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and  Tyler  too 

A  Biography  of 
John  and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 

BY  ROBERT   SEAGER   II 


This  beautifully  written  and  engrossing 
biography  of  John  Tyler,  the  tenth  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  his  fasci- 
nating wife,  Julia,  brings  a  neglected  period 
of  American  history  vividly  and  exuber- 
antly to  life. 

Few  people  know  anything  about  Tyler, 
except  for  the  fact  that  he  was  the  Tyler 
of  "Tippecanoe  and  Tykr  too."  No  Presi- 
dent ever  longed  so  much  to  be  remem- 
bered for  his  deeds,  but  to  posterity  he  has 
become  the  last  half  of  a  slogan. 

In  this  scholarly  book,  written  with  the 
wit  and  imagination  that  readers  wrould 
more  readily  expect  in  a  novel,  Robert  Sea- 
ger  tells  the  story  of  John  Tyler  and  Julia 
Gardiner.  Since  both  were  from  old,  aris- 
tocratic families,  the  book  is  as  much  about 
the  New  York  Gardiners  as  it  is  the  Vir- 
ginia Tylers.  Professor  Seager  has  been 
given  access  to  thousands  of  family  letters 
never  before  made  available  to  an  historian, 
and  the  result  is  not  only  a  superb  biogra- 
phy, but  an  exciting  adventure  in  the  social 
and  political  history  of  an  almost  forgotten 
era.  (continued  on  back  flap) 


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AND  TYLER  TOO 


and  Tyler  too 

A    BIOGRAPHY    OF    JOHN    & 

JULIA    GARDINER 

TYLER 


BY    ROBERT    SEAGER    II 


McGraw-Hill  Book  Company,  Inc. 

New  York     Toronto    London 


AND    TYLER   TOO 

Copyriglit  (c)  1963  by  Robert  Seager  II.  All  Rights  Reserved. 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America.  This  book,  or  parts 
thereof,  may  not  be  reproduced  in  any  form  without  permis- 
sion of  the  publishers. 

Library  of  Congress  Catalog  Card  Number:    63-14259 

First  Edition 

55890 


To  the  memory  of  my  father 

Warren  Armstrong  S eager 

1898-1952 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Mr.  Howard  Gotlieb,  Curator  of  Historical  Manuscripts  in  the  Sterling 
Memorial  Library  and  Archivist  of  Yale  University,  is  chiefly  responsi- 
ble for  this  volume.  He  first  brought  to  my  attention  the  extensive 
Gardiner  Family  Papers  in  the  Yale  Library  on  which  the  book  is 
largely  based  and  suggested  a  joint  biography  of  John  and  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler.  Throughout  the  entire  period  of  research  and  writing  he  has  been 
a  constant  source  of  information,  encouragement  and  assistance.  With- 
out his  kind  help  and  continuing  interest  there  would  have  been  no 
book. 

Mrs.  Gail  Grimes  Mirabile,  formerly  of  Yale  University  Library, 
taught  me  to  read  Gardiner  handwriting  and  introduced  me  to  the 
peculiarities  of  Julia  Gardiner's  punctuation  system.  Mrs.  Carolyn 
Strauss  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  discovered  valuable  Tyler  materials 
reposing  in  the  Pequot  Collection  in  the  Yale  Library.  Mrs..  Amy  Osborn 
Bassford,  Curator  of  the  Long  Island  Collection  in  the  East  Hampton 
Free  Library,  brought  important  Gardiner  data  to  my  attention  and 
assisted  me  in  other  ways.  To  no  less  degree  am  I  grateful  to  the  follow- 
ing librarians  and  curators  of  manuscripts  for  putting  Gardiner  and 
Tyler  and  related  manuscript  materials  in  their  charge  at  my  disposal: 
Mr.  Peter  Draz  of  the  Manuscript  Division  of  the  Library  of  Congress; 
Miss  Mattie  Russell,  Curator  of  Manuscripts,  Duke  University  Library; 
Mr.  Robert  E.  Stocking  of  the  Manuscripts  Division,  Alderman  Li- 
brary, University  of  Virginia;  Mr.  James  A.  Servies,  Librarian  of 
William  and  Mary  College,  Williamsburg,  Virginia;  and  Mr.  Randolph 
W.  Church,  Librarian  of  the  Virginia  State  Library,  Richmond. 

I  am  indebted  in  other  important  ways  to  Miss  Lois  Engleman, 
Librarian  of  Denison  University,  Granville,  Ohio;  Mrs.  Jane  Secor, 
Reference  Librarian,  Denison  University  Library;  Mr.  Vernon  Tate, 
Librarian  of  the  United  States  Naval  Academy;  Mr.  Francis  Allen, 

vii 


Librarian  of  the  University  of  Rhode  Island;  the  Reference  Staff  of  the 
New  York  City  Public  Library;  Mr.  Marcus  C.  Elcan,  editor  of  The 
Iron  Worker,  Lynchburg  Foundry  Company,  Lynchburg,  Virginia;  and 
to  my  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Deane  M.  Parrish,  Jr.,  formerly  of  the  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  Times-Dispatch. 

The  book  would  have  been  far  less  accurate  and  factually  complete 
had  it  not  been  for  the  Tyler  and  Gardiner  descendants  who  gave  me 
their  time  and  patiently  answered  my  many  questions.  They  were: 
Mrs.  Alexandra  Gardiner  Creel  of  Oyster  Bay,  New  York,  grandniece 
of  David  Lyon  Gardiner  and  donor  of  the  Gardiner  Papers  to  Yale 
Library;  Judge  J.  Randall  Creel;  Mrs.  Julia  Tyler  Wilson  and  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Tyler  Miles  of  Charlottesville,  Virginia,  granddaughters  of 
John  Tyler;  Miss  Pearl  Tyler  Ellis  of  Salem,  Virginia,  and  Mrs.  Cornelia 
Ellis  Booker  of  Washington,  B.C.,  also  granddaughters  of  John  Tyler; 
Mr.  J.  Alfred  Tyler  of  Sherwood  Forest,  Charles  City,  Virginia,  grand- 
son of  John  Tyler,  and  Katherine  Thomason  Tyler,  his  gracious  wife; 
Mrs.  Arthur  Costello  of  Sahuarita,  Arizona,  granddaughter  of  J.  Alex- 
ander Tyler;  and  Mrs.  Priscilla  G.  Griffin  of  Wawa,  Pennsylvania, 
granddaughter  of  Robert  and  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler.  Elizabeth  Tyler 
Coleman  and  her  publishers,  the  University  of  Alabama  Press,  have  per- 
mitted me  to  quote  extensively  from  Miss  Coleman's  excellent  Priscilla 
Cooper  Tyler  and  the  American  Scene,  1816-1889,  published  in  1955. 
Miss  Coleman  is  the  great-granddaughter  of  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler. 
These  people  were  all  unfailingly  kind  and  helpful,  providing  me  with 
recollections,  anecdotes,  letters  and  pictures  of  the  various  Tylers  and 
Gardiners  who  figure  in  these  pages.  This  is  not,  however,  an  "official" 
family  biography  in  any  sense. 

Professor  Henry  H.  Simms  of  the  Ohio  State  University  and  Pro- 
fessors Lionel  U.  Ridout  and  James  C.  Hinkle  of  San  Diego  State  Col- 
lege provided  me  with  information  and  insights  that  enabled  me  to 
avoid  many  factual  and  interpretive  pitfalls.  So  too  did  Professors 
Frederick  W.  Turner  III  of  Haver  ford  College;  Tristram  P.  Coffin  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania;  Robert  Sorlein  of  the  University  of 
Rhode  Island;  and  my  former  colleagues  at  Denison  University,  G. 
Wallace  Chessman,  William  P.  T.  Preston,  Jr.,  and  John  K.  Huckaby. 
Needless  to  say,  the  author  is  alone  responsible  for  all  errors  in  fact  and 
interpretation  that  may  remain  in  the  work. 

I  am  indebted  to  Denison  University,  particularly  to  Dean  Parker 
E.  Lichtenstein,  for  the  leave  of  absence  from  my  teaching  duties  there 
that  allowed  me  to  commence  research  on  the  book.  And  I  am  grateful 
to  my  colleagues  in  the  Department  of  History  of  the  United  States 
Naval  Academy,  mainly  Professors  William  W.  Jeffries,  E.  B.  Potter 
and  Neville  T.  Kirk,  for  creating  the  scholarly  atmosphere  in  the  De- 
partment that  enabled  me  to  complete  the  manuscript  and  see  it  through 
press. 

viii 


I  am  especially  in  the  debt  of  Mrs.  Ruth-Ellen  K.  Darnell  of  Balti- 
more, Maryland,  formerly  of  Yale  University  Library,  who  read  the 
manuscript  in  its  various  stages  and  suggested  numerous  stylistic  and 
organizational  improvements.  Her  assistance  throughout  has  been  in- 
valuable. 

I  am  also  grateful  to  my  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Ann  Brock  Parrish  of 
Richmond,  Virginia,  for  her  many  benevolences  to  me  during  my  several 
extended  visits  to  the  Richmond- Williamsburg  area  for  research.  Her 
culinary  kindnesses  enabled  me  to  subsist  for  long  periods  of  time  on  an 
academic  leave  of  absence  without  salary.  My  aunt,  Mrs.  Lillian  Hales 
Didenhover  of  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  similarly  rescued  me  from  mal- 
nutrition when  research  carried  me  to  Durham. 

But  most  of  all  I  am  indebted  to  my  wife,  Caroline  Parrish  Seager. 
It  was  she  who  did  all  the  backbreaking  clerical  work  on  this  book  over 
a  period  of  three  years.  She  transcribed  fifteen  hundred  single-spaced 
typed  pages  of  recorded  notes;  typed  the  entire  manuscript  four  times; 
labored  over  my  grammar,  style  and  punctuation;  checked  all  the  foot- 
notes; and  read  and  corrected  the  galley  and  page  proofs.  How  she 
managed  to  do  all  this  and  maintain  an  efficient  household,  I  will  never 
know. 


Robert  Seager  II 
Annapolis,  Maryland 


IX 


CONTENTS 

Acknowledgments  vii 

Foreword  xiii 

1  True  Love  in  a  Cottage  i 

2  The  Gardiners  of  East  Hampton  17 

3  John  Tyler:  His  Father's  Son,  1790-1820  48 

4  The  Dilemmas  of  a  States'  Rights  Politician,  1822-1834     73 

5  John  Tyler:  The  Middle  Years  102 

6  And  Tyler  Too  127 

7  His  Accidency:  The  Disadvantages  of  Conscience  147 

8  Courtship  and  Catastrophe  i72 

9  Tyler  and  Texas — And  Tammany  209 

10  Julia  Regina:  Court  Life  in  Washington  243 

11  Alexander  Gardiner:  Sag  Harbor  to  the  Rio  Grande  266 

12  Retirement  to  Sherwood  Forest  289 

13  Tyler  and  Polk:  A  Question  of  Reputation  312 

14  Sherwood  Forest:  The  Good  Years  334 

15  And  the  Pursuit  of  Property  361 

xi 


1 6  Black  Men  and  Black  Republicans  387 

17  Rumors  of  War:  An  End  to  Normalcy,  1855-1860  417 

18  From  Peace  to  Paradise,  1861-1862  447 

19  Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler  and  the  War,  1862-1865  473 

20  Reconstruction  and  Epilogue,  1865-1890  511 
Notes  557 
Bibliography  647 
Index  655 


Xll 


FOREWORD 


This  book  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  definitive  study  of  President  John 
Tyler  and  Ms  times  (1790-1862).  Nor,  obviously,  is  it  the  last  word 
on  his  wife,  the  vivacious  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  (1820-1889).  It  is, 
instead,  an  attempt  to  humanize  John  Tyler  and  bring  him  out  of  the 
shadow  into  which  history  has  cast  him;  to  see  him  as  his  wife,  his 
family  and  his  intimate  friends  saw  him,  and  as  he  saw  himself.  The 
book  is  therefore  an  informal  social  history  of  the  Tylers  and  the 
Gardiners,  two  proud  families  who  numbered  in  their  midst  many  able 
and  ambitious  people.  Not  the  least  of  these  were  the  tenth  President 
of  the  United  States  and  his  second  wife.  The  backdrop  against  which 
the  Tyler- Gar  diner  family  alliance  is  viewed  is  the  political  and  sectional 
history  of  the  United  States  from  1810  to  1890. 

Few  Americans  today  know  much  about  Tyler  save  that  he  was 
the  "Tyler  too"  who  ran  for  the  Vice-Presidency  on  the  ticket  that 
elevated  someone  nicknamed  "Tippecanoe"  to  the  White  House  back 
in  the  distant  reaches  of  the  iSoos.  That  Tyler  became  the  first  Vice- 
President  to  succeed  to  power  when  an  elected  President  died  in  office 
is  also  not  as  well  known  as  it  might  be  among  contemporary  Americans. 
Ironically,  few  American  Presidents  have  so  wanted  to  be  remembered 
to  posterity  for  their  deeds.  Yet  John  Tyler  has  become  one  of  America's 
most  obscure  Chief  Executives.  His  countrymen  generally  remember 
him,  if  they  have  heard  of  him  at  all,  as  the  rhyming  end  of  a  catchy 
campaign  slogan.  Only  one  solid  biography  of  him  has  appeared  in  the 
century  since  his  death — Professor  Oliver  P.  Chitwood's  fine  study 
which  was  published  twenty-five  years  ago.  Unfortunately,  it  has  long 
been  out  of  print  and  is  virtually  unobtainable  today. 

When  I  began  the  research  for  this  volume  there  seemed  to  be  a 
place  for  a  new  evaluation  of  Tyler  that,  insofar  as  possible  and  prac- 
ticable, would  emphasize  the  human  side  of  the  man — his  fears,  frus- 

xiii 


trations,  ambitions,  joys,  sorrows  and  loves.  The  recent  appearance  of 
some  ten  thousand  new  Gardiner  and  Tyler  family  letters,  many  of 
which  include  revealing  insights  into  the  private  lives  of  Tyler  and  his 
intimates,  fixed  my  decision  in  the  matter  of  emphasis.  These  valuable 
letters  have  never  before  been  employed  by  an  historian.  They  are  the 
foundation  upon  which  this  book  has  been  based.  They  help  fill  the 
vacuum  of  primary  source  material  created  when  the  bulk  of  Tyler's 
private  papers  were  burned  in  the  fires  set  by  the  retreating  Confederate 
Army  during  Lee's  evacuation  of  Richmond  in  April  1865.  In  addition 
I  have  employed  several  thousand  Tyler  and  Gardiner  letters  reposing 
in  known  manuscript  collections  and  in  the  three  volumes  of  Tyler 
papers  and  letters  published  by  the  late  Dr.  Lyon  Gardiner  Tyler  in 
the  mid-i88os.  The  intense  personal  quality  of  much  of  the  available 
material  has  encouraged  an  effort  to  convert  the  bronze  statue  of  the 
forgotten  President  into  a  flesh  and  blood  creature.  The  reader  will  dis- 
cover that  I  am  as  interested  in  Tyler  the  husband,  the  father  and  the 
planter  as  I  am  in  Tyler  the  President,  the  states'  righter  and  the 
secessionist. 

This  is  as  much  the  story  of  the  New  York  Gardiners  as  it  is  of 
the  Virginia  Tylers.  It  details  the  love  of  a  widowed  President  for  a 
woman  thirty  years  his  junior,  their  courtship,  their  marriage,  and  their 
life  together  in  the  White  House  and  afterwards  at  Sherwood  Forest 
plantation.  It  is  largely  through  Gardiner  eyes,  especially  those  of  the 
incomparable  Julia  and  her  delightful  sister  Margaret,  that  we  see  John 
Tyler  the  family  man  and  the  statesman.  Surely  the  nineteenth  century 
produced  few  American  women  as  fascinating,  attractive  and  forceful  as 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler.  Whether  she  was  flirting  with  politicians,  "reign- 
ing" as  First  Lady  over  her  White  House  "Court,"  lobbying  for  Texas 
annexation,  advising  the  President  on  patronage,  raising  her  seven 
children,  presiding  over  a  James  River  plantation  house,  demanding 
secession,  or  running  the  Union  blockade,  her  every  action  and  activity 
revealed  her  boundless  energy.  Like  her  domineering  mother  Juliana 
and  her  ambitious  brother  Alexander  Gardiner,  Julia  Tyler  was  a  posi- 
tive and  dynamic  personality  who  usually  got  what  she  wanted.  For- 
tunately for  the  historian,  the  members  of  the  loquacious  Gardiner 
clan  liked  nothing  better  than  to  write  each  other  long,  candid,  and 
gossipy  letters.  Because  of  this,  nearly  half  of  the  book  turns  on  the 
intimate  history  of  the  Gardiner  family  before,  during  and  after  its 
connection  with  the  ill-starred  tenth  President. 

As  for  Tyler  the  politician,  it  seemed  presumptuous  for  me  to 
attempt  to  rewrite  Professor  Chitwood's  excellent  John  Tyler:  Cham- 
pion of  the  Old  South  (1939),  which  deals  primarily  with  Tyler's 
public  life  until  1845,  or  to  rework  the  materials  in  two  first-rate 
scholarly  monographs  on  the  subject — Robert  J.  Morgan's  A  Whig 
Embattled:  The  Presidency  under  John  Tyler  (1954),  and  Oscar  D. 

xiv 


Lambert's  Presidential  Politics  in  the  United  States,  1841-1844  (1936). 
For  this  reason,  I  have  treated  cursorily  those  sectors  of  Tyler's  political 
career^  about  which  Chitwood,  Morgan  and  Lambert  have  already 
written  in  great  detail.  Only  when  the  new  documentary  evidence  has 
warranted  a  closer  look  at  Tyler's  motives  and  attitudes  on  crucial  pub- 
lic issues  have  I  discussed  that  side  of  his  life  with  any  completeness  at 
all.  For  example,  I  have  gone  rather  extensively  into  his  third  party 
movement  in  1843-1844  and  the  patronage  questions  involved,  and 
into  his  motives  in  Texas  annexation.  The  Gardiners  were  quite  close 
to  these  developments  and  their  private  correspondence  throws  much 
new  light  on  the  problems  encountered.  Otherwise,  many  of  the  ac- 
tivities of  Tyler's  long  and  controversial  public  career  have  been 
drastically  compressed,  mentioned  only  in  passing,  or  slighted  alto- 
gether. 

Similarly,  it  proved  impossible  to  provide  as  historical  background 
more  than  a  cursory  account  of  the  many  issues  and  personalities  in 
American  history  from  Tyler's  birth  in  1790  to  Julia's  death  in  1889. 
Consequently,  I  have  sketched  in  only  enough  of  this  material  to  make 
Tyler's  actions  and  reactions,  and  those  of  the  members  of  his  family, 
intelligible  to  the  reader  whose  college  course  in  American  history  may 
have  become  hazy  over  the  years.  In  doing  so,  I  have  made  no  par- 
ticular effort  to  resolve  the  great  national  controversies  with  which 
Tyler  -concerned  himself — the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  tariff, 
internal  improvements,  slavery,  secession  and  the  Civil  War.  I  un- 
limber  little  of  the  available  scholarly  artillery — the  hundreds  of 
biographies,  monographs,  Ph.D.  theses,  memoirs,  and  articles — that 
might  be  brought  to  bear  on  every  nuance  of  each  of  these  complex  and 
controversial  issues.  It  was  clear  to  me  at  the  outset  that  I  would  have 
the  space  in  a  single  volume  to  do  little  more  than  state  the  basic 
nature  of  these  problems,  provide  a  few  passing  references  to  each 
in  the  backnotes  and  bibliography,  and  move  on  to  emphasize  the 
Tyler-Gardiner  view  of  the  matter  as  it  personally  affected  them  and 
as  it  was  revealed  in  their  private  correspondence.  This  decision  may 
have  made  for  some  imbalance  in  my  interpretation. 

Nor  have  my  personal  biases  always  been  well  camouflaged  in 
these  pages.  Tyler  owned  Negroes  and  he  accepted  the  institution  of 
human  slavery.  He  believed  in  rigid  states7  rights,  strict  construction  of 
the  Constitution,  the  territorial  dismemberment  of  the  Mexican  Empire, 
and  secession.  I  have  little  confidence  that  any  of  these  ideas  and  poli- 
cies were  in  the  best  interests  of  the  United  States  at  the  time,  although 
I  try  to  treat  Tyler's  view  of  them  in  a  manner  which  is  neither  hostile 
nor  patronizing.  He  opposed  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  pro- 
tective tariff  and  popular  democracy.  My  twenty-twenty  hindsight  tells 
me  that  the  nation  needed  a  national  bank,  a  moderate  tariff,  and  an 
expansion  of  the  democratic  process  in  the  ante-bellum  period.  I  can 

xv 


not  accept  human  slavery  in  any  form  although  I  think  I  can  appreciate 
and  sympathize  with  Tyler's  moral  dilemma  on  the  agonizing  questions 
of  abolition  and  secession.  To  the  Gardiners  money  and  social  position 
were  the  root  of  all  good  and  the  measure  of  all  worth;  I  think  not. 
Both  families  were  Anglophobes;  I  am  not.  While  I  have  tried  to 
suspend  my  biases  the  better  to  appreciate  and  understand  theirs,  I 
am  certain  that  mine  remain  and  push  through  to  the  surface.  The 
reader  should  therefore  be  aware  of  these  fundamental  conflicts  be- 
tween the  biographer  and  his  subjects  and  make  allowances  accord- 
ingly. 

Nevertheless,  the  reader  will  learn  very  quickly  that  I  like  John 
and  Julia  Tyler  and  most  of  the  members  of  their  immediate  families. 
By  and  large  they  were  engaging  people.  Tyler  made  many  mistakes, 
and  his  intellectual  window  on  the  world  of  his  day  appears  a  clouded 
one  to  me  a  hundred  years  removed  from  the  period  in  which  he  lived 
and  worked.  He  was  somewhat  too  thin-skinned  about  personal  criti- 
cism; he  could  be  maddeningly  self-righteous;  he  managed  money 
casually.  Yet  I  find  him  to  be  a  courageous,  principled  man,  a  fair  and 
honest  fighter  for  his  beliefs.  He  was  a  President  without  a  party.  Con- 
sidering this  overriding  political  fact,  his  achievement  of  Texas  annexa- 
tion by  manipulating  Polk  and  the  Democracy  was  the  intrepid  and 
successful  playing  of  a  weak  hand.  He  was  a  skillful  politician  in  the 
best  sense  of  that  often  misused  word.  The  inherent  rebel  in  Tyler's 
stubborn  nature  also  impresses  me  as  a  laudable  characteristic.  It  seems 
a  refreshing  quality  in  this  era  of  social  and  political  togetherness.  When 
the  majority  said,  "Yes  . . .  how  true . . .  you're  so  right,"  John  Tyler 
could  generally  be  counted  upon  to  say,  "No,  gentlemen,  it  won't  do." 
He  seldom  compromised  his  principles.  If  anything,  he  was  too  rigid 
in  them.  He  lived  in  great  psychological  fear  of  historical  obscurity  and 
economic  insolvency.  Yet  on  more  than  one  occasion  he  accepted  eco- 
nomic hardship  and  the  prospect  of  certain  obscurity  rather  than  take 
what  he  considered  the  hypocritical  road  to  political  popularity.  He 
died  insolvent  and  unsung. 

*""*  True,  he  was  neither  a  great  President  nor  a  great  intellectual. 
He  lived  in  a  time  in  which  many  brilliant  and  forceful  men  strode 
the  American  stage — Clay,  Calhoun,  Benton,  Webster,  Jackson,  Douglas 
and  Lincoln — and  he  was  overshadowed  by  all  of  them,  as  was  the 
office  of  the  Presidency  itself.  The  leading  issues  with  which  he  grappled, 
relatively  few  in  number  by  today's  standards,  ultimately  required  a 
bloody  civil  war  to  resolve.  Save  for  the  success  of  his  Texas  policy 
and  his  Maine  Boundary  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  his  administration 
has  been  and  must  be  counted  an  unsuccessful  one  by  any  modern 
measure  of  accomplishment.  Had  he  surrendered  his  states'  rights  and 
anti-Bank  principles  he  might  have  salvaged  it.  He  chose  not  to  sur- 
render and  the  powerful  Henry  Clay  crushed  him.  From  then  on  he 

xvi 


administered  a  caretaker  government  amid  mounting  threats  of  im- 
peachment and  assassination. 

He  was,  however,  a  good  lawyer,  a  fine  farmer,  an  excellent  husband 
to  two  wives,  and  an  understanding  father  to  fourteen  children.  In  Julia 
Gardiner  he  had  one  of  the  great  belles  of  the  nineteenth  century  for  a 
•wife.  She  cured  him  of  an  inherent  prudery  and  brought  his  best  personal 
qualities  to  the  fore.  In  a  word,  she  made  him  happy.  She  was  an  able, 
bright,  determined,  and  socially  ambitious  woman,  and  the  reader  will 
soon  discover  that  I  am  both  impressed  and  amused  by  her  sheer  drive 
and  her  immense  extrovertism.  Her  will  power  was  exceeded  only  by  her 
personal  charm  and  her  often  cynical  sense  of  humor.  As  a  hostess  she 
was  without  peer.  She  remains,  with  few  real  challengers,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  First  Ladies  in  White  House  history.  I  like  her  and 
her  numerous  children  and  the  essentially  tragic  figure  who  was  her 
husband.  I  hope  the  reader  does  too.  It  is  a  bias  for  which  I  make  no 
apology. 


xvn 


TRUE  LOVE  IN  A  COTTAGE 


You  must  not  believe  all  the  President  says  about 
the  honeymoon  lasting  always — he  has  found  out 
that  you  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Eve's  daughters 
are  fond  of  flattery. 

— JULIANA   MCLACHLAN    GARDINER,    1844 


The  Right  Reverend  Benjamin  Treadwell  Onderdonk,  fourth  Bishop 
of  the  Episcopal  Diocese  of  New  York,  was  a  busy  man.  But  not  too 
busy  to  see  Alexander  Gardiner,  the  twenty-six-year-old  lawyer  and 
Tammany  politician  who  had  requested  an  appointment  at  noon  on  that 
hot  Saturday  of  June  22,  1844.  No  time  was  wasted  after  young 
Gardiner  strode  into  the  Bishop's  chambers.  Characteristically,  he  came 
right  to  the  point.  His  mission,  he  explained,  was  as  simple  as  it  was 
confidential.  Would  the  Bishop  officiate  at  the  marriage  of  his  younger 
sister,  Miss  Julia  Gardiner,  to  John  Tyler,  President  of  the  United 
States?  Taken  aback,  Onderdonk  pressed  Gardiner  for  the  details,  and 
Alexander  briefly  explained  that  the  proposed  ceremony  was  being 
planned  for  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  on  Fifth  Avenue  at  Tenth 
Street  at  2  P.M.  on  Wednesday,  June  26.  The  Reverend  Dr.  Gregory 
Thurston  Bedell,  rector  of  the  church  and  clergyman  to  the  family  when 
the  Gardiners  were  resident  at  their  Lafayette  Place  town  house,  would 
assist  the  Bishop  at  the  ceremony.  Gardiner  impressed  on  Onderdonk 
the  importance  of  absolute  secrecy  in  the  matter,  pointing  out  that  the 
wedding  date  had  been  hastily  arranged  and  that  President  Tyler  would 
arrive  incognito  in  the  city  late  on  Tuesday  evening,  June  2$.  Only  four 
months  had  elapsed  since  the  tragic  death  of  David  Gardiner,  the  bride's 
lather.  He  had  been  among  those  struck  down  when  the  great  experi- 
mental gun  aboard  the  steam  frigate  Princeton  exploded  the  preceding 


February.  The  family  was  still  in  deep  mourning.  For  this  reason,  ex- 
plained Alexander,  the  Gardiners  were  planning  a  very  small  ceremony. 
There  was  to  be  no  publicity  of  any  kind.  With  that  admonition, 
Alexander  Gardiner  departed.1 

Aside  from  the  Bishop's  ready  assent  to  perform  the  nuptials,  no 
record  of  his  reaction  to  this  brief  interview  has  survived.  But  Benjamin 
Onderdonk  was  a  worldly  man.  He  lived  in  no  stained-glass  tower  and 
several  practical  thoughts  undoubtedly  crossed  his  mind  after  Alexander 
had  left.  He  knew  that  the  Gardiners  were  a  long-established,  wealthy, 
and  prominent  family,  residents  at  various  times  of  Gardiners  Island, 
East  Hampton,  and  New  York  City.  They  were  the  direct  descendants 
of  Lion  Gardiner,  the  professional  soldier  who  had  first  come  to  America 
in  1635  under  contract  to  the  Connecticut  Company  as  a  fortifications 
engineer.  He  was  aware  that  Julia  Gardiner  was  an  attractive  and  ac- 
complished woman,  for  several  seasons  one  of  the  reigning  belles  at 
Washington  and  Saratoga  Springs.  Surely  he  wondered  at  the  propriety 
of  so  conspicuous  a  wedding  following  hard  on  the  heels  of  so  pub- 
licized a  family  funeral.  He  could  imagine  what  the  gossips  would  do 
with  that  (as  they  did).  And  he  may  have  ruminated  on  the  plain  fact 
that  John  Tyler  was  fifty-four  and  his  bride-to-be  fully  thirty  years  his 
junior.  If  such  were  his  thoughts,  however,  he  kept  them  to  himself. 

The  courtship  of  John  Tyler  and  Julia  Gardiner  had  begun  in 
Washington  in  January  1843,  f°ur  months  after  the,  death  of  the  tenth 
President's  first  wife,  the  beautiful  Letitia  Christian  Tyler  of  Virginia. 
It  matured  quickly  during  the  early  spring  of  1843  amid  a  storm  of 
rumor,  speculation,  and  gossip,  much  of  the  latter  salacious  and  vicious. 
In  March  1843  a  "definite  understanding"  had  been  reached,  although 
no  formal  engagement  was  then  announced,  Julia's  mother  had  blocked 
that.  The  sudden  death  of  David  Gardiner  on  the  Princeton  necessitated 
a  further  delay  in  plans.  Thus  it  was  not  until  April  20,  1844,  seven 
weeks  after  the  tragedy  aboard  the  Princeton,  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  using  a  second-hand  envelope  (John  Tyler  was  a  frugal 
man),  wrote  to  Juliana  McLachlan  Gardiner,  mother  of  the  intended 
bride,  asking  formally  for  Julia's  hand  in  marriage: 

I  have  the  permission  of  your  dear  daughter,  Miss  Julia  Gardiner,  to  ask  your 
approbation  of  my  address  to  her,  dear  Madam,  and  to  obtain  your  consent 
to  our  marriage,  which  in  all  dutiful  obedience  she  refers  to  your  decision. 
May  I  indulge  the  hope  that  you  will  see  in  this  nothing  to  object,  and  that 
you  will  confer  upon  me  the  high  privilege  of  substituting  yourself  in  all  that 
care  and  attention  which  you  have  so  affectionately  bestowed  upon  her.  My 
position  in  Society  will  I  trust  serve  as  a  guarantee  for  the  appearance  which 
I  give,  that  it  will  be  the  study  of  my  life  to  advance  her  happiness  by  all 
and  every  means  in  my  power.2 

Juliana  Gardiner  knew  perfectly  well  what  Tyler's  "position  in 
Society"  was.  In  answering  the  President's  letter  on  April  22  she  implied 


that  this  fact  was  not  sufficient  to  dull  her  sense  of  judgment  on  so 
important  a  matter.  She  must  insist  that  her  daughter  receive  from 
Tyler's  hands  "all  the  necessary  comforts  and  elegancies  of  life"  to 
which  the  Gardiners  had  been  long  accustomed.  It  would  have  been  im- 
polite to  look  the  Presidential  gift  horse  straight  in  the  mouth,  but 
Juliana  did  want  to  make  certain  that  the  Tylers  had  a  horse  of  some 
value: 

In  reply  to  your  letter  received  day  before  yesterday  I  confess  I  am  at  a  loss 
what  answer  to  return.  The  subject  is  to  my  mind  so  momentous  and  serious, 
rendered  doubly  so  by  my  own  recent  terrible  bereavement,  that  I  know  of  no 
considerations  which  this  world  could  offer  that  would  make  me  consent  with- 
out hesitation  and  anxiety,  to  a  union  so  sacred  but  which  death  can  dissolve. 
The  deep  and  solemn  emotions  of  rny  mind  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  cri- 
terion of  the  mind  of  others  neither  do  I  desire  by  any  reference  to  my  own 
feelings  to  cast  a  shade  over  the  future  hopes  of  those  whose  anticipations  of 
life  are  comparatively  unclouded.  Your  high  political  position,  eminent  public 
service,  and  above  all  unsullied  private  character  command  the  highest  respect 
of  myself  and  family  and  lead  me  to  acquiesce  in  what  appear  to  be  the 
impulse  of  my  daughter's  heart  and  the  dictates  of  her  judgment.  In  cases  of 
this  kind  I  think  the  utmost  candor  should  prevail  and  I  hope  you  will  not 
deem  the  suggestions  I  consider  my  duty  as  a  mother  to  urge  otherwise  than 
proper.  Her  comfortable  settlement  in  life,  a  subject  often  disregarded  in 
youth  but  thought  of  and  felt  in  maturity,  claims  our  mutual  consideration. 
Julia  in  her  tastes  and  inclination  is  neither  extravagant  nor  unreasonable  tho' 
she  has  been  accustomed  to  all  the  necessary  comforts  and  elegancies  of  life. 
While  she  remains  in  the  bosom  of  my  family  they  can  be  continued  to  her.  I 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  but  you  will  have  it  in  your  power  to  extend  to 
her  the  enjoyments  by  which  she  has  been  surrounded  and  my  reference  to 
the  subject  arises  from  a  desire  to  obviate  all  misunderstanding  and  future 
trial,3 

For  a  woman  torn  emotionally  by  the  sorrows  and  psychological 
readjustments  of  early  widowhood,  Juliana  Gardiner  had  a  canny  ability 
to  penetrate  to  the  core  of  the  practical  economic  realities  of  life,  par- 
ticularly those  relating  to  its  "enjoyments"  and  "elegancies."  Her  con- 
cern was  a  natural  one,  conditioned  by  the  fact  that  for  two  centuries 
the  Gardiners  had  held  high  status  in  fashionable  New  York  society. 
Thus  when  Juliana  Gardiner  questioned  the  President  of  the  United 
States  on  his  ability  to  provide  adequately  for  young  Julia  it  was  an  in- 
grained family  reflex  action.  Unfortunately,  Tyler's  reply  to  her  in- 
terrogatory (if  indeed  he  did  reply)  is  not  extant.  The  important  point 
was  that  his  future  mother-in-law — nine  years  younger  than  himself — 
had  consented  to  the  union. 

Tyler's  party  arrived  in  New  York  by  rail  from  the  capital  at 
10:30  PrM.  on  Tuesday,  June  25,  and  slipped  unobserved  into  Howard's 
Hotel. /His  traveling  companions  from  Washington  included  John 
Lorimer  Graham,  Postmaster  of  the  City  of  New  York  and  patronage 


dispenser  for  the  Tylerite  political  forces  in  the  area;  John  Tyler,  Jr., 
his  second  son  and  private  secretary;  and  Robert  Rantoul,  prominent 
Boston  politician,  sometime  Collector  of  Customs  there,  twice  unsuc- 
cessfully nominated  to  high  public  office  by  the  President.  [So  insistent 
was  Tyler  on  secrecy  that  he  persuaded  D.  D.  Howard,  the  proprietor 
of  the  establishment,  to  lock  up  his  servants  for  the  night  lest  they 
leak  the  news  of  his  arrival  in  the  city.  In  the  best  tradition  of  a 
Renaissance  poisoning,  the  secret  was  kept. 

At  two  o'clock  on  the  sultry  Wednesday  afternoon  of  June  26  the 
ceremony  was  held,  Bishop  Onderdonk  and  Dr.  Bedell  presiding.  Present 
in  the  small  wedding  party  at  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  were  the  im- 
mediate family:  Juliana,  the  bride's  mother;  Margaret  Gardiner,  Julia's 
twenty-two-year-old  sister;  Alexander  and  David  Lyon  Gardiner,  her 
older  brothers.  Of  the  numerous  Tyl&s,  only  John,  Jr.,  accompanied 
his  distinguished  father.  Nonfamily  guests  included  United  States  Post- 
master General  and  Mrs.  Charles  A.  Wickliffe,  their  daughters  Mary 
and  Nannie,  Miss  Caroline  Legare,  daughter  of  Hugh  S.  Legare  of  South 
Carolina,  the  late  Attorney  General  and  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Tyler 
administration,  and  Colonel  and  Mrs.  John  Lorimer  Graham.  Margaret 
served  her  sister  as  bridesmaid  and  Alexander  was  her  groomsman.  The 
bride  wore  a  simple  white  dress  of  lisse  "with  a  gauze  veil  descending 
from  a  circlet  of  white  flowers,  wreathed  in  her  hair."  Since  she  was  in 
mourning  for  her  father  she  wore  no  jewelry.  As  the  New  York  Herald 
remarked,  "In  her  form  and  personal  appearance,  she  is  beautiful;  and 
we  should  be  proud  to  have  her  appear  at  the  Court  of  Queen  Victoria." 
This  gratuitous  remark  was  an  oblique  reference  to  the  groundless 
rumor  that  Tyler  was  about  to  withdraw  from  the  1844  Presidential 
canvass,  throw  his  strength  to  Democrat  James  K.  Polk,  and  receive 
in.  return  the  ambassadorship  to  the  Court  of  St.  James's.4 

Julia  was  pretty.  By  the  standards  of  her  day  she  was  considered 
beautiful.  Her  raven-black  hair  was  parted  in  the  middle  and  pulled 
back  into  neat,  tight  buns  covering  her  ears.  Her  dark  oval  eyes  were 
large  and  expressive,  the  flashing  beacons  of  an  animated  and  ex- 
troverted personality.  Firm  chin,  full  lips,  and  a  straight  nose  perhaps  a 
trifle  too  large  for  her  small  round  face  completed  a  picture  of  charm 
and  attractiveness.  She  was  five  feet  three  inches  in  height  with  a  tiny 
hourglass  waist  and  a  full  bust.  Tending  to  plumpness,  Julia  (like  all 
women)  would  always  complain  of  her  tendency  to  gain  weight.  But 
on  her  wedding  day  in  June  1 844  her  light  complexion,  white  dress,  and 
gauze  veil  contrasted  effectively  and  strikingly  with  her  dark  hair  and 
eyes  to  produce  a  trim  appearance  of  radiance  and  loveliness.  Indeed, 
her  bright  face,  shapely  figure,  and  pleasing  manner  were  enough  to 
excite  the  envy  of  any  man  for  John  Tyler's  good  fortune.  In  the  homage 
of  one  newspaperman  the  President  was  "Lucky  honest  John."  5 

Following  the  brief  Episcopal  ceremony  five  carriages  transported 


the  wedding  party  from  the  church  to  the  Gardiner  residence  on  La- 
fayette Place.  After  a  light  wedding  breakfast  the  guests  repaired  to 
the  foot  of  Courtland  Street,  where  they  boarded  the  ferryboat  Essex 
for  a  cooling  turn  around  the  harbor.  Julia  meanwhile  had  changed  into 
a  plain  black  baize  traveling  gown.  Waiting  aboard  the  ferryboat  to 
greet  and  congratulate  the  radiant  couple  was  a  noisy  group  of  local 
politicians  and  Tyler  supporters.  Chief  among  them  were  William 
Paxton  Hallett,  Silas  M.  Stilwell,  George  D.  Strong,  and  Louis  F. 
Tasistro.  A  band  entertained  the  happy  cargo  as  the  Essex  moved  among 
the  ships  anchored  in  the  harbor.  Thundering  salutes  were  received 
from  the  warships  North  Carolina  and — ironically — Princeton,  and 
from  the  guns  of  the  fort  on  Governors  Island.  Within  an  hour  the 
President  and  Julia  were  debarked  at  Jersey  City.  There  they  entrained 
for  Philadelphia  and  a  honeymoon  trip  that  would  lead  them  to  Wash- 
ington, Old  Point  Comfort,  and  to  the  President's  recently  acquired 
estate,  Sherwood  Forest,  in  Charles  City  County,  Virginia.  Margaret 
accompanied  the  newlyweds  as  far  as  the  capital,  an  arrangement  not 
considered  unusual  in  Victorian  days.  A  maidservant  completed  the 
wedding  party.  The  plan  was  to  stop  a  few  days  at  the  White  House 
to  permit  Tyler  to  attend  to  official  business  that  had  piled  up  during 
his  absence,  and  then  to  proceed  to  Old  Point  Comfort  and  Sherwood 
Forest  for  the  remainder  of  the  honeymoon. 

When  news  of  the  wedding  was  published  the  next  day  in  the  New 
York  papers,  the  effect  was  electric.  Alexander,  who  thoroughly  enjoyed 
intrigue,  was  particularly  pleased  with  the  coup  he  had  so  skillfully 
arranged: 

The  city  continues  full  of  the  surprise  [he  wrote  Julia] ,  and  the  ladies  will  not 
recover  in  some  weeks.  At  the  corners  of  the  streets,  in  the  public  places  and 
in  every  drawing  room  it  is  the  engrossing  theme.  The  whole  affair  is  con- 
sidered one  of  the  most  brilliant  coup  de  main  ever  acted;  and  I  can  not  but 
wonder  myself,  that  we  succeeded  so  well,  in  preserving  at  once  the  President's 
dignity,  and  our  own  feelings,  from  all  avoidable  sacrifice.6 

For  a  day  or  two  even  the  sensational  murder  trial  of  the  notorious 
Polly  Bodine  was  pushed  to  the  inside  pages  of  the  papers.  The  Herald, 
among  other  newspapers,  enjoyed  the  heaven-sent  opportunity  to  juxta- 
pose the  wedding  story  with  Tyler's  vigorous  fight  for  the  annexation 
of  Texas  and  his  campaign  for  re-election  on  that  issue.  The  puns  were 
bad  but  the  spirit  was  good: 

Miss  Julia  Gardiner  [wrote  a  Herald  reporter]  is  known  as  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  daughters  of  the  State  of  New  York.  It  is  said  that  the  ladies 
of  this  Country  are  all  in  favor  of  annexation,  to  a  man.  Miss  Gardiner  is  an 
honor  to  her  sex,  and  goes  decidedly  for  Tyler  and  annexation ...  the 
President  has  concluded  a  treaty  of  immediate  annexation,  which  will  be  rati- 
fied without  the  aid  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States ...  if  we  have  lost 


Texas  by  the  recent  vote  of  the  Senate,  the  gallantry  of  the  President  has 
annexed  Gardiners  Island  to  the  "Old  Dominion."  . . .  Now,  then,  is  the 
time  to  make  a  grand  movement  for  Tyler's  re-election.  Neither  Polk  nor 
Clay  can  bring  to  the  White  House  such  beauty,  elegance,  grace,  and  high 
accomplishments  as  does  John  Tyler,  and  meetings  should  be  at  once  con- 
vened— committees  appointed — and  all  proper  measures  taken  to  ensure  the 
reign  of  so  much  loveliness  for  four  years  longer  in  the  White  House.7 

The  secrecy  with  which  the  Chief  Executive's  wedding  had  been 
arranged  and  executed  produced  some  understandable  embarrassment. 
John  Jones,  editor  of  The  Madisonian,  the  Tyler  newspaper  in  Wash- 
ington, was  only  one  of  many  administration  insiders  caught  by  surprise. 
On  the  day  before  the  ceremony  Jones  had  run  a  routine  announce- 
ment of  the  President's  temporary  departure  from  the  capital  to  rest 
from  his  "arduous  duties"  and  seek  a  few  days'  "repose."  At  this  un- 
intended faux  pas  the  Herald  chortled  with  good-natured  glee:  "John 
don't  know  what's  going  on.  We  rather  think  that  the  President's 
'arduous  duties'  are  only  beginning.  c Repose/  indeed!"  8 

Most  distressed  by  the  suddenness  of  the  wedding  were  the  numer- 
ous intimate  friends  and  relatives  of  the  Gardiners  in  New  York  City 
who  had  received  neither  intimations  of  nor  invitations  to  the  important 
social  event.  They  were  particularly  critical  of  the  fact  that  the  Presi- 
dent had  seen  fit  to  surround  the  wedding  party  with  such  socially  un- 
acceptable political  hacks  as  John  Lorimer  Graham,  William  Paxton 
Hallett,  and  Louis  Tasistro  and  that  the  Gardiners  had  acquiesced  in 
this  disgraceful  arrangement.  Following  the  departure  of  the  President 
and  Julia  for  the  South  it  fell  to  Alexander  Gardiner  to  pacify  the 
injured  sensibilities  of  this  group.  In  this  delicate  task  he  claimed  com- 
plete success.  He  reported  to  Julia  on  June  28  that  the  "presence  of 
so  many  persons  at  the  solemnization,  and  the  announcement  that  they 
constituted  the  bridal  party,  and  were  our  guests  after  the  ceremony, 
awakened  some  unpleasant  feelings  among  our  relations  and  friends,  but 
these  have  been  entirely  quieted  . . .  there  were  some  names  introduced 
to  the  public  as  part  of  your  party,  in  which  you  would  have  taken  no 
great  pride  in  such  a  connection."  Nevertheless,  as  late  as  mid- July 
family  friends  in  the  city  were  still  bitterly  complaining  about  the  way 
the  whole  thing  had  been  handled.9 

At  East  Hampton,  Long  Island,  the  news  was  received  with  sur- 
prise and  delight  but  with  little  of  the  causticity  displayed  by  the  bride's 
friends  in  the  city.  Julia  had  grown  up  in  the  hamlet  and  her  friends, 
neighbors,  and  kinsmen  there  absorbed  the  fact  of  her  marriage  in  the 
unsophisticated  manner  of  all  villagers.  They  were  too  proud  of  East 
Hampton's  sudden  prominence  in  the  world  to  worry  about  the  social 
structure  of  the  wedding  party.10 

Relatives  on  the  Tyler  side  were  also  stunned  by  the  suddenness 
of  the  event,  particularly  the  President's  four  daughters  by  his  first  wife. 


These  ladies  were  well  aware  of  their  father's  desire  to  marry  Julia 
Gardiner.  While  they  felt  some  concern  about  the  sharp  age  difference 
involved  in  the  match,  they  all  had  accepted  the  inevitability  of  the 
union.  Throughout  the  difficult  readjustment  period  that  followed  the 
ceremony,  their  attitude  toward  their  new  young  stepmother  was  in- 
fluenced by  the  fact  that  they  had  all  been  extremely  close  to  Letitia 
Tyler,  their  own  mother.  Her  death  in  September  1842  was  still  very 
much  on  their  minds  and  in  their  hearts.  Hence  it  was  the  timing  of  the 
wedding  and  its  near-elopement  character  that  produced  their  initial 
pique.  They  were  certainly  not  made  privy  to  their  father's  specific 
plans.  Three  weeks  before  the  wedding  the  President  had  told  his  eldest 
daughter,  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  who  was  five  years  Julia's  senior,  that  he 
had  "nothing  to  write  about  which  would  be  of  any  interest  to  you." 
He  merely  mentioned  in  passing  that  " whatever  I  may  do  on  any  sub- 
ject be  assured  my  dear  daughter  that  your  happiness  will  ever  be  near 
to  the  heart  of  your  Father."  This  was  the  only  hint  of  the  approaching 
nuptials  any  of  his  daughters  received.  Thus  when  the  President  an- 
nounced the  actual  occurrence  of  the  event  to  Mary  on  June  28  it  was 
really  a  plea  for  her  approbation: 

Well,  what  has  been  talked  of  for  so  long  a  time  is  consummated  and  Julia 
Gardiner,  the  most  lovely  of  her  race,  is  my  own  wedded  wife.  If  I  can  lay 
my  hand  on  a  paper  containing  a  proper  account  of  the  ceremonial  I  will  send 
it.  Will  not  my  dear  child  rejoice  in  my  happiness!  She  is  all  that  I  could 
wish  her  to  be,  the  most  beautiful  woman  of  the  age  and  at  the  same  time  the 
most  accomplished.  This  occurrence  will  make  no  change  in  aught  that  relates 
to  you.  Nor  will  new  associations  produce  the  slightest  abatement  from  my 

affection  for  you Will  you  not  also  write  a  suitable  letter  to  Julia . . . 

expressive  of  your  pleasure  to  see  her?  X1 

Mary  was  a  mature  and  sensible  woman  and  she  soon  adjusted  to 
the  idea  of  a  young  stepmother.  Her  sister,  twenty-one-year-old  Eliza- 
beth Tyler  Waller,  required  more  time.  So  hurt  and  upset  was  she  by 
the  news  that  it  was  nearly  three  months  before  she  could  bring  herself 
to  write  Julia  and  acknowledge  the  event.  Addressing  her  letter  to  "My 
dear  Mrs.  Tyler,"  Elizabeth  begged  for  time  to  absorb  the  implications 
of  the  new  situation: 

My  reasons  for  not  having  written  you  before  will  I  hope  be  appreciated,  and 
I  shall  endeavor  in  giving  them  to  you  to  be  as  candid  as  I  would  wish  you 
to  be  to  me.  For  weeks  after  your  marriage  I  could  not  realize  the  fact,  and 
even  now  it  is  with  difficulty  that  I  can  convince  myself  that  another  fills  the 
place  which  was  once  occupied  by  my  beloved  Mother.  I  had  ever  been  taught 
to  love  that  Mother  above  all  else  on  Earth  and  surely  you  must  feel  that  the 
short  space  of  two  years  could  not  have  obliterated  her  memory  sufficiently 
for  me  to  have  been  enabled  to  greet  any  one  whom  my  father  might  have 
married  with  a  great  deal  of  affection.  We  are  strangers  to  each  other  now 
which  renders  it  impossible  for  either  of  us  to  entertain  that  affection  which 


I  hope  in  after  years  we  may  feel.  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  regard  any 
one  in  this  world  in  the  lights  of  a  Mother  were  they  many  years  your  senior 
— but  I  shall  endeavor  to  love  you  with  the  affection  of  a  sister  and  trust  it 
may  be  reciprocated  on  your  part.12 

Mary  and  Elizabeth  did  finally  come  to  love  and  admire  Julia.  Tyler's 
second  daughter,  Letitia  Tyler  Semple,  did  not.  Hers  was  a  quiet  ven- 
detta with  Julia  that  lasted  through  the  years.  She  disliked  her  new 
stepmother  instantly.  After  a  while  her  unreasonable  hostility  was 
reciprocated  by  Julia — whose  several  attempts  at  peacemaking  were  all 
rudely  rebuffed.  Alice  Tyler,  the  youngest  of  the  President's  daughters, 
seventeen  at  the  time  of  the  wedding,  also  proved  difficult  about  the  new 
order  of  things.  Although  she  thawed  considerably  while  serving  as  a 
member  of  the  First  Lady's  "Court"  during  the  brilliant  1844-1845 
social  season  in  Washington,  she  and  Julia  would  have  some  tense 
moments  in  the  years  ahead.  But  by  the  time  of  her  own  marriage  in 
1850  she  had  come  to  respect,  if  not  love,  her  beautiful  stepmother. 

With  Tyler's  three  sons  there  was  never  a  problem.  Fourteen-year- 
old  Tazewell  was  too  young  to  grasp  fully  the  implications  of  what  had 
happened.  His  memory  of  Letitia  was  fairly  dim  and  he  was  pleased  to 
have  a  new  mother.  Both  of  Tyler's  grown  sons,  Robert  and  John,  Jr., 
were  extremely  fond  of  Julia.  And  while  she  in  turn  was  often  privately 
critical  of  their  political  behavior  and  personal  habits  (particularly 
those  of  the  erratic  John,  Jr.),  their  relations  over  the  years  were  gen- 
erally warm  and  cordial.  Save  for  the  continuing  hostility  of  Letitia 
Semple}  Julia  fitted  easily  and  quickly  into  the  Tyler  family  complex. 

Julia's  honeymoon  trip  to  the  South  was  a  bit  like  Caesar's  trium- 
phal return  from  Gaul.  The  wedding  night  was  spent  in  Philadelphia. 
Following  a  brief  stopover  in  Baltimore,  the  honeymoon  party  reached 
Washington  on  the  evening  of  June  27.  "Wherever  we  stopped,  wher- 
ever we  went,  crowds  of  people  outstripping  one  another,  came  to  gaze 
at  the  President's  bride,"  Julia  exclaimed  ecstatically;  "the  secrecy 
of  the  a  fair  is  on  the  tongue  and  admiration  of  everyone.  Everyone 
says  it  was  the  best  managed  thing  they  ever  heard  of.  The  President 
says  I  am  the  best  of  diplomatists."13 

On  Friday  afternoon,  June  28,  there  was  a  wedding  reception  in 
the  flower-laden  Blue  Room  of  the  White  House  attended  by  "a  throng 
of  distinguished  people."  Julia,  Margaret,  and  the  President  received  the 
guests.  In  the  center  of  the  oval  room  stood  a  tastefully  decorated  table 
on  which  was  placed  the  wedding  cake  "surrounded  by  wine  and 
bouquets."  John  C.  Calhoun,  Tyler's  energetic  and  controversial  Sec- 
retary of  State,  escorted  Julia  to  the  bride's  table  and,  in  the  approved 
South  Carolina  feudal  manner,  gallantly  helped  her  cut  the  great  cake. 
The  reception  lasted  two  hours.  To  the  young  bride  it  was  all  "very 
brilliant — brilliant  to  my  heart's  content."  Julia  was  truly  in  her  ele- 
ment. "I  have  commenced  my  auspicious  reign,"  she  confided  to  her 

8 


mother,  "and  am  in  quiet  possession  of  the  Presidential  Mansion."  14 
In  spite  of  this  triumphant  declaration  it  took  the  pragmatic 
Juliana  another  week  to  comprehend  fully  the  fact  that  her  new  son-in- 
law  was  in  truth  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  that  Julia 
had  begun  her  "reign"  at  Ms  side: 

My  mind  has  been  so  absorbed  with  you  [she  wrote  to  Julia  on  July  4]  that 
the  idea  never  occurred  to  me  until  this  morning  at  the  breakfast  table  it 
seemed  suddenly  to  break  upon  me  that  I  had  a  son  President  of  the  United 
States — as  I  was  alone  and  no  person  to  communicate  this  sudden  conviction 
to  I  enjoyed  it  by  myself.  To  my  mind  however  it  is  more  like  poetry  than 
reality.  I  used  to  indulge  a  fancy  when  David  and  Alex,  were  little  children 
perhaps  one  of  these  may  be  President — yet  the  idea  in  truth  appeared  so 
improbable  to  my  mind  as  to  render  it  absurd.15 

One  disquieting  bit  of  news  about  Julia's  married  life  soon  drifted 
north  to  Juliana  Gardiner.  Within  a  few  days  of  their  arrival  at  the 
White  House,  Margaret  reported  Tyler's  good-natured  complaint  that 
Julia's  demand  for  his  constant  attention  prevented  him  from  working. 
He  had  great  difficulty  getting  his  sleepy  wife  out  of  bed  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  he  observed  that  in  other  ways  she  was  "a  spoilt  child." 
Margaret  agreed  with  the  President,  conveying  to  Lafayette  Place  her 
own  opinion  that  if  the  honeymoon  lasted  much  longer  Julia  would  be 
spoiled  beyond  redemption.  After  all,  she  confided  to  her  mother,  the 
President's  job  required  a  great  deal  of  difficult  and  complex  work,  a 
burden  made  no  lighter  for  him  by  his  strong  political  "hope  of  return- 
ing to  the  White  House  in  '48."  l6 

Juliana  reacted  quickly  and  positively  to  this  adverse  report  from 
the  capital.  She  told  Julia  bluntly  that  her  reign  in  Washington  would 
likely  be  short  enough,  and  that  she  had  better  not  "interrupt  the  Presi- 
dent in  his  business."  Instead,  she  should  "urge  him  on"  in  order  to  help 
effect  his  re-election  in  November.  Her  advice  on  the  more  personal 
question  involved  was  equally  straightforward:  "Let  your  husband  work 
during  all  business  hours,"  she  ordered.  "Business  should  take  the 
precedence  of  caressing — reserve  your  caressing  for  private  leisure  and 
be  sure  you  let  no  one  see  it  unless  you  wish  to  be  laughed  at."  Spe- 
cifically, she  suggested  that  Julia  busy  herself  with  putting  the  White 
House  in  order.  She  had  heard  from  Julia's  maidservant  Elizabeth,  and 
she  knew  from  personal  observation,  that  it  was  a  dirty  and  run-down 
establishment.  She  pointed  out  that  "the  President  should  make  the 
government  clean  it  forthwith. . . .  You  know  how  I  detest  a  dirty  house. 
Commence  at  once  to  look  around  and  see  that  all  things  are  orderly 
and  tidy.  This  will  amuse  and  occupy  you. . . ."  17 

To  this  recommendation  of  occupational  therapy  Margaret,  after 
she  had  returned  to  New  York,  added  the  practical  suggestion  that 
Julia  might  well  start  doing  something  constructive  and  useful  for  the 
Gardiner  family  in  her  new  position  as  First  Lady.  "You  spend  so  much 


time  in  kissing,  things  of  more  importance  are  left  undone,"  she  com- 
plained. There  was,  for  example,  their  brother  Alexander,  whose  re- 
cently launched  political  career  in  New  York  City  needed  a  sharp 
Presidential  nudge.  "Recollect  that  A —  too  would  like  to  have  you  make 
hay  for  him  while  the  Sun  shines/'  she  reminded  her  sister.  "In  truth 
you  must  be  a  politician."  Julia's  reaction  to  the  family  advice  which 
descended  from  New  York  was  one  of  contrition.  "I  very  well  know 
every  eye  is  upon  me,  my  dear  mother,  and  /  will  behave  accordingly."  18 

As  it  turned  out,  Julia  would  have  more  effect  on  her  brother's 
political  fortunes  than  on  the  White  House  dirt.  The  Presidents  House 
was  in  appalling  condition  in  1844,  a  slumlike  casualty  of  the  running 
three-year  battle  between  Tyler  and  the  Congress.  The  hostile  House 
of  Representatives  had  stubbornly  refused  to  appropriate  the  funds 
necessary  to  keep  the  mansion  in  even  a  minimum  state  of  cleanliness. 
Its  white  pillars  were  stained  with  tobacco  juice,  its  draperies  and  rugs 
were  threadbare  and  worn,  its  walls  and  ceilings  cried  for  paint,  and  in 
its  windows  and  remote  corners  one  might  observe  "spiders  amusingly 
playing  at  beau-peek  for  a  naughty  fly."  Juliana  McLachlan  Gardiner 
was  a  forceful  and  persuasive  woman,  as  was  her  young  daughter,  the 
new  First  Lady;  but  the  two  of  them  together,  supported  by  all  the 
power  and  prestige  of  the  Executive  branch,  were  unable  to  move 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  to  redecorate  the  White  House  dur- 
ing the  remaining  seven  months  of  the  Tyler  administration.  Nothing 
was  done  by  Congress  toward  basic  redecoration  until  the  Polks  took 
possession  in  March  1845.  Before  she  left  Washington  for  Old  Point 
Comfort,  however,  Julia  satisfied  herself  that  the  President  at  least 
appreciated  the  sad  condition  of  the  domicile,  and  she  exacted  from 
him  a  promise  that  when  they  returned  in  August  she  would  find  the 
premises  "in  prime  order."  19 

Margaret  returned  to  New  York  on  July  i,  although  Tyler  strongly 
urged  her  to  accompany  them  on  to  Old  Point  Comfort.  He  feared  his 
bride  would  "grow  gloomy  through  the  separation"  from  her  beloved 
sister,  as  for  a  brief  time  she  did.  But  Margaret  demurred,  and  the 
honeymooners  left  Washington  alone  by  boat  on  July  3,  arriving  at  Old 
Point  at  one  o'clock  the  next  morning.  They  were  met  at  the  landing 
by  Colonel  Gustavus  A.  De  Russy  of  New  York,  commanding  officer 
of  Fortress  Monroe,  who  conducted  them  to  their  cottage.  Julia  was 
delighted  with  the  comfort  and  beauty  of  the  honeymoon  retreat,  and 
the  separation  from  Margaret  was  soon  forgotten.  As  Tyler's  confidential 
agent  in  the  matter,  De  Russy  had  done  well  in  tastefully  selecting  and 
purchasing  the  furniture  in  Norfolk,  and  Julia  described  the  arrange- 
ments he  had  made  with  genuine  enthusiasm: 

Col.  De  Russy  is  one  of  the  first  officers  of  the  country  and  a  perfect  gentle- 
man. His  taste,  and  I  believe,  his  own  hand,  arranged  our  sleeping  apartment. 
...  A  richly  covered  high  post  bedstead  hung  with  white  lace  curtains  looped 

1C 


up  with  blue  ribbon,  and  the  cover  at  the  top  of  the  bedstead  lined  also  with 
blue — new  matting  which  emitted  its  sweet  fragrance,  two  handsome  mahogany 
dressing  tables,  writing  table,  and  sofa,  the  room  was  papered  to  match,  and 
the  whole  establishment  brand  new — True  love  in  a  cottage — and  quite  a 
contrast  to  my  dirty  establishment  in  Washington.  It  seemed  quite  as  if  I  had 
stepped  into  paradise.20 

The  next  two  days  were  filled  with  a  ceaseless  round  of  social 
activities.  All  the  officers  of  the  garrison  were  marched  in  a  body  to  the 
honeymoon  cottage  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  Commander-in-Chief 
and  his  bride,  "a  really  imposing  scene/7  wrote  Julia.  The  troops  were 
solemnly  reviewed,  a  duty  which  Julia  thought  "all  very  fine  and  im- 
posing but  I  was  so  annoyed  by  the  mosquitos  [sic]  which  positively 
devoured  me."  In  addition,  there  was  a  dinner  aboard  a  Revenue  cutter, 
endless  toasts  to  the  happiness  of  the  President  and  his  lady,  and  a 
flying  visit  from  the  swashbuckling  John  Tyler,  Jr.  An  inspection  tour 
of  the  USS  Pennsylvania  (the  largest  sailing  warship  ever  built  in 
America),  lying  in  Hampton  Roads,  was  marred  somewhat  when  the 
flustered  and  confused  Commodore  William  C.  Bolton  lost  count  of  the 
formal  salute  and  fired  only  nineteen  guns  instead  of  the  customary 
twenty-one  for  a  President  of  the  United  States.  Flowers  and  wine, 
marching  men  and  gallant  officers,  booming  salutes,  compliments  and 
flattery  made  these  days  memorable  for  the  young  lady  of  East 
Hampton,  thrust  suddenly  into  the  national  spotlight.21 

Never  had  Julia  been  so  completely  happy.  "The  P.  bids  me  tell 
you  the  honeymoon  is  likely  to  last  forever/'  she  breathlessly  told  her 
mother,  "for  he  finds  himself  falling  in  love  with  me  every  day."  This 
was  a  bit  too  lyrical  for  the  practical  Juliana.  "You  must  not  believe 
all  the  President  says  about  the  honeymoon  lasting  always/3  she  wrote 
her  starry-eyed  daughter,  "for  he  has  found  out  that  you  in  common 
with  the  rest  of  Eve's  daughters  are  fond  of  flattery."  It  was  a  charge 
Julia  could  not  easily  deny.  She  was  a  woman,  and  she  was  a  Gardiner. 
Flattery,  when  it  flowed  freely  and  abundantly,  was  the  very  fountain 
of  her  emotional  strength  and  happiness.  At  Old  Point  Comfort  in  July 
1844  it  flowed  in  torrents.22 

While  Julia  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  deference  and  attention  that 
came  with  being  the  First  Lady  of  the  land,  she  was  not  insensitive 
to  the  fact  that  her  husband  was  under  great  political  strain  during 
the  entire  honeymoon.  For  him  it  was  a  time  of  decision.  As  Julia 
explained  it  from  Sherwood  Forest  in  early  July,  "In  this  region  of  the 
country  the  President's  friends  are  strong  and  true,  but  whether  he 
shall  continue  as  a  candidate  is  a  question  upon  which  he  is  now 
deliberating.  As  to  his  views  the  President  will  soon  write  to  Alexander." 
This  was  the  first  indication  anyone  in  the  Gardiner  family  had  that 
the  President  was  contemplating  withdrawing  himself  and  his  Demo- 
cratic-Republican third  party  from  the  1844  campaign.  The  Gardiners 

ii 


had  simply  assumed,  as  had  most  of  the  President's  close  friends,  that 
Tyler  would  continue  in  the  race,  win  or  lose.  There  is  considerable 
evidence  that  they  were  confident  of  his  success  in  the  tricornered  con- 
test with  Polk  and  Henry  Clay.  Nonetheless,  it  was  reassuring  to  know 
that  the  Gardiners  would  instantly  be  privy  to  the  President's  innermost 
political  thoughts,  whatever  his  decision  in  this  instance  would  be.  The 
Tyler-Gardiner  marriage  alliance  was  destined  to  be  one  that  was 
political  as  well  as  social  and  economic.  Because  of  this,  the  redoubtable 
Juliana  could  insist  with  good  reason  that  her  daughter  learn  to  "be 
a  politician  and  look  deep  into  the  affairs  of  State."  Julia  learned  to  be 
a  politician — rapidly — and  her  later  contribution  to  the  social  and  po- 
litical success  of  the  Tyler  administration  was  no  small  thing.23 

On  the  sixth  of  July  the  President  and  his  bride  went  up  the  James 
River  for  a  five-day  inspection  visit  to  Sherwood  Forest,  located  on  the 
north  bank  twenty-seven  miles  southeast  of  Richmond.  It  was  a  mag- 
nificent sixteen-hundred-acre  plantation  which  Tyler  had  purchased  in 
1842  as  his  place  of  retirement.  When  Julia  first  saw  it,  the  ninety-by- 
forty-two-foot  house,  located  in  a  large  grove  of  oaks,  was  undergoing 
the  extensive  remodeling  and  enlargement  that  would  bring  it  to  its 
present  length  of  three  hundred  feet.  The  President's  son-in-law,  Henry 
Lightfoot  Jones,  and  his  daughter,  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  were  temporarily 
managing  the  estate  and  supervising  the  construction  work  of  the  slave 
gangs.  The  basic  work  was  not  scheduled  for  completion  until  Decem- 
ber 1844  and  It  would  be  a  full  year  after  that  before  all  the  detail 
work  was  finished.  When  at  last  it  was  finished  in  1845  it  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  impressive  homes  in  Tidewater  Virginia. 

The  morning  after  their  arrival  at  the  plantation,  Tyler  called 
the  sixty-odd  slaves  to  the  house  to  greet  their  new  "missus."  It  was  a 
solemn  moment.  The  Negroes  shuffled  their  feet  and  tugged  self-con- 
sciously at  their  caps.  For  a  few  embarrassed  minutes  no  one  spoke. 

"Well,  how  do  you  like  her  looks?"  the  President  finally  called 
to  one  of  his  oldest  Negroes. 

"Oh,  she  is  mighty  handsome — just  like  one  doll-baby,  by  Gov>," 
said  the  old-timer.  The  slaves  laughed  uproariously,  the  remark  being 
what  Julia  correctly  recognized  as  "the  quintessence  of  a  negro  com- 
pliment." 2* 

While  Tyler  talked  politics  with  his  friends  and  constituents  in 
the  area,  still  contemplating  his  course  of  action  in  the  Presidential 
canvass,  Julia  wandered  over  the  house  and  grounds,  trying  to  decide 
what  furniture  and  shrubs  would  be  needed, 

. . .  directing  the  Carpenters  and  mechanics  where  to  make  this  change  and 
where  this  addition.  The  head  carpenter  was  amazed  at  my  science  and  the 
President  acknowledged  I  understood  more  about  carpentry  and  architecture 
than  he  did,  and  he  would  leave  all  the  arrangements  that  were  to  be  made 

12 


entirely  to  my  taste.  I  intend  to  make  it  as  pleasant  as  I  can  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. A  new  house  I  would  have  arranged  and  built  differently  of  course. 
It  will  be  the  handsomest  place  in  the  County  and  I  assure  you  there  are 
some  very  fine  ones  in  it.  The  grove  will  be  made  into  a  park  (twenty-five 
acres)  and  stocked  with  deer. . . .  The  President  says  when  we  walk  about 
the  house  "This  is  for  your  mother  to  occupy,  this  for  Margaret,  and  that  for 
David  and  Alexander." . . .  How  I  wish  I  had  you  here  to  talk  over  my 
arrangements  for  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  to  propose,  and  in  everything 
the  President  appeals  to  me.  In  the  world,  as  here,  wherever  he  goes  and 
whatever  is  done  it  is  we  in  all  situations  he  seems  only  to  consider.25 

That  Tyler  was  supremely  happy  with  his  new  bride  there  is  no 
doubt.  Her  beauty,  vivacity,  good  humor,  and  poise  delighted  him; 
her  stamina  amazed  him.  Julia  correctly  represented  his  feelings  when 
she  said  that  "Nothing  appears  to  delight  the  President  more  than  to 
notice  the  admiration,  and  to  hear  people  sing  my  praises."  He  was 
completely  captivated  by  Julia.  When  John  Tyler  was  happy  poetry 
invariably  flowed  from  his  lips  and  from  his  pen.  Thus  from  his  honey- 
moon with  Julia  came  a  final  version  of  the  verse  ''Sweet  Lady, 
Awake! )J  which  he  had  originally  written  during  their  courtship.  Sub- 
titled "A  Serenade  Dedicated  to  Miss  Julia  Gardiner,"  the  President 
revised,  polished,  and  reworked  it  at  the  honeymoon  cottage  at  Old 
Point  Comfort.  Julia,  her  considerable  musical  talents  unimpaired  by 
her  new  title  and  responsibilities,  set  it  to  music: 

Sweet  lady  awake,  from  your  slumbers  awake, 
Weird  beings  we  come  o'er  hill  and  through  brake 
To  sing  you  a  song  in  the  stillness  of  night, 
Oh,  read  you  our  riddle  fair  lady  aright? 
We  are  sent  by  the  one  whose  fond  heart  is  your  own, 
Who  mourns  in  thy  absence  and  sighs  all  alone. 
Alas,  he  is  distant — but  tho'  far,  far  away, 
He  thinks  of  you,  lady,  by  night  and  by  day. 
Sweet  lady  awake,  sweet  lady  awake! 

His  hearth,  altho'  lonely,  is  bright  with  your  fame, 
And  therefore  we  breathe  not  the  breath  of  his  name. 
For  oh !  if  your  dreams  have  response  in  your  tone, 
Long  since  have  you  known  it  as  well  as  your  own. 
We  are  things  of  the  sea,  of  the  earth,  and  the  air, 
But  ere  you  again  to  your  pillow  repair, 
Entrust  us  to  say  you  gave  ear  to  our  strain, 
And  were  he  the  minstrel  you  would  listen  again. 
Sweet  lady  awake,  sweet  lady  awake! 

While  it  is  hardly  Gilbert  and  Sullivan  in  quality,  the  ballad  remains 
the  only  known  musical  collaboration  of  a  President  and  his  First 
Lady.  Although  the  team  of  Tyler  and  Tyler  was  destined  to  pose 

13 


no  serious  threat  to  that  of  Rodgers  and  Hart,  the  sentiment  of  the 
President's  love  for  his  young  wife  was  sincere,26 

Before  the  return  of  the  honey mooners  to  Old  Point  Comfort 
from  Sherwood  Forest  on  July  10,  and  well  before  the  honeymoon 
trip  finally  ended  at  Washington  in  early  August,  the  gossips  were  hard 
at  work  discussing  the  suitability  of  a  marriage  between  a  fifty-four- 
year-old  man  and  a  twenty-four-year-old  woman.  Julia's  mother  re- 
ported a  typical  exchange  among  several  ladies  at  a  resort  hotel  in 
Rockaway,  Long  Island,  which  seemed  to  sum  up  all  the  vicious  pos- 
sibilities. As  one  of  the  gossips  put  it,  "Well  I  never  would  like  to  inter- 
fere much  with  inclinations  of  my  daughter  in  such  cases,  but  I  can't 
help  thinking  it  was  a  great  sacrifice  for  such  a  young  and  beautiful 
belle  to  make  in  marrying  a  man  so  much  older  than  herself."  Others 
chimed  in  with  the  observations  that  the  President  was  "not  rich  either" 
and  that  he  had  "a  large  family  besides.77 

It  was  not  enough  to  label  this,  as  Juliana  promptly  did,  the 
"ignorant  gossip  ...  of  our  enlightened  fashionable  society  such  as  con- 
gregate at  the  watering  places  in  this  region."  Privately  and  subcon- 
sciously the  age  question  also  disturbed  the  Gardiners,  the  Tylers,  and 
many  of  their  intimate  friends.  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller  had  this  in  her 
mind  when  she  wrote  to  Julia  in  September  of  her  difficulty  adjusting 
to  any  stepmother,  even  one  "many  years  your  senior."  J.  J.  Bailey,  a 
Gardiner  family  friend,  had  teased  Julia  in  1843  about  her  developing 
romance  with  the  President,  repeating  a  widely  held  conviction  in 
Washington  society  that  such  a  match  "would  appear  like  green  tendrils 
round  a  gnarled  oak  or  like  a  wreath  of  roses  on  the  brow  of  Saturn — 
Julia  Gardiner  and  John  Tyler  indeed  1" — a  remark  the  socially  sen- 
sitive Juliana  had  relayed  to  her  son  Alexander  in  New  York  with  great 
concern.  Indeed,  when  Margaret  Gardiner  first  met  the  President  at 
a  Washington  reception  in  December  1842,  she  described  him  to  her 
brother  David  as  a  "most  agreeable  old  gentleman."  Subconsciously, 
Margaret  never  overcame  this  initial  impression  of  Tyler.  In  a  "funny 
dream"  she  reported  to  Julia  in  November  1845,  she 

. . .  thought  we  were  all  at  Newport  together  with  you — awaiting  his  arrival. 
In  the  midst  of  the  crowd  he  presented  himself  just  emerged  from  a  regular 
spree,  so  bloated  as  to  be  quite  unrecognizable.  You  were  so  ashamed  and 
provoked  as  to  take  no  notice  of  him.  But  David  went  to  shake  hands  and 
told  him  tie  always  thought  he  was  a  young  looking  man  but  he  was  anything 
but  that  now.  "Yes,"  replied  the  P —  in  melancholy  tones,  "I  have  grown  old 
in  a  few  days "  Was  there  ever  anything  so  ridiculous?  27 

At  one  point  Tyler  himself  wondered  whether  the  age  gap  might 
not  be  too  broad.  Riding  in  his  carriage  one  day  in  March  1844  with 
his  good  friend  Henry  A.  Wise,  he  decided  to  confide  to  the  Virginia 

14 


politician  his  intention  to  marry  a  much  younger  woman.  He  named 
Julia  Gardiner  and  watched  closely  for  Wise's  reaction. 

"Have  you  really  won  her?'7  asked  his  friend  in  amazement. 

"Yes/'  replied  the  President;  "and  why  should  I  not?" 

"You  are  too  far  advanced  in  life  to  be  imprudent  in  a  love- 
scrape/'  countered  the  cautious  Wise. 

"How  imprudent?"  Tyler  pressed  him. 

"Easily,"  said  Wise.  "You  are  not  only  past  middle  age,  but  yon 
are  President  of  the  United  States,  and  that  is  a  dazzling  dignity  which 
may  charm  a  damsel  more  than  the  man  she  marries." 

"Pooh I"  laughed  the  President.  "Why,  my  dear  sir,  I  am  just  full 
in  my  prime!" 

Wise  was  not  convinced.  To  make  his  point  stronger,  he  told  Tyler 
the  story  of  a  James  River  planter  who  had  also  decided  to  marry  a 
much  younger  woman.  The  planter  finally  asked  his  house  slave,  Toney, 
what  he  thought  of  the  match. 

"Massa,  you  think  you  can  stand  dat?"  asked  the  servant  in  awe. 

"Yes,  Toney,  why  not?  I  am  yet  strong,  and  I  can  now,  as  well  as 
ever  I  could,  make  her  happy." 

"Yes;  but  Massa,"  replied  Toney,  "you  is  now  in  your  prime, 
dat's  true;  but  when  she  is  in  her  prime,  where  den,  Massa,  will  your 
prime  be?"  Tyler  burst  into  laughter.28 

If  Julia  or  the  President  ever  worried  about  the  thirty-year  differ- 
ence in  their  ages,  none  of  their  surviving  personal  letters  give  any  in- 
dication of  it.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence  to  suggest  that  Julia  tortured 
herself  psychologically  with  fears  of  a  lengthy  widowhood.  On  the 
contrary,  she  passed  off  the  age  question  with  good  humor.  There  is 
no  better  illustration  of  this  than  the  lines  of  a  poem  she  wrote  for  her 
husband  in  March  1852,  on  the  occasion  of  his  sixty-second  birthday: 

There  may  be  those  with  courtier  tongue 

Who  homage  pay  to  me — 
But  deep  the  tribute  love  compels, 

With  which  I  bend  to  thee! 
Let  ruthless  age  then,  mark  thy  brow — 

It  need  not  touch  thy  heart — 
And  what  e'er  changes  time  may  bring, 

I'll  love  thee  as  thou  art !  ... 

Then  listen,  dearest,  to  my  strain — 

And  never  doubt  its  truth — 
Thy  ripen 'd  charms  are  all  to  me, 

Wit  I  prefer  to  youth!  2Q 

The  fears  of  Henry  A.  Wise  were  never  realized.  Returning  from 
his  ambassadorship  to  Brazil  in  the  fall  of  1847,  ne  saw  Tyler  again 


for  the  first  time  since  their  carnage  ride  and  conversation  in  Washing- 
ton in  March  1844.  Wise  immediately  noticed  that  included  in  the 
former  President's  baggage  on  the  river  boat  that  day  was  a  double- 
seated  wicker  baby  carriage. 

"Aha!  it  has  come  to  that,  has  it?"  laughed  Wise,  lifting  his  eye- 
brows. 

"Yes,"  said  Tyler;  "you  see  now  how  right  I  was;  it  was  no  vain 
boast  when  I  told  you  I  was  in  my  prime.  I  have  a  houseful  of  goodly 

babies  budding  around  me "  At  the  time  he  had  but  two,  but  more 

would  come  along — five  more,  to  be  exact.30 

In  early  August  the  all-too-brief  honeymoon  ended,  and  Julia  and 
the  President  returned  reluctantly  to  Washington.  Tyler  had  important 
political  business  to  attend  to,  the  day-to-day  work  of  the  Presidential 
office  having  accumulated  during  his  trip.  There  was  the  November 
election  to  think  about,  an  Annual  Message  to  Congress  to  write,  and 
the  Texas  annexation  question  to  reconsider.  He  had  finally  decided 
to  withdraw  from  the  campaign  in  favor  of  Young  Hickory,  and  con- 
fidential negotiations  with  the  Polk  forces  to  effect  this  with  maximum 
advantage  to  the  Tylerites  were  already  under  way  and  would  re- 
quire his  personal  attention. 

More  and  more  of  his  time  was  taken  up  with  his  official  duties, 
and  Julia  saw  little  of  him  for  the  next  few  weeks.  Since  her  own  social 
duties  as  First  Lady  would  not  commence  until  the  Congress  recon- 
vened in  early  December,  the  President  suggested  she  visit  New  York 
in  September  for  a  short  rest.  The  coming  social  season  would  de- 
mand all  her  energies.  Julia  agreed  and  alerted  her  mother  to  her  pro- 
jected homecoming  with  the  plea,  "Can't  it  get  into  the  New  York 
papers  that  Mrs.  President  Tyler  is  coming  to  town  accompanied  by 
Mrs.  Ex-President  Madison,  the  Secretary  of  War  and  lady?"  31 

Julia,  it  was  clear,  was  beginning  to  live  her  exciting  new  role. 
The  honeymoon  with  John  Tyler  was  over.  The  honeymoon  with  the 
idea  of  being  "Mrs.  President  Tyler"  was  just  beginning.  It  would  last 
for  forty-five  years. 


16 


THE  GARDINERS  OF  EAST  HAMPTON 


You  must  be  more  cautious  in  expressing  your  opin- 
ions so  freely  as  it  will  certainly  give  you  trouble. 

— JULIANA   MCLACHLAN    GARDINER,    1835 


The  marriage  of  the  aristocratic  John  Tyler  of  Virginia  to  the  vivacious 
Julia  Gardiner  of  New  York  brought  together  two  proud  and  promi- 
nent families,  each  with  roots  deep  in  the  history  and  tradition  of 
America.  Whether  a  Gardiner  had  married  into  the  Tyler  family  or  a 
Tyler  into  the  Gardiner  family  was  a  status  question  each  gossiper  de- 
cided for  himself.  To  George  Temple  ton  Strong,  prince  of  New  York 
snobs,  the  point  was  irrelevant.  "I've  just  heard  a  rumor,"  he  confided 
to  his  diary,  "that  infatuated  old  John  Tyler  was  married  today  to 
one  of  these  large,  fleshy  Miss  Gardiners  of  Gardiners  Island.  Poor 
unfortunate,  deluded  old  jackass."  To  others  in  New  York,  especially 
to  those  family-conscious  souls  at  or  near  the  Gardiners'  social  level, 
the  social  and  financial  "suitability"  of  the  alliance  remained  a  sub- 
ject of  parlor  conversation  for  months.1 

Certainly  Julia  had  no  cause  to  feel  social  or  economic  inferiority 
in  the  presence  of  the  Tylers.  Nor  did  she.  The  Gardiners  had  far 
more  material  wealth  than  the  Tylers.  And  while  they  had  produced  no 
Presidents  or  even  governors,  they  were  secure  in  the  knowledge  of 
having  arrived  in  America  in  1635,  a  good  fifteen  years  before  the  first 
Tyler  reached  Virginia.  As  early  as  May  3,  1639,  they  had  acquired 
Manchonake  Island  (later  called  Gardiners  Island),  the  thirty- three- 
hundred-acre  property  in  Block  Island  Sound  lying  off  the  eastern  tip  of 
Long  Island.  Not  until  January  7,  1653,  fourteen  years  later,  had  Henry 
Tyler,  the  first  of  his  clan  in  the  New  World,  received  his  relatively 
modest  two-hundred-fifty-four-acre  grant  at  Middle  Plantation,  Vir- 


ginia.  From  the  Gardiner  standpoint  the  Tylers  were  recently  arrived 
immigrants — and  poor  ones  at  that.  As  a  close  student  of  genealogy, 
Julia  was  confident  that  none  of  the  Tylers,  save  Governor  John  Tyler 
of  Virginia  and  his  son,  the  President,  had  matched  the  timely  and  im- 
pressive contributions  to  the  nation's  history  of  Lion  Gardiner  (1599- 
1663),  founder  of  the  Gardiner  line  in  America. 

The  European  background  of  Lion  Gardiner  is  blurred.  Aside  from 
his  birth  in  1599  no  detail  of  his  childhood  has  survived.  The  names  of 
his  parents  are  unknown.  His  social  status  can  only  be  guessed  at.  One 
English  genealogist,  Sir  Thomas  Banks,  linked  the  Gardiners  with  a 
descendant  of  Robert  Fitzwalter,  baronial  leader  in  the  great  struggle 
against  King  John.  This  generous  act  had  the  advantage  of  identifying 
the  otherwise  obscure  Gardiners  with  the  English  nobility,  the  Battle 
of  Runnymede,  and  the  Magna  Charta.  Julia  naturally  favored  this 
version  of  her  ancestry,  and  she  sought  to  perpetuate  it  by  naming  her 
sixth  child  Robert  Fitzwalter.  Nonetheless  the  Banks  theory  remains  a 
doubtful  hypothesis,  no  better  or  worse  than  the  less-impressive  tradi- 
tion that  Lion  was  descended  from  a  family  of  bellmakers  named 
Gardiner  who  lived  near  Heddingham  Castle  in  Kent  in  the  early  six- 
teenth century.  It  was  from  Kent  that  many  of  the  English  soldiers 
who  fought  in  the  Netherlands  during  the  Thirty  Years5  War  were  re- 
cruited. In  1635  one  of  these  soldiers  was  certainly  Sergeant  Lion 
Gardiner,  who,  in  his  own  words,  was  "an  engineer  and  master  of  works 
of  fortification  in  the  legers  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries." Still,  the  evidence  of  his  humble  Kentish  origin  is  scarcely  more 
than  suggestive.  Not  until  1635,  when  Lion  Gardiner  was  thirty-six  and 
on  military  duty  in  Holland,  does  his  career  take  on  the  solidity  of 
historical  fact.2 

In  that  year  he  was  employed  by  the  Connecticut  Company  on  a 
four-year  contract  at  £100  per  annum  to  migrate  to  Connecticut,  there 
to  build  forts  and  fortifications  to  protect  the  threatened  colonists  from 
the  Pequot  Indians  and  stem  the  expansion  of  the  Dutch  eastward  from 
New  Amsterdam.  Before  departing  for  the  distant  wilderness  he  took  as 
his  wife  Mary  Wilemson  of  Woerdon,  Holland.  So  impressed  was  he 
with  her  solid  bourgeois  background  (she  was,  he  later  boasted  to 
posterity,  a  kinsman  of  prominent  Dutch  "burger  meesters"),  one  might 
hazard  the  guess  that  the  general  social  direction  of  the  adventuresome 
sergeant's  marriage  was  rather  more  up  than  down. 

In  any  event,  Lion  Gardiner  arrived  in  Boston  from  Rotterdam 
aboard  the  25-ton  bark  Batcheler  on  November  28,  1635,  having  passed 
through  "many  great  tempests."  He  was  at  once  assigned  to  building  a 
fort  at  what  is  now  Saybrook,  Connecticut.  For  the  next  few  years, 
principally  during  the  great  Pequot  War  of  1636-1637,  he  slaughtered 
the  Indians  scientifically.  In  these  engagements  he  sustained  painful 
arrow  wounds  and  experienced  many  other  hardships.  He  was  also 

18 


forced  to  endure  the  multiple  stupidities  of  Ms  God-fearing  Massa- 
chusetts superiors  who  fell  on  their  knees  and  on  the  aborigines  with 
equal  frequency  and  elan.  Always  an  outspoken  individualist  (a  trait 
Julia  would  inherit  from  him  honestly),  he  came  to  reject  the  official 
Boston  line  that  the  only  good  Indian  was  a  dead  Indian.  Instead,  he 
made  a  genuine  and  successful  effort  to  learn  the  Indian  tongue  and 
understand  their  culture  and  their  point  of  view.  It  was  during  this 
somewhat  subversive  program  of  self-education  that  Lion  established 
a  close  personal  friendship  with  Waiandance,  a  Montauk  chief  from 
eastern  Long  Island.  Indeed,  when  Gardiner  published  his  critical 
Relation  of  the  Pequot  War  in  East  Hampton  in  1660,  he  reserved  the 
main  bolt  of  his  wrath  not  for  the  ignorant,  diseased,  half-starving 
Indians  but  for  the  arrogance  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  officials  who 
provoked  the  confused  savages  to  war  and  then  made  no  military 
preparations  to  protect  the  white  settlers.  "The  Lord  be  merciful  to  us 
for  our  extreme  pride  and  base  security,  which  cannot  but  stink  before 
the  Lord,"  said  Lion  in  disgust.3 

When  his  contract  with  the  Connecticut  Company  expired  in  July 
1639,  Lion  settled  down  on  Manchonake  Island.  He  had  purchased  the 
island  from  the  Montauks  through  the  good  offices  of  his  friend 
Waiandance  in  May  of  that  year  "ffor  ten  coates  of  trading  cloth."  The 
beautiful  property  contained  large  fertile  fields,  a  pond,  harbor,  inlets, 
beaches,  woods,  and  breathtaking  scenery.  It  was  alive  with  ducks  and 
deer.  For  ten  pieces  of  cloth  it  was  one  of  the  great  real  estate  bargains 
of  colonial  times.  In  March  1640  the  Montauk  contract  was  supple- 
mented by  a  deed  from  the  Earl  of  Stirling,  grantee  of  Charles  I, 
transferring  the  island  to  Lion  Gardiner  for  an  annual  consideration 
of  £5.  This  action  marked  the  formal  planting  of  the  Gardiner  tree  in 
America.  For  more  than  three  hundred  twenty  years,  thirteen  genera- 
tions of  Lion's  descendants  have,  with  uncommon  tenacity — through 
wars,  depressions,  and  taxations — preserved  and  maintained  Gardiners 
Island.  It  remains  today  the  only  seventeenth-century  royal  land  grant 
in  America  to  come  down  intact  in  the  hands  of  the  same  family. 

When  Lion  moved  Mary  and  his  two  children  from  Saybrook  to  the 
island  in  1639  it  marked  the  first  English  settlement  in  what  is  now 
New  York  state.  There  in  1641  was  born  the  first  English  baby  in  New 
York,  his  third  child  and  second  daughter,  Elizabeth.  She  was  a  strange 
girl  who  died  in  childbirth  in  1658  muttering  semicoherent  witchcraft 
charges  against  one  Goodie  Garlick  of  East  Hampton,  Long  Island.4 

By  1663,  the  year  he  died,  Lion  Gardiner  was  full  of  honor,  dignity, 
and  real  estate.  Throughout  the  16505  he  had  acquir-ed  by  gift  and 
purchase  from  the  friendly  Montauks  extensive  lands  around  East 
Hampton  and  in  eastern  Long  Island.  In  1653  he  moved  his  family  to 
East  Hampton  to  escape  the  isolation  of  the  offshore  island,  leaving  his 
farm  there  to  be  run  by  tenants.  On  the  day  of  his  death  he  was  a 

19 


man  of  substance.  Builder  of  forts,  conqueror  of  Indians,  historian  of 
the  Pequot  War,  soldier,  engineer,  linguist,  individualist,  Lion  Gardiner 
was  no  ancestor  to  scorn. 

Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  had  no  need  to  apologize  for  her  family 
origins.  Although  a  full  century  and  a  half  separated  his  death  and  her 
birth,  she  was  a  worthy  child  of  old  Lion.  The  Gardiner  individuality, 
outspokenness,  and  love  of  life  and  adventure  ran  strong  in  her.  So  too 
did  the  material  acquisitiveness  of  the  Gardiners  and  the  inordinate 
concern  of  all  the  family  for  proper  marriage  alliances.  Her  physical 
stamina  and  will  to  prevail  over  all  adversity  had  a  firm  genealogical 
basis.  Indeed,  when  Lion  was  disinterred  for  reburial  in  1886,  two  and 
a  quarter  centuries  after  his  death,  his  massive  six-foot  skeleton  was 
still  intact,  bones  white  and  hard,  teeth  still  firmly  set  in  powerful  jaws. 
Like  the  great  family  he  had  launched,  he  too  had  prevailed.5 

Gardiners  Island  remained  the  emotional  home  of  all  the  Gardiners 
in  America  as  they  married,  multiplied,  and  moved  away  from  the 
island  and  from  East  Hampton  to  various  parts  of  Connecticut,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  New  York.  Most  of  the  island's  numerous  proprietors 
tended  its  rich  fields  and  large  flocks  with  care  and  concern.  Some  of 
the  descendants  of  Lion  were  wastrels  and  spendthrifts  who  exploited, 
scarred,  or  neglected  the  property.  Some  were  psychological  incompe- 
tents and  alcoholics.  But  the  majority  were  respected  farmers,  business- 
men, and  lawyers.  And  all  regarded  the  island  as  the  symbol  which 
gave  the  family  its  unity  and  identity. 

With  careful  planning  and  genealogical  exactitude  the  island  was 
passed  from  eldest  son  to  eldest  son  down  through  the  centuries.  When 
a  transfer  could  not  be  accomplished  legally,  or  if  the  logical  recipient 
of  the  proprietorship  refused  the  bequest  or  was  too  young  to  exercise 
it  responsibly,  family  conferences  determined  in  what  manner  the  next 
eligible  son  should  become  proprietor,  or  "Lord  of  the  Isle"  as  the 
owners  began  styling  themselves  grandly  in  the  mid-eighteenth  century. 
There  were,  to  be  sure,  some  frictions  in  this,  but  the  complex  process 
of  title  transference  was  accomplished  over  the  years  with  an  amazing 
smoothness  and  lack  of  rancor.  Happily,  each  generation  produced 
sons.6 

Other  problems  arose.  Not  the  least  of  these  was  the  supply  of 
labor  to  work  the  island.  Lion  had  tended  his  fields  with  white  farm 
hands  hired  in  Saybrook.  When  the  Indians  were  expelled  from  Long 
Island,  New  England,  and  eastern  New  York  state  and  the  march  of 
the  frontier  westward  opened  up  cheap  and  ample  lands  to  white  farm 
laborers,  a  grave  shortage  of  help  developed  on  Gardiners  Island.  Some 
time  during  the  seventeenth  century  (no  firm  date  is  possible)  Negro 
and  Indian  slaves  were  imported  to  work  the  land  and  tend  the  large 
herds  of  sheep  and  cattle.  Thus  David  Gardiner  (1691-1751),  the 
fourth  proprietor,  could  and  did  stipulate  in  his  will  that  his  wife, 

20 


Mehetable,  receive  from  Ms  estate  "one  negro  wench  as  she  shall  make 
choice  out  of  all  my  negro  slaves."  At  least  sixteen  Negro  and  Indian 
slaves  were  on  the  island  at  the  time  of  the  American  Revolution,  and 
as  late  as  1816  the  will  of  John  Lyon  Gardiner  (1770-1816),  seventh 
proprietor,  showed  fourteen  slaves  on  the  property.  All  evidence  points 
to  the  Gardiners  as  conscientious  and  paternalistic  slavemasters ;  but 
they  were  slavemasters  nevertheless.  Only  when  slavery  was  outlawed 
in  New  York  state  in  1817  were  the  slaves  on  the  island  gradually 
manumitted.  Exactly  when  the  last  slave  there  received  his  freedom  is 
not  known,  certainly  by  1827,  at  the  end  of  the  grace  period  allowed  for 
emancipation.  During  the  18205,  therefore,  the  work  of  the  estate  came 
to  be  performed  by  resident  white  tenants  and  by  farm  hands  hired 
seasonally  from  the  Long  Island  mainland.  This  arrangement  survived 
well  into  the  twentieth  century.7 

Given  this  background,  there  was  understandably  little  hostility 
toward  slavery  in  the  Gardiner  family  at  the  time  of  Julia's  birth  in 
1820.  The  New  York  Herald  correspondent  who  described  the  Presi- 
dent's new  wife  in  1844  as  a  "Northern  bride  with  Southern  principles/7 
called  attention  not  to  a  conversion  in  Julia's  thinking  occasioned  by 
her  marriage  to  John  Tyler  but  to  a  fixed  attitude  toward  slavery  that 
was  part  of  her  family  heritage.  On  the  great  slavery  question  that 
tore  the  nation  asunder  in  1861  the  Rebel  Julia  was  never  a  " traitor " 
to  her  background  or  upbringing.  Ten  years  before  her  birth  on  Gardi- 
ners Island  the  property  was  operated  in  much  the  same  manner  as 
any  large  and  prosperous  Virginia  plantation.  A  thirty-three-hundred- 
acre  farm  that  boasted  thirty-five  hundred  sheep  and  a  hundred  head  of 
cattle,  stabled  sixty  horses,  produced  annually  one  hundred  hogs,  two 
thousand  loads  of  hay,  and  thousands  of  pounds  of  wool  and  required  a 
labor  force  of  eighty  to  a  hundred  men  during  the  harvest  and  shearing 
season  was,  indeed,  a  plantation  comparable  to  the  great  establishments 
in  the  South.8 

By  1820  the  island  had  developed  a  history  and  a  folklore  peopled 
with  pirates  and  naval  captains.  In  1699,  during  the  proprietorship  of 
the  jovial  and  much-married  third  "Lord  of  the  Isle,"  John  Gardiner 
(1661-1738),  the  famous  Captain  William  Kidd  dropped  anchor  in 
Gardiners  Bay,  and  was  entertained  by  the  proprietor  while  his  men 
were  secreting  a  treasure  valued  at  £4500.  Although  the  booty  was  re- 
covered after  Kidd's  arrest,  the  island  long  remained  a  mecca  for 
gullible  treasure-seekers  who  regularly  hacked  away  at  the  earth  in 
pursuit  of  Kidd's  gold.  In  1728  the  celebrated  Block  Island  pirate, 
Captain  Paul  Williams,  visited  the  island,  sacked  the  main  house, 
wounded  the  proprietor,  and  made  off  with  the  family  silver.  No  less 
costly  was  the  visit  in  1774  of  Captain  Abijah  Willard's  squadron  en 
route  to  Boston  to  supply  General  Thomas  Gage.  The  British  com- 
mander sent  ashore  a  provisioning  party  which  seized  $4000  worth  of 

21 


livestock  and  food.  Similarly,  British  Admiral  Harriot  Arbuthnot 
requisitioned  provisions  on  the  island  with  such  vigor  in  1780  that  by 
war's  end  the  seventh  proprietor,  John  Lyon  Gardiner,  reported  that 
there  was  "scarcely  personal  property  left  sufficient  to  pay  back  taxes." 
Nor  did  the  island  fare  much  better  during  the  War  of  1812.  At  the 
outset  of  that  contest  Lord  Nelson's  great  Captain,  Sir  Thomas  Hardy, 
hove  to  in  Gardiners  Bay  and  again  plundered  the  island's  livestock. 
<clt  is  not  my  wish,"  he  politely  wrote  John  Lyon  Gardiner  in  July  1813, 
"to  distress  the  Individuals  on  the  Coasts  of  the  United  States  who 
may  be  in  the  power  of  the  British  Squadron."  But  the  sheep  and  cattle 
were  seized  nonetheless.  Stories  of  pirates,  treasure,  and  British  depreda- 
tions fascinated  Julia  Gardiner  as  she  grew  to  young  womanhood  in 
East  Hampton.9 

Julia's  father,  David  Gardiner,  was  the  great-grandson  of  David 
Gardiner  (1691-1751),  fourth  proprietor  of  the  island.  Little  is  known 
of  his  early  life  save  that  he  was  born  in  East  Hampton  in  1784.  He 
was  the  second  of  the  five  children  of  Captain  Abraham  Gardiner  and 
his  wife,  Phoebe  Dayton,  both  of  East  Hampton.  Throughout  his 
childhood  the  reigning  "Lord  of  the  Isle"  was  his  cousin,  John  Lyon 
Gardiner,  the  seventh  proprietor.  As  a  young  boy  and  student  at  the 
local  Clinton  Academy  David  often  sailed  out  to  the  island  to  hunt 
ducks  and  search  for  Captain  Kidd's  nonexistent  treasure.  In  1800  he 
went  to  Yale  and  was  graduated  in  the  famous  class  of  1804  which 
numbered  among  its  members  the  brilliant  young  John  C.  Calhoun  of 
South  Carolina.  Later  that  year  he  was  in  New  York  City  reading  law 
in  the  office  of  Sylvanus  Miller.  From  1807  until  his  marriage  in  1815 
David  Gardiner  practiced  law  in  New  York.10 

Practically  nothing  is  known  of  these  early  New  York  years  in 
the  life  of  Julia's  father  except  that  he  maintained  a  profound  inter- 
est in  Gardiners  Island,  escaped  the  yellow  fever  epidemic  which  struck 
the  city  in  1809,  and  opposed  the  embargo  and  non-importation  eco- 
nomic foreign  policies  of  Presidents  Jefferson  and  Madison  as  disastrous 
to  business.  In  1814  he  marched  out  with  the  local  lawyers  when  they 
contributed,  as  a  professional  group,  two  days'  voluntary  labor  on 
the  Brooklyn  Heights  fortifications.  This  duty  was  demanded  when  it 
appeared  that  a  British  fleet  might  descend  on  the  city.  David  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  the  excitement  and  the  patriotic  fervor  the  enemy  threat 
stimulated.  But  he  was  not  skilled  with  spade,  shovel,  and  pickaxe,  and 
his  two  twelve-hour  manual-labor  stints  on  Harlem  Heights  and  Brook- 
lyn Heights  left  him  blistered  and  exhausted.11 

It  is  known  that  David  Gardiner  worried  a  great  deal  about  his 
financial  future  during  his  days  as  a  young  lawyer.  In  1809  he  wrote 
that  his 

22 


prospects  are  more  promising  than  they  have  appeared  at  any  other  time — 
and  should  they  be  realized  I  hope  to  escape  the  trammels  of  dependence — 
for  I  believe  that  as  long  as  a  person  is  in  such  a  situation  it  is  impossible  to 
be  happy,  and  for  the  last  two  years  my  feelings  have  been  more  tortured  with 

the  idea  of  dependence  than  all  the  pain  I  have  ever  before  experienced 

My  thoughts  have  been  so  continually  and  imperceptibly  drawn  to  the  sub- 
ject that  it  has  fixed  a  gloom  upon  my  mind  which  every  exertion  has  been 

frequently  unable  to  move I  have  never  possessed  that  nerve  or  that 

indifference  to  look  with  contempt  upon  the  superciliousness  of  a  creditor 
wrhom  the  emptiness  of  my  pocket  placed  above  me. . . .  Indeed  the  day 
which  finds  me  able  to  satisfy  my  pecuniary  demands,  or  as  the  phrase  is, 
places  me  above  the  world,  shall  be  kept  by  me  as  a  day  of  Jubilee.12 

This  deep-rooted  fear  of  economic  insolvency  was  one  David  Gardi- 
ner passed,  only  slightly  diluted,  to  his  four  children.  They  too  were 
often  inclined  to  regard  human  worth  and  social  acceptability  in  terms 
of  money.  And  like  their  father,  their  own  fear  of  material  insecurity 
was  a  strong,  constant,  and  dominant  force  in  their  lives — so  strong  that 
David  Lyon  and  Julia  were  willing  in  1865-1868  to  tear  the  Gardiner- 
Tyler  family  alliance  apart  in  a  jackal-like  struggle  over  their  mother's 

will. 

David  Gardiner's  patiently  awaited  "day  of  Jubilee"  finally  arrived 
in  1815  when  he  married  the  wealthy  young  Juliana  McLachlan,  the 
sixteen-year-old  daughter  of  Michael  McLachlan,  a  Scots  emigre  to 
Jamaica  in  the  West  Indies  following  the  Battle  of  Culloden  in  1746. 
The  clan  McLachlan  had  chosen  the  wrong  side  in  that  civil  struggle,  and 
young  Michael's  change  of  hemisphere  was  not  entirely  voluntary.  How 
long  he  remained  in  Jamaica,  what  business  he  undertook  there,  and 
what  year  he  arrived  in  New  York  City  is  not  known.  It  is  established 
only  that  his  wife  gave  birth  to  two  children,  Alexander,  birthdate 
unknown,  and  Juliana.  Juliana  was  born  in  New  York  on  February  8, 
1799. 

It  is  also  recorded  that  Michael  McLachlan  prospered  as  the  owner 
of  a  brewery  in  Chatham  Street  and  that  he  wisely  invested  his  profits 
in  real  estate  in  lower  Manhattan.  Thus,  when  Alexander  McLachlan 
died  in  1819,  Juliana  came  into  possession  of  thirteen  valuable  pieces 
of  commercial  and  residential  property  located  on  Chatham,  Oliver, 
Greenwich,  and  Harrison  streets.  These  produced  at  the  time  an  annual 
rental  income  of  $6000  to  $7000,  and  during  Juliana's  long  tenure  of 
ownership  they  steadily  increased  in  market  value  from  $130,000  to 
$182,000.  Used  to  material  comfort  as  she  was,  Juliana  would  spend 
her  lifetime  advising  young  ladies  of  her  acquaintance,  especially  her 
own  daughters,  not  "to  marry  any  man  without  means.  It  would  answer 
very  well  for  a  young  lady  who  had  a  fortune  in  her  own  right  but  not 
otherwise." 13 

23 


Juliana  McLacHan  Gardiner  was  a  forceful,  opinionated  young 
lady  who  completely  dominated  her  husband.  An  excellent  mother  to 
the  four  children  who  made  their  appearances,  and  much  loved  by  them, 
she  nevertheless  ran  her  home  and  her  offspring  with  an  iron  hand. 
Possessed  of  a  sharp  sense  of  social  propriety  and  an  ear  keenly  tuned 
to  imagined  snubs,  she  regarded  as  perpetual  occupations  the  main- 
tenance of  social  exclusiveness  and  the  consolidation  of  social  gains.  Her 
interest  in  cleanliness,  precision,  and  order  amounted  to  a  passion. 
Spring  cleaning  in  her  home  was  a  ritual  conducted  with  religious  over- 
tones. She  hired  and  fired  her  terrified  Irish  servants  with  monotonous 
regularity.  She  was  sharp  and  short-tempered  with  those  she  considered 
inferior,  firm  and  fair  with  those  she  regarded  her  equals.  She  con- 
sidered no  one  her  superior.  Her  morality  was  of  the  strict  Calvinist 
variety,  intolerant  and  absolute.  She  had  a  quick  temper  and  a  testiness 
that  stemmed  from  a  lifelong  struggle  with  migraine  headaches  which 
could  prostrate  her  for  days  at  a  time.  Still,  she  was  something  of  a 
hypochondriac.  She  constantly  experimented  with  unnecessary  medica- 
tions, often  with  painful  results.  She  was  also  the  family's  amateur  phy- 
sician, consulted  on  every  illness.  Difficult  and  cantankerous  as  could 
be,  she  would  do  anything  to  advance  the  interests  and  comforts  of  her 
children.  She  loved  them,  worried  about  them,  and  toward  them  she 
was  utterly  selfless.  They  were  permitted,  however,  to  make  no  decision, 
however  minor,  without  her  advice  and  counsel.  A  peculiar  mixture  of 
tyrant  and  chaperone,  autocrat  and  nursemaid,  Juliana  McLachlan 
Gardiner  was  the  dominant  force  in  the  lives  of  her  children  and  in  the 
life  of  her  placid  husband. 

Following  her  marriage  to  David  Gardiner,  Juliana  turned  over  to 
him  the  management  of  her  Manhattan  properties.  He  in  turn  em- 
ployed various  agents,  notably  Jacob  G.  Dychman,  to  collect  the  rents 
and  look  after  the  necessary  maintenance.  Within  a  few  months  after 
his  wedding  he  abandoned  the  practice  of  law  and  moved  his  bride  to 
East  Hampton,  preparatory  to  taking  up  residence  on  Gardiners  Island. 
Except  for  managing  his  wife's  business  affairs  in  the  city  and  oc- 
casionally providing  legal  advice  for  other  members  of  the  Gardiner 
family ,  David  Gardiner  retired  at  the  age  of  thirty- two.  Julia  accurately 
described  him  after  1822  as  a  man  "possessing  means  and  leisure."  The 
only  known  gainful  activity  he  subsequently  undertook  was  the  man- 
agement of  Gardiners  Island.  This  was  a  temporary  occupation  which 
began  in  1816.  It  terminated  in  1822  when  he  purchased  a  house  in 
East  Hampton  and  settled  his  family  there.14 

The  Gardiners  Island  opportunity  was  presented  when  the  seventh 
proprietor,  John  Lyon  Gardiner,  died  in  1816.  His  widow,  Sarah  Gris- 
wold  Gardiner,  offered  to  lease  the  island  to  her  cousin  David.  The 
heir  apparent,  David  Johnson  Gardiner,  was  a  boy  of  twelve  at  the 
time,  still  a  student  at  Clinton  Academy  in  East  Hampton.  The  lease 

24 


price  ranged  from  $2500  to  $2900  per  annum,  a  nominal  figure  con- 
sidering the  agricultural  potential  of  the  island.  David  Gardiner  thus 
became  the  regent  of  the  island  until  the  eighth  proprietor  reached 
maturity.  As  his  farm  manager  and  overseer  he  hired  Burnet  Mulford 
of  East  Hampton.  Mulford  did  the  work. 

Just  how  David  fared  financially  in  Ms  agrarian  undertaking  can- 
not accurately  be  determined,  although  it  is  doubtful  that  he  profited 
from  his  stewardship.  These  were  difficult  years  for  the  island.  Live- 
stock appropriated  by  British  naval  commanders  during  the  War  of 
1812  had  not  been  fully  replaced,  and  after  1817  the  island  labor-supply 
system  experienced  the  shock  of  manumission.  That  Gardiner  poured 
more  capital  into  the  project  than  he  took  out  is  suggested  by  his 
mortgage  and  account  records.  As  late  as  1828  he  was  still  involved 
in  a  nagging  correspondence  over  the  unpaid  debts  and  confused  in- 
ventory balances  of  his  period  of  tenure.  It  seems  probable,  then,  that 
David  Gardiner's  brief  career  as  a  gentleman  farmer  cost  him  more 
than  he  earned.  Certainly  he  was  not  a  very  efficient  agriculturist. 
His  most  significant  crop  during  his  six  years'  residence  on  the  island 
was  three  of  his  four  children;  David  Lyon  was  born  there  on  May  23, 
1816;  Alexander  on  November  3,  1818;  and  Julia  on  either  May  4 
or  July  23,  1820.  Margaret,  the  youngest,  was  born  in  East  Hampton 
on  May  21,  i822.15 

Turning  from  gentleman  farming  to  gentleman  politics  after  his 
removal  from  Gardmers  Island  to  East  Hampton  in  1822,  David  was 
elected  to  the  New  York  state  senate  in  1824  to  represent  the  First 
District  of  New  York  (Suffolk  County).  At  Albany  he  identified  him- 
self with  the  John  Quincy  Adams  political  faction,  and  he  was  re- 
elected  to  the  senate  in  1825,  1826,  and  1827  on  his  record  of  conserva- 
tive opposition  to  the  emerging  Martin  Van  Buren  brand  of  popular 
democracy  based  on  machine  politics,  patronage  manipulation,  social  re- 
form, and  state-financed  public  works.  His  four- term  career  as  a  state 
senator  was,  on  balance,  undistinguished.  In  general,  he  upheld  the 
rights  of  the  individual  and  his  property  against  all  encroachments,  real 
or  imagined,  by  the  state.  Thus  he  supported  the  exemption  of  con- 
scientious objectors  from  militia  duty,  and  he  opposed  legislation  re- 
ducing the  legal  interest  rate  in  New  York  state  from  7  to  6  per  cent. 
As  a  junior  member  of  the  state  senate  his  committee  assignments  were 
not  important,  nor  did  they  afford  him  an  opportunity  to  influence 
legislation  at  the  committee  level.  On  one  occasion,  however,  he  was 
instrumental  in  killing  in  committee  a  bill  that  sought  to  control  wolves 
and  panthers  through  a  bounty  incentive  system.  He  voted  for  the 
panthers,  presumably  on  the  ground  that  bounty  payments  were  crude 
subsidies  which  interfered  with  the  inalienable  rights  of  citizens  to  be 
eaten  by  wild  animals.  Not  surprisingly,  the  popular  Jacksonian  up- 
heaval of  1828  swept  him  from  office.  Nevertheless,  for  the  rest  of  Ms 

25 


life  he  called  himself  Senator  Gardiner  and  he  always  listed  his  occupa- 
tion as  " Senator."  16 

Following  his  involuntary  retirement  from  the  New  York  senate 
in  1828,  little  is  known  of  David  Gardiner  until  his  re-emergence  in 
Washington  in  1842  as  the  father  of  the  celebrated  Julia.  Occasional 
glimpses  during  these  fourteen  years  reveal  a  country  squire  ex- 
pensively dressed  in  moleskin  shooting  coat  and  black  velvet  vest,  an 
anti-Jacksonian  complaining  to  Washington  officials  of  poor  postal  serv- 
ice in  East  Hampton,  and  a  devoted  trustee  of  Clinton  Academy,  the 
school  at  which  his  sons  David  Lyon  and  Alexander  received  their 
preparation  for  Princeton.  During  this  period  he  also  began  his  research 
into  Gardiner  family  genealogy  and  into  the  history  of  East  Hampton. 
From  this  contemplation  of  the  family  navel  he  derived  great  satisfac- 
tion, Margaret  once  reporting  him  in  his  study  on  a  rainy  Monday 
afternoon  happily  "buried  in  old  writings,  records,  deeds,  wills,  etc."  17 

David  Gardiner's  active  interest  in  politics  never  waned.  In  1832  he 
ran  again  for  the  state  senate,  entering  vigorously  into  the  Whig  cam- 
paign against  Jacksonianism  on  Long  Island.  During  the  canvass  he 
was  called  upon  to  distribute  $200  in  party  slush  funds  among  the 
Whig  faithful  in  Suffolk  County  in  an  attempt  to  get  the  entire  anti- 
Jackson  vote  to  the  polls.  He  was  therefore  dismayed  to  learn  in 
November  that  in  spite  of  his  handouts  the  Whigs  had  "lost  the 
county  stock  and  fluke,"  the  popularity  of  Jackson  having  "carried 
all  before  it."  His  own  candidacy  for  the  senate  was  unsuccessful  by 
some  two  hundred  votes.  "I  extremely  regret,"  said  his  cousin  Sarah 
Dering,  whose  father  was  Jackson's  Collector  of  Customs  in  Sag  Har- 
bor, "that  some  of  my  best  young  friends  here  and  elsewhere,  such  as 
the  Gardiners  . . .  are  so  far  led  astray  by  their  aristocratic  newspa- 
pers." 18 

Gardiner's  distrust  of  Andrew  Jackson  and  the  new  popular  de- 
mocracy of  the  18303  deepened  with  the  President's  removal  of  the 
federal  Treasury  deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  in 
October  1833.  The  act  severely  shook  the  credit  structure  of  the  Man- 
hattan Bank  in  New  York  where  David  Gardiner  normally  borrowed 
money  which  was  secured  on  expected  rents  from  Juliana's  properties. 
Jackson's  move  inconvenienced  and  angered  him.  In  the  off-year  elec- 
tions of  1834  he  again  worked  vigorously  for  the  Whigs  on  Long  Island. 
In  1838,  however,  he  turned  down  a  projected  Whig  nomination  for  a 
Suffolk  County  judgeship  with  the  plea  "It  is  now  nearly  or  quite 
twenty  years  since  I  left  the  bar  and  I  have  grown  rusty  in  all  its  pro- 
ceedings . . .  new  principles  of  law  have  been  adopted  and  old  principles 
set  afloat."  His  rejection  of  office  in  no  way  compromised  the  continuing 
political  education  of  his  sons.  By  1840  he  had  succeeded  in  conveying 
intact  his  conservative  political  principles  to  both  David  Lyon  and 
Alexander.19 


Two  years  apart  in  age,  the  sons  of  David  Gardiner  were  quite 
different  in  temperament  and  character.  Alexander  was  quick,  bright, 
extroverted,  and  outspoken.  Attractive  to  women,  he  thoroughly  en- 
joyed mingling  in  the  social  world.  He  had  a  sharp  sense  of  humor  and 
a  first-rate  mind,  and  he  became  an  excellent  lawyer.  In  addition,  he 
had  a  natural  talent  for  business  and  for  financial  speculation.  He  en- 
joyed the  excitement  and  the  pressures  of  politics,  and  when  given  the 
opportunity  by  John  Tyler  in  1844  he  entered  into  the  New  York 
political  arena  with  skill  and  enthusiasm.  He  was  an  energetic,  am- 
bitious, effervescent,  dynamic,  and  sometimes  impetuous  human  being. 
Intellectually  he  was  the  most  capable  member  of  the  family.  He  and 
his  sister  Julia  had  much  in  common.  They  had  the  same  interests, 
laughed  at  the  same  things,  shared  the  same  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  and 
reacted  in  much  the  same  manner  to  the  foibles  and  pretensions  of 
people  around  them. 

David  Lyon  was  quite  the  opposite.  He  was  quiet  and  introverted. 
In  the  presence  of  women  he  was  shy  and  backward.  He  preferred 
shooting  ducks  on  Montauk  Point  to  practicing  law  in  New  York  or  to 
flirting  with  the  Gotham  ladies.  He  had  little  skill  and  no  interest  in 
the  law.  And  while  he  did  have  some  feeling  for  business,  he  thoroughly 
disliked  managing  the  family  real  estate  in  New  York.  As  a  part-time 
gentleman  farmer  he  was  unsuccessful.  Stolid  and  stable,  sometimes 
pompous  and  stuffy,  he  lacked  imagination  and  incisiveness  of  mind, 
He  also  permitted  his  strong-willed  mother  to  dominate  his  private  life 
rather  than  create  family  tensions  by  opposing  her  desires.  Like  all 
the  members  of  the  Gardiner  family,  economic  security  was  vitally 
important  to  him.  But  he  insisted  on  life's  material  comforts  without 
displaying  any  militant  acquisitiveness.  On  only  one  occasion  in  his 
life  did  he  truly  bestir  himself,  traveling  to  California  in  1849  to  mine 
gold,  and  that  failing  (as  it  did),  to  mine  the  miners.  As  a  shopkeeper 
and  real  estate  speculator  in  San  Francisco  and  San  Diego  he  had 
modest  success.  This  was  the  only  real  work  he  ever  tried.  Most  of  his 
seventy-six  years  on  earth  were  years  of  semi-retirement.  When  he  fi- 
nally married  in  1860,  at  forty- three,  it  was  to  a  lady  of  great  wealth  and 
property.  At  that  point  he  ceased  doing  anything  at  all.  With  all  his 
impassiveness,  however,  David  Lyon  Gardiner  was  no  dolt.  Julia  discov- 
ered this  to  her  sorrow  in  1865  when,  much  to  her  surprise,  he  ener- 
getically contested  his  mother's  deathbed  will  which,  under  suspicious 
circumstances,  had  named  Julia  the  principal  beneficiary. 

David  Lyon  was  more  like  his  sister  Margaret  than  his  brother 
Alexander.  While  he  had  none  of  Margaret's  sense  of  humor  or  devilish- 
ness  and  little  of  her  independence  and  charm,  he  was  closer  to  her  in 
temperament  than  either  of  them  was  to  the  personality  whirlwind  that 
was  Julia  or  the  Roman  candle  that  was  Alexander.  David  followed  in 
his  father's  footsteps  in  his  lack  of  any  urgency  or  sense  of  direction, 

27 


his  uncritical  acceptance  of  the  alleged  privileges  of  wealth  and  family 
background,  and  in  his  willingness  to  play  the  role  of  the  English  coun- 
try squire.  Within  the  immediate  family  circle,  then,  Alexander  was  the 
brilliant  and  extroverted,  Julia  the  unpredictable  stormy  petrel,  Mar- 
garet the  quiet  freethinker,  gracious  and  dependable,  and  David  Lyon 
the  phlegmatic  and  retiring. 

David  Lyon  and  Alexander  both  attended  Princeton.  David  entered 
the  college  in  1833;  Alexander  followed  him  to  Nassau  Hall  a  year  later. 
David  Lyon's  career  at  the  school  was  neither  eventful  nor  memorable. 
He  liked  the  place  well  enough,  but  he  missed  his  duck  hunting,  stood 
apart  from  his  classmates,  and — like  all  college  students  in  all  eras  of 
history — he  constantly  pleaded  for  and  spent  more  money  than  his 
father  thought  necessary.  When  the  more  imaginative  Alexander  reached 
Princeton  in  1834  the  two  collegians  planned  and  executed  joint  raids 
on  the  parental  money  bag  with  the  precision  of  general  staff  officers. 
Scarcely  a  letter  moved  from  East  Hampton  to  New  Jersey  without 
containing  extra  spending  money  for  some  allegedly  vital  project 
dreamed  up  by  the  brothers.  Naturally,  each  ten-dollar  check  from 
home  was  accompanied  by  the  fatherly  lecture,  likewise  as  old  as  formal 
education  itself,  on  the  values  of  thrift  and  frugality  and  the  need  for 
greater  academic  effort.  "Bend  down  to  your  studies  with  a  resolution 
to  accomplish  whatever  industry  well  directed  can  effect  in  scholarship," 
their  father  demanded.  "Do  not  be  content  with  a  medium  standing — 
if  you  cannot  reach  the  top  at  least  strive  to  approach  it."  20 

The  Princeton  of  the  mid- 18303  offered  no  academic  frills  and  few 
material  comforts.  The  physical  task  of  reaching  the  college  from  New 
York  was  itself  difficult  and  harrowing.  Juliana  angrily  reported  herself 
"be-splattered  with  mud  by  the  time  we  reached  here"  on  one  of  her 
infrequent  visits  to  Princeton  while  her  sons  were  in  residence.  The 
rooms  in  the  dormitory  and  in  boardinghouses  in  town  were  scarcely 
luxurious  and  the  Gardiner  boys  complained  continually  of  cold  quar- 
ters, plugged  fireplaces,  and  Spartan  surroundings.  The  academic  regi- 
men was  as  rigorous  as  the  weather,  the  curriculum  as  bare  and  classical 
as  the  room  furnishings.  Alexander  found  his  studies  "difficult  and 
tedious"  and  wished  that  instead  of  theoretical  mathematics,  which 
"agrees  badly  with  me,"  he  could  study  navigation  and  surveying, 
"something  that  would  be  far  more  useful  to  us  hereafter."  Happily,  the 
social  life  of  Princeton  agreed  with  him  better.  He  took  part  in  various 
student  pranks  and  capers,  and  he  flirted  outrageously  with  the  young 
ladies  imported  to  the  campus  for  the  dances.  From  these  undergradu- 
ate releases  the  dour  David  Lyon  remained  aloof.21 

Politically,  the  college  community,  town  and  gown,  was  conserva- 
tive, Whig,  and  anti- Jackson.  In  March  1834,  for  example,  students 
joined  townspeople  to  protest  Old  Hickory's  removal  of  the  Treasury 
deposits  and  to  urge  their  immediate  restoration.  This  political-economic 

28 


orientation  was  quite  in  keeping  with  what  the  young  Gardiners  had 
learned  in  their  own  parlor  at  home,  and  they  were  exposed  to  nothing 
in  the  Princeton  curriculum  that  caused  them  to  doubt  the  tenets  of 
their  Whig  catechism.  "Old  Jackson  is  playing  the  mischief  with  the 
banks  in  this  State,"  complained  an  exercised  David  Lyon  to  his  equally 
exercised  father.22 

The  intellectual  safety  of  the  curriculum  was  guaranteed  the  pa- 
trons of  the  college.  Save  for  Alexander's  quaintly  dissonant  opinion 
that  modern  American  women  could  "learn  many  useful,  becoming  and 
profitable  lessons  from  the  females  of  the  barbarian  nations"  (a  view 
he  derived  from  a  reading  of  Tacitus  and  Caesar),  there  is  little  evi- 
dence that  either  of  the  undergraduate  Gardiners  experienced  any 
significant  challenge  to  the  ideas  and  attitudes  they  brought  to  Prince- 
ton with  them.  Thus  Alexander  in  his  Fourth  of  July  oration  at  the 
college  in  1838  could  point  boastfully  to  the  decisive  impact  of  the 
American  Revolution  on  struggles  for  human  freedom  in  Ireland,  Po- 
land, France,  Greece,  Canada,  Texas,  and  Belgium  and  predict  that  in 
the  future  these  same  principles  "must,  and  will  extend  over  the  whole 
surface  of  the  globe."  In  the  same  breath,  however,  he  chastised  Ameri- 
cans who  demanded  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery  as  dupes  of  "cunning 
and  disorganizing  demagogues  from  other  lands,"  and  charged  that 
their  agitations  "violated  the  rights  of  property  and  person,  and 
trampled  upon  the  laws  of  this  country."  To  Alexander  Gardiner,  at 
the  age  of  twenty,  the  educational  process  had  no  relevance  or  applica- 
tion to  such  highly  controversial  subjects  as  the  slavery  question. 
Formal  education  was  the  key  that  unlocked  the  golden  door  to  status, 
power,  and  wealth — no  more.  "Be  not  deceived  as  to  the  importance  of 
knowledge,"  he  stoutly  maintained.  "Who  are  they  that  govern  the 
land?  Who  are  they  that  direct  enterprise?  Who  are  they  that  accumu- 
late wealth?  Behold  the  triumphs  of  the  educated!"  Nothing  at  Prince- 
ton in  1834-1838  disabused  him  of  this  notion,  and  the  viewpoint  is 
not  unknown  among  Nassau  undergraduates  even  today.23 

While  her  brothers  endured  the  rigors  of  Princeton,  Julia  made  her 
own  way  in  the  educational  and  social  world  at  Madame  N.  D.  Cha- 
garay's  Institute  for  young  ladies  on  Houston  Street  in  New  York  City. 
It  was  a  fashionable  finishing  school  for  the  daughters  of  wealthy  and 
socially  prominent  New  York  families.  If  Princeton  shielded  the  young 
men  of  these  proud  clans  from  the  raw  realities  of  contemporary  Ameri- 
can social,  political,  and  economic  life,  Madame  Chagaray  shielded 
their  sisters  from  life  itself.  At  412  Houston  Street  the  world  of  sex, 
poverty,  sin,  and  exploitation  was  officially  nonexistent.  Instead,  the 
curriculum  turned  delicately  on  music,  French,  literature,  ancient  his- 
tory, arithmetic,  and  composition — nothing  controversial,  nothing  tran- 
scending the  superficially  literate  polish  the  young  ladies  were  specifi- 
cally sent  there  to  acquire. 

29 


Julia  was  entered  at  Madame  Chagaray's  in  April  1835.  There  she 
remained  as  one  of  the  forty  boarding  students  through  the  1836-1837 
school  year.  She  very  likely  attended  the  1837-1838  session  as  well, 
although  there  is  no  certain  evidence  that  she  did.  Throughout  this 
period,  Eliza  Gardiner  Brumley,  a  "naturally  refined"  family  cousin, 
formerly  of  East  Hampton,  looked  after  young  Julia's  progress  and 
helped  her  with  her  problems.  When  the  rules  permitted  absence  from 
the  school  premises,  Julia  regularly  visited  the  Reuben  Brumley  home 
on  Bleecker  Street.  And  when  her  brothers  came  through  town  from 
Princeton  en  route  home  for  visits  or  vacations  they  would  stop  to  see 
their  sister  and  take  her  on  shopping  expeditions.  In  spite  of  these 
family  contacts  Julia  was  desperately  homesick  at  first,  and  she 
pleaded  to  be  allowed  to  return  to  East  Hampton.  This  feeling  soon 
passed,  and  within  a  few  months  she  found  herself  more  bored  and 
lonesome  at  home  than  in  the  bustle  and  activity  of  the  school.24 

From  East  Hampton  to  the  Chagaray  Institute  came  a  steady 
stream  of  detailed  maternal  advice.  Juliana  was  not  one  to  leave  much 
to  young  Julia's  imagination.  A  fifteen-year-old  girl  needed  constant 
counsel  from  home,  even  down  to  advice  on  ten-cent  purchases: 

You  must  be  more  cautious  in  expressing  your  opinions  so  freely  as  it  will 
certainly  give  you  trouble.  Do  not  say  anyone  is  not  good  looking.  Nothing  is 

more  offensive  or  unlady-like You  must  engage  yourself   about  your 

studies  and  make  all  the  progress  you  possibly  can.  You  must  also  aim  at 
being  correct  and  take  an  independent  stand  as  it  will  never  answer  for  you 
to  lean  too  much  upon  your  companions — be  polite  and  pleasant  to  them  all. 
. . .  When  you  walk  out  take  no  money  except  what  you  will  want  to  use  as 
you  may  lose  it I  place  great  confidence  in  your  propriety  but  you  can- 
not be  too  cautious.  If  you  accept  the  invitations  of  your  friends  and  they 
inquire  with  interest  how  you  like  your  school  if  you  cannot  approve  of 
everything  do  not  condemn  anything.  Open  your  heart  to  your  parents 
only. . . .  The  account  you  gave  of  your  expenses  I  must  say  was  not 

altogether  satisfactory I  think   [the  hair  net]   was  a  foolish  purchase 

although  I  excuse  it  as  everybody  has  something  to  learn  by  experience.25 

With  all  her  nagging,  Juliana  was  as  excited  as  her  daughter  by  the 
approach  of  young  Julia's  first  formal  dance.  She  entered  into  the 
preparation  of  the  necessary  clothing  with  zest.  Since  she  and  Julia  were 
about  the  same  size  she  decided  to  contribute  one  of  her  best  white 
formal  dresses  to  the  cause.  And  after  the  obliging  Eliza  Brumley  had 
taken  it  in  a  bit  at  the  waist,  Julia  was  ready  for  her  social  debut.  Her 
breathless  description  of  the  event  of  Friday  evening,  May  21,  1835, 
revealed  it  as  the  high  point  of  her  teens.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  Julia  was 
already  beginning  to  evidence  something  of  the  poise  and  sophistication 
John  Tyler  later  found  so  attractive: 

The  2ist  was  a  memorable  evening.  Our  Soiree  has  taken  place  and  is  finished 
to  my  great  comfort  for  I  was  tired  of  thinking  about  it.  You  would  have 

30 


foeen  surprised  to  have  seen  how  very  much  the  young  ladies  [day  scholars] 
-were  dressed.  The  boarders  were  not  decked  off  in  quite  such  style  but 
sufficiently  so  I  assure  you.  I  presume  you  would  like  to  know  how  /  was 
dressed.  I  will  begin.  Pearl  earrings,  your  buckle,  and  a  beautiful  bouquet  of 
flowers  in  my  bosom.  It  was  composed  of  minunet  [sic],  lily  of  the  valley, 
lover's  wreath,  a  geranium  flower  and  leaf.  Mrs.  Cowdrey  (Mrs.  B[rumley]'s 
next  door  neighbor)  and  herself  made  it.  There  was  also  a  rosebud — it  was 
"beautiful!  None  in  the  room  could  compare  with  mine.  I  was  the  only  one 
in  the  room  that  had  the  lily  of  the  valley  and  minunet  [sic].  My  dress 
looked  very  well  indeed  among  white  satins,  silks  and  lace  dresses.  Five  hun- 
dred were  invited  but  between  three  and  four  hundred  only  made  their  appear- 
ance as  the  night  was  stormy.  The  company  did  not  break  up  til  half  past 
three  at  night  and  we  were  none  of  us  in  bed  before  five.  There  was  an  entire 
band  of  music  consisting  of  Harp,  piano,  viola,  cello,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  I  was 
perfectly  delighted,  dancing  every  cotillion  but  one.  It  is  a  long  time  since  I 
have  enjoyed  myself  so  much. . .  .26 

It  was  during  these  years  at  Madame  Chagaray's  that  Julia  came 
gradually  to  understand  the  complicated  mores  of  intricate  maneuver, 
ambiguous  pursuit,  and  feigned  artlessness  that  comprised  the  flirtation- 
courtship-marriage  strategy  of  mid-nineteenth-century  American  women. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  Chagaray  curriculum  that  dealt  with  this.  It 
just  came  naturally  to  Julia,  who  discovered  at  the  age  of  fifteen  that 
it  was  important  to  a  woman  of  her  social  class  that  her  prospective 
"husband  be  "a  very  fine  young  man  and  have  considerable  property' '; 
but  she  also  insisted  that  he  be  "good  looking"  and  possess  great  "con- 
versational powers."  She  was  still  very  young.  By  the  time  she  was 
seventeen  she  had  become  far  more  sophisticated  about  the  economic 
realities  of  the  tribal  mating  dance.  When  she  was  twenty  she  was  so 
adept  at  attracting  hot-blooded  suitors  that  her  family  whisked  her 
•off  to  Europe  for  a  cooling-off  period.  Nothing  like  a  damp  cathedral 
to  cool  reciprocated  ardor. 

Margaret  did  not  experience  the  social  advantages  of  Madame 
Chagaray's  Institute.  She  was,  as  a  result,  less  cynical  about  men  and 
marriage,  and  she  naively  insisted  that  love  should  play  a  major  role  in 
the  process.  She  would  always  feel  this  way.  At  her  own  boarding 
school  she  made  few  friends  and  she  attracted  no  beaux  of  suitable  de- 
meanor. Juliana  was  wholly  dissatisfied  with  the  institution.  "I  believe 
the  company  [there]  is  only  a  middling  one,"  she  told  Julia  in  1837. 
'"I  shall  not  desire  her  return  after  this  term."  27 

By  1839  Julia  and  Margaret  had  completed  what  formal  education 
they  were  to  receive  and  were  at  home  again  in  East  Hampton.  Alex- 
ander and  David  Lyon  were  in  New  York  City  reading  law.  David  Lyon 
had  drifted  into  law  rather  casually  after  leaving  Princeton  in  1837.  As 
an  undergraduate  he  had  shown  no  interest  in  the  subject  and  his 
decision  to  pursue  it  professionally  was  an  arbitrary  one.  Alexander, 
on  the  other  hand,  took  it  seriously,  worked  hard  at  his  books,  and 

31 


prepared  with  diligence  for  the  difficult  bar  examinations.  When  he 
passed  these  with  distinction  in  May  1842  and  modestly  conveyed  the 
news  of  his  success  to  East  Hampton,  Julia  reported  the  entire  family 
"very  agreeably  relieved."  She  could  not,  however,  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  chide  her  brother:  "How  over-modest  were  you  in  your  account 
of  the  examination. ...  I  think  when  one  produces  a  sensation  there  is 
no  harm  in  blowing  the  trumpet  to  one's  family  . . .  this  is  the  principle 
upon  which  I  always  act."  2S 

The  financial  burden  of  his  sons'  legal  educations  was  undertaken 
by  David  Gardiner.  He  sent  them  money  for  their  room,  board,  and 
clothing;  and  when  their  perpetual  pleas  of  dire  poverty  became  too 
heartrending,  he  provided  spending  money  as  well.  When  the  two 
brothers  finally  opened  their  own  law  office  in  Wall  Street  in  June  1842 
they  attracted  so  little  business  they  were  forced  to  rely  further  on  their 
father's  bounty.  Not  until  May  1843  did  the  young  lawyers  begin  to 
command  even  a  minimum  living  wage,  and  this  modest  success  so 
impressed  Alexander  that  Margaret  warned  him  he  "must  not  get  too 
much  excited  but  be  as  composed  as  possible."  29 

During  these  three  years  of  legal  study  and  enforced  financial 
prudence,  David  Lyon  and  Alexander  moved  from  boardinghouse  to 
boardinghouse  searching  for  inexpensive  accommodations  consistent 
with  their  mother's  insistence  on  the  cultural  advantages  of  a  socially 
agreeable  company.  Variously  they  lived  on  Dye,  Houston,  and  Cham- 
bers streets,  and  at  one  point  in  1842  they  contemplated  a  move  to 
Madame  Garcia's  boarding  establishment  on  Leonard  Street  because 
French  was  spoken  at  table.  Juliana  had  very  positive  opinions  about 
New  York  City  boardinghouses.  She  urged  the  proposed  move  to 
Leonard  Street  because  she  had  heard  that  Commodore  Charles  Stew- 
art's son  and  other  acceptable  people  boarded  there  and  that  skill  in 
conversational  French  could  be  rapidly  acquired.  "Don't  be  too  sharp 
about  your  bargaining"  with  Madame  Garcia,  she  warned,  "as  it  may 
give  an  unfavorable  impression  and  nothing  is  gained  by  it."  She  felt 
that  her  young  sons,  now  in  their  early  and  middle  twenties,  required 
her  constant  advice  on  the  wicked  ways  of  the  world,  and  nowhere  more 
needfully  than  in  the  area  of  boardinghouse  morality.  "Those  houses 
are  not  always  entirely  select,"  she  cautioned  Alexander.  "There  is  a 

great  mixture  and  a  great  many  husbands  seeking  young  ladies A 

very  general  and  rather  distant  politeness  is  all  that  is  necessary  until 
you  find  them  out  and  then  very  likely  you  will  wish  to  be  still  more 
distant."  30 

Alexander  was  not  interested  in  ladies  of  the  sort  pursued  and 
caught  by  boardinghouse  Lotharios — or  if  he  was  he  wisely  kept  the 
information  from  his  hidebound  mother.  But  he  was  interested  in  girls 
and  he  pursued  them  relentlessly.  One  of  these  was  Mary  Livingston. 

32 


Encouraged  in  his  efforts  by  Juliana,  he  called  at  the  Livingston  house 
time  after  time  only  to  be  told  that  Mary  was  busy  or  "out."  When 
he  did  manage  to  see  her  she  would  tell  him  she  had  "been  out  of  town 
engaged  in  a  little  business/'  an  explanation  Alexander  rightly  regarded 
as  "very  mysterious."  So  persistent  was  the  young  swain  and  so  atten- 
tive and  polite  was  he  to  her  mother  (always  sound  strategy)  that  Mrs. 
Livingston  finally  told  him  confidentially,  "Yes,  Mary  is  out  sometimes, 
Mr.  Gardiner,  but  then  you  know  the  ladies  often  say  they  are  out  when 
they  are  not — you've  lived  in  the  City  long  enough  to  find  this  out.'3 
She  conveyed  this  hint  to  Alexander  "as  full  as  ever  of  smiles,  winks, 
nods,  craft  and  mystery."  A  passing  interest  in  Miss  Ann  Ware  was 
quickly  dashed  when  Julia  observed  that  she  had  "a  fine  head  of  hair 
and  a  quite  symmetrical  petite  figure,"  but  "as  for  her  wealth  Pa  does 
not  believe  a  word  of  it."  Next  in  an  unending  line  came  Miss  Julia 
Lane,  who  elicited  from  Alexander  love  letters  strewn  with  such  death- 
less phrases  as  "To  share  with  thee  prosperity  and  adversity  ...  to  have 
thee  to  cheer,  to  inspire ...  oh!  priceless  treasure!"31 

Alexander's  social  life  in  the  city  was  a  strenuous  round  of  formal 
calls,  cotillions,  and  suppers,  most  of  which  the  bashful  David  Lyon 
avoided.  "I  have  not  yet  joined  the  dance,"  David  Lyon  confessed,  "my 
time  having  generally  been  otherwise  occupied."  To  Julia  and  Margaret, 
marooned  in  distant  East  Hampton,  Alexander  boastingly  recounted 
his  social  and  romantic  conquests  and  sent  to  his  sisters  a  steady  stream 
of  local  gossip — what  beaux  were  pursuing  what  belles;  who  was  en- 
gaged, married,  or  divorced;  friends  seen  and  greeted  in  lower  Broad- 
way; and  the  financial  status  of  various  eligible  maidens  and  bachelors. 
Most  of  this  was  trivia.  Some  of  it  was  caustic  and  snobbish.  But  all 
of  it  was  extremely  important  to  the  isolated  sisters.32 

To  be  sure,  some  of  the  gossip  Alexander  overheard  in  the  city  was 
extremely  vicious.  As  he  came  to  learn  "the  social  secrets  of  the  fash- 
ionable cliques,"  he  was  distressed  at  how  malevolent  the  in-fighting 
could  be,  how  like  a  barracuda  tank  was  the  social  maneuvering  of  the 
New  York  elite.  Gradually  he  came  to  hate  the  "ill-feeling  in  which  they 
habitually  indulge,"  and  the  "under-hand  whispering  by  which  they 
endeavor  to  put  down  those  whom  envy  and  fear  prompt  them  to  hate." 
His  mother's  opinion  on  the  ceaseless  backbiting  was  less  troubled  and 
more  philosophical.  It  was,  she  told  him,  "exactly  in  character  with  that 
set  of  New  Yorkers  and  always  has  been."  Alexander  must  learn  to 
live  with  it.33 

The  detailed  reports  of  the  goings  and  comings  of  the  fashionable 
set  in  town  caused  Julia  and  Margaret  to  feel  even  more  removed  from 
the  mainstream  of  passing  events.  They  begged  their  brothers  to  send 
them  the  New  York  newspapers  and  magazines  and  every  fragment  of 
gossip  they  could  collect.  Every  social  scandal  and  every  character 

33 


assassination  they  instantly  devoured  and  commented  upon  by  return 
mail,  demanding  more.  "Tell  us  all  the  news,"  Julia  implored,  "even  the 
tidbits."  In  1839-1840  theirs  was  a  vicarious  social  life.34 

In  return  for  the  edifying  services  of  their  brothers  the  girls  could 
offer  little.  There  was  simply  no  news  available  of  comparable  titillation 
in  East  Hampton.  Margaret  lamented  on  one  occasion  that  she  could 
not  fill  a  single  page  since  absolutely  nothing  had  happened  in  the 
sleepy  village.  Julia,  on  another  occasion,  confessed  that  she  had 
"drained  the  weekly  stock  of  news  most  completely.  It  is  indeed  flat 
and  stale  and  unprofitable.  You  must  read  it  with  good  grace  and  upon 
the  principle  of  'take  what  you  can  get/  for  I  certainly  get  what  I  can." 
The  Sunday  sermons  at  the  local  Presbyterian  church  provided  the  girls 
no  conversational  ammunition  beyond  the  laconic  report  that  the  Rev- 
erend Mr.  Samuel  R.  Ely's  homiletics  ranged  from  "so-so"  to  "perfectly 
intolerable."  Thus  when  a  group  of  white  toughs  beat  an  East  Hampton 
Negro  half  to  death  in  the  street  in  front  of  the  Gardiner  home  for  an 
alleged  impertinence,  Julia  was  grateful  for  the  opportunity  to  write  a 
detailed  account  of  the  rare  excitement,  concluding  with  the  observation 
that  the  Negro  had  received  a  good  thrashing  "for  his  impudence  which 
taught  him  to  his  sorrow  that  he  must  mind  his  Ps  and  Qs  here."  35 

Time  dragged  slowly  for  Julia  and  Margaret.  A  semiannual  trip  to 
the  city  for  necessary  shopping,  an  occasional  visit  to  the  Samuel 
Gardiner  home  on  Shelter  Island,  Julia's  August  1839  invitation  to  a 
ball  at  West  Point  as  the  guest  of  Cadet  Daniel  G.  Roberts,  and  a  few 
poetic  letters  from  casual  beaux  in  New  York  scarcely  sufficed  to  break 
the  monotony.36 

Keeping  abreast  of  clothing  styles  in  the  city  was  a  difficult  enough 
task,  and  few  letters  reached  David  Lyon  or  Alexander  that  did  not 
contain  urgent  "emergency77  pleas  for  thread,  lace,  ribbon,  hats,  gloves, 
silks,  and  fashion  magazines.  Swatches  were  sent  to  be  matched,  de- 
tailed and  technical  tailoring  instructions  were  given.  When  the  hard- 
pressed  brothers  botched  one  of  their  numerous  purchasing  commissions 
(which  was  not  infrequently)  a  sharp  reprimand  would  arrive  from 
Julia  in  East  Hampton:  "I  intend  returning  you  those  exquisite  pink 
gloves  for  you  to  change. ...  I  think  Taste  hid  herself  in  your  pocket 
when  they  were  selected."  Speed  was  always  essential  in  these  matters. 
"My  dear  child,"  she  scolded  Alexander  on  another  occasion,  "you  must 
learn  to  execute  commissions  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye."  Nor  was  any 
detail  left  to  the  imagination.  "If  you  find  you  can  not  get  silk  in  any 
store  then  please  go  back  and  purchase  the  Tarlatan  muslin — Have  I 
made  you  understand?"  3T 

To  while  away  the  tedious  hours  and  to  give  vent  to  a  naturally 
romantic  nature,  Julia  learned  to  play  the  guitar.  On  warm  moonlit 
evenings  in  East  Hampton  "as  the  dew  falls  with  perfume  from  the 
honeysuckles,"  she  would  sit  for  hours  on  the  piazza  and  strum  her 

34 


guitar,  singing  of  home  and  heaven,  love  and  chivalry,  and  romantic 
lands  far  away.  She  had  a  sweet,  clear  voice  and  her  impromptu  con- 
certs were  much  admired  by  her  family  and  friends.  For  her  brothers  it 
simply  meant  more  tiresome  shopping  commissions.  Julia  sent  them 
scurrying  around  to  the  music  stores  of  the  city  to  fill  her  needs  for 
sheet  music.  Her  repertoire  grew  rapidly  and  she  soon  mastered  such 
ballads  as  aOh,  Why  Hast  Thou  Brought  Me  No  Love,"  ''There's 
Nothing  Nice  But  Heaven/'  "Moonlight!  Moonlight!  or,  What  An 
Hour  Is  This!,"  "The  Home  of  My  Childhood,'7  "Chi  Bene  Ama  Non 
Obblia"  ("It  is  an  Italian  song,"  said  Julia  helpfully),  and  "Thou  Art 
Gone."  This  was  all  very  sweet,  but  the  twenty-year-old  Julia  wanted 
more  from  life.  As  she  explained  her  plight  to  Alexander,  "I  generally 
hail  the  approach  of  [night],  as  in  the  Land  of  Dreams  I  can  at  least 
experience  variety."  There  was  very  little  variety  in  East  Hampton, 
Long  Island.38 

It  was  Julia's  boredom,  her  restlessness,  her  strong  desire  to  escape 
East  Hampton,  and  her  hunger  for  excitement  that  explains  her  involve- 
ment in  the  embarrassing  "Rose  of  Long  Island"  incident  of  1839-1840. 
It  would  almost  seem  she  provoked  it.  If  indeed  she  did,  her  strategy 
was  successful.  At  least  it  got  her  out  of  East  Hampton.  And  had  she 
not  been  taken  first  to  Europe  and  then  to  Washington  she  would 
never  have  met  John  Tyler. 

Late  in  1839  a  cheap  throwaway  advertising  lithograph  was  dis- 
tributed throughout  New  York  City  by  Bogert  and  Mecamly,  a  semi- 
fashionable  dry  goods  and  clothing  establishment  on  lower  Ninth 
Avenue.  The  advertisement  pictured  Julia  Gardiner  strolling  in  front 
of  the  store  carrying  on  her  arm  a  small  sign,  shaped  like  a  lady's  hand- 
bag, which  boldly  proclaimed:  "I'll  purchase  at  Bogert  and  Mecamly's, 
No.  86  Ninth  Avenue.  Their  Goods  are  Beautiful  and  Astonishingly 
Cheap."  In  the  manner  of  a  professional  model  Julia  was  magnificently 
overdressed  in  a  sunbonnet  which  trailed  large  ostrich  feathers.  She 
wore  a  heavy  fur-hemmed  winter  coat.  Depicted  at  her  side  was  an 
unidentified  older  man,  clad  like  a  dandy  in  top  hat  and  light  topcoat 
and  carrying  an  expensively  wrought  cane.  The  advertisement  was 
captioned  with  the  abstruse  identification,  "Rose  of  Long  Island."  It 
was  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  first,  endorsed  advertisements  to  appear 
in  New  York  City.  Certainly  it  was  the  first  personal  endorsement  of  a 
mercantile  house  by  a  New  York  lady  of  quality.  That  Julia  posed  for 
the  lithograph,  or  approved  the  use  of  her  likeness  in  connection  with  it, 
cannot  be  doubted.39 

The  Gardiners  were  embarrassed  and  humiliated  that  a  proper 
daughter  of  theirs  could  have  become  involved  in  such  a  crass,  com- 
merical  display.  Not  only  did  the  family  shop  at  the  more  fashionable 
Stewart's,  but  their  own  daughter  had  now  been  pictured  to  the  general 
public  in  the  company  of  an  older  man  who  was  dressed  like  a  swell. 

35 


Something  had  to  be  done.  Convinced  that  idleness  was  Satan's  ally, 
David  Gardiner  began  thinking  of  a  European  tour  for  his  restless 
daughters.  No  surviving  family  letter  ever  mentioned  the  mortifying 
incident.  The  memory  of  it  and  all  reference  to  it  were  buried  with  the 
speed  of  an  unembalmed  corpse. 

Were  this  not  awkward  enough,  the  Gardiners  were  further  em- 
barrassed a  few  months  later  with  the  publication  of  "Julia — The  Rose 
of  Long  Island/'  an  eight-verse,  sixty-eight  line  effort  by  one  "Romeo 
Ringdove,3'  which  appeared  on  the  front  page  of  the  Brooklyn  Daily 
News  for  May  n,  1840.  A  copy  of  the  paper  was  sent  anonymously  to 
Julia.  It  was  definitely  not  great  poetic  literature,  as  an  excerpt  will 
indicate.  It  was,  however,  in  the  nature  of  distinctly  unwanted  pub- 
licity. As  "Romeo  Ringdove"  phrased  his  love  for  "The  Rose  of  Long 
Island": 

In  short,  I  was  bedeviled  quite, 

Bewitched's  a  prettier  word! 
She  stole  my  heart  that  luckless  night, 

This  gentle  singing  bird. 
She  sang  about  "The  Rustling  Trees," 

"The  Rush  of  Mountain  Streams," 
About  "The  Balmy  Southern  Breeze," 

The  "Sunlight's  Radiant  Beams."  . . . 

I  grieve  my  love  a  belle  should  be, 

The  idol  of  each  beau; 
It  makes  it  idle  quite,  for  me 

To  idolize  her  so. 
When  gallants  buzz  like  bees  around 

Who  sweets  from  flowers  suck, 
Where  shall  the  man  so  vain  be  found 

As  hopes  this  rose  to  pluck? 
And  since,  to  end  my  cruel  woes 

No  other  mode  I  see; 
I'll  be  a  hornet  to  her  beaux, 

To  her  a  bumble-bee. 

To  a  less  Victorian  generation  all  this  would  seem  quite  innocent.  But 
1840  was  not  a  good  year  for  buzzing  around  on  the  front  page  of  a 
metropolitan  newspaper.  Julia's  renewed  notoriety  as  the  "Rose  of  Long 
Island"  was  more  than  her  parents  could  tolerate.  "Pa  still  talks  of 
taking  me  to  Europe  in  October — I  think  seriously,"  wrote  Julia.  Some 
basic  decisions  were  indeed  being  made  in  the  Gardiner  home.40 

David  Gardiner  had  discussed  the  European  trip  before  the  poetic 
phase  of  the  double-barreled  "Rose  of  Long  Island"  incident.  He  now 
began  planning  it  as  an  imminent  event.  His  brother;  Nathaniel  Gardi- 

36 


ner,  was  engaged  to  manage  Juliana's  properties  during  the  absence  of 
the  family.  David  Lyon  and  Alexander,  it  was  decided,  would  remain 
at  their  law  studies  in  New  York.  Letters  of  introduction  were  secured. 
Benjmin  F.  Butler,  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States,  supplied  one 
to  Lewis  Cass,  American  ambassador  to  the  Court  of  Louis  Philippe; 
and  Charles  King  of  New  York  wrote  to  Georges  W.  Lafayette  intro- 
ducing David  Gardiner  as  a  former  member  of  the  New  York  senate 
and  "a  man  of  education  and  fortune."  The  departure  date  was  set  for 
September  i84O.41 

In  the  meantime  the  girls  were  taken  on  a  short  trip  to  Washington 
and  to  White  Sulphur  Springs  in  Virginia — a  practice  run  of  sorts  for 
the  social  trials  of  the  coming  jaunt  to  Europe.  On  August  3,  1840,  the 
family  left  East  Hampton  for  the  capital.  It  was  a  rigorous  trip  by 
steamboat  from  Sag  Harbor  to  New  Haven  (Juliana  feared  the  noisy 
boilers  would  explode  at  any  minute),  and  thence  by  rail  to  New  York 
and  Washington.  By  the  time  they  reached  Washington  on  August  9 
Juliana  was  exhausted  and  quite  ready  to  return  to  East  Hampton.  "I 
think  I  shall  keep  on  as  it  is  for  Julia's  advantage,  but  for  myself  it  is 
a  great  effort  even  to  think  of  it,"  she  complained.  As  usual,  Juliana 
found  the  strength  to  go  on.  She  always  did.  The  single  day  in  Wash- 
ington was  profitably  spent.  The  senator  had  an  interview  with  Presi- 
dent Martin  Van  Buren  and  Juliana  took  her  daughters  to  view  the 
White  House.  She  found  the  furniture  in  the  East  Room  "rich  and 
elegant."  The  family  left  the  capital  on  August  10  for  a  short  stay  at 
White  Sulphur.  Just  what  "advantage,"  social  or  physical,  Julia  derived 
there  is  not  known,  although  the  Gar  diners  were  "very  much  pleased" 
by  the  trip  to  the  spa.  As  Juliana  summed  it  up,  "We  have  traveled  a 
long  distance  and  seen  a  great  variety  of  people.  All  seem  to  think  we 
have  a  feast  before  us  in  going  to  Europe."  42 

David  Gardiner,  his  wife  and  daughters  sailed  from  New  York 
aboard  the  packet  ship  Sheridan,  Captain  de  Peyster,  on  September  27, 
1840.  Margaret's  diary  entry  for  the  day  of  departure  conveyed  the 
intense  excitement  the  sisters  felt.  "A  new  world  is  opening  before  us!" 
she  wrote.  "Bright  are  our  anticipations  I  I  was  awakened  by  the  songs 
of  the  sailors  whilst  hoisting  sails  and  preparing  for  sea."  The  voyage 
across  was  an  interesting  one  for  the  girls,  particularly  for  Margaret, 
who  flirted  rather  openly  with  Captain  de  Peyster.43 

Arriving  in  London  on  October  29,  the  Gardiners  found  that  they 
could  "perceive  no  difference  in  the  appearance  of  the  people  from  those 
of  New  York."  They  toured  the  churches,  found  the  country  "cold  and 
dreary,"  ogled  the  public  buildings,  and  predicted  that  New  York 
would  soon  outstrip  London.  It  was  par  for  the  course.44 

The  Channel  crossing  to  France  on  the  steamer  Waterwitch  was 
"exceedingly  turbulent."  Nonetheless,  Julia  was  in  fine  form  and  she 
soon  managed  to  beguile  and  captivate  one  of  the  passengers,  Sir  John 

37 


Buchan,  who  was  "extremely  gallant,  and  quite  enveloped  J.  in  his 
macintosh  to  keep  off  the  spray."  This  little  fling  under  the  macintosh 
was  quickly  terminated  by  violent  seasickness  which  sent  Julia  scurry- 
ing to  her  cabin,  a  clear  victory  for  Poseidon  over  Aphrodite.  Un- 
fortunately, Sir  John's  attempts  to  see  Julia  again  were  smashed  on 
the  rocks  of  divergent  itineraries.45 

In  Paris  it  was  a  strenuous  round  of  cathedrals,  galleries,  museums, 
and  receptions,  French  lessons  for  Margaret,  a  new  guitar  for  Julia,  a 
visit  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  for  Senator  David,  and  a  sick  head- 
ache for  Juliana.  The  pace  was  killing.  The  Parisian  high  point,  and 
for  the  Gardiner  sisters  the  outstanding  event  of  the  entire  grand  tour, 
was  their  presentation  at  the  French  court  of  Louis  Philippe  on  January 
7,  1841.  This  treat  was  arranged  by  Ambassador  Lewis  Cass.  As 
Margaret  described  it: 

Twenty-eight  American  ladies  were  presented,  besides  a  large  number  of 
English  and  French. . . .  The  dresses  of  the  ladies  were  rich  and  splendid, 
while  many  of  the  English  were  emblazoned  with  diamonds,  and  with  the  gay 
and  elegant  uniforms  of  the  gentlemen  presented  a  tout  ensemble  which  far 

surpassed  my  most  brilliant  imaginings The  King  looks   old,  is  very 

affable  in  manners,  and  resembles  his  paintings,  except  in  stature.  In  this  he  is 
given  too  much  height.  He  was  dressed  in  the  uniform  of  an  officer  of  the 
army,  and  wore  an  auburn  wig,  which  but  half  concealed  his  snow-white  hair. 
He  principally  addressed  the  married  ladies — asked  J.  and  myself  if  we  were 

sisters,  and  passed  on In  a  short  time  followed  the  Queen,  attired  in 

scarlet  velvet  robe  and  cloak,  confined  at  the  waist  with  a  band,  and  diamond 
clasp.  Her  head-dress  was  fancifully  arranged  with  diamonds  of  great  bril- 
liancy, and  a  bird  of  paradise.  She  is  tall  and  thin.  In  short,  a  perfect 
anatomy,  and  there's  a  striking  contrast,  in  this  respect,  to  the  King.  Her 
conversation  was  a  mixture  of  French  and  English,  which  I  could  not  com- 
prehend, and  only  bowed  in  reply The  salons  were  insufferably  warm, 

and  I  was  obliged  to  retire  twice,  in  consequence  of  faintness.  I  was  attended 
by  the  King's  physician  and  two  or  three  maids  in  waiting,  and  furnished 
with  cologne,  salts,  orange  flower  water,  etc.46 

When  Julia  later  spoke  of  her  "reign"  as  First  Lady  she  had  this 
recollection  of  royal  splendor  as  a  guide  and  a  goal.  Having  observed 
the  etiquette,  posturing,  and  regal  brilliance  of  the  Tuileries,  Julia 
undertook  to  transplant  to  the  White  House  something  of  its  opulence 
and  its  studied  deference  to  reigning  monarchy.  She  would  even  sur- 
round herself  with  "ladies  in  waiting"  and  insist  on  many  court  pro- 
cedures. David  Gardiner  was  equally  impressed  with  the  magnificence 
of  the  French  court.  His  detailed  analysis  of  its  brilliance  and  the 
social  advantages  of  Americans'  being  presented  there  was  dispatched 
to  the  editor  of  the  New  York  American  and  printed  in  the  edition  of 
May  25,  i84i.47 

In  Rome  the  family  was  disappointed  to  find  "very  few  Ameri- 

38 


cans,"  but  there  was  some  compensation  in  obtaining  rooms  in  the  Hotel 
de  Londres  just  below  those  of  Christina,  the  former  Queen  of  Spain. 
And  an  audience  with  Pope  Gregory  XVI  impressed  them.  They  found 
the  reactionary  old  Pontiff's  "affability  of  manner  and  pleasant  con- 
versation very  gratifying."  Margaret  was  thoroughly  repelled,  however, 
by  some  Roman  Catholic  practices: 

We  all  witnessed  the  washing  of  feet,  and  serving  at  table,  of  thirteen  poor 
priests,  of  different  nations,  by  the  Pope  in  imitation  of  the  washing  of  the 
apostles'  feet  by  our  Saviour ...  we  went  to  the  Hospital  Pellegrini,  and 
saw  the  washing,  and  serving  at  table,  of  a  host  of  poor  pilgrims,  by  the  noble 
ladies  of  Rome.  It  is  a  disgusting  act  of  humility!  These  ladies  actually 
washed  and  kissed  the  feet  of  the  filthy  miserable  people. 

She  was  relieved,  on  her  arrival  back  in  England  three  months  later,  to 
find  herself  "in  a  Christian  land  once  more."  Julia  was  less  concerned 
with  the  ecclesiastical  side  of  Rome.  Instead,  she  engaged  in  a  fleeting 
romance  with  Baron  von  Krudener,  a  young  German  nobleman  then 
visiting  in  the  city.  How  involved  each  became  with  the  other  can  only 
be  surmised  by  Julia's  recollection  that  he  had  worshiped  her  "in 
secret,  in  silence,  in  tears."  Twenty-five  years  later  she  still  remembered 
him  fondly,  and  when  her  sons  went  to  Germany  to  college  after  the 
Civil  War  she  urged  them  to  discover  what  had  become  of  him.48 

The  Roman  holiday  was  followed  by  an  exploration  into  the  smok- 
ing crater  of  Vesuvius.  During  her  descent  into  the  volcano  Julia  be- 
came extremely  frightened  and  nearly  fainted.  It  was  one  of  the  very 
few  times  in  her  life  her  poise  and  self-assurance  deserted  her.  It  took  a 
volcano  to  do  it.  She  rallied  quickly,  however,  and  enjoyed  the  next 
stages  of  the  trip  as  the  family  moved  leisurely  northward  from  Pom- 
peii to  Florence,  Venice,  Leghorn,  and  Genoa.  Then  traveling  through 
Switzerland,  into  Germany,  down  the  Rhine,  and  on  to  The  Hague, 
Amsterdam,  and  Brussels  (where  Julia  treated  herself  to  a  brief  ro- 
mantic fling  with  a  Belgian  count ),  they  finally  reached  London  again 
on  July  3,  i84i.49 

Sightseeing  trips  to  Scotland  and  Ireland  occupied  the  family  in 
July  and  August.  Julia  was  occupied  too.  This  time  it  was  with  a  Mr. 
Delebarger  of  London,  an  employee  of  the  War  Ministry  who,  accord- 
ing to  Juliana,  "foolishly  became  very  much  taken  with  Miss  Julia 
without  any  encouragement  from  any  quarter."  Julia  did  not  have  to 
provide  much  overt  encouragement.  A  glance  over  her  fan  generally 
served  to  start  the  chemical  reaction.  The  Delebarger  involvement  was 
quickly  terminated  by  Juliana.  The  Gardiners  left  England  in  early 
September  in  the  Acadia,  and  after  an  extremely  rough  crossing  they 
reached  Boston  at  the  end  of  the  month.  They  had  been  gone  a  full 


year.50 


It  had  been  an  exciting  and  educational  experience  for  Julia  and 

39 


Margaret.  If  Julia  had  attracted  ardent  young  men  to  her  side  in 
London,  Rome,  and  Brussels,  the  incidents  were  less  disastrous  from 
the  Gardiner  standpoint  than  having  her  paraded  in  lithograph  and 
verse  through  the  public  prints  of  New  York.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, it  was  certain  that  after  having  seen  the  wonders  of  the  Tuileries, 
the  Vatican,  and  Westminster  Abbey,  East  Hampton  would  seem  tame 
indeed  to  the  Gardiner  girls. 

Throughout  the  European  tour  the  letters  of  David  Lyon  and 
Alexander  to  the  family  had  described  in  detail  the  swiftly  changing 
political  scene  at  home.  Their  sympathies,  of  course,  were  Whig.  In 
November  1840  both  of  them  voted  for  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  Too"  in 
preference  to  President  Martin  Van  Bur  en  and  the  egalitarian  policies 
he  favored  and  the  Gar  diners  so  detested.  When  news  of  the  sudden 
death  of  President  William  Henry  Harrison  on  April  4,  1841,  reached 
the  Continent,  the  Gardiner  girls,  in  common  with  other  American 
ladies  then  touring  in  Europe,  carefully  wrapped  their  left  wrists  in 
black  crepe  as  a  testament  uto  the  sense  of  grief  universally  felt  by 
Americans  ...  for  the  death  of  the  good  man  and  soldier,  the  Hero  of 
Tippecanoe."  51 

Alexander's  April  9,  1841,  letter  to  his  father  provided  the  absent 
family  a  full  account  of  the  shocking  news  of  General  Harrison's  death 
after  one  month  in  the  White  House: 

This  melancholy  event,  which  has  really  cast  a  gloom  over  the  country,  was 
the  result  of  an  illness  of  only  a  week.  His  disease  was  the  bilious  pleurisy. 
. . .  His  enemies  have  asserted  that  he  was  infirm  from  age,  and  this  doubt- 
less led  Mm  to  exert  himself  more  than  he  would  otherwise  have  done.  He  was 
accustomed  to  walk  before  breakfast  in  the  morning,  and  it  was  on  one  of  these 
occasions  that  he  caught  his  death.  The  labours  he  was  obliged  to  undergo 
about  the  time  of  bis  inauguration  were  prodigious;  and  since,  his  house  has 
been  beset  from  morning  til  night  by  office  beggars  and  others.  . . . 

Alexander  described  the  suddenness  with  which  Vice-President  Tyler 
had  been  "drawn  from  the  bosom  of  his  family"  in  Williamsburg  "to 
assume  the  direction  of  affairs"  in  Washington,  the  funeral  arrange- 
ments for  the  dead  President,  and  the  deep  mourning  into  which  the 
nation  was  plunged.  Like  thousands  of  other  Americans,  Alexander 
Gardiner  also  posed  the  crucial  question  of  the  hour.  Who  was  the 
enigmatic  John  Tyler,  and  for  what  did  he  stand? 

In  the  midst  of  these  scenes  Mr.  Tyler  has  assumed  the  government,  and 
retained  the  Cabinet  selected  by  Gen.  Harrison.  Yet  some  doubts  are  enter- 
tained whether  he  may  not  strike  out  a  new  course  of  political  policy.  He  is 
of  the  Virginia  school,  and  has  been  very  decidedly  anti-bank,  anti-tariff,  and 
anti-distribution  of  the  public  lands.  The  party  insists  that  his  opinions  are 
now  altogether  Whig,  and  that  he  will  carry  out  the  measures  proposed  by  the 
Harrison  administration.  Time  will  decide,  but  it  would  be  stranger  indeed  if 
he  were  not  orthodox.52 

40 


As  the  nation  and  the  Gardiners  soon  discovered,  John  Tyler  was 
very  definitely  of  the  "Virginia  school"  and,  from  the  Whig  standpoint, 
he  was  certainly  not  "orthodox."  Indeed,  by  the  time  the  Gardiners 
had  landed  safely  again  in  Boston  in  September  1841  these  facts  had 
become  clear.  John  Tyler's  voyage  through  the  turbulent  seas  of  the 
bank  crisis  had  just  ended  in  disaster,  and  waves  of  Whig  criticism 
crashed  heavily  onto  the  decks  of  his  sinking  Ship  of  State.  In  this 
assault  few  critics  pounded  the  renegade  Tyler  administration  with  less 
mercy  than  the  brash  young  Alexander  Gardiner.33 

The  political  explosion  in  Washington  in  1841  was  a  dramatic 
spectacle,  educational  enough  to  warrant  closer  study.  Julia  and 
Margaret  had  already  seen  the  capitals  of  Europe,  visited  the  public 
buildings  of  London,  Paris,  Rome,  and  Brussels,  consorted  and  flirted 
with  the  statesmen  and  nobility  of  half  a  dozen  nations.  It  was  past 
time,  David  Gardiner  reasoned,  for  his  sprightly  daughters  to  glimpse 
the  wonders  of  American  democracy  in  action,  however  chaotic  that 
action  might  be.  It  was  decided,  therefore,  that  the  family  should  pro- 
ceed to  Washington  for  a  short  visit.  In  this  way  the  sadly  neglected 
political  education  of  Julia  and  Margaret  could  be  advanced.  The 
European  trip  had  polished  and  readied  them  for  an  introduction  to 
Washington  society.  Now  they  needed  an  introduction  to  politics.  So  it 
was  that  the  young  ladies  and  their  parents  departed  by  train  from 
New  York  in  mid- January  1842  bound  for  the  sprawling,  mud-caked 
capital  on  the  Potomac. 

The  girls  began  to  attract  admiring  male  glances  immediately.  As 
the  train  rolled  south  toward  Washington,  a  "handsome,  portly  gentle- 
man" came  several  times  into  the  car  where  Julia  and  Margaret  were 
seated  and  self-consciously  adjusted  his  cravat  at  the  ornate  mirror,  cast- 
ing, as  he  did  so,  "several  furtive  glances"  at  the  attractive  Gardiner 
sisters.  Only  after  she  reached  Washington  did  Julia  discover  that  the 
handsome,  forty-two-year-old  stranger  with  the  large  cravat  and  the 
roving  eyes  was  Congressman  Millard  Fillmore  of  Buffalo,  New  York, 
political  protege  of  Thurlow  Weed  and  later  President  of  the  United 
States.  He  was,  Julia  learned  to  her  dismay,  quite  married.54 

The  family  took  up  residence  at  Mrs.  Peyton's  well-known  board- 
inghouse  on  the  corner  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  Four-and-a-Half 
Street.  It  was  as  comfortable  and  fashionable  a  place  of  its  sort  as  the 
backward  capital  afforded,  and  it  served  as  a  residence  and  eating  club 
for  a  bevy  of  congressmen  and  government  officials.  Among  those  pres- 
ent at  Mrs.  Peyton's  place  in  January  1842  were  Congressmen  Edmund 
Hubard  and  Francis  Mallory  of  Virginia,  John  McKeon  and  Richard 
Davis  of  New  York,  Caleb  Gushing  of  Massachusetts,  Thomas  D. 
Sumter  of  South  Carolina,  and  Thomas  Butler  King  of  Georgia. 

Within  a  few  days  of  their  arrival  the  Gardiners  were  caught  up  in 


the  social  swirl  of  the  town.  Congressman  Sumter7  who  was  a  retired 
United  States  Army  colonel,  was  particularly  attentive  to  Julia  and 
Margaret.  He  squired  the  young  East  Hampton  ladies  from  reception 
to  reception  with  a  gracious  chivalry  that  matched  anything  the  girls 
had  experienced  in  Europe.  Millard  Fillmore  and  Senator  Silas  Wright 
of  New  York  soon  called  on  the  Gardiners,  as  did  Congressman 
Fernando  Wood,  later  mayor  of  New  York  City.  Senator  David  Gardi- 
ner was  no  ordinary  tourist.  Formerly  a  leading  Whig  politician  in 
Suffolk  County,  he  was  worth  cultivating  politically  and  socially.  Luck- 
ily for  his  daughters,  his  position  and  wealth  assured  the  family  im- 
mediate absorption  into  the  top  circles  of  Washington  society.55 

Julia  and  Margaret  reveled  in  the  excitement  of  the  Washington 
social  scene  and  in  the  opportunity  to  meet  the  great  and  the  near-great 
of  the  American  Republic.  Julia  was  quickly  singled  out  by  young 
Richard  R.  Waldron  of  New  Hampshire,  a  purser  in  the  United  States 
Navy.  He  became  her  constant  escort  and  guide.  Through  Waldron  and 
Colonel  Sumter  the  girls  met  Postmaster  General  Charles  A.  Wickliffe 
and  his  attractive  daughters.  The  Wickliffes,  reported  Margaret,  were  a 
lovely  family  who  had  "remained  long  enough  at  their  home  in  Ken- 
tucky not  to  be  easily  contaminated  by  mingling  with  the  worldly.7'  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  friendship  that  would  last  for  many  years. 

Waldron  obligingly  escorted  the  Gardiners  to  the  House  and  Senate 
to  hear  the  debates,  and  to  the  weekly  Assemblies  or  balls  patronized 
by  the  rich,  the  well-born,  and  the  politically  important  people  of  the 
capital.  At  a  reception  on  January  18,  1842,  Julia  first  met  Robert 
Tyler  and  enjoyed  "quite  a  critical  discussion ...  of  the  poets"  with 
him.  The  thrill  of  meeting  the  President's  eldest  son  was  almost  over- 
whelming, and  when  the  girls  reached  Peyton's  later  that  evening  they 
eagerly  "talked  over  the  proceedings  until  after  one." 

At  a  private  dance  in  the  home  of  General  John  P.  Van  Ness  a  few 
nights  later,  where  "the  wine  flowed  like  water,"  they  saw  a  less  attrac- 
tive side  of  Washington  society.  They  were  shocked  at  the  behavior  of 
General  Aaron  Ward,  a  New  York  congressman.  Ward  got  quite  drunk 
and  insulted  Madame  Bodisco,  the  beautiful  and  shapely  wife  of  the 
Russian  ambassador.  According  to  Margaret's  pristine  description  of 
the  incident,  the  tipsy  congressman  introduced  Madame  Bodisco  to 
David  Gardiner  and  then  "told  her  to  show  the  gentleman  her  eyes. 
Asked  Pa  if  he  did  not  think  she  had  a  nice  figure,  etc."  That  the 
popular  Madame  Bodisco  had  clearly  visible  charms  could  not  be 
denied.  The  low-cut  bodice  of  her  dress  left  little  to  the  imagination. 
But  the  ground  rules  of  polite  society  in  1842  did  not  include  drunken 
references  to  a  lady's  endowment.  This  was  the  stuff  of  duels.56 
~~  These  social  activities  were  of  little  importance  when  compared 
with  the  much  anticipated  moment  on  the  evening  of  January  20,  1842, 
when  Julia  and  her  parents  were  first  invited  to  the  White  House  to 

42 


meet  President  John  Tyler.  Margaret,  unhappily,  had  a  severe  cold 
that  night  and  was  forced  to  remain  in  her  chambers.  "The  Presi- 
dent's break  with  the  Whigs/'  Julia  recalled,  "had  been  the  occasion 
of  unprecedented  political  excitement,  and  his  name  was  on  all  lips." 
She  was  curious  to  meet  the  controversial  Chief  Executive.  Young 
Waldron  obligingly  escorted  the  family  to  the  President's  reception. 

As  usual,  the  First  Lady,  Letitia  Christian  Tyler,  made  no  ap- 
pearance downstairs  that  Thursday  evening.  Half-paralyzed  by  a 
stroke  three  years  earlier,  she  took  no  part  in  the  social  life  of  her 
husband's  administration.  Instead,  the  guests  crowding  into  the  White 
House  were  greeted  by  the  President  and  his  daughter-in-law,  Priscilla 
Cooper  Tyler,  who  acted  as  the  Chief  Executive's  official  hostess.  Julia's 
formal  introduction  to  the  politically  harassed  tenth  President  of  the 
United  States  was  performed  by  Congressman  Fernando  Wood.  For 
the  young  lady  of  East  Hampton  it  was  a  personal  triumph.  So  cor- 
dially was  she  greeted  by  John  Tyler,  so  gracious  and  effusive  were 
his  "thousand  compliments,"  that  those  standing  nearby  "looked  and 
listened  in  perfect  amazement."  Years  later  when  she  recalled  that  most 
important  moment  in  her  life  Julia  still  remembered  in  Tyler's  deport- 
ment an  "urbanity"  so  pronounced  "we  could  not  help  commenting, 
after  we  left  the  room,  upon  the  silvery  sweetness  of  his  voice . . . 
the  incomparable  grace  of  his  bearing,  and  the  elegant  ease  of  his 
conversation."  57 

John  Tyler  may  not  have  been  America's  most  successful  Presi- 
dent, but  the  courtly  Virginian  was  certainly  one  of  America's  most 
gracious  and  socially  engaging  Chief  Executives.  So  polite  and  courteous 
was  he  with  strangers,  so  warm  and  genuine  was  he  in  his  greeting  and 
in  his  concern  for  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  his  guests,  that  few 
who  met  him  escaped  his  personal  magnetism.  No  suggestion  of  his 
many  personal  trials,  political  disappointments,  and  private  worries, 
family  or  financial,  ever  publicly  escaped  his  lips.  Surrounded  by  the 
inadequate  lights,  shabby  furniture,  unpainted  walls,  and  grimy  ap- 
pointments of  the  President's  Mansion,  Tyler  gave  off  a  personal  charm, 
dignity  and  regality  that  transformed  his  surroundings. 

Julia's  brief  visit  to  Washington  in  January-February  1842  ended 
much  too  quickly  to  suit  her.  When,  in  early  March,  the  Gardiners 
were  again  at  their  East  Hampton  home  the  boredom  of  that  pleasant 
hamlet  seemed  all  the  more  oppressive  after  the  wonders  of  Europe 
and  the  delights  of  the  capital.  Julia  was  soon  plunged  once  more  into 
the  depression  of  isolation.  Gathering  the  local  gossip  for  David  Lyon 
and  Alexander  scarcely  compared  with  the  excitement  of  the  previous 
eighteen  months — even  when  the  gossip  concerned  the  erratic  behavior 
of  her  colorful  cousin,  John  Griswold  Gardiner,  ninth  proprietor  of 
Gardiners  Island. 

John  was  the  black  sheep  of  the  family.  In  March  1842  he  went 

43 


berserk  while  engaged  in  what  Julia  termed  a  "regular  frolic77  and 
before  he  was  finally  locked  up  in  the  East  Hampton  jail  he  had 
wrecked  a  farmer's  kitchen  in  Sag  Harbor,  disturbed  the  peace  in 
Montauk,  created  a  drunken  scene  in  Acabonack,  and  fired  his  shotgun 
at  a  cornhusker  named  Bennet  in  the  grain  barn  on  Gardiners  Island. 
Bennet  escaped  death  only  by  lunging  at  the  proprietor  and  spoiling 
his  aim.  Whereupon  crazy  John  calmly  reloaded  and  was  again  taking 
aim  at  his  antagonist  when  Henry  Davis,  a  Negro  agricultural  laborer 
on  the  Island,  seized  the  gun.  "Amid  such  a  number  of  white  com- 
panions," remarked  Julia,  "the  intended  victim  owed  his  life  at  last 
to  a  negro — I  think  abolition  a  good  cause.73  Whether  the  "Lord  of 
the  Isle"  was  under  the  influence  of  whiskey  or  opium  or  both  during 
his  two-day  spree,  the  sisters  could  not  ascertain.  They  were  fairly 
certain  he  was  under  the  influence  of  something.  The  subsequent  trial 
of  John  for  assault  with  intent  to  kill  occupied  the  summer  months  and 
stimulated  conversation  for  a  time  in  the  otherwise  torpid  town. 
Gardiner  was  eventually  fined  $33  for  disturbing  the  peace,  a  judg- 
ment the  proprietor  himself  considered  pretty  lenient  for  "a  man  who 
has  been  a  drunkard  all  his  life."  58 

Even  with  John  Griswold  Gardiner  to  liven  things  up  occasionally, 
life  in  East  Hampton  was  incredibly  dull.  The  usual  Fourth  of  July 
celebration  was  called  off  in  1842  when  the  eligible  toastmasters 
quarreled  over  whether  wine  should  be  used  to  drink  the  toasts  at  the 
dinner.  The  drys  won  the  argument  and  local  patriotism  received  a 
body  blow.  When  a  gang  of  boys  broke  into  the  general  store,  smashed 
the  windows,  and  hurled  rotten  eggs  at  the  merchandise,  the  incident, 
big  news  in  East  Hampton,  interested  the  twenty- two-year-old  Julia 
not  at  all.  It  was  a  far  cut  below  her  presentation  at  the  court  of 
Louis  Philippe  and  her  discussion  of  the  poets  with  Robert  Tyler  in 
Washington.  "We  have  been  stationary  nearly  five  months,'7  she  com- 
plained to  Alexander  in  July.  "Dear  me!  Sometimes  I  feel  dolefully 
ennuyee."  Few  days  passed  that  the  sisters  did  not  frantically  write 
their  brothers  in  New  York  to  send  them  the  news  of  the  fashionable 
set  in  the  city  or  demand  of  them  that  they  execute  some  trifling 
purchasing  commission.  While  Julia  was  certain  that  the  "innocent 
pleasures  of  a  country  life'7  were  adequate  for  "the  evening  of  life,77  the 
point  was  that  she  was  still  young.  "We  can  make  our  lives  sublime/7 
she  insisted  to  Alexander,  with  more  hope  than  conviction.  There  was 
not  much  sublimity  in  East  Hampton.59 

During  the  early  summer  months  of  1842  Julia  began  agitating 
for  a  trip  to  Saratoga  Springs  or  Newport.  She  had  heard  there  was  a 
"considerable  company'7  at  both  spas.  When  this  effort  to  escape  East 
Ha-mpton  failed,  she  then  urged  her  father  to  lease  or  purchase  a  town 
house  in  New  York  City.  The  sharp  sag  in  the  real  estate  market  in 
New  York  not  only  made  this  suggestion  an  economical  one,  but  it  had 

44 


the  further  advantage  of  putting  David  Gardiner's  Increasingly  eligible 
daughters  where  the  boys  were.  For  these  reasons  he  began  to  con- 
sider the  idea  seriously.  Meanwhile  Julia  pleaded  for  a  return  to 
Washington  when  Congress  convened  again  in  December  1842.  So 
piteous  were  her  entreaties  with  her  father  that  he  could  scarcely 
resist  them.  By  November  the  parental  promise  of  another  trip  to  the 
capital  had  been  reluctantly  given,  although  the  harassed  senator 
confessed  to  Alexander  that  "were  it  not  to  gratify  your  sisters  I  must 
confess  I  should  prefer  a  more  quiet  winter."  Alexander  sided  with  Julia 
In  the  matter,  assuring  his  father  that  he  would  "derive  more  pleasure 
from  a  winter  In  Washington  than  you  seem  to  anticipate."  60 

Her  spirits  raised  considerably  by  the  combined  prospects  of 
moving  Into  town  and  returning  to  Washington  in  the  winter,  Julia's 
cup  of  joy  very  nearly  overflowed  when  she  learned  that  the  Gardiners 
had  been  conspicuously  included  in  Moses  Y.  Beach's  little  volume, 
Wealth  and  Pedigree  of  the  Wealthy  Citizens  of  New  York  City.  First 
published  in  the  summer  of  1842,  the  book  set  out  "to  define  the  true 
position  of  sundry  Individuals  who  are  flourishing  under  false  colors. . . . 
In  a  country  where  money,  and  not  title,  is  the  standard  by  which 
merit  is  appreciated,  it  is  desirable  to  adjust  the  standard  with  as  much 
exactitude  as  possible. . . ."  Beach  Included  only  the  names  of  families 
with  resources  in  excess  of  $100,000.  The  accuracy  of  some  of  his 
figures  was  questionable,  but  at  least  he  provided  a  rough  guide  to  the 
tricky  New  York  marriage  market.  For  this  invaluable  service  the 
Gardiners  were  grateful.61 

The  entry  under  the  name  of  David  Gardiner  was  brief  and  to  the 
point:  "$150,000.  To  the  ancestors  of  this  distinguished  family  be- 
longed Gardiners  Island,  Suffolk  Co.,  L.I.  One  was  called  'Lord 
Gardiner,7  by  some  of  his  poor  tenantry."  Julia's  erratic  cousin,  John 
Griswold  Gardiner,  the  ninth  proprietor  of  Gardiners  Island,  was  rated 
at  $100,000,  although  at  the  very  moment  of  his  triumph,  if  triumph 
it  was,  he  was  drunkenly  celebrating  the  birthday  of  his  horse  by  riding 
the  animal  into  his  mother's  parlor  where  the  astonished  lady  sat 
sewing.  It  was  just  another  "high  frolic,"  said  Julia,  similar  to  the 
spree  that  had  put  the  latter-day  Caligula  in  the  East  Hampton  jail 
two  months  earlier.62 

Julia  could  hardly  wait  to  get  her  hands  on  Beach's  volume. 
She  learned  of  its  existence  from  her  Uncle  Samuel  while  attending 
the  funeral  of  her  Uncle  Nathaniel's  wife,  Elizabeth,  at  East  Hampton 
in  June  1842.  The  news  livened  up  an  otherwise  dreary  afternoon.  She 
was  elated  to  hear  that  editor  Beach  considered  the  Gardiners  to  be 
"a  very  respectable  family  who  used  to  be  styled  Lords  by  their  poor 
tenants."  Her  father,  no  less  eager  to  see  the  book,  ordered  son  David 
Lyon  in  New  York  to  procure  and  send  a  copy  "by  the  first  opportunity 
by  water."  The  little  volume  was  a  gold  mine  of  information  and  Julia 

45 


spent  many  pleasant  hours  researching  the  financial  situations  of  her 
New  York  friends  and  acquaintances.  She  learned,  for  example,  that  the 
families  of  her  friends  Mary  Conger  and  Mary  Corse  weighed  in  at 
$200,000  and  $250,000,  respectively;  and  that  the  family  of  Catherine 
Hedges  was  rated  at  $200,000.  Even  the  unattractive  and  obnoxious 
young  Jacob  LeRoy  who  would  chase  after  Margaret  in  Washington  in 
1843  could  look  forward  to  a  $300,000  inheritance.  None  of  this  in- 
formation proved  very  valuable  to  the  Gardiner  sisters  in  the  long  run. 
Julia  married  a  man  who  could  never  have  aspired  to  the  Beach  register, 
and  Margaret  married  one  who  had  not  two  dimes  to  rub  together.63 

The  only  damper  on  Julia's  spirits  as  she  anticipated  a  brighter 
social  future  came  in  the  knowledge  that  her  brother  Alexander  had 
renounced  the  Whig  Party  and  voted  for  the  Democrats  in  the  Novem- 
ber 1842  elections  in  New  York  City.  A  trip  to  depression-ridden 
Norwich,  Connecticut,  in  June  1842  had  shown  him  that  a  stone's  throw 
from  closed  mills  and  breadlines  were  all  the  evidences  of  the  con- 
spicuous consumption  in  which  the  wealthy  indulged.  Perhaps  this 
sight  influenced  his  sudden  conversion.  It  would  be  encouraging  to  think 
so.  More  likely,  Alexander  Gardiner  became  a  Democrat  in  1842  for 
pragmatic  reasons.  As  a  struggling  young  lawyer  in  New  York  City  he 
sorely  needed  clients  and  contacts.  To  further  his  career  in  the  law  he  had 
decided  to  dabble  in  local  politics  at  the  ward  level  and  the  best  way  to  do 
this  was  through  Tammany  Hall.  Tammany  was  basically  anti-Van 
Buren  in  1842,  locked  as  it  was  in  bitter  patronage  struggles  with 
the  Little  Magician's  Albany  Regency.  Within  its  tattered  folds  were 
also  members  of  the  old  Workingmen's  Party  of  the  middle  18303. 
These  white  proletarians,  native-born  and  immigrant,  feared  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery.  They  viewed  the  economic  implications  of  abolition 
on  the  white  labor  market  of  New  York  City  with  undisguised  horror. 
Alexander  had  no  difficulty  adjusting  to  the  ideological  orientation  of 
Tammany  Hall  on  the  Negro  question.  The  Hall  was  also  controlled  by 
pragmatists  who  had  small  respect  for  either  Martin  Van  Buren  or 
liberal  Jacksonian  democracy.  These  men  were  Conservative  Demo- 
crats. They  were  corrupt,  but  they  could  deliver  the  street  vote  and 
win  local  elections.  The  town's  self-satisfied  Whigs  generally  could  not. 
From  Alexander's  standpoint  it  was  as  simple  as  that. 

