Peg O'Neal
PEG O'NEAL.
SIXTY years ago, there used to be in Washington a spacious tavern in the old-fashioned Southern style, kept by William O'Neal, who had lived in the neighborhood before the capital was built on the shores of the Potomac. This landlord had a pretty daughter named Peg, who was the pet of the house from babyhood to womanhood. She was somewhat free and easy in her
manners, as girls are apt to be who grow up in such circumstances; and it did not immediately occur to her that a young lady of twenty cannot behave with quite the freedom of a girl of twelve, without exciting ill-natured remark.
Among the boarders of this old tavern, whenever he came to Washington, was General Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, who had known the landlord in the olden time when he used to pass through that region on his way from Nashville to his seat in Congress at Philadelphia. Mrs.
Jackson, also, occasionally accompanied the general to the seat of government, where she became warmly attached both to Mrs. O'Neal and to her daughter, Peg. The general nowhere in Washington felt himself so much at home as in this old tavern. No one could make him and his plain, fat little wife so comfortable as Mrs. O'Neal, and no one could fill the general's corn-cob pipe more acceptably than the lively and beautiful Peg.
In due time, Peg O'Neal, as she was universally called, became the wife of a purser in the navy, named Timberlake, who, while on duty in the Mediterranean, committed suicide, in consequence, it was supposed, of a drunken debauch on shore. He left his widow with two children and little fortune, but still young and beautiful.
Early 1829, Senator Eaton of Tennessee, one of General Jackson's most intimate friends and political allies (an old boarder, too, at the O'Neal tavern), was disposed to marry the widow; but, before doing so, consulted General Jackson.
"Why, yes, Major," replied the general, "if you love the woman, and she will have you, marry her by all means."
Major Eaton observed that the young widow had not escaped reproach, and that even himself was supposed to have been too fond of her.
"Well," said the general, "your marrying her will disprove these charges, and restore Peg's good name."
They were married in January, 1829; and a few weeks after, General Jackson was inaugurated President of the United States. In forming his cabinet, the President assigned the Department of War to his old friend and neighbor, Major Eaton. This appointment suddenly
invested his wife with social importance. Extravagant stories circulated in Washington respecting Mrs. Eaton, and the ladies made up their minds with one accord that they would not call upon her, nor in any way recognize her existence as the wife of a cabinet minister.
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Meanwhile, General Jackson remained in ignorance of this new outbreak of scandal; but before he had been a month at the White House a distinguished clergyman of Philadelphia, Dr. Ely, wrote him a long letter detailing the slander at great length, and calling upon him to
repudiate Mrs. Eaton. General Jackson had his faults, but he never did a mean thing nor a cowardly thing in his life. The manner in which he set about defending the daughter of his old friend, and his wife's old friend, does him as much honor as one of his campaigns. He replied to Dr. Ely in a letter of several sheets, in which he examined the stories with something of the coolness of an old lawyer, and very much of the warmth of a friend. One
of the charges was that the deceased Timberlake believed all this scandal, and cherished deep resentment against Eaton. The general met this in a triumphant manner:
"How can such a tale be reconciled with the following facts? While now writing, I turn my eyes to the mantelpiece, where I behold a present sent me by Mr. Timberlake of a Turkish pipe, about three weeks before his death, and presented through Mr. Eaton, whom in his letter he calls his friend."
In a similar way he refuted the other accusations, and he kept up the defence in letter after letter, with the same energy and fire that he had displayed in hurling the English troops back from New Orleans. I have had in my hands hundreds of pages of manuscript in General Jackson's writing, or caused to be written by him, all relating to this affair, and all produced in the early weeks of a new administration. He brought it before his cabinet.
He summoned the chief propagator of the scandals; he moved heaven and earth. But, for once in his life, the general was completely baffled; the ladies would not call upon Mrs. Eaton; not even the general's niece, Mrs. Donelson, the mistress of the White House.
"Any thing else, uncle," she said, " I will do for you, but I will not call upon Mrs. Eaton."
The general was so indignant that he advised her to go back to Tennessee; and she went back, she and her husband, private secretary to the President. General Jackson's will was strong., but he discovered on this occasion that woman's won't was stronger.
In the midst of this controversy, when the feelings of the general were exasperated to the highest pitch, there arrived in Washington Martin Van Buren to assume the office of Secretary of State. Mr. Van Buren, beside being one of the most good-natured of men, and a worthy gentleman in all respects (to whom justice has not been done), had no ladies in his family. He was a widower without daughters. He was also the friend and close ally of Major Eaton. Soon after his arrival in Washington, he called upon Mrs. Eaton as a matter of course, hut treated her with particular respect as a victim of calumny. He did a great deal more than this. He used the whole influence of his position as Secretary of State to set her
right before the world.
