But a
hospitable house, like a Third Avenue car, in never full; and in that
mild climate the young men could sleep on the piazza or in the
corn-crib, content if their mothers and sisters had the shelter of the
house. It was not until long after the general's return from the wars
that he built, or could afford to build, the large brick mansion which
he named the 'Hermitage,' The visitor may still see in that commodious
house the bed on which this happy pair slept and died, the furniture
they used, and the pictures on which they were accustomed to look. In
the hall of the second story there is still preserved the huge chest in
which Mrs. Jackson used to stow away the woolen clothes of the family in
the Summer, to keep them from the moths. Around the house are the
remains of the fine garden of which she used to be proud, and a little
beyond are the cabins of the hundred and fifty slaves, to whom she was
more a mother than a mistress."
A few weeks after the battle of New Orleans, when Jackson was in the
first flush of his triumph, this plain planter's wife floated down the
Mississippi to New Orleans to visit her husband and accompany him home.
She had never seen a city before; for Nashville, at that day, was little
more than a village. The elegant ladies of New Orleans were exceedingly
pleased to observe that General Jackson, though he was himself one of
the most graceful and polite of gentlemen, seemed totally unconscious of
the homely bearing, the country manners, and awkward dress of his wife.
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