Still,  Margaret  voiced  the  collective  Gardiner  opinion  of  Alex- 
ander's heresy  when  she  told  her  brother  that  she  "could  scarce  reconcile 
myself  to  the  idea  of  your  voting  the  Democratic  ticket.  At  any  earlier 
period  it  would  certainly  have  overthrown  any  resolutions  I  might 
have  formed  of  conferring  a  Dukedom  upon  you.  You  might  better 
not  have  voted  at  all,  I  think;  and  so  does  Pa,  but  for  another  reason — 
you  would  then  escape  your  indefatigable  military  friend,  Mr.  Jack- 
son." Margaret  had  missed  the  point.  Her  brother  had  not  become  a 
Jackson  Democrat.  And  to  her  irrelevant  criticism  Alexander  replied 

46 


wearily  that  Tammany's  "triumphant  success"  in  the  election  had  re- 
inforced him  in  the  Tightness  of  his  decision.  There  was  no  point  in 
going  into  it  further.64 

In  choosing  the  Democratic  Party  in  1842  Alexander  Gardiner 
gained  one  distinction  to  which  no  one  else  in  the  immediate  family 
could  aspire.  He  was  a  Democrat  before  his  sister's  courtship  by 
John  Tyler  began.  He  was  in  Tyler's  party  before  Julia  was  in  Tyler's 
family.  And  John  Tyler  in  1842  needed  all  the  help  he  could  command. 


4? 


JOHN   TYLER: 
HIS   FATHER'S    SON,   1790-1820 


For  myself,  I  cannot  and  will  not  yield  one  inch  of 
the  ground. 

JOHN    TYLER,    1 820 


Few  American  Presidents  have  left  a  record  of  their  childhood  so  scanty 
as  that  of  John  Tyler.  Much  of  what  has  survived — the  anecdotes 
and  the  distant  recollections — is  tinged  with  myth  and  fantasy.  It  is 
known  that  the  tenth  President  was  born  the  second  of  three  sons 
(there  were  five  daughters)  to  John  and  Mary  Armistead  Tyler  on 
March  29,  1790,  at  Greenway,  a  twelve-hundred-acre  family  estate  on 
the  James  River  in  Charles  City  County,  Virginia.  Beyond  that,  little 
can  be  said  about  John  Tyler  until  he  entered  the  preparatory  division 
of  William  and  Mary  College  in  1802.  As  a  youth  he  was  very  slight 
in  build;  his  long,  thin  patrician  face  was  dominated  by  the  high 
cheekbones  and  the  prominent  Roman  nose  he  would  later  joke  about 
— the  "Tyler  nose/'  Julia  called  it.  His  lips  were  thin  and  tight,  his 
dark  brown  hair  was  silken.  Physically,  he  was  never  robust.  He  was 
always  much  too  thin  and  throughout  his  life  he  was  highly  susceptible  to 
colds,  to  severe  gastric  upsets,  and  to  frequent  attacks  of  diarrhea.  As 
a  child  and  young  man  he  was  serious-looking,  inclined  to  moodiness. 
When  he  was  seven,  in  April  1797,  his  mother  died  of  a  paralytic 
stroke.  He  thus  grew  to  adulthood  without  the  comforting  guidance 
of  a  woman. 

Judge  John  Tyler  raised  young  John  to  manhood  and  by  all  sur- 
viving accounts  he  did  an  excellent  job  of  it.  The  future  President 
would  always  recall  with  tenderness  a  picture  of  the  old  Judge  as  he 
sat  on  the  front  lawn  of  Greenway  playing  his  violin  for  the  plantation 
youngsters  or  telling  them  tall  stories  of  the  great  revolution  against 


Britain.  He  was  a  great  favorite  of  the  local  small  fry,  white  and 
Negro.  Young  John  Inherited  his  father's  love  of  music  and  he  learned 
to  "fiddle,"  as  he  called  it,  at  an  early  age.  It  was  a  relaxing  hobby 
to  which  he  returned  after  the  frustrating  White  House  years.  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  as  one  story  has  it,  that  he  played  the  instrument  so 
movingly  at  the  age  of  ten  that  mice  emerged  from  the  baseboard  to 
dance  to  his  tunes. 

Given  the  paucity  of  details  of  Tyler's  childhood  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  biographical  gap  has  been  filled  with  the  standard 
motifs  of  a  precocious  and  foreordained  youth  which  Americans  de- 
mand of  their  Presidents — myths  assiduously  propagated  by  eager 
campaign  biographers  at  election  time.  Hence  if  John  Tyler  cannot  in  all 
honesty  be  placed  In  a  log  cabin  at  birth  (there  were  rude  log  cabins  at 
Green  way  plantation  but  they  were  inhabited  by  Judge  Tyler's  forty 
slaves),  his  biographers  have  linked  him  with  the  Child-of -Destiny 
motif  and  with  the  David-and-Goliath  theme. 

The  first  of  these  harmless  little  stories  has  his  mother  holding 
him  In  her  arms  on  a  bright  moonlit  night  at  Greenway  In  1791.  The 
baby  caught  sight  of  the  shining  orb  through  the  branches  of  an  old 
willow  tree,  eagerly  stretched  his  chubby  arms  heavenward,  and  cried 
bitterly  for  the  moon.  At  this  point,  according  to  the  legend,  the 
mother  quietly  whispered,  "This  child  is  destined  to  be  a  President  of 
the  United  States.,  his  wishes  fly  so  high." 

The  second  tale  pits  young  John  Tyler  against  the  local  Goliath 
symbol,  Mr.  McMurdo,  a  cruel  Scottish  schoolmaster  who  held  forth, 
birch  In  hand,  at  the  little  school  on  the  River  Road  near  Greenway. 
According  to  this  legend,  the  tyranny  of  the  rod  finally  became  so 
oppressive  and  unjust  that  John  led  a  schoolboy  revolt  which  resulted 
in  the  physical  overpowering  and  manacling  of  the  giant,  much  to  the 
satisfaction  of  his  father,  who  shouted  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  on  learn- 
ing of  the  classroom  revolution.  Tyler  did  later  recall  that  it  was  a 
wonder  McMurdo  "did  not  whip  all  the  sense  out  of  his  scholars,"  but 
he  never  verified  the  specific  fact  of  the  revolt  or  mentioned  his  alleged 
role  in  it. 

Nevertheless,  the  McMurdo  yarn  probably  has  a  larger  grain  of 
truth  in  it  than  one  which  pictures  Vice-President  Tyler  down  on  his 
hands  and  knees  at  sunrise  one  morning  in  April  1841  playing  marbles 
with  his  sons  when  sweaty  couriers  from  Washington  ride  up  to  inform 
him  that  General  Harrison  has  died  and  that  he  has  become  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  This,  of  course,  is  the  homey-touch 
theme  which  is  also  required  of  American  Presidents  by  their  constit- 
uents, and  it  would  be  somewhat  more  believable  in  this  instance  were 
it  not  known  that  in  1841  two  of  Tyler's  sons  were  married  men  in 
their  twenties  and  only  the  third,  Tazewell,  was  at  the  marble-playing 
age.1 

49 


Only  in  1802  does  John  Tyler  emerge  from  the  shadows  of  my- 
thology. In  that  year  he  traveled  from  Greenway  to  Williamsburg  to 
enter  the  secondary  division  of  the  College  of  William  and  Mary.  The 
twelve-year-old  boy  boarded  in  town  with  his  brother-in-law,  Judge 
James  Semple.  In  1806  his  name  first  appeared  on  the  roll  of  the  col- 
legiate students,  although  it  is  probable  he  began  college-level  studies 
a  year  earlier.  The  college  curriculum  at  the  time  was  a  narrow  one — 
classical  languages  and  English  literature  predominating — but  in  his 
undergraduate  years  Tyler  was  also  introduced  to  history  and  political 
economy.  The  text  used  in  the  economics  course  was  Adam  Smith's  re- 
cently published  Wealth  of  Nations,  and  Tyler  seems  to  have  com- 
mitted its  concepts  and  leading  arguments  to  memory.  His  subsequent 
speeches  on  the  tariff  and  free  trade  were  drawn  almost  verbatim  from 
this  influential  work.  Indeed,  Smith's  persuasive  arguments  for  govern- 
ment noninterference  in  the  sphere  of  individual  enterprise  neatly  com- 
plemented emerging  states'  rights  arguments  in  the  field  of  economic 
policy,  and  Tyler  was  quick  to  enlist  them  in  the  South's  struggle  against 
any  and  all  latitudinal  constructions  of  the  Constitution  on  tariff  and 
trade  questions.2 

By  all  reports  Tyler's  academic  career  at  William  and  Mary  was 
a  brilliant  one,  and  his  subsequent  devotion  to  his  alma  mater  would 
gladden  the  heart  of  any  present-day  alumni  secretary.  In  1807,  at  the 
age  of  seventeen,  he  was  graduated  from  the  little  college  he  loved  so 
much.  He  returned  to  Charles  City  and  began  the  study  of  law,  first 
under  his  father's  direction,  then  under  that  of  his  cousin,  Chancellor 
Samuel  Tyler.  Finally,  when  his  father  became  governor  in  1809,  he 
studied  in  the  Richmond  office  of  the  brilliant  Edmund  Randolph, 
former  United  States  Attorney  General  in  the  Washington  administra- 
tion. His  work  with  Randolph  he  remembered  as  the  least  satisfactory. 
He  recoiled  with  distaste  from  the  Federalist  principles  to  which 
Randolph  exposed  him,  principles  which  undercut  the  states'  rights 
teachings  of  his  father  and  his  William  and  Mary  professors.  Randolph's 
loose  construction  of  the  Constitution  and  his  advocacy  of  a  strong 
central  government  pained  Tyler  greatly.  "He  proposed  a  supreme 
national  government,"  Tyler  recalled  in  horror,  "with  a  supreme  ex- 
ecutive, a  supreme  legislature,  and  a  supreme  judiciary,  and  a  power  in 
Congress  to  veto  state  laws."  It  was  shocking.3 

-*^ 

The  most  important  single  fact  that  can  be  derived  from  John 
Tyler's  formative  years  is  that  he  absorbed  in  toto  the  political,  social, 
and  economic  views  of  his  distinguished  father,  John  Tyler,  Sr.,  Revo- 
lutionary War  patriot,  governor  of  Virginia  (1809-1811),  and  judge  of 
the  United  States  Circuit  Court.  Judge  Tyler  was  a  congenital  rebel 
and  individualist,  an  intellectual  child  of  the  French  Enlightenment, 
devoted  in  person,  idea,  and  political  loyalty  to  his  friend  and  con- 

50 


temporary,  Thomas  Jefferson.  These  qualities  and  attitudes  he  passed 
undiluted  to  his  son,  and  the  William  and  Mary  faculty  saw  that  they 
stuck. 

Born  in  1746,  Judge  Tyler  was  a  direct  descendant  of  Henry 
Tyler,  first  of  the  family  in  America,  who  had  arrived  in  Williamsburg 
from  England  in  1653.  l^16  English  background  of  Henry  Tyler  is 
as  obscure  as  the  origin  of  Lion  Gardiner.  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  the  family 
biographer,  once  argued  that  Henry  Tyler  was  an  aristocratic  Cava- 
lier in  flight  from  Puritan  despotism,  and  that  the  whole  Tyler 
clan  was  directly  descended  from  the  famous  Wat  Tyler,  the  fourteenth- 
century  revolutionist  against  the  tyranny  of  Richard  II.  To  further 
this  dubious  connection  Judge  Tyler  named  one  of  his  sons  Wat.  But 
Hke  the  wished-for  Gardiner  alliance  with  Robert  Fitzwalter  and  the 
Barons  of  Runnymede,  the  claim  can  be  established  neither  histori- 
cally nor  genealogically.  It  is  probably  just  as  well.  Wat  Tyler  had 
a  conception  of  private  property  and  social  equality  scarcely  acceptable 
to  Ms  slaveowning  descendants  on  the  Tidewater  Virginia  plantations. 
He  was,  in  truth,  an  egalitarian  socialist.  Nevertheless,  John  Tyler 
himself  accepted  the  alleged  family  connection  with  Wat  the  Red  and 
gloried  In  it,  defending  its  legitimacy  against  all  doubters.  "I  am  proud 
of  Wat  Tyler  and  cannot  let  him  go/'  he  once  confessed.  So  it  passed 
into  the  family  tradition.4 

More  solidly  based  in  historical  certainty  than  the  Wat  Tyler  con- 
nection is  the  Revolutionary  career  of  Judge  John  Tyler.  Not  only  did 
he  serve  with  distinction  in  the  Virginia  legislature  during  the  un- 
pleasantness with  the  Redcoats,  risking  his  life  and  his  property  in  the 
great  cause  throughout  its  darkest  and  most  discouraging  days,  he 
also  emerged  from  the  contest  as  one  of  the  Old  Dominion's  leading 
voices  for  a  strengthening  of  the  wartime  Articles  of  Confederation. 
As  a  member  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates  in  1785-1786,  the 
Judge  helped  draft  the  resolutions  appointing  Virginia's  delegates  to 
the  famous  Annapolis  Convention.  This  meeting,  a  preliminary  to  the 
Constitutional  Convention  in  Philadelphia  in  1787,  was  called  to  con- 
sider the  propriety  of  investing  the  Confederation  Congress  with  enough 
additional  power  to  regulate  and  promote  interstate  commerce.  This 
limited  function  by  a  weak  central  authority  Judge  Tyler  favored.  He 
did  not  support  the  corollary  idea  that  commerce  regulation  should 
expand  into  or  take  on  the  form  of  a  whole  new  constitutional  and 
federative  political  system.  "I  wished  Congress  to  have  the  regulation 
of  trade/5  he  recalled  in  stunned  disbelief  at  what  eventually  happened 
in  Philadelphia  in  1787-1788,  "but  it  never  entered  my  head  that  we 
should  quit  liberty  and  throw  ourselves  into  the  hands  of  an  energetic 
government.  When  I  consider  the  Constitution  in  all  its  parts,  I  cannot 
but  dread  its  operation.  It  contains  a  variety  of  powers  too  dangerous 
to  be  vested  in  any  set  of  men  whatsoever."  5 

51 


To  Judge  Tyler,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  little 
less  than  the  beginning  of  tyranny  in  America;  and  as  a  member  of 
Virginia's  1788  convention  to  consider  the  new  document  he  worked 
vigorously ,  albeit  unsuccessfully ,  to  block  its  ratification.  "Little  did 
I  think  that  matters  would  come  to  this  when  we  separated  from  the 
mother  country,"  he  told  the  convention  sadly.  Clearly,  he  missed  the 
point  that  the  Constitution  was  actually  a  very  conservative  docu- 
ment. While  under  its  subsequently  adopted  Bill  of  Rights  (which 
Judge  Tyler  strongly  favored)  it  guaranteed  certain  individual  liber- 
ties to  all  white  male  adults,  it  then  effectively  removed  real  power 
from  the  hands  of  these  same  people  with  a  system  of  political  filters 
and  a  provision  permitting  the  states  themselves  to  determine  the  con- 
ditions of  suffrage.  A  complicated  arrangement  of  checks  and  balances 
within  the  federal  authority  was  skillfully  designed  to  render  the  gov- 
ernment virtually  impervious  to  pressures  and  manipulations  by  any 
man,  special-interest  group,  state,  or  section.  Its  theory  of  residual  state 
power  and  its  complex  amending  clause  also  contributed  to  its  conserva- 
tive stability.  In  its  final  form  it  was  a  brilliantly  contrived  monument 
to  the  status  quo  that  over  the  years  would  demand  the  most  elastic 
judicial  interpretation  to  make  it  function  at  all.  Indeed,  it  would 
ultimately  require  the  bold  decisions  of  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall 
and  the  near-revolutionary  agitations  of  Andrew  Jackson's  unwashed 
multitudes  to  blast  it  into  the  evolution  that  gave  it  life  and  preserved 
it.  At  the  moment  of  its  birth,  however,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  hardly  a  radical,  a  dangerous,  or  even  a  democratic  docu- 
ment. 

The  Tylers,  father  and  son,  were  determined  to  keep  it  that  way. 
Initially  they  were  not  fearful  of  the  rise  of  the  masses;  they  feared 
the  use  of  the  federal  machinery  by  one  sector  of  the  propertied  class 
to  exercise  a  tyranny  over  the  other — the  Northern  merchants  over 
the  Southern  planters.  Only  by  maintaining  the  power  of  the  individual 
states  over  their  own  internal  affairs  could  the  nationalistic  implica- 
tions of  the  document,  weak  as  these  were,  be  cribbed  and  the  pre- 
rogatives of  the  Virginia  planter  and  his  feudal  way  of  life  be  preserved. 
This  in  essence  was  what  Judge  Tyler  and  John  Tyler  meant  when 
they  invoked  "states'  rights"  as  the  key  to  "individual  liberty."  It  was 
not  a  theoretical  abstraction.  Instead,  the  states3  rights  idea  in  the 
South  was  the  main  foundation  of  a  society  dominated  by  slaveowning 
white  men  of  property.  The  alternative  was  a  powerful  central  gov- 
ernment run  by  and  for  the  merchant  classes — or  those  with  no 
property  at  all.  To  prevent  the  capture,  consolidation,  and  manipulation 
of  the  machinery  of  the  federal  government  by  such  untrustworthy 
people,  the  Constitution  had  to  remain  the  static  document  it  was.  Any 
interpretation  that  rendered  it  more  democratic,  more  responsive  to  the 
popular  will,  more  relevant  to  the  revolutionary  theory  of  the  equality 

52 


of  men,  or  more  powerful  and  efficient  in  Its  practical  operation  In  rela- 
tion to  the  states  had  to  be  opposed  with  all  the  vigor  of  Horatio  at 
the  bridge.  For  this  reason  John  Tyler,  like  his  father  before  him,  would 
spend  the  greater  part  of  a  political  lifetime  demanding  a  starkly 
literal  Interpretation  of  the  written  words  of  the  conservative  docu- 
ment, voicing  these  demands  with  all  the  fervor  of  a  Bible  Belt  Funda- 
mentalist elucidating  the  Book  of  Exodus  to  a  backwoods  congregation. 
In  sum,  he  insisted  that  the  rules  of  the  game  not  be  changed  while 
the  game  was  in  progress.  The  original  rules  would  do  nicely. 

Given  the  gradual  broadening  of  white  male  suffrage  in  the  18203- 
18303  under  the  Impact  of  Jacksonian  democracy,  strict  construction 
also  seemed  the  only  alternative  to  the  potential  political  tyranny  of  a 
Northern  and  Western  majority  over  the  "peculiar  institution"  of  hu- 
man slavery.  Thus  John  Tyler,  tutored  at  his  father's  knee,  would 
view  nationalistic  phrases  in  the  Constitution  like  "We  the  people  of 
the  United  States5'  and  "the  general  welfare"  as  semantic  booby  traps 
requiring  constant  defusing  and  disarming  in  the  interest  of  states' 
rights  and  the  maintenance  of  slavery  as  a  legal  form  of  private  prop- 
erty. He  consistently  eulogized  the  "primitive  simplicity"  of  the  docu- 
ment, noting  frequently  that  he  was  "a  republican  after  the  strictest 
sect,"  a  true  keeper  of  the  original  flame.6 

As  a  young  man  John  Tyler  was  less  certain  of  his  relationship 
to  the  slave  institution.  In  general,  he  followed  his  father  in  accept- 
ing the  fact  of  slavery.  And,  like  his  father,  he  was  a  slaveowner  all  his 
life.  Nevertheless,  he  opposed  a  continuation  of  the  African  slave  trade. 
As  a  United  States  senator  in  1832  he  fought  for  legislation  to  end 
the  actual  buying  and  selling  of  human  beings  within  the  shadow  of  the 
Capitol.  The  sight  of  this  made  him  physically  ill.  He  never  attended 
a  slave  auction.  As  President  he  signed  in  1842  the  treaty  with  Britain 
which  obligated  the  United  States  to  maintain  naval  units  on  the 
African  coast  to  enforce  the  nation's  anti-slave-trade  laws. 

At  the  same  time  he  never  advocated  or  supported  an  effective 
program  of  slavery  abolition;  nor  would  he  ever  acknowledge  the  right 
or  duty  of  the  federal  government  to  interfere  in  the  brutalizing  in- 
stitution at  the  state,  local,  or  personal  level.  He  never  manumitted 
any  of  his  own  slaves.  Instead,  he  found  comfort  of  sorts  supporting 
the  notion  of  "gradual  abolition"  in  Virginia  though  the  impractical 
African  Colonization  scheme.  He  also  advocated  a  diffusion  or  "bleed- 
ing" of  the  Old  Dominion  slave  population  into  and  throughout  the 
territories — a  form  of  abolition  by  anemia.  In  moments  of  candor  he  ad- 
mitted that  the  removal  of  Negroes  to  Liberia  was  little  more  than  a 
Utopian  solution  to  slavery,  "a  dream  of  philanthropy,  visiting  men's 
pillows  in  their  sleep,  to  cheat  them  on  their  waking."  Since  both 
"solutions"  to  the  problem  were  impractical,  and  gradual  to  the  point 
of  being  glacial,  Tyler  in  effect  upheld  the  slavery  institution  through- 

53 


out  his  life.  Still,  he  wished  sincerely  that  slavery  would  just  go  away 
somehow,  quietly  and  without  fuss.  He  hoped  for  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  his  own  economic  welfare  and  that  of  his  large  family  became 
inexorably  linked  with  the  slave-labor  system  after  his  retirement  from 
the  White  House  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  1845. 

At  Sherwood  Forest  he  conducted  a  slavery  operation  that  was 
humanitarian,  gentle,  and  paternalistic.  There  were  no  whips,  lashes, 
split  families,  or  runaways.  On  Sherwood  Forest  plantation  the  Ne- 
groes did  sing  and  dance  and  play  their  banjos  and  clack  their  bones. 
But  the  realization  that  he  was  a  kind  master  brought  John  Tyler  no 
closer  to  a  moral  evaluation  of  the  system.  He  simply  borrowed  Judge 
Tyler's  view  that  slavery  had  been  fastened  on  the  United  States  by  the 
colonial  policy  of  Great  Britain.  This  conveniently  identified  the  em- 
barrassing institution  with  a  hated  foreign  symbol  and  glossed  over 
his  moral  confusion  on  the  issue.  It  was  a  weak  rationalization,  but  it 
was  an  important  contributing  factor  to  the  intense  Anglophobia  he 
carried  with  him  through  life.  As  late  as  1851,  on  a  visit  to  Niagara 
Falls,  John  Tyler  would  refuse  so  much  as  to  set  foot  on  British  soil.7 

The  slavery  problem  was  still  a  small  black  cloud  on  a  distant 
horizon  in  1811  when  Tyler  attained  his  majority  and  began  the  prac- 
tice of  law  in  Charles  City  County.  That  year  he  was  also  elected  to 
the  Charles  City  seat  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates.  As  a  lawyer 
and  a  state  legislator  he  exhibited  all  the  characteristics  of  a  young 
man  in  a  hurry.  He  loved  the  law,  which  he  regarded  as  the  "high 
road  to  fame/'  and  he  quickly  became  a  brilliant  courtroom  performer. 
At  the  outset  of  his  legal  career  he  took  many  near-hopeless  criminal 
cases  because  they  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  develop  and  polish  that 
feeling  for  the  grandiloquent  which  ultimately  placed  him  in  the  very 
first  rank  of  American  orators.  At  his  best,  Tyler  was  the  rhetorical 
equal  of  Webster,  Clay,  Benton,  and  Calhoun  in  his  ability  to  move 
and  manipulate  an  audience.  This  mastery  of  the  spoken  word  he  first 
learned  in  the  Charles  City  courthouse.  As  a  young  lawyer  he  dis- 
covered that  the  way  to  a  juror's  heart  was  often  not  through  the  law 
but  through  the  emotions.  Like  the  clergyman  who  pounds  the  pulpit 
harder  as  his  theology  becomes  weaker,  Tyler  developed  a  forensic  style 
that  permitted  him  to  play  on  the  emotions  of  jurors  as  though  they 
were  strings  of  his  violin.  Jefferson  Davis  once  said  that  "as  an  extem- 
poraneous speaker,  I  regard  [Tyler]  as  the  most  felicitous  among  the 
orators  I  have  known."  8 

As  a  tyro  legislator  young  Tyler  made  an  instant  impact  in  the 
House  of  Delegates  in  1811.  The  point  at  stake  was  the  national-bank 
question,  the  issue  on  which  John  Tyler  rode  into  national  prominence 
in  the  18303  and  the  one  that  would  ultimately  break  the  back  of  his 
Presidency  in  1841.  In  1791  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States  had 

54 


been  chartered  by  Congress  for  a  twenty-year  period.  The  Bank  was 
a  privately  owned  and  operated  institution  (in  which  the  federal  govern- 
ment held  only  20  per  cent  of  the  stock)  designed  to  act  as  a  fiscal  agent 
for  the  government.  It  was  also  a  depository  for  government  funds, 
and  it  was  further  empowered  to  issue  currency  secured  by  govern- 
ment deposits  and  by  its  own  capita!  resources.  Alexander  Hamilton 
and  other  Federalist  economists  of  the  period  hoped  that  this  currency 
would  provide  the  new  nation  a  much-needed,  stable,  and  standardized 
medium  of  exchange.  The  charter  also  permitted  the  establishment  of 
branch  banks  in  the  principal  commercial  cities  of  the  several  states. 
It  was.  then7  essentially  a  private  corporation  with  monopolistic  power 
to  do  the  banking  business  of  the  federal  government  throughout  the 
states.  As  such  it  had  no  specific  constitutionality,  and  the  incorpora- 
tion bill  passed  the  Congress  in  a  welter  of  sectional  controversy,  the 
South  vigorously  in  opposition.  For  this  reason  President  Washington 
hesitated  signing  the  measure. 

Soliciting  the  written  opinions  of  his  Cabinet  members  on  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  Bank,  the  President  received  from  Jefferson  the 
positive  view  that  the  Constitution  nowhere  empowered  the  Con- 
gress to  incorporate  a  bank.  Alexander  Hamilton,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  a  brilliant  and  seminal  state  paper,  set  forth  the  doctrine  of  "im- 
plied  powrers,"  arguing  that  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  col- 
lect taxes  and  regulate  trade  also  implied  the  constitutionality  of  a 
bank  in  which  to  deposit  the  tax  and  tariff  receipts.  As  he  put  it 
(firing  the  shot  which  thenceforth  in  American  history  separated  the 
Hamiltonian  "loose  constructionists"  from  the  Jeffersonian  "strict  con- 
structionists"),  "If  the  end  be  clearly  comprehended  within  any  of 
the  specified  powers,  and  if  the  measure  have  an  obvious  relation  to  that 
end,  and  is  not  forbidden  by  any  particular  provision  of  the  Con- 
stitution, it  may  safely  be  deemed  to  come  within  the  compass  of  the 
national  authority."  Washington  accepted  this  interpretation,  rejected 
Jefferson's  protests,  and  signed  the  controversial  bill  into  law.9 

It  was  the  possibility  of  just  such  semantic  taffy-pulling  within 
the  framework  of  the  Constitution  that  Judge  Tyler  had  protested  in 
1788.  When  the  Bank  charter  came  up  in  Congress  for  renewal  in 
1811,  both  the  Judge  and  his  son  carefully  watched  Virginia's  reaction 
to  the  menace  from  Washington.  The  issue  was  thoroughly  debated 
in  the  Virginia  legislature  during  the  1810-1811  session,  the  year  before 
young  Tyler  arrived  on  the  scene.  At  that  time  the  legislature  had  over- 
whelmingly voted  to  "instruct"  Virginia's  United  States  senators,  Wil- 
liam B.  Giles  and  Richard  Brent,  to  work  against  and  vote  against 
the  renewal  of  the  Bank  charter  when  it  came  before  the  Senate.  Both 
senators  had,  however,  disobeyed  these  instructions  from  Richmond,, 
Brent  outright  and  Giles  partially. 

Although  the  Bank  renewal  bill  was  killed  in  the  Senate  in  Febru- 

55 


ary  1811,  forcing  the  institution  temporarily  out  of  existence,  young 
Tyler  decided  that  Virginia's  erring  senators  should  be  signally  pun- 
ished. Not  only  was  he  convinced  of  the  absolute  unconstitutionality  of 
a  national  bank,  but  he  was  also  angry  that  the  senators  the  legislature 
had  elected  and  sent  to  Washington  had  defied  the  authority  of  that 
legislature  and  hence  the  authority  of  the  "sovereign"  state  of  Virginia. 
Thus  when  he  reached  the  House  of  Delegates  late  in  1811  Tyler  in- 
troduced three  spot  resolutions,  "without  conference  or  consultation 
with  any  human  being/7  censuring  Giles  and  Brent  for  their  failure  to 
obey  the  specific  instructions  of  the  legislature  on  the  Bank  question. 
This  action,  as  precocious  as  it  was  brash,  drew  immediate  attention 
to  the  ambitious  young  man  from  Charles  City.  The  Tyler  motions 
were  referred  to  a  select  committee.  From  this  ordeal  they  emerged 
in  watered-down  form,  but  the  basic  idea  asserting  the  right  of  the 
legislature  to  instruct  its  United  States  senators  survived  intact,  and  the 
Tyler  resolutions  were  passed  by  the  House  of  Delegates  97  to  20. 
For  the  new  member  from  Charles  City  it  was  a  heady  victory.10 

His  legal  and  political  careers  signally  commenced,  John  Tyler 
felt  prepared  to  take  a  wife.  He  had  thought  the  matter  through 
carefully.  "The  very  moment  a  man  can  say  to  himself,  'if  I  die  to- 
morrow, my  wife  will  be  independent/  he  is  fully  authorized  to  obey 
the  impulse  of  affection,"  he  maintained.  Convinced  that  he  was  ready 
for  the  step,  he  obeyed  his  own  impulse,  and  on  March  29,  1813,  his 
twenty-third  birthday,  he  married  Letitia  Christian  of  Cedar  Grove 
plantation  in  New  Kent  County.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Robert  Chris- 
tian, and  from  a  material  standpoint  the  match  was  an  advantageous 
one  for  the  groom,  even  though  he  had  inherited  part  of  the  Greenway 
estate  from  his  recently  deceased  father  and  now  had  property  and 
slaves  of  his  own.  The  Christians  were  a  numerous,  politically  promi- 
nent, and  wealthy  tribe,  and  when  the  bride's  parents  died  soon  after 
the  wedding,  Letitia  came  into  a  sizable  competence.  In  the  single 
surviving  love  letter  Tyler  wrote  her  before  their  marriage,  dated 
December  1812,  he  made  the  point  that  while  his  own  financial  situa- 
tion was  clearly  not  equal  to  hers,  that  fact  alone  made  him  realize 
that  she  truly  loved  him: 

You  express  some  degree  of  astonishment,  my  L.,  at  an  observation  I  once 
made  to  you,  "that  I  would  not  have  been  willingly  wealthy  at  the  time  I 
addressed  you,"  Suffer  me  to  repeat  it.  If  I  had  been  wealthy,  the  idea  of 
your  being  actuated  by  prudential  considerations  in  accepting  my  suit,  would 
have  eternally  tortured  me.  But  I  exposed  to  you  frankly  and  unblushingly 
my  situation  in  life — my  hopes  and  my  fears,  my  prospects  and  my  de- 
pendencies— and  you  nobly  responded.  To  ensure  to  you  happiness  is  now 
my  only  object,  and  whether  I  float  or  sink  in  the  stream  of  fortune,  you 
may  be  assured  of  this,  that  I  shall  never  cease  to  love  you.11 

.«H8^— +~<B»»» 

56 


There  is  no  evidence  that  the  gentle  Letltia  thought  Tyler  himself 
might  have  been  "actuated  by  prudential  considerations."  She  was  a 
quiet  and  introverted  girl,  more  beautiful  in  facial  features  than  Julia 
Gardiner.  Socially  reserved  in  manner,  domestic  in  her  interests,  she 
was  unconcerned  with  the  subtle  economics  of  marriage  alliances  within 
the  planter  aristocracy.  She  was  in  love  with  the  young  lawyer  and 
legislator  from  Greenway,  and  she  wanted  him  as  he  was.  Their  court- 
ship was  a  calm,  undemonstrative  affair.  Tyler  confessed  that  until 
three  weeks  before  the  wedding  he  had  not  even  dared  kiss  Letitia's 
hand,  "so  perfectly  reserved  and  modest"  was  she.  A  few  sonnets  ad- 
dressed to  her,  a  few  books  lent  and  discussed,  and  they  were  married. 
Not  surprisingly,  Tyler  regarded  the  approaching  ceremony  with  a 
certain  impassivity.  Six  days  before  the  wedding  he  wrote  his  friend 
Henry  Curtis,  "I  had  really  calculated  on  experiencing  a  tremor  on  the 
near  approach  of  the  day;  but  I  believe  that  I  am  so  much  of  the 
old  man  already  as  to  feel  less  dismay  at  a  change  of  situation  than 
the  greater  part  of  those  of  my  age."  12 

The  Tyler- Christian  marriage  was  a  tranquil  relationship  through- 
out. It  gave  off  none  of  the  sparks  of  Tyler's  later  marriage  to 
Julia  Gardiner.  It  was,  however,  a  happy  marriage,  and  it  remained 
so  for  twenty-nine  years.  Letitia  Christian  Tyler  was  a  lovely  woman. 
Every  surviving  account  of  her,  every  recollection,  emphasizes  her 
domestic  virtues,  her  sweetness  of  manner,  her  devout  religious  life,  and 
her  selflessness.  Her  seven  children  were  devoted  to  her.  Still,  Letitia 
Tyler  never  really  emerges  from  the  mists  of  history,  perhaps  because 
none  of  her  own  letters  survived.  She  preferred  to  remain  wholly  in  the 
background  of  Tyler's  public  career  as  he  moved  steadily  from  the 
House  of  Delegates  upward  through  the  House  of  Representatives,  the 
governorship  of  Virginia,  the  United  States  Senate,  and  into  the  White 
House.  She  had  no  known  political  interests  and  no  desire  to  live  in 
Washington.  So  wretched  were  living  accommodations  in  the  mudhole 
that  was  the  capital,  and  so  comfortable  did  she  make  her  successive 
homes  at  Woodburn,  Greenway,  Gloucester,  and  Williamsburg  that 
she  accompanied  her  husband  to  Washington  only  once  before  his 
elevation  to  the  Presidency.  This  was  in  the  winter  of  1828-1829. 
During  this  brief  exposure  in  the  capital  she  wa^  remarked  upon  for 
her  "beauty  of  person  and  eloquence  of  manner."  J3n  only  one  occasion 
did  she  visit  the  fashionable  watering  places  of  the  North,  preferring 
instead,  when  she  left  home  at  all,  the  various  Virginia  springs,  j  She 
knitted  and  stitched  and  gardened  (she  loved  flowers),  supervised  her 
household  slaves  with  humanity  and  kindness,  raised  her  seven  chil- 
dren, and  minded  her  own  business.  Hers  was  a  quiet  and  useful  life, 
filled  with  domestic  interests.  She  remained,  by  choice,  well  removed 
from  the  limelight  of  her  husband's  political  career.13 

57 


After  Letitia  was  semi-invalided  by  a  paralytic  stroke  in  1839  s^e 
lived  out  her  few  remaining  years  in  the  seclusion  of  her  bedchamber, 
demanding  no  special  attention,  creating  no  special  problem.  When 
Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  wife  of  Letitia Js  oldest  son  Robert,  first  met 
her  new  mother-in-law  in  1839  she  noted  that  Letitia,  then  forty-seven, 

. . .  must  have  been  very  beautiful  in  her  youth,  for  she  is  still  beautiful  now 
in  her  declining  years  and  wretched  health.  Her  skin  is  as  smooth  and  soft  as 
a  baby's;  she  has  sweet,  loving  black  eyes,  and  her  features  are  delicately 
moulded;  besides  this,  her  feet  and  hands  are  perfect;  and  she  is  gentle  and 
graceful  in  her  movements,  with  a  most  peculiar  air  of  native  refinement 
about  everything  she  says  and  does.  She  is  the  most  entirely  unselfish  person 
you  can  imagine.  I  do  not  believe  she  ever  thinks  of  herself.  Her  whole 
thought  and  affections  are  wrapped  up  in  her  husband  and  children. . . .  The 
room  in  the  main  dwelling  furtherest  removed  and  most  retired  is  "the  cham- 
ber/' as  the  bedroom  of  the  mistress  of  the  house  is  always  called  in  Virginia 
. . .  here  Mother  with  a  smile  of  welcome  on  her  sweet,  calm  face,  is  always 
found  seated  on  her  large  arm-chair  with  a  small  stand  by  her  side,  which 
holds  her  Bible  and  her  prayer-book — the  only  books  she  ever  reads  now — 
with  her  knitting  usually  in  her  hands,  always  ready  to  sympathize  with  me 
in  any  little  homesickness  which  may  disturb  me. . . .  Notwithstanding  her 
very  delicate  health,  Mother  attends  to  and  regulates  all  the  household  affairs, 
and  all  so  quietly  that  you  can't  tell  when  she  does  it.  All  the  clothes  for  the 
children,  and  for  the  servants,  are  cut  out  under  her  immediate  eye,  and  all 
the  sewing  is  personally  superintended  by  her.  All  the  cake,  jellies,  custards, 
and  we  indulge  largely  in  them,  emanate  from  her,  yet  you  see  no  confusion, 
hear  no  bustle,  but  only  meet  the  agreeable  result. 

When  she  was  dying  in  the  White  House  in  September  1842,  her  last 
act  was  to  take  from  a  -bedside  vase  a  damask  rose.  She  was  still  holding 
it  in  her  hand  when  she  was  found  dead.  She  died  as  she  had  lived, 
without  fuss  or  ostentation,  always  in  the  shadow  of  John  Tyler's 
ambition.14 

No  sooner  had  Tyler  settled  with  his  bride  at  Mons-Sacer,  a 
beautiful  five-hundred-acre  section  of  the  Greenway  estate  he  had 
inherited  from  his  father,  than  he  was  called  to  arms  against  the 
British.  Once  again  the  Redcoats  were  marching,  and  during  the  1812 
session  of  the  House  of  Delegates  the  young  legislator  vigorously  upheld 
the  war  measures  of  the  federal  and  state  governments  against  the 
English.  Every  resolution  designed  to  throw  Virginia's  military  and 
economic  weight  effectively  onto  the  balance  received  Tyler's  enthu- 
siastic support.  He  was  convinced  that  Britain's  policy  of  impressment 
and  search  on  the  high  seas,  and  her  interference  with  American 
shipping,  were  the  real  causes  of  the  War  of  1812.  That  the  United 
States  had  intervened  in  the  larger  European  war  on  the  side  of  the 
Napoleonic  military  dictatorship;  that  the  desire  of  the  "War  Hawks" 
for  territorial  expansion  at  the  expense  of  British  Canada  and  Spanish 

58 


Florida  might  have  been  a  fundamental  reason  for  the  conflict;  or 
that  British  Impressment  of  American  seamen  had  been  surrendered  in 
practice  if  not  In  principle  well  before  1812  were  thoughts  that  con- 
cerned Tyler  not  at  all.  He  wanted  war.  Judge  Tyler  wanted  war.  In- 
deed, the  Infirm  Judge,  lying  on  his  deathbed  at  Greenway  In  January 
1813,  cursed  the  fates  that  would  not  permit  him  to  "live  long  enough 
to  see  that  proud  English  nation  once  more  humbled  by  American  arms.'7 
The  fathers  hatred  of  the  ubiquitous  Redcoats  was  the  son's  hatred, 
and  young  Tyler  undertook  to  discomfit  the  traditional  enemy  In  every 
conceivable  manner,  legislatively  and  militarily.15 

The  War  of  1812  was  not  a  glorious  passage  in  American  arms. 
Tyler's  own  military  experience  was  rather  typical  of  the  amateurish 
performance  of  American  militia  which  led  directly  to  the  greatest 
military  disaster  ever  sustained  by  the  United  States.  In  the  summer  of 
1813,  a  British  raiding  party  landed  at  Hampton,  plundered  the  town, 
and  for  a  time  appeared  poised  and  ready  to  march  up  the  James  River 
to  Richmond.  The  Virginia  legislature  had  adjourned  for  the  summer 
and  Tyler  was  home  in  Charles  City  with  his  bride  of  four  months. 
The  British  threat  at  Hampton  fired  his  patriotism.  He  immediately 
joined  a  local  militia  company,  the  Charles  City  Rifles,  raised  for  the 
defense  of  the  state  capital  and  its  river  approaches.  In  this  raw  and 
disorganized  little  unit  Tyler  was  commissioned  Captain,  and  he  set  to 
work  to  produce  something  in  the  ranks  resembling  military  discipline. 
Although  -wholly  ignorant  of  the  military  arts,  he  improvised  a  simple 
system  of  drill  which  the  unskilled  farmers  were  able  to  master.  Thus 
when  the  Charles  City  Rifles  were  attached  to  the  Fifty-Second  Regi- 
ment of  the  Virginia  Militia  and  ordered  to  Williamsburg  they  managed, 
thanks  to  Captain  Tyler,  to  get  there  in  some  sort  of  order.  They  were 
quartered  upstairs  in  the  William  and  Mary  College  building,  there  to 
await  the  approach  of  the  enemy.  One  night  when  all  were  asleep  a 
rumor  was  broadcast  that  British  forces  had  suddenly  entered  the 
town.  Panic  struck  Captain  Tyler's  men.  In  their  eagerness  to  quit 
the  dark  building  the  entire  group,  officers  and  men,  tumbled  head  over 
heels  down  a  long  flight  of  stairs  and  landed  in  a  struggling  heap 
at  the  bottom.  Following  this  self-inflicted  rout,  Tyler's  intrepid  band 
was  attached  to  a  new  unit,  hopefully  titled  the  Second  Elite  Corps 
of  Virginia,  General  Moses  Greene  commanding.  This  assignment  lasted 
one  month  and  was  fortunately  uneventful.  The  British  raiding  force 
soon  withdrew  from  the  Hampton  area,  and  the  Charles  City  patriots 
returned  triumphantly  to  their  farms.  Their  little  war  was  over.16 

Tyler  had  a  good  sense  of  humor  and  he  often  laughed  over  the 
ludicrousness  of  his  brief  military  career.  When  his  political  enemies 
later  referred  to  him  derisively  as  "Captain  Tyler"  or  "The  Captain/' 
he  took  no  offense.  He  frequently  joked  about  his  "distinguished  mili- 
tary services  during  the  War  of  1812,"  and  he  thought  the  whole  ex- 

59 


perience  made  a  delightful  parlor  story.  Nevertheless,  for  his  heroic 
contribution  to  the  defense  of  Williamsburg  he  later  qualified  for  a 
war  bonus  of  one-hundred-sixty  acres  of  land.  He  first  considered  a  plot 
in  St.  John's  County,  Florida,  but  finally  elected  to  take  a  quarter-sec- 
tion in  what  is  now  Sioux  City,  Iowa.  In  the  difficult  days  of  Recon- 
struction Julia  was  happy  to  have  the  monthly  bonus  of  eight  dollars 
later  allotted  by  Congress  to  the  widows  of  War  of  1812  veterans.  So  Ty- 
ler's military  service  was  not  a  waste  of  time  and  effort  after  all.17 

The  fact  remained,  however,  that  John  Tyler  had  little  feeling  for 
the  martial  life.  He  distrusted  the  military  mentality  and  he  feared  the 
appearance  in  American  politics  of  an  American  Napoleon,  a  Man  on 
Horseback.  Men  of  destiny  like  General  Andrew  Jackson  frightened 
him.  He  consistently  opposed  the  creation  of  a  standing  army.  Instead, 
he  became  a  partisan  of  the  infant  United  States  Navy.  This  toothless 
force,  mainly  stationed  abroad,  was  unlikely  to  overthrow  the  govern- 
ment and  Constitution  by  force  and  violence.  When  it  appeared  in  1832 
that  two  erstwhile  military  heroes,  Andrew  Jackson  and  Richard  M. 
Johnson  (the  alleged  slayer  of  Tecumseh),  might  run  together  on  the 
Democratic  ticket,  Tyler  remarked  with  discouragement  that  "the  day 
is  rapidly  approaching  when  an  ounce  of  lead  will,  in  truth,  be  worth 
more  than  a  pound  of  sense."  18 


In  1816,  following  the  close  of  the  unfortunate  War  of  1812,  John 
Tyler  was  elected  to  the  United  States  House  of  Representatives  from 
the  Richmond  district,  defeating  his  good  friend  Andrew  Stevenson  in 
a  special  election  for  the  vacant  seat.  Since  he  and  his  opponent  both 
ran  on  states'  rights  platforms,  the  campaign  was  little  more  than  a 
popularity  contest.  Tyler's  arrival  in  Washington  in  1817  was  not,  of 
course,  that  of  a  raw  freshman  congressman  from  a  frontier  district. 
Member  of  a  prominent  Virginia  family,  son  of  a  former  governor, 
master  of  Woodburn,  and  husband  to  a  daughter  of  the  powerful  Chris- 
tian clan,  Tyler  moved  swiftly  and  surely  into  the  most  exclusive  social 
life  of  the  capital.  Within  a  few  weeks  he  was  dining  at  the  "Seven 
Buildings/'  the  makeshift  home  of  James  and  Dolley  Madison  during 
the  period  of  the  rebuilding  of  the  White  House.  Dinner  at  the 
Madisons'  was  a  gastronornical  experience  that  produced  a  grave  shock 
to  his  system.  The  gracious  Dolley  took  great  pride  in  the  table  she 
set.  Foods  were  sharply  spiced  in  the  French  manner  and  the  champagne 
always  flowed.  "They  have  good  drink,'7  he  wrote  Letitia,  "champagne, 
etc.,  of  which  you  know  I  am  very  fond,  but  I  had  much  rather  dine  at 
home  in  our  plain  way  . . .  what  with  their  sauces  and  flum-fiummeries, 
the  victuals  are  intolerable."  19 

Equally  intolerable  were  living  conditions  in  the  capital  in  those 
years.  Cows  and  hogs  wandered  about  the  muddy  lanes  that  passed  for 
streets.  Malaria-infested  swamps  were  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  few 

60 


scattered  private  residences.  Sidewalks  were  virtually  nonexistent.  The 
town  was  dirty,  sprawling,  and  fever-ridden.  In  the  summer  it  was  a 
stinking  oven.  Even  on  the  main  thoroughfare,  Pennsylvania  Avenue, 
the  street  lamps  were  extinguished  in  iSiS  because  the  District  treasury 
had  no  funds  for  fuel.  It  was  a  city  of  mediocre  boardinghouses  and 
crowded  hotels.  Like  most  of  the  members  of  Congress,  Tyler  lived  in  a 
boardinghouse.  At  these  places  the  food  was  dreadful.  On  one  occasion 
he  was  served  bad  fish  and  was  seriously  ill  for  several  days.  Dolley 
Madison's  fare  may  have  been  too  "Sum-flummery"  for  Tyler's  taste 
but  he  did  not  get  ptomaine  poisoning  at  her  table.  At  the  local  board- 
inghouses any  meal  could  be  a  wild  gamble  with  destiny.  Washington 
was  obviously  no  place  for  Letitia.20 

Tyler's  career  in  the  House  of  Representatives  during  the  years 
1817  to  1820  was  not  distinguished.  It  remains  of  interest  only  be- 
cause the  freshman  congressman  from  Charles  City  made  clear  the  ideas 
he  would  support  for  most  of  the  remainder  of  his  life.  In  his  maiden 
speech  in  the  House  he  laid  down  the  political  principle  which  would 
govern  his  voting  on  important  issues.  He  would  never,  he  said,  at- 
tempt to  court  popular  favor.  "Popularity,  I  have  always  thought,  may 
aptly  be  compared  to  a  coquette — the  more  you  woo  her,  the  more 
apt  is  she  to  elude  your  embrace.'7  On  the  contrary,  he  would  listen  to 
no  "mere  buzz  or  popular  clamour"  from  the  voters  of  his  district,  only 
the  "voice  of  a  majority  of  the  people,  distinctly  ascertained  and  plainly 
expressed."  And  he  would  close  his  ears  to  the  majority  voice  if  his  con- 
stituents ever  demanded  that  he  violate  the  Constitution.  "If  instruc- 
tions go  to  violate  the  Constitution, — they  are  not  binding — and  why? 
My  constituents  have  no  right  to  violate  the  Constitution  themselves," 
he  said,  "and  they  have,  consequently,  no  right  to  require  me  to  do 
that  which  they  themselves  of  right  cannot."  21 

Like  many  of  his  planter-politician  contemporaries  in  the  South, 
especially  those  from  "safe"  districts  like  Charles  City,  Tyler  developed 
no  rapport  with  the  masses  of  people.  Nor  did  he  attempt  to  develop  a 
common  touch.  He  shunned  the  people,  avoided  their  importunities,  and 
defied  their  proclaimed  champions.  "The  barking  of  newspapers  and  the 
brawling  of  demagogues,"  he  once  said,  "can  never  drive  me  from  my 
course.  If  I  am  to  go  into  [political]  retirement,  I  will  at  least  take  care 
to  do  so  with  a  pure  and  unsullied  conscience."  The  warmest  of  men  in 
his  private  life,  he  was  incapable  of  projecting  his  warmth,  good  humor, 
and  camaraderie  to  people  of  humble  station;  in  this  regard  he  was  a 
great  deal  like  Woodrow  Wilson.  A  brilliant  speaker  in  the  presence  of 
other  statesmen  or  to  groups  of  his  social  and  intellectual  peers,  he 
quailed  before  the  indiscriminate  mass  of  men.  He  invariably  preferred 
to  address  them  in  pamphlets  or  through  the  columns  of  newspapers 
rather  than  from  the  stump.  During  the  campaign  of  1840,  forced  to 
tour  the  West  to  carry  the  Whig  message  to  the  decisive  coonskin-cap 

61 


element,  his  speeches  took  on  a  nervous,  unconvincing  ring  as  though  he 
were  half-afraid  some  rough  and  hearty  citizen  would  interrupt  him, 
hand  him  a  cup  of  hard  cider,  slap  him  on  the  back,  and  call  him  "good 
old  Jack  Tyler."  - 

After  the  emergence  of  Andrew  Jackson  onto  the  American  political 
stage,  Tyler  came  to  fear  the  potential  power  of  the  people.  Throughout 
the  remainder  of  his  long  political  life  he  worried  lest  the  establishment 
of  a  £'mere  majority  principle"  in  government  wreck  the  country,  subvert 
the  Constitution,  and  reduce  the  social  order  to  mobocracy.  As  he 
summed  it  up  in  1851,  in  opposing  a  further  broadening  of  the  suffrage 
in  the  Old  Dominion: 

One  word  more.  The  opinion  is  deeply  seated  with  me  that  no  government 
can  last  for  any  length  of  time,  in  consonance  with  public  liberty,  without 
checks  and  balances.  Without  them  we  rush  into  anarchy,  or  seek  repose  in 
the  arms  of  monarchy.  We  can  neither  trust  King  Numbers  or  King  One  with 
unlimited  power.  Both  play  the  despot.  By  the  first,  the  minority  is  made  the 
victim;  by  the  last,  the  whole  people. . . .  The  majority  principle  may  lead 
to  the  establishment  of  a  branch  of  the  Legislature  in  which  the  full  voice  of 
the  "political  people"  may  be  heard,  while  at  the  same  time  those  having 
the  deepest  stake  in  the  community  [the  property  holders]  . . .  may  very  well 
insist  upon  being  protected  by  some  wholesome  check  over  the  action  of  the 
mere  numerical  majority. 

Resisting  "King  Numbers"  and  "King  One,"  Tyler  advocated  instead 
the  reign  of  King  Few,  a  paternalistic  oligarchy  of  influential  property- 
owners.  In  his  view,  this  was  the  only  answer  to  the  dictatorship  of  the 
One  or  the  tyranny  of  the  Many.  Understanding  the  aspirations  of  the 
people  was  not  John  Tyler's  strong  suit.  And  his  inability  to  do  this 
caused  contemporaries  like  Edmund  Rumn  to  conclude  that  "Mr.  Tyler 
has  always  been  a  vain  man.35  This  charge  misses  the  point.  Vanity  was 
not  Tyler's  problem.  He  was  no  more  or  less  vain  than  any  other  of  the 
ambitious  men  of  his  time.  What  appeared  to  be  vanity  was  an  ingrained 
shyness  and  discomfort  in  the  presence  of  people  with  dirty  fingernails. 
He  had  difficulty  communicating  with  citizens  who  moved  their  lips  when 
they  read,  if  indeed  they  could  read  at  all.  He  had  never  had  any  ex- 
perience with  these  people,  and  he  was  too  diffident  to  gain  any.  It  is 
extremely  doubtful  that  John  Tyler  could  ever  have  won  the  White 
House  in  his  own  right  after  Andrew  Jackson  revolutionized  and  democ- 
ratized the  American  image  of  the  Chief  Executive  in  1828-1836.  Tyler 
simply  did  not  have  the  common  touch,  and  no  campaign  biographer 
could  create  what  was  not  there.23 

What  Tyler  could  do  best,  and  what  he  did  do  with  great  energy 
during  his  first  years  in  Washington,  was  to  protect  his  stark  version  of 
the  Constitution  from  the  onslaught  of  the  proponents  of  the  so-called 
American  System.  This  program,  most  prominently  and  consistently 
sponsored  by  Henry  Clay  during  the  decades  after  the  War  of  1812, 

62 


linked  a  protective  tariff  with  a  national  system  of  government-financed 
internal  improvements  and  a  national  bank.  Designed  to  bind  the  sprawl- 
ing and  expanding  country  together,  to  increase  the  domestic  consumer 
market,  subsidize  infant  home  industries,  stabilize  the  currency,  and 
render  the  United  States  less  dependent  commercially  and  economically 
on  a  war-prone  Europe,  the  American  System  sought  to  bring  the  North- 
ern manufacturing  interests  into  a  political  and  economic  alliance  with 
the  turnpike-  and  canal-conscious  frontier  West.  From  this  arrangement 
the  interests  of  the  Tidewater  and  coastal  South  seemed  virtually  ex- 
cluded. 

It  was  a  program  which  stemmed  naturally  and  reactively  from  the 
humiliation  of  the  War  of  1812.  Its  proponents  hoped  that  by  bringing 
together  the  political  and  economic  interests  of  two  of  the  three  great 
sections,  the  North  and  the  West,  something  resembling  a  nation  might 
be  created  out  of  a  loose  confederation  of  individual  states.  The  lesson 
of  American  involvement  in  the  Napoleonic  Wars  was  plain  enough.  The 
United  States  could  not  exist  in  a  world  of  competitive  nation-states  as 
a  vague  and  contentious  confederacy.  Nothing  discredited  the  original 
constitutional  conception  of  a  United  States  more  swiftly  and  positively 
than  the  state  jealousies,  sectional  squabbling,  and  lack  of  central  eco- 
nomic and  military  direction  that  had  characterized  the  prosecution  of 
the  war.  A  seagoing  and  agrarian  people  whose  economic  health  turned 
on  foreign  trade  either  had  to  make  themselves  self-sufficient  economi- 
cally, and  less  dependent  on  foreign  manufactures,  or  maintain  larger 
standing  armed  forces  and  accept  the  necessity  and  inevitability  of 
fighting  for  their  trade  on  the  high  seas  in  each  future  European  war.  In 
this  sense,  the  American  System  was  a  decision  for  and  a  step  toward 
a  national  economic  self-sufficiency  bordering  on  economic  and  com- 
mercial isolation  from  Europe.  It  was  a  sensible  concept  at  the  time. 
In  1816-1836  the  country  needed  a  national  bank,  a  moderate  protec- 
tive tariff,  and  a  system  of  government-sponsored  internal  improvements. 
John  Tyler  and  most  Southern  states7  righters  strenuously  disagreed.  To 
them,  the  constitutional  price  was  too  high  to  pay.  The  United  States 
was  a  confederacy  of  states,  not  a  nation,  and  it  should  stay  that  way. 
The  alternative  was  tyranny. 

At  no  project  did  young  Congressman  Tyler  work  harder  than  in  his 
effort  to  bring  the  second  Bank  of  the  United  States  to  defeat  and  ruin. 
Chartered  by  Congress  in  1816  for  a  twenty-year  period,  the  new  na- 
tional bank,  like  the  old,  was  essentially  a  private  corporation  monopo- 
listically  empowered  to  do  the  government's  banking  business  and  pro- 
vide a  depository  for  its  revenues.  The  need  for  it,  or  something  like  it, 
seemed  obvious  in  1816  when  postwar  inflation,  currency  dislocations, 
and  the  proliferation  of  unsound  private  banks  (many  of  them  little 
more  than  wildcat  operations)  threatened  to  bring  the  fiscal  integrity  of 
the  nation  to  grief.  By  1819,  however,  the  new  Bank  was  in  deep  trouble. 

63 


Mismanagement,  corruption,  and  favoritism  had  stained  its  three  years 
of  operation  and  the  resulting  congressional  Investigation  was  perhaps 
inevitable.  Demands  in  the  South  to  repeal  the  Bank's  charter  altogether 
were  voiced  more  loudly  as  a  sharp  break  in  grain  prices  in  the  European 
market  in  1819  produced  widespread  depression  and  economic  discontent 
in  the  United  States.  The  search  for  a  scapegoat  began  almost  at  once. 
The  Bank  was  it. 

Against  the  background  of  the  depression  an  investigation  of  the 
Bank  was  ordered  and  launched,  and  John  Tyler  was  appointed  to  the 
five-man  congressional  committee  to  carry  it  out.  His  specific  task  was 
to  evaluate  the  operations  of  the  Bank's  branches  in  Washington  and 
Richmond,  This  he  did  over  the  Christmas  recess  of  1818.  The  job  was 
difficult  and  highly  technical.  "To  have  to  wade  through  innumerable 
and  huge  folios  in  order  to  attain  the  objects  of  our  enquiry;  to  have 
money  calculations  to  make;  and  perplex  one's  self  with  all  the  seeming 
mysteries  of  bank  terms,  operations  and  exchanges/'  was  a  task  so  com- 
plex,  he  confessed,  that  "the  strongest  mind  becomes  relaxed  and  the 
imagination  sickens  and  almost  expires."  Yet  he  stuck  doggedly  at  it,  and 
the  experience  made  him  an  expert  on  banking  matters  in  short  order. 
He  did  not  commence  his  investigatory  labors  entirely  free  of  bias.  To 
Ms  brother-in-law  Henry  Curtis,  who  had  married  Tyler's  sister  Chris- 
tiana in  1813,  he  wrote: 

Our  "wise  men  flattered  us  into  the  adoption  of  the  banking  system  under  the 
idea  that  boundless  wealth  would  result  from  the  adoption. . . .  Mountains  were 
to  sink  beneath  the  charm,  and  distant  climates,  by  means  of  canals,  were  to 
be  locked  in  sweet  embraces.  Industry  and  enterprise  were  to  be  afforded 
new  theaters  of  action,  and  the  banks,  like  Midas,  were  to  turn  everything 
into  gold.  The  dream,  however,  is  over — instead  of  riches,  penury  walks  the 
streets  of  our  towns,  and  bankruptcy  knocks  at  every  man's  door.  They 
promised  us  blessings  and  have  given  us  sorrows;  for  the  substance  they  have 
given  the  shadow;  for  gold  and  silver,  rags  and  paper.  The  delusion  is 
over. . .  ,24 

The  report  the  committee  submitted  to  Congress  in  January  1819 
was  a  model  one.  Well  researched,  well  organized,  and  fair,  it  made  sev- 
eral specific  criticisms  of  the  loose  management  of  the  Bank  and  pointed 
out  several  violations  of  the  institution's  charter.  The  most  damaging  of 
these  was  the  accurate  charge  that  the  directors  of  the  Bank  had  en- 
couraged outright  stock-jobbery. 

In  the  subsequent  debate  on  the  floor  of  the  House  Tyler  pressed 
home  a  slashing,  wide-ranging  attack  on  the  institution.  He  argued  that 
the  chartering  of  a  national  bank  was  unconstitutional  to  begin  with, 
that  the  institution  was  shot  through  with  corruption  and  speculation 
(which  was  true),  and  that  the  violation  of  a  single  article  of  its  charter 
should  invalidate  the  whole  charter.  "If  any  one  member  of  the  human 
body  offends/'  he  said,  "the  whole  body  bears  the  punishment.  If  my 

64 


finger  violates  the  law,  my  body  pays  the  penalty.  If  my  hand  commits 
murder,  the  hand  is  not  lopped  off,  but  the  ligaments  and  arteries  of  the 
whole  system  are  cut  asunder."  He  blamed  the  deepening  national  de- 
pression on  speculative  stock- jobbing  (this  was  an  oversimplification  of 
an  extremely  complex  set  of  economic  factors),  and  he  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  "Gloom  and  despondence  are  in  our  cities.  Usury  stalks 
abroad  and  boasts  of  its  illicit  gains,  while  honesty  and  industry  are 
covered  with  rags."  All  this  he  blamed  on  the  second  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  Specifically,  he  recommended  abandoning  the  national-bank  con- 
cept entirely.  He  suggested  that  government  revenues  be  deposited  in- 
stead in  several  "notoriously  solvent"  state  banks.  As  to  the  possible 
political  repercussions  of  his  vigorous  opposition  to  the  Bank,  his  atti- 
tude was  characteristic:  "Whether  I  sink  or  swim  on  the  tide  of  popular 
favor,  is  a  matter  to  me  of  inferior  consideration."  25 

It  was  an  able  speech  which  summed  up  states'  rights  objections  to 
the  national  bank  and  offered  a  solution  which  was  worth  a  try.  Its 
weakness  lay  in  its  naive  analysis  of  the  causes  of  the  existing  national 
depression  and  in  Tyler's  willingness,  given  proven  violations  of  the 
Bank  charter,  to  throw  the  baby  out  with  the  bath  water.  His  was  a 
narrow  view,  one  rejected  by  the  majority  of  the  Congress. 

The  states'  rights  position  on  the  Bank  was  legally  undercut  two 
months  later  when  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall,  speaking  for  an  unani- 
mous Supreme  Court,  announced  his  opinion  in  M'Culloch  v.  Maryland. 
In  this  famous  decision  Marshall  denied  the  right  of  Maryland  to  tax  a 
branch  of  the  second  Bank  of  the  United  States — "the  power  to  tax 
involves  the  power  to  destroy,"  he  argued  in  one  of  the  best-remembered 
sentences  in  American  history.  Specifically,  he  upheld  the  constitutional- 
ity of  the  Bank's  1816  charter.  Drawing  heavily  on  Hamilton's  1791 
doctrine  of  implied  powers,  Marshall  further  stated:  "Let  the  end  be 
legitimate,  let  it  be  within  the  scope  of  the  constitution,  and  all  means 
which  are  appropriate,  which  are  plainly  adapted  to  that  end,  which  are 
not  prohibited,  but  consistent  with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitu- 
tion, are  constitutional."  This  view  was  supplemented  by  Marshall's 
broader  contention  that  the  powers  of  the  government  stemmed  from 
the  people  themselves,  not  from  the  voluntary  act  of  confederation  of 
the  several  states.  "The  government  of  the  Union,"  he  maintained,  "is 
emphatically,  and  truly,  a  government  of  the  people.  In  form  and  in 
substance  it  emanates  from  them.  Its  powers  are  granted  by  them,  and 
are  to  be  exercised  directly  on  them,  and  for  their  benefit."  Needless  to 
say,  this  was  not  what  many  of  the  Founding  Fathers  had  had  in  mind 
three  decades  earlier.26 

Re-elected  to  the  House  in  1819,  Tyler  returned  to  Washington  to 
enlist  for  the  duration  in  the  South's  cold  war  against  the  American 
System  nationalists.  First  he  lashed  out  at  the  tariff  of  1820,  which 
sought  to  raise  existing  import  duties  on  textiles  and  metals  by  some 

65 


4o  per  cent,  ostensibly  to  protect  domestic  manufacturers  from  ever- 
increasing  European  competition.  This  protection,  argued  Clay  and 
others,  would  help  struggling  American  manufacturers  through  the 
period  of  national  depression.  Tyler  did  not  challenge  the  constitutional- 
ity of  the  tariff;  that  was  beyond  question.  He  did,  however,  challenge 
its  wisdom,  pointing  out  that  the  deepening  depression  was  related  to 
the  outbreak  of  peace  in  Europe  which  had  temporarily  dried  up  markets 
supplied  by  the  neutral  Americans  during  the  Napoleonic  Wars.  Tyler 
was  sure  that  the  European  powers  would  soon  be  at  each  others'  throats 
again  and  that  to  continue  a  policy  of  tariff  protection  would  only  result 
in  sealing  America  off  from  what  would  soon  be  a  thriving  market  once 
more: 

Who  can  tell  how  long  the  causes  which  now  operate  to  our  injury  may  con- 
tinue to  exist?  All  human  affairs  are  constantly  undergoing  a  change;  and 
even  while  I  am  addressing  you,  new  causes  of  dispute  among  the  powers  of 
Europe  may  be  unfolding  themselves.  The  speck  which  is  now  scarcely  dis- 
cernable  on  the  horizon,  the  next  moment  may  swell  into  a  cloud,  dark  and 
portentous.  Will  you  not,  by  this  system,  deny  to  us  all  benefits  from  any 
change  which  may  occur?  Yes,  sir,  you  will  have  done  so.  Society  lives  on 
exchanges;  exchange  constitutes  the  very  soul  of  commerce. . . .  Can  you 
expect  that  foreign  nations  will  buy  of  you  for  any  length  of  time,  unless  you 
buy  of  them?  2T 

If  this  idea  had  a  certain  ghoulish  quality,  if  frequent  European 
war  was  indeed  the  key  to  the  economic  health  of  the  American  state, 
the  morality  of  the  notion  did  not  disturb  Tyler.  In  common  with  the 
free-trade  viewpoint  of  most  Southern  agriculturalists,  he  argued  that 
cotton  and  tobacco  needed  no  tariff  subsidy,  that  these  commodities 
could  find  their  way  easily  and  profitably  into  the  markets  of  the  world 
without  government  protection  or  stimulation  of  any  sort.  Projected 
tariffs  on  sugar,  coffee,  molasses,  and  salt,  on  the  other  hand,  represented 
a  direct  tax  on  those  who  must  use  these  staples.  "Who  will  have  to  pay 
it?"  Tyler  asked.  "Inasmuch  as  the  agricultural  class  is  the  most 
numerous,  they  will  have  to  pay  the  greater  portion  of  it.  It  operates  as 
a  direct  tax  on  them."  Southerners  asked  no  tariff  protection  for  their 
own  commodities.  Yet  they  were  expected  to  shoulder  the  higher  prices 
tariffs  caused  in  order  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  Northern  manufactures. 
The  protective  tariff  in  this  sense  was  little  more  than  a  form  of  sectional 
economic  exploitation. 

Congressman  Tyler  felt  that  the  whole  American  System  concept 
of  making  the  agrarian  United  States  over  into  an  image  of  indus- 
trial Britain  was  dangerous  and  wrongheaded.  He  preferred  to  see 
his  country  remain  agricultural,  the  supplier  of  the  warring  world's 
foodstuffs.  A  profitable  neutrality  in  European  power  politics  could 
best  be  preserved  in  the  future,  he  was  convinced,  through  a  condition 
of  agrarianism: 

66 


A  manufacturing  nation  Is,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  dependent  on  others. 
Look  to  England!  Cut  off  from  the  markets  of  the  world,  misery  and  ruin 
await  her.  Threaten  to  close  your  ports  against  her,  and  she  becomes  forthwith 
alarmed.  Close  them  and  a  great  portion  of  her  population  are  thrown  out  of 
employment,  and  reduced  to  beggary.  How  is  it  with  an  agricultural  nation? 
Other  nations  are,  in  great  measure,  dependent  on  it  for  food.  They  may 
dispense  with  your  silks  and  gee-gaws.  but  bread  they  must  have.  And  when 
its  foreign  trade  is  destroyed,  that  very  circumstance  operates  beneficially  to 
the  poorer  classes,  for  they  are  then  enabled  to  obtain  the  necessaries  of  life 
in  greater  abundance,  and  on  much  cheaper  and  much  better  terms. . . .  Let 
other  nations  press  on,  if  they  please,  to  that  point  where  they  will  lose  their 
agricultural,  and  assume  a  manufacturing  character;  so  much  the  better  for 
us ;  our  markets  will  thus  be  increased  for  the  products  of  our  soil,  and  wealth 
and  happiness  will  await  us. . .  .2S 

In  proposing  a  free-trade  alternative  to  protectionism,  Tyler  ac- 
cepted Adam  Smith's  idealistic  notion  of  a  great  world  market  controlled 
and  ordered  by  a  mystical  law  of  supply  and  demand.  He  followed 
Smith's  suggestion  that  each  nation  should  sell  in  that  market  those 
commodities  it  was  most  cheaply  and  efficiently  capable  of  producing 
while  buying  from  that  market  those  commodities  most  cheaply  and 
efficiently  produced  elsewhere.  American  commodities  in  this  first  cate- 
gory were  obviously  cotton,  tobacco,  and  grains.  To  attempt  to  produce 
in  America  those  goods  more  cheaply  manufactured  abroad  was  sheer 
madness.  And  to  stimulate  such  production  at  home  artificially  through 
tariff  protection  was  at  best  a  form  of  robbery  practiced  by  Northern 
manufacturing  interests  on  the  vast  mass  of  American  consumers.  He 
was  jubilant,  therefore,  when  the  1820  tariff  bill  was  defeated  by  a 
narrow  margin,  although  he  could  see  that  the  sectional  conflict  on  the 
tariff  issue,  like  the  Andrew  Jackson  problem,  was  just  beginning. 

John  Tyler's  fear  of  the  colorful  Jackson  began  in  1818  in  profound 
shock  over  the  General's  military  irresponsibility  in  a  command  situa- 
tion. It  lasted  until  a  few  months  before  Old  Hickory's  death  in  June 
1845.  Throughout  this  period  the  two  strong-willed  men  disliked  each 
other  with  a  passion  bordering  on  the  unreasonable.  In  fairness  to  Tyler, 
however,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  Jackson  gave  some  cause  for 
alarm  in  1817  when  he  undertook  his  celebrated  invasion  of  Spanish 
Florida  to  chastise  the  Seminoles.  In  this  self-generated  punitive  expedi- 
tion he  assumed  for  himself  a  power  to  make  and  levy  war  clearly  dele- 
gated to  Congress  by  the  Constitution.  When  he  captured,  court- 
martialed,  and  executed  two  pro-Seminole  British  citizens,  Alexander 
Arbuthnot  and  Robert  C.  Ambrister,  during  the  course  of  his  foray,  he 
arrogated  a  judicial  power  without  precedent  or  antecedent  in  American 
history.  From  a  purely  legal  standpoint,  his  was  the  unique  case  of  an 
American  military  commander  on  an  unauthorized  foreign  invasion, 
arresting  two  British  subjects  on  Spanish  soil  and  bringing  them  to  trial 
there  under  American  military  law.  He  then  executed  both  of  them,  even 


though  the  officers  of  his  own  hand-picked  military  court  had  only 
sentenced  Ambrister  to  six  months  at  hard  labor.  Finally,  when  the 
rampaging  General  seized  and  deported  Spanish  colonial  officials  in 
Florida  and  proclaimed  in  force  there  the  revenue  laws  of  the  United 
States,  he  usurped  a  quasi-diplomatic  function  clearly  not  his  under  the 
Constitution.  It  was  an  amazing  performance.  That  both  Britain  and 
Spain  were  nations  with  which  the  United  States  was  at  peace  in  1817 
created  severe  embarrassment  and  a  threat  of  war. 

It  was  too  much  for  Congressman  Tyler.  When  a  motion  to  censure 
Jackson  was  brought  to  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
January  1819,  Tyler  was  angrily  on  his  feet.  He  reviewed  the  facts  in 
the  case,  observing  pointedly  that 

. . .  however  great  may  have  been  the  services  of  General  Jackson  [in  the 
past] ,  I  cannot  consent  to  weigh  those  services  against  the  Constitution  of  the 
land.  .  . .  Your  liberties  cannot  be  preserved  by  the  fame  of  any  man.  The 
triumph  of  the  hero  may  swell  the  pride  of  your  country — elevate  you  in  the 
estimation  of  foreign  nations — give  you  a  character  for  chivalry  and  valour; 
but .  . .  the  sheet  anchor  of  our  safety  is  to  be  found  in  the  Constitution  of 
our  country. ...  It  is  the  precedent  growing  out  of  the  proceedings  in  this  case 

that  I  wish  to  guard  against I  demand  to  know  who  was  authorized,  under 

the  Constitution,  to  have  declared  the  war — Congress  or  the  general?  ...  I 

cannot  imagine  a  more  formidable  inroad  on  the  powers  of  this  House 

Under  what  laws  have  these  [British]  prisoners  been  deprived  of  their  exist- 
ence? We  live  in  a  land  where  the  only  rule  of  our  conduct  is  the  law.  The 
power  of  promulgating  those  laws  is  vested  in  Congress.  They  are  not  the 
arbitrary  edicts  of  any  one  man,  nor  is  any  so  high  as  to  be  above  their 
influence.29 

Tyler's  was  a  vigorous  and,  in  the  circumstances,  legitimate  indict- 
ment of  the  rampaging  general,  but  it  was  to  no  avaiL  The  dashing 
Jackson,  hero  of  New  Orleans,  was  too  popular  on  the  Western  frontier. 
The  fact  that  he  had  killed  a  few  hundred  Indians,  executed  two  subjects 
of  insane  old  George  III,  and  inconvenienced  the  colonial  administration 
of  the  hated  Spanish  Don  merely  increased  Ms  stature  in  the  boondocks 
as  American  Hero,  First  Class.  "Among  the  people  of  the  West/'  one 
journal  observed,  "his  popularity  is  unbounded — old  and  young  speak 
of  him  with  rapture,  and  at  his  call,  50,000  of  the  most  efficient  war- 
riors of  this  continent  would  rise,  armed,  and  ready  for  any  enemy." 
Given  these  circumstances,  no  resolution  of  censure  could  be  passed 
through  Congress,  and  Tyler  was  left  to  worry  over  the  prospect  of  a 
Man  on  Horseback  riding  roughshod  over  the  Constitution  while  the 
ignorant  frontier  element  went  wild  with  joy.  He  never  trusted  Jackson 
thereafter.30 

An  even  greater  threat  to  domestic  tranquility  in  America  soon 
pushed  Jackson's  dangerous  heroics  into  the  back  of  Tyler's  mind.  This 

68 


was  the  1819-1820  Missouri  Compromise  debate,  a  political  watershed 
in  American  history  and  In  the  personal  life  of  John  Tyler.  In  Its  larger 
meaning  it  marked  the  first  concerted  attack  from  the  North  on  the 
South's  "peculiar  institution."  It  produced  in  the  South  a  comprehensive 
defense  of  human  slavery  as  a  positive  moral  good.  In  the  life  of  Tyler 
it  added  to  a  growing  feeling  of  frustration  and  inadequacy  that  led 
him  to  resign  his  congressional  seat  and  retire  to  private  life.  His  was 
a  leading  voice  In  opposition  to  the  Compromise  on  the  floor  of  the 
House.  In  great  alarm  he  pointed  out  the  long-range  danger  to  the 
South  of  granting  to  Congress  the  power  to  prohibit  or  regulate  slavery 
in  the  territories.  The  Missouri  Compromise  was  the  camel's  nose  under 
the  tent  flap  so  far  as  the  ultimate  end  of  slavery  was  concerned.  Or 
so  Tyler  argued.31 

The  question  at  issue  was  whether  Congress  under  the  Constitution 
had  the  right  to  determine  where  and  whether  slavery  should  be  legal  in 
territories  not  yet  ready  for  statehood.  The  debate  took  an  ugly  turn  in 
1819  when  the  Congress  attempted  to  admit  Maine  and  Missouri  into  the 
Union  simultaneously  with  a  view  toward  maintaining  the  exact  balance 
existing  in  the  Union  between  free  states  and  slave  states.  The  intent, 
laudable  in  itself,  demanded  nevertheless  an  acceptance  of  the  idea  that 
Congress  had  the  right  to  set  territorial  limits  on  the  location  and  ex- 
pansion of  slavery,  a  right  nowhere  made  specific  in  the  Constitution. 
To  be  sure,  a  precedent  for  this  right  did  exist.  In  1787  the  Confedera- 
tion Congress  had  passed  the  Northwest  Ordinance,  setting  forth  the 
conditions  for  territorial  organization  in  the  lands  north  of  the  Ohio 
River.  The  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution  had  re-enacted  this 
legislation.  Under  its  provisions  slavery  was  specifically  prohibited  in 
these  territories.  But  whether  this  had  any  applicability  to  the  Maine- 
Missouri  problem  was  another  question.  As  the  debate  progressed, 
tempers  flared,  insults  were  flung,  and  pistols  were  packed  on  the 
floor.  "Missouri  is  the  only  word  ever  repeated  here  by  the  politicians," 
Tyler  wrote  Henry  Curtis  in  alarm.  "You  have  no  possible  idea  of  the 
excitement  that  prevails  here.  Men  talk  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
with  perfect  nonchalance  and  indifference."  He  was  not  much  less 
agitated  himself,  however.  "For  myself,"  he  said,  "I  cannot  and  will 
not  yield  one  inch  of  the  ground."  32 

The  main  Southern  argument  that  Missouri  should  be  admitted 
slave  and  Maine  free  to  preserve  the  political  balance  of  power  in  the 
Union  struck  Tyler  as  an  extremely  dangerous  one  in  that  it  threatened 
eventual  sectional  strife  and  definitely  beclouded  the  essential  point 
that  Congress  had  no  specific  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories, 
either  under  the  Constitution  or  under  the  1803  Louisiana  Purchase 
treaty.  The  treaty  by  which  the  vast  Louisiana  Territory  had  been 
acquired  from  France  had  specifically  upheld  slavery  in  the  area,  and, 


presumably,  in  any  state  or  territory  subsequently  carved  from  the  ex- 
tensive domain.  But  it  was  the  sectional- balance-of -power  concept  that 
most  distressed  Tyler: 

Look  at  the  page  of  history  and  tell  me  what  has  been  the  most  fruitful  cause 
of  war,  of  rapine,  and  of  death?  Has  it  been  any  other  than  this  struggle  for 
the  balance  of  power?  . . .  Sir,  it  is  the  monster  that  feeds  on  the  bodies  of 
mangled  carcasses,  and  swills  on  human  blood.  And  has  it  come  to  this,  that 
we  are  now  to  enter  into  this  struggle  for  power?  . .  .  Equality  is  all  that 
could  be  asked  for,  and  that  equality  is  secured  to  each  state  of  this  Union 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  land.33 

Tyler's  counterargument  was  that  slavery  should  be  permitted  to 
spread  into  any  territory  where  it  could  competitively  maintain  itself  as 
an  economically  viable  institution.  It  would  therefore  limit  its  own  ex- 
pansion if  Congress  would  obey  the  Constitution  and  maintain  a  hands- 
off  policy  toward  it.  This  occurring,  he  felt  that  the  problem  of  the 
South's  political  power  within  the  Union  would  solve  itself.  In  his  speech 
attacking  New  York  Representative  James  Tallmadge's  amendment  pro- 
hibiting the  further  introduction  of  slavery  into  the  Missouri  Territory, 
Tyler  maintained  that  a  diffusion  of  the  slave  population  into  frontier 
territories  would  be  beneficial  to  master  and  slave  alike  and  would  mark 
a  step  toward  gradual  abolition. 

Admittedly,  his  reasoning  on  this  point  had  a  certain  unreal  qual- 
ity about  it.  He  held  that  the  opening  of  Missouri  and  other  terri- 
tories to  slavery  would  benefit  slaves  in  the  slave  states  by  reducing 
Negro  overcrowding  there  and  by  expanding  the  market  for  slaves  west 
of  the  Mississippi.  This  would  drive  the  price  of  slaves  upward  (bene- 
fiting the  slaveowners  and  dealers)  and  cause  masters  to  treat  their  now 
more  valuable  slaves  with  greater  kindness  and  humanity  (benefiting 
the  slaves).  As  the  number  of  slaves  in  the  slave  states  was  thus  pro- 
portionately reduced,  opposition  in  the  South  to  the  idea  of  compensated 
emancipation  would  wither,  the  ultimate  financial  cost  of  such  emancipa- 
tion to  the  federal  or  state  government  would  be  lessened,  and  the 
importance  of  slavery  in  the  total  economy  would  decline.  Thus  a  grad- 
ual and  orderly  abolition  would  be  brought  within  the  range  of  possibil- 
ity. "You  subserve,  then,  the  purposes  of  humanity  by  voting  down  this 
amendment/'  Tyler  informed  his  colleagues.  "You  advance  the  interest 
and  secure  the  safety  of  one  half  of  this  extended  Republic:  you  amelio- 
rate the  condition  of  the  slave,  and  you  add  much  to  the  prospects  of 
emancipation  and  the  total  extinction  of  slavery.7'  34 

The  final  compromise  on  the  heated  Missouri  question  was  really 
no  compromise  at  all,  from  Tyler's  standpoint.  The  so-called  Thomas 
Amendment,  sponsored  by  Illinois  Representative  Jesse  B.  Thomas  in 
February  1820,  admitted  Missouri  as  a  slave  state.  This  satisfied  the 
South  that  the  Tallmadge  Amendment  had  been  defeated  and  that 
slavery  had  at  least  hurdled  the  Mississippi.  But  this  gain  came  at  the 

70 


expense  of  prohibiting  slavery  forever  in  the  Louisiana  Territory  north 
of  36°3o/.  In  accepting  this  less-than-half-a-loaf  the  South  won  a  battle 
and  lost  a  war.  The  precedent  for  congressional  regulation  of  slavery  in 
the  territories  was  established,  the  geographic  extent  of  slave  territory 
was  limited  to  a  much  smaller  area  than  that  which  lay  north  of  36°3o', 
and  the  political  balance  of  power  between  slave  and  free  states  in 
Congress  was  potentially,  if  not  actually  and  immediately,  upset.  The 
Compromise  had,  however,  prevented  possible  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Tyler  was  heartsick  at  the  outcome.  He  wanted  neither  the  breakup 
of  the  Union  nor  the  Compromise.  Just  what  he  did  want  is  not  entirely 
clear.  In  the  final  vote  in  the  House,  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
adopted  134  to  42.  Of  the  42  nays,  37  were  from  the  South  and  17  of 
these  were  from  Virginia.  Tyler,  of  course,  was  one  of  the  17.  On  the  eve 
of  the  Civil  War,  forty-one  years  later,  Tyler  could  still  say  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise: 

I  believed  it  to  be  unconstitutional.  I  believed  it  to  be ...  the  opening  of  the 
Pandora's  box,  which  would  let  out  upon  us  all  the  present  evils  which  have 
gathered  over  the  land. ...  I  want,  above  all  things,  to  preserve  the  little 
space  I  may  occupy  upon  the  page  of  history  legibly  and  correctly  written.  I 
never  would  have  yielded  to  that  Missouri  Compromise.  I  would  have  died  in 
my  shoes,  suffered  any  sort  of  punishment  you  could  have  inflicted  upon  me, 
before  I  would  have  done  it.35 

Everything  seemed  to  be  going  badly  for  John  Tyler  in  1820.  Four 
years  of  hard  labor  in  Congress  had  taken  its  toll,  emotionally,  physi- 
cally, and  economically.  He  was  sick,  tired,  overworked,  and  discouraged. 
The  income  from  his  neglected  law  practice  had  dropped  to  half  what  it 
had  been  in  1816.  Children  were  coming  along  now  with  distressing 
regularity  (Mary  in  1815;  Robert  in  1816;  John,  Jr.,  in  1819;  and 
Letitia  in  182 1)  and  Tyler  was  worried  about  his  ability  to  provide  them 
with  proper  educations  and  the  material  comforts  of  life.  Most  im- 
portantly, his  vigorous  efforts  to  preserve  the  Constitution  had  appar- 
ently failed.  The  corrupt  and  hated  Bank  had  not  lost  its  charter,  the 
Man  on  Horseback  had  not  been  censured,  the  disastrous  Missouri 
Compromise  had  been  adopted.  The  victory  on  the  tariff  proposal  of 
1820  was  at  best  a  temporary  one.  The  great  test  on  that  issue  was  still 
to  come. 

In  December  1820  Tyler  decided  to  resign  from  Congress.  He  saw 
no  reason  to  continue  the  unequal  struggle  against  the  American  System 
nationalists,  Federalists,  and  loose  constructionists.  A  letter  to  Dr.  Henry 
Curtis  indicates  that  1820  was  one  of  the  psychological  low  points  of  his 
life: 

I  have  become  in  a  great  measure  tired  of  my  present  station,  and  have 
brought  my  mind  nearly  to  the  conclusion  of  retiring  to  private  life,  and 
seeking  those  enjoyments  in  the  bosom  of  my  family  and  in  the  circle  of  my 

71 


friends,  which  cannot  be  found  In  any  other  condition  of  existence ...  the 
truth  is,  that  I  can  no  longer  do  good  here.  I  stand  in  a  decided  minority,  and 
to  waste  words  on  an  obstinate  majority  is  utterly  useless  and  vain.  ...  To 
my  last  breath  I  will,  whether  I  am  in  public  or  private  life,  oppose  the 
daring  usurpations  of  this  government — usurpations  of  a  more  alarming 
character  than  have  ever  before  taken  place.  .  . .  How  few  are  there  who  ever 
pass  beyond  my  present  condition?  Not  more  than  one  in  a  thousand.  By 
remaining  here,  then,  I  obtain  for  myself  no  other  promotion;  for  were  I  to 
remain  all  my  life,  I  should  still  die  only  a  member  of  Congress  ...  the  honor 

of  the  station  is  already  possessed [By  resigning]  I  should  promote  my 

peace  of  mind,  and  with  it  my  health  . . .  which  is  now  very  precarious. 

On  January  15,  1821,  Tyler  drafted  an  open  letter  to  his  constituents 
resigning  his  seat  for  reasons  of  health.  In  February  of  the  previous 
year  he  had  experienced  a  serious  gastric  upset — probably  food  poison- 
ing— which,  he  informed  Curtis,  "was  so  severe  as  to  render  my  limbs, 
tongue,  etc.  almost  useless  to  me.  I  was  bled  and  took  purgative  medi- 
cine  The  doctor  here  ascribed  it  to  a  diseased  stomach.77  He  was  still 

feeling  the  after-effects  of  this  upheaval  a  year  later.  Indeed,  one  med- 
ical historian  has  suggested  that  Tyler  may  have  had  a  cerebral  vascular 
accident  from  a  thrombosis,  so  slow  was  he  in  recuperating  from  this 
illness.  Whatever  his  malady,  his  plea  of  poor  health  was  sincere.  He 
was  a  sick  man.  Returning  to  Charles  City,  he  again  took  up  the  prac- 
tice of  law.  His  old  friend  Andrew  Stevenson  was  nominated  for  and 
elected  to  Congress  in  his  place  with  Tyler's  support  and  endorsement.36 
Tyler's  health  slowly  improved,  although  in  mid-iSai  he  could 
still  complain  of  a  severe  "dyspepsia77  which  "not  only  affects  my  body, 
but  often  my  mind.  My  ideas  become  confused,  and  my  memory  bad 
while  jaboring  under  it.77  What  the  despondent  thirty-one-year-old 
Virginian  could  not  know  was  that  his  life  was  about  to  enter  a  new 
and  useful  cycle;  nor,  of  course,  could  he  know  that  the  year  1820 
had  provided  him  a  future  wife.  In  that  year  Julia  Gardiner  was  born 
on  Gardiners  Island.37 


72 


THE   DILEMMAS   OF   A 
STATES'   RIGHTS   POLITICIAN,   1822-1834 


Speak  of  me  always  as  a  Jackson  man  whenever  you 
are  questioned.  .  . .  In  this  way  those  who  make  en- 
quiries will  be  readily  satisfied  and  be  no  wiser  than 
they  were. 

JOHN    TYLER,    1832 


John  Tyler  at  last  recovered  his  health  and  self-assurance,  a  fact 
Colonel  John  Macon  ruefully  discovered  for  himself  one  afternoon  in 
June  1822  outside  the  New  Kent  County  courthouse.  Macon  was  a  hot- 
headed Tidewater  cavalier  quick  to  take  affront  when  any  insult,  real  or 
imagined,  came  his  way.  In  this  instance  it  was  imagined.  Tyler  had 
given  him  no  cause  to  be  offended.  But  Macon,  a  witness  in  a  suit  Tyler 
was  contesting,  considered  his  delicate  sense  of  honor  somehow  injured 
by  the  lawyer  in  the  course  of  a  routine  cross-examination.  When  Tyler 
emerged  from  the  building  at  sunset  Macon  strode  rapidly  up  to  him. 

"Mr.  Tyler,"  he  said  belligerently,  "you  have  taken  with  me  a  very 
unjustifiable  liberty." 

Tyler  eyed  his  antagonist  narrowly,  replying  only  that  he  was  not 
aware  he  had  offended  the  Colonel. 

"You  have  not  acted  the  part  of  a  gentleman,  Sir/'  Macon  con- 
tinued. 

Tyler's  own  boiling  point  was  not  high  when  it  came  to  personal 
imputation  and  he  promptly  struck  Macon  in  the  face  with  his  fist.  A 
wild  brawl  ensued,  the  Colonel  laying  on  hard  with  a  riding  whip.  Tyler 
finally  wrested  the  whip  away  and  slashed  Macon  several  times.  That 
ended  the  fight.  Tyler  happily  reported  that  he  had  received  no  injury 
and  that  he  had  marked  the  Colonel's  face  severely.1 

73 


If  Tyler's  fighting  spirit  had  revived  by  1822,  so  too  had  the  com- 
pelling lure  of  public  life.  In  1823  he  was  elected  again  to  the  Charles 
City  seat  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates.  Immediately  he  threw 
himself  into  the  fight  to  block  Old  Dominion  endorsement  of  the  so- 
called  Tennessee  Resolution  which  was  designed  to  democratize  the 
party  caucus  system  of  nominating  Presidential  candidates.  The  Ten- 
nessee Resolution  asked  that  the  people  be  given  a  voice  in  the  nominat- 
ing process,  a  reform  Tyler  considered  dangerous  since  the  candidate  for 
the  White  House  it  would  benefit  most  in  1824  was  the  popular  hero, 
Andrew  Jackson.  Tyler  favored  the  candidacy  of  the  Virginia-born 
Georgian,  William  H.  Crawford.  For  this  reason  he  unwisely  linked  his 
support  of  Crawford  with  his  opposition  to  the  Tennessee  Resolution. 
So  diligently  and  openly  did  he  labor  for  Crawford  that  the  legislature 
reluctantly  abandoned  its  support  of  the  caucus  system  rather  than  see 
Virginia's  congressional  delegation  instructed  to  support  any  one  of  the 
five  contenders  for  the  prize.  Crawford,  Clay,  Jackson,  Calhoun,  and 
John  Quincy  Adams  all  had  vigorous  partisans  in  the  House  of  Dele- 
gates. Tyler  thus  sustained  a  stinging  defeat  on  the  Tennessee  Resolu- 
tion; he  emerged  from  the  fight  "covered  in  sackcloth  and  ashes."  With 
the  undemocratic  caucus  system  in  its  death  throes,  Presidential  nomina- 
tions for  a  time  were  made  by  various  state  legislatures.2 

As  the  1824  Presidential  campaign  unfolded,  Tyler  found  himself 
supporting  the  candidacy  of  John  Quincy  Adams  after  a  paralytic  stroke 
virtually  removed  states'  rights  hopeful  William  Crawford  from  the 
canvass.  Clay  and  Calhoun  were  too  closely  identified  with  the  Ameri- 
can System  heresy  to  suit  Tyler,  and  Calhoun  had  made  the  additional 
mistake  of  supporting  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Senator  Jackson,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  erratic  and  unpredictable,  the  mystery  candidate 
of  the  18203.  Just  what  he  stood  for  in  1824  was  difficult  to  ascertain. 
About  the  most  that  could  be  said  for  him  was  that  he  wanted  very 
much  to  be  President.  To  achieve  this  laudable  ambition  he  charged 
boldly  down  from  the  hills  of  Tennessee  damning  "King  Caucus"  and 
extolling  the  democratic  virtues.  His  appeal,  much  to  Tyler's  disgust, 
was  to  the  illiterate  frontier  element,  to  the  newly  enfranchised,  and  to 
those  patriots  dazzled  by  his  military  reputation  as  scourge  of  Redcoat 
and  Redskin.  To  sharpen  this  vote-catching  image  his  managers  shrewdly 
converted  the  Andrew  Jackson  who  was  planter,  land  speculator,  and 
aristocrat  by  taste  into  "Old  Hickory,"  backwoods  democrat  and 
champion  of  the  Common  Man.  Since  at  various  times  in  his  career 
Jackson  had  both  supported  and  opposed  national  banks,  protective 
tariffs,  and  internal  improvements,  he  could  be — and  was — all  things  to 
many  men.  Tyler  considered  him  an  unstable  opportunist,  a  greater 
danger  by  far  to  American  institutions  than  Adams.  True,  Adams  was 
noted  as  a  loose  constructionist,  a  friend  of  the  American  System,  and 
no  lover  of  human  slavery.  But  Tyler  rationalized  his  vote  for  the 

74 


former  Federalist  on  the  grounds  that  Adams  actually  In  office  would 
be  more  moderate,  responsible,  malleable,  and  predictable  than  any  of 
the  other  heretical  candidates.  It  was  Tyler's  first  major  exercise  in 
political  clairvoyance  and  the  result  was  a  disaster.  He  should  have 
supported  the  infirm  Crawford,  paralysis  or  no  paralysis.3 

The  result  of  the  election  of  1824  pointed  up  the  poverty  of  a 
political  system  based  on  warring  factions  led  by  strong  men  nominated 
by  various  state  legislatures.  Of  the  four  major  candidates  Jackson  re- 
ceived a  plurality  of  the  popular  and  electoral  votes,  running  well  ahead 
of  Adams,  Crawford,  and  Clay.  He  did  not,  however,  command  a  ma- 
jority in  the  Electoral  College  and  the  decision  was  thrown  into  the 
House  of  Representatives,  where  each  of  the  twenty-four  states  had  one 
vote.  Under  the  constitutional  provision  relevant  to  this  confused  situa- 
tion only  the  three  leaders  in  the  electoral  vote  could  be  considered 
further.  Clay's  name  was  thus  dropped  from  consideration  at  the  outset 
even  though  he  had  outpolled  Crawford  in  the  popular  vote.  Eliminated 
from  contention  as  he  was,  Clay  nevertheless  held  the  balance  of  power 
in  Ms  hands  and  with  it  the  real  key  to  the  White  House  door.  Following 
a  confidential  talk  with  Adams,  the  details  of  which  have  never  come 
to  light,  the  ambitious  Kentucklan  advised  his  supporters  in  the  House 
to  vote  for  Adams.  That  endorsement  did  it.  The  final  outcome  was 
thirteen  votes  for  Adams,  seven  for  Jackson,  and  four  for  Crawford.  By 
polling  30  per  cent  of  the  electoral  and  popular  vote  John  Quincy  Adams 
of  Massachusetts  had  become  the  sixth  President  of  the  United  States. 
John  C,  Calhoun  of  South  Carolina,  Vice-Presidential  candidate  on  both 
the  Adams  and  Jackson  tickets,  became  Vice-President.  The  whole 
thing  was  a  mockery  of  the  American  electoral  process  and  a  fraud 
against  democracy.  This  aspect  of  it  did  not  disturb  Tyler.  On  the  con- 
trary, throughout  the  remainder  of  his  political  life  he  never  lost  sight 
of  the  fact  that  one  way  to  deal  with  the  menace  of  King  Numbers  in  a 
Presidential  canvass  was  to  force  the  decision  into  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. 

The  pyrotechnics  of  the  1824  election  came  a  few  days  later,  when 
Adams  suddenly  announced  Clay's  appointment  as  Secretary  of  State — 
traditionally  the  post  of  succession  to  the  Presidency  itself.  With  the 
release  of  this  stunning  news,  a  plump  little  Pennsylvania  congressman 
named  George  Kremer  waddled  briefly  into  the  pages  of  history.  In  an 
anonymous  letter  to  a  Philadelphia  newspaper  Kremer  charged  that 
Clay's  support  of  Adams  in  the  House  election  and  his  subsequent  ap- 
pointment to  the  Adams  Cabinet  were  part  of  a  "corrupt  bargain.77  Clay 
was  furious  at  the  imputation.  Oiling  his  dueling  pistols,  he  demanded 
satisfaction  for  the  "base  and  infamous  calumniator,  a  dastard  and  a 
liar"  who  had  sullied  his  honor.  When  the  guileless  Kremer  identified 
himself  as  the  author  of  the  "corrupt  bargain'7  charge,  the  idea  of  a  duel 
became  ridiculous.  Kremer  was  not  worth  shooting,  and  Clay  put  away 

75 


Jiis  weapons,  convinced  that  powerlul  jackson  forces  naa  secretly  em- 
ployed Kremer  as  their  mouthpiece.  If  Kremer  was  not  worth  the  lead 
it  would  take  to  kill  Mm,  the  erratic  and  imperious  Senator  John 
Randolph  of  Virginia  was.  When  the  lanky  Virginian  repeated  the  "cor- 
rupt bargain"  indictment  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  in  1826  in  a  wild 
tirade  against  the  President,  suggesting  that  the  Adams-Clay  administra- 
tion was  at  best  a  "coalition  of  Blifil  and  Black  George,'7  a  cynical  al- 
liance of  "the  Puritan  with  the  blackleg/'  Clay  promptly  challenged 
him.  Fortunately,  both  men  were  mediocre  marksmen  and  honor  was 
satisfied  bloodlessly  after  each  had  fired  a  shot.4 

Tyler  never  believed  that  the  Adams-Clay  relationship  involved  a 
"bargain"  of  any  kind.  Although  Clay  carried  the  charge  with  him  to  his 
grave,  no  historical  evidence  has  ever  been  adduced  to  support  the 
accusation.  Tyler  had  quietly  supported  Adams  in  the  campaign  and  he 
realistically  accepted  Adams'  appointment  of  Clay  to  the  Cabinet  as 
part  of  the  normal  political  process.  The  thought  of  General  Jackson 
still  hovering  in  the  political  wings  frightened  him.  He  also  entertained 
the  hope,  one  soon  to  be  blasted,  that  the  Adams  administration  would 
prove  less  nationalistic  in  its  policies  than  some  states'  righters  feared. 
It  was  in  this  spirit  of  wishful  thinking  that  he  wrote  the  Virginia-born 
Clay  in  March  1825  saying  that  he  personally  considered  the  bargain 
and  corruption  charges  groundless.  Only  Clay's  ready  and  patriotic  sup- 
port of  Adams'  candidacy  in  the  House  had  brought  about  the  "speedy 
settlement"  of  the  "distracting  subject": 

Believing  Mr.  Crawford's  chance  of  success  to  have  been  utterly  desperate, 
you  have  not  only  met  my  wishes  . .  .  but  I  do  believe  the  wishes  and  feelings 
of  a  large  majority  of  the  people  of  this  your  native  State,  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  sober  and  reflecting  people  of  Virginia  would  have  been  so  far 
dazzled  by  military  renown  as  to  have  conferred  their  suffrages  upon  a  mere 
soldier — one  acknowledged  on  all  hands  to  be  of  little  value  as  a  civilian.  I 
will  not  withhold  from  you  also  the  expression  of  my  approval  of  your 
acceptance  of  your  present  honorable  and  exalted  station. 

This  friendly,  unsolicited  letter  arrived  in  Washington  in  the  midst  of 
one  of  the  great  crises  of  Clay's  political  life.  He  was  grateful  for  Tyler's 
moral  support,  and  his  subsequent  friendly  relations  with  the  Virginian, 
until  their  dramatic  break  in  1841,  reflected  something  of  his  continuing 
gratitude.  If  they  had  little  else  in  common,  both  men  feared  and  hated 
Andrew  Jackson.5 

In  1825  John  Tyler  was  elected  governor  of  Virginia  by  the  state 
legislature.  The  office  was  ceremonial  in  character  and  little  political 
significance  attaches  to  Tyler's  elevation  to  it.  Virginia  in  1825  was  still 
operating  under  a  1776  state  constitution  which  reflected  the  bias  of 
the  state's  Revolutionary  leaders  against  any  centralization  of  adminis- 
trative authority.  In  addition3  the  party  situation  within  the  Virginia 


legislature  in  1825  was  in  flux,  just  as  it  was  at  the  national  level.  Each 
of  the  great  sectional  leaders — Clay,  Adams,  Jackson,  and  Caihoun — 
commanded  strong  personal  support  in  Richmond.  At  no  time,  there- 
fore, did  Tyler  have  a  disciplined  political  organization  with  which  to 
work.  Nor  during  Ms  thirteen-month  tenure  of  office  did  he  work  to  build 
one.  He  sought  no  changes  in  the  constitutional  structure  that  reduced 
the  governorship  to  little  more  than  the  exercise  of  verbal  masonry  at 
cornerstone  dedications.  Governor  Tyler  proposed  legislation  and  the 
legislature  disposed  of  it.  As  a  training  ground  for  executive  leadership 
the  governorship  of  Virginia  was  deficient  in  every  respect. 

Tyler  urged,  for  example,  that  the  legislature  create  a  system  of 
public  schools  for  all  classes  of  people.  But  he  submitted  no  plan  for 
financing  the  scheme  and  left  the  question  of  implementation  to  the 
General  Assembly.  While  the  idea  was  sound  and  farsighted,  there  was 
no  executive  follow-through  and  no  willingness  to  ask  for  or  fight  for 
the  higher  taxes  the  school  plan  would  require.  Similarly,  Tyler  was 
convinced  that  something  should  be  done  to  bring  the  transmontane 
counties  into  a  closer  political  and  commercial  relationship  with  the 
Piedmont  and  Tidewater.  A  canal-  and  road-building  program  to  bind 
the  state  together  was  recommended.  But  he  preferred  to  leave  the  de- 
tails of  this  to  "the  wisdom  of  the  General  Assembly/5  noting  only  that 
unless  Virginia  got  into  the  internal-improvements  business  soon,  pres- 
sure in  the  western  counties  to  invite  the  federal  government  to  do  the 
job  would  become  irresistible.6 

Also  less  than  energetic  was  Tyler's  circuitous  effort  to  convince  the 
General  Assembly  that  the  governor's  salary  was  inadequate  to  sustain 
the  social  demands  of  the  office.  During  his  term  as  governor  the  ex- 
penses incurred  in  entertaining  the  exclusive  society  of  Richmond  and 
the  state  legislators  and  their  ladies  mounted  steadily.  In  spite  of  Letitia's 
heroic  efforts  to  maintain  simplicity  at  official  social  functions  the  costs 
invariably  exceeded  the  cash  income  of  the  governor.  To  suggest  this 
point  as  delicately  as  possible  to  the  members  of  the  legislature,  Tyler 
wryly  invited  them  all  to  a  banquet  at  the  Mansion  at  which  he  served 
only  Virginia  ham  and  huge  quantities  of  cooked  corn  bread;  cheap 
Monongahela  whiskey  was  ladled  out  in  copious  amounts  to  wash  down 
the  glutinous  fare.  Whether  the  lawmakers  became  sick  or  drunk  or  both 
is  not  recorded.  Nonetheless,  the  tactic  failed.  Tyler's  salary  was  not 
raised,  and  by  the  time  he  resigned  the  office  in  January  1827  to  accept 
election  to  the  United  States  Senate  he  was  in  serious  financial  difficulty.7 

Still,  Tyler  enjoyed  his  gubernatorial  career — at  least  he  said  he 
did.  Sterile  as  it  was  from  the  standpoint  of  his  political  education  or 
the  possibility  of  truly  constructive  accomplishment,  it  did  give  him  the 
psychological  satisfaction  of  following  in  the  footsteps  of  his  revered 
father.  He  once  remarked  that  the  honor  of  being  a  member  of  the 
United  States  Senate  could  scarcely  compare  to  that  afforded  by  the 

77 


governorship  of  Virginia.  Never theless,  when  an  opportunity  to  leave  the 
Governor's  Mansion  in  Richmond  was  presented  to  him  early  in  1827, 
Tyler  jumped  at  the  opportunity  to  return  to  Washington.8 

Tyler's  promotion  to  the  Senate  in  1827  was  accomplished  only 
after  a  bitter  and  controversial  fight  with  incumbent  Senator  John  Ran- 
dolph in  the  General  Assembly.  The  issue  between  them  was  not  politi- 
cal; it  was  entirely  personal.  Randolph  was  a  brilliant  and  caustic 
advocate  of  states'  rights.  He  had  loyally  supported  William  H.  Craw- 
ford in  1824 — long  after  John  Tyler  had  abandoned  the  stricken 
Georgian  for  John  Quincy  Adams.  So  orthodox  was  he  on  states'  rights 
that  Governor  Tyler  himself  publicly  urged  his  speedy  re-election  to 
the  Senate  and  stated  his  hope  that  there  would  be  no  opposition  to 
the  Randolph  candidacy  in  the  General  Assembly.  Privately,  however, 
Tyler  had  serious  objections  to  Randolph's  erratic  personal  behavior 
and  to  the  Senator's  tendency  to  indulge  in  public  proclamations  un- 
becoming a  Virginia  gentleman.  Many  Virginians  shared  the  governor's 
concern.  It  was  true  that  Randolph  had  an  unhappy  facility  for  verbal 
provocation.  Henry  Clay  once  reminded  him  of  a  rotten  mackerel  lying 
in  the  sun  shining  and  stinking  and  the  charge  of  Clay's  "corrupt  bar- 
gain" with  Adams  had  produced  the  celebrated  duel  with  Harry  of  the 
West.  On  another  occasion  the  colorful  senator  was  reported  to  have 
undressed  and  dressed  in  the  Senate  chamber.  When  angry  he  indulged 
in  character  assassination;  when  depressed  he  sought  solace  in  liquor. 
His  hatred  of  the  Adams-Clay  administration  was  so  passionate  that  he 
was  willing  to  make  common  legislative  cause  with  the  Jacksonians 
against  it.  This  alliance  proved  quite  disturbing  to  conservative  states' 
lighters  in  Richmond,  Tyler  among  them. 

On  January  12,  1827,  the  day  before  the  balloting  was  to  take  place 
in  the  General  Assembly,  Governor  Tyler  suddenly  became  a  candidate 
for  the  Randolph  seat.  Offered  a  last-minute  nomination  to  the  post 
by  a  group  of  anti-Randolph  legislators,  Tyler  replied  to  their  im- 
portunity with  a  skillfully  worded  statement  that  denied  any  interest  in 
the  position  while  strongly  implying  that  he  might  indeed  respond  to  a 
draft.  Not  surprisingly,  he  was  promptly  placed  in  nomination  for  the 
Senate  the  next  day.  Publicly  he  maintained  that  he  had  absolutely  no 
interest  in  the  nomination.  But  he  would  not  withdraw  his  name  from 
consideration.  Randolph's  partisans  were  outraged.  Richard  Morris  of 
Hanover  County  construed  the  unexpected  Tyler  candidacy  as  a  clever 
plot  in  which  the  wily  governor  had  lulled  Randolph's  supporters  into  a 
sense  of  false  security  while  secretly  conniving  to  have  his  own  name 
placed  in  contention.  Tyler  of  course  denied  this.  He  called  the  Morris 
charge  "slanderous  and  false"  and  bluntly  stated  that  he  was  fully 
prepared  to  meet  "all  the  consequences  which  may  result  from  such 
declaration."  Neither  Morris  nor  Tyler  was  a  duelist  at  heart  and  it  was 
well  that  the  matter  ended  there.  The  fact  remains,  however,  that  in  the 

78 


sandbagging  of  Randolph,  Tyler  was  forced  to  accept  the  votes  of  some 
thirty  Virginia  legislators  who  actively  supported  the  Adams-Clay  party 
and  who  were  openly  hostile  to  states7  rights.  Joining  with  those  mem- 
bers who  thought  Randolph  lacked  the  decorum  befitting  a  Virginia 
senator,  this  Ideological  suspect  group  gave  Tyler  the  necessary  margin 
of  victory.  By  the  slim  count  of  115  to  no  Randolph  was  retired  and 
Governor  John  Tyler  became  a  United  States  senator.9 

When  Tyler  reached  Washington  In  December  1827  to  take  his  seat 
In  the  United  States  Senate  he  returned  to  the  arena  of  familiar  battles 
still  raging.  He  had  already  Informed  Virginians  of  his  attitude  toward 
the  Adams  administration.  Shortly  after  his  election  he  told  a  group  of 
his  political  friends  at  a  Richmond  dinner  in  his  honor  that  his  complete 
disillusionment  with  Adams  began  as  early  as  December  6,  1825,  when 
the  new  President  had  delivered  Ms  first  Annual  Message  to  Congress. 
The  Message  was  a  paean  to  nationalism.  Adams  recommended  a  vast 
federal  Internal-improvements  program,  called  for  a  uniform  national 
militia  law,  a  national  university,  a  national  astronomical  observatory, 
and  the  national  standardization  of  weights  and  measures.  He  also  urged 
national  laws  to  promote  manufacturing,  commerce  and  agriculture,  the 
arts,  sciences  and  literature.  The  implications  of  the  speech  took  Tyler's 
breath  away: 

I  saw  In  it  an  almost  total  disregard  for  the  federative  principle — a  more 
latitudinous  construction  of  the  Constitution  than  has  ever  before  been  in- 
sisted on. ...  From  the  moment  of  seeing  that  message ...  I  stood  distinctly 
opposed  to  this  administration. ...  I  honestly  believe  the  preservation  of  the 
federative  principles  of  our  government  to  be  inseparably  connected  with  the 

perpetuation  of  liberty A  war  for  [our  principles]  I  shall  be  ready  to 

prosecute  under  any  banner,  and  almost  under  any  leader.  It  is  a  cause  cal- 
culated to  awaken  zeal,  for  it  Is  that  of  liberty  and  the  Constitution;  and  In 
such  a  cause  I  will  consent  to  become  a  zealot.10 

The  Tariff  Bill  of  March  1828  gave  Senator  Tyler  his  first  oppor- 
tunity for  zealotry.  It  was  a  grotesque,  cynical  bill.  As  Calhoun  admitted 
a  decade  later,  it  was  little  more  than  a  complicated  Jacksonian  plot 
designed  to  wreck  the  Adams  administration  on  the  eve  of  the  1828  elec- 
tion and  advance  the  political  prospects  of  Old  Hickory.  Its  essential 
feature  was  a  proposed  tariff  schedule  which  at  one  stroke  would  dis- 
criminate against  New  England  wool  manufacturers,  subsidize  the  iron- 
manufacturing  interests  of  the  politically  vital  Middle  Atlantic  states, 
make  the  South's  free  traders  happy,  and  provide  the  frontier  states  with 
higher  protection  on  those  articles  in  which  they  were  most  interested. 
The  political  strategy  behind  the  new  tariff  was  crude.  Given  the  pro- 
posed lower  wool  schedules,  its  sponsors  were  certain  that  New  England 
would  oppose  the  legislation  and  that  Adams  would  surely  veto  it  if  it 
passed.  Actually,  the  floor  managers  of  the  legislation  did  not  want  It  to 
pass.  What  they  wanted  was  a  campaign  issue  with  which  to  flay  Adams. 

79 


Thus  they  designed  the  protective  clauses  in  such  a  way  that  if  the  bill 
happened  to  pass  and  the  President  signed  it,  he  was  politically  ruined 
in  the  South  and  in  New  England.  If  it  passed  and  he  vetoed  it,  he 
was  damaged  in  the  Middle  Atlantic  states  and  in  the  West.  In  either 
event  the  Jacksonians  would  gain  politically  at  his  expense.  As  John 
Randolph  correctly  sized  it  up,  "The  bill  referred  to  manufactures  of 
no  sort  or  kind,  except  the  manufacture  of  a  President  of  the  United 
States."  n 

Something  in  the  Jacksonian  strategy  went  wrong.  Many  New 
Englanders,  Webster  among  them,  voted  for  the  bill  on  the  grounds 
that  it  maintained  the  broad  concept  of  protection  even  if  it  lowered 
temporarily  the  protective  tariff  shield  on  woolens.  In  its  final  form  the 
bill  was  a  high-tariff  monstrosity  spiced  with  sectional  sweeteners.  Few 
legislators  really  wanted  it.  Nevertheless,  it  slipped  through  the  House 
105  to  94  and  through  the  Senate  26  to  21.  Adams  promptly  signed  it, 
and  wails  of  anguish  swept  the  nation,  particularly  in  the  South.  It  was 
immediately  and  accurately  dubbed  the  "Tariff  of  Abominations"  in 
the  South  and  it  was  destined  to  trigger  a  series  of  events  which  nearly 
disrupted  the  Union  in  1833. 

Tyler  participated  only  peripherally  in  the  1828  tariff  debate.  He 
wanted  to  see  Adams  destroyed  and  he  did  not  inquire  into  the  ethics 
or  tactics  of  those  of  his  colleagues  who  worked  toward  the  same  end. 
He  had  come  to  Washington  a  few  months  earlier  prepared  to  enlist 
"under  any  banner,  and  almost  under  any  leader"  to  break  the  Presi- 
dent. Within  a  few  days  of  his  arrival  in  the  capital,  after  great  soul- 
searching,  he  cast  his  political  lot  with  General  Jackson  and  his  devious 
lieutenants.  He  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  American  System 
nationalism  of  the  Adams  administration,  supported  as  it  was  by  Henry 
Clay,  was  aimed  at  the  political  and  economic  consolidation  of  the 
Northeast  and  West  at  the  expense  of  the  South.  Adams,  he  bluntly 
charged,  "seeks  to  win  us  by  roads  and  canals."  The  immediate  future, 
filled  as  it  was  with  internal  improvements  and  higher  protective  tariffs, 
looked  black  indeed.  Moreover,  he  feared  that  the  re-election  of  Adams 
in  1828  would  surely  result  in  Secretary  of  State  Clay's  succession  to 
the  Presidency  in  1832  and  1836,  "And  what  possible  chance  have  we 
of  making  a  stand  for  the  Constitution  during  that  period?"  he  asked 
Curtis.  "Rely  upon  it,  none."  In  the  long  run  he  felt  that  "the  Jackson 
men  will  alone  arrest"  the  march  to  higher  tariffs  and  other  American 
System  schemes  favored  by  Adams  and  Clay.  Thus  when  the  1828  bill 
emerged  from  committee  Tyler  supported  the  measure.  He  too  hoped 
that  by  cramming  it  with  features  unacceptable  to  New  England  manu- 
facturing interests  the  whole  thing  would  go  down  in  massive  defeat. 
He  therefore  opposed  all  "sundry  villainous  amendments";  and,  he 
pointed  out,  "Its  fate  rests  on  our  ability  to  preserve  the  bill  in  its 
present  shape.  If  we  can  do  so  it  will  be  rejected."  When  it  was  passed 

80 


and  then  signed  by  Adams,  T\ier  was  stunned.  Again  lie  had  outwitted 
himself.12 

Tyler's  decision  to  support  Andrew  Jackson  for  the  Presidency  In 
1828  was  not  a  reckless  plunge.  It  was  forced  by  the  fact  that  Jackson 
now  seemed  to  be  the  only  alternative  to  the  hated  Adams  just  as  Adams 
had  been  in  1824  the  best  alternative  to  the  then-hated  Jackson.  Tyler 
personally  preferred  the  nomination  of  Governor  DeWitt  Clinton  of 
New  York.  who.  he  felt,  was  the  kind  of  Northern  leader  Virginia  could 
trust  and  support.  He  had  built  the  great  Erie  Canal  with  state  funds, 
proving  to  Tyler's  satisfaction  that  large-scale  internal  improvements 
could  be  constructed  without  federal  money  and  interference.  But 
Clinton  proved  uncooperative.  In  1827  he  announced  for  Jackson  and 
Tyler  was  left  without  a  candidate.  Again  Tyler  was  faced  with  a 
dilemma.  It  was  Adams  or  Jackson,  "and  we  must  make  the  best  of  our 

situation.  The  people  will  choose  between  two  latitudinarians " 

Nor  did  the  senator  make  his  reluctant  choice  of  Jackson  without 
embarrassment.  News  of  his  congratulatory  March  1825  letter  to  Clay 
leaked  Into  the  Virginia  press.  "John  Tyler  identified  with  Henry  Clay," 
screamed  the  Virginia  Jackson  Republican.  "We  are  all  amazement!! 
heart  sick!  1  chop  fallen!!  dumb!!  Mourn,  Virginia,  mourn!!"  Tyler 
was  furious  at  the  revelation  of  his  indiscretion.  "Mr.  Clay  has  be- 
trayed me!"  he  shouted.13 

The  Virginia  Jacksonians  need  not  have  pounded  their  breasts  in 
such  anguish.  Tyler  had  already  rationalized  his  support  of  Old  Hickory 
though  he  was  obliged  to  cling  to  some  very  soggy  straws  in  doing  so. 
As  early  as  December  1827  he  had  reported  as  fact  a  confused  mixture 
of  hearsay ,  rumor ,  and  supposition  to  the  effect  that  Jackson  was,  deep 
down  inside,  a  strict  constructionist  and  a  states'  rights  man.  The 
General's  "ardent  advocates  from  Tennessee  are  decidedly,  as  far  as 
I  can  gather,  in  favor  of  a  limited  construction  of  the  Constitution,"  said 
Tyler.  He  was  also  convinced,  although  he  had  little  evidence  to  sup- 
port the  notion,  that  Jackson  would  "surround  himself  by  a  cabinet 
composed  of  men  advocating,  to  a  great  extent,  the  doctrines  so  dear 
to  me."  He  therefore  decided  that  the  prospects  of  a  Jackson  administra- 
tion were  "bright  and  cheering"  and  he  urged  Virginia's  states'  rights 
men  into  an  "active  support"  of  Jackson's  candidacy.  While  there  were 
"many,  many  others  whom  I  would  prefer,"  he  confided  to  Curtis, 
"every  day  that  passes  inspires  me  with  the  strong  hope  that  his  ad- 
ministration will  be  characterized  by  simplicity — I  mean  Republican 
simplicity."  Basically  though,  it  was  still  a  choice  of  evils.  "Turning 
to  [Jackson]  I  may  at  least  indulge  in  hope,"  Tyler  confessed;  "looking 
on  Adams  I  must  despair."  He  decided  to  vote  for  Old  Hickory  in  1828 
on  the  basis  of  the  same  rationalization  he  had  employed  in  1824  when 
he  opted  for  Adams.  In  neither  instance  was  he  deceived  by  others. 
He  deceived  himself.14 

81 


The  Jackson  cause  in  the  South  in  1828  was  strengthened  by  the 
appearance  on  the  Democratic  ticket  of  John  C.  Calhoun  as  Vice- 
Presidential  nominee.  Calhoun,  his  long  honeymoon  with  Clay  and  the 
American  System  ended  on  the  rocks  of  the  Tariff  of  Abominations, 
was  now  a  staunch  states'  rights  advocate.  He  shifted  from  Adams7 
faction  to  that  of  Jackson  with  all  the  skill  and  finesse  of  a  Talleyrand. 
Vice-President  under  Adams,  he  would  soon  become  Vice-President 
under  Jackson.  The  so-called  National  Republicans,  an  amalgamation 
of  the  followers  of  Adams  and  Clay  and  the  remnants  of  the  old 
Hamiltonian  Federalists,  met  in  convention  at  Harrisburg  and  predict- 
ably renominated  Adams.  His  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Richard  Rush 
of  Pennsylvania,  was  given  the  second  place  on  the  ticket. 

The  campaign  began  in  the  gutter  and  remained  there.  The  issues 
of  the  day  received  scant  attention.  The  National  Republicans  portrayed 
Jackson  as  an  ignorant,  drunken,  quarrelsome,  trigger-happy  duelist, 
murderer,  and  militarist  who  had  committed  bigamy  with  his  wife 
Rachel.  The  Democracy  shrilly  countered  with  the  old  charge  of  the 
"corrupt  bargain"  and  added  the  accusation  that  Adams  had  mis- 
appropriated public  funds  for  his  personal  use  and  had  kept  a  "gaming 
table'7  in  the  White  House.  To  counteract  the  bigamy  charge,  one  of 
Jackson's  more  creative  campaign  managers,  Duff  Green,  concocted 
the  story  that  Adams,  while  Minister  to  Russia,  had  encouraged  the 
Czar  to  seduce  a  friendless  American  girl  there. 

All  this  was  hokum.  It  stirred  up  the  voters,  however,  tens  of 
thousands  of  them  recently  enfranchised,  and  some  1,155,000  Ameri- 
cans turned  out  to  give  the  alleged  bigamist  a  647,000^0-508,000 
margin  over  the  alleged  procurer.  Compared  with  the  361,000  Ameri- 
cans who  had  cast  ballots  in  1824,  the  election  of  Jackson  represented 
a  major  democratic  upheaval.  His  personality  excited  both  love  and 
hate,  but  it  did  excite.  And  with  suffrage  coming  to  most  white  Ameri- 
can males  who  wished  to  exercise  it,  a  revolution  toward  what  Tyler 
later  called  "King  Numbers"  was  well  under  way.  The  masses  swept 
Old  Hickory  into  office.15 

Tyler  took  no  active  part  in  the  campaign.  He  paid  no  attention 
to  the  scurrility  employed  by  both  sides.  He  voted  for  the  Jackson- 
Calhoun  ticket  and  sat  back  to  await  developments.  "We  are  here  in  a 
dead  calm,"  he  wrote  a  Charles  City  neighbor  from  Washington  in 
December  1828.  "When  the  General  comes  we  may  expect  more  bustle 
and  stir."  It  was  one  of  John  Tyler's  greatest  understatements.16 

Tyler  had  hoped  that  Jackson's  administration  would  be  charac- 
terized by  "Republican  simplicity,"  but  he  was  scarcely  prepared  for 
the  arrival  of  the  drunken,  fighting,  unwashed  hordes  that  descended 
on  the  capital  when  Old  Hickory  rode  into  Washington.  The  streets, 
the  boardinghouses,  the  hotels — every  available  space — was  filled  with 

82 


rough,  plain  people  come  to  see  their  champion  safely  Installed  in  the 
White  House.  "I  have  never  seen  such  a  crowd  before,"  wrote  Daniel 
Webster.  u Persons  have  corne  five  hundred  miles  to  see  General  Jack- 
son, and  they  really  seem  to  think  that  the  country  has  been  rescued 
from  some  dreadful  danger."  17 

The  details  of  the  reception  at  the  White  House  following  Jackson's 
Inaugural  Address  have  long  been  part  of  America's  democratic  folk- 
lore. Scrambling,  surging,  and  elbowing,  the  crowd  flooded  into  the 
Executive  Mansion  to  glimpse,  to  touch,  to  admire  the  Hero.  Muddy 
boots,  crashing  glass,  fainting  women,  bloody  noses,  and  ruined  furni- 
ture contributed  to  the  pandemonium.  Until  the  punch  bow!  was  moved 
out  onto  the  lawn,  followed  closely  by  the  thirsty  frontier  citizenry,  it 
seemed  that  Jackson  would  be  crushed  to  death  and  the  White  House 
laid  waste.  On  March  4,  1829,  the  Voice  of  the  People  breathed  the 
strong  odor  of  raw  whiskey.  To  one  dignified  aristocrat  the  reception 
seemed  to  herald  the  "reign  of  King  Mob";  to  another  the  General's 
cheering  section  was  a  "noisy  and  disorderly  rabble"  reminiscent  of  the 
French  Revolution.18 

There  was  nothing  in  Jackson's  inaugural  speech  to  stir  men's  souls 
to  this  boisterous  extent.  It  was  a  pedestrian  address  promising  economy 
In  government,  a  proper  regard  for  states'  rights,  and  an  overhauling  of 
the  federal  civil  service.  The  main  issues  of  the  day — tariffs,  internal 
improvements,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States — were  buried  in  verbal 
fog.  The  General  was  not  yet  ready  to  tip  his  political  hand.  Behind 
the  scenes  he  was  busily  engaged  in  forging  his  "Kitchen  Cabinet,"  those 
practical  politicians,  publicists,  and  advisers  who  would  build  the  Jack- 
son party,  organize  the  rural  and  urban  masses  behind  it,  and  revolu- 
tionize the  whole  conception  of  the  role  of  the  Executive  in  American 
government.  These  insiders — Francis  P.  Blair,  Duff  Green,  Isaac  Hill, 
Amos  Kendall,  Andrew  J.  Donelson,  and  William  B.  Lewis — were  all 
ambitious  Democrats,  men  willing  to  employ  intrigue  and  ruthlessness 
in  their  desire  to  crush  the  political  power  of  the  moneyed  and  landed 
aristocracy  in  America.  In  their  prejudices,  Ideas,  and  actions  they 
nurtured  the  first  seeds  of  a  concentrated  attack  on  entrenched  class 
privilege  in  the  United  States.  It  is  little  wonder  that  the  aristocratic 
John  Tyler  would  soon  find  himself,  like  All  Baba,  fallen  among  political 
thieves.19 

The  first  sure  indication  Tyler  had  that  Jackson  planned  a  major 
assault  upon  the  old  order  of  things  came  in  1830  with  the  so-called 
Spoils  System,  Old  Hickory's  policy  of  frankly  bending  the  power  of 
patronage  to  party  purposes.  It  was  not  a  new  idea.  Thomas  Jefferson 
had  employed  patronage  in  this  manner,  with  considerable  restraint 
to  be  sure,  during  his  White  House  years.  By  1830  it  had  become 
standard  operating  procedure  in  the  governments  of  several  states, 
notably  New  York  and  Pennsylvania.  What  Jackson  did  was  to  Intro- 

83 


duce  the  system  openly  and  boldly  into  federal  administration.  He  fired 
civil  servants  friendly  to  the  old  Adams  administration  and  he  removed 
others  who  were  engaged  in  sabotaging  the  policies  of  his  own. 
During  his  first  year  in  the  White  House  he  removed  from  office,  for 
political  reasons  alone,  9  per  cent  of  all  federal  officeholders,  replacing 
them  with  men  personally  loyal  to  himself.  Proportionately,  this  was  no 
greater  number  than  Jefferson  had  removed,  but  it  looked  like  a  vast 
purge.  Jackson's  intention  in  all  this  was  to  narrow  the  gap  between 
the  government  and  the  people.  Official  duties,  said  the  President,  should 
be  made  "so  plain  and  simple  that  men  of  intelligence  may  readily 
qualify  themselves  for  their  performance."  Only  in  this  way  could  the 
educated  leisure  class  be  shaken  from  its  firm  grip  on  the  engines  of 
government.20 

Tyler's  principal  objection  to  Jackson's  appointment  policy  hinged 
on  the  professional  background  of  some  of  the  appointees.  He  did  not 
oppose  the  use  of  patronage  for  party  purposes  as  such;  indeed,  he 
embraced  the  idea  affectionately  when  he  himself  was  in  the  White 
House.  His  primary  criticism  of  administration  patronage  policy 
centered  upon  Jackson's  appointment  of  a  group  of  pro-administration 
newspaper  editors  and  journalists  to  public  office.  Tyler's  feeling  was 
that  "the  press,  the  great  instrument  of  enlightenment  of  the  people, 
should  not  be  subjected,  through  its  conductors,  to  rewards  and  punish- 
ments." He  did  not  consider  the  fact  that  many  of  the  great  newspapers 
in  the  nation  were  already  at  the  service  of  aristocratic  elements  hostile 
to  Jackson.  Nevertheless,  he  feared  that  the  free  press  would  swiftly 
be  reduced  to  a  mere  trumpet  of  party  by  Jackson's  policy.  For  this 
reason  Tyler  voted  in  the  Senate  against  the  confirmation  of  pro- 
Jackson  journalists  Amos  Kendall,  Henry  Lee,  James  B.  Gardner, 
Mordecai  M.  Noah,  and  Isaac  Hill.21 

He  similarly  opposed  Jackson's  right  to  utilize  recess  appointments 
of  American  diplomats  as  a  device  to  avoid  the  problem  of  Senate 
confirmation.  The  appointment  power  was  clearly  the  President's  under 
the  Constitution,  but  Jackson  had  not  subsequently  submitted  the  names 
of  his  recess  appointees  to  the  Senate  for  its  "advice  and  consent." 
The  President's  position  was  that  the  work  of  the  nation  had  to  go 
forward  whether  the  Senate  was  in  session  or  not  and  that  the  sub- 
mission of  the  names  of  diplomats  to  the  Senate  after  the  completion  of 
the  work  they  were  appointed  to  do  was  an  irrelevancy  and  a  waste 
of  time.  In  this  attitude  Jackson  was  in  violation  of  both  the  spirit  and 
letter  of  the  Constitution,  and  Senator  Tyler  was  quick  to  pounce  on 
him.  In  an  able  speech  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  in  February  1831, 
Tyler  carefully  read  the  wording  of  Article  II,  Section  2,  Paragraph  2, 
dealing  with  "advice  and  consent."  Semantics  were  with  him  on  this 
issue  and  he  knew  it: 

84 


Sir,  I  take  the  simple,  unambiguous  language  of  the  Constitution  as  I  find  it. 
I  will  not  inquire  what  it  should  be,  but  what  it  is,  when  I  come  to  decide 

upon  it For  myself  the  path  of  duty  is  straight,  and  I  shall  walk  in  it. 

Shall  I  displease  the  President  by  doing  so?  If  I  do,  I  cannot  help  it I 

have  seen  much  in  his  career  to  applaud But  if  we  were  now  forming  the 

government,  I  would  add  to  the  power  of  the  President  not  even  so  much  as 
would  turn  the  scales  by  the  hundredth  part  of  a  hair.  There  is  already 
enough  of  the  spice  of  monarchy  in  the  presidential  office.  There  lies  the 
true  danger  to  our  institutions.  It  has  already  become  the  great  magnet  of 
attraction.  The  struggles  to  attain  it  are  designed  to  enlist  all  the  worst  pas- 
sions of  our  nature.  It  is  the  true  Pandora's  box.  Place  in  the  President's 
hands  the  key  to  the  door  of  the  treasury,  by  conferring  on  him  the  uncon- 
trolled power  of  appointing  to  office  and  liberty  cannot  abide  among  us. 

A  majority  of  the  Senate  agreed  with  Tyler,  and  Jackson's  knuckles  were 
sharply  rapped.22 

Senator  Tyler  was  not  yet  in  opposition  to  Jackson.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  found  much  in  the  Jackson  administration  in  1829-1831  to 
command  his  support,  and  he  was  sincere  when  he  said  in  February 
1831  that  he  had  seen  much  in  Jackson's  career  to  applaud.  He  feared 
Clay  and  Ms  American  System  more  than  he  distrusted  Jackson.  In 
March  1830  he  had  written  his  friend  John  Rutherfoord  that  while 
a  polyglot  opposition  to  Jackson  was  beginning  to  form  in  Congress  be- 
hind the  leadership  of  Henry  Clay  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  the  South 
to  continue  supporting  the  President: 

. . .  the  South  sustains  him  from  the  fear  of  greater  ill  under  the  auspices  of 
another.  The  opposition  is  united  to  a  man  and  will  carry  on  the  most  un- 
sparing warfare.  They  produce  the  effect,  which  may  be  salutary,  of  holding 
our  heterogeneous  materials  together. ...  At  this  time  too  the  country  is 
peculiarly  excited  by  the  alarmists  and  fanatics,  anti-Sunday  mail,  anti- 
masonic,  abolition  societies,  and  last,  tho'  not  least,  the  sympathy  and  mock 
sensibility  attempted  to  be  created  in  behalf  of  the  Southern  Indians,  all 
conspiring  to  one  end,  viz:  the  overthrow  of  Jackson  and  the  elevation  of 
Clay. 

Nor  in  their  personal  relations  was  Tyler  yet  ready  to  fault  Old 
Hickory.  A  dinner  at  the  White  House  in  1830  frankly  impressed  him. 
"Would  you  old-fashioned  Virginian  believe  it,"  he  remarked  in  good 
humor  to  Rutherfoord,  "he  even  went  so  far  as  to  introduce  his  guests 
to  each  other — a  thing  without  precedent  here  and  most  abominably  un- 
fashionable. At  dinner  he  seemed  to  me  to  have  laid  aside  the  royal 
diadem,  and  to  have  fancied  himself  at  the  Hermitage. . . .  All  satisfied 
me  that  I  stood  in  the  presence  of  an  old-fashioned  republican."  2S 

More  important  than  social  graces,  Jackson's  veto  of  the  Maysville 
Road  Bill  on  May  27,  1830,  drew  Tyler  and  other  states'  rights  politi- 
cians to  his  banner  with  positive  enthusiasm.  The  veto  was  a  sharp 


blow  at  the  National  Republicans  and  at  Henry  Clay,  whose  sup- 
porters in  the  West  and  Northeast  had  rammed  the  proposal  through 
Congress.  It  was  also  an  attempt  by  Jackson  to  bring  the  South  more 
closely  to  his  support  and  head  off  defections  in  that  section  threatened 
in  the  growing  personal  tension  between  himself  and  Vice-President 
Calhoun.  It  represented,  finally,  the  beginning  of  Jackson's  shift,  under 
the  urging  of  Martin  Van  Buren  and  others,  to  a  more  radical  posi- 
tion of  attacking  privilege  by  denying  federal  subsidies  to  private  cor- 
porations. 

The  bill  authorized  the  government  to  buy  $150,000  worth  of  stock 
in  the  Maysville  Turnpike  Road  Company  to  permit  the  company  to 
construct  a  sixty-mile  stretch  of  highway  located  entirely  within  the 
state  of  Kentucky.  The  President  argued  in  his  veto  message  that  since 
the  proposed  road  lay  entirely  within  the  limits  of  Kentucky  and  was 
not  connected  with  any  existing  transportation  system  of  an  interstate 
character,  it  was  not  properly  a  matter  for  federal  concern.  He  also 
suggested  that  the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  future  internal- 
improvement  proposals  might  well  be  solved  by  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment specifically  permitting  federal  expenditures  for  such  purposes. 

Tyler  was  extremely  encouraged  by  the  veto  message.  "This  action 
of  the  President,"  he  exulted,  "is  hailed  with  unbounded  delight  by  the 
strict  constructionists,  and  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  resound  with  his 
praise."  Well  might  Tyler  have  been  pleased  with  the  veto.  His  own 
speech  in  the  Senate  in  April  1830  in  opposition  to  the  Maysville  Bill 
was  a  slashing  attack  on  the  whole  concept  of  government-financed 
internal  improvements.  The  twisting  of  the  Constitution  had  reached 
the  point  in  the  Maysville  proposal,  he  argued  sarcastically,  whereby 
the  dirt  lane  running  past  his  Gloucester  farm  could  be  designated  a 
"national"  road  because  it  ultimately  intersected  a  road  that  later 
joined  another  road  that  ran  from  Virginia  to  Alabama.24 

If  Tyler  remained  reconciled  to  the  Jackson  administration,  the 
spring  of  1831  found  many  states7  rights  politicians  in  the  South  search- 
ing for  greener  pastures.  Chief  among  these  was  John  C.  Calhoun.  Fol- 
lowing the  passage  of  the  hated  Tariff  of  Abominations  in  1828,  a 
troubled  Calhoun  returned  to  his  Fort  Hill  plantation  at  Pendleton, 
South  Carolina,  to  ruminate  on  the  sad  state  of  the  nation  and  his 
future  role  in  it.  While  the  citizenry  was  electing  him  once  again  to  the 
Vice-Presidency,  Calhoun  was  calmly  producing  the  explosive  pamphlet 
"South  Carolina  Exposition  and  Protest."  In  this  revolutionary  work 
the  Vice-President  coldly  and  brilliantly  argued  the  thesis  that  South 
Carolina,  as  a  voluntary  member  of  the  original  compact  of  states, 
retained  the  right  under  the  Constitution  of  that  compact  to  nullify  and 
declare  void  within  her  borders  the  operation  of  any  federal  law  that 
was  unconstitutional — in  this  instance  the  Tariff  of  1828. 

Armed  with  this  sputtering  ideological  bomb,  Calhoun  returned 

86 


to  Washington  to  fight  the  states'  rights  cause.  During  the  next  two 
years  he  permitted  his  personal  and  political  relations  with  Jackson 
to  deteriorate  to  such  a  point  that  by  1831  the  two  men  were  scarcely 
speaking.  In  the  first  place,  Jackson  was  distressed  to  learn  that  Calhoun 
had  covertly  criticized  his  conduct  in  Florida  in  1818.  The  split  was 
widened  when  Calhoun  and  his  haughty  wife,  Floride,  refused  to  mingle 
socially  with  Peggy  O'Neale  Eaton,  the  former  Washington  barmaid  who 
had  married  Jackson's  Secretary  of  War,  John  H.  Eaton.,  in  1829.  Jack- 
son's decision  to  champion  the  controversial  Peggy  disrupted  the  Cabi- 
net and  all  Washington  society.  Only  the  urbane  widower,  Martin  Van 
Buren,  Secretary  of  State,  sided  with  his  chivalrous  chief  and  maintained 
social  intercourse  with  the  outcaste  Eatons.25 

The  political  vacuum  in  the  Jackson  administration  created  by 
Calhoun 's  break  with  the  President  was  filled  by  Van  Buren.  Indeed, 
Tyler  watched  with  fascination  as  the  leader  of  the  New  York  Democ- 
racy and  champion  of  the  common  man  in  the  Empire  State  ingratiated 
himself  with  Old  Hickory  and  overnight  maneuvered  himself  into  the 
position  of  chief  heir  to  the  Presidential  succession.  Tyler  was  no 
admirer  of  the  Little  Magician.  He  considered  Van  Buren  little  more 
than  a  slick  opportunist.  "I  like  not  the  man  overmuch/'  he  con- 
fessed to  his  brother-in-law,  John  B.  Seawell,  in  January  1832.  He 
could  see,  however,  that  as  Calhoun  and  his  friends  marched  out  of 
the  Jackson  administration  the  New  York  liberals  under  Van  Buren 
were  marching  in.  The  political  alliance  of  frontier  agrarians  and  urban 
artisans  which  would  sweep  all  before  it  in  1832,  and  again  in  1836, 
was  beginning  to  take  form  in  the  Jackson- Van  Buren  amalgam.  "What 
deeper  game  could  any  man  have  played?"  Tyler  asked.  Nevertheless, 
he  was  impressed  with  the  New  York  politician's  skill  in  moving  his 
cohorts  into  Jackson's  inner  circle.26 

Tyler  was  unwilling  in  1831-1832  to  carry  his  states'  rights  orienta- 
tion to  the  extreme  of  Calhoun's  radical  nullification  doctrine.  Nor 
was  he  prepared  to  flail  the  Jackson  administration  without  good  cause. 
For  him,  the  glow  of  the  Maysville  veto  lingered  on.  When  Jackson  also 
vetoed  the  Bank  Bill  in  July  1832,  Tyler  had  no  choice  but  to  come 
again  to  Old  Hickory's  support  in  the  November  canvass.  As  he  ex- 
plained his  decision  to  his  daughter  Mary  in  April  1832: 

You  say  that  enquiries  are  often  made  of  you  as  to  my  opinions  on  various 
political  subjects.  If  you  knew  them,  upon  many  it  might  be  improper  to 
divulge  them.  There  are  enough  persons  who  would  be  inclined  to  turn  your 
declarations  to  bad  account  in  reference  to  myself.  Speak  of  me  always  as  a 
Jackson  man  whenever  you  are  questioned,  and  say  that  in  regard  to  Van 
Buren,  Calhoun,  etc.,  etc.,  they  are  matters  with  which  I  do  not  deal;  that 
you  have  reason  to  believe  that  I  am  directed  exclusively  by  reference  to  the 
public  interests,  and  not  by  men.  In  this  way  those  who  make  enquiries  will 
be  readily  satisfied,  and  be  no  wiser  than  they  were  before  questioning  you.27 

87 


Following  the  Investigation  of  the  second  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  in  which  Tyler  had  participated  in  1819,  the  controversial  in- 
stitution had  grown  and  flourished  under  the  able  leadership  of  Langdon 
Cheves  of  South  Carolina.  Honesty  and  conservatism  had  characterized 
its  operations  for  a  decade.  It  had  provided  a  stable  currency  and  had 
served  as  a  safe  repository  of  Treasury  receipts.  Nevertheless,  consider- 
able ideological  and  political  hostility  to  the  Bank  remained.  States' 
rights  theorists  still  considered  the  institution  unconstitutional.  Western 
debtors  and  land  speculators  favoring  inflation  and  cheap  money  ob- 
jected to  the  Bank's  conservatism  and  its  deflationary  policies.  Private 
banking  interests  throughout  the  nation  resented  the  Bank's  monop- 
olistic features.  Jackson  himself  harbored  the  unsophisticated  frontier 
notion  that  paper  money  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  have  floating  around. 
Less  naive  was  his  view  that  the  Bank  was  a  monopolistic  private  cor- 
poration of  great  power,  wealth,  and  influence.  Operating  partially  in 
the  public  interest  without  public  controls  upon  it,  it  was  an  octopus 
among  financial  porpoises.  Its  leader  after  1822  was  the  haughty  Nicho- 
las Biddle,  a  snobbish  patrician  from  a  social  background  the  Old  Hero 
felt  he  could  not  trust.  The  more  Jackson  thought  about  the  potential 
threat  of  the  rising  moneyed  aristocracy  in  America,  symbolized  by 
Biddle,  his  rich  friends,  and  the  stockholders  of  the  Bank,  the  more 
convinced  he  became  that  a  cancer  of  privilege  was  spreading  among 
the  healthy  tissues  of  the  republican  body  social. 

Nicholas  Biddle  wanted  desperately  to  keep  the  Bank  out  of 
partisan  politics.  Yet  its  charter  would  expire  again  in  1836  and  he 
felt  it  imperative  to  the  economic  well-being  of  the  nation  that  it  be 
renewed.  Conversations  with  Henry  Clay  convinced  him  that  he  should 
push  for  charter  renewal  in  1832,  four  years  in  advance  of  the  expira- 
tion date — before  Jackson  could  effectively  organize  anti-Bank  forces 
behind  his  own  party.  A  lightning  campaign  for  the  Bank  might  prove 
successful  in  Congress.  But  what  if  the  unpredictable  Jackson  vetoed  a 
new  Bank  bill,  Biddle  wondered.  "Should  Jackson  veto  it/7  exclaimed 
Clay,  "I  shall  veto  him!"28 

Clay's  motives  in  urging  a  premature  renewal  of  the  Bank  charter 
were  political.  As  a  longstanding  champion  of  the  institution  in  the 
political  arena,  he  felt  that  a  revival  of  the  Bank  issue  in  1832  might  be 
used  to  defeat  Jackson  in  the  November  campaign.  This,  as  it  turned 
out,  was  a  serious  miscalculation.  Nevertheless,  beginning  in  May  1832, 
Biddle  and  Clay  launched  a  massive  propaganda  campaign  for  im- 
mediate charter  renewal.  All  that  money,  pamphlets,  newspaper  edi- 
torials, and  crack  lobbyists  could  accomplish  was  done.  On  June  1 1  the 
Bank  Bill  passed  the  Senate  28  to  20,  and  on  July  3  it  cleared  the 
House  107  to  85.  The  General  was  outraged  at  the  crude  machinations 
of  the  Clay-Biddle  campaign.  "The  bank  is  trying  to  kill  me,"  he  told 
Van  Buren  grimly,  "but  I  will  kill  it!37  29 

88 


With  Ms  usual  vigor  Senator  Tyler  joined  the  new  fight  over  the 
Bank.  He  had  fought  the  Institution  and  its  predecessor  steadily  since 
1811.  Twenty  years7  service  in  the  anti-Bank  ranks  had  made  him  an 
expert  on  the  question.  His  Senate  speech  of  May  1832  revealed  a  firm 
grasp  of  banking  economics.  He  voted  for  every7  amendment  brought 
to  the  Senate  floor  designed  to  weaken  the  Bank  and  he  opposed  every 
proposal  aimed  at  strengthening  the  institution.  Specifically,  Tyler 
spoke  for  a  crippling  amendment  that  would  limit  to  5  per  cent  the 
legal  interest  rate  the  Bank  might  charge  on  loans.  On  the  moral  side 
of  the  question  he  argued  that  any  allowable  interest  rate  above  5 
per  cent  was  a  federal  endorsement  of  usury.  He  spoke  feelingly  of  the 

vital  importance  of  laws  regulating  the  rate  of  interest;  without  them,  a 
nation  becomes  a  nation  of  money-lenders. . . .  The  Mosaic  regulation  which 
permitted  usance  to  be  taken  of  strangers,  aided  by  the  oppressions  under 
which  they  laboured,  converted  the  Jews  Into  a  nation  of  money-lenders.  I 
mention  this  not  to  their  discredit.  They  are  like  all  the  rest  of  the  human 
family — no  better  and  no  worse — devoting  themselves  to  the  acquisition  of 
money,  and  seeking  for  their  money  such  investment  as  yields  the  greatest 
return.  Into  the  same  condition  may  the  people  of  any  country  be  changed. 
Only  make  the  profits  on  loans  high  enough:  if  six  per  cent  will  not  do,  take 
ten;  if  ten  does  not,  take  twenty;  in  other  words,  make  It  more  profitable 
for  the  capitalists  to  loan  out  their  money  than  to  invest  it  in  lands,  ships,  or 
machinery,  and  the  work  Is  accomplished.  Government  will  have  converted 
the  community  into  a  nation  of  usurers.30 

So  eager  was  Tyler  to  expel  the  Northern  moneychangers  from  the 
cool  temples  of  Jeffersonian  agrarianism  he  could  only  cheer  Jackson's 
veto  message.  Written  by  the  President  with  the  assistance  and  advice 
of  Martin  Van  Buren,  Amos  Kendall,  Andrew  J.  Donelson,  and  Roger 
B.  Taney,  the  veto  had,  a  stunned  Biddle  explained  to  Clay,  "all  the 
fury  of  a  chained  panther  biting  the  bars  of  his  cage.  It  is  really  a 
manifesto  of  anarchy . . .  and  my  hope  is,  that  it  will  contribute  to  re- 
lieve the  country  of  these  miserable  people.  You  are  destined  to  be  the 
instrument  of  that  deliverance."  Jackson's  message  indeed  rang  with  de- 
fiance and  challenge,  appealing  to  the  economic  and  class  interests  of 
the  farmers  and  workers.  If  It  was  short  on  fiscal  analysis  it  was  full  in 
its  condemnation  of  the  moneychangers  so  hated  by  Tyler.  "It  is  to  be 
regretted/'  said  the  President,  "that  the  rich  and  powerful  too  often 
bend  the  acts  of  government  to  their  selfish  purposes  . . .  but  when  the 
laws  . . .  make  the  rich  richer  and  the  potent  more  powerful,  the  humble 
members  of  society — the  farmers,  mechanics,  and  laborers — who  have 
neither  the  time  nor  the  means  of  securing  like  favors  to  themselves, 
have  a  right  to  complain  of  the  Injustice  of  their  Government."  Jackson 
was  well  on  his  way  toward  a  more  radical  democracy.  Thanks  to  the 
vigor  of  the  veto  and  the  skill  of  Jackson's  campaign  managers  the 
Bank  question  became  the  central  one  in  the  Presidential  canvass.  The 


President  rode  it  hard.  "The  veto  works  well  everywhere,"  he  announced 
in  August;  "it  has  put  down  the  Bank  instead  of  prostrating  me."  31 

Tyler  supported  Jackson  in  the  November  election  even  though 
the  President's  effort  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  nation's  small 
farmers  and  mechanics  was  an  appeal  to  American  social  classes  with 
which  the  planter  aristocracy  had  little  in  common.  Nonetheless,  the 
record  of  Old  Hickory's  first  administration  on  internal  improvements 
and  the  Bank  made  the  President  eminently  preferable  to  National 
Republican  Henry  Clay.  And  while  the  slippery  Van  Buren  was  Jack- 
son's running  mate  on  the  Democratic  ticket,  Tyler  felt  that  the  Mays- 
ville  and  Bank  vetoes  left  him  not  much  choice  in  the  matter.  There 
was  also  the  practical  consideration  that  Clay  had  small  prospect  of 
victory.  "Clay  stands  no  chance,"  said  Tyler  in  April  1832.  "Jackson  is 
invincible."  For  Tyler  it  was  again  largely  a  choice  of  the  lesser  of  evils 
and  once  more  he  held  his  considerable  nose,  voted,  and  went  home  to 
disinfect  himself.32 

Jackson  ran  hard  against  the  "Money  Monster"  while  Biddle  and 
Ms  wealthy  friends  poured  their  money  and  time  into  the  Clay  cause. 
The  result  was  a  Jackson  landslide.  The  President  received  687,502 
popular  votes  and  219  electoral  votes  to  Clay's  530,189  popular  and  49 
electoral  votes.  Clay  carried  only  his  own  Kentucky  and  the  high-tariff 
states  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connnecticut,  and  Delaware. 
Jackson  swept  the  rest.  If  an  American  election  was  ever  a  popular 
mandate  for  anything  (the  point  is  debatable),  the  election  of  1832  was 
a  mandate  against  the  second  Bank  of  the  United  States.33 

Soon  after  the  election  of  1832  states'  rights  radicals  in  South 
Carolina  brought  the  nation  to  the  brink  of  a  civil  war.  On  Novem- 
ber 24,  1832,  a  state  convention  (elected  in  October)  officially  nullified 
the  Tariff  Act  of  1828  and  its  milder  brother,  the  Tariff  Act  of  1832, 
and  threatened  secession  if  the  federal  government  attempted  to  use 
force  to  collect  tariff  revenues  within  the  state.  On  November  27  the 
legislature  authorized  the  raising  and  arming  of  a  military  force  to  resist 
any  federal  encroachments.  To  punctuate  these  provocative  moves,  John 
C.  Calhoun  resigned  the  Vice-Presidency  on  December  28  and  left  for 
Washington  to  assume  the  Senate  seat  he  had  won  two  weeks  earlier  in 
the  juggling  of  offices  which  sent  Robert  Y,  Hayne  from  the  Senate  to  the 
Governor's  Mansion.  From  his  Senate  vantage  point  Calhoun  immedi- 
ately launched  South  Carolina's  defense  of  nullification. 

Jackson's  reaction  to  the  threat  from  Charleston  was  that  of  the 
carrot  and  the  stick.  The  carrot  was  the  recommendation  in  his  Annual 
Message  of  December  4  to  lower  tariffs  below  the  1832  level.  This  would 
put  tariff  schedules  far  below  the  1828  levels  that  had  outraged  the 
South  four  years  earlier.  The  stick  was  brandished  in  his  Proclamation, 
to  the  People  of  South  Carolina,  issued  on  December  10.  The  Proclama- 

90 


tlon  minced  no  words.  The  whole  doctrine  of  nullification,  said  the 
President,  was  an  "'impractical  absurdity."  Drawing  on  the  views  of  John 
Marshall,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  Daniel  Webster,  he  maintained  that 
the  federal  government  was  sovereign  and  indivisible.  No  state  could 
refuse  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  land;  nor  could  a  state  withdraw  from  the 
Union.  "Disunion  by  armed  force  is  treason,"  the  President  stated 
bluntly.  He  thus  made  it  perfectly  clear  that  South  Carolina  would  be 
crushed  by  federal  arms  if  necessary.  On  January  16,  1833,  he  asked 
Congress  for  the  authority  to  use  military  force  if  necessary  to  uphold 
the  federal  revenue  laws  in  South  Carolina.  Angry  and  frustrated,  he 
confided  to  his  closest  aides  that  he  would  see  that  the  leading  nullifiers 
were  "arrested  and  arraigned  for  treason."  Jackson  was  no  man  to  trifle 
with  when  he  was  annoyed.34 

The  major  political  effect  of  the  President's  Proclamation  and  his 
Force  Bill  was  to  split  the  dominant  Jackson  party,  so  recently  trium- 
phant at  the  polls,  down  the  middle.  States'  rights  advocates  in  Virginia 
were  shocked  to  see  their  hero  of  the  Maysville  and  Bank  vetoes  now 
embrace  extreme  nationalist  doctrine.  Jackson's  threat  to  use  armed  force 
went  far  beyond  anything  the  Founding  Fathers  had  visualized  in  the 
legitimate  relationships  between  the  states  and  the  federal  government. 
The  Virginians  were  not  agreed,  however,  on  the  constitutionality  of  nul- 
lification or  secession.  Theoretical  confusion  stalked  their  ranks.  Some, 
like  Tyler's  friend  Henry  A.  Wise,  argued  that  the  nullification  of  a 
tariff  was  illegal  since  the  levying  of  a  tariff  was  obviously  constitutional. 
Others  accepted  the  nullification  as  a  legitimate  form  of  remonstrance 
but  denied  the  related  right  of  secession.  Some  upheld  both;  some  denied 
both.  Still  others  denied  nullification  and  maintained  the  right  to  secede. 
Thomas  Ritchie,  editor  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer  and  a  strong  Jackson 
man,  thought  secession  legal  but  called  nullification  a  "mischievous  and 
absurd  heresy . . .  seeking  to  place  a  State  in  the  Union  and  out  of  it 
at  the  same  time!3  35 

Tyler  was  placed  in  an  intellectual  quandary  by  South  Carolina's 
revolutionary  action  and  Jackson's  militaristic  reaction.  He  agreed  that 
the  Tariff  of  1832  was  a  bad  business.  Even  though  duties  had  been 
scaled  back  to  the  1824  levels,  Tyler  had  opposed  the  legislation  in  the 
Senate  because  there  was  in  it  no  retreat  from  the  basic  principle  of  tariff 
protection.  And  while  he  saw  it  as  an  improvement  over  the  1828  Tariff 
of  Abominations,  he  had  delivered  an  impassioned  three-day  speech  in 
February  1832  attacking  it.  The  protective  tariff,  he  again  argued,  was 
a  form  of  robbery  in  which  the  mercantile  class  of  the  North  picked  the 
pockets  of  agrarian  consumers  in  the  South.  Indeed,  the  whole  concep- 
tion of  protectionism  was  evidence  of  the  new  materialism  that  was 
overtaking  the  nation,  threatening  to  reduce  Americans  to  mere  money- 
changers. "Man  cannot  worship  God  and  Mammon,"  Tyler  cried.  "If 
you  would  preserve  the  political  temple  pure  and  undefiled  it  can  only 


be  done  by  expelling  the  money-changers  and  getting  back  to  the 
worship  of  our  fathers."  36 

But  when  it  came  right  down  to  the  legality  of  nullifying  the  Tariff 
Acts  of  1828  and  1832  Tyler  was  far  less  sure  of  himself.  What  he 
attempted  to  do  was  discover  and  occupy  a  middle  ground  on  an  issue 
which  had  no  detectable  middle.  On  one  extreme  of  the  question  Cal- 
houn  maintained  the  legality  of  both  nullification  and  secession  and  the 
unconstitutionally  of  Jackson's  Force  Bill.  Webster,  on  the  other  ex- 
treme, consistently  upheld  the  illegality  of  secession  and  nullification 
and  argued  the  propriety  of  using  force  in  the  circumstance.  Tyler 
upheld  the  right  of  secession  while  denying  the  right  of  nullification. 
But  he  also  denied  the  right  of  the  federal  government  to  employ  force 
against  nullification  when  it  occurred.  Even  firm  states'  rights  Virginians 
like  Henry  St.  George  Tucker  could  not  accept  this  peculiar  dichotomy 
in  Tyler's  thinking.  As  long  as  South  Carolina  was  actually  in  the  Union, 
argued  Tucker,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  nullification.  It  was  a  ques- 
tion of  either  submitting  or  seceding,  and  since  South  Carolina  had  not 
seceded,  the  federal  government  had  no  alternative  but  to  compel  the 
state  to  comply  with  federal  legislation.  Anything  less  than  this  made 
the  whole  idea  of  federal  government  a  "farce."  But  Tyler's  middle 
way,  however  logically  inconsistent  it  was,  was  supported  in  part  by  a 
resolution  of  the  Virginia  legislature  on  January  26,  1833.  The  resolution 
strongly  urged  compromise,  pledged  Virginia  to  a  continuing  support  of 
state  sovereignty,  and  denied  Jackson's  right  under  the  Constitution  to 
use  armed  force  against  South  Carolina.  When  news  of  this  action 
reached  Tyler  in  Washington  he  and  his  friend  William  F.  Gordon 
"both  sprang  up,  caught  each  other  in  their  arms  and  danced  around  the 
room  like  children  in  a  delirium  of  joy."  E7 

If  the  theoretical  considerations  remained  complex  for  the  terpsi- 
chorean  Tyler,  the  personality  factor  became  clear  to  him.  Even  though 
the  Virginia  senator  was  willing  to  admit  that  South  Carolina's  nullifi- 
cation decree  had  been  a  terrible  tactical  blunder,  he  finally  decided  that 
Andrew  Jackson  was  the  real  villain  of  the  piece.  Thus  Tyler  informed 
Virginia's  Governor  John  Floyd  on  January  16,  the  day  Jackson  asked 
for  a  congressional  authorization  of  force,  that 

If  S.  Carolina  be  put  down,  then  may  each  of  the  States  yield  all  pretensions 
to  sovereignty.  We  have  a  consolidated  govt.  and  a  master  will  soon  arise. 
This  is  inevitable.  How  idle  to  talk  of  me  serving  a  republic  for  any  length  of 
time,  with  an  uncontrolled  power  over  the  military,  exercised  at  pleasure  by 

the  President What  interest  is  safe  if  the  unbridled  will  of  the  majority 

is  to  have  sway? 

By  February  2  Tyler  had  warmed  further  to  the  theme  that  General 
Jackson  was  seeking  to  establish  a  military  dictatorship  in  America.  The 
old  1819  vision  of  the  Man  on  Horseback  returned.  "Were  ever  men 

92 


so  deceived  as  we  have  been ...  in  Jackson?"  he  asked  Littleton 
Tazewell.  "His  proclamation  has  swept  away  all  the  barriers  of  the 
Constitution,  and  given  us,  in  place  of  the  Federal  government,  under 
which  we  fondly  believed  we  were  living,  a  consolidated  military  despot- 
ism  I  tremble  for  South  Carolina.  The  war-ay  is  up,  rely  upon  it 

The  boast  is  that  the  President,  by  stamping  like  another  Pompey  on 
the  earth,  can  raise  a  hundred  thousand  men."  3S 

A  few  days  later,  on  February  6,  1833,  Tyler  delivered  his  Senate 
speech  against  the  Force  Bill.  The  visitors'  galleries  were  packed.  From 
beginning  to  end  the  speech  was  an  appeal  to  emotion.  The  oratory  was 
brilliant,  but  at  no  point  in  his  address  did  he  suggest  to  Jackson  how 
the  Union  might  be  preserved  without  the  use  of  force.  Faced  with  the 
nullification  of  constitutional  federal  legislation,  how  else  could  Jackson 
approach  South  Carolina  save  by  force?  That  was  the  question.  Either 
the  Union  was  or  it  was  not.  There  could  be  no  partial  Union  some  of 
the  time  when  it  suited  the  convenience  of  some  of  the  parties  to  it. 
Jackson,  of  course,  wanted  no  civil  war.  But  he  could  not  permit  the 
Union  to  degenerate  into  a  part-time  half-Union.  He  had  taken  an  oath 
to  "preserve,  protect  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
Whatever  that  Constitution  was,  whether  it  had  created  a  nation  or  a 
confederation,  there  was  nothing  in  it  specifically  permitting  nullifica- 
tion. His  was  much  the  same  problem  Lincoln  would  face  on  secession 
in  1861. 

Tyler  wanted  no  dissolution  of  the  Union  either.  Unlike  Jackson, 
though,  he  had  no  plan  to  prevent  dissolution.  Instead,  he  spoke  to  the 
Senate  of  preserving  the  Union  by  restoring  mutual  confidence  and 
affection  among  the  states.  He  suggested  the  passage  of  a  compromise 
tariff  act  that  would  allow  both  sides  to  save  face.  He  shied  away  from 
the  theoretical  implications  of  nullification.  At  the  same  time  he  ripped 
into  the  Force  Bill  with  a  ferocity  unequaled  in  any  other  public  speech 
in  his  career.  It  was  a  speech  aimed  as  much  at  the  political  factions  in 
Virginia  as  at  those  within  reach  of  his  voice.  A  few  days  later  he  would 
stand  for  re-election  to  the  Senate  before  the  General  Assembly  in  Rich- 
mond. This  test  he  won  handily,  defeating  James  McDowell,  candidate 
of  the  Virginia  Jacksonians,  8 1  to  62  on  the  first  ballot.  Nevertheless,  he 
wanted  to  make  his  position  on  the  Force  Bill  absolutely  clear  to 
Virginians  as  well  as  to  the  senators  who  sat  before  him: 

Everything,  Mr.  President,  is  running  into  nationality.  You  cannot  walk  along 
the  streets  without  seeing  the  word  on  almost  every  sign — National  Hotel, 
National  boot-black,  National  black-smith,  National  oyster-house.  The  gov- 
ernment was  created  by  the  states,  it  is  amendable  by  the  states,  it  is  pre- 
served by  the  states,  and  may  be  destroyed  by  the  states ;  and  yet  we  are  told 

that  it  is  not  a  government  of  the  states The  very  terms  employed  in 

the  Constitution  indicate  the  true  character  of  the  government.  The  terms 
"We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,"  mean  nothing  more  or  less  than  "We 

93 


the  people  of  the  states  united."  The  pernicious  doctrine  that  this  is  a  national 
and  not  a  Federal  Government,  has  received  countenance  from  the  late 
proclamation  and  message  of  the  President.  The  people  are  regarded  as  one 
mass,  and  the  states  as  constituting  one  nation.  I  desire  to  know  when  this 
chemical  process  occurred . . .  such  doctrines  would  convert  the  states  into 
mere  petty  corporations,  provinces  of  one  consolidated  government.  These 
principles  give  to  this  government  authority  to  veto  all  state  laws,  not  merely 
by  Act  of  Congress,  but  by  the  sword  and  bayonet.  They  would  place  the 
President  at  the  head  of  the  regular  army  in  array  against  the  States,  and  the 
sword  and  cannon  would  come  to  be  the  common  arbiter. ...  To  arm  him 
with  military  power  is  to  give  him  the  authority  to  crush  South  Carolina, 
should  she  adopt  secession. 

He  was  convinced  that  if  the  crisis  came  to  outright  secession,  economic 
pressures  alone  would  bring  South  Carolina  back  into  the  Union  more 
swiftly  than  the  "employment  of  a  hundred  thousand  men."  As  he  would 
do  again  in  1861,  Tyler  painted  a  grim  picture  of  the  bloodshed  and 
property  destruction  of  civil  war.  He  pleaded  that  Jackson  not  be  given 
the  power  to  coerce  South  Carolina  and  thereby  precipitate  a  civil  war. 
It  was  Jacksonjs  decision,  said  Tyler,  not  South  Carolina's: 

If  the  majority  shall  pass  this  bill,  they  must  do  it  on  their  own  responsibility; 

I  will  have  no  part  in  it Yes,  sir,  "the  Federal  Union  must  be  preserved." 

But  how?  Will  you  seek  to  preserve  it  by  force?  Will  you  appease  the  angry 
spirit  of  discord  by  an  oblation  of  blood?  . . .  Glory  comes  not  from  the  blood 
of  slaughtered  brethren.  Gracious  God !  Is  it  necessary  to  urge  such  considera- 
tions on  an  American  Senate?  Whither  has  the  genius  of  America  fled?  We 
have  had  darker  days  than  the  present,  and  that  genius  has  saved  us.  Are  we 
to  satisfy  the  discontents  of  the  people  by  force — by  shooting  some,  and 
bayoneting  others?  ...  I  would  that  I  had  but  mild  influence  enough  to  save 
my  country  in  this  hour  of  peril. ...  I  have  no  such  power;  I  stand  here 
manacled  in  a  minority,  whose  efforts  can  avail  but  little.  You,  who  are  the 
majority,  have  the  destinies  of  the  country  in  your  hands.  If  war  shall  grow 
out  of  this  measure,  you  are  alone  responsible.  I  will  wash  my  hands  of  the 
business;  rather  than  give  my  aid,  I  would  surrender  my  station  here 39 

On  February  20  the  Force  Bill  came  to  a  Senate  vote.  Several 
Southern  senators  left  the  floor  rather  than  be  recorded  in  favor  of  a 
measure  they  could  not  stomach.  It  was  clear  by  this  time,  however ;  that 
a  compromise  tariff  might  be  worked  out  that  would  stay  the  hands  of 
both  South  Carolina  and  General  Jackson.  Neither  side  wanted  blood- 
shed. No  one  wanted  to  die  for  an  ad  valorem  tariff.  Better  then,  rea- 
soned the  practical  politicians  of  the  South,  not  to  be  counted  on  either 
side  of  the  Force  Bill.  Only  John  Tyler  among  them  retained  his  seat, 
and  only  Tyler  had  the  courage  to  vote  his  convictions.  Even  Calhoun 
was  conveniently  absent,  as  was  Clay,  who  was  leading  the  compromise 
tariff  movement  behind  the  scenes.  Senator  William  C.  Rives  of  Virginia, 
Tyler's  colleague,  abstained  from  voting  although  he  had  reluctantly 
supported  Jackson's  course  throughout  the  crisis,  being,  in  Ms  own 

94 


words,  "anti-bank,  anti-tariff  and  anti-nullification."  The  final  vote  for 
the  Force  Bill  was  thirty-two;  the  vote  against  it  was  one.  John  Tyler 
cast  the  only  recorded  dissenting  vote — the  vote  he  was  proudest  of  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  In  1839  he  boasted  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates 
that  "Against  that  odious  measure  my  name  stands  conspicuously  re- 
corded. I  say  conspicuously,  since  it  is  the  only  vote  recorded  in  the 
negative  on  ...  that  bloody  bill.7'  40 

It  was  a  courageous  vote,  but  it  was  not  quite  so  conspicuous  as 
Tyler  later  remembered  it.  The  chronology  of  events  indicates  that  the 
prospect  of  a  bloodless  compromise  was  well  advanced  by  February  6 
when  Tyler  made  his  ringing  speech  against  the  measure.  Although  the 
Virginian  did  not  know  the  extent  to  which  compromise  negotiations  had 
proceeded  in  the  cloakrooms  and  boardinghouse  parlors,  he  did  know  that 
South  Carolina,  in  a  gesture  of  conciliation,  had  temporarily  suspended 
the  Ordinance  of  Nullification  on  January  21.  By  February  20,  when 
Tyler  cast  the  lone  vote  against  the  Force  Bill,  the  crisis  had  largely 
passed.  His  concern  for  citizens  being  shot  and  bayoneted  while  blood 
flowed  in  the  gutters  of  Charleston  was  therefore  a  bit  theatrical.  His  role 
in  the  compromise  tariff  that  averted  bloodshed  was  far  more  construc- 
tive than  either  Ms  ringing  speech  or  his  stubborn  vote.  It  was  actually 
one  of  his  greatest  services  to  his  distracted  country. 

Throughout  the  entire  agitation  and  debate  on  the  Force  Bill  there 
existed  the  underlying  assumption,  made  clear  at  the  outset  by  Calhoun 
and  other  nullifiers,  that  a  sharp  reduction  of  the  tariff  duties  of  1832 
would  provide  the  path  of  compromise  through  which  all  parties  to  the 
dispute  might  exit  gracefully  and  bloodlessly.  Tyler  was  aware  of  this, 
and  he  was  a  prime  mover  in  the  search  for  a  compromise  plan.  As  early 
as  January  10  he  wrote  John  Floyd  that  the  battle  for  tariff  compro- 
mise "is  fought  and  won.  My  fears  for  the  Union  are  speedily  disappear- 
ing." Some  time  earlier  Tyler  had  seen  Henry  Clay  privately.  He  "ap- 
pealed to  his  patriotism77  and  asked  him  to  sponsor  a  tariff  bill  that  would 
save  the  Union.  He  urged  Clay,  who  was  openly  supporting  the  Force 
Bill,  to  consult  with  Calhoun,  "the  only  person  necessary  to  consult," 
and  work  out  something  agreeable  both  to  Northern  protectionists  and 
states'  rights  free  traders.  Tyler's  patient  efforts  were  successful.  The 
two  statesmen  were  brought  together  for  negotiations.  The  details  of  a 
compromise  tariff  settlement  could  not  quickly  be  ironed  out,  and  by 
January  16  Tyler  was  again  beginning  to  despair.  Jackson  called  for  his 
Force  Bill  that  day,  and  Tyler  told  Floyd  that  "all  prospect  of  settling 
the  tariff  except  through  Clay  is  gone.  From  him  I  still  have  hope.  If  he 
strikes  at  all,  it  will  be  at  a  critical  moment."  41 

Tyler  was  not  disappointed.  On  January  21  rumors  flooded  Wash- 
ington and  reached  South  Carolina  that  a  compromise  tariff  was  in  the 
making.  To  facilitate  this  hopeful  development  the  Charleston  radicals 
uncocked  the  pistol  it  held  to  the  head  of  the  nation  by  suspending  the 

95 


Ordinance  of  Nullification.  It  was  probably  on  this  day,  or  the  day  be- 
fore, that  Clay  and  Calhoun  reached  a  final  understanding.  Clay  agreed 
to  a  gradual  reduction  of  all  tariff  duties  over  a  ten-year  period,  and  a 
relinquishment  of  the  entire  principle  of  protection  by  1842.  Calhoun  in 
turn  pledged  South  Carolina's  acceptance  of  this  arrangement  and  a 
repeal  of  the  Ordinance  of  Nullification.  Tyler  was  not  privy  to  this 
agreement  nor  was  he  told  about  it.  But  he  had  done  much  to  bring  the 
negotiators  together.  And  he  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when,  on  February 
u,  the  theatrical  Clay,  his  eyes  still  riveted  on  the  White  House,  rose 
In  the  Senate  and  announced  to  a  breathless  chamber  that  he  would,  the 
following  day,  introduce  a  compromise  tariff  bill.  As  Tyler  recalled  that 
dramatic  moment  in  the  Senate  from  the  vantage  point  of  1860:  "Now 
that  years  have  gone  by — now  that  my  head  is  covered  with  gray  hairs, 
and  old  age  is  upon  me,  I  recall  the  enthusiasm  I  felt  that  day  when  Mr. 
Clay  rose  in  the  Senate  to  announce  the  great  measure  of  peace  and 
reconciliation.  I  occupied  the  extreme  seat  on  the  left;  he  a  similar  one 
on  the  right  of  the  Senate  Chamber.  We  advanced  to  meet  each  other, 
and  grasped  each  other's  hands  midway  the  chamber."  42 

On  the  next  day,  to  a  cheering  audience,  Clay  introduced  a  bill  that 
would  progressively  reduce  tariff  duties  year  by  year  until  a  level  of  20 
per  cent  ad  valorem  was  reached  in  1842.  At  that  point  all  further  duties 
would  be  imposed  only  "for  the  purpose  of  raising  such  revenue  as  may 
be  necessary  to  an  economical  administration  of  the  Government."  Cal- 
houn followed  Clay's  proposal  with  a  speech  extolling  the  beauties  of  the 
Union.  With  this,  the  Compromise  Tariff  Bill  of  1833  passed  the  House 
119  to  85  on  February  26  and  the  Senate  29  to  1 6  on  March  i.  Tyler 
voted  for  it  with  enthusiasm.  So  the  crisis  passed. 

Just  who  won  the  contest  cannot  be  stated  with  certainty.  By 
nullification  and  threatened  secession  South  Carolina  had  blackjacked 
the  federal  government  into  an  immediate  reduction  of  the  tariff  and  a 
promise  to  repeal  the  entire  protective  system  a  decade  hence.  On  the 
other  hand,  Jackson  was  satisfied  that  he  had  made  his  no-nullification, 
no-secession  point  crystal  clear  by  approaching  the  brink  of  military 
coercion.  What  it  seemed  to  prove  to  Calhoun  and  the  Charleston  hot- 
heads was  that  a  little  bit  of  blackmail,  judiciously  exercised,  could 
accomplish  for  the  South  in  Washington  what  an  orderly  legislative 
approach  there  could  not.  This  dangerous  notion  was  still  tragically  alive 
in  1860-1861. 

The  Senate  adjourned  on  March  2  and  Tyler  returned  to  the  Tide- 
water in  triumph.  His  constituents  gave  him  a  boisterous  dinner  at  the 
Gloucester  County  courthouse.  Toasts  were  quaffed  in  happy  celebration 
of  the  great  victories  of  states'  rights  on  the  Bank  and  tariff  questions. 
A  toast  to  Tyler's  lone  vote  against  the  Force  Bill  was  eagerly  proposed 
and  drunk.  Tyler  rose  to  his  feet  and  gave  a  short  and  gracious  speech 


in  reply.  He  reviewed  his  course  of  action  on  the  nullification  question 
in  Congress  and  reminded  the  celebrators  again  that  he  was  "not  the 
apologist  of  South  Carolina.'3  He  simply  objected,  he  said,  to  Jackson's 
policy  of  armed  coercion.  The  issue  was  not  South  Carolina's  nullifica- 
tion. It  was  Jackson's  threatened  military  dictatorship. 

The  charge  was  overdrawn  and  alarmist,  even  wrongheaded,  but  it 
was  slowly  and  surely  carrying  Tyler  into  the  anti- Jackson  opposition 
forming  under  the  banner  of  the  opportunistic  Henry  Clay.  Tyler  did 
not  know  in  March  1833  that  he  was  becoming  a  Whig.  He  knew  only 
that  he  could  no  longer  stomach  Andrew  Jackson.  By  November  1833  &e 
could  eulogize  the  once-feared  Clay  as  the  statesman  and  patriot  who  had 
"rescued  us  from  civil  war,  when  those  who  held  or  ought  to  have  held 
our  destinies  in  their  hands  talked  only  of  swords  and  halters.  Such  is 
my  deliberate  opinion."  His  gradual  rapprochement  with  Harry  of  the 
West  was  to  make  John  Tyler  Vice-President  of  the  United  States.43 

It  was  only  a  question  of  time  until  Tyler  faced  an  issue  which 
would  make  his  break  with  the  Jacksonian  Democracy  clear  and  final. 
That  issue  was  Jackson's  removal  of  government  deposits  from  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  in  an  effort  to  undermine  and  crush  the  institution 
even  before  its  charter  expired  in  1836.  He  announced  his  decision  on 
the  matter  in  September  1833  while  Congress  was  in  recess.  Angered  at 
the  Bank's  intervention  against  him  in  the  1832  campaign,  and  convinced 
that  his  landslide  victory  in  1832  was  an  anti-Bank  mandate  from  the 
people,  Old  Hickory  began  juggling  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  into  and 
out  of  his  Cabinet  like  so  many  sacks  of  wheat  until  he  found  in  Roger 
B.  Taney  one  who  would  sign  the  removal  order  and  defend  its  legality. 
By  the  end  of  1833  the  withdrawn  federal  funds  had  been  distributed  in 
twenty- three  state  banks  which  were  promptly  dubbed  "pet  banks"  by 
the  anti-Jacksonians.  Whatever  the  economic  wisdom  of  this  move,  it 
was  not  unconstitutional  and  it  was  very  close  to  what  Tyler  had  urged 
in  1819  when  he  characterized  withdrawal  and  distribution  as  a  sound 
states'  rights  solution  to  the  banking  question.  But  this  was  not  iSip.44 

When  the  Senate  convened  early  in  December  1833,  Tyler  returned 
to  Washington  in  an  ugly  mood.  The  idea  that  Andrew  Jackson  was  a 
dangerous  dictator  now  possessed  him  above  all  others.  He  was  con- 
vinced that  if  Taney  could  "locate  [the]  Treasury  where  he  pleases 
there  can  exist  no  security  or  safety  for  the  public  monies."  Indeed, 
Taney  might  even  decide  to  locate  public  funds  in  "either  his  own  or  the 
President's  pocket."  This  unworthy  suggestion  pointed  up  the  fact  that 
John  Tyler  once  again  found  himself  in  a  cruel  dilemma.  He  hated  and 
feared  what  he  felt  were  the  dictatorial  pretensions  of  Andrew  Jackson. 
He  also  feared  and  hated  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  moneyed 
aristocracy  that  was  rapidly  reducing  America  to  a  counting  house.  To 
his  way  of  thinking,  the  victory  of  either  Biddle  or  the  President  in  the 
Bank  struggle  would  mark  a  defeat  for  the  national  interest.  An  oppor- 

97 


tunity  to  ponder  this  dilemma  and  think  matters  through  calmly  was 
presented  Tyler  by  an  illness  which  kept  him  in  his  quarters  for  ten 
days  in  late  December  and  early  January.  During  this  confinement  Henry- 
Clay  delivered  a  slashing  speech  in  the  Senate  which  established  the 
political  line  the  anti-Jacksonians,  Tyler  among  them,  would  follow  for 
the  next  few  months.  To  a  hushed  chamber  and  packed  galleries  Clay 
threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  Jackson  in  terms  the  states'  rights  men  could 
understand  and  applaud: 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  revolution  hitherto  bloodless,  but  rapidly  tending 
towards  a  total  change  of  the  pure  republican  character  of  the  Government, 
and  to  the  concentration  of  all  power  in  the  hands  of  one  man. ...  If  Congress 
do  not  apply  an  instantaneous  remedy,  the  fatal  collapse  will  soon  come  on, 
and  we  shall  die — ignobly  die — base,  mean  and  abject  slaves;  the  scorn  and 
contempt  of  mankind;  unpitied,  unwept,  unmourned. 

