Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Catastrophic Marriage Scandal of Rachel Jackson

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

On this episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, we’re going to talk about a First Lady who never got the opportunity to step foot inside the White House. However, her life had an undeniably major impact on her husband’s two-term presidency. I know we love to hate him, but during this episode, we’re going to discuss the lifelong–and at times scandalous–love and devotion between President Andrew Jackson and his wife, Rachel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. So glad you're here with me for another episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting. Today, we're going to talk about a first lady who never got the opportunity to step foot inside the White House because she died. Can you call her a first lady? We'll discuss. We'll discuss. She died after her husband won his presidential election, but before he was inaugurated. Do you see how this is like a, this is a little murky? She did, however, have an undeniably major impact on her husband's two-term presidency. And I know we all love to hate him, but during this episode, we're going to discuss the lifelong and at times scandalous love and devotion between President Andrew Jackson and his wife, Rachel. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

So on April 13th, 1827, a half a page of letters to the editor appeared in one of New York City's newspapers, the Evening Post. These printed letters all weighed in on the same topic, and they were only a handful of the letters that were regularly showing up in the mailrooms of newspapers across the country. Everyone had an opinion. And the subject of the debate, the good name and reputation of Rachel Donaldson Jackson, the wife of presidential candidate Andrew Jackson. Before Rachel, no one had really questioned the suitability of a presidential candidate's wife. Sure, you know, past presidents and their families had found themselves under periods of scrutiny. But in the months leading up to the 1828 election, Rachel Jackson endured

a full-fledged smear campaign backed by her husband's political opponents. All anyone could talk about was the scandal between Andrew Jackson, his wife Rachel, and the sticky timeline of Rachel's divorce from her first husband, Captain Louis Robards. For his part, letter writer James Ray told the Evening Post, I consider Mrs. Jackson as most unjustly and ungenerously slandered. I'm well acquainted with most of the circumstances and regret to see the whole transaction misrepresented. Rachel spent the first part of her childhood in Virginia, raised in a prominent Southern family. She was the youngest of 11 children. And when Rachel was around the age of 12, her whole family left Virginia and traveled for four months, over a thousand miles, to the Tennessee frontier, where the family settled for a short time.

While there, Rachel's father, John Donaldson, helped build the settlement of Fort Nashville, establishing it for around 600 of Tennessee's first white settlers. And if Nashville has a familiar ring to it, it's because the settlement was later developed into the city of Nashville, Tennessee. But the adventurous Donaldson family didn't stick around. They moved on and eventually settled north of Tennessee in the Kentucky Territory. It was in this backdrop of the Blue Hills of Kentucky that Rachel came of age. By 17, she had grown into a capable, well-educated young woman. She was devout in her Presbyterian faith and loved spending time reading the Bible and poetry. Her friends and family adored her,

and she was considered to be a very merry teenager who was often quick to show kindness. And when it came time for Rachel to find a suitor and settle down, it didn't hurt that she was also very beautiful. And while she probably had her pick of rugged frontiersmen, Rachel married Captain Louis Robards. Louis was from Virginia, like Rachel, and he had served in the Revolutionary War before traveling to the frontier. The couple was married in the spring of 1785 when Rachel was 18, and they moved in with Lewis's widowed mother on the Robards, Kentucky land, where she ran a boarding house. But it just wasn't meant to be for Rachel and Lewis. Lewis was the jealous type. He was always suspicious of Rachel's actions and motivations

while being rather lenient with his own marriage vows. It's said that he regularly accused her of sleeping with the men who were boarding at his mother's house and often resorted to cruel abuse to control her. So Rachel fled. At this point, their story becomes a bit of a he said, she said tale with accounts that diverge depending on who told it. According to the Jacksons and the Donaldsons, Rachel escaped to her family's home and then fled to the Spanish owned city of Natchez to avoid Robards, who had gone looking for her at her mother's home. During the early days of Rachel's marriage to Louis, Rachel's father was killed, and like Louis's mother, Rachel's mom had opened her home up as a boarding house for travelers. One of those boarders was the tall and dashing war hero with a great head of hair, Andrew Jackson. He was

