Rachel Jackson

Rachel Donelson was born near the Banister River, about ten miles from Chatham, Virginia, in Pittsylvania County on June 15, 1767.[1][2] Her father was Colonel John Donelson (1718–1785), co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee, and her mother was Rachel Stockley Donelson (1730–1801).[1] Her great-grandfather, Patrick Donelson, was born in Scotland about 1670.[1] She had seven brothers and three sisters:[1]

• Alexander Donelson (1749–1785)
• Mary Donelson Caffery (born 1751). Wife of Captain John Caffery. Parents of Jane Caffrey wife of painter Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl and of Donelson Caffrey (1786–1835), father of Senator Donelson Caffery (1835–1906).
• Catherine Donelson Hutchings (1752–1835)
• Stockley Donelson (1753–1804)
• Jane Donelson Hays (1754–1834)
• John Donelson (1755–1830), father of Emily Donelson, first wife of Andrew Jackson Donelson; grandfather of CS General John Donelson Martin (1830–1862)
• William Donelson (1756–1820)
• Samuel Donelson (1758–1804), father of Andrew Jackson Donelson and CS General Daniel Smith Donelson
• Severn Donelson (1763– or 1773–1818)
• Leven Donelson (born 1765)

From about 1770 to 1779, her father operated the Washington Iron Furnace at Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia.[4] With her family, she moved to Tennessee at the age of 12.[2] Her father led about 600 people from Fort Patrick Henry to Fort Nashborough, down the Cumberland River.[1] The Donelson family were among the first white settlers in Tennessee.[2]

Rachel attracted much attention from suitors because she was very beautiful as a young woman, described by a contemporary as having "lustrous black eyes, dark glossy hair, full red lips, brunette complexion, though of brilliant coloring, [and] a sweet oval face rippling with smiles and dimples."[3] Later in life, her country manners and full figure were severely in contrast with Jackson's tall, spindly form and developed genteel manners. However, her love for her husband was unmistakable: she languished when he was away for politics, fretted when he was away at war, and doted on him when he was at home.[3] Unlike Jackson, Rachel never liked being in the spotlight of events. She would consistently warn her husband not to let his political accomplishments rule him; for example, after Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, she warned Jackson that his subsequent popularity (on the scope of George Washington) would tempt him to value his glory over his own family.[5]

She was a Presbyterian.[1] She was also an avid reader of the Bible and religious works as well as poetry.[1]

Her first marriage to Captain Lewis Robards of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, a landowner and speculator, was not happy, and the two separated in 1790.[1][2] According to Marcia Mullins of the Hermitage in Nashville, Tennessee, there were rumors that Lewis Robards was cruel and jealous.[6] Believing that her husband would file a petition for divorce, she returned to the Donelson family home.[7]

C. 1830–1832 portrait of President Andrew Jackson by Ralph E.W. Earle

When Andrew Jackson migrated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1788, he boarded with Rachel Stockley Donelson, the mother of Rachel Donelson Robards. The two became close, and shortly after, they married in Natchez, Mississippi. Rachel believed that her husband had obtained a divorce,[1][2] but as it had never been completed, her marriage to Jackson was inadvertently bigamous and therefore invalid.[2]

Rachel's marital status was complicated by the distances involved and the changing governmental authorities.[8] During the process of Rachel and Robards's divorce, Kentucky became a state instead of a territory of Virginia, and North Carolina turned over management of the territory including Tennessee to the federal government.[8] These complicating factors were understood by locals and the unusual circumstances of the Jackson marriage were not greatly discussed in Nashville society.[8]

In 1793, Andrew and Rachel Jackson learned that although Lewis Robards had filed for divorce, the divorce had never been granted.[7] This made Rachel a bigamist and an adulteress, as well as making General Jackson, soon a politician on the rise, an adulterer.[7] On the grounds of Rachel's abandonment and adultery, Lewis Robards was granted a divorce in 1794. At about the same time, the legitimacy of the Jackson marriage was questioned because they were married in then-Spanish-controlled Natchez, Mississippi.[7] The Jacksons were Protestants, and only Catholic marriages were recognized as legal unions in that territory.[7] After the divorce was finally legalized in 1794, Andrew and Rachel wed again in a quiet ceremony at the Donelson home.[7]