Clay  concluded  by  introducing  two  resolutions  of  formal  censure.  The 
first  condemned  Taney's  role  in  the  removal  of  the  deposits;  the  second 
and  most  important  charged  that  "the  President,  in  the  late  Executive 
proceedings  in  relation  to  the  public  revenue,  has  assumed  upon  himself 
authority  and  power  not  conferred  by  the  Constitution  and  laws,  but  in 
derogation  of  both."  It  was  a  damning  indictment  but  one  supported  by 
such  diverse  political  personalities  as  Webster  and  Calhoun.45 

When  Tyler  returned  to  the  political  wars  on  January  9,  1834,  he 
informed  Littleton  W.  Tazewell  that  his  opinion  was  a. . .  decisively  made 
up  on  the  subject  of  the  deposits."  He  would  support  censure  of  Jackson 
and  the  restoration  of  the  deposits  even  though  this  would  strengthen  the 
Bank  and  "render  its  spasms  more  disturbing  and  hurtful  to  the  coun- 
try." This  decision  was  strongly  urged  upon  him  by  a  flood  of  petitions 
and  memorials  from  Tidewater  merchants  and  by  specific  instruction 
from  the  Virginia  General  Assembly.  He  was  encouraged  by  the  intense 
hue  and  cry  raised  by  Biddle  and  mercantile  newspapers  throughout  the 
country  against  Jackson.  On  February  17  he  wrote  Letitia  his  opinion 
that  "the  Administration  is  evidently  sinking,  and  I  do  not  doubt  that 

in  six  months  it  will  be  almost  flat I  have  not  yet  spoken,  but 

everybody  seems  anxious  to  hear  me " 

If  he  was  somewhat  premature  in  reading  final  services  over  the 
grave  of  Jacksonian  Democracy,  he  was  not  wrong  in  his  estimate  of 
Senate  anticipation.  The  Senate  was  indeed  anxious  to  hear  Tyler's  in- 
dictment of  Jackson.  He  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  articulate  of 
the  states'  rights  spokesmen.  When  he  rose  to  speak  on  February  24  the 
chamber  was  filled.  He  made  it  clear  at  the  outset  that  he  was  no  friend 
of  the  Bank  and  had  never  been;  he  had  always  regarded  its  establish- 
ment an  unconstitutional  act,  and  he  was  certain  the  nation  would  sur- 
vive its  demise.  The  only  question  was  how  the  Bank  should  die: 


For  one,  I  say.  If  It  is  to  die  let  It  die  by  law.  It  is  a  corporate  existence 
created  by  law,  and  while  It  exists,  entitled  to  the  protection  which  the  law 
throws  around  private  rights.  If  its  privileges  can  be  lawlessly  seized  upon, 
what  security  exists  for  individual  rights?  The  rights  of  the  bank  are  the  rights 
of  Individuals. ...  If  the  President  had  rested  on  Ms  veto,  the  Bank  was  dead, 
dead  beyond  the  reach  of  surgery . . .  was  it  necessary  after  the  Pursey  \_sic\ 
was  dead  for  the  President  to  imitate  the  conduct  of  Falstaff ,  and  Inflict  a  new 
wound  upon  its  lifeless  body,  lest  it  should  rise  again?  Yes,  sir,  this  was 
esteemed  necessary;  more  justly  speaking,  he  saw  it  in  its  agonies,  produced 
by  the  exertion  of  Ms  constitutional  authority,  and  yet  he  was  not  content.  He 
rushes  upon  It — seizes  upon  one  of  Its  privileges,  one  of  the  limbs  of  this 
corporate  existence,  and  throws  it  Into  convulsions. . . .  My  answer  is  that  of 
Virginia,  spoken  through  her  Legislature:  if  the  Bank  must  die,  let  It  die  by 
law  then,  sir By  that  I  will  stand.46 

The  opportunity  to  link  the  deposits  question  with  a  condemnation 
of  Jackson's  use  of  patronage  was  too  good  to  pass  up  and  Tyler  could 
not  let  it  slide  by: 

I  ask  if  it  be  true  that  [Jackson]  has  used  none  of  the  public  money  for  the 
advancement  of  presidential  power.  Sir,  all  the  revenues  of  the  country  are 
devoted  to  this  object  by  these  proceedings;  an  army  of  retainers  is  created 

in  the  officers  and  stockholders  of  the  state  banks Is  the  presidential 

power  only  to  be  considered  dangerous  when  he  is  at  the  head  of  an  army? 
Patronage  is  the  sword  and  cannon  by  which  war  may  be  made  on  the  liberty 

of  the  human  race They  work  silently,  and  almost  unseen.  They  make 

sure  their  advances  by  corruption Sir,  give  the  President  control  over  the 

purse — the  power  to  place  the  immense  revenues  of  the  country  into  any 
hands  he  may  please,  and  I  care  not  what  you  call  him,  he  is  "every  inch  a 
king." 

Mercifully,  it  would  seem,  no  one  flung  these  words  back  in  Tyler's  face 
in  1843  when  he  too,  as  President,  attempted  to  build  a  personal  party 
with  patronage  and,  like  Jackson,  insisted  on  an  absolute  conformity  of 
opinion  between  himself  and  his  Cabinet  officers.  If  patronage  was  in- 
deed "the  sword  and  cannon  by  which  war  may  be  made  on  the  liberty 
of  the  human  race,"  Tyler  would  soon  fondle  the  hilt  of  that  sword 
himself.41 

Tyler  suggested  that  the  only  way  to  remove  the  vexing  Bank  ques- 
tion from  partisan  politics  once  and  for  all  was  by  a  constitutional 
amendment  specifically  legalizing  or  proscribing  the  institution.  "The 
question  of  bank  or  no  bank  has  been  always  made  a  political  stepping- 
stone  ...  it  is  the  last  subject  which  ought  to  be  handed  over  to  poli- 
ticians." In  the  meantime,  he  thought  the  deposits  should  be  restored. 
Because  there  was  no  likelihood  that  a  constitutional  amendment  on  the 
subject  could  be  passed  through  the  Congress  by  a  two-thirds  majority 
or  through  three-fourths  of  the  state  legislatures,  Tyler's  somewhat  im- 

99 


practical  solution  to  the  problem  was  less  significant  than  the  political 
implications  of  his  speech.  Throughout  his  long  address  there  were 
clear  suggestions  that  Henry  Clay  was  really  a  great  patriot  after  all 
and  that  the  Democratic  Party,  dominated  by  the  "despotism"  of  King 
Andrew  I,  could  no  longer  serve  as  the  Tyler  political  home.  Without 
hesitation,  Tyler  at  last  walked  boldly  into  the  Whig  opposition  forming 
under  the  leadership  of  Clay,  Calhoun;  and  Webster.  He  spoke  openly 
now  of  his  "Whig  principles,"  a  phrase  beginning  to  circulate  in  Wash- 
ington to  designate  the  views  of  the  anti- Jackson  bloc.  As  for  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  dominated  by  Jackson  and  the  spoilsmen,  Tyler  renounced 
it: 

To  this  party  do  I  belong,  not  to  that  nondescript,  patch-work,  mosaic  party 
which  meets  in  conventions,  and  calls  itself  the  Republican  party;  not  to  that 
party  which  changes  its  principles,  as  the  chameleon  its  color,  with  every  cloud 
or  ray  which  proceeds  from  the  presidential  orb — which  is  one  thing  today, 
another  tomorrow,  and  the  third  day  whatever  chance  may  make  it;  nor,  to 
the  Republican  party  which . . .  denounces  the  tariff,  and  yet  votes  for  and 
sustains  the  tariff  of  1828 — that  Bill  of  Abominations;  not  that  Republican 
party  which  denounces  the  Bank  and  upholds  the  proclamation  [to  South 
Carolina];  which  denounces  the  Bank  and  sustains  the  Force  Bill;  which 
denounces  the  Bank,  and  even  now  sustains  the  President  in  his  assumption 
of  power  conferred  neither  by  the  laws  nor  Constitution.  No,  sir,  I  belong  not 
to  that  "Republican  party";  its  work  is  that  of  president-making.  Even  now 
it  is  in  motion.  Before  the  President  is  scarcely  warm  in  his  seat,  not  yielding 
to  what  decency  would  seem  to  require,  not  even  permitting  one  short  year 
to  elapse,  that  party  is  in  full  march,  calling  conventions,  organizing  com- 
mittees, and  seeking  by  all  manner  of  means,  at  this  early  day,  to  commit  the 
people.48 

Tyler  could  not  have  made  his  secession  from  the  Democracy  more 
plain.  The  Democratic-Republican  Party  of  Jefferson  had  been  sub- 
verted by  Andrew  Jackson.  The  new  democratic  political  techniques 
introduced  by  Jackson — national  nominating  conventions,  political  or- 
ganization and  agitation  at  all  levels,  pragmatic  accommodations  to 
appeal  to  the  greatest  number  of  voters,  and  the  sagacious  use  of  pa- 
tronage— were  not  to  the  aristocratic  tastes  of  John  Tyler.  The  dawn  of 
the  new  democracy,  the  advent  of  King  Numbers,  was  not  for  him.  It 
was  not  the  way  of  gentlemen. 

Nor  was  it  a  way  for  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia  in  1834.  State- 
wide elections  in  the  Old  Dominion  in  March  produced  the  elevation  of 
Littleton  W.  Tazewell  to  the  Governor's  Mansion  and  the  routing  of  the 
Jackson  faction  in  the  new  General  Assembly.  Tyler  was  pleased  and 
encouraged  by  this  result.  He  was  close  personally  to  Tazewell  and  had 
done  much  to  engineer  his  nomination  and  election.  The  defeat  of  the 
Jacksonians  in  Virginia  also  buoyed  the  hopes  of  the  informal  Whig 
grouping  in  Washington.  Clayites,  Calhounites,  and  Websterites  alike 

100 


sounded  "notes  of  triumph'7  in  the  capital.  But  Jacksonianlsm  in  Virginia 
was  not  yet  dead  and  Tyler  cautioned  Tazewell,  lest  the  new  governor 
grow  overconfident,  that  "it  requires  numerous  strokes  of  the  axe  to 
bring  down  the  oak,  and  the  exposure  of  every  encroachment  committed 
by  a  popular  administration  on  constitutional  rights  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  preserving  free  government."  49 

When  the  new  General  Assembly  in  Richmond  instructed  Tyler  and 
Ms  colleague,  Senator  William  C.  Rives,  to  vote  for  Clay's  resolutions 
censuring  Taney  and  Jackson,  an  order  which  caused  Rives  to  resign  his 
seat  rather  than  comply  and  Benjamin  W.  Leigh  to  be  appointed  in  his 
stead,  Tyler  was  sure  that  sanity  was  returning  to  America.  He  voted 
for  the  censure  of  Jackson  with  enthusiasm  and  he  has  was  cheered  when 
the  Senate  condemnation  of  King  Andrew  I  passed  on  March  28  and 
was  formally  entered  in  the  Senate  Journal*  He  paid  no  heed  to  the 
solemn  oath  taken  at  that  portentous  moment  by  Senator  Thomas  Hart 
Benton  of  Missouri.  "Old  Bullion"  Benton,  leading  Jacksonian  in  the 
upper  chamber,  swore  he  would  never  rest  until  the  censure  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  had  been  expunged  from  the  Journal. 

Ben  ton's  wordy  gesture  impressed  Tyler  not  at  all.  Senate  censure 
was  the  least  punishment  he  had  a  right  to  expect.  Jackson,  after  all,  had 
converted  the  federal  government  into  a  "mere  majority  machine/'  and 
Tyler  was  certain  that  the  continued  growth  of  the  "mere  majority 
principle"  could  lead  only  to  many  political  embarrassments  and  defeats 
for  the  South  in  the  years  ahead.  Nevertheless,  by  June  of  1834  Tyler 
began  dimly  to  realize  that  politics  in  America  would  never  be  quite  the 
same  after  Andrew  Jackson.  He  began  to  see  that  the  real  and  lasting 
source  of  Jackson's  strength  lay  with  the  power  of  the  unwashed  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  ballot  box.  "We  have  a  great  work  before  us,"  he  told 
Tazewell,  "a  work  of  real  reform.  Without  the  people  we  can  do  noth- 
ing  "  Just  how  a  majority  of  the  people  were  to  be  alerted  to  the 

dangers  of  the  "mere  majority  principle"  Tyler  did  not  say.  It  was  an- 
other dilemma.50 


101 


JOHN  TYLER:  THE    MIDDLE  YEARS 


In  the  consciousness  of  my  own  honesty,  I  stand  firm 
and  erect.  I  worship  alone  at  the  shrine  of  truth  and 

honor. 

JOHN    TYLER,    1834 


Throughout  these  years  of  political  advancement  from  the  House  of 
Delegates  to  the  Governor's  Mansion  and  on  to  the  United  States  Senate, 
John  Tyler's  private  life  was  complicated  by  too  many  children  and  too 
little  money.  Between  1820  and  1830  Letitia  bore  him  five  more  chil- 
dren, bringing  to  eight  the  mouths  to  be  fed,  bodies  to  be  clothed,  and 
minds  to  be  educated  in  the  burgeoning  Tyler  household.  Letitia  came 
along  in  1821,  followed  by  Elizabeth  ("Lizzie")  in  1823,  Anne  Contesse 
in  1825,  Alice  in  1827,  and,  finally,  Tazewell  ("Taz")  in  1830.  In  spite 
of  the  added  burden  each  new  arrival  brought  Tyler  great  joy.  When  the 
sickly  Anne  Contesse  died  in  July  1825  after  a  bare  three-month  hold 
on  life,  Tyler  was  crushed.  Retiring  to  the  quiet  of  his  study  he  wrote  a 
lament  for  the  dead  child  which  began: 

Oh  child  of  my  love,  thou  wert  born  for  a  day; 

And  like  morning's  vision  have  vanished  away 

Thine  eye  scarce  had  ope'd  on  the  world's  beaming  light 

Ere  'twas  sealed  up  in  death  and  enveloped  in  night. 

Oh  child  of  my  love  as  a  beautiful  flower; 
Thy  blossom  expanded  a  short  fleeting  hour. 
The  winter  of  death  hath  blighted  thy  bloom 
And  thou  lyest  alone  in  the  cold  dreary  tomb. 1 

As  the  decade  of  the  Tyler  population  explosion  opened,  the  young 
lawyer  and  politician  was  "so  cashless  and  really  straitened  for  re- 

102 


sources"  that  lie  was  reduced  to  dunning  Ms  friends  and  relatives  for 
payment  of  debts  as  trifling  as  thirty  dollars.  Much  of  his  financial  prob- 
lem was  of  Ms  own  manufacture:  Tyler  was  not  a  brilliant  steward  of 
money.  In  1820,  for  example,  lie  lent  his  brother-in-law  Henry  Wagga- 
man  almost  all  his  available  cash  reserve.  In  the  same  year  he  advanced 
other  relatives  upward  of  six  thousand  dollars  borrowed  from  the  various 
estates  he  managed  as  legal  trustee.  This  was  a  dangerous  practice  since 
Tyler  was  invariably  forced  to  stand  personal  surety  for  these  loans. 
Like  so  many  other  Tidewater  planters,  Tyler  was  land-rich  and  cash- 
poor.  Most  of  the  cash  income  from  his  law  practice  and  from  the  salaries 
of  his  public  offices  was  poured  back  into  the  Greenway  plantation  and 
— after  1829 — into  his  63oacre  farm  on  the  York  River  in  Gloucester 
County.  His  need  for  additional  livestock  and  for  slaves  was  constant, 
Even  under  the  best  conditions,  most  of  the  James  and  York  River  plant- 
ers experienced  seasonal  shortages  of  cash;  John  Tyler  was  certainly  no 
exception.2 

But  unlike  many  of  his  more  prudent  neighbors,  Tyler  managed 
money  loosely  and  he  often  lent  his  cash  to  friends  and  relatives  at  the 
drop  of  a  tear.  In  May  1828  he  experienced  "unfortunate  bank  trans- 
actions" which  prompted  an  appeal  to  Henry  Curtis  for  a  loan  to  tide 
Mm  over.  He  told  Curtis  at  that  time  that  he  was  "fixed  immutably  in 
my  determination  to  get  clear  of  the  world ...  in  other  words  to  be  my 
own  Executor.  I  do  not  feel  as  a  free  man  should,  with  these  encum- 
brances hanging  over  me.  Nay,  I  am  ready  and  willing  to  sell  slaves  . . , 
if  I  could  find  a  purchaser."  3 

Unhappily  for  John  Tyler,  his  entire  life  was  spent  under  the 
shadow  of  various  "encumbrances."  Until  Julia  brought  her  own  financial 
reserves  into  his  life  in  1844,  Tyler's  personal  economic  existence  was  a 
marginal  proposition.  And  save  for  the  brief  1845-1851  period,  when  the 
businesslike  Alexander  Gardiner  took  over  the  supervision  of  his  financial 
affairs,  it  remained  marginal  until  his  death,  in  debt,  in  1862. 

The  necessity  of  having  to  sell  a  favorite  house  slave,  Ann  Eliza, 
to  raise  cash  to  move  to  Washington  in  1827  was  a  sad  experience  for 
Tyler.  He  «had  a  genuine  fondness  for  the  Negro  woman,  and  he  sin- 
cerely regretted  having  to  part  with  her.  But  he  had  no  choice.  "My 
monied  affairs  are  all  out  of  sorts,"  he  confessed  to  Curtis;  "my  necessi- 
ties are  very  pressing,  more  so  than  at  any  previous  period,  and  the  time 
has  arrived  when  I  must  act  definitely."  First  he  tried  to  sell  Ann  Eliza 
to  Curtis,  knowing  that  with  him  she  would  have  a  good  home.  When 
Curtis  declined  the  purchase,  Tyler  tried  without  success  to  sell  her  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood.  Under  this  arrangement  either  he  or  Curtis 
would  be  certain  to  learn  of  any  ill-treatment  at  the  hands  of  her  new 
owner.  Only  as  a  last  resort  did  Tyler  finally  instruct  Curtis  "to  put  her 
in  the  wagon  and  send  her  directly  to  the  Hubbards"  auction  block  in 
Richmond.4 

103 


While  the  ultimate  fate  of  Ann  Eliza  is  not  known ,  it  is  certain  that 
Tyler  did  not  have  the  heart  to  accompany  the  poor  woman  to  Hubbard's 
pens.  When  he  felt  he  had  to  deal  in  human  flesh  he  usually  bought 
slaves  from  his  friends,  relatives,  or  neighbors.  When  necessary,  he 
quietly  disposed  of  them  among  the  same  intimate  group.  He  often 
preferred  to  hire  seasonal  labor  from  his  friends  rather  than  buy  new 
slaves  on  the  market.  Another  Tyler  practice  was  to  lend  and  lease 
slaves  within  the  family.  As  noted,  his  treatment  of  his  Negroes  was  uni- 
formly kind  and  considerate.  His  philosophy  of  slave  management  was 
best  summed  up  in  1832,  a  year  after  the  bloody  Nat  Turner  slave  revolt 
in  Southampton  County  resulted  in  the  wanton  butchering  of  fifty-seven 
whites  and  the  retaliatory  slaughter  of  nearly  a  hundred  Negroes.  "I 
trust  that  all  will  go  on  smoothly  in  harvest,"  he  wrote.  "My  plan  is  to 
encourage  my  hands,  and  they  work  better  under  it  than  from  fear.  The 
harvest  is  the  black  man's  jubilee."  5 

No  statement  from  Tyler  on  the  tragic  Nat  Turner  affair  has  sur- 
vived. Nor  did  Tyler  participate  in  the  Virginia  Convention  of  1831- 
1832  which  debated  the  slavery  question  and  narrowly  voted  down  sev- 
eral emancipation  schemes.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  Tyler  identified 
himself  with  those  Virginians  who  interpreted  slave  unrest  within  the 
Commonwealth  in  terms  of  abolitionist  propaganda  filtering  into  the 
state  through  the  United  States  mails.  Speaking  in  Gloucester  in  1835, 
Tyler  lashed  out  at  this  menace  by  mail.  In  his  most  intemperate  speech 
on  the  slavery  question  he  pointed  out  that 

The  unexpected  evil  is  now  upon  us;  it  has  invaded  our  firesides,  and  under 
our  own  roofs  is  sharpening  the  dagger  for  midnight  assassination,  and  excit- 
ing cruelty  and  bloodshed.  The  post-office  department ...  has  been  converted 
into  a  vehicle  for  distributing  incendiary  pamphlets,  with  which  our  land  is  at 
this  moment  deluged.  A  society  has  sprung  up  whose  avowed  object  is  to 

despoil  us  of  our  property  at  the  hazard  of  all  and  every  consequence It 

has  established  numerous  presses. ...  [In  these  publications  slaveowners]  are 
represented  as  demons  In  the  shape  of  men;  and  by  way  of  contrast,  here 
stands  Arthur  Tappan,  Mr.  Somebody  Garrison,  or  Mr.  Foreigner  Thompson, 
patting  the  greasy  little  fellows  on  their  cheeks  and  giving  them  most  lovely 
kisses.  They  are  the  exclusive  philanthropists— the  only  lovers  of  the  human 
race — the  only  legitimate  defenders  of  the  religion  of  Christ 

As  a  Christian  Tyler  was  particularly  disturbed,  he  said,  to  learn  that 
some  Northern  clergymen  had  taken  up  the  cry  for  slavery  abolition: 

Standing  as  pastors  at  the  head  of  their  flocks,  teaching  the  divine  truths  of 
religion,  they  are  entitled  to  all  respect  and  reverence;  but  when  abandoning 
their  proper  sphere,  they  rush  into  the  troubled  waters  of  politics— when, 
instead  of  a  mild  and  meek  observance  of  their  religious  rites  and  ceremonies, 
they  seek  to  overturn  systems— when,  instead  of  being  the  ministers  of  peace 
and  good  will,  they  officiate  at  the  altar  of  discord,  and  contribute  their  in- 
fluence to  excite  general  disturbance  and  discontent,  they  deserve  the  scorn 

104 


and  contempt  of  mankind.  Did  their  and  our  Divine  Master  commission  them 
upon  such  an  errand?  When  He  bade  His  followers  to  "render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  were  Caesar's/7  He  taught  a  lesson  to  rebuke  the  present  agitators. 

But  when  all  was  said  and  done  the  fate  and  welfare  of  Virginia's  Ann 
Elizas  troubled  Tyler  deeply.6 

He  was  also  troubled,  in  quite  a  different  way,  by  the  cheerless 
existence  afforded  him  by  Mrs.  McDaniel's  boardinghouse  in  Washing- 
ton. After  Ms  return  to  Washington  in  1827,  Senator  John  Tyler  of 
Virginia  was  often  a  homesick  man.  Letters  from  his  beloved  Letitia  and 
Ms  growing  cMldren  were  eagerly  awaited,  gratefully  received ,  and 
speedily  answered.  Enforced  separation  for  long  months  on  end  brought 
Tyler  closer  to  Ms  children.  He  did  not  take  them  for  granted,  and  in 
his  letters  to  them  he  entered  into  their  many  adolescent  problems  with 
patience  and  understanding.  "My  children  are  my  principal  treasures," 
he  confessed  to  Ms  daughter  Mary,  "and  my  unceasing  prayer  is  that  you 
may  all  so  conduct  yourselves  as  to  merit  the  esteem  of  the  good.  In 
that  way  you  will  crown  rny  declining  years  with  blessings,  and  multiply 
my  joys  upon  earth."  The  family  was  always  a  close-knit  one.  When  the 
youngest  of  Ms  cMldren,  Tazewell  (named  for  Ms  friend  Littleton  >W. 
Tazewell)3  was  born  in  1830,  he  solicited  suggestions  for  a  name  from 
the  older  cMldren.  He  watched  sympathetically  as  his  two  older  sons, 
Robert  and  John,  Jr.,  navigated  the  stormy  waters  of  their  first  loves. 
He  encouraged  them  to  participate  fully  in  the  social  life  of  Williams- 
burg  and  Richmond  and  he  sent  them  extra  money  to  pay  for  subscrip- 
tions to  parties  and  balls.  He  was  certain  that  such  social  experience 
would  give  them  that  "polish  and  shape  to  manners  which  constitute 
one-half  the  concern  in  our  journey  through  life.  I  have  known  persons 
possessing  only  ordinary  capacities  getting  on  better  than  others  who 
were  in  intellect  greatly  superior,  simply  for  force  of  manners."  7 

The  proper  education  of  Ms  cMldren  concerned  Tyler  above  all 
other  family  considerations.  Private  tutors  were  engaged  to  instruct  them 
at  early  ages;  evidence  of  sloppy  penmanship,  academic  malingering, 
and  superficial  thought  brought  instant  paternal  condemnation.  The 
education  of  his  daughters  was  no  less  important  to  him  than  the  edu- 
cation of  Ms  sons.  In  1830  he  told  Mary,  then  fifteen,  that 

Your  resolution  to  attend  to  your  studies  and  not  to  be  led  away  by  the  vani- 
ties of  the  world  affords  me  sincere  pleasure.  Without  intellectual  improve- 
ment, the  most  beautiful  of  the  sex  is  but  a  figure  of  wax  work.  The  world  is 
but  a  sealed  book  to  such  an  one;  and  to  eat,  to  drink,  to  dance,  to  sleep,  to 
gaze  upon  objects  without  seeing  them,  and  to  move  in  creation  with  scarcely 
a  sense  of  anything,  is  the  poor  existence  which  they  pass.  The  mind  has  been 
compared  to  the  marble  in  the  quarry,  ere  the  light  of  science  has  shed  its 
rays  upon  it;  but  when  instructed  and  informed,  like  that  same  marble  formed 
into  a  beautiful  statue  and  polished  by  the  hand  of  the  artist. 

105 


So  insistent  was  lie  with  his  children  on  the  importance  of  education  that 
Ms  second  daughter,  Letitia,  felt  it  politic  to  link  an  urgent  request  that 
she  be  permitted  to  attend  a  ball  in  Williamsburg  (she  desperately 
wanted  to  wear  her  anew  silk")  with  assurances  that  her  studies  in 
philosophy  and  chemistry  were  progressing  well.8 

Both  Robert  and  John,  Jr.,  were  urged  by  their  father  to  attend 
William  and  Mary,  and,  following  that,  to  read  law.  It  was  Tyler's  sub- 
conscious desire  to  recreate  his  older  sons  in  his  own  intellectual  and 
professional  image.  With  Robert  he  was  more  successful  than  he  was 
with  John,  Jr.  Indeed,  his  namesake  eventually  rebelled  against  the 
parental  regime  imposed  on  him  and  for  a  number  of  years  in  the  18405 
and  18503  he  led  a  checkered  existence  that  brought  no  credit  to  the 
family. 

Robert  was  his  father's  favorite.  This  bias,  however  innocent  its 
origin,  was  sensed  by  John,  Jr.  Certainly  Robert  received  more  atten- 
tion from  Tyler  than  did  his  younger  brother.  While  he  was  at  William 
and  Mary  he  was  the  recipient  of  many  special  favors.  He  asked  for  and 
received  extra  spending  money  from  his  father  even  when  Tyler  was 
under  extreme  financial  pressure  and  unable  to  meet  bills  he  owed  the 
college.  In  1836,  when  Robert  precociously  decided  he  would  write  a 
history  of  the  American  Revolution,  Tyler  encouraged  him  with  a 
promise  to  pay  the  cost  of  publication.  Yet  he  instructed  his  historic- 
graphically  inclined  son  that  he  "should  by  no  means  suffer  it  to  interfere 
with  your  college  studies,  nor  should  any  more  time  be  devoted  to  it 
than  cannot  be  otherwise  more  usefully  employed."  Under  such  stric- 
tures, it  is  not  surprising  that  he  never  wrote  the  book,  though  he  later 
wrote  some  competent  poetry.  He  was  a  good  student  and  Tyler  followed 
his  progress  in  philosophy,  metaphysics,  chemistry,  and  mathematics 
with  interest  and  pride.  "I  would  have  you  go  into  genteel  company,"  he 
advised  his  son,  "when  you  can  do  so  without  neglecting  your  studies. 
They  must  go  on  at  all  events."  In  spite  of  Robert's  close  attention  to 
his  studies  he  did  somehow  find  time  enough  to  involve  himself  in  a 
quarrel  with  a  classmate,  one  in  which  the  words  duel,  honor,  and  chal- 
lenge were  loosely  bandied  about.  When  Tyler  heard  of  it,  he  instantly 
quashed  any  bellicose  plans  Ms  son  entertained.  "In  advanced  life,"  he 
told  Robert,  "very  few  occurrences  can  justify  a  resort  to  pistols  or 
duels;  but  at  college  nothing  short  of  absolute  disgrace  can  do  so  ...  if 
you  should  unfortunately  be  involved  in  a  serious  quarrel,  let  me  know 
the  circumstances  connected  with  it  before  things  are  pushed  to  any 
extremity.  Your  honor  will  always  be  safe  in  my  hands."  9 

Tyler  insisted  that  his  sons  abide  by  all  the  disciplinary  rules  in 
force  at  Willam  and  Mary.  As  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Visitors  he 
could  scarcely  expect  them  to  do  less.  He  was  also  a  personal  friend  of 
Thomas  R.  Dew,  William  and  Mary's  prominent  president  and  the 
South's  leading  apologist  for  the  idea  that  human  slavery  was  a  positive 

106 


good.  Thus  Tyler  was  thoroughly  embarrassed  In  November  1836  to 
learn  that  his  own  sons  had  joined  their  names  In  a  student  memorial  to 
the  president  and  the  Board  of  Visitors  protesting  a  new  series  of 
disciplinary  regulations.  Tyler's  reaction  to  this  distressing  news  suffered 
nothing  In  translation: 

I  regard  you  as  lying  under  the  strongest  obligations  of  honor  to  abide  rigidly 
by  the  college  laws.  Surely  It  Is  no  great  matter  to  acknowledge  their  restraint 
for  the  few  months  you  have  to  remain  at  college.  Remember  always  that  I 
am  a  visitor,  and  that  the  late  enactments  have  emanated  chiefly  from  me. 
Surely,  if  my  own  sons  cannot  conform,  obedience  should  not  be  expected 
from  others. ...  Be  affable  and  polite  to  all  the  students,  without  cultivating 
extreme  intimacy  with  any.  Do  not  be  too  captious  or  prone  to  take  offense 
...  a  suavity  of  manners — a  constant  respect  for  the  feelings  of  others,  Is 
Indispensably  necessary  for  success  in  life.  These  remarks  are  designed  for 
you  bothj  and  I  trust  you  will  give  them  full  weight.10 

During  the  years  he  sat  In  the  Senate,  Tyler  regularly  described  the 
social  and  political  life  of  Washington  to  Letitia  and  the  children.  The 
dull  social  seasons  were  compared  with  the  lively  ones,  and  the  weddings, 
dinners,  and  parties  he  attended  were  commented  upon  with  good  humor 
and  a  flair  for  the  descriptive  detail  he  knew  the  family  would  enjoy.  He 
described  the  beautiful  and  diminutive  Emily  Donelson,  Jackson's  of- 
ficial White  House  hostess,  who  attempted  to  add  to  her  height  by  wear- 
ing "three  waving  ostrich  feathers"  in  her  bonnet.  Henry  Clay  carried 
his  head  "very  loftily"  although  "age  has  bleached  it  very  much."  When 
Washington  Irving  visited  the  capital  in  June  1832  Tyler  sketched  him 
for  Mary's  benefit:  "His  face  is  a  pretty  good  one,  although  it  does  not 
blaze  with  the  fire  of  genius.  It  is  deeply  marked  with  the  traces  of  hard 
study,  and  although  sometimes  lighted  up  with  a  smile,  is  for  the  most 
part  serious  and  contemplative."  The  senator  moved  through  the  relent- 
less cycle  of  Washington  society,  from  party  to  party,  reception  to  re- 
ception, dinner  to  dinner.  Much  of  the  social  life  of  the  capital  bored 
him.  Yet  he  made  the  expected  rounds.  "I  must  see  the  folks,  you  know, 
and  make  myself  agreeable."  u 

There  were  times  Tyler  was  shocked  at  what  he  considered  the 
loose  morality  of  Washington  society.  During  the  1827  Christmas  season 
he  attended  a  dinner  dance  at  the  home  of  Cary  Selden,  brother  of  a 
James  River  friend  and  neighbor,  residing  in  Washington.  There  he 
saw  the  waltz  danced  for  the  first  time  and  the  sight  disgusted  him.  He 
told  Mary  that  it  was  "a  dance  which  you  have  seen,  and  which  I  do  not 
desire  to  see  you  dance.  It  is  rather  vulgar,  I  think."  He  constantly 
worried  lest  some  breath  of  scandal  besmirch  the  reputations  of  his 
young  daughters.  "The  world  is  so  censorious,"  he  reminded  Mary,  then 
sixteen,  "that  a  young  lady  cannot  be  too  particular  in  her  course  of 
conduct."  He  missed  few  opportunities  to  alert  his  girls  to  the  existence 
of  that  "swarm  of  busybodies,  who  are  found  everywhere,  and  whose 

107 


whole  concern  and  chief  delight  consist  In  talking  slander  and  indulging 
in  Injurious  whispers."  He  constantly  advised  them  to  emulate  their 
mother  ("You  never  see  her  course  marked  with  precipitation  . . .  her 
actions  are  all  founded  in  prudence" ),  avoid  vanity,  and  watch  their 
tempers.  Thus  when  Anne  Royall,  in  her  book  Letters  Prom  Alabama, 
described  Mary  In  1830  as  a  "little  sylph"  with  a  "smooth  fascinating 
way"  who  "fairly  beguiled  me  of  my  senses/5  Tyler  told  her  bluntly  that 
"Mrs.  Royall's  praise  is  of  very  little  value;  and,  therefore,  you  are  not 
to  be  rendered  vain  by  it."  Young  ladies  of  good  breeding,  he  instructed 
Mary,  should  also  exhibit  no  temper.  " Remember  the  maxim  of  Mr. 
Jefferson,  In  which  he  bids  you,  £If  you  are  angry  count  ten,  if  very 
angry  count  an  hundred,5  before  you  speak."  Mary  Tyler  absorbed  all 
this  advice;  she  was  delivered  to  her  bridegroom  unencumbered  by 
scandal.  When  she  married  Henry  Lightfoot  Jones  in  December  1835, 
In  an  elaborate  wedding  that  rocked  Tyler  financially,  the  senator 
warmly  approved  her  choice.  Jones  was  a  young  Tidewater  planter  of 
comfortable  means  who  possessed  Inherited  lands  in  North  Carolina.12 

At  no  time  during  his  career  in  the  Senate  did  Tyler  permit  his 
children  to  be  uninformed  about  the  great  political  Issues  of  the  day.  He 
patiently  explained  to  them  his  thinking  on  all  questions.  His  growing 
distrust  of  Andrew  Jackson  was  constantly  made  explicit  to  them.  He 
did  not,  however?  solicit  family  advice  or  opinion  on  political  matters. 
His  letters  home  were  mainly  an  opportunity  for  him  to  think  aloud 
before  a  friendly  audience.  When  he  felt  that  the  Virginia  press  had 
done  him  an  injustice  on  some  Issue  or  underestimated  the  importance 
of  his  personal  role  in  some  Senate  decision,  he  would  hastily  correct  the 
impression  in  a  letter  to  the  family.  It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the 
Tyler  children  grew  up  firm  in  their  father's  states'  rights  political  faith. 
He  took  them  into  his  confidence  at  an  early  age,  and  he  patiently  ex- 
plained his  political  decisions  and  actions,  even  the  sacrifice  of  his  Senate 
seat,  to  their  satisfaction.  "Retirement  has  no  horror  for  me,"  he  wrote 
Robert  of  Ms  struggle  with  Jackson  and  Benton  in  December  1834;  "for, 
come  when  it  may,  I  have  the  satisfaction  to  know  that  I  have  been 
honest  in  the  worst  of  times." 

Indeed,  his  personal  sense  of  political  honesty  was  so  stringent  that 
he  would  not  allow  his  franking  privilege  to  be  used  for  private  mall 
within  the  family.  Yet  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  use  his  influence  to 
secure  patronage  jobs  for  members  of  his  clan.  He  pushed  his  brother- 
in-law,  John  B.  Seawell,  for  a  clerkship  in  the  Land  Office,  and  he  was 
instrumental  in  getting  Ms  nephew,  John  H.  Waggaman,  clerkships  in  the 
Postmaster  General's  Office  and  in  the  Land  Office.  Still,  he  prized  the 
nickname  "Honest  John"  throughout  his  political  career,  and  it  seemed 
no  contradiction  to  him  that  he  spent  much  of  his  public  life  herding  a 
small  army  of  his  relatives,  in-laws,  and  personal  friends  into  public 
office.13 

Like  Ms  political  views,  Tyler's  religious  views  were  also  trans- 

108 


milled  to  Ms  children.  That  he  was  a  firm  and  lifelong  believer  in  Jeffer- 
son's doctrines  of  religious  toleration  and  the  separation  of  church  and 
state  there  is  no  doubt.  Any  connection  between  church  and  state  he 
felt  was  "an  unholy  alllance7  and  the  fruitful  source  of  slavery  and  op- 
pression." While  he  was  nominally  an  Episcopalian,  there  Is  no  evidence 
that  Ms  was  ever  a  denominational  approach  to  God.  Nor  did  his  Protes- 
tantism choke  off  a  tolerant  curiosity  about  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
and  its  doctrines;  he  was,  if  anything,  somewhat  pro-Catholic.  Certainly 
John  Tyler  joined  no  holy  crusade  of  one  Christian  group  against  an- 
other. He  had  nothing  but  contempt  for  hate-filled  movements  like  the 
Anti-Masons  of  the  18303,  the  Native  Americans  of  the  18405,  and  the 
Know  Nothings  of  the  18503.  He  preached  religious  toleration — and  he 
practiced  it.  He  believed  the  church  and  the  clergy  should  stay  strictly 
out  of  politics;  particularly  the  politics  of  the  slavery  question.  He  saw 
nothing  in  Christian  theology  that  justified  making  the  slavery  contro- 
versy the  business  of  Institutional  religion,  and  he  rather  thought 
that  the  African  Colonization  Society,  by  restoring  Christianized 
American  Negro  slaves  to  Africa,  could  provide  more  spiritual  and  moral 
uplift  for  all  African  Negroes  than  "all  the  foreign  missionary  societies 
combined."  14 

Like  Jefferson  before  him,  John  Tyler  was  essentially  a  deist.  He 
accepted  the  Newtonian  concept  of  a  mechanistic  universe  in  motion, 
bound  together  by  immutable  natural  laws.  His  interest  in  the  new 
physical  sciences  was  profound,  and  he  believed  firmly  in  the  existence 
of  "that  invisible  power  which  puts  all  things  in  motion,  and  sustains 
them  in  their  respective  orbits."  As  he  once  told  Mary,  "the  person  who 
justly  contemplates  the  wise  order  of  Providence  [In  the  universe]  can 
alone  possess  a  just  idea  of  the  Deity."  This  view  of  the  cosmos  led  Tyler 
to  the  corollary  notion,  almost  fatalistic  in  its  implications,  that  while 
man  was  an  integral  part  of  the  Creation,  he  had  little  or  no  control  over 
his  own  destiny.  The  truly  good  man,  thought  Tyler,  could  only  strive 
to  attain  pure  morality,  and  in  so  doing  he  could  expect  to  be  reviled  and 
abused  by  men  who  sought  not.  As  he  explained  this  attitude  in  1832: 

The  person  who  Is  a  stranger  to  sickness  is  equally  a  stranger  to  the  highest 
enjoyments  of  health.  So  that  I  have  brought  myself  to  believe  that  the 
variableness  in  the  things  of  the  world  are  designed  by  the  Creator  for  the 
happiness  of  His  creatures.  In  truth,  what  exists  but  for  some  wise  purpose? 
All  our  crosses  and  the  numerous  vexations  which  assail  us  are  designed  to 
improve  our  moral  condition. . . .  The  purest  and  best  of  men  have  heen 
neglected  and  abused.  Aristides  was  banished  and  Socrates  was  poisoned.  We 
should  rather  rely  upon  ourselves,  and  howsoever  the  world  may  deal  with 
us,  we  shall,  by  having  secured  our  own  innocence  and  virtue,  learn  to  be 
happy  and  contented  even  in  poverty  and  obscurity 15 

These  theological  views  permitted  Tyler  to  accept  the  order  of 
things  as  he  found  them  in  the  world  in  which  he  lived — human  slavery, 
sharp  class  differentiations,  prosperity  and  depression.  His  was  not  a 

109 


theology  of  revolutionary  change.  Instead,  his  philosophical  attitudes 
undergirded  his  acceptance  of  the  status  quo  in  America  and  justified 
his  own  political  efforts  to  maintain  it.  At  the  same  time,  it  permitted  a 
battered  psyche  to  withdraw  occasionally  from  the  arena  of  political  and 
sectional  controversy  with  flags  flying,  secure  emotionally  and  psycho- 
logically in  the  belief  that  men  as  virtuous  as  Aristides  had  also  been 
forced  from  politics,  and  that  even  the  immortal  Socrates  had  been  com- 
pelled to  drink  the  hemlock.  It  was  not  accidental  that  he  used  the 
image  of  Socrates  and  the  chalice  of  poison  when  he  told  Clay  and  Cal- 
houn  in  February  1836  that  he  must  resign  his  Senate  seat  on  the 
instructions  question.16 

Tyler  knew  he  was  in  for  political  trouble  as  early  as  the  spring  of 
1835,  when  Virginia's  Jackson  Democrats  scored  important  gains  in  the 
statewide  elections.  Thanks  to  an  impressive  demonstration  of  how  to 
organize  and  deliver  votes  at  the  grass-roots  level,  the  Jacksonians  and 
their  allies  in  the  Old  Dominion  forged  a  working  coalition  of  agrarian 
and  artisan  voters  and  used  it  successfuly  to  seize  control  of  the  House 
of  Delegates  and  the  state  senate.  With  the  radicals  firmly  in  the  saddle 
in  the  General  Assembly,  they  determined  to  "instruct"  the  aristocratic 
John  Tyler  and  his  junior  colleague,  Benjamin  W.  Leigh,  right  out  of 
their  Senate  seats  on  the  expunction  question  and  replace  them  with  two 
senators  more  friendly  to  the  Jackson  administration — a  power  play  pure 
and  simple. 

On  March  28,  1834,  Senator  Thomas  Hart  Benton  first  sought  to 
make  good  his  pledge  that  he  would  not  rest  until  Clay's  resolution  of 
December  26,  1833,  censuring  Andrew  Jackson  for  removing  the  Bank 
deposits,  was  stricken  from  the  written  record  of  the  Senate.  On  that 
day  he  introduced  a  motion  to  "expunge"  the  censure  resolution  from 
the  Senate  Journal*  Defeated  on  the  resolution  in  1834  and  again  early 
in  1835,  Benton  tenaciously  reintroduced  his  motion  in  December  1835. 
To  the  senator  from  Missouri,  "expunge"  meant  the  physical  mutilation 
of  that  page  of  the  Journal  on  which  tie  censure  appeared.  The  Consti- 
tution explicitly  stated,  however,  that  "Each  House  shall  keep  a  journal 

of  its  proceedings,  and  from  time  to  time  publish  the  same "  Thus  to 

emasculate  that  Journal,  or  to  establish  a  precedent  for  emasculation, 
states*  rights  senators  argued,  was  unconstitutional.  Technically  it  repre- 
sented a  denial  of  the  absolute  constitutional  command  to  "keep  a 
journal."  Rescind  or  repeal  a  resolution,  yes;  physically  expurgate  an 
entry,  no.  This  argument  may  have  added  up  to  so  much  semantic  non- 
sense, but  throughout  human  history  semantic  nonsense  has  split 
churches,  launched  crusades,,  and  triggered  great  wars. 

Since  his  enthusiastic  vote  to  censure  Jackson  in  the  first  place, 
Tyler  had  done  nothing  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  Jacksonians  or 
-with  "Old  Bullion"  Benton,  the  President's  strong-willed  hatchet  man 

no 


on  Capitol  Hill.  On  the  contrary,  lie  had  antagonized  Benton  and  Ms 
friends  further  In  1834  by  participating  in  another  of  the  interminable 
congressional  investigations  of  the  Bank.  This  particular  investigation 
was  politically  motivated  from  start  to  finish.  The  five-man  committee, 
which  Senator  Tyler  headed,  was  stacked  four  to  one  against  the  ad- 
ministration. There  was  much  truth,  therefore,  in  Benton's  angry  charge 
that  it  was  a  "whitewashing  committee,"  little  more  than  "a  contrivance 
to  varnish  the  bank"  and  blacken  the  Jackson  administration.  Not  un- 
expectedly, the  Tyler  committee  brought  in  a  report  mildly  favorable 
to  the  second  Bank  of  the  United  States.  This  lengthy  document  ad- 
mitted that  there  was  evidence  to  substantiate  the  meddling-in-politics 
charge  (the  point  on  which  Jackson  had  built  the  essence  of  his  anti- 
Bank  case  in  1833)  j  but  ft  denied  that  the  Bank  had  attempted  to  bribe 
and  corrupt  newspaper  editors.  This  charge  Tyler  had  earlier  voiced 
himself.  The  report  argued  too  that  the  Bank  was  financially  stable  and 
safe,  that  there  had  existed  no  cause  for  withdrawing  government  de- 
posits on  the  grounds  that  it  was  weak  and  mismanaged.  It  also  accepted 
at  face  value  Biddle's  contention  at  the  time  that  Bank  credit  had  been 
tightened  in  1833  solely  to  prepare  the  institution  for  winding  up  its 
affairs  and  going  out  of  business  in  1836,  not  as  a  device  to  produce  a 
recession  politically  embarrassing  to  Old  Hickory.17 

Benton's  reaction  to  the  Tyler  report  was  to  denounce  the  members 
of  the  committee  as  pliant  tools  of  Nicholas  Biddle  and  to  charge  that 
the  criticisms  of  Jackson  in  the  document  were  "False!  False  as  hell!" 
Tyler  was  quick  to  deny  the  imputation.  Reminding  the  Senate  of  his 
long  hostility  to  the  Bank,  he  declared  that  "I  can  not  be  made  an  instru- 
ment of  the  bank,  or  by  a  still  greater  and  more  formidable  power,  the 

administration In  the  consciousness  of  my  own  honesty,  I  stand  firm 

and  erect.  I  worship  alone  at  the  shrine  of  truth  and  honor."  Profane 
allegations  and  pompous  denials  aside,  it  is  clear  that  John  Tyler  had 
become  no  tool  of  Biddle  and  the  Bank.  He  had,  however,  become  so 
antipathetic  toward  Andrew  Jackson  that  what  the  President  opposed 
Tyler  could  almost  support.  For  this  reason  he  appended  his  name  to 
what  was  indeed  a  whitewash  of  Biddle  and  the  Bank.  In  so  doing  he 
clouded  his  long-standing  attitude  toward  the  Bank  question. 

Nevertheless,  his  apparent  pro-Biddle  stance  on  the  Bank  investi- 
gation in  1834  gave  rise  to  suggestions  that  Tyler  might  make  an  accept- 
able Vice-Presidential  nominee  on  the  Whig  ticket  in  1836.  In  fact,  the 
Whig-dominated  Maryland  legislature  formally  made  such  a  nomination 
in  1835.  But  whatever  his  motives  in  the  Biddle  whitewash  and  the  rela- 
tion of  these  motives  to  his  personal  future  political  ambitions,  his  role 
in  the  original  censuring  of  the  President  was  enough  by  itself  to  make 
the  Virginia  senator  fair  game  for  the  Jacksonian  counterattack  that 
came  from  Richmond  in  December  of  that  year,  when  the  Benton 
expunging  resolution  came  up  again.18 

in 


On  December  14,  1835,  Colonel  Joseph  S.  Watkins,  a  leading 
Goochland  County  Democrat,  introduced  a  resolution  in  the  House  of 
Delegates  instructing  Senators  Tyler  and  Leigh  to  vote  for  Benton's 
expunging  resolution.  It  was  a  neolithic  political  move,  so  transparent  in 
intent  that  some  Virginia  Democrats  saw  it  could  make  a  political 
martyr  of  Tyler  and  force  him  irrevocably  into  the  outstretched  arms 
of  the  growing  states'  rights  Whig  faction  in  Virginia.  With  the  \Vatkins 
resolution,  therefore,  came  covert  feelers  from  Richmond  suggesting  to 
Tyler  that  if  he  resigned  his  Senate  seat  without  a  fuss  he  might  have 
permanent  assignment  to  the  circuit  court  judgeship  temporarily  being 
occupied  by  Letitia's  brother  John  B.  Christian.  This  attempted  bribe, 
aside  from  the  family  considerations  involved,  outraged  Tyler.  "To 
accept  any  retreat  from  my  station  would  be  dishonorable,"  he  thun- 
dered. "I  throw  the  offer  from  me,  and  am  ready  to  abide  any  storm 
which  may  come."  19 

The  storm  was  coming,  and  Senator  Benjamin  W.  Leigh  had  already 
decided  how  to  weather  it.  As  early  as  July  1835,  when  it  was  apparent 
that  the  Jacksonians  would  control  the  next  House  of  Delegates,  Leigh 
had  written  Tyler  that  he  would  not  resign  if  instructed  to  vote  for 
expunction.  Like  Tyler,  he  had  long  supported  the  concept  of  instruc- 
tion, but  he  was  determined  he  would  not  supinely  hand  his  seat  over  to 
the  Jacksonians.  "I  will  not  obey  instructions  which  shall  require  me  to 
vote  for  a  gross  violation  of  the  Constitution,"  he  said  bluntly.  He 
would  vote  for  the  Benton  resolution  only  "when  I  shall  be  prepared  to 
write  myself  fool,  knave  and  slave,  and  not  before."  Leigh  stood  firmly 
by  Ms  guns.  He  refused  to  be  instructed  to  support  a  measure  that  in  his 
view  was  unconstitutional;  he  also  refused  to  resign.20 

Tyler  might  very  easily  have  taken~the  same  position.  He  had  little 
to  gain  and  much  to  lose  by  resigning  his  seat.  Psychologically,  he  en- 
joyed being  a  United  States  Senator.  He  also  needed  the  salary  the  posi- 
tion paid.  He  could  certainly  have  rationalized  a  decision  to  follow 
Leigh's  course.  He  had  long  held  that  his  constituents  had  no  right  to 
require  him  to  violate  the  Constitution,  and  he  had  often  argued  that  he 
alone^  reserved  the  right  to  decide  when  a  violation  was  being  demanded. 
In  this  instance  he  fully  agreed  with  Leigh  that  Benton's  resolution  was 
unconstitutional. 

^  There  were  several  considerations  that  caused  Tyler  to  postpone  a 
decision  on  what  he  would  do  in  the  matter  until  January  20,  1836,  and 
then  to  withhold  announcing  that  decision  publicly  until  mid-February. 
Pleas  from  friends  in  Virginia  to  follow  Leigh's  course,  to  consider  the 
larger  political  interests  of  the  state's  anti- Jacksonians  in  the  November 
1836  elections,  gave  him  pause.  So  too  did  his  personal  financial  worries. 
His  eldest  daughter  Mary  had  just  married  Henry  L.  Jones  during  the 
Christmas  holidays  of  1835.  "I  have  large  debts  to  pay,"  he  told  his  son 
Robert,  "and  your  sister's  marriage  has  drained  me  pretty  well  of 


112 


money.'*  Therefore  during  early  January  he  remained  silent  about  his 
intentions.  When  asked  by  his  friends  whether  he  planned  to  "abandon 
the  Constitution"  by  resigning,  he  kept  his  answers  "enigmatical."  He 
toved  with  a  suggestion  that  he  and  Leigh  retain  their  seats  and  appeal 
their  decision  directly  to  the  people  of  Virginia  in  the  April  1836  state 
elections.  But  he  abandoned  this  idea  as  "extremely  hazardous"  for  two 
reasons:  He  feared  the  effect  an  April  defeat  on  the  issue  might  have  on 
the  anti-Jackson  cause  in  Virginia  In  November;  and  he  did  not  like  the 
precedent  that  would  be  set,  too  democratic  to  suit  Tyler,  of  by-passing 
the  legislature  that  had  elected  him  by  going  directly  to  the  people.  So 
he  hesitated  and  he  pondered.  While  he  leaned  strongly  toward  resigna- 
tion by  mid-January,  he  would  tell  Robert  little  more  than  not  to  repeat 
Ms  thinking  on  the  question  "out  of  the  family"  and  to  "rely  upon  my 
firmness,  unmixed  with  obstinacy."  21 

The  advice  that  poured  it  upon  him  emphasized  the  point  that  Tyler 
and  Leigh  should  act  in  concert  whatever  their  decision  might  be.  If  the 
two  men  divided  on  the  issue,  the  whole  doctrine  of  instructions,  a 
popular  one  among  states'  rights  politicians  in  Virginia,  would  be  brought 
into  disrepute.  Nor  would  the  Virginia  Whigs  (as  the  anti- Jackson 
Democrats  in  the  Old  Dominion  were  now  being  called)  be  able  to  pre- 
sent a  united  front  on  the  expunging-bill  question  against  the  Jackson 
party  in  November.  Maryland  Whigs  even  threatened  to  rescind  their 
Vice-Presidential  nomination  unless  Tyler  followed  the  position  chosen 
by  Leigh.  Typically,  Tyler  absorbed  all  this  advice,  weighed  it,  and  re- 
mained the  individualist.  As  will  become  apparent,  he  did  not  act  In 
concert  with  Leigh,  he  did  resign,  and  his  decision  to  surrender  his  seat 
seriously  embarrassed  the  Virginia  Whigs  In  the  November  1836  elec- 
tions. Van  Bur  en  carried  the  state.22 

By  January  20,  1836,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  stand  with  his 
principles  regardless  of  cost.  He  had  favored  the  doctrine  of  instructions 
since  1811  and  he  could  not  now  easily  or  with  consistency  shift  Ms 
position.  He  wrote  Mary  Tyler  Jones  on  January  20  that  his  inclination 
was  "to  quit  promptly  and  at  once."  He  doubted  that  anything  would 
"turn  up  to  vary  my  present  resolves."  As  for  pending  legislation  in  the 
Senate  in  which  he  was  Interested,  he  would  simply  have  to  "make  hay 
while  the  sun  shines"  and  let  It  go  at  that.  Flattering  talk  of  a  possible 
nomination  for  Vice-President  by  Virginia  Whigs,  on  a  ticket  with 
Senator  Hugh  L.  White  of  Tennessee,  failed  to  stay  his  decision  to  re- 
sign. While  he  thought  such  a  nomination  might  garner  him  a  "good 
vote/'  he  knew  that  he  could  not  carry  Pennsylvania.  And  he  would 
need  that  state  to  make  any  respectable  showing.  With  a  characteristic 
shrug,  he  decided  to  "make  no  calculations,  but  leave  things  to  take  care 
of  themselves."  ^ 

On  February  10  the  punitive  Watkins  motions  cleared  the  Virginia 
House  of  Delegates  and  senate  and  Tyler  was  formally  instructed  by 


the  General  Assembly  to  vote  for  the  Ben  ton  resolution.  To  discourage 
his  resignation  and  to  persuade  him  to  stay  on  in  Washington,  the  Vir- 
ginia Whigs  that  same  day  nominated  Tyler  for  the  Vice-Presidency. 
Again  advice  descended  upon  Mm.  Most  of  it  pointed  out  that  the 
prospects  of  his  election  to  the  Vice-Presidency  in  1836  were  "very 
flattering'7  and  that  his  friends  were  "quite  sanguine"  of  his  success. 
Since  Vice-Presidential  nominations  for  Tyler  on  Harrison  and  White 
tickets  were  expected  in  several  states,  he  was  urged  to  delay  his  resigna- 
tion until  some  face-saving  unanimity  with  Leigh  could  be  arranged.24 
These  Importunities  failed  to  move  Tyler.  His  decision  to  resign 
was  firm  and  absolute.  On  February  10  he  informed  Robert  Tyler  that 
"My  resolution  is  fixed,  and  I  shall  resign.  ...  I  cannot  look  to  con- 
sequences, but  perhaps  I  am  doomed  to  perpetual  exile  from  the  public 
councils."  Three  days  later  he  was  looking  beyond  politics,  praying  that 
his  health  would  permit  him  ten  years  of  activity  "which  can  be  devoted 
to  making  worldly  acquisitions."  His  immediate  hope  was  that  his  sons 
Robert  and  John  would  join  him  in  a  family  law  practice  from  which 
all  three  might  prosper.  As  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  he  professed  little 
interest  in  it  and  no  "hope  of  success,7 }  were  he  to  become  a  serious 
candidate  for  the  post.  He  would  therefore  observe  the  coming  national 
campaign  with  "as  much  nonchalance  as  I  can  assume,"  and  he  urged 
Robert  to  adopt  a  similar  course  of  silent  reserve  with  regard  to  it.  "Say 
as  little  about  it  as  needs  be,"  he  counseled.  Nevertheless,  he  suggested 
that  Virginia  Whigs  and  anti- Jackson  Democrats  should  arrange  a  mass 
rally  to  condemn  the  instructional  act  of  the  General  Assembly,  one  that 
would  trigger  a  "general  burst  of  indignation  from  the  Ohio  to  the 
Atlantic."  Such  mass  activity,  he  felt,  would  ensure  Whig  success 
throughout  the  state  in  November.25 

When  it  became  generally  known  in  Washington  that  Tyler  would 
resign  and  that  Leigh  would  pay  no  attention  to  the  General  Assembly's 
instmction3  Whig  senators  in  the  capital  expressed  their  "decided  op- 
position" to  a  decision  they  believed  unnecessarily  sacrificial.  Clay  and 
Calhoun  were  quickly  deputized  to  see  the  stubborn  Virginian  and  per- 
suade him  to  change  his  mind.  The  two  statesmen  called  upon  Tyler, 
carefully  marshalled  the  case  for  nonresignation  and  waited  hopefully 
for  his  response.  "Gentlemen,"  Tyler  said  firmly,  "the  first  act  of  my 
political  life  was  a  censure  of  Messrs.  Giles  and  Brent  for  opposition  to 
instructions.  The  chalice  presented  to  their  lips  is  now  presented  to 
mine,  and  I  will  drain  it  even  to  jhe  dregs."  Calhoun  stared  incred- 
ulously at  the  Charles  City  Socrates.  "If  you  make  it  a  point  of  per- 
sonal honor/'  he  said  finally,  Kwe  have  nothing  more  to  say."  26 

On  February  29,  1836,  Tyler  wrote  his  formal  letter  of  resignation 
to  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia.  In  this  lengthy  epistle  he  argued 
that  the  expunging  resolution  was  entirely  unconstitutional  and  that  he 
could  not  lift  his  hand  against  the  Constitution  by  supporting  it.  To  do 

"4 


so  would  require  sheer  hypocrisy.  Rather  than  do  this,  he  would  resign, 
whatever  the  persona!  and  professional  costs.  He  was  certain  that  the 
precedent  of  expunging  the  Senate  Journal  was  the  first  step  toward 
converting  the  Senate  into  a  "secret  conclave,  where  deeds  the  most 
revolting  might  be  performed  in  secrecy  and  darkness."  The  doctrine  of 
Instructions,  he  predicted,  would  soon  "degenerate  into  an  engine  of 
faction — an  instrument  to  be  employed  by  the  outs  to  get  in."  With  this 
"salvo/'  as  he  liked  to  called  it,  Tyler  returned  to  Virginia.27 

In  many  ways  he  was  happy  to  retire  again  to  the  quiet  of  his 
Gloucester  farm  and  to  his  long-neglected  law  practice.  Eight  years  in 
Washington  was  too  long.  He  felt  he  hardly  knew  his  children  or  his 
wife.  It  was  nice  to  be  home  again  for  good.  A  few  months  after  his 
return  to  Gloucester  he  sold  his  farm,  moved  his  family  to  Williamsburg, 
and  began  practicing  law  in  town  again.  His  attention  to  the  public  busi- 
ness since  1828  had  produced  such  "utter  disorder"  in  his  private  affairs 
that  for  six  months  they  required  his  "unremitting  and  undivided  atten- 
tion." His  personal  financial  situation  in  1836  was  desperate,  a  fate,  he 
complained  j  shared  by  all  "who  like  myself  have  made  themselves  a 
voluntary  sacrifice  to  public  service,  for  the  entire  period  of  their  man- 
hood." He  was  almost  grateful  that  his  political  enemies  had  forced  his 
resignation  from  the  Senate,  thus  allowing  him  a  "fit  season  to  put  my 
house  in  order."  2S 

In  Richmond  meanwhile,  the  confused  Whigs  and  anti-Jacksonians 
tried  to  devise  a  means  of  honoring  both  Leigh  and  Tyler  for  their  con- 
tradictory stands.  The  General  Assembly  had  appointed  William  C. 
Rives  to  replace  Tyler  in  the  Senate.  That  the  anti- Jackson  cause  in 
Washington  was  one  vote  weaker  was  a  fact  all  Virginia  Whigs  could 
understand.  Thus  the  hilarity  was  forced  and  the  embarrassment  pro- 
found when  the  Whigs  collected  at  a  dinner  in  Richmond  in  March  to 
cheer  Tyler's  great  courage  in  resigning  and  praise  Leigh's  courage  in  not 
resigning.  This  obvious  contradiction  was  not  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed 
by  Thomas  Ritchie,  editor  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer.  Ritchie  sarcasti- 
cally skewered  the  hydra-headed  Whig  leadership  in  the  Commonwealth, 
pointing  out  that  it  was  a  peculiar  and  opportunistic  grouping  of  hostile 
personalities  and  contradictory  principles.  Indeed  it  was.  But  if  the 
dilemma  of  the  Virginia  Whigs  at  the  Tyler-Leigh  banquet  was  great,  it 
was  no  greater  than  that  faced  by  the  emerging  Whig  Party  at  the  na- 
tional level,29 

To  call  the  Whig  coalition  a  political  party  is  to  do  it  a  service 
above  and  beyond  the  call  of  historical  accuracy.  It  was  not  a  party — 
not  in  the  European  sense,  certainly,  and  probably  not  in  the  modern 
American  sense.  It  was,  instead,  a  loose  confederacy  of  warring  factions 
bound  vaguely  together  by  a  common  hatred  of  the  new  popular  democ- 
racy in  general  and  of  General  Andrew  Jackson  and  Martin  Van  Buren 


in  particular.  The  party  grew  out  of  that  hatred  in  1833-1835  and  it 
collapsed  in  the  confusion  of  its  own  internal  intellectual  and  factional 
contradictions  in  1853-1854.  During  its  twenty-year  history  it  elevated 
two  bewildered  generals  to  the  White  House,  William  Henry  Harrison 
in  1840  and  Zachary  Taylor  in  1848,  and  it  nominated  another — General 
Winfield  Scott — in  1852.  These  leaders  were  chosen  to  head  the  WThig 
coalition  primarily  because  they  stood  for  nothing  controversial  antago- 
nized no  one,  and  because  they  could  be  sold  to  the  voters,  as  Andrew 
Jackson  had  been  marketed  in  182 8,  wrapped  in  an  aura  of  military 
glory.  Both  of  the  aging  Whig  generals  died  in  office,  bringing  into  power 
their  Vice-Presidents,  Tyler  and  Millard  Fillmore.  These  men  had  little 
in  common  politically  with  their  chiefs,  and  they  were  in  both  instances 
considerably  more  able  than  their  predecessors.  When  in  1844  the  Whigs 
did  nominate  a  man  who  stood  for  something,  Henry  Clay,  the  Demo- 
crats beat  him  with  James  K.  Polk,  a  political  unknown.  Party  platforms 
and  statements  of  political  principles  were  scrupulously  avoided  by  the 
Whigs  for  fear  the  brawling  factions  would  disintegrate  the  party  in  a 
gigantic  internal  explosion.  It  was  on  this  unstable  vehicle  that  John 
Tyler  of  Virginia,  no  Whig  himself  really,  backed  into  national  politics 
and  into  the  White  House. 

The  Whig  Party  was  an  opportunistic  amalgamation  of  two  major 
factions.  Foremost  in  its  councils  were  the  National  Republicans,  descend- 
ants of  Hamiltonian  Federalism.  Led  by  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster, 
and  John  Quincy  Adams,  they  supported  the  nationalistic  American  Sys- 
tem— tariff  protection,  internal  improvements,  national  bank — and  they 
were  generally  loose  constructionists  of  the  Constitution.  They  had  no 
use  for  slavery.  Within  the  Whig  Party  the  National  Republicans  were 
the  best-organized,  best-led,  and  most  influential  faction.  The  humilia- 
tion of  their  overwhelming  defeat  under  Clay  in  1832  ripened  them  for 
alliances  and  arrangements  that  would  give  them  a  broader  political 
base.  They  most  consistently  represented  the  interests  of  the  merchants, 
shippers,  and  the  new  industrialists  of  the  North  and  Northeast. 

Second  in  power  and  prestige  within  the  Whig  coalition  were  the 
states'  rights  Whigs  of  the  South.  Former  Jeffersonian  Democrats,  they 
were  variously  disenchanted  with  Andrew  Jackson  for  his  spoils  system, 
his  Force  Bill,  and  his  removal  of  the  Bank  deposits,  and  they  streamed 
into  the  Whig  coalition  in  1833-1835  in  search  of  a  new  political  home. 
They  were  much  mollified  by  Clay's  unexpected  moderation  during  the 
nullification  crisis,  by  his  work  on  the  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833,  and 
by  Ms  statement  that  much  of  Jackson's  proclamation  against  South 
Carolina  was  £Ctoo  ultra."  They  remained,  however,  strict  construction- 
ists, free-traders,  and  antinationalists,  and  they  looked  to  the  continued 
domination  of  the  national  political  process  by  gentlemen.  Led  by  John 
Tyler,  Willie  P.  Mangum  of  North  Carolina,  and  Hugh  L.  White  of 
Tennessee,  the  Southern  Whigs  chiefly  represented  the  interests  of  the 

116 


slaveowning  plantation  aristocracy.  They  feared  the  growing  political 
power  of  the  newly  enfranchised  white  hill  farmers,  the  upcountry 
agrarians  and  "poor  whites"  in  the  South  who  rallied  around  Jackson. 
Like  Jefferson,  most  of  them  feared  the  proper tyless  urban  artisans  to 
whom  both  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  appealed.  Indeed,  in  Virginia  it  was 
said  that  the  "Whigs  know  each  other  by  the  instinct  of  gentlemen." 
Their  hatred  of  the  egalitarian  Jackson  and  all  his  works  was  summed 
up  in  Mrs.  John  Floyd's  heated  characterization  of  the  General  as  a 
"bloody,  bawdy,  treacherous,  lecherous  villain.'7  so 

Lesser  adherents  to  the  Whig  coalition  in  1834  were  the  out-and-out 
slavers  and  nuliifiers  led  by  John  C.  Calhoun  and  a  small  coterie  of 
extremist  South  Carolina  statesmen  including  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  Francis 
W.  Pickens.  and  William  C.  Preston.  There  was  also  an  anti-Jackson 
contingent  of  Conservative  Democrats,  centered  primarily  in  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Ohio,  who  had  broken  sharply  with  the  General  on 
the  threat  of  dictatorship  they  thought  they  detected  in  his  Bank  policy. 
While  most  of  the  leadership  element  in  this  faction  opposed  slavery, 
free  trade,  and  strict  states7  rights,  they  were  opposed  even  more  stren- 
uously to  Van  Buren  and  to  the  machine  politics  of  the  urban  working- 
men's  democracy  known  in  New  York  as  Locofocoism.  Led  by  such 
politically  diverse  and  ambitious  champions  as  John  McLean  of  Ohio, 
Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan,  and  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge  of  New  York, 
theirs  was  an  opportunistic  movement  of  Democratic  outs  seeking  to 
make  themselves  Whig  ins. 

Finally,  there  were  the  Anti-Masons,  that  strange  and  emotional 
sect  that  came  bursting  out  of  western  New  York  and  onto  the  American 
political  scene  in  1831  with  little  more  for  a  program  than  the  naive  and 
half-crazy  belief  that  Freemasonry  and  Americanism  were  somehow 
incompatible.  Skilled  and  practical  politicians  like  Thurlow  Weed,  Wil- 
liam H.  Seward,  and  Francis  P.  Granger  quickly  moved  in  on  this  luna- 
tic fringe  and  made  of  it  an  anti- Jackson,  anti-Van  Buren  faction  in  the 
Empire  State,  dedicated  in  its  principles  to  the  protective  tariff  and  to 
internal  improvements.31 

The  practical  problem  in  1836  was  how  to  bring  the  diverse  Whig 
elements  together  against  Martin  Van  Buren,  hand-picked  by  the  Gen- 
eral to  carry  on  the  Jackson  revolution.  Crowding  protectionists  and 
free  traders,  Bank  men  and  anti-Bank  men,  moderate  and  extreme  states' 
righters,  nuliifiers,  American  System  nationalists,  Anti-Masons,  planters 
and  manufacturers,  businessmen  and  farmers  into  one  political  tent  was 
a  trick  John  Tyler  and  the  other  Whig  leaders  pondered.  Tyler's  idea 
was  to  nominate  a  man  who  could  at  least  unite  the  entire  South  and  who 
would  not  be  too  offensive  to  anti- Van  Buren  Democrats  and  National 
Republican  Whigs  in  the  North.  His  personal  candidate  was  his  good 
friend  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  a  "Virginia  Gentleman"  who  could,  he  was 
sure,  unite  and  carry  the  South.  Tyler  thus  undertook  in  November  1834 

117 


to  launch  a  Presidential  boom  in  TazewelFs  behalf,  certain  that  "no 
matter  where  his  name  may  be  first  brought  out,  it  will  spread  like  light- 
ning.3' When  the  Tazewell  boom  failed  to  spread  at  all,  in  Virginia  or 
elsewhere,  Tyler  began  reluctantly  to  consider  the  possibility  of  nomi- 
nating Judge  Hugh  L.  White  of  Tennessee.  To  be  sure,  White's 
estrangement  from  the  Jackson  administration  was  of  recent  date. 
But,  as  Tyler  pointed  out  to  James  Iredell,  Jr.7  in  January  1835,  White 
was  certainly  more  desirable  than  Van  Buren,  and  through  White  a 
united  South  might  hope  to  control  the  situation.  "We  could  only  take 
him  as  a  choice  of  evils/'  Tyler  explained,  "  [but]  I  desire  to  see  the 
South  united,  and  to  accomplish  this  I  would  yield  much.73  32 

Events  were  moving  swiftly.  In  May  1835,  at  a  Baltimore  conven- 
tion packed  with  federal  officeholders,  the  Jackson  Democrats  nominated 
Van  Buren  for  the  Presidency  and  Colonel  Richard  M.  Johnson  of  Ken- 
tucky for  the  Vice-Presidency.  The  nominations  triggered  a  rush  of 
states'  rights  Whigs  in  the  South  to  the  candidacy  of  Judge  White. 
White  had  supported  much  of  the  Jackson  program  including  the  Force 
Bill  ("He  has  voted  to  support  the  admin,  in  all  its  measures/'  admitted 
Tyler)  while  insisting  that  his  states'  rights  remained  orthodox.  It  was 
hoped  that  the  very  fogginess  of  this  record  might  cut  into  Van  Buren 's 
strength  in  the  North.  The  fact  that  the  controversial  Richard  M.  John- 
son appeared  with  Van  Buren  on  the  regular  Democratic  ticket  also 
gave  the  Southern  partisans  of  Hugh  White  considerable  hope. 

Johnson's  nomination  was  designed  to  give  the  Jacksonless  ticket  a 
genuine  frontier  flavor.  Veteran  of  the  War  of  1812,  comrade  in  arms  of 
General  William  Henry  Harrison  in  the  Indian  campaigns  in  Ohio,  Mich- 
igan, and  Ontario,  Johnson's  main  claim  to  fame  rested  on  his  dubious  as- 
sertion that  he  had  personally  and  heroically  delivered  the  death  blow  to 
the  Indian  chief  Tecumseh  at  the  Battle  of  the  Thames  in  October  1813. 
Whether  the  reputed  "Slayer  of  Tecumseh"  was  a  simulated  hero  or  not, 
It  was  a  fact  that  he  had  long  lived  with  a  mulatto  woman,  fathered  two 
quadroon  daughters  by  her,  and  had  boldly  sponsored  the  girls  in  polite 
society.  Miscegenation  was  scarcely  a  popular  concept  in  the  South  in 
1835,  and  when  Johnson's  nomination  to  the  Vice-Presidency  was  con- 
firmed at  Baltimore,  the  Virginia  Jackson  Democrats  at  the  convention 
broke  into  catcalls  and  hisses.  The  United  States  Telegraph  sounded 
the  alarm,  calling  attention  to  Johnson's  "connection  with  a  jet-black, 
thick-lipped,  odoriferous  negro  wench,  by  whom  he  has  reared  a  family 
of  children  whom  he  had  endeavoured  to  force  upon  society  as  equals."  33 

The  anti- Jackson  Virginians  struck  back  at  the  Baltimore  nominees 
with  speed.  A  meeting  of  Old  Dominion  Whigs  was  promptly  held  at 
Charlottesville;  it  denounced  the  United  States  Bank,  internal  improve- 
ments and  the  protective  tariff,  called  Van  Buren  a  "Federalist"  (still  a 
dirty  word  in  Jefferson's  Virginia) ,  drew  up  a  states'  rights  platform, 
and  nominated  Hugh  L.  White  for  the  Presidency.  Within  a  few  days,  in 

118 


a  letter  to  Colonel  Thomas  Smith  dated  "May  8,  1835,  Tyler  endorsed 
White.  The  Tennessee  senator,  whom  Tyler  had  accused  four  months 
earlier  of  having  '"voted  to  support  the  admin.  In  all  its  measures/7  was 
transformed  in  Tyler's  mind  into  a  magnolia  patriot  who  had  "been 
against  the  Old  Democracy  for  two  years  only,  and  [only]  on  two  or 
three  important  subjects."  Tyler's  conversion  to  White  was  speedy,  but 
It  was  not  related  to  rumors  circulating  in  Virginia  in  May  1835  that 
linked  his  own  name  with  White's  as  Vice-Presidential  nominee  on  a 
states'  rights  Whig  ticket.  "I  learn  that  there  is  an  idle  rumor  aSoat 
relative  to  myself,"  he  told  Colonel  Smith.  "I  need  scarcely  say  to  you, 
believe  it  not."  34 

Meanwhile,  the  Whig  campaign  strategy,  if  strategy  it  can  be  called, 
was  beginning  to  emerge.  It  eschewed  both  a  national  nominating  con- 
vention and  a  platform  statement  of  principles  for  fear  the  anti- Jackson 
bloc  would  disintegrate.  Thus  the  Whig  leadership  fell  back  on  the  device 
of  having  various  state  legislatures  and  state  nominating  conventions  put 
forward  sectional  candidates.  The  idea  was  to  repeat  the  history  of  1824. 
By  preventing  any  candidate  from  receiving  an  electoral  majority,  the 
decision  would  be  plunged  into  the  House  of  Representatives — where 
bargaining  by  professional  politicians  might  produce  a  Whig  choice  with- 
out further  reference  to  the  people.  Three  Presidential  candidates  were 
nominated  with  this  plan  in  mind:  Daniel  Webster  to  appeal  to  the 
Northeast  and  the  old  National  Republicans  in  that  section;  Hugh  L. 
White  to  draw  the  South's  anti- Jackson  and  states'  rights  groups  to- 
gether; and  General  William  Henry  Harrison,  "Old  Tippecanoe,"  a 
Virginia-born  Ohioan  to  appeal  to  the  West. 

Of  the  three  major  Whig  candidates  Harrison  was  by  far  the  least 
able  and  the  most  manipulatable.  He  was  also  perhaps  the  least  con- 
troversial. A  soldier  of  mediocre  talents,  a  failure  in  business,  and  a 
regular  suppliant  at  the  fountain  of  public  office,  elective  and  appointive, 
Harrison  had  made  obscure  public  speeches  and  statements  over  the 
years  that  had  had  that  valuable  political  quality  of  saying  nothing  at 
great  length  on  all  sides  of  many  issues.  It  is  doubtful  that  he  knew 
himself  where  he  really  stood  on  anything.  One  of  his  most  perceptive 
insights  came  in  January  1835  when  he  informed  a  friend  "I  have  news 
more  strange  to  tell  you.  Some  folks  are  silly  enough  to  have  formed  a 
plan  to  make  a  President  of  the  United  States  out  of  this  Clerk  and 
Clodhopper  1"  It  was  silly  but  it  was  good  politics.  A  myth  was  being 
built  around  the  Clodhopper  by  his  Ohio  managers.  Just  as  Jackson's 
propagandists  had  created  the  image  of  Old  Hickory  a  decade  earlier,  so 
now  did  Harrison's  associates  create  the  legend  of  Old  Tippecanoe,  slayer 
of  Redcoats  and  exterminator  of  red  Indians.  A  mantle  of  rugged  frontier 
simplicity  and  military  glory  was  skillfully  woven  by  Western  Whigs 
and  Anti-Masons  and  draped  on  his  threadbare  shoulders.  All  this  on 
the  theory,  so  often  proved  sound  in  American  Presidential  politics,  that 

119 


the  packaging  tends  to  be  more  important  than  the  product.  In  William 
Henry  Harrison  the  Western  Whigs  had  an  inferior  product.  But  they 
presented  him  in  a  bright  and  sparkling  package  borrowed  from  the  shelf 
of  Andrew  Jackson.  Harrison  was  ail  things  to  all  men,  the  all- American 
candidate.35 

Tyler  was  not  overwhelmed  with  enthusiasm  for  Harrison.  Nor  was 
he  at  all  convinced  that  the  multiple-candidate  approach  was  the  wisest 
one.  But,  given  the  nature  of  the  Whig  Party  in  1835-1836,  there  seemed 
no  alternative.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he  did  nothing  in  1836  to 
advance  his  own  political  fortunes  within  the  Whig  alliance.  He  watched 
the  movement  for  his  nomination  to  the  Vice-Presidency  with  detach- 
ment, neither  encouraging  nor  discouraging  the  efforts  of  those  who 
were  working  to  get  his  name  on  the  ballot  in  various  states.  He  had  no 
hope  of  his  own  election  and  little  confidence  in  the  chances  of  any  of 
the  various  Whig  Presidential  candidates.  He  evidenced  no  elation  when 
he  was  nominated  on  a  Harrison-Tyler  ticket  in  Maryland  and  on  White- 
Tyler  tickets  in  Virginia,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and  Georgia.  He 
apparently  felt  no  particular  depression  when  he  lost  a  possible  spot  on  a 
Harrison  ticket  in  Pennsylvania  to  Anti-Masonite  Francis  P.  Granger. 
Nor  was  he  angered  when  he  learned  that  Henry  Clay,  in  a  character- 
istic backstage  maneuver,  had  quietly  severed  the  Tyler  jugular  at  the 
Whig  state  convention  in  Ohio,  slipping  Granger's  name  onto  the  Buck- 
eye ticket  with  Harrison  instead  of  Tyler's.  The  Clay  operation  in  Ohio 
was  pure  "humbug  and  trickery,"  snorted  John  G.  Miller  from  Colum- 
bus. Miller  was  more  outraged  by  Clay's  double-dealing  than  was  Tyler. 
Urged  by  his  friends  to  campaign  in  "every  man's  house,  talk  to  him 
as  tho'  everything  was  in  his  power — flatter  the  wife  and  daughters  and 
praise  the  hogs,"  the  Virginian  was  unresponsive.  He  was  simply  not  a 
wife-flatterer,  baby-kisser,  or  hog-praiser.36 

The  Whig  chaos  of  multiple  Harrison-Tyler,  White-Tyler,  Har- 
rison-Granger, and  Webster-Granger  tickets  in  various  sections  pro- 
duced confusion  throughout  the  entire  nation — nowhere  better  revealed 
than  in  Virginia.  Having  endorsed  a  White-Tyler  nomination  in  Feb- 
ruary 1836,  the  Virginia  Whigs  were  soon  deluged  with  demands  from 
the  western  counties  for  a  Harrison  nomination  as  well.  This  sentiment 
they  happily  accommodated.  A  second  Whig  convention  was  called  in 
July  1836  which  nominated  Harrison  and  Tyler.  In  Virginia,  therefore, 
there  were  two  Whig  tickets,  White  and  Tyler  and  Harrison  and  Tyler, 
the  arrangement  being  that  in  the  event  the  Whigs  carried  the  state,  Vir- 
ginia's electoral  votes  would  go  to  the  Presidential  candidate,  Harrison 
or  White,  who  polled  the  highest  popular  vote.  The  combined  ticket  in 
Virginia  was  called  the  "Union  Anti-Van  Buren  Harrison  ticket/7  and 
the  party  there  labeled  itself  "Republican  Whig."  37 

The  surprising  thing  about  the  election  of  1836  was  that  the 
multiple-candidate  approach  very  nearly  succeeded.  Voters  in  Ohio  and 

120 


Pennsylvania  went  to  the  polls  earlier  than  in  some  of  the  other  states 
aad  by  October  27  it  was  certain  that  the  Whigs  had  carried  Ohio 
and  were  running  strong  in  Pennsylvania.  Tyler  was  greathr  encouraged. 
For  a  brief  moment  he  felt  that  Johnson's  Vice-Presidential  candidacy 
was  doomed  and  that  Ms  and  Francis  Granger's  names  would  be  the 
two  submitted  to  the  Senate  for  a  final  decision.  "If  the  Virginia  vote  be 
sustained  by  the  South,  then  my  individual  cause  is  neither  desperate  or 
hopeless/'  It  was  the  only  time  during  the  campaign  Tyler  believed  that 
a  combination  of  fortuitous  circumstances  might  conceivably  bring  about 
Ms  election.  Two  weeks  later  he  confided  to  James  Iredell,  Jr.7  that  while 
the  vote  in  Virginia  would  be  close,  "I  fear  we  shall  be  beaten  by  a  small 
majority."  3S 

Tyler  did  nothing  to  aid  his  own  cause.  He  did  not  campaign  per- 
sonally; he  made  no  statements  of  a  political  nature;  he  praised  no 
hogs.  He  simply  sat  on  Ms  front  porch  in  Williamsburg  and  waited  to 
see  if  the  Vice-Presidential  lightning  would  strike.  It  did  not.  Virginia 
rejected  the  Whig  coalition  and  went  for  Martin  Van  Buren?  whose  ap- 
peal in  the  western  mountain  counties  was  powerful  enough  to  offset 
divided  White  and  Harrison  sentiment  in  the  Tidewater  and  Piedmont. 
In  the  final  national  count  Van  Buren  received  170  electoral  votes  to 
Harrison's  73,  White's  26,  and  Webster's  14.  Among  the  Vice-Presi- 
dential candidates  Richard  M.  Johnson  received  147  electoral  votes, 
just  one  less  than  a  majority;  Anti-Mason-Whig-Democrat  Granger  col- 
lected 77,  and  states'  rights  Whig  John  Tyler  picked  up  the  47 
electoral  votes  of  South  CaroHna3  Maryland,  Tennessee,  and  Georgia. 
Rather  than  cast  Virginia's  23  electoral  votes  for  the  miscegenist  John- 
son, Virginia's  Democratic  electors  cast  their  vote  for  William  Smith  of 
Alabama.  For  the  first  and  only  time  in  American  history,  the  Vice- 
Presidential  decision  was  thrown  into  the  Senate.  There,  on  February 
8,  1837,  to  t^6  surprise  of  no  one,  the  Democratic  upper  chamber  chose 
Johnson  over  Granger  by  a  margin  of  33  to  16.  "The  double-shotted 
ticket  killed  us,5J  said  Tyler  sadly. 

Still,  he  was  not  long  disappointed  in  the  outcome.  The  total  Whig 
popular  vote  was  736,000,  only  27,000  shy  of  Van  Buren ys  total  and 
206,000  better  than  Clay  had  done  in  1832.  A  shift  of  1200  votes  in 
Pennsylvania  would  have  thrown  the  election  into  the  House  as  Whig 
leaders  had  planned.  In  addition,  Tyler  derived  much  from  his  losing 
effort.  Not  only  did  he  gain  national  exposure,  but  he  ran  well  ahead 
of  White  throughout  the  South,  All  in  all,  his  performance  and  that 
of  the  new  Whig  grouping  was  impressive.  True,  Tyler's  decision  to 
resign  his  Senate  seat  on  the  expunging  resolution  had  hurt  the  Whig 
cause  in  Virginia — as  Whig  leaders  there  had  predicted.  So  too  had  the 
peculiar  "double-shotted  ticket."  Yet  in  Maryland,  the  only  other  state 
in  which  he  ran  on  a  Whig  ticket  with  Harrison,  Tyler  won.  Indeed, 
Harrison  and  Tyler  carried  the  Free  State  by  a  better  margin  than  Clay 

121 


bad  in  1832.  Nor  had  Tyler  compromised  his  states'  rights  ideals  during 
the  canvass.  He  simply  kept  quiet  about  them. 

Tyler  chose  to  remain  with  the  Whigs  after  the  election  although 
he  knew  that  the  new  party  was  dominated  by  its  Northern  nationalist 
faction.  No  surviving  word  from  his  pen  explains  his  decision.  It  can 
only  be  surmised  that  he  saw  the  Whig  party  in  Virginia  as  the  safest 
political  redoubt  for  propertied  gentlemen,  a  bulwark  against  egalitarian 
Jacksonianism  and  King  Numbers  in  the  Old  Dominion.  Certainly  he  had 
little  confidence  in  the  political  sagacity  of  Virginia's  "mountaineers/' 
those  hill  farmers  west  of  Lexington  who  had  rallied  first  to  the  popular 
democracy  of  Jackson.  It  was  his  dedication  to  the  political  and  economic 
interests  of  the  Tidewater  aristocracy  that  very  likely  caused  him  to 
remain  a  Whig  when  solid  anti-Jacksonians  like  his  friends  Tazewell 
and  Gordon  were  returning  to  the  Democracy.  Ironically,  Tyler's  class 
bias  would  make  him  President  of  the  United  States.  He  would  owe 
the  office  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  these  same  unwashed  "moun- 
taineers" who  swept  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too"  into  the  White  House 
in  i840.39 

Whether  Tyler  personally  voted  for  White  or  for  Harrison  in  1836 
is  not  entirely  clear.  In  1840,  when  he  and  Harrison  were  running 
together  on  a  unified  Whig  ticket,  Tyler  vaguely  demurred  when  it  was 
charged  that  he  had  voted  for  Hugh  White  in  1836.  But  he  never  claimed 
that  he  had  voted  for  Harrison.  It  was  an  embarrassing  question  in 
1840  and  Tyler,  for  good  reason,  preferred  to  remain  as  foggy  as  possible 
on  the  subject.  In  all  likelihood,  however,  he  did  vote  for  White,  al- 
though the  evidence  on  the  point  is  more  suggestive  than  conclusive. 
His  correspondence  in  1835-1836  shows  a  willingness  to  support  White. 
None  of  his  surviving  letters  indicate  any  interest  whatever  in  Harrison. 
His  May  8,  1835,  letter  to  Colonel  Smith  specifically  endorsed  White, 
it  will  be  recalled.  His  statement  in  January  1835  that  he  would  "yield 
much"  to  see  the  South  united  in  the  campaign  would  also  seem  to  pre- 
clude his  later  support  of  Tippecanoe.  Harrison's  candidacy  not  only 
split  the  an  ti- Jackson  vote  in  Virginia  in  1836,  it  hurt  the  entire 
Whig  cause  in  the  South.  Shortly  after  the  election  Tyler  complained  to 
Henry  A.  Wise  that  several  leading  Whig  newspapers  in  the  South  had 
"dropped"  White  and  taken  up  Harrison,  and  he  blamed  the  loss  of 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  to  Van  Buren  on  this  development.  This  is 
not  the  protest  of  a  man  who  had  voted  for  Harrison,40 

The  loss  of  the  Vice-Presidency  in  1836  at  least  enabled  Tyler  to 
remain  at  home  with  his  family  and  rebuild  his  law  practice.  The  next 
few  years  were  happy  ones  in  Williamsburg,  and  Tyler's  practice  grew 
steadily.  His  older  children  began  to  marry  and  produce  Tyler  grand- 
children. Unfortunately  several  of  these  unions  were  unhappy  ones,  and 
it  took  all  the  power  of  Tyler's  near-fatalistic  deism  to  reconcile  him  to 
the  ensuing  disasters.  What  would  be  would  be,  his  theology  told  him, 

122 


A  case  In  point  was  the  wedding  of  Letitia  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple  in 
February  1839.  a  joyous  occasion  at  the  time  in  the  Williamsburg  house- 
hold. Semple  was  a  James  River  neighbor  well  known  to  Tyler.  When 
he  and  Ms  bride,  a  girl  who  was  thought  "very  handsome,  full  of  life 
and  spirits,"  settled  down  at  Cedar  Hill  plantation  In  New  Kent  County 
It  seemed  scarcely  possible  that  within  a  few  years  the  marriage  would 
amount  to  little  more  than  an  armed  truce.  In  May  1844  Semple  went 
into  the  Navy  as  a  purser  (Tyler  appointed  him  to  the  commission) 
and  remained  at  sea  much  of  the  time  thereafter.  Shortly  after  the 
Civil  War  a  separation  was  effected. 

Similarly,  the^October  25,  1838,  marriage  of  John,  Jr.,  to  Mattle 
Rochelle  of  Jerusalem  (now  Courtland) ,  near  Franklin,  Virginia,  began 
well  and  ended  in  failure.  John  Tyler  encouraged  the  union,  and  he  did 
everything  in  Ms  power  to  salvage  it  once  the  fact  became  apparent 
in  1842  that  it  had  moved  onto  shaky  ground.  Where  the  fault  lay  is 
difficult  to  ascertain.  It  seems  clear  that  young  Tyler  drank  too  much 
and  was  unable  to  complete  his  law  studies  or  much  else  that  he  set  out 
to  do.  In  any  event,  Mattle  refused  to  live  in  Washington  with  him 
while  he  served  Tyler  as  "White  House  private  secretary.  Tyler  in  turn 
objected  to  having  John,  Jr.,  "live  in  a  state  of  daily  dependence"  upon 
the  Rochelle  family.  "I  desire  therefore  to  see  them  placed  in  a  different 
situation/'  he  informed  the  Rochelles  in  October  1843.  He  proposed 
specifically  that  the  two  families  share  the  expense  of  purchasing  a  small 
estate  for  John  and  Mattie  near  WasMngton,  even  stocking  it  for  them 
with  a  few  slaves.  He  pointed  out  to  Martha  Rochelle,  Mattie's  mother, 
that  wMle  Ms  own  large  family  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  make  a 
"heavy  advance,"  he  was  willing  to  bear  a  fair  share  of  the  burden. 
Meanwhile,  he  was  paying  Ms  son  a  salary  as  Presidential  secretary. 
Tyler  had  already  accommodated  the  Rochelles  by  appointing  Martha's 
son  James  a  midsMpman  in  the  Navy  in  September  1841.  Neither  this 
gesture  nor  Tyler's  recommendations  to  Martha  bore  fruit.  The 
Rochelles  proved  uncooperative,  and  by  1844  the  couple  were  spending 
more  time  separated  than  together.  In  September  of  the  same  year 
the  President  fired  John,  Jr.,  from  his  secretarial  post  for  his  general 
inefficiency.41 

Much  more  happily  founded  was  the  marriage  of  Robert  Tyler  to 
the  lovely  Priscilla  Cooper  of  Bristol,  Pennsylvania.  The  ceremony  tool^ 
place  in  Bristol  on  September  12,  1839.  Priscilla  was  a  magnificent 
woman  with  fine  features,  beautiful  skin,  and  dark  brown  hair.  She  had 
a  wonderful  sense  of  humor  and  a  flirtatious  devilment  about  her  which 
fascinated  men.  From  1841  to  1844  she  graced  the  WMte  House  as  her 
father-in-law's  official  hostess,  the  only  professional  actress  ever  to  serve 
in  such  a  capacity  in  the  President's  Mansion.  Always  a  tower  of 
strength  in  the  Tyler  family,  she  had  seen  much  hardship  when  she 
first  met  Robert  Tyler  in  March  1837. 

Priscilla's  background  was  anytMng  but  normal,  although  on  her 

123 


mother's  side  she  was  directly  descended  from  the  prominent  Major 
James  Fairlee  of  New  York,  staff  officer  with  Baron  von  Steuben  during 
the  Revolution,  and  from  Chief  Justice  Robert  Yates  of  the  New  York 
Supreme  Court.  Her  father,  however,  was  Thomas  A.  Cooper,  adopted 
son  of  the  English  freethinker  and  social  reformer  William  Godwin. 
Actor3  gambler,  drinker,  Cooper  was  one  of  America's  leading  tragedians 
when  he  married  the  respectable  Mary  Fairlee  in  1812.  The  marriage 
virtually  severed  her  connection  with  her  outraged  family. 

To  this  strange  union  Priscilla  was  born  on  June  14,  1816,  the 
third  of  nine  children  who  arrived  with  annual  regularity.  She  grew  up 
in  Bristol  in  a  house  her  father  had  won  in  a  card  game.  There  she  lived 
until  her  mother  died  in  1833.  By  this  time  a  whole  new  generation  of 
actors — Edmund  Forrest,  Tyrone  Power,  and  Edmund  Kean  among 
them — trod  the  boards,  cutting  into  Cooper's  fame  and  earning  power 
with  such  severity  that  the  large  brood  of  motherless  Cooper  children 
faced  privation.  Tom  Cooper  had  no  savings,  of  course,  only  sour  mem- 
ories of  bad  cards.  Faced  with  this  situation,  Priscilla  decided  that 
she  too  must  go  on  the  stage.  Coached  and  trained  by  her  father  who 
reasoned  that  a  father-daughter  team  might  revive  public  interest  in  the 
Cooper  name,  Priscilla  opened  to  mixed  reviews  at  the  Bowery  Theater 
on  February  17,  1834,  in  Virginim,  a  tragedy  by  Sheridan  Knowles.  The 
next  three  years  of  her  life  added  up  to  a  dreary  succession  of  grimy 
boardinghouses,  dirty  theaters,  and  dwindling  audiences.  She  was  not 
a  great  actress.  She  was  pretty  and  competent  and  tireless,  but  she  was 
no  Charlotte  Cushman.  Constantly  on  tour,  she  played  the  coastal  cities 
from  Boston  to  Charleston — as  Juliet  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Beatrice  in 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Juliana  in  The  Honeymoon,  Mrs.  Beverly  hi 
The  Gamester,  Virginia  in  Virginius,  and  Desdemona  in  Othello.  When 
the  panic  and  depression  of  1837  virtually  wrecked  the  American 
theater,  the  Coopers  experienced  real  hardship.  On  May  17  of  that  black 
year  Priscilla  wrote  her  sister  Mary  Grace  that 

We  had  radishes  and  salad — not  roses  and  strawberries.  The  latter  I  shall  not 
hope  to  taste  this  year,  for  economy  is  the  order  of  the  day.  One  pound  of 
butter  lasts  us  two  days.  We  eat  rye  bread,  burn  one  candle.  Pa  gets  shaved 
once  in  two  days  and  by  the  month.  We  wash  ourselves  only  once  a  week  as 
the  Delaware  is  red  [muddy] ,  eat  nothing  but  bacon  and  potatoes  for  dinner,, 
with  an  occasional  lone  dumpling  to  give  weight  to  the  repast.  Our  business  in 
Baltimore  was  so  utterly  wretched  that  Papa  could  not  afford  to  go  for  you 
. . .  our  houses  were  most  miserable Hard  times,  banks  breaking,  mer- 
chants failing  and  strong  fear  of  negro  and  Irish  mobs.  This  latter  keeping  all 
the  fathers  of  families  in  their  houses  after  nightfall. . .  ,42 

By  the  time  Priscilla  and  her  father  reached  Richmond  on  March 
18.,  1837,  to  play  Othello,  the  young  actress  was  tired  and  discouraged. 
She  confided  to  Mary  Grace,  half  hopefully,  half  wistfully,  that  if  some- 
one "with  a  large  country  establishment  in  Virginia,  a  good  family  name, 

124 


and  a  handsome  and  good  natured  person,"  were  to  fall  in  love  with  her 
and  ask  her  to  marry  him,  she  would  not  think  his  proposal  "to  be 
sneezed  at" — a  remark  that  was  almost  clairvoyant.  The  same  evening 
she  met  Robert  Tyler.  Robert  had  finished  at  William  and  Mary  in 
1835  and  was  engaged  in  the  reading  of  law  in  the  Williamsburg  office 
of  Professor  Nathaniel  Beverley  Tucker.  The  prospect  of  seeing  the  great 
Thomas  A.  Cooper  play  Othello  had  lured  him  up  to  Richmond  for  the 
evening.  When  Priscilla  came  on  the  stage  as  Desdemona,  the  patrons 
rose  to  applaud.  This  was  a  mark  of  respect  frequently  paid  young 
actresses  by  courtly  Southern  audiences.  Robert  was  transfixed  at  the 
sight  of  the  beautiful  Desdemona  and  remained  standing  and  staring  at 
Priscilla  after  everyone  else  sat  down.  After  the  play  he  went  im- 
mediately backstage,  introduced  himself  to  Tom  Cooper,  and  asked 
permission  "to  pay  his  addresses"  to  his  lovely  daughter.43 

So  began  the  romance  which,  after  six  proposals  and  a  bundle  of 
poetic  love  letters,  culminated  in  marriage  at  St.  James'  Episcopal 
Church  in  Bristol  in  September  1839.  All  the  Tylers  encouraged 
Robert  in  his  anxious  quest.  There  was  no  foolishness  about  taking  an 
impoverished  actress  into  the  family.  As  Robert  told  Priscilla,  his  mother 
was  "more  glad  that  I  shall  marry  you  than  anyone  else  in  the  world." 
John  Tyler  was  his  son's  best  man  at  the  ceremony  and  John  Tyler, 
Jr.,  served  as  a  groomsman.  Because  of  her  recent  stroke,  Letitia  Chris- 
tian Tyler  could  not  attend  her  son's  wedding.  After  a  honeymoon  at 
Woodlawn  plantation,  home  of  Henry  and  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  the 
couple  returned  to  Williamsburg.44 

Priscilla  fitted  easily  and  happily  into  the  bosom  of  the  Tyler 
family.  She  truly  loved  Letitia,  got  on  very  well  with  John  Tyler,  and 
enjoyed  the  Tyler  children.  She  was  a  happy  bride.  She  never  looked 
back  to  her  grim  days  in  the  theater.  It  worried  her  sometimes  that  her 
father,  working  alone  again,  was  reduced  in  1839  to  playing  such 
backwoods  tank  towns  as  Montgomery,  Alabama.  But  she  had  her  own 
life  to  lead  now,  and  she  threw  her  energies  into  her  husband's  career. 
She  helped  him  prepare  his  law  cases  and  write  his  speeches  to  the 
juries.  "I  write  all  the  pathetic  and  romantic  parts,  and  Mr.  Tyler,  the 
law  and  reason,"  she  informed  her  sister.  She  also  transcribed  his  somber 
poetry,  mended  his  shirts,  and  tried  to  save  money  by  making  some  of 
her  own  dresses.  Her  clumsy  efforts  as  a  seamstress  reminded  her  of  the 
two  French  towns,  "Too  Long"  and  "Too  Loose."  Nor  did  it  take  her 
long  to  discover  that  the  management  of  money  in  the  Tyler  household 
was  a  casual  affair.  In  August  1840  she  wrote  Mary  Grace  that 

At  present  the  situation  is  anything  but  comfortable.  Mr.  [Robert]  Tyler 
has  nothing  to  do  scarcely  in  Williamsburg,  and  his  father  won't  send  him 
away.  The  family  are  very  extravagant.  The  governor  [Tyler]  pressed  for 
money;  consequently  I  never  think  of  indulging  in  any  little  elegant  super- 
fluities, even  to  a  yard  of  blue  ribbon;  in  fact,  never  get  a  paper  of  pins 

125 


without  waiting  a  week  or  two  to  see  if  I  can  do  without  them.  The  governor 
is  very  generous  though  and  has  given  me  permission  to  have  an  account  in 
every  store  in  Williamsburg,  which  of  course  I  do  not  avail  myself  of.45 

Priscilla  was  understandably  worried.  When  she  wrote  this  letter 
she  was  five  months  pregnant,  and  she  was  beginning  to  wonder  when 
her  husband  was  ever  going  to  commence  his  law  career  seriously.  For 
all  practical  purposes  he  had  given  up  the  law  early  in  1840  to  assist 
in  his  father's  campaign  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  Thus,  when  she  and 
Robert  visited  Tom  Cooper  in  Bristol  in  August  1840,  two  months 
before  the  election,  she  saw  the  two  men  she  loved  most  in  the  world 
staring  poverty  in  the  face. 

It  was  not  a  successful  homecoming.  Robert  did  not  get  along 
well  with  his  crusty  father-in-law,  who  was  a  staunch  Van  Burea 
Democrat.  "The  Whigs  stand  no  more  chance  than  a  cat  in  hell  without 
claws /'  he  told  Robert.  "Damn  their  bloods.  They  will  cut  their  own 
damn  throats."  While  Robert  laughed  politely  at  these  profane  little 
sallies,  the  fact  remained  that  the  men  mixed,  as  Priscilla  put  it,  "about 
as  much  as  oil  and  water."  Fortunately  for  the  economic  well-being  of 
both  of  them,  the  Whigs  did  win  the  election.  Thus  when  Tyler  be- 
came President  in  1841  Robert  promptly  received  a  nfteen-hundred- 
dollar-a-year  sinecure  in  the  Land  Office  and  Tom  Cooper  was  appointed 
storekeeper  at  the  Frankford  Arsenal  in  Pennsylvania  with  the  pay  of 
an  Army  captain.  Priscilla  finally  caught  the  spirit  of  the  Presidential 
campaign  to  which  her  husband  had  sacrificed  his  budding  law  career. 
She  wrote  to  everyone  she  knew  urging  them  to  support  the  Whig  ticket. 
And  when  Harrison  and  Tyler  were  swept  into  office  she  literally  danced 
for  joy.46 


126 


AND  TYLER  TOO 


And  we'll  vote  for  Tyler  y  thereforej 
Without  a  why  or  wherefore. 

WHIG   CAMPAIGN    SONG,    1840 


Tyler's  return  to  active  politics  in  April  1838,  after  an  absence  of  two 
years,  was  as  predictable  as  it  was  inevitable.  He  could  not  long  bear 
being  out  of  tie  political  stream.  He  had  a  real  addiction  to  politics. 
On  April  26,  1838,  he  stood  as  a  Whig  for  the  Virginia  House  of 
Delegates  from  the  Williamsburg  district  and  was  swept  into  office.  Al- 
ready talk  and  speculation  had  revived  throughout  the  South  that  linked 
Tyler's  name  once  more  to  the  Vice-Presidential  nomination  for  1840 
on  the  Whig  ticket.  The  Virginian's  election  to  the  speakership  of  the 
House  of  Delegates  in  January  1839  only  increased  this  speculation.  But 
Tyler  did  not  return  to  the  political  arena  in  1838  to  run  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  in  1840;  he  felt  he  had  no  chance  in  that  direction.  As  ne 
confided  to  Henry  A.  Wise  in  December  1838,  "I  dream  not  that  any 
Southern  man  with  Southern  principles  is  to  be  selected.  This  has 
already  been  tested  in  my  case.  My  election  was  certain  [in  1836]  if 
Northern  and  Western  men  had  come  to  my  aid."  * 

Nevertheless,  1840  had  all  the  earmarks  of  a  Whig  year.  The  de- 
pression which  stalked  the  nation  had,  by  1839,  stimulated  widespread 
popular  demands  to  throw  the  ins  bodily  out.  Most  Americans  did  not 
understand  just  how  Andrew  Jackson's  fiscal  policies  had  triggered  the 
economic  crisis,  but  they  did  understand  seven-cent  cotton,  five-cent 
sugar,  and  sixty-eight  cents'  wages  for  a  fourteen-hour  day  at  common 
labor.  They  could  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  Jackson's  destruction 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  subsequent  deposit  of  Treasury 
funds  in  "pet"  state  banks  had  introduced  a  wild  period  of  credit  ex- 

127 


pansion,  paper-money  inflation,  and  speculation  in  1835-1837.  Center- 
ing in  the  speculative  buying  and  selling  of  public  lands,  the  inflationary 
boom  sent  food  prices  spiraling  upward  and  soon  caused  great  hardship 
among  urban  workingmen  in  the  North.  This  politically  undesirable 
development  eventually  encouraged  Jackson  to  issue  the  ill-timed  if  not 
ill-advised  deflationary  Specie  Circular  of  July  1836  which  demanded 
that  all  public  lands  forthwith  be  paid  for  in  silver  and  gold.  The  result- 
ing dislocation  in  banking  and  currency  circles  quickly  set  off  the  dreary 
cycle  of  depression — banks  collapsed,  credit  dried  up,  commodity  prices 
dropped,  wages  declined,  businesses  folded,  factories  shut  down,  and 
more  banks  collapsed.  By  1838  some  fifty  thousand  unemployed  men 
walked  the  streets  of  New  York  City  alone. 

The  Van  Buren  administration  inherited  the  deepening  economic 
crisis  and  could  come  up  with  nothing  more  inspiring  to  counter  it  than 
the  Independent  Treasury  plan,  which,  after  two  years  of  bitter  political 
wrangling  and  maneuvering,  the  distracted  Democracy  managed  finally 
to  push  into  law  in  June  1840.  The  Independent  Treasury  had  no  ap- 
preciable effect  on  the  depression.  It  was  a  Democratic  hard-money 
scheme  which  sought  to  divorce  the  Treasury  from  the  state  banking 
system  once  and  for  all  by  placing  all  government  revenues  in  special 
federal  depositories.  While  this  plan  had  the  advantage  of  removing  gov- 
ernment deposit  funds  from  the  speculation-crazed  hands  of  irrespon- 
sible state-bank  officials,  its  corollary  stricture  that  obEgations  due  the 
government  be  paid  only  in  specie  threatened  further  to  reduce  the  sup- 
ply of  currency  (and  credit)  at  a  time  when  the  depressed  state  of  the 
economy  called  for  a  policy  of  controlled  inflation. 

Meanwhile,  conservatives  like  Tyler  were  shaken  by  the  rise  of 
Locofocolsm  within  the  Northern  Democracy.  Centering  in  the  urban 
areas,  particularly  New  York  City  and  Philadelphia,  the  movement 
began  as  the  Workingmen's  Party  in  the  late  18203.  At  that  time  It 
advocated  nothing  more  radical  than  free  public  education,  protection 
f)f  workers  from  the  competition  of  prison  contract  labor,  and  the  aboli- 
tion of  imprisonment  for  debt.  But  when  it  emerged  again  in  New 
York  in  1834  as  the  Equal  Rights  party,  its  leadership  was  demanding 
in  addition  abolition  of  business  monopolies,  legalization  of  trade  unions, 
the  right  to  strike,  hard  money,  stable  prices,  free  trade,  and  a  strict 
construction  of  the  Constitution.  Enamored  neither  of  inflation  nor  de- 
flation, the  workingmen  of  the  North  who  complained  bitterly  about 
the  rising  cost  of  bread  during  the  inflation  of  1835-1837  were,  by 
1839,  an  angry  mob  of  unemployed  ready  to  heed  the  Whig  campaign 
slogan:  "Matty's  policy:  Fifty  cents  a  day  and  French  soup — Our 
policy:  Two  dollars  a  day  and  roast  beef." 

The  rise  of  these  radicals  and  levelers  (or  so  they  seemed  at  the 
time  to  the  comfortable  classes)  in  the  mid-i83os  split  the  Democratic 
Party  in  New  York  into  two  factions.  The  Locofoco  wing,  led  by  Martin 

128 


Van  Buren  and  Senator  Silas  Wright,  mainly  supported  the  aims  of  the 
urban  Equal  Rights  movement;  the  Conservative  wing,  led  by  Senator 
Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge,  largely  represented  the  Empire  State  agrarian 
community.  The  Conservatives  were  willing  to  cooperate  with  the  Whigs 
on  most  matters  of  fiscal  and  economic  policy.  Both  factions  vied  for 
control  of  patronage-rich  Tammany  Hall,  key  to  the  New  York  City 
political  situation. 

With  the  onset  of  the  depression  years  in  1837,  the  miserable, 
the  hungry,  and  the  jobless  flocked  to  the  Locofoco  banner  and  marched 
through  the  streets  of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Baltimore 
chanting  angry  demands  for  bread  and  work.  The  picture  they  presented 
was  indeed  a  frightening  one  to  conservative  Democrats.  That  these 
same  workingmen  also  supported  the  deflationary  policies  of  the  Jackson 
and  Van  Buren  administrations  (foolishly,  it  would  seem)  was  proof 
enough  to  the  conservatives  that  the  entire  Democracy  had  been  cap- 
tured by  its  radical  element.  Actually,  the  Van  Buren  administration  did 
little  to  earn  the  allegiance  of  the  unemployed  workingman,  and  it 
certainly  had  no  solution  to  his  problem.  Suggestions  that  the  federal 
government  intervene  to  combat  the  depression  and  alleviate  human 
suffering  fell  on  deaf  ears  in  the  capital.  Indeed,  Martin  Van  Buren  hi 
his  Annual  Message  of  December  1837  criticized  those  who  were  "prone 
to  expect  too  much  from  the  Government."  Nor  did  the  Whigs  of  1840 
have  any  idea  how  to  produce  "two  dollars  a  day  and  roast  beef"  either. 
But  they  were  out  and  Van  Buren  was  in  and  it  was  in  a  fine  slogan.2 

As  it  became  apparent  that  the  Van  Buren  administration  was 
destined  to  wrestle  unequally  and  unsuccessfully  with  the  disaster,  and 
that  the  Northern  Democracy  was  fracturing  into  two  hostile  wings,  the 
Whig  nomination  for  the  Presidency  became  a  prize  eagerly  sought. 
Congressional  elections  in  1838  produced  sharp  Whig  gains  in  the  South, 
particularly  in  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Louisiana.  No  one 
appreciated  the  rosy  future  of  the  shaky  Whig  coalition  more  than  Henry 
Clay.  Denied  in  1824,  passed  over  in  1828,  beaten  in  1832,  neglected 
in  1836,  the  Sage  of  Ashland  confidently  looked  to  1840  as  the  year 
he  would  at  last  walk  triumphantly  into  the  White  House.  As  a  charter 
member  of  the  anti- Jackson  crusade  since  1828,  no  Whig  deserved  the 
honor  more  than  he.  Yet  the  key  to  the  nomination  was  held  by  the 
states7  rights  Whigs  of  the  South.  Without  the  support  and  good  will  of 
men  like  Tyler,  William  C.  Preston,  and  Hugh  L.  White  he  could  not 
hope  to  capture  either  the  Whig  nomination  or  the  election.  So  it  was 
that  Clay's  slow  canter  toward  an  accommodation  with  the  states7 
rights  Whigs,  which  began  with  the  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833,  became 
a  fast  gallop  after  the  elections  of  1836  and  1838  demonstrated  that  the 
strength  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  in  the  South  was  not  that  of 
Hercules. 

As  early  as  September  1837  Clay  commenced  unloading  much  of 

129 


the  American  System  ideological  baggage  that  prevented  the  full  con- 
summation of  a  political  love  feast  with  the  Southern  Whigs.  Speaking 
on  the  expediency  of  re-establishing  a  Bank  of  the  United  States,  he 
retreated  to  the  view  that  the  Bank  question  was  a  closed  issue  until  it 
became  demonstrably  certain  that  a  clear  majority  of  the  American 
people  desired  the  revival  of  such  an  institution.  In  February  1838  he 
attacked  the  Independent  Treasury  from  a  states'  rights  standpoint.  In 
January  1839  ne  finally  secured  Judge  Hugh  White's  support  for  his 
candidacy  in  a  secret  alliance  negotiated  through  Henry  A.  Wise.  By 
the  terms  of  this  treaty  Clay  abandoned  his  entire  American  System — 
Bank,  tariff,  and  turnpike.  As  the  Great  Compromiser  began  to  com- 
promise his  principles,  Tyler  could  confide  to  Wise  that  in  comparing 
the  abilities  of  Clay  and  Harrison,  he  felt  the  Kentuckian  was  by 
far  the  more  distinguished  of  the  two  leading  Wlaig  candidates  for  the 
nomination.  "Amid  numerous  errors,"  said  Tyler  in  December  18-38, 
Clay  had  "yet:  contrived  to  build  for  himself  a  fame  which  will  greatly 
outlast  the  times  in  which  we  live.  I  have  admired  him  always,  and  he 
knows  it."  3 

In  sum,  John  Tyler  returned  to  active  politics  in  1838  as  a  sup- 
porter of  Henry  Clay.  Given  the  necessity  of  a  sectionally  balanced 
ticket3  Tyler  knew  that  the  Kentuckian's  nomination  for  the  Presi- 
dency would  preclude  any  possibility  of  his  own  nomination  for  the 
Vice-Presidency,  The  selflessness  of  his  stand  for  Clay  (indeed  the  irony 
of  it)  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  Tyler  remained  a  Clay  supporter  even 
after  Harry  of  the  West  had  firmly  planted  a  knife  in  his  back  during 
the  Tyler- Rives  struggle  of  January  1839  in  the  Virginia  General 
Assembly. 

The  issue  at  stake  was  the  United  States  Senate  seat  Tyler  had 
resigned  in  February  1836  and  to  which  William  C.  Rives  had  been 
promptly  elected  as  a  Jackson  Democrat.  With  no  prospect  of  a  Vice- 
Presidential  nomination  in  the  offing,  Tyler  announced  Ms  candidacy 
for  his  old  seat,  partly  as  a  vindication  of  his  earlier  stand  on  the 
expunging  resolution,  partly  because  he  wanted  the  position  and  needed 
the  salary.  Meanwhile,  in  1838,  Rives  had  abandoned  the  Jackson-Van 
Buren  Democracy  on  the  Independent  Treasury  question  and  was  now 
calling  himself  a  Conservative  Democrat,  The  state  elections  that  year 
produced  in  the  Virginia  General  Assembly  a  count  of  eighty-one  Whigs, 
sixty-nine  Van  Buren  Democrats,  and  sixteen  Rives  Conservative 
Democrats.  The  latter  group  comprised  men,  like  Rives,  who  had  split 
with  Van  Buren  in  1838,  but  who  had  not  yet  become  politically  in- 
tegrated into  the  Virginia  Whiggery.  To  Henry  Clay  and  to  other  Whig 
leaders,  it  was  vital  that  the  Rives  Democrats  be  speedily  incorporated 
into  the  Whig  coalition.  In  a  crucial  swing  state  like  Virginia,  their 
support  of  a  Clay  ticket  in  1840  would  be  the  key  to  success  there. 
For  this  reason  Clay  quietly  passed  the  word  to  his  Virginia  friends  in 

130 


December  1838  that  lie  was  for  Rives  in  the  coming  contest  with  John 
Tyler.  From  Tylers  standpoint,  Rives  was  a  Johnny-come-lately  to  the 
Whig  persuasion,  a  man  who  had  "sustained  Gen'l  Jackson  in  all  his 
high  handed  usurpations  and  openly  proclaimed  that  the  executive 
power  was  a  unit,  and  who  sustained  that  unit  even  unto  the  point 
of  blotting  out  the  just  censure  of  the  Senate."  Tyler  could  not  bring 
himself  to  believe  that  Virginia  Whigs  could  support  a  man  whose  po- 
litical conduct  had  been  so  ''obnoxious."  4 

But  support  him  they  did,  a  fact  which  became  quickly  apparent 
to  Tyler  when  on  the  first  ballot  Rives  polled  29  votes,  twelve  more 
than  his  known  strength.  When  Rives'  vote  increased  to  43  on  the 
fourth  ballot  while  Tyler's  dropped  steadily  from  62  to  47  (Democrat 
John  Y.  Mason  holding  at  68),  it  was  clear  that  treachery  of  some  sort 
was  afoot  within  the  Whig  fraternity.  At  this  point  Tyler's  brother-in- 
law,  Judge  John  B.  Christian,  got  in  touch  with  Henry  A.  Wise  in 
Washington  and  instructed  Wise  to  put  the  matter  bluntly  before  Clay. 
In  a  stormy  interview  with  Harry  of  the  West,  Wise  learned  that  Clay 
was  indeed  secretly  supporting  Rives  in  the  hope  of  carrying  Virginia 
in  1840.  Then  came  Clay's  quid  pro  quo.  In  Wise's  words,  Clay  "agreed 
that  if  Mr.  Tyler's  friends,  who  withheld  Mr.  Rives'  election  by  the 
legislature,  would  yield  his  reelection,  Mr.  Tyler  should  be  nominated 
on  the  Whig  ticket  for  the  Vice  Presidency."  5 

Tyler  rejected  the  proffered  bribe  out  of  hand.  He  did  not  seek  and 
was  not  seeking  the  Vice-Presidency,  and  for  personal  reasons  he  would 
not  permit  Rives'  re-election.  Rather  than  release  his  friends  to  the 
Rives  candidacy,  Tyler  decided  to  hold  fast  and  thus  deadlock  the 
contest.  Under  the  circumstances,  Rives  could  not  command  a  majority 
and  the  stalemate  continued  until  February  23  when  the  General  As- 
sembly, after  twenty-eight  indecisive  ballots,  at  last  voted  the  indefinite 
postponement  of  the  election.  So  angry  were  Virginia  Whigs  with  Tyler 
over  the  Rives  matter  that  they  withheld  from  him  their  favorite-son 
Vice-Presidential  nomination.  At  their  Staunton  state  convention  in 
September  they  endorsed  instead  New  York  Senator  Nathaniel  P. 
Tallmadge  for  the  second  spot  on  a  ticket  with  Clay.6 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Clay's  patent  double-dealing  on  the 
Rives  question  angered  John  Tyler.  On  the  contrary,  Tyler  apparently 
accepted  the  situation  as  all  in  a  good  day's  work,  part  of  the  political 
game.  Indeed,  in  mid-September,  at  the  moment  Virginia  Whigs  at 
Staunton  were  pointedly  passing  him  over  for  a  Vice-Presidential 
nomination,  he  wrote  Clay  a  friendly  letter  reiterating  his  support.  He 
told  the  Kentuckian  "I  always  regarded  you  as  a  republican  of  the  old 
school  on  principle — who  had  indulged,  when  the  public  good  seemed 
to  require  it,  somewhat  too  much  in  a  broad  interpretation  to  suit  our 
Southern  notions."  Such  venom  as  Tyler  had  stored  in  him  in  the 
summer  of  1839  (and  with  family  wedding-bells  ringing  all  around  he 


was  in  a  cheerful  frame  of  mind)  was  reserved  for  Martin  Van  Buren 
for  not  having  countermanded  the  removal  of  Tyler's  nephew,  John 
H.  Waggaman,  from  the  position  in  the  Land  Office  Tyler  had  earlier  ob- 
tained for  him.7 

Xor  did  Tyler  give  any  indication  that  his  disappointment  in  the 
contest  with  Rives,  if  indeed  there  was  any,  would  take  the  form  of  a 
long  sulk  in  Virginia's  political  tent.  In  the  months  preceding  the  na- 
tional Whig  convention  at  Harrisburg  in  December  1839,  Tyler  was 
extremely  active  in  the  Whig  cause  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  only  one 
state  (Mississippi)  had  seen  fit  to  tender  him  a  Vice-Presidential 
nomination.  The  Southern  Whig  tide  was  running  strong  for  Henry 
Clay — Virginia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  and  North  Carolina 
all  announced  for  him — and  Tyler  gave  Ms  time  and  energy  unstintingly 
to  the  Clay  cause .  In  various  precampaign  speeches  he  ridiculed  the  ex- 
cesses to  which  internal  improvements  had  been  carried,  rang  the  tocsin 
for  states'  rights,  belabored  the  Force  Bill,  and  eulogized  the  Com- 
promise Tariff  of  1833.  In  April  1839  ^e  joined  in  a  statement  issued  by 
Whig  members  of  the  Virginia  Assembly  to  the  effect  that  internal 
improvements,  protective  tariffs,  and  the  Bank  had  all  "ceased  to  be 
practical  questions."  In  July  he  addressed  an  open  letter  to  the  Whigs 
of  Louisville  in  which  he  variously  criticized  the  Independent  Treasury, 
Van  Bureif  s  use  of  patronage,  the  lack  of  and  need  for  economy  in  the 
government,  and  the  Expunging  Act.8 

Thus  when  what  was  called  the  "Democratic  Whig  National  Con- 
vention" convened  in  Harrisburg  on  December  4,  1839,  Tyler  was 
little  more  than  an  interested  spectator  and  Clay  supporter  attached 
to  the  Virginia  delegation.  Early  in  the  proceedings  Benjamin  W.  Leigh 
informed  the  Virginia  delegates  that  if  Clay  was  passed  over  and  either 
Harrison  or  Winfield  Scott  nominated  in  his  stead,  Tyler  would  be  ac- 
ceptable to  the  convention  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  This  prospect  did 
not  excite  Tyler.  He  publicly  "disclaimed  all  wish  upon  the  subject." 
He  was  present,  he  said,  only  to  see  that  Clay  got  the  nomination;  he 
was  not  himself  a  candidate  for  anything.9 

That  Clay  was  not  going  to  get  the  nomination  for  which  he  had 
labored  so  hard  and  compromised  so  much  soon  became  apparent.  He 
had  a  strong  plurality  of  the  votes  in  the  convention  but  not  the  neces- 
sary majority.  So  identified  had  he  become  with  the  Southern  Whigs 
since  1837  that  he  had  alarmed  and  antagonized  the  Northern  wing  of 
the  party.  Indeed,  by  December  1839  the  Northern  and  Western  Whigs 
were  ready  to  nominate  almost  anyone  but  Henry  Clay.  Led  by  Thurlow 
Weed,  William  H.  Seward,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  and  Daniel  Webster,  they 
proceeded  to  do  just  that.  No  skveowning  states'  rights-oriented  Whig 
nominee  like  Henry  Clay  could  possibly  hope  to  carry  New  York  or 
Pennsylvania,  they  argued.  Their  alternatives  to  Clay  were  two  amiable 
hopefuls:  the  ever-available  Whig  generals,  William  Henry  Harrison  of 

132 


OMo  and  Winfield  Scott  of  Virginia.  Old  Tippecanoe  was  still  popular 
in  the  West  and  he  had  done  nothing  since  1836  to  jeopardize  his  con- 
tinued availability.  Genera!  Scott,  a  mediocrity  on  the  order  of  Harrison, 
although  more  of  a  pompous  windbag,  also  had  the  advantage  of  having 
said  little  in  public  that  was  controversial  about  anything.  He  had  a 
personal  following  in  western  New  York  state  and  a  scattering  of  sup- 
porters in  New  Jersey  and  Vermont.  "The  General's  lips  must  be  her- 
metically sealed,  and  our  shouts  and  hurras  must  be  long  and  loud/'  said 
Millard  Fillmore  to  Weed.  Sealed  or  gushing,  Scott  was  not  really  a 
major  candidate.  He  had  been  temporarily  embraced  and  used  by 
Thurlow  Weed  only  as  a  stalking  horse  to  hold  the  New  York  Whig 
delegation  together  until  such  time  as  some  reasonable  anti-Clay  coali- 
tion could  be  forged  at  the  convention.10 

A  coalition  was  quickly  cemented  by  the  supporters  of  Scott  and 
Harrison  on  the  opening  day  of  the  convention.  Their  first  victory — a 
decisive  one — was  to  secure  adoption  of  a  unit  rule.  Under  this  arrange- 
ment all  the  balloting  would  be  done  secretly  in  a  central  committee 
composed  of  three  delegates  from  each  state.  The  total  vote  of  each 
state  delegation  would  be  cast  for  the  candidate  favored  by  the  majority 
of  the  delegates  of  each  state  sitting  in  the  central  committee.  In  this 
manner,  Clay's  considerable  minority  vote  within  the  Ohio,  Pennsylvania, 
and  New  York  delegations  was  completely  nullified.  Still,  on  the  first 
ballot  the  voting  showed  Clay  with  103,  Harrison  with  91,  and  Scott 
with  57.  Several  subsequent  ballots  failed  to  produce  any  substantial 
change  except  that  Clay  dropped  to  95  while  Scott  climbed  slowly  to  68. 
The  vainglorious  Scott  began  to  look  more  and  more  like  a  compromise 
candidate  in  the  likely  event  of  a  Clay-Harrison  deadlock. 

It  was  fear  of  Scott  as  a  compromise  choice  that  caused  Thad 
Stevens  of  Pennsylvania,  Harrison's  floor  manager,  to  deliver  the  great 
coup  of  the  convention.  Harrison's  strength  was  derived  principally  from 
the  30  votes  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  21  of  Ohio.  Clay's  strength  lay 
largely  in  the  South,  where  it  was  solidly  underpinned  by  Virginia's  23 
votes.  Early  in  the  proceedings  the  Virginia  delegation  had  reluctantly 
decided  that  their  second  choice,  if  Clay  could  not  be  nominated,  would 
be  Scott.  At  least  he  was  a  graduate  of  William  and  Mary  and  had 
been  born  near  Petersburg.  Of  course,  Clay  and  Harrison  had  also  been 
born  in  Virginia.  To  prevent  any  break  by  Virginia  from  Clay  to  Scott, 
an  act  that  would  surely  have  stampeded  the  convention  to  the  Gen- 
eral, Stevens  casually  showed  the  Virginia  delegates  a  letter  the  foolish 
Scott  had  written  to  Francis  Granger  earlier  in  the  year.  When  or 
how  Thad  Stevens  came  into  possession  of  this  blockbuster  is  not  known. 
It  is  known,  however,  that  the  letter  had  enough  antislavery  sentiment 
in  it  to  cause  the  influential  Virginia  delegation  to  announce  that  their 
second  choice  for  the  nomination  was  now  Harrison.  This  announcement 
triggered  a  stampede  to  Tippecanoe  as  the  Scott  candidacy  swiftly  col- 

133 


lapsed.  Weed  worked  quickly  to  shift  the  New  York  delegation  from 
Ms  stalking  horse  to  Harrison,  and  on  the  next  ballot  the  old  Indian 
fighter  received  a  majority  of  148;  Clay  had  90  and  Scott  garnered  I6.11 

Virginia  and  Tyler  stuck  with  Clay  to  the  bitter  end.  They  shifted 
to  no  one.  The  report  soon  went  around  the  convention  that  when 
Tyler  heard  the  outcome  of  the  final  ballot  he  broke  down  and  wept. 
Tyler  did  no  such  thing,  but  the  story  became  part  of  the  Tyler  myth. 
It  may  even  have  aided  his  Vice-Presidential  candidacy  among  dis- 
gruntled supporters  of  Clay.  In  any  event,  it  is  clear  that  John  Tyler 
worked  for  and  voted  for  Henry  Clay  on  every  ballot.  It  was  this 
practical  evidence  of  loyalty  to  Clay  (greater  loyalty  than  Clay  had  ever 
shown  him) ,  not  alleged  tears,  that  brought  Tyler  the  support  of  grate- 
ful Clay  forces  at  Harrisburg  for  second  place  on  the  ticket.12 

Less  legendary  were  Clay's  tears  of  anger  and  frustration  when 
he  learned  that  the  convention  had  nominated  Harrison,  that  the  grand 
prize  had  eluded  him  once  again.  Henry  Wise  was  with  him  in  his  room 
at  Brown's  Hotel  in  Washington  when  the  unexpected  news  arrived 
from  Harrisburg.  Clay  had  been  drinking  heavily  in  a  somewhat  pre- 
mature celebration  of  his  certain  nomination,  and  the  shocking  intel- 
ligence of  Harrison's  success  sent  him  into  a  half-drunken  rage.  Stamp- 
ing, cursing,  and  gesticulating,  Clay  paced  the  room  hurling  obscenities 
at  Ms  enemies.  "My  friends  are  not  worth  the  powder  and  shot  it  would 
take  to  kill  them!"  he  screamed.  "It  is  a  diabolical  intrigue.  .  .which 
lias  betrayed  me.  I  am  the  most  unfortunate  man  in  the  history  of 
parties:  always  run  by  my  friends  when  sure  to  be  defeated,  and  now 
betrayed  for  the  nomination  when  I,  or  anyone,  would  be  sure  of  an 
election." 13 

With  Harrison  as  the  Whig  nominee,  Tyler's  selection  as  his  run- 
ning mate  became  a  distinct  possibility.  He  had  run  with  the  General 
on  Whig  tickets  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  in  1836,  he  had  a  national 
political  reputation,  and  his  states'  rights  ideology  and  Southern  back- 
ground gave  the  ticket  of  the  Whig  coalition  a  sectional  balance  it  sorely 
needed.  Of  equal  importance  was  the  fact  that  there  was  a  serious 
shortage  of  available  Vice-Presidential  candidates  other  than  Tyler. 
John  Tyler  was  also  a  powerful  force  in  Virginia  politics.  He  still  held 
the  key  to  Rives'  re-election  to  the  Senate,  that  same  key  Clay  and 
other  Whigs  thought  must  be  turned  if  the  party  expected  to  carry  the 
Old  Dominion  in  1840.  But  mainly  it  was  a  lack  of  other  Vice-Presi- 
dential hopefuls  that  attracted  the  lightning  to  Tyler's  graying  head. 

The  name  of  John  M.  Clayton  of  Delaware,  a  Clay  stalwart,  was 
briefly  considered  by  the  convention  managers,  Stevens  and  Weed,  in 
their  desire  to  pacify  the  Clay  forces  with  the  Vice-Presidency.  Clayton 
made  it  clear  that  he  was  not  interested.  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge  of 
New  York  was  from  the  wrong  state.  So  too  was  Daniel  Webster,  who 
had  no  interest  in  the  dead-end  job  anyway.  Benjamin  W.  Leigh  of 

134 


Virginia  was  apparently  approached  (how  forcefully  is  not  clear),  but  he 
too  declined  the  dubious  honor.  The  name  of  Senator  William  C.  Preston 
of  South  Carolina  was  suggested  but  caused  no  ripple.  And  so  it  finally 
worked  down  to  Tyler,  for  whom  there  was  little  enthusiasm  even  within 
the  Virginia  delegation.  Certainly  there  was  no  effort  on  the  part  of 
Virginia  to  obtain  the  nomination  for  him.  Most  of  the  members  of  the 
delegation  preferred  Tallmadge;  they  had  no  second  choice.  Leigh,  the 
nominal  leader  of  the  Virginia  delegation,  favored  Willie  P.  Mangum 
of  North  Carolina.  As  Thurlow  Weed  later  confessed,  the  nomination 
went  to  Tyler  by  default.  When  his  name  was  brought  before  the 
apathetic  convention,  the  Virginia  delegation  pointedly  abstained  from 
voting  for  him;  it  "looked"  better  that  way,  several  of  them  later  ex- 
plained in  obvious  embarrassment.  The  Rives  matter  still  rankled 
them.14 

In  accepting  Tyler,  the  Whigs  at  Harrisburg  asked  him  no  ques- 
tions about  his  views  and  required  him  to  make  no  pledges.  There  was 
no  deal  in  any  smoke-filled  room.  Tyler  did,  however,  obligingly  with- 
draw from  the  deadlocked  Senate  race  in  the  Virginia  General  Assembly 
and  permit  the  re-election  of  Rives.  This  act  mollified  Clay  and  even- 
tually brought  him  into  Virginia  to  stump  for  the  Whig  ticket.  But  at 
no  time  was  Tyler  asked  to  define  or  change  his  opinions.  On  this  point 
he  recalled  later  that  he  was  "perfectly  and  entirely  silent  in  that  con- 
vention. I  was  . . .  wholly  unquestioned  about  my  opinions. ...  In  the 
presence  of  my  Heavenly  Judge . . .  the  nomination  given  to  me  was 
neither  solicited  nor  expected."  The  Whig  charge  leveled  against  him  in 
1842  that  he  had  surreptitiously  sought  the  Harrisburg  nomination  by 
whispering  to  some  of  the  delegates  of  his  conversion  to  the  expediency 
and  constitutionality  of  a  national  bank  was  false.  Tyler  said  nothing 
at  the  convention  and  he  did  nothing  there  to  advance  his  candidacy. 
He  was  put  on  the  ticket  to  draw  the  South  to  Harrison.  No  more,  no 
less.  In  asking  him  nothing  of  his  views  on  the  political  questions  of  the 
day  the  convention  managers  carried  to  a  logical  conclusion  their  de- 
cision to  avoid  any  formal  statement  of  Whig  principles  for  fear  the 
party  would  explode  like  a  chameleon  on  Scotch  plaid.  Both  Clay  and 
Tyler  agreed  with  this  tactic.  "It  is  a  safe  general  rule/'  Clay  said, 
"that  it  is  best  to  remain  silent."  So  it  was  that  the  Whigs,  their  lips 
"hermetically  sealed,"  left  Harrisburg  to  do  battle  for  "Tippecanoe 
and  Tyler  too."  It  was  a  great  slogan.  "There  was  rhyme  but  no  reason 
in  it,"  said  Philip  Hone.  Young  Abraham  Lincoln  was  less  critical.  He 
thought  the  Whig  slate  "first  rate."  15 

Hone's  "rhyme  but  no  reason"  remark  sums  up  the  history  of  the 
Whig  "Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider"  campaign  of  1840.  Never  before 
in  the  United  States,  and  seldom  since,  has  a  major  political  party 
taken  such  cynical  advantage  of  the  political  naivete  of  the  popula- 

I3S 


tion.  If  it  proved  anything  at  all,  it  demonstrated  to  generations  of 
politicians  who  would  follow  the  Whigs  of  1840  that  most  of  the  people 
can  be  fooled  some  of  the  time.  They  were  fooled  in  1840  by  one  of 
the  greatest  political  shell  games  in  American  history.  It  was  a  sleight- 
of-hand  approach  which  so  embarrassed  John  Tyler  that  he  made  an 
honorable  effort  to  detach  himself  from  it.  Failing,  he  retreated  to  saying 
nothing  specific  enough  to  damage  the  Whig  cause  and  nothing  at  basic 
variance  with  the  states'  rights  principles  for  which  he  stood.  In  fine, 
John  Tyler  walked  a  semantic  tightrope  during  the  great  circus  of 
1840,  but  in  so  doing  he  too  contributed  something  to  the  intellectual 
fog  that  enveloped  and  sustained  the  Whig  effort. 

At  the  outset  of  the  campaign  Whig  strategy  was  to  keep  Harrison 
vague  and  Tyler  quiet  while  the  party  managers  whipped  up  enthusiasm 
for  their  Janus  in  a  carnival  atmosphere  of  torchlight  parades,  slogans, 
catchy  campaign  songs,  and  semi-drunken  political  rallies.  That  Harrison 
and  Tyler  were  not  of  the  same  mind  on  most  of  the  basic  issues  of  the 
day  was  simply  glossed  over  with 

And  well  vote  for  Tyler,  therefore, 
Without  a  why  or  wherefore. 

In  the  South  the  Whigs  were  for  states'  rights;  in  the  North  they 
were  for  American  System  nationalism;  in  the  West  they  stressed 
Harrison's  military  record  and  fleshed  out  the  1836  image  of  the  log- 
cabin-born  man  of  the  people,  Cincinnatus  of  the  West,  wearer  of  coon- 
skin  and  drinker  of  hard  cider.  They  contrasted  this  portrait  of  their 
hero  with  a  picture  of  Van  Buren  as  an  effete,  cowardly,  champagne- 
drinking  fop  living  in  the  regal  splendor  of  the  White  House.  For  the 
poor  there  were  promises  of  "two  dollars  a  day  and  roast  beeP  and 
stirring  damnation  of  "Martin  Van  Ruin.".  For  the  rich  there  was  the 
charge  that  Van  Buren  was  a  Locofoco  leveler.  Whig  businessmen 
warned  their  hard-pressed  workers  that  there  would  be  fewer  jobs  if 
Van  Buren  were  elected.  In  Protestant  areas  the  rumor  was  circulated 
that  Van  Buren  was  secretly  a  Catholic;  in  Roman  Catholic  areas  it  was 
hinted  that  there  would  be  state  funds  for  parochial  schools  if  the 
Whigs  won.  And  in  the  West  it  was  even  reported  that  as  the  hens 
laid  their  eggs  they  cackled  "Tip-tip!  Tip-tip!  Tyler!"  16 

Keeping  Harrison  vague  was  no  problem  at  all.  The  man  was  born 
vague.  His  campaign  up  and  down  the  country  was  a  schizoid  per- 
formance, a  tiresome  repetition  of  hazy  cliches  which  looked  North, 
South,  and  West  in  bewildering  succession.  Vague  on  the  Bank,  fuzzy  on 
slavery,  contradictory  on  the  tariff  and  on  internal  improvements, 
Tippecanoe  said  he  favored  "sound  Democratic  Republican  Doctrines' 
upon  which  the  Administration  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  were  con- 
ducted"—whatever  that  meant.  He  condemned  Executive  use  of  the  veto 
power,  deckred  that  he  would  serve  one  term  only,  promised  that  as 

136 


President  he  would  initiate  no  legislation,  and  maintained  that  cor- 
ruption in  government  was  really  a  very  bad  thing.  Motherhood, 
morality,  God,  and  the  flag  he  vigorously  endorsed.  All  in  all,  his  per- 
formance was  that  of  an  acrobatic  octopus  doing  eight  simultaneous 
splits.17 

Keeping  Tyler  silent  was  not  much  more  difficult  than  keeping 
Harrison  vague.  The  Virginian  preferred  not  to  campaign  at  all.  Better 
to  sit  quietly  on  his  porch  in  Williamsburg  and  wait  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  to  come  to  him  than  to  mix  with  the  unwashed  multitudes 
in  the  wild  carnival  atmosphere  that  was  the  Whig  canvass  of  1840.  It 
was  not  the  kind  of  campaign  a  gentleman  could  get  very  enthusiastic 
about.  Thus  as  late  as  June  1840  Tyler  turned  down  an  invitation  from 
his  friend,  former  Governor  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  of  North  Carolina,  to  aid 
the  Whig  cause  in  North  Carolina  with  a  speech  at  Raleigh.  He  could  not 
come  to  Raleigh,  he  said 

without  being  subjected  to  assaults  from  the  newspaper  press  which  at  this 
time  I  feel  desirous  of  avoiding.  You  have  a  warm  political  canvass  going  on 
in  your  State  for  public  offices  which  to  a  great  degree  is  associated  with  the 
presidential  election.  The  desperation  of  party  would  cause  ascriptions  to  be 
made  to  me  of  objects  and  purposes  in  connexion  with  my  visit,  which  how- 
ever unjustly,  would  be  made  to  bear  on  the  politics  of  the  country.18 

In  this  decision  Tyler  had  the  full  support  of  Whig  campaign 
managers.  Early  in  the  canvass,  during  the  spring  of  1840,  they  made  it 
quite  clear  to  him  that  he  was  to  say  nothing  on  any  controversial 
issue.  This  decision  was  prompted  when  a  group  of  Pittsburgh  Democrats 
wrote  Tyler  and  asked  him  point-blank  whether  he  could,  under  any 
conditions,  sanction  the  incorporation  of  a  third  United  States  Bank. 
Tyler  honestly  answered  that  he  had  always  thought  the  Bank  un- 
constitutional and  that  he  would  not  and  could  not  sanction  one  with- 
out a  specific  amendment  to  the  Constitution  permitting  it.  This  reply 
he  sent  to  Wise  in  Washington  for  clearance.  Wise  showed  it  to  hor- 
rified Whig  members  of  Congress,  who  quickly  decided  it  would  be  "im- 
politic to  publish  it."  Their  argument  was,  as  Wise  later  explained  it, 
"that  Mr.  Tyler's  opinions  were  already  too  well  known,  through  his 
speeches  and  votes,  to  need  a  response,  and  that  it  would  be  unwise  to 
array  them  directly  against  the  opinions  of  many  Whigs,  perhaps  a 
majority  of  the  party,  who  were  in  favor  of  a  bank."  By  suppressing  his 
views  during  the  campaign,  the  Whig  managers  were  quite  willing  to 
risk  the  later  charge  that  Tyler  "had  practiced  concealment  and  de- 
ception." Unhappily,  Tyler  went  along  with  this  fraud,  and  from  this 
point  forward  in  the  campaign  he  adjusted  himself  to  the  Whig  strategy 
of  remaining  as  silent  and  noncontroversial  as  possible.19 

Had  it  not  been  for  an  exceptionally  successful  speaking  tour 
through  the  West  by  Democratic  Vice-Presidential  candidate  Richard 

137 


M.  Johnson,  Tyler  might  have  remained  quietly  and  comfortably  in 
Williamsburg  until  the  end  of  the  campaign.  As  it  was,  Johnson's  impact 
in  the  West  momentarily  frightened  the  Whigs  and  caused  them  to  dis- 
patch Tyler  to  Columbus  to  address  a  rally  of  Ohio  Democrats  For 
Harrison.  The  main  purpose  of  the  trip,  as  the  Whig  top  command 
visualized  it,  was  to  demonstrate  in  the  West  that  Harrison  and  Tyler 
were  really  one  and  united  in  their  political  viewpoints. 

From  Tyler's  standpoint  it  was  a  harrowing  and  distasteful  ex- 
perience. Moving  slowly  through  western  Virginia  in  late  August  and 
September,  he  entered  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  in  early  October.  Politi- 
cally, the  tour  went  well  on  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Ohio  River.  He  re- 
mained carefully  noncontroversial. 

But  after  leaving  the  state  he  was  increasingly  harangued  and 
heckled  by  Democrats  in  his  audiences.  Finally  he  was  badgered  into 
firm  statements,  in  Pittsburgh  and  in  Steubenville,  that  he  favored  the 
nonprotectionist  Compromise  Tariff  of  1833.  At  St.  Clairsville,  Ohio, 
he  was  forced  to  grapple  publicly  with  the  inescapable  bank  question. 
Rather  than  be  sandbagged  as  he  had  been  at  Pittsburgh  and  Steuben- 
ville  on  the  tariff,  he  retreated  to  quoting  the  vapid  language  employed 
by  Harrison  in  an  earlier  speech  at  Dayton  in  which  Tippecanoe  had 
declared  ambiguously,  like  a  squid  squirting  ink,  that  "There  is  not  in 
the  Constitution  any  express  grant  of  power  for  such  a  purpose,  and  it 
never  could  be  constitutional  to  exercise  that  power  save  in  the  event 
the  powers  granted  to  Congress  could  not  be  carried  out  without  resort- 
ing to  such  an  institution.53  In  a  two-hour  speech  at  Columbus  Tyler 
managed  to  avoid  the  bank  issue  altogether.20 

In  a  final,  almost  humorous,  effort  to  force  Tyler  to  commit  him- 
self on  the  issues  of  the  campaign  and  to  demonstrate  the  broad  ideo- 
logical gap  between  the  Southern  Whigs  and  the  Northern  Whigs?  a 
group  of  Virginia  Democrats  publicly  directed  ten  skillfully  loaded 
questions  to  Tyler  and  demanded  answers  to  them.  Tyler  was  never 
more  cautious.  He  either  pronounced  the  queries  irrelevant  to  the 
canvass  or  noted  his  general  agreement  with  foggy  Harrison  statements 
covering  the  same  points.  His  response  to  the  inevitable  bank  question 
was  typical  Asked  whether,  as  President,  he  would  veto  a  bank  bill, 
Tyler  referred  the  questioning  Democrats  to  his  congressional  speeches 
and  votes  on  the  Bank  in  1819,  1832,  and  1834.  He  then  quoted 
Harrison's  elusive  Dayton  statement  on  the  bank,  said  it  was  his  own 
view,  and  went  on  to  explain  the  meaning  of  Harrison's  language: 

The  Constitution  confers  on  Congress,  in  express  terms,  "all  powers  which  are 
necessary  and  proper"  to  carry  into  effect  the  granted  powers.  Now,  if  "the 
powers  granted"  could  not  be  carried  into  effect  without  incorporating  a 
bank,  then  it  becomes  "necessary  and  proper,"  and,  of  course,  expedient:  a 
conclusion  which  I  presume  no  one  would  deny  who  desired  to  see  the  exist- 
ence of  the  government  preserved,  and  kept  beneficially  in  operation.  Whether 

138 


I  would  or  would  not  exert  the  veto,  it  will  be  time  enough  for  me  to  say 
when  I  am  either  a  candidate  for,  or  an  expectant  of,  the  presidential  office — 
neither  of  which  I  expect  ever  to  be.21 

So  confusing  were  the  Whigs  on  the  bank  Issue  In  the  campaign 
of  1840  that  when  the  question  came  up  again  in  early  1841  they  could 
not  decide  whether  it  had  been  an  election  Issue  or,  If  It  had  been, 
just  where  the  Whig  Party  had  taken  Its  stand.  In  the  North,  Webster 
had  campaigned  for  a  United  States  Bank.  In  the  South,  Henry  A. 
Wise  had  campaigned  against  it.  Harrison  and  Tyler  had  tiptoed 
around  It,  and  Clay  had  tried  to  bury  it  with  the  observation  that  "I 
have  no  thought  of  proposing  a  national  bank,  and  no  wish  of  seeing 
It  proposed  by  another,  until  it  is  demanded  by  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States."22 

If  the  Whigs  were  successful  In  confounding  the  issues,  the  Demo- 
crats were  utterly  frustrated  in  their  efforts  to  point  up  the  fact  that 
Whiggery  was  more  a  confused  state  of  mind  than  a  political  party.  The 
Democracy  was  constantly  on  the  defensive  throughout  the  1840 
campaign.  Their  renominatlon  of  Van  Buren  had  been  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. The  presence  of  Richard  M.  Johnson  on  the  ticket  helped  very 
little.  Still  consorting  openly  with  his  mulatto  paramour,  Johnson  did 
not  stir  many  souls  in  the  Southern  Democracy.  Unable  to  keep  him 
off  the  ticket.  Southern  Democrats  did  have  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
their  Baltimore  convention  produce  a  pro-South  platform  which  forth- 
rightly  opposed  internal  Improvements,  the  protective  tariff,  and  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States.  It  also  endorsed  states7  rights  and  denied 
the  right  of  the  federal  government  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  slavery 
in  the  states.  The  appeal  of  this  platform  in  the  South  was  badly  diluted 
by  Johnson's  candidacy,  whereas  in  the  North  Van  Buren's  proclaimed 
anti-abolitionism  condemned  him  as  a  "Northern  man  with  South- 
ern principles.3'  Throughout  it  all  the  depression  and  widespread  un- 
employment continued.23 

The  Democratic  campaign  never  got  off  the  ground.  They  laughed 
at  "General  Mum,"  quoted  General  Harrison  to  Candidate  Harrison, 
and  complained  that  the  whole  Whig  Party  was  a  fraud.  It  was,  said 
Thomas  Ritchie  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  a  "motley  multitude,  like 
the  monstrous  image  of  Nebuchadnezzar . . .  made  up  of  such  hetero- 
geneous and  ill-sorted  materials,  that  they  have  no  great  principles  on 
which  they  can  agree."  Attempts  to  transfer  the  mantle  of  Andrew 
Jackson  to  the  shoulders  of  Van  Buren  and  Johnson  were  not  success- 
ful. The  charge  that  Harrison  was  a  tired  old  man,  physically  and 
mentally  unsuited  for  the  Presidency,  struck  no  fire.  When  it  became 
apparent  that  Harrison  would  commit  himself  on  absolutely  nothing, 
the  Democrats  frantically  stepped  into  the  gutter,  producing  an  Indian 
squaw  who  claimed  that  Harrison  had  fathered  her  children.  It  was 

139 


difficult  to  set  slime  to  music,  and  the  Democrats  at  no  time  matched 

the  catchy  Whig  fight  song  which  asked: 

What  has  caused  this  great  commotion,  motion, 

Our  country  through? 

It  is  the  ball  a-rolling  on, 
For  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too 

And  with  them  we'll  beat  the  little  Van,  Van,  Van 
Van  is  a  used  up  man.24 

When  the  ballots  were  counted.  Van  was  a  very  used-up  man.  He 
carried  a  mere  seven  of  the  twenty-six  states — Virginia,  South  Carolina, 
Arkansas,  and  Alabama  in  the  South;  Missouri  and  Illinois  in  the 
West;  and  New  Hampshire  in  the  North.  In  popular  votes,  however,  he 
trailed  Harrison  by  only  150,000  of  the  2,400,000  votes  cast.  He  polled 
400,000  more  votes  in  defeat  than  he  had  polled  in  victory  in  1836. 
Thanks  in  part  to  a  campaign  in  which  both  sides  appealed  to  the 
lowest  common  denominator,  one  which  was  carried  out  with  all  the 
color  and  buffoonery  of  Mardi  Gras,  the  popular  vote  was  54  per 
cent  higher  than  it  had  been  in  1836.  The  key  to  Whig  victory  lay 
in  entertaining  and  bringing  out  to  the  polls  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
new  voters;  Whig  tacticians  called  them  the  ''hurrah  boys."  In  "sum, 
they  expropriated  the  electoral  techniques  developed  by  the  Jacksonian 
Democracy,  embellished  and  polished  them,  and  hurled  them  back  at 
Van  Buren  with  all  the  speed  and  deception  of  a  fast-breaking  curve 
ball.  The  effectiveness  of  this  strategy  was  demonstrated  with  particular 
clarity  in  the  South,  where  the  Whigs  cut  deeply  into  the  rural  white- 
farmer  vote  which  had  been  largely  Jacksonian  since  1828.  In  the  West 
the  Whigs  were  able  to  replace  the  frontier  image  of  Old  Hickory  with, 
that  of  Old  Tippecanoe.  In  fact,  Old  Tippecanoe  outhickoried  Old 
Hickory.  The  Whig  victory  was  therefore  produced  by  holding  the 
North  while  making  deep  inroads  into  the  Jacksonian  West  and  South, 
Ironically,  Harrison  and  Tyler,  both  born  in  Charles  City  County,  Vir- 
ginia, failed  to  carry  their  native  state.  Van  Buren  also  lost  his  native 
New  York.25 

Alexander  Gardiner,  who  labored  for  the  Whig  cause  in  Suffolk 
County  during  the  campaign,  was  disturbed  that  the  Whig  margin  of 
iijOoo  was  not  larger  in  New  York.  He  ascribed  this  to  the  fact  that 
Governor  William  H.  Seward  had  meddled  and  muddled  in  the  religious 
issue,  recommending  "that  the  Catholics  be  allowed  a  portion  of  the 
School  fund,"  and  by  "hiring  a  pew  in  a  Catholic  church."  Happy 
though  he  was  with  the  Whig  victory,  Alexander,  like  most  politically 
literate  Whigs,  saw  serious  storms  ahead  for  the  party — specifically, 
a  struggle  between  Clay  and  Webster  for  the  succession  and  a  new  fight 
over  the  Bank.  "General  H.  has  declared  that  he  considers  the  old 
U,S.  bank  in  some  of  its  features  repugnant  to  the  Constitution,"  he 

140 


wrote  Ms  father  In  Europe,  "and  that  he  will  not  favor  another  national 
bank  institution  unless  it  is  very  plainly  demanded  by  the  will  of  the 
people.  How  far  he  will  consider  his  new  election  a  demand  of  that 
nature  is  of  course  problematical.  It  seems  as  though  some  new  scheme 

must  be  brought  forward "  26 

John  Tyler  also  worried  about  the  Whig  future.  He  had  predicted 
a  Whig  victory  of  10,000  in  Virginia  and  was  much  embarrassed  when 
the  state  fell  to  the  Democracy.  He  correctly  blamed  the  defeat  of 
the  party  in  the  Old  Dominion  on  inadequate  support  from  Rives' 
Conservative  Democrats  and  on  the  inability  of  the  Tidewater  to 
balance  Van  Buren 's  popularity  in  the  western  counties.  It  particularly 
chagrined  him  that  Virginia  had  "wheeled  out  of  line'7  and  joined  New 
Hampshire  in  sustaining  Van  Buren  rather  than  following  Southern 
brethren  like  Maryland,  North  Carolina,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Ten- 
nessee, and  Louisiana  into  the  Harrison-Tyler  fold.  Disturbing  also  to 
Virginia  Whigs  was  Clay's  postelection  remark  in  December  that  "it  is 
not  to  be  lamented  that  old  Virginia  has  gone  for  Mr,  Van  Buren, 
for  we  will  not  now  be  embarrassed  by  her  peculiar  opinions! "  But  most 
worrisome  to  Tyler  was  the  unstable  and  eclectic  nature  of  the  Whig 
party  on  the  eve  of  its  taking  power.  Which  of  its  several  factions  would 
dominate  the  new  administration?  He  explained  his  fears  to  Henry 
A.  Wise: 

There  are  so  many  jarring  views  to  reconcile  and  harmonize,  that  the  work  is 
one  of  immense  difficulty,  and  in  your  ear  let  me  whisper  what  you  already 
know,  that  the  branch  of  the  Whig  party  called  the  Nationals  is  composed  of 
difficult  materials  to  manage — they  are  too  excessive  in  their  notions,  I  mean 
many  of  them,  and  are  accustomed  to  look  upon  a  course  of  honest  com- 
promise as  a  concession  of  something  which  they  call  principle,  but  which 

dissected  is  nothing  more  than  mistaken  conviction I  agree  with  you  fully 

in  the  importance  you  attach  to  General  Harrison's  first  step.  It  is  one,  how- 
ever, of  great  difficulty.  I  hope  he  may  meet  and  overcome  it.  His  language 
should  be  firm  and  decisive  to  one  and  all.  There  should  be  no  caballing,  no 
intriguing  in  his  Cabinet.  Every  eye  should  be  kept  fixed  upon  the  official  duty 
assigned,  and  never  once  lifted  up  to  gaze  at  the  succession.27 

Tyler  realized  at  the  outset  that  the  Whig  Party  might  well  be 
dominated  by  its  Northern  wing.  He  was  correct  in  seeing  the  difficulty 
the  states'  rights  faction  would  have  preventing  excesses  on  the  part  of 
the  "Nationals."  But  he  was  wholly  unrealistic  in  his  hope  that  Harrison 
would  prove  strong  enough  to  hold  the  factional  alliance  together  and 
prevent  the  explosion  that  was  implicit  in  the  Whig  mixture.  Harrison 
had  made  it  quite  clear  in  1836,  and  again  in  1840,  that  he  did  not 
intend  to  be  a  strong  Executive — that  so  far  as  he  was  concerned  the 
Congress  should  and  could  run  the  country.  The  question,  then,  was 
how  long  could  the  lingering  hatred  of  Andrew  Jackson  and  the  demo- 
cratic principles  he  represented,  principles  actually  congenial  to  a 

141 


majority  of  the  voters,  serve  as  a  cement  for  a  coalition  of  ambitious 
leaders ,  competitive  factions,  and  contradictory  ideas?  And  how  would 
this  coalition,  now  that  it  had  power,  exercise  that  power  evenly  and 
responsibly  without  the  benefit  of  competent  or  powerful  leadership? 
The  sudden  death  of  Old  Tip  in  April  1841  answered  these  questions 
by  bringing  swiftly  to  the  surface  the  political,  personal,  and  sectional 
chaos  that  was  Whiggery.  Nor  when  the  explosion  came  could  it  be 
denied  that  John  Tyler  had  helped  fashion  the  unstable  anti- Jackson 
compound  and  fasten  it  on  the  country.  It  was  Tyler,  not  Harrison, 
who  would  be  blown  up  in  the  detonation. 

These  considerations  seemed  remote  as  Harrison  prepared  to  take 
office.  That  he  was  popular  with  the  common  people,  if  not  with  Whig 
politicians  who  covetously  eyed  the  succession,  cannot  be  denied.  When 
he  arrived  in  the  capital  on  February  9,  1841  (his  sixty-eighth  birth- 
day), to  commence  the  ticklish  task  of  selecting  a  Cabinet,  so  large 
a  throng  turned  out  to  greet  him  that  the  pickpockets  on  Pennsylvania 
Avenue  had  a  field  day.  They,  perhaps,  were  the  only  group  to  benefit 
economically  from  the  short-lived  Harrison  administration.28 

The  state  of  Harrison's  health  had  been  much  commented  upon 
during  the  campaign  by  friend  and  foe  alike.  Clay  saw  the  President- 
elect in  Kentucky  shortly  after  the  election  and  remarked  that  the 
aging  Indian  fighter  looked  "somewhat  shattered."  Littleton  W.  Taze- 
well  had  predicted  to  Tyler  before  the  canvass  that  were  Harrison 
elected  he  would  not  have  the  stamina  to  live  out  his  term  of  office. 
And  Alexander  Gardiner  agreed  with  John  Quincy  Adams'  view  that 
"no  man  of  the  General's  age,  without  a  constitution  of  most  extraor- 
dinary vigor,  could  survive  so  great  a  change  of  habits,  and  the  cares, 
burdens  and  anxiety  of  the  office."  The  consensus  within  the  Tyler 
circle  seemed  to  be  that  William  Henry  Harrison  could  not  survive 
the  Battle  of  Washington.  Indeed,  when  the  General  took  leave  of  his 
neighbors  in  Cincinnati  to  go  to  the  capital  he  had  some  of  the  same 
forebodings.29 

Whatever  stamina  the  old  man  had  in  reserve  was  quickly  used 
up  in  the  raging  menagerie  that  then  characterized  the  process  of  ap- 
pointment to  federal  office.  Whig  office-seekers,  sniffing  the  fragrant 
patronage  trough  for  the  first  time,  pressed  in  upon  the  General  like  a 
wave  of  screeching  Shawnees.  Meanwhile,  Henry  Clay  arrived  from 
Kentucky,  confident  that  he  would  be  the  real  power  behind  a  fumbling 
throne.  So  arrogantly  did  he  urge  the  appointment  of  John  M.  Clayton 
for  the  Treasury  post  that  an  exasperated  Harrison  finally  exploded, 
"Mr.  Clay,  you  forget  that  I  am  President!"  Clay  had  forgotten,  and 
so  had  most  of  the  imperious  Whig  office-seekers.  They  surrounded 
Harrison  in  such  numbers  and  pressed  their  demands  that  holdover 
Democrats  be  purged  instantly  from  office  with  such  shrill  insistence 

142 


that  the  placid  General  was  stunned.  "So  help  me  God/'  he  finally 
shouted  to  a  group  of  them,  "I  will  resign  my  office  before  I  can  be 
guilty  of  such  iniquity.'7  On  two  occasions  he  consulted  Tyler  about  re- 
moval of  incumbent  Democrats  from  minor  posts.  Tyler  rendered 
judgments  from  Williamsburg  that  enabled  the  harassed  Harrison  to 
outflank  a  few  of  his  Whig  tormentors  with  the  remark:  "Mr.  Tyler 
says  they  ought  not  to  be  removed,  and  I  will  not  remove  them." 
Harrison  wished  the  office-seekers  would  go  away  and  leave  him  alone. 
He  wanted  to  stir  up  no  trouble  with  purge  and  patronage  controversies. 
He  hoped  to  be  the  respected  head  of  a  quiet,  peaceful,  orderly  ad- 
ministration. Nothing  more.  As  he  expressed  his  political  pacifism  to 
Senator  Ben  ton,  "I  beg  you  not  to  be  harpooning  me  in  the  Senate;  if 
you  dislike  anything  in  my  Administration,  put  it  into  Clay  or  Webster, 
but  don't  harpoon  me."  30 

Out  of  all  the  confusion  in  the  White  House  a  Cabinet  finally 
emerged.  As  a  series  of  compromises  looking  toward  all  factions  in 
the  WTiig  constellation,  it  fully  satisfied  no  one.  Offered  the  State  De- 
partment, Clay  turned  it  down  to  remain  in  and  control  the  Senate. 
Webster,  who  received  State,  was  anathema  to  Southern  Whigs.  "He  is 
a  Federalist  of  the  worst  die,  a  blackguard  and  vulgar  debauchee/'  cried 
Governor  Thomas  W.  Gilmer  of  Virginia.  The  appointment  of  North 
Carolina  Whig  George  E.  Badger  to  the  Navy  Department  quieted 
some  of  the  Whig  grumbling  in  the  South.  Whig  abolitionists  in  the 
North  were  thrown  a  bone  in  the  appointment  of  Francis  Granger  of 
New  York  to  the  office  of  Postmaster  General.  Former  Jacksonians  who 
had  defected  to  the  WThigs  in  1840  were  rewarded  with  the  appointment 
to  War  of  John  Bell  of  Tennessee.  Thomas  Ewing  of  Ohio  was  given 
Treasury,  partly  to  head  off  the  capture  of  that  post  by  Clay's  candi- 
date, John  M.  Clayton  of  Delaware,  who  was  known  to  be  a  more 
belligerent  Bank  man  than  Ewing.  To  pacify  the  Clay  contingent,  John 
J.  Crittenden  of  Kentucky  was  made  Attorney-General.  This  blocked 
the  aspirations  of  former  Kentucky  governor  Charles  A.  Wickliffe,  whose 
appointment  to  the  Justice  Department  would  have  been  a  direct  slap  at 
Clay.  And  so  it  went.  The  Harrison  Cabinet  was  a  political  polyglot.31 

In  all  this  patronage  manipulation  Tyler  played  no  role.  Har- 
rison neither  consulted  the  Vice-President-elect  on  Cabinet  appoint- 
ments nor  was  he  offered  any  suggestions  on  the  subject  by  Tyler.  So 
far  as  appointments  to  key  federal  offices  were  concerned,  it  was  Tip- 
pecanoe,  not  Tyler  too.  Tyler  hoped  only  that  the  Harrison  Cabinet 
"be  cast  of  the  proper  material/3  and  that  within  it  "the  voice  of  faction 
will  be  entirely  silenced,  [and]  . . .  the  question  of  the  succession . . . 
be  shunned."  Contrary  to  Tyler's  hope,  faction  had  been  rewarded,  not 
silenced;  and  with  the  aging  Harrison  in  the  White  House  the  vital 
question  of  the  succession  loomed  large  indeed.  Nevertheless,  Tyler 
offered  no  criticism  of  the  General's  patchwork  Cabinet.  He  had  had  no 

143 


direct  contact  with  the  President-elect  during  the  campaign,  and  when 
Harrison  visited  Richmond  briefly  in  late  February  1841  the  two  men 
had  spoken  nothing  of  politics.  So  far  as  minor  patronage  posts  were 
concerned,  the  Vice-President-elect  spoke  only  when  spoken  to.  He 
pushed  no  one  upon  Harrison.  Thus  Tyler  lingered  in  Virginia  after  the 
election,  casually  making  his  arrangements  to  move  to  a  Washington 
hotel  in  time  for  the  inauguration.  Had  William  Henry  Harrison  lived^ 
John  Tyler  would  undoubtedly  have  been  as  obscure  as  any  Vice- 
President  in  American  history.  As  it  was,  he  became  the  first  American 
elected  to  that  lightly  regarded  post  who  succeeded  to  the  President's 
Mansion.32 

On  a  cold,  brisk  Inauguration  Day  some  fifty  thousand  excited, 
cheering  citizens  jammed  the  frozen  streets  as  the  venerable  General 
rode  "Old  Whitey"  up  Pennsylvania  Avenue  to  the  Capitol.  Hat  in  hand, 
without  overcoat  or  gloves,  the  Old  Hero  waved  and  bowed  to  the  crowd. 
He  was  in  fine  spirits,  "as  tickled  with  the  Presidency  as  a  young  woman 
with  a  new  bonnet."  As  the  attention  of  the  throng  focused  on  the  Gen- 
eral's triumphal  progress  to  Capitol  Hill,  John  Tyler  made  his  unnoticed 
way  quietly  from  Brown's  Hotel  to  the  Senate  chamber.  There,  shortly 
after  the  noon  hour  on  March  4,  1841,  he  was  sworn  in  as  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States.  His  speech  lasted  barely  five  minutes.  It  was  a 
standard  Tyler  appeal  for  states'  rights.  Uninspired  and  largely  unheard, 
it  was  not  one  of  the  articulate  Virginian's  better  performances.  It  is 
just  as  well  he  put  no  more  effort  into  it  than  he  did,  for  while  he  spoke 
Harrison  circulated  noisily  through  the  chamber  exchanging  greetings 
with  well-wishers.  No  one  was  paying  any  attention  to  John  Tyler.  He 
was  like  the  clergyman  at  a  fashionable  wedding.  When  he  finished  his 
brief  remarks  the  assemblage  moved  outdoors  into  the  chilled  air.  There, 
on  a  hastily  constructed  frame  platform,  William  Henry  Harrison,  ninth 
President  of  the  United  States,  delivered  the  worst  inaugural  address  in 
American  history  to  the  assembled  throng.33 

Reduced  to  its  thin  essentials,  Harrison's  rambling,  two-hour  speech 
promised  the  nation  four  years  of  government  by  Congress.  Not  only  did 
the  President  renounce  a  second  term  as  a  step  toward  checking  the 
growth  and  abuse  of  Executive  power,  but  he  also  specifically  promised 
no  Executive  interference  in  the  business  of  Congress  during  his  term  of 
office.  The  currency  question,  he  felt,  was  strictly  the  business  of  Con- 
gress. Nor  would  the  Chief  Executive  interfere  in  any  way  in  the  elec- 
toral process.  On  and  on  he  maundered,  abdicating  the  power  of  his 
throne  at  the  moment  of  his  coronation.  Nowhere  did  he  suggest  what 
might  be  done  about  the  depressed  state  of  the  economy.  This  too  was 
up  to  Congress.  Bored  politicians  left  their  seats  and  roamed  around  the 
platform,  stamping  their  feet  to  restore  circulation-  When  the  Old  War- 
rior finally  finished,  when  the  last  windblown  cliche  was  wafted  merci- 
fully heavenward,  he  returned  to  the  White  House,  took  to  his  bed  for 

144 


half  an  hour,  and  had  Ms  forehead  and  temples  rubbed  with  alcohol.  He 
was  very  tired.  Meanwhile,  John  Tyler  returned  to  Brown's  Hotel, 
gathered  together  his  belongings,  and  slipped  unobtrusively  out  of 
Washington  and  back  to  Wllliamsburg.34 

At  the  instant  he  took  power  Harrison  was  already  in  trouble,  a 
trouble  centering  on  Henry  Clay's  vaunted  ambition  to  run  the  adminis- 
tration from  behind  the  scenes.  Specifically,  Clay  had  decided  that  it 
would  be  he  who  would  appoint  the  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York, 
not  Harrison  or  anyone  else.  Clay's  candidate  for  the  lush  patronage  post 
was  Robert  C.  Wetmore  of  New  York.  Webster  had  a  candidate  In  mind 
for  the  spot  too,  Edward  Curtis.  Curtis,  however,  had  worked  for  Win- 
field  Scott  at  the  Harrisburg  convention  and  he  was  distinctly  persona 
non  grata  in  the  Clay  camp.  Unfortunately  for  Clay  and  Wetmore,  Ab- 
bott Lawrence  of  Massachusetts  also  supported  Curtis.  The  fact  that  the 
powerful  cotton-mill  capitalist  had  personally  lent  the  impoverished  Har- 
rison $5000  shortly  after  the  Inauguration  somewhat  strengthened  his 
influence  at  the  White  House.  Not  surprisingly,  therefore,  Edward  Curtis 
got  the  lucrative  post.  But  not  before  Clay's  continued  insistence  on 
Wetmore  produced  a  Harrison  explosion:  "The  federal  portion  of  the 
Whig  party  are  making  desperate  efforts  to  seize  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment," he  charged.  "They  are  urging  the  most  unmerciful  proscription, 
and  if  they  continue  to  do  so  much  longer,  they  will  drive  me  mad!77  ^ 

Clay  struck  back  at  the  President  with  a  patronizing  note  to  the 
Wliite  House,  dated  March  13,  1841,  in  which  he  insisted  that  Harrison 
call  a  special  session  of  Congress  to  deal  with  the  nation's  problems. 
Without  such  a  session  there  was  no  good  reason  for  kingmaker  Clay  to 
remain  longer  in  the  capital.  Again  Harrison  erupted:  "You  use  the 
privilege  of  a  friend  to  lecture  me  and  I  take  the  same  liberty  with  you/' 
he  wrote  the  Kentucklan,  "You  are  too  impetuous . . .  there  are  others 
whom  I  must  consult  and  in  many  cases  to  determine  adversely  to  your 
decision."  36 

Now  it  was  Clay's  turn  to  be  outraged.  A  friend  found  him  pacing 
the  floor  of  his  rooms.  Harrison's  note  was  crumpled  in  his  hands. 
"And  it  has  come  to  this!"  he  shouted.  "I  have  not  one  [office]  to  give, 
nor  influence  enough  to  procure  the  appointment  of  a  friend  to  the  most 
humble  position! "  Taking  pen  in  hand  he  composed  another  unfortunate 
letter  to  Harrison  denying  that  he  was  attempting  to  dictate  to  the 
administration.  "I  do  not  wish  to  trouble  you  with  answering  this  note," 
he  snarled  in  conclusion.  With  that  parting  shot  Clay  left  town  for  Ken- 
tucky. Only  when  he  was  safely  en  route  home  did  Harrison  finally  de- 
cide to  call  a  special  session  of  Congress  to  meet  May  31.  Fortunately 
for  the  President  he  was  seven  weeks  in  his  grave  when  Congress  con- 
vened. It  was  one  of  the  stormiest  and  most  disorderly  in  the  legislative 
annals  of  the  nation.31 

Overwhelmed  by  office-seekers,  fatigued  by  social  activities,  dis- 

I4S 


couraged  by  Ms  break  with  Clay,  the  OH  Hero  steadily  lost  strength 
during  Ms  first  weeks  in  office.  On  March  27  during  his  usual  early  morn- 
ing stroll  he  was  caught  in  a  rain  shower.  By  evening  he  was  sick  and  a 
physician  was  called  in.  Within  a  day  the  malady  was  diagnosed  as 
pneumonia.  More  doctors  were  called  in.  The  diagnosis  was  cautiously 
changed  to  "bilious  pleurisy/7  a  catch-all  designation  covering  every 
respiratory  ailment  from  lung  cancer  to  bronchitis.  Various  remedies 
were  tried.  The  President  was  bled,  blistered,  cupped,  leeched,  massaged, 
poked,  and  otherwise  battered.  At  12:30  A.M.  on  April  4,  precisely  one 
month  after  taking  office,  William  Henry  Harrison  died.  What  the  armies 
of  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet  had  failed  to  accomplish  in  a  dozen  cam- 
paigns the  medical  profession  had  managed  in  one  short  week.  No  more 
accurate  a  parting  judgment  was  rendered  on  Old  Tippecanoe  than 
Henry  A.  Wise's  prescient  remark  that  had  poor  Harrison  lived  until  the 
Congress  met  he  would  have  been  "devoured  by  the  divided  pack  of  Ms 
own  dogs."  3S 


146 


HIS  ACCIDENCY: 
THE  DISADVANTAGES   OF   CONSCIENCE 


Go  you  now  then,  Mr.  Clay,  to  your  end  of  the 
avenue  where  stands  the  Capitol,  and  there  perform 
your  duty  to  the  country  as  you  shall  think  proper. 
So  help  me  God  I  shall  do  mine  at  this  end  of  it  as 
I  shall  think  proper. 

JOHN    TYLER,    1841 


As  Henry  Wise  had  correctly  predicted,  the  cannibalistic  Whig  feast  was 
soon  to  come,  but  fate  willed  that  the  victim  be  John  Tyler,  at  fifty-one 
the  youngest  man  to  reach  the  White  House  in  the  brief  history  of  the 
Republic.  Service  in  the  Virginia  House  and  Senate,  in  the  House  and 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  Governor's  Mansion  in  Richmond 
had  given  him  training  in  the  art  and  science  of  government  unmatched 
by  any  other  American  President  before  or  since.  That  he  became  the 
missionary  in  Henry  Clay's  kettle  can  be  traced  almost  exclusively  to  an 
odd  quirk  in  his  character:  Faced  with  a  choice  between  political  popu- 
larity and  the  principles  in  which  he  sincerely  believed,  he  chose  the 
principles.  It  matters  little  that  those  principles  would  become  quaint 
anachronisms  in  American  history;  it  matters  a  great  deal  that  he  elected 
to  stand  firmly  for  his  beliefs  when  it  was  clear  to  him  that  his  posture 
would  likely  lead  him  down  the  road  to  political  suicide  and  historical 
obscurity.  With  John  Tyler  it  was  a  question  of  conscience — and  a 
touch  of  stubbornness. 

During  the  week  of  Harrison's  illness  no  word  was  sent  Tyler  ap- 
praising him  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation  in  the  capital.  Not  until 
Harrison  had  actually  expired  was  Fletcher  Webster,  Chief  Clerk  of  the 
State  Department  and  son  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  dispatched  hastily 
to  Williamsburg  to  inform  Tyler  that  by  act  of  God  he  had  become 

147 


President  of  the  United  States.  At  sunrise  on  the  morning  of  April  5, 
1841,  young  Webster  reached  Williamsburg  after  an  all-night  journey  3 
and  banged  impatiently  on  the  door  of  the  Tyler  home.  A  sleepy  Vice- 
President  descended  the  stairs  to  find  out  what  the  commotion  was 
about.  So  it  was  that  John  Tyler,  clad  in  nightshirt  and  cap  (not  playing 
marbles),  learned  that  he  had  become  the  tenth  President  of  the  United 
States  and  the  first  Vice-President  to  reach  the  White  House. 

Out  of  such  tense  situations  mighty  myths  grow.  One  has  pictured 
Tyler  bursting  into  tears  on  hearing  the  news,  so  great  was  his  affection 
for  the  fallen  President.  Actually,  Tyler  scarcely  knew  Old  Tippecanoe; 
what  little  he  did  know  he  did  not  much  like.  Another  story  has  Tyler 
tarrying  a  full  day  in  Williamsburg  attempting  to  borrow  several  hun- 
dred dollars  from  a  friend  to  finance  his  journey  to  Washington.  He  was 
always  short  of  cash,  but  did  not  worry  about  it  on  this  occasion;  Tyler 
did  what  any  sensible  man  would  have  done  in  the  circumstances.  He 
awoke  the  household,  conveyed  the  news  to  one  and  all,  ate  his  breakfast, 
and  then  convened  a  family  conference.  At  this  conference  it  was  de- 
termined that  Tyler  should  proceed  immediately  to  Washington  and  that 
Robert  and  Priscilla  should  follow  northward  within  the  week.  Time  per- 
mitted no  immediate  decision  on  whether  the  partially  paralyzed  Letitia 
should  go  to  Washington  or  not.  At  7  A.M.,  barely  two  hours  after  receiv- 
ing notification  of  General  Harrison's  death,  Tyler  left  Williamsburg  for 
the  capital.  Twenty-one  hours  later,  at  4  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  April 
6,  he  reached  Washington,  having  covered  the  two  hundred  thirty  miles 
by  boat  and  horseback  in  near  record  time,1 

The  new  President  found  the  capital  swirling  in  confusion  and  tur- 
moil Since  no  Chief  Executive  had  ever  died  in  office  before,  the  con- 
stitutional situation  was  extremely  fluid.  Whatever  Tyler  elected  to  do  in 
the  crisis  would  establish  many  important  historical  precedents.  Later 
Vice-Presidents  who  found  themselves  in  the  same  unstrung  situation — 
Fillmore,  Johnson,  Arthur,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Coolidge,  and  Truman 
— would  be  indebted  to  John  Tyler  for  his  swift  and  sure  handling  of 
the  basic  constitutional  question  involved. 

The  Constitution  provides  that  "in  case  of  the  removal  of  the 
President  from  office,  or  of  Ms  death,  resignation,  or  inability  to  dis- 
charge the  powers  and  duties  of  the  said  office,  the  same  shall  devolve 
on  the  Vice  President. . . ."  Like  so  many  other  phrases  in  that  won- 
drously  exact  and  inexact  document,  the  words  the  same  could  be 
interpreted  to  refer  to  the  office  itself  or,  more  narrowly,  solely  to  the 
duties  of  the  office.  John  Tyler,  one  of  the  nation's  most  prominent  strict 
constructionists,  chose  the  broader  of  the  two  possible  interpretations. 
He  assumed  that  the  office  itself  had  devolved  upon  him  from  the  mo- 
ment he  arrived  in  Washington,  and  from  the  beginning  he  claimed  all 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Presidency, 

This  was  more  than  the  resolution  of  a  nagging  semantic  problem. 

148 


It  defined  for  Tyler  (and  for  all  future  Vice-Presidents)  the  exact  status 
of  a  Vice-President  in  the  event  of  an  elected  President's  death.  Tyler 
even  insisted  that  there  was  no  need  for  Mm  to  take  a  new  oath  of  office, 
arguing  that  Ms  oath  as  Vice-President  covered  the  new  situation  legally 
and  constitutionally.  Nevertheless,  he  was  persuaded  to  take  another 
oath  to  forestall  any  public  doubts  on  the  question.  At  noon  on  April  6, 
in  Brown's  Hotel,  Chief  Justice  William  Cranch  of  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  swore  Tyler  In.  Nonetheless, 
there  were  still  those  who  argued  that  John  Tyler  was  only  the  "Acting 
President/'  or  the  "Vice-President-Acting  President,"  or,  after  he  left 
the  office  in  1845,  ^e  "Ex- Vice-President."  Tyler  paid  no  attention  to 
these  degrading  designations  (he  returned  mail  so  addressed  unopened) 
and  they  all  quickly  dropped  from  usage.2 

The  political  situation  in  Washington  on  April  6  was  equally  fluid. 
At  a  lengthy  Cabinet  meeting  that  morning  and  afternoon,  devoted 
cMefly  to  the  multitudinous  details  of  Harrison's  funeral  (scheduled  for 
the  following  day) ,  Tyler  made  a  decision  he  lived  to  regret.  He  decided 
to  retain  Harrison's  Cabinet  intact.  His  motive  was  to  avoid  adding  fur- 
ther to  the  confusion  that  already  prevailed  in  the  novel  transition  of 
power  from  one  administration  to  another.  His  decision  also  had  the 
immediate  advantage  of  holding  together  the  various  factions  of  the 
Whig  party  until  the  chaos  engendered  by  Harrison's  death  could  be 
resolved.  Yet  when  Webster  informed  the  President  that  Harrison's 
practice  was  to  have  all  policy  decisions  determined  by  a  majority  vote 
in  the  Cabinet,  Tyler  quickly  rejected  continuance  of  the  procedure.  "I 
am  the  President,  and  I  shall  be  held  responsible  for  my  administration," 
he  told  the  Cabinet  bluntly.  "I  shall  be  pleased  to  avail  myself  of  your 
counsel  and  advice.  But  I  can  never  consent  to  being  dictated  to  as  to 
what  I  shall  or  shall  not  do When  you  think  otherwise,  your  resig- 
nations will  be  accepted."  In  spite  of  Ms  declaration  of  independence  to 
them,  Tyler's  retention  of  the  Harrison  group  was  an  error  in  that  he 
retained  in  his  official  family  a  political  cancer  that  had  already  com- 
menced gnawing  on  the  vitals  of  the  Old  Hero  and  would  soon  turn  on 
the  new  President.  "He  has  not  a  sincere  friend  in  [the  Cabinet],"  Abel 
P,  Upshur  worried.3 

Tyler  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  had  reaped  the  Whig  whirlwind. 
He  was,  in  Ms  own  words,  "surrounded  by  Clay-men,  Webster-men, 
anti-Masons,  original  Harrisonians,  Old  Whigs  and  new  Whigs — each 
jealous  of  the  others,  and  all  struggling  for  the  offices."  Under  the  cir- 
cumstances he  felt  he  had  no  choice  but  to  proceed  cautiously  in  an 
attempt  to  "work  in  good  earnest  to  reconcile  . . .  the  angry  state  of  the 
factions  towards  each  other."  As  he  expressed  Ms  problem  to  Senator 
William  C.  Rives  on  April  9: 

I  am  under  Providence  made  the  instrument  of  a  new  test  which  is  for  the 
first  time  to  be  applied  to  our  institutions.  The  experiment  is  to  he  made  at 

149 


the  moment  when  the  country  Is  agitated  by  conflicting  views  of  public 
policy,,  and  when  the  spirit  of  faction  is  most  likely  to  exist.  Under  these 
circumstances,  the  devolvement  upon  me  of  this  high  office  is  peculiarly  em- 
barrassing. In  the  administration  of  the  government,  I  shall  act  upon  the 
principles  which  I  have  all  along  espoused . . .  derived  from  the  teachings  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison ...  my  reliance  will  be  placed  on  the  virtue  and  in- 
telligence of  the  people. 

Considering  the  political  climate  of  1841  ?  the  "virtue  and  intelligence  of 
the  people"  was  a  weak  reed,  as  Tyler  would  discover  to  his  sorrow.4 

At  Harrison's  funeral  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White  House  on 
April  7  Tyler  was  observed  to  be  "visibly  affected."  He  was  also  con- 
fused as  to  how  he  might  best  proceed  with  Ms  new  duties.  Indeed,  he 
was  so  upset  by  the  stark  suddenness  of  his  new  situation  that  he  toyed 
briefly  with  the  idea  that  national  political  harmony  might  best  be  as- 
sured if  he,  like  Harrison,  utilized  his  inaugural  address  to  announce  that 
he  would  not  be  a  candidate  for  re-election  in  1844.  But  as  Ms  friend  and 
confidant,  Duff  Green,  correctly  pointed  out,  such  a  statement  "would 
be  taken  as  a  plea  of  weakness"  and  would  only  be  the  "signal  for  the 
organization  of  parties  in  reference  to  the  next  election."  Thanks  to 
Green's  intervention,  no  such  self-denying  remark  appeared  in  the  final 
draft  of  the  speech.5 

Tyler's  hastily  written  inaugural  address  of  April  9  was  both  an 
olive  branch  to  the  various  Whig  factions  and  a  cautious  trial  balloon 
to  test  the  general  political  atmosphere.  Couched  in  guarded  language, 
Tyler  agreed  that  the  depressed  state  of  the  economy  demanded  some 
change  in  the  fiscal  policies  of  the  government.  He  suggested  no  specific 
changes,  only  that  any  approach  to  the  problem  be  entirely  "constitu- 
tional." 