immediately sympathetic to Rachel's plight, and in their version of the story, he chivalrously escorted her to Natchez, Mississippi to keep her safe, while Lewis, who declared he was ready to cut ties with Rachel, filed divorce papers. But the Robards family claimed that Rachel stole away with Andrew Jackson, the both of them hoping that their actions would prompt her husband to divorce her. Historians tend to agree with the Robards. Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Meacham writes in his biography of Andrew Jackson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Meacham writes in his biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, Andrew and Rachel's passion for each other was apparently deep enough to lead them, despite their claims to the contrary, to choose to live in adultery in order to provoke

a divorce from Robarts. It was an extremely risky move for Rachel in a time when divorce was practically unheard of, especially in elite families. Women were expected to bear their husband's bad behavior silently. Rachel chose otherwise, and it was a choice that would haunt her for the rest of her life. In 1791, while in Natchez, Rachel and Andrew got married under the impression that Louis Robards had obtained the divorce and Rachel was free to wed again. But here's the thing. Divorces weren't just a social faux pas. They were a complete logistical nightmare to execute. During the process of Rachel and Louis's divorce, Kentucky became a state instead of a territory that was held by the state of Virginia, and North Carolina turned over management of the territory of Tennessee to the federal government. So Louis did, in fact, file for divorce like he said he would, but it was never officially granted. It was lost instead through the cracks of an increasingly

complicated filing system. And of course, at the time, women were not permitted to initiate divorce, so Rachel was very much at his mercy. So the newlyweds, Rachel and Andrew, were none the wiser until two years later. And while a lot of historical emphasis is placed on the fact that Rachel and Andrew didn't know the divorce wasn't finalized, it's important to note that even Louis himself had been in the dark. He had also remarried, unaware that he wasn't truly divorced from his first wife. Searching for the quickest way to put the legal snafu to bed once and for all, Louis Robards agreed to sue Rachel, claiming that she was a bigamist and an adulterer, which was regarded

as a valid reason to obtain a divorce. The courts found her guilty of abandoning her husband, and granted the divorce. On January 18, 1794, Rachel and Andrew were quietly and legally married in a small second ceremony. After their second wedding, they oversaw the construction of the hermitage, their plantation home in Nashville, Tennessee, the fledgling city Rachel's father had once helped establish. And when the couple purchased the land in 1804, they brought with them nine enslaved workers, a number that evolved over the years and grew to over 150 by the time Andrew Jackson left the White House. Rachel and Andrew were not able to have any biological children of their own, but they were certainly not childless. Quite the opposite, in fact. Andrew Jackson is known for,

shall we say, his more temper-driven tendencies. So it may surprise you to learn that he loved children. It was often said that he became a totally different man around children. The first child they brought into their home was one of the twin sons of Severn Donaldson, Rachel's brother. Around the year 1809, they welcomed this baby into their family as their own and gave him the name Andrew Jackson Jr. It's a little odd for us today to imagine separating twin babies at birth, right? I mean, like the practice is most famously relegated as a movie plot device to reignite the romance between the parents of Hayley Mills or Lindsay Lohan, depending on your preferred parent trap era. But in the early 19th century, the concept

of kinship adoption, being adopted by a family member, became extremely commonplace as large families began to decide what type of living arrangements and educational opportunities might be in the best interest of the child. And we don't know the exact reason why Severn Donaldson and his wife Elizabeth decided to let Rachel and Andrew adopt their son. But what we do know is that by the time these twin sons were born, Severn and Elizabeth already had three children all under the age of five. You can imagine that there must have been some sort of conversation that took place between the two families. Rachel and Andrew had no children but wanted to have them, and Severn and Elizabeth had more children than they could handle.

A kinship adoption probably felt like the best course of action. And so Rachel and Andrew raised Andrew Jr. as their own, but he also grew up closely connected to his biological siblings. Around 1812, Rachel and Andrew adopted five-year-old A.J. Hutchings. A.J. was Rachel's great-nephew. He had recently been orphaned, and Rachel's sister, Catherine, was unable to care for her grandson, so Rachel stepped in. I say Rachel because during the War of 1812, Andrew spent long periods of time away from the hermitage fighting in the conflict. The pair hated being separated from one another, and later Andrew's niece Emily said General Jackson loved and admired Rachel extravagantly, finding his chief pleasure in her companionship and his greatest reward in her approval.

But one of the most surprising stories about the Jacksons has its origins in the War of 1812. In the aftermath of the Creek War in Alabama, an indigenous baby boy was found alive, crying and clinging to his Native American mother who had been killed. He was brought directly to Andrew at his military encampment, and it's said that Andrew immediately decided to adopt the child as his own. It's a perplexing part of Andrew Jackson's personal history, considering he used his power, first as a general and later as the president to kill and displace thousands of indigenous people off their lands. But perhaps he identified with the boy because Andrew Jackson was an orphan himself. Andrew kept the small child alive by mixing

flour and water together. And in the midst of war raging all around, he would gently feed him to make sure he grew healthy enough to travel to Rachel at the hermitage. In the letter he sent to Rachel about the rescued boy, Andrew said, I send Lincoia to my little Andrew son, and I hope he will adopt him as one of the family. Andrew's son, and I hope he will adopt him as one of the family. He referred to Lincoia as a pet with two Ts, so maybe he thought of the baby more as a plaything or a subordinate to his son rather than a child of his own. But as time went on, Lincoia was given the Jackson surname and lived in the home with Rachel and Andrew, and was educated and raised alongside the other adopted boys, Andrew and AJ. Although it's not clear the extent to which Andrew and Rachel

viewed him as their child, rather than somebody who just lived with them. And sadly, Lincoia died of tuberculosis just before his 17th birthday. He was buried in an unmarked grave. And while historians have long debated how much Andrew Jackson really cared for Lincoia, very few remark on the heartbreak Rachel experienced at his passing. Over the course of their marriage, Rachel and Andrew became the legal guardians of as many as a dozen more children, most of them Rachel's own nieces and nephews. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends, and together we have the podcast

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Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. For years, as Rachel and Andrew set up their home at the Hermitage and began adopting their sons, the story of Rachel's botched divorce and supposed bigamy had been only spoken about in hushed tones and behind closed doors. The social elite were too polite to drag the rumors out into the open. But that all changed in May of 1806. A cocky lawyer in Nashville, a man named Charles Dickinson, entered a dispute with Rachel's family, the Donaldsons, claiming some of her brothers cheated during a horse racing bet. Andrew stepped into the situation looking to defend the honor of his in-laws. But Charles took things further by insulting Rachel's character in a newspaper article, no less, and speaking about her penchant for

living in sin. Andrew flew into a rage. He was no stranger to dueling, having previously drawn pistols with at least two other men, including the governor of Tennessee. And he challenged Charles Dickinson, who was, by the way, considered one of the best shots on the frontier, to a duel. Charles accepted, and the two made their way to a farm in Kentucky because dueling was illegal in Tennessee. Charles shot first, and he hit Andrew in the chest, where the bullet stayed lodged for the rest of his life. But the shot did not kill Andrew, who took the next shot. took the next shot. A good many accounts of this duel say that Jackson's pistol jammed, but then he re-cocked his pistol and he took a second shot that hit Charles in the abdomen and ultimately killed him. Andrew's second shot broke the code duello, or the rules of the duel. But when the dust settled, one man lived and one man died. Andrew had technically won the duel, but in his haste to defend Rachel's honor, he brought into his life the smear of

murder alongside the bigamy rumors his wife endured. This made Andrew Jackson's run for the presidency a living hell. If you'll remember, he ran against John Quincy Adams in 1824, losing bitterly when the House of Representatives elected Adams, even after Jackson won nearly 70% of the popular vote. And when Jackson and the Quincy, as I like to call him, squared off in 1828, things got even more ugly. John Quincy Adams' presidential campaign supporters regularly brought up Jackson's lack of self-control, his use of slave labor, and of course his marriage to Rachel before she was

fully divorced from Louis Robards. And though I think it's important to mention that John Quincy Adams himself never got personally involved in the smear campaign, he felt the mudslinging tactics were beneath him, and he even refused to write in his diary between August and October of 1828. The press, however, loved the scandal. One newspaper ran an article asking its readers, ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land? And hot-headed Andrew Jackson did not take the high road in response. Andrew Jackson did not take the high road in response. He regularly delighted in the rumors that his own supporters spread about John Quincy Adams, even when they were clearly baseless.

He also tried to do damage control by writing to newspaper editors himself and sharing guidelines on how the attacks on Rachel's virtue should be countered. Hacks on Rachel's virtue should be countered. The insults continued, and Rachel grew depressed. She wrote to her niece about an incident where she overheard other women talking about her. She wrote, it seemed as if a veil was lifted, and I saw myself, whom you have all guarded from outside criticism and surrounded with flattering delusions, as others see me, a poor old woman, a hindrance instead of a helpmate to the man I adore. Between the scandal and Koya's death earlier that year and a downturn in her health, Rachel spent much of the campaign teary-eyed and tucked away from the world. Once her husband won

the election, Rachel Jackson reportedly confided in a friend saying, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington. Whether it was a throwaway complaint or a premonition of what was to come, in early December, Rachel suffered a near-fatal heart attack and died three weeks later on December 22, 1828, at the age of 61. Rachel was buried on Christmas Eve at the Hermitage, and she was laid to rest wearing the white dress she had picked out for the inaugural ball. Devastated, Andrew Jackson blamed his political enemies for Rachel's death, even going so far as to say at her funeral, may God Almighty forgive her murderers, as I know she forgave them. I never can.

And even as Andrew settled into his presidency, Rachel's death caused him constant pain. My heart is nearly broke, he said in a letter to a friend. I tried to summon up my usual fortitude, but it is in vain. Because he was now in need of someone to fill the house and hostess duties of a first lady, Andrew turned to an obvious choice, a family member who was already living in Washington, D.C. with him. The president-elect had designated Rachel's nephew, Andrew Donaldson, to be his private secretary, a position that we now call the chief of staff, which was the highest employee rank in the West Wing of the White House. His wife, Emily Donaldson, was educated, energetic, and already a part of the fabric of his new administration, so she was the perfect person to have the job of White House hostess. Emily was born in 1807 to John Donaldson, one of Rachel Jackson's brothers. And she was raised with a formal education at the

Nashville Female Academy, benefiting from the type of schooling that was extremely rare for a girl to have at the time. At 17, she married her first cousin, Andrew Donaldson, and over the course of their marriage, they had four children together. Emily was just 21 years old when she came into her White House hostess role, but she came to it with all the know-how, style, and gumption that a woman twice her age could only hope to have. Andrew Jackson was the President of the United States, but he was also a man in deep mourning over the loss of his beloved wife. Around the one-year anniversary of Rachel's death, Emily stepped in. She decided it was time to coax her uncle out of his despair and into the light of some of the fun that his new presidential

position offered. And so, on January 1st, 1830, Emily threw the social event of the season, a New Year's party that still to this day is considered one of the biggest and grandest events to take place in the White House. It was a new decade, and the vivacious Emily wanted Andrew and the rest of the country to find joy in the potential of the years ahead. Emily served as the First Lady's surrogate for five years, expertly handling the details of receptions, welcoming official guests, and arranging important dinners. And she's widely regarded as one of the most effective of the White House

hostesses. But towards the end of her time there, a social scandal drove a wedge between her and President Jackson. Emily also began to feel ill and returned home to Tennessee, where she sadly died from tuberculosis at the too young age of 29. Andrew Jackson replaced Emily with his daughter-in-law, Sarah York Jackson, who stepped in to take over hostess duties. And that social scandal that saw Emily and Andrew Jackson at odds with each other before her death, it would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the trajectory of Washington, D.C. politics, and even directly influence the next presidential election. More about that in a future episode. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so glad we could learn about Rachel together, and I cannot wait to share more about Andrew Jackson with you next time. He may be

my favorite, least favorite president, but his life truly was fascinating. And we are going to have a whole conversation about cheese in Jackson's White House. I'll see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting if you enjoyed this episode would you consider sharing it on social media or leaving us a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform all those things help podcasters out so much

the show is written and researched by executive producer Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback and Sharon McMahon our audio engineer is Jenny Snyder and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. We'll see you again soon.