Andrew Jackson Jr. (December 4, 1808 – April 17, 1865) was the adopted son of seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson Jr., a biological child of Rachel Jackson's brother Severn Donelson and Elizabeth Rucker, was the one child among the more than three dozen wards of Andrew Jackson that they considered to be their own child. As presented in an 1878 newspaper feature on the surviving Jackson descendants still resident at the Hermitage, "In after years Gen. Jackson had other nephews, to whom he gave a hearty welcome into his home, but to none other did he ever give his name or make heir to his fortune. One of these other nephews was the distinguished Andrew Jackson Donelson, who ran for Vice President on the Fillmore ticket, and who was always associated with the General, but who was not the bona fide adopted son, as many suppose." According to historian Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson Jr. was "irresponsible and ambitionless, a considerable disappointment to his father." Junior was sued 13 times in the last seven years of Andrew Jackson's life. When former president Jackson died in 1845, Junior inherited real and enslaved human property valued at roughly $150,000. Within a decade, he had turned this fortune into roughly $100,000 in debt. Jackson Jr. died of tetanus in 1865 after he accidentally shot himself while hunting.
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Birth, adoption, childhood
For unknown reasons, the Jacksons were unable to produce biological children. (Urologists studying infertility in presidents state that Jackson's bouts with smallpox and malaria could both have resulted in male-factor infertility.) Historian Melissa Gismondi theorizes that female-factor infertility may have been a factor in the collapse of Rachel's first marriage, to Lewis Robards. (Robards was reported to "frequent the slave quarters" and thus may have fathered a child with an enslaved concubine, affirming his own fertility. He went on to have eight sons and two daughters with his second wife Hannah Winn.) Rachel's inability to conceive and/or carry to term was unique amongst the women in her immediate family. Her mother delivered 11 living children who survived into adulthood. Seven of Rachel's siblings married and started families, producing an average of nine children per family. There is an account of Rachel Jackson saying, "He would have given his life for a child, but knowing how disappointed I was at never being a mother, he, pitying me, tried to console me by saying that God denied offspring so that we might help those who had large families."
Born a twin, Andrew Jackson Jr. was one of the eight or nine biological children of Rachel's brother Severn Donelson and Elizabeth Rucker, and he was taken to the Hermitage when he was three days old. His twin was named Thomas Jefferson Donelson. Jackson Jr. was the one adoptee or ward of Andrew Jackson with whom "the Jacksons had a special relationship" and whom "they regarded as their own child." Jackson, descendants, and succession of biographers have described Junior as Jackson's adopted son, sometimes claiming that Jackson had the Tennessee legislature passed a special act for the adoption, but "it does not appear that Andrew Jackson Jr. (or simply Junior) was ever legally adopted, and the reason Severn and Elizabeth were willing to give a twin boy to the Jacksons to raise as their own is also unknown." As recounted by Andrew Jackson Jr.'s grandson, Andrew Jackson IV, who apparently retold the story as it had been passed down from "Old Hannah" (1770–1846; not to be confused with "House Hannah" or "Ingen Hannah"), "word was brought one morning to The Hermitage while Old Massa and Missus were at breakfast that twin boys had been born to Mrs. Jackson's brother, Severn Donelson, living two miles distant. Old Missus looked across at the General saying, 'I'm afraid brother's wife will be unable to raise both the little fellows, with all those other children—she isn't very strong you know.' 'Suppose we take one of them,' she added. Massa look at her a minute queer like—then said, 'Well, suppose I have the horses brought around after breakfast and we will ride over and see how they feel about it.' Sure enough they did take one of the twins and it was made Old Hannah's special charge to look after the boy through childhood." Jackson's twin wrote the Nashville Dispatch in 1865 with corrections to his brother's obituary: "The absurd story of the infant being carried home in a pocket handkerchief by General Jackson contradicts itself, as we were born in the cold month of December. The truth is the General was absent at the time, and Mrs. Jackson wrote to him on the subject of adopting the child."
In 1813, following the surrender of the village of Littafuchee during the Creek War, Andrew Jackson separated an infant from his family and sent him to live at the Hermitage, writing to Rachel, "Say to my little Andrew I have got a little Indian for him—which I will bring him when I return." The Jackson family called this baby Theodore, but he died by the spring of 1814; five-year-old Andrew Jackson Jr. was reported to be very upset.
