vorce required the passage of an act of the legislature before a
jury could consider the case. In the winter of 1791, Captain Robards
obtained the passage of such an act, authorising the court of Mercer
County to act upon his divorce. Mrs. Robards, hearing of this,
understood that the passage of the act was, in itself, divorce, and
that she was a free woman. Jackson also took the divorce for granted.
Every one in the country so understood the matter, and at Natchez, in
the following summer, the two were married.

They returned to Nashville, settled down, and Jackson began in earnest
the career that was to land him in the White House, the hero of the
nation.

In December of 1793, more than two years after their marriage, their
friend Overton learned that the legislature had not granted a divorce,
but had left it for the court to do so. Jackson was much chagrined
when he heard of this, and it was with great difficulty that he was
brought to believe it. In January of 1794, when the decree was finally
obtained, they were married again.

It is difficult to excuse Jackson for marrying the woman without
positive and absolute knowledge of her divorce. He was a lawyer, and
could have learned the facts of the case, even though there was no
established mail service. Each of them had been entirely innocent of
any intentional wrong-doing, and their long life together, their
great devotion to each other, and General Jackson's honourable career,
forever silenced the spiteful calumny of his rivals and enemies of
early life.

In his eyes his wife was the soul of honour and purity; he loved and
reverenced her as a man loves and reverences but one woman in his
lifetime, and for thirty-seven years he kept a pair of pistols loaded
for the man who should dare to breathe her name without respect.

The famous pistol duel with Dickinson was the result of a quarrel
which had its beginning in a remark reflecting upon Mrs. Jackson, and
Dickinson, though a crack shot, paid for it with his life.

Several of Dickinson's friends sent a memorial to the proprietors of
the _Impartial Review_, asking that the next number of the paper
appear in mourning, "out of respect for the memory, and regret for the
untimely death, of Mr. Charles Dickinson."

"Old Hickory" heard of this movement, and wrote to the proprietors,
asking that the names of the gentlemen making the request be published
in the memorial number of the paper. This also was agreed to, and