As  his  thoughts  on  the  matter  took  substance  and  form  he  decided 
to  adopt  a  defensive  posture  with  reference  to  any  fiscal  changes.  "Com- 
ing so  recently  into  power,"  he  wrote  Judge  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker  on 
April  25,  "and  having  no  benefit  of  previous  consultation  with  Gen. 
Harrison  as  to  the  extra-session,  the  country  will  not  expect  at  my  hands 
any  matured  measure,  and  my  present  intention  is  to  devolve  the  whole 
subject  on  Congress,  with  a  reservation  of  my  constitutional  powers  to 
veto  should  the  same  be  necessary  in  my  view  of  the  subject."  In  a 
candid  though  friendly  letter  to  Clay  a  few  days  later,  he  agreed  that 
Van  Buren's  Independent  Treasury  should  be  repealed.  This  did  not  sug- 
gest to  him,  however,  that  the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States  should 
necessarily  be  re-established  in  its  stead.  "As  to  the  Bank,  I  design  to  be 
perfectly  frank  with  you,"  he  told  the  Whig  leader;  "I  would  not  have  it 
urged  prematurely."  If  Clay  insisted  on  pushing  ahead  with  a  new 
Bank  project,  Tyler  hoped  that  he  would 

consider  whether  you  cannot  so  frame  a  Bank  as  to  avoid  all  constitutional 
objections — which  of  itself  would  attach  to  it  a  vast  host  of  our  own  party  to 


be  found  all  over  the  Union I  have  no  intention  to  submit  anything  to 

Congress  on  this  subject  to  be  acted  on,  but  shall  leave  it  to  its  own  action, 
and  In  the  end  shall  resolve  my  doubt  by  the  character  of  the  measure 
proposed,  should  any  be  entertained  by  me. 

That  Henry  Clay  could  be  trusted  to  devise  a  Bank  plan  which  avoided 
"all  constitutional  objections"  was  more  than  Tyler  had  a  right  to 
expect.  The  Great  Compromiser  was  not  that  great  and  he  was  in  no 
mood  for  compromise.  Nor  was  he  blind.  He  saw  at  once  that  Tyler  was 
willing  to  surrender  much  of  his  Executive  power  to  Congress  on  the 
crucial  financial  question,  retaining  only  the  negative  power  of  a  veto.6 

In  sum,  Tyler's  excessive  caution  In  the  opening  weeks  of  Ms  ad- 
ministration, his  unwillingness  to  agitate  the  factional  situation  in  an 
unprecedented  transition  of  power  added  up  to  the  creation  of  a  political 
vacuum  Into  which  the  ambitious  Clay  walked  boldly.  The  Kentuckian 
was  already  convinced  that  "VIce-President77 "  Tyler's  administration 
would  be  little  more  than  a  "regency,"  and  that  serious  objection  to  the 
constitutionality  of  a  national  bank  was  "confined  to  Virginia."  To  him 
the  accidental  President  was  but  a  "flash  in  the  pan/'  to  be  neither 
feared  nor  followed. 

Nor  was  Clay  disabused  of  this  denigrating  opinion  when  Tyler  sent 
a  set  of  vaguely  worded  fiscal  recommendations  to  the  special  session  at 
the  end  of  May  urging  the  Congress  to  repeal  the  Independent  Treasury 
and  "devise  a  plan"  for  a  new  financial  system  themselves.  Having  no 
clear  program  of  his  own  to  suggest,  his  function  in  the  matter  would  be 
limited,  he  said,  to  "rejecting  any  measure  which  may  in  my  view  of  It 
conflict  with  the  Constitution  or  otherwise  jeopardize  the  prosperity  of 

the  country — a  power  which  I  could  not  part  with  even  If  I  would " 

While  he  did  favor  what  he  termed  a  "suitable  fiscal  agent  capable  of 
adding  increased  facilities  In  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the 
public  revenues,"  he  hoped  that  "the  Southern  members"  of  Congress 
would  be  able  to  "mature  a  system  void  of  offense  to  the  Constitution." 
Having  thus  opened  Pandora's  box,  Tyler  settled  back  to  see  what  Clay 
and  Congress  might  devise.  Within  a  few  weeks  he  knew.  Thanks  to  the 
parliamentary  skill  of  Clay,  the  specter  of  the  old  Bank  of  the  United 
States  rose  from  its  grave,  took  on  flesh,  and  ascended  to  the  Presidential 
desk.7 

In  considering  the  Bank  crisis  of  1841  which  led  to  Tyler's  ex- 
pulsion from  the  Whig  Party,  the  resignation  of  his  Cabinet,  and  the 
virtual  collapse  of  his  administration,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the 
economics  of  the  Bank  issue  was  always  a  secondary  consideration.  The 
issue  was  essentially  political,  and  it  turned  fundamentally  on  Clay's 
attempt  to  seize  control  of  the  Whig  leadership  and  drive  Tyler  back 
into  the  political  exile  from  which  he  had  unexpectedly  re-emerged  in 
1839.  In  this  sense,  the  Bank  crisis  was  a  test  of  strength,  prestige,  and 
personality  between  two  strong  and  willful  men,  each  loath  to  lose 


"face"  in  the  struggle  as  It  developed  and  waxed  hotter.  No  convincing 
evidence  lias  ever  been  offered  to  show  that  the  depressed  state  of  the 
national  economy  in  1841  demanded  a  national  bank  or  any  variation  of 
one.  Xor  can  it  be  demonstrated  that  the  general  economic  recovery  of 
1844  was  related  to  the  fact  that  there  was  no  Bank.  Certainly  there 
was  no  grass-roots  expression  either  for  or  against  the  institution.  It 
had  not  been  a  clear-cut  issue  in  the  campaign  of  1840.  The  people 
seemed  to  understand  neither  the  technical  questions  involved  nor  the 
complex  mechanics  of  the  various  Bank  proposals  that  were  brought 
forward.  The  Bank  crisis  was  manufactured  solely  for  political  purposes 
by  Henry  Clay.  And,  although  his  audacity  might  be  traced  to  the  loose 
grip  with  which  Tyler  picked  up  the  Presidential  reins,  the  fact  remains 
that  the  crisis  of  1841  was  at  bottom  a  personal  and  factional  political 
battle  In  which  Clay  had  the  votes  and  Tyler  the  vetoes.  Tyler's  moral 
position  would  have  been  stronger,  and  more  sympathy  might  have  been 
his  to  command,  had  he  seen  fit  to  reaffirm  his  ancient  hostility  to  the 
Bank  in  clear  and  definite  terms  during  the  1840  campaign.  Instead,  he 
permitted  the  Whig  managers  to  gag  him  on  the  question,  and  in  so 
succumbing  to  their  vote-greedy  importunities  he  compromised  himself 
on  the  whole  issue.  When  the  bitter  game  with  Clay  was  over,  the  end 
result  was  a  scoreless  tie  from  which  the  nation  had  gained  little  but 
new  sectional  animosities.  Less  than  two  years  after  the  celebrated  Bank 
upheaval  of  1841  Daniel  Webster  could  ask  of  it:  "Who  cares  anything 
now  about  the  bank  bills  which  were  vetoed  in  I84I?3'  Nobody  cared.8 

Tyler's  personal  feelings  for  Clay  in  May  1841  were  not  hostile.  As 
Secretary  Ewing  reported  to  the  Sage  of  Ashland  at  the  outset  of  the 
crisis,  "No  man  can  be  better  disposed  [toward  you]  than  the  President. 
...  He  speaks  of  you  with  the  utmost  kindness  and  you  may  rely  upon  it 
his  friendship  is  strong  and  unabated. "  This  was  not  the  viewpoint  of  the 
"Virginia  Clique/'  a  small  coterie  of  extreme  states'  rights  men  from  the 
Old  Dominion  who  were  soon  to  dominate  the  inner  councils  of  the 
administration.  They  would  also  become  key  figures  in  what  would 
become  the  President's  "Corporal's  Guard"  in  the  Congress.  Such  Vir- 
ginians as  Thomas  W.  Gihner,  Abel  P.  Upshur,  and  Henry  A.  Wise  had 
little  but  contempt  and  hatred  for  Clay,  and  they  were  willing  to  force 
the  impending  Clay-Tyler  struggle  to  a  bitter  showdown  in  order  to 
destroy  the  Whig  sectional  coalition  within  which  they  felt  Southern 
constitutional  principles  were  being  steadily  eroded.  "I  shall  see  Tyler 
and  urge  him  to  tread  the  deck  like  a  man,"  promised  Gilmer.  "Let  the 
factions  devour  each  other,"  added  Wise,  "and  let  the  Republicanism 
left  among  us  thrive  by  the  contest!"  9 

Clay's  power  position  was  the  superior  one  as  he  girded  for  contest 
with  Tyler.  The  Whig  majority  in  the  Senate  was  29  to  22;  in  the  House 
it  was  a  comfortable  122  to  103.  While  Clay  controlled  the  bulk  of  the 
Whig  vote  in  the  lower  chamber,  there  were  in  the  Senate  four  or  five 

152 


states'  rights  Whigs  to  whom  he  could  not  dictate.  He  was  confident, 
however,  that  he  could  balance  the  defections  of  this  group  by  garnering 
a  few  Democratic  votes  from  the  North  and  the  West.  As  the  special 
session  opened,  the  Kentucklan  was  confident  and  cocky,  One  observer 
reported  that  he  was  "much  more  Imperious  and  arrogant  with  his 
friends  than  I  have  ever  known  him  and  that  you  know  Is  saying  a  great 
deal.5'  So  overbearing  did  the  free-wheeling  Clay  become  during  his 
conflict  with  Tyler  that  Ms  friends  became  alarmed.  "He  must  hereafter 
remain  a  little  quiet  and  hold  Ms  jaw"  said  R.  P.  Letcher.  "In  fact,  he 
must  be  caged — that's  the  point,  cage  him!"  Unfortunately,  Clay's  ar- 
rogant manner  was  not  containable.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  convinced 
that  he  had  the  power  and  skill  to  unify  the  great  bulk  of  the  Whig 
Party  on  a  platform  of  national  bank  and  protective  tariff.  With  this 
organic  and  ideological  unification  the  creaky  Whig  vehicle  would  be- 
come stable  enough,  he  felt,  to  carry  Mm  into  the  White  House  In  i844.10t 

The  Bank  feature  of  Clay's  program  was  unacceptable  to  the  Presi- 
dent. In  March  1841  Tyler  had  emerged  from  the  fog  of  the  1840  cam- 
paign to  reiterate  Ms  Bank  views  to  prominent  WMgs.  Conversations 
with  them  took  place  in  his  room  in  Brown's  Hotel  when  he  was  briefly 
in  the  capital  for  the  Harrison  inauguration.  During  the  course  of  these 
informal  exchanges  he  indicated  a  willingness  as  Vice-President  to  support 
the  WMte  plan  for  a  District  Bank.  First  suggested  by  Hugh  L.  White 
in  1836,  this  plan  was  unquestionably  constitutional  in  that  it  proposed 
a  bank  incorporated  by  Congress  in  the  District  of  Columbia  under  that 
provision  of  the  Constitution  empowering  Congress  to  legislate  for  the 
District.  Such  a  bank,  thought  Tyler,  might  even  take  on  a  pseudo- 
national  character  by  establishing  branches  in  the  several  states,  but  only 
within  those  states  whose  legislatures  specifically  assented  to  the 
presence  of  the  branches.  The  Irreducible-minimum  criterion,  then,  was 
the  voluntary  nature  of  the  branching  process.  Beyond  this  compromise, 
Tyler  could  not  and  would  not  go.  As  he  told  Wise  a  few  days  after 
Harrison's  death,  he  was  just  "too  old  in  his  opinions  to  change  them" 
more  radically  than  this.11 

Not  until  Senator  Clay  intimated  an  interest  in  reviving  the  old 
Bank  of  the  United  States  did  Tyler  In  mid- June  finally  set  Mmself  to 
the  "task  of  devising  some  plan  which  would  lead  to  conciliation  and 
harmony/7  What  he  devised  to  fill  the  vacuum  in  the  administration  into 
wMch  Clay  was  moving  was  the  WMte  plan  for  a  District  Bank  with 
power  to  branch  in  states  requesting  branches.  Tactically  speaking,  Tyler 
might  well  have  blanketed  Clay's  fire  with  such  a  scheme  two  months 
earlier  Instead  of  waiting  for  the  Kentuckian  to  seize  the  initiative  in  the 
matter.  Had  the  District  Bank  plan  been  vigorously  sponsored  by  the 
CMef  Executive  In  the  first  weeks  of  Ms  administration  its  probable 
adoption  would  have  calmed  tMngs  considerably  in  the  capital.  Its 
existence  would  have  had  no  more  deleterious  effect  on  the  national  econ- 

153 


omy  than  a  new  Bank  of  the  United  States  or  no  Bank  at  all.  And  in 
addition  to  its  essential  harmlessness  it  had  the  advantage  of  being 
politically  and  constitutionally  acceptable  to  Southern  Whigs.  But  to 
Henry  Clay,  the  Great  Compromiser  now  threatened  with  compromise, 
Tyler's  District  Bank  proposal  was  a  red  flag.  In  a  stormy  interview  in 
the  President's  office,  Clay  made  it  brutally  clear  to  the  Chief  Executive 
that  the  Whigs  could  not  accept  a  Bank  plan  so  hedged  with  states' 
rights  qualifications.  Tyler's  patience  snapped:  "Go  you  now,  then,  Mr. 
Clay,  to  your  end  of  the  avenue,  where  stands  the  Capitol,  and  there 
perform  your  duty  to  the  country  as  you  shall  think  proper.  So  help  me 
God,  I  shall  do  mine  at  this  end  of  it  as  I  shall  think  proper."  12 

With  the  support  and  encouragement  of  his  entire  Cabinet,  Tyler 
submitted  his  Bank  plan  to  the  Congress.  Promptly  taken  up  in  the 
Senate  by  a  select  committee,  chaired  by  Clay,  the  administration's 
District  Bank  bill  was  quickly  mangled  beyond  recognition.  The  chief 
feature  of  the  Clay  committee's  counterproposal,  dated  June  21,  was 
that  the  assent  of  individual  states  not  be  required  preceding  the 
branching  process.  The  District  Bank  could  establish  its  branches  where 
and  when  it  wished.  As  Alexander  Gardiner  accurately  evaluated  Clay's 
handiwork,  it  was  "synonymous  with  National  Bank."  13 

Tyler  could  not  accept  the  involuntary  branching  feature  of  Clay's 
revised  District  Bank  concept.  He  knew  too  that  banking  legislation  as 
such  was  no  longer  the  real  issue  anyway.  "I  am  placed  upon  trial,"  he 
wrote  John  Rutherfoord  in  Richmond  on  June  23.  "Those  who  have 
all  along  opposed  me  will  still  call  out  for  further  trials,  and  thus  leave 

me   impotent   and  powerless Remember   always   that   the  power 

claimed  by  Mr.  Clay  and  others  is  a  power  to  create  a  corporation  to 
operate  per  se  over  the  Union.  This  from  the  first  has  been  the  contest." 
Tyler  remained  convinced  that  to  depart  from  the  White  plan  or  "to 
propose  a  scheme  on  my  own  would  be  the  height  of  folly  since  I  have 
no  party  to  sustain  it  on  independent  principles."  He  therefore  looked 
to  his  Cabinet  to  produce  a  new  plan  that  would  be  constitutional.14 

As  Tyler  began  to  search  for  an  entirely  different  solution  to  the 
Bank  problem,  Clay  discovered  that  he  lacked  two  votes  in  the  Senate 
to  enact  the  legislation  incorporating  his  involuntary  branching  con- 
cept. To  secure  these  votes  he  offered  on  July  27  a  somewhat  softer 
version  of  the  District  scheme  based  on  a  compromise  suggested  by 
Whig  Representative  John  M.  Botts  of  Richmond.  Endorsed  by  a 
Whig  congressional  caucus,  the  Botts  compromise  called  for  a  District 
Bank  which  could  establish  its  branches  only  with  the  assent  of  the 
individual  states.  But  such  assent  would  be  presumed  automatically 
given  unless  the  legislature  of  each  state,  during  its  first  session  follow- 
ing the  passage  of  the  bill,  specifically  expressed  opposition  to  having  a 
District  Bank  branch  within  its  borders.  Once  they  were  established, 
however,  the  branches  could  be  expelled  by  the  states  only  with  the 

154 


consent  of  Congress.  On  July  28  the  Senate  passed  the  bill  26  to  23  and 
sent  It  to  the  House.  The  lower  chamber  approved  the  measure  on 
August  6  by  131  to  100. 

The  Bolts  compromise  went  far  toward  meeting  Tyler's  states* 
rights  objections;  hindsight  suggests  that  he  should  have  accepted  and 
signed  the  measure  then  and  there  and  been  rid  of  the  problem.  The 
Cabinet  unanimously  urged  this  course  upon  him.  But  in  a  private  con- 
versation with  Botts  before  final  Senate  action  on  the  bill,  Tyler  char- 
acterized the  compromise  feature  of  the  legislation  as  "a  contemptible 
subterfuge  behind  which  he  would  not  skulk,"  This,  it  now  seems  clear, 
was  a  hasty  and  not  carefully  considered  evaluation  of  the  Botts  pro- 
posal. As  it  stood  the  measure  was  certainly  no  great  threat  to  states1 
rights.  States  objecting  to  the  establishment  of  District  Bank  branches 
could  prevent  such  establishment  without  undue  difficulty  or  inconven- 
ience.15 

Tyler  felt  the  issue  had  now  become  solely  a  political  reconnais- 
sance by  the  Whigs  and  he  was  adamant.  No  longer  was  it  a  question  of 
acceptable  fiscal  legislation;  it  was  now  a  personal  power  struggle  with 
Henry  Clay.  "My  back  is  to  the  wall,"  he  wrote  Judge  Tucker  on  July 
28;  "and . .  .while  I  shall  deplore  the  assaults,  I  shall,  if  practicable, 
beat  back  the  assailants."  Nor  would  the  President  entertain  pleas  from 
Ms  friends  to  compromise  on  the  Bank  question  so  that  there  would 
not  remain  "a  ripple  to  disturb  its  smooth  current  during  your  term  of 
service.'5 16 

The  capital  was  rife  with  speculation  as  to  whether  or  not  Tyler 
would  veto  the  Botts-Clay  version  of  the  District  Bank  bill.  The  New 
York  Herald  reported:  "Politicians  discuss  it  morning,  noon  and  night — 
in  the  Avenue,  in  the  House,  over  their  lunch  . . .  their  coffee,  their  wine. 
...  It  is  a  favorite  topic  with  the  hackney  coachmen."  Representative 
Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  charter  member  of  the  Virginia  Clique,  was  con- 
vinced that  "The  President  will  veto  the  Bank  bill"  and  that  "a  dreadful 
tornado  will  blow  for  a  time."  He  was  eager  to  see  the  Whig  Party  dis- 
integrate on  the  issue.  Then  there  could  be  a  general  reorganization  of 
its  disparate  factions  along  states'  rights  lines.  On  August  12  Robert 
Tyler  told  a  New  York  congressman  in  the  lobby  of  the  House  that  "to 
suppose  that  my  father  can  be  gulled  by  such  a  humbug  compromise  as 
the  bill  contains  is  to  suppose  that  he  is  an  ass."  The  President's 
brother-in-law,  Judge  John  B.  Christian,  had  "no  doubt  he  will  veto  it." 
On  the  other  hand,  Whig  Representative  A.  H.  H.  Stuart  of  Virginia 
saw  the  President  the  evening  before  the  veto  message  was  submitted 
and  received  from  Tyler  the  impression  that  a  "fair  ground  of  compro- 
mise might  yet  be  agreed  upon."  He  thought  it  a  "rather  bad  omen," 
however,  to  discover  the  President  then  in  conference  with  a  "distin- 
guished Democratic  senator."  Tyler  himself  said  only  that  he  would  go 
to  church  on  Sunday,  August  15,  and  "pray  earnestly  and  devoutly  to 

ISS 


be  enlightened  as  to  Ms  duty."  (On  that  same  day  he  did  sign  the  bill 
repealing  Van  Buren's  Independent  Treasury,  a  repeal  dear  to  Whig 
hearts).  He  knew  the  consequences  of  a  veto.  As  John  M.  Botts  wrote 
Mm  on  August  10,  "if  you  can  reconcile  this  bill  to  yourself,  all  is  sun- 
shine and  calm:  your  administration  will  be  met  with  the  warm,  hearty, 
zealous  support  of  the  whole  Whig  party,  and  when  you  retire  from  the 
great  theater  of  National  politics,,  it  will  be  with  the  thanks,  and  plaudits, 
and  approbation  of  your  countrymen."  17 

The  announcement  of  the  veto  on  August  16  triggered  a  political 
explosion  of  massive  proportions.  While  the  message  was  being  read 
in  the  Senate,  disorder  broke  out  in  the  gallery.  Democratic  Senator 
Benton  of  Missouri,  seldom  a  Tyler  ally,  leaped  to  his  feet  demanding 
that  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  "arrest  the  Bank  ruffians  for  insulting  the 
President  of  the  United  States."  In  Democratic  circles  there  was  jubila- 
tion. A  group  of  Democratic  senators,  among  them  Benton,  Buchanan, 
and  Calhoun,  called  at  the  White  House  on  the  evening  of  the  sixteenth 
to  congratulate  Tyler  on  his  "patriotic  and  courageous"  action.  A  brandy 
bottle  appeared  and  the  congratulations  "gradually  degenerated  into 
convivial  hilarity."  Less  hilarious  was  the  appearance  later  that  evening 
of  a  drunken  mob  of  Whig  demonstrators  who  arrived  at  the  White 
House  armed  with  guns,  drums,  and  bugles.  The  clamor  they  raised  in 
their  denunciations  of  Tyler  and  the  veto  awakened  the  household, 
frightened  the  ladies  within,  and  contributed  little  to  the  health  and 
welfare  of  the  stricken  First  Lady.  After  rousing  the  family  they  paid 
Tyler  the  supreme  political  compliment.  They  burned  him  in  effigy,  an 
incident  which  led  directly  to  the  passage  of  legislation  establishing  a 
night  police  force  in  Washington.18 

Against  a  background  of  these  and  other  disorders  Henry  Clay  arose 
in  the  Senate  on  August  18  to  castigate  John  Tyler.  He  demanded  that 
Tyler  accede  to  the  will  of  the  nation  as  expressed  in  the  congressional 
vote  on  the  Bank  measure  or  do  again  as  he  had  done  in  1836  and  resign 
his  post.  He  then  introduced  a  motion  to  override  the  veto.  Sustained 
25  to  24,  it  was  well  below  the  necessary  two-thirds  margin  required  to 
set  aside  a  veto.  The  following  day,  August  19,  Clay  demanded  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  to  permit  the  overriding  of  Presidential  vetoes 
by  simple  majority  vote.  This  too  came  to  nought.  While  these  heavy- 
handed  blows  were  being  delivered  on  the  Senate  floor,  Clay  blandly 
maintained  that  there  was  no  bad  blood  between  the  President  and 
himself.  Any  rift  that  might  seem  to  be  developing  among  the  Wing 
leadership  he  blamed  on  unnamed  conspirators  who  were  "beating  up 
for  recruits,  and  endeavoring  to  form  a  third  party,  with  materials  so 
scanty  as  to  be  wholly  insufficient  to  compose  a  decent  corporal's 
guard.7' 19 

Tyler  expected  the  venom  of  Clay.  He  was  more  disturbed  per- 
sonally by  the  August  21  publication  of  the  "Coffee  House  Letter" 

IS6 


written  by  his  old  political  ally,  John  M.  Botts.  It  came  at  the  very 
moment  a  second  Bank  bill — the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill — was  being 
introduced  in  the  House.  Indeed,  the  temper  and  the  timing  of  the  Botts 
letter  convinced  Tyler  once  and  for  all  that  all  Whig  fiscal  proposals 
were  designed  to  accomplish  no  more  than  Ms  political  destruction.  Ad- 
dressed to  the  patrons  of  a  Richmond  coffee  house  and  dated  August  16, 
the  Botts  communication  was  a  savage  attack  on  the  President.  It  pre- 
dicted that  "Captain  Tyler"  would  veto  the  District  Bank  bill  in  an 
effort  to  curry  favor  with  the  Democrats.  Insulting  in  both  tone  and 
content,  it  suggested  that  the  President  would  be  "headed"  and  would 
soon  become  "an  object  of  execration  with  both  parties."  Botts  charged 
further  that  Tyler  had  "refused  to  listen  to  the  admonition  and  en- 
treaties of  his  best  friends,  and  looked  only  to  the  whisperings  of  the 
ambitious  and  designing  mischief  makers  who  have  collected  around 
Mm.77  This  was  a  reference  to  the  same  shadowy  group  Clay  would 
sarcastically  designate  a  Corporal's  Guard  in  Ms  anti-Tyler  tirade  a  few 
days  later.20 

The  letter  stunned  the  President.  Botts  had  been  a  trusted  lieuten- 
ant in  the  Virginia  legislature  in  1839  during  the  fight  against  the  elec- 
tion of  Rives  to  the  Senate.  While  Tyler  was  trying  to  understand  the 
reason  and  motive  behind  the  unexpected  outburst,  Botts  went  a  step 
further.  On  September  10  he  delivered  a  wild  speech  in  the  House  charg- 
ing Tyler  with  having  supported  the  principle  of  a  national  bank  during 
the  Harrisburg  convention  and  in  various  speeches  in  western  Virginia 
and  western  Pennsylvania  during  the  1840  campaign.  He  claimed  he 
had  had  a  personal  interview  with  Tyler  in  June  1841  during  wMch  the 
President  had  assured  Mm  that  he  favored  a  national  bank.  An  allega- 
tion that  Tyler  had  attempted  to  bribe  him  to  join  in  an  effort  to  stretch 
Ms  Presidential  span  to  twelve  years  completed  the  list  of  patent  false- 
hoods to  which  the  irresponsible  Botts  treated  a  credulous  House  of 
Representatives.21 

Given  the  political  and  emotional  context  of  the  situation,  Tyler's 
veto  of  the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill  on  September  9  was  not  wholly  un- 
expected. The  new  bank  measure  had  appeared  a  few  days  after  Tyler's 
August  1 6  veto  of  the  District  Bank  bill  as  amended  by  Clay  and  Botts. 
In  Ms  first  veto  statement  he  had  suggested  that  certain  changes  in  the 
District  Bank  concept  might  make  similar  legislation  acceptable  to  Mm. 
Hasty  consultations  between  Whig  emissaries  and  the  President  brought 
forth  legislation  complexly  titled  "A  bill  to  incorporate  the  subscribers  to 
a  fiscal  corporation  of  the  United  States."  The  actual  framing  of  the 
bill  and  the  details  of  its  submission  and  passage  Tyler  unwisely  left  to 
Ms  Cabinet.  He  made  it  clear  to  them,  however,  that  he  would  approve 
no  banking  legislation  that  did  not  clearly  require  state  assent  for  the 
establishment  of  branches  (called  "agencies'7  in  the  new  legislation). 
He  specifically  instructed  Ewing  and  Webster  to  see  to  it  that  the  Fiscal 

157 


Corporation  bill  incorporated  this  provision  and  retained  it  in  its  journey 
through  Congress.  He  even  took  the  precaution  of  jotting  down  this 
crucial  reservation  on  the  margin  of  the  working  paper  that  became  the 
basis  for  the  Cabinet  draft.  He  Insisted  also  that  he  be  shown  the  final 
wording  of  the  bill  before  it  was  sent  up  to  the  House. 

By  a  failure  in  communication  within  the  top  echelons  of  the  ad- 
ministration (whether  accidental  or  intentional  remains  a  mystery),  the 
finished  bill  reached  the  House  before  Tyler  saw  it.  This  slight  infuriated 
Mm  and  contributed  to  his  developing  thesis  that  a  full-blown  Whig  con- 
spiracy was  in  operation  against  him.  He  was  especially  upset  when 
members  of  his  Cabinet,  notably  Webster  and  Ewing,  stated  publicly 
that  the  new  bill  conformed  to  the  President's  opinions  and  bore  his 
imprimatur,  although  it  was  obvious  that  his  marginal  notations  had 
received  no  serious  consideration  within  the  Cabinet  or  in  the  Whig 
caucus  that  endorsed  it.  Nor  did  the  final  form  suit  Tyler.  In  his  opin- 
ion, the  right  of  the  states  to  interdict  the  branches  was  not  adequately 
protected,  and  the  powers  given  the  Fiscal  Corporation  in  the  area  of 
discounting  and  renewing  notes  were  excessive  in  scope  and  inflationary 
in  intent.  More  important,  the  Fiscal  Corporation  would  be  chartered 
by  Congress  acting  as  the  national  legislature  and  not  as  the  legislature 
of  the  District  of  Columbia.  From  Tyler's  standpoint  the  new  legislation, 
ostensibly  the  brainchild  of  his  own  Cabinet,  was  as  unsatisfactory  as 
the  vetoed  District  Bank  bill  had  been.22 

Nevertheless,  the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill  sailed  through  the  House 
in  late  August  by  a  125^0-94  vote  in  spite  of  attempts  by  Henry  A,  Wise 
and  George  H.  Proffit  of  Indiana  to  amend  it  to  reflect  Tyler's  objec- 
tions. "It  will  be  vetoed,"  Wise  predicted.  "Tyler  is  more  firm  than 
ever. ...  A  second  veto  will  strengthen  him.  Ten  days  will  bring  about  the 
denouement."  Similarly,  the  measure  passed  the  Senate  on  September  2 
by  a  margin  of  27  to  22.  Although  the  Fiscal  Corporation  was  not 
national  enough  to  suit  Clay,  the  Kentuckian  supported  the  measure, 
eager  to  see  if  Tyler  had  the  courage  to  veto  it.  "Tyler  dares  not  resist," 
Clay  exulted  to  James  Lyons  of  Richmond;  "I  will  drive  him  before 
mel "  Lyons  could  see  that  Clay  was  "very  violent"  on  the  subject.  "You 
are  mistaken,  Mr.  Clay,"  the  Virginian  replied.  "Mr.  Tyler  wants  to 
approve  the  bill,  but  he  thinks  his  oath  [to  support  the  Constitution] 
is  in  the  way,  and  I}  who  know  him  very  well,  will  tell  you  that  when  he 
thinks  he  is  right  he  is  as  obstinate  as  a  bull,  and  no  power  on  earth  can 
move  him."  Lyons  understood  Tyler  better  than  Clay  did.23 

To  head  off  the  expected  veto  Clay  combined  liquor,  persuasion,  and 
subtle  threat  in  the  hope  of  bringing  Tyler  around.  On  the  evening  of 
August  28,  as  the  legislation  was  making  its  way  through  the  House,  a 
supper  party  was  given  at  the  home  of  Attorney-General  John  Critten- 
den.  Tyler  had  been  invited  but  had  politely  declined.  Late  in  the  eve- 
ning, as  libations  melted  inhibitions  and  as  the  party  became  gay,  a 

158 


tipsy  delegation  was  dispatched  to  the  White  House  to  persuade  Tyler 
to  join  the  mellowing  group.  Although  the  hour  was  Iate5  Tyler  con- 
sented. Arriving  at  Crittenden's,  he  was  met  at  the  door  by  Henry  Clay. 
"Well,  Mr.  President/7  Clay  shouted,  with  obvious  political  implication, 
"what  are  you  for,  Kentucky  whiskey  or  champagne?"  Tyler  chose 
aristocratic  champagne.  Slowly  sipping  it,  he  found  himself  regaled 
by  Clay  with  the  lines  from  Shakespeare's  Richard  III  on  the  dangers 
of  conscience: 

Let  not  our  babbling  dreams  affright  our  souls; 
Conscience  is  but  a  word  that  cowards  use, 
Devis'd  at  first,  to  keep  the  strong  in  awe. 

The  political  meaning  of  the  gathering  and  the  poetry  was  clear.  In  a 
pleasant,  half-drunken  way  Clay  warned  Tyler  to  abandon  his  friends  in 
the  Virginia  Clique  and  in  his  Corporal's  Guard  on  Capitol  Hill  and  sign 
the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill.24 

As  he  considered  the  pending  legislation  in  all  its  ideological  and 
political  ramifications,  Tyler  decided  to  lift  the  whole  issue  above 
partisan  politics  by  including  in  his  veto  message  a  statement  that  he 
would  not  be  a  candidate  for  re-election  in  1844.  However  laudatory  this 
thought  of  flying  up  and  out  of  the  political  jungle,  Webster  and  Duff 
Green  dissuaded  Tyler  from  making  a  statement  that  could  only  weaken 
him  further  with  the  Whig  leadership.  Angered  by  the  Coffee  House  Let- 
ter, hurt  by  what  appeared  to  be  sabotage  within  his  own  Cabinet,  stung 
by  Whig  vilification  of  his  first  veto,  importuned  by  his  supporters  in  the 
Virginia  Clique  and  Corporal's  Guard  to  hold  firm,  and  convinced  that 
the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill  was  at  bottom  unconstitutional,  Tyler  vetoed 
the  measure.  He  did  this  with  full  appreciation  of  the  political  implica- 
tions of  his  decision.  "Give  your  approval  to  the  Bill,"  John  J.  Critten- 
den  had  written  him,  "and  the  success  of  your  Administration  is  sealed 
...  all  before  you  will  be  a  scene  of  success  and  triumph."  Veto  the  bill, 
continued  the  Attorney-General,  and  "read  the  doom  of  the  Whig  party, 
and  behold  it  and  the  President  it  elected,  sunk  together,  the  victims  of 
each  other,  in  unnatural  strife."  25 

In  his  second  veto  message  of  September  9,  the  President  pointed 
out  that  he  was  pained  to  be  "compelled  to  differ  from  Congress  a  second 
time  in  the  same  session.'7  He  noted  that  he  had  not  had  time  enough  in 
office  to  fashion  a  financial  plan  of  his  own,  and  he  hinted  that  he  would 
offer  such  a  plan  at  the  opening  of  the  regular  session  in  December.  He 
deplored  the  speed  with  which  the  special  session  had  brought  the  bank 
question  to  the  fore.  The  veto  message  was  a  polite,  almost  apologetic 
document  which  emphasized  Tyler's  objection  that  the  Fiscal  Corpora- 
tion was  designed  to  operate  "per  se  over  the  Union  by  virtue  of  the 
unaided  and  assumed  authority  of  Congress  as  a  national  legislature,  as 
distinguishable  from  a  bank  created  by  Congress  for  the  District  of 

IS9 


Columbia  as  tlie  local  legislature  of  the  District."  As  such  it  was  clearly 
unconstitutional.  He  would  rather  uphold  the  Constitution,  Tyler  con- 
cluded, "even  though  I  perish  . . .  than  to  win  the  applause  of  men  by  a 
sacrifice  of  my  duty  and  my  conscience."  Where  government  moneys 
might  legally  be  deposited,  given  the  repeal  of  the  Independent  Treas- 
ury and  the  vetoes  of  the  District  Bank  and  the  Fiscal  Corporation,  was 
an  academic  question  to  Tyler.  "We  have  no  surplus,  nor  are  we  likely 
to  have  for  some  years,  and  may  be  regarded  as  living  from  hand  to 
mouth/7  he  told  Webster.26 

The  response  to  the  second  veto  was  even  more  violent,  more 
politically  inspired,  than  the  reaction  to  the  first.  Demonstrations  and 
protest  meetings  were  whipped  up  by  Whig  leaders  all  over  the  country. 
The  President  was  burned  in  effigy  a  hundred  times;  scores  of  letters 
poured  in  threatening  him  with  assassination.  Whig  editors  outdid  one 
another  in  contests  of  personal  vilification.  Editor  John  H.  Pleasants  of 
the  Richmond  Whig,  for  example,  told  his  readers  that  he  "knew  Mr. 
Tyler  well,  personally,  and  had  known  him  long,  and  I  could  not  believe 
that  a  man  so  commonplace,  so  absolutely  inferior  to  many  fifteen  shil- 
ling lawyers  with  whom  you  may  meet  at  every  county  court  in  Virginia, 
would  seriously  aspire  to  the  first  station  among  mankind."  2T 

On  September  n?  two  days  before  the  special  session  was  to  ad- 
journ, the  entire  Cabinet,  excepting  Daniel  Webster,  resigned  in  a  body. 
Between  12:30  and  5:30  P.M.  on  that  fateful  day,  five  Cabinet  officers 
marched  into  Tyler's  office  and  laid  their  resignations  on  his  desk  while 
John  Tyler,  Jr.,  the  President's  secretary,  stood  by,  watch  in  hand,  re- 
cording for  posterity  the  exact  moment  of  each  resignation.  The  reasons 
given  by  each  departing  Secretary  varied  in  tone,  clarity,  and  conviction, 
but  taken  together  they  added  up  to  a  vote  of  no  confidence. 

This  massive  walkout  was  planned,  calculated,  and  coordinated  by 
Henry  Clay  to  wreck  the  Executive  branch,  punish  John  Tyler  for  his 
Bank  vetoes,  and  force  his  resignation.  The  latter  result,  if  accomplished, 
would  bring  Clay-adherent  Samuel  L.  Southard,  president  of  the  Senate, 
to  the  White  House  under  the  succession  pattern  then  operating.  The 
resignations  did  not  take  Tyler  entirely  by  surprise.  As  early  as  August 
1 6  he  had  received  intimations  from  Whig  Representatives  James  M. 
Russell  of  Pennsylvania  and  John  Taliaferro  of  Virginia  that  the  under- 
lying purpose  of  the  first  Bank  bill  was  to  trigger  the  expected  veto  that 
would  isolate  him  from  the  Whigs,  force  a  dissolution  of  his  Cabinet, 
and  bring  the  Executive  department  to  ruin.  By  the  time  the  second 
Bank  bill  was  being  forced  upon  Tyler,  newspapers  like  the  New  York 
Herald  were  saying  of  his  Cabinet;  "What  treachery!  What  ingratitude! 
Why  do  they  not  act  like  men,  and  at  once  give  their  resignations,  and 
suffer  the  President  to  bring  to  his  aid  such  men  as  he  has  confidence 
in?"  Whatever  Clay's  object  in  producing  the  great  Cabinet  stroll,  the 
resignations  did  not  paralyze  Tyler's  will  to  continue  as  President,  "My 

1 60 


resignation,"  he  wrote  in  1844,  " would  amount  to  a  declaration  to  the 
world  that  our  system  of  government  had  failed . . .  that  the  provision 
made  for  the  death  of  the  President  was  ...  so  defective  as  to  merge  all 
executive  powers  in  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government. . . ."  2S 

Webster  had  not  joined  the  conspiracy  or  the  resulting  exodus.  He 
had  no  hand  in  the  Cabinet  disruption.  He  admired  Tyler's  integrity  and 
distrusted  Henry  Clay,  whose  fine  Italian  hand  he  saw  behind  the 
Cabinet  crisis.  More  significantly,  he  and  Tyler  were  at  that  moment 
deeply  involved  in  the  complex  diplomatic  negotiations  with  Britain  that 
would  lead  to  the  1842  Webster- Ashburton  Treaty,  settling  the  Maine 
boundary  and  other  questions.  Studies  looking  toward  the  dismember- 
ment of  the  Mexican  Empire  in  California  as  part  of  an  Anglo-American 
settlement  of  the  Oregon  boundary  problem  were  also  under  review.  It 
was  no  time  for  upheaval  in  the  State  Department. 

"Where  am  I  to  go,  Mr.  President?'7  Webster  asked  his  chief  during 
the  course  of  that  hectic  afternoon  of  September  n. 

"You  must  decide  that  for  yourself,  Mr.  Webster,"  Tyler  replied. 

Webster  considered  the  choice  for  a  brief  moment  and  made  his 
decision.  "If  you  leave  it  to  me,  Mr.  President,  I  will  stay  where  I  am." 

Tyler  rose  from  Ms  chair  and  leaned  forward,  eyes  flashing.  "Give 
me  your  hand  on  that,  and  now  I  wiU  say  to  you  that  Henry  Clay  is  a 
doomed  man."  2& 

Webster's  patriotic  decision  to  remain  on  in  the  Cabinet  distressed 
New  England  Whigs  and  the  Virginia  Clique  alike.  Not  only  did  Ms 
continued  association  with  the  administration  give  it  a  political  anchor 
northward,  it  placed  near  Tyler  a  statesman  of  great  national  prestige  at 
a  time  when  the  renegade  President  desperately  needed  friends.  The 
embarrassment  of  the  Massachusetts  WMgs  was  therefore  understand- 
able. To  Virginians  like  Wise,  Tucker,  Upshur,  and  Gilmer  the  retention 
of  Webster  was  a  political  blunder.  "We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  cabinet 
rupture,"  Wise  informed  Tucker  on  August  29.  "With  some  of  them  we 
want  to  part  friendly.  We  can  part  friendly  with  Webster  by  sending  Mm 
[as  Minister]  to  England.  Let  us,  for  God's  sake,  get  rid  of  Mm  on  the 
best  terms  we  can."  In  spite  of  tMs  sentiment  witMn  the  Clique,  Webster 
stayed  on.  He  was  a  bulwark  in  an  unpopular  administration  until  his 
resignation  in  May  1843.  By  that  time  he  and  Tyler  were  in  sharp 
disagreement  on  the  Texas  annexation  issue  and  on  the  President's  use 
of  patronage  to  build  a  third  party  to  be  employed  as  a  foreign-policy 
lever  in  the  1844  campaign.  Nevertheless,  they  parted  in  1843  on  t^e 
friendliest  personal  terms.30 

The  speed  with  wMch  Tyler  assembled  a  new  Cabinet  indicated 
that  he  had  given  considerable  thought  to  the  matter  before  the  crisis 
matured.  From  a  political  standpoint,  Ms  appointments  marked  the 
beginning  of  the  President's  effort  to  link  the  Conservative  Democracy  of 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania  with  states'  rights  WMgs  who,  like  Tyler 

161 


himself,  were  inexorably  moving  back  toward  the  Southern  Democracy 
from  which  they  had  parted  in  1833-1836.  The  next  three  years  would 
see  fourteen  different  men  involved  in  the  game  of  musical  chairs  which 
characterized  the  unstable  history  of  the  Cabinet  under  John  Tyler.  But 
in  all  these  changes,  shirtings,  comings,  and  goings,  the  Tyler  Cabinets 
increasingly  reflected  a  states'  rights-Democratic  orientation. 

Dominating  these  alterations  and  mutations  was  Tyler's  philosophy 
that  a  Cabinet  should  be  totally  subordinate  to  the  President  and  in 
absolute  intellectual  harmony  with  him.  There  was  to  be  no  maneuvering 
for  the  succession.  Differences  of  opinion  were  neither  encouraged  nor 
tolerated.  Cabinet  meetings  would  involve  no  more  than  friendly  discus- 
sions on  how  best  to  implement  commonly  agreed-upon  principles.  "The 
new  cabinet  is  made  up  of  the  best  materials,"  Tyler  happily  wrote 
Thomas  A.  Cooper  in  October  1841.  "Like  myself,  they  are  all  original 
Jackson  men,  and  mean  to  act  upon  Republican  principles."  There 
would  be  icuo  more  jarring"  within  the  official  family;  Tyler  made  this 
clear  to  prospective  appointees.  He  insisted  that  they  "conform  to  my 
opinions"  on  all  subjects.  As  he  explained  his  wishes  to  Webster,  "I 
would  have  every  [Cabinet]  member  to  look  upon  every  other,  in  the 
light  of  a  friend  and  a  brother.77  That  this  ideological  togetherness  would 
have  its  limitations  the  President  was  soon  to  discover.  By  August  1842 
he  was  complaining  to  his  friend  Tazewell  that  "I  have  been  so  long 
surrounded  by  men  who  have  now  smiles  in  their  eyes  and  honey  on 
their  tongues,  the  better  to  cajole  and  deceive,  that  to  be  shown  the 
error  of  my  ways,  whensoever  I  do  err,  after  a  plain  and  downright 
fashion,  is  a  positive  relief."  31 

One  final  and  curious  indignity  awaited  the  truculent  President.  On 
September  13,  1841,  two  days  after  the  Cabinet  resignations,  he  was 
formally  and  officially  expelled  from  the  Whig  Party.  To  effect  this 
comic-opera  touch  some  seventy  Whig  congressmen  caucused  in  Capitol 
Square  and  in  all  solemnity  repudiated  Tyler.  In  many  ways  it  was  like 
firing  a  worker  who  had  already  walked  off  the  job,  since  Tyler's 
transient  Whiggery  had  been  born  and  reared  in  anti-Jacksonianism  and 
little  else.  Nevertheless,  his  expulsion  from  the  party  marked  the  first 
and  only  time  in  American  history  a  President  was  thrown  bodily  out 
of  the  political  organization  which  had  nominated  and  elected  him.  In 
Clay's  triumphant  words,  Tyler  was  now  "a  president  without  a  party/' 
an  observation  which  impelled  young  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  remark 
two  years  later  that  "If  it  is  a  party  he  wants,  I  will  give  him  a  party. " 
She  did.32 

The  expulsion  did,  however,  encourage  Whig  pamphleteers  to 
launch  a  war  of  words  on  Tyler  which  lasted  until  his  departure  from 
the  White  House  in  March  1845.  While  the  pamphlets  contributed  little 
that  was  constructive  to  the  political  crisis,  they  provided  a  therapeutic 
outlet  for  splenic  Whigs  who  saw  Tyler  as  a  "reptile-like"  man  who  had 

162 


"crawled  up"  into  the  Presidency,  there  to  betray  the  party  that  had 
given  him  power.  On  the  other  side  of  the  battle  line,  pamphleteers  of  the 
states'  rights  persuasion  saw  in  Henry  Clay  the  snake-in-the-grass  and 
maintained  that  John  Tyler  was  leading  America's  fight  for  true  democ- 
racy against  the  corroding  influences  of  nationalism,  Federalism,  and 
centralism.  Called  by  his  enemies  an  "Executive  Ass,"  the  "Accident  of 
an  Accident/7  "a  famished  Charles  City  pettifogger,"  the  "synonym  of 
nihil/5  or  simply  a  man  who  should  be  lashed  "naked  through  the  world," 
Tyler  at  least  had  the  distinction  of  exciting  a  strong  point  of  view.33 
Actually,  the  vituperation  angered  and  disturbed  him.  Tyler  did  not 
have  the  political  hide  of  an  elephant.  The  Whig  darts  stung  him  severely 
and  had  the  predictable  effect  of  driving  him  more  rapidly  back  to  the 
not  eagerly  outstretched  arms  of  the  Southern  Democracy.  At  a  different 
level,  the  anti-Tyler  campaign  had  the  consequence  of  welding  the  Tyler 
family  into  a  solid  phalanx.  Throughout  his  trials  and  political  tribula- 
tions his  kin  stood  solidly  and  protectively  with  Mm,  strengthening  Ms 
sword  arm  against  the  Whig  assaults.  Some  of  this  was  automatic  clan 
defensiveness;  some  of  it  was  related  to  an  attempt  by  the  entire  family 
to  shield  the  sensibilities  of  the  failing  First  Lady.  Prisciila  Cooper  Tyler 
was  particularly  helpful  to  the  President  during  these  trying  months. 
Tyler's  brother-in-law  Judge  John  B.  Christian  and  his  distant  kinsman 
Major  Washington  Seawell,  then  serving  against  the  Seminoles  in 
Florida,  wrote  encouraging  letters  which  buoyed  Tyler  considerably. 
John  Tyler,  Jr.,  became  an  active  pamphleteer  and  publicist  for  the 
President's  views  and  on  one  occasion  walked  to  the  field  of  honor  to 
defend  his  own  and  his  father's  reputation.  Robert  Tyler  also  aided  his 
father  in  many  ways,  most  significantly  as  the  Chief  Executive's  princi- 
pal political  liaison  man  with  the  Conservative  Democracy  in  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York  City.  In  this  task  Alexander  Gardiner  enthusiasti- 
cally joined  after  his  sister's  marriage  to  the  President  in  June  1844. 
Like  the  new  Cabinet,  the  family  functioned  as  a  close-knit  political  unit 
as  Tyler's  struggle  with  the  Whigs  broadened  and  deepened.34 

Having  vetoed  two  Whig  Bank  bills,  Tyler  felt  a  strong  personal 
obligation  to  devise  a  fiscal  scheme  of  his  own  which  would  facilitate 
interstate  banking  operations  while  remaining  entirely  constitutional  in 
structure  and  function.  He  was  also  under  pressure  from  his  friends  to 
produce  a  "substantive  plan  which  [would]  provide  for  the  permanent 
settlement  of  this  question,"  a  solution  they  hoped  would  make  the 
Tyler  administration  politically  "impregnable."  Thus  the  President  left 
the  capital  in  mid-October  for  a  much-needed  rest  in  Williamsburg, 
where  he  planned  "to  meditate  in  peace  over  a  scheme  of  finance."  By 
December  1841,  after  considerable  correspondence  with  Littleton  W. 
Tazewell  on  the  subject,  Tyler  had  worked  out  a  plan  which  was  basi- 
cally a  version  of  one  Andrew  Jackson  had  proposed  in  1830.  It  was  a 

163 


system  in  wMch  state  banks  would  play  an  important  role,  and  Tyler 
confessed  to  Tazewell  that  from  a  purely  political  standpoint  he  was 
"greatly  influenced  by  a  desire  to  bring  to  my  support  that  great  in- 
terest/7 S5 

Tyler's  idea  envisioned  a  public  banking  institution  directed  by 
a  nonpartisan  Board  of  Control  in  Washington,  with  agencies  (some  of 
them  state  banks)  located  in  principal  financial  centers  throughout  the 
country.  No  capital  was  to  be  raised  by  private  subscription,  so  there 
would  be  no  private  stockholders.  The  agencies  (branches)  would 
facilitate  interstate  commerce  in  being  authorized  to  buy  and  sell 
domestic  bills  and  drafts.  The  branches  could  also  receive  deposits  of 
silver  and  gold  from  individuals  and  issue  negotiable  certificates  for 
these  metals  that  would  circulate  as  currency.  Government  moneys 
would  be  deposited  in  the  agencies  and  these  deposits  would  permit  the 
government,  through  the  issuance  or  recall  of  Treasury  notes,  to  in- 
crease or  decrease  the  amount  of  sound  paper  currency  in  circulation 
at  any  given  time.  It  was  a  well-conceived  system.  It  did  not  confine  the 
currency  exclusively  to  specie  as  Van  Buren's  Independent  Treasury 
system  had,  and  the  sovereignty  of  the  states  was  protected  in  the 
provision  that  forbade  the  branches  to  transact  any  business  of  a  private 
character  in  conflict  with  the  laws  of  the  states  in  which  they  functioned. 
In  sum,  the  Tyler  proposal  combined  a  states'  rights  approach  with  a 
national  approach  that  would  "relieve  the  Chief  Executive . . .  from  a 
controlling  power  over  the  public  Treasury." 

Tyler  called  it  the  Exchequer  Plan  and  presented  it  to  the  Congress 
in  his  Annual  Message  on  December  7,  1841.  The  new  Cabinet  (par- 
ticularly Webster  and  Secretary  of  War  John  C.  Spencer  of  New  York) 
was  enthusiastic  about  it.  But  by  falling  somewhere  between  the  Demo- 
crats' Independent  Treasury  and  Clay's  Bank  of  the  United  States  it 
satisfied  the  partisans  of  neither  approach.  Both  attacked  it,  as  did  the 
Wall  Street  lobby.  "This  city  is  filled  with  agents  from  Wall  Street/7 
reported  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Abel  P.  Upshur,  "who  are  endeavoring 
to  defeat  every  arrangement  of  the  currency  question.  So  long  as  they 
can  keep  things  in  their  present  state,  money  will  be  valuable,  and  they 
have  money.  This  is  another  sore  evil  against  which  the  administration 
has  to  contend."  The  Exchequer  Plan  had  no  chance  politically,  although 
it  represented  that  vain  search  for  a  middle  course  that  would  character- 
ize the  remainder  of  the  Tyler  administration.  In  spite  of  a  vigorous 
fight  for  the  Exchequer  by  congressmen  Caleb  Cushing,  Henry  Wise, 
George  H.  Promt,  and  others  of  Tyler's  minuscule  Corporal's  Guard 
in  Congress,  the  project  was  tabled  without  adequate  discussion  in  the 
1841—1842  session.  It  was  soundly  defeated  the  following  year.  Tyler 
thus  dropped  the  plan  entirely  in  1843,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it. 
Public  moneys,  such  as  existed,  continued  to  repose  in  selected  state 
banks,  much  to  the  delight  of  old  Jacksonians.36 

164 


By  July  1842  the  relationship  between  the  Executive  and  legisla- 
tive brandies  had  reached  a  stalemate.  Whig  strategy  was  to  produce 
legislation  the  President  could  not  approve  and  then  charge  perfidy 
and  treason  and  Executive  dictatorship  when  the  expected  veto  was 
delivered.  Tyler?  in  tuna,  continued  to  veto  legislation  he  could  not 
stomach  while  vigorously  defending  Ms  right  to  do  so.  "Executive  dicta- 
tion!" he  excitedly  wrote  a  group  in  Philadelphia: 

I  repel  the  imputation.  I  would  gladly  harmonize  with  Congress  in  the  enact- 
ment of  all  necessary  measures  if  the  majority  would  permit  me Each 

branch  of  the  government  is  independent  of  every  other,  and  Heaven  forbid 
that  the  day  should  ever  come  when  either  can  dictate  to  the  other.  The 
Constitution  never  designed  that  the  executive  should  be  a  mere  cipher.  On 
the  contrary,  it  denies  to  Congress  the  right  to  pass  any  law  without  Ms 
approval,  thereby  imparting  to  it,  for  wise  purposes,  an  active  agency  in  all 
legislation. 

In  his  relations  with  the  Congress  in  1842  Tyler  constantly  searched 
for  that  "moderation,  which  is  the  mother  of  true  wisdom/7  and  found 
little.  "We  have  reached  the  turning  point  in  our  institutions,"  he  re- 
marked to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker  in  June  1842  with  sadness  tinged  by 
frustration.  "I  fear  that  more  firmness  and  wisdom  are  necessary  to 
carry  us  safely  through  the  trial  than  I  can  in  any  way  lay  claim  to."  37 
The  Clay-dominated  Congress  was,  Tyler  fumed,  a  "do-nothing" 
body  whose  sole  function  and  aim  was  the  destruction  of  the  administra- 
tion in  preparation  for  the  coming  midterm  elections.  In  his  Annual 
Message  of  December  7,  1841,  Tyler  had  called  for  Ms  Exchequer 
Plan,  a  new  tariff  for  revenue  bill  which  would  "afford  the  manufactur- 
ing interests  ample  aid,"  and  an  expansion  of  the  Army  and  the  Navy. 
By  July  1842  none  of  these  vital  projects  had  been  acted  upon.  "If 
nothing  has  been  done  to  accomplish  any  of  these  objects,"  Tyler  said, 
"the  fault  is  not  with  the  Executive."  He  thought  it  "particularly 
abominable  that  this  miserable  Congress  should  not  even  yet  [July] 
have  passed  the  Army  or  Navy  appropriation  bill,"  thus  "subjecting 
the  country  to  be  browbeat"  by  the  Mexican  dictator,  Santa  Anna.  The 
Congress  had  not  "matured  a  single  important  measure/'  agreed  Upshur 
in  disgust.  On  the  contrary,  theirs  was  the  "deliberate  purpose  to  make 
Henry  Clay  President  of  the  United  States,  even  at  the  hazard  of  revolu- 
tion." The  time  had  finally  come,  thought  Upshur,  for  patriots  in  both 
parties  to  "shake  off  their  leaders,  and  come  at  once  to  the  rescue  of  the 
country." 

Intelligence  reaches  us  from  all  parts  of  the  country  proving  that  our  do- 
nothing  Congress  is  fast  falling  into  contempt  with  the  people.  It  is  the  most 
worthless  body  of  public  men  that  I  have  ever  known  or  heard  of.  Clay  is  the 
great  obstacle  to  wholesome  legislation.  When  he  retires  something  may  be 
done,  and  not  before.38 

165 


By  the  time  David  Gardiner  brought  Julia  and  Margaret  to  the 
capital  again  in  December  1842,  the  degree  to  which  legislative  decay 

and  partisan  chaos  had  proceeded  was  a  public  scandal  Congressional 
activity,  such  as  it  was,  seemed  to  the  East  Hampton  visitor  designed 
only  to  advance  "some  man  in  respect  to  a  presidential  candidate.77 
Both  parties  were  "greatly  divided/'  The  Congress  had  become  im- 
potent. As  David  Gardiner  expressed  it  to  his  sons: 

Of  the  different  [banking]  plans  none  will  probably  be  adopted  and  Con- 
gress after  having  undone  all  they  have  done  during  the  last  session  will  be 

ready  to  adjourn  without  much  hurry Most  of  the  speakers  are  blessed 

merely  with  a  capacity  of  uttering  sound  and  connecting  most  disconnected 
sentences.  Mr.  Adams  stands  alone  among  them  for  ...  great  powers  of  mind. 
...  It  seems  to  be  the  fashion  even  on  the  most  trifling  subjects,  to  rage  with 
violence. ...  A  speech  of  Cushing  has  called  forth  much  political  debate,  but 
I  do  not  think  has  been  fairly  met,  although  most  severely  denounced  by 
both  of  the  great  political  parties.  The  President  was  abandoned  by  the  Whigs 
for  vetoing  the  Bank  bill  while  they  without  reason . . .  have  protested  with 

greater  inconsistency  the  bankrupt  bill I  am  heartily  tired  of  listening  to 

the  debates. ...  I  think  the  Senate  of  New  York  when  I  was  acquainted  with 

it,  possessed  in  proportion  to  its  numbers  a  far  greater  amount  of  talent 

Those  who  loom  the  largest  here  from  the  distance  diminish  wonderfully  on 
contact. ...  I  see  here  all  the  old  corrupt  political  lobby  which  in  former  years 
infested  Albany.39 

As  the  government  of  the  United  States  virtually  ceased  to  func- 
tion, Tyler  became  increasingly  aware  of  the  painful  fact  that  the 
Treasury  was  bare.  A  national  debt  of  $5,650,000  had  been  left  by  the 
Van  Buren  administration,  along  with  an  unbalanced  budget  for  1840- 
1841  which  ultimately  raised  the  debt  to  $17,736,000  by  January  i, 
1842.  Indeed,  the  pay  of  the  military  and  the  civil  service  had  on 
occasion  in  1841  been  suspended  by  Tyler  because  the  public  coffers 
were  empty.  Treasury  notes  declined  steadily  in  value  throughout  1842, 
and  the  Home  Squadron  of  the  Navy  was  tied  up  as  an  economy 
measure. 

Faced  with  this  critical  financial  situation,  the  President  was  not 
averse  to  raising  the  tariff  for  the  purpose  of  providing  badly  needed 
revenue.  He  was  loath,  however,  to  tamper  with  the  delicate  economic 
and  political  arrangements  hammered  out  in  the  Compromise  Tariff  Act 
of  1833  and  he  was  vehemently  opposed  to  the  Whig  plan  to  link 
distribution  to  a  higher  tariff.  Under  the  distribution  scheme  income 
realized  by  the  Treasury  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  would  be  "dis- 
tributed" to  the  several  states.  This,  of  course,  would  aid  the  financially 
hard-pressed  states  survive  the  impact  of  the  depression.  The  giveaway 
would  also  reap  obvious  political  benefits  for  the  munificent  Whig 
distributors.  But  by  dissipating  sizable  portions  of  the  federal  revenue, 

166 


distribution  would  inevitably  force  hikes  in  the  tariff  schedule  to  raise 
revenues  for  the  near-bankrupt  government.  The  Whigs  thus  hoped  that 
by  depleting  the  shaky  Treasury  with  their  politically  negotiable  dis- 
tribution plan  they  could  then  logically  call  for  higher  tariffs.  In  this 
manner  they  could  gradually  force  the  tariff  schedule  upward  to  the 
point  of  outright  protectionism — in  the  holy  name  of  tariff  for  revenue 
only.  Tyler  was  not  opposed  to  significantly  higher  tariffs  in  1842  so 
long  as  they  were  strictly  revenue-raising  in  intent.  The  Compromise 
Tariff  of  1833  had  made  it  plain  that  after  1842  any  duties  above  20 
per  cent  ad  -valorem  would  be  levied  only  "for  the  purpose  of  raising 
such  revenue  as  may  be  necessary  to  an  economical  administration  of 
the  Government."  Nor  was  he  opposed  to  the  distribution  of  public- 
land  revenues  so  long  as  this  did  not  force  tariffs  clearly  into  the  pro- 
tectionist range.  Indeed,  he  had  willingly  signed  Clay's  Distribution  Act 
of  1841  when  the  legislation  included  a  cut-off  proviso  that  distribution 
would  cease  if  and  when  the  tariff  schedule  went  above  20  per  cent  ad 
valorem.  His  attitude  toward  a  tariff  for  protection  as  such  had  not 
changed  since  1832.  He  had  always  been  a  free- trade,  tariff-for-revenue 
man  and  would  remain  one  until  he  died.40 

For  the  purpose  of  embarrassing  Tyler  politically  at  a  time  when 
the  Treasury  was  bare,  the  Whigs  on  two  occasions  during  the  summer 
of  1842  brought  forth  tariff  bills  which  raised  rates  above  20  per  cent 
while  providing  for  the  continued  distribution  of  government  revenue 
from  public-land  sales.  Tyler  promptly  vetoed  both  measures,  much 
to  the  jubilation  of  Clay  partisans.  "If  we  can  only  keep  up  the  feeling 
that  now  exists,"  Crittenden  wrote  Harry  of  the  West,  "youx  election 
is  certain.  Tyler  is  one  of  your  best  friends;  his  last  veto  has  scored  us 
all  well;  it  has  just  reached  the  convention  in  Maine,  which  nominated 
you  and  denounced  him." 

The  Whig  policy,  designed  to  raise  more  Clay  than  revenue, 
quickly  shifted  to  the  appointment  of  a  House  select  committee  to 
investigate  the  reasons  given  by  Tyler  for  his  latest  veto  of  the  tariff- 
distribution  bill.  Needless  to  say,  the  committee  was  carefully  packed  to 
produce  a  predetermined  result.  Chaired  by  John  Quincy  Adams  and 
numbering  in  its  heavy  Whig  majority  such  proven  anti-Tylerites  as 
John  M.  Botts,  the  committee  reported  its  findings  on  August  16,  1842. 
The  document  went  far  beyond  a  pro  forma  criticism  of  the  President's 
veto  of  the  tariff-distribution  bill.  It  was  a  wide-ranging,  free-swinging 
attack  on  the  Tyler  administration  and  all  its  negative  works  from  the 
moment  it  came  to  power.  It  recommended  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution that  would  permit  the  overriding  of  a  White  House  veto  by 
a  bare  majority  vote,  and  it  concluded  with  the  observation  that  John 
Tyler  was  a  fit  subject  for  impeachment  proceedings.  A  dissenting 
minority  report,  signed  only  by  Democratic  congressmen  Charles  J. 

167 


Ingersoll  of  Pennsylvania  and  James  I.  Roosevelt  of  New  York,  de- 
fended the  President's  stewardship  of  the  nation  for  the  preceding  seven- 
teen months.41 

Against  a  background  of  violent  Whig  editorial  attacks — "Again 
has  the  imbecile,  into  whose  hands  accident  has  placed  the  power, 
vetoed  a  bill  passed  by  a  majority  of  those  legally  authorized  to  pass 
it/'  shouted  the  Daily  Richmond  Whig — Tyler  dispatched  a  defense  of 
his  behavior  to  the  House  on  August  30  with  a  request  that  it  be  printed 
hi  the  House  Journal.  The  entreaty  was  refused,  gleeful  Whigs  pointing 
out  that  Tyler  himself  had  voted  to  deny  Jackson  the  same  privilege 
in  i834.42 

In  the  midst  of  this  renewed  assault,  Tyler  signed  into  law  on 
August  30  the  controversial  Tariff  Act  of  1842,  a  bill  pushed  through 
by  an  alliance  of  protectionist  Whigs  and  Democrats  who  pointed  with 
real  alarm  to  the  stark  emptiness  of  the  Treasury.  In  this  sense  it 
was  regarded  by  its  proponents  as  a  tariff  for  much-needed  revenue  al- 
though it  did  in  fact  return  the  tariff  schedule  to  the  high  protectionist 
rates  of  1832.  And  while  no  distribution  rider  was  attached  to  it  (Clay's 
friends  fought  it  for  this  very  reason),  Tyler's  approval  of  the  measure 
was  at  variance  with  his  longstanding  hostility  toward  high  tariffs.  To 
be  sure,  the  Treasury  was  desperate  for  a  new  infusion  of  funds  and 
this  consideration  alone  probably  swung  Tyler  over.  He  undoubtedly 
regarded  it  at  the  time  as  a  tariff  for  revenue,  even  though  the  rates 
were  protectionist  in  1832  terms.  Unfortunately,  he  never  explained  his 
reasons  for  approving  the  "Black  Tariff/'  as  noxious  to  Southern  anti- 
protectionists  as  it  was  gratifying  to  American  System  Whigs.  Or  if  he 
did  explain  his  thinking  on  the  matter,  the  knowledge  was  lost  to  his- 
tory when  most  of  his  private  papers  were  burned  in  Richmond  in 
1865.  Lyon  G.  Tyler  accounted  for  his  father's  apparent  surrender 
on  the  tariff  question  of  1842  as  part  of  the  President's  desire  to  build 
a  coalition  of  moderates  to  carry  him  politically  and  placidly  between 
the  Scylla  of  Clay  and  the  Charybdis  of  Benton.  It  was,  he  wrote  in 
1885,  "the  first  legislative  fruits  of  the  policy  of  the  President  to  depend 
upon  the  moderates  of  both  parties."  This  neat  explanation  has  some 
obvious  defects.  A  broader  basis  of  interpretation  would  include  Tyler's 
fear  of  the  approaching  bankruptcy  of  the  federal  government,  Ms 
psychological  reaction  to  continued  Whig  poundings,  his  distress  at  talk 
of  his  impeachment,  concern  for  Letitiays  peace  of  mind  in  her  last  days 
(she  died  September  10,  1842),  and  a  willingness — after  eighteen 
months  of  continual  wrangling  over  banking  and  tariff  matters — to 
move  on  to  other  and  more  fruitful  subjects.  By  August  1842  he  had 
matured  the  great  Texas  annexation  plan  by  which  he  hoped  to  put  an 
end  to  faction,  unify  the  nation,  and  rescue  his  historical  reputation. 
This  object  came  to  dominate  his  hopes  and  ambitions  almost  ex- 
clusively after  January  i843.43 

1 68 


Whatever  Ms  motives  in  signing  the  1842  Tariff  Act,  Tyler  was 
clearly  unsettled  and  hurt  by  concurrent  Whig  talk  of  Impeachment. 
He  knew  that  the  Whigs  did  not  have  the  votes  to  accomplish  such 
a  radical  solution  to  their  frustrations,  but  the  chattering  itself  angered 
Mm,  frightened  Mm  a  bit,  and  drove  Mm  ever  closer  to  the  Southern 
Democracy  for  aid  and  comfort.  The  Impeachment  movement  began 
on  July  10,  1842.  On  that  date  a  resolution  was  introduced  in  the 
House  by  John  M.  Botts,  calling  for  the  appointment  of  a  special  com- 
mittee to  investigate  the  President's  conduct  in  office  with  a  view  toward 
recommending  impeachment.  Henry  Clay  agreed  that  "the  inevitable 
tendency  of  events  is  to  impeachment ,"  but  he  felt  that  the  timing  and 
introduction  of  the  Botts  motion  was  unfortunate.  He  held  that  the 
politics  of  the  situation  called  for  a  lesser  punishment — a  House  vote 
of  "want  of  confidence"  in  Tyler  rather  than  the  institution  of  formal 
impeachment  proceedings.  While  he  certainly  encouraged  the  impeach- 
ment movement  from  behind  the  scenes,  Clay  urged  that  it  proceed  with 
great  care.  It  had  proceeded  practically  nowhere  at  all  when  Tyler 
learned  of  it  and  fairly  exploded.  "I  am  told  that  one  of  the  madcaps 
talks  of  impeachment/'  he  wrote  a  friend: 

Did  you  ever  expect  to  see  your  old  friend  under  trial  for  "high  crimes  and 
misdemeanors"?  The  high  crime  of  sustaining  the  Constitution  of  the  coun- 
try I  have  committed,  and  to  this  I  plead  guilty.  The  high  crime  of  arresting 
the  lavish  donation  of  a  source  of  revenue  [distribution] ,  at  the  moment  that 
the  Treasury  is  bankrupt,  of  that  also  I  am  guilty;  and  the  high  crime  of 
daring  to  have  an  opinion  of  my  own,  Congress  to  the  contrary  notwithstand- 
ing, I  plead  guilty  also  to  that;  and  if  these  be  impeachable  matters,  why 

then  I  ought  to  be  impeached I  am  abused,  in  Congress  and  out,  as  man 

never  was  before — assailed  as  a  traitor,  and  threatened  with  impeachment. 
But  let  it  pass.  Other  attempts  are  to  be  made  to  head  me,  and  we  shall  see 
how  they  will  succeed.44 

The  ill-contrived  impeachment  attempt  did  not,  of  course,  succeed. 
On  January  10,  1843,  Botts7  resolution  of  the  previous  July  was  finally 
brought  to  a  vote  in  the  House.  It  was  soundly  defeated — 127  to  83, 
only  the  most  extreme  Clay  and  Van  Buren  men  supporting  it.  "There 
was/3  reported  Senator  David  Gardiner,  who  witnessed  the  vote,  "no 
excitement  and  little  debate,  and  this  . .  .  foolish  attempt  will  only  result 
in  increasing  the  number  of  the  President's  friends."  45 

If  the  Botts  assault  did  not  actually  increase  Tyler's  friends,  it  did 
obscure  the  fact  that  the  President  was  not  unwilling  to  accommodate 
the  Whigs  on  several  important  legislative  matters.  John  Tyler,  In  truth, 
made  a  genuine  attempt  in  1841-1842  to  reach  some  accommodation 
with  the  Whigs,  consistent  with  his  constitutional  principles.  On  most 
issues  he  was  willing  to  meet  them  halfway  or  better.  His  signings  of 
the  1842  Tariff  Act  and  the  Bankruptcy  Act  of  1842  were  clearly  pro- 

169 


Whig.  His  acceptance  of  Clay's  1841  Distribution  Act  and  Ms  willing- 
ness to  see  the  Independent  Treasury  Act  repealed  in  1841  were  also 
pro-Whig  gestures.  On  the  controversial  tariff  question  he  agreed  with 
Upshur  that  "the  free  trade  men  of  the  South  must  relax  their  prin- 
ciples a  little.37  Indeed,  Tyler's  approval  of  the  Bankruptcy  Act,  liberal- 
izing the  laws  governing  that  unhappy  condition,  benefited  the  de- 
pressed Whig  business  community  to  the  extent  that  in  November  1842 
Alexander  Gardiner,  a  recently  converted  Tammany  Democrat,  could 
cry  out  that  the  legislation  should  be  repealed  immediately.  It  was,  said 
the  President's  future  brother-in-law,  a  mockery  of  "the  great  Demo- 
cratic doctrines  of  individual  enterprise  and  freedom,"  destined  only 
to  subsidize  the  improvident  and  speculative  classes.46 

The  results  of  the  midterm  elections  of  1842  seemed  to  Tyler  to 
support  his  side  of  his  struggle  with  Clay  and  the  Whigs.  He  inter- 
preted the  Democratic  sweep  as  the  "greatest  political  victory  ever  won 
within  my  recollection . . .  achieved  entirely  upon  the  vetoes  of  the 
Bank  bills  presented  to  me  at  the  extra  session.'7  The  Whig  majority  of 
sixty  in  the  House  of  Representatives  gave  way  to  a  Democratic 
majority  of  eighty.  Whig  reverses  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Georgia, 
Mississippi,  Michigan,  Virginia,  and  Louisiana  caused  John  Quincy 
Adams  to  moan  that  the  Whigs  were  "overwhelmed  and  the  Democracy 
altogether  in  the  ascendant . . .  the  Tyler  party  are  much  stronger  than 
I  could  have  imagined."  Still,  Tyler's  loyal  little  Corporal's  Guard  was 
all  but  wiped  out  in  the  election.  Their  support  of  the  unpopular  Presi- 
dent had  endeared  them  to  the  leadership  of  no  faction  or  party.  Thus 
Representatives  James  I.  Roosevelt,  Henry  A.  Wise,  George  H.  Promt, 
Francis  Mallory  of  Virginia,  and  Caleb  Cushing  of  Massachusetts  all 
decided  that  retreat  was  the  better  part  of  valor  and  declined  to  stand 
for  renomination  or  re-election.  Tyler  appreciated  immensely  their  great 
sacrifices  for  him  and  made  every  effort  to  place  them  all  in  appointive 
offices.  Years  later  he  still  referred  to  them  warmly  as  the  "half  dozen 
gentlemen"  who  had  stuck  with  him  "when  I  had  to  sustain  the  com- 
bined assaults  of  the  ultras  of  both  parties."  In  his  memory  they  re- 
mained the  "six  [who]  stood  by  and  beat  back  all  assailants.  Yes,  beat 
them  back  and  foiled  all  their  efforts."  John  Quincy  Adams  notwith- 
standing, these  doughty  White  Knights  did  not  constitute  a  "Tyler 
party"  or  any  segment  of  one.47 

There  was  as  yet  no  Tyler  party.  Nor  had  the  President's  attempt 
to  unify  moderates  in  both  major  parties  on  a  domestic  program  that 
sought  a  middle  road  between  states'  rights  and  nationalism  met  with 
conspicuous  success.  Pro-Whig  gestures  had  distressed  the  states'  rights 
group  and  pro-states'  rights  vetoes  had  triggered  a  Whig  impeachment 
movement.  Thus  the  popular  swing  away  from  the  obstructionist  Clay 
Whigs  and  their  "do-nothing  Congress"  in  November  1842  convinced 
Tyler  that  the  time  was  at  hand  for  launching  a  third  party  "for  the 

170 


sole  purpose  of  controlling  events  by  throwing  in  the  weight  of  that 
organization  for  the  public  good"  during  the  1844  campaign. 

He  had  considered  the  possibility  of  a  third-party  movement  as 
early  as  October  1841.  At  that  time  he  had  discovered  an  issue  on  which 
he  hoped  he  might  unite  all  moderate  factions  under  his  leadership  and, 
in  so  doing,  salvage  the  prestige  of  Ms  faltering  administration.  The 
Tyler  party,  as  he  conceived  it,  would  undertake  nothing  less  ambitious 
than  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  filling  out  of  America's  continental 
boundaries  to  the  Pacific.  So  it  was  that  on  October  n,  1841,  while 
vacationing  at  his  home  in  Williamsburg,  where  he  had  retired  to 
"meditate  in  peace"  over  what  became  Ms  Exchequer  Plan,  the  Texas 
thought  struck  Mm.  "Could  anything,"  he  inquired  of  Webster, 

. . .  throw  so  bright  a  lustre  around  us?  It  seems  to  me  the  great  interests  of 
the  North  would  be  incalculably  advanced  by  such  an  acquisition.  How  deeply 
interested  is  the  shipping  interest.  Slavery,  I  know  that  is  the  objection,  and 
it  would  be  well  founded,  if  it  did  not  already  exist  among  us;  but  my  belief 
is  that  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the  laws  against  the  slave-trade  would  in  time 
make  as  many  free  States  South  as  the  acquisition  of  Texas  would  add  of 
slave  States,  and  then  the  future  (distant  as  it  might  be)  would  present  won- 
derful results.48 

The  happy  results  of  the  1842  elections  coupled  with  a  growing  con- 
fidence in  the  patriotic  rightness  and  political  possibilities  of  his  Texas 
policy  helped  Tyler  sublimate  the  great  sorrow  he  experienced  when  Le- 
titia  finally  passed  away  in  September  1842.  The  excitement  and  activity 
involved  in  organizing  Ms  tMrd  party  also  proved  therapeutic  in  this 
regard.  Thus  when  Julia  Gardiner  walked  into  Ms  life  in  December  of 
that  year  he  was  politically  more  confident  and  self-assured  than  he 
had  been  since  the  beginning  of  his  ill-starred  administration. 

Nevertheless,  with  the  exception  of  Texas  annexation  (a  large  ex- 
ception, to  be  sure),  the  Tyler  administration  in  1843—1845  was  a 
caretaker  government.  Thanks  in  part  to  the  increased  revenue  under 
the  Tariff  Act  of  1842,  the  budget  was  balanced  and  the  public  debt 
significantly  reduced.  Efficient  fiscal  administration  also  permitted  a 
reduction  in  the  size  of  the  annual  budget.  In  truth,  "Mr.  Tyler  found 
the  currency  *sMn-plasters';  he  left  it  gold  and  silver  and  Treasury 
notes  at  par."  Well-managed  as  it  was,  Ms  administration  still  remained 
a  caretaker  operation.  No  significant  domestic  legislation  was  passed. 
NotMng  more  important  emerged  from  Congress  than  the  $30,000 
appropriated  in  March  1843  to  assist  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  test  his 
telegraph.  And  from  the  White  House  came  no  act  more  stirring  than 
the  appointment  of  writers  WasMngton  Irving  and  John  Howard  Payne 
to  diplomatic  posts  abroad.  In  foreign  affairs,  however,  it  was  a  much 
more  successful  story.  So  too  was  it  in  the  social  life  of  the  WMte 
House.49 

171 


COURTSHIP  AND   CATASTROPHE 


Shall  I  again  that  Harp  unstring 
Which  long  has  been  a  useless  thing, 
Unheard  in  Lady's  bower? 

JOHN  TYLER,   MARCH   1843 


While  John  Tyler's  administration  collapsed  noisily  about  his  ears, 
the  social  life  of  the  White  House  went  forward  from  triumph  to 
triumph  under  the  able  direction  of  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler.  Priscilla 
had  not  sought  the  post.  Indeed,  Tyler's  elevation  to  the  Presidency  had 
come  so  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  that  no  provision  had  been  made, 
or  even  contemplated,  for  the  purely  festive  and  ceremonial  side  of 
White  House  living.  But  within  a  week  after  Tyler's  hasty  departure 
from  Williamsburg  in  April  1841  to  take  up  his  new  duties  in  the  capital, 
it  was  decided  that  Letitia  should  join  her  husband  in  Washington  even 
though  she  could  do  little  to  help  his  administration  in  a  social  sense. 
Priscilla,  Tyler  determined,  would  perform  the  First  Lady's  duties  as 
White  House  hostess.  Letitia  was  far  too  weak  to  take  on  this  burden. 
On  only  one  occasion  did  she  feel  strong  enough  to  be  helped  from  the 
privacy  of  her  bedchamber  and  downstairs  to  the  White  House  re- 
ception rooms. 

Actually,  the  beautiful  Priscilla  inherited  her  responsible  station 
by  default.  Letitia's  older  daughters,  Mary  Tyler  Jones  and  Letitia 
Tyler  Semple,  had  husbands  and  homes  of  their  own  to  maintain 
in  Virginia.  Thirteen-year-old  Alice  Tyler  was  too  young  to  assume  the 
duties  of  hostess,  and  eighteen-year-old  Elizabeth  was  too  inexperienced 
socially  to  do  much  more  than  assist  Priscilla. 

Happily,  Priscilla  was  ideal  for  the  demanding  task.  As  an  ex- 
perienced actress  she  knew  how  to  play  a  role  with  dignity,  restraint, 
and  good  humor.  For  her  the  White  House  became  a  great  stage.  She 

172 


set  the  scenery,  chose  the  cast,  and  read  her  Hues  with  consummate 
skill.  In  al!  this  she  sought  the  advice  of  the  elderly  Dolley  Madison. 
Throughout  the  sixteen  years  of  the  Jefferson  and  Madison  administra- 
tions Dolley  had  served  as  White  House  hostess.  She  knew  everything 
worth  knowing  about  social  Washington.  She  was  a  jolly,  buxom  woman 
who  dipped  snuff  and  rouged  her  face  like  a  Paris  streetwalker.  But 
she  was  much  loved  by  the  Tylers  and  was  quickly  taken  into  their  con- 
fidence. Her  assistance  to  Priscilla  as  producer-director  of  the  White 
House  theater  was  invaluable.  Elizabeth  Tyler  also  helped  her  sister-in- 
law  until  her  marriage  to  William  N.  Waller  in  January  1842,  when  her 
departure  left  Priscilla  with  the  sole  responsibility  of  the  post  until 
March  1844.  At  that  time  Robert  Tyler  gave  up  his  patronage  slot 
in  the  Land  Office  and  moved  his  wife  and  their  two  daughters  to 
Philadelphia  to  begin  a  belated  practice  of  law.  With  Priscilla's  de- 
parture in  March  1844  the  vacancy  as  acting  First  Lady  was  temporarily 
filled  by  Letitia  Tyler  Semple,  whose  semi-estranged  husband  James 
had  been  helped  off  to  sea  as  a  purser  in  the  Navy  by  Tyler.  Julia,  of 
course,  inherited  the  position  in  the  summer  of  1844  and  filled  it  until 
the  Tyler  administration  ended  in  March  1845.  Like  her  immediate 
predecessors  in  the  post,  she  depended  much  on  the  experienced  Dolley 
Madison  for  advice  and  counsel.1 

Priscilla  enjoyed  every  minute  of  her  novel  role  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  First  Family  was  always  surrounded  by  a  genteel  poverty  and 
the  grim  realization  that  Letitia  was  slipping  toward  her  grave.  This 
was  an  intimate,  depressing  side  of  the  Tylers'  life  in  the  White  House 
that  was  kept  strictly  private.  Julia,  for  instance,  neither  saw  nor  sus- 
pected it  during  her  first  extended  visit  in  the  capital  in  January  and 
February  1842.  But  it  was  there  nonetheless,  and  Priscilla  learned  to 
Eve  with  it.  Her  general  attitude  was  not  unlike  that  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI:  Now  that  we  have  the  Presidency,  let  us  enjoy  it — as  best  we 
can.  Shortly  after  her  arrival  at  the  White  House  from  Wilh'amsburg 
she  marveled  at  what  fate  had  cast  before  her: 

Here  am  I  [she  told  her  sister] ,  nee  Priscilla  Cooper  . . .  actually  living,  and 
— what  is  more — presiding  at  the  White  House!  I  look  at  myself  like  a  little 
old  woman,  and  exclaim:  Can  this  be  I?  I  have  not  had  one  moment  to  myself 
since  my  arrival,  and  the  most  extraordinary  tMng  is  that  I  feel  as  if  I  had 
been  used  to  living  here  always;  and  receive  the  Cabinet,  ministers,  the  diplo- 
matic corps,  the  heads  of  the  army  and  navy,  etc.  etc.,  with  a  facility  which 
astonishes  me.  "Some  achieve  greatness — some  are  born  to  it."  I  am  plainly 
born  to  it.  I  really  do  possess  a  degree  of  modest  assurance  that  surprises  me 
more  than  it  does  anyone  else.  I  am  complimented  on  every  side;  my  hidden 
virtues  are  coming  out.  I  am  considered  "charmante"  by  the  Frenchmen, 
"lovely"  by  the  Americans,  and  "really  quite  nice,  you  know,"  by  the  English. 

It  was  quite  a  new  world  for  a  struggling  young  actress  who  a  scant 
four  years  earlier  had  bathed  in  the  muddy  Delaware  and  had  eaten 

173 


"nothing  but  bacon  and  potatoes  for  dinner,  with  an  occasional  lone 
dumpling  to  give  weight  to  the  repast."  2 

Priscilla's  new  position  as  White  House  hostess  entailed  coping 
with  incredible  pressures.  While  Congress  was  in  session  she  was  ex- 
pected to  supervise  and  preside  over  two  formal  dinner  parties  each 
week.  At  the  first  of  these  twenty  guests  were  regularly  invited,  men 
who  were  visiting  Washington  and  who  had  shown  "respectful  atten- 
tion to  the  President  and  his  family."  At  the  second  there  were  usually 
forty  at  dinner,  drawn  from  the  upper  echelons  of  the  government, 
the  military,  and  the  diplomatic  corps.  Each  evening  until  ten  o'clock 
the  White  House  reception  rooms  were  opened  to  informal  visitors. 
These  too  required  Priscilla's  presence  although  Tyler  frequently 
escaped  by  pleading  the  demands  of  his  office.  In  addition,  the  Tylers 
occasionally  sponsored  small  private  balls.  And  once  a  month  during 
the  congressional  session  the  White  House  was  the  scene  of  a  grand 
public  levee.  Well  over  a  thousand  people  generally  attended  these 
affairs;  the  crush  of  bodies  made  dancing  almost  impossible.  The  com- 
pany at  the  levees  was,  recalled  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  "less  select  as  to  true 
worth  than  was  altogether  agreeable."  Select  or  not,  Priscilla  enjoyed 
them.  Special  receptions  on  New  Year's  Day  and  on  the  Fourth  of 
July  and  weekly  Marine  Band  concerts  for  the  public  on  the  south 
lawn  of  the  White  House  on  mild  evenings  rounded  out  the  formal 
events  over  which  the  official  hostess  was  expected  to  preside.  For  Priscilla 
it  was  a  grueling  schedule.  With  one  exception,  the  young  lady  whom 
Tyler  lauded  as  the  "presiding  genius  of  the  White  House  for  more  than 
two  years"  rose  to  every  occasion.3 

Her  lone  failure  occurred  one  evening  in  May  1841,  early  in  her 
White  House  tenure.  It  was  the  night  of  her  first  formal  dinner  for  the 
officers  of  the  Cabinet.  Priscilla  was  fatigued  with  the  strain  of  manag- 
ing her  four-month-old  daughter,  Mary  Fairlie,  and  she  was  already 
pregnant  with  her  second  child.  The  baby  was  sick  and  had  been 
squalling  and  fretting  all  day,  as  Priscilla  rushed  about  the  Mansion 
trying  to  supervise  the  extensive  dinner  preparations  and  comfort  her 
unhappy  offspring  at  the  same  time.  By  evening  she  was  exhausted. 
When  the  guests  finally  arrived,  Secretary  of  State  Webster  escorted 
her  in  to  dinner.  Priscilla  was  the  only  woman  present.  For  a  time  she 
chatted  easily  and  amiably  with  the  great  Webster,  whose  imposing 
countenance  and  booming  voice  often  reduced  less  poised  acquaintances 
to  awed  silence.  Priscilla  was  nervous  and  she  was  bone-tired,  but  she 
was  not  overwhelmed  by  the  commanding  presence  of  the  "godlike 
Daniel."  She  was,  after  all,  a  woman  who  had  often  been  strangled  in 
her  bed  by  Othello.  It  took  more  than  a  mere  Secretary  of  State  to 
faze  the  onetime  Desdemona. 

Yet  on  this  particular  evening,  as  the  dessert  was  being  served, 
Priscilla  grew  deathly  pale.  Suddenly  she  fell  back  from  the  table  in  a 

174 


faint.  Webster  moved  quickly  from  his  seat,  gathered  her  in  his  arms, 
and  gallantly  carried  her  away  from  the  table.  At  this  point  Robert 
Tyler  converted  mere  confusion  into  absolute  chaos  by  Impetuously 
dumping  a  pitcher  of  ice  water  on  both  the  hero  and  the  swooning 
heroine.  As  Priscilla  recounted  her  embarrassment  a  few  days  later,  the 
Ice  water  ruined  her  "lovely  new  dress,  and,  I  am  afraid,  produced  a 
decided  coolness  between  myself  and  the  Secretary  of  State.  I  had  to  be 
taken  to  my  room,  and  poor  Mr.  Webster  had  to  be  shaken  off,  dried 
and  brushed,  before  he  could  resume  dinner.77  The  generous  Webster 
quickly  forgot  the  Incident  and  soon  became  Priscilla Js  favorite  person 
in  the  Cabinet.  They  chatted  and  gossiped  every  time  they  met  and  he 
undertook  the  education  of  her  palate,  advising  her  on  foods  and  wines 
he  thought  she  might  enjoy.4 

Following  the  opening-night  disaster,  Priscilla's  social  productions 
as  White  House  hostess  were  an  unbroken  series  of  successes.  She 
managed  to  tame — Indeed  charm — the  haughty  Chevalier  de  Bacourt? 
France's  ambassador  to  the  United  States  and  one  of  Ms  nation's  most 
distinguished  and  accomplished  snobs.  The  fine  party  she  arranged  in 
June  1842  for  the  British  plenipotentiary,  Lord  Ashburton,  may  not 
have  advanced  the  tedious  Webster-Ashburton  conversations  on  the 
Maine  boundary  dispute  one  whit,  but  It  was  proclaimed — even  by  the 
crusty  John  Qulncy  Adams — a  great  and  glittering  affair,  "all  that  the 
most  accomplished  European  courts  could  have  displayed."  So  too  was 
the  White  House  reception  in  October  1841  for  the  Prince  de  Joinville, 
son  of  King  Louis  Philippe.  At  this  time  Priscilla  was  six  months 
pregnant  with  her  second  daughter.  So  uncomfortable  was  she  that 
Letitia  Tyler  Semple  came  up  from  Virginia  to  help  out.  The  whole  thing 
finally  went  off  with  great  eclat.5 

Priscilla's  greatest  triumph  came  early  in  1843.  On  the  shortest 
possible  notice  she  hastily  organized  a  White  House  reception  for  Count 
Henri  Bertrand,  former  aide  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  onetime  Grand 
Marshal  of  the  Emperor's  court.  It  was  a  solo  performance.  The 
President  was  visiting  in  Virginia.  Robert  Tyler  was  on  hand  to  assist 
in  the  preparations,  but  he  was,  said  Priscilla,  "only  Prince  Consort."" 
The  Cabinet  was  hurriedly  summoned  to  the  White  House  at  eight 
o'clock  to  greet  the  distinguished  Count,  who  was  a  hand-kisser  of  the 
most  impulsive  continental  sort.  Priscilla  was  so  amused  by  his  ex- 
aggerated caricature  of  feudal  chivalry  that  upon  his  departure,  "as  the 
last  mustachioed  Frenchman  left  the  room,  I  turned  a  pirouette  on 
one  foot,  and  then  dropping  a  low  curtsey,  said  I  begged  the  cabinet's 
pardon;  whereat  Mr.  [Robert]  Tyler  was  exceedingly  wrathy,  though 
everyone  else  said  it  was  the  sweetest  thing  I  had  done  all  evening."  & 

A  few  days  later  a  more  formal  social  gesture  was  extended  Count 
Bertrand  and  his  mustachioed  entourage.  Again  Priscilla  was  equal  to 
the  occasion.  She  prepared  a  glittering  state  ball  for  two  hundred  care- 

175 


fully  selected  guests.  Clad  in  a  "rose-colored  satin  trimmed  in  blond 
lace  flowers  and  a  charaiing  headdress  of  white  bugles/7  she  stationed 
herself 

...  at  the  head  of  the  blue  centre  room  near  the  window.  As  the  Marshal 
arrived  and  walked  through  the  hall,  the  band  struck  up  the  Marseillaise.  The 
guests  fell  back  on  either  side  of  the  end  of  the  room,  leaving  a  wide  path 
for  Bertrand  to  advance  to  where  Josephine — I  mean,  I — stood  surrounded 
by  the  Cabinet.  To  describe  the  references  he  made,  followed  by  his  son  and 
each  of  Ms  suite  in  turn  would  be  vain.  I  returned  them  with  grandmama's 
old-fashioned  curtseys,  such  as  must  have  existed  in  the  days  of  the  Empire. 
...  No  party  ever  went  off  better.  Father  with  Ms  usual  kindness  had  given 
me  carte  blanche  before  he  left.  My  supper  was  splendid.  (It  is  so  easy  to 
entertain  at  other  people's  expense.)  . . .  When  the  Marshal  led  me  into  sup- 
per, he  seemed  completely  overcome,  and  putting  Ms  hand  over  Ms  heart,  said, 
"Ah,  rnadame ...  all  zis  for  me?"  The  only  contretemps  that  occurred  was 
that  I  cave  Mm  with  a  sweet  smile  a  most  splendid  looking  sugarplum  with- 
out looking  at  the  picture  on  it,  wMch  I  afterwards  discovered  to  my  horror 
to  be  that  of  an  ape.7 

The  official  social  events  at  which  Priscilla  performed  so  graciously 
and  efficiently  set  a  high  standard  for  Julia  and  First  Ladies  after  her 
to  follow.  Some  of  these  functions  were  not  always  as  pleasant  as  the 
Bertrand  reception  and  ball.  At  the  WMte  House  reception  on  New 
Year's  Day,  1842,  for  instance,  Priscilla  stood  for  three  wearying  hours 
in  the  Blue  Room  shaking  hands  with  the  thousands  of  citizens  who 
trooped  in  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  their  controversial  President.  "Such  big 
fists  as  some  of  the  people  have,"  she  remarked,  "and  such  hearty  shakes 

as  they  gave  my  poor  little  hand One  great  hearty  countryman  gave 

me  a  clutch  and  a  shake  I  almost  expired  under."  8 

Tyler  also  ran  the  risk  of  being  crushed  at  these  public  affairs. 
He  generally  stationed  Mmself  in  the  center  of  the  oval  Blue  Room  to 
receive  his  guests,  the  ladies  of  the  White  House  retiring  to  the  com- 
parative safety  of  the  side  walls.  Centrally  located  as  he  was,  he  became 
the  focal  point  of  a  milling  throng  which  seethed  and  writhed  like  a 
gigantic  octopus.  It  was  what  Priscilla  termed  the  "rush  of  the  sovereign 
people,"  and  the  President  was  thoroughly  jostled  and  pushed  about  as 
the  citizenry  sought  to  shake  his  hand  or  even  touch  his  coat.  In  all  this 
physical  contact  Tyler  maintained  his  equanimity  and  good  nature, 
much  as  a  victorious  prizefighter  surrounded  by  his  fans  must  do  at  the 
end  of  an  important  bout.  Still,  it  was  a  trying  experience.  When  Julia 
became  First  Lady  in  1844  one  of  her  first  reforms  was  to  move  her 
husband  from  the  direct  line  of  fire  to  the  protective  custody  of  a  side 
wall.  There  he  received  and  shook  hands  with  his  guests  as  they  filed  by 
in  an  orderly  line.  During  Priscilla's  tenure,  however,  Tyler  took  Ms 
chances.  With  all  the  Whig  talk  of  assassination  going  around,  the 

176 


wonder  is  be  was  not  shot  down  by  his  enemies  or  mashed  to  death  by 
Ms  friends.9 

Behind  the  surface  glitter  of  these  forma!  receptions  for  important 
diplomats,  dashing  noblemen,  bejeweled  ladies,  and  brocaded  officers 
stood  the  harsh  fact  that  the  Tyler  family  was,  as  usual,  in  serious 
financial  difficulty  during  the  White  House  years.  Tyler  was  not  a  poor 
man,  but  the  social  obligations  of  his  office  created  financial  demands 
well  above  the  capacities  of  a  Virginia  lawyer  and  planter.  Money, 
or  the  lack  of  it,  was  a  constant  concern.  When  Priscilla  on  one 
occasion  saw  Madame  Bodisco  magnificently  attired  in  a  pink  satin 
and  lace  dress,  her  throat  ail  but  hidden  by  "splendid  diamonds,"  she 
could  say  of  the  magnificent  stones  that  she  "really  envied  them,  not  for 
their  luster  but  for  their  value.  Mary  Fairlie's  education  might  be 
purchased  by  them/' 10 

Thanks  to  a  politically  vindictive  Congress,  the  sums  normally 
appropriated  for  the  upkeep  of  the  President's  Mansion  were  not  forth- 
coming. As  a  result,  the  President  himself  bore  much  of  the  cost  of  the 
lighting,  heating,  and  essential  maintenance  of  the  establishment  out  of 
Ms  own  pocket.  And  since  his  pockets  were  scarcely  overflowing,  the 
New  York  Herald  in  November  1844  could  correctly  say  of  the  WMte 
House  that 

TMs  building  bears  the  name  of  the  "White  House" ;  but,  alas !  how  changed 
since  the  days  of  yore:  its  virgin  wMte  sadly  sullied — its  beautiful  pillars 
disgustingly  besplattered  with  saliva  of  tobacco — its  halls  deserted  by  day — 
and  gloomily  illuminated  triweekly  by  night — the  gorgeous  East  Room  re- 
flecting, from  its  monstrous  mirrors,  patched  carpets,  the  penury  of  "Uncle 
Samuel" — and  the  three  inch  stumps  of  wax  lights  in  the  sockets  of  mag- 
nificent chandeliers,  attesting  to  the  rigid  economy  observed  by  its  present 
possessors — the  splendid  drapery  falling  in  tatters  all  around  time's  rude 
hand,  the  fingers  of  visitors  having  made  sad  havoc  with  their  silken  folds.11 

The  furniture  also  deteriorated  during  Tyler's  tenure  of  office.  It 
was,  said  F.  W.  Thomas,  the  New  York  Herald's  irate  WasMngton 
correspondent,  "a  disgrace — a  contemptible  disgrace  to  the  nation. 
Many  of  the  chairs  in  the  East  Room  would  be  kicked  out  of  a  brotheL" 
Even  when  Gardiner  money  was  added  to  the  President's  modest  re- 
sources in  1844  it  was  spent  on  more  opulent  entertaining  rather  than 
on  needed  refurbishing.  Tyler,  of  course,  had  no  private  funds  for 
renovating  or  reupholstering  the  mangy  furniture.  The  cost  of  food 
alone  was  a  burden  to  Mm.  "I  am  heartily  tired  of  the  grocers  here 
who  exact  extravagant  prices  for  everytMng,"  he  complained.  So  high 
was  the  relative  cost  of  living  in  Washington  that  he  was  ultimately 
reduced  to  ordering  groceries  in  wholesale  lots  and  at  wholesale  prices 
from  New  York  and  from  his  relatives  in  Charles  City.12 

Additional  demands  witMn  the  family  circle  increased  the  Presi- 

177 


dent's  numerous  financial  burdens.  Thomas  A.  Cooper,  Priscilla's  father, 
was  given  a  patronage  position,  that  of  military  storekeeper  at  the 
Frankford,  Pennsylvania,  Arsenal.  This  prevented  him  from  becoming 
entirely  dependent  upon  the  Tylers,  but  the  prodigal  old  actor  would 
not  or  could  not  make  ends  meet  on  the  pay  of  an  Army  captain.  The 
standard  of  living  he  furnished  those  of  Priscilla's  younger  sisters  still 
at  home  was  so  marginal  that  she  was  forced  to  invite  them  to  the 
White  House  for  frequent  and  extended  visits  to  keep  them  from  going 
hungry.  Tyler  accepted  this  added  cost  of  running  the  Mansion  with- 
out complaint.  Nonetheless,  he  attempted  to  ease  his  financial  situation 
by  appointing  his  son  Robert  to  a  fifteen-hundred-dollar-a-year  posi- 
tion in  the  United  States  Land  Office.  At  no  time  did  the  financially 
harassed  President  consider  the  appointment  of  Tom  Cooper  or  Robert 
Tyler  as  nepotistic  raids  on  the  public  treasury.  Their  patronage  posi- 
tions were  absolute  economic  necessities  to  the  family.13 

To  the  Gardiners  and  to  the  American  public  in  general  nothing 
of  this  constant  financial  concern  ever  appeared  on  the  surface.  The 
Tylers  graciously  played  their  expected  social  roles  in  the  White  House 
without  giving  outward  signs  of  the  scrimping  that  was  always  going 
on  within  the  bosom  of  the  family.  Nor  did  Tyler  give  any  indication  of 
his  despair  as  he  watched  Letitia  die.  Instead,  he  buried  himself  in  his 
work,  arising  at  sunrise  and  remaining  at  his  desk  without  break  until 
3:30  P.M.  After  a  midafternoon  family  dinner  he  returned  to  his  desk 
until  dusk.  Interviews,  social  functions,  and  more  desk  work  occupied 
the  evening  hours  until  he  retired  at  ten  o'clock.  It  was  a  punishing 
schedule.  Abandoned  by  many  of  his  old  friends,  castigated  by  his 
political  enemies,  pilloried  in  the  press,  threatened  with  assassination, 
John  Tyler  was  faced  with  the  varied  emotional  and  physical  pressures 
of  an  administration  in  crisis,  a  wife  who  was  dying,  and  a  personal 
life  of  financial  discomfort.  It  is  not  surprising  that  he  often  searched 
for  solace  in  frantic  attention  to  his  official  duties. 

When  there  were  few  duties  to  perform,  or  when  his  desk  was 
momentarily  clear,  he  turned  to  correspondence  with  his  children.  This 
was  something  in  the  nature  of  therapy,  and  it  served  to  bring  father 
and  daughters  closer  together  during  the  months  preceding  and  follow- 
ing Letitia's  death.  Thus  on  one  occasion  he  urged  daughter  Mary 
not  to  concern  herself  with  the  vicious  anti-Tylerism  that  spilled  over 
and  threatened  to  engulf  all  the  members  of  the  family.  "Never  give 
a  thought  to  them,"  he  advised  her  of  his  political  critics.  "They  are 
entirely  unworthy  of  giving  you  the  slightest  concern ...  go  along  as  if 
they  did  not  exist.  In  that  way  you  obtain  mastery  over  them."  14 

There  were,  of  course,  light  and  happy  moments  within  the  family 
circle  during  1841-1843,  although  they  were  relatively  few.  One  of  these 
was  the  White  House  wedding  of  Elizabeth  Tyler  to  William  Nevison 
Waller  of  Williamsburg  on  January  31,  1842.  Save  for  the  presence  of 


Dolley  Madison,  members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  a  few  Intimate  friends, 
it  was  a  family  affair.  It  marked  the  only  occasion  Letitia-  emerged 
from  her  sickroom  to  make  an  appearance  downstairs  in  the  President's 
Mansion.  Tyler  knew  little  about  young  Waller.  But  he  approved 
the  match  on  learning  that  the  prospective  bridegroom  was  an  "artless, 
unsophisticated,  generous,  honorable  man  of  pure  and  sound  prin- 
ciples— ardent  and  affectionate  in  his  attachment  to  all  his  Relatives." 
He  would,  in  sum,  make  a  good  husband.  Lizzie  looked  "surpassingly 
beautiful''  on  her  wedding  day,  "lovely  in  her  wedding  dress  and  long 
blond-lace  veil;  her  face  literally  covered  with  blushes  and  dimples." 
The  affair  pleased  everyone.15 

When  Letitia  finally  died  on  September  10,  1842,  the  White  House 
was  plunged  into  the  deepest  gloom.  Priscilla  had  gone  to  New  York 
for  a  brief  visit  with  her  sister  and  Letitia,  sensing  that  she  was  dying, 
hurriedly  sent  Robert  north  to  bring  her  home.  They  both  arrived  back 
in  Washington  too  late.  "My  poor  husband  suffered  dreadfully  when 
he  was  told  that  Mother's  eyes  were  constantly  turned  to  the  door 
watching  for  him/7  Priscilla  agonized.  "Nothing  can  exceed  the  loneli- 
ness of  this  large  and  gloomy  mansion,  hung  with  black,  its  walls^ 
echoing  with  sighs."  In  the  words  of  the  Washington  Intelligencer, 
Letitia  Christian  Tyler  was  "loving  and  confiding  to  her  husband,  gentle 
and  affectionate  to  her  children,  kind  and  charitable  to  the  needy 
and  afflicted."  Few  obituaries  have  been  so  accurate.  She  was  sorely 
missed.16 

Crushed  by  grief,  the  President  plunged  himself  even  more  vigor- 
ously into  the  everyday  duties  of  his  exacting  office,  into  his  Texas 
idea,  and  into  his  third-party  plan.  When  the  Gardiners  returned  to 
Washington  in  December  1842  for  their  second  season  in  the  capital 
they  found  the  somber  household  in  deep  mourning.  Priscilla  gave  no 
parties.  Instead,  she  invited  Julia  and  Margaret  to  the  White  House  for 
a  "quiet  whist  game,77  and  to  help  roll  back  the  surrounding  gloom  she 
implored  Julia  on  one  occasion  to  "bring  her  guitar  with  her."  17  *v 

Following  the  death  of  his  wife  Tyler  increasingly  concerned  him- 
self with  the  life  he  would  lead  after  his  departure  from  the  White 
House.  Letitia  3s  terminal  illness  turned  his  thoughts  more  positively  to 
his  eventual  retirement  and  in  the  fall  of  1842,  after  she  was  buried,  he 
purchased  from  his  neighbor,  Collier  Minge,  for  $10,000,  the  property 
in  Charles  City  County  known  as  Walnut  Grove.  It  was  located  within 
two  miles  of  Greenway,  the  old  Tyler  estate  where  the  President  had 
lived  as  a  boy.  No  sooner  had  the  purchase  been  effected  than  Tyler  be- 
gan extensive  remodeling  and  expansion.  No  detail  of  this  architectural 
transformation  escaped  his  interest.  It  was  a  good  diversion  for  him  from 
his  grief,  although  the  added  financial  burden  was  a  great  one.  The  loca- 
tion of  rooms,  the  construction  of  chimneys,  the  pitch  of  stairways  all 
captured  his  attention.  Plans,  sketches,  drawings,  and  suggestions  were 

179 


sent  regularly  to  the  site.  By  early  1843  Tyler  had  renamed  the  property 

Sherwood  Forest  in  whimsical  reference  to  his  outlaw  status  in  the  Whig 
Party.  He  loved  the  place  from  the  beginning,  and  during  his  courtship 
of  Julia  in  1843  his  letters  to  her  were  filled  with  word-pictures  of  the 
emerging  beauty  of  the  estate,  the  magnificent  view  of  the  James  River 
from  his  lawn,  and  his  plans  for  the  continued  expansion  and  improve- 
ment of  the  plantation.18 

Such  was  the  situation  at  the  White  House  and  in  the  personal  life 
of  John  Tyler  when  the  Gardiner  family  arrived  in  Washington  again 
on  Sunda3r,  December  4,  1842,  occupied  their  chambers  at  Mrs.  Peyton's 
boardinghouse,  and  began  preparations  for  the  coming  season.  The  fol- 
lowing Wednesday,  James  Keating,  a  servant  brought  along  from  East 
Hampton  for  the  campaign,  carried  the  Gardiners'  cards  to  the  White 
House,  to  the  homes  of  all  the  Cabinet  members,  and  to  the  residences 
of  New  York  friends  and  acquaintances  known  to  be  in  town.  This  was 
accepted  etiquette  and  little  could  be  expected  to  happen  until  these 
small  billboards  had  been  posted  around  the  city.19 

Within  a  week  Mrs.  Peyton's  parlor  was  filled  with  callers  who  came 
to  welcome  the  Gardiners.  Among  the  first  to  pay  their  respects  were 
General  and  Mrs.  John  P.  Van  Ness,  Secretary  of  State  and  Mrs.  Daniel 
Webster,  Jessica  Benton3  congressmen  James  I.  Roosevelt  and  John 
McKeon  of  New  York,  Senator  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
Richard  R.  Waldron,  the  young  naval  officer  from  New  Hampshire. 
Julia  thought  James  Buchanan  particularly  engaging.  Not  only  was  he 
"a  candidate  for  the  presidency/3  he  was  also  "a  young  bachelor  of  50 
...  a  great  beau  among  the  young  ladies ;  one  of  the  first  families  and 
very  *  wealthy."  At  the  ripe  old  age  of  fifty  James  Buchanan  was  ob- 
viously too  ancient  for  Julia,  who  was  much  more  titillated  by  the  atten- 
tions again  paid  her  by  young  Waldron.  A  protege  of  New  Hampshire 
Senator  Levi  P.  Woodbury,  he  had  sailed  with  the  famous  Wilkes  Ex- 
pedition. He  was  a  man  of  charm  and  intelligence,  widely  traveled  and 
well  read.  Without  too  much  encouragement  from  Julia's  ever-flirtatious 
eyes,  Richard  Waldron  again  volunteered  for  the  happy  shore  duty  of 
escorting  the  Gardiners  about  town.20 

In  some  respects  life  at  Mrs.  Peyton's  house  was  not  satisfactory. 
While  the  family  could  take  their  meals  in  their  own  rooms  (the  obliging 
James  Keating  carrying  the  steaming  dishes  up  from  the  kitchen),  they 
were  forced  to  use  the  downstairs  public  parlor  to  entertain  their  neigh- 
bors and  callers.  Julia  and  Margaret  considered  this  a  wonderful  arrange- 
ment. "There  are  quite  a  large  number  of  gentlemen  boarders/'  Julia  ex- 
plained. But  Juliana  was  not  so  sure.  "Society  here  is  a  strange  medley 
when  you  come  to  analyze  it,"  she  informed  her  sons  in  New  York. 
"Many  are  introduced  and  called  that  we  know  nothing  about  except  the 
names  and  dare  not  ask  lest  exceptions  should  be  taken  to  the  question. 

i  So 


In  company  yon  must  be  as  civil  to  one  as  another  and  dance  with  those 
who  ask  first  without  respect  to  persons  otherwise  you  will  make  enemies 
enough.  Pride  must  be  laid  aside  as  liberty  and  equality  and  true 
democracy  prevail  and  make  no  mistake."  21 

Julia  and  Margaret  were  quite  willing  to  lay  aside  as  much  pride  as 
the  situation  demanded.  They  enjoyed  nightly  whist  games  in  the  parlor 
with  their  visitors  and  fellow  boarders,  and  they  enthusiastically  joined 
in  the  spontaneous  Informal  dances  which  developed  when  Mrs.  Peyton 
engaged  a  violinist  for  an  evening's  entertainment.  "These  little  dances 
are  kept  a  profound  secret  so  that  none  may  go  In  but  the  boarders  and 
their  friends/5  Julia  reported.  She  found  them  "perfectly  delightful"  If 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  "I  had  more  than  half  the  beaux  In  the 
room  surrounding  me  all  the  while."  Occasionally  Julia  would  produce 
her  guitar  and  sing.  The  common  parlor  thus  provided  excellent  oppor- 
tunities to  see  and  be  seen.  Clear  weather  permitted  casual  promenades 
on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  afforded  still  another  means  of  social  ex- 
posure, as  did  regular  appearances  in  the  galleries  of  the  House  or 
Senate.  Senator  Gardiner  enjoyed  the  high-level  political  conversation  in 
the  parlor  with  the  "influential  politicians"  who  resided  at  Peyton's, 
particularly  with  Duff  Green  of  South  Carolina,  formerly  a  prominent 
Jacksonian,  now  a  Tyler  partisan.22 

Nevertheless,  from  a  purely  social  standpoint  Mrs.  Peyton's  estab- 
lishment was  not  adequate,  especially  after  Julia's  name  was  romanti- 
cally linked  with  John  Tyler's.  The  crush  of  callers  became  so  great  by 
kte  January  1843  that  the  Gardiners  were  obliged  to  engage  an  addi- 
tional room  which  they  used  as  a  private  parlor.  This  enabled  the  family 
to  return  their  social  obligations  with  a  bit  more  style.  "We  did  not  find 
the  public  parlor  as  pleasant  as  we  anticipated/7  Margaret  finally  ex- 
plained to  her  brothers.  "The  ladles  not  as  agreeable,  the  company  not  as 
select!'  The  change  also  afforded  the  Senator  some  privacy.  The  addi- 
tional room  did  not,  however,  solve  the  noise  problem.  The  walls  were  so 
thin  at  the  boardinghouse  that  Julia  and  Margaret  were  "sometimes 
regaled"  with  the  activities  and  conversations  of  the  gentlemen  in  the 
adjoining  rooms.  While  this  unintentional  eavesdropping  undoubtedly 
provided  certain  educational  advantages  for  the  girls,  it  was  distract- 
ing.23 

Nor,  after  some  contact,  did  the  family  find  all  the  male  boarders 
at  Peyton's  socially  eligible — or  available.  Maxwell  Woodhill,  a  young 
naval  officer  from  New  Jersey,  owned  property  enough,  but  he  was  fright- 
fully ugly  and,  more  relevant,  he  was  about  to  be  married.  "You  cannot 
conceive  the  horrors  of  his  visage!"  exclaimed  Julia,  writing  him  off  as  a 
hopeless  case.  John  Haines  of  South  Carolina  was  a  well-traveled  young 
man  who  played  a  good  hand  of  whist,  but  Margaret's  determination  to 
charm  him  by  being  "very  insinuating"  came  to  nought.  He  soon  left 
town,  anyway.  Too  bad.  He  had  been  entertained  in  some  of  the  best 

181 


castles  in  France  and  England  and  was,  thought  Juliana,  "a  perfect  little 
gentleman/'  although  he  was  small,  asthmatic,  and  he  sniffled.  Colonel 
Thomas  Delage  Sumter,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  Peyton  resident  all 
the  Gardiners  liked  instantly.  His  many  services  to  them  the  season 
before  were  gratefully  remembered.  The  thirty-three-year-old  West 
Point  graduate  and  South  Carolina  congressman  was  an  obliging  escort 
on  many  occasions.24 

Some  of  the  young  lady  boarders  at  Peyton's  were  predatory  and 
otherwise  ill-behaved  by  Juliana's  puritanical  lights.  Ruth  Woodbury, 
daughter  of  Senator  Levi  Woodbury  of  New  Hampshire,  for  example, 
was  jealous  of  the  attention  paid  Julia  and  Margaret,  and  they  in  turn 
thought  her  "not  very  refined."  She  attended  rowdy  parties  at  the  homes 
of  various  Locofoco  Democrats,  a  political  species  well  beneath  the 
contempt  of  the  Gardiners,  and  she  tried  to  "monopolize  the  beau  [x] " 
in  the  Peyton  parlor.  In  addition,  she  had  numerous  gentleman  callers, 
so  many  that  Julia  and  her  sister  "never  knew  who  called  to  see  us  and 
who  the  W[oodbury]s,"  The  private-parlor  arrangement  finally  solved 
this  dilemma.25 

Refined  or  not,  Miss  Woodbury  was  not  considered  wanton  by  the 
Gardiners.  That  dubious  honor  was  accorded  solely  to  Miss  Sarah  Low 
of  New  York.  She  and  her  merchant  father  had  rooms  at  Mrs.  Peyton's 
and  when  Low  was  called  back  to  New  York  on  business,  often  for  sev- 
eral weeks  at  a  time,  it  was  his  practice  to  leave  his  daughter  in  the 
charge  and  care  of  his  friend,  Representative  Thomas  Butler  King  of 
Georgia.  King,  however,  was  soon  observed  to  be  "carrying  on  such  a 
desperate  flirtation"  with  the  lady  that  "very  few  gentlemen  pay  her 
much  attention."  Since  King  had  a  wife  and  seven  children  at  home, 
and  because  Miss  Low  was  of  "low  origin"  (her  father  had  once  kept  a 
needle-and-thread  shop  in  New  York  City),  Juliana  naturally  assumed 
the  worst.  The  King-Low  relationship  raised  a  "great  talk"  in  Washing- 
ton, so  great  in  fact  that  the  Gardiners  were  determined  to  have  "nothing 
to  do  with  her."  More  than  that,  they  shunned  anyone  who  maintained 
social  contact  with  the  lowbrow  Lows.  Those  who  conformed  to  the 
Gardiner  boycott  of  the  much-gossiped-about  New  Yorkers,  like  Colonel 
Sumter,  were  thought  to  possess  great  "penetration  in  having  a  respect 
and  admiration  for  us  and  hatred  of  Miss  Low."  Even  Mrs.  Peyton 
ultimately  got  revenge  for  the  odium  brought  upon  her  establishment 
by  the  Lows.  She  sharply  overcharged  them  for  their  stay.26 

The  alleged  indiscretions  of  Congressman  King  and  the  New  York 
belle  were  among  the  subjects  discussed  excitedly  behind  fans  in  the 
galleries  of  the  House  and  Senate.  The  Gardiner  girls  frequently  at- 
tended the  congressional  debates,  not  so  much  to  listen  to  the  death 
rattles  of  the  Tyler  administration  as  to  be  seen  and  to  exchange  the 
social  patter  of  the  day.  Actually,  there  was  not  much  worth  hearing  on 
Capitol  Hill.  The  lame-duck  session  of  the  Twenty-seventh  Congress 

182 


was  a  dreary  affair,  devoid  of  political  significance  and  interest.  Never- 
theless, Julia's  visits  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  were 
mystifying  experiences.  "I  was  about  as  wise  when  the  speaker  finished 
as  to  who  voted  upon  either  side  as  when  he  commenced,"  she  com- 
mented on  one  occasion.  She  was  intrigued,  however,  by  the  appearance 
and  the  forensic  energy  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Henry  A.  Wise. 
"They  are  unsparing  in  tender  epithets,"  she  remarked,  "and  I  under- 
stand nothing  but  the  age  of  Mr.  Adams  prevents  them  at  times  coming 
to  blows  on  the  floor.  Mr.  A  [dams]  has  the  reputation  of  professing 
every  sense  but  Common  Sense  and  the  persona!  appearance  of  Mr.  Wise 
I  think  vastly  unprepossessing."  2T 

Margaret  agreed  that  the  debates  were  dull  and  the  excited  ex- 
changes on  the  floor  transparently  contrived.  She  found  only  Caleb 
Cushing  to  her  liking.  At  forty- two ,  the  tall,  handsome  congressman  from 
Massachusetts  was  "mild  and  agreeable/'  with  a  voice  "manly  and 
distinct."  She  was  impressed  that  Cushing  "does  not  allow  himself  to 
become  excited  like  Wise  who  looks  as  if  he  had  one  foot  in  the  grave." 
After  she  met  Cushing  socially,  however ,  she  decided  he  had  a  "hand- 
some face  but  bad  figure,  and  is  very  awkward  in  company."  It  sur- 
prised her,  therefore,  to  hear  the  rumor  that  the  maladroit  Mr.  Cush- 
ing was  engaged  to  a  Baltimore  belle,  "rich  and  thirty."  When  the  rumor 
proved  false,  Julia  moved  in  herself  for  a  casual  flirtation  with  Cushing. 
In  return  for  singing  him  a  song,  she  received  a  sonnet  from  him — "a 
fair  exchange,"  she  termed  it.  She  found  him  very  personable  and  quite 
brilliant,  "the  most  studious  member  in  the  House  . . .  high  on  the  road 
to  fame — a  widower  with  no  children."  He  would  do.  Not  so  Henry  A. 
Wise,  the  homely  Virginian.  While  Margaret  discovered  that  Wise  was 
"quite  disposed  to  have  a  flirtation"  his  face  was  "as  wrinkled  as  an  old 
man's  of  seventy  and  he  looks  as  if  he  had  actually  worn  himself  out." 
The  thirty-six-year-old  Wise  was  scarcely  worn  out.  Twenty-two  years 
later  he  was  energetically  commanding  the  Confederate  defenses  at 
Petersburg.  He  lived  until  1876.  Appearances  could  be  deceiving.28 

When  the  debates  were  not  actually  boring  to  the  sisters,  they  were 
incomprehensible.  Julia  had  no  luck  whatever  following  the  exchanges 
on  the  resolution  to  repeal  the  Bankruptcy  Act  of  1842;  and  Margaret 
had  too  little  background  in  American  history  to  make  much  sense  of 
the  Senate  debate  on  a  motion  to  end  the  joint  Anglo-American  occupa- 
tion of  Oregon.  She  was  impressed  only  with  the  fact  that  Senator 
George  McDuffie  of  South  Carolina  spoke  humorously  and  eloquently  on 
the  Oregon  question  while  holding  himself  painfully  upright  at  the  side 
of  his  chair  "owing  to  his  having  received  a  ball  in  a  duel  which  has 
never  been  extracted."  29 

To  counteract  their  boredom  and  their  ignorance  of  the  political 
issues  of  the  day,  Julia  and  Margaret  chatted  with  congressmen  who 
circulated  in  the  galleries  while  the  debates  dragged  on  below.  Repre- 

183 


sentatives  Cushing?  Edmund  W.  Hubard  of  Virginia,  Ira  A.  Eastman  of 
New  Hampshire,  Richard  D.  Davis  of  New  York,  and  Francis  Marion 
Ward  of  New  York  frequently  made  their  way  to  the  side  of  the  Gardiner 
sisters  to  exchange  pleasantries  while  "the  orators  of  the  day  . . .  jumped 
and  screamed  and  perspired  and  foamed  and  as  usual  made  much  ado 
about  nothing.''  If  the  lawmakers  were  too  busy  to  pass  the  time  of  day 
in  gallery  gossip.  Purser  Waldron  could  always  be  counted  upon  to  pro- 
duce an  admiring  coterie  of  young  naval  officers  to  surround  and  amuse 
the  ladies.  For  Julia  and  Margaret  the  House  gallery  became  a  virtual 
reception  parlor  for  their  friends  and  acquaintances.  It  was  a  pleasant 
place  to  pass  a  "delightful  morning."  The  social  advantages  were  obvious 
even  if  they  learned  little  about  the  American  political  process.  When 
Congress  adjourned  on  the  evening  of  March  3,  1843,  and  ladies  were 
admitted  directly  to  the  floor  of  the  House  for  the  first  time  in  many 
years,  Julia  and  Margaret  were  conspicuously  present.  Taking  seats  near 
that  of  their  friend  Representative  Thomas  F.  Marshall  of  Kentucky, 
the  girls  soon  "had  no  less  than  twenty-one  gentlemen"  clustered 
around  them.  These  included  Representative  Francis  W.  Pickens  of 
South  Carolina  and  Supreme  Court  Justice  John  McLean  of  Ohio,  both 
of  whom  were  desperately  in  love  with  Julia  at  this  time.  In  spite  of  the 
romantic  distractions  Margaret  reported  that  the  "admittance  of  the 
Ladies  to  the  floor . . .  kept  the  house  in  excellent  order."  30 

These  occasional  visits  to  the  House  and  Senate  gallery  produced 
great  social  dividends.  Within  a  month  of  the  Gar  diners7  arrival  in  the 
capital  the  Peyton  parlor  was  filled  with  congressmen  and  senators  who 
came  to  flirt,  dance,  and  play  whist  with  the  young  ladies  from  East 
Hampton.  By  December  16  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Herald  could  write  of  Julia,  much  to  her  delight,  that 

. . .  the  beautiful  and  accomplished  Miss  Gardner  \_sic\  of  Long  Island,  one 
of  the  loveliest  women  in  the  United  States,  is  in  the  city,  and  was  the 
"observed  of  all  observers"  during  her  promenade  on  the  avenue  today.  She 
had  a  very  distinguished  escort  from  the  Capitol  to  her  residence  after  the 
adjournment,  of  members  of  the  House,  grave  Senators  not  too  old  to  feel 
the  power  of  youth  and  beauty,  Judges,  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  all 
vieing  [sic]  with  each  other  to  do  homage  to  the  influence  of  her  charms. 

This  flattering  notice  produced  a  decided  "sensation"  among  the  fash- 
ionables in  New  York  City — or  so  brother  David  Lyon  reported.31 

In  spite  of  her  exposure  to  Washington's  sophisticated  political  set, 
Julia's  political  views  remained  naive  and  superficial.  To  be  sure,  Mad- 
ame Chagaray's  quaint  curriculum  had  ill  prepared  her  to  wrestle  with 
the  subtle  intricacies  of  fiscal  and  foreign-policy  legislation;  but  maneu- 
verings  of  various  hopefuls  for  the  Presidential  succession  were  not 
subtle.  Julia  nonetheless  exhibited  nearly  total  ignorance  of  this  phase 
of  the  political  life  of  the  capital.  Her  candidate  for  the  White  House 

184 


in  1844  was  Invariably  the  last  aspirant  she  had  spoken  or  danced 
with.  First  it  was  Buchanan.  After  meeting  Senator  Ben  ton  at  a  Christ- 
mas Eve  party  she  came  out  enthusiastically  for  "Old  Bullion.*'  For  a 
brief  week  In  mid-December  she  was  for  "Capt.  Tyler."  This  endorse- 
ment she  soon  shifted  to  the  urbane  John  C.  Calhoun.  When  Calhoun 
heard  JiiHa  had  "nominated17  him  he  was  amused  and  flattered  to  the 
extent  of  hurrying  around  to  Peyton's  to  pay  his  respects  to  such  a  lovely 
and  politically  perceptive  lady.32 

Richard  Waldron  agreed  with  Calhoun's  analysis  of  Julia's  charm- 
ing qualities,  but  from  motives  indicating  that  he  was  In  love  with  the 
young  woman  from  Long  Island.  He  had  squired  her  about  town  the 
previous  season,  it  will  be  recalled.  She  had  enjoyed  Ms  company  and 
had  appreciated  Ms  social  usefulness.  But  that  was  as  far  as  their  rela- 
tionsMp  had  gone.  Waldron  was  a  youth  of  twenty-three  who  had  fol- 
lowed the  sea  since  the  age  of  fourteen.  In  June  1837  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed midshipman  In  the  United  States  Navy,  and  In  January  1840  he 
had  been  aboard  the  frigate  Vincennes  when  she  attempted  to  put  an 
exploring  party  ashore  In  Antarctica.  He  was  a  fine  seaman  and  an 
interesting  person  and  he  had  a  wealth  of  stories  to  tell.  By  December 
1842  he  had  decided  he  would  like  to  marry  Julia  and  he  launched  a 
serious  romantic  campaign  to  that  end. 

Waldron's  whole  approach,  however,  was  boyish  and  unsopMsti- 
cated.  Perhaps  he  had  been  too  long  at  sea.  In  any  event,  his  endeavor 
of  the  heart  turned  on  introducing  Julia  to  important  and  interesting 
people  In  Washington.  It  was  an  attempt  to  overwhelm  a  small-town  girl. 
Among  these  notables  was  Prince  TImoleo  Haolllio  of  Hawaii — "Tim- 
othy Hallelujah,"  Julia  called  Mm — who  was  briefly  in  the  capital  in 
December  1842  for  the  purpose  of  alerting  the  Tyler  administration  to 
the  Machiavellian  designs  of  the  French  on  the  Sandwich  Islands.  He 
also  discussed  with  Tyler  the  possibilities  of  Hawaiian  annexation  to  the 
United  States.  AccompaMed  by  a  dour  American  missionary  who  served 
as  Ms  interpreter,  Prince  HaoMHo  was  a  unique  visitor  to  the  city  and 
he  was  much  sought  after  socially.  Waldron  had  met  the  Prince  In  the 
islands  wMle  attached  to  the  Wilkes  Expedition,  and  it  was  quite  a 
coup  for  Mm  to  be  able  to  bring  "Hallelujah"  to  Peyton's  parlor  to  meet 
young  Julia.  She  was  Impressed.  "His  complexion  is  about  as  dark  as  a 
negro,33  she  reported,  "but  with  Indian  hair  though  at  a  distance  being 
short  and  tMck  it  seems  the  true  wool.  He  was  in  an  undress  military 
uniform  and  Ms  manners  were  modest  and  graceful — quite  the  man  of 
the  world  in  comparison  with  Ms  Interpreter."  33 

Continuing  to  employ  the  travelogue  route  to  Julia's  heart,  Waldron 
escorted  her  to  the  Patent  Office  to  see  the  collection  of  curiosities 
brought  home  by  Captain  Charles  Wilkes.  Again  Julia  was  Impressed, 
but  Waldron's  gesture  was  like  that  of  a  small  boy  showing  a  little  girl 
Ms  pet  caterpillar.  "The  scalp  of  the  Fijee  [sic]  cannibal  who  was 


brought  to  this  country  is  there  exhibited — his  head  must  have  been 
three  times  the  size  of  an  ordinary  man.  A  perfect  Cyclops!"  she  ex- 
claimed. Since  Waldron  had  had  an  island  in  the  Fiji  group  named  for 
Mm,  he  was  understandably  partial  to  this  particular  exhibit. 

Somewhat  more  conventionally,  Waldron  danced  with  Julia  at  the 
Peyton  parlor  informals?  sent  her  flowers,  dropped  in  for  evening  whist 
games,  escorted  her  to  the  Assembly  balls,  and  made  himself  generally 
useful  to  Julia's  father  in  arranging  his  invitations  to  the  White  House. 
"I  'opened  the  ball'  with  Mr.  Waldron,"  Julia  wrote  of  one  of  the  small 
dances  at  Peyton's.  "Mr.  W.  has  it  in  his  power  to  be  very  useful.  He 
is  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  people  of  influence  here,  particu- 
larly with  the  President's  family  and  the  Websters." 

Waldron  was  useful — and  he  was  used.  He  was  genuinely  in  love 
with  Julia,  and  it  was  unkind  of  her  to  say  of  him  after  her  return  to 
East  Hampton  in  March  1843  that  he  had  been  "very  presuming";  that 
his  continued  pursuit  of  her  after  her  connection  with  Tyler  had  become 
general  knowledge  was  designed  merely  "to  make  himself  of  some  im- 
portance— nothing  like  the  cunning  of  a  New  Hampshire  Yankee!" 
Waldron,  it  would  seem,  was  never  in  serious  contention,  a  fact  it  took 
him  some  time  to  discover.  Nevertheless,  Juliana  liked  him  and  she 
encouraged  his  attentions  to  Julia.  At  one  point,  in  December  1842,  she 
was  fairly  certain  that  "an  engagement"  to  Julia  was  in  the  offing.34 

Less  seriously  in  contention  than  Waldron  was  Representative 
Richard  D.  Davis  of  Saratoga  County,  New  York.  "Old  Davis,"  as  Julia 
dubbed  him,  was  a  creaky  forty-three  (Julia  spoke  of  him  as  an  "in- 
vincible old  bachelor  of  50!")  but  still  spry  enough  to  follow  her  around 
like  a  frisky  bird  dog.  He  pursued  her  relentlessly  at  the  informal  little 
dances  in  Peyton's  parlor.  His  attentions  embarrassed  Julia  greatly, 
although  the  other  congressmen  who  attended  the  affairs  laughingly  en- 
couraged Davis  in  his  eager  quest.  "His  deferential  manner  of  approach- 
ing me  is  the  greatest  source  of  amusement,"  Julia  complained.  "One 
would  think  he  was  addressing  a  Goddess."  Still,  the  practical  Juliana 
thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  "make  particular  inquiries  concern- 
ing him  as  he  has  the  reputation  here  of  being  very  wealthy.'7  One  had 
to  be  sure  of  such  things.  Alexander  was  thus  commissioned  to  run  a 
confidential  Dun  &  Bradstreet  on  Richard  D.  Davis.  While  this  was  in 
progress  Representative  Davis  became  the  bane  of  Julia's  existence.  No 
sooner  would  she  take  her  seat  in  the  House  gallery  than  the  homely 
New  Yorker  would  leave  the  floor  and  appear  at  her  side.  "I  was  bored 
to  death  —  by  old  Davis,"  she  protested  on  one  occasion.  "I  wish  him 
in  Africa  a  hundred  times."  It  became  a  joke  among  other  congressmen 
on  the  floor  to  see  Davis  scurry  up  to  the  gallery  to  talk  to  Julia  when- 
ever she  attended  the  debates.  One  day  when  she  appeared  in  the  House 
wearing  a  lavishly  plumed  hat,  designed  something  on  the  order  of  a 
frightened  flamingo,  Davis,  as  usual,  departed  his  legislative  station  and 

186 


headed  for  the  gallery.  A  few  minutes  later  the  ayes  and  nays  were  taken 
on  a  minor  bill.  "Mr.  Davis?"  Intoned  the  teller.  No  answer.  "Mr. 
Davis?"  he  repeated.  At  this  point  all  eyes  turned  to  the  gallery.  There 
was  Davis  chatting  with  Julia,  her  untamed  hat  nearly  covering  both  of 
them.  £kMr.  Speaker/'  said  Representative  Roosevelt,  "Mr.  Davis  has 
gone  to  the  gallery  to  study  horticulture."  This  produced  much  merri- 
ment in  the  chamber,  and  for  Julia  much  embarrassment.  Snubbing  the 
gentleman  produced  no  relief  from  his  unwanted  attentions.  As  Margaret 
explained  the  problem  to  her  brothers: 

On  Wednesday  evening  we  had  a  little  dance  in  the  Parlour,  in  which  as 
luck  would  have  it  (Davis  said)  he  was  a  participator,  and  danced  with 
Julia  and  I  \sic\ .  She  put  Mm  off  three  cotillions,  but  he  very  quietly  waited. 
We  understand  he  says  he  cannot  sleep  at  night  from  excess  of  love  and 
having  inquired  about  our  family,  with  a  satisfactory  result,  intends  popping 
the  question.  The  requisites  are  beauty,  riches?  youth,  and  family,  in  return 
for  which  he  offers  a  rabbit  face,  with  one  foot  of  shirt-collar,  comical  figure, 
tu'o  front  teeth,  and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  I  am  sure  it  will  kill  you, 
to  witness  Ms  movements  in  the  dance.  He  created  a  fund  of  merriment  among 
the  gentlemen. 

If  Davis  ever  did  "pop  the  question"  the  fact  is  not  a  matter  of  record. 
It  can  be  safely  asserted,  however,  that  Julia  demanded  more  in  a  hus- 
band than  a  rabbit  face  and  two  front  teeth,  even  when  the  deal  included 
"two  hundred  thousand  dollars."  35 

Representative  Francis  W.  Pickens  did  ask  for  Julia's  hand.  He  was 
a  handsome,  cultured,  wealthy  plantation  owner  from  Edgefield,  South 
Carolina.  At  thirty-seven  he  was  already  a  nationally  prominent  states7 
rights  legislator  and  a  leader  of  the  Calhoun  faction  in  the  House.  His 
principal  drawback,  as  the  Gardiners  collectively  assessed  him,  was  that 
he  was  a  widower  with  four  children.  That  Tyler  was  a  widower  with 
seven  children  would  later  seem  not  quite  so  important.  Whether  Julia 
seriously  considered  Pickens  as  a  prospective  husband  cannot  be  deter- 
mined with  certainty.  She  did,  however,  skillfully  use  his  love  for  her  as 
a  lever  in  her  courtship  with  John  Tyler.  She  used  Justice  John  McLean 
in  much  the  same  manner.  And  she  constantly  pitted  Pickens  against 
McLean  and  both  of  them  against  the  President.  It  was  the  way  these 
things  were  (and  still  are)  done. 

Julia  met  the  courtly  South  Carolinian  at  a  reception  at  the  Daniel 
Websters7  on  January  2,  1843.  Introductions  were  performed  by  her 
escort.  Colonel  Thomas  Sumter,  a  friend  and  colleague  of  Pickens.  On  the 
way  back  to  Peyton's  in  Sumter's  carriage  they  passed  Pickens  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue. 

"There  goes  Mr.  Pickens/7  said  Sumter,  pointing  him  out. 

"I  see/7  Julia  replied,  "but  I  should  not  know  him  again.  I  am  such 
a  miserable  hand  to  recollect  faces." 

"Oh,  but  I  just  introduced  him  to  you  at  Mrs.  Webster's,"  protested 

187 


the  Colonel.  "You  must  remember  him,  for  lie  said  one  of  the  prettiest 
things  of  you  today  I  ever  heard."  36 

From  then  on,  Julia  remembered.  Within  a  few  days  Pickens  had 
become  one  of  the  regular  visitors  at  Mrs.  Peyton's.  By  mid-February 
the  South  Carolinian  was  reputed  "dead  in  love  with  Julia."  He  certainly 
missed  none  of  the  "whisto-musicales"  sponsored  by  the  Gardiners  in 
their  chambers.  These  were  informal  evenings  at  cards  which  ended  with 
Julia  playing  her  guitar  and  singing  such  ballads  as  "A  Soldier's  Tear'7 
while  the  guests  consumed  great  quantities  of  champagne,  hot  whiskey 
punch,  and  raw  oysters.  By  early  March  the  perceptive  Pickens  realized 
that  he  had  a  great  deal  of  competition  for  Julia's  hand  and  he  pressed 
his  attentions  on  her  more  vigorously.  Not  only  was  there  the  formidable 
challenge  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  but  there  was  also  that 
of  Supreme  Court  Justice  McLean.  Pickens  was  " exceptionally  jealous" 
of  McLean,  Margaret  reported ;  and  on  one  occasion  when  the  two  men 
were  monopolizing  Julia,  he  "interrupted  the  conversation  continually 
for  fear  [McLean]  might  prove  too  entertaining."  3T 

In  spite  of  the  competition,  or  because  of  it,  Pickens  pushed  his  suit 
with  great  energy  and  determination.  On  March  4,  the  day  after  Con- 
gress adjourned  and  just  before  his  scheduled  departure  for  South  Caro- 
lina, he  proposed  marriage  to  Julia.  He  had  waited  too  long.  By  that 
time  Julia  was  involved  with  John  Tyler,  and  she  was  still  flirting  con- 
spicuously with  Justice  McLean.  She  politely  but  firmly  declined  the 
offer.  Margaret  relayed  the  news  of  the  Pickens  proposal  to  her  brother 
Alexander  with  a  rare  economy  of  words:  "Mr.  P.  has  offered  and  been 
rejected — of  course.  The  particulars  when  we  meet.  Today  we  are  going 
to  the  Supreme  Court,  Julia  to  court  in  earnest.  She  is  resolved  to  lay 
siege  to  Judge  MacClean  [sic]."BB 

Pickens  did  not  give  up  so  easily.  After  Julia  had  returned  to  East 
Hampton  in  March,  Pickens  repeated  his  proposal,  suggesting  in  a 
lengthy  and  tender  letter  on  May  8  that  Julia  come  share  his  "southern 
home  where  flourishes  the  pomegranate  and  orange,  where  luxury  sur- 
rounds, and  reign  Queen."  He  assured  her  that  as  mistress  of  Edgewood 
plantation  she  would  be  waited  upon  and  made  happy  by  "ever  so  many 
niggers  and  step-children."  From  the  perspective  of  East  Hampton  it  was 
indeed  .an  attractive  offer,  and  everyone  hi  the  family  gratuitously 
voiced  an  opinion  on  it.  "It's  one  of  the  best/'  said  Senator  Gardiner 
flatly.  "Such  an  offer  is  not  presented  every  day."  Juliana  was  less  en- 
thusiastic: "I  don't  like  his  principles  altogether  or  his  three  or  four 
children,"  she  snorted.  Brother  David  Lyon  decided  that  "Distinguished 
Southerners  are  more  than  common,  and  if  it  was  not  for  his  principles 
and  his  children  I  should  advise  [acceptance] ,  but  as  the  case  stands  it's 
another  affair."  Margaret  simply  told  Julia  to  "do  just  as  you  please." 
And  Julia  did  precisely  what  she  pleased;  she  always  did.  She  was  still 
not  interested  in  Pickens'  offer.  She  had  a  better  one  from  John  Tyler. 

188 


"What  think  I?'7  she  asked  her  brothers.  "Just  nothing  at  all  and  think 
about  [It]  as  much."  She  finally  wrote  PIckens  that  while  she  would 
"fain  preserve"  his  valuable  friendship,  her  own  "friendly  esteem"  for 
him  would  be  considerably  strengthened  were  he  to  "change  the  tone  of 
Ms  consideration."  She  hoped  this  would  prove  "no  difficult  task"  for 
him,  and  that  he  would  not  "eradicate  my  Image  entirely  from  [your] 
mind."  A  later  generation  would  call  it  a  "Dear  John"  letter.  In  this 
polite  brush-off  of  PIckens  she  had  Margaret's  full  approbation.  Her 
sister.  It  seemed,  did  "not  exactly  consider  him  a  man  of  the  world."  39 
A  fresh  barrage  of  poetry-filled  letters  from  Edgewood  plantation 
failed  to  change  JuHa?s  mind  in  the  matter.  Not  that  PIckens  was  much 
of  a  poet: 

Oh!  come  to  the  South, 
The  land  of  the  sun; 
And  dwell  in  Its  bower. 
Sweet,  beautiful  one. 

"He  at  least  deserves  the  credit  of  being  persevering,"  Margaret  granted. 
At  length  the  poetic  PIckens  tired  of  his  hopeless  quest.  By  August  1843 
Alexander  was  curious  to  learn  if  he  "gives  up  the  ghost,  or  only  the  pur- 
suit— whether  he  makes  further  overtures  or  asks  a  return  of  missives — 
whether  he  Is  offended,  determined  or  resigned."  Three  months  later  It 
was  clear  that  Pickens  had  graciously  given  up  the  ghost.  He  was  neither 
offended  nor  embittered.  He  was  a  South  Carolina  gentleman;  as  a 
gentleman  he  was  an  affable  loser  In  an  affair  of  the  heart.  His  relations 
with  the  Gardiners  remained  cordial  and  friendly.40 

Judge  John  McLean  was  also  a  good  loser,  although  he  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  his  age  (fifty-seven)  as  a  rationalization  when  he  too  stepped 
out  of  Julia's  life.  She  in  turn  had  never  had  more  than  a  passing 
interest  in  the  distinguished  Ohio  Democrat  who  had  served  as  Secretary 
of  War  in  Jackson's  Cabinet.  He  was  a  charming  and  sophisticated  man, 
a  perennial  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  he  was  naturally  flattered 
by  the  attentions  of  an  attractive  and  sought-after  woman  of  twenty-two. 
She  flirted  with  him  outrageously  during  the  1842-1843  season  and  he 
returned  the  courtesy.  Actually,  Julia  was  using  McLean  only  to  pique 
and  sustain  the  interest  of  Tyler  and  Pickens.  She  also  flirted  with 
Supreme  Court  Justices  Smith  Thompson  and  Henry  Baldwin,  but  of 
the  three  jurists  who  were  treated  to  her  wiles  only  McLean  "laughed 
bewitchingly"  back  at  her.  Indeed,  McLean  was  soon  telling  Baldwin 
that  were  he  "twenty-five  years  younger  he'd  cut  the  P  [resident]  out  if 
he  could."  41 

After  Julia's  return  to  East  Hampton  McLean  tried  to  put  into  writ- 
ing what  he  had  ^apparently  had  difficulty  putting  into  words  in  Wash- 
ington. His  first  letter  to  Julia,  containing  "some  tender  traits  if  no  open 
avowal/'  was  read  aloud  around  the  family  tea  table  and  "made  the 

189 


house  resound  with  laughter."  It  titillated  them  all  to  learn  that  McLean 
was  "quite  jealous  of  his  rival  the  President/7  Julia's  carefully  phrased 
response  to  Mm  was  less  cruel  than  the  tea-table  hilarity.  In  his  reply  to 
her,  dated  April  19,  McLean  sadly  noted 

If  it  were  not  sinful,  I  should  rebel  against  the  law  of  my  species  and  ask, 
why  is  it  that  a  disparity  of  years  makes  so  little  change  in  the  susceptibilities 
of  our  nature. . . .  To  overcome  this  powerful  tendency  and  follow  the  dictates 
of  a  sober  judgment  all  the  firmness  of  the  highest  mental  attitudes  are  re- 
quired. Miss  Julia  saw  something  of  this  struggle  at  our  last  interview  when 
I  signified  to  her  the  concern  I  felt  at  my  being  more  than  twenty  five  or 
thirty  years  of  age.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  desired  to  be  young.  This 
I  know  was  a  selfish  and  a  vain  feeling,  that  I  should  not  have  indulged. 
The  temptation  to  the  wrong,  if  it  was  a  wrong,  was  so  strong,  indeed,  so 
overwhelming,  that  I  could  not  resist  it.  Ah!  Julia  suffer  me  to  say  to  you 
that  in  my  eyes  you  are  the  most  fascinating  and  lovely  creature  that  exists 
on  earth ...  if  I  had  it  in  my  power  to  gain  more  than  your  friendship,  which 
I  have  never  imagined,  it  would  be  improper  in  me  to  do  so.  I  did  not  bring 
myself  to  this  conclusion  without  many  wakeful  and  anxious  hours  of  the 
deepest  feeling;  and  at  last  I  yielded  to  the  imperious  conviction  of  propriety 
which  should  never  be  disregarded.  Were  I  only  thirty  years  of  age,  there  is 
no  being  this  side  of  heaven  that  could  be  so  important  to  my  happiness.  In 
ten  years  I  shall  be  quite  an  old  gentleman  while  Miss  Julia  will  be  still 
rising  in  the  beauty  and  bloom  of  her  nature.  I  have  therefore  on  the  fullest 
consideration  made  it  the  greatest  sacrifice  of  feeling  to  principle  in  coming 
to  the  above  conclusion  that  I  have  ever  done.  Miss  Julia  will  not  suppose 
that  I  have  for  a  moment  been  vain  enough  to  believe  that  however  recent 
my  aspiration  for  her  affections  might  have  been,  I  could  have  succeeded. 
Such  a  calculation  did  not  enter  into  my  mind  or  influence  my  decision.  I 
could  not  under  the  circumstances  have  been  so  presumptuous.  After  saying 
this  much  in  the  utmost  frankness,  Miss  Julia  will  suffer  me  to  say  that  I 
am.  solicitous  to  be  numbered  among  her  best  friends — nay  will  she  not  give 

me  in  this  pre-eminence To  be  remembered  kindly  by  one  who  stands 

pre-eminent  among  the  most  intelligent,  elegant  and  beautiful  young  ladies 
of  the  age  cannot  but  be  highly  appreciated 

Julia  was  deeply  touched  by  McLean's  kind  and  pensive  remarks:  "A 
more  beautiful  letter,  more  honorable  for  himself  or  more  flattering  to 
me  could  not  have  been  written,  as  all  acknowledge — it  was  great 
throughout."  A  century  and  a  quarter  later  it  was  still  among  her  papers, 
carefully  preserved.42 

A  month  later  news  reached  East  Hampton  via  the  New  York 
Express  that  McLean  had  suddenly  married.  Julia  thought  the  idea 
terribly  amusing,  especially  since  her  consolatory  answer  to  McLean's 
tender  missive  of  withdrawal  must  have  reached  the  Justice  within  a  few 
days  after  his  wedding  to  the  widow  Sarah  Bella  Garrard.  "Ah!  Alexan- 
der, and  now  who  do  you  think  is  married — yes,  married. . . .  Hymen's 
torch  is  consumed  and  I  have  dropt  an  hysterical  tear  on  its  ashes . . . 
it  is  Judge  McLean!!!  He  has  married  a  widow  and  I  conclude  a  rich 

190 


one. . . .  Three  days  a  bridegroom  and  he  must  have  received  my  reply. 
. . .  What  was  his  expression  when  he  recognized  the  handwriting!  Oh, 
what  wouldn't  I  have  given  to  have  witnessed  it  at  such  a  time — do  you 
think  he  let  his  wife  read  It?"  43 

To  Julia  It  was  very  humorous.  Indeed,  her  rather  callous  flirtation 
with  the  aging  McLean  revealed  her  one  of  Eve's  truly  extroverted 
daughters.  She  tripped  lightly  through  her  young  life  leaving  behind  a 
trail  of  broken  hearts — aged  twenty-three  to  fifty-seven.  She  was  a  great 
belle  In  an  era  of  great  American  belles.  Her  conquests  were  legion. 
The  fields  of  romantic  combat  on  which  she  jousted  were  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  old  men  and  boys.  McLean  was  merely  another  notch  on  her 
parasol  handle.  At  every  ball  she  attended  In  Washington  she  was  a  sen- 
sation, her  presence  immediately  felt.  Her  appearance,  dress,  and  popu- 
larity, combined  with  her  wealth  and  social  background,  made  her  the 
marriage  catch  of  the  season.  She  represented  a  challenge  John  Tyler 
could  scarcely  resist. 

Paced  by  their  home-grown  Aphrodite,  the  entire  Gardiner  family 
made  a  decided  Impression  on  the  capital.  Dress  was  vitally  Important  in 
this  effort  and  no  economy  was  practiced  by  the  Senator  when  It  carne  to 
clothing  the  Gardiner  women  for  their  ostentatious  sallies  into  society. 
"Jfulia]  and  I  with  Ma  and  Pa  went  to  the  Assembly/'  Margaret  wrote 
of  the  ball  of  January  12.  "J.  was  dressed  In  white  with  her  Greek 
[headdress].  Ma  In  velvet  with  white  toke  and  I  in  white  with  silver 
ornaments.  I  never  saw  a  more  perfect  display  of  taste,  rich  dresses  and 
beauty . . .  the  company  was  unusually  select.77  When  Alexander  came 
down  from  New  York  for  the  fourth  and  final  Assembly  ball  of  the 
season  on  February  27,  he  was  first  given  detailed  instructions  on  how 
he  should  clothe  himself.  It  was  important  also  that  reigning  belles  not 
be  seen  at  social  functions  sponsored  by  those  of  dubious  social  or  politi- 
cal background.  For  this  reason  the  Gardiners  would  attend  no  parties 
given  by  such  Locofoco  Democrats  as  editor  F.  P.  Blair;  nor  would  they 
risk  being  linked  with  the  likes  of  the  controversial  and  celebrated  Peggy 
Eaton.  "We  shall  not  attend  Mrs.  Eaton's  ball  until  we  hear  a  favorable 
account  of  her  standing  here.  Previously  to  her  residence  ...  it  was  not 
very  fair."  44 

Instead,  they  limited  themselves  to  the  subscription  Assembly  balls 
— Julia  and  Margaret  were  escorted  to  these  sparkling  affairs  by  ac- 
ceptable Army  and  Navy  officers,  congressmen,  and  diplomats — and  to 
private  dances  and  receptions  at  the  homes  of  the  Websters,  Upshurs, 
and  Wickliffes.  At  the  more  exclusive  private  functions  the  young 
Gardiner  ladies  were  accompanied  by  or  received  the  flattering  atten- 
tions of  Robert  Tyler  and  John  Tyler,  Jr.  Frequent  invitations  to  the 
White  House  rounded  out  the  pattern  of  their  social  life  in  the  capital 
during  the  early  months  of  i843-45 

This  rarefied  social  atmosphere  produced  in  Juliana  no  feeling  that 

191 


Washington  society  was  In  any  way  superior  to  New  York  society.  "The 
society  here  is  quite  provincial,"  she  confided  to  Alexander,  "tho' ...  I 
think  it  is  perhaps  the  best  place  for  young  ladies  who  wish  to  mingle  in 
the  gaieties  of  the  new  coast."  Matchmaking  aside,  she  was  amazed  that 
people  with  no  social  background  in  New  York  could  make  such  a  splash 
in  Washington  because  of  their  political  importance  back  home.  There 
was,  for  example,  Silas  M.  Stilwell,  the  United  States  Marshal  in  New 
York  City,  much  sought  after  when  he  visited  the  capital,  who  "kept  but 
a  few  years  since  a  shoe  store  in  the  Bowery."  It  distressed  her  to  pass 
New  York  acquaintances  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  discover  that  the 
women  they  were  with  were  not  their  wives.  And  it  angered  her  that  a 
lady  of  the  quality  of  Mrs.  Charles  Stewart,  wife  of  the  famous  Com- 
modore, would  attempt  in  Washington  what  would  never  have  been 
undertaken  by  any  fashionable  person  in  New  York — the  use  of  teatime 
in  her  parlor  to  negotiate  a  loan  for  five  hundred  dollars  from  David 
Gardiner.  There  was  a  provincial  streak  in  Washington  to  which  Juliana 
never  really  adjusted.  "I  don't  think  I  should  like  Washington  as  a  resi- 
dence," Margaret  agreed.  "It's  very  well  for  a  winter  or  so  but  wonder- 
fully provincial."  *6 

The  least  provincial  features  of  the  capital  were  the  White  House  and 
the  Tylers.  Within  a  week  of  the  Gardiners'  arrival  in  Washington  John 
Tyler,  Jr.,  had  called  at  Peyton's  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  much-talked- 
about  Gardiner  ladies.  Two  days  later,  December  15,  Waldron  escorted 
the  Senator  to  the  President's  Mansion  for  an  interview.  The  President 
was  busy  that  day,  but  Gardiner  spoke  with  John,  Jr.,  who  urged  him  to 
return  the  following  afternoon  and  greet  the  President.  When  he  re- 
turned he  found  the  President  looking  "very  unwell."  But  their  chat  was 
a  pleasant  one,  and  Tyler  invited  the  Gardiner  family  to  take  dinner  at 
the  White  House  on  Christmas  Eve.  Accompanied  by  Representative 
and  Mrs.  Robert  McClellan  of  New  York,  Purser  Richard  Waldron,  and 
Colonel  Thomas  Sumter,  the  family  was  received  in  the  "most  modest, 
affable,  unassuming  manner."  Julia  found  John,  Jr.,  to  be  "quite  hand- 
some and  distingue  in  his  person — and  ah!  how  interestingly  sentimental 
was  his  conversation.  He  laid  quite  a  siege  to  my  heart."  So  intensely  did 
young  John  flirt  with  Julia  that  he  quite  forgot  to  mention  to  her  that  he 
was  married.  The  fact  that  he  had  lived  with  Mattie  Rochelle  only  a  few 
months  after  their  marriage  in  1839,  and  had  since  tried  to  arrange  a 
divorce  was,  however,  common  gossip  in  Washington  which  Julia  had 
already  heard.  She  was  not  swept  away  by  his  performance.  He  was  soon 
bombarding  her  with  bad  poetry  ("I  excuse  all  bad  poetry  where  I  am 
the  subject,"  Julia  allowed)  and  sending  the  Gardiners  "very  handsome 
French  confectionaries"  from  the  White  House  kitchen.  Julia  was  still 
cautious.  On  the  other  hand,  she  found  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  "pretty 
and  interesting"  and  Mrs.  William  Tyler,  the  President's  sister-in-law, 

192 


"a  little  country  looking."  So  many  various  Tylers  seemed  to  be  present 
that  Christmas  Eve  that  Waldron  guessed  "there  [are]  some  fifty  coun- 
try cousins  'come  to  town'  to  spend  holidays  with  their  great  relations 
and  [are]  . . .  stowed  away  in  some  of  the  closets  to  await  New  Year's." 
Entertaining  Ms  numerous  "'country  cousins73  at  the  White  House  was 
another  expense  John  Tyler  bore  uncomplainingly.47 

The  Christmas  Eve  dinner  went  very  well.  Three  days  later  Robert 
and  Priscilla  Tyler  called  on  the  Gardiners  at  Peyton's,  and  the  Senator, 
thanks  to  the  manipulation  of  John,  Jr.?  was  signally  honored  by  an  in- 
vitation to  another  White  House  dinner.  At  this  affair  the  President 
made  a  special  effort  to  flatter  him.  On  New  Year's  Day  the  family  "at- 
tracted  universal  attention'3  at  St.  John's  Episcopal  Church.  Like  most 
good  and  fashionable  Episcopa!ians?  they  arrived  at  the  church  after  the 
services  had  begun.  Looking  for  an  unoccupied  pew,  they  were  "perfectly 
astonished"  to  see  the  President  rise  from  his  seat,  bow  several  times? 
move  into  the  aisle,  and  graciously  usher  them  into  his  own  pew.  "Even 
the  minister  stopped  Ms  proceedings  and  lost  his  place,"  so  great  was  the 
general  astonishment.  Unfortunately,  Julia  was  not  present  for  this 
coup,  being  confined  to  her  room  with  a  bad  cold.  Margaret  was  certain 
that  the  affair  had  created  "bitter  envy  among  our  young  lady  boarders," 
and  for  this  she  was  extremely  grateful.48 

Julia  recovered  her  health  quickly.  On  January  2, 1843,  she  was  well 
enough  to  attend  the  public  levee  at  the  White  House.  After  a  great 
effort  to  get  herself  "sufficiently  festooned"  for  the  occasion,  she  sallied 
forth  on  the  arm  of  Colonel  Sumter,  he  "sumptuously  equipped — 
whiskers  brushed  to  a  turn — [in]  a  dashing  vest  of  black  velvet."  The 
rooms  were  jammed.  It  required  a  full  hour  before  she  and  the  Colonel 
could  make  their  way  into  "the  presence  of  his  majesty.75  As  the  moment 
of  truth  approached,  Julia  worried  to  Sumter  that  "He  surely  will  not 
recognize  me,  you  know  I  have  seen  him  but  once  in  the  evening  and 
then  with  a  different  hat."  But  Tyler  did  remember  her,  and  he  reached 
over  several  shoulders  to  grasp  her  hand.  "I  hope  you  are  very  well/'  he 
said  warmly.  Julia  was  highly  flattered,  and  as  she  moved  on  to  chat 
with  Calhoun  and  Lewis  Cass  the  climax  of  the  evening  had  already 
passed  for  her.  She  took  no  offense  when  Ambassador  Bodisco,  "the  old 
representative  of  all  the  Russias,  scanned  me  from  head  to  foot  with  the 
eye  of  a  conneissuer  [sic] ."  The  ambassador's  reaction  to  her  appear- 
ance she  never  learned.  Margaret  could  only  hear  Bodisco  say,  as  Julia 

passed  him,  "She  has  nice  teeth,  but "  Remarks  like  this  apparently 

worry  women,  and  Julia  worried.49 

She  need  not  have.  The  Gardiners  had  arrived,  been  seen,  and  had 
conquered.  Family  calls  at  the  White  House  and  return  calls  at  Peyton's 
by  Robert  and  John,  Jr.,  became  regular  events.  By  kte  January  the 
two  families  had  become  so  intimate  that  Juliana  had  to  warn  Alexander 
that  his  appearance  in  town  at  that  moment  would  only  be  construed  as 

193 


a  crude  "pursuit  of  office."  And  Robert  paid  so  much  attention  to 
Margaret  at  the  Wickliffe  ball  on  January  31  that  a  dozen  young  men 
crowded  forward  seeking  introductions  to  the  popular  sisters,  apologiz- 
ing profusely  for  not  having  called  upon  them  earlier.  "The  influence 
of  power  was  very  apparent,"  remarked  Juliana,  who  was  at  last  con- 
vinced that  the  Tylers  measured  up  socially.  "We  all  like  the  Tylers/' 
she  confessed  to  her  son  David.  "They  are  noble  in  their  mien  and 
possess  much  genius  and  gallantry.  They  are  superior  to  political  trick- 
ery, and  I  sincerely  hope  John  Tyler  will  be  re-elected  President."  50 

Robert  Tyler  was  a  particular  favorite  of  Julia  and  Margaret.  Dur- 
ing February  he  became  a  fixture  at  the  Gardiner  whisto-musicales.  He 
played  whist  indifferently  enough  to  permit  the  sisters  to  win  numerous 
pairs  of  gloves  from  him,  and  he  invariably  brought  along  his  latest  poem 
to  read  to  Margaret.  She  in  turn  listened  and  frankly  gave  her  opinion  of 
his  efforts.  He  was  a  competent  poet  in  the  incompetent  Victorian  man- 
ner. Much  of  his  work  turned  on  somber  death  themes.  As  he  read  to 
Margaret  and  Julia  from  his  Death;  Or,  Medorus'  Dream,  which 
Harper's  published  the  following  month,  he  consumed  whiskey  punch 
and  oysters  in  great  quantity.  The  next  morning  he  complained  of  what 
he  delicately  described  as  a  "nervous  headache."  Margaret  found  Robert 
"not  handsome."  He  possessed,  however,  a  "pleasant  countenance"  and 
his  manner  was  "subtly  amiable  and  agreeable."  When  Robert  appeared 
in  the  Gardiner  parlors  on  February  6  to  read  from  his  recently  pub- 
lished Ahasuerus.  A  Poem,  Margaret  made  the  same  political  decision 
her  mother  had  made  a  week  earlier.  She  too  "adopted  the  Tyler  ban- 
ners" for  i844.51 

So  it  was  that  when  the  Gardmers  went  to  the  White  House  on  the 
all-important  evening  of  February  7, 1843,  the  political  tide  in  the  family 
was  running  strong  for  the  President.  It  was  a  small  gathering  of 
thirteen.  Quite  mixed  socially,  the  group  was  dominated  by  New  York 
politicians  chosen,  thought  Margaret,  "from  the  unavoidables ,  from 
politicals.33  Only  the  James  I.  Roosevelts  and  the  Gardiners  were  invited, 
she  felt,  from  "congenial  motives."  Also  present  that  evening  were 
Robert  and  Priscilla  and  Priscilla's  father,  Tom  Cooper.  The  Red  Room 
of  the  White  House  was  ice-cold  and  the  sisters  had  all  they  could  do  to 
maintain  circulation  in  their  fingers.  Two  tables  of  whist  were  organized, 
but  the  frigid  air  made  it  difficult  to  hold  the  cards.  Tyler  finally  came  in 
at  nine-thirty  to  chat  with  his  guests.  He  was  in  an  exceedingly  good 
mood.  First  he  teased  Margaret  to  tell  Mm  how  many  beaux  she  had. 
When  she  coyly  demurred,  he  jestingly  demanded  an  official  answer 
in  the  name  of  "the  President  of  the  United  States."  Margaret  replied 
that  she  had  "a  dozen  or  more,"  but  that  Julia  had  even  more  than  that. 
Turning  to  Julia,  the  President  began  teasing  her  about  her  numerous 
beaux.  Then  he  asked  her  to  play  cards  with  him.  Just  the  two  of  them. 
"He  had  quite  a  flirtation  with  J[ulia],"  Margaret  reported,  "and  played 

194 


several  games  of  All  fours  with  her."  The  sight  of  this  easy  familiarity 
on  the  part  of  the  graying  President  toward  the  twenty-two-year-old 
Julia  was  too  much  for  the  worldly  Thomas  Cooper.  uDo  see  the  Presi- 
dent playing  old  sledge  with  Miss  Gardiner/7  he  exclaimed.  "It  will  be  in 
the  Globe  tomorrow."  It  did  not  appear  In  the  Washington  Globe  or  any 
other  newspaper.  Perhaps  it  should  have.  The  resulting  humanizatlon  of 
John  Tyler  might  well  have  commanded  the  votes  of  all  those  humble 
citizens  who  enjoyed  a  good  fast  game  of  old  sledge.52 

After  the  other  guests  had  departed  the  Gardiners  were  invited  into 
the  warmth  of  the  President's  chambers  upstairs.  For  several  hours  they 
sat  and  chatted  In  front  of  the  fire.  It  was  at  this  moment  that  John 
Tyler  decided  he  wanted  to  know  Julia  Gardiner  much  better.  Late  that 
night,  as  the  family  was  talking  leave  of  the  courtly  President,  "What 
does  he  do  but  give  me  a  kiss"  Margaret  wrote  excitedly. 

He  was  proceeding  to  treat  Julia  in  the  same  manner  when  she  snatched 
away  her  hand  and  flew  down  the  stairs  with  the  President  after  her  around 
chairs  and  tables  until  at  last  he  caught  her.  It  was  truly  amusing.  Putting 
the  cold  out  of  the  question  we  had  a  delightful  evening  —  the  President 
escorting  us  quite  to  the  carriage,  and  Mr.  [Robert]  Tyler  promising  to  call 
today  and  read  to  us  Ms  new  poem 53 

It  had  been  very  amusing.  More  importantly ;  it  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  still  another  serious  courtship  for  Julia.  Waldron,  Pickens,  Mc- 
Lean— now  Tyler.  The  social  life  of  tie  Gardiner  sisters  was  moving  into 
high  gear.  In  fact,  the  young  ladies  began  to  experience  real  fatigue.  By 
mid-February  their  father  worried  about  their  ability  to  maintain  the 
killing  pace.  "We  were  out  four  evenings  last  week  and  up  until  after 
one  o'clock  every  night  this/'  Margaret  reported.  "Every  day  and  every 
evening  Is  occupied  in  these  gay  scenes/'  the  Senator  wrote  Alexander. 
"I  think  your  sisters  when  the  spring  passes  will  not  object  to  the  quiet- 
ness of  our  summer  residence."  The  girls  were  of  different  mind.  They 
had  no  doubt  of  their  ability  to  cope  with  their  demanding  social  calen- 
dar and  the  thought  of  returning  to  sleepy  little  East  Hampton  was  not 
a  congenial  one.  The  morning  after  the  "All  fours"  party  at  the  White 
House  they  began  imploring  their  father  to  let  them  remain  on  for  a 
while  in  Washington  after  Congress  adjourned  on  March  3  and  the  social 
season  more  or  less  ended.  Meanwhile,  to  prepare  themselves  for  each 
evening's  new  tax  on  their  energy  they  adopted  the  simple  device  of 
staying  longer  and  longer  abed  in  the  morning.54 

Tyler  was  fascinated  by  Julia  and  he  pushed  his  suit  as  relentlessly 
as  was  proper  for  a  widower  of  five  months.  He  was  a  lonely  man  after 
Letitia7s  death,  and  he  responded  eagerly  to  the  sparkle  and  excitement 
of  the  winsome  Julia,  On  Sunday,  February  12,  he  walked  the  Gardiners 
home  from  church,  the  first  time  he  had  appeared  publicly  on  the  Avenue 
with  them.  This  courtesy  naturally  caused  a  great  deal  of  speculation  and 

195 


gossip.  "Many  jokes  are  already  being  passed  around  about  our  being 
in  such  favor  at  the  White  House/7  Juliana  informed  Alexander.  "The 
President  is  a  fine  man,"  she  continued,  "amiable  and  agreeable  and 
independent.  He  has  been  shamefully  abused  by  those  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  himself  in  any  respect.  You  must  be  a  Tyler  man  as  I  believe 
his  measures  are  wise."  55 

Whether  his  measures  were  wise  or  not,  the  President  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  in  mid-February  that  he  wanted  to  marry  Julia  Gardiner. 
To  court  her  properly  he  was  forced  to  contrive  various  stratagems  to  be 
with  her — meetings  that  would  occasion  a  minimum  amount  of  gossip. 
Thus  he  insisted  that  the  sisters  stop  at  the  White  House  en  route  to 
the  Webster  ball  on  February  13  that  he  might  see  their  new  dresses.  He 
was  still  in  mourning  for  Letitia  and  thus  was  not  yet  going  out  socially 
himself.  When  they  arrived  that  evening  for  inspection  the  President, 
in  Margaret's  words,  "admired  our  dresses  and  passed  innumerable  com- 
pliments. He  was  extremely  affectionately  inclined — Julia  declared  he 
was  rather  too  tender  for  he  gave  her  three  kisses  while  I  received  only 
two.  In  truth  we  did  look  very  well  for  our  dresses  were  entirely  new  for 
the  occasion.'7  56 

On  the  evening  of  the  Washington's  Birthday  ball  at  the  White 
House,  February  22,  1843,  Tyler  could  contain  himself  no  longer.  Julia 
was  dressed  in  a  white  tarlatan  and  on  her  head  she  wore  a  crimson 
Greek  cap  with  a  dangling  tassel.  She  was  radiant.  The  President  spied 
her  dancing  with  Waldron.  When  the  music  stopped  the  young  naval 
officer  was  on  the  verge  of  leaving  the  floor  with  his  partner  when  the 
President  suddenly  appeared  at  his  side.  "I  must  claim  Miss  Gardiner's 
company  for  a  while/'  he  said,  drawing  Julia's  arm  through  his  own. 
Waldron  gave  his  Commander-in-Chief  a  black  look,  but  wisely  gave  no 
-voice  to  his  injured  feelings.  For  a  few  minutes  the  President  and  Julia 
promenaded  the  rooms.  Then  John  Tyler  asked  her  straight  out  to 
marry  him.  "I  had  never  thought  of  love,"  Julia  recalled  years  later,  "so 
I  said,  'No,  no,  no/  and  shook  my  head  with  each  word>  which  flung  the 
tassel  of  my  Greek  cap  into  his  face  with  every  move.  It  was  undignified, 
but  it  amused  me  very  much  to  see  his  expression  as  he  tried  to  make  love 
to  me  and  the  tassel  brushed  his  face."  Julia  was  probably  not  as  sur- 
prised by  the  President's  declaration  as  she  later  remembered.  In  any 
event,  she  decided  not  to  tell  her  father  about  Tyler's  proposal.  "I  was 
his  pet/'  she  explained,  "yet  I  feared  that  he  would  blame  me  for  allow- 
ing the  President  to  have  reached  the  proposing  point,  so  I  did  not  speak 
of  it  to  anyone."  57 

It  was  impossible,  of  course,  to  halt  the  rapidly  mounting  gossip 
however  close-mouthed  Julia  chose  to  be  about  Tyler's  address.  Robert 
Tyler  called  so  frequently  at  Peyton's,  relaying  messages  and  invitations 
from  his  father,  that  the  boarders  there  began  buzzing  that  the  Presi- 
dent was  "doing  business  by  proxy."  Representative  Hubard  had  in- 

196 


formed  Hie  family  on  February  15  that  the  House  was  ain  an  uproar  all 
day  In  consequence  of  news  having  reached  there  of  the  President's 
having  fallen  in  love  with  Julia.'7  And  as  the  rumors  spread,  old  New 
York  friends  eased  forward  in  hope  of  using  the  growing  Gardiner  in- 
fluence at  the  White  House  for  political  purposes.  Ogden  Edwards  of 
New  York,  for  example,  insisted  that  the  Gardiners  help  him  gain  ap- 
pointment as  a  bearer  of  diplomatic  dispatches  to  Mexico,  a  thought  the 
family  found  "provoking."  J.  J,  Bailey  was  ready  "to  fill  any  office, 
where  I  may  enjoy  a  great  deal  of  dignity  and  honor,  with  plenty  of 
money  and  nothing  on  Earth  to  do."  To  the  wry  amusement  of  East 
Hamptonians  and  the  mild  embarrassment  of  the  family,  distant 
Gardiner  cousins  from  Long  Island  suddenly  appeared  in  Washington 
to  share  the  limelight.58 

From  the  family's  standpoint,  if  anyone  was  to  benefit  politically 
from  the  Tyler  connection  it  was  to  be  young  Alexander.  There  was  no 
substance  to  rumors  in  Washington  that  David  Gardiner  was  interested 
in  the  Collectorship  of  the  Port  of  New  York  for  himself.  He  did,  how- 
ever, push  Alexander  forward  and  his  son  was  not  reluctant.  Urged  also 
by  his  mother  to  be  "a  Tyler  man,"  Alexander  wasted  no  time.  On  Feb- 
ruary 15  the  New  York  Post  carried  his  anonymous  letter  to  the  editor 
praising  the  Tyler  administration.  Two  copies  were  clipped  and  sent  to 
Senator  Gardiner  in  Washington,  who  in  turn  gave  one  to  Robert  Tyler. 
Robert  had  already  received  a  copy  of  the  article  from  John  Lorimer 
Graham,  Postmaster  of  the  City  of  New  York.  He  had  shown  it  to  Tyler 
and  the  President  had  ordered  it  reprinted  in  the  Washington  Madhonian 
of  February  17.  When  he  discovered  that  Alexander  Gardiner  was  the 
author  of  the  piece  he  was  "surprised  and  gratified"  and  remarked  that 
it  was  written  by  one  "who  understands  the  course  of  politics  well,7'  The 
time  had  finally  come,  thought  David  Gardiner,  for  his  son  to  come  to 
Washington.  Alexander  arrived  on  February  24,  in  time  for  the  last 
Assembly  ball  three  days  later.  He  immediately  began  making  himself 
known  to  the  key  figures  in  the  Tyler  administration.59 

He  accompanied  Ms  parents  and  sisters  to  the  White  House  for  tea 
en  famille  on  the  twenty-fifth  and  witnessed  in  amusement  what  Mar- 
garet called  "a  real  frolic  with  the  P [resident]": 

Julia  and  I  raced  from  one  end  of  the  house  to  the  other,  upstairs  and  down, 
and  he  after  us.  Waltzed  and  danced  in  the  famous  East  Room,  played  the 
piano,  ransacked  every  room  and  in  fact  made  ourselves  as  much  at  home  as 
the  occupants.  At  half  past  seven  we  went  to  the  concert  and  prevailed  upon 

the  P  [resident]  to  accompany  us It  was  the  first  time  he  had  been  out 

this  winter,  and  to  be  seen  gallanting  Julia  was  a  matter  of  great  specula- 
tion   we  were  seated  in  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  room  with  the 

eyes  of  all  directed  to  us.60 

Tyler  had  wisely  decided  to  drop  all  pretense  and  subterfuge.  He 
would  be  seen  publicly  with  Julia  regardless  of  the  gossipmongers.  By 

197 


March  8  rumors  that  he  and  Julia  were  engaged  swept  Washington,  and 
the  subject  was  being  openly  discussed,  even  in  Tyler's  presence.  Both 

Pickens  and  McLean  were  frantic  to  learn  the  truth  of  the  matter.  Ac- 
tually, the  reports  were  premature.  While  his  ultimate  intentions  were 
known  to  Julia,  they  were  not  yet  public  property.  They  soon  entered 
that  realm,  however,  or  very  near  it.  On  March  8  Tyler  penned  a  verse 

in  Julia's  autograph  album  which  rhetorically  asked : 

Shall  I  again  that  Harp  unstring, 

Which  long  hath  been  a  useless  thing, 

Unheard  in  Lady's  bower? 

Its  notes  were  once  full  wild  and  free, 

When  I3  to  one  as  fair  as  thee, 

Did  sing  in  youth's  bright  hours. 

Like  to  those  raven  tresses,  gay, 

Which  o'er  thy  ivory  shoulders  play, 

Were  those  which  waked  my  lyre. 

Eyes  like  to  thine,  which  beamed  as  bright 

As  stars,  that  through  the  veil  of  night, 

Sent  forth  a  brirny  fire. 

I  seize  the  Harp;  alas!  in  vain, 

I  try  to  wake  those  notes  again, 

Which  it  breathed  forth  of  yore. 

With  youth  its  sound  has  died  away: 

Old  age  hath  touched  it  with  decay; 

It  will  be  heard  no  more! 

Yet.  at  my  touch,  that  ancient  lyre 

Deigns  one  parting  note  respire. 