When Severn Donelson died in 1818, he did not ask Jackson to be guardian to his surviving children, and instead selected his brother William Donelson to be guardian.
Education and marriage
Andrew Jackson Jr. and his cousin Andrew Jackson Hutchings attended school at Davidson Academy beginning in 1821. According to Linda Galloway, an 1825 bill to the senior Jackson shows "that Andrew Junior lived like a young lord. He had a body servant, probably Alfred, and his own horse. His wardrobe included such items as: a suit, $76.87; a hat, $10; silk hose, $1.50 a pair; and imported handkerchiefs. While attending school at Nashville in 1825, he accumulated a debt of $309 to the establishment of Josiah Nichol, who outfitted the elite of Nashville with everything from saddle blankets to clothes. It has been said this same sum would have kept the average Tennessee family for a year." He appears to have been fairly successful to his schooling, and books in the Hermitage library with his name on the fly leaf include The Autobiography of Crockett, Tom Jones, and Field's Literary and Miscellaneous Scrapbook.
When his mother died and his father was elected president in 1828, he periodically visited Washington—where he was considered popular, socially adept, and handsome—before returning to Nashville to manage The Hermitage and his father's business affairs. Jackson, an inveterate busybody and matchmaker, frequently inquired about or suggested prospective brides for Junior in his letters home. Jackson did not attend his son's wedding to Sarah Yorke Jackson, sending nephew Ralph Earl in his stead, and sending the bride a pearl ring that contained a lock of his hair. President Jackson also gave Sarah Yorke a legally enslaved girl named Gracy to serve as her ladies' maid, sponsored an expansion of the Hermitage for the young couple and paid for $2,000 in new furniture. Giving Gracy, or any enslaved person, as a gift to his son and daughter-in-law "kept valuable commodities within the extended white family, giving the next generation opportunities for greater wealth and status by providing additional labor both in the home and in clearing land and increasing crop production."
Life and debt
In adulthood, Junior's financial follies forever caused follow-on problems for the patriarch. For instance, in 1833, "Junior purchased a female slave, Rachel, and her child...but failed to pay the full amount, leading the seller, George Hibb, to press the president for the funds. Jackson sent his son a harsh letter, asking why the $800 that the sale of a horse had generated was not 'sufficient to pay for the wench and child.' Junior excused his behavior because he needed extra money to cover the cost of travel and illness." In 1832, President Jackson wrote Junior criticizing him for allowing the overseer, Steele, for buying too many plows, which the president deemed indulgent and uneconomical, and wrote the overseer about Junior that "it appears that he don't take the least pride or feel the least interested in the farm or anything there pertaining." Decades after his death, Junior's daughter Rachel Jackson Lawrence described her father as "a man of most quiet tastes and resting quite content as a Southern gentleman of the old school," and told a reporter that, "the disposition of Andrew Jackson was retiring, and he cared nothing for the glories and honors of the outer world, but delighted in quiet strolls over his extensive estates, with his gun in hand and followed by his faithful pointers. The political arena possessed no charms for him, but he delighted himself in domestic pursuits and was devoted to his family."
In 1833, Jackson wrote his son about his young but growing family, "...you must now live for them and their prosperity, and in all your course through life remember that if you do anything injurious to your fame it will tarnish theirs..." After 1833 Jackson's letters until his death in 1845 repetitively, helplessly beseech his son to be more financially responsible. Historian Mark Cheathem comments: In addressing Junior's financial troubles, Jackson found himself in a position familiar to that of other southern patriarchs. He had trained Junior to be dependent on him, never trusting him with total autonomy while serving as president. Therefore, Junior never stood alone or learned from his own mistakes. His inability to become a successful 'planter-patriarch' highlighted one of the ironies of southern society noted by historian Michael Johnson: 'The nature of their fathers' estates and ideals caused sons to be constantly tempted by idleness, a state combining subordination and autonomy in near paralysis.' Ever the protective patriarch, Jackson seemed unwilling to allow Junior to suffer the effects of his bad choices, thereby undermining his desire to see his son become independent."
After a devastating fire at the Hermitage in 1834, Sarah and the children went to stay at the White House while repairs were being completed, and Andrew Jackson wrote Junior back home: