The First Ladies (3 page)

FIRST LADY: 1825–29

The Shadow Lady

On paper, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams was superbly qualified to fill not only the White House but the shoes of the illustrious Mrs. Madison. On paper, she seemed also well qualified to be the consort of the sophisticated John Quincy Adams. She was born in England to a wealthy American merchant and his British wife, educated in Paris, spoke fluent French, knew Latin and Greek, was trained in the classics, played the harp and the harpsichord, and wrote fair poetry. And she was pretty and charming to boot.

When she married John Quincy Adams in 1797, he was
the eminent son of the American vice president and on his way to becoming a well-regarded diplomat in his own right, as minister plenipotentiary to the Netherlands. Theirs had been a two-year courtship mostly by correspondence, and Louisa was given ample evidence of the cold and acerbic nature of the man she agreed to marry. He criticized and cautioned her about nearly everything, and showed little ardor. Reservations or not, the marriage took place. On their wedding day, Louisa’s father confided to the bridegroom that he was bankrupt. There would be no dowry.

Nevertheless, the couple went to Prussia, a new assignment for the twenty-nine-year-old diplomat and his twenty-two-year-old bride. She was an instant hit with her cosmopolitan grace, good looks, and winsome demeanor. Louisa would be a hit wherever she went—except with her frosty husband. He doubtlessly loved her in his own way, but from the start she was relegated to the outskirts of his life, either as an ornament or as a mother. The ornament part was obvious. The mother part was not so easy. She would have fifteen pregnancies, resulting in numerous miscarriages, stillborns, and only three children who would live to maturity. It took a huge toll on her health.

After their return to America, an angst-filled appointment to the Senate, and a much-loathed stint practicing law, JQA (as he liked to refer to himself) received the plum appointment of minister plenipotentiary to Russia. (The term ambassador would not be used for nearly another century.) Louisa was torn. In some respects she wanted to return to the courtly
diplomatic circles, but she agonized over leaving her two older boys, both under ten, with relatives. The Adamses would take only two-year-old Charles, and nothing would be what Louisa had expected.

Court life in St. Petersburg was backwards and dull; she bore and buried her last child. Letters from home were scarce, the cruel and sunless Russian winters played havoc with her increasingly frail health, and the paltry and sporadically received salary of the American minister was an embarrassment compared to their European counterparts with deep pockets. Worst of all, JQA was no more attentive in St. Petersburg than he was anywhere else.

When word came that the War of 1812 had ended, JQA
was senior diplomat on the Continent and as such was dispatched to lead the peace treaty negotiations in Ghent. He left immediately, instructing his wife to sell any unneeded possessions, pack what was left, and meet him in Paris. It was a daunting challenge for the forty-year-old woman, but she managed to do it in six grueling weeks, traveling more than eighteen hundred miles through mud-mired roads scarred by years of Napoleonic wars and accompanied by dissolute, unreliable, and often dishonest servants and drivers. It was capped off by the drama of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba and his march to Paris with an increasing army of motley but enthusiastic recruits. It was arguably the most important few weeks in Louisa’s life. She was, for once, completely in charge of her own adventure. When she related her tale to JQA, he barely batted an eye.

John Quincy Adams was recalled home in 1817 to serve for eight years as secretary of state under James Monroe, whose wife, Elizabeth, was a haughty woman disliked and avoided by Washington society. Seemingly content with her own pretensions, First Lady Monroe pleaded the customary ill health and mostly kept to herself. Sociopolitical leadership once again fell to the secretary of state. With his eyes firmly fixed on the presidency in 1824, JQA was shrewdly aware of the importance of parlor diplomacy. He was also cognizant of his own social shortcomings and trotted Louisa out like a champion thoroughbred. She was his best asset, and he directed her to see and be seen throughout official Washington. Her eyes and ears, well tuned by years of high-level societal experience, were
keen to the nuances and innuendos of casual conversation. Each day, after her calls and card leavings, Adams demanded a meticulous account of who was where and who said what. Their own house was regularly filled with the movers and shakers of officialdom. His years as secretary of state culminated in a lavish party for more than five hundred guests. One newspaper account quipped, “Belles and matrons, maids and madams, all are gone to Mrs. Adams.” John Quincy Adams won the presidency, but he could not have done it without his gracious wife.

Despite Louisa’s grace and charm and JQA’s intellect and vision, their White House years were arguably their worst together and separately. Two venomous political campaigns left Adams with few followers and fewer friends. None of his programs, however meritorious, found sponsors. At fifty, Louisa’s poor health, exacerbated by depression, female troubles, and anxiety over her older sons’ dissipations, made her reclusive. Instead of the glittering social scene chez the former secretary of state, their White House parties were dull, and it is said that JQA was known to doze off at dessert. By the time they left Washington, they were barely on speaking terms. The death of their oldest son, JQA’s thwarted ambitions, and the thought of returning to a detested New England law practice was a bitter pill for both.