Lady,  it  breathes  of  heaven 

The  secret  might  still  have  been  kept  had  not  Julia  foolishly  (or  pur- 
posely) permitted  Supreme  Court  Justice  Baldwin  to  carry  her  auto- 
graph album  (and  the  President's  poem)  to  Capitol  Hill.  She  wanted  to 
add  a  few  more  important  autographs  before  the  Justices  and  legislators 
left  town  for  the  summer  recess.  Knowledge  of  the  President's  romantic 
exercise  in  iambic  tetrameter  thus  spread  quickly  around  Washington. 
McLean  read  it,  wrote  in  the  album  a  "few  prozy  lines"  of  his  own,  and 
fervently  wished  he  were  thirty  again.  "The  Judges  have  resolved  to  put 
their  heads  together  next  winter  and  try  to  outdo  the  P  [resident]  in 
writing  poetry.  It  is  not  amusing,"  snapped  Margaret.61 

During  the  first  two  weeks  of  March  Congress  adjourned,  the  social 
season  ended,  and  the  capital  took  on  a  "deserted  air,  quite  melancholy. " 
Robert  Tyler  departed  to  the  South  with  Priscilla,  and  a  thoroughly 
fatigued  David  Gardiner,  longing  for  the  peace  and  quiet  of  East  Hamp- 
ton, said  he  felt  like  the  "last  man."  Even  Margaret  began  to  "think  of 
the  north."  But  on  March  15  Tyler  again  spoke  of  marriage  to  Julia, 
this  time  in  Margaret's  presence.  Julia's  proposal  from  the  President 

198 


could  no  longer  be  kept  secret  from  her  parents.  At  last  they  were  told. 
They  were  extremely  pleased  with  the  news  and  they  determined  to  linger 
on  In  the  deserted  capital  until  some  definite  understanding  had  been 
reached  between  Julia  and  the  President.  Plans  to  leave  Washington  on 
March  17  were  set  aside,  and  the  family  did  not  actually  depart  for 
East  Hampton  until  March  2j®2 

On  the  afternoon  of  March  15  the  President  conducted  Julia  and 
Margaret  to  King's  Gallery  to  view  the  paintings  and  other  objets  (Tart. 
Driving  back  to  Peyton's  in  the  Presidential  carriage  an  enboldened 
Tyler 

. . .  began  to  talk  of  resigning  the  Presidential  chair  or  at  least  sharing  it  with 
J[uKa].  J[uUa],  to  excite  Ms  jealousy,  whispered  that  he  must  drink  to  the 
health  of  Judge  McLean.  It  had  the  desired  effect,  and  made  Mm  as  uneasy 
as  you  please — but  the  drollest  part  is  to  come.  On  reacMng  Mrs.  Peytons  the 
P  [resident]  alighted  to  help  us  out  and  just  at  that  moment  the  door  opened 
and  out  came  Col.  S[umter]?  Mr.  Stevens  and  another  gentleman.  The 
P  [resident]  colored  up  to  Ms  eyes.  They  looked  astonished  and  bemused. 
Scarcely  waiting  to  say  good  bye  in  he  jumped  and  Md  himself  behind  the 
curtain,  and  when  we  turned  to  give  a  parting  nod  not  even  his  shadow  was 
to  be  seen.  To  cap  it  all,  who  should  call  this  afternoon  but  Judge  McL  [ean] ! 
to  invite  us  to  accompany  Mm  to  the  self  same  picture  gallery!  We  told  Mm 
the  P  [resident]  had  anticipated  him;  nevertheless  we  said  we  would  go  and 
now  what  do  you  think  the  P  [resident]  will  say  when  he  hears  of  it?  63 

Just  what  the  jealous  President  did  say  of  McLean's  continuing 
pursuit  of  Julia  is  not  known.  There  is,  however,  evidence  that  before 
the  family's  departure  for  Long  Island  on  March  27,  Tyler  again  pro- 
posed marriage  to  Julia  and  suggested  to  her  that  the  wedding  take  place 
before  the  beginning  of  the  next  social  season  in  Washington — probably 
in  November  1843.  ^  is  definitely  known  that  Juliana  blocked  this  pro- 
posed schedule  of  events.  She  insisted  that  her  daughter  wait  a  few  more 
months  to  make  sure  of  her  feeling  for  the  President,  and  in  this  advice 
Julia  reluctantly  concurred.  In  any  event,  the  family  returned  to  East 
Hampton  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  an  informal  "understanding"  had 
been  reached  between  Julia  and  the  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
only  remaining  question  was  the  exact  date  of  the  wedding.  The  season 
had  obviously  been  a  great  success.  "When  I  think  of  all  that  has  oc- 
curred/' wrote  Margaret,  "...  I  feel  highly  gratified  with  the  attention 
we  have  received.  We  have  certainly  great  inducement  to  return."  64 

Margaret  had  had  nowhere  near  the  good  romantic  fortune  of  the 
more  extroverted  Julia.  Her  most  constant  companion  in  Washington 
was  Robert  Tyler.  He  was  happily  married,  although  he  did  from  time 
to  time  during  the  summer  of  1843  write  her  mildly  flirtatious  letters  to 
buoy  her  spirits.  While  she  was  definitely  on  the  prowl  for  a  husband, 
none  of  Margaret's  "insinuations"  in  Washington  bore  fruit.  It  was  her 
bad  luck  to  get  stuck  at  dances  with  highly  ineligible  men  like  Senator 

199 


Ambrose  H.  Sevier  of  Arkansas,  or  be  pursued  by  the  likes  of  a  Mr. 
Marsh  of  New  York  who  had  "light  hair  and  lisps,"  or  a  Mr.  Fry  of 
New  York  who  was  a  "decided  bore."  Her  flirtations  with  eligible 
widowers  and  bachelors  like  Henry  A.  Wise,  Caleb  Gushing,  and  Colonel 
Thomas  Sumter  led  nowhere.  There  was,  briefly,  a  Mr.  May  of  Boston, 
"tall,  with  a  splendid  figure  and  handsome  face,"  but  after  one  or  two 
calls  at  Peyton's  he  stopped  coming.  It  was  Margaret  Gardiner's  great 
misfortune  in  life  to  be  hidden  in  the  shadow  of  the  effulgent  Julia.65 

The  Gardiners  arrived  back  In  East  Hampton  on  March  30  to  find 
the  little  village  agog  with  speculation  about  Julia's  romantic  triumph  in 
Washington.  Rumors  linking  the  local  beauty  with  the  President  of  the 
United  States  circulated  everywhere.  Parson  S.  R.  Ely's  wife  was  so 
impressed  with  Julia's  new  status  she  was  literally  rendered  speechless; 
and  Mrs.  Dayton  told  Margaret  "it  was  generally  believed  around  town 
that  Julia  was  to  be  mistress  of  the  White  House  next  winter  and  that 
she  had  heard  of  it  a  half  a  dozen  times  during  the  last  fortnight.77  To 
Julia's  delight  the  same  speculations  also  made  the  rounds  of  the  fash- 
ionable set  in  New  York  City.66 

It  was  rumored  too  that  the  President  and  his  family  would  visit 
East  Hampton  during  the  summer  of  1843.  In  these  reports  there  was 
some  truth.  The  Gardiners  had  invited  Priscilla  and  Robert  to  visit  them 
after  Priscilla's  return  from  Alabama  in  June.  Priscilla  accepted  the  in- 
vitation, but  the  Gardiners  rather  hoped  the  proposed  visit  would  not 
occur.  Julia  had  also  invited  the  President  and  his  daughter,  Mary  Tyler 
Jones,  to  stop  in  East  Hampton  when  the  Chief  Executive  came  north 
in  June  en  route  to  the  dedication  of  the  Bunker  Hill  monument  in 
Boston.  She  promised  him  "pure  air  with  sea  bathing  that  can  not  fail 
to  invigorate."  In  extending  the  invitation  she  was  fairly  certain  that  the 
ailing  Mary  would  feel  too  weak  to  make  the  trip,  and  that  once  in  New 
York  City  Tyler  would  not  be  able  "to  break  from  his  friends.77  As  it 
turned  out,  none  of  the  Tylers  made  an  appearance  in  the  hamlet  that 
summer,  much  to  the  disappointment  of  the  townspeople.  Of  the  Gardi- 
ners, only  Alexander  saw  the  President  when  he  passed  through  New 
York  on  his  way  to  Boston.67 

Tyler's  love  letters  to  Julia  that  summer  were  read  aloud  to  the 
whole  family  and  then  sent  "for  perusal"  to  David  Lyon  and  Alexander 
in  the  city.  In  these,  the  President  spoke  of  Julia  as  his  "fairy  girl."  All 
of  his  communications  were  filled  with  romantic  sentiments,  said  Julia, 
about  "setting  suns,  stars  peeping  from  behind  their  veils,  the  soul, 
music  and  memories,  my  raven  tresses,  brightest  roses,  gay  morning  of 
life,  summit  of  the  hill  of  life,  his  feet  directed  to  its  base,  view  of  the 
setting  sun,  and  James  River  from  his  house  . . .  etc.77  He  spoke  too  of  the 
"faery  spell"  Julia  had  left  behind  her  in  Washington  and  of  his  "dreamy 
anticipation"  of  her  letters  to  him.  He  still  worried  about  Pickens  and 

200 


the  dogged  efforts  of  the  South  Carolinian  to  "transplant  the  fair  rose  of 
East  Hampton  to  that  sunny  clime.7"  As  for  himself,  the  President  felt 
that  a  summer  of  quiet  repose  at  Sherwood  Forest  would  "compensate  in 
some  degree  for  the  abuse  I  have  met  with  at  the  hands  of  vile  politi- 
cians." These  declarations  of  his  love  raised  Julia's  spirits  considerably. 
"We  drank  his  health  In  a  glass  of  champagne  today  at  dinner,"  Mar- 
garet reported.  £%We  don't  often  indulge  in  such  luxuries  but  were  testing 
It."  6S 

Knowledge  of  Julia's  correspondence  with  Tyler  soon  spread 
through  East  Hampton,  the  hangers-on  at  the  post  office  keeping  a  care- 
ful check  on  the  number  of  letters  flowing  between  East  Hampton  and 
Sherwood  Forest.  u Yesterday  evening  I  sent  off  a  letter  of  5  pages  to 
the  President,'7  Julia  Informed  Alexander  In  early  April.  ^They  have  had 
all  today  at  the  taverns  to  talk  about  It.  I  am  curious  to  know  the  sur- 
mises." There  was  natural!}'  much  local  speculation  about  her  plans.  She 
was  amused  to  learn,  for  instance,  that  rumor  In  New  York  City  and 
Washington  had  it  that  she  had  accepted  an  offer  of  marriage  from  Tyler 
but  only  on  the  condition  that  he  be  re-elected  in  1844.  Her  part  of  the 
bargain,  so  the  story  went,  would  be  to  campaign  for  Tyler  at  Saratoga 
and  in  other  of  the  fashionable  watering  places  In  the  North  where  her 
specific  job  would  be  to  "win  hearts"  and  *£ga!n  popularity"  for  the 
President.  At  the  same  time,  two  Tylerite  politicians  in  New  York, 
Mordecai  M.  Noah  and  Collector  of  the  Port  Edward  Curtis,  together 
with  all  the  New  York  Customs  House  officials,  would  invade  the  South 
to  "drum  up  recruits  there. JJ  69 

As  Julia  moved  closer  to  the  bosom  of  the  Tyler  family  she  began 
to  take  an  increasing  interest  in  the  administration's  political  problems 
and  activities.  She  was  stunned,  for  example,  to  learn  that  Robert  Tyler 
was  instrumental  in  the  appointment  of  one  Jeremiah  Miller  to  a  clerk- 
ship in  the  New  York  City  Post  Office.  She  knew  the  gentleman  as  "that 
dissipated  Jerry  Miller,"  and  she  was  certain  he  was  dishonest.  "What 
a  nice  opportunity  he  will  have  to  pocket  a  few  thousands  if  any  of  the 
letters  feel  particularly  heavy,"  she  protested  to  Alexander.  Juliana  was 
more  tolerant  of  such  appointments  than  her  daughter,  understanding 
somewhat  better  the  difficulties  Tyler  was  experiencing  in  launching  his 
third  party.  By  her  pragmatic  standards  all  the  President's  appointments 
were  "great  appointments!'  Julia  finally  saw  the  logic  in  patronage.  And, 
since  ripe  political  plums  were  being  handed  out  by  John  Tyler,  it  was 
her  speedy  reasoning  that  Alexander  might  as  well  have  one  of  them. 
"Why  won't  you  write  another  piece  for  Capt.  Ty.?"  she  suggested  to 
her  ambitious  brother.  "It  would  not  be  trying  very  hard  for  a  Secretary- 
ship." Alexander  accepted  her  sensible  suggestion  and  within  a  few  days 
was  hard  at  work  on  another  pro-Tyler  piece  which  predictably  began: 
"The  Administration  of  John  Tyler  is  destined  to  be  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  hi  the  civil  history  of  this  government "  Etc.70 

201 


The  summer  of  1843  sped  swiftly  by.  The  law  business  engaged  in 
by  Alexander  and  (occasionally)  David  Lyon  picked  up  enough  to  give 
promise  of  becoming  self-sustaining.  This  relieved  their  father  of  the 
necessity  of  paying  the  office  rent.  For  a  moment  it  even  appeared  that 
Cousin  John  Gardiner,  the  wild  man  of  the  clan,  was  going  to  mend  his 
ways.  A  touring  temperance  lecturer  sailed  out  to  Gardiners  Island  and 
persuaded  him  to  sign  "The  Pledge,"  but  John's  reform  lasted  only  a  few 
sober  days.  "He  is  a  hopeless  case/'  sighed  Margaret.  James  Keating, 
the  family  servant  in  Washington,  had  to  be  discharged  for  forgetting  his 
proper  station  in  life  once  the  Gardiners  had  returned  home.  A  new 
Irish  maid  was  engaged  in  New  York  and  brought  out  to  East  Hampton 
after  being  assured  there  were  "no  wild  beasts  about.7'  71 

The  sisters  spent  the  summer  preparing  their  already  extensive 
wardrobes  for  an  August  trip  to  Saratoga  and  for  their  return  to  Wash- 
ington in  the  winter.  A  torrent  of  letters  were  poured  forth  to  Alexander 
in  the  city  instructing  him  to  buy  this,  buy  that,  and  return  the  other. 
So  many  purchasing  commissions  were  piled  upon  him  that  his  mother 
began  fearing  for  his  physical  ability  to  execute  them  all.  "Do  not  run 
about  the  city  in  the  heat/'  she  advised  him.  "Hire  a  cab  to  do  your 
business."  When  not  bothering  Alexander  with  cloth,  lace,  dress,  and 
shoe  commissions,  the  sisters  bothered  their  father  about  moving  into 
New  York.  They  insisted  that  he  follow  through  on  his  earlier  intention 
to  buy  or  lease  a  house  in  town.  As  Gardiner  carefully  negotiated  for  a 
property  on  Lafayette  Place,  the  girls  urged  more  speed  in  the  matter 
and  complained  that  the  Senator  would  not  let  them  exercise  a  vote  on 
the  question.  Not  until  November  1843  was  it  finally  settled — a  lease  for 
$1000  per  year.  Late  that  month  the  peripatetic  family  moved  into  the 
house  at  43  Lafayette  Place.72 

Julia  was  not  nearly  so  interested  now  in  the  attractions  of  a  town 
house  in  New  York  as  she  had  been  before  her  conquest  of  Washington 
and  the  White  House: 

I  can  now  only  judge  from  past  experience  [she  wrote].  Place  three  winters 
in  New  York  and  one  at  Washington  in  the  balance  and  which  will  weigh 
heaviest  with  agreeability?  Whoever  spent  a  more  brilliant  winter  in  W. — 
brilliant  in  the  first  degree — than  we?  And  next  winter  promises  to  be  even 
more  so.  The  White  House  will  be  constantly  thrown  open — a  new  set  of 
members — and  a  long  session. . . .  New  York  contains  the  most  abominable 
set  of  people  of  any  city  in  the  world!  Though  I  would  not  tell  them  so, 
there  are  several  exceptions.  We'll  see  what  Saratoga  will  bring  forth.73 

Saratoga  brought  forth  very  little.  The  family  stayed  at  the  Tre- 
mont.  There  were  the  usual  fancy-dress  balls,  the  games  of  tenpins  on 
the  lawns,  and  the  interminable  gossip  on  the  verandas.  Julia  made  her 
usual  stunning  impression,  and  Tyler  wrote  to  say  he  had  heard  in 
faraway  Virginia  that  she  was  the  "observed  of  all  observers"  there. 
There  was,  of  course,  some  pleasure  in  discovering  at  Saratoga  that  the 

202 


Gardiner  connection  with  the  Tylers  was  beginning  to  excite  increasing 
envy  among  the  elite  families  of  New  York.  But  the  vacation  was 
clouded  when  the  Gardiner  family  learned  of  the  attempt  on  the  life  of 
their  good  friend ,  Postmaster  General  Charles  A.  Wickliffe.  The  would- 
be  assassin  was  J.  McLean  Gardner,  an  unstable  young  man  who  had 
read  law  in  the  same  office  with  Alexander  in  Xew  York  in  1841-1842 
and  whom  the  Gardiners  again  had  seen  briefly  in  Washington  the  pre- 
ceding winter.  Wickliffe  sustained  a  minor  knife  wound  in  an  attempt 
to  protect  the  person  of  his  daughter  Mary,  who  was  with  Mm  at  the 
time.  While  both  Alexander  and  David  Lyon  were  certain  that  the 
thwarted  assassin  was  an  attention-seeking  mental  case,  the  episode  was 
no  less  distressing.  Equally  upsetting  was  the  fact  that  the  Saratoga 
jaunt  produced  no  husband  for  Margaret.  "The  harvest  is  finished,  the 
summer  ended?  and  we  not  married!"  she  complained.74 


No  sooner  was  the  summer  over  than  the  President  began  urging 
the  Gardiner  sisters  to  return  again  to  Washington.  "Are  you  coming  to 
Washington  this  winter?'7  he  implored  Julia.  "I  am  selfish  in  desiring 
that  you  should,  as  I  wish  my  levees  attended  by  the  fairest  forms  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  and  who  [are]  brighter  and  fairer  than  you  and 
Margaret?  Do  you  not  make  a  curtsy  for  that?"  Julia  replied  that  there 
would  be  a  considerable  delay  in  their  leaving  for  Washington  occasioned 
by  the  projected  move  of  the  family  from  East  Hampton  to  Lafayette 
Place,  but  that  they  did  hope  to  reach  the  capital  by  mid-February  at 
the  latest.  The  Washington  visit  would  be  followed  by  another  Grand 
Tour  of  the  Continent,  preliminary  plans  for  which  the  Senator  had 
already  made.  To  raise  the  necessary  cash  for  these  ventures  and  other 
expenses  he  negotiated  mortgage  loans  on  several  of  his  wife's  New  York 
properties  for  $68oo.75 

The  Senator  and  his  excited  daughters  reached  Washington  once 
again  on  February  24,  1844.  As  usual,  Alexander  and  David  Lyon  re- 
mained in  New  York  to  attend  to  their  law  business.  Juliana  also  re- 
mained behind.  A  series  of  painful  migraine  headaches  had  plagued  her 
throughout  the  winter.  She  was  not  feeling  at  all  well.  For  Julia  and 
Margaret  a  vigorous  social  schedule  began  immediately.  On  the  twenty- 
seventh  they  attended  a  public  levee  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White 
House  at  which  they  danced  and  flirted  with  their  acquaintances  of  the 
previous  seasons. 

The  President  was  in  a  particularly  fine  mood  that  evening,  "Ms 
thin  long  figure  and  prominent  proboscis  were  everywhere  amid  the 
throng  wheeling  in  ready  obedience  to  the  slightest  pull  of  his  coat-tail." 
As  he  watched  his  beloved  Julia  swirl  across  the  floor  with  her  many  at- 
tentive partners  he  felt  mellow  and  satisfied,  for  a  moment  almost 
democratic.  His  political  future  looked  brighter  than  it  had  for  months. 
Thus  when  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald  con- 

203 


gratulated  him  on  the  truly  public  nature  of  the  company  present,  Tyler 
said: 

Yes,  sir,  I  am  somewhat  proud  of  the  innovation.  I  believe  it  has  had  an 
ameliorative  influence  upon  society  here. ...  It  is  a  Virginia  notion,  sir,  a 
Virginia  abstraction,  if  you  please,  but  not  a  bad  one,  I  think.  It  brings  all 
classes  of  people  together — and  at  least  for  the  time,  it  Americanizes  them. 
We  must  Americanize  the  people  socially,  as  well  as  politically,  if  we  would 
escape  the  evil  distinctions  and  false  notions  of  the  European  monarchies. 
We  must  subject  their  notions  of  superiority  to  our  ideas  of  equality,  to  give 
them  the  proper  illustration  of  our  free  institutions.76 

Amid  all  the  gaiety  and  laughter  of  the  levee  no  one  could  suspect 
that  the  bloodiest  tragedy  of  the  Tyler  administration  was  less  than 
twenty-four  hours  away,  Julia  and  Margaret,  in  company  with  a  great 
number  of  those  present  at  the  ball  that  evening,  were  looking  forward  to 
a  gay  excursion  next  day  down  the  Potomac  aboard  the  new  steam 
frigate  Princeton,  pride  of  the  United  States  Navy.  Robert  F.  Stockton, 
captain  of  the  Princeton,  was  present  at  the  White  House  levee  on 
February  27,  as  were  many  of  the  150  ladies  and  200  gentlemen  he  had 
invited  to  make  the  gala  voyage.  There  was  much  talk  and  anticipation 
of  the  morrow's  treat.  A  high  point  of  the  outing  would  be  the  firing  of 
the  great  "Peacemaker,"  the  world's  largest  naval  gun. 

A  large  and  expectant  throng  boarded  the  Princeton  late  the  fol- 
lowing morning.  The  President,  his  son-in-law  William  Waller,  Senator 
David  Gardiner  and  his  daughters,  Cabinet  members,  senators  and 
representatives,  Army  and  Navy  officers,  foreign  diplomats,  and  the  elite 
of  Washington  society  (among  them  Dolley  Madison)  all  packed  them- 
selves into  the  below-deck  area  which  had  hastily  been  converted  into  a 
salon  for  the  occasion.  There  they  found  food  and  drink  in  great 
quantities.  At  i  P.M.  the  vessel  weighed  anchor  and  proceeded  slowly 
down  river  toward  Mount  Vernon.  Twice  the  huge  "Peacemaker"  was 
fired,  to  the  accompanying  cheers  of  the  guests  who  crowded  tightly 
around  the  great  gun.  It  was  quite  safe.  The  weapon  had  been  fired 
several  times  be-fore  on  the  Princeton's  test  runs  down  the  Potomac,  the 
President  himself  having  been  aboard  to  witness  one  of  the  experiments. 

Shortly  after  3  P.M.  the  guests  were  gathered  again  in  the  salon  for 
a  "sumptuous  collation."  Julia  tarried  on  deck  until  a  gentleman  ap- 
proached her  and  said:  "The  President  wishes  to  take  you  into  the 
collation  which  is  just  served.  I  suppose  you  will  have  to  obey  orders." 
Julia  laughed,  bidding  her  father  to  follow  her  below.  Reaching  the 
salon,  she  was  met  by  Tyler,  seated,  and  given  a  glass  of  champagne. 
The  toasts  began.  Champagne  flowed  as  the  President  toasted  the  Navy, 
the  "Peacemaker/7  and  Captain  Stockton.  Other  toasts  followed  in  rapid 
order.  There  was  much  hilarity.  Some  of  the  guests  began  to  sing.  When 
"wit  and  mirth,  and  every  circumstance  of  gratification  pervaded," 
someone  suggested  to  Captain  Stockton  that  the  mammoth  gun  be  fired 

204 


just  once  more — in  honor  of  George  Washington,  whose  estate  the  vessel 
had  just  passed.  Stockton  agreed  and  went  up  on  deck,  followed  by  a 
group  of  gentlemen.  The  President  rose  from  Ms  chair  to  follow.  Senator 
Gardiner  paused  for  a  moment  to  chat  with  Mrs.  Madison,  with  whom 
Margaret  was  sitting.  Then  he  went  up  on  deck  with  the  others.  Tylzi 
reached  the  foot  of  the  ladder  and  stopped.  Waller  had  broken  into  song 
and  the  President  tarried  briefly  to  hear  him  out — a  momentary  hesita- 
tion that  may  well  have  saved  his  life.  Julia  meanwhile  was  flirtatiously 
engaging  the  rapt  attention  of  John  Potter  Stockton,  the  captain's  young 
son.  As  Waller  reached  a  line  in  his  ditty  which  ran  "Eight  hundred  men 
lay  slain/'  the  "Peacemaker"  was  again  fired  on  the  deck  above.  The 
coordination  of  the  blast  with  the  words  of  Waller's  song  seemed  "so 
appropriate  that  the  company  joined  in  cheers,"  But  within  a  few  seconds 
a  distraught  officer,  " blackened  with  powder,  rushed  through  the  gang- 
way and  called  loudly  for  a  surgeon."  Great  billows  of  black  smoke 
began  drifting  into  the  suddenly  sobered  salon. 

The  breech  of  the  great  "Peacemaker"  had  exploded,  spraying 
Jagged  chunks  of  red-hot  iron  around  the  deck  like  buckshot.  Then  came 
the  shout,  "The  Secretary  of  State  is  dead!"  During  the  confused 
moments  of  "woe,  agony  and  despair"  which  followed,  Julia  tried  with- 
out success  to  make  her  way  through  the  surging  throng  to  the  deck. 

"'Let  me  go  to  my  father! "  she  shouted  in  panic. 

"My  dear  child.,  you  can  do  no  good.  Your  father  is  in  heaven,"  a 
comforting  voice  said.  Julia  fainted.77 

David  Gardiner  of  East  Hampton  was  indeed  dead.  So  too  were 
Virginians  Abel  P.  Upshur,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  Thomas  W.  Gil- 
mer,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Also  lying  dead  near  the  twisted  gun  were 
Virgil  Maxcy  of  Maryland,  former  American  charge  d'affaires  at  The 
Hague;  Commodore  Beverly  Kennon,  Chief  of  Construction,  United 
States  Navy;  Tyler's  Negro  body  servant;  and  two  seamen.  Wounded 
were  Captain  Stockton,  who  suffered  powder  burns,  Senator  Thomas 
Hart  Benton,  whose  right  eardrum  was  punctured,  and  nine  seamen. 
The  bodies  of  Upshur,  Kennon,  and  Maxcy  were  badly  mutilated. 
Gilmer,  however,  retained  a  "natural  countenance"  in  death.  So  did 
David  Gardiner,  who  was  "comparatively  little  injured  in  his  person  or 
altered  in  any  respect."  His  glasses  were  unbroken.  His  watch  had 
stopped  at  the  moment  of  the  explosion.  It  read  4:06;  Upshur Js  read 

4:15- 

As  Tyler  reached  the  scene  of  the  tragedy  above,  the  dead  were 
already  being  covered  with  flags  and  blankets.  The  wounded  were  taken 
below,  where  physicians  attended  them.  At  4:20  the  Princeton  was 
standing  off  Alexandria.  Additional  medical  aid  was  summoned,  and 
the  small  steam  vessel  /.  Johnson  came  alongside  to  take  the  shaken 
and  panicky  survivors  ashore.  Tyler  himself  carried  Julia  across  the 
gangway  to  the  rescue  boat.  At  this  point  she  regained  consciousness 

205 


and,  dazed,  began  to  struggle  so  violently  In  Tyler's  arms  that  "I  al- 
most knocked  us  both  off  the  gang-plank.  I  did  not  know  at  the  time  . . . 
that  it  was  the  President  whose  life  I  almost  consigned  to  the  water." 
Tyler  and  Secretary  of  War  William  Wilkins  and  other  friends  of  the 
victims  remained  aboard  the  Princeton  until  eight-ten  that  evening, 
keeping  vigil  over  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  Julia  and  Margaret  were  taken 
to  the  White  House  where  they  spent  the  night. 

News  of  the  disaster  was  dispatched  quickly  by  courier  to  New 
York  and  to  other  sections  of  the  nation.  Juliana  learned  of  her 
husband's  death  the  following  evening.  The  initial  reports  reach- 
ing New  York  Included  no  mention  of  the  fate  of  Julia  and  Margaret, 
only  that  David  Gardiner  was  among  the  dead.  With  characteristic 
fortitude  Juliana  drove  in  her  carriage  to  the  home  where  her  sons 
were  dining  that  evening  and  personally  conveyed  to  them  the  sad  news 
of  their  father's  sudden  passing.  Alexander  and  David  Lyon  immediately 
excused  themselves  and  prepared  to  depart  for  Washington.  They  arrived 
in  the  capital  on  Friday  afternoon,  March  i.  There  they  found  their  sis- 
ters "though  greatly  afflicted  and  enervated,  bearing  our  deep  misfortune 
much  better  than  could  have  been  anticipated."  Alexander  himself  had 
not  eaten  or  slept  for  twenty-four  hours.78 

The  bodies  of  David  Gardiner  and  the  other  victims  of  the  Prince- 
ton disaster  lay  in  state  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White  House.  It 
seemed  scarcely  possible  that  a  few  days  earlier  this  same  black-hung 
room  had  been  the  scene  of  such  gay  festivities.  Throughout  Friday 
some  20,000  people  filed  by  the  caskets.  The  following  morning  a  great 
funeral  procession  two  miles  in  length  was  formed.  Stores  closed,  bells 
tolled,  black  cloth  was  everywhere  evident.  The  President,  joined  by 
all  the  civilian  officials  of  the  government,  military  officers,  the  diplo- 
matic corps,  and  thousands  of  private  citizens,  conveyed  the  remains  of 
the  fallen  to  Capitol  Hill  where  impressive  funeral  services  were  held. 
David  Gardiner,  his  son  reported,  "was  indeed  buried  with  such  honors 
as  perhaps  never  before  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  private  citizen."  His  body 
was  placed  in  the  vault  of  Congress  until  arrangements  for  final  burial 
in  East  Hampton  could  be  made.  Returning  to  the  White  House  from 
the  funeral,  the  President's  horses  ran  away  at  full  speed  and  the  nation 
was  "again  well  nigh  deprived  of  its  noble-hearted  Chief  Magistrate." 
Everything  seemed  out  of  joint.  March  2,  1844,  the  day  of  the  funerals, 
was  a  dark  day  in  the  history  of  the  Gardiner  family.  "Oh  I  . . .  what 
were  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  even  such  funeral  rites  to 
us  . . .  ?"  lamented  the  broken-hearted  Alexander.  The  sudden,  tragic 
affair  had  badly  shaken  everyone  in  the  tightly  knit  family.  Twelve 
years  later  John  Tyler  could  still  not  "revert  to  that  awful  incident  with- 
out pain  amounting  almost  to  agony."  T9 

David  Lyon  and  Alexander  solemnly  escorted  their  grief -stricken 
sisters  back  to  New  York.  It  had  been  a  short  season  in  Washington 

206 


for  them — less  than  two  weeks.  Letters  of  condolence  flooded  In.  £iWou!d 
that  I  could  come  to  you  and  mingle  my  tears  with  yours/'  wrote 
Pastor  Ely  from  East  Hampton,  "but  that  cannot  be.  I  can  only  say  to 
you  as  one  who  knows  how  rich  the  consolation,  go  and  tell  Jesus." 
In  Washington,  Tyler  was  faced  with  the  always  awkward  task  of  com- 
forting the  widows  of  the  deceased.  This  he  accomplished  with  skill  and 
in  good  taste.  He  arranged  with  Washington  morticians  the  grim  details 
of  preparing  David  Gardiner's  body  for  removal  to  East  Hampton.  He 
urged  Alexander  to  "perform  this  last  pious  duty  at  as  early  an  hour 
as  possible/7  and  offered  him  the  hospitality  of  the  President's  Mansion 
when  he  returned  to  Washington  to  escort  the  Senator's  remains  to 
Long  Island  for  interment.  To  Juliana  he  sent  a  small  volume  of  poems, 
a  gift  of  condolence,  together  with  a  resolution  of  grief  and  regret  passed 
by  the  Michigan  legislature.  In  every  way  he  was  tender  and  helpful.80 

The  fact  that  David  Gardiner  died  far  from  poor,  that  his  family 
was  left  In  comfortable  circumstances.  In  no  way  lessened  the  shock 
of  Ms  passing  or  shortened  the  period  of  grief  felt  by  his  wife  and 
children.  Juliana  went  Into  deep  mourning.81 

JuBa  dreamed  frequently  of  her  father  in  the  fortnight  that  fol- 
lowed. She  Imagined  Mm  at  her  bedside  so  often  and  "saw"  him  so 
clearly  that  she  would  "sigh  away  the  night  In  watching"  for  him.  Within 
a  few  weeks  she  decided  that  an  early  marriage  to  John  Tyler  might 
help  blot  out  the  recurring  Image  of  her  dead  parent  and  transport  her 
mind  to  happier  thoughts.  Within  seven  weeks  of  the  Princeton  dis- 
aster, a  month  after  David  Gardiner's  burial  in  East  Hampton,  Julia 
let  John  Tyler  know  that  she  was  ready  to  marry  him.  Perhaps  she 
needed  a  new  father  image  to  sustain  her.  "After  I  lost  my  father  I  felt 
differently  toward  the  President/'  she  remarked  many  years  later.  "He 
seemed  to  fill  the  place  and  to  be  more  agreeable  in  every  way  than  any 
younger  man  ever  was  or  could  be."  Whatever  the  Freudian  implica- 
tions of  Julia's  decision?  Tyler  needed  no  urging.  He  talked  the  matter 
over  with  Priscilla,  John,  Jr.,  and  Henry  A.  Wise,  received  their  ap- 
probation, and  after  careful  consideration  decided  to  write  Juliana  the 
formal  letter  of  April  20  asking  for  Julia's  hand.82 

Saddened  as  he  was  by  David  Gardiner's  death,  vexed  by  gossip 
about  the  state  of  his  private  relations  with  Julia,  Tyler  made  haste  to 
the  altar.  His  decision  was  conditioned  by  his  own  loneliness,  Julia's 
sudden  departure  from  Washington  on  March  5  left  him  emotionally 
depressed.  His  financial  affairs  were  in  disarray.  His  spirits  had  seldom 
been  lower.  On  March  24,  two  days  before  David  Gardiner  was  buried 
at  East  Hampton,  he  wrote  his  daughter  Mary  from  the  White  House 
that  he  had  decided 

to  keep  a  bachelor's  establishment  for  this  year  dismissing  the  Steward 
and  House  Keeper  on  the  4  April — so  that  I  might  save  as  much  money  as 

207 


possible.  In  that  way  I  could  Mve  for  $5000  whereas  the  moment  a  Lady  is 
here  the  House  becomes  full  and  the  expenses  heavy.  Our  family  connexion  is 
so  extensive  that  they  flock  to  us  always  in  numbers. ...  I  shall  have  a  lone- 
some time  unless  someone  is  with  me.  This  gossiping  people  have  filled  the 

whole  country  with  rumors  as  to  myself  and  Miss  G .  They  have  had  me 

at  one  time  in  New  York.  Then  I  was  to  meet  her  in  Philadelphia  and  on 
two  occasions  they  have  had  me  married — and  all  this  too  before  the  re- 
mains of  her  father  had  been  buried  and  while  she  was  laboring  under  an 
agony  of  grief.  How  excessively  cruel  and  stupid.  I  will  not  deny  to  you  my 
great  admiration  of  her,  but  to  this  moment  there  exists  no  sufficient  founda- 
tion for  all  this,  and  I  wish  you  and  Letty  to  be  assured  that  whatever  might 
come  of  it  I  should  never  forget  my  love  for  either  of  you,  or  fail  to  make 
some  suitable  provision  for  you  both.  I  say  these  things  to  put  you  entirely 

at  ease We  are  all  recovering  from  the  shock  of  the  Princeton — and  the 

City  becoming  less  gloomy. 

When  Julia  suggested  an  early  wedding  date,  June  26,  Tyler  agreed.  He 
had  no  desire  to  live  in  a  "bachelor's  establishment."  83 

Julia's  depression  passed  quickly  after  her  wedding.  Visions  of  her 
father  stopped  haunting  her.  In  November  1844  she  alarmed  her  mother 
with  the  suggestion  that  she  be  allowed  to  trim  her  black  velvet 
mourning  coat  in  fur.  During  her  "reign"  in  the  White  House  she 
usually  wore  black  during  the  day  and  white  or  black  lace  over  white 
for  evening  wear.  The  diamond  star  she  normally  wore  on  her  forehead 
on  formal  occasions  was  replaced  with  a  black  onyx.  By  March  1845 
she  was  shopping  for  "something  pretty  in  the  way  of  mourning  silks." 
Three  months  later  she  was  complaining  that  the  hot  weather  in  Vir- 
ginia was  causing  the  black  dye  of  her  clothes  to  stain  her  neck  and 
arms.  Protracted  mourning  could  be  very  inconvenient.84 

Alexander  overcame  his  gloom  by  throwing  himself  wholeheartedly 
into  the  politics  of  the  struggling  Tyler  party.  Beginning  in  April  1844 
he  became  a  leading,  though  often  anonymous,  publicist  for  the  Presi- 
dent and  for  those  "independent  Democrats"  in  New  York  state  who 
"in  the  midst  of  the  contentions  of  parties  yet  retain  minds  free  and 
unshackled,  patriotic  and  self-sacrificing,  holding  the  public  good  supe- 
rior to  pre-conceived  opinions  and  personal  associations."  This  par- 
ticular effort  for  his  future  brother-in-law  was  penned  on  April  27,  1844,, 
the  day  the  President  was  nominated  by  a  convention  of  his  friends 
in  Baltimore  on  a  ringing  platform  of  "Tyler  and  Texas!"  Only  a  week 
had  passed  since  he  had  asked  Juliana  for  Julia's  hand  in  marriage. 
With  a  young  new  wife  in  prospect  and  a  nomination  for  the  Presi- 
dency in  hand,  John  Tyler  looked  to  the  future  with  confidence.  Shortly 
after  the  explosion  aboard  the  Princeton,  Tyler  had  lamented  the  "loss 
I  have  sustained  in  Upshur  and  Gilmer.  They  were  truly  my  friends, 
and  would  have  aided  me  for  the  next  twelve  months  with  great  effect." 
Alexander  Gardiner  was  determined  to  provide  Tyler  something  of  that 
lost  aid.85 

208 


TYLER  AND   TEXAS— AND   TAMMANY 


//  the  annexation  of  Texas  shall  crown  off  my  public 
life,  I  shall  neither  retire  ignominiously  nor  be  soon 
forgotten. 

JOHN    TYLER,    1844 


John  Tyler  first  broached  the  Texas  question  in  October  1841  In  terms 
of  the  "lustre"  it  might  throw  around  an  administration  in  serious  po- 
litical difficulties.  He  did  not,  of  course,  originate  the  Texas  problem, 
nor  did  he  write  finis  to  it.  It  began  in  1836  when  Texas  threw  off  the 
Mexican  yoke  in  a  revolutionary  war;  it  ended  only  when  General 
Winfieid  Scott's  army  finally  stormed  into  Mexico  City  in  1847,  What 
Tyler  did  do  was  move  the  annexation  issue  off  the  dead  center  it  oc- 
cupied in  1843-1844,  Since  1837  a  Texan  request  for  annexation  had 
languished  in  Washington,  unattended  for  fear  the  whole  subject  would 
further  agitate  the  slavery  issue.  For  reasons  other  than  any  personal  in- 
terest in  slavery  expansion — reasons  that  were  essentially  psychological 
— Tyler  was  determined  to  bring  the  annexation  proposition  to  a  head. 
The  Texans  wanted  annexation,  and  it  was  clearly  in  the  national 
interest  that  annexation  be  effected.  To  accomplish  this  desirable  goal 
Tyler  was  convinced  he  must  first  have  a  sound  political  foundation 
from  which  to  proceed.  It  was  therefore  no  accident  of  chronology  that 
Tyler  founded  his  third-party  movement  in  January  1843,  *n  February 
was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  by  a  small  group  of  his  friends  in 
Trenton,  and  then  in  March  informed  Isaac  Van  Zandt,  Texan  charge 
in  Washington,  to  "encourage  your  people  to  be  quiet  and  to  not  grow 
impatient;  we  are  doing  all  we  can  to  annex  you,  but  we  must  have 
time."  * 

Unfortunately,  the  Texans  grew  quite  impatient.  In  July  1843  they 
abruptly  withdrew  their  offer  of  annexation  and  began  ostentatious 

209 


negotiations  with  both  the  Mexicans  and  the  British.  Those  with  Mexico 
turned  on  the  possibilities  of  an  armistice,  a  Mexican  recognition  of 
Texan  independence,  and  an  end  to  the  sporadic  hit-and-run  border 
warfare  that  had  dragged  along  since  1837.  Those  with  London  repre- 
sented a  snuggling  up  to  Britain  for  the  purpose  of  alarming  Tyler 
and  forcing  him  into  more  positive  and  speedy  action  on  the  annexation 
question.  The  strategy  was  successful.  Tyler  later  remarked  that  Presi- 
dent Sam  Houston's  "billing  and  cooing"  with  England  was  much  more 
than  the  "coquetry"  the  Texan  called  it;  it  was,  he  said,  "a  serious  love 
affair."  Fearful  that  real  peace  might  break  out  along  the  Rio  Grande 
with  Mexican  recognition  of  Texan  independence  and  concerned  that 
British  machinations  in  Texas  might  lead,  as  part  of  a  rumored  Anglo- 
Texan  alliance,  to  British  commercial  hegemony  and  the  abolition  of 
slavery  In  the  Lone  Star  Republic  (although  the  White  House  knew 
there  was  scant  danger  of  abolition),  Tyler  and  Secretary  of  State  Abel 
P.  Upshur  moved  swiftly.  In  September  1843  ^ey  decided  to  open 
secret  negotiations  with  Texas  looking  toward  an  annexation  treaty. 
The  following  month  Tyler  secretly  made  a  firm  annexation  offer  in 
spite  of  a  strong  Mexican  note  in  August  identifying  annexation  con- 
summated as  ipso  facto  an  act  of  war.  By  early  fall,  however,  Tyler 
was  sure  his  third-party  movement  was  well  launched.  He  was  ready 
for  any  eventuality,  war  included.2 

The  Texas  annexation  issue  was  not  drummed  up  to  serve  selfish 
political  ambitions.  Tyler's  hand-fashioned  Democratic  Republican 
Party  with  its  famous  "Tyler  and  Texas!"  slogan  was  not  designed  by 
the  President  to  secure  his  re-election  on  the  Texas  question.  He  never 
had  any  hope  of  re-election.  Instead,  the  party  was  created  only  to 
force  the  Democrats  to  adopt  a  pro-annexation  stance  in  the  1844 
canvass.  That  accomplished,  it  was  designed  that  the  new  party  would 
go  swiftly  and  willingly  out  of  business,  pausing  only  to  secure  from 
the  Democratic  nominee,  whoever  he  might  be,  a  guarantee  that  Tyler's 
friends,  particularly  those  who  had  fought  most  vigorously  for  annexa- 
tion, would  not  be  proscribed  by  the  new  administration.  Nor  did  Tyler 
rip  the  controversial  Texas  issue  from  an  ideological  context  foreign 
to  his  longstanding  personal  views  on  American  diplomacy.  If  he  wanted 
annexation  for  the  "lustre"  it  might  throw  upon  an  otherwise  unim- 
pressive administration,  his  personal  psychological  motive  was  not  in 
conflict  with  the  fact  that  he  had  long  supported  Manifest  Destiny. 

As  early  as  1832  he  had  maintained  that  the  destiny  of  America 
was  to  expand  westward  to  the  coast  and  into  the  Pacific,  "walking  on 
the  waves  of  the  mighty  deep  . . .  overturning  the  strong  places  of 
despotism,  and  restoring  to  man  his  long-lost  rights."  He  was  convinced 
that  the  future  greatness  of  the  United  States  lay  in  its  ability  to  pene- 
trate the  markets  of  the  world,  to  compete  successfully  with  Great 
Britain  for  commercial  empire.  His  free-trade  views  turned  largely  on 

2IO 


this  consideration,  and  few  projects  occupied  his  attention  as  President 
to  a  greater  extent  than  the  negotiation  of  commercial  agreements 
abroad.  When,  for  example,  the  Senate  turned  down  such  a  treaty  with 
the  German  ZoUverein  in  1844,  ^e  boldly  took  it  up  atsain  as  a  cam- 
paign issue.  He  was  particularly  pleased  when  Caleb  Gushing  negotiated 
the  Treaty  of  Wanghia  with  China ,  opening  the  commercial  doors  of 
the  Middle  Kingdom  to  American  enterprise.  Indeed,  when  news  of  the 
Gushing  Treaty  reached  the  White  House  in  December  1844,  Julia 

shouted,  "Hurrah!  The  Chinese  treaty  is  accomplished I  thought 

the  President  would  go  off  in  an  ecstasy  a  minute  ago  with  the  pleasant 
news.53  Similarly,  he  looked  forward  to  the  possibility  of  opening  trade 
with  Japan  as  early  as  1843.  &&&  when  Commodore  Matthew  C.  Perry 
finally  pried  Japan  open  in  1854  Tyler  accurately  regarded  his  earlier 
success  with  China  as  "the  nest  egg  of  the  Japan  movement."  His  at- 
tentions to  Prince  Timoleo  HaolIMo  in  Washington  in  1842,  and  his 
bold  extension  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  at 
that  time,  indicated  a  ready  appreciation  of  Hawaii  as  a  steppingstone 
to  the  markets  of  East  Asia.  If  any  nation  sought  "to  take  possession 
of  the  islands,  colonize  them,  and  subvert  the  native  Government,"  he 
warned  the  powers  on  December  20,  1842,  such  a  policy  would  "create 
dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  the  United  States."  So  was  born  the  Tyler 
Doctrine  which  found  its  way  into  the  ideological  arsenal  of  American 
diplomacy  where  it  was  stored  for  future  use  by  the  United  States  in 
the  Pacific.3 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  he  viewed  the  annexation  of  Texas 
in  commercial  terms  that  would  benefit  the  whole  nation.  Indeed,  the 
dismemberment  of  the  rich  Mexican  Empire  came  to  occupy  his  hopes 
and  his  dreams  almost  exclusively  in  1842.  Stretching  from  the  jungles 
of  Central  America  northward  to  the  forty-second  parallel,  it  was  a  cor- 
rupt, weak,  misgoverned  nation,  exploited  by  venal  dictators  and  milked 
by  a  decadent  aristocracy.  Like  most  Americans  of  the  period,  Tyler 
had  little  but  contempt  for  the  backward  Mexicans.  In  his  view, 
Dictator-President  Santa  Anna  was  never  more  than  "the  captive  of 
San  Jacinto."  Tyler  also  knew  that  Mexico  was  hi  no  position  to  defend 
its  vast  territories  which  hung  waiting  to  be  plucked.  The  only  ques- 
tion was  when  and  how  the  harvest  would  be  gathered.  In  May  1842 
Tyler  attempted  to  gather  in  the  Mexican  province  of  California.  This 
would  bring  him  just  as  much  "lustre"  as  Texas  annexation.  As  a 
"window"  on  the  Pacific,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  American  commer- 
cial expansion,  it  had  much  to  recommend  it. 

With  Webster's  assistance  he  matured  a  scheme  to  partition 
Mexico.  Based  upon  an  expectation  of  British  good  offices  in  the  matter, 
Tyler's  plan  visualized  an  exchange  of  two  million  dollars  in  American 
claims  against  Mexico  for  all  of  California  north  of  the  thirty-second 
parallel.  This  would  give  the  United  States  the  harbors  of  Monterey 

211 


and  San  Francisco,  the  "windows  on  the  Pacific"  so  important  to  Ameri- 
can commercial  penetration  of  the  Pacific.  In  addition,  the  United 
States  and  Mexico  would  agree  jointly  to  recognize  the  independence 
of  Texas.  This  trade  consummated,  Tyler  demonstrated  his  willingness 
to  abandon  the  prospect  of  future  Texas  annexation.  In  payment  for 
British  pressure  on  Mexico  City  to  accept  this  uneven  exchange, 
Tyler  was  prepared  to  settle  the  Anglo-American  Oregon  partition  ques- 
tion at  the  Columbia  River  line,  although  this  would  give  Britain  a 
chunk  of  Oregon  between  the  waterway  and  the  forty-ninth  parallel  to 
which  she  had  no  firm  claim.  "I  never  dreamed  of  ceding  this  country 
[Oregon]  unless  for  the  greater  equivalent  of  California  which  I  fancied 
Great  Britain  might  be  able  to  obtain  for  us  through  her  influence  in 
Mexico/3  Tyler  later  explained.  He  proposed  that  the  whole  California- 
Texas-Oregon  deal  be  wrapped  up  neatly  in  an  Anglo-American-Mexican 
tripartite  treaty.  "The  assent  of  Mexico  to  such  a  treaty  is  all  that  is 
necessary,"  the  President  maintained  blandly;  "a  surrender  of  her  title 
[to  California]  is  all  that  will  be  wanting.  The  rest  will  follow  without 
an  effort"  * 

There  was  not  much  likelihood  that  Mexico  would  agree  to  such 
a  lopsided  deal,  but  as  long  as  the  project  was  under  discussion  it  was 
imperative  that  outstanding  differences  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  be  resolved  while  London  was  being  encouraged  to  play 
the  role  of  dishonest  broker  in  Mexico  City.  For  this  reason  Tyler  and 
Webster  handled  the  complex  negotiations  on  the  potentially  explosive 
Maine  boundary  dispute  with  great  delicacy.  While  they  undoubtedly 
gave  to  Britain  somewhat  more  territory  in  the  Northeast  than  London 
was  entitled  to  receive,  the  Webster- Ashburton  Treaty  of  October  1842, 
approved  overwhelmingly  by  the  Senate,  at  least  put  an  end  to  talk  of 
war  on  the  American-Canadian  frontier.  By  smoothing  Anglo-American 
relations  it  served  to  isolate  Mexico  diplomatically.  Only  when  his 
tripartite-treaty  plan  disintegrated  on  the  rocks  of  Mexican  opposition 
did  Tyler  abandon  his  California  dream  and  return  to  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  secure  now  in  the  knowledge  that  Texas  might  be  Incorporated 
into  the  Union  without  serious  British  interference.  The  Webster- Ash- 
burton  coup,  thought  Tyler,  was  the  high  point  of  his  administration  to 
date,  and  for  it  he  felt  himself  entitled  to  "some  small  share  of  praise 
as  a  set-off  to  the  torrents  of  abuse  so  unceasingly  and  copiously  lav- 
ished upon  me."  5 

With  the  tripartite  partition  scheme  in  ruins,  Anglo-American  rela- 
tions pacified,  Mexico  isolated,  and  his  third-party  movement  gaining 
sufficient  headway  to  cause  alarm  among  Democratic  leaders,  Tyler 
boldly  took  up  the  Texas  annexation  question  again  in  September 
1843.  His  renewed  effort  was  facilitated  by  the  departure  of  Webster 
from  the  State  Department  in  May  1843  and  the  arrival  there  of  Abel 
P.  Upshur  in  July.  Webster  had  no  heart  for  Texas  annexation  and 

212 


the  slavery-extension  implications  Ms  Xew  England  constituency  would 
certainly  see  in  it.  Upshur  was  all  heart  on  the  matter.  As  the  Texan 
charge  in  Washington  explained  this  crucial  shift  in  Department  per- 
sonnel, "Though  friendly  to  us  [Webster],  is  very  much  in  our  way  at 
present.  He  is  timid  and  wants  nerve,  and  is  fearful  of  Ms  abolition 
constituents  in  Massachusetts,  I  think  it  likely  Upshur  will  succeed 
Mm ...  it  will  be  one  of  the  best  appointments  for  us.  His  whole  soul 
is  with  us.  He  is  an  able  man  and  has  nerve  to  act."  It  was  an  accurate 
analysis.6 

To  advance  the  Texas  project  more  safely  vis-a-vis  Great  Britain, 
Tyler  accepted  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  boundary  for  an  Oregon 
settlement  since  a  territorial  equivalent  in  California  for  the  Columbia 
River  line  now  seemed  out  of  the  question.  At  no  time  did  he  seriously 
embrace  the  irresponsible  "Fifty-four  forty  or  fight!"  nonsense  that 
swept  the  nation  after  the  campaign  of  1844.  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  American  title  to  any  part  of  Oregon  north  of  the  forty-ninth 
parallel  was  nonexistent,  and  he  wanted  no  unnecessary  embroilment 
with  Britain  in  that  quarter  while  gathering  the  Texas  fruit  on  the  Rio 
Grande.  Thus  Ms  carefully  worded  statement  to  Congress  in  December 
1843  *hat  i£after  the  most  rigid  and  . . .  unbiased  examination  of  the 
subject,  the  United  States  have  always  contended  that  their  rights'1 
extended  north  to  54°40/  was  purely  a  political  gesture  designed  to 
allay  abolitionist  opposition  to  Texas  annexation  by  presenting  to 
Northern  and  Western  expansionists  the  prospect  of  additional  free  ter- 
ritory in  the  Northwest.  Tyler  did  not  say  that  he  believed  in  54°4o/ 
personally,  because  he  did  not.  Nor  did  he  say  that  past  contentions  on 
the  subject  were  necessarily  those  of  the  present  or  future.  On  the 
contrary,  he  suggested  no  particular  action  on  Oregon  at  the  time  save 
the  continuing  need  for  peace  in  the  Northwest.  In  the  same  speech  he 
did  maintain  that  in  the  interests  of  ''humanity"  the  United  States  had 
the  right  and  the  duty  to  intervene  in  the  sputtering  Mexican-Texan 
war  in  order  to  bring  it  mercifully  to  a  close.7 

Breathing  fire  on  the  Rio  Grande  and  peace  on  the  Columbia, 
Tyler  pushed  forward  with  the  secret  negotiations  for  a  Texas  annexa- 
tion treaty.  In  December  1843  Upshur  took  a  quiet  poll  among  the 
senators  and  reported  to  the  President  that  two-thirds  of  them  favored 
annexation  and  would  vote  for  it.  All  that  remained  to  complete  the  final 
draft  of  the  treaty  agreement  were  assurances  to  the  Texas  govern- 
ment that  the  land  and  sea  forces  of  the  United  States  would  be  de- 
ployed near  the  borders  and  coasts  of  the  Republic  to  offer  aid  and 
protection  should  the  Mexicans  undertake  to  invade  Texas  during  the 
brief  period  between  the  signing  of  the  treaty  and  the  exchange  of 
formal  ratifications.  President  Sam  Houston  was  understandably  tender 
on  this  point,  and  two  crucial  months  passed  before  Tyler  and  Upshur 
could  convince  him  that  his  demand  to  have  these  American  forces 

213 


placed  under  the  tactical  command  of  Texas  officials  was  an  impossible 
one  from  a  constitutional  standpoint.  The  Constitution  nowhere  per- 
mitted the  Commander-in-Chief  to  "lend"  the  military  forces  of  the 
United  States  to  another  nation,  and  no  amount  of  loose  construction 
could  deny  that  obvious  fact.  It  was  not  until  February  17,  1844,  that 
Upshur  finally  agreed  to  military  dispositions  that  the  security-conscious 
Houston  deemed  adequate.  With  this,  the  last  hurdle  toward  the  treaty 
was  cleared.  In  none  of  these  confidential  arrangements  was  there  any 
concern  in  the  White  House  for  the  morality  of  annexation.  It  was 
simply  a  question  of  coordination,  logistics,  and  timing.8 

Tyler  deemed  the  Mexican  position  on  Texas  annexation  specious 
and  legalistic.  From  the  point  of  view  of  Mexico  City,  the  battlefield 
Treaty  of  Velasco  ending  the  Texas  Revolution  and  recognizing  the  in- 
dependence of  Texas  in  1836  had  been  extorted  from  the  captured  Santa 
Anna  under  duress.  For  this  reason  it  had  been  promptly  renounced  by 
the  Mexican  legislature.  After  1836,  therefore,  Texas  was  still  tech- 
nically a  Mexican  province  in  a  continuing  state  of  rebellion.  While  the 
Texas  Republic  had  received  de  facto  recognition  from  Britain,  France, 
and  the  United  States,  that  did  not  alter  the  fact — said  the  Mexicans — 
that  American  annexation  would  constitute  from  a  strictly  legal  stand- 
point a  hostile  and  unwarranted  intervention  in  Mexican  internal  affairs. 
Indeed,  the  Mexicans  argued  that  annexation  would  be  little  less  than 
an  act  of  aggression  against  their  nation  and  under  international  law  a 
positive  act  of  war. 

To  counter  these  arguments,  and  to  put  a  somewhat  better  moral 
face  on  what  was  essentially  a  territory  grab,  Tyler  and  other  spokes- 
men of  the  Manifest  Destiny  fraternity  came  up  with  the  strained  idea 
that  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  really  the  "reannexation"  of  the  ter- 
ritory, since  Texas  had  originally  been  included  in  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase. This  was  of  course  patent  nonsense.  Texas  was  no  more  part  of 
the  Louisiana  Territory  than  was  Manchuria;  even  if  it  had  been,  the 
claim  had  long  since  been  specifically  surrendered  in  the  1819  Adams- 
Onis  Treaty  with  Spain.  With  more  cogency  Tyler  and  Upshur  also 
argued  that  since  Mexico  had  been  unable  to  subdue  her  rebellious  prov- 
ince militarily,  Texas  was  by  definition  a  free  agent  to  contract  such  in- 
ternational obligations  as  she  pleased.  Continuing  bloodshed  along  the 
frontier,  Tyler  maintained,  was  little  more  than  an  affront  to  all 
humanity. 

In  sum,  the  Mexicans  had  numerous  legal  arguments  and  few 
guns,  while  the  Americans  had  dubious  historical  arguments  and  the 
potential  of  many  guns.  This,  then,  was  the  unsettled  situation  as  Tyler's 
secret  treaty  negotiations  with  the  Texas  government  came  to  a  head 
early  in  1844.  At  this  moment  the  explosion  aboard  the  frigate  Prince- 
ton removed  the  brilliant  Upshur  from  the  scene.  Upshur's  death 
brought  John  C.  Calhoun  into  the  State  Department.  This  disastrous 

214 


change,  cunningly  foisted  on  Tyler  by  Henry  A.  Wise,  introduced  the 
extraneous  slavery  Issue  more  forcefully  into  the  Texas  debate  and 
ultimately  destroyed  any  hope  Tyler  had  of  obtaining  a  two-thirds 
majority  for  this  Texas  treaty  in  the  Senate  in  1844. 

Admittedly,  Tyler  was  surrounded  by  men  who  viewed  Texas  an- 
nexation as  an  opportunity  to  expand  the  ''peculiar  institution77  of 
slavery  into  new  territories.  Ritchie,  Wise,  Gilmer,  Upshur,  Calhoun, 
and  (in  Upshur s  view)  the  "entire  South''  viewed  annexation  from  a 
sectional  standpoint.  Tyler  later  complained  that  the  slavery  feature  of 
annexation  possessed  Calhoun  and  Upshur  "as  a  single  idea,"  and  it  is 
true  that  Calhoun  foolishly  put  the  issue  before  the  nation  on  this 
narrow  basis.  This  was  not  Tylers  view,  however.  If  there  was  what 
the  Northern  abolitionists  Iked  to  call  an  "aggressive  slavocracy" 
operating  in  Washington  in  1844,  John  Tyler  was  not  part  of  it.  He 
had  no  confidence  in  Calhoun's  view  that  slavery  was  a  positive  moral 
good.  He  did  not  believe  that  the  slave  institution  must  expand  or  die. 
He  did  not  share  the  South  Carolinian's  fear  that  unless  Texas  was 
speedily  annexed  growing  British  influence  in  Washington-on-the-Brazos 
would  lead  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  there,  although  he  did  admit  that 
were  abolition  accomplished  in  Texas  that  fact  would  further  agitate 
the  slavery  question  in  the  United  States.  It  would  also  provide  a 
convenient  new  haven  for  runaway  Negroes.  So  far  as  it  can  be  de- 
termined, Tyler  never  endorsed  Mississippi  Senator  Robert  J.  Walker's 
comforting  "safety  valve"  theory  that  a  Texas  annexed  would,  like 
some  giant  magnet,  actually  solve  the  slavery  question  by  draining  the 
Negroes  out  of  the  Old  South  and  onto  the  virgin  cotton  lands  of 
Texas.  As  soon  as  the  Texas  cotton  lands  also  began  to  wear  out, 
Walker  argued,  the  simple  economics  of  the  situation  would  dictate  the 
gradual  manumission  of  the  slaves.  Liberated,  they  would  cross  the 
border  into  the  torrid  zones  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  where  they 
would  disappear  into  the  predominantly  colored  populations  there. 
Thus  in  seventy-five  to  a  hundred  years  the  problem  would  solve  itself. 

While  Walker's  far-fetched  hypothesis  had  elements  of  the  aboli- 
tion-by-anemia  argument  Tyler  himself  had  advanced  in  1820  dur- 
ing the  Missouri  Compromise  debates,  the  President  nonetheless  de- 
plored the  employment  of  any  slavery-oriented  argument,  pro  or  con, 
in  relation  to  the  Texas  issue.  He  did  everything  in  his  power 
to  keep  such  considerations  out  of  the  debate.  He  took  instead  a 
broad  national  view  of  the  matter.  Again  and  again  he  emphasized 
the  commercial  and  economic  advantages  that  would  accrue  to  the 
entire  United  States  with  the  annexation.  He  stressed  specifically  in 
this  regard  the  inevitable  expansion  of  America's  foreign  and  domestic 
commerce  and  the  increase  of  her  coastwise  carrying  trade.  American 
monopoly  of  world  cotton  production  was  also  a  fundamental  considera- 
tion in  the  President's  thinking.  In  1847  he  said  flatly  that  "so  far  as 

215 


my  agency  in  the  matter  extended,  I  looked  to  the  Interests  of  the  whole 
Union.  The  acquisition  of  Texas  gave  to  the  U.  States  almost  a 
monopoly  of  the  Cotton  plant,  and  thus  secured  to  us  a  power  of  bound- 
less extent  In  the  affairs  of  the  world,"  This  monopoly  would  permit 
Americans,  said  Tyler,  4*to  hold  control  over  the  Issues  of  peace  and 
war'7  throughout  the  world.  IB  more  extreme  versions  of  the  cotton- 
monopoly  theme,  which  he  repeated  In  1850  and  again  In  1861,  Tyler 
contributed  to  the  evolution  of  the  ''King  Cotton"  myth  later  so  dis- 
astrous to  Confederate  States  diplomacy:  that  the  cotton  monopoly 
achieved  by  Texas  annexation  would  permit  the  South,  merely  by  with- 
holding or  shipping  the  precious  commodity,  to  control  European  dip- 
lomatic behavior  In  the  event  of  a  civil  war.  But  the  speciousness  of  this 
subsequent  argument  does  not  detract  from  the  point  that  In  1844  Tyler 
viewed  Texas  annexation  In  national-commercial  rather  than  In  sec- 
tional-slavery terms.9 

To  a  lesser  extent  Tyler  also  concerned  himself  with  what  would 
later  be  termed  the  geopolitical  Implications  of  British  machinations 
in  Texas.  While  he  was  not  Interested  in  slavery  expansion  Into  Texas 
per  se9  he  did  fear  an  Anglo-Texan  treaty  of  alliance  which  would  bring 
Texas  Into  Britain's  diplomatic  and  economic  orbit.  This,  he  felt,  might 
effectively  prevent  all  future  American  territorial  expansion  Into  the 
West  and  Southwest.  He  worried  that  with  Texas  in  British  lead- 
strings  the  economic  encirclement  of  the  United  States  would  be  effected. 
"The  Canadas,  New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia,  the  [British]  Islands 
In  the  American  seas  with  Texas . . .  would  complete  the  circle/7  he 
warned.  To  prevent  this  there  was  no  alternative  save  American  an- 
nexation. Anything  less  would  only  force  a  war- weary  Texas,  perpetually 
threatened  by  Mexico,  to  "seek  refuge  In  the  arms  of  some  other  power." 
Frequently,  therefore,  the  ever-Anglophobic  Tyler  pointed  with  alarm 
to  the  British  "menace"  in  the  Southwest.  Actually,  there  was  not  much 
of  a  menace  there,  but  Americans  could  always  be  roused  to  furious 
action  by  the  suggestion  that  the  Redcoats  were  coming.10 

Unhappily  for  Tyler,  the  arrival  of  Calhoun  in  the  Cabinet  stamped 
the  word  slavery  all  over  the  controversial  annexation  issue.  On  Febru- 
ary 29,  1844,  the  day  after  Upshur's  death  aboard  the  Princeton, 
Henry  A.  Wise  approached  South  Carolina  Senator  George  McDuffie 
and  wondered  aloud  whether  the  Senator's  friend,  John  C.  Calhoun, 
could  be  persuaded  to  fill  Upshur's  place  as  Secretary  of  State.  If  so,  Ms 
name  would  "In  all  probability  be  sent  to  the  Senate  at  once.77  Because 
of  Wise's  Intimacy  and  almost  daily  contact  with  Tyler,  McDuffie 
assumed  that  the  suggestion  was  nothing  less  than  an  informal  sounding 
from  the  President  himself.  Consequently,  he  immediately  sat  down  and 
wrote  Calhoun  of  Tyler's  Cabinet  offer.  The  fact  is  that  the  Wise 
action  was  In  no  manner  authorized  by  Tyler,  and  Wise  later  confessed 
that  he  was  "guilty  of  assuming  an  authority  and  taking  a  liberty  with 

216 


the  President  which  few  men  would  have  excused  and  few  would  have 
taken/"  Yet  lie  was  con \inced  that  the  Texas  question  must  be  placed 
in  "safe  Southern  hands. *:  Xor  was  there  any  question  where  his  selected 
instrument.  John  C.  Calhoun,  stood  on  the  Issue.  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  Thomas  W.  Gilmer  had  written  Calhoun  the  preceding  December. 
In  that  communication  Calhoun  was  brought  up  to  date  on  the  secret 
negotiations  then  in  progress  with  Texas,  and  was  asked  Ms  confidential 
view  of  the  matter.  Calhoun  replied  on  December  25  that  annexation 
"in  a  political  point  of  view , . .  could  not  more  than  compensate  for 
the  vast  extension  opened  to  the  non-slaveholding  States  to  the  Pacific 
on  the  line  of  the  Oregon ...  it  would  extend  our  domestic  Institutions 
of  the  South. . . ."  " 

Immediately  after  leaving  McDuffie's  parlor,  Wise  went  to  the 
White  House  for  breakfast.  There  lie  met  the  President's  brotliers-in- 
law,  Judge  John  B.  Christian  and  Dr.  N.  M.  Miller,  the  Second  As- 
sistant Postmaster  General.  Tyler  was  In  a  terrible  emotional  state 
that  morning,  breaking  frequently  into  tears  as  lie  recounted  to  Chris- 
tian and  Miller  the  horrors  he  had  witnessed  on  the  Princeton  the 
afternoon  before.  It  was  while  the  President  was  In  this  extremely 
distraught  frame  of  inind  that  Wise  calmly  announced  Ms  presumptive 
offer  of  the  Department  of  State  to  John  C.  Calhoun.  Tyler  fairly 
detonated  at  the  news.  "You  are  the  most  extraordinary  man  I  ever 
saw!"  lie  sliouted  at  Ms  old  friend,  "the  most  willful  and  wayward,  the 
most  Incorrigible!"  While  Tyler  fumed,  Wise  replied  that  If  the  two 
men  were  to  remain  friends  Tyler  must  "sanction"  Ms  " unauthorized 
act."  22 

The  last  person  Tyler  wanted  in  Ms  Cabinet  was  John  C.  Calhoun. 
On  two  earlier  Instances  he  had  blocked  movements  seeking  to  elevate 
Caifaoun  to  the  Cabinet.  Not  only  could  Calhoun  bring  no  political 
strength  to  the  administration,  but  Ms  aggressive  pro-slavery  views 
would  only  compromise  and  complicate  the  entire  annexation  question. 
On  the  other  hand,  trie  situation  into  wMch.  Wise  had  put  him  was 
frightfully  embarrassing.  To  repudiate  the  conspiratorial  arrangements 
the  Virginian  had  made  would  simply  antagonize  CaHioim3s  friends  In 
the  Senate  when  he  most  needed  their  votes  for  Texas.  WeigMng  ail  the 
factors  Involved,  the  emotionally  upset  President  made  a  decision  wMch 
marked  the  real  beginning  of  Ms  Texas  troubles.  "Take  the  office  and 
tender  It  to  Mr.  Calhoun,"  he  instructed  Wise.  "You  may  write  to  Mm 
yourself  at  once."  13 

By  April  i,  twelve  days  before  the  treaty  was  formally  con- 
cluded by  Calhoun,  Tyler  knew  that  his  great  design  was  in  deep 
trouble.  Two  weeks  earlier  rumors  of  the  secret  Texas  negotiations  had 
leaked  onto  the  front  page  of  the  Whig  National  Intelligencer.  As 
slavocrat  and  abolitionist  extremists  began  pounding  their  respective 
drams  for  and  against  the  measure,  many  of  the  forty-two  senators 

217 


who  had  pledged  Upshur  their  support  of  the  treaty  In  December  began 
melting  discreetly  into  the  shadows.  Tyler  had  hoped  that  the  very- 
secrecy  of  the  negotiations  would  permit  him  to  present  the  Senate  with 
a  jait  accompli,  and  that  the  completed  treaty  might  slip  quickly  through 
the  upper  chamber  without  getting  involved  politically  in  the  coming 
Presidential  canvass. 

This  dream  now  blasted,  there  was  no  choice  for  Tyler  save  to 
push  as  rapidly  ahead  as  possible  with  Ms  third-party  movement  in  the 
hope  that  its  presence  and  function  as  a  lever  might  force  the  Democ- 
racy to  announce  quickly  for  Texas  annexation.  For  this  reason7  on 
April  i,  1844,  he  encouraged  a  group  of  his  partisans,  mainly  post- 
masters and  mail  contractors;  to  meet  at  the  Globe  Hotel  in  Washing- 
ton. There  resolutions  were  adopted  which  praised  his  Bank  vetoes, 
condemned  Van  Buren  (who  had  a  majority  of  Democratic  delegates 
already  pledged  to  his  nomination)  as  a  certain  loser  against  Clay, 
called  for  the  "reannexation"  of  Texas  to  the  United  States  and  the 
"re-election"  of  John  Tyler  to  the  Presidency.  The  Oregon  question  was 
carefully  muted.  Tylerite  friendship  feelers  were  extended  to  Andrew 
Jackson  who  had  that  week  strongly  come  out  for  annexation.14 

The  treaty  was  signed  on  April  12  and  Tyler  hesitantly  submitted 
it  to  the  Senate  ten  days  later.  He  had  little  hope  now  that  It  would 
pass.  On  April  27  Henry  Clay's  so-called  Raleigh  Letter  of  April  17  was 
published  in  the  Washington  papers.  This  communication  placed  him 
solidly  in  opposition  to  Texas  annexation  as  "Involving  us  certainly  in 
war  with  Mexico  and  probably  with  other  foreign  powers,  dangerous 
to  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  Inexpedient  In  the  present  financial  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  and  not  called  for  by  any  general  expression  of 
public  opinion."  This  statement  was  followed  a  few  days  later  by  Clay's 
unanimous  nomination  at  the  Whig  Baltimore  convention  on  a  platform 
which  made  no  mention  at  all  of  Texas.  More  important  politically, 
from  Tyler's  standpoint,  was  the  fact  that  on  the  same  day  that  Clay's 
Raleigh  Letter  saw  print  in  the  capital,  Van  Buren  published  a  rambling 
statement  on  annexation  that  took  essentially  the  same  position.  By 
April  27,  then,  both  leading  candidates  for  the  White  House  in  1844  had 
announced  against  Tyler's  Texas  project.15 

During  the  next  week  both  Clay  and  Van  Buren  began  to  crack 
the  whip  to  bring  their  supporters  in  the  Senate  to  an  anti-treaty 
position.  Thus  it  became  Increasingly  clear  to  Tyler,  as  the  month  of 
May  wore  on,  that  the  treaty  was  doomed.  In  a  final  effort  to  force 
the  treaty  through,  Tyler  reluctantly  reached  for  a  political  blackjack. 
It  was  the  only  weapon  he  had  handy.  He  instructed  his  friends  to  or- 
ganize a  nominating  convention  which  would  meet  in  Baltimore  on 
May  27,  the  same  day  the  Democratic  convention  was  scheduled  to 
convene  there.  He  had  already  decided  that  under  no  conditions  would 
he  permit  his  own  name  to  be  placed  in  nomination  at  the  Democratic 

218 


convention,  for  if  Van  Buren  was  chosen  "then  I  became  bound  to  sus- 
tain the  nominee,"  and  that  "could  not  be."  Instead,  his  Democratic- 
Republican  tMrd  party  would  now  be  formally  launched.  aGo  to 
Baltimore  and  make  your  nomination/"  he  told  his  supporters,  "and 
then  go  home  and  leave  the  thing  to  work  Its  own  results.71  His  sole 
aim  In  all  this  was  to  create  and  "preserve  such  organization  until  the 
proper  time  should  arrive  for  striking  a  decisive  blow/'  Had  the  treaty 
approved  by  the  Senate  in  April,  or  had  Van  Buren  embraced  it 
prior  to  the  Democratic  convention  on  May  27.  there  would  have  been 
no  Tyler  candidacy  in  1844  at  all.  As  it  was,  he  had  prepared  a  political 
lever  for  just  such  a  contingency  and  he  would  employ  it  now  with 
all  the  vigor  at  Ms  command.16 

Tylers  third-party  idea  had  had  a  long  and  uneven  period  of 
gestation.  As  early  as  December  1841  the  renegade  President  and  Ms 
new  Cabinet  had  discussed  the  possibilities  of  forming  a  new  party  that 
might  attract  to  Tyler's  small  political  entourage  moderates  from  both 
major  parties.  The  new  third  party,  as  Tyler  first  conceived  it,  would 
eschew  all  sectionalism  and  factionalism  and  would  work  only  for  broad 
national  goals.  This  course  of  action  was  strongly  urged  by  Virginia 
Clique  men  like  Upshur  and  Gilmer,  who  argued  that  Texas  annexa- 
tion would  be  a  worthy  aim  around  which  to  construct  a  new  political 
grouping.  But  Tyler  did  not  want  Texas  annexation  as  an  issue  on  which 
to  build  a  third  party.  Quite  the  reverse,  he  wanted  Texas  annexation 
for  personal  psychological  reasons,  for  the  "lustre"  it  would  bring  his 
battered  administration  historically.  He  also  wanted  it,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, for  the  commercial  advantages  it  would  bestow  upon  the  whole 
nation.  The  new  party,  if  it  had  to  be  formed  at  all,  would  be  sub- 
ordinate to  its  goals.  It  would  not  feed  on  them.  Since  there  seemed  scant 
hope  for  annexation  during  the  winter  of  1841-1842,  exploratory  Cab- 
inet conversations  along  these  lines  were  abandoned.17 

Instead,  Tyler  launched  his  ill-starred  move  toward  an  accom- 
modation with  the  Conservative  Democrats  and  the  moderate  Whigs. 
In  April  1842  he  specifically  turned  down  an  offer  from  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Jr.,  to  build  a  separate  Tyler  organization  in  New  York  City. 
Tyler's  attempt  to  rally  a  center  group,  an  effort  revealed  in  his  Ex- 
chequer Plan  and  in  his  acceptance  of  the  1842  Tariff  Act,  earned  him 
little  but  the  distrust  and  calumny  of  the  extremists  in  both  major 
parties.  Clay  and  Botts  talked  impeachment,  and  the  old  nullifiers  and 
extreme  states'  rights  men  looked  with  undisguised  horror  on  the  new 
tariff  legislation.  Upshur,  meanwhile,  patiently  sought  to  outline  to  less 
ultra  citizens  the  political  policies  of  the  administration.  "We  have  all 
agreed/7  he  explained,  "without  a  single  exception,  that  our  only  course 
was  to  administer  the  government  for  the  best  interests  of  the  country 
and  to  trust  the  moderates  of  all  parties  to  sustain  us. ...  We  came  in 

219 


against  all  parties  . . .  without  any  support  except  what  our  measures 
would  win  for  us. ...  Perhaps  we  have  erred ;  the  difficulties  of  our 
position  rendered  it  difficult  to  avoid  error."  Errors  notwithstanding, 
John  Tyler  honestly  tried  to  organize  the  moderate  center  in  1842  and 
bring  it  to  his  support.  As  a  gesture  of  conciliation  toward  Old  Hickory 
and  his  followers,  men  who  applauded  his  Bank  vetoes  and  favored 
Texas  annexation,  the  President  saw  that  Amos  Kendall  got  a  govern- 
ment printing  contract.  For  similar  reasons  Captain  John  C.  Fremont, 
Benton's  son-in-law,  was  appointed  head  of  the  Army  Topographical 
Corps'  projected  expedition  to  Oregon.18 

But  by  October  1842  Tyler  felt  that,  save  for  the  success  of  the 
Webster-Ashburton  Treaty,  his  expiable  tactics  had  accomplished  little. 
Understandably,  Ms  new  mood  was  one  of  despair.  Thus  he  confided  to 
Ms  friend,  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  that 

So  far  the  Administration  has  been  conducted  amid  earthquake  and  tor- 
nado.   The  ultras  of  both  the  prevailing  factions  will  not  consent  to  ground 

their  arms Is  there  any  other  course  for  me  to  pursue  than  to  look  to 

the  public  good  irrespective  of  either  faction? . . .  My  strong  determination 
sometimes  is  to  hold,  as  I  have  heretofore  done,  the  politicians  of  both  parties 

and  of  all  parties  at  defiance But  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  administering 

the  government  without  a  party  is  undoubtedly  great.  From  portions  of  the 
Democratic  party  I  have  received  an  apparently  warm  support;  but  while  the 
ultras  control  in  the  name  of  party,  I  fear  that  no  good  would  arise  from 
either  an  amalgamation  with  them,  or  a  too  ready  assent  to  their  demands 
of  office.19 

If  in  October  1842  Tyler  was  beginning  to  tMnk  again  in  terms 
of  a  third  party,  the  results  of  the  November  gubernatorial  election  in 
New  York  made  the  idea  seem  practical.  As  part  of  Ms  campaign  of 
rapprochement  with  the  Conservative  Democracy  of  the  Empire  State 
he  instructed  one  of  Ms  partisans  in  New  York  City,  Mordecai  M.  Noah, 
editor  of  the  Tylerite  New  York  Union,  to  support  the  candidacy  of 
William  C.  Bouck,  the  Democratic  nominee.  TMs  gesture  of  conciliation 
had  little  actual  influence  on  Bouck's  subsequent  victory.  Nevertheless, 
it  was  interpreted  by  the  Van  Buren  machine  hi  Albany  as  a  crude 
attempt  by  Tyler  to  infiltrate  and  capture  control  of  the  badly  divided 
Democracy  in  New  York.  The  Van  Buren  organ  in  WasMngton,  the 
Globe,  made  it  perfectly  clear  to  the  President  that  if  he  was  trying 
to  return  to  the  Democratic  Party  he  would  have  to  crawl  back  on  Ms 
knees,  his  head  covered  with  sackcloth.  As  editor  Francis  P.  Blair  sar- 
castically put  it: 

Mr.  Tyler ...  at  the  moment  the  fortunes  of  the  Democracy  were  straggling 
with  an  accumulation  of  difficulties,  separated  himself  from  that  party,  and 
became,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  instrument  of  its  overthrow.  But  he  has  now 

quarrelled  with  his  new  friends,  and  wishes  to  come  back  to  his  old If 

Mr.  Tyler  wishes  to  return . . .  let  him  return.  But ...  he  must  demonstrate 

220 


the  sincerity  of  Ms  repentance  la  a  more  satisfactory  manner  than  he  has 
hitherto  adopted.  The  treaty,  the  tariff,  the  bankrupt  law,  the  exchequer . . . 
the  distribution  bill,  the  repeal  of  the  Independent  Treasury  and  the  com- 
position of  Ms  cabinet  are  not  sufficient  pledges  of  Ms  conversion. 

Tills  was  not  much  of  an  Invitation,  especially  since  Tyler  believed 
that  Ills  support  of  the  Bouck  candidacy  in  Xew  York  had  proved  the 
decisive  factor  in  that  race.  So  Ms  friends  in  Xew  York  City  informed 
him.20 

As  he  carefully  analyzed  the  sweeping  Democratic  victories  in  the 
midterm  election  of  1842,  Tyler  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  did 
exist  an  anti-Van  Buren  Conservative  Democratic  bloc  in  the  North, 
particularly  In  Xew  York  and  Pennsylvania,  to  which  he  might  appeal 
in  a  third-party  movement.  His  plan  was  to  ally  this  group  with  such 
states5  rights  Whigs  and  Democrats  as  he  could  muster  in  the  South. 
At  this  moment  the  Texans  were  again  pressing  the  annexation  issue. 
As  Tyler  pondered  the  whole  political  situation  in  December  1842,  he 
finally  concluded  that — to  gain  Texas  or  anything  else  that  would  re- 
dound to  the  lasting  reputation  of  Ms  administration — he  would  have 
to  create  his  own  political  base  of  operation.  His  idea  was  not  to  form 
a  third  party  on  a  truly  national  scale.  He  knew  there  was  no  chance 
for  anything  as  ambitious  as  this.  Instead,  he  would  construct  hard- 
core Tylerite  factions  in  several  crucial  states,  cadres  large  enough  and 
well  enough  entrenched  in  federal  patronage  to  tip  the  Presidential  vote 
in  these  key  states  in  any  direction  Tyler  desired. 

In  Xew  York  City  the  foundations  for  such  a  cadre  already  ex- 
isted although  the  Tylerites  there  were  badly  organized  and  politically 
ineffectual.  Their  leader  was  Paul  R.  George,  a  small-bore  politician 
originally  from  Xew  Hampshire,  who  was  a  close  friend  of  Edward 
Curtis,  Collector  of  the  Port.  Through  Curtis,  George  had  a  direct  con- 
nection with  Daniel  Webster,  whose  political  protege  the  shady  Col- 
lector was.  Webster's  decision  to  remain  in  the  Tyler  Cabinet  in  Sep- 
tember 1841  brought  George  and  a  small  band  of  similar  opportunists 
to  the  nominal  support  of  the  President,  a  relationship  that  remained 
cemented  mainly  in  patronage  favors.  Chief  among  these  Tylerites-by- 
proxy  were  John  Lorimer  Graham,  Postmaster  of  the  City  of  Xew 
York;  Ogden  Hoffman,  District  Attorney  for  Xew  York;  Silas  M.  Stil- 
well,  Marshal  of  Xew  York  City;  Collector  Edward  Curtis  (chief 
patronage  dispenser  of  the  gang) ;  Mordecai  M.  Xoah;  and  such  lesser 
lights  as  Louis  F,  Tasistro,  Redwood  Fisher,  John  O.  Fowler,  Robert 
C.  Wetmore,  William  Taggart,  and  J.  Paxton  Hallet,  all  of  whom  held 
patronage  jobs  of  some  sort.  As  Alexander  Gardiner  correctly  character- 
ized them  to  Julia,  they  were  people  with  whom  one  could  take  "no 
great  pride"  in  being  connected.21 

The  first  major  venture  of  this  group  was  the  launching  of  a  pro- 
administration  newspaper.  An  attempt  by  Robert  Tyler  to  buy  into  the 

221 


New  York  Herald  had  failed  In  June  1841,  and  a  subsequent  working 
arrangement  with  John  L  Mumford's  New  York  Standard,  effected  by 
placing  Post  Office  and  Customs  House  announcements  exclusively  in 
the  Standard,  proved  unsatisfactory.  Mumford  was  for  Lewis  Cass.  So 
it  was  that  Paul  R.  George  brought  into  being  during  the  summer  of 
1842  the  New  York  Union  under  the  editorship  of  former  Tammany 
brave  Mordecai  Noah.  Noah  was  also  appointed  chairman  of  the  Tyler 
General  Committee.  George  ran  the  paper  from  behind  the  scenes,  and 
it  was  largely  financed  by  contributions  from  the  faithful  and  by 
capita!  levies  on  civil  servants  owing  their  places  to  Tyler,  Webster, 
and  Curtis.22 

Noah  proved  an  unhappy  choice.  His  Tylerite  orthodoxy  was  sus- 
pect, and  the  fact  that  he  was  Jewish  was  thought  to  render  him 
politically  unsuitable  for  Ms  responsibilities.  In  the  fall  of  1842  a 
factional  struggle  developed  within  the  Tylerite  clique  to  oust  him. 
This  pitted  an  anti-Noah  splinter  headed  by  Graham  and  Stilwell 
against  a  pro-Noah  group  headed  by  Paul  R.  George.  In  a  series  of 
letters  and  conversations  with  the  President  and  with  Robert  Tyler , 
Graham  argued  that  Noah's  religious  background  was  damaging  the 
President's  cause  in  New  York  and  that  unless  he  were  ousted  from 
Ms  editorship  the  Empire  State  could  not  be  captured.  In  direct  con- 
versations with  Noah,  Graham  suggested  that,  were  he  gracefully  to 
resign  the  editorsMp  of  the  Union,  he  might  expect  to  receive  either 
the  Surveyorship  of  the  Port  of  New  York  or  the  Consul  GeneralsMp 
in  Constantinople.  In  January  1843  Noah  finally  resigned  under  the 
mounting  pressure,  but  no  compensatory  political  plum  was  forth- 
coming. In  his  own  words,  he  had  been  "most  disgracefully  and  vil- 
lainously cheated,  swindled,  bamboozled."  In  anger  Noah  dissolved  the 
vest-pocket  Tyler  General  Committee  in  March  1843  an(*  returned  to 
Tammany.23 

With  Noah's  resignation  and  subsequent  walkout,  the  New  York 
Union  was  quietly  merged  into  the  New  York  Aurora,  first  brought 
out  under  Tylerite  auspices  in  February  1843.  The  Aurora  was  an  un- 
distinguished sheet.  Its  main  claim  to  fame  had  been  a  fleeting  notoriety 
in  charging  Daniel  Webster  with  the  attempted  rape  of  a  lady  visitor 
to  the  State  Department.  Webster  was  undoubtedly  perturbed  to  learn 
that  the  irresponsible  Aurora  had  become  the  Tyler  outlet  in  New  York; 
this  knowledge  may  have  hastened  his  exit  from  the  Cabinet  in  May 
1843.  In  any  event,  Robert  Tyler  and  Ms  friend  Dr.  Joel  B.  Sutherland, 
Collector  of  Customs  and  cMef  Tyler  patronage  dispenser  in  Phila- 
delphia, persuaded  Thomas  Dunn  English  of  PMladelpMa  to  remove 
to  New  York  and  edit  the  paper.  Under  English  the  Aurora  was  well- 
conducted  and  respectable.  It  was  dull  and  it  always  lost  money,  but  it 
was  skillfully  pro-Tyler  and  there  were  no  more  rape  stories.  On  two 

222 


occasions,  however,  English  and  Graham  were  forced  to  carry'  out  capital 
levies  on  Tyler  officeholders  to  sustain  the  marginal  sheet.1'4 

One  newspaper  does  not  make  a  political  faction,  and  Tyler  still 
had  no  more  than  a  small  claque  In  Xew  York.  What  was  frequently 
headlined  as  a  MONSTER  TYLER  SALLY  or  a  GREAT  TYLER  MEETING  In 
the  Aurora  (faithfully  reprinted  as  such  IB  the  Washington  Madisonian) 
was  often  no  more  than  Graham,  Hoffman,  George,  and  a  few  of  their 
cronies  from  the  Customs  House  having  a  hot  whiskey  punch  together 
in  a  private  room  at  Delmonico's.  In  early  January  1845,  ^°r  instance^ 
a  GSEAT  TYLER  MEETING  IN  CANAL  STREET  was  attended  by  six  of 
Graham  and  Curtis'  hacks  and  four  small  boys  who  stopped  by  to 
heckle.  A  stirring  speech  was  made,  officers  of  the  rally  were  elected, 
and  resolutions  were  duly  passed  while  the  "surging  crowd"  lounged 
around  on  a  few  barrels,  the  adults  smoking  cigars. 

Even  when  a  legitimate  throng  could  be  gathered  together  the 
results  could  be  disastrous.  In  February  1843,  f°r  example^  Tyler's  New 
York  friends  worked  diligently  to  fill  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  for  a 
major  rally  at  which  Corporal's  Guardsmen  CusMng  and  Wise  were 
scheduled  to  speak.  Chaired  by  Mordecai  Noah,  the  widely  advertised 
rally  attracted  hundreds  of  the  Tyler  faithful  and  near- faithful.  The 
auditorium  was  packed.  Delegations  from  the  various  wards  marched 
noisily  In,  carrying  Tyler  portraits  captloned  "Old  Veto."  The  crowd 
was  disorderly  and  out  of  control  from  the  very  beginning.  Drinking, 
laughing,  whistling,  stamping,  and  singing  proceeded  as  Noah  tried 
vainly  to  establish  some  measure  of  decorum.  When  Cushing  finally 
rose  to  speak,  the  crowd  began  to  clap  and  cheer  for  Henry  Clay 
and  show  the  proper  Cushing  "some  evidences  of  disrespect."  Cushing 
quickly  quit  the  rostrum,  the  meeting,  and  the  building  in  disgust, 
whereupon  resolutions  were  passed  which  condemned  a  national  bank, 
praised  "Old  Veto"  for  his  vetoes,  and  called  for  the  immediate  an- 
nexation of  Texas.  The  chaotic  rally  concluded  with  nine  cheers  for 
Henry  Clay,  nine  cheers  for  Martin  Van  Buren,  and  three  hurrahs  for 
"a  celebrated  lady  who  conducted  a  harem  In  one  of  the  streets  which 
radiate  from  Broadway."  The  Aurora  next  day  called  this  a  GREAT 
ENTHUSIASTIC  TYLER  MEETING;  Its  scrubbed  account  of  the  affair  -was 
duly  reprinted  In  the  Madisonian.2* 

Supported  though  he  was  by  such  motley  legions,  the  President 
decided  to  plunge  ahead  with  plans  to  organize  Tyler  factions  in  New 
York  City  and  elsewhere.  He  cared  not  whether  his  supporters  were 
Tidewater  gentlemen  or  patrons  of  the  "celebrated  lady"  off  Broadway, 
only  whether  they  could  deliver  a  pro-Tyler  vote  when  called  upon. 
At  a  crucial  White  House  strategy  meeting  with  Noah  early  in  January 
i843j  the  President  stated  the  opinion  that  his  friends  In  New  York 
City  were  numerous  enough  and  dedicated  enough  to  give  Mm  the 

223 


balance  of  power  in  the  Empire  State.  He  pointed  particularly  to  the 
work  being  carried  on  in  his  behalf  there  by  loyal  men  like  George, 
Graham,  Fisher,  Tasistro,  and  Fowler.  At  this  enumeration  of  small- 
time political  hacks,  patronage  bums,  and  Tammany  opportunists,  Noah 
was  "struck  dumb  with  amazement."  But  Tyler  went  on  to  argue,  in 
a  statistical  analysis  lasting  several  hours,  that  in  addition  to  New  York 
he  had  significant  blocs  of  followers  in  Ohio,  New  Hampshire,  Virginia, 
and  Pennsylvania — enough  in  total  to  produce  a  third  party  large 
enough  to  exercise  a  controlling  influence  on  the  Democratic  platform 
and  on  the  ultimate  success  or  failure  of  the  Democratic  nominee  in 
1844.  Tyler  made  it  plain  to  Noah  during  this  lengthy  interview  that  he 
"entertained  no  hopes  of  an  election  himself,"  only  the  aspiration  that 
his  party  would  be  large  enough  to  influence  the  behavior  of  the  Democ- 
racy. A  Tammany-trained  professional  and  former  editor  of  the  New 
York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  Mordecai  Noah  knew  his  New  York  politics 
inside  out.  He  agreed,  he  told  the  President,  that 

. . .  the  only  hope  you  can  have  must  rest  on  the  chance  of  erecting  a  party 
of  your  own.  This  you  cannot  do.  You  possess  patronage,  to  be  sure;  and 
you  can  use  it,  without  violating  any  principle;  but  if  it  were  ten  times  as 
extensive  as  it  is  it  would  not  enable  you  to  create  a  party  of  sufficient 
consequence  to  justify  you  in  accepting  a  nomination  even  if  you  could  obtain 
one.  The  whole  Executive  Patronage  is  but  a  drop  in  the  ocean.26 

It  depended  on  the  size  of  the  drop  and  the  extent  of  the  ocean,  and 
Tyler  was  satisfied  that  "the  whole  Executive  Patronage"  was  a  very 
large  drop  indeed.  He  was  now  sure  he  could  construct  a  sizable  political 
lever — one  he  would  employ  for  the  "sole  purpose  of  controlling  events 
by  throwing  the  weight  of  that  organization  for  the  public  good!'  And 
by  "the  public  good"  John  Tyler  meant  nothing  less  than  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  His  decision  made,  his  optimism  keenly  alive,  it  was  not  sur- 
prising that  the  confident  President  chased  and  kissed  and  flirted  with 
young  Julia  Gardiner  a  few  nights  later  at  the  White  House.  He  was  in  a 
frisky  mood.  If  he  was  a  President  without  a  party,  he  was  still  the  na- 
tion's leading  patronage  dispenser.  With  the  patronage,  he  believed, 
would  come  the  party,  and  with  the  party  would  come  the  vehicle  for 
annexing  Texas  and  salvaging  the  historical  reputation  of  his  administra- 
tion. As  Corporal's  Guardsman  George  H.  Proffit  of  Indiana  explained 
it  to  the  House  on  January  10,  the  Tyler  administration  was  "desirous 
and  anxious  to  go  out  of  power  with  a  good  name."  No  more,  no  less.27 

Late  in  the  spring  of  1843  ^e  President  launched  a  vigorous  purge 
of  federal  officeholders  hostile  to  his  administration  and  to  his  Texas 
ambitions.  It  was  a  long-overdue  housecleaning.  On  May  12,  from 
Charles  City  County,  Tyler  instructed  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  John 
C.  Spencer  to  grease  the  guillotine: 

224 


We  have  numberless  enemies  in  office  and  they  should  forthwith  be  made 
to  quit. . . .  The  movements  ought  to  be  numerous  and  decided.  Let  a  number 
be  made  and  announced  on  the  morning  of  the  same  day  and  this  will 
best  be  done  by  consulting  with  Mr.  Wickliffe  [Postmaster  General]  and 
sending  on  your  commissions  and  his  by  the  same  mail. ...  In  short  the 
changes  ought  to  be  rapid  and  extensive  and  numerous — but  we  should  have 
some  assurances  of  support  by  the  appointees.  Glance  occasionally  at  the 

Marshals  and  District]  Attorneys  and  let  me  hear  from  you In  short  my 

D[ea]r  Sir,  action  is  what  we  want,  prompt  and  decisive  action,  but  what 
I  say  is  that  we  ought  to  know  whom  we  appoint. . . .  One  word  more — Poor 
O'Bryan  for  a  clerkship;  the  man  is  actually  starving. 

As  a  modest  starter  Tyler  personally  marked  a  dozen  men  for  instant 
proscription,  suggesting  their  replacements.  Among  the  latter,  for  ex- 
ample, was  his  friend  and  neighbor  Collier  H.  Minge,  from  whom  lie 
had  purchased  the  Sherwood  Forest  property.  Minge,  he  felt,  should  go 
to  Mobile  as  Postmaster,  while  John  Finley  of  Baltimore  should  be  axed. 
Both  men  were  related  to  Old  Tippecanoe,  but  "Minge  is  Genl.  Har- 
rison's nephew,  as  true  as  steel,"  Tyler  explained,  "while  Finley  is 
[only]  a  loth  cousin."  28 

As  the  heads  rolled  regularly  into  the  administration's  spattered 
baskets,  John  Jones  of  the  Madisonian  sat  by  the  blade  demanding  more 
victims.  "Look  at  the  collectors,  naval  officers,  surveyors,  appraisers . . . 
marshals,  dictrict  attorneys,  registers  of  the  land  office,"  he  shouted, 
"the  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  postmasters . . .  the  whole  diplomatic 
corps  abroad ...  by  whom  are  they  filled?  By  the  friends  of  the  Presi- 
dent or  by  his  adversaries?  Nineteen-twentieths  of  them  are  opposed  to 
him,  and  a  large  proportion  of  that  number  are  known  to  be  the  avowed 
advocates  of  his  bitter  revilers."  2d 

So  the  bloodletting  went  forward,  Tyler  frequently  and  personally 
concerning  himself  with  new  personnel  for  the  most  obscure  offices. 
Scarcely  a  sparrow  fell  from  the  federal  firmament  without  the  Presi- 
dent's knowledge  and  encouragement.  Whigs,  Locofocos,  Websterites, 
Van  Burenites,  and  Clay  men  fell  by  the  wayside  in  hundreds.  Not  sur- 
prisingly, the  casualties  roared  and  bellowed  in  pain  like  a  herd  of  gored 
bulls.  Even  Webster,  who  knew  the  patronage  game  better  than  most 
politicians,  wrote  Tyler  angrily  from  Boston  in  August  1843,  charging 
that  it  would  be  "an  unhappy  thing  if  your  Administration  should  be 
known  and  distinguished  hereafter  as  one  in  which  patronage  of  office 
was  relied  on  for  political  and  personal  support . . .  your  substantial 
and  permanent  fame  as  President  of  the  United  States  is  in  no  small 
peril. . . ."  30 

The  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  Tyler  was  actually  engaged  in 
salvaging  the  "substantial  and  permanent  fame"  of  his  administration 
after  two  years  of  ineffectual  parleying  with  various  political  factions 

225 


more  powerful  than  himself.  And  if  he  had  once  said,  "Patronage  is  the 
sword  and  cannon  by  which  war  is  made  on  the  liberty  of  the  human 
race  ...  if  the  offices  of  the  government  shall  be  considered  but  as  'spoils7 
to  be  distributed  among  a  victorious  party  ...  all  stability  in  government 
is  at  an  end,"  he  might  now  be  forgiven  youthful  hyperbole.  That  un- 
fortunate statement  had  been  made  a  decade  earlier,  when  Jackson  was 
in  power,  and  every  politician  had  borrowed  a  little  something  from  Old 
Hickory  in  the  intervening  years.  Indeed,  as  John  Minge  of  Petersburg 
reminded  a  now  more  politically  realistic  Tyler  in  1844,  the  only  road 
to  political  power  and  influence,  as  Jackson  had  proved,  was  through 
patronage.  Why  then,  asked  Minge,  do  you  keep  the  important  offices 
"too  much  out  of  the  line  of  your  personal  friends?"  31 

Tyler  needed  no  such  aide  memoire  from  his  friend.  Nor,  actually, 
did  he  withhold  office  from  his  personal  friends.  On  the  contrary,  he  ap- 
pointed many  of  them,  including  nine  members  of  his  family,  to  various 
posts.  The  heroic  if  ineffectual  Corporal's  Guard,  all  of  whom  had 
earned  political  isolation  and  exile  for  their  support  of  the  President, 
were  also  rewarded  with  federal  appointments  before  Tyler  left  office. 
So  too  were  the  stalwarts  of  the  Virginia  Clique.  Tyler  did  not,  how- 
ever, follow  in  Jackson's  footsteps  by  stuffing  friendly  newspaper  editors 
into  office.  This  he  had  always  considered  a  danger  to  the  freedom  and 
integrity  of  the  press.  In  only  two  known  instances  did  he  appoint  edi- 
tors to  government  posts.  More  typically,  he  denied  federal  office  to 
Mordecai  Noah  because  Noah  was  an  editor.32 

In  all  his  patronage  appointments  and  proscriptions  in  1843-1844 
Tyler  learned  that  for  every  new  friend  an  enemy  was  made.  A.  G.  Abell 
was  rewarded  with  a  consulship  to  Hawaii  for  a  very  favorable  and  still 
useful  campaign  biography,  Life  of  John  Tyler  (1844).  Hiram  Cum- 
ming,  on  the  other  hand,  failed  to  obtain  a  diplomatic  appointment  to 
St.  Petersburg  and  slashed  back  in  rage  with  his  scurrilous  Secret  History 
of  the  Tyler  Dynasty  (1845).  It  was  in  this  pamphlet  that  Cumming, 
onetime  patronage  hatchet-man  for  the  Tylerites,  conjured  up  the  fable 
that  the  lustful  old  President  had  deceived  the  innocent  young  Julia, 
winning  her  fair  hand  by  promising  her  he  would  enter  and  remain  in 
the  1844  Presidential  campaign.  Coupled  with  this  were  other  tales  of 
gross  political  corruption,  his  "blasphemy  and  revelry"  in  the  White 
House  and  his  "bacchanalian"  debauches  with  his  sons.  "It  is  a  tissue  of 
anathemas  and  so  gross  as  to  kill  itself,"  snapped  Julia  when  she  read 
it.  "He  wants  to  be  sued  for  libel  and  slander  I  have  no  doubt  in  order 
to  bring  himself  into  notoriety  and  further  the  sale  of  his  book."  Politics 
could  be  a  dirty  business.33 

It  was  also  a  business  in  which  not  all  the  President's  friends  could 
hope  to  attain  managerial  positions.  By  September  1843  Tyler  noted 
with  dismay  that  the  Tyler  Club  in  New  Orleans  numbered  four  hun- 
dred supporters,  all  clamoring  for  public  office.  It  was  time  to  call  a  halt 

226 


to  the  purge.  Therefore  on  September  2  he  Instructed  Secretary  Spencer 
that  "we  have  done  enough  and  should  pause.  This  I  am  pretty  much 
resolved  upon.'7  He  was  convinced  that  he  now  had  "a  firm  grasp  on  the 
reins."  The  purge,  he  felt,  had  nicely  cleared  the  decks.34 

The  abrupt  end  of  what  Whigs  called  the  "Reign  of  Terror"  did  not 
please  John  Jones.  The  Madisonian  editor  argued  that  too  many  of  the 
President's  new  nominees  had  not  or  could  not  expect  to  receive  Senate 
approval,  and  that  much  of  the  purgation  had  been  wasted  effort.  Jones 
was  right.  An  angry  alliance  of  Clay  Whigs  and  Van  Buren  Democrats 
in  the  Senate  blocked  more  than  a  hundred  of  Tyler's  appointments. 
Three  of  these  were  nominations  to  Cabinet  posts.  When  a  final  count 
was  made  in  1845,  it  revealed  that  the  Senate  had  rejected  more  of  the 
appointees  of  John  Tyler  to  federal  office  than  those  of  any  other  Presi- 
dent in  American  history.  The  record  endures.  "These  men  were  re- 
jected/7 wrote  Tyler  ruefully,  only  "because  they  supported  my  Admin- 
istration." Jones  also  felt  that  the  extent  of  the  Tyler  housecleaning  had 
fallen  far  short  of  the  need.  "The  enemies  of  the  President  are  [still]  at 
the  head  of  almost  every  bureau  in  Washington  . . .  out  of  six  hundred 
clerks  in  the  departments,  scarcely  fifty  real  Tyler  men  are  to  be  found 
—  almost  every  important  office  in  the  great  State  of  New  York  is  in 
the  hands  of  these  anti-Texas  gentlemen,"  he  complained.35 

Tyler  was  determined  to  do  something  about  New  York  and  the 
"anti-Texas  gentlemen'7  there.  His  patronage  manipulations  meant  little 
unless  his  friends  could  exercise  a  decisive  role  in  the  pivotal  Empire 
State.  His  popular  reception  in  New  York  City  in  June  1843,  en  route 
with  Priscilla  and  Robert  to  Boston  to  attend  Webster's  speech  at  the 
dedication  of  the  Bunker  Hill  monument,  convinced  him  that  the  city 
was  the  key  to  his  entire  political  strategy.  Priscilla  wildly  exaggerated 
the  size  of  his  reception,  but  it  was  impressive: 

When  we  arrived  in  New  York  [she  wrote],  there  were  four  hundred  thou- 
sand people  assembled  to  greet  us.  You  see,  I  won't  allow  it  was  only  for  the 
President.  The  bay  was  crowded  with  boats  of  every  description.  Seventy-four 
men-of-war  down  to  thousands  of  club  boats.  The  yards  of  the  ships  were 
all  manned  and  cannons  going  off  in  every  direction . . .  bands  of  music  were 
playing  and  ten  thousand  troops  [were]  stationed  round  the  Battery.  I  never 

saw  so  magnificent  a  spectacle  in  my  life The  President  had  really  showers 

of  bouquets  and  wreaths  thrown  upon  him  everywhere.  Windows  of  the 
houses . . .  [were]  filled  with  the  most  beautiful  women  waving  their  hand- 
kerchiefs and  casting  flowers  in  his  path.  These  latter  demonstrations  Mr. 
Tyler  takes  as  intended  solely  for  himself.36 

In  essence,  Tyler's  New  York  strategy  was  to  effect  an  alliance  with 
Tammany  Hall,  to  infiltrate  the  Wigwam  and  bring  Tammany  to  a  pro- 
Texas  annexation  stand.  He  did  not  think  this  would  prove  difficult. 
Tammany  and  Van  Buren's  Albany  Regency  were  at  odds  on  many 
patronage  fronts  and,  as  everyone  knew,  the  Tammany  leadership  was 

227 


corruptible,  usually  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder. .  Tyler  had  much  to 
bid  with.  In  the  Post  Office,  Customs  House,  and  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard 
were  hundreds  of  patronage  jobs  which  the  Chief  Executive  controlled. 
The  President  was  in  no  hurry  to  capture  Tammany  in  mid- 1843,  k°w- 
ever.  He  would  wait  to  see  what  happened  to  his  Texas  treaty  in  the 
Senate  and  what  the  nominating  conventions  the  following  spring  would 
bring.  He  was  perfectly  willing  to  wait,  to  let  other  Democratic  factions 
in  New  York  weaken  themselves  in  internecine  combat  before  he  stepped 
in.  "Prudence,  my  D[ea]r  Sir,  prudence  is  the  word/'  he  instructed 

Jones  in  September  1843.  "Let  your  fire  be  directed  at  Clay Use  my 

name  as  little  as  possible  in  your  paper."  37 

Tyler's  decision  in  May  1844  to  hold  his  own  Democratic-Republi- 
can convention  in  Baltimore  at  the  same  time  the  Democrats  held  theirs 
there  was  no  more  subtle  than  open  blackmail.  The  President  wanted  to 
force  the  Democracy,  its  nominee,  and  its  platform  to  endorse  his  Texas 
project.  So  it  was  that  one  thousand  of  his  friends,  most  of  them  office- 
holders in  his  administration,  gathered  at  Calvert  Hall  in  Baltimore  on 
May  27,  1844.  There  were  no  grave  problems,  issues,  or  divisions.  The 
stage  was  decorated  with  banners  reading  TYLER  AND  TEXAS  and 

RE-ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS REJECTION  IS  POSTPONEMENT.   The  atmOS- 

phere  was  carnival.  From  every  state  in  the  Union  they  came  to  whoop 
it  up  for  "Tyler  and  Texas!"  and  have  a  good  time.  "Large  supplies  of 
brandy  and  water,  whisky  and  gin"  were  passed  around  to  stimulate  the 
enthusiasm.  When  it  was  suggested  that  the  nomination  be  delayed  until 
the  Democrats  had  acted,  delegate  Delazon  Smith  of  Ohio  objected  with 
the  declaration,  "Did  you  not  come  here  to  nominate  John  Tyler?  Why 
then  wait  for  the  action  of  any  other  body?  We  will  not  wait;  we  will 
not  allow  any  other  body  of  men  to  steal  our  thunder,  nor  permit  any 
other  man  to  use  our  pick-axe.  They  shall  not  take  our  vetoes,  neither 
shall  they  appropriate  Texas  to  their  own  party  uses."  Tyler  was 
nominated  in  less  than  an  hour,  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  demanded 
in  ringing  tones,  and  many  of  the  buoyant  delegates  drifted  over  to  the 
Odd  Fellows  Hall  on  North  Gay  Street  to  see  how  the  Democrats  were 
doing.  Tyler  was  the  first  into  the  field  with  a  solid  pro-Texas  platform. 
Even  the  crusty  old  Adams  admitted  that  Tyler  had  played  his  political 
hand  "with  equal  intrepidity  and  address."  38 

The  Tylerites  discovered  that  the  Democrats  on  North  Gay  were 
doing  badly.  While  Van  Buren  had  a  clear  majority  of  the  delegates,  he 
did  not  have  the  necessary  two-thirds.  By  the  seventh  ballot  Lewis  Cass 
of  Michigan  had  squeezed  past  him.  There  the  voting  and  the  conven- 
tion deadlocked  and  a  halt  was  called  for  the  evening,  the  delegates 
adjourning  into  dozens  of  smoke-filled  rooms  in  search  of  a  compromise 
candidate.  There  over  their  shot  glasses,  surrounded  by  cigar  haze,  the 
Democracy  discovered  James  Knox  Polk  of  Tennessee — slaveowner, 
confidant  of  Old  Hickory,  former  Speaker  of  the  House,  friendly  with 

228 


Tyler,  eager  for  Texas,  and  enough  of  a  Locofoco  on  domestic  policy  to 
suit  Van  Buren.  He  was  relatively  obscure  but  lie  was  a  near-perfect 
candidate.  On  May  28,  on  the  ninth  ballot,  he  became  the  first  dark- 
horse  winner  in  convention  history.  The  platform  declared  for  "the 
re-occupation  of  Oregon  and  the  re-annexation  of  Texas  at  the  earliest 
practicable  period."  The  Tyler  strategy  had  worked.30 

The  President  evaluated  the  Democratic  candidate  and  surveyed 
the  Democracy's  Texas  stand  In  a  twinkling,  as  rapidly  as  Samuel 
Morse's  new  contraption  had  communicated  the  stunning  news  to  the 
capital.  On  May  30  Tyler  issued  an  acceptance-of -nomination  statement 
to  his  own  supporters  that  was  a  political  masterpiece.  In  one  breath  It 
blasted  both  Clay  and  Van  Buren,  called  for  passage  of  the  pending 
Texas  treaty,  and  suggested  to  Polk  that  Tyler's  withdrawal  from  the 
race  was  negotiable: 

My  name  has  become  inseparably  connected  with  the  great  question  of  the 
annexation  of  Texas  to  the  Union.  In  originating  and  concluding  that  nego- 
tiation I  had  anticipated  the  cordial  cooperation  of  two  gentlemen,  both  of 
whom  were  most  prominent  in  the  public  mind  as  candidates  for  the  presi- 
dency. That  cooperation  would  have  been  attended  with  the  immediate  with- 
drawal of  my  name  from  the  question  of  succession.  In  the  consummation 
of  that  measure,  the  aspirations  of  my  ambition  would  have  been  complete. 
I  should  have  felt  that,  as  an  instrument  of  Providence,  I  would  have  been 
able  in  accomplishing  for  my  country  the  greatest  possible  good. ...  If 
annexation  is  to  be  accomplished,  it  must,  I  am  convinced,  be  done  im- 
mediately. Texas  Is  in  no  condition  to  delay If  the  present  treaty  should 

be  ratified ...  at  the  present  session  of  Congress,  you  will  leave  me  at  liberty, 
gentlemen,  to  pursue  the  course  in  regard  to  the  nomination . . .  that  my  sense 

of  what  is  due  myself  and  the  country  may  seem  to  require The  question 

with  me  is  between  Texas  and  the  presidency.  The  latter,  even  if  within  my 
grasp,  would  not  for  a  moment  be  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
first.40 

There  the  matter  stood  until  June  8.  On  that  day  the  languishing 
Texas  treaty  was  finally  and  decisively  beaten  in  the  Senate  35  to  16, 
two-thirds  against  rather  than  the  two-thirds  in  favor  Upshur  had 
counted  back  in  December;  a  crushing  twenty-eight  votes  short.  Many 
explanations  were  offered  by  Senators  who  switched  their  stands.  Some 
complained  that  Tyler's  secret  diplomacy  was  un-American;  others  said 
the  people  should  decide  the  question  in  November;  still  others  re- 
sponded to  party  discipline  exercised  by  Clay  and  Van  Buren.  But  over 
it  all  hung  the  slavery  question.  And  while  the  various  excuses  and  ex- 
planations were  being  made  on  Capitol  Hill  Santa  Anna  commenced 
what  appeared  to  be  serious  war  preparations.  Calhoun  was  so  discour- 
aged over  the  vote  he  advised  Tyler  to  give  up  the  Texas  project  entirely. 
The  nervous  Texans,  now  on  a  very  extended  limb,  asked  that  the  mili- 
tary assurances  guaranteed  by  the  treaty  be  put  into  effect  at  once.41 

229 


His  Texas  treaty  beaten,  Tyler  now  entered  into  the  campaign  with 
zest.  His  plan  was  to  convince  Polk  that  he  had  enough  power  in  a  few 
key  states  to  compel  Young  Hickory  to  purchase  Tyler's  withdrawal 
and  endorsement  with  the  coin  of  two  basic  guarantees:  that  the  Demo- 
cratic platform  really  meant  what  it  said  on  Texas  and  that  Tyler's 
friends  would  not  be  purged  from  office  in  the  event  of  a  Tyler-Polk 
amalgamation  and  a  resulting  Polk  victory.  Convinced  that  Polk  had  no 
choice  but  to  come  to  Canossa,  Tyler  waited  confidently  for  Young 
Hickory  to  make  the  first  gesture  toward  an  alliance.  He  did  not  have  to 
wait  long.  On  June  2  he  received  tentative  feelers  from  the  Democracy 
on  a  possible  Polk-Tyler  Union  ticket.  This  pleased  the  President  and 
convinced  him  he  could  play  a  cool  and  deliberate  hand.  "The  Demo- 
crats ...  are  now  looking  to  me  for  help,"  he  told  his  daughter  Mary. 
"I  can  either  continue  the  contest  or  abandon  it  with  honor."  With  his 
marriage  to  Julia  but  three  weeks  away,  he  was  in  fine  fettle.42 

Robert  Tyler  had  joined  his  father's  campaign  with  enthusiasm, 
giving  up  his  two-month-old  law  practice  in  Philadelphia  to  manage 
Tyler's  political  affairs.  This  new  political  involvement  by  Robert  suited 
Priscilla  not  at  all.  She  wrote  her  husband  from  Philadelphia  on  June  4 
that 

Of  course  the  Polkites  want  a  Union  ticket. . . .  They  cannot  succeed  with- 
out Father's  assistance.  With  that,  I  have  no  doubt  the  Democratic  party 
will  be  successful,  as  they  have  stolen  the  Texas  question,  besides  using 
the  veto  issue  and  all  of  Father's  ammunition.  I  should  consent  to  the  Union 
ticket  if  I  were  in  Father's  place,  but  I  should  bargain  for  the  protection 
of  my  friends  if  I  did.  But  the  next  best  thing  is  to  withdraw  and  be 
disinterested  and  help  the  Democracie  [szc]  and  get  you  a  good  foreign 

mission The  first  wish  of  my  heart,  my  dearest  husband,  is  that  you  may 

return  [home]   and  decisively  go  into  the  practice  of  the  law,  giving  up 

everything  else My  dear  husband,  you  must  return  to  Philadelphia,  give 

up  the  life  of  political  care  and  excitement  in  which  you  live  [and]  find 
your  dearest  happiness  in  your  wife  and  children. . . . 

•"The  advice  you  give  Robert  is  excellent,"  wrote  Tyler  in  the  margin.43 
But  the  President  needed  his  politically  knowledgeable  son  awhile 
longer.  Working  with  Dr.  Joel  B.  Sutherland  and  all  the  patronage  power 
at  the  command  of  the  Philadelphia  Customs  House,  Robert  began 
building  a  Tyler  organization  in  that  city.  On  July  4,  at  a  series  of  Tyler 
rallies  in  Philadelphia,  the  decision  was  made  to  run  a  separate  Tyler 
slate  for  every  office  in  Pennsylvania  and  thus  split  the  Democratic  vote 
in  the  Commonwealth.  Similar  divisive  plans  were  already  afoot  in  New 
Jersey  and  New  York.  When  news  of  these  developments  reached  Sen- 
ator Robert  J.  Walker,  the  worried  Mississippian  reported  to  Polk  that 
"Our  friends  in  Philadelphia  and  also  in  New  Jersey  and  New  York  have 
written  to  me  in  great  alarm  . . .  the  greatest  distraction  and  distrust  in 
-our  ranks  would  be  produced  by  running  Tyler  tickets  in  Pennsylvania." 

230 


As  consternation  spread  throughout  the  Democracy,  the  President  re- 
mained calm  and  confident.  From  his  honeymoon  retreat  at  Sherwood 
Forest  he  instructed  Robert:  "Our  course  is  now  a  plain  one.  Make 
these  men  feel  the  great  necessity  of  my  co-operation."  44 

On  July  9  Senator  Walker  appeared  suddenly  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
The  time  to  open  negotiations  with  Tyler  had  come,  and  Walker  was  the 
logical  intermediary.  While  he  was  acting  on  his  own  initiative  in  this 
instance,  Ms  interest  in  Texas  annexation  on  his  Southern  political 
conservatism  in  the  Senate  had  made  him  persona  grata  to  Tyler.  At  the 
same  time,  he  stood  high  in  the  campaign  councils  of  James  K.  Polk. 
Nevertheless,  he  came  to  Sherwood  Forest  as  a  suppliant,  and  his  three- 
hour  conversation  with  the  President  was  a  "disagreeable  duty.75  Tyler,, 
on  his  part,  was  relaxed  and  expansive.  He  spoke  of  Andrew  Jackson  "in 
terms  of  deep  affection/'  expressed  his  "great  anxiety  that  Polk  and 
Dallas  should  be  elected,"  and  hoped  that  he  might  withdraw  from  the 
campaign  and  soon  retire  from  the  White  House.  Casually,  in  an  almost 
offhand  manner,  he  estimated  his  national  strength  at  "about  150,000 
chiefly  Republicans  who  voted  for  the  Whigs  in  '40,"  and  he  sug- 
gested that  this  considerable  group  could  be  added  to  the  Polk  total  were 
he  but  to  give  the  word.  Walker  did  not  dispute  the  estimate.  Nor, 
given  the  stakes,  did  Tyler's  terms  for  alliance  with  Polk  seem  out- 
rageous or  unreasonable.  The  President  asked  only  that  his  political 
friends  "be  assured  on  reliable  authority  that  they  would  be  received 
with  pleasure  by  you  [Polk]  and  your  friends  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Democratic  party,  and  treated  as  brethren  and  equals."  That  assurance 
given,  Tyler  pledged  that  he  would  "at  once  withdraw,"  throw  his  full 
support  to  Polk,  and  render  his  victory  "certain."  45 

Walker  assured  the  President  that  a  bargain  could  be  struck.  He 
left  Sherwood  Forest  that  same  day  and  returned  to  Washington.  Im- 
mediately he  wrote  Polk  that  "the  importance  of  this  union  and  co- 
operation cannot  be  over-rated.  In  my  judgment  it  would  be  decisive 
in  your  favor."  Walker  appreciated  the  fact  that  the  face-saving  element 
in  any  arrangement  with  Tyler  was  an  important  one.  Therefore,  he 
suggested  that  Polk  write  a  private  letter  to  a  friend  which  might  b,e 
shown  confidentially  to  Tyler,  a  letter  inviting  the  President  and  his  sup- 
porters back  into  the  Democracy  "as  brethren  and  equals."  He  thought 
Jackson  might  write  a  similar  letter,  one  which  could  be  published,  at- 
testing that  on  Tyler's  withdrawal  his  followers  would  be  joyfully  re- 
ceived back  in  the  Democratic  bosom  "on  the  same  platform  of  equal 
rights  and  consideration"  with  all  other  Democrats.46 

After  consultations  with  Jackson,  Polk  chose  the  indirect  approach. 
Were  Polk  to  communicate  in  any  way  with  Tyler  his  act,  Jackson  warned, 
would  be  interpreted  "just  as  the  Adams  and  Clay  bargain"  of  1828.  It 
would  be  wiser  if  Jackson  himself  wrote  the  missive  to  be  shown  Tyler. 
Privately,  Jackson  rated  Tyler's  strength  a  "mere  drop  in  the  bucket," 

231 


but  he  hastened  to  execute  the  Walker  recommendation.  Within  a  few 
weeks  Tyler  was  shown  a  personal  letter  from  Old  Hickory  to  Major 
William  B.  Lewis  which  urged  Tyler's  withdrawal  "as  the  certain  means 
of  electing  Mr.  Polk,  and  ensuring  a  consummation  of  all  the  leading 
measures"  of  the  Tyler  administration.  In  this  circuitous  manner  Jack- 
son assured  the  President  of  his  "strong  conviction"  that  the  Tylerites 
"would  be  regarded  as  true  friends  of  the  country"  by  Polk  and  would 
be  "as  favorably  looked  upon  as  any  other  portion  of  the  Democracy." 
Indeed,  they  would  be  "received  as  brethren  ...  all  former  differences 
forgotten."  And  so  in  late  July  the  bargain  was  well  on  the  way  to 
consummation.47 

While  these  face-saving  arrangements  were  being  worked  out  in  the 
Polk- Jackson  camp,  Tyler  moved  ahead  with  the  organization  of  his 
friends  in  crucial  New  York  City.  If  and  when  he  did  decide  to  withdraw, 
he  wanted  to  be  able  to  demonstrate  in  November  that  his  self-sacrifice 
was  the  primary  factor  in  Polk's  election.  He  also  reasoned  that  the  no- 
purge  promise  would  more  likely  be  honored  if  the  Tylerites  could  show 
that  they  had  delivered  the  Empire  State  into  the  hands  of  Polk.  The 
President  turned  the  infiltration  and  seduction  of  Tammany  Hall  over 
to  Alexander  Gardiner  and  Robert  Tyler. 

On  April  27,  1844,  five  days  after  the  President's  letter  seeking 
Julia's  hand  had  been  received  at  Lafayette  Place,  Alexander  had  leaped 
eagerly  to  Tyler's  political  assistance.  Within  a  month,  under  a  variety 
of  pseudonyms,  he  was  bombarding  New  York  editors  with  stinging  criti- 
cisms of  Van  Buren's  "craven"  renunciation  of  Texas,  predicting  that  the 
Democracy  would  meet  defeat  on  the  annexation  issue.  In  these  letters 
he  noticed  the  "strong  tide  running  in  favor  of  reannexation,"  con- 
demned Mexican  dictator  Santa  Anna,  called  attention  to  British  in- 
trigue in  Texas,  and  wondered  where  in  all  the  history  of  mankind  "the 
people  anywhere  [are]  found  adverse  to  any  extension  of  territory." 
Over  and  over  he  called  stridently  for  the  "reannexation"  of  Texas  and 
the  election  of  John  Tyler.  He  demanded  "reannexation"  on  the  grounds 
that  Texas  was  American  territory  under  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Tyler's 
election  was  urged  with  the  argument  that  since  annexation  had  been 
the  President's  special  project  from  the  start,  he  should  be  returned  to 
power  to  carry  it  through.48 

To  assist  Alexander  in  his  labors  for  the  Tyler  cause  in  the  Empire 
State,  in  mid- July  the  President  made  a  basic  change  in  the  dispensa- 
tion of  patronage  in  New  York  City.  On  the  urgent  recommendation  of 
Robert  Tyler,  Joel  B.  Sutherland,  and  Postmaster  John  Lorimer  Graham, 
he  purged  Edward  Curtis  as  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York,  replac- 
ing him  (on  an  interim  appointment)  with  Judge  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness, 
former  governor  of  Vermont.  Curtis  had  originally  been  a  Harrison- 
Webster  appointee  and  through  the  years  had  loaded  the  Customs 
House,  the  Post  Office,  and  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard  with  Websterites, 

232 


Clay  men,  and  other  WMgs  of  dubious  loyalty  to  "Tyler  and  Texas." 

Tyler  first  asked  Curtis  to  resign  his  post  on  May  9.  When  the  Col- 
lector bluntly  refused,  the  President  could  do  nothing  but  bide  his  time 
until  the  Senate  adjourned  in  July.  He  knew  that  the  Whig  Senate  was 
not  likely  to  approve  the  dismissal  of  Curtis  and  the  appointment  of  Cor- 
nelius Van  Ness  barely  four  months  before  the  election.  It  was  no  secret 
in  the  capital  that  Judge  Van  Ness  was  a  solid  Tyler  man.  Onetime  Min- 
ister to  Spain  and  Collector  of  the  Port  of  Burlington,  Vermont,  the 
Conservative  Democrat  was  also  the  brother  of  the  General  John  P.  Van 
Ness  so  admired  by  the  Gardiner  family  during  their  1842-1843  Wash- 
ington visit. 

After  the  Senate  adjourned  and  Curtis  was  summarily  deposed, 
Collector  Van  Ness  launched  a  ruthless  "Reign  of  Terror"  in  New  York 
City.  On  July  15  he  began  cutting  away  the  Clay  and  Webster  vines  that 
clung  to  the  walls  of  the  federal  agencies.  Among  the  worthies  marked 
for  instant  proscription  was  Paul  R.  George,  whose  connection  with 
Curtis  was  his  death  warrant.  In  the  first  batch  to  go  from  the  Customs 
House  alone  there  were  sixty  men.  These  vacancies,  together  with  the 
temporary  three-dollar-per-day  jobs  created  by  Van  Ness  for  the 
duration  of  the  campaign,  brought  forth  applicants  "so  numerous  that 
they  actually  blocked  up  the  streets  leading  to  the  Custom  House . . . 
the  out-pouring  and  out-scourings?  of  all  the  political  parties  that  ever 
existed  in  this  country."  49 

Most  of  the  appointments  to  these  minor  sinecures  were  made  from 
among  various  Roman  Catholic  immigrant  groups — Irish,  Polish,  and 
German.  Tammany  was  particularly  powerful  among  these  new  Ameri- 
cans, and  the  Tyler  leadership  hi  New  York  wanted  a  foothold  in  their 
multilingual  ranks  for  bargaining  purposes  in  the  Wigwam.  More  im- 
portantly, it  was  certain  that  the  new  Native  American  party,  a  passing 
phenomenon  born  in  hatred,  exclusionism,  and  anti-Catholicism,  would 
combine  with  the  Whigs  in  November  in  a  joint  effort  to  crush  Tammany 
in  the  city.  This  opportunistic  alliance  represented  a  major  threat  to  the 
Hall  and  the  Tylerite  strategists  appreciated  the  problem.  To  attract  the 
Irish  vote  to  the  projected  Tyler-Tammany  coalition,  the  President  in 
March  1844  expressed  the  "liveliest  interest"  in  the  Irish  struggle  for 
freedom  against  England.  Robert  Tyler  had  also  seen  the  political  ad- 
vantages of  an  identification  with  Roman  Catholic  immigrant  groups.  In 
the  same  month  he  became  president  of  the  Irish  Repeal  Association  in 
Philadelphia  on  the  eve  of  tie  bitter  anti-Catholic  riots  that  swept  that 
city.50 

Patronage  distribution  in  New  York  devolved  on  Van  Ness,  Post- 
master Graham,  and  Alexander  Gardiner.  A  quick  survey  of  the  local 
political  situation  convinced  Gardiner  that  he  could  be  very  useful  to  his 
new  brother-in-law.  He  instructed  Julia  to  advise  the  President  "that  no 
changes  be  made  in  the  public  offices  here  before  I  can  ascertain  that 

233 


all  is  safe  and  to  be  trusted."  It  was  indeed  fortunate,  he  said,  that  a 
member  of  the  immediate  family  was  on  the  scene.  "I  think  that  I  can 
make  myself  more  useful  in  these  matters  than  any  other  person  in  this 
city,"  he  explained  to  Julia,  "having  most  at  stake  ...  in  our  family  in 

the  present  and  future  honor  and  fame  of  the  administration "  51 

Alexander's  newfound  friends  in  the  patronage-distribution  busi- 
ness— men  like  John  Lorimer  Graham — were  not  the  kind  of  New 
Yorkers  with  whom  the  Gardiners  were  in  the  habit  of  associating.  When 
Julia  complained  that  they  were  a  seedy  group,  Alexander  agreed  that 

Although  they  are  not  persons  of  the  best  judgment,  nor  of  very  good 
reputation  in  pecuniary  affairs,  nor  of  any  weight  of  character  in  the  com- 
munity, they  are  yet  open  and  avowed  friends  of  the  President,  and  doubt- 
less capable  of  making  themselves  useful  in  a  public  sphere.  I  hope  therefore 
you  have  not  given  the  President  any  particular  concern  about  them. 

Alexander  was  rapidly  becoming  a  practical  politician.  As  he  sized 
up  the  Gotham  political  arena  it  was  the  end  result  that  counted, 
not  the  means  that  had  to  be  employed  to  attain  it.  For  this  reason  he 
lent  money  to  his  lowbrow  associates — generally  small  sums  of  fifty  dol- 
lars or  less — and  he  extricated  them  from  various  scrapes.  He  also  saw 
to  it  that  they  were  included  in  the  wedding  reception  aboard  the  ferry- 
boat Essex  after  Tyler's  marriage  to  Julia  on  June  26.52 

Alexander  Gardiner  had  no  illusions  about  the  success  of  the  Tyler 
faction  in  the  November  elections.  He  knew  that  the  Tyler  movement 
was  a  holding  operation — nationally  and  in  New  York — created  only 
to  strike  the  best  possible  terms  with  the  Democracy  on  Texas  and 
patronage  and  then  leave  the  field.  Therefore,  at  a  private  meeting 
of  Tyler  leaders  in  Manhattan  during  the  week  of  July  15  the  decision 
was  made  to  place  a  Tyler  slate  in  the  field  for  every  elective  office  in 
New  York  state  and  to  hold  a  public  Tyler  rally  on  July  23  at  which  the 
President's  nomination  by  his  Baltimore  convention  would  be  ostenta- 
tiously ratified. 

This  bold  ploy  galvanized  the  Tammany-dominated  Democratic 
General  Committee  of  New  York  City  into  immediate  action.  On  July 
20,  a  Tammany  Hall  delegation  approached  Alexander  Gardiner,  Col- 
lector Van  Ness,  and  Postmaster  Graham  and  suggested  a  Polk-Tyler 
alliance  as  the  only  hope  of  defeating  Clay  in  New  York.  Specifically, 
they  requested  the  establishment  of  a  joint  conference  committee  for  the 
purpose  of  "arranging  difficulties'7  between  partisans  of  the  two  candi- 
dates. Alexander  informed  Tyler  that  an  exploratory  conference  had 
been  agreed  upon,  but  that  "no  definitive  action  will  be  taken  without 
approval  at  headquarters."  Headquarters  at  that  moment  was  the  honey- 
moon cottage  at  Old  Point  Comfort.53 

A  few  days  later,  on  July  23,  the  Tyler  ratification  meeting  was 
held,  William  Shaler  presiding.  It  was  a  large,  noisy,  disorderly  affair. 

234 


Strong-arm  Tammany  forces  under  colorful  Mike  Walsh  arrived  In  num- 
bers and  attempted  to  disrupt  proceedings.  This  tactic  was  defeated 
only  when  Delazon  Smith  of  Ohio  managed  to  seize  the  speaker's  stand 
and  hold  it  against  all  interruptions  for  two  hours  in  an  extemporaneous 
eulogy  to  T}4er.  When  the  Walsh  crowd  finally  gave  up  (rigor  mortis 
must  have  set  in),  Thomas  Dunn  English  and  Judge  Chesselden  Ellis 
spoke  briefly7  and  the  rally  then  duly  endorsed  the  Baltimore  conven- 
tion's nomination  of  Tyler.  As  Alexander  explained  the  evening's  excite- 
ment and  its  political  significance  to  Julia,  "My  only  hope  now  is,  that 
the  firm  stand  taken,  may  bring  the  friends  of  Polk  to  favorable  terms; 
for  I  cannot  believe  that  we  have  either  the  men  or  the  means  to  make 
any  general  and  effectual  separate  organization. ...  I  rejoice  that  the 
nomination  of  the  President  has  been  ratified  ...  so  that  he  may  receive 
proposals  on  equal  terms."  54 

Word  came  back  to  Alexander  from  honeymoon  headquarters  within 
the  week.  Tyler  informed  his  brother-in-law  that  he  was  ready  to  with- 
draw, given  a  satisfactory  patronage  arrangement  with  the  Polkites  in 
New  York,  On  the  strength  of  this  notification,  Alexander  circulated  a 
confidential  memorandum  through  the  Democratic  leadership  in  the  city 
on  July  29  calling  for  a  Tammany  alliance  with  the  Tyler! tes.  Speaking 
as  a  Tammany  Democrat  himself  (he  had  been  one  for  two  years),  he 
bluntly  reminded  the  party  professionals  that  Tyler's  friends  in  New 
York  were 

—  working  politicians  and  hold  offices  of  profit,  and  hence  are  able  to  give 
us  at  once  valuable  personal  and  pecuniary  aid.  How  is  it,  now?  They  are 
kept  in  abeyance,  and  we  holding  no  public  patronage  are  now  driven  upon 
our  private  means  for  support.  How  inadequate  a  reliance!  If  the  friends 
of  Tyler  are  not  embraced  madness  rides  the  land:  we  can  lose  nothing  by 
it,  but  we  may  gain  much Whigs  in  office  would  be  immediately  sup- 
planted by  Democrats  . . .  the  union  acceded  to  /  have  it  on  the  best  authority 
that  the  President  will  retire  from  the  contest  and  throw  his  whole  weight 

in  favor  of  Polk All  that  Mr.  Tyler  wants  is  justice  and  conciliation 

Let  us  act  quickly:  we  should  this  day  have  the  aid  of  the  public  patronage 
and  be  in  the  field  with  all  our  forces  united !  55 

Tammany  and  the  Polkites  had  little  choice.  It  was  win  with  Tyler's 
aid  or  lose  without  it.  On  the  evening  of  August  2  the  bargain  was  struck. 
Polk's  spokesmen  promised  nothing  less  than  equality  of  patronage 
opportunity  and  open  patronage  covenants  openly  arrived  at.  For  these 
concessions  they  looked  forward  to  the  withdrawal  of  John  Tyler  from 
the  field  "with  credit,  honor,  and  upon  terms  of  much  prospective  im- 
portance." With  this  agreement  in  hand,  little  more  could  be  accom- 
plished by  the  Tylerites  in  New  York.  "I  speak  with  great  diffidence," 
Alexander  told  the  President,  "  [but]  I  cannot  at  present  perceive  that 
anything  particularly  desirable  could  be  achieved  by  a  continuance  in 

235 


the  field,  this  point  having  been  reached."  Gardiner  was  right.  Nothing 
more  could  be  achieved,  and  a  few  days  later  at  the  Carleton  House  the 
eight  members  of  the  joint  Polk-Tyler  conference  committee  drew  up 
resolutions  praising  the  Tyler  administration  and  pledging  their  com- 
mon support  of  Young  Hickory  since  "the  Democratic  friends  of  Presi- 
dent Tyler  are  committed  to  the  same  general  principles  as  the  support- 
ers of  Mr.  Polk."  A  Tammany  delegation  departed  shortly  afterward  for 
Washington  to  urge  Tyler's  speedy  withdrawal.  Meanwhile,  Joel  B. 
Sutherland  and  Robert  Tyler  arrived  at  the  White  House  from  Phila- 
delphia to  press  the  same  course.  Letters  from  Democrats  all  over  the 
country  flooded  into  Washington  pleading  with  the  President  to  with- 
draw and  join  with  Polk  in  the  certain  humiliation  of  Henry  Clay.  On 
August  2o?  1844,  John  Tyler  finally  issued  his  withdrawal  statement,  but 
not  before  he  got  off  a  private  letter  to  Andrew  Jackson  announcing  that 
a  statement  was  forthcoming  and  that  he  counted  "40,000  friends  in 
Ohio  and  a  controlling  power  in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia  and  New  Jersey, 
which  if  it  can  be  brought  to  co-operate  will  decide  the  contest."  56 

Tyler's  formal  withdrawal  statement,  struck  off  hastily  (in  less  than 
three  hours),  was  an  extensive  defense  of  his  administration  in  general, 
his  vetoes  in  particular,  his  motives  in  the  Texas  matter,  and  his  right 
as  an  American  citizen  "to  think  for  myself  on  all  subjects  and  to  act  in 
pursuance  of  n*/  own  convictions."  He  again  denied  the  charge  that  his 
Texas  treaty  had  any  sectional  bias.  It  was  entirely  a  national  measure, 
designed  only  to  insure  "the  annual  expansion  of  our  coastwise  and 
foreign  trade,  and  the  increased  prosperity  of  our  agriculture  and  manu- 
factures." He  admitted,  however,  that  he  felt  personally  "ambitious  to 
add  another  bright  star  to  the  American  constellation,"  and  that  the 
completion  of  annexation  would  furnish  him  "an  unfailing  source  of 
gratification  to  the  end  of  my  life."  The  ratification  of  the  Texas  treaty, 
he  confessed,  was  "the  sole  honor  which  I  coveted,  and  that  I  now  de- 
sire." For  his  personal  role  in  advancing  the  issue  toward  some  solution 
he  could  only  "appeal  from  the  vituperation  of  the  present  day  to  the 
pen  of  imperial  history."  57 

Hailed  by  his  followers  as  "decidedly  one  of  the  ablest  productions 
from  the  Pen  of  our  friend,"  the  withdrawal  statement  was  generally 
ridiculed  in  the  Whig  press,  applauded  by  the  Democratic  press,  and 
smiled  at  indulgently  in  some  sectors  of  both.  The  cautious  New  York 
Journal  of  Commerce  came  closest  to  the  contemporary  significance  of 
the  decision  when  it  noted  on  August  22  that 

Some  have  said  the  Tyler  party  is  a  minus  quantity;  and  that  its  co-opera- 
tion would  be  worse  than  its  opposition.  This  will  do  for  a  joke,  but  in  point 
of  fact,  the  Polkites  will  rejoice,  and  the  Whigs  regret,  to  see  this  new  ac- 
cession, small  though  it  be,  to  the  ranks  of  the  democratic  nominee.  In  some 
of  the  Southern  States  where  the  votes  of  Whigs  and  Democrats  are  nearly 
balanced,  a  deduction  of  a  comparatively  small  number  from  the  latter, 
might  entirely  change  the  result.58 

236 


This  too  was  the  judgment  of  the  Polk  leadership.  Andrew  Jackson 
was  satisfied  that  Tyler's  withdrawal  had  strengthened  Young  Hickory 
significantly  in  Ohio,  Connecticut,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Michi- 
gan. "All's  -well  in  N.  York  and  Pennsylvania  . . . ,"  said  the  old  General 
happily.  Sutherland  predicted  a  Polk  majority  in  Virginia  and  a  Polk 
sweep  in  the  Keystone  State.  Indeed,  when  news  of  Tyler's  withdrawal 
reached  Philadelphia  six  thousand  of  his  friends  were  crowded  into  the 
Chinese  Museum  and  voted  to  go  over  to  Polk  and  Dallas  in  a  body.59 

So  smoothly  and  quickly  did  the  alliance  fuse  that  by  mid-Septem- 
ber Tyler  was  persuaded  that  a  Polk  administration  would  really  be  but 
"a  continuation  of  my  own,  since  he  will  be  found  the  advocate  of  most 
of  my  measures."  He  was  positive  that  his  friends  would  be  treated  with 
"regard  and  attention,'7  and  he  was  pleased  that  they  "rallied  en  masse" 
to  Polk  in  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  New  England.  This 
unanimous  rally,  he  predicted,  would  surely  "secure  the  election"  for 
Polk.  In  sum,  John  Tyler  was  satisfied  with  the  bargain.  Rumors  that 
the  arrangement  involved  his  appointment  to  the  Court  of  St.  James's, 
or  that  Tyler  had  insisted  that  Franklin  P.  Blair's  Washington  Globe 
be  cut  off  from  any  official  connection  with  a  Polk  administration,  were 
entirely  without  foundation.  In  fact,  Tyler  and  Polk  had  no  direct  con- 
tact at  any  time  during  the  campaign.  All  understandings  were  effected 
through  intermediaries.60 

In  New  York  City  the  Tyler  faction  began  vigorous  efforts  on  be- 
half of  the  Polk  ticket  in  early  September.  They,  at  least,  would  carry 
out  their  end  of  the  transaction  with  Young  Hickory.  Julia  received 
Alexander's  instruction  to  send  from  Washington  "a  good  bundle  of  the 
Madisonian  pamphlet  that  I  might  distribute  them  here."  This  she 
quickly  did,  happy  to  contribute  to  the  Polk  campaign  in  any  way  she 
could.  As  the  summer  drew  to  a  close  Alexander  dispensed  increasing 
quantities  of  federal  patronage  in  the  city.  Working  through  Van  Ness 
and  Graham,  he  placed  deserving  Democrats  of  all  factions — Tyler's, 
Polk's,  Tammany's,  and  even  Van  Buren's — into  various  jobs  in  the 
Customs  House,  Post  Office,  and  Navy  Yard.  He  took  special  care  of  the 
Long  Island  friends  of  his  Uncle  Samuel  Gardiner.  Gradually  he  came 
to  control  patronage  distribution  for  the  administration  in  all  of  Suffolk 
County.  He  also  took  a  special  interest  in  the  seamen's  vote  on  the  docks 
in  Manhattan  and  Brooklyn.  Just  before  the  polls  opened  on  November 
5  he  circularized  all  Democratic  ward  leaders  to  the  effect  that  if  they 
knew  of  any  "worthy  Democrat"  who  needed  employment,  he  could  pro- 
vide a  full  winter's  work  on  the  dry  dock  then  building  at  the  Brooklyn 
Navy  Yard.  The  response  to  the  dry  dock  work  offer  was,  to  say  the 
least,  heartening.  Men  came  in  droves,  bringing  their  friends  and  rela- 
tives. All  were  votes  for  Polk.  Alexander  was  busy  with  the  Polk  cam- 
paign from  morning  until  night.  "Alex  has  no  peace  with  the  constant 
demand  upon  his  time  and  purse"  Margaret  complained.  "The  door  bell 
is  nearly  worn  out  with  ringing."  61 

237 


By  the  beginning  of  October  Alexander  Gardiner  had  become  so 
•enamored  of  the  local  political  process  that  on  Robert  Tyler's  suggestion 
he  decided  to  run  for  the  New  York  State  Assembly.  Robert  pulled  the 
strings  within  Tammany  that  assured  Alexander  a  nomination  on  the 
Democratic  ticket.  To  provide  himself  additional  prestige  and  a  closer 
personal  connection  with  Tyler  for  campaign  purposes,  Alexander  sought 
an  appointment  as  the  President's  honorary  aide-de-camp.  When  Tyler 
refused  his  request  for  a  colonelcy  the  young  lawyer  complained  to  Julia 
that  the  President  was  slow  to  "give  his  relations  situations."  But  in  spite 
of  Julia's  pressure  in  her  brother's  behalf,  the  President  stood  firm. 
Enough  of  his  relatives  were  already  in  office.  Disappointed  but  un- 
bowed, Alexander  plunged  into  the  campaign  anyway.  He  came  out 
strongly  for  Polk,  Texas,  and  the  "reoccupation"  of  Oregon.  He  was 
against  the  use  of  convict  labor  in  competition  with  the  HONEST 

MECHANICS  OF  THIS  STATE. 

This  orthodoxy  did  not  sway  all  the  members  of  the  nominations 
•committee  of  the  Democratic  county  convention.  Young  Gardiner  had 
been  a  Democrat  for  only  two  years  and  his  services  to  Tammany  had 
not  been  noteworthy.  As  bread-and-butter  professionals,  some  of  Tam- 
many's sidewalk  sachems  were  not  overly  impressed  with  Alexander's 
argument  that  he  had,  after  all,  "supported  the  various  measures  of  the 
party  through  the  columns  of  the  Globe,  Evening  Post  and  other  papers." 
A  strong  effort  was  therefore  made  to  block  his  nomination.  Thanks 
to  the  labors  of  David  H.  Broderick,  however,  opposition  to  the  Gardiner 
^endorsement  was  beaten  down  in  the  nominations  committee  and  upstart 
Alexander's  name  was  sent  along  with  the  rest  of  the  approved  list  to  the 
county  convention  for  ratification.  Broderick  was  later  rewarded  by 
Tyler  with  a  patronage  job  for  his  loyal  efforts.  The  nominations-com- 
mittee incident  of  October  n  convinced  Alexander  that  "there  is  a  great 
absence  of  friends  in  the  Democratic  Party."  62 

Alexander  entered  the  Assembly  race  with  scant  hope  of  victory.  He 
ielt  that  the  Whig-Native  American  alliance  would  likely  defeat  all 
Democratic  candidates  running,  as  he  was,  on  a  citywide  ticket.  Cal- 
culating his  chances  as  "more  possible  than  probable,"  he  was  half- 
angered,  half-amused  when  a  plot  was  sprung  in  the  county  convention 
in  late  October  to  deny  him  the  nomination.  He  was  not  without  warning 
that  something  of  the  sort  was  afoot.  The  New  York  Herald  for  October 
13,  commenting  on  his  contested  selection  by  the  nominations  com- 
snittee,  remarked  that 

The  greatest  possible  commotion  and  excitement  prevailed  on  Friday  evening 
[October  n]  in  and  around  Tammany  Hall,  in  consequence  of  the  nomina- 
tion of  a  highly  respectable  and  wealthy  young  gentleman  named  Gardiner,  as 
one  of  the  thirteen  members  of  the  Assembly.  It  seems  that  Mr.  Gardiner  is 
wholly  unknown  in  the  Democratic  party,  and  received  his  nomination  mainly 
"because  he  happens  to  be  the  brother-in-law  of  President  Tyler,  or  as  some 

238 


of  the  nasty  politicians  will  have  it,  the  brother-in-law  of  the  Custom  House. 
Everybody  seemed  to  be  loud  in  the  expression  of  disapprobation,  and  there 
will  probably  be  difficulty  at  the  County  meeting  on  account  of  his  nomina- 
tion, and  another  made  at  the  same  time. 

The  maneuver  to  head  Alexander  was  a  crude  one — typically  Tammany. 
An  anti-Tyler  clique  in  the  Wigwam,  headed  by  Levi  D.  Slamm,  hired 
a  dim-witted  gentleman  named  Joseph  T.  Sweet,  a  member  of  the  nomi- 
nations committee,  to  testify  publicly  that  Alexander  and  Robert  Tyler 
had  used  various  improper  methods — threats,  bribery,  and  profanity — 
to  suborn  his  vote.  According  to  Sweet's  charges,  these  Gardiner-Tyler 
importunities  were  aimed  at  denying  Thomas  N.  Carr,  a  notorious  anti- 
Tylerite,  nomination  to  the  State  Assembly  in  Alexander's  stead.  Sweet, 
of  course,  was  a  liar,  and  he  later  signed  a  statement  cheerfully  admitting 
this  fact  (Carr,  it  turned  out,  was  behind  the  plot),  but  his  charges 
livened  up  the  New  York  County  Democratic  convention  meeting  at 
Tammany  Hall  on  the  evening  of  October  28,  reducing  it  to  the  usual 
state  of  chaos.  In  spite  of  Sweet's  allegation,  Alexander's  nomination 
was  upheld  in  a  chorus  of  shouts,  boos,  cheers,  and  hisses.  Nevertheless, 
his  success  did  not  lessen  the  outrage  Juliana  felt  when  Sweet's  irrespon- 
sible allegations  were  hurled  at  her  son.  She  was  sure,  for  example,  that 
her  Alexander  had  "never  made  use  of  a  profane  word  in  his  life."  63 

Following  Alexander's  baptism  in  mud,  the  family  watched  with 
interest  as  the  Polk-Clay  campaign  entered  its  final  phases.  At  best,  it 
became  a  name-calling  exercise  punctuated  by  political  hokum  of  the 
worst  sort.  Polk  called  for  the  "reannexation"  of  a  Texas  that  had  never 
been  annexed  and  the  "reoccupation"  of  an  Oregon  earlier  inhabited  by 
bears,  beavers  and  other  furry  patriots.  Clay,  on  the  other  hand, 
straddled  the  Texas  question  and  struggled  to  avoid  the  very  Bank  issue 
with  which  he  had  joyfully  smashed  the  Tyler  administration  three 
years  earlier. 

The  main  problem  that  confronted  Tyler  and  his  friends  and  family 
was  how  to  interpret  Folk's  razor-thin  victory  when  it  ultimately  ma- 
terialized in  November.  Polk  eased  by  Clay  1,337,000  to  1,229,000  in 
popular  votes  and  170  to  105  in  the  Electoral  College.  From  the  Presi- 
dent's standpoint  it  was  imperative  to  demonstrate  that  his  August  with- 
drawal had  thrown  the  close  election  to  Polk.  In  the  first  flush  of  family 
enthusiasm  over  the  Democratic  victory,  Alexander  argued  that  Young 
Hickory's  slim  margin  of  5000  in  New  York  state,  nearly  half  of  it  from 
the  city,  could  not  have  been  possible  had  the  President  not  purged 
Edward  Curtis  from  the  Customs  House  and  applied  the  balm  of  Tylerite 
patronage  to  the  Polk  cause.  At  first  Tyler  adopted  this  satisfying  in- 
terpretation without  dispute.  "That  decisive  act  on  my  part  secured  the 
State  for  Polk,"  he  declared  confidently.  Alexander  further  persuaded 
Tyler  that  the  President's  timely  withdrawal  had  also  tipped  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Virginia  into  the  Polk  column.  "Mr.  Polk  is  beyond  question 

239 


indebted  to  the  President  for  his  election,"  said  Alexander  with  finality. 
True,  had  either  New  York  or  Pennsylvania  gone  for  Clay,  James  K. 
Polk  would  have  lost;  and  in  Pennsylvania,  thanks  to  Robert  Tyler  and 
Joel  B.  Sutherland,  Tyler  had  a  substantial  bloc  of  supporters  who  had 
indeed  gone  over  to  Polk.64 

The  initial  Gardiner-Tyler  interpretation  of  Polk's  victory  in  New 
York  did  not,  however,  take  into  account  the  fact  that  James  G.  Birney's 
strongly  abolitionist  and  anti-Texas  Liberty  Party  had  polled  15,812  of 
its  62,300  national  votes  in  the  Empire  State.  Had  Birney  and  his  splin- 
ter group  not  been  in  the  field,  or  had  Clay  campaigned  strongly  against 
Texas  annexation,  the  Kentuckian  might  well  have  commanded  enough 
of  the  Birney  vote  to  have  carried  New  York.  Nor  did  the  Gardiner- 
Tyler  explanation  account  for  the  fact  that  the  strongly  antiannexation- 
ist  Silas  Wright  led  the  winning  Democratic  ticket  by  5000  votes  in 
New  York  in  his  successful  gubernatorial  bid.  Having  earlier  declined  a 
Vice-Presidential  nomination  on  the  Polk  ticket  because  he  was  anti- 
Texas,  Wright  had  consented  to  run  for  governor  only  on  the  urging  of 
Martin  Van  Buren,  whose  friend  and  ally  he  was.  Since  he  ran  so  far 
ahead  of  the  Democratic  ticket,  some  observers  argued  that  he  actually 
dragged  Polk  in  with  him  in  New  York.  If  this  was  a  correct  view  of  the 
matter,  then  Wright  (and  Van  Buren)  had  delivered  the  Empire  State 
to  Polk.  They  therefore  had  a  greater  claim  on  his  subsequent  patronage 
favors  than  did  Tyler.  Daniel  B.  Tallmadge,  a  Tylerite  leader  in  the 
city,  admitted  the  logic  of  this  interpretation  in  a  confidential  letter  to 
the  President.  He  carefully  analyzed  the  returns  in  every  ward  and 
district  in  New  York  and  concluded  that  many  antiannexationist  Demo- 
crats had  split  their  tickets,  voting  for  Wright  for  governor  and  Clay  for 
President,  cutting  Polk.  "It  would  in  my  judgment  serve  no  good  pur- 
pose to  have  this  matter  made  the  subject  of  newspaper  discussion,"  he 
suggested  to  Tyler.  "I  deemed  it  proper  however  to  bring  it  to  the  notice 
of  yourself,  because  you  have  been  so  identified  with  the  question  of 
annexation  and  Polk's  success."  Polk's  Texas  annexationism  probably 
hurt  him  in  New  York  as  much  as  it  helped  him.  He  very  likely  lost  as 
many  or  more  votes  on  the  issue  there  than  he  gained  from  the  alliance 
with  Tyler.65 

As  these  considerations  became  apparent  to  the  President,  he 
gradually  abandoned  the  view  that  his  withdrawal  had  swung  New  York 
to  Polk.  Instead,  he  pointed  to  those  of  his  friends  in  Philadelphia  (6000 
by  his  count)  who  had  gone  over  to  Polk,  and  he  maintained  that  their 
adherence  to  Young  Hickory  had  swung  Pennsylvania  to  the  Democracy. 
"I  say  nothing  of  the  elections  elsewhere,  nor  is  it  necessary,"  he  told 
Alexander.  "The  loss  of  Pennsylvania  would  have  lost  him  the  election." 
This  comfortable  thesis  also  contained  loopholes.  It  did  not  take  into 
account  the  possibility  that  the  appearance  of  native  son  George  M. 
Dallas  on  the  Polk  ticket  as  the  Vice-Presidential  candidate  did  more  to 

240 


tip  Pennsylvania  to  the  Democrats  than  had  Tylerite  support.  In  addi- 
tion, the  Pennsylvania  Democracy  took  a  decisive  23,ooo-to-i9,ooo  lick- 
ing in  Tyler's  Philadelphia  stronghold  from  a  Whig-Native  American 
coalition  ("Oh!  the  defeat  in  Philadelphia!"  Margaret  moaned).  It 
could  be  argued,  however,  that  Tyler's  strength  in  the  city,  particularly 
among  Roman  Catholic  immigrant  groups,  had  reduced  expected  Demo- 
cratic losses  there  enough  to  allow  Polk  to  slide  through  by  6000  votes  in 
the  state  as  a  whole.  This,  at  least,  became  the  Tyler-Gardiner  view  of 
the  matter  and  it  remains  a  reasonable  though  speculative  opinion. 

In  other  states  where  Tyler  had  predicted  his  withdrawal  would 
exercise  a  decisive  influence  for  Polk — Virginia,  Ohio,  and  New  Jersey — 
Polk  carried  only  Virginia.  Had  Virginia's  seventeen  electoral  votes  gone 
to  Clay,  the  outcome  of  the  election  would  not  have  changed  one  bit.  In 
the  final  analysis,  then,  Tyler's  much-negotiated  withdrawal  from  the 
canvass  probably  influenced  the  result  in  Virginia  (and  possibly  that 
in  Pennsylvania),  and  the  decision  in  the  Old  Dominion  was  not  crucial 
one  way  or  the  other.  But  dreams  are  not  built  on  such  pragmatic  con- 
clusions. In  history,  what  actually  happened  is  sometimes  less  important 
than  what  is  believed  to  have  happened,  and  John  Tyler  believed  until 
the  end  of  his  days  that  his  withdrawal  from  the  1844  campaign  was 
the  decisive  factor  in  the  unexpected  victory  of  James  K.  Polk  over 
Henry  Clay.  Whatever  the  truth  of  this  belief,  Polk  undoubtedly  owed 
Tyler  something  other  than  the  ruthless  and  cynical  proscription  he 
carried  out  against  Tylerite  officeholders  soon  after  he  assumed  power.66 

Alexander  Gardiner's  try  for  elective  office  was  not  successful.  All 
thirteen  Democratic  nominees  for  the  Assembly  in  New  York  City  went 
down  to  defeat.  Alexander  was  beaten  27,487  to  26,183  by  Harvey  Hunt, 
the  Whig-Nativist  candidate.  His  altercation  with  the  Slamm-Carr-Sweet 
clique  in  Tammany  had  certainly  not  helped  his  cause.  Friends  of  the 
three  conspirators  had  retaliated  at  the  polls.  In  fact,  Alexander  ran  well 
behind  the  Democratic  ticket  all  the  way.  But  the  mild  disappointment 
he  experienced  was  buried  in  the  general  elation  the  Tylers  and  Gardiners 
felt  over  the  election  of  James  K.  Polk.  Like  the  President  himself,  they 
all  remained  convinced  that  Young  Hickory  owed  his  success  entirely  to 
John  Tyler.67 

From  the  President's  point  of  view,  Henry  Clay  had  deliberately 
wrecked  the  Tyler  administration  to  advance  his  own  selfish  political 
fortunes.  The  Bank  issue  with  which  he  had  accomplished  the  demolition 
was  a  manufactured  one.  The  Whigs  of  1844  had  not  even  mentioned  the 
fighting  word  Bank  in  their  fuzzy  platform.  It  was,  therefore,  with  great 
satisfaction  that  Tyler  saw  Clay  beaten  by  a  political  dark  horse.  In  a 
larger  sense,  he  viewed  Polk's  victory  as  a  complete  vindication  of  his 
own  administration,  and  he  would  have  been  a  very  unusual  human 
being  had  he  not  convinced  himself  that  he  had  played  the  major  role 
in  Clay's  humiliation.  Both  he  and  Julia  joined  enthusiastically  in  the 

241 


victory  celebrations  in  Washington  at  which  "John  Tyler  was  cheered 
with  burst  upon  burst."  They  were  delighted  to  hear  that  a  Democratic 
victory  rally  in  Charleston  had  hailed  "Old  Veto"  with  a  "Well  done! 
thou  good  and  faithful  servant."  And  when  the  Reverend  Gregory 
Thurston  Bedell  told  his  predominately  Whig  congregation  at  the  Epis- 
copal Church  of  the  Ascension  on  November  17  that  the  Whigs  had 
tried  to  buy  the  election  in  New  York  but  that  Jesus  Christ  had  tipped 
the  scales  for  Polk,  Juliana  was  convinced  that  she  was  in  the  presence  of 
L  truly  great  mind.  Bedell,  she  decided,  "deserves  to  be  admired"  be- 

;ause  he  always  "aimed  at  truth It  is  a  great  privilege  to  hear  him 

)reach."  Nor  could  young  Julia  contain  herself.  "Hurrah  for  Polk!"  she 
jxclaimed.  "What  will  become  of  Henry  Clay. . . .  We  shall  have  a  very 
pleasant  winter  here  I  can  now  promise."  6S 

A  very  pleasant  winter  was  indeed  being  planned.  As  the  Washing- 
;on  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald  informed  his  readers  on 
November  21: 

Had  Mr.  Clay  been  chosen  by  the  people,  gloom  would  have  pervaded  the 
social  metropolis.  Now,  preparations  are  in  progress  to  make  this  the  most 
Brilliant  season  Washington  has  ever  beheld.  A  round  of  magnificent  enter- 
tainments, commencing  with  the  opening  of  Congress,  will  follow  one  another 
in  rapid  succession ...  the  Executive  Mansion  will  be  thrown  open  under 
the  auspices  of  the  President's  bride,  the  most  splendid  and  accomplished 
lady  of  the  age.  Possessed  of  the  highest  order  of  beauty  and  intellect,  and 
of  the  most  elegant  and  popular  manners,  she  will  draw  about  her  a  court 
circle  rivaling  in  charms  of  mind  and  person,  that  of  Charles  II  or  Louis  le 
Grand. 

For  all  her  enthusiasm,  energy,  and  social  poise,  the  twenty-four-year-old 
Julia  was  still  a  relatively  young  and  inexperienced  girl,  and  her  mother 
was  sure  she  would  make  mistakes  playing  her  queenly  role  in  the  White 
House.  "You  must  not  mind  any  objections  made  of  you  in  the  news- 
papers," she  warned  her  daughter.  "You  will  not  escape  censure.  Do  your 
best  I  should  not  be  surprised  at  any  ill  nature."  69 

With  a  splendid  social  season  to  look  forward  to  at  the  side  of  a 
beautiful  young  bride,  Tyler  could  not  remain  angry  at  anyone  very 
long,  even  the  despicable  Henry  Clay.  "Leave  off  abusing  Mr.  Clay  al- 
together," he  ordered  the  Madisonian.  "He  is  dead  and  let  him  rest."  As 
far  as  he  was  concerned,  his  long  battle  with  Prince  Harry  was  over.70 


242 


JULIA  REGINA: 
COURT  LIFE  IN  WASHINGTON 


/  determined  upon,  and  I  think  I  have  been  success- 
ful, in  making  my  Court  interesting  in  youth  and 
beauty.  Wherever  I  go  they  jorm  my  train. . . . 

JULIA   GARDINER   TYLER,    1845 


F.  W.  Thomas,  sometime  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  predicted  in  November  1844  that  the  coming  social  season  would 
be  the  "most  brilliant  Washington  has  ever  beheld" — for  the  penny  press 
an  understatement.  Nevertheless,  all  the  psychological  and  social  condi- 
tions were  favorable  for  an  unusual  display  at  the  White  House.  Tyler's 
withdrawal  from  the  campaign  and  Folk's  victory  over  Clay  had  left  the 
President  "happy  as  a  clam  at  high  water."  At  his  side  was  his  vivacious 
bride,  bubbling  and  bursting  with  all  the  energy  and  imagination  that 
would  make  the  Tyler  administration  long  remembered  for  its  social 
sophistication  if  not  for  its  political  accomplishments.  "This  winter/7 
Julia  breathlessly  informed  her  mother,  "I  intend  to  do  something  in  the 
way  of  entertaining  that  shall  be  the  admiration  and  talk  of  the  Wash- 
ington world."  Not  only  would  there  be  the  weekly  White  House  levees 
and  the  usual  formal  receptions,  but  also  several  special  grand  functions 
that  would  be  the  marvel  of  all  Washington.  Julia  planned  to  reign  in 
truly  regal  style.1 

The  White  House  remained  an  unlikely  castle.  It  was  still  a  fright- 
ful mess.  The  chairs  had  been  covered  only  once  since  the  first  Monroe 
administration  and  they  were  all  in  a  state  of  "perfect  explosion  at  every 
prominent  point  that  presents  contact  with  the  outer  garments  of  the 
visitors."  An  1844  bill  to  provide  a  sorely  needed  $20,000  for  refurbish- 
ing the  moth-eaten  furniture  had  predictably  been  defeated  in  Congress. 

243 


And  since  Tyler's  private  funds  were  now  severely  limited  by  the  de- 
mands of  the  Sherwood  Forest  remodeling,  it  was  up  to  the  Gardiners 
to  provide  the  cash  for  much  of  the  planned  brilliance.  Julia  was  per- 
fectly willing  to  bear  any  necessary  expense.  As  her  socially  conscious 
mother  advised  her,  there  had  to  be  a  "change  in  the  domestic  economy 
of  the  establishment,"  an  end  to  the  marginal  and  near-threadbare 
standard  of  living  in  the  President's  Mansion.  Needless  to  say,  there  was 
an  instant  change,  one  accomplished  with  Gardiner  dollars/ No  sooner 
had  Julia  returned  from  her  honeymoon  in  Virginia  than  she  got  her 
White  House  coachmen  and  footmen  into  expensive  new  livery — "a  suit 
of  black  with  black  velvet  bands  and  buckles  on  their  hats."  She  was 
determined  to  "roll  about  very  comfortably  for  a  little  while."  2 

As  the  opening  of  the  new  season  approached  with  the  return  of 
Congress  in  early  December,  the  First  Lady  busied  herself  with  last- 
niinute  preparations  for  her  "auspicious  reign."  She  persuaded  the  Presi- 
dent to  obtain  for  her  an  Jtalian  greyhound,  a  fashionable  breed  she 
believed  would  add  Continental  sophistication  to  the  decor  of  her  Court. 
Tyler  dutifully  placed  an  order  for  the  animal  through  the  American 
consul  in  Naples.  Meanwhile,  Margaret  was  instructed  to  procure  a 
"Heron's  plume"  in  New  York.  "For  one  kind  of  headdress  this  winter," 
Julia  explained,  "I  intend  to  have  a  sort  of  velvet  cap  with  a  Heron's 
plume  in  front  pinned  on  with  my  large  diamond  pin."  She  also  thought 
Margaret  had  better  send  her  diamond  star  feronia  and  her  two  strings 
of  pearls  to  Washington.  A  rush  order  for  a  loose  felt  hat  was  quickly 
canceled,  however,  when  the  au  courant  Margaret  reported  that  they 
were  definitely  out  of  style,  "found  nowhere  but  in  the  Bowery"  and 
were  now  called  "monkey  caps."  3 

Definitely  in  style  in  New  York  was  the  new  dance  called  the  polka. 
Juliana  reported  it  all  the  rage  among  the  fashionable  young  set  in 
Gotham,  and  Julia  swiftly  imported  it  to  the  White  House  in  spite  of 
David  Lyon's  comment  that  it  was  "half  an  Indian  dance  and  half 
waltz."  Aboriginal  or  not,  both  the  polka  and  the  suggestively  daring 
waltz  soon  became  de  rigueur  at  all  White  House  balls  although  Tyler, 
only  a  few  years  earlier,  had  found  the  waltz  immoral  and  sternly  for- 
bidden his  daughters  to  dance  it  or  to  associate  with  boys  who  did.  John 
Tyler,  it  would  seem,  was  mellowing.  Also  ordered  for  the  White  House 
at  Julia's  insistence  was  a  quantity  of  good  French  wine  and  a  number 
of  pieces  of  expensive  French  furniture.  Tyler  hoped  that  these  might 
arrive  in  time  to  be  enjoyed  at  the  President's  Mansion  before  being  sent 
on  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  March  1845.  But  the  winter  passed  without 
their  appearance,  and  the  President  became  increasingly  anxious  about 
Ms  purchases.  "With  two  such  cargoes  upon  the  water,"  wrote  Margaret, 
"he  compares  himself  to  Antonio."  4 

As  befitted  a  reigning  queen,  Julia  set  Saturday  as  her  Deception 
day.  The  first  one  she  held,  a  "recherche  assemblage"  on  November  23, 

244 


attracted  the  French  Minister  and  Madame  Pageot,  General  John  P. 
Van  Ness,  and  many  others  "who  all  came  in  grand  toilette."  At  the 
same  time,  the  First  Lady  decided  to  have  her  portrait  painted.  This 
charge  was  executed  by  E.  G.  Thompson  of  New  York  at  a  cost  of  $250. 
But  the  finished  product,  thought  Julia,  was  much  too  conservative.  It 
showed  too  little  of  her  neck  and  throat.  She  therefore  commissioned  an 
engraver,  B.  O.  Tyler  of  New  York,  to  execute  a  more  decollete  version 
of  the  portrait.  Fearing  that  the  engraver  might  attempt  to  capitalize  on 
his  name  and  on  his  commission,  she  warned  her  family  that  "The 
President  hopes  you  will  not  think  B.  O.  Tyler  is  any  ^ooth  cousin  of 
his.3' 5 

With  less  monarchical  detachment  she  wisely  decided  that  her  reign 
must  have  jLjjopd  press,  especially  in  socially  decisive  New  York  City. 
To  effect  this  pioneer  effort  by  a  First  Lady  in  White  House  public  rela- 
tions, she  and  the  ladies  of  her  Court  were  uncommonly  agreeable  to  the 
Herald's  part-time  correspondent,  F.  W.  Thomas.  Privately,  they  all 
found  him  a  frightful  bore  and  they  were  soon  "quite  sick  of  him." 
Thomas  was  a  minor  novelist  and  politician  with  no  lasting  claim  to 
fame  save  through  his  friendship  with  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Indeed,  Thomas 
had  endangered  his  welcome  at  the  White  House  in  March  1843  when 
he  brought  Poe  there  in  the  hope  of  helping  the  rootless  poet  find  a 
place  in  the  Philadelphia  Customs  House.  Poe  had  become  dead  drunk 
in  the  Presidential  presence,  an  unseemly  display  that  had  ended  his 
patronage  prospects  and  embarrassed  his  patron.  Thomas,  however,  had 
held  on  grimly  to  the  outer  fringes  of  the  Tyler  administration,  and  in 
late  1844  Julia  moved  him  into  the  White  House  inner  circle  as  her  press 
agent.  His  Job,  as  Margaret  explained  it,  was  to  "sound  Julia's  praises 
far  and  near  in  Washington/7  This  did  not  mean  he  was  a  political 
intimate  of  the  President.  On  the  contrary,  Tyler  would  tell  him  nothing 
of  his  political  plans.  Thomas  was  made  privy  only  to  the  social  plans 
of  the  White  House.  This  being  the  arrangement,  Julia  expected  nothing 
less  than  rave  notices  from  his  pen,  and  when  these  fell  below  her  con- 
siderable expectations  she  became  quite  upset.  She  did  not  appreciate, 
for  example,  Thomas'  coy  remark  that  "Her  Excellency  and  Mistress 
President"  looked  as  "rosy  and  as  fat  as  ever,  and,  if  my  eyes  did  not 
deceive  me,  a  little  'fatter.'  "  Nothing  would  have  complicated  her  reign 
quite  so  much  as  a  pregnancy,  actual  or  rumored.6 

Fortunately,  Julia  had  several  opportunities  to  practice  being  a 
queen  before  the  new  Congress  convened  on  December  3.  In  late  October 
she  attended  the  launching  of  the  new  sloop-of-war  St.  Mary  at  the 
Washington  Navy  Yard.  A  large  throng  of  people,  "from  prince  to 
peasant,"  had  gathered  for  the  colorful  event.  When  the  First  Lady 
finally  arrived,  a  fashionable  hour  and  a  half  late,  she  made  a  grand  and 
impressive  entry.  Trailed  by  dozens  of  Cabinet  officers,  ambassadors, 
ministers,  generals,  commodores,  and  their  ladies,  she  was,  in  her  man- 

245 


ner,  like  Elizabeth  I  bidding  her  fleet  Godspeed  against  the  Armada.  By 
the  time  the  little  St.  Mary  had  at  last  reached  the  water,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  John  Y.  Mason  and  Secretary  of  War  William  Wilkins  were 
bitterly  arguing  the  relative  military  merits  of  ships  versus  militia,  a 
debate  spurred  on  by  a  laughing  First  Lady  and  the  giggling  ladies  of 
her  entourage.  A  century  later  the  Pentagon  would  be  built  to  provide 
decent  housing  for  this  venerable  American  forensic  activity.7 

A  series  of  small  dinner  parties  in  honor  of  her  recent  marriage 
provided  Julia  additional  opportunities  to  gain  experience  in  her  new 
role  before  the  social  season  was  fully  under  way.  At  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  Mason's  on  November  26  (Tyler  was  not  present)  she  found 
herself  seated  between  Secretary  of  State  Calhoun  and  Attorney  General 
John  Nelson.  They  were  both  "so  exceedingly  agreeable  I  cannot  tell 
which  was  most  so,  but  I  like  Mr.  Calhoun  the  best,'7  she  happily  re- 
ported to  her  mother.  "He  actually  repeated  verses  to  me.  We  had  to- 
gether a  pleasant  flirtation."  The  thought  of  the  courtly  John  C.  Calhoun 
whispering  poetry  of  "infinite  sweetness  and  taste"  into  Julia's  ear  was 
too  much  for  the  amused  President.  "Well,  upon  my  word,"  he  exclaimed 
to  his  bride  when  she  recounted  the  incident,  "I  must  look  out  for  a  new 
Secretary  of  State  if  Calhoun  is  to  stop  writing  dispatches  and  go  to 
repeating  verses."  Five  months  of  marriage  had  not  dulled  Julia's  sure 
feeling  for  provocative  flirtation.  Nor  did  she  intend  to  discontinue  her 
practice  of  the  art  form  she  knew  so  well.  And  yet  it  was  true,  as  young 
Alice  Tyler  reported,  that  the  President  and  Julia  lived  together  on 
"dreams  and  kisses.7'  They  were  indeed  exceptionally  happy.!  When,  for 
example,  they  sat  for  a  daguerreotype  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Phimb  of 
Washington,  they  were  seated  so  "lovingly  together"  that  Margaret  was 
inclined  to  regard  their  cozy  pose  as  a  joke.8 

By  the  time  Tyler  presented  his  fourth  and  final  Annual  Message 
to  Congress  on  December  3  Julia  felt  herself  ready  for  anything  from 
dinner-table  flirtation  to  Texas  annexation.  In  his  last  Message,  one  of 
the  great  imperialist  state  papers  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Tyler  re- 
newed his  political  offensive  for  the  annexation  of  Texas,  once  again 
pointing  out  the  benefits  of  the  project  to  the  entire  nation.  He  de- 
"manded  that  the  Congress,  lame  duck  though  it  was,  act  swiftly  and 
decisively  on  the  matter: 

The  great  popular  election  which  has  just  terminated  afforded  the  best  op- 
portunity of  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  States  and  the  people  upon  it. ... 
The  decision  of  the  people  and  the  States  on  this  great  and  interesting  sub- 
ject has  been  decisively  manifested.  The  question  of  annexation  has  been 

presented  nakedly  to  their  consideration A  controlling  majority  of  the 

people  and  a  large  majority  of  the  States  have  declared  in  favor  of  immediate 

annexation It  is  the  will  of  both  the  people  and  the  States  that  Texas  shall 

be  annexed  to  the  Union  promptly  and  immediately.  It  may  be  hoped  that 
...  all  collateral  issues  may  be  avoided.  Future  legislatures  can  best  decide  as 

246 


to  the  number  of  states  which  should  be  formed  out  of  the  territory  when 

the  time  has  arrived  for  deciding  that  question.  So  with  all  others The 

two  Governments  having  already  agreed  through  their  respective  organs  on 
the  terms  of  annexation,  I  would  recommend  their  adoption  by  Congress  in 
the  form  of  a  joint  resolution  or  act  to  be  perfected  and  made  binding  on  the 
two  countries  when  adopted  in  like  manner  by  the  Government  of  Texas.9 

Tyler's  suggestion  that  the  annexation  of  Texas  could  be  effected 
by  joint  resolution,  a  device  that  neatly  circumvented  the  specific  de- 
mand of  the  Constitution  that  treaties  be  adopted  by  the  advice  and 
consent  of  two-thirds  of  the  Senate,  represented  the  Virginian's  second 
major  departure  from  the  principle  of  strict  construction.  In  April  1841 
he  had  interpreted  the  imprecise  language  of  the  Constitution  to  read 
that  he  was  really  the  President  of  the  United  States,  not  the  "Acting 
President."  Now  he  was  willing  to  go  a  step  further,  saying  that  a  treaty 
might  become  law  by  simple  majority  vote  of  both  houses.  John  Tyler, 
like  most  states7  rights  devotees  of  strict  construction,  had  again  come 
upon  a  situation  in  which  what  he  wanted  as  a  person,  as  an  American, 
and  as  a  President  could  not  be  squared  with  the  fundamentalist  written 
word  of  the  Constitution.  When  this  happened,  Tyler,  like  Jefferson  be- 
fore him  on  the  Louisiana  Purchase  question,  did  not  hesitate.  He  took 
the  elastic  road  home;  and  in  so  doing  he  benefited  the  nation  while 
compromising  further  the  document  to  which  the  states'  righters  looked 
for  salvation  from  the  multiple  evils  of  Federalist- Whig  nationalism. 

Whatever  the  constitutional  questions  involved — and  they  were 
numerous  and  complex — the  joint-resolution  tactic  was  a  brilliant  one. 
Ultimately  it  got  Texas  into  the  Union,  although  latter-day  wags  may 
argue  that  this  was  itself  a  national  disaster.  In  any  event,  copies  of  the 
President's  forthright  Texas  message  were  distributed  throughout  the 
Gardiner  and  Tyler  families.  Frank  comments  were  invited.  Julia  re- 
marked that  it  had  created  a  "prodigious  sensation"  in  Washington. 
"Oh!  if  it  will  only  have  the  effect  of  admitting  Texas!"  she  exclaimed. 
Alexander  analytically  surveyed  the  Northern  press  and  informed  the 
President  that  the  newspapers  there  had  "generally . . .  spoken  very 
highly  of  the  Message."  Meanwhile,  congratulatory  letters  reached  the 
President  from  his  friends  in  places  as  far  removed  from  contemporary 
civilization  as  Birch  Pond,  Tennessee,  assuring  him  that  a  majority  of 
the  American  people  stood  solidly  behind  his  annexation  scheme.  The 
public  reaction  to  and  the  continuing  family  enthusiasm  for  the  project 
were  gratifying  to  the  President.  As  he  explained  his  deepest  psychologi- 
cal motives  in  the  Texas  matter  to  Alexander,  "if  the  annexation  of 
Texas  shall  crown  off  my  public  life,  I  shall  neither  retire  ignominiously 
nor  be  soon  forgotten."  10 

Alexander,  in  support  of  his  brother-in-law's  dream,  once  again 
sharpened  his  facile  quill  and  began  composing  pro-annexation  pieces  for 
the  seaboard  newspapers.  "This  piece  of  Alex's  is  glorious,"  said  Tyler  of 

247 


one  of  the  young  lawyer's  better  efforts.  "I  had  not  perceived he  was 

so  strong  a  writer — why  his  style  is  of  the  highest  and  richest  kind!  . . . 
[He]  is  destined  to  be  a  very  distinguished  man!"  In  his  enthusiasm, 
the  President  even  suggested  that  Alexander  run  for  Congress.  Julia  de- 
murred. "For  my  own  part/'  she  explained  to  her  brother,  "I  prefer 
[for  you]  a  foreign  mission  of  some  conspicuous  sort,  and  everyday  it 
occupies  my  mind  and  is  often  discussed  by  the  President  and  myself." 
In  the  renewed  excitement  for  the  Texas  project  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  also 
contributed  a  few  anonymous  newspaper  columns  to  the  family  effort  for 
annexation.11 

While  her  brother  and  her  stepson  thus  urged  Texas  annexation 
with  pen  and  ink,  Julia  fought  for  it  with  coquetry  and  persuasion.  At  a 
White  House  dinner  party  early  in  the  season  the  conversation,  as  it 
inevitably  did  in  those  days,  turned  to  Texas.  When  someone  asked  the 
views  of  Judge  John  McLean  on  the  matter,  Julia  interrupted  to  say 
that  she  would  "make  it  a  matter  of  honor"  with  him  that  he  support 
annexation. 

"There  is  no  honor  in  politics,"  said  Calhoun,  laughing. 

"We  will  see,"  Julia  replied. 

Taking  a  small  slip  of  paper  she  wrote  "Texas  and  John  Tyler"  on 
it  and  passed  it  down  the  table  to  McLean  with  the  request  that  he  offer 
the  slogan  as  a  toast.  The  recently  wed  Justice,  still  not  immune  to 
Julia's  charms,  rose,  bowed  gallantly  to  her,  raised  his  glass  and  said, 
"For  your  sake."  The  toast  was  accordingly  rendered.  Remarking  later 
on  the  incident,  Tyler  was  inclined  to  agree  with  Calhoun's  cynicism. 
"His  sentiment  may  not  have  appeared  a  very  poetic  one,"  the  President 
told  his  wife,  "but  experience  has  taught  me  that  politics  is  not  the  best 
school  for  the  propagation  of  the  purest  code  of  morals  I"  12 

Julia's  personal  identification  with  her  husband's  Texas  ambition 
was  complete.  She  was  thrilled  to  be  part  of  such  a  grand  project  with- 
out being  overshadowed  by  it.  One  ditty  which  made  the  rounds  in 
Washington  in  1844-1845  gave  her  particular  pleasure: 

Texas  was  the  Captain's  bride, 

Till  a  lovelier  one  lie  took; 
With  Miss  Gardiner  by  his  side, 

He,  with  scorn,  on  kings  may  look.is 

Julia  worked  diligently  to  create  the  social  atmosphere  she  felt  the 
administration  must  effect  if  it  hoped  to  achieve  Texas  or  anything  else. 
She  was  a  born  ballroom  lobbyist.  No  legislator  was  too  obscure  a  target 
for  her  persuasive  charm.  Buckskin  familiarity  was  not,  however,  her 
modus  oferandi  any  more  than  it  was  the  President's.  "Last  evening  I 
had  a  most  brilliant  reception,"  she  informed  her  mother  on  one  occasion. 
"At  least  fifty  members  of  Congress  paid  their  respects  to  me,  and  aU 
at  one  time.  I  did  not  enter  the  room  until  they  had  assembled.  It  really 

248 


presented  an  array,  and  it  was  imposing  to  see  them  all  brought  forward, 
and  introduced  one  by  one."  It  was  a  question  of  keeping  everyone  in 
Ms  proper  relationship  to  the  "crown.77  She  was  determined  to  win 
friends  and  influence  people  for  the  greater  glory  of  the  Tyler  adminis- 
tration, and  she  hoped  to  accomplish  this  by  radiating  a  combination  of 
regality  and  charm.  Votes  might  be  influenced  by  awe  alone.  In  the 
spirit  of  Henry  IV,  Texas  was  worth  a  flirtation — or  a  reception.14 

As  First  Lady,  Julia  was  naturally  the  recipient  of  numerous  gifts, 
prerogatives,  and  appeals  which  increased  her  sense  of  importance  and 
heightened  her  feeling  of  usefulness  to  her  husband.  The  President's 
franking  privilege  was  used  by  all  the  Gardiners  while  Julia  was  in  the 
White  House.  She  received  a  fine  Arabian  steed  from  Commodore  Jesse 
D.  Elliot,  USN,  in  appreciation  of  Tyler's  personal  intercession  when 
the  officer  was  under  suspension  from  his  command  for  having  illegally 
transported  horses  on  an  American  naval  vessel.  Hundreds  of  appeals 
reached  her  from  citizens  all  over  the  country,  begging  clemency  for  their 
condemned  sons,  military  transfers  and  emergency  leaves  for  their  hus- 
bands, patronage  jobs  for  their  luckless  relatives.  "One  word  from  your 
good  mouth  would  make  us  happy  and  comfortable,  and  would  forever 
be  remembered,"  wrote  one  East  Hamptonian  in  search  of  a  Customs 
House  job.  Condemned  criminals  also  asked  her  to  influence  the  Presi- 
dent on  their  behalf.  Julia  carefully  screened  all  these  requests,  passing 
what  appeared  to  be  the  most  deserving  and  legitimate  to  her  husband 
or  to  the  proper  Cabinet  officer. 

Juliana  was  much  disturbed  to  learn  that  her  daughter  would 
actually  "receive  letters  and  read  them  from  condemned  criminals.  You 
must  not  read  them,"  she  ordered.  "It  is  a  most  fearful  responsibility, 
one  that  you  should  not  have  anything  whatever  to  do  with.  The  idea 
to  my  mind  is  really  appalling."  To  Julia's  mind  it  was  rather  appealing. 
She  was  never  bored  with  pleas  for  her  intercession  or  requests  for  her 
autograph.  And  when  "The  Julia  Waltzes"  appeared  in  New  York  she 
would  not  rest  until  she  had  procured  copies  of  the  sheet  music.15 

Julia  was  not  entirely  comfortable  in  her  new  station.  She  was  still 
unsure  of  herself  and  unwilling  to  launch  her  social  ship  of  state  until 
she  was  surrounded  by  the  young  ladies  of  her  family.  These  friendly 
faces  would  comprise  her  "Court."  Their  presence  would  give  her  con- 
fidence and  their  assigned  functions  would  be  roughly  those  of  ladies-in- 
waiting  to  a  queen.  She  began  assembling  the  group  as  soon  as  Congress 
convened.  Chief  among  them,  of  course,  was  her  sister  Margaret.  The 
other  ladies  of  the  royal  household  were  Julia's  young  first  cousins, 
Mary  and  Phoebe  Gardiner  of  Shelter  Island,  New  York,  daughters  of 
her  Uncle  Samuel;  and  Alice  Tyler,  at  eighteen  the  youngest  of  the 
President's  daughters  by  Letitia/ Julia  and  Margaret  were  both  very 
fond  of  Mary  and  Phoebe  and  the  four  women  remained  lifelong  friends. 

249 


Julia's  relations  with  Alice  were  still  tenuous  but  were  improving.  By 
late  December  1844  Julia  had  gathered  her  coterie  of  Court  ladies 
around  her  in  Washington  and  felt  much  better  prepared  to  commence 
the  season.16 

David  Lyon  arrived  in  the  capital  a  few  days  before  Christmas,  in 
time  to  enjoy  the  holiday  feast  Julia  placed  upon  the  White  House 
table.  The  food  was  "a  la  Virginia  [with]  immense  hams,  rounds  of  beef, 
veal,  etc."  Margaret  had  decorated  the  room  and  the  table  with  wreaths 
of  evergreen.  A  portrait  of  George  Washington,  clad  in  holiday  greenery, 
gazed  down  on  the  festive  scene.  "We  commenced  the  day  with  Egg  Nog 
and  concluded  with  apple  Toddy/'  she  reported.  David  Lyon  was  quite 
overwhelmed  by  the  White  House.  "For  the  first  week,"  Margaret  in- 
formed Alexander,  "he  seemed  to  feel  like  the  last  man,  wandering  about 
the  mansion  first  to  study  out  his  room  and  then  the  way  out  of  doors. 
I  am  sure  you  would  have  been  amused."  Gradually,  however,  he  be- 
came acclimated,  and  by  New  Year's  Day  he  was  "beginning  to  enjoy 
himself."  His  official  White  House  function  was  that  of  general  escort 
to  the  young  ladies  of  Julia's  Court.  He  learned  his  duties  quickly,  and 
performed  them  well.  To  provide  him  a  suitable  title  for  the  occasion, 
Tyler  appointed  him  aide-de-camp  to  the  Commander-in-Chief.  From 
that  day  forward  David  Lyon  Gardiner  proudly  called  himself  "Colonel" 
Gardiner,  a  simulated  rank  he  carried  to  his  grave.17 

Juliana  appeared  on  the  scene  soon  after  New  Year's  to  chaperon 
the  First  Lady's  little  retinue.  Alexander  remained  in  New  York,  hap- 
pily involved  in  the  politics  of  Texas  annexation  and  the  patronage 
problems  of  the  Tyler  faction  there.  The  reign,  it  became  clear,  was 
almost  exclusively  a  Gardiner  show.  Julia  certainly  did  not  want  her 
husband's  married  daughters  underfoot  during  her  finest  hour.  Their 
initial  reactions  to  her  marriage  had  been  so  coldly  formal  Julia  had 
actually  been  hurt,  and  she  was  not  yet  ready  to  forgive  them  or  forget 
their  hostility.  "The  President's  daughters  are  all  dying  to  come  here 
this  winter,"  Margaret  reported,  "but  Julia  says  they  shan't  come!' 
Indeed,  when  William  Waller  arrived  in  Washington  in  mid- January,  he 
stayed  at  Coleman's  Hotel.  There  was  no  invitation  to  the  President's 
Mansion,  and  it  was  the  opinion  within  the  Court  that  Lizzie  Tyler 
Waller  had  dispatched  her  husband  to  the  capital  "purposely  to  report 
proceedings  at  the  White  House."  Thus  the  Gardiners  walked  where 
Tylers  feared  to  tread.18 

If  there  was  a  single  spot  on  earth  less  promising  romantically  for  a 
young  woman  than  East  Hampton,  Long  Island,  it  was  nearby  Shelter 
Island.  Remote,  isolated,  cold,  it  was  hardly  the  place  for  an  exciting 
winter — or  for  any  excitement  whatever.  "We  do  nothing  but  read  in 
winter  here,"  Mary  Gardiner  had  complained  to  Julia  in  1840.  "Do 

write  [us]  ...  the  news  of  the  fashionable  world The  cold  weather 

has  congealed  all  my  ideas...."  Not  surprisingly  Mary  and  Phoebe 

250 


Gardiner  leaped  at  the  unexpected  invitation  to  join  their  prominent 
cousin  in  Washington.  Both  girls  had  been  polished  and  finished  at  the 
Albany  Female  Academy.  If  their  minds  had  passed  through  this  ex- 
perience unmarred  by  serious  thought,  their  manners  had  been  highly 
refined.  Like  Julia  before  them,  they  too  were  ready  for  the  final  buffing 
a  season  in  Washington  could  provide.19 

Twenty-year-old  Mary  was  the  quieter  and  more  reserved  of  the 
Shelter  Island  sisters.  She  was  in  love  with  and  had  half -promised  herself 
to  the  man  she  would  marry  in  1847 — Eben  N.  Horsford,  from  1847  to 
1863  Rumford  Professor  of  the  Application  of  Science  to  the  Useful  Arts 
at  Harvard  College.  Awaiting  his  return  from  a  trip  to  Germany,  where 
he  had  gone  to  study  chemistry,  the  patient  Mary  did  not  leap  aboard 
the  Washington  marriage-go-round  with  the  same  abandon  as  her  eight- 
een-year-old sister  Phoebe.  Mary  was  no  wallflower.  She  was  attractive, 
and  she  was  open  to  a  flirtatious  exchange,  but  by  and  large  she  took 
Washington's  fashionable  young  eligibles  in  stride  while  she  pined  for 
Horsford.20 

Not  so  Phoebe.  Phoebe  liked  boys — old  boys,  young  boys,  and  boys 
in  between,  so  long  as  they  were  taller  than  she  and  were  competent 
dancers.  She  thought  her  sister  a  perfect  dunce  to  sit  around  mooning 
and  swooning  for  an  absent  man  with  whom  she  had  no  formal  "under- 
standing." A  year  earlier  she  had  had  a  modest  fling  at  young  Horsford 
herself  and  the  resulting  "scandal"  had  rocked  Shelter  Island.  News  of 
It  had  spread  into  New  York  City,  causing  her  alarmed  father  to  assure 
the  East  Hampton  branch  of  the  family  that  "the  report  that  ^Phoebe  is 
engaged  to  Horsford  or  has  countenanced  his  advances  is  without  the 
least  foundation,"  Shelter  Island,  it  would  appear,  was  not  hard  to 
rock.21 

Phoebe  was  a  delightful  and  engaging  young  lady,  in  temperament 
much  like  her  cousin  Julia.  Robert  Tyler  called  her  "Phoebe  the  Co- 
quette." She  was  vivacious,  flirtatious,  and  bright.  She  danced  beauti- 
fully, and  she  was  always  ready  with  a  quick  and  clever  retort.  Privately, 
,she  liked  to  refer  to  herself  as  "The  Poetess."  This  was  a  self-awarded 
title  which  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  in  1842  she  had  somehow  won  the 
annual  poetry  prize  awarded  by  the  Alumnae  Association  of  the  Albany 
Pemale  Academy.  Her  effort  was  a  n  6-line  nightmare  titled  "The 
Dream,"  which  began: 

I  looked  into  the  miser's  lonely  lair, 

The  yellow  heaps  were  still  secreted  there; 

His  icy  hand,  shriveled,  and  thin  and  old, 

Still  clasped  unconsciously  the  shining  gold 

"What  skill  she  lacked  in  writing  verse  was  compensated  for  by  her 
faculty  for  romance.  Indeed,  Phoebe  Gardiner  flirted  so  openly,  captured 
beaux  so  easily,  yet  boasted  of  her  emotional  noninvolvement  with  men 

251 


so  convincingly,  that  Robert  Tyler  pictured  her  future  as  that  of  a 
shriveled  old  maid,  despoiled  of  her  charms  by  the  passing  years,  while 

Silently  she  sips  her  tea 
Still  boasting  of  her  liberty. 

Robert's  prediction  was  almost  correct.  Phoebe  did  not  marry  until  1860, 
when  she  was  thirty-four;  then  it  was  to  her  sister's  widower,  the  same 
Professor  Eben  N.  Horsford  with  whom  she  had  flirted  back  in  i843.22 

Phoebe  had  been  a  member  of  Julia's  Court  exactly  one  week  when 
she  received  a  proposal  of  marriage,  a  near-record  for  the  Washington 
course.  The  eager  suitor  was  Fayette  McMullin  of  the  Virginia  state 
senate,  a  thirty-nine-year-old  gentleman,  later  a  United  States  repre- 
sentative from  Marion,  Virginia,  and  after  that  governor  of  the  Wash- 
ington Territory.  McMullin  was  "desperately  smitten"  with  Phoebe's 
"most  interesting  eyes."  After  a  bare  half-hour's  conversation  with  her 
he  "offered  himself  in  toto"  He  apologized  for  such  unseemly  haste,  but 
he  explained  to  her  that  true  Virginians  always  acted  on  heroic  and  hot- 
blooded  impulse.  Since  he  was  leaving  that  very  day  for  home,  he  begged 
Phoebe's  permission  to  write  her.  Phoebe  found  him  "very  ordinary  in 
his  appearance"  and  gave  him  no  encouragement.  Tyler  found  the  whole 
thing  "exceedingly  amusing/'  laughed  heartily,  and  guessed  it  was  just 
about  "the  speediest  courtship  on  record."  23 

With  the  McMullin  conquest  safely  behind  her  and  with  the  collec- 
tive romantic  reputation  of  Julia's  Court  enhanced  by  its  blinding  speed 
and  seriousness,  "Phoebe  the  Coquette"  turned  her  attention  to  a  thirty- 
one-year-old  congressman  from  Illinois — Judge  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
More  accurately,  Douglas  turned  his  attention  to  Phoebe.  He  pursued 
her  at  various  balls,  receptions,  and  levees  with  such  singleness  of  pur- 
pose that  his  campaign  was  remarked  upon  behind  many  a  fluttering  fan. 
Phoebe  liked  Douglas.  She  found  him  a  fine  and  intelligent  man,  but  she 
was  convinced  that  he.  was  much  too  short  for  her.  He  was  just  over  five 
feet  tall.  Margaret  assured  her  that  it  would  "never  do  to  be  too 
fastidious  for  times  'isn't  as  they  used  to  was'!3'  Margaret's  analysis  of 
the  affair  was  that  Douglas  appeared  "desperately  smitten."  She  urged 
her  flighty  cousin  to  follow  through  toward  something  serious.  But 
Phoebe  considered  "The  Little  Giant"  too  diminutive,  and  in  spite  of 
Margaret's  continual  goading  that  she  could  not  expect  "everything  and 
. . .  might  go  a  great  deal  farther  and  fare  worse,"  she  dropped  Douglas 
and  turned  her  charms  on  the  President-elect's  brother,  Major  William 
H.  Polk  of  Tennessee.  Douglas  paired  off  with  Miss  Mary  Corse  of  New 
York,  and  the  Court  soon  learned  that  the  New  York  belle,  an  old 
acquaintance  of  the  Gardiners,  was  boasting  of  her  "conquest,  delighted 
beyond  measure  at  having  cut  Phoebe  out."  24 

The  Polk  interlude  did  not  last  long  for  Phoebe.  The  Major  was  in 
the  capital  only  for  a  short  visit  while  making  arrangements  for  his 

252 


brother's  triumphal  entry  in  late  February.  He  too  became  interested  in 
Mary  Corse,  the  lady  he  subsequently  married.  When  he  left  Washing- 
ton in  mid- January  Margaret  reported  the  entire  Court  dejected.  "We 
are  all  in  a  terrible  frustration  here/'  she  wrote  Alexander.  "Mary  and 
I  haint  got  no  beaux  at  all.  Mr.  Polk  has  run  off  and  left  Phoebe  broken- 
hearted and  Mr.  Cushing  hasn't  been  heard  of  in  two  days.  David  hasn't 
found  a  mate — and  something  or  another  is  the  matter  with  John  [Jr.] 
for  he  hasn't  been  seen  for  three  days  except  at  breakfast  yesterday  morn- 
ing looking  like  a  rowdy  with  Papa's  wedding  coat  on."  25 

John  Tyler,  Jr.,  was  involved  at  the  time  in  the  celebrated  duel  be- 
tween Representatives  William  L.  Yancy  of  Alabama  and  Thomas  J. 
Clingman  of  North  Carolina  which  briefly  occupied  the  attention  of 
official  Washington  and  provided  the  ladies  of  the  Court  food  for  gossip. 
John's  role  was  limited  to  carrying  messages  back  and  forth  between 
the  seconds,  but  in  doing  this  he  enjoyed  acting  in  the  most  conspira- 
torial fashion.  The  duel  was  fortunately  a  bloodless  fiasco,  as  inept  in 
execution  as  it  was  foolish  in  origin.  The  principals  spent  most  of  their 
time  eluding  local  police  in  their  search  for  a  peaceful  spot  in  which  to 
kill  each  other.  The  affair  finally  came  off  near  Beltsville,  Maryland. 
Each  legislator  fired  one  wild  shot,  no  one  was  hit,  and  the  seconds 
quickly  stepped  in  and  reconciled  the  dispute  (which  turned  on  an  im- 
pugnation  of  personal  honor).  Both  parties  appeared  satisfied  with  the 
result.  John,  Jr.,  thrived  on  excitement  of  this  sort.26 

Such  excitement  was  denied  well-bred  ladies.  For  them  it  was 
beaux  or  nothing,  and  Margaret  Gardiner  lacked  beaux.  Charles  Wilkins, 
son  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  flirted  briefly  with  her  but  soon  turned  his 
attentions  to  Alice  Tyler.  Caleb  Cushing  was  attentive,  but  he  was  "as 
awkward  as  ever"  socially  and  in  Margaret's  view  possessed  "limited 
powers  of  gallantry."  A  Mr.  Allen  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  appeared 
briefly  in  her  life.  He  was  well-traveled  and  "positively  worth  over  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars,"  but  he  and  his  checkbook  soon  departed  the 
capital.  For  a  short  time  a  Mr.  Piliot  was  "dead  in  love"  with  Margaret; 
this  too  came  to  nothing.  "Never  say  die,"  Margaret  sighed  wearily. 
When  Tyler  impishly  insisted  that  the  ladies-in-waiting  "must  all  be 
married  this  winter,"  Margaret  laughingly  retorted  that  she  had  settled 
upon  the  British  Minister,  the  improbable  Richard  Pakenham,  for  her 
husband.  "If  you  have  fixed  upon  Pakenham,"  Alexander  teased  her, 
"don't  fail  to  make  sure  of  him!"27 

Margaret  would  always  have  a  problem  with  men.  Her  attitude 
toward  them  made  it  difficult  for  her  to  attract  or  hold  them.  She  had 
a  very  quick  sense  of  humor.  More  than  that,  she  possessed  a  broad 
sense  of  the  ridiculous  which  many  potential  suitors  could  not  abide. 
She  was  too  bright,  too  teasingly  sarcastic,  for  most  men.  She  enjoyed 
talking  only  with  those  "that  have  some  sense,"  and  this  bias  sharply 
reduced  her  choices.  "I  shall  be  very  sure  of  what  I  am  going  to  get 

253 


before  any  engagement,"  she  told  Alexander,  "and  should  advise  you  to 
do  the  same.77  Her  standards  in  suitors  were  impossibly  high.  As  she 
confided  to  Julia  on  one  occasion,  " After  talking  over  the  supposition 
of ...  getting  married  I  always  conclude  by  saying  nothing  will  satisfy 
[me]  after  having  known  the  President!"  2S 

Juliana's  marital  ambitions  for  her  children  were  loftier  than  their 
own.  Having  married  one  daughter  to  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
she  became  convinced  that  most  of  Margaret's  beaux  and  all  the  young 
ladies  in  whom  David  Lyon  and  Alexander  became  interested  were  far 
beneath  the  new  Gardiner  norm.  So  insistently  did  she  enforce  her 
matrimonial  views  on  her  offspring  that  Alexander  never  married; 
Margaret  finally  married  John  H.  Beeckman  in  1848  over  her  mother's 
opposition  (Juliana  had  talked  her  out  of  two  better  prospects) ;  and 
David  Lyon  waited  until  1860,  when  he  was  forty- three,  to  marry  his 
distant  cousin  Sarah  Gardiner  Thompson,  a  New  York  lady  of  solid 
wealth  and  respectable  blood  line.  Had  Juliana  had  her  way,  David 
Lyon  would  not  have  married  at  all.  Indeed,  her  possessiveness  toward 
her  children,  her  strong  desire  to  keep  them  at  her  side  and  under  per- 
petual maternal  discipline,  bordered  on  the  compulsive. 

Julia  agreed  with  her  mother's  hymeneal  standards.  "I  should  like 
to  see  David  married  to  a  rich,  pretty,  fashionable  girl,"  she  remarked 
in  December  1844.  "But  I  don't  know  where  except  in  the  land  of  the 
Imagination  he  will  win  them  all  combined.  The  first  essential  would 
do  better  without  the  two  last  than  the  two  last  without  the  first — 
don't  you  think  so  for  David?"  David  Lyon  never  discovered  the  elusive 
"land  of  Imagination."  When  he  finally  picked  his  wife  he  settled  for 
wealth,  "the  first  essential/'  Similarly,  when  Alexander  evidenced  a 
passing  urge  to  wed  in  1844-1845,  Margaret  joined  with  Julia  and 
Juliana  to  ridicule  his  taste  in  women  and  suggest  that  he  speedily 
get  over  such  an  absurd  notion  as  matrimony.  He  got  over  it.29 

Understandably,  then,  David  Lyon's  flirtations  in  Washington  dur- 
ing his  sister7s  reign  were  foredoomed  to  failure.  A  passing  interest  in 
the  wealthy  Miss  Becky  Delancy  of  nearby  Alexandria  ended  quickly 
when  Margaret  pronounced  her  "short  and  not  pretty"  and  criticized 
her  tardiness  in  presenting  herself  "at  Court."  Alexander  felt,  however, 
that  "if  David  does  not  better  himself  among  the  ladies  now  that  he 
has  every  opportunity  and . . .  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  secure  Miss 

Delancy  I  shall  give  him  up.  The  golden  moment  is  passing "* 

David  Lyon  admitted  that  young  Becky  was  "not  at  all  handsome/'  but 
he  thought  her  reputed  wealth  of  five  millon  dollars  "very  magnificent.'* 
He  told  Alexander  that  he  had  "promised  Julia  $100,000"  if  he  were 
successful  in  his  suit.  Julia  never  collected.  Becky  had  but  one  of  the 
three  essentials  the  First  Lady  and  her  watchdog  mother  deemed  neces- 
sary in  a  wife,  and  that  was  that.30 

Nannie  Wickliffe,  daughter  of  the  Postmaster  General,  "made  quite 

254 


an  impression7'  on  David.  She  was  pretty,  fashionable  enough,  and  she 
had  been  a  maid  of  honor  at  Julia's  wedding.  Unfortunately  she  was 
penniless.  Thus  when  David  "began  very  seriously  to  comment  upon 
her  numerous  attractions,"  his  mother  cut  him  off  with  one  curt  ob- 
servation: 

"She  has  no  money.7' 

"Pooh!  I've  got  enough/7  replied  the  Colonel,  with  an  unconvinc- 
ing show  of  independence.  But  Mother  had  spoken  and  that  was  the  end 
of  the  impoverished  Nannie.31 

David  Lyon's  interest  in  Mary  Corse  was  also  of  brief  duration, 
although  he  rushed  her  with  considerable  intensity  during  the  season. 
Julia  admitted  that  Miss  Corse  had  a  "passion  for  David"  and  that 
there  was  a  certain  "respectability  in  her  Quakership."  She  certainly 
had  numerous  beaux  and  "numberless  conquests."  Even  Uncle  Samuel 
pronounced  her  "very  rich,"  and  he  was  something  of  an  expert  on  such 
matters.  She  attracted  the  romantic  attentions  of  both  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  and  Major  William  H.  Polk  ("on  account  of  her  money,"  said 
Margaret  cattily).  It  was  too  bad  that  she  had  one  of  those  faces  for 
which  the  hands  of  time  stand  still.  "Miss  Corse  will  never  never  do," 
Margaret  informed  Alexander.  "She  is  without  exception  the  ugliest  per- 
son I  almost  ever  saw — a  hundred  thousand  [dollars]  could  not  cure 
it."  Juliana  thought  her  appearance  quite  "ordinary,"  and  David  him- 
self admitted  that  his  lady  love  was  indeed  "very  plain  looking."  Exit 
Mary  Corse.32 

Miss  Lucy  Henderson,  Miss  Mary  Wright,  and  Miss  Caroline  Bayard 
(daughter  of  the  Senator  from  Delaware)  all  walked  into  and  out  of 
David  Lyon's  life  that  season  in  Washington.  Invariably,  something  was 
found  to  be  wrong  with  each  of  them,  and  David  always  deferred  to 
the  superior  judgment  of  his  mother  and  his  sisters  in  matters  concern- 
ing his  romantic  life.  Juliana  frequently  reminded  him  that  the  basis 
for  a  suitable  marriage,  like  Rome,  was  "not  built  in  a  day."  She 
thought  it  wise  that  he  remain  a  "general  beau"  for  the  duration  of 
the  White  House  reign.  As  she  explained  her  reasoning  to  Alexander, 
"The  more  I  see  of  Washington  the  more  convinced  I  am  that  it  is  not 
all  gold  that  glitters."  Juliana  was  fearful  that  fashionable  Washington 
was  cluttered  with  chunks  of  iron  pyrite,  and  she  wanted  no  Gardiner 
stuck  with  inferior  ore.  "David  has  not  found  a  mate  yet,"  Margaret 
reported  regularly.  The  whole  family  could  laugh,  however,  over  the 
rumor  circulating  in  the  capital  in  January  1845  that  David  Lyon 
and  Alice  Tyler  were  to  be  married  within  three  weeks.  That  combina- 
tion was  simply  ludicrous.33 

Measured  by  sheer  numbers  of  beaux  and  marriage  proposals, 
Alice  Tyler  was  the  undisputed  romantic  champion  of  Julia's  Court. 
At  one  levee  she  managed  to  collect  six  attentive  escorts,  and  when  the 
season  was  over  she  received  three  solid  marriage  offers,  all  of  which 

255 


she  turned  down.  As  Phoebe  later  remarked,  with  some  show  of  jealousy, 
"After  all  we  said  of  her  unpleasing  appearance  she  seems  to  have  had 
more  hearts  than  any  of  us  at  her  control."  Alice  was  not  pretty,  it  is 
true.  David  Lyon  found  her  "tall  and  fat."  But  her  height  permitted 
her  to  wear  her  clothes  well,  and  both  Julia  and  Margaret  thought  she 
generally  made  a  fine  appearance.  Juliana  counted  her  " exceedingly 
handsome. 3)  That  her  popularity  was  enhanced  in  some  measure  by  her 
father's  political  position  might  be  assumed.34 

Alice  posed  a  distinct  personal  problem  for  Julia.  The  First  Lady 
was  only  six  years  older  than  her  stepdaughter,  and  at  first  Julia  did 
not  know  quite  what  their  relationship  should  be.  Her  first  instinct  was 
to  pack  Alice  off  to  school  in  Williamsburg  and  postpone  the  question 
until  the  few  months  of  her  reign  had  run  out.  Accordingly,  Alice  left 
for  Virginia  in  early  November.  But  her  letters  to  her  stepmother  were 
so  flattering  to  Julia,  her  desire  to  be  friendly  so  apparent,  that  the 
First  Lady  relented  and  permitted  Alice  to  return  to  the  capital  for  the 
season.  Juliana  pointed  out  to  her  daughter  that  Alice  had  had  "much 
reason  to  feel  neglected"  since  the  wedding.  While  she  could  see  that 
Alice's  presence  in  the  White  House  "may  be  trying,"  she  urged  Julia 
to  regard  the  President's  daughter  as  a  "companion"  and  be  as  "amiable" 
to  her  as  possible.  It  was  good  advice.  Not  only  did  stepmother  and  step- 
daughter begin  to  get  along  better  together,  but  Alice  contributed  much 
to  the  gaiety  of  the  Court.35 

Alice  Tyler  spent  most  of  her  waking  hours  during  Julia's  reign 
trying  to  capture  the  affections  of  Charles  Wilkins,  son  of  the  Secretary 
of  War — and  escape  the  attentions  of  the  forty-four-year-old  Caleb 
Gushing.  Cushing,  a  widower  since  1832,  was  very  much  in  the  marriage 
market  after  his  return  from  Ciina  in  December  1844.  A  distinguished 
linguist,  legislator,  diplomat  and  lawyer,  member  of  Tyler's  ill-fated 
Corporal's  Guard,  he  was  a  suitable  enough  escort  when  one  of  the 
ladies-in-waiting  needed  a  beau  on  short  notice,  but  he  was  generally 
considered  by  all  of  them  awkward,  tongue-tied,  and  a  bore.  Alice  had 
a  difficult  task  avoiding  him  as  she  maneuvered  for  Wilkins.  She  had 
suitors  other  than  Wilkins,  to  be  sure,  but  she  always  came  back  to  her 
"Charlie."  Margaret  allowed  that  Alice  was  "desperately  in  love"  with 
young  Wilkins,  and  had  eyes  for  no  one  else  "while  Charlie  is  near  her." 
The  romance  even  continued  for  a  time  after  Alice  returned  to  Sherwood 
Forest.  It  finally  sputtered  out  in  late  1845  under  the  dual  impact  of  the 
nearby  William  and  Mary  boys  and  the  truism  of  "out  of  sight,  out  of 
mind."  36 

There  were  too  many  young  girls  in  the  White  House  and  too 
much  frivolity  and  noise  there  to  suit  Juliana.  From  the  moment  she 
arrived  in  Washington  in  early  January  she  began  anticipating  her 
return  to  her  quiet  home  on  Lafayette  Place.  The  recurrent  migraine 
headaches  bothered  her  terribly  throughout  her  stay;  she  became  cranky 

256 


and  short-tempered.  Unimpressed  by  Washington  society,  she  mixed  in 
it  as  little  as  was  politely  possible.  She  was  determined  to  remain  above 
it.  She  was  convinced,  as  she  told  Alexander,  that  Washington  was 
"vastly  inferior  to  New  York  in  point  of  wealth.  All  agree  that  very 
little  wealth  exists  here."  The  capital,  she  felt,  was  just  not  worth  con- 
quering. So  Juliana  McLachlan  Gardiner  kept  to  a  large  chair  by  the 
fire  in  her  room  all  day  while  the  din  of  the  young  people  crashed 
around  her  throbbing  temples.  Although  she  was  only  forty-five,  in 
many  ways  she  was  already  becoming  an  old  woman.  She  was  certainly 
able  to  exercise  no  control  over  the  high-spirited  girls  who  raced 
through  the  rooms  of  the  White  House  with  such  a  fearful  clatter.  They 
enjoyed  playing  a  noisy  tag  game  which  involved  chasing  "each  other 
all  day  with  red  hot  pokers,  and  as  if  that  were  not  enough  [then] 
throw  the  poker  stands."  In  the  middle  of  all  the  confusion  would  be 
Margaret,  egging  the  others  on,  shouting  such  atrocious  puns  as  "Phoebe 
has  had  the  grandest  Polk  of  all — Alice  rejects  the  pokes  and  reclines 
on  Cus  kings!"  On  more  than  one  occasion  the  First  Lady  was  forced 
to  break  off  her  letter-writing  because  "my  room  is  quite  too  noisy  with 
the  many  sallies  of  my  little  court  to  admit  of  my  continuing  further."  37 
Juliana  simply  could  not  tolerate  the  confusion,  turmoil,  giggling, 
and  nonsense  generated  by  four  energetic  young  women,  and  she  with- 
drew from  it  all.  When  she  was  not  secluded  in  her  chamber  reading  her 
Bible  (she  was  convinced  such  devotion  gave  one  "a  very  great  ad- 
vantage in  society"),  she  was  nagging  Alexander  by  mail  about  losing 
his  purse  or  hanging  up  his  clothes  properly.  "You  see  I  think  you  re- 
quire a  few  cautions,"  she  told  him.  To  her,  he  was  still  a  little  boy. 
She  did  enjoy  the  occasional  White  House  visits  of  a  mesmerizer  who 
was  invited  in  to  amuse  and  hypnotize  the  girls.  This,  at  least,  was 
a  quiet  activity.  Juliana  had  a  genuine  interest  in  spiritualism,  which 
she  equated  with  dreams,  hypnosis,  unexplained  noises,  and  other  pe- 
culiarities on  the  fringe  of  the  occult.  Still,  there  was  too  much  noise  and 
excitement  in  the  White  House  for  her,  and  her  forehead  pounded  in 
protest.38 

On  New  Year's  Day,  her  Court  assembled,  the  duties  and  stations 
of  each  member  assigned,  Julia  gave  her  first  large  public  reception 
at  the  White  House.  The  rooms  were  packed  that  afternoon.  "It  was 
indeed  a  glorious  assemblage,"  exulted  Margaret,  "and  all  acknowledged 
with  tongues  and  eyes  that  such  a  court  and  such  a  crowd  was  never 

before  seen  within  the  walls  of  the  White  House After  the  shaking 

of  hands  was  over,  the  President  and  Julia  made  two  circuits  around  the 
East  Room  followed  by  her  maids  of  honor,  the  crowd  gaping  and  push- 
ing to  see  the  show. . . .  Mama  did  not  go  down  but  gazed  at  the 
multitude  with  wonder  from  the  upper  rooms."  Julia  was  indeed  at  her 
regal  best;  so  much  so  that  "Judge  McLean  looked  all  sorts  of  ways 

257 


at  Julia  . . .  and  made  the  P  [resident]  as  jealous  as  you  please."  As  for 
Justice  McLean,  Mary  Gardiner  thought  him  "the  handsomest  man  she 
ever  laid  eyes  upon."  Mary  and  Phoebe  were  understandably  ecstatic 
over  the  opulence  of  Julia's  display.  It  was,  after  all,  a  bit  more  stimulat- 
ing than  family  teas  on  Shelter  Island.39 

The  New  York  Herald  correspondent  naturally  pronounced  it  a 
glorious  success.  "Well,"  wrote  F.  W.  Thomas,  "President  Tyler  will  go 
out  of  the  White  House  with  drums  beating  and  colors  flying."  He  de- 
scribed Julia's  Court  as  "very  comely  to  look  upon,  indeed;  an  ir- 
resistible bodyguard  of  modesty  and  beauty."  But  for  Julia  herself 
Thomas  pulled  out  all  stops.  She  appeared 

beautiful,  winning,  as  rosy  as  a  summer's  morning  on  the  mountains  of 
Mexico,  as  admirable  as  Victoria,  but  far  more  beautiful,  and  younger,  and 
more  intelligent,  and  more  Republican,  and  quite  as  popular  with  the 
people . . .  does  John  Tyler  possess  that  ancient  relic  of  fairyland,  the  lamp 
of  Aladdin . . .  that  such  a  spirit  of  youth,  and  poetry,  and  love,  and  tender- 
ness, and  riches,  and  celebrity,  and  modesty,  and  everything  that  is  charm- 
ing, should  come  forth  as  at  his  wish  and  stand  at  his  side,  the  guardian 
angel  of  the  evening  of  his  days?  . . .  John  Tyler  is  no  fool,  and  his  selection 
of  a  bride  clenches  our  assertions.40 

The  reception  lasted  from  noon  until  midafternoon.  If  there  was 
an  element  of  failure  in  Julia's  first  major  effort,  it  was  because  the 
Whig  community  in  the  capital  studiously  elected  not  to  be  present, 
repairing  instead  to  a  competing  reception  at  the  home  of  John  Quincy 
Adams.  It  was  probably  just  as  well.  There  were  more  than  two  thou- 
sand people  present  without  them.  The  Mansion  became  so  crowded 
that  the  Herald  commented  in  brisk  doggerel: 

I  beg  your  pardon,  General  G., 

For  trampling  on  your  toes; 

And,  Lady  T.,  I  did  not  see, 

My  hat  against  your  nose; 

And  Holy  Jesus!  how  they  squeeze  us, 

To  that  small  room,  where  he, 

Old  John,  attends  to  greet  his  friends, 

This  New  Year's  Day  levee. . . . 

And  round  and  round, 

We  wound  and  wound, 

Among  the  radiant  belles, 

And  high  and  low  subordinates, 

And  plain  and  fancy  swells. 

And  every  soul  did  seem  perplexed, 

And  vexed  as  much  as  we, 

That  the  music  of  the  red-coat  band, 

And  a  single  grip  of  Tyler's  hand 

And  a  squeeze  in  the  crowd, 

258 


And  a  place  to  stand, 
For  the  best  grin  that  you  could  command, 
For  the  ladies'  smiles  so  warm  and  bland, 
And  a  stare  at  the  would-be  great  and  grand, 
And  a  sigh  and  a  look-out  for  the  land, 
Made  up  old  John's  levee. . . . 

WeU  done,  Old  Veto,  after  all, 

And  to  his  winsome  wife; 

But   few   responsibilities, 

And  a  long  and  loving  life. 

God  bless  our  land — land  of  the  brave, 

The  beautiful  and  free; 

But  if  next  New  Year,  Uncle  Sam 

Don't  treat  his  friends  to  something  jam, 

A  bit  to  eat,  and  a  genteel  dram, 

We  would  not  give  a  Cape  Cod  clam, 

Or  a  single  continental  damn 

For  the  President's  levee.41 

It  was  an  impressive  beginning  for  the  First  Lady.  Perhaps  too 
impressive,  for  a  week  later  at  a  private  White  House  ball  she  smugly 
limited  the  guest  list  so  severely  that  all  present  complained  that  the 
function  was  "unnecessarily  select."  (Her  mother  disagreed.  She  thought 
it  "unusually  pleasant"  because  it  was  so  quiet  and  "select.")  Nor  did 
Julia's  stunning  appearance  that  evening  entirely  rescue  the  affair.  She 
was  dressed  in  black  embroidered  lace  over  white  satin,  set  off  with  black 
and  silver  trim,  and  "a  whole  set  of  diamonds."  A  backwoods  congress- 
man from  Ohio  was  literally  transfixed  at  the  sight  of  her.  He  stood, 
stared  dumbly  at  her  for  several  minutes,  and  finally  exclaimed,  "Well, 
now  I'll  go  home  and  tell  all  about  her."  To  be  sure,  there  was  nothing 
like  Julia  in  Columbus.42 

Whether  it  was  unnecessarily  select  or  not,  the  ball  produced  some 
useful  gossip  and  information.  The  First  Lady  was  relieved  to  learn 
from  Mrs.  Calhoun  that  widower  Francis  Pickens  was  being  married 
in  Charleston  that  very  evening  to  Marion  Antoinette  Bearing,  a  lady 
who  possessed  "every  advantage  of  beauty,  fortune,  family  and  piety, 
besides  resembling  very  much  his  first  wife."  Tyler  still  showed  evi- 
dences of  jealousy  over  his  wife's  former  suitors,  and  from  Julia's  stand- 
point the  sooner  they  were  all  safely  married  off,  the  better.  For  the 
First  Lady  the  evening  was  a  success  in  one  respect:  McLean  did  not 
flirt  with  her,  Pickens  was  being  married,  "Old  Davis"  was  not  present, 
Waldron  was  at  sea,  and  John  Tyler  was  happy.43 

Like  every  aspiring  and  hardworking  hostess,  Julia  had  her  fail- 
ures. A  White  House  dinner  on  January  10  was  certainly  in  this 
category.  The  affair  was  designed  to  honor  the  justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  and  their  ladies.  An  orchestra  was  engaged  and  invitations  already 

259 


extended  when  Julia  learned  to  her  chagrin  that  the  Attorney  General 
had  scheduled  a  dinner  for  the  same  evening  and  had  earlier  invited 
more  than  half  the  First  Lady's  proposed  guest  list.  Julia  promptly 
extended  her  rival  an  invitation,  "a  hint . . .  [that]  he  ought  to  yield 
to  higher  authority."  Unhappily,  the  Nelsons  did  not  take  the  hint. 
They  returned  their  regrets  ("either  from  ignorance  or  obstinacy,"  said 
Margaret),  and  their  own  dinner  went  off  as  planned.  Tyler  thought 
the  Attorney  General  and  Mrs.  Nelson  "extremely  unmannerly."  Julia 
was  forced  "to  fill  up  the  vacant  seats  with  Senators  and  visiting 
strangers."  It  was  a  flop.44 

Saturday,  of  course,  was  her  regular  reception  day,  and  Julia 
could  be  much  more  certain  of  her  arrangements  on  these  occasions. 
The  First  Lady,  or  "Lady  Presidentress"  as  Thomas  of  the  Herald 
sometimes  called  her,  was  generally  attended  at  these  functions  by 
six  to  twelve  maids  of  honor  all  dressed  alike  in  white.  These  vestal 
virgins  included  the  members  of  her  Court  and  other  young  ladies  of 
good  family  drafted  for  the  weekly  spectacle.  Julia  stationed  them  be- 
side and  slightly  behind  her  in  matching  banks.  Then  the  Queen  seated 
herself  in  front  center  on  the  raised  platform.  Wearing  a  headdress 
"formed  of  bugles  and  resembling  a  crown,"  she  received  such  guests, 
friends,  and  tourists  who  chose  to  appear,  file  by,  and  pay  their  respects. 
Tuileries  on  the  Potomac.45 

By  mid- January  1845,  after  various  experiments,  Julia  had  at 
last  trained,  composed,  and  deployed  her  Court  as  she  thought  eminently 
proper.  She  was  now  ready  to  exhibit  the  finished  product  at  every  op- 
portunity. "I  determined  upon,  and  I  think  I  have  succeeded,"  she 
proudly  told  Mary  Hedges,  an  old  East  Hampton  friend,  "in  making 
my  Court  interesting  in  youth  and  beauty. . . .  Wherever  I  go  they 
form  my  train  and  their  interest  in  the  society  which  surrounds  gives 
it  an  additional  charm  for  me."  At  the  public  levee  on  January  21  she 
"upset  all  the  forms"  followed  by  previous  First  Ladies  by  ranging  her 
entourage  in  a  line  along  the  Blue  Room  wall  opposite  the  fireplace. 
This  removed  Tyler  from  the  exposed  center  of  the  room  and  placed  him 
at  the  head  of  a  formal  receiving  line.  "As  each  were  [sic]  introduced," 
Margaret  explained,  "they  fell  back  facing  us  until  we  could  see  a 
crowd  of  admiring  faces."  It  worked  quite  well.46 

The  President  was  in  an  exceptionally  good  mood  on  the  evening 
of  January  21.  The  Texas  Resolution  was  moving  along  well  in  the 
House,  and  its  prospects  in  the  Senate  gave  him  hope  that  annexa- 
tion might  be  consummated  before  the  session  terminated.  In  addition, 
the  "fine  appearance  of  his  family  put  him  in  excellent  spirits."  Many 
of  the  guests  commented  on  his  youthful  appearance  and  relaxed  mien. 
Margaret  thought  he  looked  "uncommonly  handsome  . . .  better  than  I 
ever  saw  him."  John  Tyler  was  undoubtedly  feeling  mellow  and  self- 
satisfied  as  he  contemplated  his  escape  from  the  burdens  of  his  office 

260 


and  his  retirement  to  Sherwood  Forest  with  his  beautiful  bride.  And 
Julia,  as  usual,  looked  superb.  She  was  wearing  a  new  white  satin  dress 
overlaid  with  white  lace,  a  white  satin  headdress  with  three  white  ostrich 
feathers,  and  her  set  of  diamonds.  "She  did  not  look  as  if  she  belonged 
to  this  Earth,"  said  Margaret  breathlessly.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  her. 
She  was  "perfectly  splendid/7  and  Tyler  was  so  proud  of  her  he  nearly 
burst  with  delight. 

The  President  was  in  ecstasies  and  in  the  fullness  of  Ms  heart  exclaimed 
to  David,  "How  glad  I  am  Judge  McLean  is  not  here  tonight!"  You  can't 
imagine  half  how  jealous  he  is  of  him — and  actually  made  her  stay  home 
from  Church  Sunday  afternoon  because  the  Judge  looked  at  her  in  the 
morning. 

All  the  young  ladies  of  the  Court  had  admiring  beaux,  and  all  "received 
compliments  flattering  enough  to  make  ordinary  people  vain,"  The  red- 
coated  Marine  Band  played  polkas  and  waltzes.  It  was  a  gala  evening. 
Julia  immodestly  pronounced  it  "dazzling,"  and  called  attention  to 
"the  lights,  the  beautiful  faces,  the  court  dresses  of  the  foreign  Ministers 
and  the  showy  uniforms  of  the  army  and  navy  officers  . . .  delight  seemed 
to  pervade  the  rooms."  47 

Nor  did  the  First  Lady  abandon  her  regal  attitude  when  she  left 
the  White  House  to  attend  the  parties  around  the  capital  that  her 
opulent  example  at  the  White  House  had  stimulated  in  conspicuous 
profusion.  "Washington  was  never  before  so  gay,"  said  an  exhausted 
Margaret;  "two  or  three  parties  every  night."  If  Julia  arrived  too  late 
at  these  affairs  to  open  the  dancing,  she  declined  to  dance  at  all  because 
"the  ball  had  already  been  opened."  The  Continental  forms  were  to  be 
observed  at  all  times.  To  these  affairs  away  from  the  White  House  the 
First  Lady  transported  her  entire  Court,  and  she  bade  them  stay 
grouped  about  her  during  the  evening.  Her  dress  invariably  occasioned 
much  favorable  comment.48 

Following  her  triumphal  levee  of  January  21,  a  success  repeated 
with  equal  brilliance  and  eclat  on  February  4  and  again  on  February 
n,  Julia  began  to  consider  and  plan  her  final  party — an  affair  so  large 
and  splendid  it  would  leave  Washington  limp.  She  was  determined  to 
give  "one  grand  affair" — one  last  magnificent  fling  before  retiring  to 
the  bucolic  pleasures  of  Sherwood  Forest.  In  mid- January  the  pre- 
liminary planning  for  her  swan  song  was  well  under  way.  It  was  im- 
portant to  her  that  her  entire  family  be  present.  Alexander  was  en- 
couraged to  abandon  his  Customs  House  and  Tammany  intrigues  for  a 
few  days  and  come  to  Washington  for  the  event.49 

Julia  was  thus  pondering  the  timing  and  arrangements  of  her 
final  levee  when  the  President  received  the  exciting  news  from  New 
York  that  Robert  and  Alexander  had  forced  strong  pro-Texas  annexa- 
tion resolutions  through  Tammany  Hall,  an  act  which  enhanced  the 

261 


political  prospects  of  Tyler's  great  scheme.  To  Alexander  Gardiner  there 
were  many  things  more  important  to  do  in  January  1845  than  dress  up 
in  white  satin,  diamonds,  and  ostrich  feathers  and  dance  the  polka: 

For  the  last  four  or  five  nights  I  have  had  little  rest  [he  wrote  Tyler  at 
midnight  on  January  24] :  tonight  I  want  not.  We  have  had  as  glorious  a 
triumph  as  was  ever  witnessed  within  the  walls  of  Old  Tammany.  We  put 
down  triumphantly  all  luke  warm  resolutions,  and  all  resolutions  extraneous 
to  the  immediate  subject  and  carried  unanimously  two  in  substitution  which 
I  enclose.  Robert  acquitted  himself  nobly  well. .  . .  Van  Buren's  name  was 

received  with  hisses  and  groans,  in  the  very  Hall  of  the  Regency My 

part  was  probably  prominent  enough  to  lead  to  some  public  comment I 

enclose  all  our  resolutions They  were  printed  and  distributed  among  our 

friends  some  hours  before  the  meeting.50 

Buoyed  by  Alexander's  encouraging  report  from  New  York,  reason- 
ably sure  now  that  Texas  annexation  would  likely  crown  the  political 
achievements  of  her  husband's  administration,  Julia  doubled  her  efforts 
on  the  social  front.  She  selected  Wednesday,  February  18,  as  the  date 
for  her  final  ball.  She  was  resolved  that  social  Washington  would  never 
forget  her  or  the  Tyler  tenure  in  the  White  House.  For  weeks  the  de- 
tailed planning  proceeded  apace,  every  member  of  the  Court  eagerly 
participating  in  the  arrangements.  Margaret  was  put  to  work  com- 
piling a  guest  list  which  came  to  number  over  two  thousand.  Hundreds 
of  letters  were  dispatched  to  prominent  Virginia  and  New  York  families 
requesting  their  presence.  Close  friends  were  asked  to  suggest  the  names 
of  people  in  or  near  the  capital  who  might  reasonably  be  invited.  In  her 
laborious  clerical  task  Margaret  was  assisted  by  F.  W.  Thomas. 
Margaret,  in  effect,  became  the  First  Lady's  social  secretary,  carefully 
hand-copying  each  of  the  numerous  invitations  that  went  out.  This  em- 
ployment of  Margaret's  chirographic  skills  was  a  tactical  insight  of 
the  highest  order,  since  Julia's  own  handwriting  was  so  poor  it  was  often 
illegible.  (In  fear  that  his  wife  would  never  learn  to  write  properly, 
Tyler  procured  O.  B.  Goldsmith's  text  Gems  of  Penmanship  for  her, 
but  Julia  still  failed  the  course.)  Margaret's  hand  was  clear  and 
strong,  and  the  invitations  from  her  quill  were  duly  delivered.51 

Julia  was  disappointed  that  Alexander  saw  fit  to  remain  in  New 
York  on  the  night  of  the  ball.  He  was  too  busy  with  Texas  and  Tylerite 
politics,  he  said,  to  waste  several  days  in  the  capital  just  then.  He  would 
arrive  later,  when  the  Texas  Resolution  was  approaching  its  moment  of 
truth  in  the  Senate.  But  Samuel  Gardiner  arrived  from  distant  Shelter 
Island  to  witness  daughters  Mary  and  Phoebe  in  their  final  White  House 
^action.  And  Juliana,  who  sorely  wished  to  return  to  Lafayette  Place, 
was  persuaded  to  stay  over  until  after  the  ball.  She  was  not  in  the  mood 
for  much  more  frivolity  and  she  had  already  made  up  her  mind  that  she 
would  not  have  a  good  time  at  her  daughter's  gala  function.  Not  sur- 
prisingly, she  had  a  wretched  time.V'I  must  confess  it  did  not  dazzle 

262 


me,"  she  later  told  Julia.  Last-minute  orders  for  lace  and  jewelry  were 
sped  northward  to  Alexander  as  the  Court  prepared  for  the  coming 
jubilation.  "Your  ball  to  be  is  all  the  talk/7  Thomas  informed  Julia, 
"and  . . .  many  beautiful  things  said  of  the  Lady  Presidentress."  52 

'  The  ball  was  a  great  success,  although  the  irascible  Juliana  thought 
the  assemblage  "very  republican."  /The  fact  that  it  was  packed  with 
officers,  foreign  diplomats,  high  government  officials,  and  representatives 
of  the  fashionable  set  from  Boston  to  Charleston  did  not  impress  her. 
She  allowed  only  that  it  was  "no  doubt  as  select  as  so  great  a  con- 
course would  admit."  Personally,  she  preferred  "a  few  choice  congenial 
spirits"  to  the  mob  that  descended  on  the  White  House  on  February 
1 8.  With  this  judgment  Margaret  demurred.  "Those  'congenial  spirits/ 
where  are  they  to  be  found?"  she  wondered.  "No!  no  I  I  quite  agree 
with  you,"  she  assured  Julia,  "the  grand  or  nothing."  53  ^,. 

Grand  it  was.  Two  thousand  were  invited;  three  thousand  came. 
"We  were,"  said  Margaret,  "as  thick  as  sheep  in  a  pen."  A  hundred 
additional  lights  were  hung  in  the  East  Room,  bringing  to  over  six 
hundred  the  flickering  candles  which  expensively  illuminated  the  four 
rooms  used  for  dancing  and  promenading.  "The  President  reckons  the 
cost  at  350  dollars  which ...  is  no  trifling  sum,"  Margaret  confessed. 
A  Marine  band  in  scarlet  uniforms  supplied  the  music  for  waltzes, 
polkas,  and  cotillions.  Margaret  herself  arranged  the  buffet  supper  and 
immodestly  admitted  that  it  was  "superb . . .  wine  and  champagne 
flowed  like  water — eight  dozen  bottles  of  champagne  were  drunk  witS 
wine  by  the  barrels" 

Julia  "opened"  the  ball  with  Secretary  of  War  William  Wilkins, 
then  danced  with  the  Postmaster  General  and  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  the 
Spanish  ambassador.  Later  in  the  evening  the  First  Lady  and  the  beauti- 
ful Madame  Bodisco  attracted  great  attention  when  they  joined  in  a 
cotillion  with  the  ambassadors  from  Austria,  Prussia,  France,  and 
Russia.  They  were,  said  Thomas  of  the  Herald,  "two  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful women  of  that  vast  assemblage."  As  usual,  Julia  was  magnificently 
clad  in  a  "white  satin  underdress  embroidered  with  silver  with  bodice 
en  saile  and  over  that  a  white  [cape]  looped  up  all  around  with  white 
roses  and  buds — white  satin  headdress  hat  embroidered  with  silver  with 
three  ostrich  feathers  and  full  set  of  diamonds." 

The  President,  Julia,  and  the  Court  received  their  guests  in  the 
Blue  Room.  They  were  "arranged  as  usual  along  the  side  of  the  cir- 
cular room  and  everyone  was  struck  with  the  beautiful  appearance  of 
the  Court."  At  10  P.M.  supper  was  announced,  and  "such  a  rush,  crush 
and  smash  to  obtain  entrance  was  never  seen  before  at  a  Presidential 
entertainment."  But  in  all  the  confusion  near  the  tables  "only  two 
glasses  were  broken,"  said  Margaret,  priding  herself  on  her  scientific 
deployment  of  the  food  and  wine.  Observed  immersed  in  the  human 
tide  moving  inexorably  toward  the  meat  and  drink,  trying  to  preserve 

263 


some  semblance  of  military  dignity  in  the  process,  were  General  Win- 
field  Scott,  Commodore  Charles  Stewart,  General  Mirabeau  B.  Lamar, 
lately  President  of  the  Texas  Republic,  and  Commodore  Edwin  Ward 
Moore,  Chief  of  the  Texas  Navy.  It  was  a  rough  voyage  to  the  wine 
barrels.  The  tables  were  emptied  and  refilled  many  times,  but  "by  due 
diligence  and  perseverance  all  were  provided  with  the  luxuries  that 
flowed  in  abundance."  Congratulated  on  the  success  of  the  affair,  the 
President  merely  laughed  and  replied,  "Yes,  they  cannot  say  now  that 
I  am  a  President  without  a  party!3' 

The  President-elect  and  Sarah  Polk  had  been  invited  cordially 
but  made  no  appearance.  This  was  both  a  "surprise"  and  a  disappoint- 
ment to  Tyler  and  his  family.  Mrs.  Folk's  announced  "indisposition," 
Margaret  felt,  was  little  more  than  an  attack  of  virulent  Van  Burenism 
brought  on  by  pressure  from  Francis  P.  Blair  and  the  Washington 
Globe  clique.  Vice-President-elect  George  M.  Dallas  was  on  hand,  how- 
ever. Not  so  the  capital's  prominent  Whigs.  With  the  exception  of 
Maryland  Senator  William  D.  Merrick,  whose  son  William  Matthew 
had  recently  married  Mary  Wickliffe,  few  Whig  politicians  chose  to 
attend.  "They  won't  make  up  with  Captain  Tyler  no  how  at  all/'  ex- 
plained Thomas.  Their  absence  did  not  ruin  the  evening  for  Julia  and 
her  Court.  The  young  ladies  had  beaux  enough  to  staff  a  dozen  balls, 
and  a  few  hundred  more  guests  would  have  collapsed  the  walls  of  the 
White  House.  "All  acknowledge,"  concluded  Margaret  without  ex- 
aggeration, "that  nothing  half  so  grand  had  been  seen  at  the  White 
House  during  any  Administration,  and  fear  nothing  so  tasteful  would 
be  again."  It  marked,  agreed  the  Herald,  "an  era  in  Washington 
society.75  54 

Thomas  gave  Julia  a  good  press  on  her  final  social  effort,  but  his 
kind  treatment  paled  in  comparison  with  the  piece  Alexander  penned 
for  the  New  York  Plebeian,  Working  from  notes  supplied  him  by  his 
sisters,  he  wrote  a  long  "eyewitness"  account  (anonymously,  of  course) 
titled  "Mrs.  Tyler's  Farewell  Ball,  or  Sic  Transit  Gloria  Mundi": 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  him,  John  Tyler  always  discharged  the  duties  of 
such  occasions  with  high  bred  propriety,  and  never  was  the  dignity  and 
urbanity  of  his  manners  more  conspicuous.  As  to  his  beautiful  bride,  whom 
I  a  stranger  saw  from  time  to  time  in  foreign  parts,  I  can  scarcely  trust 
my  pen  to  write  of  her.  Burke  apostropitized  [sic]  the  Queen  of  France, 
whom  he  saw  "just  above  the  horizon" ;  but  I  have  seen  this  lady  above  many 
horizons. . . .  Tonight  she  looked  like  Juno  and  with  her  sister,  cousins  and 
Miss  Alice  Tyler  constituted  a  galaxy  of  beauty,  and  I  am  told  equal  talent, 

which  no  Court  of  Europe  could  equal More  diamonds  sparkled  than  I 

have  ever  seen  on  any  occasion  in  this  country 55 

Thanks  to  the  cooperation  of  the  Herald,  the  Madisonian,  and 
the  Plebeian,  Julia's  farewell  ball  attracted  national  interest  and  atten- 
tion. Perhaps  too  much.  Ten  months  later  Tyler  was  still  answering  the 

264 


criticisms  of  various  prohibitionist  Protestant  churchmen  who  com- 
plained about  the  flow  of  spirits  at  Julia's  farewell  salute,  the  evil  danc- 
ing that  had  taken  place  there,  and  the  fact  that  the  First  Lady  had 
sponsored  such  a  conspicuous  fling  less  than  a  year  after  her  father's 
death.  In  a  polite  way,  John  Tyler  properly  told  them  all  to  go  to 
the  devil.  Julia  went  out  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  in  "a  flood  of  light"  shed 
by  "a  thousand  candles  from  the  immense  chandeliers"  of  the  East 
Room,  and  that  was  what  counted  even  though  the  additional  illumina- 
tion had  cost  $350.  To  John  Tyler,  the  success  of  his  wife's  last  enter- 
tainment was  almost  as  important  as  the  achievement  of  his  Texas 
dream  two  weeks  later.56 


265 


ALEXANDER  GARDINER: 
SAG  HARBOR  TO  THE   RIO   GRANDE 


/  am  ready  for  any  or  all  enterprises  in  love,  politics, 
or  business! 

ALEXANDER   GARDINER,    SEPTEMBER    1844 


Julia  flourished  in  a  world  of  social  display,  glamorous  gowns,  per- 
sonal flattery,  and  studied  deference  to  rank.  Her  brother  Alexander 
thrived  in  an  environment  of  seedy  politicians  selling  and  reselling  their 
political  virtue.  He  understood  that  a  few  well-placed  postmasters 
could  be  more  valuable  to  a  President  than  a  dozen  white-clad  vestal 
virgins  perched  on  a  dais  at  a  White  House  reception;  he  considered 
patronage  more  important  than  the  polka.  And  if  Julia  labored  to 
give  "the  President  without  a  party"  the  kind  of  party  her  February 
1 8  display  had  been,  Alexander  worked  to  give  him  a  real  political  or- 
ganization. Together,  brother  and  sister,  each  in  his  own  way,  battled 
to  give  John  Tyler  the  annexation  of  Texas — Julia  from  her  ballroom 
and  dinner  table  station  on  the  Potomac  firing  line;  Alexander  from 
his  Tammany  foxhole  in  New  York.  None  of  the  Gardiners  wanted 
Tyler  to  "retire  ignominiously  nor  be  soon  forgotten.'7  His  fame  was 
their  fame. 

Alexander  began  combat  anew  in  November  1844,  convinced  that 
John  Tyler's  role  in  the  1844  campaign  had  been  the  decisive  one;  that 
Polk  owed  Tyler  his  victory;  and  that  a  future  Tyler-Polk  alignment 
in  New  York  might  be  used  to  contain  the  political  aggression  of  the 
Albany  Regency.  The  Van  Buren  Regency's  antagonism  to  Texas  an- 
nexation on  antislavery  grounds  was  opposition  to  a  project  Alexander 
considered  vital  to  the  nation's  growth  and  welfare,  important  to  the 
historical  prestige  of  the  outgoing  administration,  and  material  to  the 

266 


psychological  well-being  of  Ms  brother-in-law.  He  was  certain,  there- 
fore, that  if  Tammany  Hall  could  be  induced  to  support  Texas  annexa- 
tion the  resulting  political  backlash  would  weaken  the  Van  Buren-Silas 
Wright  faction  in  New  York  and  go  far  toward  insuring  the  passage  of 
the  joint  resolution  in  Congress.  This  analysis  was  correct.  The  way  to 
seduce  Tammany,  of  course,  was  through  patronage  favors;  the  old 
streetwalker  was  always  willing.  It  was  imperative  also  that  Texas 
annexation  be  consummated  before  Tyler  left  the  White  House. 

Alexander  believed  further  that  a  separate  Tyler  political  faction 
should  be  continued  in  existence  in  New  York  City.  To  be  sure,  the 
Tylerites  had  thrown  their  strength  and  their  dry-dock  jobs  into  the 
Polk  candidacy  after  the  President's  withdrawal  from  the  race  in 
August.  But  one  never  knew  to  what  extent  a  Polk  administration  would 
be  impressed  by  these  sacrificial  oblations  a  year  hence.  Alexander  was 
not  certain  that  the  recent  Tyler-Polk  alliance,  insofar  as  patronage 
distribution  was  involved,  could  withstand  the  multiple  pressures  that 
would  surely  be  brought  to  bear  on  Polk  once  he  took  office  in  March. 
To  retain  a  Tyler  faction  within  a  larger  Tyler-Polk  anti-Regency 
alliance  in  New  York  seemed  both  prudent  and  foresighted.  Such  a 
faction  might  later  be  used  as  an  anti-proscription  lever  in  the  Empire 
State.  More  important,  a  Tyler  group  could  serve  as  a  political  enclave 
in  New  York  if  Tyler  decided  to  make  a  try  for  the  Presidency  in  his 
own  right  in  1848.  As  Alexander  Gardiner  thus  evaluated  the  situation, 
it  was  obvious  that  men  who  were  strongly  pro-Tyler  yet  acceptable 
to  Polk,  men  who  favored  Texas  annexation  and  distrusted  the  Albany 
Regency,  should  be  stuffed  into  as  many  key  public  offices  in  New 
York  City  as  possible  before  March  4,  1845.  Among  these  right-thinking 
citizens  he  naturally  numbered  himself,  since  only  from  such  a  vantage 
point  could  he  maintain  liaison  with  the  Tyler  faction  in  the  city  and 
help  manipulate  the  terms  of  its  continuing  alliance  there  with  the 
Polkites. 

That  this  political  analysis  by  young  Gardiner  seems  hopelessly 
unrealistic  in  retrospect  is  not  the  point.  In  spite  of  the  essential  weak- 
ness of  the  Tylerites  in  New  York  vis-a-vis  both  the  Polk  and  Van 
Buren  factions,  both  Robert  Tyler  and  Alexander  Gardiner  thought 
the  scheme  worth  a  try.  Tyler  himself  went  along  with  his  son  and 
his  brother-in-law  in  the  matter,  although  without  anything  approach- 
ing their  excited  optimism.  Ultimately,  the  whole  family  joined  in  the 
design  to  maintain  a  Tyler  faction  in  New  York  and  use  it  to  keep 
Polk  honest  on  his  pre-election  patronage  promises  to  Tyler.  It  was  vital 
too  to  hold  Polk  to  the  Texas-annexation  plank  of  the  Democratic 
platform.  Julia,  Margaret,  David  Lyon,  and  Juliana  all  actively  in- 
volved themselves  in  the  patronage  questions  that  arose.  They  also 
served  as  a  post-election  family  lobby  for  "Tyler  and  Texas." 

Within  the  family  circle,  Alexander  was  the  ringmaster  and  dis- 

267 


ciplinarian.  In  Ms  capacity  as  family  politician  extraordinary  he  ob- 
jected to  the  levity  of  Julia's  reign.  He  was  dismayed  by  the  numerous 
petty  demands  for  dresses,  laces,  hats,  yard  goods,  medicines,  and 
garters  that  came  from  Washington  in  his  sisters'  letters.  He  complained 
that  his  communications  to  the  White  House  concerning  New  York  po- 
litical affairs  received  inadequate  attention,  although  he  knew  them  to 
be  "of  more  consequence  than  the  purchase  of  hats  and  dresses."  At 
times  he  thought  Julia's  regal  approach  to  her  duties  "a  little  too 
dignified"  and  aloof.  He  urged  her  to  mix  more  with  the  bread-and- 
butter  politicians.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he  sacrificed  his  private 
life  to  the  Tyler  cause  so  completely  that  Margaret  chided  him  for 
being  coldly  "businesslike"  in  his  relations  with  the  ladies.  "We  live  on 
hope  [of  love]  and  die  fasting,"  she  teased  him,  "and  you  live  on 
Politics.3'  Julia  also  thought  him  much  too  "full  of  business  and  politics." 
It  distressed  her  that  during  his  "flying  visits"  to  Washington  in  mid- 
November  1844  and  again  for  the  White  House  levee  of  February  4, 
1845,  he  spent  all  his  time  talking  patronage.  His  refusal  to  attend 
Julia's  February  18  farewell  ball  was  bad  enough.  But  his  imperious 
demands  for  inside  political  information  became  tiresome  to  the  White 
House  ladies.  "My  goodness,"  exclaimed  Juliana  in  reply  to  one  of 
Alexander's  impatient,  fact-finding  letters  from  New  York,  "we  wish  so 
much  to  tell  you  some  news  of  importance,  but  we  ladies  know  nothing 
politically  unless  canvassed  before  us."  Actually,  the  ladies  knew  a  great 
deal.1 

Alexander's  political  activity  and  his  narrow  dedication  to  Tyler's 
career  turned  principally  on  his  belief  that  the  President  should  burn 
no  political  bridges  behind  him  in  his  retirement  from  Washington  to 
Sherwood  Forest.  On  the  contrary,  he  felt  that  Tyler  should  remain 
available  and  open  to  the  possibility  of  the  Democratic  nomination  in 
1848.  The  convention  might  deadlock  and  lead  to  Tyler's  nomination 
as  a  compromise  candidate.  There  was  always  the  possibility  that 
middle-of-the-roadism  would  again  be  popular  in  the  Democracy.  And 
with  the  sensational  Texas  achievement  behind  the  outgoing  administra- 
tion, lightning  might  well  strike  in  Tyler's  direction  once  more. 

In  spite  of  the  President's  desire  to  retire  to  the  peace  and  quiet 
of  Sherwood  Forest  with  his  young  bride,  there  are  several  indications 
that  he  accepted  Alexander's  advice  on  remaining  "available"  for 
1848.  Having  been  constantly  in  public  service  since  1811,  it  was  diffi- 
cult for  him  to  imagine  life  without  public  office.  The  call  to  political 
battle  never  left  him  unmoved.  As  late  as  1860  he  was  actively  pursuing 
the  Democratic  nomination.  Indeed,  when  summoned  again  in  April  1861, 
Tyler,  at  seventy-one,  emerged  from  retirement  and  was  elected  to  the 
Confederate  Congress.  He  was  a  professional  politician  and  remained 
one  all  his  life.  Thus  his  remark  to  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge  in  Novem- 
ber 1844  that  he  had  been  "so  rudely  buffeted  by  the  waves  of  Party 

268 


politics  for  nearly  four  years  past  that  I  sigh  for  the  quiet  of  my 
country  residence"  was  a  passing  attitude  built  on  temporary  fatigue, 
not  on  an  irrevocable  decision  to  resign  forever  from  the  political 
process.  More  revealing  was  his  statement  to  Margaret  in  July  1844, 
on  the  eve  of  his  withdrawal  from  the  Presidential  canvass,  about  his 
"cherished  hope  of  returning  to  the  White  House  in  '48."  After  the 
election  he  told  Alexander  confidently  that  the  Polk  and  Van  Buren 
factions  of  the  Democracy  would  surely  kill  one  another  off  in  patronage 
struggles  and  that  sooner  or  later  "the  country  will  look  to  a  third 
person  for  peace"  and  he  was  quite  willing  to  feed  this  factional  fire 
to  advance  his  own  future  political  fortunes.  By  December  1844 
Margaret  was  again  alerting  the  family  to  Tyler's  "political  hopes  for 
the  future."  And  within  a  few  months  after  his  retirement  to  Sherwood 
Forest  he  was  secretly  at  work  trying  to  reorganize  the  old  Tyler  group 
in  New  Jersey.  Thus  when  the  New  York  Herald  charged  in  March 
1845  that  "bargaining,  and  jobbing  and  corruption  of  the  most  flagrant 
character"  had  attended  the  filling  of  offices  in  New  York  City  in  the 
last  months  of  the  Tyler  administration,  and  that  this  was  designed  "to 
make  political  capital  for  1848,"  it  came  closer  to  the  truth  than  it 
realized.2 

With  one  eye  on  Tammany  and  the  fate  of  the  Texas  Resolutions 
pending  in  Congress  and  the  other  on  Tyler's  political  prospects  in 
1848,  Alexander  Gardiner  returned  to  the  odious  New  York  City 
patronage  business  with  undisguised  enthusiasm.  Soon  after  the  elec- 
tion returns  were  in  and  it  was  certain  that  Polk  had  carried  New 
York  City  and  the  Empire  State,  however  small  the  margin,  Alexander 
hastened  to  Washington  for  political  consultations  with  Tyler.  Return- 
ing to  New  York  on  November  20,  he  sent  the  President  a  summary  of 
their  conversations  and  a  detailed  patronage  analysis  of  the  local  situa- 
tion. "It  is  absolutely  necessary,"  he  concluded,  "if  we  should  retain 
our  strength  here  in  opposition  to  the  Van  Buren  faction  that  the  most 
important  places  should  be  filled  by  persons  of  sufficient  insight  to  hold 
them  hereafter."  He  suggested  that  District  Attorney  Hoffman,  Surveyor 
of  the  Port  Fowler,  and  U.S.  Marshal  Stilwell,  among  others,  all  be 
replaced  with  solid  Tyler  men  acceptable  to  Polk.  While  these  men  had 
all  supported  Tyler  in  1844,  Alexander  considered  them  too  oppor- 
tunistic and  self-serving  for  the  severe  and  perhaps  discouraging  trials 
that  lay  ahead.  Further,  they  had  all  initially  been  appointees  of  the  old 
Curtis  regime  in  the  Customs  House.  Gardiner  urged  the  White  House 
that  the  new  appointments  "be  made  immediately,"  and  that  there  be 
no  bargaining  in  New  York  with  any  faction  but  Polk's.  It  was  also  his 
view  that  "the  prominent  Judges  of  this  state  are  very  generally  friendly 

one  or  more  of  them  should  be  drawn  out  from  the  Bench  into  the 

field  of  active  politics."  Specifically,  he  seconded  Robert  Tyler's  sug- 
gestion that  Tyler  kick  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness  upstairs  to  the  United 

269 


States  Supreme  Court  and  make  ex-Governor  William  C.  Bouck  Col- 
lector of  the  Port  in  his  stead.  The  Conservative  Democrat  Bouck,  he 
thought,  was  "doubtless  a  friend  and  it  is  desirable  to  keep  him  in  posi- 
tion." Another  possibility  was  to  elevate  New  York  Supreme  Court 
Justice  Samuel  Nelson  to  the  national  Supreme  Court,  a  promotion 
which  would  produce  "much  local  satisfaction"  in  the  city.  Alexander 
also  suggested  that  Tyler  appoint  Ely  Moore  to  office.  Moore,  a  former 
leader  in  the  old  Workingmen's  Party  in  the  18303,  had  anti-abolitionist 
and  other  Conservative  Democratic  views  acceptable  to  the  Tylerites. 
That  he  was  a  friend  of  Polk  was  an  additional  factor  in  his  favor.  By 
and  large,  Tyler  agreed  with  his  brother-in-law's  wide-ranging  analysis. 
He  too  saw  the  possibility  and  advantages  of  building  a  bloc  of  Tylerite 
Conservative  Democrats  in  New  York.  He  differed  with  Alexander  only 
on  specific  names  for  specific  jobs.3 

Working  with  Robert  Tyler  and  Collector  Van  Ness,  Alexander 
made  ready  in  late  November  to  fill  all  available  New  York  City  offices 
with  "persons  of  sufficient  insight,"  As  he  evaluated  the  strength  of 
the  'Various  cliques"  in  Tammany  and  considered  how  each  might  react 
to  given  appointments,  he  began  to  suspect  that  Van  Ness  was  not 
handling  the  purge  and  patronage  front  in  the  city  with  sufficient  dash 
and  decisiveness.  He  felt  that  the  Collector  was  unduly  nervous  about 
Senate  confirmation  of  his  own  interim  appointment  and  that  his 
anxiety  in  the  matter  had  "somewhat  deranged  him."  Alexander  con- 
fided to  the  President  his  concern  that  the  frightened  Van  Ness  had 
"made  but  one  appointment  at  my  instigation."  He  could  only  hope 
that  when  the  Collector's  appointment  was  approved  by  the  Senate 
"something  better"  would  turn  up.  The  longer  he  evaluated  the  New 
York  scene  the  more  convinced  he  became  that  the  Tylerites  there  were 
"strongly  established  among  the  people  and  want  only  men  of  weight 
of  character  as  leaders."  It  was  vital,  therefore,  to  get  such  men  into 
office  as  quickly  as  possible.4 

Throughout  Alexander's  correspondence  and  conversations  with  the 
President  on  patronage  matters,  Julia  acted  as  intermediary.  She  re- 
layed names,  jobs,  and  patronage  decisions  back  and  forth  between 
New  York  and  the  White  House.  Often  she  made  clear  her  personal 
preferences.  In  this  activity  she  was  assisted  by  Margaret  and  by  her 
mother,  although  Juliana's  suggestions  for  specific  appointments  were 
usually  worthless,  too  frequently  guided  by  emotion.  She  realized,  of 
course,  that  the  President  could  not  find  appointments  for  "all  his  or 
your  [Julia's]  good  friends,"  even  though  they  were  "good  democrats!' 
Yet  she  hoped  a  Supreme  Court  post  could  be  found  for  her  friend 
Judge  Ogden  Edwards  because  he  was  "very  poor  and  I  am  sorry  for  it. 
I  wish  he  might  be  relieved  in  some  way.  Ohi  this  poverty  and  pride  is  a 
trying  thing  indeed."  Such  economic  considerations  did  not  trouble 
Alexander.  His  viewpoint  was  much  more  businesslike  and  realistic  than 

270 


his  mother's.  Rich  or  poor,  the  prospective  appointee  had  to  be  able  to 
help  Tyler  and  to  have  some  reasonable  chance  of  Senate  approval.  For 
this  latter  reason  Alexander  instructed  Julia  "to  make  as  many  friends 
as  possible  among  the  Senators77  and  gave  her  detailed  advice  on  what 
politicians  in  Washington  were  worth  cultivating  socially  and  which  ones 
were  not.5 

Julia's  own  analysis  of  the  patronage  process  was  not  particularly 
complicated.  Shortly  after  she  returned  from  her  honeymoon  in  Virginia 
she  had  been  admonished  by  Margaret  with  the  observation  that  the 
family  had  "not  heard  of  any  gifts  of  offices  from  you  and  I  fear  the  time 
will  slip  by  unheeded  . . .  [and]  you  will  not  be  able  to  look  back  with 
the  satisfaction  of  having  made  a  single  person  happy  or  grateful.  You 

do  not  seem  anxious  to  exhibit  your  power "  To  make  people  happy 

and  grateful,  and  to  demonstrate  that  she  did  have  power  over  her  hus- 
band, the  decisive  influence  that  stems  from  the  boudoir,  Julia  waded 
briskly  into  the  patronage  pool.  She  was  not  always  sure  of  the  more 
subtle  political  implications  of  her  various  recommendations,  but  what 
she  lacked  in  cloak-and-dagger  sophistication  she  made  up  for  in  en- 
thusiasm. "I  will  make  as  many  friends  as  I  can  among  the  Senators/7 
she  assured  her  brother.6 

Armed  with  Tyler's  support  and  Julia's  assistance,  Alexander  began 
the  task  of  creating  a  permanent  Tyler  faction  in  New  York  City.  The 
Brooklyn  postmastership,  he  told  the  President,  should  go  to  his  Uncle 
Nathaniel  Gardiner.  "For  political  reasons,  it  is  essential  that  we  should 
have  a  Post  officer  beyond  peradventure  in  this  vicinity  for  the  next  four 

years 7>  Nathaniel  Gardiner  was  certainly  "beyond  peradventure,77  as 

were  several  other  men  Alexander  suggested  for  the  job.  But  Tyler  felt 
that  Polk  should  have  a  free  hand  on  the  Brooklyn  appointment,  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  to  induce  a  fight  there  between  the  Van  Buren 
and  Polk  factions.7 

By  December  1844  Alexander  was  managing  all  patronage  appoint- 
ments, removals,  and  forced  resignations  for  the  Tyler  administration  in 
Suffolk  County.  In  addition,  his  iron  hand,  ill  camouflaged  by  velvet 
glove,  was  involved  in  so  much  patronage  dispensation  in  Brooklyn  and 
New  York  that  the  Whig  Courier  and  Enquirer  bitterly  compared  him 
with  Robert  Tyler,  long  accused  by  the  Whigs  of  exercising  the  real 
power  behind  his  father's  tottering  throne: 

Mr.  Tyler's  brother-in-law ...  seems  desirous  to  become  a  second  Robert: 
he  is  endeavoring  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  manner  the  latter  young 
gentleman  was  wont,  before  he  went  to  Philadelphia  to  distinguish  himself 
at  the  Bar.  Vain  and  impotent  will  be  the  undertaking!  For  how  can  he 
hope,  briskly  as  he  may  move  in  Robert's  path,  to  rival  the  fame  of  that 
young  Astyanax!  that  hope  of  modern  Troy!  Still,  the  ambition  is  a  laudable 
one,  and  not  to  be  resisted.  We,  therefore,  must  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  the  young  gentleman ...  is  assuming  the  management  of  the  Custom 

271 


House . . .  and  requires  the  dismission  of  one  inspector  and  the  appointment 
of  another,  on  no  other  ground  but  his  individual  pleasure.  One  would  sup- 
pose he  was  part  Tyler  in  blood,  so  naturally  he  falls  into  their  agreeable 
habits!8 

Whatever  the  patronage  habits  of  the  Tylers,  father  and  son,  Alex- 
ander freely  admitted  to  Julia  that  "some  of  the  applications  made  for 
these  places,  and  they  are  numberless,  exhibit  strange  hallucinations  on 
the  part  of  the  applicants."  He  assured  the  White  House,  however,  that 
he  would  recommend  for  appointments  only  those  persons  "most  worthy 
of  consideration."  Still,  in  moving  dozens  of  people  into  and  out  of  office 
Alexander  made  errors  in  judgment,  and  for  these  he  was  sharply  criti- 
cized by  his  closest  friends.  "The  original  friends  of  Mr.  Tyler  ought  not 
to  be  sacrificed  to  make  room  for  those  who  became  good  'Tyler  men3 
when  no  other  party  would  have  them"  protested  Alexander  L.  Botts. 
"When  needed  most  they  fought  against  him,  and  not  receiving  the  pay 
from  the  opposite  party  they  shouted  (all  too  late)  lustily  for  Tyler." 
Alexander  Gardiner's  mistake  (in  this  instance  the  accidental  removal 
of  a  loyal  Customs  House  supernumerary)  was  repaired  and  suitable 
apologies  were  speedily  issued.  More  easily  rectified  was  Alexander's 
appointment  of  a  distant  cousin,  Egbert  Dayton  of  East  Hampton,  to 
the  United  States  Military  Academy.  In  a  sardonic  note  from  Daniel 
Dayton,  the  boy's  father,  Alexander  learned  to  his  chagrin  that  Egbert 
was  thirteen  years  old  and  scarcely  ready  to  travel  "the  road  to  military 
fame."  9 

More  embarrassing  to  the  family,  and  certainly  more  public,  was 
the  patronage  mess  Julia  and  Alexander  managed  to  create  at  Sag 
Harbor,  Long  Island,  in  their  eagerness  to  get  a  few  "safe"  Gardiner  and 
Dayton  cousins  into  minor  sinecures  before  the  Tyler  administration 
went  out  of  power.  In  this  instance,  the  in-fighting  pitted  Gardiners 
against  Gardiners  and  Gardiners  against  Daytons.  Before  the  nasty  fight 
was  over,  Alexander  and  Julia  were  wondering  whether  they  were  really 
cut  out  for  ward-level  political  manipulation  at  all. 

The  Sag  Harbor  confusion  began  in  June  1844  when  John  D. 
Gardiner  of  that  town,  a  cousin  of  Julia's,  requested  that  Tyler  appoint 
his  son,  Samuel  L.  Gardiner,  to  the  Collectorship  of  the  Port  of  Sag 
Harbor,  replacing  Henry  T.  Dering,  At  the  time  of  the  request  young 
Samuel  L.  Gardiner  was  serving  as  Solicitor  in  Chancery  for  Suffolk 
County,  a  modest  and  unremunerative  post.  The  Collectorship  of  the 
Port  was  neither.  The  solicitation  of  the  office  was  channeled  through 
Secretary  of  State  John  C.  Calhoun,  who  had  been  at  Yale  with  John  D. 
Gardiner  back  in  1804  (Julia's  father  had  been  in  the  same  class). 
Happy  to  accommodate  another  wearer  of  the  Blue,  Calhoun,  with  the 
President's  approval,  promised  young  Samuel  the  lucrative  post.  Julia 
seconded  the  arrangement  enthusiastically.  She  had  no  love  for  Henry  T. 
Dering,  The  man  had  no  poetic  souL  "I  really  think. .  .[Gardiner] 

272 


deserves  the  CollectorsMp  quite  as  much  as  Bering,"  she  wrote  her 
mother  from  the  honeymoon  cottage  at  Old  Point  Comfort.  Bering,  after 
all,  "has  never  immortalized  me  in  Rhyme/'  and  he  was  also  "a  thorough 
Whig."  Alexander  was  soon  informed  of  the  family  decision  in  the 
matter,  and  as  Chief  of  the  Tyler  Patronage  Bistribution  Bureau, 
Suffolk  County  Bivision,  he  heartily  endorsed  the  appointment  as  a 
'Very  good  one.77  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  would  be  the  next  Collector  of 
Customs  of  the  Port  of  Sag  Harbor.10 

Sag  Harbor  was  not  an  obscure  port  in  1844,  nor  was  the  collector- 
ship  there  a  mean  post;  sixty  to  seventy  whaling  ships  operated  annually 
from  the  town.  As  the  New  York  Herald  correspondent  at  Sag  Harbor 
put  it,  "We  are  growing  rich  and  oily,"  and  "in  a  short  time  we  shall 
outstrip  New  Bedford  and  Nan  tucket,  as  we  have  done  all  other  whaling 
ports.'7  It  was  even  boldly  predicted  in  the  town  that  "in  a  short  time 
we  shall  turn  our  attention  to  the  arts,  sciences  and  literature."  While 
not  yet  a  cultural  center,  Sag  Harbor  was  the  political  and  economic  key 
to  Suffolk  County  and  the  collector  there  controlled  the  turning  of  the 
key  with  his  power  of  patronage.  The  projected  appointment  of  Tylerite 
Conservative  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  to  the  office  therefore  threatened  the 
position  of  the  Van  Buren  Bemocrats  in  the  county,  a  group  headed  by 
Br.  John  N.  Bayton  (also  a  Gardiner  cousin),  Br.  F.  W.  Lord,  and 
Peletiah  ("The  Buke")  Fordham,  Postmaster  of  Sag  Harbor.  News  of 
SamuePs  imminent  elevation  to  the  collectorship  propelled  this  clique 
into  a  frenzy  of  activity.11 

This  exertion  took  in  form  nothing  less  than  a  bargain,  a  conspiracy, 
and  a  lie.  In  effect,  the  good  doctors  Bayton  and  Lord  promised  Ford- 
ham,  in  July  1844,  that  if  he  somehow  managed  to  persuade  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  substitute  Bayton7s  name  for  Samuel  L.  Gardiner's  in  the 
nomination  to  the  collectorship,  the  local  Van  Burenites  would  see  to  it 
that  "The  Buke"  was  not  purged  from  his  postmaster  ship.  As  a  "rene- 
gade Whig"  and  Webster  appointee,  Postmaster  Fordham  was  in  a  pre- 
carious position.  With  Van  Ness,  Graham,  and  Alexander  casually  lop- 
ping off  the  heads  of  Van  Burenites,  Websterites,  and  Clay  men  to 
further  the  Tyler  candidacy  in  New  York  and  force  the  Polkites  into  an 
understanding  with  the  President,  Fordham  had  naturally  begun  to 
experience  a  feeling  of  insecurity.  Consequently,  when  Alexander  visited 
in  East  Hampton  briefly  in  early  August,  two  weeks  before  Tyler's 
formal  withdrawal  from  the  Presidential  canvass,  Peletiah  Fordham 
hurriedly  repaired  there  to  speak  with  him.  In  the  ensuing  interview, 
Fordham  represented  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  as  being  violently  anti-Tyler 
and  anti-Texas,  unqualified  for  the  office,  unpopular  in  Sag  Harbor,  and 
ardently  for  the  Van  Buren  Regency.  On  the  other  hand,  he  portrayed 
Br,  J.  N.  Bayton  as  vigorously  pro-Tyler  in  action  and  deed,  sound  on 
every  political  issue  of  the  day.  He  therefore  urged  Bayton's  appoint- 
ment as  collector  if  the  Tylerites  had  any  interest  in  swinging  Suffolk 

273 


County  to  Polk  in  the  approaching  elections.  Meanwhile,  the  Dayton- 
Lord  clique  had  circulated  petitions  in  Sag  Harbor  demanding  the 
nomination  of  Dayton.12 

Alexander  was  bamboozled.  Only  in  the  most  cursory  fashion  did  he 
bother  to  check  Fordham's  characterizations  of  Samuel  L.  Gardiner. 
David  Lyon  stopped  briefly  in  Sag  Harbor  in  early  September  (after 
Tyler's  withdrawal),  spoke  privately  with  the  Dayton-Lord  forces  (now 
proclaiming  themselves  staunch  Tylerites-for-Polk) ,  and  reported  to 
Julia  that  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  "has  no  influence  whatever,  nor  have  any 
of  his  relatives;  no  confidence  can  be  placed  in  any  of  them."  He  in- 
formed his  sister  that  he  and  Alexander  would  shortly  "recommend 
someone  who  has  influence  and  character"  13 

Not  surprisingly,  Dr.  J.  N.  Dayton  was  soon  recommended  by 
Alexander  for  the  Sag  Harbor  collectorship.  As  a  distant  cousin  of  the 
Gardiners  he  was  eminently  worthy.  Nevertheless,  Alexander's  switch 
decision  in  the  matter  placed  Tyler  in  a  "quandary"  because  Secretary 
Calhoun  had  "gone  so  far"  to  secure  Samuel  L.  Gardiner's  appointment 
in  the  first  place.  Alexander  admitted  that  his  own  handling  of  the 
problem  had  been  equivocal,  but  he  assured  Julia  that  his  actions  had 
been  prompted  solely  by  his  concern  for  the  President's  "advantage  in 
Suffolk  County."  This  concern  took  Alexander  one  step  further.  In 
October  lie  was  instrumental  in  obtaining  Dayton's  nomination  to  the 
New  York  State  Assembly  on  the  Suffolk  County  Democratic  ticket.  By 
election  or  appointment,  Alexander  was  determined  that  Dr.  Dayton 
would  have  a  political  position.  Dayton  was  elected  to  the  assembly  in 
November.14 

The  President  accepted  his  brother-in-law's  spot  judgment  in  the 
Sag  Harbor  affair.  On  December  i  Assemblyman-elect  John  N.  Dayton 
was  appointed  Collector  of  the  Port.  In  the  meantime,  the  decision  to 
substitute  Dayton  for  Gardiner  had  been  carefully  concealed  from  the  lat- 
ter, young  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  assuming  until  the  very  last  moment  that 
the  Presidential  cornucopia  would  bathe  him  in  the  oil  of  office.  At  this 
point,  seeking  to  minimize  the  explosion  that  was  sure  to  come,  Alexan- 
der made  a  crucial  mistake.  To  propitiate  Calhoun  and  the  entire  Sag 
Harbor  Gardiner  clan,  Alexander  recommended  to  Tyler  that  he  appoint 
Ezra  L'Hommedieu  Gardiner  Postmaster  of  Sag  Harbor,  replacing 
Peletiah  Fordham.  This  arrangement,  reasoned  Alexander,  would  pre- 
vent "all  difficulty  and  bad  feeling"  among  the  local  Gardiners  and 
would  satisfy  all  parties.15 

Ezra  was  John  D.  Gardiner's  second  son.  His  appointment  to  the 
postmastership  was  entirely  an  accident,  a  case  of  mistaken  identity.  In 
recommending  another  of  John  D.'s  sons  for  the  post,  Alexander  intended 
the  appointment  of  John  D.  Gardiner,  Jr.,  but  he  confused  the  numerous 
Sag  Harbor  Gardiner  brothers  and  ended  up  submitting  Ezra's  name  by 
mistake.  He  considered  John  D.,  Jr.3  "altogether  the  best  of  the  family," 

274 


but  lie  informed  Tyler  in  mid-December  that  "if  however  his  brother 
Ezra  has  been  already  appointed  the  matter  is  not  worth  a  second 
thought."  A  Gardiner  is  a  Gardiner  is  a  Gardiner.16 

When  it  became  apparent  to  Samuel  in  early  December  that  he  had 
been  passed  over  for  the  Sag  Harbor  collectorship  in  favor  of  Dr.  Dayton, 
that  he  had  been  stabbed  in  the  back  by  the  Dayton-Lord-Fordham 
clique,  and  that  one  of  his  brothers  had  been  given  the  postmastership, 
he  immediately  set  off  loud  salvos  of  outrage  and  anguish.  A  hurried 
trip  to  Washington  and  an  interview  with  Tyler  confirmed  his  worst 
suspicion — that  Alexander  had  indeed  abandoned  him  on  the  basis  of 
Fordham's  prevarications  at  East  Hampton  in  August.  No  sooner  had 
he  returned  home  to  Sag  Harbor  than  he  persuaded  his  mother,  Mary 
Gardiner,  to  write  to  Julia  and  expose  the  whole  plot.  Within  a  few  days  a 
heart-rending  letter  was  received  at  the  White  House  demanding  justice. 
The  First  Lady's  intervention  with  her  husband  was  urged  in  the  most 
emotional  terms.  Mary  Gardiner  reminded  Julia  of  the  Calhoun-Tyler 
pledge  of  the  office  back  in  June;  she  assured  Julia  that  her  son  had  long 
been  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  Tyler;  and  she  recalled  that  her 
husband  "was  a  friend  of  your  dear  departed  father,  a  fellow  Townsman 
and  a  fellow  Classmate,  through  their  whole  academic  and  collegiate 
course."  17 

All  of  this  was  very  embarrassing  to  Julia,  who  had  endorsed 
Samuel  L.  in  the  first  place.  No  matter  who  got  the  appointment,  one 
Gardiner  cousin  would  remain  terribly  unhappy.  In  quiet  desperation 
she  contacted  her  brother  to  find  out  what  had  gone  wrong  at  Sag 
Harbor.  Alexander,  in  turn,  confronted  Peletiah  Fordham  with  the 
charge  that  he  had  lied  about  Gardiner  and  Dayton  during  their  August 
interview  at  East  Hampton,  Since  he  had  lost  his  postmastership  to 
Ezra  L'H.  Gardiner  anyway,  Fordham  was  quite  willing  to  admit  his 
fraud  and  deception.  He  claimed  that  he  had  been  most  cruelly  used  by 
Dayton  and  Lord.  They  were  indeed  Van  Burenites,  he  confessed.  Hav- 
ing used  him,  they  had  done  nothing  to  save  his  postmastership.  He 
admitted,  further,  that  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  was,  as  he  had  represented 
himself,  a  true  friend  of  the  President  and  his  policies.  Fordham's  con- 
fession upset  Tyler,  who  was  distressed  to  learn  that  he  had  been  a  party 
to  what  he  correctly  labeled  a  "real  piece  of  intrigue."  Julia  too  was 
outraged.  So  was  Juliana,  who  advised  Alexander  that  "such  people  are 
dangerous  to  speak  with — the  very  least  you  have  to  do  with  them  the 
better.  They  are  shocking." 18 

Alexander  agreed  with  his  mother's  viewpoint,  but  it  was  decided 
within  the  family  circle  that  John  N.  Dayton  should  not  be  openly 
antagonized — at  least  not  for  a  while.  As  a  newly  elected  New  York 
assemblyman  he  could  still  help  the  cause  of  the  Conservative  Democ- 
racy in  Albany.  Tyler  had  earlier  appointed  his  New  York  friend  and 
ally,  Senator  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge,  to  the  governorship  of  the  Wis- 

275 


consin  Territory.  In  January  1845  the  state  legislature  at  Albany  would 
select  a  new  United  States  senator  to  nil  Tallmadge's  unexpired  term. 
The  legislature  was  also  scheduled  to  fill  the  seat  of  Senator  Silas  Wright, 
elected  governor  of  New  York  in  November.  It  was  this  consideration  of 
two  vacant  Senate  seats  that  caused  Alexander  to  importune  Dayton  not 
to  resign  as  assemblyman  to  take  his  post  as  collector  until  he  had  first 
struck  a  blow  for  Tylerism  in  New  York.  Dayton  agreed.  On  January 
19,  1845,  ne  reported  to  Alexander  from  Albany  that  "the  long  agony  is 
over  and  our  friend  Mr.  [Daniel  S.]  Dickinson  elected  to  fill  the  unex- 
pired term  of  Mr.  Tallmadge."  The  selection  of  Conservative  Democrat 
Dickinson  was  good  news  to  Alexander,  much  better  than  the  accom- 
panying information  that  Van  Buren  Democrat  John  A.  Dix  had  been 
chosen  to  fill  the  Senate  seat  of  Silas  Wright.19 

Whatever  Dayton's  Van  Burenite  proclivities  actually  were,  he  had 
done  for  the  Tylerites  at  Albany  all  Alexander  had  asked  of  him.  He 
had  voted  consistently  for  Dickinson  and  against  Dix.  Still,  his  shady 
role  in  the  Fordham  misrepresentation  marked  him  for  proscription. 
When  his  nomination  to  the  collectorship  came  before  the  Senate  for 
consideration  in  early  February,  Tyler  and  Alexander  quietly  knifed 
him.  By  this  time  the  President  had  decided  to  liquidate  the  Sag  Harbor 
mess  once  and  for  all  by  restoring  the  nonpoetic  Henry  T.  Dering  to  the 
post  of  collector.  The  whole  family  in  the  meantime  had  grown  heartily 
sick  of  the  Sag  Harbor  confusion.  "I  shall  do  nothing  further  respecting 
the  vacant  Collectorship  at  Sag  Harbor,"  Alexander  informed  Margaret 
in  disgust.  For  Juliana  it  provided  an  opportunity  to  make  the  larger 
point  that  "If  the  Sag  Harbor  business  is  a  specimen  of  politics  I  should 
think  you  would  be  sick  of  the  business.  Don't  pray  place  much  con- 
fidence in  anyone.  I  do  not — no  not  one.  All  the  best  are  selfish  and 
politicians  are  intriguing.  True  honor  is  rarely  to  be  found.  Poor 
politicians  have  no  idea  of  it."  20 

It  did  not  take  John  Dayton  long  to  realize  that  Peletiah  Fordham's 
mid- January  confession  of  chicanery  had  been  supplied  to  the  Senate  by 
Tyler,  or  someone  close  to  the  White  House,  and  that  the  administra- 
tion's sudden  loss  of  enthusiasm  for  his  candidacy  had  caused  his  rejec- 
tion by  the  upper  chamber  on  February  10.  Understanding  the  military 
dictum  that  a  setback  often  provides  the  best  opportunity  for  a  renewed 
attack,  he  boldly  suggested  that  the  President  send  his  name  up  to  the 
Senate  again,  or  at  least  the  name  of  Ms  compatriot  in  the  deception, 
Dr.  F.  W.  Lord.  He  blandly  denied  all  complicity  in  the  collectorship 
machination,  charging  instead  that  he  was  the  innocent  victim  of  a 
Fordham-Samuel  L.  Gardiner  plot  to  discredit  true  Tylerism  in  Suffolk 
County.  This  was  a  bit  farfetched.  Whatever  his  degree  of  involvement 
with  Fordham,  his  protestations  of  innocence  were  not  rendered  more 
creditable  when  F.  W.  Lord  cheerfully  confessed  the  whole  conspiracy 
against  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  and  again  implicated  Dayton  as  a  charter 

276 


member.  Lord  defended  ids  own  dishonest  role  In  the  matter  on  the 
grounds  that  In  politics,  as  in  war,  the  ends  justified  the  means.  The 
earlier  Fordham  confession  he  verified  in  all  particulars.  Since  Samuel 
L.  Gardiner  already  held  the  office  of  Solicitor  in  Chancery,  it  seemed 
fair,  thought  Lord,  to  ruin  his  chances  for  the  collectorship,  even  if  it 
meant  telling  a  lie  or  two.  While  all  this  was  relatively  small-scale  chi- 
canery, it  was  still  gutter  politics.  Juliana  was  humiliated  that  "Alexan- 
der's name  should  have  been  mixed  up  with  all  those  people  at  Sag 
Harbor.  You  do  not  wonder,"  she  told  Julia,  "your  father  avoided  con- 
tact of  any  kind  with  them.  I  think  they  are  shocking — so  small."  21 

Well  above  the  Sag  Harbor  political  level  in  the  projected  post- 
election arrangement  with  Polk  was  the  President's  kindness  to  the 
President-elect  and  his  wife.  This  went  well  beyond  the  usual  social 
amenities,  and  it  had  a  distinct  bearing  on  Tyler's  political  look  ahead  to 
1848.  Not  only  did  the  President  invite  Polk  to  stay  at  the  White  House 
when  he  arrived  in  the  capital,  but  Julia  exchanged  several  friendly  visits 
with  Sarah  Childress  Polk  after  the  Tennesseans  reached  Washington.22 

It  was  through  Tennessee  State  Senator  Major  William  H.  Polk, 
Young  Hickory's  brother,  that  Tyler  attempted  most  assiduously  to 
cement  a  permanent  political  and  personal  relationship  with  the  new 
President.  Major  Polk  arrived  in  Washington  on  December  20,  1844,  to 
survey  the  political  situation  before  the  arrival  of  the  President-elect. 
Margaret  found  him  "very  plain  in  his  appearance  and  manners,"  but 
her  mother  was  much  impressed  by  the  "tall  respectable  country  men" 
who  comprised  the  Polk  entourage.  As  noted  in  another  connection, 
Phoebe  hurled  herself  romantically  at  the  Major  and  for  a  brief  time 
captured  his  romantic  and  terpsichorean  attentions.  David  Lyon  met  him 
and  thought  him  "a  very  clever  man."  He  urged  Alexander  to  call  on 
Major  Polk  when  he  later  reached  New  York — this  on  the  chance  that 
he  "may  be  of  some  service  to  you  hereafter."  He  also  informed  Alexan- 
der that  the  Major  had  been  "introduced  to  the  girls,  danced  with  them 
at  the  Assembly,  and  has  dined  here  and  called  upon  the  family  several 
times.  The  President  thinks  of  giving  him  a  foreign  mission,  maybe  to 
the  south  of  Europe;  you  must  not,  however,  mention  it  to  anyone." 
Alexander  took  his  brother's  advice.  He  made  himself  known  to  the 
Major  when  he  visited  New  York  and  took  him  to  the  opera.  The  two 
men  got  on  excellently  together.  William  H.  Polk  thus  received  the  full 
Tyler-Gardiner  treatment — from  an  armful  of  waltzing  Phoebe  to  a 
box  seat  at  the  opera  and  an  offer  of  a  diplomatic  appointment23 

Tyler  first  gave  serious  consideration  to  the  appointment  of  Polk's 
brother  as  charge  to  Naples  as  early  as  January  i,  a  few  days  after  the 
Major's  arrival  in  Washington.  The  initial  idea  was  not  Tyler's.  The 
request  for  a  diplomatic  post  for  William  H.  Polk  came  from  the 
President-elect  himself  in  late  December.  Tyler,  of  course,  was  happy  to 
comply.  He  wanted  the  President-elect  indebted  to  him.  Further,  he  was 

277 


genuinely  fond  of  the  Major,  who  had  skillfully  served  his  brother  dur- 
ing the  early  stages  of  the  1844  campaign  as  a  liaison  man  with  the 
Tylerites,  Indeed,  it  was  William  H.  Polk  who  had  first  suggested  in 
June  1844  that  Tyler's  withdrawal  from  the  race  would  be  rewarded 
with  a  guarantee  that  no  proscription  of  Tyler's  friends  would  occur  if 
Polk  won  the  election  in  November,  To  remind  Polk  and  his  brother  of 
this  pledge;  to  accommodate  and  befriend  the  President-elect;  and  to 
provide  additional  protection  for  Tylerites  remaining  in  federal  office 
after  March  4  (in  this  way  salvaging  a  hard  core  of  the  Tyler  faithful  for 
future  political  battles)  the  President  gladly  nominated  the  Major  to 
be  American  charge  in  Naples.24 

The  nomination  immediately  revived  baseless  speculation  that  Tyler 
in  turn  would  be  appointed  Minister  to  the  Court  of  St.  James's  "where 
his  young  and  blooming  bride  can  receive  the  compliments  of  lorded 
nobility."  Unfortunately,  the  Senate  failed  to  act  on  Major  Polk's  ap- 
pointment before  March  4,  and  this  forced  the  new  President  into  the 
embarrassment  of  having  to  renominate  his  brother  to  the  Italian  post. 
Still,  Tyler  did  the  best  he  could  for  the  President-elect.  On  the  nepotistic 
surface  of  things  a  renomination  looked  a  little  better  than  a  nomina- 
tion.25 

While  the  President  and  Julia  were  striving  to  accommodate  the 
Polk  family,  Alexander  was  working  diligently  to  purge  Van  Burenites 
from  various  federal  offices  in  New  York  and  replace  them  with  pro- 
Polk  Tylerites.  Senate  confirmation  of  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness  as  Col- 
lector of  the  Port  of  New  York  in  early  January  quieted  the  jumpy 
nerves  of  the  patronage  dispenser  in  the  Customs  House  and  converted 
him  into  a  more  confident  wielder  of  the  pruning  shears.  Heads  rolled 
and  bodies  twitched  as  he  and  Alexander  lopped  off  the  lower  branches 
of  the  Albany  Regency.  By  early  February,  however  Alexander  was 
calling  on  Tyler  for  more  removals  and  new  appointments  than  the 
President  could  possibly  make  and  see  through  the  Senate  in  the  short 
time  remaining  to  him.  Even  as  the  administration  approached  the  last 
two  weeks  of  its  fading  grip  on  power,  the  eager  Alexander  was  bombard- 
ing the  White  House  with  demands  and  suggestions  for  dozens  of  "mid- 
night" appointments.  Only  a  few  of  these  actually  reached  the  stage  of 
a  formal  Presidential  nomination  and  fewer  still  ever  came  to  a  vote  on 
the  Senate  floor.  Alexander  knew  that  only  a  handful  of  these  last- 
minute  nominations  could  possibly  slip  through.  But  his  was  the  buck- 
shot-against-the-barn-door  theory;  throw  in  enough  names  and  a  few 
might  slide  by  in  the  rush  of  business  at  the  end  of  a  session.  And  if 
none  did,  the  very  fact  of  the  nomination  inflated  the  ego  of  the  nominee 
and  was  often  as  valuable  politically  as  a  nomination  that  held  real 
possibility  of  confirmation.26 

As  the  Tyler  administration  approached  the  end  of  its  allotted  span, 
the  inner  circle  in  New  York  also  debated  the  fate  of  its  feeble  printed 


voice.  What  to  do  with  the  Aurora?  The  newspaper  had  long  gobbled  up 
money  faster  than  the  Tylerites  could  raise  it.  On  December  25,  1844, 
Postmaster  John  Lorimer  Graham  told  Alexander  that  the  journal  had 
finally  "come  to  a  crisis,"  and  that  a  heavy  dose  of  new  capital  would  be 
needed  to  keep  the  sheet  afloat  for  as  little  as  six  more  months.  On 
January  9,  1845,  Dr.  N.  T.  Eldridge,  one  of  the  Aurora's  tiny  band  of 
angels,  reported  that  the  printer  had  not  been  paid  for  two  weeks.  He 
recommended  "a  collection  from  friends  as  early  as  possible"  to  meet  the 
bill.  Various  contributions  from  Alexander  Gardiner  and  editor  Dunn 
English,  a  $2000  personal  loan  from  Collector  of  the  Port  C.  P.  Van 
Ness,  and  a  "forced  loan"  of  $2000  from  various  loyal  Tylerite  office- 
holders in  New  York  had  already  disappeared  into  the  belly  of  the  hun- 
gry Aurora  with  scarcely  a  trace.  Debts  mounted  alarmingly.  As  much  as 
the  Tylerites  desired  and  needed  a  newspaper  outlet  in  New  York  City, 
there  seemed  no  way  to  sustain  the  foundering  journal.  Thus  when  he 
was  asked  in  early  January  whether  he  wanted  to  keep  the  paper  going 
at  any  cost,  Tyler  responded  bluntly  that  he  did  not  "care  a  God  damn 
about  it."  He  had  his  own  problems,  and  he  had  little  time  or  disposition 
to  worry  about  the  Aurora's.  The  decision  was  therefore  made  to  merge 
the  Aurora  into  Levi  D.  Slamm's  New  York  Plebeian.  There  was  appar- 
ently no  other  solution.  At  least  the  Plebeian  was  anti-Van  Buren,  al- 
though its  pro-Tylerism  was  temporary,  opportunistic,  and  quite  rightly 
suspect.  Nevertheless,  in  return  for  a  guarantee  of  printing  commissions 
from  the  Customs  House  and  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  the  Plebeian 
absorbed  the  Aurora  and  its  numerous  liabilities.27 

At  that  moment,  in  mid- January,  the  loss  of  the  Aurora  seemed  to 
the  Tylerites  more  than  compensated  for  by  the  progress  of  the  Texas 
Resolution  through  Congress.  Into  this  final  fight  for  Texas  the  Tylers 
and  Gardiners  flung  themselves  with  unity  and  vigor.  For  a  brief  period 
in  January  and  February  of  1845  ^e  alliance  of  the  two  families  func- 
tioned primarily  as  a  lobby  for  Texas  annexation.  In  Washington,  the 
Gardiner  and  Tyler  ladies  cajoled,  wheedled,  flirted,  danced,  entertained, 
and  otherwise  stalked  and  buttonholed  every  walking  vote  that  came 
within  polka  distance.  In  New  York,  Alexander  and  Robert  Tyler 
labored  to  organize  the  Conservative  Democracy  for  Texas  annexa- 
tion with  patronage,  persuasion,  and  pressure.  In  this  effort  the  two 
young  politicians  had  no  difficulty  distinguishing  their  friends  from  their 
enemies.  As  Alexander  informed  the  White  House,  "The  only  division  of 
the  Democracy  in  this  state,  sensible  and  founded  on  principle,  is  with 
those  who  are  favorably  disposed  to  the  Treaty  of  Annexation  and  those 
who  are  not.  There  is  none  which  so  clearly  designates  those  who  are 
with  and  those  who  are  against  us."  28 

Chief  among  those  in  New  York  City  who  were  "favorably  dis- 
posed" toward  Texas  was  the  colorful  Captain  Isaiah  Rynders,  leader 

279 


of  the  Tammany  Hall-connected  Democratic  Empire  Club.  It  was 
through  Rynders  and  his  political  roughnecks  that  Alexander  and  Robert 
worked  most  effectively  to  bring  the  whole  of  the  Wigwam  to  a  pro- 
annexationist  point  of  view* 

Isaiah  Rynders  was  a  thirty-eight-year-old,  dark-complexioned, 
over-middle-height  man  who  was  built  like  a  bull.  Born  in  Waterford, 
New  York,  he  grew  up  to  the  life  of  a  deck  hand  on  Hudson  River  sloops 
and  steamers.  Duelist,  gambler,  traveler,  patriot,  Democrat,  expansionist, 
and  soldier  of  fortune  in  the  Texas  Revolution,  he  eventually  came  to  own 
two  small  river  vessels  on  the  Hudson.  From  this  accomplishment  he  de- 
rived the  title  "Captain."  In  the  words  of  the  New  York  Herald,  "women 
and  wine.,  fighting,  sporting,  dancing,  and  free  living,  all  receive  his  due 
attention."  In  July  1844  Rynders  organized  the  Democratic  Empire 
Club  to  protest  a  municipal  ordinance  prohibiting  the  use  of  fireworks 
and  firewater  in  celebrations  of  the  Glorious  Fourth.  The  club  quickly 
became  a  tough,  patronage-hungry  outfit  comprised  largely  of  free- 
swinging,  hard-drinking  Irish-American  dock  and  river  workers.  During 
the  1844  Presidential  campaign  Rynders  affiliated  the  club  with 
Tammany  Hall — for  a  modest  ($3000)  consideration.  He  served 
gallantly  in  the  Polk  cause,  specializing  in  breaking  up  Henry  Clay 
rallies  with  his  roving  squadrons  of  Empire  Club  street  fighters.  For 
somewhat  more  formal  and  official  ceremonies  he  dressed  his  goons  in 
snappy  red  jackets  which  attracted  considerable  attention.  Mustering 
well  over  two  hundred  head-banging  and  often  unemployed  patriots 
(Rynders  called  them  "The  Boys"),  the  Empire  Club  was  strongly  anti- 
Van  Buren  and  anti-abolitionist;  it  was  pro-Polk,  pro-Tyler,  and  pro- 
Texas.  When  Rynders  went  to  Washington  in  late  December  to  talk 
patronage,  politics,  and  Texas  annexation  with  Major  William  H.  Polk, 
Ms  presence  in  town  stirred  the  Herald  to  remark  that  "important  func- 
tionary as  President  Tyler  is  in  Washington,  we  assure  you  that  Mr. 
W.  H.  Polk  is  now  the  lion  with  Captain  Rynders  and  the  Empire  Club 
— the  lion  of  placemen  and  men  for  place."  When  patronage  was  in- 
volved, the  dashing  Captain  was  equally  at  home  in  either  the  Tyler  or 
Polk  camp.29 

Alexander  favored  the  Empire  Club  with  as  much  patronage  as  he 
was  capable  of  showering.  The  club,  in  turn,  through  member  David  H. 
Broderick,  helped  secure  Alexander's  nomination  for  the  assembly  in 
October  1844.  More  helpfully,  Tammany  Hall  was  packed  with  Rynder's 
strategically  deployed  "Red  Jackets"  on  the  crucial  evening  of  January 
24,  1845,  when  the  New  York  City  Democracy  debated  the  Texas  ques- 
tion in  open  convention.  Robert  Tyler  treated  the  crowd  to  an  emo- 
tionally charged  speech  on  the  subject.  Alexander,  however,  had  arranged 
the  show.  He  drew  up  resolutions  demanding  the  "immediate  reaimexa- 
tion"  of  Texas  and  an  end  to  "fruitless  procrastination."  These  resolu- 
tions designated  Polk's  election  victory  a  popular  mandate  for  immediate 

280 


annexation,  and  called  for  American  intervention  in  the  Mexican-Texan 
dispute  under  the  provisions  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  As  Alexander 
phrased  the  Monroe  Doctrine  rationalization,  the  United  States  was 
"the  parental  source  of  the  independence  of  every  sovereignty  in  this 
hemisphere,  [and]  has  a  right  to  regard  herself  as  the  natural  protector 
of  their  peace  and  welfare."  These  and  similar  propositions  were  offered 
the  Tammany  Hall  gathering  of  January  24  by  Alexander,  and  by 
Rynders  and  Broderick  at  Alexander's  "instigation."  The  Gardiner 
resolutions  were  quietly  circulated  among  the  Tylerites,  Polkites,  and 
Red  Jackets  "some  hours  before  the  meeting/7  and  when  the  time  came 
to  debate  them  they  were  cheered,  shouted,  and  stamped  through  in  a 
scene  of  pandemonium  that  concluded  with  "eight  hearty  cheers  for 
Honest  John  Tyler."  It  was  a  beautifully  organized  coup  for  Alexander, 
and  he  was  convinced  that  Tammany's  action  on  Texas  "had  a  material 
effect  upon  the  action  of  Congress."  Undoubtedly  it  did  have  some 
effect,  although  exactly  how  much  cannot  be  determined.  In  any  event, 
the  next  day,  January  25,  the  Texas  Resolution  passed  the  House  of 
Representatives  with  a  twenty- two-vote  majority,  120  to  98.  "Rejoice 
with  me,"  exulted  Tyler  on  the  fact  and  size  of  the  House  vote.  "I  en- 
tertain strong  hopes  that  it  will  pass  the  Senate.  A  greater  triumph  was 
never  achieved  than  that  already  accomplished."  30 

On  January  26,  Robert  and  Alexander  hosted  a  lavish  victory  dinner 
at  Howard's  Hotel  for  Rynders  and  other  leaders  of  the  Empire  Club 
and  for  various  Tylerite  functionaries  from  the  New  York  Customs 
House  and  Post  Office.  The  House  had  passed  the  Texas  Resolution  the 
preceding  day  and  spirits  around  the  banquet  table  were  high.  It  was  a 
happy  occasion  "marked  by  most  delicious  cookery — excellent  wines — 
and  the  utmost  brilliancy  in  the  sentiments,  toasts,  speeches  [and] 
songs."  The  political  tone  of  the  evening  was  set  by  Robert's  opening 
toast  to  his  father:  "To  John  Tyler,  President  of  the  United  States— ^n 
honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of  God."  Other  toasts  and  the  speeches 
all  cheered  Texas  annexation  and  hopefully  linked  the  future  political 
destiny  of  Tyler  with  that  of  Polk.  The  Van  Buren-Silas  Wright  faction 
of  the  Democracy  was  roundly  damned,  hissed,  and  booed.  The  whole 
affair,  remarked  the  Herald,  "will  have  a  most  important  and  interesting 
bearing  on  the  distribution  of  office  under  the  new  administration."  31 

Alexander  did  not  relax  his  pursuit  of  Texas  annexation  after  the 
House  vote  of  January  25.  On  the  contrary,  he  delivered  speeches  for 
annexation,  manipulated  patronage  for  annexation,  prepared  pro-annexa- 
tion briefs  for  the  use  of  Tylerite  speakers  (briefs  which  carefully 
avoided  the  slavery  question),  and  urged  Tylerite  officeholders  all  over 
the  country  to  bend  their  energies  and  their  voices  to  promoting  the  great 
cause.32 

In  Washington  the  family  fretted  and  worried  as  the  joint  resolution 
made  its  way  through  Congress.  Julia  and  Margaret  followed  the  course 

281 


of  the  legislation  with  great  care,  reporting  details  of  its  daily  progress  to 
Alexander  in  New  York.  David  Lyon  frequently  escorted  the  ladies  of 
the  Court  to  Capitol  Hill  to  hear  the  Texas  debate,  most  of  which  he 
evaluated  as  "very  indifferent."  Yet  he  was  certain  that  any  "Democrat 
who  takes  a  stand  in  direct  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  Democratic  party  will  have  [not]  much  to  hope  for  hereafter  at 
their  hands."  Juliana,  on  the  other  hand,  was  fearful  that  the  Van  Buren 
element  in  Congress  was  too  strong,  and  that  the  Senate  would  probably 
table  the  whole  question  as  the  session  ended.  The  skillful  floor  fight  for 
the  measure  conducted  by  Senator  Robert  J.  Walker,  the  Fabian  tactics 
of  "Old  Bullion"  Benton  in  opposition  to  the  resolution,  the  various 
amendments,  counter-amendments,  arguments,  pleas,  and  subtle  political 
exchanges  on  the  issue  were  much  too  complex  for  the  mother  and  her 
daughters  to  follow:  "Politically  all  seems  confusion,"  Juliana  wrote 
Alexander.  She  was  amazed  at  "how  it  seems  to  fluctuate — one  day  no 
doubt  of  annexation;  the  next,  all  doubt."  33 

After  several  weeks  of  alternate  optimism  and  pessimism,  Julia  be- 
gan to  feel,  by  February  23,  that  the  prospects  for  annexation  now 
looked  "very  encouraging."  She  was  ecstatic  in  anticipation  of  a  tri- 
umphant outcome.  "It  is  confidently  expected  to  be  passed  this  week/3 
she  told  Alexander  excitedly.  "The  prospect  is  quite  bewildering;  for  it 
is  the  President's  last  remaining  desire."  Alexander  immediately  came  to 
Washington  to  be  on  hand  for  the  final  push  in  the  Senate.  Happily  for 
John  Tyler  and  his  battered  ego,  his  "last  remaining  desire"  became  a 
reality  on  February  27  when  the  Senate  approved  the  Texas  Resolution 
by  the  tiny  margin  of  27  to  25.  The  shift  of  a  single  vote  would  have 
killed  it.  For  this  outcome  Senator  Walker  was  largely  responsible.  He 
saved  the  day  for  the  President  with  a  bit  of  very  fancy  parliamentary 
footwork.  Specifically,  he  amended  the  House  legislation  to  permit  the 
Chief  Executive  the  option  either  of  dealing  with  Texas  under  the  joint 
resolution  or  by  negotiating  an  entirely  new  treaty  of  annexation.  In  so 
doing,  he  strongly  intimated  that  the  second  course  would  be  followed. 
Since  Tyler's  remaining  time  in  office  would  obviously  not  permit  him 
the  luxury  of  the  new  treaty  approach,  Walker's  shrewd  amendment 
appealed  alike  to  those  anti-annexationists  and  anti-Tylerites  who 
wanted  to  defeat  the  whole  scheme  by  delay,  and  to  those  Polkites  who 
would  have  been  pleased  to  see  Young  Hickory  receive  the  historical 
credit  for  the  act  however  it  was  consummated.  Walker's  tactic  in- 
fluenced a  few  key  votes.  Thanks  also  to  his  compelling  advocacy  of 
his  Texas  "safety  valve"  slavery  thesis,  together  with  firm  behind-the- 
scenes  political  pressure  from  President-elect  Polk,  enough  Southern 
Whigs  and  Northern  Democrats  reversed  the  positions  they  had  taken 
in  July  1844  to  assure  the  success  of  the  measure.  The  House  approved 
the  Senate  version  as  amended  by  Walker  by  a  vote  of  132  to  76. 

It  was  a  wonderful  day  for  John  Tyler.  "All  is  glorification,"  Alex- 

282 


ander  reported  from  Washington.  When  Alexander's  glad  tidings  reached 
New  York  (the  Gardiner  ladies  had  returned  to  Lafayette  Place  shortly 
after  Julia's  final  ball  on  February  18),  the  reaction  was  explosive. 
"The  girls  [Mary  and  Phoebe]  were  here  when  news  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas  arrived/'  Margaret  wrote  Julia.  "We  all  cheered  so  vociferously 
in  the  dining  room  that  Mama  hastened  downstairs  with  the  sure  con- 
viction that  we  had  quite  run  mad,  and  such  an  advent  seemed  the 
more  natural  to  her  from  our  continued  merriment  over  the  frothy  events 
of  our  winter."  34 

Tyler  signed  the  annexation  measure  into  law  on  March  i,  three 
days  before  he  surrendered  his  office.  It  was,  Julia  recalled  years  later, 
"the  great  object  of  Ms  ambition"  and  there  was  no  hesitation  on  his 
part  in  rejecting  the  second  of  the  Walker  amendment  options  and 
completing  annexation  himself.  His  Cabinet  approved  his  egocentric  de- 
cision in  this  regard  and  Polk  acquiesced  in  it.  Tyler  gave  his  wife  the 
historic  pen  with  which  he  signed  the  legislation  and  Julia  wore  the  "im- 
mortal golden  pen"  around  her  neck  like  the  Distinguished  Service 
Medal  it  was.  Meanwhile,  the  President's  nephew,  Floyd  Waggaman, 
was  dispatched  to  Texas  with  the  documents  necessary  to  consummate 
the  final  details  of  the  annexation. 

On  the  evening  of  March  2  a  brilliant  Cabinet  dinner  was  held  at 
the  White  House  to  celebrate  the  Texas  victory.  The  Polks  were  present, 
Sarah  Polk  wearing  "black  velvet  and  a  headdress  with  plumes."  Julia 
was  magnificently  clad  in  "black  blonde  over  white  satin."  The  con- 
versation, of  course.,  was  all  Texas,  as  the  outgoing  and  incoming  Presi- 
dents congratulated  and  toasted  each  other  on  the  success  of  annexation. 
Wine  and  champagne  flowed.  "Julia  looked  remarkably  well,"  Alexan- 
der reported,  "and  carried  off  the  whole  affair  with  much  effect,  quite 
captivating  Polk  and  Dallas."  So  it  was  that  John  Tyler  left  office  in  an 
atmosphere  of  euphoric  triumph,  Julia  as  usual  "captivating"  the  right 
people  right  to  the  end. 

No  one  in  the  family  circle  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  the  fact 
that  on  March  3,  1845,  *he  Congress  of  the  United  States  finally  beat 
"Old  Veto"  at  his  specialty.  For  the  first  time  in  American  history  the 
Congress  passed  a  bill  into  law  over  a  Presidential  veto.  Even  on  this 
issue,  a  minor  one  concerning  two  revenue  cutters,  Tyler's  position  was 
sound.  Still,  who  could  get  excited  about  revenue  cutters  when  the 
Republic  of  Texas  had  just  become  part  of  the  American  Union?  Not 
Tyler,  certainly.  To  him,  his  administration  was  now  a  success.  His 
enemies  could  have  the  revenue  cutters;  he  would  take  Texas.35 

To  Alexander  Gardiner  the  Tyler  administration  was  a  triumph  in 
more  ways  than  Texas.  Indeed,  as  the  annexation  legislation  wound  its 
involuted  way  into  law,  Alexander  secured  from  the  President  the  pa- 
tronage appointment  in  New  York  that  would  provide  him  a  safe  re- 

283 


doubt  from  which  lie  could  direct  Tylerite  political  matters  in  the  city 
after  the  Chief  Executive  left  office.  There  were  also  financial  considera- 
tions Involved  in  Alexander's  hunger  for  office.  He  and  David  Lyon  were 
not  successful  lawyers  in  a  financial  sense.  Their  father,  it  will  be  re- 
called7  had  subsidized  their  struggling  practice  with  regular  cash  in- 
fusions until  shortly  before  his  death  in  February  1844.  After  the  Sena- 
tor died,  his  sons  were  forced  to  draw  on  the  principal  as  well  as  the 
income  of  the  family  estate  to  maintain  a  proper  standard  of  living. 
In  early  1844  David  Lyon  stopped  practicing  law  altogether  and  left  his 
brother  to  run  the  office  alone.  By  January  1845  Alexander  was  com- 
plaining bitterly  to  Julia  that  his  law  business  was  very  slack.  He  had 
received  no  legal  commissions  from  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
since  the  April  1844  term.  What  he  was  owed  by  the  Circuit  Court  for 
work  done  prior  to  that  term  had  not  yet  been  paid.  He  was,  of  course, 
too  involved  in  local  politics  to  do  full  justice  to  what  practice  he  had, 
and  his  mother  frequently  scolded  him  on  this  score.  Thus,  he  wanted 
and  needed  a  steady  income  for  day-to-day  expenses.  He  did  not  want 
to  dip  into  Gardiner  capital  investments  at  a  time  when  the  1837-1844 
depression  was  lifting  and  stock  and  real  estate  values  in  New  York 
were  beginning  to  show  hopeful  signs  of  appreciation.  For  this  reason, 
Juliana  encouraged  his  quest  for  office,  urging  him  not  to  become  "dis- 
couraged about  some  appointment."  36 

Alexander  first  asked  Tyler  for  a  patronage  post  in  May  1844,  a 
month  before  the  President's  marriage  to  Julia.  Tyler  was  willing  to  ob- 
lige the  young  lawyer,  but  he  had  nothing  at  that  moment  to  confer,  not 
even  an  assignment  as  a  special  diplomatic  courier  ("The  rapid  and 
facile  intercourse  by  Steam  Ships  has  almost  entirely  dispensed  with  the 
necessity  of  special  dispatch  agents,"  he  explained),  or  a  lowly  secretary- 
ship in  an  overseas  consulate.  "How  would  a  trip  to  South  America 
meet  your  views — the  trip  to  last  for  some  six  months?"  Tyler  asked 
him.  "I  anticipate  an  occurrence  which  may  shortly  render  an  agent 
necessary."  Unfortunately  for  Alexander,  the  "anticipated  occurrence" 
did  not  transpire.37 

Nevertheless,  the  idea  of  a  romantic  foreign  mission  fascinated  him. 
In  September  1844  he  asked  Julia  about  the  vacant  consulship  at 
Marseilles: 

What  is  the  consulship  at  Marseilles  worth,  and  what  do  you  consider  the 
dignity  of  the  place?  So  far  as  health  is  concerned  there  could  be  no  better 
location  for  me;  and  I  have  long  had  a  desire  to  visit  "foreign  parts." ...  I 
presume  that  Marseilles  is  no  marrying  place,  but  I  do  not  perceive  that 
any  immediate  expectations  in  that  way  open  upon  me  even  here;  unless, 
indeed,  you  may  find  me  a  southern  lady,  rich  and  pretty.  I  must  have  them 
both.  High  ho!  Julia,  what  do  you  think  of  it?  ...  I  am  ready  for  any  or  all 
enterprises  in  love,  politics  or  business! 

284 


Julia  encouraged  his  interest  in  a  foreign  mission  aof  some  conspicuous 
sort/7  but  she  crushed  the  Marseilles  idea  with  the  information  that  the 
post  paid  no  salary  and  "to  make  it  truly  profitable  [you}  must  be  con- 
nected in  commercial  business.  It  would  then  be  very  lucrative."  An- 
other drawback  of  the  Marseilles  appointment  was  that  "Alex  must  run 
the  chance  of  rejection  by  the  Senate."  3S 

Senate  approval  was  a  major  consideration.  So  many  of  Tyler's 
end-of-administration  appointees  were  being  rejected  by  the  Senate  that 
Robert  warned  Alexander  to  seek  only  a  position  that  did  not  require 
Senate  consent.  The  scent  of  nepotism  was  already  in  the  air,  an  odor 
Robert  himself  had  raised  in  his  unremitting  efforts  to  get  Priscilla's 
father  suitably  placed  in  office  before  the  Tyler  administration  expired. 
Indeed,  the  Senate's  stubborn  refusal  to  confirm  the  old  actor's  nomina- 
tion as  Surveyor  of  the  Port  of  Philadelphia  could  be  traced  to  the  fact 
that  Robert  had  lobbied  so  crudely  and  openly  on  Cooper's  behalf. 
Scalded  on  the  Cooper  appointment,  Robert  cautioned  Alexander  that  "it 
would  be  bad  to  risk  your  name  before  the  Senate."  With  this  advice 
the  President  agreed,  noting  further  that  "if  you  [are]  rejected  it 
would  be  a  death  blow  to  your  future  prospects."  Specifically,  Robert 
suggested  to  Alexander  that  he  take  the  post  of  Disbursing  Agent  of  the 
dry  dock  at  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  but  the  job  did  not  appeal  to 
Alexander.  Nor  was  it  on  the  patronage  shopping  Hst  he  had  submitted 
to  the  White  House  on  January  8.  It  had  only  the  advantage  of  not 
being  subject  to  Senate  scrutiny: 

As  to  office  [he  instructed  Julia],  tlie  Liverpool  Consulship  would  be  highly 
agreeable  if  I  could  get  it  consistent  with  the  President's  interests;  the 
Marshalship  [of  New  York]  I  would  not  undertake;  the  Navy  Agency  I 
would  take  though  it  is  scarcely  of  a  caste  to  which  I  should  aspire.  The 
Navy  Agency  is  worth  in  itself  $2000  a  year  and  is  an  easy,  at  least  not  a 
difficult  office.  If  I  am  to  remain  in  New  York,  it  would  be  probably  as  good 
as  any  here  excepting  the  clerkship  of  the  U.S.  Circuit  Court.3d 

The  Liverpool  consulate  was  vacant,  and  at  various  times  in  Jan- 
uary and  February  Julia  and  David  Lyon  suggested  that  AJexander  take 
the  post.  He  refused  it,  convinced  now  that  Tyler's  future  political  inter- 
ests would  better  be  served  were  he  to  remain  in  New  York.  The  Navy 
Agency  position  was  also  a  possibility.  It  would  keep  him  in  the  city, 
but  unfortunately  it  required  Senate  confirmation.  Nonetheless,  David 
Lyon  thought  Alexander  might  have  a  try  at  it  if  Tyler's  initial  nominee, 
James  H.  ("Cheap  Jimmy")  Suydam,  was  turned  down  by  the  Senate 
(he  was).  After  a  careful  evaluation  of  the  job,  Alexander  decided  that 
the  Navy  Agency  did  not  pay  enough.  With  this  belated  discovery  he 
announced  flatly  that  he  was  not  interested  in  it.  Nor  was  he  interested 
when  William  Gibbs  McNeill,  Chief  Engineer  of  the  Brooklyn  dry  dock 
and  a  Tyler  leader  in  New  York,  suggested  that  he  might  become  a 

285 


"Special  Agent"  for  the  dry  dock;  or,  that  not  appealing,  an  Inspector 
of  Live  Oak  for  the  Navy  Department.  McNeill  informed  Alexander, 
when  offering  him  a  sinecure  in  the  dry  dock,  that  Congress  would  have 
to  come  up  with  "a  liberal  appropriation  and  soon — for  from  the  want 
of  it  I  am  already  constrained  to  limit  my  operations."  For  this  reason  he 
urged  Gardiner  to  "stir  yourself  among  some  of  the  Members  on  this 
point"  when  he  next  visited  the  capital.  For  a  few  weeks  the  dry  dock 
appeared  Alexander's  best  prospect,  although  his  enthusiasm  for  the 
post  remained  low.  When  he  finally  learned  from  the  White  House  in 
mid-February  that  neither  a  special  agent  nor  a  disbursing  agent  could 
be  added  to  the  already  overloaded  table  of  organization  in  the  patron- 
age preserve  of  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  he  began  to  get  panicky.  Tyler 
had  three  weeks  in  office  remaining  and  nothing  had  been  decided.  All 
the  possible  patronage  doors  seemed  to  be  closing,  and  Alexander  ex- 
pressed his  alarm  to  Julia.  "I  do  not  forget  you,"  Julia  calmed  him,  "and 
we  shall  see  how  things  result."  40 

Things  resulted  quite  neatly.  Since  early  December  Alexander  had 
eyed  the  clerkship  in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of 
Southern  New  York,  a  "very  good  and  lucrative  office"  held  by  Tylerite 
functionary  J.  Paxton  Hallet.  It  required  no  Senate  confirmation.  When 
Hallet  expressed  interest  in  the  vacant  Liverpool  consulship  in  Decem- 
ber, Alexander  hastily  wrote  Tyler  suggesting  Hallet's  appointment — an 
appointment  that  would  conveniently  vacate  the  clerkship.  In  November, 
however,  the  President  had  nominated  Judge  Edward  Douglass  White 
for  the  Liverpool  post  in  part  payment  for  White's  loyalty  to  him  as 
chairman  of  the  Tyler  convention  in  Baltimore  in  May  1844.  He  did  this 
in  full  knowledge  that  White's  confirmation  by  the  Senate  was  a  dim 
prospect.  White  was  indeed  rejected  by  that  body  on  February  8.  By 
that  date  Alexander's  anxiety  for  office  had  grown  appreciably,  and  he 
was  quick  to  urge  Hallet  for  the  Liverpool  job  once  again.41 

The  clerkship  was  a  plum.  It  paid  a  comfortable  $2600  per  annum. 
With  various  attached  commissions,  emoluments,  perquisites,  and  op- 
portunities for  private  practice  outside  business  hours,  it  could  be  made 
to  yield  upwards  of  $10,000  a  year.  That,  at  least,  was  the  value  Mar- 
garet placed  on  it  after  careful  research  into  the  matter.  Thus  while 
Senate  approval  of  Judge  White's  nomination  was  still  pending,  Julia 
urged  her  brother  to  "keep  in  view  the  Clerkship  of  the  Court."  She 
thought  Robert  might  help  Alexander  make  preliminary  arrangements 
for  the  appointment  at  the  New  York  end,  and  she  wrote  her  brother 
that  if  he  secured  the  lucrative  post  "I  shall  expect  a  handsome  pres- 
ent." 42 

The  day  after  White's  rejection  for  the  Liverpool  consulate  (Feb- 
ruary 9) ,  Juliana  assured  Alexander  that  he  was  "likely  to  get  the  Clerk- 
ship" and  she  advised  him  that  she  thought  "a  very  quiet  course  of 
politics  will  be  the  best  policy  for  you  at  present."  It  was  high  time,  she 

286 


argued,  that  her  son  break  off  his  "contact  with  the  doubtful  characters" 
who  surrounded  the  Customs  House  and  Post  Office  in  New  York. 
Alexander  would  not  accept  his  mother's  advice.  Instead,  he  undertook  to 
persuade  Hallet,  a  very  "doubtful  character,"  to  resign  his  clerkship  and 
accept  a  nomination  to  Liverpool.  This  was  no  mean  feat,  since  it  was 
likely  that  even  were  Hallet  to  win  Senate  approval  (as  he  did),  he 
might  swiftly  be  purged  from  his  new  post  by  Polk  (as  he  was).  Just 
how  Alexander  and  the  President  accomplished  this  persuasive  coup  with 
Hallet  is  not  known — probably  by  flattery,  appeals  to  party  loyalty, 
references  to  the  great  dignity  of  the  Liverpool  office,  and  perhaps  even 
a  small  financial  settlement.  Hallet  was  a  poor  man,  and  he  was  uncom- 
monly vain.  In  any  event,  at  Alexander's  urging,  and  with  Hallet's  con- 
sent, Tyler  nominated  him  for  the  Liverpool  consulate  on  February  18. 
Then  with  the  help  of  Attorney  General  John  Nelson  and  the  interven- 
tion of  New  York  Chief  Justice  Samuel  Nelson,  whose  own  nomination 
to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  by  Tyler  had  first  been  suggested 
by  Alexander,  the  clerkship  matter  was  arranged.  Alexander  took  Hal- 
let's  place  as  Clerk  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  for  Southern  New 
York  on  April  10,  i845.43 

When  he  first  occupied  the  clerkship  Alexander  found  himself  in  an 
embarrassing  financial  condition.  His  law  practice  had  lain  neglected 
for  over  a  year.  He  had  poured  money  into  the  Aurora  and  into  his 
own  unsuccessful  race  for  the  New  York  Assembly.  Contributions  to 
the  Tyler  party  and  personal  loans  to  various  of  its  hacks  had  further 
reduced  his  reserves.  Just  how  much  covert  financial  grease  he  provided 
from  his  own  pocket  to  lubricate  the  rusty  axles  of  ward-level  Tyler 
politics  in  New  York  cannot  be  determined.  He  was,  however,  frequently 
approached  for  party  contributions,  and  his  pursuit  of  the  clerkship  very 
likely  required  a  dab  or  two  of  solvent.  To  ease  his  cash  situation  in 
1845  ne  borrowed  money  from  Julia  (the  exact  amount  is  not  known), 
promising  her  25  per  cent  of  the  annual  salary  of  his  clerkship,  or  about 
$650  per  year  until  the  loan  was  repaid.  These  moneys  belonging  to 
his  sister  he  carefully  put  aside,  investing  and  managing  them  for  her 
over  the  years.  By  the  summer  of  1850  he  told  her  that  if  he  could  hold 
on  to  the  clerkship  for  a  while  longer  she  would  "soon  be  able  to  buy  a 
fine  estate  on  James  River  or  any  other  residence  I  [Julia]  pleased." 
When  Alexander  died  suddenly  in  January  1851  without  a  will,  leaving 
Julia  only  his  Kentucky  coal  lands  in  a  verbal  deathbed  distribution  of 
his  assets,  she  naturally  protested  Juliana's  inheritance  of  that  part  of 
Ms  estate  (representing  25  per  cent  of  his  clerkship  salary  for  five 
years)  properly  due  herself.44 

With  the  loan  from  Julia  arranged,  and  his  prospects  for  a  com- 
fortable future  income  from  his  clerkship  assured,  Alexander  settled  into 
the  routine  of  his  new  office,  keeping  a  critical  eye  on  the  New  York 
political  scene  as  Polk  took  charge  of  the  nation.  He  beat  off  an  intrigue 

287 


by  ex-consul  Hallet  to  recover  Ms  clerkship,  and  be  withstood  several 
politically  motivated  attempts  to  slice  into  the  economic  fringe  benefits 
of  his  office.  Margaret  hoped  that  "now  that  he  has  something  else  to 
occupy  him ...  he  will  abjure  Politics  which  has  only  provided  a  bill 
of  expense  and  from  which  no  advantage  has  accrued  to  him."  With  this 
her  mother  agreed,  returning  to  her  old  theme  that  the  Gardiners  had 
never  before  associated  with  the  kind  of  people  Alexander  played  politics 
with.  "There  is  not  one . . .  you  are  brought  into  contact  with  that  I 
would  be  willing  to  endorse,"  she  lectured  him.  To  be  sure,  most  of 
Alexander's  political  cronies  would  have  cut  less  than  acceptable  figures 
at  Newport,  Saratoga,  or  White  Sulphur  Springs.  But  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner could  no  more  "abjure  Politics"  than  his  sister  Julia  could  abjure  a 
new  dress,  a  glittering  ball,  or  an  innocently  capricious  flirtation.45 


288 


RETIREMENT  TO   SHERWOOD  FOREST 


The  ball  and  the  dance  are  all  over.  Goodnight  to 
them,  lady!  Goodnight!  Now  you  will  have  hours  to 
indulge  in  that  wonderful  fancy  of  yours  for  the 
beauties  of  nature. 

MARGARET   GARDINER,    MARCH    184$ 


The  brilliance  of  Julia's  final  ball  and  the  triumph  of  Tyler's  Texas 
treaty  provided  a  magnificent  valedictory  to  the  administration  of  the 
tenth  President.  So  successful  were  their  last  remaining  weeks  in  the 
White  House  that  it  was  difficult  for  Tyler  and  his  bride  to  move  so 
suddenly  from  the  limelight  of  Washington  to  the  relative  political  and 
social  obscurity  of  rural  Virginia.  There  is  nothing  quite  so  peripheral 
in  American  political  life  as  a  brand-new  ex-President,  a  fact  Tyler 
readily  appreciated.  After  much  discussion  within  the  family  circle, 
Julia's  desire  to  remain  in  the  capital  for  the  Polk  inaugural  ball  was 
vetoed.  Instead,  Tyler  decided  that  they  would  depart  immediately  for 
Sherwood  early  on  the  morning  of  Inauguration  Day,  March  4.  "The 
President,"  Margaret  explained,  "does  not  like  the  idea  of  our  going 
from  here  [the  White  House]  to  a  hotel."  x 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  ladies  of  the  Court,  the  few  concluding 
days  of  the  social  season  could  only  be  anticlimactic  after  Julia's  fare- 
well ball  had  passed  into  history.  It  was  determined,  therefore,  to  dis- 
solve the  Court.  Within  a  week  after  the  levee  of  February  18,  Juliana, 
David  Lyon,  and  Margaret  had  returned  to  New  York,  and  Mary  and 
Phoebe  were  sadly  en  route  home  to  the  barren  fastness  of  Shelter 
Island.  To  fill  the  void  created  by  their  departures  Alexander  appeared  at 
the  White  House  on  February  24  in  time  to  cheer  Texas  annexation 

289 


through  the  Senate  and  help  his  sister  pack  and  otherwise  prepare  herself 
physically  and  psychologically  for  the  retreat  to  Sherwood  Forest. 

It  had  been  a  grand  season,  a  wonderful  social  experience  for  the 
young  ladies  of  Julia's  entourage.  "Together  we  have  had  a  fund  of 
merriment,"  concluded  Margaret  in  retrospect.  Phoebe  agreed.  "I  cannot 
tell  you  how  often  I  think  of  the  joyous  hours  spent  with  you/7  she 
thanked  Julia.  "Scenes  of  such  excitement  and  gaiety  were  something  so 
new  to  me,  and  I  mingled  in  them  so  constantly,  that  I  now  look  back 
upon  them  as  a  dream,  long  and  bright,  from  which  I  have  been  sud- 
denly awakened.  I  cannot  realize  that  they  were  over."  Juliana  feared 
that  Julia,  like  Phoebe,  would  also  have  some  difficulty  awaking  from 
the  White  House  dream,  of  adjusting  herself  to  the  sudden  shift  from 
Washington  to  Sherwood  Forest.  She  warned  her  daughter  to  accept  the 
situation  with  grace  and  dignity.  "I  trust  all  things  will  go  well  with 
you,  tho'  it  will  probably  take  time  to  reconcile  you  to  a  life  so  new; 
perhaps  you  may  find  it  pleasant."  2 

The  departure  was  a  sad  one.  A  shipload  of  packing  boxes,  furni- 
ture, and  personal  effects  was  sent  off  to  Sherwood  Forest  on  March  i. 
Two  of  Tyler's  slaves,  Burwell  and  John,  were  sent  ahead  with  the 
horses  and  carriage  on  the  same  day.  Two  days  later,  at  5  P.M.  on 
March  3,  the  President  and  the  First  Lady  officially  said  good-by  to 
their  many  friends.  Robert,  Priscilla,  and  Alexander  were  on  hand  for 
this  gloomy  event,  as  were  the  Cabinet  officers  and  their  wives.  Some 
three  to  four  hundred  people  came  to  the  Blue  Room  to  bid  the  President 
and  his  lady  farewell.  Tears  flowed  freely.  Even  so  hard-boiled  a  politi- 
cian as  John  Lorimer  Graham  was  seen  dabbing  his  eyes  with  a  large 
white  handkerchief.  Present  also  were  a  squad  of  Rynder's  Red  Jackets 
and  a  uniformed  detachment  from  the  Tammany  Hall  White  Eagle  Club. 
Both  groups  had  come  to  Washington  to  cheer  Tyler  out  and  welcome 
Polk  in.  Julia  was  dressed  in  a  "neat  and  beautiful  suit  of  black  with 
light  black  bonnet  and  veil."  To  Thomas  of  the  Herald  she  was 
"charmingly  beautiful. ...  I  never  saw  any  woman  look  more  cheerful 
and  happy."  She  seemed  "as  though  she  had  been  imprisoned  within  the 
walls  of  the  White  House,  and  was  now  about  to  escape  to  the  beautiful 
country  fields  of  her  native  Long  Island."  Julia  played  her  parting  role 
well.3 

As  the  moment  for  the  President's  departure  from  the  White  House 
for  Fuller's  Hotel  approached,  General  John  P.  Van  Ness  stepped  for- 
ward and  delivered'  a  brief  eulogy  of  the  Tyler  administration.  He 
praised  the  President  for  his  foreign-policy  achievements  and  thanked 
him  and  the  First  Lady  for  their  social  hospitality  during  the  recent 
months.  He  assured  the  visibly  moved  Chief  Executive  that  the  pen  of 
history  would  surely  justify  his  administration.  To  these  remarks  Tyler 
responded  with  a  soft-spoken,  extemporaneous  speech: 

290 


In  1840  I  was  called  from  my  farm  to  undertake  the  administration  of 
public  affairs,  and  I  foresaw  that  I  was  called  to  a  bed  of  thorns.  I  now 
leave  that  bed  which  has  afforded  me  little  rest,  and  eagerly  seek  repose  in 
the  quiet  enjoyments  of  rural  life. ...  I  rely  on  future  history,  and  on  the 
candid  and  impartial  judgment  of  my  fellow  citizens,  to  award  me  the  meed 
due  to  honest  and  conscientious  purposes  to  serve  my  country.  I  came  to  the 
Administration  standing  almost  alone,  between  the  two  great  parties  which 
divide  the  country.  A  few  noble-hearted  and  talented  men  rallied  to  my  sup- 
port, denominated  a  "corporal's  guard,"  one  of  whom  [Gushing]  has  just 
returned  having  concluded  an  important  treaty  with  a  vast  empire,  and 
thrown  open  the  trade  of  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  people  to 
American  commerce.  Another  [Wise]  is  at  this  time  performing  the  most 
important  services  in  Brazil  for  the  prevention  and  extermination  of  the 
American  slave-trade.  The  day  has  come  when  a  man  can  feel  proud  of  being 
an  American  citizen.  He  can  stand  on  the  Northeastern  boundary,  or  on  the 
shores  of  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte  and  contemplate  the  extent  of  our  vast 
and  growing  Republic,  the  boundaries  of  which  have  been  settled  and  ex- 
tended by  peaceful  negotiations.  I  am  happy  in  leaving  the  government 
to  know  it  has  come  into  the  hands  of  a  successor  who  has  been  elevated 

by  correct  principles  to  take  my  place The  acquisition  of  Texas  is  a 

measure  of  the  greatest  importance.  Our  children's  children's  children  will  live 
to  realize  the  vast  benefits  conferred  on  our  country  by  the  union  of  Texas 
with  this  Republic 

There  was,  said  Alexander,  who  witnessed  the  scene,  "scarcely  an  eye 
which  was  not  suffused — tears  dropping  upon  the  cheeks  of  men . . . 
little  given  to  the  melting  mood."  It  was  an  impressive  moment.4 

After  shaking  hands  all  around,  especially  with  the  ladies,  many  of 
whom  were  "bathed  in  tears,"  the  President  and  Julia  rode  to  Fuller's 
Hotel.  There  they  were  to  spend  the  evening  prior  to  departing  for  Rich- 
mond the  next  morning  on  the  nine  o'clock  mail  boat.  At  Fuller's  the 
President  was  met  and  cheered  by  a  large  throng  of  well-wishers,  among 
them  members  of  the  Empire  Club  and  the  White  Eagle  Club.  Their 
rooms  were  filled  all  evening  as  their  closest  friends  came  to  bid  more 
lengthy  and  personal  farewells.  The  early  morning  hours  of  Inauguration 
Day  were  disturbed  by  renewed  cheers  for  John  Tyler  from  a  crowd 
gathered  outside  the  hotel.  A  cannon  salute  from  the  playful  White  Eagle 
artillery  unit  broke  several  of  Fuller's  windows.  Shortly  after  9  A.M.  the 
President  and  Julia,  John,  Jr.,  and  Alice  reached  the  dock,  only  to  find 
that  the  mail  boat  had  already  departed  downriver. 

It  was  embarrassing  to  have  to  return  again  to  Fuller's  and  wait 
for  the  night  boat,  but  there  was  no  alternative.  Unfortunately  for  Julia, 
Letitia  Tyler  Semple  and  her  husband  James  had  arrived  in  town  two 
days  earlier  to  accompany  Robert  and  Priscilla  to  Philadelphia.  While 
Alexander  found  Letitia  Semple  a  "fine  looking  and  accomplished 
woman,"  her  appearance  in  the  capital  severely  discomfited  Julia.  The 

291 


two  ladies  were  scarcely  on  speaking  terms,  and  the  tense  confrontation 
was  awkward  for  both  of  them.  The  evening  boat  seemed  a  long  way  off. 
Conveniently,  the  President's  rooms  rapidly  filled  again  with  noisy  well- 
wishers  and  the  touchy  situation  was  mercifully  submerged.  Professors 
and  students  of  Georgetown  College  arrived  in  a  body  to  thank  Tyler 
for  "having  extended  to  the  institution  and  the  cause  of  learning  in  the 
District  more  attention  than  any  of  his  predecessors."  Other  callers  came 
and  went.  So  the  family  remained  occupied  throughout  the  day.  Only 
Alexander  attended  P  oik's  inauguration  ceremony  at  noon.  Young 
Hickory's  cautious  speech  was  delivered  over  the  top  of  a  sea  of  umbrel- 
las, and  Alexander  remarked  that  he  "would  not  go  a  half  mile  to  see  the 
ceremony  repeated."  Nor  had  any  of  the  family  attended  the  inaugural 
ball  the  previous  evening,  "the  President  deeming  it  more  dignified  and 
proper  that  himself  and  Julia  should  remain  at  home."  5 

At  nine  on  the  evening  of  March  4  the  President  and  his  family 
finally  left  the  jam-packed  capital  and  boarded  the  3  A.M.  boat  for  Rich- 
mond. No  one  accompanied  their  carriage  as  they  rode  to  the  pier,  "not 
even  the  tenderhearted  Postmaster  of  the  city  and  county  of  New 
York  was  along/'  sneered  Thomas  of  the  Herald.  The  scene  had  quickly 
shifted  to  Polk,  and  the  Tylers  rode  out  alone.  Julia's  reign  was  over. 
"The  ball  and  the  dance  are  all  over.  Goodnight  to  them,  lady!  Good- 
night! "  Margaret  wrote  her  sister.  "Now  you  will  have  hours  to  indulge 

in  that  wonderful  fancy  of  yours  for  the  beauties  of  nature And 

when  there's  little  to  tempt  you  abroad,  dance  with  the  President  to 
Alice's  music."  Still,  Julia  went  out  in  a  blaze.  As  she  departed  the  town 
a  huge  fire  which  leveled  the  National  Theater  and  a  dozen  surrounding 
buildings  was  at  its  height.  Her  last  view  of  Washington  was  that  of 
Captain  Isaiah  Rynders  and  his  Empire  Club  Red  Jackets,  scarlet  coats 
off,  energetically  fighting  the  blaze.  It  was  a  fitting  symbol.6 

Alexander  remained  in  the  capital  for  a  few  days  to  strengthen  his 
personal  ties  with  the  new  President  and  to  complete  a  eulogistic  ac- 
count of  Tyler's  departure  for  publication  in  the  Madisonian  on  March 
6.  He  called  twice  at  the  White  House  to  chat  with  Polk  and  found  him 
"quite  agreeable."  He  conferred  also  with  those  of  "our  political  friends 
[who]  are  endeavouring  to  form  a  Central  Executive  Committee  to  give 
Mr.  Polk  a  strong  support"  against  the  radical  Van  Buren  wing  of  the 
Democracy.  But  he  confessed  to  Julia  that  he  was  "heartily  tired  of 
Washington,  which  has  lost  almost  every  attraction  since  your  departure. 
I  hear  the  same  remark  made  by  many  others."  On  March  8  he  returned 
to  New  York.  Margaret,  meanwhile,  demanded  details  of  the  family's 
"evacuation  day"  from  the  capital.  "Tell  Alice  I  am  expecting  a  letter 
from  her  daily,"  she  reminded  Alexander  on  March  3.  "She  must  not 
wait  until  she  arrives  at  home  and  then  discuss  the  pigs  and  chickens."  7 

The  President  and  Julia  reached  Richmond  at  2  P.M.  on  March  5 
and  went  straight  to  the  Powhatan  House.  Their  presence  there  caused  a 

292 


delighted  commotion  among  the  guests.  Following  their  return  from  a 
brief  courtesy  call  at  the  Governor's  Mansion  ("where  the  President  you 
know  used  to  reside,"  Julia  told  her  mother),  they  returned  to  the  hotel 
to  greet  numerous  friends  and  acquaintances  who  filled  their  parlor. 
Among  these  callers  were  editor  Thomas  Ritchie,  his  wife,  and  his 
daughters  Ann  Eliza  and  Margaret.  Julia's  campaign  to  charm  the  in- 
fluential Tom  Ritchie  in  the  interest  of  Tyler's  future  political  ambitions 
began  at  that  moment. 

Early  the  next  morning  the  Tylers  embarked  in  the  small  river 
steamer  Curtis  Peck  for  the  short  run  down  the  James  to  Sherwood 
Forest.  At  noon  they  reached  a  landing  opposite  their  destination,  and 
the  "agreeable  company"  on  the  boat  gave  them  three  loud  cheers  of 
farewell  when  their  dinghy  touched  shore  on  the  Sherwood  Forest  side. 
"How  fortunate  for  us  that  Texas  has  passed  and  Clay  is  not  Presi- 
dent," remarked  Julia  of  that  scene.  The  annexation  of  Texas  had 
salvaged  the  reputation  of  John  Tyler  along  the  James  River.  Or  so  it 
momentarily  seemed.  Actually,  as  he  later  told  Edmund  Ruffin,  Tyler 
was  "received  coldly,  or  worse,  by  nearly  all  his  former  friends  and 
neighbors,  all  such  being  his  political  opposers."  Charles  City  was  still 
strongly  anti- Jackson  Whig  territory.  Tyler's  break  with  the  Whigs  and 
his  subsequent  endorsement  of  Young  Hickory  did  not  sit  well  with 
many  of  his  aristocratic  friends  in  the  Tidewater.  As  a  first  order  of 
business  Julia  was  determined  to  break  down  this  petty  neighborhood 
irritation  with  her  husband's  politics.  This  she  eventually  did,  employing 
in  her  effort  weapons  which  had  never  failed  her  before — good  food, 
good  wine,  and  gracious  entertainment.8 

In  the  interim,  however,  Tyler  spent  many  anxious  moments  worry- 
ing about  his  bride's  adjustment  to  her  new  situation  at  Sherwood 
Forest.  He  need  not  have  been  concerned.  JuHa  was  an  extremely  re- 
silient young  woman  and  her  initial  reaction  to  her  new  life  was  one  of 
delight  and  adventure.  Two  days  after  her  arrival,  as  the  packing  boxes 
were  being  emptied  and  the  draperies  hung,  she  wrote  her  mother  of  her 
happiness,  and  of  Tyler's  concern  for  her  comfort: 

The  house ...  is  neat  and  beautiful  and  in  all  the  arrangements  I  am  very 
much  gratified.  The  house  when  we  arrived  was  vacated  and  opened  to  us 
by  the  servants.  Some  bedrooms  were  in  order,  but  I  went  immediately  into 
the  preparation  of  my  own  particular  one  commencing  at  two  o'clock  and 
before  night  the  carpet  was  nailed  down,  the  bedstead  up  and  all  the  rest  of 

the  furniture  in  position I  defy  you  to  find  so  sweet  a  bedroom  or 

chamber  in  every  respect  as  mine! ...  I  assure  you  Mama  my  house  outside 
and  in  is  very  elegant  and  quite  becoming  "a  President's  Lady/'  You  will 
think  it  a  sweet  and  lovely  spot,  and  I  am  quite  anxious  to  have  you  see 

it  with  your  critical  eyes It  is  clean  and  sweet,  cheerful  and  lovely  here, 

and  you  don't  know  how  grateful  the  repose  is  to  me.  Perhaps  it  is  the  ex- 
citing and  sometimes  wearisome  routine  of  gaiety  I  have  experienced  that 

293 


throws  such  a  charm  around  everything  about  me.  The  President  is  puzzling 
his  wits  constantly  to  prevent  my  feeling  lonely,  and  if  a  long  breath  happens 
to  escape  me  he  springs  up  and  says  "What  will  you  have,"  and  "What  shall 
I  do"  for  "I  am  afraid  you  are  going  to  feel  lonely!"  My  little  bird  hangs  in 
one  of  the  piazzas  and  sings  from  morning  until  night 

Julia  was  as  happy  and  content  as  "Johnny  Ty,"  the  little  canary  who 
sang  from  morning  till  dusk.  She  experienced  moments  of  homesickness 
and  she  hungered  for  the  political  news  and  social  gossip  of  Washington 
and  New  York,  but  by  and  large  she  found  herself  extremely  pleased 
with  Sherwood  Forest.9 

There  was  still  much  to  be  done  in  the  house,  and  Julia  attacked 
the  problem  of  getting  settled  and  arranging  her  belongings  with  char- 
acteristic energy.  "I  hope  you  will  not  go  on  too  fast  in  Virginia  nor 
undertake  too  much  at  once/7  her  mother  warned  her,  "as  you  will  have 
nothing  to  do  in  time  to  come."  There  was  little  danger  of  that,  and 
Julia  hurried  to  make  Sherwood  Forest  the  showplace  of  all  the  estates 
on  the  James.  "I  wish  I  had  a  magic  wand/7  she  confided  to  Margaret. 
"I  would  make  this  place  the  most  beautiful  you  ever  saw  by  perform- 
ing without  delay  what  will  now  have  to  be  gradually  arranged.7'  Since 
there  was  still  much  carpentry  going  on  in  and  around  the  house,  Julia 
daily  supervised  the  workers,  urging  them  forward  with  all  possible 
speed.  From  Alexander  she  requested  Andrew  J.  Downing7s  book  on 
landscape  architecture,  and  she  began  planning  the  grounds,  gardens, 
fences,  and  gates  of  the  estate.  Two  female  statues  were  ordered  from 
New  York  to  "preside  over  the  garden/7  and  two  large  reclining  cast-iron 
dogs  were  obtained  for  the  north  piazza..  So  many  demands  for  rugs, 
curtains,  furniture,  yard  goods,  clothes,  medicines,  books,  magazines — 
and  even  guitar  music — went  to  the  family  in  New  York  that  she  finally 
confessed  to  Alexander  that  "I  suspect  you  think  by  this  I  will  never 
cease  to  want."  She  never  did  cease  to  want.  Over  the  next  fifteen  years 
much  of  her  shopping  for  herself,  her  children,  and  her  home  was  done 
by  mail  through  members  of  her  family  in  the  city.  "You  will  think  my 
commissions  neverending,"  she  apologized  to  Margaret,  "but  I  cannot 
help  it.'7 10 

Among  her  New  York  purchases  in  1845  was  an  expensive  new 
carriage.  To  do  it  justice  she  put  her  Negro  coachmen  and  footmen  into 
resplendent  new  livery,  "handsome  light  grey  dress  coats  (livery  cut) 
with  black  covered  buttons  (made  in  uniform  style)  white  pantaloons 
and  black  hats."  They  cut  dashing  figures,  almost  as  dashing  as  the 
hearty  sailors  of  JuhVs  Navy,  the  four  Negro  oarsmen  who  manned 
her  "Royal  Barge.77 

This  small  boat  was  a  farewell  gift  to  Tyler  from  the  family  of 
Commodore  Beverly  Kennon.  It  arrived  at  Sherwood  Forest  already 
christened  Pocahontas.  Julia  decided  to  rename  the  boat  Robin  Hood — 
"the  Robin  Hood  of  Sherwood  Forest/7  but  she  gave  up  the  idea  when 

294 


reminded  that  boats  were  "always  of  the  feminine  gender."  Margaret 
wanted  her  to  go  one  step  further  in  nomenclature  reform  and  drop  the 
word  Forest  from  the  name  of  the  plantation.  ("  'Forest'  seems  associ- 
ated with  everything  that  is  wild  and  unacclimated  and  remote,"  she 
argued.)  After  consultations  with  Tyler  on  the  problem,  Julia  decided 
that  "Forest"  would  stay  and  "Robin  Hood"  would  go.  Thus  Poca- 
hontas  invaded  "Sherwood  Forest."  Julia  had  the  little  craft  painted 
a  bright  blue  and  she  lined  its  seats  and  thwarts  with  damask  satin 
cushions  richly  trimmed  in  matching  blue.  She  had  long  had  a  weakness 
for  colorful  uniforms,  one  dating  back  to  her  prom  week  end  at  West 
Point  in  1839.  Her  imagination  was  therefore  at  its  creative  height  when 
she  designed  the  garb  of  her  oarsmen: 

Bright  blue  and  white  check  calico  shirts — white  linen  pants — black  patent 
leather  belts — straw  hats  painted  blue  with  Pocahontas  upon  them  in  white — 
and  in  one  corner  of  the  shirt  collar  (which  is  turned  down)  is  worked  with 
braid  a  bow  and  arrow  (to  signify  the  Forest)  and  in  the  other  corner  the 
President's  and  my  initials  combined.11 

Julia  was  certain  that  the  Pocahontas  could  "carry  you  across  the 
ocean — she  is  so  buoyant  and  light."  On  one  of  her  first  voyages,  how- 
ever, she  barely  made  it  across  the  James.  Fitted  with  an  American  flag 
that  rippled  proudly  from  her  prow,  and  a  canopy  that  warded  off  the 
sun,  "a  ly Italian"  [sic],  the  craft  was  made  ready  for  Julia  and  the  Presi- 
dent to  pay  a  mid- June  call  upon  Mrs.  George  Harrison  at  Lower  Bran- 
don. Halfway  across  the  river  the  trusty  Pocahontas  began  leaking  so 
badly  that  Julia  found  herself  perched  on  top  of  her  seat  to  keep  dry.  But 
her  skilled  oarsmen  ("sailors  and  no  mistake")  brought  the  crippled  ves- 
sel safely  to  shore.  Subsequent  caulking  and  painting  properly  tightened 
her  seams,  and  on  later  social  visits  up  and  down  the  river  to  Brandon, 
Weyanoke,  Lower  Brandon,  Shirley,  and  the  other  nearby  plantations 
Julia,  like  Cleopatra,  could  in  all  security  "stretch  myself  out  on  the 
cushions  of  a  much  sweeter  boat  than  our  Gondola  in  Venice."  The 
Pocahontas  survived  all  further  challenges  until  1864,  when  she  dis- 
appeared during  the  fighting  around  Charles  City,  "liberated"  no  doubt 
by  Union  soldiers.12 

Julia  enjoyed  visiting  her  new  neighbors  along  the  river.  Whether 
she  traveled  to  their  homes  in  her  new  carriage  or  in  her  bright  blue 
barge,  she  invariably  arrived  in  style.  She  was  soon  integrated  into  the 
plantation  society  of  the  lower  James.  She  was  a  new  face  in  the 
neighborhood;  pretty,  young,  vivacious,  poised,  she  was  the  object  of 
much  local  attention.  Everyone — Carters,  Harrisons,  Douthats,  Seldens 
— wanted  to  see  the  rich  Yankee  wife  "Old  Veto"  had  brought  home 
with  him.  Tyler,  of  course,  was  pleased  to  show  off  his  attractive  bride. 
As  Julia  immodestly  expressed  his  inordinate  pride  in  her,  "When  he  re- 
turns from  visiting  anywhere  he  is  more  and  more  enraptured  with 

295 


me  and  says  I  am  'different  from  everybody  else  in  the  world/  and 
formed  to  be  the  admiration  of  everyone  who  has  taste  and  wit,  and 
the  wonder  of  all  others — ahem!  . . .  only  a  little  bit  of  flattery!"  Julia 
was  different,  and  Tyler  indulged  her  every  wish  and  fancy.  Her  tastes, 
however,  were  expensive.13 

By  October  1845  the  high  cost  of  her  numerous  household  pur- 
chases, combined  with  the  expense  of  vacation  trips  to  Old  Point 
Comfort j  White  Sulphur  Springs,  and  New  York,  had  brought  the 
former  President  into  financial  difficulty.  These  expenditures  and  the 
continuing  outlays  for  the  remodeling  of  Sherwood  Forest  finally  forced 
a  hard-pressed  Tyler  to  negotiate  a  $2000  loan  from  Corcoran  and 
Riggs,  the  Washington  bankers.  As  security  for  the  loan  he  put  up  one 
quarter  of  his  interest  in  his  coal  and  timber  lands  near  Caseyville, 
Kentucky,  which  he  had  purchased  as  a  speculation  in  1837.  At  the 
same  time  he  commenced  preliminary  negotiation  for  the  sale  of  the 
property  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  His  financial  situation  was  not 
helped  when  a  wandering  note  on  which  he  had  given  surety  for  a  friend 
came  home  to  roost  in  July.  This  act  of  kindness  and  accommodation 
ultimately  cost  him  $1400  he  could  ill  afford.  The  friend  had  died  and 
his  creditors  successfully  sued  co-signer  Tyler  for  the  full  amount  of 
the  note.  "Pray  never  go  security  for  anyone,"  Julia  warned  Alexander. 
"The  President  has  got  to  pony  up  pretty  handsomely  for  that  sort  of 
generosity."  In  desperation  for  ready  cash,  Tyler  began  dunning  his 
own  debtors  for  sums  as  small  as  $3.56  still  owed  him  for  legal  work 
performed  years  earlier.  "These  are  small  matters/'  he  admitted  to  his 
nephew,  "but  the  world  is  made  up  of  atoms;  and  for  myself  I  have 
incurred  pretty  heavy  expenses  in  fixing  up  this  place,  and  dollars 
whether  few  or  many  are  important  to  me."  In  spite  of  his  shaky  fiscal 
situation,  Tyler  stinted  on  none  of  the  expenses  connected  with  Julia's 
desire  to  entertain  her  new  friends  and  neighbors  in  the  grand  manner.14 

In  early  May  Julia  gave  a  large  dinner  party,  her  first  at  Sherwood 
Forest.  She  was  ostensibly  pleased  with  the  results.  "  'The  full  extent  or 
nothing'  is  almost  my  motto  now,"  she  told  her  mother  in  triumph. 
Only  when  the  crusty  Juliana  expressed  surprise  that  her  daughter  had 
really  enjoyed  the  affair  "as  well  as  your  grand  ball  at  the  White 
House,"  did  Julia  confess  that  the  gaiety  of  social  life  along  the  river 
was  a  decided  cut  below  that  of  Washington.  "I ...  have  been  almost 
spoiled  by  excitement  and  livelier  scenes. . , .  What  dinner  parties  of  the 
usual  kind  in  country  or  city  would  not  appear  dull  to  me  after  all  those 
brilliant  ones  we  gave  at  tie  White  House! "  she  admitted.15 

More  serious  for  Julia  than  this  passing  social  disappointment 
was  the  badly  infected  throat  (Tyler  called  it  a  "cold  in  the  face") 
that  sent  her  to  bed  for  two  weeks  in  mid-May  1845.  Painful  as  this 
was  to  her,  it  gave  her  solicitous  mother  a  splendid  opportunity  to 
indulge  in  her  favorite  hobby — medical  diagnosis  by  mail.  In  fact, 

296 


Juliana  spent  most  of  her  adult  life  practicing  medicine  without  a 
license.  No  malady,  large  or  small,  escaped  the  attention  of  the  family 
outpatient  clinic  she  ran  with  the  aid  of  the  Post  Office.  In  this  typical  in- 
stance, quantities  of  patent  medicines  were  rushed  southward  to  Sher- 
wood Forest.  She  had  discussed  the  symptoms  of  Julia's  condition 
with  Dr.  Quin,  the  Gardiner  family  physician  in  New  York,  and  she 
had  decided  upon  the  treatment  to  be  employed.  Having  no  con- 
fidence in  any  but  New  York  doctors  (who  were  medically  as  ignorant 
as  she),  Juliana  confidently  told  her  daughter  exactly  how  throat  in- 
fections should  be  treated.  Alexander  thought  that  Dr.  Quin  and  his 
whole  profession  were  engaged  in  "humbug/'  and  Juliana  agreed  that 
"their  knowledge  is  not  perfect."  But  she  was  certain  that  a  diet 
omitting  wine  and  coffee  would  cure  all  infections  if  these  dangerous 
liquids  were  replaced  by  tea  and  muffins  and  supplemented  by  massive 
doses  ©f  calomel.  Eventually,  Tyler's  brother-in-law  Dr.  Henry  Curtis, 
"an  eminent  physician,"  was  called  in  from  Richmond  for  consulta- 
tion, and  while  he  consulted  and  tinkered  and  speculated,  Julia  got 
well.  She  attributed  her  recovery  to  black  tea.  "I  find  that  black  tea  is 
better  for  me  than  coffee  which  I  thought  I  never  could  live  without," 
she  informed  her  mother.  "I  have  acquired  a  fondness  for  black  tea 
and  scarcely  regret  the  coffee." 16 

As  Julia's  health  returned,  her  emotional  attachment  to  Sherwood 
Forest  and  to  Virginia  deepened  and  matured.  Soon  after  her  arrival  in 
Charles  City  she  had  complained  about  the  "peculiarity  of  Virginia 
manners."  The  soft  deference  that  characterized  personal  relations 
within  the  planter  aristocracy  seemed  strange  to  her  at  first.  She  agreed 
with  her  mother's  view  that  New  York  was  still  "the  first  city  in  our 
Country ...  a  bright  and  smiling  city,"  even  though  she  appreciated 
the  fact  that  its  elite  social  circles  could  not  easily  be  breached  unless 
one  "grew  up  with  it  from  earliest  childhood."  But  after  a  few  months 
at  Sherwood  Forest  Julia  came  to  love  the  studied  chivalry  of  Old 
Dominion  society.  For  the  edification  of  her  family  she  began  to  draw 
comparisons  between  Virginia  and  New  York  which  became  progres- 
sively more  critical  of  the  latter: 

Yesterday  I  had  a  call  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Harrison  of  Lower 
Brandon  across  the  river.  They  are  of  the  first  aristocracy  of  Virginia  and 
amply  did  they  meet  my  views  of  it.  Her  manner  is  very  cultivated — great 

repose  and  finish.  Her  effect  is  that  of  one  born  a  lady I  was  pleased  with 

our  interview  and  her  soft  manners I  do  not  know  any  in  New  York 

society  that  would  appear  so  elegant.  I  know  she  would  feel  herself  far 
before  the  fashionable  society  there.  I  think  there  is  every  prospect  of  my 
being  surrounded  by  an  agreeable  society  and  carry  out  your  idea  of  ex- 
clusiveness  in  every  particular . . .  but  I  think  from  what  you  write  the  first 
society  in  the  State  of  New  York  is  sadly  declining. ...  I  meet  with  more 
accomplishment  among  the  ladies  of  Virginia  than  is  usually  met  with  in 

297 


those  of  New  York  State.  They  have  generally  more  talent  and  finer  man- 
ners, more  self-possession,  which  is  owing  I  think  to  their  priding  themselves 
so  much  on  their  native  state,  "The  Old  Dominion" — the  home  or  birthplace 

of  so  many  Presidents I  should  think,  Margaret,  you  were  really  tired 

of  meeting  face  to  face  that  same  old  set,  those  same  old  coons.  — 17 


In  contrast  with  New  York  City,  life  at  Sherwood  Forest  was 
pleasant,  easy,  and  gracious.  Tyler  spent  three  or  four  hours  a  day  on 
horseback  among  the  slaves  in  the  wheatfields  "encouraging  them  by 
his  presence."  To  protect  himself  from  the  sun  while  he  was  in  the  hot 
fields  he  purchased  a  huge  Panama  hat,  which,  in  Julia's  words,  had  a 
"brim  so  broad  that  his  face  was  quite  lost.  I  thought  I  should  have 
killed  myself  with  laughing.  Since  which  he  has  been  turning  it  up 
in  every  direction  to  lessen  the  size  and  made  me  also  admire  it." 
In  the  late  afternoon  Julia  would  join  her  husband,  he  on  horseback, 
she  on  her  pony,  and  they  would  ride  across  the  flat  acres.  And  in 
the  early  evening  hours  they  would  sit  together  on  the  piazza,  and 
"listen  to  the  corn  song  of  the  work  people  as  they  come  winding  home 
from  the  distant  fields."  18 

Tyler  had  managed  to  get  "a  few  hundred  acres"  of  wheat  planted 
in  the  fall  of  1844.  From  this  modest  effort  he  harvested  two  thousand 
bushels  in  June  1845.  With  wheat  at  one  dollar  a  bushel  that  year, 
and  only  a  fraction  of  the  available  land  at  Sherwood  Forest  yet  under 
cultivation,  the  plantation  gave  great  economic  promise.  Fifty  acres 
of  his  best  bottom  land  were  capable  of  yielding  from  twenty-five 
to  thirty  bushels  per  acre.  The  remainder  would  produce  considerably 
less,  averaging  little  more  than  eight  bushels  to  the  acre.  While  this 
scarcely  compared  with  the  forty  bushels  an  acre  Nathaniel  Gardiner 
harvested  on  Long  Island,  it  would  produce  enough,  Julia  calculated, 
to  "sustain  all  upon  the  estate  in  an  abundance."  Dollar  wheat,  she 
explained  to  Margaret,  was  "cash  in  hand"  on  a  Virginia  wheat  planta- 
tion. She  was  quite  certain,  as  was  her  husband,  that  "these  James 
River  lands  are  very  highly  esteemed  and  are  susceptible  of  anything 
almost  by  improvement."  In  this  she  was  correct.  Under  Tyler's  expert 
management  the  productivity  of  the  plantation  rose  steadily  through 
the  years. 

John  Tyler  was  a  cautious  farmer,  devoted  to  careful  and  patient 
scientific  experimentation.  In  August  1845  he  ordered  a  copy  of  Liebig's 
Chemistry  in  Its  Application  to  Agriculture  and  Physiology  through 
Alexander  in  New  York.  Published  first  in  1841,  this  pioneer  study  in 
soil  chemistry  was  the  best  in  its  field.  He  also  read  Edmund  Ruffin's 
seminal  Essay  on  Calcareous  Manures  (1831),  and  he  followed  Ruffin's 
later  articles  on  the  subject  in  the  Farmer's  Reporter.  Tyler's  study 
of  Liebig  and  Ruffin  convinced  Mm  that  he  must  use  marl  (clay 
mixed  with  calcium  carbonate)  to  correct  the  lime  deficiency  in  Ms 

298 


soil.  He  also  experimented  with  South  African  wheat  seed  in   1847 

and  in  1850  with  wheat  seed  from  California  in  an  attempt  to  develop 
a  rust-resistant  strain  that  would  also  better  withstand  frost.  The  seed 
experiments  failed,  but  the  marl  applications  worked  so  well  in  in- 
creasing his  wheat  and  corn  yields  that  he  was  slow  to  shift  to  the 
use  of  the  much-superior  guano  as  fertilizer.  "The  President's  crop  of 
wheat  is  the  talk  of  Virginia,"  Julia  boasted  in  June  1849: 

A  notice  of  it  even  appeared  in  a  Richmond  paper  as  the  most  flourishing 
crop  on  James  River.  Some  of  his  friends . . .  say  "Ah  ha !  he's  only  been 
on  his  farm  five  years  and  is  before  his  neighbors  already."  We  cannot  form 
the  slightest  idea  how  much  he  will  make,  but  it  is  before  by  a  great  ways 

any  of  his  former  crops.  The  P rides  down  everyday  to  look  at  and 

admire  it. 

Following  the  failure  of  his  1850  crop,  Tyler  reluctantly  aban- 
doned marl  for  the  more  expensive  guano.  He  selected  thirty  of  his 
least  promising  acres  for  the  experiment  in  1851  and  was  astonished 
to  see  the  wheat  yield  soar  from  three  bushels  to  fifteen  on  this  sub- 
standard land.  From  that  point  on  he  used  guano  almost  exclusively. 
Until  the  drought  of  1858-1860  struck  all  the  James  River  plantations, 
Tyler  generally  had  excellent  crops.  Nevertheless,  he  could  never 
estimate  the  price  Ms  grains  would  bring  in  the  Richmond  and  Baltimore 
markets.  Wheat  ranged  from  $i  to  $2.50  a  bushel  during  the  decade 
1845  to  1855.  Corn  fell  as  low  as  50  cents  and  went  as  high  as  $1.50. 
Like  all  farmers  of  the  period,  Tyler  produced  blindly  into  an  unstable 
market,  one  over  which  he  had  no  control.  The  Mexican  War  of  1846— 
1848  shot  prices  upward  for  a  time,  and  the  Crimean  War  pushed  wheat 
to  a  fantastic  $2.50  a  bushel  in  1855.  In  1850,  however,  com  stood 
at  a  mere  50  cents  and  Tyler  was  caught  with  2500  bushels  at  a  price 
"so  low  as  scarcely  to  remunerate."  Farming  was  like  roulette.  Still, 
guano  fertilizer  made  an  immense  difference.  As  Juliana  wrote  from 
Sherwood  during  her  annual  visit  there  in  September  1855: 

You  see  very  few  careworn  faces  here  and  I  begin  to  think  these  planters 
lead  comfortable,  independent  lives  with  less  to  annoy  them  than  our  city 
business  men.  Guano  is  making  them  rich  quite  rapidly.  In  driving  around  I 
am  made  sensible  of  this  from  the  sight  of  their  crops — wheat  and  splendid 
fields  of  corn. 

Converted  to  the  employment  of  guano  in  the  early  18505,  Tyler 
was  not  eager  to  endanger  his  rising  profit  ratios  with  a  heavy  invest- 
ment in  farm  machinery.  Thus  when  he  was  invited  to  the  Douthat 
plantation,  Weyanoke,  in  June  1852  to  witness  the  operation  of  "two 
soil  machines,  McCormick's  and  Hussey's,"  he  was  unmoved  by  the 
demonstration.  While  the  mechanical  reapers  invented  by  Cyrus  H. 
McCormick  and  Obed  Hussey  were  destined  to  revolutionize  American 
agriculture,  the  newfangled  equipment  caused  little  excitement  and 

299 


less  interest  when  it  was  first  exhibited  on  the  James  River  wheat  and 
corn  plantations.  Instead,  Tyler  and  his  neighbors  piled  on  the  guano 
and  left  the  harvest  to  the  labor  of  the  Negro  slaves  in  whom  they 
already  had  such  large  financial  investments.19 

To  harvest  his  first  crop  in  1845,  however,  the  ex-President  found 
it  necessary  to  lease  slave  labor  for  the  season.  At  the  same  time,  he 
began  adding  to  the  permanent  slave  population  of  Sherwood  Forest 
by  outright  purchase,  financing  these  new  acquisitions  with  long-term 
notes  at  Richmond  banks.  Since  the  Negroes,  hired  or  purchased,  usually 
came  to  the  estate  accompanied  by  their  women  and  children,  there 
was  a  built-in  bonus  for  the  owner.  "The  children  and  their  work 
afford  the  interest  upon  the  slaves,"  Julia  explained  to  Margaret.  "A 
pretty  handsome  interest  is  yielded  for  the  amount  invested."20 

At  Sherwood  Forest  plantation  Julia  found  the  good  life.  As  she 
described  it  to  her  city-bound  sister  in  June  1845  ft  seemed  almost 
idyllic: 

The  President  [is]  in  a  large  armchair  near  me  on  the  piazza  with  feet 

raised  upon  the  railing The  reapers  liave  come  to  their  labors  in  the 

field  about  five  hundred  yards  from  us  and  their  loud,  merry  songs  almost 
drown  the  President's  voice  as  he  talks  with  me.  Once  in  a  while  a  scream 
from  all  hands,  dogs  and  servants,  causes  us  to  raise  our  eyes  to  see  a  full 
chase  after  a  poor  little  hare.  This  moment  we  have  looked  upon  one,  and 
I  see  they  have  caught  it — there  is  a  regular  scuffle  between  dogs  and  men. 
With  these  hares  and  squirrels  our  place  abounds.  We  are  removed  about  a 
mile,  in  a  direct  line,  from  the  river,  that  is  to  say  the  mansion — the 
estate  runs  down  to  it — and  the  trees  on  the  bank  that  intercept  the  view  have 
already  been  nearly  cut  away.  Since  I  have  been  seated  here  I  have  noticed 
some  five  or  six  vessels  pass  up  and  down.  Louisa  and  Fanny  Johnston 
[house  slaves]  are  sewing  the  carpet  in  the  dining  room — and  now  if  you 
nave  any  fancy  you  can  picture  us  all.21 

Nothing  in  the  slave  system  disturbed  Julia  or  shocked  her  sen- 
sibilities. As  conducted  by  Tyler  at  Sherwood  Forest  it  functioned 
easily  and  humanely.  No  whips  or  lashes,  no  brutal  overseers  were 
found  on  the  President's  property.  The  seventy-odd  "servants"  (as 
they  were  always  politely  called)  were  adequately  clothed  and  housed, 
and  if  there  was  discontent  among  them  it  was  not  manifested  by 
runaways  or  by  recorded  instances  of  "sassiness."  Instead,  slavery  at 
Sherwood  Forest  was  an  example  of  Southern  white  paternalism  at  its 
best.  No  slave  was  ever  "sold  South,'7  and  Tyler  saw  to  it  that  none 
of  his  slave  "families"  was  broken  and  scattered.  On  the  surface 
of  things,  the  "servants"  had  a  strong  attachment  and  loyalty  to  the 
Tylers.  In  turn,  the  family  saw  to  it  that  the  slaves  were  instructed 
in  the  basic  tenets  of  Christianity.  And  while  neither  Tyler  nor  his 
wife  ever  defended  slavery  as  a  positive  moral  good,  Julia  spent  too 

300 


many  evenings  sitting  up  with  sick  slaves  (she  treated  their  chills  and 
fevers  with  strong  doses  of  quinine  laced  with  a  jigger  of  whiskey), 
worried  too  many  hours  over  their  physical  and  material  well-being,  and 
witnessed  too  many  evidences  of  her  husband's  kindness  to  them  to  be 
convinced  that  the  Institution  was  totally  evil.  Just  how  the  slaves  felt 
about  It  Is  not  known.  No  one  asked  them.  It  Is  a  fact,  however,  that 
from  1845  until  the  arrival  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  at  Sherwood 
In  1862  only  one  Negro  deserted  the  property.  He  was  drunk  at  the 
time,  and  he  fled,  of  all  places,  to  nearby  Richmond,  a  city  with  no  high 
reputation  as  an  express  stop  on  the  Underground  Railroad.  He  was 
scarcely  a  runaway  In  the  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  sense. 

Still,  it  Is  doubtful  that  the  Tylers  encouraged  monogamy  among 
their  slaves.  Negro  children  were  shifted  casually  from  one  hut  to  another. 
Thus  after  Alexander  visited  the  model  plantation  in  November  1845 
and  complained  that  he  had  seen  a  Negro  child  there  improperly  clothed 
against  the  cold,  Julia  assured  him  that  the  boy  had  since  been  made 
comfortable.  "Now  he  is  like  all  the  rest  entirely  fitted  out  in  new 
warm  clothes — coat,  pantaloons,  and  shirt."  She  explained,  "The  truth 
of  the  matter  is  he  was  left  to  the  care  of  one  of  the  women  who 
had  other  children — and  she  of  course  soon  stripped  him  for  them — 
but  now  he  is  transferred  to  a  childless  woman  and  finds  himself  very 
kindly  treated."  Nor  is  there  any  satisfactory  evidence  that  the 
slaves  were  taught  to  read  or  write.  And  if  they  sang  in  the  fields 
and  played  their  banjos  and  bones  in  their  quarters  at  night,  the  fact 
also  remains  that  they  speedily  abandoned  the  plantation  in  1862-1864 
when  opportunities  to  leave  were  presented  them.  Only  four  of  the 
male  Negroes  remained  on  the  estate  after  their  liberation  by  the  Union 
Army  in  May  1864 — and  these  few  joined  in  sacking  the  house  and 
stealing  the  furniture.22 

In  spite  of  Julia's  constant  assurances  that  the  slaves  at  Sher- 
wood were  content  and  happy,  Juliana  was  concerned  that  her  daughter 
was  surrounded  by  so  many  Negroes.  "Do  inform  me  if  you  have  any 
white  people  about  you,  or  are  all  your  servants  colored?"  she  asked 
nervously.  She  pleaded  with  her  daughter  to  employ  a  "respectable 
efficient  white  woman"  as  a  housekeeper,  someone  Julia  could  turn 
to  for  sympathy  and  assistance  in  case  of  illness.  To  find  such  a  person 
for  Sherwood  Forest  Juliana  undertook  a  thorough  search  in  New  York 
City.  She  soon  located  Catherine  Wing.  In  November  1845  Catherine 
arrived  by  boat  at  Sherwood  Forest  to  fill  the  station.  She,  like  all  the 
Gardiner  servants  in  New  York,  was  an  Irish  immigrant,  and  she  ac- 
cepted the  situation  in  Julia's  household  for  her  room,  board,  and  five 
dollars  per  month.  "You  must  insist  upon  neatness  and  care  and  good 
order,"  Juliana  lectured  her  daughter  on  the  eve  of  Catherine's  arrival. 
"You  must  learn  to  put  your  own  things  in  order  or  I  fear  you  will  find 

301 


no  one  to  do  it  for  you.  I  never  did,  that's  a  fact."  Julia  was  pleased 
with  the  efficient  Irish  girl,  whose  many  duties  came  to  include  general 
supervision  of  the  house  slaves.23 

In  February  1847  another  white  woman,  twenty-five-year-old 
Harriet  Nelson  of  Norfolk,  joined  the  household  staff  as  seamstress 
and  nurse  for  Julia's  baby.  Harriet  was  of  "good  family  with  relations 
well  to  do,"  and  she  was  "much  brighter  in  mind  than  my  Catherine 
and  an  experienced  nurse"  as  well.  "And  what  do  you  thmk  her  wages 
are?"  Julia  asked.  "£3  per  month!  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  so 
absurd — but  that  is  all  she  has  been  in  the  habit  of  receiving.  The 
reason  that  white  labor  is  so  low  is  this:  Slaves  are  so  general  that  a 
white  person  will  only  be  hired  as  a  favor  almost — and  a  Virginia 
girl  never  thinks  of  leaving  her  state."  Without  quite  sensing  it,  Julia 
had  put  her  finger  on  one  reason  why  so  many  urban  workingmen  in 
the  North  feared  the  economic  implications  of  abolition.24 

As  Tyler's  fanning  operations  became  increasingly  extensive  and 
his  harvests  larger,  he  continued  the  practice  of  leasing  Negro  labor 
from  the  slave  brokers  in  Richmond  for  seasonal  stints.  He  also  hired 
free  Negroes  for  field  work  at  regular  daily  wages.  A  small  settlement 
of  freedmen  at  nearby  Ruthville  provided  this  particular  labor  source. 
Thus  in  the  wheat-  and  cornfields  of  the  plantation,  resident  slaves  and 
leased  slaves  worked  side  by  side  with  the  Ruthville  freedmen.  In  the 
main  house  slave  women  like  Louisa  and  Fanny  and  Sarry  worked 
alongside  Catherine  Wing  and  Harriet  Nelson.  This  unusual  mixture  of 
race  and  status,  indoors  and  out,  was  accomplished  without  incident.25 


Contented  slaves  notwithstanding,  not  all  was  sweetness  and  light 
at  Sherwood  Forest  during  Julia's  first  year  as  mistress  there.  There 
were  sharp  tensions  within  the  family  circle  that  required  patient 
handling.  Neither  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller  nor  Letitia  Tyler  Semple 
was  yet  willing  to  accept  Julia  as  a  stepmother.  And  Julia  became  sick 
and  tired  of  their  studied  insults  and  backbiting.  As  the  collective 
blood  pressure  of  the  ladies  mounted,  an  embarrassed  Tyler  worked 
diligently  to  soothe  and  placate  all  parties.  He  also  had  to  deal  firmly 
with  eighteen-year-old  Alice  Tyler.  The  problem  with  Alice  centered  on 
the  respect  and  deference  she  owed  Julia.  She  was  a  headstrong  and 
romantic  girl  who  fell  in  and  out  of  love  so  often  and  so  completely 
that  Julia  questioned  her  indiscriminating  romantic  judgments.  The 
bucolic  life  at  Sherwood  Forest  bored  young  Alice,  much  as  East 
Hampton  had  bored  her  stepmother  at  the  same  age.  Her  own  success 
in  Washington  as  a  member  of  Julia's  Court  had  given  her  a  lively 
sense  of  independence  and  she  did  not  accept  Julia's  effort  to  discipline 
her  with  good  grace.  "She  is  the  most  'spoilt  child'  that  ever  existed," 
Julia  concluded.  Fortunately,  Alice  spent  much  of  her  time  in  Williams- 
burg  visiting  in  the  Waller  home,  a  vantage  point  from  which  she 

302 


could  observe  and  be  observed  by  the  William  and  Mary  collegians. 
This  arrangement  minimized  her  friction  with  Julia.  But  when  their 
clashes  did  occur,  Tyler  strongly  and  plainly  supported  bis  young  wife. 
He  made  it  crystal-clear  to  Alice  that  she  was  to  be  guided  entirely 
by  Julia's  "advice  and  opinions."  The  ideal  solution  to  the  problem, 
thought  Julia,  was  to  get  Alice  married  off  as  quickly  and  as  ad- 
vantageously as  possible.  "I  hope  she  will  catch  a  beau  who  will  love 
her  dearly."  But  the  contrary  Alice  refused  to  be  rushed  into  matri- 
mony. "You  always  tell  me  I'll  marry  a  cMr.  Nobody7  (to  use  your 
expression)  because  I  am  so  easy  to  please,"  she  countered  her  step- 
mother. "But  I  have  found  out  that  I  am  not  so  easy  to  please  as 
I  thought  myself.  [I]  have  almost  come  to  the  conclusion  it  would  be 
better  to  marry  'Nobody/  so  you'll  have  to  be  contented  with  me  as 
long  as  you  live."  From  Julia's  standpoint  that  was  a  grim  prospect.26 

With  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  the  family  problem  was  quite  different  and 
much  more  serious.  After  his  father  left  the  White  House  he  had 
nothing  to  occupy  his  time  or  his  interest.  His  marriage  was  on-again, 
off-again — mostly  off.  For  a  time  in  1844  he  considered  running  for  the 
Virginia  House  of  Delegates  from  the  Charles  City  district.  This  came 
to  nothing.  Then  he  came  down  with  a  severe  case  of  mumps.  Follow- 
ing this,  he  loafed  around  Washington  looking  vainly  for  a  patronage 
job  from  the  Polk  administration.  In  late  April  1845  he  and  his  friend 
Louis  F.  Tasistro  "got  rather  extensively  corned"  and  were  involved 
in  a  Washington  street  brawl  in  which  they  badly  beat  up  a  passing 
citizen.  Much  to  the  mortification  of  Tylers  and  Gardiners  alikef~tSe 
New  York  Herald  ran  an  account  of  the  disgraceful  incident.  Ordered 
to  Sherwood  Forest  in  May  to  explain  his  conduct,  he  was  evasive  and 
without  contrition.  Tyler  finally  decided  that  his  foot-loose  son  was 
drinking  too  much,  and  he  demanded  that  John  adopt  more  temperate 
habits.  The  upshot  of  the  President's  stern  counsel  was  John's  decision 
to  return  to  his  wife  and  two  children  in  Jerusalem,  Virginia,  stop 
drinking,  and  resume  his  study  of  law.  By  July  1845,  Julia  could  report 
that  he  was  temporarily  sober  and  was  determined  to  "keep  out  of 
debt  if  he  has  to  dress  in  Virginia  cloth  and  eat  nothing  else  than 
cornbread."  This  reform  was  short-lived,  one  of  many  that  marked  a 
bacchanalian  existence.  No  year  passed  that  John,  Jr.,  did  not  manage 
in  some  way  to  embarrass  his  long-suffering  father.  Julia  finally  gave 
up  on  him  entirely.  Not  until  the  middle  18505  did  he  at  last  settle 
down  in  Philadelphia  to  practice  law  with  Robert.  By  that  date  he 
had  wasted  nearly  fifteen  years  of  his  life.21 

Julia  liked  young  John.  She  thought  him  good-natured  and  per- 
sonable. When  he  visited  at  Sherwood  Forest  he  always  kept  the  table 
well  supplied  with  fresh  game  and  cheerful  chatter.  In  her  presence  he 
was  always  a  gentleman.  Juliana's  suspicious  view  that  he  was  destined 
for  perdition  and  that  his  affection  for  his  stepmother  improperly 

303 


transcended  the  platonic  and  dutiful  was  unfair  to  John,  as  Julia  fre- 
quently pointed  out  to  her  mother.  Yet  Juliana  so  strongly  and  narrowly 
detested  the  use  of  spirits  in  any  form  that  she  could  not  be  objective 
about  anyone  who  indulged  a  taste  for  liquor.  Just  how  this  God- 
fearing daughter  of  a  wealthy  brewer  derived  her  prohibitionism  from 
her  Episcopalianism  remains  a  theological  mystery.  Nevertheless  she 
did,  and  it  was  for  this  reason  that  Juliana  always  disliked  the  ir- 
responsible John.  She  was  ever  prepared  to  see  or  expect  the  worst  in 
all  his  acts.  He,  in  turn,  thought  her  a  cross  between  a  prude  and  a 
battle-axe,  and  on  one  occasion  he  noted  caustically  that  he  had  never 
"seen  a  Gardiner  yet  who  could  take  a  jest."  By  way  of  contrast, 
Tyler's  approach  to  his  son's  use  of  liquor  was  more  temperate.  As 
Julia  explained  it  to  her  mother:  "The  President  has  adopted  a  proper 
plan.  To  all  those  whom  he  thinks  care  for  wine  or  for  any  sort  of 
liquor  he  does  not  offer  it."  Thus  when  John,  Jr.,  visited  the  estate 
after  1845  he  found  the  sideboard  and  wine  closet  securely  locked.  When 
other  visitors  came  the  mellow  liquids  flowed.28 

Visitors  came  often  to  Sherwood  Forest.  The  most  prominent  in 
1845  was  the  distinguished  Caleb  Gushing,  who  visited  the  James  River 
country  in  May  and  June.  Julia  was  certain  that  Cushing's  motives 
in  making  the  leisurely  trip  through  Virginia  were  no  more  complex 
than  the  desire  to  find  a  wealthy  wife  from  a  politically  prominent 
family.  "I  suppose  if  he  married  one  of  the  Miss  Ritchies  he  would  be 
sent  Minister  to  England  right  off,"  she  observed.  "He  is  getting  to 
be  notorious  as  a  fortune  hunter."  Indeed,  Cushing's  effort  to  charm 
Ann  Eli2a  Ritchie  (who  was  visiting  at  Brandon)  was  less  than  subtle, 
as  were  similar  romantic  crusades  designed  to  overpower  suitable  young 
ladies  in  Baltimore  and  Richmond.  "He  does  not  get  disheartened  by  a 
few  disappointments,"  said  Julia.  Yet  when  Gushing  arrived  at  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Julia's  graciousness  could  not  have  been  faulted.  She  had 
eighteen  to  dinner  to  entertain  and  honor  him,  and  he  in  turn  toasted 
Tyler  and  his  administration  as  the  most  "important  and  eventful  ad- 
ministration . . .  since  the  days  of  Washington."  Julia  thought  it  a  "bold 
speech  in  these  days"  and  "liked  him  for  it  more  than  I  ever  have 
done.  Ann  Eliza  Ritchie  will  write  it  to  her  father  I've  no  doubt." 
Julia's  broad  reminder  that  Gushing  had  promised  to  bring  her  a  fan 
from  China  resulted  a  few  months  later  in  a  far  more  impressive  gift — 
two  large  blue-and-white  Chinese  vases.  Gushing  was  not,  said  Julia, 
"particular  to  any  one  of  the  young  ladies"  while  visiting  at  Sherwood 
Forest,  although  "he  was  frequently  exposed  and  joked  about  the  fair 
ones  that  report  and  newspaper  paragraphs  have  attached  him  to  which 
often  made  him  quite  nervous — much  to  my  amusement."  ^ 

When  Julia  was  not  entertaining  at  home  she  found  diversion  in 
trips  to  various  Virginia  vacation  spots.  In  late  June  1845  she  and  the 
President  visited  Old  Point  Comfort  to  celebrate  their  first  anniversary. 

