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Part Taken by Women in American History


son was called, with him at headquarters. He was blind to the difference between her and the other women, and he made it evident to all that he thought his wife "the dearest and most revered of human beings," and nothing pleased him so much as regard bestowed on her.

It was rather more than five or six years later that the General was appointed Governor to Florida, and he and Mrs. Jackson, with the two young nephews, one known as Andrew Jackson Donelson, went to live in this region of fruit and flowers. From Mrs. Jackson's pen which, although occasionally stumbling, was an interesting one, we have a picture of the final evacuation of Florida by the Spaniards, and the formal taking possession of the country, Jackson coming in "under his own standard," as he had vowed he would. But, hard as had been Mrs. Jackson's life with all the hardships and adventures of frontier exposure, she was homesick in the midst of the flowers and fruit of Pensacola for her log cabin home in Tennessee. "Believe me," she wrote to her friends at home, "this country has been greatly overrated. One acre of our fine Tennessee land is worth a thousand here." Mrs. Jackson's letters give a true picture of the General's state of mind. "The General is the most anxious man to get home I ever saw," she said. And it was, indeed, General Jackson's desire to return to the adopted son Andrew and his beloved wife Rachel. But though they did return to the "Hermitage" the happy days which again saw Rachel Jackson mistress there were not many. In the year 1824 Jackson was elected United States Senator. During the period of his senatorship the mighty game was played which was to make him chief magistrate of the land. From the time of Jackson's nomination his victory was sure. It is almost impossible to defeat a military hero. His nickname was "Old Hickory," and hickory poles were set up in his honor all over the country. But there are always two sides