Among the diplomatic corps, it chanced that the British Minister Mr. Vaughan, and the Russian Minister Baron Krudener were both bachelors, and Mr. Van Buren easily enlisted them in the cause. Balls were given by them at which the; treated the lady with the most marked attention, and contrived various expedients to get the other ladies into positions where they would be compelled to speak civilly to her. All was in vain. The ladies held their ground with undaunted pertinacity, yielding neither to the President's wrath nor to the Secretary's devices.
The nickname given to Mrs. Eaton by the hostile faction was Bellona, the goddess of war. A letter-writer of the day sent to one of the New York papers amusing accounts of the gallant efforts of the three old bachelors to "keep Bellona afloat "in the society of the capital.
"A ball and supper," he says, " were got up by his excellency, the British Minister, Mr. Vaughan, a particular friend of Mr. Van Buren. After various stratagems to keep Bellona afloat during the evening, in which almost every cotillion in which she made her appearance was instantly dissolved into its original elements, she was at length conducted by the British Minister to the head of the table, where, in pursuance of that instinctive power
of inattention to whatever it seems improper to notice the ladies seemed not to know that she was at the table. This ball and slipper were followed by another given by the Russian Minister. To guard against the repetition of the spontaneous dissolution of the cotillions and the neglect of the ladies at supper (where you must observe, none but ladies had seats), Mr. Van Buren made a direct and earnest appeal to the lady of the Minister from Holland,
Mrs. Huygens, whom he entreated to consent to be introduced to the accomplished and lovely Mrs. Eaton.
"The ball scene arrived, and Mrs. Huygens, with uncommon dignity, maintained her ground, avoiding the advances of Bellona and her associates until supper was announced, when Mrs. Huygens was informed by Baron Krudener that Mr. Eaton would conduct her to the table. She declined and remonstrated, but in the meantime Mr. Eaton advanced to offer his arm. She at first objected, but to relieve him from his embarrassment walked with him to the table. where she found Mrs. Eaton seated at the head, beside an empty chair for herself. Mrs. Huygens had no alternative but to become an instrument to the intrigue, or decline taking supper; she chose the latter, and taking hold of her husband's arm withdrew from the room. This was the offence for which (General Jackson afterwards threatened to send her husband home.
"The next scene in the drama was a grand dinner, given in the east room of the palace where it was arranged that Mr. Vaughan was to conduct Mrs. Eaton to the table and place her at the side of the President, who took care by his marked attention to admonish all present (about
eighty, including the principal officers of the government and their ladies) that Mrs. Eaton was one of his favorites, and that he expected her to he treated as such in all places. Dinner being over the company retired to the coffee room to indulge in the exhilarating conversation which wine and good company usually excite. But all would not do. Nothing would move the inflexible ladies."
Mr. Van Buren's conduct completely won the affection of General Jackson, of which during the summer of 1830 he gave a most extraordinary proof. Being exceedingly sick, and not expected to live through his first term, he wrote a letter strongly recommending Mr. Van Buren as his successor to the presidency, and denouncing his rival, Calhoun, as signally unfit for the position. The letter was confided to the custody of Major William B. Lewis, of Nashville, who permitted me to copy it in 1858 for use in my Life of Jackson. It had lain in a green box, with other private documents of a similar nature, for twenty-eight years; for, as the general in part recovered his health, it was never used for the purpose intended. Not the less, however, did General Jackson, by a long series of skillful maneuvres, secure for Mr. Van Buren the succession to the presidency.
Finding the ladies resolute, and being himself constitutionally unable to give up, General Jackson broke up his cabinet, quarreled with Calhoun, drove him into nullification, sent Van Buren abroad as Minister to England, and, in short, changed the course of events in the United States for half a century ; all because the Washington ladies would not call upon Mrs. Eaton. Some time after the close of the Jackson administration Mrs. Eaton was again left a widow; but this time, she was left a rich widow. For many years she lived in Washington in very elegant style, in a house all alive and merry with children and grandchildren. In her old age she was so unfortunate as to marry a young Italian dancing master, who squandered her fortune, and brought her gray hairs in poverty and sorrow to the grave. She died in Washington a few years ago, aged about eighty-four years.
Was General Jackson right in carrying his defence of Mrs. Eaton to this extreme? We may say of General Jackson that he often did a right thing in a wrong way. If he did not succeed in making the ladies call upon Mrs. Eaton, he gave the politics of the country a turn which,
upon the whole, was beneficial.
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