​If you’re looking for great American love stories, Andrew and Rachel Jackson might seem a bit odd. Images of Rachel show a stout middle-aged woman who liked to smoke a pipe, not the beautiful young woman who’s the usual image in a love story. Images of Jackson from his presidency show a somewhat gaunt, aging man looking alert, wary and suspicious, like some hawk or eagle surveying the land from a high place. Jackson was a formidable man, condemned by many modern historians because he was a slave owner, Indian fighter and was responsible for forcibly removing the Cherokee people to Indian Territory. But he was a good-humored husband who loved his wife deeply.

​Jackson (1767-1848) was a highly intelligent, combative and passionate man. He joined the American rebels in the Revolution at age 13 and was captured by the British. Hebecame a general, notable for his leadership and audacity, and for sometimes not paying much attention to national policy. He was commander in the Battle of New Orleans (January 6, 1815) and with troops composed largely of Tennessee militia, Louisiana pirates and ruffians from the city of New Orleans, he decimated a British invasion force. It was the most decisive American defeat of a British force since Yorktown and Saratoga a generation before.

​Jackson had previously annihilated the Red Stick faction at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) in the Creek War, in Alabama. He later invaded Spanish Florida, against orders from Washington, and all but annexed the territory—which the Spanish ceded to the U.S. in 1819. Florida had become a refuge for escaping slaves and Jackson decided to end it. He caused a diplomatic rift with Britain by hanging two British traders in Florida, accusing them of trading with the Seminoles, who were raiding into American territory. Jackson was a plantation owner who owned many slaves.

He served in Congress and then ran for President in 1824, and again in 1828, winning. Jackson was a hero to voters in new states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. During his presidency he was a bitter and angry man, because his beloved Rachel died,and he blamed it on his political opponents.

Rachel Donelson was born in Virginia in 1767, the 8th of 11 children. The family moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was 12. In 1785, still a teenager, she married a man named Lewis Robards. He turned out to be a possessive and abusive husband. He continually accused her of the kind of infidelities he apparently committed on a large scale. They separated for a time in 1788 and separated permanently in 1789. Robards petitioned for divorce. Rachel returned home to live with her mother. A boarder in her mother’s house was a young man named Andrew Jackson. They apparently fell in love almost immediately.

​Divorce was possible in those days, but obtaining one was a complicated process. Andrew and Rachel began doing things together. They married on a trip to Natchez. There was a problem, because the divorce from Robards wasn’t finalized, so technically Rachel had two husbands, sufficient grounds for scandal. The couple moved to Jackson’s plantation, The Hermitage, in 1804, after which Rachel rarely left the place.

​They had no children but informally adopted several (adoption was legally possible but generally adoptions were not formalized). They adopted her nephew as a baby, and named him Andrew Jackson, Jr.  They also adopted a Native American boy they named Lyncoya, who was found as an abandoned baby. The Jacksons informally adopted a number of children. Racism at that time meant that Lyncoya was denied much opportunity, and trained as a saddler in Nashville, He died there at about age 18, apparently from tuberculosis.

​In 1806, a man named Charles Dickinson had a drunken dispute over a bet, and said something that disrespected Rachel, referring to her as an adulterer because of the marriage/divorce issue. Jackson was angry and challenged Dickinson to a duel; the man offered an apology but Jackson refused to accept it. They set up a duel, using pistols. Dickinson fired first, hitting Jackson but causing only a minor wound. Jackson cooly shot Dickinson, causing a mortal wound. Dickinson died soon after. Jackson is the only American president to have killed a man in a duel.

​We forget that American politics two hundred years ago was just as nasty and cruel as it is today. In the 1824 campaign, the John Quincy Adams campaign went attacked Rachel, calling her an adulterer, immoral and worse. Jackson was angered and Rachel was mortified. Adams won. In 1828, Jackson again ran for the presidency, again against Adams. The Adams campaign attacked Rachel, who was upset by it, She died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, after Jackson won. She died in Andrew’s arms. She was buried in the Hermitage garden on Christmas Eve. Her funeral was attended by a crowd estimated at 10,000, and all the stores in Nashville closed for the funeral.

Jackson loved the stout, aging and pipe-smoking Rachel as much as he loved the slender young divorcee she had been in her younger days. Jackson blamed her death on the extremely negative campaign of his opponents and retained a fierce grudge against them for the rest of his life.

Rachel probably would not have liked the role of First Lady. Even then there was a social calendar of dances, dinners and meetings in which elegance was prized. In the White House, Jackson’s niece Emily Donelson served as hostess, and when she died, another niece took over the role.

Jackson never remarried.

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