304 


Julia  hoped  that  her  family  had  not  forgotten  the  date — June  26 — and 
that  they  had  all  toasted  the  absent  couple  with  a  bumper  of  ale.  "We 
did  not  forget  it  you  may  imagine/'  she  wrote  her  mother.  Army 
officers  and  prominent  Virginians  were  present  in  quantity  at  the  spa, 
among  them  the  Ritchies,  and  Julia  had  an  opportunity  to  catch  up  on 
the  gossip  of  Richmond  and  Washington.  She  found  Old  Point  Comfort 
particularly  "agreeable  for  married  ladies  because  the  married  society 
is  of  the  best  selection  so  far  as  it  goes."  But  she  informed  Margaret 
that  unmarried  women  would  find  it  dull  "excepting  those  that  are  con- 
tent to  become  Officers'  wives — which  in  my  view  is  the  last  thing  to 
be  desired."  In  her  contacts  with  editor  Tom  Ritchie  she  quickly  dis- 
covered that  "the  sunset  avenue"  to  his  heart  was  "through  kindness 
to  his  family."  In  traveling  that  avenue  no  possible  kindness  escaped 
her  commission  even  though  she  discovered  that  Ritchie  was  a  man 
of  "very  moderate  circumstances."  From  the  Washington  gossip  mill 
she  was  titillated  to  learn  that  George  Bancroft,  Folk's  dignified  new 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  had  been  badly  routed  in  a  broadside  gunnery 
exchange  with  Mrs.  J.  D.  Stevenson  of  New  York.  According  to  the 
story  that  made  the  rounds  at  Old  Point  Comfort,  the  extroverted  lady 
had  playfully  decided  to  observe  his  reactions  were  she  to  "jump  up  and 
kiss  him."  Dared  to  do  so  by  her  friends,  she  sprang  toward  Bancroft 
in  her  parlor  one  day  and  "sure  enough  kissed  him."  Bancroft  im- 
mediately struck  his  colors,  running  "behind  the  door  in  fright  and 
confusion  and  she  cried  out  if  he  did  not  come  out  she  would  kiss 
Mm  again!"30 

Bancroft  abandoned  ship  easily.  Julia  did  not.  It  took  a  great 
deal  more  than  an  impetuous  kiss  to  frighten  her.  When  in  late  June 
Old  Point  Comfort  was  struck  by  a  hurricane  that  ripped  the  roof  and 
shingles  off  the  hotel  where  Julia  and  the  President  were  staying,  the 
mistress  of  Sherwood  Forest  maintained  her  composure.  While  other 
ladies  were  fainting  about  her  in  droves,  Julia  calmly  saw  to  the  rescue 
of  "Johnny  Ty,"  the  female  canary  she  had  brought  back  with  her  from 
Europe  in  1841.  "The  first  thing  I  did  as  I  ran  from  the  room  was 
to  seize  the  cage  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  Sarry  with  the  strict 
injunction  she  must  save  the  bird's  life  with  hers  if  possible."  As  the 
whole  building  trembled  and  shook,  Julia  and  her  body  servant  carried 
"Johnny  Ty"  to  safety.31 

The  act  was  characteristic.  Julia  and  John  Tyler  both  loved  ani- 
mals. Throughout  their  married  life  they  were  surrounded  by  various 
horses,  dogs,  and  birds,  to  all  of  which  they  became  very  attached. 
When  one  of  Tyler's  pet  mockingbirds  was  mangled  by  a  nondescript 
barn  cat  in  June  1845  Julia  was  outraged.  "The  vile  cat!"  she  ex- 
claimed, as  she  undertook  to  nurse  the  unlucky  bird  through  a  broken 
leg,  a  torn  breast,  and  a  heavily  depleted  tail-feather  collection.  Julia 
was  a  better  veterinarian  than  matchmaker.  When,  for  example,  Tyler 

305 


purchased  a  mate  for  "Johnny  Ty"  in  Norfolk,  Julia  was  disturbed  to 
observe  that  the  male  "treats  her  with  the  utmost  contempt  and . . . 

does  not  deign  to  sit  upon  the  same  perch  with  her I  fear  it  is  not 

one  of  the  marriages  made  in  Heaven."  The  sudden  death  of  the  sexless 
"Johnny  Ty"  in  November  1845  kft  Jun"a  disconsolate  for  days.  Dr. 
Wat  Henry  Tyler  attributed  the  canary's  death  to  a  heart  attack, 
but  his  knowledge  did  not  erase  the  grief  Julia  sustained.  "Such  a 
delicate  hold  they  have  on  life,"  she  mourned.  Similarly,  the  death  of 
one  of  the  President's  favorite  horses  moved  Tyler  to  erect  over  its 
grave  in  the  grove  of  Sherwood  Forest  a  wooden  slab  on  which  was 
inscribed  the  epitaph: 

Here  lie  the  bones  of  my  old  horse,  "General," 

Who  served  Ms  master  faithfully  for  twenty-one  years, 

And  never  made  a  blunder. 

Would  that  his  master  could  say  the  same  1  32 

Her  intense  love  of  animals  caused  Julia  to  look  forward  in  great 
anticipation  to  the  arrival  of  the  Italian  greyhound  Tyler  had  ordered 
from  Naples  for  her  the  preceding  winter.  The  dog  finally  appeared 
at  Sherwood  Forest  in  November  1845  after  spending  several  weeks 
with  Juliana  in  New  York.  Julia  was  warned  by  her  mother  that  "Le 
Beau/'  as  he  was  called,  was  very  rough  on  furniture  and  rugs  and 
that  he  required  constant  attention  and  discipline.  "I  think  a  great 
deal  of  him,  but  I  would  not  take  such  a  pet  for  a  gift/'  she  decided. 
Le  Beau  arrived  in  Virginia  accompanied  by  instructions  from  Lafayette 
Place  that  would  do  credit  to  a  modern  veterinarian.  In  fact,  Juliana 
enjoyed  practicing  veterinary  medicine  when  all  the  humans  of  her  im- 
mediate acquaintance  fell  suddenly  well.  In  the  feeding  and  care  of  the 
handsome  animal  she  left  nothing  to  her  daughter's  imagination,  and 
Julia  responded  by  assuring  her  that  "Little  Le  Beau  is  perfectly  well 
and  hearty  and  has  the  most  unfailing  attention.  In  the  loss  of  my 
bird  I  have  had  a  warning  to  keep  my  eye  constantly  on  him."  3S 

Compassion  for  animals  at  Sherwood  Forest  extended  on  one  oc- 
casion to  a  hapless  field  mouse  who  fell  accidentally  into  the  foot  tub 
in  Julia's  bedroom.  She  was  awakened  in  the  night  by  the  creature's 
wild  thrashing  in  the  water,  and  she  promptly  woke  the  President  and 
instructed  him  to  investigate  the  strange  noise.  Candle  in  hand,  he 
finally  discovered  the  cause  of  the  commotion  and  decided  to  let  the 
little  mouse  drown.  At  breakfast  the  following  morning  the  President 
was  penitent.  "I  wonder,"  he  said  sadly,  "if  I  had  taken  that  mouse 
and  put  it  in  the  woods  whether  it  would  have  come  back  to  the  house 
again."  Julia  belatedly  realized  the  enormity  of  the  crime.  "I  felt  like 
reproaching  myself  after  that  for  the  fate  of  Lady  Mouse/'  she  con- 
fessed to  her  mother.34 

Following  a  suitable  period  of  mourning  for  Lady  Mouse,  Julia 

306 


prepared  to  assault  White  Sulphur  Springs,  the  summertime  citadel  of 
fashionable  Virginia  society.  Fashion  alone  did  not  dictate  her  decision 
to  travel  into  the  mountains.  July  and  August  was  the  malaria  season 
along  the  James,  and  Julia  was  strongly  encouraged  by  her  family  to 
depart  for  the  Springs  as  soon  as  possible.  There  was  also  a  political 
consideration.  In  choosing  between  the  Virginia  Springs  and  Newport 
for  a  vacation,  Tyler  felt  he  could  "reap  more  political  good77  at  White 
Sulphur  than  in  Rhode  Island.  Preparations  for  what  Julia  called  her 
"campaign  in  the  Springs"  required  several  strenuous  shopping  days 
In  Richmond  during  which  she  "contrived  to  spend . . .  nearly  two 
hundred  dollars  and  yet  got  nothing  very  unusual  or  more  than  seemed 
absolutely  necessary  for  a  proper  appearance  for  Alice  and  myself 
at  the  Springs. "  Actually,  she  was  not  too  interested  in  making  the  long 
trip  west  to  White  Sulphur.  To  her  the  easy  quiet  of  Sherwood  Forest 
would  be  much  more  pleasant  even  though  it  was  hot,  humid,  and 
fever-ridden.  But  she  agreed  that  it  was  "improper  and  [a]  neglect  of 
a  duty  owed  to  society  for  anyone  at  my  time  of  life  to  live  in  constant 
retirement."  35 

White  Sulphur  in  1845  was  dull.  A  thoroughly  bored  Julia  at- 
tended only  one  dance  while  she  was  there.  "I  went . . .  dressed  in 
black,"  she  wrote,  "and  have  not  attended  again  as  I  do  not  think 
the  reasons  that  compelled  me  to  enter  in  such  scenes  last  winter  exist 
now."  During  her  stay  she  felt  she  had  to  "be  dignified  as  an  Ex- 
Queen,  and  sit  with  the  Old  Ladies,  when  I  was  dying  to  join  in  the 
mirth  of  the  younger  ones."  Alice  flirted  with  the  skimpy  manpower 
supply  without  success,  and  Tyler's  planned  political  exposure  was 
badly  overshadowed  by  the  unexpected  arrival  of  Henry  Clay.  With 
Calhoun  at  nearby  Sweet  Springs,  Tyler  was  sure  that  the  two  politi- 
cians were  in  the  same  area  at  the  same  time  for  only  one  reason — 
to  strike  an  alliance  that  would  put  Clay  in  the  White  House  in  1848. 
Yet,  as  Alice  reported,  Clay's  arrival  at  White  Sulphur  had  generated 
little  political  excitement  among  the  guests.  "He  was  not  received  as 
enthusiastically  as  one  would  have  thought,  and  I  fear  greatly  that  he 
will  never  be  President — So  git-long,  Clay."  The  continuing  decline  of 
Clay  was  the  only  hopeful  note  that  the  White  Sulphur  interlude  pro- 
duced. While  Julia  was  "very  flatteringly  mentioned"  in  the  "Letters 
from  Sulphur  Springs"  column  which  appeared  in  newspapers  all  over 
the  state,  the  reports  "made  me  somewhat  older  than  I  really  am, 
which  was  horrible  to  be  sure."  Thus  after  two  disappointing  weeks  of 
inactivity  the  Tylers  moved  on  to  Sweet  Springs  for  a  week.  From 
there  they  traveled  northward  to  visit  the  Gardiners  in  New  York.36 

Meanwhile,  Margaret  and  her  mother  had  found  Saratoga  and 
Newport  much  gayer  and  more  beaux-populated  than  the  Virginia 
spas,  in  spite  of  Julia's  pessimistic  warning  that  there  was  "a  painful 
scarcity  of  good  beaux  to  be  found  anywhere."  Those  in  Washington, 

307 


she  concluded,  were  a  "contemptible,  mean  set."  In  New  York,  "few 
seek  to  marry  at  all."  Margaret  would  have  no  luck  at  Newport  or 
Saratoga  either,  Julia  gloomily  assured  her.  Nevertheless,  Margaret  had 
a  wonderful  time  at  Newport  that  summer,  especially  at  the  annual 
fancy-dress  ball  At  this  function  she  was  a  sensation.  She  wore  an 
elaborate  white-and-silver  dress  topped  by  a  "little  opera  hat  with 
beautiful  long  drooping  feather — the  hat  with  silver  gimp  band  and 
otherwise  ornamented  with  silver — diamond  on  the  forehead  with  pearls 
wound  in  the  back  of  her  head."  Her  costume  was,  said  Juliana  pride- 
fully,  "remarkably  chaste  and  elegant": 

. . .  satin  sMrt  trimmed  with  two  rows  of  silver  gimp,  short  tarletan  dress 
trimmed  with  scalloped  edging  of  silver,  the  silver  flowers  put  on  in  chaplets 
in  front  of  her  dress,  the  silver  Japonica  on  her  bosom,  all  the  silver 
bracelets  on  her  arms,  silver  fringe  upon  her  gloves  and  boots,  a  small  train 
to  her  dress,  pearl  earrings,  three  balls  and  tassels  of  silver  on  her  sleeves, 
[while]  the  butterflies  confined  her  dress  behind.  The  waist  of  her  dress 
ornamented  with  silver  gimp 

With  Julia  married  and  out  of  the  husband  market,  Margaret  was 
finally  beginning  to  come  into  her  own,  although  in  this  particular  dress 
the  wonder  was  that  the  weight  of  the  silver  ornamentation  did  not 
immobilize  her.  But  the  other  young  ladies  were  dressed  in  equally 
constraining  costumes,  so  the  beaux  race  was  an  even  one  (New  York 
Senator  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  appeared  at  the  ball  in  a  sailor  suit  and 
"acted  his  part  to  perfection").  Margaret  was  quite  a  hit,  and  she  had 
no  dearth  of  admirers  at  Newport.37 

Moving  on  to  Saratoga,  she  was  delighted  to  become  the  object 
of  a  ludicrous  romantic  struggle  between  a  Mr.  Gay  of  New  York  and 
a  Mr.  Watson  of  Baltimore.  Gay,  said  Margaret,  was  "the  oddest 
character  you  ever  saw,"  a  hopeless  "piece  of  awkwardness."  Neverthe- 
less, he  was  "worth  at  least  150,000  dollars  and  was  the  most  des- 
perately in  love  man  in  the  world."  Watson  was  less  wealthy  and  more 
awkward  than  Ms  New  York  rival — and  more  captivated  by  the  at- 
tractive Margaret.  "How  completely  convulsed  you  would  have  been," 
she  wrote  Julia,  "to  have  seen  them  as  I  did,  at  the  Ball,  one  on  each 
side  of  the  same  column  casting  despairing  looks  at  me — both  com- 
pletely innocent  of  what  the  other  was  about."  While  Margaret  sorely 
wanted  a  husband,  she  was  not  yet  reduced  to  utter  desperation.  She 
gave  neither  of  these  wistful-eyed  suitors  any  encouragement.  "Yes, 
Julia,  I  killed  two  unhappy  mortals — if  not  outright  they  are  dead 
now  to  a  certainty,"  she  chortled.  There  were  better  beaux  than  these 
at  Saratoga,  and  Margaret  casually  flirted  with  them.  She  did  not  hurl 
herself  at  the  summertime  Romeos.  As  Juliana  explained  it,  "We  are 
quiet  people  and  stand  a  little  upon  dignity . . .  [and]  did  not  become 

308 


so  generally  known  to  the  multitude."  Still,  the  United  States  Hotel  at 
Saratoga  was  a  matchmaker's  paradise.  "There  never  was  such  a  scam- 
pering after  young  ladles  that  were  thought  rich/'  noted  Margaret.  "It 
was  truly  amusing  to  all  lookers  on."  3S 

Her  sense  of  feminine  Irresistibility  restored  by  her  modest  suc- 
cess at  Newport  and  Saratoga,  Margaret  was  in  excellent  spirits  when 
Julia,  the  President,  and  Alice  arrived  in  New  York  from  Sweet  Springs 
In  September.  It  marked  the  first  reunion  of  the  family  since  the 
evacuation  from  Washington.  Julia  had  planned  her  homecoming  with 
great  care;  she  had  looked  forward  to  It  eagerly  for  several  months. 
It  would  give  her  an  opportunity  to  purchase  "the  wardrobe  I  want 
from  head  downwards/'  as  well  as  dozens  of  household  articles  for 
Sherwood  Forest.  The  President,  Julia  informed  her  mother,  would  have 
to  return  to  Sherwood  Forest  by  October  i  to  superintend  the  fall 
planting  ("He  Is  too  good  a  planter  to  rely  entirely  on  the  judgment 
of  an  overseer") ;  but  she  hoped  she  might  be  able  to  stay  on  to  shop 
and  visit  for  a  while  longer,  "though  it  would  never  do  to  breathe  to 
him  that  I  have  any  rebellious  intentions."  Her  main  concern  on  arrival 
in  New  York  was  that  her  mother  secure  a  proper  carriage  for  them 
while  she  and  her  husband  were  in  town.  "I  don't  like  the  idea  of  the 
President's  riding  in  a  hack  on  his  first  visit  to  Mama,"  she  worried. 
Appearances  should  be  maintained  at  all  times,  and  to  assure  this 
Juliana  was  instructed  to  engage  "a  neat  coachman  with  a  velvet  band 
round  his  hat." 

Tyler,  on  the  other  hand,  looked  forward  to  the  trip  to  the  North 
as  an  opportunity  to  meet  again  with  his  political  followers  in  Phila- 
delphia and  New  York.  Alexander  and  Robert  arranged  a  series  of 
conferences  to  this  end.  While  Julia  ran  riot  in  the  stores,  Tyler  quietly 
talked  politics  with  his  friends.  A  brief  visit  to  East  Hampton  (Tyler's 
first  appearance  there)  properly  impressed  the  townspeople.  Old  friend- 
ships were  renewed  and  gossip  was  exchanged  by  the  ladles.  Julia  dis- 
covered, however,  that  an  ex-First  Lady  did  not  attract  anywhere  near 
the  attention  and  deference  a  reigning  First  Lady  had.  Her  homecom- 
ing did  not  make  nearly  the  social  splash  of  her  September  1844  visit.39 

Julia  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  mid-October.  She  found  the 
plantation  cool  and  healthy.  The  fever  season  had  passed.  The  New 
York  and  East  Hampton  visits  had  given  her  a  fresh  opportunity  to 
compare  her  former  life  as  the  "Rose  of  Long  Island"  and  "Mrs.  Presi- 
dent Tyler"  with  her  new  role  as  mistress  of  Sherwood  Forest.  The 
longer  she  pondered  the  comparison,  the  more  convinced  she  became 
that  her  former  New  York  and  Washington  friends  could  not  "affect 
our  social  position  in  any  way  although  we  may  advance  theirs."  She 
was  tired  of  their  "obsequiousness"  in  her  husband's  presence,  and 
she  decided  that  in  the  future  she  would  "play  the  Queen  of  the  White 

309 


House  among  them."  Seeing  New  York  again  had  made  Julia  even 
more  of  a  Virginian.  Her  contempt  for  New  York  society  was  sharply 
increased: 

Do  you  know  I  have  a  sort  of  disgust  for  New  York   [she  confided  to 

Margaret] .  I  do  believe  it  is  a  place  tmequaled  in  selfishness I  do  not 

like  nowadays  to  be  anywhere  where  I  am  no  mover  or  to  have  people  move 

without  me — nous  verrons Half  of  N.Y.  cares  for  the  other  half  only 

so  far  as  it  is  likely  to  advance  their  own  interests  . . .  and  those  who  can 
serve  one  another  in  life  are  those  only  who  seem  to  be  "Society,"  of  which 
I  think  one  must  be  or  be  unpleasantly  situated  in  a  City  notwithstanding 
aU  the  talk  about  philosophy  and  independence.  A  place  ought  to  be  shunned 
by  one  who  finds  his  presence  a  matter  of  no  moment  and  yet  who  has  a  right 
to  influence  somewhere  . . .  don't  you  say  amen  to  all  this? 

Julia's  judgment  was  as  harsh  as  her  question  was  rhetorical,  and  her 
emotional  expatriation  from  New  York  was  actually  to  be  of  short 
duration.  She  would  visit  often  and  pleasantly  with  her  family  in  New 
York  and  East  Hampton  in  the  years  ahead,  usually  in  the  early  fall, 
and  no  winter  passed  at  Sherwood  Forest  without  protracted  visits  by 
her  mother,  sister,  or  one  of  her  brothers.  Indeed,  when  the  Civil  War 
enveloped  the  defenseless  plantation  she  fled  home  with  her  children  to 
Juliana.40 

Her  complaint  to  Margaret  about  New  York  society  in  late  Octo- 
ber 1845  was  the  offhand  remark  of  a  troubled  woman.  Julia  had  come 
to  a  feeling  of  remorse  in  having  added  heavily  to  her  husband's  finan- 
cial burdens.  She  and  Tyler  had  spent  so  much  money  since  their 
departure  from  the  White  House  on  clothes,  on  travel,  and  on  furnish- 
ing the  plantation  that  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  was  forced 
to  undertake  a  minor  economy  program.  As  a  start  Alexander  was  in- 
structed to  cancel  some  of  the  more  expensive  New  York  purchases. 
She  toyed  with  the  idea  of  effecting  a  $250  economy  by  buying  a 
"State  Coach"  carriage  rather  than  the  more  costly  "Modern  Barouche." 
Only  after  an  uneven  match  with  her  fiscal  conscience  did  she  decide 
that  the  barouche  was  really  one  of  life's  necessities,  and  she  asked 
Alexander  to  lend  the  President  the  $250  difference  in  the  price.  "Do 
you  venture  his  credit?"  she  asked  him.  "I  think  you  had  better, 
and  I  will  stand  security  for  him . . .  you  will  be  repaid  and  soon."  At 
the  same  time,  she  told  Alexander  that  insofar  as  income  from  the 
Gardiner  estate  was  concerned,  it  was  his  duty  to  see  that  their  mother 
was  made  entirely  comfortable  before  any  receipts  were  distributed 
among  the  children.  She  wanted  no  funds  from  her  New  York  property 
until  that  condition  had  been  met,  although  she  did  warn  Alexander  that 
she  might  "want  possibly  now  and  then  a  little  pin  money."  41 

Julia's  petulant  attitude  toward  Gotham  society  was  also  partly 
the  product  of  her  first  pregnancy.  By  the  end  of  October  she  knew 

310 


that  she  had  become  pregnant  on  the  New  York  trip.  She  was  nauseated 
and  irritable  much  of  the  time  in  November,  and  by  year's  end  she  was 
complaining  to  her  mother  that  a  new  silk  dress  she  had  bought  in 
New  York  was  "the  most  beastly  fitting  thing  you  ever  saw . . .  too 
large  by  a  great  deal  about  the  bust  and  too  small  by  a  great  deal 

about  the  waist  and  somewhat  too  short I  am  really  discouraged 

as  to  what  shall  be  done  with  it."  ^ 

There  was  little  Julia  could  do  about  her  new  silk  dress.  Until 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  was  born  in  July  1846  her  fitting  problem  would 
grow  progressively  more  hopeless.  Her  general  mood,  however,  im- 
proved rapidly  as  her  nausea  decreased.  By  the  time  Margaret  and 
Alexander  visited  Sherwood  Forest  in  late  November  she  was  beginning 
to  snap  out  of  her  depression.  Save  for  the  tragedy  of  her  increasingly 
obsolete  wardrobe,  by  Christmas  she  was  more  concerned  with  the 
health  and  welfare  of  her  pets  than  she  was  with  her  own  condition. 
Compared  with  Tyler's  growing  political  disappointments,  Margaret's 
inability  to  catch  a  husband,  and  the  poverty  and  sickness  which  stalked 
the  Robert  Tyler  home  in  Philadelphia,  Julia  had  no  serious  problems. 
The  death  of  "Johnny  Ty"  was  her  saddest  personal  experience  in  1845. 
The  difficult  transition  from  the  White  House  to  life  at  Sherwood 
Forest  had  been  effected  with  considerable  ease  if  not  with  the  strictest 
economy. 


TYLER  AND  POLK: 
A  QUESTION  OF  REPUTATION 


/  know  that  after  the  struggles  of  the  present  day 
shall  have  passed  away  and  those  who  have  taken 
part  in  them  shall  have  sunk  into  their  gravest  the 
greater  part  not  even  to  be  remembered,  impartial 
history  will  not  fail  to  write  a  faithful  account  of  all 
my  actions. . . .  The  impartial  future  will  see  the  mo- 
tive in  the  act;  and  the  just  historian  will  look  to 
the  good  and  evil  only  which  will  have  been  devel- 
oped, and  find  in  the  one  or  the  other  cause  of  cen- 
sure or  of  praise.  To  this  ordeal  I  submit  myself 
without  fear. 

JOHN    TYLER,    JUNE    1847 


Politics  is  an  unsure  business,  but  of  one  bit  of  political  business  John 
Tyler  was  sure.  He  was  certain  he  had  reached  a  firm  understand- 
ing with  James  K.  Polk  on  patronage.  His  friends  would  not  be  purged 
from  their  public  offices.  His  withdrawal  from  the  1844  canvass  fol- 
lowing his  conversation  with  Robert  J.  Walker,  and  his  receipt  of 
definite  assurances  on  the  patronage  matter  from  Major  William  H. 
Polk  and  Andrew  Jackson  could  sustain  in  his  mind  no  other  interpreta- 
tion. His  subsequent  dispensation  of  patronage  to  strengthen  the 
Conservative  or  "Hunker77  Democracy  in  New  York  at  the  expense  of 
the  liberal  Van  Buren  "Barnburner"  Democrats  there  had  been,  as  he 
viewed  it,  the  maintenance  of  his  part  of  a  bargain  with  Polk.  His 
willingness  to  appoint  William  H.  Polk  to  a  consular  post,  at  Young 
Hickory's  request,  was  further  evidence  to  Tyler  of  a  "gentlemen's 
agreement"  with  the  new  President  on  the  whole  patronage  question. 

312 


And  if  Tyler  had  used  Ms  power  of  appointment  from  November  1844 
to  March  1845  to  keep  alive  a  Tylerlte  cadre  within  the  Conservative 
Democracy  in  New  York,  that  action  was  not  aimed  at  the  Polkites. 
On  the  contrary,  it  sought  to  strengthen  the  Polk  faction  vis-a-vis 
Van  Buren;  it  was  designed  to  advance  the  great  issue  on  which  both 
Tyler  and  Polk  had  staked  a  large  measure  of  their  political  reputa- 
tion— the  annexation  of  Texas.  True,  Tyler's  withdrawal  from  the 
1844  canvass  may  not  have  proved  a  statistically  decisive  factor  in 
Polk's  victory,  and  for  this  reason  Young  Hickory  may  not  have  felt  any 
special  obligation  to  reward  the  Tylerites  with  additional  offices.  But 
he  had  no  cause  to  purge  those  of  Tyler's  faction  who  already  held 
sinecures. 

The  drift  of  Tyler's  relations  with  Polk  in  1845-1846  was  not 
unrelated  to  Tyler's  continuing  political  ambitions  for  1848.  He  had 
decided  to  maintain  his  political  contacts  should  talk  of  a  Democratic 
nomination  develop.  It  was  therefore  vital  that  his  friends  retain  their 
offices  in  New  York  and  elsewhere  in  the  interests  of  his  availability. 
Shortly  after  his  return  to  Sherwood  Forest  he  began  corresponding 
with  John  R.  Thompson  of  Princeton  in  an  effort  to  strengthen  the 
Tylerite  faction  in  New  Jersey.  When  this  contact  became  known  he 
was  soon  in  receipt  of  "letters  from  several  political  friends  about  the 
country  suggesting  the  propriety  and  advantage  of  taking  a  tour  of  the 

principal  States to  extend  his  political  and  social  acquaintance  and 

acquaint  himself  with  localities,  etc.  in  a  private  manner."  Meanwhile, 
Tyler's  brother-in-law,  Dr.  N.  M.  Miller,  and  his  old  friend,  Judge 
Edward  Douglass  White,  busied  themselves  in  a  covert  attempt  to  raise 
the  §6000  necessary  to  buy  up  the  influential  Washington  Madisonian 
as  a  permanent  Tyler  organ.  From  Philadelphia  Robert  reported  that 
the  President's  friends  in  Pennsylvania  had  quietly  gained  control  of 
the  Spirit  of  the  Times.  Tyler  very  much  wanted  "a  press  in  Richmond" 
through  which  his  political  views  might  be  broadcast  in  Virginia,  and 
it  was  largely  in  this  desire  that  he  sought  a  rapprochement  with 
editor  Thomas  Ritchie  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  I845-1 

John  Tyler  was  certainly  not  willing  to  campaign  openly  in  1845— 
1846,  but  he  did  make  an  effort  to  remain  in  the  political  spotlight 
by  keeping  his  name  and  his  views  of  current  affairs  before  the  public. 
Robert  and  Alexander  organized  this  effort  and  assisted  him  with  it. 
Their  function  was  to  make  certain  that  the  ex-President's  opinions 
and  observations,  and  those  of  other  commentators  who  were  pro- 
Tyler,  appeared  in  such  influential  papers  as  the  New  York  Journal  of 
Commerce  and  the  Watt  Street  Reporter.  Reprints  of  these  articles 
were  then  distributed  to  key  Tyler  allies  all  over  the  nation  as  a  sort 
of  political  newsletter  from  Sherwood  Forest.  At  the  same  time,  at- 
tempts were  made  to  sustain  and  encourage  those  few  newspapers  which 
lauded  Tyler's  administration  and  fairly  presented  his  views.2 

3*3 


In  May  1845,  shortly  after  he  left  the  White  House,  It  was  decided 
within  the  family  circle  that  the  former  President's  most  effective  tactic 
would  be  to  remain  quietly  available.  He  should  maintain  his  New 
York  City  political  position  through  Alexander  and  John  Lorimer 
Graham,  and  he  should  effect  a  political  and  personal  reconciliation 
with  the  powerful  Thomas  Ritchie,  former  editor  of  the  Richmond 
Enquirer.  Ritchie  was  now  editor  of  the  official  Polk  organ,  the  Wash- 
ington Union.  Suggestions  from  Virginia  friends  that  Tyler  run  again 
for  the  United  States  Senate  to  secure  a  public  platform  from  which  to 
address  the  nation  were  never  seriously  considered  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
Instead,  it  was  felt  that  this  object  could  be  accomplished  more  con- 
servatively and  with  more  dignity  through  the  columns  of  friendly 
newspapers. 

All  things  considered,  Tyler  was  hopeful,  in  Julia's  words,  that 
his  friends  might  "unite  to  give  him  [an]  abundance  of  support  and  in- 
crease thereby  his  influence."  Many  of  them  did.  By  September  1846 
Robert  Tyler  could  assure  his  father  there  was  a  Tylerite  group  in 
Philadelphia  upwards  of  three  thousand  in  size  awaiting  their  march- 
ing orders  from  Sherwood  Forest.  Of  course,  they  did  not  march,  nor 
were  they  ever  called  to  march  again  under  the  old  banner  of  "Tyler 
and  Texas!"  When  Tyler  finally  made  the  announcement  in  June  1848 
that  he  had  "no  expectation  of  again  entering  public  Hfe,"  it  was 
based  on  his  firm  conviction  at  that  time  that  there  was  no  moderate 
and  conservative  middle  within  the  Democracy  to  which  he  might  ap- 
peal. On  the  contrary,  the  Mexican  War  and  the  Wilmot  Proviso  had 
triggered  the  beginning  of  the  sectional  polarization  of  the  Democratic 
Party  that  would  lead  in  1860  to  its  final  disruption,  the  election  of 
Lincoln,  and  the  Civil  War.  By  1848,  then,  Tyler's  aspirations  were  dor- 
mant. The  Virginia  Democrats,  he  complained,  "have  acted  a  more 
condemnable  part  towards  me  than  any  others,  as  I  am  to  the  manner 
born . . .  [but]  I  learn  that  they  at  last  talk  of  a  move  in  the  way 
of  invitation  to  dinner."  A  dinner  invitation  was  a  far  cry  from  a  Presi- 
dential nomination  by  the  Old  Dominion  Democracy.3 

In  spite  of  his  lingering  political  ambitions,  it  was  not  Tyler's 
intention  in  1845-1846  to  make  war  upon  the  Pollutes  in  the  Demo- 
cratic Party.  While  he  wanted  to  keep  a  Tylerite  faction  in  existence 
for  personal  reasons,  his  larger  desire  was  to  employ  it  to  sustain  the 
new  President  and  hold  the  party  together  at  the  national  level.  He 
wanted  neither  the  Locofoco  nor  the  nullifier  extremists  in  any  posi- 
tions of  power  in  the  party.  He  hoped  instead  that  a  working  alliance 
between  Hunker  Democrats  and  states'  rights  Democrats  and  Whigs 
might  be  forged  under  the  spreading  ideological  tent  that  was  the 
Democracy.  This  trans-sectional  grouping  of  moderates,  as  Tyler  visual- 
ized it,  would  center  its  program  upon  continental  imperialism  prop- 
erly viewed  as  a  national  desideratum.  It  would,  of  course,  be  anti- 

314 


abolitionist.  That  the  leadership  of  the  Van  Buren  Democracy  and  the 
Northern  Whigs  opposed  territorial  expansion  on  abolitionist  grounds 
struck  Tyler  as  a  perverse  sectionalization  of  the  foreign-policy  ques- 
tion. Slavery  and  expansion,  he  naively  maintained,  were  issues  which 
men  of  good  will  could  keep  separate  and  distinct.  Linking  them  for 
political  advantage  he  considered  despicable. 

Convinced,  therefore,  in  1845  that  a  bridge  from  the  Tylerites  to 
the  new  administration  had  been  firmly  anchored  on  the  twin  pillars 
of  a  patronage  understanding  and  a  joint  commitment  to  Manifest 
Destiny,  the  tenth  President  was  shocked  to  observe  Folk's  ruthless 
purge  of  Tylerite  officeholders  during  the  spring  and  summer  of  1845. 
That  the  Van  Burenites  and  Calhounites  in  the  Democracy  appeared 
initially  to  fare  no  better  at  Folk's  patronage  trough  than  the  Tyler- 
ites was  not  the  point.  The  point  was  that  Folk  used  his  power  of 
appointment  to  surround  himself  with  territorial  expansionists  who  were 
not  Tylerite  expansionists.  He  favored  many  New  York  Conservative 
Democrats  with  appointments  without  recognizing  the  Tylerites  among 
them.  Of  Tyler's  Cabinet  and  top  officialdom  only  John  Y.  Mason  of 
Virginia  and  Charles  A.  Wickliffe  of  Kentucky  were  retained  by  Polk. 
Mason  became  Young  Hickory's  Attorney  General  and  Wickliffe  was 
sent  as  a  special  agent  to  Texas  to  counteract  lingering  Anglo-French 
antiannexationist  influence  there.  Thus,  while  the  new  administration 
took  on  the  character  of  a  Dixie-Hunker  Democratic  operation,  the 
Tylerites  were  scrupulously  excluded  from  its  patronage  benefits.  More 
disturbingly,  they  were  actively  removed  to  make  way  for  Polkites  who 
were  no  more  anti-Barnburner  or  pro-annexationist  than  the  Tyler 
partisans  they  replaced. 

Tyler's  disillusionment  with  Polk  grew  as  reports  of  the  first  re- 
movals reached  Sherwood  Forest.  As  early  as  March  27,  1845,  Julia's 
dressmaker  in  Washington  inaccurately  informed  her  that  Army  officers 
who  had  been  close  to  the  social  life  of  the  White  House  during  Julia's 
reign  were  being  transferred  to  remote  stations.  Four  days  later  N.  M. 
Miller  told  Alexander  Gardiner  that  Folk's  "work  of  decapitation"  was 
under  way  in  the  capital.  This  action  he  attributed  to  the  influence 
of  the  Democracy's  Locofoco  clique  at  the  White  House,  particularly 
Francis  P.  Blair  and  the  Washington  Globe,  who  were  "rabid  and 
clamorous  for  the  removal  of  every  Tyler  man."  He  felt  that  Tyler 
"would  do  well  to  profit  by  the  moral  of  the  fable  of  little  Red  Riding 
Hood  and  the  wolf."  The  fact  that  Polk  withdrew  Tom  Cooper's 
nomination  for  Surveyor  of  the  Port  of  Philadelphia  from  the  Senate 
produced  great  alarm  within  the  family.  "I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to  ac- 
count for  this,"  said  Alexander,  "for  there  was  certainly  a  right  to 
expect  a  very  different  course  of  action."  4 

Indeed  there  was.  So  upset  was  Alexander  over  these  shocking 
developments  that  he  composed  a  stiff  letter  to  Polk  recalling  Tyler's 

315 


aid  in  the  1844  campaign  and  arguing  the  right  of  every  Democrat  to 
be  "retained  in  office  until  the  expiration  of  his  term."  The  Tylerites 
were  Folk's  friends,  Alexander  reminded  the  new  President.  "Turn 
them  out  they  become  your  enemies.  Do  those  by  whom  you  supplant 
them  become  your  friends?  No.  They  are  the  friends  of  the  partisans 
through  whose  influence  they  have  become  appointed — of  Mr.  Dallas, 
of  Mr.  Buchanan,  of  Mr.  Walker,  of  Mr.  Ben  ton,  of  Mr.  Wright,  promi- 
nent gentlemen  around  the  throne  and  candidates  for  the  successor."  5 

Polk  needed  no  gratuitous  lecture  on  the  patronage  realities  of 
factional  politics.  He  had  been  in  the  business  a  long  time.  And  nothing 
from  Alexander  Gardiner's  pen  could  stay  his  decision  to  place  into 
office  and  retain  in  office  men  loyal  only  to  himself — not  to  John  Tyler 
or  anyone  else.  He  did,  however,  relent  in  the  case  of  Tom  Cooper  and 
appoint  the  sixty-nine-year-old  actor  to  an  inspectorship  in  the  New 
York  Customs  House.  But  by  April  the  other  Tylerites  in  Gotham  were 
reported  by  Alexander  "resting  quietly"  and  insecurely  amid  growing 
rumors  of  planned  proscriptions.  Only  the  Plebeian  among  the  New  York 
papers  gave  them  "even  a  negative  support."  This  dangerous  situation  led 
Alexander  to  the  rueful  conclusion  that  the  support  of  the  press  was  of 
more  political  consequence  in  the  long  run  "than  the  most  extensive 
patronage  without  it  —  its  value  cannot  be  magnified."  With  the 
Aurora  defunct  and  no  Tylerite  newspaper  outlet  in  the  city,  the  future 
for  the  ex-President's  friends  there  looked  grim.  Not  quite  as  grim  as  in 
Philadelphia,  where  the  coming  of  May  found  all  the  Tylerites  "de- 
capitated," but  black  enough.  The  Philadelphia  story,  thought  Margaret, 
was  clear  evidence  of  the  "coldest  ingratitude  that  one  could  be  capable 
of."  6 

By  May  1845  the  New  York  City  purge  was  also  on  in  earnest 
and  a  worried  Juliana  informed  Sherwood  Forest  that  "the  Tyler  men 
meet  but  little  quarter  under  the  present  administration."  Among  the 
first  to  go  was  William  Gibbs  McNeilL  Pressure  was  also  building  up 
on  Polk  for  the  removal  of  John  Lorimer  Graham  and  Cornelius  P.  Van 
Ness.  "The  Van  Buren  and  Anti-Texas  men  seem  to  be  strong  at 
headquarters,"  Alexander  noted  sadly.  Whatever  its  ideological  cutting 
edge,  the  anti-Tylerite  axe  struck  Postmaster  Graham  on  May  6  and 
he  left  the  lush  office  amid  a  clamor  of  charges  that  his  conduct  of  the 
New  York  City  Post  Office  had  not  been  without  personal  gain.  The 
family  was  certain  that  his  removal — and  that  of  McNeill — demon- 
strated the  Van  Burenist  leanings  of  Polk.  Actually,  Polk  had  no  such 
clear-cut  orientation;  he  was  no  Locofoco,  but  his  abrupt  removal  of 
Collector  Van  Ness  in  June  did  nothing  to  disabuse  the  Gardiners  and 
Tylers  of  that  notion.  "The  conduct  of  Mr.  Polk,"  opined  Alexander, 
"appears  to  me  to  have  been  cold  and  ungrateful  in  the  extreme  and 
may  lead  to  the  defeat  of  the  Democratic  party  in  '48."  7 

A  feeling  of  betrayal  by  Polk  stalked  the  family  circle  as  Nathaniel 

316 


P.  Tallmadge  fell  in  Wisconsin  and  Silas  Reed  in  Missouri.  Close  per- 
sona! and  political  associates  of  Tyler  were  also  purged  in  Ohio  and 
in  Illinois.  Tyler  accurately  termed  it  "an  unrelenting  war  against  the 
few  sincere  friends  I  left  in  office/'  noting  to  Alexander  that  "the  blood 
of  the  martyr  is  said  to  be  the  seed  of  the  church — nous  perrons — I 
watch  in  silence  the  course  of  events."  8 

The  longer  Tyler  watched,  the  more  angry  he  became.  Particularly 
humiliating  to  him  was  the  way  Polk  toyed  with  his  brother-in-law, 
N.  M.  Miller,  first  demoting  Mm  from  Second  Assistant  Postmaster 
General  to  Third  Assistant,  then  purging  him  altogether.  At  the  same 
time,  attempts  by  William  Tyler,  the  ex-President's  brother,  and  Robert 
Tyler  to  secure  modest  patronage  positions  from  Polk  met  with  cool 
indifference  in  the  White  House.  Tyler  had  accommodated  Polk's 
brother,  it  was  recalled  in  the  family,  but  the  return  favor  seemed 
beyond  Young  Hickory's  sense  of  moral  obligation.9 

Tyler's  frustration  increased  daily.  A  rumor  that  Secretary  Ban- 
croft had  unceremoniously  removed  the  former  President's  portrait 
from  a  wall  in  the  Navy  Department  disturbed  the  Sherwood  Foresters 
a  great  deal,  as  did  their  growing  realization  that  Polk  was  neither 
a  man  of  his  word  nor  a  sagacious  politician.  Only  Polk's  Mexican 
policy  reconciled  Tyler  at  all  to  the  new  regime: 

I  left  some  two  hundred  personal  friends  in  office  [Tyler  noted  in  Septem- 
ber] who  were  also  the  warm,  active  and  determined  friends  of  Mr.  Polk 
in  the  late  contest — a  small  number  in  comparison  to  the  40,000  officeholders. 
They  have  been  for  the  most  part  removed  or  superseded.  Some  half  dozen 

remain I  cannot  but  sympathize  with  them — but  I  go  no  further.  I 

shall  neither  seek  to  augment  their  discomfort  or  desire  to  encourage  it — 
but  I  cannot  but  express  the  belief  that  Mr.  Polk  wars  upon  himself  in 
permitting  war  on  them.  They  were  his  true  friends — men  who  would  have 
battled  for  him  at  every  step  of  his  administration . . .  they  may  still  do  so, 
and  my  hope  is  that  they  will. ...  I  consider  him  entitled  to  the  support  of 
the  whole  country  for  his  course  on  the  Texas  question  as  far  as  develop- 
ments have  gone. . . . 

The  whole  administration,  General  John  P.  Van  Ness  agreed,  was  po- 
litically "very  contemptible."  10 

Not  surprisingly,  the  prestige  of  the  Polk  administration  sank 
rapidly  and  steadily  within  the  Tyler- Gar  diner  family  as  Young  Hickory 
snuffed  out  the  precarious  life  of  the  Tyler  faction.  Tyler  himself  be- 
came persuaded  that  Polk's  proscription  of  the  Tylerites  could  only 
result  in  a  Whig  victory  in  1848.  "If  Polk  had  played  his  game  wisely," 
he  confided  to  Robert  in  the  summer  of  1848,  "he  would  have  recon- 
solidated  the  old  Republican  party. . . .  Such  was  my  policy;  but  he 
destroyed,  I  fear,  all  that  I  built  up,  by  the  proscriptions  of  my  friends." 
In  this  analysis  Alexander  concurred.11 

As  the  sands  of  the  arena  soaked  up  the  blood  of  Tylerite  mar- 

317 


tyrs,  Juliana  and  Margaret  urged  Alexander  to  disengage  himself  en- 
tirely from  the  sordid  world  of  politics.  He  was  simply  wasting  his 
time  and  his  money  because  Polk  was  in  "no  way  friendly  to  the  Tyler 
party."  "Oh!  these  politics/7  lamented  Juliana,  "I  pity  anyone  who 
depends  upon  popular  favor  for  preferment  or  happiness  ...  it  is  in- 
deed a  broken  reed."  Alexander  would  not  accept  their  well-meaning 
advice.  He  enjoyed  politics  whatever  the  cost,  and  he  continued  playing 
the  game  within  Tammany  Hall  well  into  1846.  Letters  from  his  busy 
quill  praising  the  Tyler  administration's  patriotic  sagacity  in  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas  continued  to  appear  in  New  York  newspapers.  Against 
increasing  odds  he  struggled  to  maintain  a  hard  core  Tylerite  cadre 
within  Tammany  Hall  in  the  vain  hope  that  the  political  roulette  wheel 
would  again  come  up  with  John  Tyler  in  1848.  For  this  reason  he  held 
onto  his  Circuit  Court  clerkship  with  the  tenacity  of  a  boa  constrictor.12 

At  least  Alexander  had  a  clerkship.  Robert  Tyler  could  point  to  no 
such  lasting  benefit  from  his  own  involvement  with  his  father's  political 
fortunes.  He  had  given  up  his  post  in  the  Land  Office  in  1844  and  had 
sought  and  secured  no  other  office  prior  to  Tyler's  departure  from  the 
White  House  in  1845.  He  now  had  no  prospect  that  Polk  would  bestow 
one  upon  him.  In  subordinating  his  Philadelphia  law  practice  to  Tylerite 
politics,  he  had  reaped  financial  hardship  and  a  distraught  wife.  Over- 
whelmed by  poverty,  family  illnesses,  and  the  tragic  deaths  of  her 
babies  (Mary  Fairlee  in  1845  and  John  in  1846),  Priscilla,  like  Margaret 
and  Juliana,  viewed  the  alleged  advantages  of  political  life  with  reserva- 
tion. In  fact,  the  distressed  woman  suffered  a  complete  nervous  break- 
down in  1846  under  the  impact  of  economic  privation  and  personal 
sorrow.  She  was  just  beginning  to  recover  her  health  and  cheerfulness 
when  her  father  died  in  April  1849.  This  blow  was  followed  three  months 
later  by  the  death  of  her  infant  son,  Thomas  Cooper  Tyler,  at  age  one 
year.  Again  she  was  cast  into  gloom.  Throughout  these  desperate  years 
she  pleaded  with  her  husband  to  abandon  politics  and  concentrate  on  his 
lagging  law  practice. 

But  Robert  Tyler,  like  Alexander  Gardiner,  could  not  and  would 
not  disengage  from  the  political  process.  Whatever  its  sacrifices,  and  for 
his  family  they  were  considerable,  he  gambled  with  politics  until  he  died. 
And  he  died  poor.  In  1847  James  Buchanan  was  instrumental  in  secur- 
ing for  him  an  appointment  as  Solicitor  in  the  Philadelphia  Sheriff's 
Office,  a  minor  post  which  assured  him  a  small  annual  income.  After  a 
discouraging  start,  his  law  practice  gradually  grew,  although  it  never 
really  prospered.  In  1850  he  was  appointed  Prothonotary  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Pennsylvania,  an  office  he  held  until  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil 
War  when  he  fled  to  Virginia  to  cast  his  lot  with  the  Confederacy.  This 
post  finally  brought  Robert  a  modest  measure  of  financial  security  and 
enabled  him  to  move  his  family  from  the  tiny  cottage  in  Bristol  into  a 
new  home  on  Rowlandson's  Row  in  Philadelphia.  By  1852  he  was  largely 


out  of  debt  and  Prlscilla  was  occasionally  able  to  entertain  "the  best 
people"  In  town.  The  Robert  Tylers  were  never  really  well  off,  but 
during  the  18503  they  were  comfortable  and  they  managed  to  stay  a 
short  hop  ahead  of  their  creditors.  Priscilla  had  three  more  children  dur- 
ing the  decade,  all  of  whom  lived. 

Robert,  of  course,  continued  playing  the  political  game.  From 
1848  until  1860  he  was  one  of  Buchanan's  trusted  political  lieutenants 
in  Philadelphia,  specializing  in  mustering  the  Irish-American  vote  there 
for  the  greater  glory  of  "Old  Buck"  and  his  Pennsylvania  machine. 
Indeed,  he  played  a  major  role  in  Buchanan's  nomination  in  Cincinnati 
in  1856,  and  two  years  later  he  was  named  Chairman  of  the  Democratic 
Executive  Committee  of  Pennsylvania,  a  post  which  paid  in  the  coin  of 
prestige  only.  His  political  career,  however,  was  solidly  Buchanan-based 
after  1848.  Polk  did  nothing  for  him  and  Robert  returned  the  favor.13 

Julia's  attitude  toward  the  Polk  administration  was  no  more  en- 
thusiastic than  that  of  the  other  members  of  the  family.  It  gave  her  a 
wry  pleasure,  of  course,  to  learn  that  Sarah  Polk's  White  House  reign 
was  considered  in  Washington  social  circles  to  be  downright  dull.  It  was, 
Alexander  assured  her,  viewed  with  "general  indifference."  Sarah's  nar- 
row Methodism  would  not  permit  any  drinking,  card  playing,  or  dancing 
in  the  White  House.  For  this  reason  her  four-year  tenure  in  the  Presi- 
dent's Mansion  was  generally  dubbed  a  social  failure  from  beginning 
to  end,  though  it  was  cheered  by  the  prohibitionists  and  certain  lunatic- 
fringe  ecclesiastical  groups  as  a  great  triumph  of  Christian  virtue.  When 
Alexander  went  to  the  capital  in  February  1846  to  head  of!  a  Tammany 
raid  on  Ms  clerkship,  he  found  the  President  "excessively  plain  and 
equally  devoid  of  manner  and  tact  in  conversation."  From  a  strictly 
social  standpoint,  he  told  Julia,  Washington  was  "not  by  any  means 
what  it  was  last  winter."  The  only  party  he  enjoyed  was  a  jam-packed 
affair  at  the  home  of  the  John  Y.  Masons,  where  "the  floor  drank  as 
much  champagne  as  the  guests,  and  it  was  an  even  chance  whether  the 
viands  once  lifted  would  reach  the  mouth  or  take  some  other  direction." 
Nor  was  Julia  convinced  that  the  new  President,  whatever  his  short- 
comings as  a  host,  was  a  man  of  sound  judgment.  When  she  learned, 
for  example,  that  Polk  had  offered  the  London  mission  to  her  old  flame, 
Francis  W.  Pickens,  she  wondered  at  the  common  sense  of  Young 
Hickory.  "What  an  incompetent  Minister  he  would  make  at  this  crisis," 
she  exclaimed.  "His  talents  are  quite  too  superficial  for  an  emergency." 
She  was  relieved  to  hear  a  few  days  later  that  Pickens  had  turned  down 
the  post  on  Calhoun's  urging,  the  South  Carolinian  wanting  no  such 
close  connection  with  the  new  administration.14 

Julia's  disenchantment  with  Polk  stemmed  from  her  unquestioning 
acceptance  of  the  family  thesis  that  the  new  President  was  a  Jacksonian 
mouthpiece,  a  Locofoco  radical,  who  was  purging  the  Tylerites  because 
of  their  sane  and  patriotic  political  conservatism.  Jackson  had  never 

319 


been  a  favorite  in  the  Gardiner  family,  and  from  Julia's  standpoint 
Young  Hickory  was  no  improvement  over  Old  Hickory.  Both  were 
dangerous  levelers.  Thus  when  the  Old  Warrior  of  the  Hermitage  finally 
died  in  June  1845  no  tears  were  shed  at  Sherwood  Forest  or  at  43  La- 
fayette Place.  Indeed,  when  citizens  in  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth  invited 
•Tyler  to  deliver  a  eulogy  to  Jackson,  Julia  reported  her  husband  "in  a 
complete  dilemma  for  he  does  not  see  how  he  can  decline  it  without 
giving  offense."  Tyler,  of  course,  did  not  decline.  He  was  too  much  of 
a  gentleman.  He  went  through  with  it.  Alexander  also  managed  a 
gracious  gesture  to  Jackson's  memory  at  the  Shelter  Island  Fourth  of 
July  celebration.  Nevertheless,  the  family  was  not  overcome  by  sorrow 
when  Andrew  Jackson  was  gathered  unto  his  fathers.  They  had  a  strong 
suspicion,  not  unfounded,  that  the  Polk  purge  of  the  Tylerites  had  been 
encouraged  by  the  palsied  hand  of  the  aged  General.  Jackson  had,  in 
fact,  written  Polk  soon  after  the  1844  election  that  "the  offices  are 
filling  up  by  Tyler,  so  that  all  his  partisans  must  remain  in  office  or 
you  be  compelled  to  remove  them give  yourself  elbow  room  when- 
ever it  becomes  necessary."  That  Tyler  had  appointed  Jackson's  nephew, 
Andrew  J.  Donelson,  United  States  charge  in  Mexico  in  September 
1844  did  not  temper  the  vindictiveness  of  the  Hero  of  New  Orleans.  To 
the  victors  belonged  the  spoils.15 

Nothing  disturbed  Julia  quite  so  much  as  partisan  attacks  (she 
considered  them  Polk-inspired)  on  her  husband's  reputation,  on  his 
personal  integrity,  and  on  his  political  beliefs.  His  enemies  were  her 
enemies;  and  his  struggle  for  Clio's  accolade  became  her  struggle.  It 
was  a  time-consuming  occupation  during  her  first  years  at  Sherwood 
Forest.  Indeed,  the  entire  family  devoted  considerable  time  and  effort 
to  the  project  of  monitoring  newspapers  for  references  to  the  Tyler 
administration  and  its  works.  Pro-Tyler  notices  were  happily  circulated 
throughout  the  family  circle  and  attempts  were  made  to  have  them 
reprinted  in  other  journals.  Criticisms  of  the  ex-President  were  vigor- 
ously contested  in  letters  by  Robert,  Alexander  and  John  Tyler  himself 
to  the  editors  involved.  Hiram  Cumming's  expose  The  Secret  History  of 
the  Tyler  Dynasty  was  branded  the  tissue  of  lies  it  was,  and  exception 
was  taken  to  various  statements  and  judgments  in  the  generally  accurate 
Mordecai  Noah  series  on  the  Tyler  administration  which  appeared  in 
the  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch  in  early  1846.  "He  represents  as  facts 
things  and  affairs  very  new  to  the  President,"  said  Julia  in  some  be- 
wilderment. Many  of  the  personal  attacks  on  himself  Tyler  felt  were 
"too  gross  to  regard,  still  there  are  so  many  who  are  kept  ignorant  of 
facts  it  is  hard  to  resist  opening  their  eyes."  Defenses  of  Tyler's  ad- 
ministration penned  by  Robert  and  Alexander  were  sent  first  to  Sher- 
wood Forest,  where  they  were  edited  and  amended  by  Tyler  before 
reaching  print.  Conversely,  Tyler's  own  remarks  in  defense  of  his 
policies  were  placed  in  New  York  newspapers  whenever  possible  by 

320 


Alexander.  Reprints  were  obtained  and  then  distributed  to  former  Tyler- 
ite  chieftains  throughout  the  nation.16 

The  ex-President  was  particularly  sensitive  to  the  charge  that  his 
advocacy  of  Texas  annexation  had  been  a  manifestation  of  slavocracy 
rampant.  He  was  also  easily  upset  by  the  slur  that  he  had  been  a  "Presi- 
dent by  accident."  When,  for  example.  Lord  Brougham  used  the  ob- 
noxious phrase  ("The  miserable  slang  of  Clay  and  his  satellites/3  Tyler 
called  it)  in  an  1845  House  of  Lords  speech  attacking  Tyler  on  the 
Texas  issue,  the  remark  was  challenged  by  the  Philadelphia  Ledger  with 
the  observation  that  Victoria  herself  was  "Queen  by  accident."  Tyler 
was  delighted  with  the  Ledgers  comment  and  sought  to  have  it  re- 
printed in  other  papers.  After  all,  said  the  former  President,  Victoria  had 
come  to  "the  crown  by  the  death  of  her  predecessors  as  I  to  the  Presi- 
dency by  the  death  of  the  President." 

Alexander  was  instructed  to  compose  defenses  of  Tyler's  Texas 
policy,  emphasizing  the  point  that  Tyler  had  no  interest  in  the  slavery- 
expansion  feature  of  annexation.  These  appeared,  sometimes  anony- 
mously, under  such  titles  as  "The  Voice  of  the  Impartial  as  to  the  Ad- 
ministration of  John  Tyler."  JuHa  made  it  clear  to  her  brother  precisely 
what  Tyler  wanted  from  him  in  these  matters  relating  to  his  historical 
reputation: 

I  will  tell  you  also  what  the  President  /  know  privately  wishes;  that  you 
would  not  overlook  the  misrepresentations,  when  they  appear  in  the  papers, 
of  him,  to  pass  unnoticed.  It  cannot  be  best  for  no  one  to  come  forward  in 
New  York  to  notice  them  and  let  untruths  as  regards  the  acts,  etc.  of  the 
President's  administration  be  disseminated  far  and  wide.  When  they  appear 
in  Philadelphia  papers  Robert  T.,  I  perceive,  invariably  corrects  them  over 

Ms  signature,  and  why  should  not  you  do  the  same Whenever  such 

misrepresentations  as  the  one  I  enclose  appear  and  another  which  the  Presi- 
dent himself  noticed  to  you  a  few  mails  since,  it  is  proper  they  should  meet 
your  attention  . . .  with  your  own  full  signature  at  the  bottom.17 

Julia  had  no  intention  of  being  remembered  as  the  First  Lady  of  an 
administration  history  would  count  a  failure.  She  was  therefore  un- 
remitting in  her  efforts  to  set  Clio  straight  before  the  histories  were 
written.  While  the  Tyler  administration  had  not  been  as  pure  morally  as 
driven  snow,  it  had  been  uncommonly  free  of  the  petty  corruption  that 
had  characterized  previous  administrations.  Its  foreign  policy  had  been 
a  series  of  dramatic  successes  and  the  failures  of  its  domestic  policies, 
however  evaluated  by  future  historians,  had  at  least  been  founded  on  an 
honest  effort  to  find  areas  of  accommodation  among  moderate  Whigs 
and  Democrats.  Its  patronage  record  had  been  neither  more  nor  less 
venal  than  those  of  the  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  administrations.  Com- 
pared with  Polk's  patronage  ethics,  Tyler's  seemed  almost  pristine. 
Tyler's  word  was  his  bond  in  such  matters.  There  was  also  the  larger 

321 


question  of  the  constitutional  status  of  the  Vice-Presidency,  the  reso- 
lution of  which  could  be  counted  a  solid  plus  for  Tyler.  "If  the  tide  of 
defamation  and  abuse  shall  turn/3  he  told  Robert  in  1848,  "and  my 
administration  come  to  be  praised,  future  Vice  Presidents  who  may 
succeed  to  the  Presidency  may  feel  some  slight  encouragement  to  pur- 
sue an  independent  course."  The  alternative  to  this  would  be  Vice- 
Presidents  so  frightened  by  their  accession  to  the  Presidency  that  "the 
executive  power  will  be  completely  in  abeyance  and  Congress  will  unite 
the  legislative  and  executive  functions.37 1S 

Julia  thought  the  nation  should  understand  and  appreciate  these 
things,  and  she  urged  the  active  cooperation  of  the  entire  family  in  un- 
tangling the  record  before  it  was  twisted  further.  She  was  not  as  con- 
cerned as  were  Robert  and  Alexander  that  her  husband  stay  available 
for  the  1848  Democratic  nomination.  She  demanded  only  that  he  re- 
ceive historical  justice  for  what  he  had  accomplished  in  the  White 
House.  Even  her  family  complained  sometimes  that  she  was  "too  sensi- 
tive" to  criticisms  of  the  ex-President.  She  was  pleased  to  note,  there- 
fore, that  several  newspapers  long  hostile  to  Tyler  began  in  April  1846 
to  treat  her  husband  more  gently.  "After  exhausting  their  abuse,  they 
have  come  to  see  that  John  Tyler's  administration  left  the  country  in 
the  most  prosperous  and  happy  condition . . .  this  is  the  language  of 
the  U.S.  Gazette  and  other  Whig  papers  of  Philadelphia.  Pray  keep  us 
au  fait  of  any  change  of  opinion  in  N.Y.,"  she  instructed  Alexander.19 
The  family  was  particularly  pleased — grateful  for  small  favors — 
when  the  good  ladies  of  Brazoria  County,  Texas,  saw  fit  to  present  Tyler 
a  lovely  silver  pitcher  in  gratitude  for  his  leading  role  in  the  annexation 
of  the  Lone  Star  Republic.  The  unexpected  gift  arrived  at  Sherwood 
Forest  on  New  Year's  Day  1846,  and  Tyler,  deeply  touched  by  the 
gesture,  responded  with  a  gracious  letter  of  thanks  which  received  as 
much  national  publicity  as  had  the  fact  of  the  gift  itself.  Margaret 
impishly  suggested  that  "a  grant  of  a  thousand  or  two  acres  of  the  best 
Texas  land"  would  have  made  a  somewhat  more  impressive  gift,  but  the 
family  was  really  much  affected  by  the  present.2<> 

The  Brazoria  pitcher  symbolized  the  fact  that  some  of  the  old  anti- 
Tyler  passions  were  slowly  dying  out,  Tyler  did  much  to  bank  the 
partisan  fires  himself.  In  May  1846  he  went  to  Washington  (his  first 
return  visit  there  since  March  1845)  to  appear  as  a  witness  before  the 
House  Foreign  Affairs  Committee.  A  month  earlier,  Democratic  Repre- 
sentative Charles  J.  Ingersoll  of  Pennsylvania  had  charged  Daniel 
Webster  with  a  misuse  of  money  from  the  Secret  Service  Fund  in  1842. 
Secretary  of  State  Webster,  it  was  alleged,  had  employed  the  money  to 
bribe  newspaper  editors  and  the  Boundary  Commissioners  of  Maine  and 
Massachusetts.  This,  said  Ingersoll,  had  been  done  to  insure  public 
acceptance  of  the  Maine  Boundary  Treaty  which  Webster  and  Tyler 
had  negotiated  with  Lord  Ashburton  in  the  full  knowledge  that  Ameri- 

322 


can  claims  to  the  disputed  territory  were  better  cartographically  and 
stronger  legally  than  the  final  territorial  settlement  had  reflected.  In 
sum,  the  smell  of  treason  permeated  the  Ingersoll  charge,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  Pennsylvania's  further  Imputation  that  Webster  had  also  dipped 
money  out  of  the  Fund  for  his  personal  use. 

As  keeper  of  the  Secret  Service  Fund  In  1842  Tyler  was  by  direct 
implication  a  party  to  the  Ingersoll  attack  on  Webster,  and  he  hastened 
to  the  capital  to  support  Ms  former  Secretary.  Representative  Thomas 
H.  Bayley  of  Virginia,  representing  the  Charles  City  district  in  Wash- 
ington, defended  Tyler  on  the  floor  of  the  House  against  any  suggestion 
of  wrongdoing,  although  his  defense  was  not  as  vigorous  as  Alexander 
thought  the  situation  demanded.  Similarly,  an  attack  on  Tyler's  honesty 
and  integrity  in  the  Fund  matter  by  the  alcoholic  and  unstable  Virginia 
Representative  George  C.  Dromgoole  rankled  the  family  circle  a  great 
deal.  Webster  in  Ms  own  defense  stated  publicly  that  throughout  the 
Maine  Boundary  negotiations  he  had  acted  under  the  constant  counsel 
and  direction  of  Tyler.  Nonetheless,  he  said  he  was  quite  prepared  to 
answer  IngersolPs  charges  without  reference  to  that  fact.  He  did,  how- 
ever, solicit  Tyler's  testimony  on  the  question.  The  whole  thing,  said 
Julia,  was  merely  additional  evidence  of  calculated  "injustice  to  John 
Tyler."  She  dismissed  Dromgoole  as  an  embittered  antiannexationist 
and  Van  Burenite.  "You  may  depend  upon  it  the  President  will  stand 
by  Daniel  Webster,"  Julia  assured  Margaret.  "He  alone  directed  [the 
treaty]  and  he  alone  deserves  any  credit  or  abuse  attached  to  it."21 

Tyler's  heralded  appearance  before  the  Ingersoll  committee  was 
anticlimactic.  With  a  sure  grasp  of  the  facts  and  figures  of  the  Secret 
Service  Fund,  he  demonstrated  the  mathematical  impossibility  of  Inger- 
solFs  charges.  There  just  was  not  enough  money  in  the  Fund  to  finance 
all  the  alleged  sins.  It  was  an  impressive,  convincing,  and  dignified 
exposition,  and  the  committee's  deference  to  Mm  increased  proportion- 
ally as  the  charges  against  Webster  slowly  collapsed.  Still,  the  partisan 
maneuverings  of  the  politicians  on  the  Fund  issue  disgusted  htm.  "I 
turn  my  back  upon  the  miserable  set ...  with  indescribable  pleasure," 
he  told  Robert  as  he  prepared  to  return  home  to  Sherwood  Forest.  With 
philosopMc  resignation  he  concluded  that  he  would  probably  have  to 
expect  continued  indirect  attacks  of  the  Ingersoll-Dromgoole  sort  until 
the  campaign  of  1848  when  "the  courtsMp  for  my  friends  will  begin."  22 

The  May  1846  trip  to  Washington  did  afford  Tyler  an  opportunity 
to  visit  his  friends  in  the  capital.  Dinner  with  Polk  at  the  White  House 
was  uneventful.  The  table  conversation  centered  on  the  Mexican  War 
(which  had  begun  two  weeks  earlier)  rather  than  on  domestic  political 
developments.  The  purge  of  the  Tylerites  was  not  broached  by  the 
former  President.  Following  this  standoff  with  Young  Hickory,  the 
John  Y.  Masons,  Daniel  Websters,  and  Robert  J.  Walkers  came  forward 
to  entertain  him.  The  former  President  was  wined  and  dined  and  called 

323 


upon  until  he  was  fatigued.  "One  unbroken  stream  has  flowed  in  upon 
me  during  the  whole  time  that  I  have  been  here/'  he  wrote  Robert.  "This 
has  been  gratifying . . .  [but]  my  harvest  is  about  beginning,  and  home 
is  my  place."  So  popular  had  John  Tyler  apparently  become  in  Wash- 
ington that  N.  M.  Miller  was  moved  to  remark  that  "a  stranger  would 
have  inferred  that  he  was  still  the  dispenser  of  patronage.77  Indeed, 
concluded  John  Lorimer  Graham,  "there  is  [now]  a  disposition  to 
render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's.  A  comparison  is  now 
drawn  between  the  past  and  present  administration  of  public  affairs  in 
almost  every  circle,  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  former.  We  have 
always  said  that  History  would  do  justice  to  our  friend. . . ."  2B 

If  Clio  had  manufactured  for  Tyler  the  beginning  of  a  Mona  Lisa 
smile,  the  glad  tidings  were  not  conveyed  to  John  C.  Calhoun.  The  iron- 
jawed  and  iron-willed  Carolinian,  whose  ego  was  exceeded  only  by  his 
intellectual  arrogance,  decided  in  February  1847  ^at  ne  and  ne  alone 
had  unilaterally  annexed  the  Republic  of  Texas  to  the  United  States.  "I 
may  now  rightfully  and  indisputably  claim,"  said  Calhoun  without 
noticeable  modesty,  "to  be  the  author  of  that  great  measure — &  measure 
which  has  so  much  extended  the  domains  of  the  Union;  which  added 
so  largely  to  its  productive  powers ;  which  promises  so  greatly  to  extend 
its  commerce;  which  has  stimulated  its  industry,  and  given  security  to 
our  much  exposed  frontier.73  More  alarming  to  Tyler,  Calhoun's  claim 
minimized  the  national  economic  advantages  of  annexation  and  identi- 
fied the  action  with  the  South's  interest  in  slavery  expansion.24 

Senator  Calhoun's  wild  grab  for  the  historical  accolade  of  Texas 
annexation,  an  accolade  properly  Tyler's  and  one  on  which  Honest  John 
had  painstakingly  constructed  his  personal  appeal  to  history,  produced 
nothing  less  than  outrage  in  the  Tyler-Gardiner  family.  Alexander  found 
very  little  "South  Carolina  chivalry"  in  Calhoun's  speech,  and  he  ad- 
vised the  former  President  to  prepare  a  memoir  of  his  administration 
which  would  put  the  Texas  matter  in  its  proper  light.  For  a  few  weeks 
Tyler  seriously  considered  his  brother-in-law's  suggestion.  Even  if  an 
autobiographical  exposition  of  his  foreign  policy  would  be  "of  no  value 
to  the  great  crowd/'  it  might,  he  thought,  be  "acceptable  to  those  who 
may  come  after  me."  He  was  extremely  upset  by  Calhoun's  impertinence. 
"Was  there  ever  anything  to  surpass  in  selfishness  the  assumption  of 
Mr.  Calhoun?"  he  asked  heatedly.  "He  assumes  everything  to  himself, 
overlooks  his  associates  in  the  Cabinet,  and  takes  the  reins  of  the  gov- 
ernment into  his  own  hands He  is  the  great  fl  am/  and  myself  and 

Cabinet  have  no  voice  in  the  matter."  Instead  of  an  extensive  personal 
memoir  (the  "building  up  and  reclaiming  an  estate  which  had  been 
permitted  well  nigh  to  run  to  waste"  left  him  with  no  time  to  write  an 
autobiography),  Tyler  dispatched  two  dignified  letters  to  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  patiently  explaining  again  the  national  character  of  annexation 
and  the  commercial  and  economic  motives  that  had  influenced  his  ac- 

324 


tions  and  thinking  in  the  matter.  At  the  same  time,  he  assured  Alexan- 
der that  Calhoun's  narrowing  of  the  Texas  question  "to  the  compara- 
tively contemptible  ground  of  Southern  and  local  interest"  had  dis- 
stressed  Mm  more  than  the  South  Carolinian's  arrogant  claim  of  sole 
authorship,  "for  it  substantially  converted  the  executive  into  a  mere 
Southern  agency  in  place  of  being  what  it  truly  was — the  representative 
of  American  interests . . .  and  if  ever  there  was  an  American  question, 
then  Texas  was  that  very  question."  Alexander  and  Robert  were  both 
urged  to  see  to  it  that  the  Richmond  Enquirer  letters  were  reprinted  in 
Northern  papers,  and  that  Tyler's  interpretation  of  the  national  char- 
acter of  Texas  annexation  be  brought  once  more  to  the  attention  of  the 
Northern  public.25 

Julia  thought  Calhoun's  February  24  Texas  speech  "the  height  of 
impudence."  She  too  was  distressed  that  the  South  Carolinian  had  un- 
necessarily stirred  up  the  slavery  issue,  and  she  advised  Alexander  that 
her  husband  could  not  let  that  phase  of  the  matter  pass  unnoticed. 
Robert  Tyler  immediately  challenged  Calhoun's  statement  in  a  series  of 
private  letters  to  the  senator.  These  produced  no  an^w^rs  and  no 
satisfaction.  Juliana  again  threw  up  her  hands  in  despair  over  the 
morality  of  politics  and  politicians.  "It  is  rather  late  in  the  day  for  Mr. 
C.  to  be  claiming  the  honor  of  it,"  she  snorted.  Where  was  Calhoun 
hiding  in  January  1844,  she  wondered,  when  the  Texas  measure  was  still 
unsettled  and  when  "such  heavy  denunciations  were  pronounced  against 
John  Tyler  for  daring  to  effect  it?"  Calhoun  had  remained  silent  then. 
"As  for  President  Tyler,"  she  told  Julia  in  disgust,  "his  laurels  are 
destined  I  fear  to  be  few  if  left  to  be  awarded  by  his  Cabinet.  Webster 
in  relation  to  the  Ashburton  treaty  was  much  more  courteous  in  ad- 
mitting he  acted  under  the  instructions  of  the  President.  Indeed  after 
this  from  Mr.  Calhoun  I  think  Mr.  Wfebster)  acted  a  much  higher 
part."  Toward  Calhoun  personally,  the  family  decided  finally  to  observe 
a  "marked  silence,"  There  was  little  else  they  could  do.26 

The  attempt  to  strip  Tyler  of  his  Texas  laurels  gathered  momentum 
in  1847.  Sam  Houston  began  claiming  that  it  was  Andrew  Jackson  who 
had  really  engineered  annexation.  Tyler,  in  turn,  attacked  Houston  for 
having  slowed  up  the  annexation  process  by  his  pro-British  flirtations 
in  1844-1845.  Meanwhile,  Tyler  was  skewered  by  the  Whig  National 
Intelligencer  for  having  been  influenced  in  his  Texas  policy  by  "the 
speculators  in  Texas  stocks  and  lands  by  whom  he  was  surrounded, 
counseled  and  impelled  to  that  unwise  measure,"  Categorically  denying 
the  latter  charge  and  the  accompanying  innuendo  that  he  had  personally 
profited  by  the  annexation,  Tyler  insisted  again  that  he  "saw  nothing 
but  the  country  and  the  whole  country,  not  this  or  that  section,  this  or 
that  local  interest,  but  the  WHOLE  . . .  the  glory  of  the  whole  country 
in  the  measure,"27 

These  were  the  opening  salvos  in  a  war  for  reputation  that  would 

325 


rage  for  years  as  Tylers  and  Gardlners  fought  to  assure  John  Tyler  full 
historical  credit  for  the  one  great  accomplishment  of  his  public  life.  In 
1848  a  nervous  Tyler  finally  circularized  the  former  members  of  his 
Cabinet,  soliciting  from  them  their  recollections  on  the  annexation  ques- 
tion as  these  might  pertain  to  the  claims  of  Calhoun  and  Houston  and 
to  the  charges  kveled  against  him  by  the  National  Intelligencer.  As  he 
received  their  various  written  testimonials  he  was  satisfied  that  his  own 
mind  had  not  played  tricks  on  him,  and  that  his  point  of  view  would  be 
fully  sustained  in  the  eyes  and  judgment  of  history.  Nevertheless,  as  late 
as  1856-1858  Tyler  was  still  parrying  threats  to  deprive  him  of  the 
historical  glory  of  his  Texas  accomplishment.  Again  he  argued  that 
Calhoun  had  played  no  important  role  in  annexation  ("Mr.  Calhoun 
had  no  more  to  do  with  it  than  a  man  in  Nova  Zembla").  Upshur's  role, 
under  the  President's  daily  direction,  had  been  the  vital  one  in  prepar- 
ing the  treaty,  Tyler  maintained.  Further,  Texas  annexation,  by  gravi- 
tational pull,  had  also  brought  California  into  the  Union.  The  inclusion 
of  California  went  well  beyond  what  Tyler  could  reasonably  claim  for 
his  Texas  Annexation  Treaty,  even  though  he  supported  the  Mexican 
War  which  Polk  brought  on  to  insure  the  additional  acquisition  of 
California.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Tyler's  role  in  Texas  annexa- 
tion was  the  decisive  one.  And  in  boldly  seeing  it  through  he  earned 
his  place  in  American  history,  shaky  as  that  niche  seemed  in  the 
i85os.28 

Although  at  times  Tyler  felt  he  might  truly  detach  himself  from 
the  sting  of  adverse  public  opinion,  the  fact  was  that  every  slight,  every 
misrepresentation  of  his  motives,  cut  his  psyche  deeply.  Nor  did  it  help 
much  to  tell  himself  that  the  opinions  of  the  masses  were  worthless.  "By 
far  the  greater  part  of  them  do  not  think  at  all/7  he  argued.  "The  ma- 
jority of  those  who  do  assert  the  reasoning  facility  conceal  their  opinion 
even  from  themselves  from  fear  of  inflicting  self -injury."  Even  when  he 
was  criticized  in  what  Alexander  assured  him  were  the  "trash  weeklies," 
newspapers  with  absolutely  no  circulation  "among  respectable  classes/' 
Tyler  was  upset.  When  Tyler  was  hurt,  Julia  was  hurt.  She  therefore 
urged  Robert  and  her  brothers  to  continue  their  strict  monitoring  of 
the  press  and  to  report  all  evidences  of  anti-Tylerism  to  Sherwood 
Forest.  Pro-Tyler  references,  of  course,  were  still  to  be  reprinted  and 
circulated  as  widely  as  possible.  So  insistent  and  thin-skinned  was  Julia 
in  this  regard  that  her  mother  finally  admonished  her: 

You  must  not  think  us  so  indifferent  to  the  publications  respecting  the  P. 
We  were  very  sensitive  at  first  and  felt  all  the  slanders  cast  upon  him,  but 
now  we  have  become  wiser  and  let  all  pass  as  something  not  worth  regarding. 
When  a  good  thing  is  said  Alex  and  D  [avid]  are  the  first  to  see  it,  and  speak 
of  it  at  home  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  and  blind  eye  to  all  that  is  bad.  I  should 
think  by  this  time  you  had  arrived  at  the  same  philosophical  state. 

326 


Neither  Julia  nor  her  husband  was  ever  able  to  reach  that  "philosophi- 
cal state."29 


Tyler's  position  on  the  Mexican  War  produced  new  criticisms  to 
which  the  family  could  close  neither  its  ears  nor  eyes.  The  war  split  the 
opinion  of  the  nation  and  brought  James  K,  Polk  under  heavy  attack 
from  abolitionist  Northern  Whigs  and  Democrats  who  maintained  that 
the  President's  war  of  conquest  in  the  Southwest  was  designed  for  no 
purpose  other  than  to  conquer  more  land  for  slavery  expansion — to  se- 
cure bigger  pens  to  put  more  slaves  in.  Ironically,  Tyler  suddenly  found 
himself  publicly  defending  an  administration  he  personally  disliked  and 
a  military  venture  in  Mexico  about  which  he  had  deep-seated  reserva- 
tions. In  addition,  this  defense  of  Polk  brought  him  under  a  brisk  fire 
which  once  again  linked  him  with  the  aggressive  Southern  slavocracy 
and  with  Texas  land  and  stock  speculations.  It  was  a  cruel  dilemma. 
Tyler  tried  to  solve  it  intellectually  by  refusing  to  admit  the  obvious 
fact  that  there  was  a  causal  connection  between  Texas  annexation  and 
the  war  itself.  This  too  was  Alexander's  position,  and  about  the  best  that 
can  be  said  for  it  is  that  it  had  the  advantage  of  separating  the  two  men 
from  the  most  blatant  of  the  warmongers.  "What  does  it  matter  whether 
it  was  caused  by  the  annexation  of  Texas,  or  the  marching  of  the 
American  troops  into  the  territory  between  the  Nueces  and  the  Rio 
Grande?"  Gardiner  asked  in  a  speech  written  for  a  war  rally  in  Tam- 
many Hall.  "The  Historical  or  Antiquarian  Society  can  settle  this  point 
on  some  long  winter  evening."  Actually,  it  mattered  a  great  deal.  The 
Mexican  government  had  long  argued  that  the  annexation  of  its  province 
of  Texas  would  be  an  overt  act  of  war.  True,  no  serious  warlike 
preparations  were  launched  in  Mexico  City  after  the  annexation  was 
formally  completed  by  an  exchange  of  treaty  ratifications  in  July  1845. 
Nor  were  there  any  Mexican  military  preparations  of  significance  until 
Polk  provoked  them  early  in  1846  in  his  eagerness  for  a  war  that  would 
dismember  the  remnants  of  the  Mexican  Empire  and  secure  California, 
New  Mexico,  and  Arizona  to  the  United  States. 

In  this  aggressive  activity  John  Tyler  played  no  part.  He  felt 
privately,  however,  that  Polk's  policy  on  the  Rio  Grande  was  unneces- 
sarily provocative;  and  he  insisted  publicly  that  had  the  Senate  passed 
his  annexation  treaty  when  he  first  submitted  it  to  them  in  April  1844 
there  would  have  been  no  war  at  all.  At  that  crucial  moment  in  1844, 
he  explained,  Anglo-American  relations  had  been  excellent,  thanks  in 
large  measure  to  the  1842  Webster- Ashburton  Treaty  settlement  of  out- 
standing frictions  between  the  two  nations.  A  subsequent  deterioration 
in  these  relations  had  occurred  in  late  1845,  principally  on  the  Oregon 
question.  This  decline  Tyler  traced  to  irresponsible  Democratic  demands 
for  "Fifty-four  Forty  or  Fight!"  and  to  Polk's  Annual  Message  of  De- 

327 


cember  1845  which  implied  that  the  frosty  latitude  was  the  only  settle- 
ment line  in  Oregon  to  which  the  United  States  could  agree.  This  rising 
tension  in  Anglo-American  affairs,  Tyler  further  explained,  had  em- 
boldened the  Mexicans  to  cross  the  Rio  Grande  at  Matamoros  on  April 
24,  1846,  and  contest  General  Zachary  Taylor's  right  to  be  encamped 
in  the  disputed  territory  between  the  Rio  Grande  and  Nueces.  The 
Mexicans,  Tyler's  analysis  continued,  had  earlier  had  no  "hope  of  suc- 
cor, or  aid  from  any  quarter."  In  April  1846,  however,  they  could  look 
to  London  with  some  hope  that  British  assistance  would  be  forthcoming 
in  their  war  with  the  Americans.  More  importantly,  thought  the  former 
President,  the  war  could  only  stimulate  the  rapid  revival  of  the  domestic 
slavery  controversy  and  all  the  political  and  sectional  dangers  inherent 
in  that  smoldering  subject.  It  was  also  clear  to  Tyler  that  in  the  contest 
between  David  and  Goliath  the  American  giant  would  annex  vast 
reaches  of  new  territory  and  the  question  of  whether  those  areas  would 
be  organized  slave  or  free  could  not  long  be  avoided.  He  was  therefore 
completely  sincere  when  he  said,  on  the  eve  of  the  conflict,  "I  should 
deprecate  a  war  as  next  to  the  greatest  of  evils."  30 

Once  Folk's  crusade  into  Mexico  and  California  had  been  set  in 
motion  in  April  1846  Tyler  joined  Alexander  in  publicly  proclaiming  it 
the  most  "just  war"  ever  fought  by  the  American  people.  This  was  for 
the  patriotic  record.  Privately,  Tyler  confessed  to  Alexander  his  concern 
over  the  morality  of  the  unequal  struggle.  But  he  felt  he  could  do  noth- 
ing about  it.  Thus  he  noted  with  resignation  that  "even  if  the  war  be 
improper  in  its  inception,  there  is  no  other  mode  by  which  we  can  get 
out  of  it  with  honor. ...  I  go  for  whipping  Mexico  until  she  cries 
enough."  Tyler,  it  will  be  recalled,  had  been  perfectly  willing  to  dis- 
member the  Mexican  Empire  in  1842,  but  he  had  hoped  to  accomplish 
Ms  aim  without  bloodshed.  There  was  too  much  blood  and  thunder  in 
Polk's  approach  to  suit  him.31 

As  Floyd  Waggaman,  James  A.  Semple,  and  other  Tyler-Gardiner 
kin  marched  off  to  fight  the  Mexicans,  war  fever  swept  through  the  en- 
tire family.  John,  Jr.,  willingly  gave  up  his  languishing  law  studies  in  a 
burst  of  patriotic  fervor.  Girding  himself  for  combat,  he  implored  his 
father  to  help  him  get  a  commission  in  the  Army.  Tyler  agreed  to  try, 
but  only  on  the  condition  that  his  son  promise  to  forswear  the  use  of 
liquor  forever.  John,  Jr.,  accepted  this  condition,  and  Tyler  reluctantly 
asked  Polk  for  the  favor.  The  President  gladly  obliged  his  predecessor 
and  John,  Jr.,  was  soon  Captain  Tyler.  He  saw  no  action  and  quickly 
forgot  his  pledge,  but  he  enjoyed  army  life  immensely.  "Excitement  of 
some  sort  he  must  have,"  sighed  Julia. 

Not  to  be  outdone  by  his  younger  brother,  Robert  Tyler  raised  a 
company  of  Philadelphia  volunteers,  mostly  Irish-Americans,  and 
pleaded  with  Pennsylvania  authorities  for  an  opportunity  to  march  his 
unit  off  to  kill  Mexicans.  The  fact  that  there  was  a  new  baby  in  his 

328 


household  and  that  Priscilla  strenuously  opposed  the  idea  did  nothing 
to  dull  his  ardor  for  service  on  the  Rio  Grande.  When  the  honor  of 
fighting  was  denied  him  by  the  governor,  Robert  was  disconsolate.  Tyler 
comforted  him  with  the  thought  that  the  Rio  Grande  region  was  an 
unhealthy  place  and  that  "few  laurels"  could  be  won  In  such  a  war  any- 
way. He  was  better  off  tending  his  struggling  law  business  and  advanc- 
ing his  political  fortunes  at  home. 

Julia,  meanwhile,  followed  the  war  news  avidly.  She  cheered  each 
predictable  victory  and  wrung  her  hands  over  the  fate  of  the  Mexican 
noncombatants.  "What  thrilling  accounts  every  mail  brings  us  from 
the  seat  of  war/'  she  wrote  to  Margaret.  "The  taking  of  Vera  Cruz 

though  glorious  for  our  arms  was terrible  for  the  poor  women  and 

children."  At  the  same  time  she  devoutly  hoped  that  neither  of  her 
brothers  would  "ever  feel  any  martial  fire  glow  In  [their]  veins/7  and 
that  neither  would  join  the  glorious  crusade  to  Mexico  City.  Neither  did. 
Colonel  David  Lyon  had  no  desire  to  leave  the  comforts  of  Lafayette 
Place,  and  Alexander  felt  he  could  do  more  for  the  war  effort  on  the 
home  front.  Julia  felt,  however,  that  her  brothers  might  at  least  show 
some  patriotic  enthusiasm  for  the  unequal  slaughter: 

Are  you  not  interested  in,  and  do  you  never  think  of  the  war?  It  is  full 
of  thrilling  Interest  in  my  opinion,  but  you  do  not  seem  even  to  think  of  it. 
What  a  glorious  country  is  America!  Who  can  recount  such  deeds  of  courage 
and  valor  as  our  countrymen?  My  opinion  of  them  has  never  been  half 
justice,  I  tHnk  that  almost  all  are  manly  spirits.  All  nearly  are  capable 
of  being  heroes,  and  a  coward  constitutes  the  exception.32 

Alexander  actually  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  war.  In  addition 
to  delivering  stirring  pro-war  orations  inside  and  outside  of  Tammany 
Hall,  he  realistically  evaluated  some  of  the  political  and  economic  con- 
sequences of  the  conflict.  He  was  hopeful  that  the  "immense  military 
patronage"  the  President  held  would  ultimately  be  employed  to  break 
the  backs  of  all  the  antiwar  Whigs  and  Democrats.  He  saw  also  that  the 
war-stimulated  rise  in  wheat  and  com  prices  was  benefiting  his  kin  at 
Sherwood  Forest.  When  the  conflict  was  over,  he  stood  with  his  new 
brother-in-law,  John  H.  Beeckman  (Margaret's  husband),  and  lustily 
cheered  the  returning  New  York  Volunteers,  "yielding  to  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  moment  somewhat  to  the  damage  of  my  hat."  Within  the  family 
then,  only  Juliana  could  see  no  sense,  profit,  or  glory  in  the  war;  nor 
could  she  generate  any  excitement  for  it.  To  her  the  whole  thing  "ap- 
peared quite  improbable  to  my  mind  from  the  beginning."  33 

Alexander  was  much  more  critical  of  Polk's  cautious  diplomacy 
with  Britain  on  the  eve  of  the  Mexican  War  than  was  John  Tyler. 
Gardiner  was  particularly  distressed  to  learn  that  the  President  was 
willing  to  settle  the  Oregon  boundary  dispute  with  England  at  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel.  By  February  1846  he  had  become  fearful  lest  Polk's 

329 


effort  to  compromise  the  boundary  on  that  reasonable  basis  (thus 
wisely  avoiding  complications  with  Britain  while  he  was  preparing  to 
despoil  Mexico)  "lose  us  a  considerable  portion  of  the  territory — that 
portion  of  it  north  of  forty-nine  degrees."  Alexander  Gardiner  was  a 
thoroughgoing  fire-eater.  Unlike  Tyler  and  Polk,  he  was  quite  willing 
to  see  the  United  States  fight  Mexico  and  Britain  simultaneously.  He 
seems  to  have  believed  the  jingoistic  nonsense  about  54° 40'  even  though, 
the  American  claim  to  territory  north  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  was  so 
dim  legally  as  to  be  virtually  nonexistent.  His  sister  Margaret  agreed 
with  him,  however,  and  promised  him  she  would  boycott  all  things 
English.  "Until  England  accedes  to  *54°-4oY  "  she  told  Julia,  "I  must 
eschew  everything  English."  Robert  Tyler  likewise  surrendered  to 
Anglophobia  in  a  violent  form  during  the  renewal  of  the  Oregon  con- 
troversy in  1846,  although  as  head  of  Philadelphia's  Irish  Repeal 
Association  and  an  active  functionary  in  Irish-American  politics  there, 
his  capitulation  was  perhaps  predictable.  In  any  event,  he  was  a  frequent 
and  dedicated  twister  of  the  Lion's  Tail  on  the  Oregon  boundary  ques- 
tion, and  he  was  all  for  raising  a  brigade  to  help  drive  the  Redcoats 
from  the  Northwest.34 

Tyler  considered  the  views  of  his  son  and  his  brother-in-law  on  the 
Oregon  problem  shortsighted  and  dangerous.  In  a  series  of  letters  to 
Robert  he  explained  his  fear  of  an  Anglo-American  war  over  Oregon 
and  the  disadvantages  of  such  a  conflict  for  the  United  States: 

I  fear  a  war  for  the  whole  [of  Oregon]  will  lose  us  the  whole I  go  for 

peace  if  it  can  be  preserved  on  fair  terms.  The  United  States  require  still  a 
peace  of  twenty  years,  and  then  they  hold  in  their  hands  the  destiny  of  the 
human  race.  But  if  war  does  come,  we  shall  fight  on  the  side  of  right.  Our 
claim  to  Oregon  to  the  forty-ninth  is  clear;  what  lies  beyond  is  attended 

with  colorable  title [But]  should  we  be  found  at  war,  then  every  man 

should  do  his  duty,  and  God  forbid  that  a  son  of  mine  should  be  recusant. 
The  brigade  by  all  means!  It  gives  you  position  and  control.  My  thoughts, 

however,  I  must  confess,  are  turned  to  peace For  myself,  I  would  much 

prefer  success  where  you  are. . . .  Make  but  one  speech  in  court  equal  to  those 
you  made  at  the  [Irish  Repeal  Association]  meetings,  and  all  will  be  well. . . . 

Your  Oregon  meeting  was  certainly  immense The  resolutions  which  were 

adopted  are  sufficiently  ultra But  war!  war!  is  the  cry  in  which  Demo- 
crats, Whigs,  Abolitionists  unite.  Strange  union,  indeed.  The  objects  of  the 
last  are  easily  understood.  They  seek  not  Oregon,  but  the  Canadas,  as  means 
of  overbalancing  Texas.  War,  I  also  say,  before  one  jot  or  tittle  of  the  public 
honor  be  surrendered;  but  that  is  the  very  point  to  be  decided.35 

Happily  for  Anglo-American  relations,  a  timely  Cabinet  crisis  in 
London  brought  the  muzzling  of  the  imperialist  Lord  Palmerston  by 
the  peace-oriented  Peel  ministry.  In  addition,  the  successful  repeal  of 
the  controversial  Corn  Laws  in  England,  coupled  with  Polk's  unwilling- 
ness to  fight  a  war  for  54°4o'  while  he  was  engaged  on  the  Rio  Grande, 

330 


ultimately  brought  hotheads  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  under  control. 
The  responsible  leaders  of  neither  nation  really  wanted  a  war  on  the 
Oregon  issue  and  the  crisis  passed  safely  into  history.  In  June  1846  a 
treaty  was  concluded  which  divided  the  territory  along  the  forty-ninth 
parallel. 

For  this  Tyler  was  thankful.  Peace  was  more  sensible  and  much 
more  profitable  than  war  and  he  knew  that  the  American  claim  for 
territory  north  of  the  compromise  demarcation  was  "attended  with 
colorable  title."  The  repeal  of  the  English  Corn  Laws,  which  abolished 
import  duties  on  foreign  grains,  was  "a  measure  of  the  greatest  moment" 
for  all  American  grain  exporters,  Tyler  noted.  With  the  assurance  of 
peace,  "The  tide  of  prosperity  will  flow  in  upon  us;  the  value  of  every- 
thing will  be  increased."  Even  war  hawk  Alexander  had  sober  second 
thoughts  about  the  Oregon  matter  toward  the  end  of  March  1846.  "I 
have  no  doubt/'  he  informed  Sherwood  Forest,  that  "the  conclusion  of  a 
war  [with  Britain]  would  find  the  Whigs  in  power.  I  wonder  whether 
England  would  not  forego  all  her  claims  upon  Oregon,  in  consideration 
of  an  amount  equal  to  that  which  Polk  calls  for,  for  the  increase  of  the 
Navy — Fifty  millions!  Whew!"  The  political  and  economic  cost  of  an 
Anglo-American  war  was,  he  began  to  feel,  too  large  a  price  to  pay  for 
martial  glory  in  the  frozen  Northwest.  A  sharp  drop  in  stock  prices  on 
the  New  York  exchange  contributed  further  to  his  loss  of  belligerency 
as  it  became  increasingly  apparent  that  his  own  market  speculations 
were  suffering  as  a  direct  result  of  the  Anglo-American  war  scare.  Julia 
had  no  direct  economic  motive  in  her  desire  for  peace  with  England. 
She  simply  thanked  God  once  again  that  the  amorous  Francis  Pickens 
had  not  been  sent  to  London  as  the  American  minister  in  the  midst  of 
such  a  complex  and  emotion-filled  crisis.36 

In  the  final  analysis,  the  war  with  Mexico  and  the  agitation  for  the 
whole  of  Oregon  did  produce,  as  Tyler  feared  it  would,  the  revival  of 
the  slavery  question.  To  see  the  abolitionists  embracing  54°4o/  "as  a 
means  of  overbalancing  Texas"  disturbed  Tyler  as  much  as  had  Cal- 
houn's  narrowing  of  Texas  annexation  "to  the  comparatively  contempti- 
ble ground  of  Southern  and  local  interest."  Tyler  did  not  want  to  see 
the  sectional  issue  drawn  into  either  problem  for  political  purposes.  Yet 
when  Congressman  David  Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania,  a  free-soil  Demo- 
crat, introduced  in  the  House  in  August  1846  his  famous  amendment  to 
an  emergency  war  appropriation  bill,  the  sectional  lines  were  firmly 
drawn.  Tyler  was  forced  to  take  a  stand  on  a  question  he  would  have 
much  preferred  to  see  remain  dormant.  The  so-called  Wilmot  Proviso 
asked  for  nothing  more  subtle  than  the  exclusion  of  human  slavery  from 
any  of  the  territories  conquered  from  Mexico  during  the  war.  Adminis- 
tration forces  sought  to  soften  the  Proviso  by  restricting  its  application 
to  any  territory  acquired  north  of  36°3o/.  In  brief,  they  would  extend 
the  old  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific.  This  maneuver  was 

331 


blocked,  however,  and  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  adopted  by  the  House 
on  August  8,  1846.  Defeated  in  the  Senate,  the  controversial  Proviso 
never  found  its  way  into  the  law  of  the  land.  But  its  very  existence  as 
an  idea  tore  the  nation  apart. 

Once  the  issue  was  broached,  Tyler  swung  to  the  Southern  view- 
point on  it.  He  was  convinced,  as  he  always  had  been,  that  the  impact 
of  climate  would  ultimately  solve  the  question  of  slavery  extension,  and 
that  the  institution  was  destined  to  disappear  in  Delaware,  Maryland, 
and  Virginia  as  it  already  had  in  the  North.  Thus  the  former  President's 
main  criticism  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  that  it  raised  "a  contest  be- 
tween the  sections  for  the  balance  of  power  [that]  is  to  render  us  in  a 
foreign  war  the  weakest  nation  of  the  world."  Further,  it  seemed  to  say 
to  the  South,  and  to  American  soldiers  from  the  South  fighting  in  Mex- 
ico, that  "You  may  toil  and  bleed  and  pay,  and  yet  your  toil  and  blood 
and  money  shall  only  be  expended  to  increase  our  [the  North's]  power; 
you  and  your  property  being  forever  excluded  from  the  enjoyment  of 
the  territory  you  may  conquer."  The  Proviso  was,  as  he  put  it  in  an 
anonymous  letter  to  the  Portsmouth  (Va.)  Pilot,  "nothing  less  than 
a  gratuitous  insult  on  the  slave-States."  It  would  soon  bring  about  the 
political  subordination  of  the  slave  states  to  the  free  states  within  the 
Union.  It  would,  in  fine,  raise  new  problems  in  America  more  dangerous 
than  the  one  it  sought  to  remedy.  In  these  views  both  Alexander  and 
Robert  concurred,  Alexander  going  one  step  further  in  his  interpretation 
of  the  Proviso  as  part  of  a  British  abolitionist  plot  unfoldino-  in  the 
United  States.37 

As  the  sectional  crisis  deepened,  the  developing  tension  fortified  the 
Tyler-Gardiner  family  in  their  opinion  that  the  Polk  administration  was 
an  unmitigated  disaster  in  all  its  works.  The  fact  that  Polk  had  accom- 
modated John,  Jr.,  with  a  captaincy  and  Tom  Cooper  with  an  inspector- 
ship of  customs  did  little  to  soften  this  view.  They  disliked  Polk's  poli- 
cies, foreign  and  domestic.  Nothing  he  sought  to  do  really  suited  them. 
His  administration  was,  they  unanimously  agreed,  undistinguished  in 
every  way.  His  financial  policies  disrupted  the -money  market  ("Money 
now  commands  two  per  cent  a  month  in  Wall  Street,  a  rate  of  interest 
ruinous  to  regular  business,"  Alexander  complained).  His  foreign  policies 
agitated  the  slavery  question.  That  some  of  the  old  and  true  friends  of 
the  Tyler  administration,,  notably  former  New  York  Congressman 
Roosevelt,  had  made  their  political  peace  with  the  Polk  crowd  seemed 
to  the  family  evidence  of  the  basest  hypocrisy.38 

Julia  and  Margaret  could  find  but  one  redeeming  feature  in  the 
whole  Polk  administration.  Sarah  Polk  had  at  least  shown  the  good  sense 
not  to  disturb  Julia's  arrangement  of  the  furniture  in  the  White  House 
bedrooms.  But  even  in  the  peripheral  area  of  home  economics,  the  Polks, 
man  and  wife,  did  not  measure  up.  When  the  United  States  Journal  re- 
ported that  in  the  interests  of  the  "strictest  economy"  the  new  President 

332 


and  First  Lady  would  spend  only  half  of  the  1845  appropriation  de- 
signed for  White  House  renovation  and  entertaining,  Margaret  was 
beside  herself.  ""What  monstrously  small  people  they  must  be!"  she  ex- 
claimed. She  knew  how  desperately  the  President's  Mansion  needed  a 
face-lifting  and  how  expensive  White  House  social  functions,  properly 
done,  could  be.  The  Gardiners  had  certainly  paid  for  enough  of  them 
to  know.39 

From  Julia's  standpoint,  Sahara  Sarah  was  more  than  monstrously 
small.  She  was  dull  and  uninteresting  as  a  First  Lady.  Her  nonalcoholic 
White  House  functions  did  save  the  taxpayers  a  few  dollars,  and  the 
floors  of  the  President's  Mansion  were  undoubtedly  protected  from  the 
wear  and  tear  of  waltzing  feet.  But  her  parties  remained  impossibly 
dreary.  "I  don't  see  or  hear  that  Mrs.  Polk  Is  making  any  sensation  In 
Washington,"  Julia  remarked  with  Ill-concealed  cattiness  in  February 
1846.  Sarah  Childress  Polk  was  never  a  social  sensation,  and  Tyler 
rarely  missed  an  opportunity  to  encourage  Julia's  self-satisfied  com- 
parisons of  the  glories  of  her  reign  with  the  manifest  failures  of  Sarah's. 
"The  Idea  of  her  being  able  to  follow  after  you/'  he  assured  her,  was 
an  impossible  one.  He  was  right.  Whatever  "Impartial  history"  would 
say  of  John  Tyler  as  President  of  the  United  States,  it  could  only  say 
of  Julia  that  as  First  Lady  she  would  have  no  real  rival  for  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  years.40 


333 


SHERWOOD  FOREST:  THE   GOOD   YEARS 


We  are  raising  up  quite  a  large  family,  5  boys  and 
one  girl  and  all  fine  children  in  intellect  and  mech- 
anism.   Thus  it  is  that  my  old  age  is  enlivened  by 

the  scenes  of  my  youth — and  these  precious  buds 
and  blossoms  almost  persuade  me  that  the  spring- 
time of  life  is  still  surrounding  me. 

JOHN    TYLER,    185! 


Within  a  year  of  her  arrival  at  Sherwood  Forest  Julia  began  longing 
again  for  the  bustle  and  activity  of  Washington.  Especially  during  the 
winter  months  of  1846,  when  snow  covered  the  plantation  and  confined 
the  population  indoors,  she  visualized  a  return  to  the  scene  of  her 
triumph.  Often  she  would  while  away  an  evening  before  the  fire  plan- 
ning a  reconquest  of  the  capital  that  Sarah  Polk  had  surrendered  with- 
out firing  a  social  shot.  This  was  a  harmless  diversion  Tyler  encouraged. 
"I  shall  expect  to  meet  with  a  good  deal  of  attention  and  have  no  doubt 
every  distinction  which  my  'position  before  the  country'  has  a  right  to 
command  will  be  accorded  me  and  therefore  all  of  us,"  Julia  said  of  one 
planned  but  never-realized  return  visit  to  Washington.  As  she  well  knew, 
however,  these  dreams  would  be  many  a  year  materializing.  First  she 
would  have  her  seven  babies.  Indeed,  she  would  not  return  to  the  capital 
until  January  1861,  when  John  Tyler  emerged  from  retirement  to  serve 
as  president  of  the  Peace  Convention  called  in  a  final  abortive  effort  to 
save  the  nation  from  the  stupidity  of  civil  war.1 

In  the  winter  of  1846  Julia  was  anticipating  the  arrival  of  her  first 
child — and  her  mother  was  bombarding  her  with  obstetrical  advice  from 
New  York.  "Keep  your  mind  in  as  easy  and  agreeable  a  state  as  possible 
and  avoid  all  unpleasant  sights,"  she  counseled.  Gentle  exercise  and 

334 


clothes  "comfortably  loose"  were  also  recommended.  It  had  been  willed 
for  several  months  that  Julia's  first  baby  would  simply  have  to  be  a 
boy  and  that  his  name  would  be  "David  Gardiner  Tyler."  Thus  as  she 
and  John  Tyler  awaited  the  arrival  of  the  son  and  heir,  thoughts  of 
social  Washington  and  its  superficial  frivolity  melted  away.  When  her 
time  of  confinement  finally  approached  in  July,  Tyler  took  her  north 
to  the  fever-free  climate  of  East  Hampton  where  her  mother  and  Mar- 
garet could  be  with  her.2 

Before  the  baby  was  born  Julia  encountered  news  from  New  York 
that  made  it  difficult  for  her  to  'preserve  that  "easy  and  agreeable" 
mental  state  recommended  by  her  solicitous  mother.  On  February  21, 
1846,  the  New  York  Morning  News  carried  an  item  to  the  effect  that 
"A  rumor  is  in  circulation  that  Ex-President  Tyler's  wife  has  separated 
from  him  and  returned  to  her  home  on  Long  Island,  N.Y."  Other  papers, 
notably  the  New  York  Ledger,  picked  up  the  report,  adding  to  it  the 
innuendo  that  the  May-and-December  marriage  had  been  a  rocky  one 
from  the  start.  Alexander  first  heard  the  gossip  in  Washington  in 
January,  but  he  had  not  reported  it  to  Sherwood  Forest  for  fear  of 
upsetting  Ms  sister.  Actually,  as  former  Attorney  General  John  Nelson 
and  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Mason  had  explained  to  Alexander,  the  rumor 
stemmed  from  the  much-whispered-about  marital  difficulties  of  John 
Tyler,  Jr.,  and  his  estranged  wife  Mattie.  In  its  confused  transmission 
from  barber  shop  to  Capitol  Hill  the  rumor  had  settled  somehow  on  the 
innocent  shoulders  of  the  ex-President  and  Julia.  Since  the  family  had 
no  desire  to  see  John,  Jr.'s  hymeneal  problems  further  paraded  through 
the  newspapers,  they  could  not  publicly  explain  the  origin  of  the  story 
or  the  mistaken  identities  involved. 

David  Lyon  experienced  "great  wrath"  when  he  first  saw  the  item 
in  print;  he  was  all  set  to  "go  direct  to  the  office  to  give  the  man  a 
regular  blowing  up  for  printing  such  a  scandal."  But  a  family  conference 
decided  on  a  more  politic  approach.  Under  the  strategy  adopted,  David 
Lyon  was  assigned  the  delicate  task  of  calling  quietly  on  various  editors 
to  request  that  they  run  dignified  retractions.  Several  papers  did.  Still, 
retractions  are  seldom  so  interesting  or  well  remembered  as  the  slanders 
they  attempt  to  correct,  and  the  subject  remained  common  gossip  in 
New  York  and  Washington  for  several  months.  The  incident  did  not, 
as  David  Lyon  hoped  it  might,  afford  Tyler  and  Julia  a  "hearty  laugh." 
On  the  contrary,  as  Juliana  clearly  understood,  "such  reports  [are]  very 
disagreeable  because  people  are  apt  to  think  there  must  be  some  founda- 
tion for  them."  Julia  agreed  with  her  mother.  She  thought  the  entire 
thing 

. . .  more  provoking  than  anything  in  the  world  and  I  should  think  you  would 
have  felt  exactly  like  choking  the  perpetrator  of  the  scandal.  The  way  you 
managed  its  contradiction,  however,  was  most  proper,  only  the  President 

335 


. . .  [that]  the  Editor  in  his  contradiction  should  have  been  made  to 
add  also  . , .  that  no  union  ,could  be  more  harmonious  and  happy  for  he  is 
afraid  that  the  world  will  think  there  must  have  appeared  some  foundation 
for  the  tale.  Pray  be  on  the  alert  for  everything  improper  that  may  appear 
and  let  it  not  be  unnoticed. 

She  was  still  upset  about  the  divorce  rumor  when  her  baby  was  born.3 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  was  born  in  East  Hampton  on  July  12,  1846. 
At  eighteen  he  would  fight  under  Lee  in  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia. 
During  Reconstruction  he  would  become  a  key  figure  in  Charles  City's 
successful  struggle  against  the  baneful  influence  of  Carpetbagger  gov- 
ernment in  Virginia.  A  fine  lawyer  and  judge,  he  would  also  serve  with 
distinction  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  in  the  18903.  More 
important  to  Tyler  and  Julia  than  contemplation  of  his  future  was  the 
fact  that  "Gardie"  was  from  the  beginning  of  his  active  life  a  healthy, 
happy  baby.  East  Hampton  friends  crowded  in  to  congratulate  the  par- 
ents on  the  birth  of  the  "Little  President"  ("the  only  cognomen  he  is 
known  by/'  explained  Margaret),  and  Tyler  was  filled  with  pride  and 
happiness.  Barely  a  week  after  Gardie's  arrival  Tyler  was  forced  to 
return  to  Virginia,  having  heard  "unfavorable  accounts  of  his  harvest" 
at  Sherwood  Forest.  But  he  soon  hastened  back  to  East  Hampton  to  be 
with  his  family.4 

With  the  aid  of  a  nurse,  a  housekeeper,  and  at  various  times  her 
sister,  mother,  brothers,  and  husband,  Julia  steadily  regained  her 
strength  and  health.  By  mid-August  she  was  recovered  enough  to  wish 
she  could  join  Margaret  in  Newport  "to  see  the  maneuvers  of  the 
cliques."  With  Julia,  this  desire  was  as  much  a  sign  of  her  complete 
recovery  as  was  her  mournful  discovery  that  she  could  no  longer  strug- 
gle into  her  old  corsets.  And  while  her  postobstetrical  ailments  remained 
minor,  they  provided  Juliana  a  fresh  opportunity  to  practice  medicine 
by  mail.  "You  ought  not  to  eat  hot  bread,"  she  counseled  on  one  oc- 
casion when  Julia  complained  vaguely  of  a  weak  stomach.  When  her 
daughter  experienced  backaches  (from  carrying  her  new  baby  about  so 
much),  Juliana  sent  her  a  plaster  to  apply.  This  torturous  device  "oc- 
casioned such  an  intolerable  itching,  irritation  it  would  be  more  elegant 
to  say,"  that  Julia  could  not  bear  it.  As  usual,  much  of  Juliana's  medical 
advice  centered  upon  strictures  against  alcohol  in  any  form.  She  rarely 
missed  an  opportunity  to  tell  her  daughter  that  wine  was  a  debauching 
beverage — bad  for  her  complexion,  her  back,  her  stomach,  and  all  other 
parts  of  her  anatomy.  Julia  did  not  discourage  this  well-intentioned 
medical  intervention.  She  was  so  distressed  by  the  amount  of  weight 
she  retained  after  Gardie's  birth  she  was  ready  "to  try  any  diet  or  any 
prescription."  5 

Julia  had  her  first  baby  with  minimum  difficulty  and  complication 
and  with  maximum  assistance  and  advice  from  the  family.  When  she 
and  Tyler  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  September,  after  the  fever 


season  on  the  James  had  passed,  she  discovered  in  her  husband  an  ex- 
cellent nurse  and  baby-sitter.  The  fact  that  Gardie  was  the  first  of  a  new 
set  of  children  for  the  former  President  in  no  way  dulled  his  enthusiasm 
for  babies.  "You  would  be  amused  to  see  what  an  excellent  nurse  the 
President  has  become/7  Julia  told  her  mother. 

I  devolve  the  whole  charge  in  the  morning  upon  him.  The  babe  wakes  at 
early  dawn  and  he  rises  and  sits  with  it  before  the  fire  until  the  horn 
arouses  the  plantation  and  its  own  proper  nurse  enters  to  relieve  Mm.  All  this 
time  I  very  calmly  and  cruelly  go  to  sleep.  This  is  really  very  right ...  to 
be  broken  of  sleep  agrees  better  with  the  President  than  with  me. . . . 

Tyler  only  lost  sleep.  For  Alexander  Gardiner  the  arrival  of  Gardie 
meant  a  new  assignment  to  the  servitude  of  baby  shopping  for  Julia  in 
New  York,  keeping  her  complex  accounts  straight,  and  generally  pro- 
viding her  with  the  numerous  things  infants  and  young  children  con- 
stantly need.  In  the  course  of  his  life  Alexander  Gardiner  probably  did 
more  shopping  than  any  other  man  in  the  state  of  New  York.6 

Julia  was  wonderfully  happy  as  a  young  mother.  Indeed,  little 
Gardie  could  emit  no  sound,  cut  no  tooth,  toddle  no  step,  and  take  no 
bite  that  was  not  reported  by  Julia  to  Lafayette  Place  in  the  greatest 
and  most  breathless  detail.  Her  baby  was  the  most  intelligent,  pre- 
cocious, and  beautiful  in  the  whole  world.  In  appearance  he  was  more 
Gardiner  than  Tyler,  she  thought,  but  in  firmness  of  character  and  in- 
dependence of  spirit  he  was  all  Tyler.  From  the  time  he  learned  to 
walk  and  talk  he  had  a  mind  and  will  of  his  own.  "Wherever  I  go  he 
puts  all  other  children  who  are  much  older  completely  in  the  shade," 
Julia  boasted.  She  loved  bouncing  him  on  her  kp  and  playing  with 
him  on  the  bed.  For  hours  on  end  she  would  sing  him  Mother  Goose 
and  other  nonsense  rhymes  to  the  accompaniment  of  her  guitar  and 
his  mellifluous  gurgles: 

Rock-a-by  baby,  your  cradle  is  green; 

Father's  a  nobleman,  Mother's  a  queen. 

Betty's  a  lady  and  wears  a  gold  ring, 

And  Gardiner's  a  drummer  and  drums  for  the  king. 

Ride  away,  ride  aways  Gardy  shall  ride; 
And  he  shall  have  pussy  cat  tied  to  his  side. 
And  he  shall  have  pussy  cat  tied  to  the  other ; 
And  Gardy  shall  ride  and  see  his  Grandmother. 

To  John  Tyler,  his  new  son  was  no  less  than  "the  noblest  fellow  in 
creation."  Neither  the  war  in  Mexico  nor  the  purges  of  the  Tylerites  in 
New  York  were  as  important  to  him  as  the  baby.  The  former  President 
delighted  in  predicting  a  "high  destiny"  for  his  son.  Thus  when  whoop- 
ing cough  struck  the  plantation  in  November  1847,  Gardie  contracting 
it  along  with  the  other  children,  black  and  white,  the  entire  family  was 
alarmed.7 

337 


Whenever  she  was  in  doubt  on  some  point  relating  to  the  care  and 
feeding  of  Infants  Julia  wrote  to  her  mother,  receiving  back  reams  ol 
detailed  advice  fresh  from  the  New  York  pedlatric  front.  "You  must 
not  allow  the  nurse  to  put  anything  she  may  be  eating  in  Ms  mouth," 
cautioned  Juliana.  "It  is  an  old- fashioned  practice  entirely  exploded. 
. . .  What  food  he  takes  let  it  be  pure  and  properly  prepared  for  the 
baby."  Her  mother  also  advised  her  to  breast  feed  Gardie  as  long  as 
she  could.  This,  she  assured  Julia,  would  prevent  her  conceiving  another 
child  right  away,  a  myth  that  was  widespread  in  those  days.  In  fact, 
Juliana  thought  one  child  quite  enough  for  her  daughter,  and  at  one 
point  she  considered  giving  Tyler  "the  most  severe  lecture  telling  him 
he  had  children  enough."  s 

This  advice  attracted  absolutely  no  support  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
On  the  contrary,  Julia  wanted  another  child  as  soon  as  possible.  She  was 
ecstatically  happy  in  her  new  role  as  a  mother,  and  she  looked  forward 
to  having  a  large  and  handsome  family.  The  only  consideration  that 
gave  her  any  pause  at  all  was  the  effect  of  childbearing  on  her  petite 
figure.  "It  is  the  remark  of  everyone  how  fat  I  have  become,"  she 
lamented  a  year  after  Gardie's  birth.  "I  shall  be  a  fat  old  lady  I  sup- 
pose. I  cannot  push  my  arm  through  any  sleeve  I  used  to  wear."  Like 
many  attractive  women  who  gaze  self-consciously  into  their  mirrors 
before  breakfast  each  morning  half  expecting  to  see  the  final  fall  of 
Rome  revealed,  Julia's  concern  for  her  figure  was  more  imagined  than 
real.  Juliana  thought  it  mainly  a  question  of  posture  and  urged  her 
daughter  not  to  "allow  your  increase  in  size  to  make  you  look  lazy — 
keep  your  figure  erect,  shoulders  braced  back."  Actually,  Julia  remained 
a  beautiful  woman,  a  fact  remarked  upon  by  all  her  contemporaries. 
But  when  friends  assured  her  that  "they  never  saw  me  looking  so  well," 
Julia  was  not  convinced.  "I  guess  they  have  forgotten,"  she  sighed 
wistfully.0 

The  birth  of  her  second  son,  John  Alexander  Tyler,  on  April  7, 
1848,  at  Sherwood  Forest,  brought  Julia  new  joy  and  delight.  "Alex" 
was  destined  to  an  unhappy  life.  On  his  seventeenth  birthday  he  would 
find  himself  in  the  rain  at  Appomattox,  cold,  wet,  and  hungry,  ankle- 
deep  in  red  Virginia  mud  beside  the  gun  he  serviced.  Two  days  later 
General  Lee  surrendered  the  remnants  of  his  gallant  and  ragged  army, 
Alex  Tyler  included,  to  the  United  States.  It  was  a  bitter  moment  for 
the  boy.  Trained  as  he  later  was  in  German  universities  Alex  would 
become  an  engineer  of  considerable  competence,  but  his  entire  life  was 
scarred  by  the  tragic  events  of  April  9,  1865.  His  happiest  days  were 
those  of  his  boyhood  at  Sherwood  Forest — days  of  fishing  in  the  James, 
hunting  in  the  nearby  woods,  and  playing  with  Ms  older  brother  and 
with  the  Negro  children  of  the  plantation. 

Again  Julia  had  no  difficulty  in  childbirth,  although  Alex  weighed 
in  at  twelve  pounds.  Before  his  arrival,  however,  she  heard  that  no  less 

338 


a  personage  than  Queen  Victoria  was  contemplating  the  use  of  chloro- 
form when  her  sixth  baby  (Princess  Louise)  was  delivered  In  March 
1848.  Thus  she  asked  Margaret  to  find  out  In  New  York  if  the  gas 
could  "be  safety  used  in  confinements,"  pointing  out  that  Norfolk 
doctors  were  already  employing  it  in  surgery7  with  great  success.  What- 
ever her  research  into  the  value  of  chloroform  revealed,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  Julia  ever  used  it  herself  in  childbirth.10 

As  Alex  grew  straight  and  strong  and  devilish,  Julia  found  him 
"the  loveliest  child  that  ever  was  seen."  When  he  was  a  year  old  sh'e 
decided  that  "Gardie  has  the  thinking  head  and  Alexander  the  im- 
aginative one."  Given  this  discovery,  she  could  only  pray  that  Alex's 
"imagination  will  be  governed  by  discretion."  Tyler  was  less  worried 
about  Alex's  future  discretion  than  he  was  pleased  that  Ms  newest  son 
had  been  born  "a  Virginian."  In  his  satisfaction  with  this  geographic 
circumstance  he  hastened  to  provide  the  nurse  and  the  additional  house- 
hold help  that  would  make  Julia's  recovery  safe  and  rapid.  Happily, 
her  recovery  was  both,  marked  only  by  headaches  and  chills  which  were 
treated  by  "burning  up  my  temples  with  hartshorn  and  deluging  my 
head  with  bay  water."  Soon  she  was  up  and  about  again,  busily  dis- 
patching eulogistic  accounts  of  her  two  boys  to  Lafayette  Place.  In 
this  motherly  activity  she  was  undeterred  and  unintimidated  by  Alex- 
ander's chiding  that  her  children  were,  after  all,  like  most  other  chil- 
dren. They  were  definitely  not  like  other  children,  Julia  stoutly  insisted, 
reminding  Alexander  that  she  had  magnanimously  chosen  his  name  for 
little  Alex.  Teasing  aside,  both  of  her  brothers  were  terribly  pleased 
that  Julia  had  selected  their  names  for  her  sons.  "I  think  both  babies 
of  mine  have  been  rightly  named/3  she  decided.  Gardie,  she  felt,  was 
very  much  like  Ms  Uncle  David  Lyon  in  temperament,  while  little  Alex 
was  more  like  his  Uncle  Alexander.11 


Blessed  as  she  was  by  two  "goodly  babies"  and  an  exceptionally 
happy  marriage,  Julia  was  easily  persuaded  that  Margaret,  her  brothers, 
and  Alice  Tyler  should  all  experience  the  joys  of  the  marital  institution 
without  further  delay.  To  this  end  she  appointed  herself  the  family's 
official  matchmaker  and  marriage-prospects  consultant.  Forming  a  loose 
partnership  with  her  mother  to  deal  with  the  problem  systematically, 
she  launched  a  campaign  to  marry  David  Lyon,  Margaret,  Alexander, 
and  Alice  to  "suitable"  mates  at  once.  The  mother-and-daughter  mar- 
riage-brokerage firm  did  business  entirely  by  mail,  main  office  in  La- 
fayette Square,  branch  office  at  Sherwood  Forest.  Tyler  watched  the 
firm's  devious  machinations  with  great  amusement. 

It  was  soon  apparent  to  Julia  that  David  Lyon  would  not  be 
rushed  to  the  altar.  In  fact,  Alexander  had  long  since  given  up  on  his 
bashful  brother,  his  own  efforts  in  matchmaking  having  produced  no 

339 


results.  Juliana?s  most  recent  attempts  had  likewise  been  in  vain.  Dur- 
ing Julia's  reign  the  family  had  discouraged  all  of  his  flirtations  with 
such  caustic  finality  that  he  now  approached  women  with  a  caution 
bordering  OB  timidity.  Nevertheless,  every  report  from  New  York  that 
mentioned  his  dancing  with  or  even  conversing  with  a  young  lady  was 
hopefully  construed  by  Julia  as  the  beginning  of  a  serious  romance. 
She  utilized  Ms  visits  to  Sherwood  Forest  to  introduce  him  to  various 
local  belleSj  and  she  flattered  Ms  masculine  ego  by  invariably  inter- 
preting these  casual  meetings  as  "really  brilliant  conquests"  for  him. 

In  the  interests  of  his  romantic  aspirations  she  suggested  that  he 
become  adept  at  the  polka  and  understand  clearly  that  "almost  every- 
thing in  the  Polka  depends  upon  the  fascinating  expression  of  counte- 
nance." It  had  to  be  danced,  said  Julia,  "with  a  most  bewitching  smile 
and  grace."  She  did  not  think  David  had  nearly  enough  savoir  faire,  and 
she  was  sure  that  a  firm  mastery  of  the  waltz  and  the  polka  would  in- 
crease Ms  opportunities.  Her  advice  on  dancing  was  sound,  and  David 
Lyon  heeded  it.  He  took  dancing  lessons  at  Madame  Ferraso's  studio 
in  New  York  and  gradually  he  acquired  a  ballroom  conversational  polish 
that  brought  Mm  into  an  easier  and  more  natural  contact  with  a  larger 
Dumber  of  eligible  women.  At  the  same  time,  however,  JuHa  worried 
lest  David  lose  sight  of  the  eternal  verities  of  marriage  as  he  spun 
around  the  dance  floor.  On  one  occasion  she  urged  him  to  marry  one 
homely  young  lady  on  no  more  than  the  practical  grounds  that  it  was 
Ms  golden  "chance  for  $100,000  planked  down."  Indeed,  some  of  the 
names  she  came  up  with  as  possible  mates  for  her  oldest  brother  seemed 
so  outlandish  to  Margaret  that  she  finally  scolded  Julia  with  the  ob- 
servation that  "You  are  continually  insulting  D.  with  your  match- 
making and  a  few  more  such  like  proposals  as  the  last  will  completely 
change  his  nose,  with  turning  up."  Julia  was  neither  intimidated  nor 
silenced  by  Margaret's  criticism.  Nonetheless,  by  1851  she  had  become 
much  discouraged.  David's  dancing  lessons  had  accomplished  little 
save  teaching  Mm  to  dance.  By  1855  Juliana  also  began  to  fear  that  un- 
less David  soon  married  the  Gardiner  line  was  threatened  with  ex- 
tinction. "I  do  not  like  the  idea  of  the  family  name  in  our  line  becom- 
ing extinct  either,"  Julia  agreed.  "If  David  remains  a  bachelor  too 
long  he  will  become  an  inveterate  one."  Discouraging  as  it  seemed,  she 
could  still  hope  that  someday  her  brother  would  "seem  a  blessing  to 
the  fasMonable  and  rich  young  ladies  when  they  become  more  aware 
of  Ms  steady  and  well  regulated  habits."  That  day  would  not  arrive 
until  i860.12 

Alexander  had  few  of  his  brother's  steady  habits  and  none  of  his 
social  shyness  or  humorless  stolidity.  Getting  him  safely  into  holy  wed- 
lock appeared  to  JuHa  an  easy  task.  But  in  spite  of  Ms  sister's  elaborate 
plans  for  his  happiness,  Alexander  had  no  interest  in  marriage.  He  was 
fascinated  by  the  ladies  and  missed  few  opportunities  to  avail  himself 
of  their  charms.  Yet  he  never  confused  Ms  desire  for  distaff  companion- 

340 


sMp  with  the  notion  that  lie  should  marry.  Instead,  Alexander  toyed 
with  women  as  he  played  the  stock  market,  acquiring  and  disencumber- 
ing himself  of  them  as  the  situation  demanded.  He  was  an  active  young 
man  about  town  with  no  desire  to  settle  down.  His  legal  duties,  political 
interests,  and  business  affairs  were  combined  with  the  management  of 
his  mother's  properties  and,  after  1845,  ^th  the  direction  of  John 
Tyler's  financial  affairs.  He  was  very  busy.  He  enjoyed  his  cigars,  his 
liquor,  and  Ms  books,  and  he  tolerated  with  good  humor  Julia's  in- 
sistence that  he  make  a  "rich  love  match,"  settle  down,  and  become  a 
solid  citizen.  Attractive  to  women,  his  occasional  "indiscreet  and  im- 
prudent" involvements  with  them  were  handled  with  a  skill  and  urbanity 
that  avoided  exposing  the  family  to  scandal.  He  had  a  fierce  loyalty  to 
Ms  sisters  and  Ms  mother,  but  his  sense  of  family  unity  did  not  in- 
clude their  right  to  mess  and  muddle  in  Ms  private  affairs.  Julia  soon 
gave  up  on  Mm.  It  was  one  of  her  few  total  defeats.13 

All  around  Julia  wedding  bells  were  ringing  for  her  friends  and 
classmates,  but  they  tolled  not  for  David  Lyon,  Alexander,  Margaret 
or  Alice.  In  August  1847,  however,  a  good  omen  appeared  in  the  mar- 
riage of  Mary  Gardiner  to  Eben  N.  Horsford.  Mary  had  waited  three 
years  for  him,  and  her  patience  seemed  to  demonstrate  that  Gar  diners 
were  not  by  some  strange  hex  inherently  unmarriageable.  The  Horsford- 
Gardiner  union  was  a  love  match,  although  Professor  Horsford's 
friendly  connection  with  industriaiist-pMlanthropist  Abbott  Lawrence 
was  not  overlooked  by  the  Gardiner  family.  Lawrence,  indeed,  was  in- 
strumental in  obtaining  for  Horsford  Ms  post  at  Harvard  College  in 
1847.  For  the  vivacious  but  still  untutored  Phoebe  her  sister  Mary's 
courtsMp  was  a  revelation  of  another  sort.  "TMs  love-making  is  so 
new  to  me/'  she  wrote  Julia  a  few  days  before  the  wedding.  "I  have 
been  vastly  amused,  never  having  seen  lovers  together  before  —  there 
is  something  going  on  for  me  to  wonder  at  all  the  time!"  Some  ex- 
citement at  last  had  come  to  remote  Shelter  Island.14 

Mary  Gardiner's  good  fortune  caused  Julia  and  her  mother  to 
worry  more  and  more  about  Margaret's  marital  prospects,  and  they 
redoubled  their  efforts  to  provide  her  with  a  suitable  husband.  As  early 
as  November  1845  Juliana  complained  that  it  was  foolish  for  Margaret 
to  "waste  her  time"  visiting  Julia  at  Sherwood  Forest  when  potential 
husbands  were  calling  at  43  Lafayette  Place  every  day  inquiring  after 
her.  "She  should  keep  her  position  here  and  not  abandon  her  post," 
said  Juliana.  "Indeed  I  have  been  very  careful  not  to  mention  her 
absence  except  for  a  very  short  time  for  fear  it  will  go  forth  that  she 

has  gone  South  for  the  winter there  is  notMng  like  being  at  one's 

post.  The  city  is  busy  and  gay  in  appearance  this  fall,  a  great  deal 
of  calling  and  walking  is  done."  Margaret  got  the  message.  With  Julia's 
urging  she  hastened  home  from  a  brief  visit  on  the  James  to  man  her 
pillbox  on  the  Lafayette  Place  social  firing  line.15 

Margaret  was  an  attractive  girl,  physically  and  financially.  Her 

341 


main  drawback  remained  her  intelligence  and  her  absolute  candor  with 
men;  and  she  had  the  additional  bad  habit  of  seeing  the  complex  mating 
process  of  the  18403  as  the  superficial  comedy  of  manners  it  was. 
She  especially  objected  to  having  a  wealthy  husband  captured,  tied, 
branded ,  and  delivered  to  her  by  her  family  like  a  side  of  Grade- A  beef. 
Finding  Just  any  "suitable"  husband  for  Margaret  would  have  been  no 
difficult  task.  She  was  a  good  catch.  But  she  would  not  cooperate.  She 
would  not  play  the  game  as  the  rules  of  polite  society  demanded.  She 
wanted  a  love  match,  not  a  corporate  merger. 

This  made  her  an  especially  difficult  problem  for  her  mother  and 
sister,  who  found  "decent  beaux"  to  be  "lamentably  scarce"  in  New 
York  City  anyway.  There  was,  for  example,  Thompson  S.  Brown  of 
New  York,  who  would  have  been  an  adequate  husband  for  Margaret. 
He  clearly  quaEfied  as  a  "decent  beau"  by  Gardiner  standards.  He  was 
comfortably  fixed  and  of  good  family.  He  called  at  43  Lafayette  Place 
often  during  1845-1847,  and  he  rushed  Margaret  at  Newport  and 
Saratoga  during  her  summer  visits  there.  But  Margaret  did  not  love 
him.  She  considered  him  physically  unattractive  and  socially  awkward 
in  spite  of  her  mother's  exasperated  view  that  he  was  "very  genteel  in 
his  manners"  and  quite  a  good  prospect.16 

Margaret  would  probably  have  married  George  Samson  in  mid- 
1845  tad  family  support  for  the  match  been  unanimous.  Although  he 
was  a  widower  with  a  small  daughter,  he  owned  some  modest  properties 
in  the  city  and  he  was  devoted  to  Margaret;  she  in  time  returned  his 
affectionate  interest.  Julia  thought  him  a  good  prospect  and  saw  no 
reason  why  her  sister  should  not  marry  him.  "Were  I  Margaret,"  she 
explained  to  her  mother,  "and  no  chance  of  being  Mrs.  President  Tyler 
(ahem!)  I  would  most  certainly  devote  my  attention  to  Mr.  Samson 
[whose]  . . .  kind  heart  and  good  character  and  house  in  Broadway  and 
Bond  are  not  to  be  trifled  with  according  to  my  thoughts,"  This,  un- 
fortunately, was  not  the  majority  view.  Vetoes  came  from  all  sides. 
David  Lyon's  blunt  "Not  for  the  world!"  and  Juliana's  conviction 
that  Samson  was  not  sufficiently  possessed  of  the  world's  goods  to  make 
Margaret  truly  happy  combined  to  defeat  the  project.  Rumors  within  the 
family  that  a  wedding  was  pending  were  quashed,  and  Margaret  hid 
her  evident  disappointment  in  a  frenzied  round  of  Sunday  School  and 
Bible  Association  activities.17 

When  James  Bruen  walked  suddenly  into  Margaret's  life  in  De- 
cember 1845  there  was  a  new  rustle  of  excitement  within  the  family.  "Is 
he  rich?"  Julia  asked  her  sister.  It  was  Alexander's  Job  to  discover  the 
answer  to  this  inevitable  family  question.  A  casual  but  pointed  con- 
versation with  Bruen  produced  the  information  that  he  had  "about 
$100,000  of  his  own  and  very  much  more  in  prospective."  Another 
discreet  investigation  of  the  Bruen  family  by  Judge  Ogden  Edwards 
corroborated  Alexander's  findings.  Though  Bruen  had  passed  his  Dun  & 

342 


Bradstreet  with  flying  colors  the  fact  remained  that  Margaret  was  not 
in  love  with  him.  Only  his  considerable  wealth  tempted  her  at  all. 
"I  am  rather  flurried'9  she  confessed  to  Julia,  "and  I  don't  know  what 
to  do.  I  shall  have  to  come  to  a  decision  one  way  or  the  other — that's 
sure — and  I  would  not  for  the  world  have  an  [engagement]  take  place 
that  was  to  end  in  nothing To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  ques- 
tion! Pray  decide "  Not  surprisingly,  Julia  had  already  decided.  She 

wrote  Margaret,  strongly  urging  the  match.  And  Alice  Tyler  humorously 
suggested  that  if  Margaret  did  not  want  the  wealthy  Bruen  she  might  at 
least  have  the  good  sportsmanship  to  pass  him  along  to  her.  When 
Braen  actually  proposed  marriage  in  March  1846  Margaret  put  Mm 
off.  She  still  could  not  make  up  her  mind.  As  Juliana  reported  the 
breathless  indecision  of  the  Gardiner  household  to  Sherwood  Forest: 

We  are  in  a  peck  of  trouble,  etc.  about  Mr.  B[ruen]  and  M[argaret].  I  dare 
not  encourage  or  discourage — it  is  so  serious.  When  we  conclude  upon  what  to 
do  we  shall  write.  Until  then  keep  a  closed  mouth  and  talk  about  it  to  no  one. 
Your  letter  almost  decided  M.  it  was  so  much  in  favor  of  it.  She  has  begun 
to  relapse  a  little  now  however  and  thinks  it  will  not  be  agreeable  to  make  a 
change  just  now.  She  wishes  a  little  more  time  for  reflection.18 

Margaret's  cautious  reflectiveness  on  the  Bruen  proposal  was 
typical  of  her  basic  honesty.  She  simply  could  not  marry  a  man  she 
did  not  love  even  if  he  did  have  "$100,000  of  his  own."  At  the  same 
time  it  was  becoming  increasingly  apparent  to  her  that  she  was  falling 
in  love  with  the  handsome  though  impecunious  John  BL  Beeckman.  She 
had  known  Beeckman  for  several  years.  She  had  first  met  him  at  East 
Hampton  in  1842.  She  saw  more  of  him  during  her  romances  with 
Samson  and  Bruen.  By  January  1846  he  had  become  a  regular  caller  at 
43  Lafayette  Place  and  Margaret's  frequent  escort  to  divine  services 
at  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  and  St.  Thomas'  Episcopal  Church. 

John  Beeckman  was  an  unusually  tall  and  handsome  young  man  of 
good  family.  His  "glossy  luxuriant"  dark  hair,  sharply  wrought  features, 
and  "genteel  figure"  commanded  instant  attention.  Even  the  critical 
Juliana  at  first  thought  Mm  an  "excellent  beau"  for  Margaret  because 
he  was  "refined  and  gentlemanly  in  deportment ...  of  good  family,  in- 
telligent, well  educated  and  well  read.7'  His  mother  had  been  Catherine 
Livingston,  and  that  prominent  New  York  name  and  connection  placed 
the  Beeckmans  within  the  Gardiner  social  circle.  The  Beeckmans  lacked 
none  of  life's  necessities  and  few  of  its  luxuries.  The  summer  season 
usually  found  them  at  East  Hampton,  Saratoga,  or  Newport.  But 
these  displays  did  not  conceal  the  fact  that  the  Beeckmans  were  not 
truly  wealthy.  They  all  had  to  work  for  a  living.  At  the  time  of  John 
Beeckman's  courtship  with  Margaret,  his  younger  brother  was  clerking 
at  Graham  and  Varnum's  store  (the  Beeckmans  and  the  Varnums  were 
related  by  marriage),  while  John  and  his  older  brother  Gilbert  labored 

343 


in  a  downtown  mercantile  house  in  which  business  was  often  so  slow 
that  one  or  the  oilier  would  be  laid  off  for  several  weeks  at  a  time. 

These  economic  realities  were  partly  atoned  for  by  the  fact  that 
Catherine  Livingston  Beeckman  maintained  a  gracious  home  filled 
with  mementos  and  curios  attesting  her  ancestry  and  good  breeding. 
Site  was  extremely  proud  of  her  Revolutionary  War  heritage  and  de- 
lighted In  displaying  the  war  relics  given  her  husband  years  earlier 
by  Governor  George  Clinton.  If  the  Gardiners  were  less  than  fascinated 
by  Catherine  Beeckman's  tiresome  excursions  into  her  "Spirit  of  '76" 
genealogy  (she  only  did  it,  said  Margaret,  to  impress  the  Gardiners 
"with  aii  idea  of  her  importance" ),  their  reaction  could  be  traced  to 
the  fact  that  the  Gardiners  of  the  17  yes  had  not  displayed  an  over- 
powering dedication  to  the  great  struggle  for  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness.  (They  had  been  neutralists,  selling  their  goods  and  serv- 
ices to  both  sides.)  Future  family  genealogists,  notably  Curtiss  C. 
Gardiner  in  his  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  would  be  hard 
pressed  to  find  more  than  one  or  two  members  of  the  clan  whose 
patriotic  contributions  during  the  Revolution  far  transcended  profitable 
collaboration  with  the  British  occupation  forces  on  Long  Island.  Cath- 
erine Beeckman ,  on  the  other  hand,  was  an  early  prototype  of  a 
Daughter  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  her  constant  harping  on  the 
glorious  events  of  1776  did  little  more  than  confirm  in  the  Gardiners  a 
suspicion  that  the  Beeckmans  were  stronger  in  blood  line  than  in  credit 
line.  Margaret  was  threatening  to  accept  half  a  loaf  or  no  loaf  at  all 
in  a  marriage  contract.19 

Only  when  it  was  clear,  by  March  1847,  that  Margaret  was  gen- 
uinely in  love  with  John  Beeckiian  was  Alexander  detailed  to  discover 
how  much  of  a  loaf  was  actually  there.  A  probing  conversation  with 
young  Beeckman  enabled  him  to  report  Beeckman  3s  personal  view  that 
no  man  should  marry  unless  he  could  support  Ms  wife  "in  the  same 
style  she  has  been  accustomed  to  live"  and  the  corollary  observation 
that  no  lady  should  accept  marriage  "unless  she  was  certain  her  posi- 
tion and  enjoyments  would  be  the  same."  On  the  basis  of  this  meager 
information  Margaret  assured  Julia  that  "the  exposition  of  affairs  was 
very  satisfactory."  Just  how  satisfactory,  in  cold  round  numbers,  Alex- 
ander would  not  reveal.  He  favored  the  match  and  did  not  want  to 
see  Margaret  denied  the  man  she  loved  because  of  the  money  ques- 
tion. Nor  did  Beeckman  himself  offer  any  financial  specifics.  "If  he  had 
an  income  of  some  five  or  six  thousand,"  Juliana  complained  to  Sher- 
wood Forest  in  March  1847,  "we  should  know  at  once.  That's  the 
point  of  difficulty.  Now  what  think  you?  Is  it  time  to  think  of  something 
and  somebody  else  or  keep  the  status  quo?"  20 

Julia  pondered  the  question  and  decided  Margaret  should  marry 
Beeckman  whether  there  was  great  wealth  in  the  bargain  or  not.  Both 
she  and  John  Tyler  had  met  the  Beeckman  family  at  East  Hampton 

344 


In  1845,  and  the  ex-President  had  been  particularly  impressed  with 
the  young  man.  Still,  she  agreed  with  her  mother  that  the  economic  ele- 
ment could  not  be  entirely  overlooked.  "If  I  could  only  be  sure  of  Ms 
independence  I  should  not  have  any  fears  were  the  match  concluded 
on,"  she  said.  "Margaret  should  refer  Mm  to  you  and  then  it  would 
be  Ms  business  to  give  sufficient  assurance  that  he  was  able  properly  to 
support  her."  21 

The  sufficient  assurance  was  never  forthcoming  and  Margaret  never 
insisted  upon  it.  She  was  in  love,  not  in  high  finance.  When  a  panicky 
Juliana  threatened  to  quash  the  whole  tMng  in  August  1847,  Alexander 
finally  stepped  in  and  told  her  firmly  that  the  marriage  would  take 
place.  His  sister's  happiness  must  not  be  sacrificed  to  a  misplaced 
decimal  point.  "I  suppose  it  is  perfectly  understood  that  nothing 
[further]  is  to  be  said  about  it,"  he  told  Ms  mother  sharply.  "You 
are  yet  to  be  satisfied  as  to  manner,  mode  and  extent,  and  that  defi- 
nitely. What  one  person  may  esteem  abundant,  another  may  not."  It 
was  the  only  time  in  her  life  that  the  strong-willed  Juliana  was 
thwarted  by  one  of  her  cMldren.  Julia  accepted  her  sister's  judgment  in 
the  matter  with  better  grace,  noting  only  that  Margaret  would  find 
Beeckman's  "manner  of  wooing"  more  desirable  were  he  wealthier  and 
able  to  spend  more  money  on  her.22 

The  courtsMp  was  decidedly  an  economical  one.  It  involved  for 
Beeckman  nothing  more  expensive  or  ostentatious  than  escorting 
Margaret  to  church  and  Sunday  School  and  calling  upon  her  in  her 
heavily  chaperoned  parlor.  An  occasional  stroll  on  Broadway  completed 
the  pattern.  An  engagement  was  agreed  upon  in  August  1847  and  the 
wedding  planned  for  January  1848  in  the  Church  of  the  Ascension.  Not 
until  the  engagement  was  announced,  daguerreotypes  exchanged,  and 
all  the  arrangements  made,  did  Margaret  inform  her  friends  and  her 
Shelter  Island  cousins  of  her  plans.  Nor  did  the  usually  talkative  Julia 
let  the  secret  out  during  her  New  York  visit  in  September.  To  Phoebe 
Gardiner's  chagrin,  she  was  one  of  the  last  in  the  family  to  learn  of  her 
cousin's  intentions.  When  she  finally  heard  the  news  she  eagerly  de- 
manded the  "whole  history"  of  the  romance  and  asked  Margaret  es- 
pecially to  "devote  a  separate  sheet  to  the  confidential."  Margaret's 
courtsMp  had  been  a  quiet  one,  devoid  of  all  gossip  and  speculation,  and 
she  wanted  to  keep  it  that  way.  She  did  not  oblige  Phoebe  with  any  of 
the  details,  confidential  or  other.23 

That  John  Beeckman  had  no  money  ceased  being  a  major  con- 
versation piece  in  the  Gardiner  family  as  Margaret  began  busily  to 
make  her  wedding  plans.  WMle  the  financial  suitability  of  the  match 
was  no  longer  talked  about  openly,  it  remained  a  concern  in  the  minds 
of  both  Beeckman  and  Ms  fiancee.  Indeed,  it  was  Ms  fear  of  Ms  in- 
ability to  support  Margaret  in  the  manner  to  wMch  she  was  accustomed 
as  a  Gardiner  that  drove  John  Beeckman  to  the  California  gold  fields 

345 


in  April  1849 — and  to  Ms  death  a  year  later  near  Sacramento.  And  It 
was  apprehensiveness  on  Margaret's  part  that  her  husband  would 
never  fee!  comfortable  In  the  Gardiner  presence  until  he  had  made  him- 
self independently  wealthy  that  persuaded  her  to  acquiesce  in  his  get- 
rich-quick  scheme  in  the  new  E!  Dorado.  The  latent  tragedy  in  the 
whole  affair  could  not,  of  course,  be  appreciated  as  Margaret's  wedding 
day  approached. 

It  was  Juliana's  Intention  to  give  the  twenty-five-year-old  Margaret 
as  nice  a  wedding  and  as  expensive  a  trousseau  as  her  sister  Julia 
had  had  three  and  a  half  years  earlier.  She  was  determined  also  that  the 
ceremony  would  be  an  exclusive  affair  involving  the  immediate  families 
only.  Xone  of  Alexander's  seedy  Tammany  friends  would  be  invited  to 
this  wedding.  Julia  endorsed  her  mother's  decisions  in  these  matters. 
"You  need  not  regulate  [Margaret's]  wardrobe  by  mine,"  she  volun- 
teered. "/  hope  it  will  be  very  nice — but  then  I  also  hope  there  will  be 
enough  left  to  buy  me  a  gold  watch  and  Gardie  a  silver  cup."  A  trip  to 
New  York  in  midwinter  always  posed  grave  transportation  problems 
for  Tidewater  Virginians.  Nonetheless,  Julia  assured  her  family  that 
she  and  the  President  would  "make  the  grand  effort"  even  though 
Julia  was  six  months  pregnant  with  Alex  at  the  time.  Nothing,  she 
vowed,  could  keep  her  from  "The  Ceremony"  And  while  the  President 
had  just  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  December  from  a  fatiguing 
six-week  trip  with  Alexander  to  view  his  coal  and  timber  lands  near 
Caseyville,  Kentucky ,  he  too  was  eager  for  the  New  York  jaunt.  "He 
is  so  happy  in  being  with  me  again  that  he  has  rallied  immediately 
and  all  the  fatigued  look  . . .  has  vanished,"  Julia  explained.24 

Margaret  married  John  H.  Beeckman  at  the  Church  of  the  Ascen- 
sion on  January  8,  1848.  The  Reverend  Gregory  T.  Bedell  performed 
the  ceremony,  as  he  had  earlier  for  Julia  and  the  former  President. 
John  Tyler  gave  the  bride  away.  The  service  and  reception  went 
smoothly  and  with  dignity,  although  Tyler  was  piqued  that  "there  was 
no  more  particular  mention  made  in  the  papers  of  [the]  wedding." 
He  expected,  said  Margaret,  that  "his  giving  me  away  would  be  par- 
ticularly announced"  Priscilla  wrote  to  congratulate  Margaret  on  the 
event,  observing  that  "if  your  husband  is  only  one  half  as  good  as 
mine  . . .  you  cannot  help  being  happy."  With  his  usual  organizational 
efficiency  Alexander  took  upon  himself  the  task  of  distributing  the 
wedding  cake  to  friends  of  the  Tylers  and  Gar  diners.  With  each  piece 
of  cake  went  the  observation  that  Tyler  could  secure  the  Democratic 
nomination  in  1848  if  his  many  friends  were  properly  rallied.25 

Margaret  and  her  husband  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  with  the 
President  and  Julia  for  a  month-long  honeymoon  visit.  They  were  ac- 
companied by  Gilbert  Beeckman,  the  bridegroom's  brother.  Alice  Tyler 
immediately  began  a  "desperate  flirtation"  with  Gilbert.  Julia  arranged 
"two  blow  outs"  to  honor  the  newlyweds.  For  a  few  weeks  Sherwood 

346 


Forest  reeled  under  the  impact  of  visiting,  dancing,  and  merrymaking 
as  friends  and  neighbors  of  the  Tylers  trooped  in  to  pay  their  respects 
to  the  Beeckmans.  During  the  clear  crisp  days  of  January  1848  Margaret 
rode  horseback  over  the  plantation  while  her  city-bred  husband  tramped 
the  woods  and  fields  in  a  crash  program  to  make  himself  into  an 
outdoorsman  and  hunter.  To  educate  and  instruct  him  in  the  fine 
Virginia  art  of  shooting  and  riding  to  hounds,  Tyler  organized  several 
large  fox  hunts  which  filled  the  woods  and  meadows  of  the  planta- 
tion with  the  sounds  of  horns  and  dogs.  Beeckman  tried,  but  he  failed 
the  test.  His  absolute  inability  to  hit  anything  with  a  rifle  was  soon 
a  broad  family  joke.26 

It  was  a  happy  month  for  Margaret,  and  it  was  with  real  re- 
luctance that  she  and  John  left  Sherwood  Forest  on  February  5  for 
Washington,  the  next  stop  on  their  honeymoon  itinerary.  Armed  with 
letters  of  introduction  from  Tyler  to  various  senators  and  Cabinet 
officers,  the  young  couple  looked  forward  to  a  pleasant  visit  in  the 
capital.  Julia  envied  her  sisters  return  there.  Much  to  Alice's  dismay, 
Gilbert  Beeckman  preceded  the  honeymooners  to  Washington  to  make 
arrangements  for  their  stay.  Alice  had  "seriously  encouraged"  his  at- 
tentions and  Ms  departure  drove  her  to  her  room  for  a  day  of  tears 

and  fasting.  "No  girl  ever  courted  so  hard  in  this  world I  really 

think  she  was  smitten,"  said  Margaret.  Also  supplied  with  letters  of 
introduction  from  the  former  President  to  prominent  political  figures 
in  Washington,  Gilbert  hastened  ahead  to  the  capital  to  investigate 
the  possibilities  of  a  patronage  appointment  as  well  as  to  engage  rooms 
for  the  oncoming  travelers.  The  best  he  could  manage  for  John  and 
Margaret  was  cramped  quarters  in  the  Willard  Hotel  attic.  This  was 
better  than  he  managed  for  himself.  His  Tyler  connection  was  too 
tenuous  to  command  patronage  attention  from  the  Polk  administration, 
and  by  the  time  the  newlyweds  arrived  on  February  7  to  claim  their 
attic  room,  a  crestfallen  Gilbert  had  already  departed  for  New  York. 
Margaret  reached  town  badly  shaken  with  seasickness  by  a  rough 
voyage  up  Chesapeake  Bay  and  the  Potomac.  Nevertheless,  she  lost 
no  time  distributing  her  cards  at  the  Polks7,  Calhouns7,  Walkers', 
Masons',  Buchanans7,  John  A.  Dixes',  and  at  Dolley  Madison's.  Her 
upset  stomach  was  settled  by  drinking  what  she  vaguely  described  to 
her  teetotaling  mother  as  "a  wine  of  some  description"  Tyler  had 
recommended  that  she  take  in  such  circumstances.  Her  health  restored, 
she  spent  a  few  days  pleasantly  visiting,  dining,  and  gossiping  with  old 
friends.  She  attended  the  third  Assembly  ball  of  the  season.  Her  arrival 
at  the  ball,  she  reported, 

. . .  caused  a  general  commotion  among  the  dancers.  Such  a  distingue  couple 
couldn't  be  beat  there,  that's  a  fact.  Nobody  thought  of  dancing — but  every- 
body was  ogling  and  running  after  the  bride.  "There  she  is  I"  was  echoed 
everywhere  in  my  ears I  wore  my  veil  and  therefore  would  not  dance 

347 


except  with  Robert  Tyler  who  has  been  here  since  yesterday  and  Is  staying  at 
this  house . . .  this  morning  I  find  myself  not  the  least  the  worse  for  my 
frolic.21 

No  sooner  had  Margaret  returned  to  New  York  In  mid-February 
than  she  knew  she  was  pregnant.  Within  a  few  weeks  she  was  so  un- 
comfortably ill  she  was  forced  to  bed.  By  May  1848  she  could  no 
longer  tolerate  the  noise  and  closeness  of  the  city,  and  with  her  mother 
she  moved  out  to  East  Hampton  for  the  fresh  sea  air.  While  Julia 
experienced  nothing  more  serious  than  "a  sleepless  humour"  when  Alex 
was  on  the  way,  Margaret's  venture  into  motherhood  was  difficult 
throughout.  At  one  point  no  fewer  than  three  doctors  were  in  attend- 
ance. During  these  troublesome  months  Beeckman  remained  at  his 
office  in  Xew  York  and  took  his  meals  and  lodging  at  a  boardinghouse. 
He  visited  Margaret  in  East  Hampton  on  week  ends.  His  letters  to  her 
between  these  visits  were  filled  with  a  passion  and  compassion  that 
helped  pull  her  through  a  critical  period.  His  gift  of  a  mockingbird 
also  raised  her  spirits  considerably.  Still,  she  remained  generally  de- 
pressed and  out  of  sorts  until  the  birth  of  Henry  Gardiner  Beeckman 
on  October  20,  1848.  This  glad  release  ended  Margaret's  travail  for 
only  a  short  time.  The  baby  was  weak  and  sickly  and  required  con- 
stant attention  during  Ms  first  year.  By  the  time  "Harry"  had  fully 
caught  hold  of  life,  Margaret  worrying  and  working  herself  half-sick 
over  Mm  all  the  wMle,  John  Beeckman  had  accidentally  shot  himself 
to  death  in  California,  WitMn  two  years,  then,  Margaret  Gardiner  was 
bride,  mother,  and  widow.  But  at  least  her  marriage,  brief  and  tragic 
though  it  was,  had  been  sometMng  more  than  a  stock  merger.28 

Margaret's  marriage  encouraged  Julia  to  hope  that  Alice  Tyler's 
day  of  joy  was  also  imminent.  For  a  moment  in  February  1848  it  ap- 
peared that  Gilbert  Beeckman  would  make  Julia's  fond  wish  ("I  wish 
she  was  married  to  somebody")  come  true.  It  was  Mgh  time,  she 
thought,  for  Alice  "to  go  seriously  in  search  of  a  husband."  Tyler 
agreed  with  his  impatient  wife.  It  was  embarrassing,  he  felt,  to  have 
Alice  running  back  and  forth  to  Williamsburg  and  Richmond  pursuing 
harmless  flirtations  when  she  should  be  thinking  of  settling  down — 
especially  when  a  perfectly  good  prospect  appeared  on  the  scene  in 
1848  in  the  person  of  Edward  O'Hara  of  Williamsburg.  He  was  twenty- 
six  and  eager  to  marry  Alice.  Juliana  met  Mm  during  her  1848  visit 
to  Sherwood  and  found -him  "intelligent,  well-educated,  and  pious.  In 
all  respects  a  most  worthy  and  unexceptional  character  with  an  income 

between  ten  and  twenty  thousand  a  year  and  no  mistake thoroughly 

conversant  with  the  Bible."  O'Hara  even  appeared  at  Sherwood  Forest 
on  one  occasion  armed  with  a  diamond  ring  and  a  firm  proposal  of 
marriage.  Tyler  discovered  that  the  young  man  was  "confounded 
shrewd"  in  business  affairs  and,  supported  by  Julia,  urged  Alice  to 

348 


marry  Mm.  But  Alice  would  have  none  of  Mr.  O'Hara.  Her  Independent 
attitude  left  Julia  frustrated.  "He  is ...  entirely  too  good  for  Alice,"  she 
finally  snorted.  "Any  light  laughing  fellow  suits  her,  but  I  perceive  Mr. 

O*H.  is  altogether  too  serious  and  rational  for  one  of  her  taste I 

fear  it  will  be  all  to  no  purpose."  ^ 

The  O'Hara  interlude,,  as  Julia  feared,  came  to  nought.  Alice  was 
only  twenty-one  and  felt  she  had  "not  been  a  young  lady  long  enough 
yet."  She  certainly  did  not  want  to  be  forced  into  marriage  for  the 
sake  of  marriage.  She  had  overcome  the  adolescent  awkwardness  of 
her  White  House  days,  lost  weight,  and  become  a  tall  and  attractive 
young  woman.  Rather  than  follow  her  father  and  Julia's  advice  in  such 
matters  as  the  O7Hara  affair,  she  preferred  to  carry  on  the  hopeless 
and  unrequited  flirtation  with  Gilbert  Beecknian.  She  was  still  maneu- 
vering for  Beeckman's  attention  in  1849  when  she  met  Henry  Mande- 
ville  Denison.30 

Denison  was  a  tall,  rugged,  "very  masculine  looking"  man  of 
twenty-eight.  A  native  of  Wyoming,  Pennsylvania,  he  was  in  1849  £^e 
popular  new  Episcopal  rector  at  Bruton  Parish  in  Williamsburg.  All 
the  impressionable  young  ladies  of  the  parish  were  soon  hopelessly  in 
love  with  him  and  Alice  Tyler  was  no  exception.  As  Julia  quickly  sized 
up  the  handsome  clergyman,  Denison  was  "very  social  in  company  and 

is  ready  to  enter  into  the  frolics  of  the  wildest of  the  girls — for  he  is 

altogether  a  ladies'  man."  Alice,  of  course,  was  wholly  "captivated"  by 
Mm.  Soon  he  was  a  regular  visitor  at  Sherwood  Forest  and  Alice  flirted 
with  him  "pretty  freely."  Julia  thought  her  chances  of  landing  Denison 
fairly  slim,  but  Alice  decided  she  wanted  him  and  with  the  usual  Tyler 
fortitude  and  singleness  of  purpose  she  set  out  to  get  him.  The  wedding 
took  place  at  Sherwood  Forest  on  July  n,  i85o.31 

Alice's  married  life,  like  Margaret's,  was  to  be  a  series  of  trag- 
edies. The  wedding  itself  took  place  in  an  atmosphere  of  gloom. 
Scheduled  for  June  1850,  it  had  been  postponed  a  month  when  Tyler's 
second  daughter,  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  died  suddenly  of  the  after- 
effects of  childbirth.  Not  yet  twenty-seven,  she  left  four  young  children 
behind  her.  When  Alice's  wedding  party  finally  gathered  at  Sherwood 
Forest  in  July  it  comprised  but  a  handful  of  the  immediate  family  and 
the  ceremony  failed  to  dissipate  the  funereal  depression  that  prevailed. 
Julia  was  not  at  all  sure  in  her  own  mind  that  Alice  was  in  love 
with  Denison.  With  less  than  $6000  in  savings  and  a  new  charge  as 
Assistant  Rector  of  Christ  Church,  Brooklyn,  at  $2000  a  year,  Denison 
was  scarcely  weighed  down  with  material  goods.  Julia  thought  that 
a  "wealthier  match"  with  Gilbert  Beeckman  would  have  been  of  more 
advantage  to  the  bride.  Still,  she  was  glad  Alice  had  finally  found  a 
husband  and  would  be  leaving  Sherwood,  for  "in  whatever  humor  Alice 
was  she  did  not  possess  real  amiability."  32 

Whether  she  was  really  amiable  or  not,  Alice's  departure  from 

349 


home  saddened  John  Tyler.  A  deeper  shadow  fell  over  Sherwood  Forest 
when  it  was  learned  In  April  1851  that  Alice's  first  baby,  born  pre- 
maturely In  Philadelphia  while  the  Denisons  were  visiting  Robert  and 
Prlscila,  had  died  after  one  fitful  week  of  life.  Her  second  baby, 
Elizabeth  Russel  Denison — "Bessy" — born  in  Louisville  in  March  1852, 
was  more  fortunate,  although  Julia  thought  the  child  "without  any 
beauty,  looking  entirely  unlike  Alice."  But  long  before  little  Bessy  was 
able  to  do  anything  about  her  appearance,  Alice  herself  died  in  June 
1854  from  the  effects  of  "bilious  colic."  Her  sudden  passing  nearly 
prostrated  Tyler.  Indeed ,  the  sudden  and  unexpected  deaths  of  three 
of  Ms  grown  daughters  within  seven  years  (Mary  in  1847,  Elizabeth  in 
1850,  and  Alice  in  1854)  produced  a  fatalistic  observation:  "The  ills 
of  life  are  numerous  enough  without  our  dwelling  on  them  too  much. 
What  best  becomes  us  is  to  rest  in  the  conviction  that  'whatever  is  is 
right.'  Altho  my  loss  of  three  dear  children  has  fallen  in  each  instance 
heavily  upon  me,  yet  I  am  thankful  to  an  over-ruling  Providence  for 
leaving  me  a  larger  share  than  falls  to  the  general  lot."33 

Death  came  so  quickly  and  with  such  frequency  in  the  18403 
and  18503  that  Americans  of  all  classes  had  no  choice  but  to  learn  to 
live  with  it  philosophically.  Yet  with  all  the  sorrow  he  bore,  John 
Tyler's  share  of  happiness  was  indeed  much  larger  than  that  of  the 
general  lot  of  mankind.  Although  three  of  his  daughters  had  died  by 
1854,  a  happy  and  healthy  new  family  was  growing  around  him. 
Sherwood  Forest  was  a  carefree,  prosperous  plantation.  The  house 
rang  with  the  laughter  of  children  and  the  sound  of  music,  dancing,  and 
entertaining.  Interesting  visitors  and  old  friends  stopped  by  whenever 
they  were  in  Charles  City,  and  these  callers  provided  Julia  numerous 
excuses  for  entertaining  her  neighbors  with  the  elaborate  balls  and 
dinner  parties  for  which  she  gained  such  well-deserved  local  fame.34 


These,  then,  were  good  years  for  John  Tyler.  He  was  happy  and 
his  wife  was  happy.  After  she  had  borne  him  six  of  their  seven  chil- 
dren, he  still  referred  to  Julia  as  his  "bride,"  and  on  one  public  oc- 
casion in  1858  he  asked  his  embarrassed  and  delighted  spouse  "to  bear 
testimony  that  the  honeymoon  has  not  passed  with  us."  During  his 
leisure  moments  nothing  pleased  Tyler  more  than  to  be  asked  to&play 
his  violin  for  his  guests,  for  the  dances  of  the  young  people,  and  for 
the  children  of  the  plantation.  He  was  particularly  proficient  in  playing 
"Washington's  March,"  "Believe  Me,  If  AH  Those  Endearing  Young 
Charms,"  and  "Home  Sweet  Home."  In  1848  Alexander  presented  him 
a  new  violin  and  he  practiced  regularly  upon  it,  "night  after  night." 
His  repertoire  grew  steadily.  Often  Julia  sang  to  his  accompaniment  or 
joined  him  with  her  guitar  in  a  string  duet.  The  violin  was  a  boyhood 
interest  Tyler  took  up  again  with  enthusiasm  during  his  years  at 
Sherwood  Forest.  "He  plays  with  the  same  taste  that  he  does  every- 

350 


tiling  else?"  said  Julia.  "It  is  better  than  Ms  dancing  of  the  Polka/' 
Occasionally  a  family  orchestra  (Julia  called  it  an  "Ethiopian  band") 
was  formed  to  provide  music  for  the  dances  at  Sherwood  Forest — Tyler 
on  violin,  son-in-law  William  Waller  on  banjo,  Jula  on  guitar,  and 
young  Tazewell  Tyler  on  bones.  Alice,  Belle  Waller  (William  Waller's 
sister).  Julia,  and  Margaret  (if  she  happened  to  be  visiting)  often  con- 
stituted themselves  an  all-girl  choir  and  entertained  their  guests  and  them- 
selves with  Xegro  melodies,  the  Ethiopian  band  plunking  happily  away 
behind  them.  "The  President  is  in  good  health,  and  cheerful}  which  is  es- 
sential to  good  health,"  Juliana  wrote  of  him  in  1855.  "He  fiddles  away 
every  evening  for  the  little  children  black  and  white  to  dance  on  the 
Piazza  and  seems  to  enjoy  it  as  much  as  the  children.  I  never  saw  a  hap- 
pier temperament  than  he  possesses."  35 

The  nearby  woods  were  thick  with  deer,  and  Tyler  shot  venison 
for  the  table  all  winter.  Ducks  from  the  river  added  variety  to  the 
family  diet  and  gave  the  former  President  countless  opportunities  to 
demonstrate  himself  an  excellent  marksman.  Fox-hunting  also  provided 
good  sport  for  the  planters  in  the  neighborhood  and  produced  an  oc- 
casional fur  for  Julia.  Tyler  enjoyed  the  chase  immensely,  and  when 
any  of  the  Gardiners,  Tylers,  or  Beeckmans  were  visiting  he  arranged 
a  hunt.  The  fox-hunting  business,  however,  could  be  as  gastronomic  as 
it  was  athletic.  As  Julia  explained  its  krger  implications  in  1846: 

Yesterday  the  President  joined  the  huntsmen  around  us  In  their  sports  and 
then  made  the  party  and  their  hounds  come  home  and  dine  them  for  the 
wMch  we  were  previously  prepared  and  Catherine  [Wing]  dished  us  an  ele- 
gant dinner  I  am  sure  of  Maccaroni  [sic~]  soup,  Roast  Turkey,  Stew  Venison, 
bacon  and  cold  roast  beef,  celery,  parsnips,  Sweet  and  Irish  potatoes — for 
dessert  Transparent  pudding,  mince  pie,  apple  tart,  Damson  tart,  soft  custard 
and  preserves.  Some  of  the  company  I  presume  never  saw  so  fine  a  looking 
table  in  their  lives  before  and  it  will  be  in  consequence  quite  an  era  in  their 
lives.  A  Fox  was  the  result  of  their  hunt.36 

Julia  always  set  a  fine  table.  One  never  knew  who  would  be  drop- 
ping in  for  lunch  or  dinner.  Tyler's  birthday  on  March  29  called  for 
something  special,  and  Julia  usually  humored  Ms  sweet  tooth  with 
his  favorite  dessert — "pancakes,  sweetmeats  and  ice  cream."  Good 
French  wines  also  graced  the  table  at  Sherwood  Forest.  Of  course, 
Julia  had  her  disappointments — a  December  1847  dinner  party  was  in 
this  category: 

My  own  dinner  was  a  failure  in  consequence  of  a  pouring  rain  all  day.  My 
plum  pound  cake  with  its  bunch  of  white  roses  and  evergreens  went  for 
naught.  Catherine  sat  up  all  night  preparing  the  lemon  puddings  and  pastries 
and  I  tired  myself  to  death  over  pigs  feet  jelly  until  I  got  it  as  clear  as  crystal. 
. . .  My  intended  guests  did  not  give  up  the  hope  of  its  clearing  away  until  the 

351 


eleventh  tour  when  I  received  apologies.  I  however  carried  off  the  dinner  and 
Mr.  Jones,  Mr.  Tyler,  Alice  and  myself  sat  down  with  formality  and  in 
costume  while  the  lamp  was  lit  in  the  drawing  rooms  and  coffee  handed 
around  when  we  retired.37 

Except  on  special  occasions,  life  at  Sherwood  Forest  was  not  par- 
ticularly formal.  Tyler  Insisted,  however,  that  Ms  wife  be  "always 
dressed  proper  for  company."  In  April  1851,  for  example,  Julia  learned 
that  the  distinguished  British  diplomat  Sir  Henry  Lytton  Bulwer  and 
Lady  Bulwer  were  traveling  through  the  county  en  route  from  Wash- 
ington to  Charleston.  The  Mistress  of  Sherwood  immediately  "dressed 
for  company  and  [put]  the  rooms  In  order  with  a  large  bouquet  of 
splendid  tulips  setting  off  the  parlor.  I  presume  they  will  not  make  their 
appearance  but  it  is  more  agreeable  not  to  be  taken  by  surprise." 
Julia  needed  little  urging  about  her  dress.  It  was  her  intention  "to  keep 
nicely ,  very  nicely  dressed  all  the  while,"  and  she  missed  few  opportuni- 
ties to  journey  to  Richmond  to  add  to  her  considerable  wardrobe.  Like 
most  women,  Julia  loved  clothes,  the  more  expensive  the  better. 

But  whether  an  occasion  was  formal  or  informal,  she  insisted  on 
good  manners  in  her  home  at  all  times.  She  became  extremely  annoyed 
when  the  basic  civilities  were  not  observed.  Letitia  Tyler  Semple  de- 
lighted in  needling  Julia  in  this  respect.  Returning  from  church  one 
Sunday  morning,  Julia  found  Semple  and  Ms  wife  awaiting  her  in  the 
parlor.  "She  was  seated  at  one  extremity  of  the  room  as  we  entered  and 
did  not  rise  to  meet  me,  or  rather  us,  until  I  walked  quite  up  to  her 
chair!"  Julia  expostulated.  "Her  ways  until  she  went  away  this  morning 
were  what  you  would  determine  hateful  [although]  to  her  father  she 
she  was  exceedingly  coaxing."  3S 

These  moods  passed  quickly.  There  was  so  much  genuine  happiness 
and  mutual  respect  within  the  family  that  the  continuing  Julia-Letitia 
feud  never  dominated  the  situation.  And  if  there  was  tension  with  Letitia 
and  with  Alice  (before  her  marriage  to  Denison),  there  was  never  any 
between  Julia  and  young  Tazewell.  On  the  contrary,  Julia  loved  Taz  as 
though  he  were  her  own  child.  As  he  grew  into  young  manhood  (he  was 
twenty  in  1850),  Julia  delighted  in  teasing  Mm  about  Ms  various  young 
lady  friends,  particularly  the  "pretty  girl  with  a  snug  fortune  of  thirty 
thousand"  who  lived  over  near  Williamsburg.  The  frequent  balls  at 
Sherwood  Forest  and  at  the  other  plantations  along  the  river  enabled 
Taz  to  pursue  Ms  interest  in  girls  with  considerable  ease,  and  Julia 
followed  the  ups  and  downs  of  his  romantic  career  with  much  encourage- 
ment and  good  advice. 

When  the  snow  lay  deep  upon  the  ground,  clogging  the  dirt  roads  to 
Williamsburg  and  Richmond,  the  Sherwood  Foresters  were  confined  to 
more  localized  social  activities.  Nearby  families  joined  the  Tylers  for 
winter  sports,  the  neighbors  visiting  back  and  forth  in  their  canoe 
sleighs: 

352 


Who  should  drive  up  in  a  canoe  sure  enough  but  the  Douthats  and  Seldens 

[Julia  wrote  Margaret] It  was  quite  too  funny  for  description.  They 

were  drawn  by  their  carriage  horses  and  they  sat  upon  a  thick  carpet  in 
Indian  file  in  a  long  narrow  canoe  presenting  as  comfortable  as  curious  an 
effect.  It  was  a  merry  visit  and  they  described  to  us  the  variety  of  their 
Journey  which  consisted  in  floating  in  the  most  charming  manner  through  all 
the  runs  that  came  by  necessity  in  their  way. . . .  They  took  cake  and  wine 
and  left  full  of  spirits.39 

Julia  lacked  nothing.  The  natural  isolation  of  the  plantation  was 
easily  overcome.  The  family  experienced  no  difficulty  entertaining  them- 
selves when  special  events  were  not  scheduled.  Thus  a  winter's  evening 
Eke  that  of  February  u,  1853,  found  Margaret  visiting  the  plantation 
and  the  family  engaged  in  experiments  in  levitation,  magnetic  power, 
and  the  conjuring  up  of  spirits  from  the  great  beyond.  On  this  particular 
instance,  as  Margaret  reported  tlie  phenomenon  to  her  spiritualist- 
inclined  mother,  Julia 

assembled  some  four  of  the  negroes  and  seated  them  around  a  table  in  the 
sitting  room.  They  sat  for  an  hour  without  effect  and  finally  a  sewing  woman 
[Mrs.  Adams]  of  Julia's  placed  her  hand  also  upon  it.  In  about  ten  minutes 
the  table  began  to  move — and  [then]  made  the  circumference  of  the  room — 
with  the  combined  influence  of  them  ali  What  was  singular,  it  would  not  move 
for  [Mrs.  Adams]  alone  nor  for  all  the  rest  without  her.  Instead  of  being 
terrified,  I  was  very  glad  I  witnessed  what  is  without  doubt  the  magnetic 

influence  of  the  body — and  not  supernatural  agency. As  for  the  spirits 

having  anything  to  do  with  the  matter,  we  called  upon  them  in  vain.  The 
more  we  called  the  more  they  would  not  come.40 

It  was  much  easier  to  raise  a  band  of  serenaders  and  revelers  at 
Sherwood  than  the  spirits  of  the  departed.  When  Governor  John  B.  Floyd 
and  his  wife  visited  the  plantation  in  May  1851  the  household  was 
awakened  at  2  A.M.  by  a  wagonload  of  amateur  musicians  who  came  to 
serenade  the  governor  and  the  Tylers.  Musical  instruments  of  all  sorts 
blasted  away  with  "Hail  Columbia"  and  "Love  Not,"  Tyler  got  up, 
called  for  light,  and  invited  the  noisy  group  indoors.  "You  know  public 
men  like  manifestations  of  every  sort,"  Julia  explained  to  her  mother. 
"The  serenade  was  chiefly  for  us,  but  we  ascribed  it  to  the  Governor  . . . 

and  he  was  greatly  pleased. There  was  a  violin  and  a  guitar  in  the 

party  and  they  sang  after  they  entered  the  dining  room,  and  after  they 
had  rested  a  little  and  conversed  with  the  President  and  taken  a  good 
drink  all  around,  they  departed  sending  up  three  loud  huzzas  accom- 
panied by  a  bugle  blast  as  they  drove  off."  There  were  few  dull  moments 
at  Sherwood  Forest.  In  fact,  so  many  visitors  came  that  it  was  a  rare  and 
welcome  occasion  when  the  family  actually  bad  the  house  to  themselves. 
"I  am  luxuriating  in  a  state  of  repose/'  Julia  confessed  to  her  mother 
in  May  1852.  "No  visitor  is  here  and  I  am  breathing  freely."  41 

In  addition,  Margaret  and  her  mother  kept  Julia  well  supplied  with 

353 


New  York  gossip  so  detailed  in  nature  that  it  was  the  next  best  thing 
to  being  in  the  city.  Such  juicy  tidbits  as  the  Van  Ness  scandal  (it  was 
widely  rumored  that  the  old  General  had  secretly  had  a  young  wife) ; 
the  latest  gaucheries  of  the  Astor  clan;  the  romantic  death  of  Robert 
Mott,  who  "committed  suicide  by  choking  himself  with  a  rope  on  his 
wife's  bier";  and  the  social  machinations  of  their  Lafayette  Place  neigh- 
bors ("We  stand  upon  our  dignity  and  think  it  bad  policy  to  be  intimate 
with,  anyone,"  said  Margaret.  "It  is  the  only  way  for  us!")  kept  Julia 
in  touch  with  the  fashionable  world.  Frequently,  however ,  she  demanded 
more  details  of  the  various  sins  of  omission  and  commission  of  the  elite 
set  in  the  city,  and  Margaret  on  more  than  one  occasion  had  to  apologize 
that  she  could  not  make  her  letters  more  "entertaining"  in  this  regard 
because  she  was  forced  to  be  so  prudent.  "I  can  never  take  a  pen  in  hand 
that  my  ears  are  not  assailed  from  every  quarter  with  'Take  care, 
Margaret,  what  do  you  intend  publishing  now!'  "  ^ 

Detailed  descriptions  of  the  cultural  events  New  York  provided 
were  also  dispatched  to  Sherwood  Forest,  supplementing  for  Julia  the 
newspaper  reports  of  these  activities  and  alerting  her  to  what  might  be 
worth  seeing  and  hearing  when  the  attraction  finally  reached  Richmond. 
The  Gardiners  especially  urged  Julia  and  John  Tyler  to  see  Tom  Thumb 
when  he  appeared  in  Richmond  in  1847.  "He  is  the  greatest  curiosity  in 
the  world  and  no  mistake/'  Juliana  wrote.  There  was  even  some  talk 
within  the  family  of  buying  Tom  Thumb's  coach  as  a  souvenir,  but 
Juliana  thought  that  would  be  going  too  far.  The  coach  was  simply  not 
fashionable  enough.  Opinion  in  these  matters  was  not  always  unanimous. 
Phoebe,  for  instance,  found  Barnum's  money-making  freak  a  revolting 
little  man,  a  disgust  engendered  when  the  arrogant  midget  attempted  on 
one  occasion  to  seize  and  kiss  her.  Weighing  the  reported  merits  and 
demerits  of  the  Tom  Thumb  exhibit,  Julia  said  flatly  that  she  would  not 
go  to  Richmond  or  anywhere  else  to  see  such  a  nauseating  creature. 
When  Tyler  was  in  Richmond  in  April  1847  buying  summer  supplies 
and  had  an  opportunity  one  evening  to  see  Tom  Thumb,  he  too  passed 
it  up.  Both  Tyler  and  Julia  thought  it  much  more  a  curiosity  that  Mrs. 
John  Selden  of  Westover  had  just  given  birth  to  her  seventeenth  child 
and  was  "still  a  very  handsome  woman."  It  was  certainly  a  feat  none  of 
P.  T.  Barnum's  freaks  could  match.43 

When  Jenny  Lind  came  to  Richmond  to  sing  in  December  1850 
Julia  and  the  President  joined  their  James  River  neighbors  in  a  trip  to 
town  to  hear  the  celebrated  Swedish  Nightingale  perform.  Half  the  fun 
of  going  to  Richmond  for  such  events  was  the  delight  in  seeing  friends 
and  neighbors  aboard  the  riverboat  and  exchanging  with  them  the  news 
and  gossip  of  the  day.  It  was  an  opportunity  for  the  planter  families 
along  the  James,  the  "upper  ten"  as  Tyler  called  them  (the  Harrisons, 
Tylers,  Carters,  Seldens,  Douthats,  et  aL),  to  mingle  casually  and  in- 
formally. The  Jenny  Lind  excursion  and  others  Eke  it  filled  an  im- 

354 


portant  social  purpose.  Julia  was  disappointed  with  the  concert,  al- 
though she  agreed  with  Margaret  that  the  "angelic"  soprano  was  "an 
Interesting  looking  creation75  even  though  her  singing  was  "not  exactly 
so  melodious  as  we  would  expect  from  an  angel."  44 

More  enjoyable  for  Julia  and  the  President  was  a  trip  to  Richmond 
In  February  1850  with  Margaret  and  Juliana  (then  visiting  at  Sher- 
wood) to  be  present  at  the  ceremonies  attending  the  laying  of  the 
cornerstone  of  the  Washington  Memorial  and  the  great  ball  given  by 
Governor  Floyd  to  honor  visiting  President  Zachary  Taylor.  Julia  was 
happy  to  note  that  she  still  attracted  much  attention  In  such  distin- 
guished political  company,  and  that  there  was  a  "great  deal  more  Interest 
shown  to  see  'Mrs.  Tyler*  than  Gen.  Taylor"  at  the  ball.  Indeed,  the 
Gardiners  found  Old  Zach  wholly  unimpressive.  He  was,  said  Margaret, 
an 

indifferent  specimen  of  the  Lord  of  Creation.  He  is  a  short,  thick-set  man 
looking  neither  like  the  President  of  a  great  nation  nor  a  military  hero  tho* 
he  bears  both  honors  and  the  last  not  undeservedly.  If  he  had  rested  at  that 
climax,  history  would  have  accorded  him  an  unmodified  distinction.  Now  the 
man-past  Is  forgotten  in  the  man-present,  and  If  the  party  which  elected  Mm 
confessed  themselves  mortified  and  disappointed  at  Ms  want  of  political  tact 
. . .  the  opposite  one  will  have  little  conscience  I  fear  in  yielding  Mm  to  the 
sacrifice.  He  has  not  die  happy  faculty  of  extemporaneous  speech  making. . . . 

The  Gardiners  and  Tylers  would  take  Increasing  comfort  in  the  years 
ahead  in  the  knowledge  that  in  comparison  with  the  likes  of  Taylor, 
Fillmore,  Pierce,  and  Buchanan,  the  accomplishments  of  President  Tyler 
looked  impressive  indeed.45 

JuMa  never  felt  plantation-bound.  She  frequently  accompanied 
Tyler  on  his  speaking  engagements  around  Virginia  and  to  Baltimore 
and  Philadelphia.  No  summer  passed  that  she  and  her  husband  did  not 
visit  New  York,  East  Hampton,  Pittsfield,  Saratoga,  Newport,  or  the 
Virginia  springs  for  at  least  a  month  at  a  time.  She  enjoyed  the  con- 
tinuing deference  paid  her  during  these  frequent  public  exposures.  Her 
impact  at  Saratoga  in  1847  was  fairly  typical.  As  David  Lyon  reported 
it: 

I  do  not  believe  there  has  been  any  party  here  this  season  so  much  noticed  as 
ours.  Julia  in  particular  on  whom  all  eyes  are  centered  and  expressions  of 
admiration  are  heard  from  every  quarter.  Everyone  on  our  trip  wanted  to  see 
Mrs.  Tyler — she  appeared  to  elicit  universal  admiration — and  respect — Old 
John  they  said  they  were  not  so  anxious  to  see. 