The good people of Boston, however, had other plans for the former president. They elected him to Congress, where he would spend eighteen years and make his most important contributions. These would also be Louisa’s happiest years.
They both loved Washington, where she at least had many friends. As age began to claim his eyesight (probably cataracts), JQA recruited his wife to help sort through the hundreds of letters he was receiving as the lone and wily champion of the right to petition—a forerunner of the violent antislavery feelings that would soon engulf the country. Louisa also became involved in her own correspondence with noted antislavery proponents, amazed that they actually sought
her
opinion. JQA finally achieved the admiration he lusted for all his life. Louisa finally gained
his
respect.

Her Sacred Name

In March 1829, Andrew Jackson came to his inauguration wearing a mourning band. His voice was so low he could barely be heard. His beloved wife of more than thirty-five years had died only weeks before. They said it was her heart, which had been failing for a long time. Jackson, however, was convinced beyond doubt that she was murdered by the poisoned arrow of slander, and he would go to his grave two decades later believing nothing less.

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Donelson was a hardy girl when her large family moved from Virginia by flatboat and wagon to
what is now Nashville, Tennessee. Her formal education was only rudimentary, but her domestic and survival skills compensated. At seventeen, the lively young woman with flashing black eyes married Lewis Robards, a Kentucky planter of considerable means. The marriage was doomed from the outset, since Robards had a violent temper set off by jealous rages. The couple separated on and off.

It was during one such separation that Rachel met Andrew Jackson, a young attorney new to Tennessee who was boarding with Rachel’s widowed mother. Jackson was kind and sympathetic to the distraught young woman, but all agreed that their conduct was proper and above reproach.

Robards eventually had a change of heart and came to reclaim his wife. Seeing Jackson on the premises, his fury was obvious to everyone. Nevertheless, Rachel, believing it her duty, returned with her lawful husband and was subsequently subjected to more and more misery. They would separate again, this time for good.

To ease Rachel’s troubles and protect her from possible retaliation from her abusive husband, Rachel was sent to visit friends in Natchez. Jackson volunteered to be among those in her escort party down the Mississippi River, ostensibly to protect them from Indians. It was on this trip that the young couple fell deeply in love. Jackson returned to Nashville and some months later read a newspaper account that Robards had obtained a divorce. Rachel was now free. Jackson hurried back to Natchez and married the former Mrs. Robards. They were both twenty-four and had known each other for
three years. The large Donelson clan (there were ten siblings) adored Mr. Jackson and was delighted their sister was finally happy. And for Andrew Jackson, with not a soul of his own family, the Donelsons filled the void. He was as devoted to them as if they were his own blood. Things went well, and the Jacksons prospered.

Three years later they were horrified to learn that the original news of Rachel’s divorce was erroneous, and it was only then that a legal divorce had been granted on the grounds that “Rachel Robards doth live with another man.” The Jacksons immediately
remarried, but it was a crushing blow with deep, lifelong scars. Anger and shame overtook them; anger for him, shame for her.

The incident might have been all but forgotten in Nashville where they were both popular, but Jackson, with a volatile temperament of his own, was destined to become a public man, and public men are destined to make enemies. Those enemies—business, personal, and political—quickly learned that the surest way to Jackson’s spleen was by speaking too freely on the character of Mrs. Jackson. The slightest innuendo, no matter how innocent, would fuel his rage. He fought several duels, barely avoided twice as many, and carried two bullets in his body as souvenirs—all from his unwavering resolve to protect her sacred name.

Rachel, on the other hand, turned inward. She became more and more reclusive, certain that her barren womb was divine retribution for her failed first marriage. Influenced by a local minister, her religious fervor secluded her even more. In an effort to ease the lonely woman’s heartache, Jackson built her a beautiful mansion, aptly called the Hermitage. A private chapel was added for her daily devotions. A flower garden was planted where it could be seen from the veranda. Dozens of little Donelson nieces and nephews (seemingly and appropriately all named Andrew, Rachel, and Jackson) were encouraged to visit often and at length, which they were happy to do. Eventually the Jacksons adopted one of Rachel’s nephews to raise as their own. But once Andrew had become General Jackson, he was away for weeks and months at a time, which only added to Rachel’s loneliness and sorrow.

By the late eighteen-teens, Andrew Jackson was not only a public man but a war hero, and there was talk of the presidency in his future. Society demanded an appearance by the reluctant Mrs. J. She was loath to participate, but Old Hickory wanted her near, and as always, she wanted to please him. Each time she made the dreaded venture into Society with a capital “S”, she was uncomfortable and a misfit. She had grown stout, dressed unfashionably, and her conversation was awkward and limited. In a phrase, she was out of place anywhere but in the confines of her own sheltered environment, surrounded by people who dearly loved their warmhearted Aunt Rachel.

During Jackson’s presidential campaigns, the dredged-up divorce scandal resurfaced, compounded by snide comments that Mrs. Jackson was unfit to live in the White House. It was too much for the sixty-year-old woman’s failing heart. She collapsed in tears. Jackson never left her side, claiming that she had nursed him tenderly through his many illnesses and injuries over the years, and it was now his turn to tend to her. When she rallied slightly, she begged him to go rest in the next room. Then she died, sparing him the pain of witnessing her last breath.

Rachel Jackson was buried in her beloved flower garden, wearing the white gown she had intended for Jackson’s inauguration. Her husband said that he forgave his enemies, but those who slandered his beloved Rachel would have to look to God alone for forgiveness.