the belles of Washington.

It was difficult for me to realize that the care-worn face before me
was that of the charming Peggy O'Neal of early Washington days.
Distress, poverty, slander possibly, had measurably wrought the
sad change, but after all,

"the surest poison is Time."

Traces of her former self still lingered, however, and her erect
form and dignified mien would have challenged respect in any
assembly.

While yet in her teens, she had married a purser in the Navy,
who soon after died by his own hand, while on a cruise in the
Mediterranean. A year or two after his death, with reputation
somewhat clouded, she married the Honorable John H. Eaton, then
a Senator from Tennessee. He was many years her senior, was one
of the leading statesmen of the day, and had rendered brilliant
service in the campaign which terminated so triumphantly at New
Orleans. He was the devoted personal and political friend of
General Jackson, his earliest biographer, and later his earnest
advocate for the Presidency. Indeed, the movement having in view
the election of "Old Hickory" was inaugurated by Major Eaton assisted
by Amos Kendall and Francis P. Blair.

This was in 1824, before the days of national conventions.
Eaton visited several of the States in the interest of his old
commander, and secured the hearty co-operation of many of the most
influential men. It was in large degree through his personal
efforts that the Legislatures of Pennsylvania and Tennessee proposed
the name of Andrew Jackson for the great office.

The Presidential contest of that year marked an epoch in our
political history. It was at the close of the Monroe administration,
"the era of good feeling." The struggle for supremacy which
immediately followed was the precursor of an era of political strife
which left its deep and lasting impress upon the country. Of
the four candidates in the field, two were members of the outgoing
Cabinet of President Monroe: John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State,
and William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury. The remaining
candidates were Henry Clay, the eloquent and accomplished Speaker of
the House of Representatives, and Andrew Jackson, "the hero of New
Orleans." The candidates were all of the same party, that founded
by Jefferson; the sun of the once powerful Federalists had set,
and the Whig party was yet in the future.

No one of the candidates receiving a majority of the electoral
vote, the electi