped everything. Frobrisher’s clients were stores in the West, in Maysville and Lexington, Louisville and Nashville and Natchez down on the lower Mississippi. They paid with the proceeds of the sale of produce that they took in swap from their customers. The only market for produce was downstream, wagon freight eastward being much too dear except for hauling grain in its compact form, good drinking whiskey.
Should Captain Frobrisher supply those downstream merchants knowing they couldn’t pay—and knowing his own suppliers would put him in bankruptcy and debtor’s prison if he failed his accounts? Yet how long would he last with transactions stopped? How long would his customers last? How long could Andrew himself keep his trading post open? The captain was almost in tears.
“We’ve got to do something,” he whispered.
Jackson wanted to see Jim Ross—a Federalist, yes, and correspondingly misguided, but a man who knew his own mind and was quick to action. Jackson had known him during his own brief stay in Congress. Ross, Aaron Burr, and a few others had taken the Tennesseean, rawboned in appearance and somewhat in manner, under their various wings. They were men he could trust.
“Senator Ross is in Washington,” Frobrisher said. “They tell me Burr’s gone back to New York. They’ve abused him terribly, you know. He stubbed his toe when he went against Jefferson, granted, but they’re after him with heavy artillery.”
Jackson didn’t like to hear that. Aaron was a gentleman and a good friend, and Jackson didn’t forget friends. And then, Ross being off in Washington was more bad news. Jackson was feeling a powerful urge to get home, put Archie Roane on course, make sure troops and supplies were coming tog
ether as they should. A commander’s place is with his men. Still, he’d come this far and he needed to be sure that men like Ross and the others understood the urgency.
A week later he was in Washington, marveling as he walked into the Capitol. The great building was years from being finished, of course, but what a change from the modest house of brick Congress had used in Philadelphia. He was asking a guard where to find Ross when he saw the senator bustling down the hall at a half trot, bent forward at the waist, armful of papers, grayer and heavier than Jackson remembered, but unmistakable.
“Jim!” he roared.
Ross spun about and stared, then advanced slowly. “As I live and breathe, Andrew Jackson.” He hesitated, blinking. “And I guess I don’t need to ask what brings you. It’s a damned outrage—that river is ours!”
Congress was boiling, he said, men vying to see who could sound most belligerent. Mail was pouring in from constituents. Not just from the West, either; everyone in the West had family in the East and they were writing too. For once Federalists and Democrats seemed in total agreement.
“So we’ll take action?”
“Congress is raring to go. The administration, though … tell me, do you know Mr. Madison?”
“Know of him, but he was out of the Congress when I was in.”
“C’mon—you need to see him; he needs to see you.”
A hack dropped them at the mansion gate. Impressive place, Jackson thought, but he had barely taken notice when Ross pulled him toward a little brick building to their right. There he met a bright-looking man named Johnny Graham who was maybe a bit older than he looked, a Maysville boy, he said, and then they were in Mr. Madison’s office.
It was odd. The place was almost bare, simplicity carried to a fault, a table serving as desk, a bookcase, a bust Jackson didn’t recognize on a shelf, a couple of straight chairs for visitors. The man himself was small, his hand light and soft in Jackson’s, his face that of a schoolmaster or even an elderly student, his voice pale if not weak. He glanced up at Jackson with an odd flash of expression, not anger, certainly, but some sort of discomfort. Jackson wondered if his arrival had interrupted something. But the little man proved cordial and deeply interested in the West. Indeed, he plied Jackson with questions that kept him busy thinking of answers and explaining, and in short order he lost any feeling that he was dealing with a graduate student. This was a man of power, his mind forceful and very quick, information folding swiftly into ideas and conclusions. Jackson was not slow of grasp himself, given his intuitive capacity to vault forward to solutions, but Mr. Madison was every bit his equal.