The life of Andrew Jackson, complete in one volume by James Marquis 1891-1955

Author:James, Marquis, 1891-1955
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845
Publisher: Indianapolis, New York, The Bobbs-Merrill company
Published: 1938-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

then dead, who had had professional knowledge of the case. He fixed the date as in 1821.

Thirty-six hours later, in the presence of Jack Donelson and Colonel Towson, General Jackson confronted the clergyman with documentary proof that Timberlake had been in Washington in 1821. Whereupon Mr. Campbell changed the date to 1822 when, it appears, Timberlake was at sea. Jackson read his pastor an explosive lecture on Christian charity. There was more to the interview, however. Campbell told of a call that he and Colonel Towson had made only a few hours before on Mrs. Craven, the physician's widow. This lady had described a previous visit to her residence by Major Eaton and his wife who, she said, had endeavored to frighten her with allusions to duels and law-suits into denying any knowledge of the miscarriage story. The widow, in truth, knew nothing of the reported miscarriage, but she said she had unhesitatingly told the Eatons that Timberlake had made a sort of father confessor of the old doctor and had left him with "impressions not favourable to the character of Mrs. T." 32

Each of Mr. Campbell's three auditors drew from the recital what it pleased him to hear. Without presuming to pass on the truth or falsity of specific charges, Towson recalled a prophecy of his that the appointment of Eaton to the Cabinet would prove "most unfortunate." Donelson stressed the visit to the doctor's widow. To these things Jackson refused to listen. Like a shaft of lightning he fixed on the clergyman's change of dates, and declared that Campbell had told a wholly incredible tale. 33 Applied strictly to the miscarriage story this was hardly an exaggeration.

Swiftly Jackson moved to expand this victory into an acquittal of Mrs. Eaton of all the charges and rumors that overhung her name. Members of the Cabinet were summoned to a meeting unique in the history of that body, the explicit purpose being to examine evidence bearing on the private lives of the Secretary of War and his wife. Campbell and Ely accepted invitations to attend. Every Cabinet officer was present excepting Eaton, in whose place Lewis sat. Calhoun and Donelson were also there.

Before these statesmen Jackson laid the voluminous testimony Lewis had gathered as to Mrs. Eaton's impeccable character. Then

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