The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-03-12
AHpREW JACKSON.

General Jackson w..> ii,ii and thin, and
often suffering, but not even a child
could mistake the strong. self centered,
steady nature that marked his thin, res
oiute face. The very qualities in me
which tried Mr. Randolph made me a
fnyOrite with the President; and he liked
my father 10 bring me with him on the
many occasions when they consulted TO-
gether lie liked to have me near him
where his hand could rest on my head.
and smooth my cuiIs, as my father had
seen it years befgre, smoothing and dry
ing tie fleece Of a sheep-a sheep which
hc had had brought in 10 please child
who cried because its pet was out in the
rain.
Ii WAS when regiments We're forming
for the war OF 1912, and General Jack
son hal lis many enemies who objected
To his having command of one. After
the way of that time, he had fought
many dueIs, chiefly for lis friend-alli-
ances offensive and defensive were then
thought as right and necessary between
individuals as among nations.
Going one rainy night to show General
jackson an address he had written in
regard to this regiment, my father found
this dreaded duelist with a little boy
and a sheep between his knees, dividing
his careSseS between the two.
The Sih of january ended the discus
sions of his fitness, but not the harass-
ments Civ On him by old enemies. Among
cares he had to bear was the having
charged to his private account all the
expense OF bringing home that same reg
iment, without waiting consent to his
request 10 move them from New Orleans
before the coming hot weather caused
illness, This, with other such causes,
nearly swamped Gen. Jackson's private
means.
Ny father had a position of influence
even then in Washington, and used it SO
successfully that this outlay was author
lied, and so lifted from General Jackson.
AT the very hour | was at the War
Department" q have heard my father
tell, ''at eight o'clock, when was send
ing off this notification of release from
debt. my brother was carried in blank
ct through the streets of Nashville,
wounded in the leg by General Jackson,
and that not for his own, but for a
friends quarrel. / terminated his busi-
ness for him, and sent him a challenge.
lie refused to accept it from me, and
declared lie would not fight me. ThenI
notified him to go armed, for / would
attack him wherever met him" Which
was done; and n Montague and Capulet
business they made OF it; for it spread
to the friends of each, aud one result
was that my fathers party followed that
of General jackson into the chief inn of
the place, and in the firing that followed
some balls penetrated into an inner par
lor where some peaceful travellers were.
One of them, a lady, told Inc many years
after, that the names of jackson and
Benton were horror to her, for she had
been made i'll by the fight. Her child,
then two years OLD, brought about diff
frrrnt feeling, however, and when we
married, and my father became known
to her in his perfectly lovable, domestic
life.
One day the President could not see
my father at the White House, because
''the surgeons were just extracting the
ball from an old wound" and later my
father was told that it was the ball he
had put in his old friends arm.
General jackson wished to make my
father Minister to France, but neither
that nor any Cabinet position, nor in
deed any evidence of personal favo; did
hc think it right to accept. To sustain
the party and the administration was
another thing, aud that lac did it-mag-
niiicently and unselfishIy-the country
knows.
But my uncle would not see this diff
ference, and in his resentment against
my father for even acting with General
jackson politically, he ceased to speak
to my father. Nor did lie relent; but
lac bequrathed to my father his large es-
tate in Louisiana. This my father would
not accept 1t touched him very much.
but Ire would not take money where
love had been withheld.
''When tie old king lay dying" and
from the pain and Inconvenience of his
e-dropsy-couid not easily turn
himself, lie had the portrait of his placed
ut the foot of his bed.
Il have tired to be Christian, " he
would say, ''nnd | know | do fully for
give all my rmeniies. as | hope forgive
ness. But / cannot forgive those who
killed NY Rachel with ther ISLANDERS"
have an admirable portrait of Gen.
Jackson, taken before the Presidency
had weighed upon him, or the loss of
his Rachel chilled and saddened him.
1t only needs the helmet and mailed
coat to be type of the heroic, crusad-
ing knight; bat, as | knew him, thick,
white locks made the helmet, and the
once iron hand was all gentleness.
VAN PELT, the reformed saloonist,
who Joined the last winters crusade
against whisky, was fined, few days
since, S20, and thirty days in the work
house, for disturbing religious meeting.
The dog has returned 10 its yomit, and
the hog that WAS washed to its wallow-
ing IN the nire. Self interest was at the
bottom of Van Peit's reform, and there
is ne er true reFUrm by a drunkard I'M
less his inducement is higher than mere
dollars and cents, or personal popularity.
The pledge of abstinence from drink
must be between man and his Maker,
not between man and his fellow-men, if
it would stand Clereland Herald
Mrs. Fremont, in one of her papers on