nine or ten miles and rumbling across the old wooden bridge over Stone
River, a visitor would find himself at Hermitage Farm. The estate
contained at that time somewhat more than a thousand acres, of which
four hundred were under cultivation and the remainder luxuriant
forest. Negro cabins stood here and there, and in one corner was a
little brick church which the proprietor had built for the solace of
his wife. In the center of a well-kept lawn, flanked with cedars and
oaks, stood the family mansion, the Hermitage, whose construction had
been begun at the close of the Seminole War in 1819. The building was
of brick, two stories high, with a double wooden piazza in both front
and rear. The rooms were small and simply furnished, the chief
adornment being portraits of the General and his friends, though later
was added the familiar painting of Mrs. Jackson. Lavasseur, who as
private secretary of La Fayette visited the place in 1825, was greatly
surprised to find a person of Jackson's renown living in a structure
which in France would hardly suffice for the porter's lodge at the
château of a man of similar standing. But western Tennessee afforded
nothing finer, and Jackson considered himself palatially housed.

Life on the Hermitage estate had its full share of the charm of the
old South. After breakfasting at eight or nine, the proprietor spent
the day riding over his broad acres, giving instructions to his
workmen, keeping up his accounts, chatting with neighbors and
passers-by, and devouring the newspapers with a zeal born of
unremitting interest in public affairs. After the evening meal the
family gathered on the cool piazza in summer, or around the blazing
hearth of the great living room in winter, and spent the hours until
the early bedtime in telling stories, discussing local and national
happenings, or listening to the news of distant localities as retailed
by the casual visitor. The hospitality of the Jackson home was