234 ANDREW JACKSON 



probably Robards himself helped spread the report. 

 Acting upon this information, Jackson, whose chival- 

 rous interest in Mrs. Robards's misfortunes had ripened 

 into sincere affection, went in the summer of 1791 to 

 Natchez and married her there, and brought her to 

 his home at Nashville. In the autumn of 1793 Cap- 

 tain Robards, on the strength of the facts which unde- 

 niably existed since the act of the Virginia legislature, 

 brought his case into court and obtained the verdict 

 completing the divorce. On hearing of this, to his 

 intense surprise, in December, Jackson concluded that 

 the best method of preventing future cavil was to pro- 

 cure a new license and have the marriage ceremony 

 performed again ; and this was done in January. Jack- 

 son was doubtless to blame for not taking more care 

 to ascertain the import of the act of the Virginia legis- 

 lature. It was a carelessness peculiarly striking in a 

 lawyer. The irregularity of the marriage was indeed 

 atoned by forty years of honourable and happy wed- 

 lock, ending only with Mrs. Jackson's death in Decem- 

 ber, 1828; and no blame was ever attached to the 

 parties in Nashville, where all the circumstances 

 were well known. But the story, half-understood, 

 maliciously warped, and embellished with gratuitous 

 fictions, grew into scandal as it was passed about 

 among Jackson's personal enemies or political oppo- 

 nents; and herein some of the bitterest of his many 

 quarrels had their source. His devotion to Mrs. Jack- 

 son was intense, and his loaded pistol was always kept 

 ready for the rash man who should dare to speak of 

 her slightingly. 



In January, 1796, we find Jackson sitting in the 

 convention assembled at Knoxville for making a con- 



