FRONTIERSMAN AND SOLDIER 259 



NOTE. AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF ANDREW JACKSON. 



Through the courtesy of the late Colonel Thomas Tasker Gantt 

 of St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Fiske's attention was directed to an un- 

 published letter of Jackson's, written by the general in 1818 to his 

 friend, the Hon. G. W. Campbell, minister to Russia, concerning 

 affairs in Florida. Dr. Fiske made an exact copy, which is given 

 below, an interesting example, not only of the writer's virility of 

 expression, but of his well-known peculiarities of spelling. Of 

 these peculiarities General Jackson was himself well aware. That 

 he was also drolly indifferent to all conventional rules of orthog- 

 raphy appears from an extract of correspondence between Colonel 

 Gantt and Mrs. Elizabeth B. Lee, daughter of the distinguished 

 Virginian, Francis P. Blair, and sister to Montgomery Blair of 

 Lincoln's cabinet. From the lifelong intimacy of the Blairs and 

 the Jacksons, Mrs. Lee was often, as a girl, a guest at "The 

 Hermitage " and at the White House. " Once," she writes, 

 " when copying a letter for him I protested against his spelling 

 which three different ways on one page and wanted him to alter 

 it, but he would not, and said laughingly that he could make him- 

 self understood, and that as I was a copyist, I had better spell it 

 as I found it ; then he added, more seriously, that at the age when 

 most young people learn to spell he was working for his living and 

 helping the best of mothers." 



Chekesaw Nation Treaty Ground, 



Oct r 5 th 1818. 

 D r Sir 



I know you will be astonished at receiving an answer to your 

 very friendly letter of the 22 d July last at this distant day and from 

 this place. Your letter came to hand by due course of mail, but 

 found me sick in bed that I could not comply with your request 

 or my own wishes by giving it a speedy answer. It was some 

 time before I recovered so as to use a pen, and when I did, I 

 found myself surrounded by letters and communications relative 

 to my official duties that occupied my whole time that I was able 

 to attend to business untill the arrival of Governor Shelby of 

 Kentucky with whom I was joined in commission to hold a treaty 

 with this nation for a surrender of their right to all lands within 