Although the Jacksons never had biological children, they adopted her nephew in 1809 and named him Andrew Jackson Jr.[2] When his father became President, Andrew Jr. assumed management of the Hermitage farm.[9] He married Sarah Yorke of Philadelphia on November 24, 1831.[9]

In 1813, the Jacksons adopted a Creek orphan boy who was found on the battlefield of Tallushatchee with his dead mother. They named him Lyncoya.[9] Lyncoya was educated along with Andrew Jr., and Jackson had aspirations of sending him to West Point, as well.[9] Political circumstances made that impossible, and he instead trained as a saddle maker in Nashville. He died of tuberculosis on June 1, 1828.[9][10]

Around 1817 the Jacksons adopted Andrew Jackson Hutchings who was the grandson of Rachel's sister and the son of a former business partner of Jackson's.[9] He attended school with Andrew Jr. and Lyncoya.[9] He then attended colleges in Washington and Virginia while Jackson was president. In 1833, he married Mary Coffee, daughter of Jackson's friend John Coffee, and moved to Alabama. Hutchings died in 1841.[9]

Andrew Jackson served as the guardian for the children of Captain Edward Butler, Adjutant General and Inspector General of the United States Army from July 1793 until May 1794, and the children of Rachel's brother Samuel Donelson's son.[9] These children did not live with the Jacksons full time.[9] Andrew Jackson Donelson, son of Rachel's brother Samuel, became Jackson's protégé, and served as personal secretary to Jackson during his presidency.[9]

According to Ann Toplovich, executive director of the Tennessee Historical Society, John Quincy Adams' presidential campaigns targeted Jackson's "passion and lack of self-control" in both 1824 and 1828, "making it central to the argument that he would devastate the integrity of the Republic and its institutions."[6] One newspaper ran an article asking, "'Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?'"[7]

The publicity surrounding her and the public knowledge of what was considered a very private matter caused Rachel to sink into depression.[7] She reputedly told a friend "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington."[8][11] Adding to her stress, in 1828, Lyncoya Jackson died at the Hermitage.[7] Between the scandal, her son's death, and a heart condition she spent much of the campaign depressed and crying.[7]

The tomb of Andrew and Rachel Jackson at the Hermitage

She died suddenly on December 22, 1828, at the age of 61 of a heart attack, given her symptoms according to Jackson: "excruciating pain in the left shoulder, arm, and breast."[3] That her death came immediately before Jackson left for Washington was more than an inconvenience; it was crippling. He held her body tightly until he was pulled away, and he lingered at the Hermitage until the latest possible date.[3]

Even though her maladies began as early as 1825, and she was a cigar smoker,[12] Jackson always blamed his political enemies for her death.[8] "May God Almighty forgive her murderers", Jackson swore at her funeral, "I never can."[13]

She was buried on the grounds at the Hermitage wearing the white dress and shoes she had bought for the inaugural ball.[7] Her epitaph, written by John Eaton, who would later become involved in the Peggy Eaton scandal during the Jackson Administration, reads: "A being so gentle and so virtuous slander might wound, but could not dishonor."[14]

The Rachel Jackson State Office Building, in Nashville, Tennessee, built in 1985, was named for her.

Rachel Jackson was the title character of a 1951 historical novel by Irving Stone, The President's Lady, which told the story of her life with Andrew Jackson. In 1953, the novel was made into a film of the same name starring Susan Hayward and Charlton Heston as the Jacksons.[15][16] In the 1936 film The Gorgeous Hussy (a fictionalized biography of Peggy Eaton), Rachel Jackson was portrayed by Beulah Bondi, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.[17]

• The Hermitage (Nashville, Tennessee)
• Andrew Jackson Donelson
• John Donelson
• Rachel Jackson Stakes

• Boller, Paul F. Jr. (2004). Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198037378.
• Brinkley, Alan (2007). American History: A Survey (12 ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• "Rachel Jackson". C-SPAN. March 25, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2013.
• Brands, H.W. (2005). Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 1400030722.
• Meacham, Jon (2008). American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4000-6325-3.
• John Fiske (1914). "John Quincy Adams". In James Grant Wilson (ed.). The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. In Wikisource.
• Remini, Robert V. (1977). Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8018-5911-3.
• "Rachel and Andrew Jackson's Love Story"
• Marszalek, John F. (1997). The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House. Free Press. ISBN 0-684-82801-4.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rachel Jackson.

• The Jackson Marriage
• Rachel Jackson at C-SPAN's First Ladies: Influence & Image