Similarly,  at  a  Richmond  dinner  party  in  1849  Julia  was  toasted  as  "The 
Wife  of  Ex-President  Tyler:  the  handsomest  woman  in  the  world" 
("Was  that  not  a  stretcher?"  she  laughed) ;  and  at  Charlottesvllle  in 
June  1850  she  was  pleased  that  she  and  the  former  President  "were  the 
lions  and  treated  accordingly."  Her  appearance  was  certainly  a  great 

355 


deal  more  noticed  than  Ms  pedestrian  speech  to  the  combined  literary 
societies  of  the  University  of  Virginia.46 

Preparations  for  her  summer  jaunts  always  involved  heavy  outlays 
for  the  proper  clothes  in  Richmond  and  New  York.  Not  infrequently 
these  expenditures  would  exceed  $500.  In  order  to  pay  her  clothing  bills, 
Tyler,,  invariably  cash  poor  between  crops,  would  have  to  borrow  the 
money  from  Alexander,  or  ask  Alexander  to  go  security  for  him  on  a  note 
at  a  New  York  bank.  "We  have  been  out  shopping"  he  wrote  Alexander 
in  1849  from  Richmond  in  semi-despair,  "and  I  need  not  add  the 
results."  Julia  could  spend  one  hundred  acres  of  wheat  on  a  single 
costume  and  never  bat  an  eye.  To  hold  the  summer-vacation  cost  line 
to  something  halfway  reasonable,  Tyler  insisted  that  they  avoid  the 
posh  hotels  at  the  various  spas  and  take  rooms  at  the  less  expensive 
private  boardinghouses  in  the  area.  At  Mrs.  Sylvia  S.  Rogers'  house  in 
Saratoga,  for  instance,  the  rents  were  relatively  modest — four  dolkrs  a 
week  for  each  adult,  two  dollars  for  each  child  and  body  servant,  and 
three  dollars  for  the  coachman.  The  Tylers  and  the  Gardiners  occupied 
such  accommodations  at  Saratoga  and  Pittsfield  in  1849-1 85  i.47 


The  only  thing  that  could  keep  Julia  at  all  confined  to  the  planta- 
tion and  temporarily  out  of  the  social  swim  was  advanced  pregnancy  and 
cMldbearing,  and  even  this  transitory  inconvenience  had  the  advantage 
of  bringing  Juliana  and  Margaret  to  Sherwood  Forest  for  long  and 
pleasant  visits.  None  of  her  seven  accouchements  was  accomplished 
without  the  aid  of  her  sister  or  her  mother.  These  creative  experiences 
rarely  slowed  her  down  for  more  than  a  few  months  at  a  time,  however, 
or  interrupted  planned  excursions  to  New  York  or  various  fashionable 
spas. 

Gardie  and  Alex  were  only  the  beginning  of  a  krge  family.  They 
were  healthy,  normal  boys  who  cut  teeth  painfully,  had  flu,  measles, 
chickenpox,  and  whooping  cough,  fell  out  of  trees,  and  fought  over  their 
toys.  Of  the  two,  Alex  was  the  more  aggressive  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  been  baptized  in  genuine  River  Jordan  water  supplied  Tyler  by 
Navy  Lieutenant  Dominick  Lynch.  "You  never  saw  such  fights  as  he 
has  with  Gardie  who  takes  away  all  his  playthings  and  won't  permit 
Mm  to  have  a  single  thing/7  said  Julia.  "He  kicks  and  squeals  while  I 
make  Gardie  give  Mm  up  one  or  two."  By  December  1850  she  had  de- 
cided to  employ  a  young  French  maid  to  ride  herd  on  them  and  intro- 
duce them  to  the  civilizing  tendencies  of  the  French  language.48 

Julia  loved  her  rowdy  little  boys,  but  she  desperately  wanted  a 
daughter.  Thus,  when  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  (she  was  usually  called 
"Julie")  was  born  at  Sherwood  Forest  on  December  25,  1849,  Julia  was 
overjoyed  at  the  gift  from  St.  Nicholas.  Margaret  and  Juliana  were  on 
hand  as  usual  to  help  out.  After  some  hesitation  Margaret  pronounced 
Julie  a  beautiful  baby  with  the  possible  exception  of  her  "decided  Tyler 

356 


nose.  I  hope  that  organ  will  rest  a  while  in  its  maturity,  for  Its  promi- 
nence Is  quite  amusing."  Fortunately  3  nature  arrested  the  growth  of 
the  offending  proboscis,  and  within  a  few  months  Julia  was  predicting 

that  her  daughter  would  become  "the  greatest  belle  of  her  day I  am 

making  very  great  calculations  upon  her."  The  birth  of  Julie  was  some- 
what more  difficult  for  Julia  than  those  of  her  sons,  and  It  was  more  than 
six  weeks  before  she  was  again  up  and  around.  In  the  meantime,  Gardie 
and  Alex  adjusted  quickly  to  their  little  sister's  presence  and,  said 
Margaret?  "having  fallen  from  their  high  estate  upon  Mama's  knee  by 
the  recent  innovation  are  making  all  haste  to  manhood."  49 

By  the  time  Lachlan  Tyler  was  born  on  December  g,  1851,  Julia 
was  beginning  to  weary  of  her  biennial  contribution  to  America's  popula- 
tion explosion.  Lachlan  (Julia  omitted  the  "Me")  was  her  most  difficult 
pregnancy.  This  fact  did  not,  however,  prevent  a  grueling  shopping  trip 
to  Richmond  in  July  1851,  from  which  "she  returned  perfectly  foundered 
in  all  her  limbs  so  that  she  has  fairly  taken  to  her  bed,"  or  a  jaunt  to 
Saratoga  in  August.  But  a  planned  visit  to  Niagara  Falls  with  Tyler, 
Margaret,  and  David  Lyon  In  September  proved  quite  beyond  her 
strength,  and  she  remained  in  New  York  with  her  mother  and  her 
children.  The  annual  Northern  trip  had  the  advantage  of  removing  the 
children  from  the  mosquito,  flea,  tick,  and  fever  season  on  the  James 
and  for  this  reason  it  was  invariably  undertaken,  whatever  the  incon- 
venience. "The  fleas  are  troublesome  to  Julie  and  the  ticks  to  Gardie 
who  will  wander  everywhere  Ms  Father  goes,"  Julia  explained.  "If  one 
flea  finds  its  way  to  Julie  before  you  know  it  she  is  spotted  in  many 
places  and  suffering  greatly."  While  the  children  returned  to  Sherwood 
Forest  in  1851  unmarked  by  insects,  Julia  reached  the  plantation  badly 
fatigued  and  unusually  apprehensive  about  her  coming  ordeal.  She 
briefly  considered  the  use  of  drugs  or  whiskey  to  ease  her  through  the 
experience.  This  Idea  was  sharply  overruled  by  her  friends  and  relatives. 
The  puerperal  advice  she  received  from  Mary  Conger  on  the  point  was 
typical: 

I  do  really  feel  sorry  for  you  for  you  seem  to  be  so  ill  beforehand  which  is 
certainly  ungrateful  work,  as  it  does  no  good  to  anybody.  I  fear  you  do  not 
take  exercise  enough  in  your  Southern  mode  of  life.  I  advise  you  to  resume 
your  old  horseback  [riding]  habits.  You  were  so  healthy  as  a  girl  that  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  have  children  with  little  or  no  suffering  besides  the  actual 
labor  which  is  not  to  be  got  rid  of  anyhow.  I  have  little  faith  in  clouding 
one's  perceptions  by  the  use  of  any  drug . . ,  for  myself  I  should  have  strong 
objections  to  entering  eternity  drunk,  and  in  the  character  of  a  coward  fleeing 
from  the  battle  he  was  appointed  to  fight.  I  would  sooner  try  all  lawful  means 
of  strengthening  mind  and  body  to  endure  and  conquer.50 

Julia  endured  and  she  conquered.  Within  a  few  days  of  Lachlan's 
appearance  at  a  husky  nine  and  a  half  pounds,  the  delighted  father  could 

357 


assure  Henry  Curtis  that  Julia  was  out  of  danger.  Although  she  was 
"fatigued  and  overdone  by  nursing  our  little  boy,"  all  was  well  with  her. 
"You  perceive/'  Tyler  added, 

that  we  are  raising  up  quite  a  large  family,  3  boys  and  one  girl  and  all  fine 
children  in  intellect  and  mechanism.  The  girl ...  is  as  bright  as  her  mother 
and  is  already  the  idolized  of  the  Household.  The  boys  by  a  sort  of  instinct, 
look  upon  her  as  one  claiming  their  especial  regard  and  in  their  conduct  to- 
wards her  manifest  the  deepest  affection.  Thus  it  is  that  my  old  age  is  en- 
livened by  the  scenes  of  my  youth — and  these  precious  buds  and  blossoms 
almost  persuade  me  that  the  springtime  of  life  is  still  surrounding  me.51 

John  Tyler  was  sixty-one  when  Lachlan  was  born — still  in  the 
"springtime  of  life."  His  love  for  Julia  and  for  his  new  "buds  and  blos- 
soms" grew  and  deepened  through  the  years  and  kept  him  young  in  heart 
and  spirit.  Thus  Edmund  Ruffin,  Virginia's  "celebrated  agriculturist," 
could  say  of  Tyler's  second  family  during  his  March  1854  visit  to  Sher- 
wood that  "as  a  lot  they  would  bear  off  the  premium  of  any  agricultural 
show."  To  which  a  gentleman  present  added:  "With  their  mother  at 
their  head  there  would  be  no  question  about  it!"  Julia  and  John  Tyler, 
in  spite  of  the  great  age  difference  between  them,  were  a  happy  and  de- 
voted couple.  Ruffin  remarked  on  this  shortly  after  leaving  the  planta- 
tion: 

The  mother  of  five  living  children,  she  [Julia]  still  looks  as  blooming  and 
fresh  as  a  girl  of  20,  and  indeed  I  should  not  have  guessed  her  to  be  older,  if 
meeting  her  without  knowing  who  she  was.  There  was  nothing  in  their  man- 
ner to  each  other  to  indicate  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife.  A  stranger 
might  have  as  soon  supposed  them  to  be  father  and  daughter.  But  without 
any  of  the  usual  feeling  (whether  of  real  or  pretended  love)  in  such  cases  of 
disproportionate  age,  she  really  seemed  to  be  her  husband's  devoted  admirer, 
and  a  contented  and  happy  wife.52 

Only  a  few  outsiders  saw  the  John  Tyler  who  rode  his  plantation, 
played  his  fiddle,  struggled  with  his  bank  balance,  smoked  his  cigars, 
sipped  his  wines,  bounced  his  babies,  teased  his  wife,  and  treated  the 
family  to  poetry  of  his  own  composition.  Julia  finally  made  him  give  up 
the  smelly  black  cigars  for  a  pipe^  but  she  could  not  still  his  iambic  pen. 
Phoebe  often  received  his  poetic  outpourings  to  cheer  her  dreary  exist- 
ence on  Shelter  Island,  and  after  the  Gardiners  moved  from  Lafayette 
Place  to  Staten  Island  in  1852  Margaret  was  the  subject  and  recipient 
of  a  piece  titled  "Margaret  of  the  Isle"  which  began: 

The  springtime  has  its  violets, 

The  summer  has  its  rose; 
The  autumn  has  its  varied  tints, 

But  winter  has  its  snows — 
But  springtime's  violet,  summer's  rose 

Are  not  so  sweet  to  see, 

358 


Or  autumn's  tints  or  winter's  snows 

So  bright — so  pure  is  she; 
As  Margaret  of  the  lovely  Isle 

That  is  girt  in  by  the  sea 53 

Difficult  as  Lachlan's  arrival  had  been,  Julia  was  content  to  bear 
Tyler's  children.  He  derived  so  much  pleasure  from  them  and  when  he 
was  happy  she  was  too.  Yet  by  the  time  her  fifth  child,  Lyon  Gardiner 
Tyler,  was  born  on  August  24,  1853,  Juliana  Gardiner  was  beginning  to 
belabor  her  daughter  with  the  notion  that  there  was  something  rather 
indecent  about  families  so  large.  She,  of  course,  had  had  four  children 
of  her  own  in  a  space  of  six  years.  So  Julia's  five  in  nine  years  was 
scarcely  a  family  frequency  record.  Still,  when  Julia  informed  Margaret 
in  May  1853  of  her  new  "predicament,"  she  did  so  with  the  suggestion 
that  Margaret  break  the  glad  tidings  to  her  mother  gently.  "Her  nerves 
might  be  too  much  shaken  if  taken  by  surprise,"  said  Julia.  Lyon 
Gardiner  Tyler  was  destined  to  become  the  family  biographer,  a  pro- 
ductive historian,  and  the  distinguished  president  for  many  years  of 
William  and  Mary  College.  But  his  arrival  on  the  scene  in  August  1853 
was  for  Julia  an  inconvenience.  Mainly,  it  deprived  her  of  her  usual  and 
much  anticipated  summer  escape  to  Saratoga  and  East  Hampton.  For  a 
moment  she  indulged  in  the  luxury  of  feeling  sorry  for  herself,  some- 
thing she  rarely  did.  "I  have  it  all  to  bear/7  she  announced  stoically, 
"[but]  you  may  depend  upon  it  I  shall  encourage  no  other  state  of 
mind  than  cheerfulness."  She  would,  she  said,  "make  the  best  of  it." 
The  arrival  of  another  baby  did  have  one  peripheral  advantage:  it  per- 
mitted Julia  to  break  the  routine  of  home  and  child  management  and 
take  to  her  bed  and  rest.  "I  don't  expect  to  get  any  rest  or  repose  myself 
in  mind  or  body  until  I  am  flat  on  my  back,"  she  had  told  her  mother  a 
month  before  "Lome's"  birth.  Happily,  she  came  through  the  ordeal 
well.  "She  has  been  a  patient  sufferer,"  Juliana  reported.  With  five 
children  now  at  Sherwood  Forest,  Tyler  could  proudly  boast  that  he 
was  "not  likely  to  let  the  [family]  name  become  extinct."  54 

Nevertheless,  a  family  of  five  small  children  (later  seven)  made  the 
annual  pilgrimage  to  the  North  increasingly  difficult  for  John  Tyler  and 
Julia  to  arrange.  The  sheer  logistics  of  transporting  so  large  a  brood  to 
East  Hampton,  Saratoga,  or  even  to  White  Sulphur  Springs  was  too  much 
of  a  task  despite  the  aid  of  several  nurses  and  body  servants.  It  was 
clear  by  1853  that  other  summer  plans  would  have  to  be  made  if  the 
insect-and-fever  season  at  Sherwood  Forest  was  to  be  escaped. 

So  it  was  that  Tyler  began  negotiating  for  the  rental  of  a  summer 
place  at  Old  Point  Comfort,  Virginia.  In  October  1853  the  arrangements 
were  well  advanced.  Several  years  later,  in  1858,  Julia  used  $10,000  of 
her  own  money  to  buy  a  property  at  Hampton,  Virginia,  near  Old  Point 
Comfort,  known  in  the  family  as  "Villa  Margaret."  Here  the  family 
summered  during  the  last  years  before  the  Civil  War.  The  children  loved 

359 


the  spot;  its  long  wide  beaches  and  ocean  breezes  were  ideal.  Julia  and 
the  President  enjoyed  the  full  social  life  that  centered  on  nearby  Fortress 
Monroe.  Old  Point  Comfort  thus  became  the  delightful  answer  to  the 
summer-vacation  problem.  It  was  near  enough  Sherwood  Forest  to  per- 
mit Tyler  to  keep  an  eye  on  his  fields,  and  close  enough  to  the  officers 
stationed  at  the  Fortress  to  permit  Julia  to  dance,  flirt,  and  gossip. 
Juliana  and  Margaret  approved  the  new  summer-vacation  arrangement 
wholeheartedly  although  they  were  not  quite  so  impressed  with  the  gal- 
lant West  Pointers  at  the  Fortress  as  was  Julia.  "Poor  matches  but  the 
most  fascinating  of  men,"  said  Juliana  of  them.  Nevertheless,  she  and 
Margaret  visited  the  Tylers  at  Old  Point  Comfort  during  the  summers 
of  1853-1856.  As  Juliana  described  the  gala  society  there  in  July  1855: 

There  was  no  dearth  of  gentlemen  at  Old  Point  but  I  don't  know  who  they 
all  were. ...  I  had  not  the  means  of  ascertaining  anything  about  their  social 

position  except  those  belonging  to  this  state The  ladies  however  found 

plenty  to  dance  with  which  is  more  than  they  could  do  last  season  at  Sara- 
toga. I  think  for  social  enjoyment  Old  Point  for  the  best,  but  for  display 
Saratoga,  as  there  is  less  dress.  J[ulia]  received  with  the  P  [resident]  every 
attention  at  Old  Point.  A  salute  was  fired  and  all  the  officers  called  together 
to  pay  their  respects  and  were  in  turn  presented  to  Julia.  She  was  a  decided 
belle . . .  and  all  pronounced  her  unchanged  in  appearance. 

For  Julia  it  was  almost  the  recapture  of  her  honeymoon.55 


360 


AND  THE  PURSUIT  OF  PROPERTY 


Maybe  our  Argonauts,  returned  laden  with  the  golden 
fleece,  will  be  disposed  to  invest  some  of  their  riches 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  At  any  rate  the  land  must 
become  more  valuable  if  gold  becomes  more  abun- 
dant. 

— ALEXANDER   GARDINER,   JUNE    1849 


Sherwood  Forest  was  an  expensive  plantation  to  maintain  and  scarcely 
a  harvest  season  passed  that  John  Tyler  did  not  wish  that  he  were  a 
wealthy  man.  He  wanted  his  young  wife  and  growing  family  to  have 
every  luxury  money  could  buy.  For  James  River  wheat  planters,  ready 
cash  was  always  a  scarce  commodity,  and  Tyler  spent  most  of  his 
retirement  years  borrowing  from  one  bank  to  pay  notes  due  at  another, 
He  never  missed  a  payment  due,  nor  was  he  ever  denied  a  loan.  Never- 
theless, he  had  many  close  calls.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  Gardiners, 
particularly  Alexander,  financial  embarrassment  might  well  have  over- 
taken him  on  several  occasions.  As  he  explained  his  predicament  to 
Alexander  on  one  occasion  in  1849,  "In  a  community  so  small  as  this, 
where  every  man's  business  is  known  to  every  other,  I  do  not  like  it  to 
appear  that  I  substitute  one  note  for  another."  This  was,  however,  the 
way  he  was  forced  to  operate,  and  although  the  Gardiners7  role  in  his 
fiscal  affairs  was  usually  discreet  to  the  point  of  secrecy,  their  function 
was  the  vital  one.  They  served  as  co-signers  and  guarantors  of  his 
numerous  notes  and  as  his  outright  creditors.  John  Tyler,  in  sum,  lived 
in  a  swirling  sea  of  notes  paid,  notes  negotiated,  and  notes  due,  and  it 
was  always  a  struggle  for  him  to  keep  his  chin  above  water.  It  was  this 
unhappy  way  of  fiscal  life  that  caused  him  to  get  involved  in  a  coal-and- 
timber  speculation  with  Alexander  Gardiner  in  Union  County,  Ken- 


tucky,  a  scheme  which  on  the  surface  and  at  the  outset  had  all  the  ear- 
marks of  get-rich-quick.1 

Tyler  had  purchased  the  Kentucky  land  in  the  late  18305.  It 
amounted  to  three  patents  of  400  to  450  acres  each,  first  issued  to 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Holt  Richardson  of  Virginia  for  his  Revolutionary 
War  services.  From  Richardson  it  had  passed  first  into  the  hands  of 
Patrick  Hendren,  and  then  from  Hendren  to  the  trustees  of  his  estate, 
who  offered  it  for  sale  to  meet  Hendren's  debts.  For  a  depression-level 
price  he  never  disclosed,  Tyler  bought  the  property  as  a  speculation, 
fought  off  several  suits  by  disappointed  Hendren  creditors  to  attach  the 
land,  and  subsequently  rented  it  to  two  local  farmers  for  a  nominal 
annual  fee  of  $100  pending  a  decision  on  what  to  do  with  it.  Located 
about  three  miles  due  west  of  the  small  settlement  of  Caseyville,  the  plot 
fronted  a  mile  and  a  quarter  on  the  Ohio  River.  In  July  1839  Tyler 
went  to  Caseyville  to  view  his  purchase  and  found  it  remote,  heavily 
timbered,  unsurveyed  and  unfenced.  Save  for  two  rude  dwellings  which 
stood  in  a  small  clearing  and  some  fifty  acres  his  tenants  had  cleared  for 
farming,  the  property  was  an  isolated  jungle.  Disappointed  with  the 
rugged  appearance  of  the  land,  he  put  it  up  for  sale  at  three  dollars  an 
acre  and  appointed  Samuel  Casey,  a  local  realtor  and  jack-of-all-trades, 
his  agent  in  the  matter.  There  were  no  takers  at  this  or  any  price.  The 
panic  and  depression  of  1837  had  dried  up  all  venture  capital.2 

Faced  with  a  great  need  for  cash  during  the  months  immediately 
following  his  departure  from  the  White  House,  Tyler  renewed  his  efforts 
to  sell  the  Caseyville  land.  To  effect  this  he  appointed  Captain  John  W. 
Russell  his  new  agent.  Russell  was  a  well-known  Ohio  River  snagboat 
operator  and  had  served  as  the  President's  Superintendent  of  River  Im- 
provements in  the  West.  His  appointment  as  Tyler's  realtor  followed 
hard  on  the  heels  of  his  report  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  June  1845  that 
coal  of  high  quality  had  been  discovered  near  the  Tyler  property  line 
and  was  being  mined  commercially  in  the  area.  Ordered  by  Tyler  to 
investigate  this  promising  development  further,  Russell  soon  reported 
the  likelihood  of  coal  on  the  former  President's  land  as  well.  Thus  en- 
couraged, Tyler  promptly  raised  his  asking  price  from  three  to  five 
dollars  an  acre  and  urged  Russell  to  find  a  buyer.  At  about  the  same 
time,  in  October  1845,  in  desperate  need  of  cash  he  borrowed  $2000 
from  Corcoran  and  Riggs,  the  Washington  bankers.  He  secured  this 
loan  with  a  contract  that  gave  the  bank  the  option  of  calling  the  note 
when  due  or  taking  instead  a  deed  to  a  quarter-interest  in  the  coal  lands. 
Meanwhile,  he  instructed  his  old  friend  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  look 
into  the  possibility  of  surveying  the  land  and  forming  a  joint  stock  com- 
pany to  exploit  it.  When  Graham  announced  that  the  prospects  at  Casey- 
ville would  be  well  worth  further  analysis,  Tyler  decided  to  risk  $200 
in  a  detailed  mineral  survey.  In  this  decision  he  was  influenced  by 
Alexander's  optimistic  prediction  that  "great  profit"  was  to  be  made  in 
the  enterprise.3 

362 


While  Tyler  was  making  preliminary  arrangements  to  have  the  real 
worth  of  the  property  assessed,  Russell  resigned  as  his  agent  to  run  for 
the  Kentucky  state  senate.  In  so  doing  he  turned  Tyler's  affairs  over  to 
two  "young  and  poor,  but  strictly  honest"  Frankfort  lawyers,  Henry 
Tilford  and  R.  G.  Samuels.  Tyler  informed  his  new  agents  in  April  1846 
that  while  he  still  wanted  to  sell  the  land  aat  a  fair  price,"  he  had 
"friends  in  New  York"  who  would  share  in  any  reasonable  plan  to  ex- 
ploit the  coal  deposits.  He  made  it  clear  to  his  new  agents  that  it  was 
their  main  responsibility  to  keep  him  "beyond  the  reach  of  fraudulent 
speculation."  With  this  expression  of  the  ex-President's  intentions,  Til- 
ford  and  Samuels  journeyed  from  Frankfort  to  Casey ville  to  look  at 
the  property.  Their  subsequent  report  pegged  the  value  of  the  land  at 
not  more  than  five  to  eight  dollars  an  acre  and  concluded  that  while 
there  was  indeed  high-quality  coal  present,  it  was  probably  not  in 
enough  quantity  to  make  mining  it  feasible.  They  did,  however,  recom- 
mend proceeding  with  a  thorough  exploration  of  the  deposit  on  the  off- 
chance  that  it  might  add  "several  thousand  dollars"  to  the  value  of  the 
land.  This,  of  course,  Tyler  had  already  decided  to  do.4 

The  report  of  the  coal  survey  undertaken  by  Thomas  Wilson,  a 
former  English  coalminer,  led  John  Tyler  to  believe  that  his  treasure 
ship  had  finally  come  in.  Indeed,  Corcoran  and  Riggs  were  so  enthusias- 
tic that  they  promptly  exercised  the  option  on  their  Tyler  note  and  be- 
came one-quarter  owners  of  the  property.  This  optimism  was  occasioned 
by  Wilson's  survey  analysis  of  October  1846  which  announced  the  dis- 
covery of  a  three- foot  seam  of  top-quality  cannel  coal,  "all  free  from 
Sulpher  [sic]  .  . .  superior  to  any  coal  we  have  in  this  part  of  the  country 
. . .  superior  to  any  coal  for  Grates  I  have  ever  seen  tried."  With  these 
glad  tidings,  Tilford  and  Samuels  informed  Tyler  they  were  unwilling 
to  sell  his  land  "even  at  $10  per  acre."  His  coal  deposit,  they  said,  was 
"inexhaustible."  They  recommended  an  immediate  investment  of  five  or 
six  thousand  dollars  to  open  a  shaft  and  to  build  a  spur  railroad  to  the 
river  which  lay  two  miles  distant.  "Our  idea  would  be  to  keep  an  ex- 
tensive coal  yard  for  Steamboats  and  woodyard  also  and  let  it  be  known 
as  cCapt.  Russell's7,  then  a  Steamboat  would  scarcely  ever  pass,  he 

being  so  very  popular  on  the  river "  Russell  himself  verified  Wilson's 

encouraging  report  and  guessed  that  Tyler's  superior  cannel  coal  would 
be  worth  eight  to  ten  cents  a  bushel  at  the  riverbank.  He  promised  that 
he  would  use  it  himself  and  would  also  "persuade  all  of  my  acquaint- 
ances" on  the  river  to  buy  exclusively  at  Tyler's  coalyard.  He  noted 
further  that  Tilford  and  Samuels  themselves  had  expressed  an  eagerness 
to  work  the  mine  on  shares  and  he  strongly  urged  such  an  arrangement.5 

Confronted  with  the  prospect  of  a  great  and  lucrative  coal  opera- 
tion that  would  solve  his  financial  problems  for  life,  Tyler  sounded  out 
Alexander  in  New  York  to  ascertain  his  view  of  an  initial  six-thousand- 
dollar  investment  in  opening  a  mine  shaft.  He  also  suggested  a  Tyler- 
Gardiner  partnership  to  develop  the  coal  land  and  urged  Alexander  to 

363 


go  to  Union  County  and  see  for  himself  the  great  riches  that  awaited 
them  both  there.  Although  Julia  assured  her  brother,  the  shrewdest 
businessman  in  the  family,  that  "the  President  thinks  this  is  a  fine 
chance  for  you"  Alexander  backed  politely  away  from  the  deal.  He 
thought  that  if  a  substantial  amount  of  stock  in  a  development  com- 
pany could  be  sold  to  knowledgeable  people  on  the  scene,  particularly 
optimistic  souls  like  Russell,  Samuels,  and  Tilford,  it  might  be  worth  a 
gamble.  Otherwise,  he  counseled  extreme  caution.  The  pressure  of  his 
clerkship  and  other  affairs  did  not  permit  him,  he  said,  an  exploratory 
trip  to  Caseyville. 

Instead,  Tyler's  brother-in-law,  Dr.  N.  M.  Miller  of  Columbus, 
Ohio,  was  asked  to  visit  the  property  in  December  1846  for  a  firsthand 
evaluation  of  its  potential.  Miller  soon  informed  Sherwood  Forest  that  a 
Memphis  group  headed  by  a  Colonel  David  Morrison  was  interested  in 
buying  the  land,  although  at  a  price  well  below  the  value  Tilford, 
Samuels,  and  Russell  had  all  placed  upon  it.  This  deflationary  news 
aroused  Tyler's  suspicions,  especially  since  Miller  also  noted  in  his 
letter  that  the  new  Farnuni  Iron  Works  had  been  established  on  the 
Cumberland  River,  and  that  "Caseyville  is  the  best  point  to  get  their 
coal."  The  President's  enthusiasm  for  the  coal  business  dipped  appreci- 
ably a  few  days  later  when  Captain  Russell  turned  down  Tyler's  offer 
of  stock  in  a  projected  mining  company  on  the  grounds  that  he  had  just 
tied  up  all  his  available  cash  in  a  Frankfort  tavern  venture.  Russell  had 
belatedly  discovered,  he  explained,  that  of  Tyler's  fourteen  hundred 
acres,  only  fifty  evidenced  the  presence  of  coal.  When  Alexander  advised 
the  sale  of  the  land  without  deeper  involvement  and  at  the  best  price 
offered,  Tyler  accepted  the  suggestion  without  dissent.  So  discouraged 
had  he  suddenly  become  that  he  turned  down  a  proposition  offering  him 
a  seemingly  low  $2000  for  every  acre  of  coal  dug  on  his  land.  This,  as  it 
turned  out,  he  should  have  accepted.6 

In  February  of  1847  Tilford  and  Samuels  informed  Tyler  that  they 
were,  as  instructed,  drawing  a  contract  to  sell  the  land  for  $12,000. 
The  potential  buyer  was  reputed  to  be  a  company  comprised  of  Messrs. 
Samuel  Page,  David  Morrison,  and  Robert  Winston.  Tyler  was  delighted 
to  have  the  matter  so  profitably  disposed  of,  and  he  immediately  agreed 
to  the  bargain.  Actually,  the  contract,  signed  on  August  16,  1847, 
showed  Robert  P.  Winston,  a  Caseyville  merchant,  as  sole  purchaser. 
Before  Tyler  learned  of  this  change,  he  was  notified  privately  that  the 
"company"  to  which  he  was  selling  his  land  did  not  in  fact  exist;  that 
Winston  alone  was  the  buyer;  and  that  Winston  had  never  seen  $12,000 
in  his  life  and  never  would.  "Now  my  dear  fellow  I  would  advise  this," 
wrote  his  friend  Joseph  L.  Watkins  from  his  Tylerite  patronage  job  at 
the  Memphis  Navy  Yard,  "kick  the  bargain  already  made  to  hell,  for  I 

begin  to  suspect  the  buyers  are  men  of  straw I  think  there  is  now 

some  disposition  to  swindle  you."  With  justifiable  alarm,  Tyler  confessed 

364 


to  Alexander:  "I  know  the  property  to  be  valuable  and  I  am  almost 
persuaded  that  a  fraudulent  contract  has  been  entered  into  to  cheat  me 
out  of  It." 

Watkins'  suspicions  notwithstanding,  the  contract  was  not  actually 
fraudulent.  Robert  Winston  was  simply  financially  incompetent  to  exe- 
cute it.  While  discovering  this  sad  fact  for  himself,  Winston  poured  at 
least  $3000  into  a  dauntless  attempt  to  get  a  mine  into  operation.  In 
this  successful  activity  he  discovered  several  new  coal  veins,  which 
raised  from  fifty  to  three  hundred  the  estimated  coal  acreage  on  the 
Tyler  property.  Meanwhile,  he  undertook  to  sell  shares  locally  in  Ms 
project  in  an  attempt  to  meet  the  first  of  the  three  annual  payments 
of  $4000  due  to  Tyler  on  February  10,  1848.  This  little  stockbroking 
effort  failed  completely.  In  September  1847  he  therefore  persuaded 
Samuel  L.  Casey  to  assume  the  burden  of  tie  Tyler  contract.  When, 
two  months  later,  it  became  apparent  that  Casey  could  not  make  the 
first  payment  to  Tyler  either,  Winston  evidenced  a  willingness  to  cancel 
the  contract  altogether  on  repayment  of  the  unwisely  ventured  $3000 
capital  investment  he  had  put  into  the  mine  and  property.7 

Rather  than  begin  tedious  litigation  at  such  distance,  Tyler  reluc- 
tantly decided  to  pay  Robert  Winston  the  $3000  morally  due  him,  cancel 
the  contract,  and  start  over  from  the  beginning.  While  he  felt  that  he 
had  been  put  upon  by  sharp  Kentucky  speculators,  he  became  con- 
vinced once  again  that  he  could  still  make  a  fortune  at  Caseyville. 
Winston's  discovery  of  additional  veins  brought  a  new  flush  of  en- 
thusiasm, a  dream  of  great  riches,  which  Tyler  undertook  to  transmit 
to  Alexander  Gardiner.  Privately,  Alexander  remained  dubious  about 
the  entire  speculation.  But  to  accommodate  his  eager  brother-in-law 
he  became  Tyler's  active  partner  in  the  venture  in  November  1847.  He 
purchased  half  interest  in  the  President's  share  (Corcoran  and  Riggs 
still  held  their  quarter)  for  $6000.  He  also  agreed  to  put  up  half  of 
the  reimbursement  to  be  paid  Winston  for  his  capital  improvements. 
He  did  this,  as  Tyler  described  it,  in  the  "belief  that  the  property  might 
be  rendered  available  in  some  form  at  once  and  that  at  the  earliest 
period  the  mines  should  be  put  into  operation."  With  Alexander  as  his 
partner,  Tyler  explained  to  Corcoran  and  Riggs  that  the  future  would 
bring  them  all  great  profits.  "So  far  as  my  own  interests  are  in- 
volved . . .  you  will  see  in  all  I  have  done  security  and  not  specula- 
tion." Alexander  was  never  convinced.  As  he  later  confessed  to  Tyler, 
"My  own  chief  inducement  in  becoming  interested  in  the  property  was 
to  preserve  your  interest  from  sacrifice."  Nevertheless,  he  agreed  to  ac- 
company Tyler  to  Caseyville  in  November  1847  to  survey  the  situation 
at  first  hand  and  see  what  might  be  made  of  the  operation,8 

As  a  businessman  Alexander  Gardiner  was  no  fool.  He  entered 
into  the  Caseyville  speculation  with  his  eyes  open.  He  combined  a  flair 
for  speculation  with  hard-headed  business  sense.  In  supervising  the  col- 

365 


lection  of  Gardiner  rentals  in  New  York,  for  example,  he  allowed  no 
feeling  of  sympathy  to  interfere  with  his  duty.  Judgments  for  back  rent 
were  quickly  and  regularly  filed  in  the  courts,  and  for  the  tenant  it  was 
either  pay  up  in  full  and  on  time  or  get  out  on  the  street.  Repairs  and 
maintenance  on  the  properties  were  held  to  a  bare  minimum,  and  then 
undertaken  only  under  pressure  from  the  Health  Warden.  Tenants 
were  expected  to  effect  their  own  repairs  and  improvements.  That  the 
downtown  Gardiner  properties  were  already  well  on  their  way  toward 
slumhood  was  of  no  concern  to  him.  If  his  mother  complained  that 
her  "head  requires  everything  of  a  business  nature  to  be  made  plain," 
Alexander  had  no  such  problem.  For  him  success  in  business  boiled 
down  to  a  simple  philosophy — buy  cheap  and  sell  dear.  And  if  he 
could  bleed  oratorically  for  the  poor  and  the  downtrodden  of  New  York 
City  at  a  Tammany  rally,  he  never  permitted  that  sentiment  to  inter- 
fere with  his  business  acumen.  By  nature  a  plunger  and  speculator, 
he  played  the  stock  market  with  dash,  investing  thousands  of  dollars 
with  cool,  disdainful  detachment.  At  various  times  he  bought  and 
sold  stock  of  the  United  States  Mining  Company,  the  Hudson  and 
Delaware  Canal  Company,  the  Long  Island  Railroad,  and  the  British 
and  Canadian  Mining  Company.  He  also  gambled  on  New  York  City 
lots  and  on  vacation  properties  in  Newport.  In  all  his  financial  specula- 
tions his  methodology  emphasized  an  icy  calmness.  "Do  not  be  too 
anxious,"  he  once  counseled  his  brother.  "Let  results  take  care  of  them- 
selves and  if  you  lose  make  up  your  losses  as  well  as  you  can  without 
allowing  yourself  to  be  harassed.  We  have  too  much  nervous  suscepti- 
bility in  our  family . . .  the  weakness  of  a  child  in  face  of  the  smallest 
reverse."  In  spite  of  his  coolness,  Alexander  never  made  very  much 
money  in  the  stock  market.  Nor  did  he  lose  money.  When  he  died  he 
was  at  about  the  break-even  point.  Certainly  he  never  managed  to 
elevate  himself  fully  into  New  York's  aristocracy  of  great  wealth,  the 
Astor-dominated  clique  he  criticized  but  to  which  he  subconsciously 
aspired: 

The  ball  at  the  Astor's  last  week  [he  wrote  in  February  1843]  was  a  verY 
brilliant  affair,  more  brilliant  than  any  that  has  taken  place  this  season.  There 
•was  a  great  display  of  the  precious  metals.  The  Astors  seem  now  at  the  head 
of  fashionable  society,  and  though  they  are  laughed  at  privately,  those  that 
appear  in  such  rich  trappings  must  needs  be  treated  with  much  deference. 
Money  and  impudence  are  the  only  essentials  to  such  circles,  but  they  are 

indispensable Of  all  aristocracies,  that  of  wealth  is  the  worst  since  it  is 

the  only  kind  that  affords  no  incentive  to  virtue.9 

How  much  incentive  to  virtue  Alexander  had  as  he  set  off  for 
Caseyville  with  Tyler  on  November  15,  1847,  is  difficult  to  determine. 
Very  likely  he  had  motives  no  more  complex  than  to  convert  their 
land  into  a  profitable  operation  without  delay.  The  trip  itself  was 

366 


arduous  and  demanded  a  strong  incentive  of  some  sort.  To  reach  Casey- 
ville,  Kentucky,  one  proceeded  from  Baltimore  to  Cumberland,  Mary- 
land, by  rail,  changing  trains  at  Harpers  Ferry,  Virginia.  There  the 
President  and  Alexander  met  and  chatted  with  Captain  Robert  Stock- 
ton, home  from  the  war  in  California  ("He  looked  like  a  Russian  hussar 
hardened  and  bronzed  by  exposure — more  military  than  naval").  Since 
Tyler  was  traveling  "quite  incognito . . .  not  more  than  two  or  three 
persons  recognized  him"  at  Harpers  Ferry.  At  Cumberland  the  travelers 
boarded  a  four-horse  mail  stage  for  Wheeling,  Virginia,  via  the  same 
National  Road  which  Tyler,  ironically,  had  fought  against  so  vigorously 
as  a  young  congressman.  Forced  to  walk  up  each  hill  behind  the  stage, 
the  two  men  were  stunned  by  the  magnificent  views  from  the  mountain- 
tops.  Or  as  Alexander  reported  it:  "On  the  summit  [Laurel  Hill,  Pa.] 
. . .  our  eyes  stretched  far  below  and  away  over  the  Great  West.  It 
seemed  as  if  a  new  world  was  bursting  upon  the  vision."  From  Wheeling 
they  proceeded  down  the  Ohio  by  steamboat  to  Cincinnati.  At  the 
"Queen  City  of  the  West,"  they  chanced  upon  and  conversed  with 
Mississippi  Senators  Henry  S.  Foote  and  Jefferson  Davis,  who  were  on 
their  way  to  Washington.  Davis  was  still  on  crutches,  the  result  of  his 
wounds  at  the  Battle  of  Buena  Vista.  From  Cincinnati  a  thirty-six- 
hour  boat  ride  carried  them  down  to  Louisville,  where  Tyler  was  met 
and  formally  entertained  by  Governor  Metcalf.  Then  came  a  punish- 
ing ten-hour  carriage  trip  over  to  Frankfort  to  consult  with  Tilford  and 
Samuels.  Returning  to  Louisville,  they  boarded  the  boat  for  Casey- 
ville  where  finally  they  "landed  under  the  auspices  of  Hail  Columbia, 
Yankee  Doodle  and  the  Star  Spangled  Banner.  The  passengers  on  board 
gathered  at  the  side  of  the  vessel,  hats  were  raised  by  all,  and  the 
whole  population  of  Casey  ville  was  called  out  by  the  occasion."  The 
trip  took  twelve  days.10 

Since  Tyler 's  land  was  heavily  timbered,  Alexander  saw  at  once 
that  considerable  money  was  to  be  made  in  the  wood  business.  A  week 
in  Caseyville  strengthened  this  view  and  convinced  him  that  the  coal 
deposits  were  also  well  worth  exploiting.  When  he  returned  to  New 
York  in  December  he  decided  to  form  a  joint  stock  company  to  capi- 
talize and  launch  the  coal  venture.  At  the  same  time  he  began  pre- 
liminary arrangements  for  the  cutting  of  timber.  With  wood  selling  to 
steamboats  on  the  river  at  $2  to  $2.50  per  cord,  and  with  much  of 
Tyler's  property  capable  of  yielding  150  cords  an  acre,  he  proposed  to 
put  six  lumbermen  to  work  cutting  fuel.  He  was  certain  he  could  hire 
woodsmen  for  $75  to  $100  per  year  and  asked  Samuel  L.  Casey  to 
superintend  the  proposed  lumbering  operation  for  a  25  per  cent  com- 
mission. Casey,  however,  wisely  refused  the  job,  suggesting  instead  the 
employment  of  his  deaf  brother.  Alexander  admitted  to  Tyler  that  the 
handicapped  sibling  was  "perhaps  too  deaf  to  be  a  safe  conniver  in 
mischief,"  but  he  decided  to  employ  someone  more  experienced  in  busi- 

367 


ness  matters.  Meanwhile,  he  assured  Tyler  that  handsome  profits  would 
soon  roll  in  from  the  forests.  Under  no  conditions  should  the  President 
divest  himself  of  his  interest  in  the  enterprise.  With  upwards  of 
$300,000  worth  of  timber  on  the  property,  Tyler  agreed  that  the  wood 
business  might  well  be  the  answer  to  his  financial  problems.11 

This  point  settled,  Alexander  pushed  ahead  with  plans  to  form  a 
joint  stock  company  to  mine  the  coal  at  Caseyville.  Working  with  three 
retired  veterans  of  the  Tyler  political  wars — T.  William  Letson  of  Balti- 
more, General  William  G.  McNeill  of  New  York,  and  Major  L.  A.  Sykes 
of  New  York — he  undertook  to  sell  3000  shares  at  $20  each.  Of  the 
$60,000  thus  raised,  $45,000  would  purchase  the  Tyler-Gardiner  land. 
The  remaining  $15,000  would  be  used  to  build  a  spur  line  to  the  river, 
erect  necessary  utility  buildings,  purchase  coal  cars,  mules,  carts,  river 
scows,  and  tools,  and  build  a  sawmill  to  process  the  timber.  Employing 
somewhat  optimistic  arithmetic  on  production  costs  and  probable  sales, 
Alexander  calculated  a  $27,000  net  profit  the  first  year,  increasing  to 
$45,000  the  third.  Letson  estimated  it  even  higher — $150,000  in  the 
first  three  years,  or  $50  clear  profit  per  share.  By  December  24,  1847, 
Alexander  and  Letson  announced  2100  shares  sold  (to  whom  they  did 
not  reveal — probably  to  Tyler  and  themselves)  and  were  urging  Mc- 
Neill and  Sykes  to  pick  up  the  remaining  900.  McNeill  assured  Sykes 
that  "this  is  a  good  thing,"  but  Sykes  did  some  rapid  arithmetic  of  his 
own  and  concluded  that  "the  reality  does  not  exactly  tally  with  the 
estimate."  He  figured  that  the  known  veins  would  yield  650,000  tons 
rather  than  Alexander's  estimate  of  30,000,000  tons.  While  he  still 
thought  the  speculation  a  "good  one,"  he  decided  he  would  have  to 
"know  more  about  it  before  engaging  in  it."  The  longer  he  looked  at 
it  the  more  harebrained  it  became,  and  he  finally  decided  he  would 
have  no  part  of  it.  By  mid-January  1848  the  dubious  project  was  vir- 
tually dead,  Alexander  explaining  to  Tyler  that  "the  money  market  is 
so  much  oppressed  that  speculations  find  no  favor."  12 

Whatever  the  reasons  for  the  collapse  of  the  joint  stock  venture, 
Corcoran  and  Riggs  decided  that  they  had  had  enough  of  speculative 
dreams  along  the  beautiful  Ohio.  In  March  1848  they  offered  to  sell 
to  either  Tyler  or  Gardiner  their  one-quarter  interest  at  Caseyville 
for  $2100,  or  roughly  what  they  had  invested  in  the  project.  At  first, 
Alexander  was  willing  to  buy  the  bankers'  holding,  but  Tyler  decided 
to  retain  it  himself.  A  few  months  later,  however,  hard-pressed  for  cash 
as  usual  and  determined  to  liquidate  his  Kentucky  holdings  entirely, 
he  offered  the  Corcoran  and  Riggs  share  to  Alexander.  "My  day  for 
speculation  and  adventure  is  over;  yours  has  just  come,"  he  told  his 
brother-in-law.  But  at  that  moment  Alexander  was  overextended  in  the 
stock  market  and  in  no  position  to  purchase  the  additional  interest. 
After  much  polite  backing  and  filling,  which  occupied  over  a  year,  he 
finally  informed  Tyler  bluntly  in  June  1849  that  "matters  are  changed, 

368 


expectations  of  the  immediate  return  from  the  property  have  been 
scattered  to  the  winds,  all  my  cash  means  have  been  invested  in  other 
adventures,  and  the  past  has  admonished  me  of  the  wisdom  of  having 
a  little  money  on  hand,  keeping  out  of  debt,  and  not  expecting  to  make 
all  the  bargains  in  this  world."  Although  he  refused  the  proffered  Cor- 
coran and  Riggs  share,  Alexander  loyally  retained  his  three-eighths  in- 
terest in  the  uncertain  venture.13 

As  his  vision  of  a  joint  stock  mining  company  gradually  clouded, 
Alexander  moved  ahead  with  the  lumber-cutting  project.  In  May  1848 
he  signed  a  contract  with  Andrew  J.  Fenton  of  Gowanus  wherein 
Fenton  agreed  to  go  to  Caseyville  for  one  year  and  supervise  the 
cutting  of  timber.  For  this  he  would  receive  one-fourth  of  the  net 
profits,  the  free  use  of  such  land  as  he  and  his  wife  might  want  to 
cultivate,  and  the  use  of  either  of  the  crude  dwellings  then  standing 
on  the  property.  To  get  matters  off  on  a  proper  footing  Alexander 
made  a  second  trip  to  Caseyville  in  June  1848  to  see  that  Fenton  had 
arrived  and  to  brief  him  on  accepted  business  procedures.  En  route  to 
Union  County  he  stopped  and  visited  pleasantly  at  Homewood,  the 
estate  of  Tyler's  former  War  Secretary  William  Wilkins,  near  Pitts- 
burgh. When  he  finally  reached  Caseyville  Fenton  was  still  nowhere 
in  evidence.  It  was  symbolic  of  what  the  Gardiner-Fenton  relationship 
would  be  during  the  next  year.  In  a  word,  Andrew  J.  Fenton  was  one  of 
history's  tragic  figures.  Well-meaning  and  honest,  he  was  also  accident- 
prone,  incompetent,  and  generally  ill-starred.  He  could  seemingly  do 
nothing  right,  try  as  he  might.14 

When  Fenton  at  last  showed  up,  the  two  men  surveyed  the  situa- 
tion and  discovered  a  tight  local  labor  market.  It  was  then  decided  that 
Fenton  should  return  to  Maryland  and  lease  a  dozen  Negro  slaves  at 
$40  to  $50  each  per  year,  accompany  them  back  to  Caseyville,  and 
set  them  briskly  to  chopping.  With  high  hopes  Fenton  departed  for 
the  East.  Within  a  few  weeks  he  reported  to  Alexander  that  he  had 
scoured  eastern  Maryland  and  the  Eastern  Shore  without  success.  There 
were  no  slaves  for  hire  at  $50 — or  at  any  price.  Alexander  then  ordered 
him  back  to  Caseyville  with  instructions  to  hire  whatever  local  white 
laborers  were  available  and  get  started.  "I  know  that  you  have  too  much 
courage  and  determination  of  purpose  to  be  disheartened  by  trifles,"  he 
assured  his  manager.15 

The  "trifles"  mounted  alarmingly.  Fenton's  regularly  submitted 
expense  accounts  soon  demonstrated  that  more  money  was  being  poured 
into  the  forests  than  lumber  was  dribbling  out.  White  labor  was  scarce, 
shiftless,  and  expensive,  choppers  demanding  fifty  cents  per  cord  cut 
rather  than  the  forty  cents  Alexander  thought  the  work  worth.  Few  of 
the  men  hired  by  Fenton  stayed  on  the  job  for  more  than  a  few  days. 
They  would  earn  a  few  dollars,  stock  up  on  White  Lightning,  and  dis- 
appear drunkenly  and  happily  downriver.  "If  I  could  get  all  black  men 

369 


I  would  prefer  it,"  Fenton  reported,  "as  the  white  men  in  this  coun- 
try are  very  lazy  and  have  no  desire  to  work.  The  man  that  I  had  last 
week  cut  3%  cords  and  quit;  he  would  not  cut  anymore  for  that  price." 
While  Fenton  labored  unsuccessfully  to  keep  a  token  labor  force  in 
the  woods,  Alexander  Gardiner's  expenses  mounted.  The  costs  of  build- 
ing Fenton  a  habitable  dwelling  (the  structures  on  the  property  were 
scarcely  more  than  sheds),  combined  with  the  cost  of  tools,  carts,  and 
scows,  were  much  higher  than  Alexander  had  anticipated  or  thought 
necessary.  In  addition,  Fenton  and  his  wife  both  fell  ill  with  the  malaria 
that  raced  through  the  community  in  August  1848.  "All  of  our  men 
are  sick  with  fever  and  have  been  so  this  last  ten  days  . .  .  everybody 
is  sick,  rny  wife  included,"  he  wrote.  "I  have  had  a  bad  beginning." 
Healthy  labor,  much  less  sober  labor,  became  virtually  impossible 
to  procure.  "If  I  can  get  Negroes  by  the  month  I  shall  get  them,"  said 
Fenton,  "for  I  can  make  them  work,  but  the  white  men  work  one  day 
and  play  the  next  and  I  think  it  will  be  more  profitable  to  get  Negroes." 
By  September  1848  it  was  costing  Alexander  exactly  $6.18  to  get  a  cord 
of  wood  cut  that  sold  from  $1.75  to  $2.  This  was  not  the  royal  road 
to  the  Seven  Cities  of  Cibola  that  Alexander  and  John  Tyler  expected 
to  travel.16 

As  Fenton  fought  his  uneven  battle  against  fever  and  trees  on 
the  banks  of  the  distant  Ohio,  Alexander  Gardiner  lounged  at  Saratoga 
dancing,  flirting,  and  boating  with  the  ladies.  Angered  by  what  seemed 
to  him  sheer  malingering  on  Fenton's  part,  he  commenced  sending  off 
detailed  instructions  on  just  how  a  lumber  business  should  be  efficiently 
and  profitably  conducted.  Alexander  Gardiner  had  never  chopped  a  stick 
of  wood  in  his  life,  but  he  was  certain  that  Fenton's  force  (such  as 
it  was)  should  be  stockpiling  100  cords  a  week  in  preparation  for 
winter  demands  from  the  steamboats.  On  the  other  hand,  Fenton's 
patient  explanations  that  he  could  obtain  only  a  handful  of  choppers 
at  any  given  time,  Negro  or  white,  and  that  fever  felled  them  faster 
than  they  felled  trees,  elicited  from  Alexander  little  more  than  a  de- 
mand for  "proper  perseverance" — and  an  unsolicited  cure  for  malaria: 

The  disease  is  now  very  easily  managed  in  Virginia  by  active  treatment  [he 
told  Fenton].  When  first  seized  with  it  you  should  have  taken  ten  grains  of 
Calomel  on  going  to  bed  at  night,  and  a  strong  dose  of  castor  oil  upon 
getting  up  in  the  morning.  As  soon  as  this  medium  has  operated,  three  doses 
of  quinine  of  five  grains  each  should  be  taken  at  intervals  of  four  or  five 
hours  . . .  the  use  of  quinine  should  be  continued  . . .  the  dose  being  gradually 
reduced. . . .  They  give  quinine  in  small  doses  in  Kentucky  and  it  is  not  so 
effectual. 

If  this  advice  proved  any  consolation  or  provided  any  cure,  Fenton 
gave  no  evidence  of  it.  As  soon  as  he  was  up  and  around  again  he 
pleaded  with  Alexander  to  "send  me  more  money,  as  much  as  you  can 
spare,  for  I  want  teams  and  carts  and  boats  and  ropes  and  feed."  1T 

370 


As  Alexander's  expenses  increased  steadily,  his  belief  that  tlie 
cost  of  producing  the  fuel  might  be  brought  below  its  potential  sale 
price  waned.  While  Gardiner  was  complaining  to  Tyler  that  "the  slow- 
ness of  the  proceedings  in  Kentucky  passes  all  understanding/'  Fenton 
was  complaining  to  Gardiner  that  he  could  not  hold  labor,  and  that 
he  could  not  manage  "without  Negroes  as  the  white  men  are  not  worth 
shooting."  Nor  was  Alexander's  growing  frustration  diminished  when 
he  learned  that  Fenton  had  named  a  small  peninsula  on  the  property 
"Gardiner's  Point."  This  shrewd  appeal  to  the  Gardiner  ego  did  not 
dull  the  darkening  economic  facts  of  the  whole  operation.  Indeed, 
Alexander's  desire  to  reduce  operating  expenses  at  Caseyville  reached 
the  ultimate  extreme  of  instructing  Fenton  that  "when  your  letters 
are  heavy  direct  them  (as  it  will  save  postage)  to  Ex-President  Tyler, 
care  of  Alexander  Gardiner,  Esq.,  New  York  City."  To  this  sugges- 
tion Fenton  responded  only  with  a  plea  for  $500  to  purchase  additional 
equipment  and  as  a  personal  advance  on  commissions  to  enable  him 
to  buy  needed  household  provisions  and  pay  his  doctor's  bills.  "This 
is  the  last  money  that  I  shall  want  of  you,"  he  assured  his  employer. 
And  for  a  week  or  so  it  was  the  last  money  he  requested.  Alexander, 
in  turn,  fired  back  a  high-level  lecture  in  Classical  Economics,  urging 
Fenton  "cut  on,  and  keep  cutting  constantly,  and  without  flagging. 
There  is  no  other  way  in  which  money  can  be  made  either  to  myself 
or  to  you."  As  Fenton  cut  on,  Gardiner  and  Tyler  continued  throwing 
money  into  the  deep  woods.  By  mid-December  1848  the  operation  at 
last  began  to  show  dim  signs  of  reaching  the  break-even  point.  At  that 
hopeful  juncture,  however,  came  the  rain,  the  flood,  and  the  mud  that 
bogged  down  Fenton's  wagons,  drove  his  meager  and  erratic  labor 
supply  to  shelter,  and  swept  away  some  100  of  the  600  cords  of  wood 
he  had  stacked  on  and  near  the  riverbank.18 

Tyler  watched  the  trials  and  tribulations  of  poor  Andrew  J.  Fenton 
with  mounting  dismay.  With  wood  at  $1.75  a  cord,  the  venture  had 
shown  no  profit  whatsoever  in  its  first  six  months.  Indeed,  Fenton 
had  sold  little  of  what  he  had  cut,  and  over  $1000  had  already  been 
invested  in  the  project.  Increasingly,  Tyler  began  to  think  of  the  place 
as  a  future  plantation  site  rather  than  a  business  location.  Fenton  was 
therefore  instructed  not  to  cut  the  pecan  and  other  "highly  ornamental^' 
broad  nut  trees  standing  on  the  property.  By  February  1849  the  Presi- 
dent too  had  finally  lost  patience  with  Fenton.  Flood  and  mud,  cholera 
and  malaria  were  bad  enough,  but  when  steamboats  passed  Gardiner's 
Point  without  stopping,  Tyler  was  prepared  to  concede  that  the  game 
was  up.  Not  Alexander— at  least  not  yet.  "Keep  the  axe  going,"  he 
ordered  Fenton  in  late  February,  "the  boats  will  all  be  in  motion  soon 
and  you  will  have  a  brisk  demand  for  wood."  Nevertheless,  he  agreed 
with  Tyler  that  Fenton's  pessimistic  reports  were  "discouraging,  and 
to  me  ...  as  unsatisfactory  as  they  are  indefinite."  19 

The  April  floods  on  the  Ohio  drowned  forever  the  Gardiner-Tyler 


dream  of  a  lumber  empire.  Inundating  several  hundred  acres  of  the 
property,  sweeping  away  much  of  the  unsold  stockpile  of  wood,  the 
annual  spring  disaster  convinced  Tyler  that  Fenton  should  be  fired  for 
general  inefficiency.  He  simply  had  not  taken  "those  wise  precautions 
which  the  knowledge  of  the  constant  liability  to  overflow . . .  would 
properly  have  dictated."  The  only  way  the  operation  could  be  con- 
tinued profitably,  Tyler  argued,  was  with  a  vigorous  new  overseer  at 
the  head  of  no  less  than  four  Negro  slave  workers.  While  the  slaves 
would  cost  up  to  $2250  each,  they  would  "do  more  and  be  less  ex- 
pensive than  the  casual  white  labour  to  be  picked  up  by  accident." 
This,  of  course,  would  mean  pouring  a  great  deal  more  capital  into  an 
already  flooded  rathole,  and  Tyler  frankly  preferred  to  fire  Fenton, 
sell  the  jinxed  property,  and  be  done  with  it.  With  this  evaluation 
Alexander  reluctantly  agreed.  Fenton  must  go.  But  whatever  modest 
satisfaction  Tyler  and  Gardiner  might  have  derived  from  discharging 
their  hapless  manager  was  denied  them.  In  April  1849  Fenton  and  his 
wife  simply  pulled  up  stakes  and  disappeared  from  Caseyville,  leaving 
their  furniture  behind  them. 

Following  their  hasty  departure  the  ex-President  and  his  partner 
decided  to  offer  the  land  for  sale  again.  This  time  they  placed  a  price 
tag  of  $20,000  on  the  property.  "I  no  more  doubt  the  ultimate  great 
value  of  the  property  than  I  do  my  own  existence,"  Alexander  assured 
Sherwood  Forest.  "The  establishment  of  the  Navy  Yard  at  New  Orleans 
dispels  all  doubt."  As  for  the  dream  of  great  wealth  which  both  partners 
had  momentarily  shared,  Tyler  philosophically  told  his  brother-in-law 
to  "set  it  down  as  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  let  it  no  longer  disturb." 
There  was  actually  little  else  Alexander  could  do.  Fenton,  he  con- 
cluded, was  not  a  bad  sort.  "He  is  very  stupid,  but  really  seems  to  be 
honest."  This  opinion  was  strengthened  when  Fenton  wrote  him  in 
May  enclosing  a  final  accounting  of  the  disposition  of  the  equipment  at 
Caseyville.  From  a  financial  standpoint  the  operation  had  been  a  dis- 
aster, and  Alexander  agreed  with  his  brother-in-law  that  the  venture 
should  be  terminated  and  the  property  sold.2Q 

Selling  it  was  not  an  easy  matter.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  still 
unsold  when  Alexander  died  in  January  1851  and  left  his  share  to 
Julia.  And  it  was  not  until  September  1853,  after  such  friends  and 
agents  as  George  Waggaman,  General  William  G.  McNeill,  and  Duff 
Green  had  worked  on  the  problem,  that  Tyler  and  Julia  finally  disposed 
of  the  land  to  a  group  of  Norfolk  speculators  for  $20,000,  Julia  using 
her  share  of  the  proceeds  in  1858  to  purchase  Villa  Margaret,  the 
summer  house  at  Hampton.  It  was  probably  just  as  well  that  the  prop- 
erty was  not  sold  in  1849.  "There  could  not  be  a  worse  time  to  sell 
than  the  present,"  said  Alexander,  "when  the  whole  West  is  depressed 
by  the  floods  and  the  cholera."  There  was  also  the  possibility  that 
David  Lyon  Gardiner  and  Henry  Beeckman  would  return  from  the 

372 


California  gold  fields  so  laden  with  wealth  that  they  would  rush  to 
invest  it  at  Caseyville.  As  Alexander  explained  this  final  hope  to  Tyler: 

Maybe  our  Argonauts,  returned  laden  with  the  golden  fleece,  will  be  disposed 
to  invest  some  portion  of  their  riches  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio;  at  any  rate 
the  land  must  become  more  valuable  if  gold  becomes  more  abundant,  and 
next  year  will  be  an  important  one  in  regard  to  the  ultimate  value  of  the 
land. 

Alexander's  reverie  that  his  brother  and  his  young  brother-in-law  would 
return  from  California  weighted  with  gold  was  destined  to  be  dashed, 
as  were  the  bright  initial  prospects  of  his  own  financial  speculations  in 
the  Bear  Flag  Republic.  But  he  turned  eagerly  from  the  Kentucky 
coal  fields  to  the  California  gold  fields,  confident  that  great  riches  lay 
somewhere  near  his  outstretched  fingers.21 

The  discovery  of  gold  on  the  American  River  near  Coloma,  Cali- 
fornia, in  January  1848  produced  as  great  an  upheaval  in  the  Tyler- 
Gardiner  clan  as  it  did  in  any  family  in  the  United  States.  Confirmed 
as  a  fact  by  Polk  in  his  Annual  Message  of  December  1848,  news  of 
the  great  strike  raced  from  New  York  to  Sherwood  Forest  and  back 
with  all  the  speed  of  a  juicy  scandal.  Within  a  few  months  John  H. 
Beeckman,  David  Lyon  Gardiner,  and  Beeckman's  cousin  Henry  B. 
Livingston  of  New  York,  had  all  departed  for  the  gold  fields,  among  the 
first  in  that  vast  tidal  wave  of  humanity  that  began  the  frenzied  trek  to 
wealth  and  adventure  in  early  1849. 

John  Tyler's  initial  reaction  to  Folk's  electrifying  announcement 
was  not  an  excited  one.  He  had  no  desire  to  go  to  California  or  to 
speculate  there.  Burned  by  the  collapsing  Caseyville  operation,  he  was 
in  no  humor  to  pour  additional  capital  into  the  mountain  streams  of 
El  Dorado  County.  "The  President,"  Julia  wrote  on  December  15, 
1848,  "has  not  expressed  himself  much  about  this  California  fever, 
but  he  says  if  gold  is  so  plentiful  it  will  be  valueless.  He  thinks  a  good 
farm  on  James  River  with  plenty  of  slaves  is  gold  mine  enough." 

This  mood  quickly  changed.  By  February  1849  the  former  Presi- 
dent, along  with  millions  of  other  Americans,  had  a  severe  case  of  Cali- 
fornia fever.  More  and  more  he  came  to  regard  California  as  "the  only 
country  worth  living  in,"  and  he  was  persuaded  that  both  John 
Beeckman  and  David  Lyon  Gardiner  would  make  vast  fortunes  there. 
He  agreed,  however,  with  Samuel  Gardiner  that  "it  will  not  be  the 
diggers  of  gold  who  will  make  the  fortunes  but  the  merchants."  And  he 
pointed  out,  as  any  good  planter  might,  that  the  real  wealth  of  Cali- 
fornia lay  in  the  rich  soil  of  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Valleys. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  sure  that  John  and  David  Lyon  would  quickly 
"line  their  pockets  with  the  yellow  dust"  even  though  they  had  no  in- 
terest in  agriculture.  Since  both  men  were  "mature  and  knowledge- 

373 


able"  in  business  matters,  Tyler  was  confident  that  they  would  "not 
be  led  away  from  the  true  road  to  fortune  by  any  will-of-the-wisp." 
Instead,  they  would  sensibly  mine  the  miners.  As  merchants  and  real 
estate  operators,  and  even  as  moneychangers  ("I  hope  that  David 
carried  with  him  a  plentiful  supply  of  5  and  ten  cent  pieces — each  will 
be  worth  a  pinch  of  gold  and  the  Colonel's  fingers  are  not  the  smallest")? 
they  would  make  their  fortunes  in  the  new  empire  on  the  Pacific. 
"Will  you  believe  it,"  he  confided  to  Alexander,  "that  I  ofttimes  wish 
myself  located  on  some  choice  spot  of  land  on  the  Sacramento — and 

that  in  my  imaginings  I  have  fancied  that  country  an  Eden There 

is  nothing  like  the  elbow  room  of  a  new  country."  22 

Tyler's  growing  enthusiasm  for  the  California  country  was  a  direct 
product  of  the  gold  fever  infection  that  swept  Tidewater  Virginia  in 
1849.  The  highly  contagious  virus  did  not  spare  Sherwood  Forest. 
Even  little  Gardie  began  clamoring  for  adult  members  of  the  family 
to  go  to  "Gattyformy  to  dig  gold  to  buy  Gardie  tandy."  Julia  was  far 
less  interested  in  gold  and  candy  for  Gardie  than  she  was  in  the  great 
profits  she  was  sure  were  to  be  made  in  California  real  estate  and 
merchandising.  She  was  "all  for  paying  a  person's  passage  and  dividing 
the  profits."  Indeed,  as  shiploads  of  adventurers  left  Richmond  and 
Norfolk,  Julia  pondered  Alexander's  suggestion  that  young  Tazewell 
Tyler,  not  yet  eighteen  years  old,  be  allowed  to  join  the  local  Jasons 
bound  for  the  gold  fields,  there  to  get  a  lucrative  start  in  life.  Taz  was 
certainly  eager  to  go,  but  Tyler  put  an  end  to  his  agitation  with  the 
firm  decision  that  he  would  be  better  employed  commencing  the  study 
of  medicine  with  his  uncle,  Dr.  Henry  Curtis,  in  Hanover  County. 

Equally  eager  for  adventure  in  the  West  was  the  foot-loose  John 
Tyler,  Jr.,  who  enlisted  his  father's  aid  in  his  desire  to  join  the  migra- 
tion to  California.  Working  through  Daniel  Webster,  Tyler  attempted 
to  secure  for  his  second  son  a  San  Francisco  patronage  appointment. 
It  was  better,  he  reasoned,  to  have  John,  Jr.,  living  his  gay  life  in 
distant  California  than  in  nearby  Richmond  and  Norfolk.  Unfortunately 
the  new  Taylor  administration  refused  to  cooperate  in  effecting  John, 
Jr.'s  polite  banishment  to  the  Golden  Gate.  Tyler  therefore  considered 
Alexander's  offer  to  grubstake  any  member  of  the  immediate  family  who 
wished  to  seek  his  fortune,  metallic,  mercantile,  political,  or  otherwise, 
in  the  new  territory.  But  a  moment's  reflection  convinced  the  President 
that  it  was  well  past  the  time  when  John  should  be  made  to  "paddle 
his  own  canoe,"  and  he  turned  down  his  brother-in-law's  overture.  Julia 
considered  his  decision  a  mistake.  John,  Jr.,  she  argued,  was  "such 
an  unsettled  visionary  fellow  that  for  my  part  I  shall  jump  for  joy 
when  he  is  17,000  miles  away ...  the  P  [resident]  will  feel  equally  re- 
lieved. From  first  to  last  he  has  given  him  no  end  of  annoyance. . . . 
The  P.  says  he  really  believes  him  part  a  mad  man. ..."  Madman  or 
not,  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  never  got  to  California.  But  then  neither  did 

374 


Julia's  perfectly  sane,  gold-seeking  cousin,  Egbert  Dayton  of  East 
Hampton,  who  died  en  route  to  the  mines  a  few  days  out  of  Panama 
and  was  buried  in  a  lonely  Acapulco  grave.23 

First  of  the  family  Argonauts  to  depart  for  California  was  the 
handsome  John  Beeckman.  His  financial  position  had  never  been  strong, 
and  his  marriage  to  Margaret  in  January  1848  had  not  improved 
matters.  By  December  1848  he  was  in  serious  economic  difficulty.  With 
a  wife  and  a  new  baby  to  support,  he  found  himself  suspended  hope- 
lessly between  underemployment  and  unemployment.  Forced  to  move 
his  small  family  into  his  mother-in-law's  house  on  Lafayette  Place,  the 
humiliated  young  man  had  no  prospect  of  ever  maintaining  Margaret 
in  the  accepted  Gardiner  manner.  To  Beeckman,  therefore,  the  trumpet 
call  of  the  gold  fields  was  a  summons  to  financial  independence.  Julia 
approved  his  judgment  on  the  grounds  that  he  had  "a  wife  and  child 
to  be  thinking  of  which  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  adventure."  Juliana 
agreed.  She  had  never  really  approved  of  Beeckman's  marriage  to 
her  daughter,  but  she  was  willing  to  give  her  son-in-law  his  chance 
to  become  rich.  She  consented  to  lend  him  $2500  at  7  per  cent  that  he 
might  buy  a  stock  of  general  merchandise  for  sale  to  miners  in  the 
Sacramento  area.  She  made  it  clear  to  him,  however,  that  the  cost  of 
supporting  Margaret  and  the  baby  during  his  absence  would  obligate 
him  to  her  for  an  additional  $500  to  $1000  annually.  She  would  have 
her  pound  of  flesh.  With  this  unpleasant  detail  arranged,  Margaret 
"screwed  her  courage  to  the  breaking  point"  and  finally  assented  to  her 
husband's  departure.  In  her  reluctant  decision  she  was  assured  by  her 
sister  that  Beeckman  would  make  a  fortune,  and  that  she  would  soon 
be  "drawing  on  the  'Bank  of  California'  for  a  few  thousands."  When 
this  optimism  was  also  echoed  by  John  Tyler,  Margaret's  opposition 
collapsed.  Beeckman  shipped  a  cargo  of  merchandise  ahead  of  him, 
worth  perhaps  $5000  retail  in  the  mining  camps,  and  left  New  York 
in  early  January  1849  for  the  arduous  seven-month  trip  to  San  Fran- 
cisco around  the  Horn.24 

As  a  lonely  and  heartsick  Margaret  fought  an  unending  battle 
with  infant  Harry's  swollen  gums,  colic,  and  skin  rash,  reporting  these 
hearthside  difficulties  in  detailed  and  lengthy  letters  to  her  husband, 
Beeckman  made  his  way  slowly  to  California  via  Rio,  Valparaiso, 
and  Callao.  Sporadic  reports  of  his  boredom  at  sea,  his  near-shipwreck 
off  Cape  Horn,  and  his  hopes  for  the  future  in  California  drifted  back 
to  Sherwood  Forest  and  Lafayette  Place.  In  August  1849  he  finally 
reached  Sacramento.  There  he  met  David  Lyon  Gardiner,  who  had  left 
New  York  several  weeks  behind  him  but  had  chosen  the  quicker  trans- 
Panama  route.  There  too  was  his  cousin,  Henry  B.  Livingston,  who 
had  reached  El  Dorado  in  early  June.  25 

Beeckman's  first  report  to  Margaret  from  Sacramento  in  Septem- 
ber 1849  described  a  lusty  society  dominated  by  diggers,  some  of 

375 


whom  had  already  "succeeded  beyond  all  calculations"  while  others 
were  nearly  starving  to  death.  "It  all  depends  upon  whether  you  are 
fortunate  or  not  in  the  selection  of  your  spot.  One  person  may  dig 
with  all  the  assiduity  in  the  world  and  find  little  or  nothing  for  his 
pains;  another,  not  three  feet  off  may  by  a  lucky  stroke  of  his  pick 
or  turn  of  his  shovel  expose  to  view  three  or  four  hundred  dollars'  worth 
of  the  precious  metal."  This  backbreaking  pick-axe  roulette  was  not  for 
Beeckman.  Instead,  he  sat 

in  front  of  a  small  India  rubber  tent,  my  portfolio  on  my  knee  in  the  shade 
of  a  large  oak  surrounded  by  goods  of  every  variety,  looking  keenly  at  every 
teamster  as  he  passes  on  his  way  to  the  mines  and  anxiously  inquiring  his 
wants  and  scanning  my  ability  to  supply  him  on  moment  seen  if  a  pair  of 
shoes  or  boots  will  fit  a  very  dirty  pair  of  feet,  the  next  instant  called  off  to 
sell  y2  barrel  of  pork  or  case  of  brandy  and  anon  engaged  in  the  more 
delicate  and  agreeable  business  of  weighing  a  few  dollars  of  gold  dust  received 
in  payment  in  a  small  and  nicely  adjusted  pair  of  scales. 

He  assured  his  worried  wife  that  while  Sacramento  was  little  more 
than  "a  city  principally  of  tents  springing  up  in  the  wilderness  amid 
the  shade  of  large  and  spreading  trees,"  bathed  alternately  in  dust  and 
mud,  jammed  full  of  Americans,  Chinese,  Europeans,  Africans,  and 
Polynesians  ("every  language  is  spoken  that  tongue  can  utter"),  it  was 
nonetheless  an  orderly  community: 

No  attention  is  paid  to  appearance . . .  this  is  a  community  of  men — no  ladies 
— and  very  few  women.  Still  everything  is  conducted  in  the  most  gentlemanly 
manner.  No  quarreling.  Nor  have  I  seen  half  a  dozen  drunken  men  since  I 
have  been  in  California.  Indeed  I  am  very  much  surprised  at  the  extreme 
order  which  everywhere  prevails.  Goods  left  exposed  in  the  streets  are  as 
safe  as  beneath  your  roof — this  may  perhaps  be  owing  to  Judge  Lynch  who 
deals  out  justice  with  most  remarkable  alacrity  in  this  part  of  the  world  and 
the  would  be  guilty  stand  greatly  in  fear  of  his  summary  mode  of  proceed- 
ing. . . .  By  the  time  I  shall  write  you  again  ...  I  hope  to  be  able  to  send  you 
some  of  the  California  dust  as  a  token  that  I  have  not  been  idle  or  un- 
employed.26 

So  far  as  can  be  determined,  Beeckman  shipped  none  of  the  "Cali- 
fornia dust"  to  his  waiting  wife.  Once  his  initial  stock  of  merchandise 
was  exhausted,  he  discovered  that  shipping  schedules  on  the  Coast  were 
so  unpredictable  that  regular  replenishment  of  stock  from  New  York 
was  virtually  impossible.  In  November  1849  he  gave  up  retail  mer- 
chandising and  invested  much  of  his  capital,  some  $4000,  in  a  real 
estate  speculation  in  Sacramento  in  partnership  with  one  Major 
Benjamin  W.  Bean.  The  Major  (who  supplied  two  thirds  of  the  capi- 
tal) and  Beeckman  bought  a  lot  on  J  Street  and  spent  $12,000  build- 
ing a  combination  wooden  frame  store  and  residence  on  the  property. 
They  immediately  rented  the  structure  to  two  New  York  merchants 

376 


for  $2500  per  month,  a  sum  not  considered  excessive  in  the  wild  infla- 
tion of  Sacramento  in  1849.  For  a  brief  time  it  appeared  that  John 
Beeckman  had  struck  it  rich,  that  he  would  soon  recoup  his  investment 
and  enough  in  addition  to  repay  Juliana  and  begin  banking  a  sizable 
monthly  income. 

At  this  hopeful  juncture  in  his  affairs,  floods  swept  down  the 
Sacramento  River  in  January  1850.  Much  of  the  tent  city  was  inundated 
and  the  Bean-Beeckman  property  was  damaged  to  the  tune  of  $5000. 
By  the  time  necessary  repairs  had  been  made  and  the  tenants  restored, 
a  business  slump  struck  the  area,  driving  the  rent  down  to  $800  per 
month.  As  Beeckman  explained  the  discouraging  situation  in  February 
1850,  "most  of  those  who  have  been  engaged  altogether  in  mercantile 
pursuits  have  failed  or  lost  all  they  made  last  summer  and  fall.  The 
high  rates  paid  for  store  rents — most  of  them  $1000  a  month — and 
clerk  hire  make  way  with  profits  to  a  large  amount  so  that  at  the  end 
of  the  year  one  is  little  better  off  than  at  the  commencement."  In  addi- 
tion to  this,  a  rowdy  element  was  beginning  to  drift  into  the  gold 
towns.  "Numbers  indeed  of  the  most  abandoned  character  have  settled 
at  San  Francisco  and  Sacramento  City  and  lead  a  life  of  the  most 
shameful  profanity.77  27 

To  escape  the  noxious  immoral  influences  of  Sacramento,  and  to 
exploit  the  now-obvious  desirability  of  high  ground  along  the  river, 
Beeckman  turned  to  land  speculation  at  Butteville.  In  partnership  with 
four  other  men,  among  them  Benjamin  Bean,  the  group  hired  a  whale- 
boat  and  systematically  explored  a  6oo-mile  stretch  of  the  Sacramento 
River  in  search  of  high  ground.  They  found  what  they  were  looking 
for  and  in  March  1850  they  purchased  from  Johann  Augustus  Sutter, 
for  $3600,  two  square  miles  of  high  land  on  the  Sacramento  River  about 
175  miles  above  Sacramento  City,  near  what  is  now  called  Butte  City. 
Beeckman  himself  made  the  preliminary  arrangements  with  the  famous 
Sutter.  Under  the  contract  that  was  drawn  Sutter  retained  half  of  the 
planned  town  site  for  his  own  use.  He  agreed,  however,  to  bear  half 
the  cost  of  surveying  the  whole  parcel.  The  idea  was  to  divide  the  re- 
maining square  mile  into  100  blocks  of  36  lots  each,  six  lots  per  partner, 
each  block  to  be  sold  for  $1000.  Actually  very  little  investment  capital 
was  involved.  Sutter  consented  to  take  his  $3600  from  the  initial  sale  of 
lots.  The  main  cost  would  be  that  of  a  survey  and  the  expense  of  a 
road  linking  Butteville  with  the  immigrant  wagon  trail  that  passed 
nearby.  The  speculators  were  thus  gambling  on  their  belief  that  the 
town  they  would  create  at  Butteville  would  become  the  supply  and 
distribution  point  for  diggers  heading  upriver  into  the  Trinity  Mine 
country  north  of  Redding.  As  it  turned  out,  the  miners  generally  went 
up  the  west  side  of  the  river  to  Redding.  This  perverse  habit  caused 
them  to  bypass  Butteville  and  property  there  was  shortly  reduced  to 
virtual  worthlessness.28 

377 


But  Beeckman  could  not  know  this  when  he  journeyed  up  the 
Sacramento  in  early  April  1850  to  examine  the  town  site  and  arrange 
for  a  survey.  On  the  contrary,  he  told  Margaret  that  it  would  surely 
"prove  a  good  operation  and  put  money  in  our  pockets."  With  the 
covered  wagons  of  the  overland  immigrants  beginning  to  reach  Califor- 
nia in  great  numbers,  and  with  flood-prone  Sacramento  "once  this 
winter  all  under  water  and . . .  momentarily  in  expectation  of  a  similar 
catastrophe,"  Butteville  could  only  prove  a  "profitable  speculation." 
All  the  venture  required  was  hard  work.  "Enterprise  and  activity  alone 
are  the  watchwords  to  success  in  this  stirring  country . . .  and  if  in- 
dustry and  success  are  synonymous  I  shall  have  my  reward."  29 

John  H.  Beeckman  had  his  reward  less  than  three  weeks  later. 
Following  a  ten-day  evaluation  of  the  Butteville  site,  John  was  return- 
ing downriver  to  Sacramento  in  a  whaleboat  when  the  accident  oc- 
curred. At  7:30  A.M.  on  April  26,  1850,  while  passing  Knights  Landing 
ten  miles  above  Verona,  John  attempted  to  shift  his  position  in  the 
boat.  Somehow  he  joggled  his  loaded  shotgun  which  was  "resting  [on 
the  thwart]  with  the  barrels  turned  towards  his  chest."  One  barrel 
discharged,  the  iron  balls  striking  him  solidly  in  the  right  lung.  "My 
God  I  am  shot!"  he  cried  as  he  fell  into  the  arms  of  one  of  the  boat- 
men. He  continued  breathing  for  nearly  half  an  hour;  but  he  was 
dead,  suffocated  in  his  own  blood,  when  the  boat  reached  Verona.  There 
the  mayor  of  the  settlement,  a  Doctor  Weeks  who  had  formerly  prac- 
ticed in  New  York  City,  took  charge  of  the  lifeless  body  and  prepared 
it  for  burial.  An  item  on  the  tragedy  appeared  in  a  Sacramento  paper 
the  next  morning.  Within  an  hour  Henry  B.  Livingston  was  en  route 
upriver  to  Verona.  He  arrived  there  that  same  afternoon. 

Livingston  arranged  the  final  details,  procuring  a  rude  coffin,  a 
Presbyterian  clergyman,  and  a  quiet  lot  in  a  cemetery  a  half-mile  back 
from  the  unpredictable  river.  On  Sunday  morning,  April  28,  in  a 
"beautifully  retired  grove,"  Margaret's  unlucky  young  husband  was 
buried.  Hymns  were  sung  by  a  small  group  of  rough-looking  men,  an 
Indian,  and  a  few  women  of  the  village.  "On  closing  the  lid  of  the 
coffin,"  Livingston  reported,  "John's  countenance  had  not  altered  in 
the  least  and  all  remarked  how  placid  and  unchanged!"  It  was  a 
"singularly  solemn  situation"  for  Livingston,  who  suddenly  found  him- 
self "in  a  strange  land  6000  miles  from  home  performing  the  last  rites 
of  respect  to  the  only  relative  in  whose  veins  flowed  my  own  blood,  and 
I  the  solitary  mourner."  The  lone  Indian  standing  passively  at  the  grave 
side  caught  something  of  Livingston's  sorrow.  As  John's  coffin  was 
lowered  into  the  ground,  the  Indian's  eyes  followed  it  slowly  downward. 
"Adits,  hombre;*  he  said  softly,  "adids." 

John  Beeckman's  dream  of  wealth,  his  ambition  to  achieve  eco- 
nomic equality  with  the  Gardiners,  ended  in  a  lonely  grave  on  the 
Sacramento  River.  His  estate,  such  as  it  was,  added  up  to  a  $4000 

378 


interest  In  the  J  Street  store,  an  option  to  purchase  a  one-twelfth  in- 
terest in  a  large  lot  on  J  Street  (value  uncertain),  a  sixth  interest  in  some 
undeveloped  near-wilderness  at  Butteville  (worth  nothing),  and  a  few 
personal  effects.  These  included  "his  pocket  book  with  2  letters  from 
Mr.  Tyler,  $25  or  30,  his  large  ring  with  Margaret's  initials  and  his 
own,  his  hunting  watch,  gun,  pencil  and  a  beautiful  old  silver  cup 
which  the  men  in  the  boat  said  he  seemed  to  prize  very  much."  His  per- 
sonal effects  were  worth,  by  Livingston's  calculation,  no  more  than 
$275.  To  be  sure,  the  Bean-Beeckman  store  had  a  tenant  for  eight 
more  months  at  a  rent  of  $800,  but  aside  from  this  immediate  prospect 
of  income  the  estate  of  John  H.  Beeckman  was  modest  indeed.  After 
ordering  a  headstone  for  the  grave  and  sending  a  snip  of  his  deceased 
cousin's  hair  to  Margaret,  Livingston  undertook  the  thankless  task  of 
settling  Beeckman Js  worldly  affairs.30 

News  of  her  husband's  death  reached  Margaret  on  June  8.  Her 
reaction  was  very  little  less  than  traumatic.  "Nothing  could  have 
been  more  distressing,"  Alexander  noted.  "The  lamentations  of  Mar- 
garet were  but  overcome  at  last  by  exhaustion."  To  Alexander  the 
tragedy  was  an  object  lesson  in  the  careless  use  of  firearms.  But  this 
irrelevant  observation  brought  as  little  comfort  to  the  widow  as  Julia's 
view  that  since  Beeckman  had  died  with  little  suffering  Margaret  would 
soon  see  the  tragedy  "in  the  right  light"  and  "cease  to  mourn  for  her- 
self"  Juliana's  initial  reaction  had  the  usual  Gardiner  decimal  point 
in  it.  Revealing  little  of  the  "severe  shock"  that  rocked  Sherwood 
Forest,  she  immediately  instructed  Alexander  to  inform  Henry  Living- 
ston in  Sacramento  that  she  had  a  solid  $3000  claim  on  Beeckman's 
estate  and  that  she  wanted  the  matter  settled  without  delay.  With  that 
practical  demand  made  clear,  she  took  her  grief-stricken  daughter  to 
Saratoga  for  a  month  so  that  she  might  speedily  regain  her  "cheerful- 
ness." Margaret's  cheerfulness  was  very  slow  to  return.  Years  later  she 
was  still  writing  mournful  lines  that  ran 

Would  I  were  with  him!  To  embrace 

The  loved  one  lost  long  years  before, 
What  joy  to  gaze  upon  the  face 

That  never  shall  be  absent  more! 
There  friends  unite,  who  parted  here 

At  Death's  cold  river,  oh!  How  sadly 
Forgotten  are  the  sigh  and  tear 

Their  hearts  are  leaping,  oh!  How  gladly. 

The  disadvantages  of  marrying  for  love  had  at  last  become  painfully 
apparent  to  Margaret  Gardiner.31 

Pain  of  another  sort  struck  Lafayette  Place  when  it  became  evi- 
dent that  Beeckman's  estate  was  not  destined  to  manufacture  great 
riches.  Increasing  taxes,  property  assessments,  repair  and  maintenance 

379 


costs,  combined  with  steadily  decreasing  rental  income,  effectively  dis- 
sipated the  Gar  diners5  optimistic  expectation  that  the  one- third  in- 
terest in  the  jerry-built  wooden  store  on  J  Street  would  prove  a  gold 
mine  for  Beeckman's  distraught  widow.  By  1852  Sacramento  was  being 
transformed  from  a  city  of  wood  and  canvas  to  one  of  brick  and  stone, 
and  the  less  than  desirable  Beeckman-Bean  property,  when  it  had  a 
tenant  at  all,  brought  Margaret  only  $100  a  month.  In  1853  the  net 
rental  income  from  the  store  amounted  to  only  $538.19.  Juliana's  legal 
daim  against  the  estate  for  $3000  was  never  upheld,  filed  as  it  was 
too  late  to  meet  the  requirements  of  California  law.  There  was  not 
much  to  claim  anyway.  The  Butteville  land  soon  disappeared  down  the 
back-tax  rathole,  and  the  undeveloped  lot  on  J  Street,  the  purchase 
option  which  Margaret  exercised  in  January  1853  for  $2200,  found 
no  buyer.  In  spite  of  heroic  legal  efforts  by  John  Tyler,  acting  as 
Margaret's  agent  and  lawyer,  John  Beeckman's  estate  yielded  precious 
little. 

Indeed,  family  frustration  in  the  matter  produced  caustic  intima- 
tions and  suspicions,  wholly  groundless,  that  Henry  B.  Livingston, 
Benjamin  W.  Bean,  and  other  Gardiner  agents  on  the  scene  were  milk- 
ing the  estate.  "He  has  either  the  hide  of  a  Rhinoceros  or  a  pocket  with 
a  very  large  hole  in  it,"  said  Tyler  ungenerously  of  Livingston.  In- 
sinuations of  this  sort,  to  say  nothing  of  a  threatened  Gardiner  law- 
suit, finally  persuaded  a  disgusted  Henry  Livingston  to  wash  his  hands 
of  the  whole  mess  and  withdraw  from  further  dealings  with  Lafayette 
Place.  "For  myself  I  have  received  nothing  but  the  commissions  allowed 
by  law/'  he  wrote  them  angrily,  "charging  nothing  for  my  traveling 
expenses,  etc.,  as  I  have  wished  to  close  up  all  transactions  connected 
with  my  painful  office  as  economically  as  possible."  Actually,  he  had 
become  involved  in  April  1851  in  a  creek-bed  gold  speculation  at  Oregon 
Bar  which  involved  diverting  the  waters  of  the  North  Fork  of  the 
American  River,  and  he  was  too  busy  with  that  extensive  project  to  be 
troubled  with  insistent  and  ill-humored  demands  from  New  York  and 
Sherwood  Forest  that  he  render  instant  and  accurate  accountings  of 
every  penny  paid  into  and  out  of  the  John  Beeckman  estate. 

The  Gardiners  also  alienated  Major  Bean  by  bringing  suit  against 
him,  forcing  him  to  sell  the  J  Street  store  and  distribute  the  proceeds. 
This  successful  litigation  eventually  brought  $2000  into  the  Beeck- 
man estate,  or  roughly  half  of  what  John  had  put  into  the  venture  in 
the  first  place.  Not  surprisingly  these  short-tempered  verbal  and  legal 
harassments  from  New  York  and  Virginia  ultimately  caused  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Beeckman  interests  in  Sacramento  to  be  abandoned  by 
acquaintances  and  kin  of  the  deceased  resident  there.  Instead,  these 
matters  fell  into  the  hands  of  various  local  lawyers  and  rent  collectors, 
strangers  whose  high  charges  and  commissions  further  depleted  Mar- 
garet's dwindling  income  from  California.32 

380 


David  Lyon  Gardiner  fared  somewhat  better  in  California  than 
his  brother-in-law.  At  least  he  got  out  alive,  although  his  financial  suc- 
cess was  not  nearly  what  his  family  had  optimistically  predicted  for 
him.  Unlike  Beeckman,  however,  David  Lyon  did  not  have  to  go  west 
for  economic  reasons.  He  went  for  adventure  and  out  of  a  curiosity  to 
see  the  new  country.  Practicing  law  bored  him,  and  collecting  Gardiner 
rents  he  found  a  demeaning  and  distasteful  occupation.  When  it  was 
agreed  that  Alexander  would  hire  a  law  clerk  to  assist  him  with  his 
clerkship  and  his  growing  private  practice  and  also  help  manage  the 
Gardiner  rental  properties  (Richard  E.  Stilwell  was  engaged  in  April 
1849),  David  Lyon  felt  free  to  leave  New  York.  In  February  1849 
he  shook  off  his  usual  lethargy  long  enough  to  board  the  Eugenia, 
bound  for  San  Francisco  via  Veracruz  and  the  Panama  route.  It  would 
be,  Tyler  predicted,  "an  agreeable  adventure"  which  would  "improve 
him  in  every  respect  besides  making  him  his  fortune."  He  was  supplied 
with  letters  of  introduction  to  American  military  government  officials 
in  California  by  Tyler  and  Senator  Robert  J.  Walker.  Provided  also 
with  a  $3000  stake  by  his  mother  and  brother,  David  departed  New 
York  over  Julia's  objection  and  warning  that  he  would  find  California 
rough  and  lonely.  His  absence,  she  warned  him,  would  seriously  distress 
their  mother  "however  pleasured  she  might  be  to  see  you  master  of  a 
large  fortune."  33 

As  in  Beeckman's  case,  the  "large  fortune"  was  elusive.  Arriving 
in  San  Francisco  in  April  1849,  David  went  directly  into  merchandising. 
He  quickly  discovered  that  store  rents  were  high  and  that  dry  goods 
shipped  in  from  Australia,  Canada,  Hawaii,  and  South  America  were 
already  glutting  a  very  uncertain  and  unpredictable  market,  one  which 
responded  sharply  upward  and  downward  to  the  delay  or  arrival  of  a 
single  shipload  of  a  given  commodity.  When  his  profits  failed  to  climb 
above  a  bare  10  per  cent,  Colonel  David  concluded  that  the  Golden 
Fleece  lay  not  in  retailing.  In  August  1849  ne  headed  into  the  gold 
fields  near  Sacramento  to  try  his  luck  with  pick  and  shovel.  This  un- 
accustomed labor  blistered  his  hands  and  feet  and  hurt  his  back.  So 
great  was  his  pain  that  Julia  wondered  solicitously  whether  it  would 
not  be  a  good  idea  to  send  him  a  brace  of  "whalebones  for  him  to 
wear  around  the  hips  and  small  of  his  back . . .  when  working  in  the 
mines."  Although  she  hoped  that  her  brother  would  "not  give  over  his 
gold  seeking  for  slight  causes,"  David  soon  decided  that  he  was  no 
miner.  Brushes  with  timber  wolves  frightened  him.  Sleeping  in  cramped 
cabins  or  in  the  open  air  with  rough,  dirty,  and  uncultured  men  de- 
graded him.  The  loneliness  and  the  monotony  of  heavy  physical  labor 
In  the  mining  camps  soon  conspired  to  drive  him  swiftly  back  to  San 
Francisco  in  September  "to  recruit  his  health,"  which,  as  Beeckman 
reported  it,  "had  been  severely  tasked  ...  at  the  mines." 

As  news  of  his  various  trials  and  tribulations  filtered  back  to 


Lafayette  Place  and  Sherwood  Forest,  the  ladies  of  the  family  decided 
that  California  was  much  too  barbarous  and  sinful  a  place  for  "poor 
David/'  He  should  come  home  immediately.  "Sleeping  in  a  ravine  pro- 
duced his  sickness  no  doubt,"  said  his  mother,  "and  being  like  the  rest 
of  us  of  a  bilious  constitution  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  get  rid  of." 
With  prostitutes,  murderers,  and  thieves  outnumbering  the  resident 
ladies,  clergymen,  and  doctors,  California  was  obviously  no  place  for  a 
well-bred  and  bilious  young  gentleman.  Her  thirty-three-year-old  son, 
Juliana  thought,  was  simply  not  suited  for  combat  with  such  a  hostile 
environment.  "His  exposure  to  wolves  and  fevers  and  bad  climate  is 
really  quite  too  much  to  dwell  upon,"  she  concluded.  "It  is  a  fact  men 
do  not  know  how  to  take  proper  care  of  themselves.  They  require  the 
attention  of  a  mother  all  the  days  of  their  lives."  To  provide  her  little 
Argonaut  with  a  touch  of  home  she  sent  him  preserves  and  jams  and 
constant  reminders  that  "there  are  many  ways  of  making  money  here 
where  you  can  be  surrounded  by  family  and  friends  and  the  comforts 
of  civilization."  34 

In  spite  of  these  maternal  urgings  David  Lyon  decided  to  stick 
it  out  for  a  while  longer  in  California,  a  decision  Tyler  approved  and 
recommended  because  "no  doubt  a  short  period  will  make  him  rich  if 
he  will  make  up  his  mind  to  continue."  Convinced  that  real  estate 
speculation  held  the  key  to  his  counting  room,  David  joined  in  partner- 
ship with  the  ineludible  Major  Bean  and  bought  several  pieces  of 
Sacramento  property  in  August  1849.  A  Year  later  he  sold  the  parcels 
at  a  $3000  profit.  Having  launched  these  Sacramento  speculations,  he 
returned  to  San  Francisco  in  time  to  witness  the  first  of  the  seven 
major  fires  that  ravaged  the  city  between  December  1849  and  June 
1851.  While  his  mother  was  hopeful  that  this  disaster  "would  advance 
for  the  present  the  value  of  money  very  much,"  and  suggested  that 
Gardiner  capital  be  rushed  to  the  stricken  community  for  near-usurious 
reconstruction  loans,  David  felt  that  San  Francisco  would  never  tran- 
scend its  incendiary  nature.  In  February  1850,  therefore,  he  decided  to» 
migrate  to  the  nonflammable  and  more  salubrious  climate  of  San  Diego, 
there  to  engage  in  merchandising,  real  estate  speculation,  and  the  ware- 
housing and  forwarding  business.35 

Tyler  encouraged  this  shift,  and  David  himself  was  confident  that 
San  Diego,  riding  the  crest  of  a  modest  boom  in  1850,  would  prove 
a  more  comfortable  and  profitable  place  to  reside.  Whoever  bought 
San  Diego  real  estate,  thought  Tyler,  "will  leave  the  estate  of  a  mil- 
lionaire." Alexander,  on  the  other  hand,  considered  the  move  foolish. 
Not  only  was  San  Diego  (with  its  650  inhabitants)  a  mere  village  com- 
pared to  San  Francisco,  but  it  lay  near  no  known  gold  fields  and  its 
population  potential  was,  at  best,  dubious.  "I  take  it  that  you  left  San 
Francisco  just  as  the  business  season  had  commenced  and  that  you  ar- 
rived in  San  Diego  just  as  the  business  season  terminated,"  Alexander 

382 


scolded  him.  Similarly,  Juliana  had  no  great  confidence  in  the  real  estate 
future  of  San  Diego,  and  in  spite  of  encouragement  from  David  Lyon 
she  refused  to  put  any  of  her  own  money  into  such  an  uncertain  venture. 
"It  would  be  absurd/'  she  said  flatly.  "It  is  not  safe  on  account  of  un- 
certain titles.  A  bird  in  hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush  and  there  is  no 
mistake  about  property  in  and  about  New  York."  36 

Alexander  had  more  than  a  casual  interest  in  his  brother's  new 
arrangement  in  San  Diego.  To  be  precise,  he  eventually  had  a  $5000 
stake  in  what  David  did  in  California,  and  the  longer  he  watched  his 
brother  in  action  as  a  businessman  and  land  speculator  the  more 
pessimistic  he  became  that  either  of  them  would  ever  make  a  dollar. 
David  Lyon  Gardiner,  in  truth,  was  no  businessman.  He  panicked 
easily,  and  he  had  little  real  feeling  for  business  opportunities.  He 
could  not  distinguish  between  a  crazy  speculation  and  a  reasonable  one. 
Nevertheless,  his  arrangement  with  Alexander  made  him  his  brother's 
partner  and  agent.  Their  agreement  was  that  he  would  retail  the  gen- 
eral cargoes  sent  out  from  New  York  in  both  Alexander's  name  and  in 
his  own.  The  profits  from  this  traffic  would  then  be  invested  in  Califor- 
nia real  estate  and  mining  opportunities.  From  time  to  time  Alexander 
shipped  cured  meats,  blankets,  kitchen  utensils,  wagons,  hardware, 
wheelbarrows,  furniture,  doors,  and  even  disassembled  houses  to  Cali- 
fornia. "The  freight  of  the  house  cost  me  as  much  as  the  house  itself," 
he  complained  on  one  occasion.  Plagued  by  bills  of  lading  which  often 
failed  to  reach  their  consignee,  a  thoroughly  unpredictable  consumer 
market,  and  the  difficulty  of  doing  business  by  mail  at  a  distance  of 
6000  miles,  Alexander  concluded  by  January  1851  that  merchandising 
in  distant  California  was  as  speculative  and  profitless  an  operation  as 
coal  mining  and  lumbering  had  proved  in  Kentucky.  David's  removal 
to  isolated  San  Diego  and  his  general  business  inefficiency,  together 
with  Beeckman's  tragic  death  at  Sacramento,  strengthened  this  con- 
viction. And  while  he  eventually  recovered  some  of  his  investment  in  the 
form  of  gold  dust  (worth  $17.50  per  ounce  in  New  York)  and  interest- 
bearing  promissory  notes  remitted  by  David,  Alexander  Gardiner  went  to 
his  grave  in  January  1851  knowing  that  his  California  operations  had 
failed.37 

It  took  David  Lyon  somewhat  longer  to  realize  his  own  inade- 
quacies in  the  complex  mercantile  and  real  estate  world  of  California. 
While  San  Diego  in  1850  gave  some  signs  of  potential  growth  and 
prosperity,  it  soon  began  the  rapid  decline  that  resulted  in  the  loss  of 
its  city  charter  in  1852  and  left  it  with  a  population  of  scarcely  a 
dozen  souls  in  1867.  Ships  did  not  often  stop  in  a  harbor  that  lacked 
a  customs  house.  Mail  and  merchandise  consigned  to  San  Diego  usually 
had  to  be  transshipped  by  sloops  back  down  the  coast  from  San 
Francisco.  For  this  reason,  David  spent  much  time  and  energy  agitat- 
ing for  the  establishment  of  a  local  customs  house.  Meanwhile  he 

383 


traveled  up  and  down  the  coast  between  San  Francisco  and  San  Diego 
arranging  for  the  purchase  and  shipment  of  dry  goods  to  his  store. 

In  this  peripatetic  enterprise  he  was  assisted  by  his  partner,  John 
R.  Bleeker,  a  transplanted  New  Yorker  who  was  postmaster  of  San 
Diego.  The  firm  of  Gardiner  and  Bleeker,  dedicated  principally  to  the 
sale,  storage,  and  forwarding  of  merchandise,  also  dabbled  in  San  Diego 
real  estate.  Operating  from  a  small  combination  store  and  warehouse 
located  on  the  shore  of  San  Diego  Bay,  the  partners  conducted  what 
was  at  best  a  marginal  enterprise.  Later  generations  of  San  Diego 
Jaycees  might  acclaim  them  pioneer  city  fathers,  but  the  1850  truth 
of  the  matter  was  that  Gardiner  and  Bleeker  were  situated  in  a  town 
that  had  no  economic  raison  d'etre.  By  mid- 1851  it  was  already  mov- 
ing back  toward  the  sleepy  settlement  it  had  been  under  the  Spanish 
and  Mexican  flags.  The  Cupefios  Indian  uprising  in  November  1851 
(known  locally  as  the  Garra  Rebellion,  after  Antonio  Garra,  chief  of 
the  Cupefios)  created  a  confusion  that  was  neither  conducive  to  busi- 
ness enterprise  nor  productive  of  great  confidence  in  the  future  stability 
and  safety  of  the  village.  Only  the  vain  hope  that  a  major  gold  strike 
might  be  made  in  the  nearby  Laguna  Mountains  kept  San  Diego  alive 
at  all  in  1851-1852.  By  1853  some  residents  of  the  dying  hamlet  were 
so  bored  and  foot-loose  that  they  joined  the  first  of  William  Walker's 
abortive  filibustering  expeditions  into  Mexico. 

Others,  like  Bleeker  himself,  prayed  "that  the  Rail  Road  route 
must  come  Southward  and  if  so  the  Port  on  the  Pacific  must  be  San 
Diego."  Indeed,  the  prospect  that  the  projected  transcontinental  rail- 
road would  terminate  at  San  Diego  persuaded  Gardiner  and  Bleeker 
in  June  1850  to  purchase  a  lot  on  San  Diego  Bay  (at  the  foot  of  Spring 
Avenue,  now  Broadway)  in  the  hope  that  they  would  achieve  a  great 
financial  coup  if  and  when  the  railroad  bought  it  up  as  a  right  of  way 
or  elected  to  build  a  terminal  on  it.  Their  purchase  was  thus  based  on 
the  gamble  that  the  transcontinental  railroad,  when  it  was  authorized 
by  Congress,  would  follow  a  southern  route.  The  question  of  routing 
became  one  of  the  great  sectional  political  issues  of  the  mid- 18505  and 
enlisted  on  the  Southern  side  of  the  argument  such  outstanding  spokes- 
men as  Robert  Tyler.  The  onset  of  the  Civil  War  suspended  this  ran- 
corous debate.  Not  until  1869  was  the  transcontinental  railroad  com- 
pleted— along  the  central  route. 

Gardiner  and  Bleeker  did  eventually  make  a  killing  on  their  Spring 
Street  lot.  They  sold  it  in  1887  for  $35,000,  after  the  Sante  Fe  Rail- 
road system  reached  San  Diego  and  the  town  began  its  renaissance. 
But  by  this  late  date  the  aging  David  Lyon  Gardiner  had  long  since 
lost  all  interest  in  the  speculations  of  his  youth,  and  was  devoting  his 
time  to  an  enjoyment  of  his  own  and  his  wife's  money  while  he  dabbled 
in  family  genealogy.38 

Unfortunately,  no  railroad  was  to  rescue  San  Diego  in  the  early 

384 


18503.  Gardiner  and  Sleeker  collapsed  with  the  town  while  David 
pleaded  fruitlessly  with  Alexander  and  his  mother  to  send  more  family 
capital  from  New  York  for  his  real  estate  operations.  Tyler  consistently 
encour^^^C  :ili  of  David's  projects  in  California  (including  a  wild 
scheme  to  build  and  operate  a  flour  mill  in  San  Diego),  but  Julia  did 
not.  3he  feared  that  her  brother  was  going  "native"  in  California,  and 
she  t  rged  him  to  stop  throwing  good  money  after  bad  in  San  Diego  and 
come  home  to  a  civilized  way  of  life.  "So  you  have  taken  to  cooking 
for  yourself!"  she  exclaimed.  "Well,  many  stranger  things  have  oc- 
curred, but  I  should  like  to  know  who  washes  the  china?  —  I  hope 
you  keep  up  your  civilized  habits,  shave  and  dress  in  neat  apparel 
every  day."  39 

Faced  with  the  gradual  realization  that  the  Midas  touch  was  not 
to  be  learned  in  a  warehouse-store  on  San  Diego  Bay  or  by  buying  up 
local  property  sinking  rapidly  in  value,  David  Lyon  did  what  came 
naturally  to  the  Gardiners  after  their  Tyler  connection  had  been  made 
fast.  He  wrote  to  John  Tyler  in  October  1850  and  asked  the  former 
President  to  use  his  influence  in  Washington  to  secure  him  the  collector- 
ship  of  customs  in  San  Diego  when  the  new  Fillmore  administration  got 
around  to  establishing  a  customs  house  in  the  town.  He  had  voted  for 
Taylor  and  Fillmore  in  the  1848  campaign  (the  only  member  of  the 
family  who  had  voted  Whig),  and  to  his  way  of  thinking  this  demon- 
strated dedication  enough  to  Old  Zach  to  secure  the  post.  Tyler  im- 
mediately wrote  to  William  McKendree  Gwin,  California's  first  senator. 
He  identified  "Colonel  Gardiner"  as  his  wife's  brother,  a  man  of  "high 
honor  and  business  talents,"  whose  appointment  to  the  San  Diego  post 
would  be  considered  by  Tyler  a  "personal  favor."  Alexander,  meanwhile, 
contacted  James  Brooks,  owner  of  the  New  York  Express,  and  Senator 
Daniel  S.  Dickinson  of  New  York  and  interested  them  in  his  brother's 
newfound  political  aspirations.  Unfortunately  for  David,  Gwin  reported 
that  Fillmore  and  Congress  had  simultaneously  established  and  filled 
the  $3000  post.  This  sad  news  was  communicated  to  David  by  Julia.  "I 
cannot  tell  you  by  words  how  great  was  our  regret  the  Collectorship  of 
San  Diego  had  not  earlier  been  thought  of,"  she  apologized.  Alexander, 
political  realist  that  he  was,  thought  it  "exceedingly  doubtful"  that 
David  Lyon  could  expect  any  appointment  from  the  Fillmore  adminis- 
tration "sufficiently  valuable  to  be  worthy  of  your  acceptance."  He  was 
right.  Nothing  "sufficiently  valuable"  was  forthcoming,  and  when  David 
was  offered  the  unpaid  post  of  mayor  of  San  Diego  in  November  1850 
by  the  local  citizenry  he  declined  it.40 

Disappointed  in  politics  and  business,  David  Lyon  Gardiner  was 
contemplating  his  next  predictably  unsuccessful  move  when  news  reached 
him  in  San  Diego  on  March  4,  1851,  that  his  brother  Alexander  had 
died  suddenly  in  New  York  in  late  January.  The  sad  tidings  stunned 
him,  as  it  had  the  rest  of  the  family.  Although  he  briefly  considered  re- 

385 


maining  in  San  Diego  for  a  few  more  months  on  the  strength  of  rumored 
gold  strikes  in  the  Sierra  Madre,  anguished  pleas  from  home  and  from 
Sherwood  Forest  that  he  return  to  New  York  jjgjnediately  became  so 
insistent  and  were  couched  in  such  piteous  terms  that  he  c^uiti  *;^t  resist 
them.  Turning  his  business  affairs  over  to  John  Bleeker,  he  departed  San 
Diego  on  April  4  and  arrived  back  in  New  York  on  June  7.  Again  he 
used  the  shorter  trans-Panama  route.  When  he  reached  New  York  he 
was  so  sun-tanned,  ragged,  and  bearded  that  Juliana  and  Margaret 
scarcely  recognized  him.  It  was  clear  to  theni  that  his  personal  habits 
had  indeed  deteriorated.  But  they  welcomed  him  with  enthusiasm,  happy 
that  he  had  returned  at  last  from  the  degrading  influences  of  distant 
California.41 

It  was  probably  well  that  he  left  California  when  he  did.  Within  a 
few  months  he  was  receiving  from  Bleeker  news  of  San  Diego's  demise. 
"Sales  are  remarkably  dull  and  money  exceedingly  scarce,  and  our  In- 
dian excitement  has  not  bettered  matters Our  New  Town  lots  will 

probably  not  sell  for  their  cost,"  his  partner  reported.  By  March  1852 
Bleeker  had  nearly  given  up  all  hope  that  San  Diego  would  ever  amount 
to  anything.  Employing  his  vague  connection  with  John  Tyler,  he  at- 
tempted to  secure  the  vacant  collectorship  of  customs  in  San  Diego.  The 
emoluments  of  the  sinecure  would  enable  him,  he  argued,  to  remain  on 
the  scene  until  the  transcontinental-railroad-route  question  was  settled 
one  way  or  the  other.  "Good  bye  to  the  prospects  of  old  San  Diego  until 
it  is  made  the  terminus  of  the  Rail  R.,"  he  told  David  Lyon  flatly  in 
June  1852.  The  population  of  the  town,  he  reported,  had  decreased  50 
per  cent  in  the  past  year,  and  local  real  estate  values  had  plunged  to 
near-worthlessness.  Tyler  did  all  he  could  for  Bleeker 's  pursuit  of  office, 
writing  Senator  Gwin  in  his  behalf,  but  nothing  came  of  the  collectorship 
idea.  Nor  did  a  modest  coal  discovery  on  the  shores  of  San  Diego  Bay 
in  1856  arrest  the  decline  of  the  town.  Water  filled  the  shaft  at  100 
feet  and  the  Mormons  involved  in  the  venture  gave  it  up.  In  1857  the 
discouraged  Bleeker  sold  the  store  and  the  remaining  merchandise  for  a 
pittance  and  returned  to  New  York.  Without  a  railroad,  San  Diego  had 
become  a  ghost  town.  With  neither  coal  nor  gold  to  sustain  it,  it  could 
not  continue. 

So  ended  the  Gardiner  quest  for  wealth  in  California.  While  the 
liquidation  of  the  Gardiner-Bleeker  enterprise  eventually  brought  David 
Lyon  a  $5000  rebate  on  his  San  Diego  investments,  the  short-term  eco- 
nomics of  the  family  speculation  in  El  Dorado  added  up  to  little  more 
than  death,  frustration,  and  litigation.  One  grave  on  the  banks  of  the 
Sacramento  and  some  worthless  lots  in  Butteville,  San  Francisco,  and 
San  Diego  were  about  all  the  family  could  show  in  1854  for  a  cash  in- 
vestment of  nearly  $12,000.  It  was  a  gloomy  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
Gardiner-Tyler  connection.42 


386 


BLACK  MEN  AND  BLACK  REPUBLICANS 


It  is  quite  sensibly  felt  by  all  that  the  success  of  the 
Black  Republicans  would  be  the  knell  of  the  Union. 

JOHN    TYLER,    JULY    1856 


The  unexpected  death  of  Alexander  Gardiner  momentarily  unhinged  the 
entire  Gardiner-Tyler  family  alliance.  Serving  as  its  lawyer,  broker, 
banker,  rent  collector,  speculator,  and  political  analyst,  and  as  Tyler's 
appointed  biographer,  his  sudden  departure  from  the  scene  produced 
lamentations,  confusion,  and,  finally,  the  necessity  of  reorganizing  the 
administration  of  all  family  affairs.  John  Tyler  was  particularly  upset  by 
his  young  brother-in-law's  passing.  "The  President  feels  as  if  he  had  lost 
his  chief  prop,"  Julia  wrote  of  the  shock  experienced  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
"Alexander  and  he  alone  understood  his  thoughts  and  feelings  entirely. 
Upon  him  he  depended  for  his  posthumous  fame.  He  was  literally  the 
chosen  friend  of  his  bosom,  and  he  felt  for  him  a  deeper  affection  than 
he  had  ever  felt  for  an  own  brother."  1 

Alexander  fell  ill  on  Friday,  January  17,  1851,  following  a  strenuous 
round  of  midwinter  social  activities  which  had  kept  him  out  late  and 
brought  him  home  inebriated  for  three  successive  evenings.  He  com- 
plained  initially  of  sharp  abdominal  pains,  later  diagnosed  as  "severe 
bilious  colic  which  terminated  in  inflammation  of  the  bowels."  He  had 
had  several  such  attacks  before,  the  most  recent  during  his  second  trip 
to  Caseyville  in  June  1848.  Three  prominent  doctors  were  called  into  the 
boardinghouse  room  at  Houston  and  Crosby  streets  in  which  he  was  liv- 
ing at  the  time.  With  David  Lyon  and  John  Beeckman  absent  in  Cali- 
fornia, Juliana  and  Margaret  had  given  up  the  Lafayette  Place  house 
in  April  1850,  auctioned  some  of  the  furniture,  and  moved  back  to  East 
Hampton.  At  the  time  of  Alexander's  final  illness,  however,  the  ladies 

387 


were  at  Sherwood  Forest  for  their  annual  midwinter  visit.  News  of  his 
serious  condition  was  telegraphed  to  Charles  City  on  January  21.  Thor- 
oughly alarmed  by  this  report,  Juliana  and  Margaret  departed  Sher- 
wood Forest  the  same  afternoon  to  hurry  to  Alexander's  bedside.  They 
had  barely  reached  Baltimore  the  following  day  when  they  read  a  news- 
paper account  that  their  son  and  brother  had  died  on  the  evening  of 
January  21. 

During  his  last  hours  Alexander  was  quiet  and  rational,  although  he 
suffered  severe  pain.  He  seemed  to  know  that  he  was  dying  and  he  spoke 
calmly  of  his  imminent  fate  to  his  uncle  Nathaniel  Gardiner,  his  cousin 
Dr.  William  Henry  Gardiner  of  Brooklyn,  the  Reverend  Henry  M. 
Denison,  Richard  M.  Stilwell,  his  law  clerk,  and  others  who  visited  his 
sickbed  near  the  end.  Having  no  disposition  to  draw  up  a  formal  will,  he 
told  Stilwell  exactly  how  he  wanted  his  estate  distributed.  Julia  was  to 
receive  his  three-eighths  interest  in  the  Caseyville  lands  "on  account  of 
her  associations  and  position  in  society  she  will  naturally  be  more  ex- 
pensive in  her  mode  of  living."  David  Lyon  was  released  from  all  finan- 
cial obligations  to  him  from  their  joint  California  speculations.  His 
mother  was  to  receive  everything  else,  his  share  of  his  father's  estate,  and 
some  $15,000  worth  of  stocks,  bonds,  and  real  estate  parcels  in  New 
York  City.  Margaret,  he  told  Stilwell,  would  be  looked  out  for  by  her 
mother.  With  these  details  attended  to,  he  assured  his  anxious  friends 
that  he  was  not  afraid  to  die.  Indeed,  his  last  words  were:  "I  don't  know 
if  I  care  whether  I  live  or  die.  I  am  not  particularly  fond  of  the  world. 
I  believe  in  the  Christian  religion.  I  would  not  take  one  word  from  it." 
At  7  P.M.  on  Tuesday,  January  21,  1851,  Alexander  Gardiner,  aged 
thirty-two,  died  of  a  ruptured  appendix  as  three  of  New  York's  "most 
skillful  physicians"  stood  helplessly  by  his  bedside.  "He  died  as  peace- 
fully as  an  infant  would  lie  down  to  sleep,"  said  Margaret. 

The  funeral  was  held  in  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  by  the  Rev- 
erend Gregory  Thurston  Bedell  on  January  28  with  members  of  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court,  the  New  York  bar,  and  the  old  Tyler  party 
in  New  York  City  present  in  numbers.  On  the  following  day  Alexander 
was  buried  at  East  Hampton.  Obituaries  were  carried  in  important  news- 
papers from  New  York  to  Richmond,  Since  one  of  his  last  official  acts  as 
a  Clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court  had  been  the  handling  of  the  controversial 
James  Hamlet  fugitive  slave  case  in  such  a  way  as  to  "create  a  feeling 
of  great  respect  for  him  at  the  South,"  his  passing  was  noted  with  more 
than  casual  interest  in  that  section.2 

Alexander's  sudden  departure  emotionally  overwhelmed  the  women 
of  the  family.  Juliana  felt  that  had  she  been  with  him  at  the  end  her 
longstanding  knowledge  of  his  physical  condition  might  have  helped 
him.  While  Margaret  and  Julia  assured  her  that  this  was  an  unreason- 
able and  masochistic  attitude,  that  nothing  known  to  medical  science 
could  have  saved  Alexander,  they  did  agree  with  her  that  David  Lyon 

388 


should  be  urged  to  return  speedily  from  California  to  take  charge  of 
family  affairs.  Awaiting  Ms  return,  Juliana  and  Margaret  rented  rooms 
in  a  private  home  on  Clinton  Avenue  in  the  Bedford  section  of  Brook- 
lyn. "It  looks  like  a  delightful  country  village/'  said  Juliana;  "I  like  it 
much  better  than  living  in  the  City."  They  also  procured  a  French 
nurse,  "who  cannot  speak  a  word  of  English/7  to  help  with  little  Harry, 
turned  over  the  complete  management  of  the  Gardiner  properties  in 
New  York  to  Richard  Stilwell,  and  fired  the  first  salvos  in  the  long 
battle  to  settle  John  H.  Beeckman's  estate  in  California  as  quickly  and 
profitably  as  possible. 

At  the  same  time,  Sherwood  Forest  was  assured  that  the  President's 
various  personal  notes  would  be  underwritten  and  secured  as  they  had 
been  in  the  past  when  Alexander  handled  Tyler's  financial  affairs  in  New 
York.  Indeed,  Tyler  discovered  within  a  month  of  Alexander's  death 
that  his  seasonal  cash  shortage  and  the  necessity  of  juggling  his  notes 
and  bills  of  credit  from  one  New  York  bank  to  another  would  become 
insoluble  problems  without  continuing  Gardiner  aid.  For  this  reason  he 
spent  some  anxious  moments  until  Juliana's  assurances  on  the  subject 
reached  him.  Julia  diplomatically  arranged  this  touchy  situation  with 
her  mother,  explaining  that 

The  President  will  require  someone  to  take  Alexander's  place  in  giving  him 
the  free  use  of  their  name  for  his  accommodation  in  Ms  worldly  matters . . . 
I  hope  therefore  you  will  at  once  offer  your  name  to  Mm  to  continue  matters 
as  they  stood  between  Mm  and  A.  Yotir  name  only  is  required  and  he  meets 
everytMng  else . . .  when  I  hear  from  you  I  shall  tell  the  President  that  I 
had  written  you  to  propose  you  should  take  Alexander's  place  in  assisting  Mm 
in  Ms  affairs  and  you  unhesitatingly  consented.  I  shall  look  for  your  reply  to 
ease  the  perplexity  the  President  I  see  is  feeling — and,  of  course,  myself  also. 

Less  diplomatically,  Julia  made  clear  to  her  mother  her  doubts  that 
Alexander  meant  to  exclude  her  from  that  part  of  his  estate  above  and 
beyond  the  Caseyville  property.  She  was  certain  he  had  not  regarded  the 
Kentucky  bequest  a  full  settlement  of  the  25  per  cent  portion  of  the 
income  of  his  clerkship  due  her  under  their  1845  agreement.  "I  know 
that  no  one  in  the  family  as  yet  requires  so  much  as  myself,  with  my 
three  children,"  she  reminded  Juliana.  "It  seems  to  me  that  if  anything 
remains  after  the  payments  of  debts  and  bequests  it  should  be  divided 
between  yourself,  D.,  M.,  and  myself  and ...  if  you  would  throw  in 
your  part  for  our  benefit  it  would  add  much  to  our  comfort  while  it 
would  be  of  small  value  to  you.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  it  would  leave 
a  smaller  amount  of  the  President's  notes  to  be  paid."  3 

WMle  these  fiscal  matters  were  being  settled  to  Julia's  satisfaction, 
though  not  without  strained  feelings  all  around,  David  Lyon  returned  to 
New  York  from  San  Diego.  He  took  charge  of  meeting  the  small  claims 
against  Ms  brother's  estate,  and  he  confirmed  the  arrangement  under 

389 


which  Stilwell  would  manage  the  family  rental  properties  in  town.  Mean- 
while, Juliana,  Margaret,  and  Harry  left  Brooklyn  and  returned  to  East 
Hampton  to  live.  They  soon  decided,  however,  that  the  place  was  far  too 
lonely  and  isolated.  Since  Juliana  was  determined  to  take  a  more  active 
personal  interest  in  the  administration  of  her  New  York  properties,  she 
decided  to  move  closer  to  the  city. 

In  1852  the  house  and  several  lots  in  East  Hampton  were  sold,  some 
of  the  furniture  there  was  disposed  of  at  auction,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
funds  realized  was  invested  in  a  large  house  and  eleven-acre  property  on 
Staten  Island  (what  is  now  West  New  Brighton)  known  as  Castleton 
Hill.  Juliana,  Margaret,  and  her  three-year-old  son  moved  there  in  May 
1852.  When  David  Lyon  had  recovered  several  thousand  dollars  of  his 
California  investment  from  Bleeker's  liquidation  of  their  San  Diego 
partnership,  he  too  located  on  Staten  Island,  purchasing  a  seventy- 
three-acre  farm  at  Northfield,  about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  his 
mother's  property.  He  made  this  decision  only  after  John  Tyler  and 
Julia,  working  through  State  Supreme  Court  Judge  James  I.  Roosevelt, 
had  failed  in  their  attempt  to  procure  for  him  the  patronage  job  of 
Marshal  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  Eastern  District  of  New  York. 

Beginning  in  March  1853  David  Lyon  Gardiner  reluctantly  became 
a  gentleman  farmer  on  Staten  Island,  a  casual  pursuit  varied  by  oc- 
casional attention  to  the  legal  problems  of  the  Gardiner  properties  in  the 
city.  The  actual  labor  on  his  farm  was  done  by  a  series  of  tenants.  None 
of  these  hired  hands  suited  David  any  more  than  a  steady  stream  of 
various  Irish  domestics  suited  his  meticulous  mother.  Consequently, 
throughout  the  remainder  of  the  decade  Gardiner  servants  and  tenants 
on  Staten  Island  came  and  went  by  the  platoon.  In  the  city,  Stilwell 
undertook  the  day-to-day  work  that  the  family's  real  estate  holdings 
required.  The  livability  of  the  Gardiner  houses  in  New  York  gradually 
deteriorated,  but  their  value  mounted  steadily  as  the  city  grew  and  pros- 
pered. The  Gardiner  philosophy  of  landlordism  had  long  been  that  the 
tenant  was  always  wrong,  and  Juliana  did  nothing  to  disturb  this  hoary 
tradition.  "All  embellishments  must  be  at  the  cost  of  the  tenant,"  she  de- 
creed. And  at  no  time  did  she  consider  young  Stilwell  quite  firm  enough 
in  dealing  with  the  destructive,  complaining  malingerers  who  invariably 
inhabited  her  premises.4 

During  none  of  these  trials,  disappointments,  and  crises  in  the 
family  circle  did  John  Tyler  or  his  in-laws  lose  interest  in  or  surrender 
an  active  connection  with  American  politics.  Tyler  was  not  convinced 
that  his  own  political  career  was  over.  He  even  derived  some  wry  satis- 
faction when  the  Charles  City  Whigs  selected  him  overseer  of  roads  for 
the  county  in  1847.  Designed  to  humiliate  him,  his  election  was  con- 
sidered a  great  joke  by  the  local  Whigs.  But  so  hard  and  long  did  Tyler 
keep  the  slaves  requisitioned  for  this  work  at  road  duty  (this  at  the 

390 


height  of  the  harvest  season)  that  the  jokes ters  were  soon  pleading  for 
his  resignation  and  an  end  to  road-building.  "Offices  are  hard  to  obtain 
in  these  times,"  he  teased  them  in  reply,  "and  having  no  assurance  that 
I  will  ever  get  another,  I  could  not  think  tinder  the  circumstances  of 
resigning."  Work  on  the  roads  continued.  Less  humorous  to  Tyler  was 
the  realization  that  his  political  influence  in  Washington  had  waned  so 
much  by  1848  that  he  could  do  nothing  effective  to  help  Robert  Tyler's 
vain  quest  for  appointment  to  a  proposed  diplomatic  mission  to  Rome. 
Similarly,  a  trip  to  New  York  in  December  1847  conclusively  demon- 
strated to  him  that  there  was  no  remaining  interest  in  that  quarter  for 
another  Tyler  attempt  at  Presidential  politics.  Instead  of  rallying  the 
old  Tylerite  hosts  in  Gotham,  his  visit  did  little  more  than  stimulate 
newspaper  speculation  that  Tyler  had  come  to  the  city  to  marshal  his 
friends  behind  the  Whig  candidacy  of  General  Zachary  Taylor — a  charge 
Tyler  hotly  denied.  "I  am  wholly  unconnected  with  the  political  in- 
trigues of  the  day  and  cloak  myself  under  no  secret  movements  what- 
ever," he  wrote  the  editor  of  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce.  His 
statement  was  accurate,  although  the  former  President  might  have 
wished  it  otherwise.  Tyler  was  detached  from  the  national  political 
scene.  The  time  had  come,  said  the  New  York  Herald  patronizingly,  to 
forget  about  John  Tyler  as  a  force  in  American  politics,  "for  that  once 
distinguished  man,  whom  the  steamboat  left  on  the  wharf — lady,  trunk, 
and  all — has  long  since  ceased  to  possess  any  influence  for  either  good 
or  evil."  5 

The  time  would  again  come  when  Tyler  would  have  influence,  but 
in  early  1848  his  political  role  was  reduced  to  remaining  "entirely  pas- 
sive until  election  day."  He  watched  the  Presidential  boom  for  the 
Virginia-born,  slaveowning  Zachary  Taylor  with  neutrality  and  disinter- 
est. In  March  1848  he  learned  from  Juliana  and  Margaret  that  Clay 
demonstrations  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia  had  fizzled  as  the  Ken- 
tuckian's  last  bid  for  the  White  House  ran  head-on  into  the  hard  fact 
that  most  Whigs  preferred  an  inept  old  general  who  could  win  an  elec- 
tion to  a  brilliant  and  controversial  two-time  loser  who  could  only  lose 
again.  This  news  of  Clay's  embarrassment  pleased  Tyler,  as  did  a  report 
from  Alexander  in  February  1848  that  all  the  old  Tylerites  in  New  York 
were  for  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan  because  of  his  sturdy  opposition  to  the 
Wilmot  Proviso.  The  pro-Proviso  Van  Buren  Democrats,  opposed  as 
they  were  to  the  further  extension  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  continued 
to  command  as  little  support  at  Lafayette  Place  and  Sherwood  Forest  as 
did  Clay  and  the  Whigs. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  Tyler-Gardiner  family,  the  nomination 
of  Taylor  and  Cass  to  head  the  two  tickets  was  perhaps  the  best  the 
country  could  hope  for,  since  both  men  were  basically  "safe"  on  the 
slavery  issue.  Robert  Tyler  embraced  Cass  reluctantly — only  when  it 
became  apparent  that  his  friend  and  mentor  James  Buchanan  was  beaten 

391 


for  the  nomination  in  the  Baltimore  convention  in  May  1848;  then  he 
endorsed  Lewis  Cass.  "If  Genl.  Cass  be  defeated,  as  entre  nous  he  will 
certainly  be/'  Robert  wrote  Buchanan  pessimistically  in  July,  "the  very- 
foundations  of  the  party  will  be  swept  up  as  with  a  deluge."  When  the 
Whigs  in  June  passed  over  the  controversial  Clay  and  nominated  Zach 
Taylor  and  Millard  Fillmore  to  oppose  Cass  and  General  William  O. 
Butler  of  Kentucky,  the  entire  family  (except  David  Lyon)  unenthusi- 
astically supported  the  Democratic  nominee  while  freely  predicting  the 
inevitability  of  Old  Zach's  election.  These  predictions  involved  no 
psychic  insights.  The  Democracy  was  badly  split  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso, 
and  a  divided  Democracy  could  not  win.  With  Van  Buren  running  on  a 
third-party  Free  Soil  ticket  in  the  North,  it  was  certain  that  the  Cass 
vote  there  would  be  badly  fractured,  as  indeed  it  was. 

On  the  whole,  the  1848  campaign  was  an  exercise  in  political  tip- 
toeing. Both  major  party  candidates  submerged  the  slavery  question  as 
best  they  could  and  both  took  moderate  positions  on  all  other  issues  that 
threatened  further  to  divide  their  respective  followers  into  the  internal 
sectional  contradictions  inherent  in  each  group.  The  result  was  never  in 
doubt.  Cass  could  not  win,  and  Taylor  had  only  to  remain  studiously 
vague  on  all  issues  to  keep  from  losing.  This  he  managed  to  do  without 
trying.  Tyler  voted  quietly  for  the  lackluster  Cass,  and  privately  blamed 
the  Democracy's  expected  defeat  on  Polk.  Young  Hickory,  said  Tyler, 
had  commenced  his 

administration  by  a  war  on  all  my  friends.  I  have  sustained  them  as  well  as  I 
was  able  in  a  quiet  way,  and  I  have  voted  for  Cass,  but  Mr.  Polk  inflicted  the 
immedicable  vulnus  on  the  Democratic  party  in  the  onset,  by  rejecting  the 
aid  which  had  brought  him  to  power.  Van  Buren  and  the  men  of  no  principle 

were  courted  and  the  true  men  thrown  off Now  all  things  have  to  become 

new.  The  end  we  shall  probably  live  long  enough  to  see. 

If  the  election  statistics  failed  to  support  the  Tyler  analysis  that  Polk 
was  the  evil  genius  of  the  piece  (the  Van  Buren  candidacy,  not  Polk's 
treatment  of  the  Tylerites,  had  cost  Cass  New  York  state  and  the  36 
electoral  votes  there  that  would  have  spelled  a  Democratic  victory),  the 
ex-President  could  take  comfort  in  the  fact  that  the  Democratic  press 
began  treating  him  more  gently  after  the  Cass  debacle.  While  this  new 
orientation  in  no  way  helped  him  secure  midnight  patronage  positions 
from  the  outgoing  Polk  for  son  Robert  or  for  nephew  M.  B.  Seawell,  it 
did  encourage  him  to  believe  that  he  was  no  longer  living  entirely  out- 
side the  Democratic  pale.  Nor  did  Taylor's  success  at  the  polls  really 
disturb  him.  "I  shall  not  shed  many  tears  at  the  result/'  Tyler  con- 
cluded. "Poor  Van!  He  is  literally  a  used-up  man;  and  Clay,  let  him 
shed  tears  over  the  fact  that  anybody  can  be  elected  but  himself."  6 
The  Taylor  administration  was  not  a  brilliant  one.  The  old  General 
had  never  voted  prior  to  1848,  his  personal  political  views  ranged  from 

392 


the  confused  to  the  obscure,  and  the  Whig  Party  had  again,  as  in  1840, 
carefully  refrained  from  adopting  or  running  on  a  platform.  The  new 
President  had  no  program.  When  in  his  Inaugural  Address  the  fuzzy- 
minded  hero  seriously  suggested  that  California  was  too  distant  to  be- 
come a  state  and  might  well  become  an  independent  nation  instead, 
some  Americans  wondered  about  his  sanity.  Jarred  from  this  quaint  view 
by  William  H.  Seward  and  other  antislavery  Northern  Whigs  and  Demo- 
crats who  wanted  California  in  the  Union  as  a  free  state,  Taylor  quickly 
reversed  himself  and  announced  that  he  would  welcome  California  into 
the  Union,  with  the  slavery  question  there  to  be  decided  on  the  basis  of 
"squatter  sovereignty."  This  controversial  idea,  advanced  by  Lewis  Cass 
in  the  1848  campaign,  sought  to  remove  the  question  of  slavery  exten- 
sion into  new  territories  from  congressional  control  and  politics.  Instead, 
the  inhabitants  of  a  territory  would  decide  the  slavery  question  for  them- 
selves locally  and  democratically,  and  then  apply  for  admission  to  the 
Union  either  as  a  free  state  or  a  slave  state.  Under  this  concept  Cali- 
fornia applied  for  entrance  as  a  free  state  in  March  1850,  and  in  so 
doing  threatened  to  upset  the  numerical  balance  of  free  and  slave  states. 
But  well  before  this  crisis  over  the  future  status  of  slavery  in  the  vast 
territories  wrested  from  Mexico  split  the  nation  and  threatened  civil 
war,  the  Tyler-Gardiner  family  had  passed  harsh  judgment  on  the 
fumbling  Taylor  administration. 

Indeed,  Tyler  took  one  look  at  the  Cabinet  Taylor  assembled 
around  him  after  the  election  and  told  Alexander  that  he  was  "ready  to 
admit  the  complete  ascendancy  of  old-fashioned  Federalism  in  the  U.S." 
Taylor's  appointment  of  "that  scoundrel  Ewing"  to  the  new  Department 
of  the  Interior  particularly  upset  him.  He  interpreted  it  as  nothing  less 
than  a  Clay  maneuver  to  "reward"  Thomas  Ewing  "for  his  perfidies  to 
me."  This  was  a  thin-skinned  and  inaccurate  view  of  the  appointment 
of  Tyler's  former  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  Taylor's  Cabinet.  Never- 
theless, Tyler  was  never  able  to  forgive  or  forget  those  men  who  had 
participated  in  the  Cabinet  resignation  "plot"  of  September  1841,  and 
on  this  point  his  conspiracy  theory  of  history  never  changed.  "I  rejoice 
most  heartily  now  in  my  vote  for  Cass,"  he  finally  decided. 

In  spite  of  his  hostility  to  Taylor,  Tyler  was  not  averse  to  support- 
ing the  patronage  importunities  of  his  friends  and  relatives.  In  fact,  both 
the  ex-President  and  Alexander  Gardiner  thought  their  chances  of  get- 
ting something  from  Taylor  "somewhat  more  promising"  than  from 
Polk.  Thus  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  John  Lorimer  Graham,  David  Lyon  Gar- 
diner, William  Bray  Gardiner  (Julia's  first  cousin),  and  other  Tylerites 
were  strongly  recommended  to  the  new  administration  for  patronage 
jobs.  Needless  to  say,  none  of  these  stalwarts  received  appointments.7 

Patronage  matters  faded  quickly  into  the  background  for  John 
Tyler  when  California's  application  for  admission  into  the  Union  as  a 
free  state  triggered  sharp  sectional  animosities  and  led  to  the  introduc- 

393 


tion  of  Henry  Clay's  third  and  last  great  compromise  measure.  Amid 
much  talk  of  secession  and  civil  war  during  the  spring  and  summer  of 
1850,  Congress  hammered  Clay's  resolutions  into  a  series  of  legislative 
acts  collectively  known  as  the  Compromise  of  1850.  Under  these,  Cali- 
fornia was  to  be  admitted  as  a  free  state;  the  New  Mexico  and  Utah 
territories  were  to  be  organized  on  the  basis  of  "squatter  sovereignty" 
("popular  sovereignty,"  as  Stephen  A.  Douglas  more  elegantly  dubbed 
it)  with  the  understanding  that  all  questions  regarding  slavery  in  these 
territories  would  be  reviewed  by  the  Supreme  Court;  a  new  Fugitive 
Slave  Act  placed  the  pursuit  and  recovery  of  runaway  slaves  under 
federal  legal  jurisdiction;  and  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
was  to  be  abolished, 

As  these  controversial  suggestions  emerged  from  committee  and 
into  law,  Tyler  concluded  that  the  main  hope  for  avoiding  civil  war  lay 
in  the  ability  of  the  Democratic  Party  to  maintain  its  unity  across  sec- 
tional lines  and  avoid  support  of  any  and  all  extreme  solutions  to  the 
nation's  problems.  He  was  no  more  impressed,  therefore,  with  William 
H.  Seward's  denunciation  of  the  Compromise  as  "radically  wrong  and 
essentially  vicious"  than  he  was  with  Jefferson  Davis'  demand  that  Con- 
gress not  interfere  with  slavery  anywhere  or  under  any  conditions.  He 
objected  to  Ohio  Senator  Salmon  P.  Chase's  view  that  it  was  the  moral 
duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  he  regarded 
as  dangerous  extremism  the  dying  Calhoun's  demand  on  March  4  that 
the  South  be  given  virtually  an  autonomous  status  within  the  Union. 
Instead,  he  warmly  supported  Cass,  Douglas,  and  Mississippi  Senator 
Henry  S.  Foote  in  their  endorsement  of  the  Clay  compromise  proposals. 
These  moderate  Democrats  Tyler  saw  as  the  true  saviors  of  the  party 
and  of  the  nation,  a  vision  which  caused  him  to  argue  that  the  expulsion 
of  lunatic-fringe  free-soil  and  abolitionist  elements  from  the  Democracy 
would  have  to  be  accomplished  if  the  party  was  to  endure: 

The  Democratic  party  [he  wrote  Robert]  can  only  hope  for  success  by  dis- 
carding from  among  them  the  Free-Soilers,  Abolitionists,  and  all  such  cattle. 
Let  the  Whigs,  if  they  please,  court  them,  and  take  them  to  their  embraces; 
but  let  the  true  lovers  of  the  Union  repudiate  them  as  unworthy  of  their 
association.  They  do,  indeed,  deserve  the  deepest  curses  of  the  patriot  for  hav- 
ing put  in  jeopardy  the  noblest  and  fairest  fabric  of  government  the  world 
ever  saw.  When  I  think  of  it,  all  the  milk  of  my  nature  is  turned  to  gall. . . . 
Calhoun's  speech  does  him  no  credit.  It  is  too  ultra,  and  his  ultimata  im- 
practicable  I  regard  his  speech  as  calculated  to  do  injury  to  the  Southern 

cause 8 

Given  these  attitudes,  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  Tyler 
welcomed  Daniel  Webster's  famous  Seventh  of  March  speech,  which 
fervently  appealed  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and  a  spirit  of 
compromise.  Denounced  by  Northern  fire-eaters  as  a  "traitor"  to  his 
section  for  criticizing  the  excesses  of  the  abolitionist  societies,  Webster 

394 


argued  persuasively  in  his  great  address  that  there  was  really  no  need 
for  congressional  action  on  slavery  in  the  New  Mexico  and  Utah  terri- 
tories. The  twin  impact  of  hostile  soil  and  climate  made  the  institution 
wholly  impracticable  there,  he  pointed  out.  These  views  squared  with 
those  Tyler  had  long  held,  and  Webster  was  soon  in  receipt  of  a  letter 
from  Sherwood  Forest  praising  his  patriotism  and  sagacity  and  thanking 
him  for  his  exposure  of  the  "machinations"  of  the  organized  abolitionists. 
At  the  same  time.,  however,  Tyler  felt  it  necessary  to  counter  Webster's 
Seventh  of  March  suggestion  that  the  Texas  annexation  movement  of 
1843-1845  might  indeed  have  been  launched  by  Southerners  interested 
only  in  slavery  expansion.  Tyler  hastened  to  assure  his  former  Secretary 
of  State  that  this  charge  was  partly  in  error.  Whatever  the  motives  of 
Upshur,  Calhoun,  and  other  Southern  fire-eaters  had  been  in  supporting 
annexation,  Tyler's  own  decisive  role  in  the  matter  had  turned  entirely 
upon  an  honest  desire  to  achieve  a  cotton  monopoly  for  the  whole  United 
States.9 

By  late  May  1850  Tyler  was  prepared  to  accept  the  Compromise  of 
1850  as  the  only  reasonable  alternative  to  splitting  the  Democratic 
Party  and  risking  a  civil  war.  In  endorsing  the  compromise  he  knew 
full  well  that  slavery  could  never  successfully  be  carried  into  the  arid 
wastelands  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah.  He  also  appreciated  the  fact  that 
the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  state,  together  with  the  whole 
principle  of  "popular  sovereignty/7  would  soon  doom  the  South  to  an 
inevitable  and  lasting  inferiority  in  its  political-power  balance  with  the 
North.  Clearly,  popular  sovereignty  would  result  in  more  free  states 
being  carved  from  the  remaining  territories  than  slave  states.  Yet  he 
was  prepared  to  accept  the  containment  of  slavery  and  the  political  in- 
feriority of  the  South  as  preferable  to  civil  war.  These  views  he  freely 
incorporated  into  a  letter  solicited  from  him  by  Senator  Henry  S.  Foote 
of  Mississippi.  The  letter  was  widely  circulated  by  Foote  on  Capitol 
Hill  in  his  successful  effort  to  bring  moderate  Southern  elements  to  the 
support  of  Clay's  compromise  proposals.  Later  it  was  published.  As 
Tyler  told  Alexander  Gardiner  on  May  21,  "I  go  for  the  compromise."  ia 

The  unexpected  death  of  General  Taylor  in  July  1850  and  the 
elevation  of  Vice-President  Millard  Fillmore  to  the  White  House  mo- 
mentarily threatened  the  progress  of  the  compromise  bills  through  the 
Congress.  Suspicions  swept  moderate  circles,  North  and  South,  that  Fill- 
more's  long  antislavery  background  in  New  York  might  upset  the  deli- 
cate arrangements  being  made.  Happily,  the  new  President  announced 
his  willingness  to  support  the  legislation  and  preserve  the  Union,  and  in 
September  the  compromise  package  became  law  over  his  signature.  In 
both  sections  moderate  Union  parties,  and  Union  committees  within 
the  Democracy,  sprang  into  existence  dedicated  to  the  preservation  of 
the  Compromise  of  1850  as  the  "final  solution"  to  the  trying  sectional- 
slavery  issue.  In  New  York  City  both  Alexander  Gardiner  and  John 

395 


Lorimer  Graham  took  active  roles  in  the  Union  Committee  there,  and 
the  group  enlisted  in  its  ranks  many  of  the  old  Conservative  Democrats 
and  Tylerites  of  1843-1845. 

In  spite  of  his  patriotic  stand  on  the  compromise,  Millard  Fillmore 
did  not  command  the  support  of  the  Tyler-Gardiner  family.  To  begin 
with,  the  failure  of  David  Lyon's  patronage  safari  into  the  San  Diego 
Customs  House  was  not  accepted  by  the  clan  with  exceptionally  good 
grace.  Not  only  did  Tyler  have  no  patronage  influence  with  the  new 
administration  ("of  the  administration  I  can  ask  nothing/7  he  lamented), 
but  he  also  became  increasingly  worried  lest  Fillmore  not  throw  the  full 
power  and  prestige  of  the  federal  government  behind  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Act.  This  particular  portion  of  the  1850  legislation  had  done  much  to 
marshal  Southern  support  behind  the  compromise  package.  At  the 
same  time,  it  was  this  very  section  of  the  compromise  that  most  in- 
furiated the  Northern  abolitionists.  They  regarded  it  as  bestial  and 
inhumane  and  in  violation  of  a  higher  moral  law  that  completely  tran- 
scended the  Constitution.  While  Tyler  himself  had  no  problem  with 
runaway  Negroes  at  Sherwood  Forest,  he  had  assumed,  in  publicly  sup- 
porting the  compromise,  that  the  Act  would  be  administered  with 
"impartial  justice"  and  that  the  recovery  of  Southern  slave  property 
from  the  North  would  be  accomplished  with  speed  and  decision  by 
federal  authorities.  As  he  phrased  his  view  of  this  point  in  his  letter  to 
Senator  Foote,  "what  I  should  chiefly  desire  to  see  would  be  the . . . 
effectual  delivery  of  the  fugitive  by  some  means  to  prevent  recapture. 
There  is  so  solemn  an  obligation  resting  on  the  government  to  carry 
faithfully  into  execution  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  on  this  point, 
that  I  cannot  believe  that  an  objection  will  be  made  to  the  most  strin- 
gent provision."  u 

By  December  1850  there  was  so  much  agitation  by  abolitionist  ex- 
tremists for  the  overthrow  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  much  of  it  from 
the  pen  of  George  Thompson,  the  celebrated  British  abolitionist,  that 
Tyler  was  prepared  to  blame  the  entire  anti-Fugitive  Slave  movement 
on  self-serving  English  interference  in  American  internal  affairs.  He  even 
toyed  momentarily  with  the  irresponsible  idea  that  provoking  a  war  with 
Britain  on  the  Thompson  intervention  issue  might  serve  to  heal  the  sec- 
tional split  in  an  excited  burst  of  American  patriotism.  As  seen  through 
Tyler's  Anglophobic  window  on  the  world,  the  rascally  Redcoats  had 
fastened  slavery  on  America  in  the  first  place.  Now  they  might  perform 
a  really  useful  service  to  the  United  States  by  obliging  the  nation  with 
a  therapeutic  war.  "An  earthquake  of  some  sort  would  seem  to  be  neces- 
sary," he  told  Alexander,  "[for]  unless  a  new  direction  is  given  to  the 
public  mind,  I  cannot  augur  results."  The  censure  of  Senator  Foote  by 
the  Mississippi  legislature  for  his  moderate  stance  on  the  Compromise 
of  1850  strengthened  Tyler's  belief  that  the  very  fabric  of  the  compro- 
mise was  being  torn  to  shreds  by  extremists  on  both  sides.  Only  in  the 

396 


flames  of  a  foreign  war  "might  the  disturbers  of  our  harmony  be  con- 
sumed." At  no  time  did  he  agree  with  John  Tyler,  Jr.'s  view  that  instant 
Southern  secession  was  the  answer  to  the  problem.  Tyler  did  not  want  a 
civil  war.  An  Anglo-American  war  would  do.  This  bellicose  mood  even- 
tually passed,  however,  and  the  former  President  vented  his  ire  instead 
in  an  anonymous  letter  to  John  S.  Cunningham,  editor  of  the  Ports- 
mouth Pilot.  It  was  an  indignant  and  ill-considered  communication 
dashed  off  in  less  than  an  hour  on  December  10,  1850.  In  it  he  demanded 
that  Fillmore  support  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  firmly  and  vigorously: 

It  is  the  law  of  the  land. . . .  Let  him  discharge  it  faithfully,  boldly  and  un- 
flinchingly. No  half-willing  marshalls,  no  doubting  commissioners. . . .  No 
prying  about  for  a  subterfuge  under  which  to  escape,  no  honeyed  words. . . . 
Let  the  President . . .  pledge  the  army  and  navy  to  sustain  them  if  needs  be. 
The  time  for  fair  words,  easily  spoken,  has  passed.  The  time  for  decision  and 
action  is  at  hand.  Let  him  begin  the  work  of  seriousness  with  "the  Hon." 
George  Thompson,  member  of  Parliament ...  by  remonstrance  to  the  British 
govt . . .  and  then  he  is  ready  for  the  Garrisons  and  their  allies.12 

For  an  old  enemy  of  the  1833  Force  Bill  these  were  ironical  words. 
But  Tyler  felt  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  alone  had  reconciled  Southern 
moderates  and  unionists  to  the  total  compromise  deal.  Destroy  the  ef- 
fectiveness of  that  mollifying  sweetener,  he  argued,  and  the  secessionist 
extremists  in  Dixie  would  ultimately  force  the  slavery  question  to  civil 
war.  Tyler  fully  appreciated  the  difficulties  a  Vice-President  had  in 
coming  suddenly  to  power,  but  he  feared  that  the  Buffalo  politician 
would  prove  too  weak  to  parry  abolitionist  pressure  to  repeal  the  legis- 
lation. "There  are  but  few  men  in  the  world  who  have  the  moral  bold- 
ness to  face  all  odds  and  encounter  all  hazards  in  the  honest  discharge 
of  duty,  and  we  must  express  the  fear  that  Millard  Fillmore  is  not  one 
of  them,"  he  told  the  readers  of  the  Pilot.1* 


The  slavery  controversy  was  brought  home  even  more  forcefully 
and  personally  to  the  Gardiner-Tyler  family  when  Alexander,  in  the  last 
months  before  his  death,  found  himself  in  the  heated  middle  of  the 
controversial  James  Hamlet  case.  Serving  as  a  federal  commissioner  in 
New  York  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  Alexander  was  involved  in  a 
much-criticized  action  which  saw  James  Hamlet,  a  porter  in  the  store  of 
Tilton  and  Maloney  on  Water  Street,  and  allegedly  a  runaway  slave 
from  Baltimore,  arrested  and  given  over  to  Mary  Brown  of  Baltimore, 
his  master.  Unfortunately  for  Alexander,  the  case  was  not  so  clear-cut 
as  it  might  have  been,  nor  were  the  legal  procedures  he  employed  beyond 
criticism. 

In  the  first  place,  instead  of  taking  the  depositions  himself,  Alexan- 
der permitted  his  deputy,  Charles  M.  Hall,  to  collect  the  initial  data 
on  Hamlet's  legal  status.  Hall  was  a  competent  young  upstate  lawyer, 

397 


but  not  a  qualified  commissioner  under  the  meaning  and  wording  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Act  and  thus  not  empowered  to  take  depositions.  In  the 
formal  hearings  over  which  Alexander  did  preside  personally,  in  Sep- 
tember 1850,  there  was  also  much  to  fault.  As  the  American  and  Foreign 
Anti-Slavery  Society  charged  in  its  subsequent  pamphlet  on  the  matter, 
Hamlet  "was  taken  into  a  retired  room  in  the  second  storey  of  the  old 
City  Hall,  and  the  Commissioner,  without  any  notice  to  any  acquaint- 
ance of  the  prisoner,  without  assigning  him  any  counsel,  or  giving  him  a 
moment's  opportunity  to  send  for  assistance,  proceeded  with  hot  haste, 
ex-par te,  to  take  the  testimony  of  [Thomas  J.]  Clare,  the  son-in-law 
of  the  alleged  claimant,  and  young  Gustavus  Brown,  her  son,  in  proof 
that  the  prisoner  was  her  slave."  A  bystander  happened  to  overhear 
what  was  going  on  and  sent  immediately  for  a  lawyer  to  appear  for 
Hamlet.  The  lawyer  arrived  in  time  to  elicit  by  cross-examination  the 
fact  that  Mary  Brown  was  not  Hamlet's  owner  of  record  as  defined  by 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Act.  She  had  leased  Hamlet  to  the  Baltimore  Shot 
Company,  which  Clare  served  as  clerk,  prior  to  the  Negro's  "escape" 
from  Maryland  in  1848.  Hamlet  insisted  during  the  hearing  he  was  a 
free  man  and  that  his  mother  was  a  free  woman.  "But  the  law  pro- 
hibited his  testimony  from  being  taken,  and  Commissioner  Gardiner, 
upon  the  testimony  of  two  family  witnesses  . .  .  decided  that  the  prisoner 
was  a  slave  of  the  claimant,  and  doomed  him  to  perpetual  bondage . . . 
not  by  verdict  of  a  jury  but  by  the  fiat  of  a  mere  clerk  whom  the  law 
has  constituted  slave-catcher  for  Southern  masters." 

Within  a  few  days  Commissioner  Gardiner's  office  became  the  swirl- 
ing storm  center  of  a  concerted  abolitionist  effort  to  hamstring  the  opera- 
tion of  the  hated  Fugitive  Slave  law.  "The  affair,"  said  Alexander,  "kept 
my  office  in  confusion  more  than  a  week  and  gave  me  more  trouble  than 
any  one  nigger  was  worth."  The  fact  that  the  law  permitted  no  Negro 
who  claimed  to  be  a  freedman  (as  Hamlet  vigorously  did)  the  right  to  a 
trial  by  jury,  or  even  the  right  to  give  testimony  in  his  own  behalf, 
outraged  the  abolitionists.  So  too  did  the  fact  that  a  simple  affidavit  by 
a  claimant  was  regarded  as  sufficient  proof  of  his  ownership  of  an  alleged 
fugitive.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  whatever  its  purely  political  merits  as 
part  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  flew  foolishly  in  the  face  of  everything 
the  American  judicial  system  represented  in  the  area  of  responsible  trial 
procedures.  Common  fairness  was  found  nowhere  in  it.  Instead,  it  es- 
tablished star-chamber  techniques  which  mocked,  on  racial  grounds 
alone,  the  basic  rights  of  the  individual  under  traditional  Anglo-Saxon 
law. 

The  abolitionists  were  handed  a  strong  moral  argument,  and  they 
lost  no  time  making  the  most  of  it.  The  crusade  for  James  Hamlet  was 
led  by  William  Jay,  son  of  the  former  Supreme  Court  Chief  Justice  and 
one  of  New  York  City's  most  active  and  dedicated  abolitionists.  Jay 
centered  his  criticism  of  Alexander's  handling  of  the  Hamlet  case  on  the 

398 


technical  question  of  Charles  M.  Hall's  competence  in  taking  the 
depositions.  He  argued  that  Alexander's  deputy  was  not  a  bona  fide 
commissioner  under  the  law  and  had  no  business  being  involved  in  the 
case  at  all.  The  whole  procedure  before  Gardiner's  bench  had  therefore 
been  an  improper  one  from  start  to  finish.  Alexander's  surrender  of 
Hamlet  to  his  alleged  owner,  concluded  Jay,  was  both  immoral  and 
illegal.14 

Alexander  Gardiner  was  strongly  antiabolitionist  and  had  been  so 
since  his  undergraduate  days  at  Princeton.  To  him,  a  slave  was  private 
property,  and  a  master  had  as  much  right  to  recover  a  fugitive  as  he 
did  a  strayed  horse.  Not  surprisingly,  he  considered  Jay's  arguments 
irrelevant  and  he  went  through  with  the  Hamlet  transfer  to  Baltimore. 
He  was  stung,  however,  by  abolitionist  letters  vehemently  condemning 
his  role  in  the  case,  some  of  them  addressed  to  him  from  as  far  away 
as  Rockton,  Illinois.  Under  the  impact  of  these  attacks  his  patience  gave 
way,  and  he  struck  back  at  the  intervention  of  the  New  York  abolition- 
ists in  the  Hamlet  case.  In  an  unsigned  New  York  Herald  article  titled 
"The  Question  of  the  Day,"  he  pointed  out  that  the  letter  of  the  law 
had  been  faithfully  complied  with  and  that  the  whole  issue  had  been 
artificially  manufactured  and  blown  up  by  William  Jay,  "pretty  well 
known  in  this  community  for  some  years  past  in  connection  with  the 
negro  race.  He  is  an  abolitionist  of  the  darkest  shade,  and  one  of  the 
most  fanatical  and  persevering  agitators."  Defending  every  provision  of 
what  he  preferred  calling  the  "Fugitive  From  Service  Act,"  Alexander 
concluded  with  the  biting  observation  that 

We  do  not  entertain  the  idle  expectation  that  truth  or  reason  can  make  any 
impression  on  the  commingled  freesoil,  abolition,  Fourierite,  infidel  and 
woman's  rights  party.  From  Martin  Van  Buren  and  William  H.  Seward,  the 
arch  demagogues,  who  are  looking  to  a  Northern  Presidency,  to  Frederick 

Douglass  and  Samuel  Ward  (black  men) through  the  host  of  such  inferior 

lights  as  Abby  Kelley,  Horace  Greeley,  Sojourner  Truth,  Ward  Beecher, 
Rosa  Lee,  William  Jay,  Lucretia  Mott . . .  and  others  . . .  these  people  and 
their  followers  constitute  a  formidable  party,  espousing  one  side  of  the  only 
substantial  question  now  dividing  the  country-  These  are  the  abolition  party, 
engaged  in  an  effort  to  abolish — first  the  union  of  these  States,  and  then  the 
distinctions  of  color,  and  those  social  institutions  which  are  a  result  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  ages.  Against  them  is  arrayed  a  party  most  properly  designated 
as  republican,  composed  of  men  of  established  moral  views,  who  keep  in 
sight  the  imperfections  of  our  nature,  and  whose  habits  of  thought  and  action 
are  founded  on  the  old  continental  school.  The  sooner  the  empty  party 
distinctions  of  Whig  and  Democrat  are  abandoned . . .  the  sooner  we  will 
have  a  clear  field  and  a  fair  fight  on  the  only  substantial  topic  of  the  day — 
the  better  for  ourselves,  even  though  it  be  too  late  to  save  the  Union.15 

Alexander  Gardiner  did  not  live  to  discover  how  the  slavery  ques- 
tion was  finally  resolved.  Hamlet  himself  achieved  his  freedom  when  a 

399 


public  subscription  was  collected  in  New  York  to  buy  him  out  of 
slavery.  But  the  emotionalism  engendered  by  the  explosive  Hamlet  af- 
fair was  still  reverberating  throughout  the  nation  when  Alexander  died. 
As  mentioned  earlier,  his  sudden  passing  was  prominently  noted  in 
Southern  newspapers,  and  his  obituaries  in  the  South  were  tributes  to 
his  patriotic  steadfastness  in  the  face  of  the  abolitionist  provocations 
of  the  American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery  Society.  There  was  even  talk 
for  a  time  that  the  Union  Committee  of  New  York  would  erect  a  monu- 
ment over  his  grave  in  East  Hampton.  "The  South,"  said  Julia,  "would 
be  more  convinced  by  that  act  than  by  anything  they  could  do  to  show 
their  patriotism  and  real  desire  to  see  the  laws  of  their  country  upheld — 
and  it  would  create  here  one  universal  sentiment  of  approval  and  satis- 
faction." No  Union  Committee  monument  ever  materialized,  but  Sher- 
wood Forest  was  later  pleased  to  learn  that  Governor  John  B.  Floyd  of 
Virginia  had  been  in  private  correspondence  with  Alexander  during  the 
Hamlet  case.  Floyd  regarded  the  young  New  York  lawyer's  passing  a 
great  loss  to  the  South.  "His  conduct  as  United  States  Commissioner," 
agreed  Cunningham  of  the  Portsmouth  Pilot,  "showed  him  to  be  a  very 


proper  man."  16 


The  Fugitive  Slave  question  would  continue  to  trouble  the  political 
waters  of  the  nation  until  the  onset  of  the  Civil  War.  Tyler's  stand  on  so 
incendiary  an  issue  (as  expressed  in  his  public  letter  to  Senator  Foote) 
brought  him  again  into  the  national  political  limelight.  En  route  to  join 
Julia  at  Saratoga  in  September  1850,  he  was  hissed  at  an  address  he 
gave  a  group  of  law  students  in  New  York  City,  an  incident  gleefully 
reported  in  the  local  abolitionist  and  free-soil  press.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  Fugitive  Slave  attitudes  earned  him  a  favorable  hearing  among  those 
elephant-memoried  Virginia  Democrats  who  had  roundly  condemned 
him  when  he  identified  himself  with  the  Whigs  in  1836-1840. 

Indeed,  Tyler  felt  that  the  sectional  crisis  of  1850  had  actually 
benefited  and  "purified"  the  Democratic  Party  by  shaking  out  both  the 
Northern  abolitionists  and  Southern  secessionists  in  a  single  snap.  For 
this  reason  Tyler  gave  ear  to  Robert's  suggestion  that  he  support  James 
Buchanan's  renewed  quest  for  the  Democracy's  nomination  in  1852. 
Actually,  the  master  of  Sherwood  had  little  love  for  Buchanan  ("he  had 
none  for  me  in  my  severe  trials"),  but  he  sensibly  realized  that  as  long 
as  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  moderates  remained  united  on  their  Presi- 
dential candidates,  the  Democratic  Party  as  a  whole  could  probably  be 
held  together.17 

A  severe  case  of  flu  which  developed  into  pneumonia  prevented 
Tyler  from  participating  in  the  usual  preconvention  maneuverings  that 
occupied  the  politicians  during  the  early  months  of  1852.  During  this  ill- 
ness Julia  spent  many  nights  "holding  his  head  and  giving  him  warm 
drinks,"  while  her  mother  argued  for  massive  doses  of  "German  pills" 

400 


and  "alum  water."  By  April  the  former  President  was  recovered  enough 
to  take  an  active  interest  in  politics  again,  and  he  was  much  restored 
and  buoyed  when  the  Virginia  State  Democratic  Convention  retroac- 
tively endorsed  the  acts  of  his  administration  and  welcomed  him  once 
again  into  full  political  brotherhood.  There  was  even  some  talk  in  Rich- 
mond, Julia  reported,  that  his  "friends  stand  ready  to  throw  in  his 
name"  as  a  compromise  candidate  if  the  coming  Democratic  convention 
should  fail  to  reach  a  decision  among  its  half-dozen  hopefuls. 

This  endorsement  of  his  administration  by  the  Virginia  Democracy 
ended  at  last  John  Tyler's  long  battle  for  the  recovery  of  his  political 
reputation.  "I  began  to  fear,"  he  confessed  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  "that  I 
was  to  descend  to  my  grave  without  any  shadow  of  justice  being  done  to 
me  in  public  places."  The  rest  of  the  family  was  equally  cheered  by  this 
happy  turn  in  Tyler's  psychological  fortunes.  "The  endorsement  of 
Father  and  his  Administration,"  said  John,  Jr.,  "is  certainly  gratifying. 
The  time  is  surely  rapidly  coming  when  the  whole  country  will  acknowl- 
edge his  just  and  meritorious  claims  upon  its  opinions.  I  think  he  will 
live  long  enough  to  die  happy  in  the  consciousness  of  the  fact  re- 
alized. . . ." 18 

At  the  Democracy's  Baltimore  convention  in  June  1852  delegate 
Robert  Tyler  labored  diligently  (down  to  "the  very  last  ballot")  for  the 
nomination  of  James  Buchanan.  Tyler  encouraged  his  son's  activity,  and 
he  was  willing  to  accept  Old  Buck  as  the  party  standard-bearer  himself. 
He  was  not  unhappy,  however,  when  dark  horse  Franklin  Pierce  of  New 
Hampshire  was  nominated  on  the  forty-ninth  ballot.  In  fact,  several 
days  before  Pierce's  selection  Tyler  informally  polled  his  "own  family 
circle"  and  announced  that  Pierce  was  the  solid  family  choice.  He  was 
certain  that  Pierce,  a  Northern  man  with  Southern  principles,  would 
defeat  General  Winfield  Scott,  latest  and  last  of  the  Whig  soldier-hero 
candidates.  And  he  was  encouraged  by  the  prospect  that  Pierce  would 
attempt  to  knit  the  Democratic  Party  firmly  together  across  sectional 
lines  and  preserve  the  Union.  Robert,  of  course,  was  disappointed  that 
Buchanan  had  not  received  the  prize  at  Baltimore,  but  once  the  con- 
vention's decision  was  made  he  gave  himself  wholly  over  to  the  Pierce 
campaign.  As  in  the  past,  he  concentrated  on  his  political  specialty, 
mustering  the  Roman  Catholic  vote  for  the  Democracy  in  Philadelphia.19 

The  campaign  of  1852,  a  dull  and  listless  affair,  was  highlighted  by 
the  embarrassing  pomposity  of  hero  Scott  and  the  gutter  tactics  of  both 
Whigs  and  Democrats.  Both  party  platforms  stood  solidly  for  the  Com- 
promise of  1850,  but  to  many  voters  in  the  South  Pierce  seemed  "safer" 
on  slavery  and  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  than  did  Scott.  Southern 
Whigs  by  the  thousands  thus  renounced  their  own  candidate,  streamed 
into  the  Democracy,  or  went  fishing  on  election  day.  The  result,  as  Tyler 
predicted,  was  never  in  doubt.  Supported  by  a  unified  if  not  honey- 
mooning Democratic  Party,  Pierce  won  in  a  landslide.  Scott  carried  only 

401 


four  states,  tlie  disaster  marking  the  end  of  the  Whig  Party  as  a  major 
force  in  American  politics.  The  Whigs,  it  would  seem,  had  finally  run 
out  of  available  generals.  With  their  Northern  wing  split  on  the  Com- 
promise of  1850  and  their  Southern  wing  defecting  into  the  Southern 
Democracy,  no  single  personality,  certainly  not  the  egocentric  Scott, 
could  hold  the  eclectic  Whig  coalition  together  any  longer.  The  timely 
death  of  the  Whig  Party  produced  no  tears  at  Sherwood  Forest.20 

As  the  Pierce  administration  took  office  in  March  1853  J°nn  Tyler 
was  confident  that  all  was  right  in  the  world  again.  Pierce's  appointment 
of  former  Corporal's  Guardsman  Caleb  Gushing  as  Attorney  General 
gave  the  ex-President  a  personal  pipeline  to  the  new  administration 
which  he  immediately  filled  with  patronage  suggestions.  "The  ultras  of 
the  Democratic  party  are  already  restless,"  he  warned  Cushing  soon 
after  the  election.  The  Attorney  General  should  therefore  work  to 
"conciliate  as  large  a  body  of  true  friends  as  you  can  . . .  the  person, 
whoever  he  may  be,  who  hands  you  a  letter  from  me  is  your  true  friend, 
and  no  mistake."  Tyler  promised  Cushing  he  would  recommend  for 
federal  office  men  who  were  "old  tried  friends  who  have  stood  by  us  in 
past  times  and  have  never  wavered  since."  Among  these  old,  tried 
friends  was  his  nephew,  William  Waggaman,  whom  Tyler  hoped  Pierce 
would  "provide  for  comfortably."  When  Pierce  offered  Henry  A.  Wise 
any  Cabinet  job  the  Virginian  wanted,  Tyler  was  further  persuaded 
that  the  new  President  was  indeed  a  discriminating  judge  of  political 
talent.  This  view  was  strengthened  in  May  1853  when  Robert  Tyler  was 
signally  honored  by  Pierce  with  a  White  House  dinner  invitation  fol- 
lowed by  an  ostentatious  two-hour  "arm-in-arm"  stroll  down  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue.  And  when  John  Tyler  met  the  President  at  White  Sul- 
phur Springs  in  August  of  that  year  the  mutual  exchanges  of  greeting 
and  respect  could  not  have  been  more  cordial.  Buchanan's  appointment 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James's,  Jefferson  Davis'  selection  as  Secretary  of 
War,  and  rumors  that  Robert  Tyler  would  sooner  or  later  secure  the 
London  consulate  all  contributed  to  Tyler's  belief  that  Franklin  Pierce 
would  bring  new  strength  and  unity  to  the  Democratic  Party.  With 
Pierce  in  the  White  House  and  the  Compromise  of  1850  on  the  books, 
the  whole  question  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  thought  Tyler,  had  be- 
come an  academic  abstraction.  "I  do  not  see  to  what  Free-soilism  can 
[now]  attach  itself,  or  upon  what  food  it  can  longer  live.  It  is  at  this 
moment  but  a  mere  abstraction."  21 


In  the  midst  of  this  emerging  euphoria  over  the  Pierce  administra- 
tion the  slavery  controversy  struck  Sherwood  Forest  with  full  force.  As 
might  have  been  expected,  the  storm  center  of  the  excitement  was  Julia. 
In  the  February  1853  issue  of  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  a  Rich- 
mond monthly  of  broad  circulation,  appeared  Julia's  letter  defending 
slavery.  First  printed  in  the  New  York  Herald  and  the  Richmond  En- 

402 


quirer  In  January,  the  article  was  a  spirited  rebuttal  to  an  open  letter 
from  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  the  Countess  of  Derby,  the  Vicountess 
Palmerston,  the  Countess  of  Carlisle,  and  Lady  John  Russell  urging 
Southern  ladies  of  quality  and  moral  sensitivity  to  take  the  lead  in  de- 
manding an  end  to  the  immoral  slave  institution.  Although  Tyler's 
thoughts  on  the  subject  ran  prominently  through  the  piece,  Julia  ac- 
tually wrote  it.  Indeed,  she  labored  over  it  for  a  full  week  until  she  was 
exhausted  by  the  close  concentration  and  attention  it  demanded.  "Au- 
thorship does  not  agree  with  her,"  Margaret  reported,  "and  what  with 
intense  thinking  and  excitement  on  the  subject  it  has  quite  upset  her 
usual  current  of  health.  She  has  been  obliged  to  take  some  blue  pills  in 
consequence."  22 

The  slave  system  Julia  knew  intimately  at  Sherwood  Forest  and 
saw  functioning  among  the  James  River  wheat  plantations  bore  little 
resemblance  to  the  view  of  slavery  the  English  ladies  had  evidently 
derived  from  reading  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  when 
it  first  appeared  in  March  1852.  Julia's  response  to  the  Duchess  was 
thus  an  attack  on  the  Stowe  image  of  the  Southern  plantation  slave  as 
well  as  a  restatement  of  the  positive  paternalistic  features  of  the  system. 
She  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  Sherwood  Forest  slaves  were  well 
treated  and  that  they  had  a  deep  emotional  attachment  to  their  master. 
She  had  witnessed  too  many  evidences  of  this  to  permit  the  Sutherland 
charges  to  go  unanswered.23 

As  recently  as  June  1852,  for  example,  she  had  seen  Henry,  a  body 
slave  who  had  "run  away"  from  Sherwood  Forest  in  1844,  return  volun- 
tarily to  the  plantation  to  explain  to  Tyler  that  he  had  not  really  been 
a  runaway.  Henry's  story  was  that  his  desertion  had  been  no  more  than 
an  attempt  to  rejoin  Tyler  at  the  White  House  after  being  left  behind  at 
Sherwood  Forest  when  the  President  and  Julia  had  returned  to  Washing- 
ton from  their  honeymoon.  Whatever  the  truth  of  his  account,  Henry 
had  been  arrested,  classified  as  a  runaway,  and  had  been  sold  by  Tyler 
to  a  new  master  in  Georgia.  There  in  the  intervening  years  he  had 
learned  the  barber's  trade,  saved  his  money,  and  in  1852  he  had  pur- 
chased his  freedom  and  journeyed  to  Washington  to  secure  manumis- 
sion papers  which  were  legally  unobtainable  in  Georgia.  On  his  way 
back  to  Georgia,  papers  in  hand,  he  stopped  at  Sherwood  to  see  his  old 
master.  On  greeting  Tyler  again,  reported  Julia,  "he  could  not  restrain 
his  tears — and  said  ...  he  never  could  be  a  contented  man  or  die  happy 
unless  the  time  should  come  when  he  might  see  and  talk  with  his  master 
once  again."  After  cutting  Gardie  and  Tazewell's  hair,  he  left  for 
Georgia.  This  was  not  the  stuff  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.24 

The  only  other  runaway  incident  recorded  at  Sherwood  Forest  (it 
could  scarcely  be  classed  as  a  serious  attempt  at  escape)  occurred  in 
December  1855  when  the  slave  Roscusis  got  drunk,  became  impertinent 
with  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  and  was  knocked  to  the  ground  for  his  attitude. 

403 


In  fear  and  panic  the  bewildered  Negro  picked  himself  up  and  "ran  out 
of  the  front  gate"  and  away — to  nearby  Richmond.  Immediately  appre- 
hended, roughed  up,  and  slapped  in  a  Richmond  jail,  he  would,  said 
Julia,  "have  had  punishment  enough  before  he  sees  home  again  to  dis- 
gust him  with  traveling."  25 

In  her  lecture  to  "The  Duchess  of  Sutherland  and  the  Ladies  of 
England"  Julia  did  not  attempt  to  defend  slavery  as  a  positive  moral 
good.  She  admitted  too  that  it  had  grave  political  disadvantages  and  was 
the  "one  subject  on  which  there  is  a  possibility  of  wrecking  the  bark  of 
this  Union."  But  she  denied  that  the  slave  system  was  by  definition  a 
form  of  bestiality  run  amuck  and  she  questioned  the  right  of  British 
critics,  male  or  female,  to  intervene  in  what  was  essentially  an  Ameri- 
can domestic  problem.  Warming  to  her  task,  Julia  pointed  out  that — 
compared  to  the  depressed  white  laborers  of  London — the  Southern 
Negro  "lives  sumptuously,"  enjoying  warm  clothing,  plenty  of  bread, 
and  meat  twice  daily.  The  separation  of  slave  families  was  "of  rare 
occurrence  and  then  attended  by  peculiar  circumstances."  In  addition, 
she  praised  the  work  in  Liberia  of  the  American  Colonization  Society, 
called  attention  to  the  steady  statistical  increase  in  the  numbers  of  free 
Negroes  in  Virginia,  and  noted  that  in  helping  Negro  freedmen  return 
to  Africa  "we  seek  to  retribute  the  wrongs  done  by  England  to  Africa, 
by  returning  civilization  for  barbarism,  Christianity  for  idolatry."  Negro 
slaves  attended  church  in  great  numbers,  Julia  maintained.  They  had 
their  own  pastors,  and  they  were  encouraged  to  undertake  religious  in- 
struction. To  charge  that  their  masters  cruelly  denied  them  this  spiritual 
boon  (as  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland  had)  was  to  parrot  "some  dealer  in, 
and  retailer  of,  fiction."  26 

By  1853  these  arguments  were  standard,  mechanical  defenses  of 
the  slave  institution.  The  main  force  of  Julia's  article  rested  in  her  well- 
mounted  attack  on  British  abolitionist  interference  in  American  internal 
affairs.  Charging  that  the  Duchess  and  her  co-signers  were  merely 
mouthing  the  abolitionist  opinions  of  their  powerful  husbands,  Julia 
reminded  the  English  ladies  that  slavery  was  first  fastened  on  America 
by  British  colonial  administrators.  It  came  with  singular  bad  grace  for 
the  English  now  to  shed  great  "crocodile"  tears  for  the  poor  slaves.  If 
the  ladies  of  England  demanded  an  object  for  their  tears,  their  mercy, 
and  their  frustrated  sense  of  humanitarianism,  Julia  suggested  that  they 
concentrate  on  the  destitute  and  impoverished  people  of  their  own  coun- 
try, particularly  on  the  miserable  conditions  of  their  merchant  and  naval 
seamen  and  the  plight  of  their  starving  Irish: 

Spare  from  the  well-fed  negroes  of  these  States  one  drop  of  your  super- 
abounding  sympathy  to  pour  into  that  bitter  cup  [Ireland]  which  is  over- 
running with  sorrow  and  with  tears Go,  my  good  Duchess  of  Sutherland, 

on  an  embassy  of  mercy  to  the  poor,  the  stricken,  the  hungry  and  the  naked 
of  your  own  land — cast  in  their  laps  the  superflux  of  your  enormous  wealth; 
a  single  jewel  from  your  hair,  a  single  gem  from  your  dress  would  relieve 

4-04 


many  a  poor  female  of  England,  who  is  now  cold,  and  sniveling  and  destitute. 
. . .  Go,  and  arrest  the  proceedings  of  your  admiralty !  Throw  your  charities 
between  poor  Jack  and  the  press  gang  1  ...  I  reason  not  with  you  on  the 

subject  of  our  domestic  institutions.  Such  as  they  are,  they  are  ours We 

prefer  to  work  out  our  own  destiny The  African,  under  [English]  policy 

and  by  her  laws,  became  property.  That  property  has  descended  from  father 

to  son,  and  constitutes  a  large  part  of  Southern  wealth We  meddle  not 

with  your  laws  of  primogeniture  and  entail  although  they  are  obnoxious  to 
all  our  notions  of  justice,  and  are  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature. . . .  We 

preach  no  crusades  against  aristocratic  establishments We  are  content  to 

leave  England  in  the  enjoyment  of  her  peculiar  institutions;  and  we  must 
insist  upon  the  right  to  regulate  ours  without  her  aid.  I  pray  you  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  golden  rule  of  life  is  for  each  to  attend  to  his  own  business,  and 
let  his  neighbor's  alone  I  27 

Within  a  fortnight  of  Julia's  appearance  in  print  Sherwood  Forest 
was  showered  with  congratulations  and  letters  of  support  from  all  over 
the  country.  For  a  brief  moment  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  became  a  national 
figure  and  a  Southern  heroine.  Sarah  Polk  sent  congratulations.  Resolu- 
tions of  thanks  were  received  from  various  women's  organizations  all 
over  the  South.  More  than  fifty  newspapers,  North  and  South,  were  re- 
ceived at  Sherwood  Forest  containing  favorable  notice  of  the  article. 
The  Boston  Times  pronounced  it  "powerful,"  as  did  the  New  York 
Journal  of  Commerce.  The  Philadelphia  Pennsylvanian  praised  it,  and 
such  Whig  papers  as  the  Petersburg  (Va.)  Gazette  crowed  that  Julia's 
effort  had  "knocked  the  Duchess's  document  into  the  middle  of  next 
week."  Robert  Tyler  and  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  wrote  that  it  had  "created  an 
immense  sensation  in  Philadelphia  circles  and  added  greatly  to  her 
fame."  Washington  was  "loud  in  commendation,"  reported  Colonel  John 
S.  Cunningham  from  the  capital.  Some  argued  that  Julia  had  squashed 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  in  one  blow,  but  Margaret  demanded  better  and 
more  tangible  evidence  for  this  broad  claim.  "I  think  the  good  people 
of  our  Union  had  better  unite  in  subscribing  a  sum  at  least  equal  to  the 
amount  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  publication.  This  would  be  a  substantial  evi- 
dence of  the  favor  with  which  it  has  been  received."  Still,  Tyler  opined 
that  "there  was  never  a  public  document  in  the  annals  of  our  history 
which  has  received  such  universal  approval  and  admiration."  As  Julia 
happily  dispatched  reprints  of  her  effort  to  old  Washington  friends  and 
acquaintances — Mesdames  Polk,  Webster,  Calhoun,  Wickliffe,  and  Wil- 
kins — the  music  halls  in  Richmond  began  enjoying  the  fun  and  excite- 
ment. When  Tyler  took  Gardie  to  town  in  September  to  hear  the 
Kimble  Band  he  learned  that  the  organization  was  preparing  a  new 
song  titled  "The  Duchess,"  the  refrain  for  each  verse  ending  with  the 
sassy  lines: 

Oh,  Lady  Sutherland, 

To  comfort  you  I'll  try. 

Mrs.  Tyler  gave  you  what  was  right, 

But  Duchess  don't  you  cry.28 

405 


Tyler's  Anglophobic  appetite  was  not  entirely  sated  by  Julia's  re- 
buke to  the  good  Duchess  and  her  circle.  The  onset  of  the  Crimean  War 
in  1854  raised  briefly  the  hope  at  Sherwood  Forest  that  Britain  would 
be  crushed  by  Tsarist  Russia  in  the  contest  and  that  such  a  defeat  would 
obviate  for  many  years  any  English  plans  for  a  military  intervention  in 
America's  domestic  slavery  problem.  "The  allied  armies  find  they  have 
caught  a  Tartar/'  Julia  exulted.  Tyler  had  no  love  for  Tsarist  Russia. 
He  recognized  it  for  the  senseless  despotism  it  was.  Indeed,  when  Tsar 
Nicholas  intervened  in  the  Hungarian  Revolution  in  June  1849  Tyler 
had  been  loud  in  his  praise  of  the  courage  and  democratic  idealism  of 
Louis  Kossuth  and  his  heroic  Hungarian  patriots.  But  the  advantage 
of  the  Crimean  War  to  Americans,  as  he  saw  it,  lay  in  the  possibility  of 
the  mutual  military  exhaustion  both  of  the  autocratic  Tsar  and  the 
meddlesome  John  Bull. 

As  the  ill-managed  slaughter  progressed,  however,  Tyler  expressed 
his  willingness  as  a  humanitarian  (and  as  a  politician  not  averse  to  a 
comeback  attempt)  to  head  an  American  peace  mission  to  negotiate  an 
end  to  the  conflict.  "These  views  are  for  your  own  eye,"  he  informed 
Robert  in  January  1855  after  his  son  sounded  him  out  on  the  idea  with 
a  view  to  reporting  Tyler's  reaction  to  Ambassador  Buchanan  in  Lon- 
don. "If  such  a  thing  as  a  tender  of  such  mission  should  be  made  me, 
accompanied  with  such  outfit  as  the  occasion  would  demand,  I  might 
take  its  acceptance  under  serious  advisement."  Tyler  was  not  summoned 
from  his  bucolic  retirement  to  head  a  peace  mission.  Instead,  he  re- 
mained on  his  farm  and  enjoyed  the  rise  in  grain  prices  occasioned  by 
the  Crimean  War.  With  wheat  up  to  $2.50  per  bushel  and  applications 
of  guano  steadily  increasing  the  yield  of  his  corn-  and  wheatfields,  Tyler 
could  regard  the  continuing  combat  with  a  certain  equanimity.29 

-«am>    <S>    i^mi- 

He  could  not  regard  the  sharp  renewal  of  the  slavery  controversy  in 
the  same  detached  manner.  On  the  contrary,  the  introduction  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  in  January  1854  threatened  again  to  break 
asunder  the  Democratic  Party  and  lead  the  nation  down  the  shortening 
road  to  war.  Proposed  by  Senator  Stephen  A.  Douglas  of  Illinois,  the 
controversial  bill  provided  for  the  organization  of  territorial  governments 
for  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  both  of  which  lay  north  of  the  36°30/  line 
set  by  Congress  in  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  as  the  dividing  line 
between  slave  and  free  territory.  Whatever  Douglas'  personal  motives 
in  submitting  the  legislation  (they  included  his  interest  in  a  central  route 
for  the  projected  transcontinental  railroad,  his  private  ambition  for  the 
White  House,  and  his  attempt  to  remove  the  slavery  controversy  foot- 
ball once  and  for  all  from  the  fumbling  hands  of  Congress),  the  feature 
of  the  proposal  that  produced  the  greatest  national  turmoil  was  the 
provision  that  the  slavery  question  in  each  territory  was  to  be  solved 
democratically  by  popular  sovereignty.  In  sum,  the  Missouri  Compro- 

406 


mise  would  be  repealed  and  slavery  in  the  territories,  now  no  longer 
contained  by  congressional  fiat,  could  legally  expand  north  of  the  old 
36°3o'  boundary.  Southern  supporters  of  the  legislation,  denying  that 
these  proposals  necessarily  meant  "squatter  sovereignty,"  pointed  de- 
fensively to  the  provision  in  the  legislation  that  permitted  all  legal  dis- 
putes over  slavery  in  the  two  territories  to  be  carried  to  the  Supreme 
Court.  This,  however,  did  not  still  the  uproar.  Although  it  was  not  likely 
that  more  slaveowners  than  free-soil  advocates  could  be  moved  into 
Kansas  in  time  to  win  the  territory  for  slavery,  the  fact  that  the  institu- 
tion might  now  legally  metastasize  brought  fierce  attacks  in  Northern 
free-soil  and  abolitionist  circles  on  the  "aggressive  slavocracy"  of  the 
South  and  the  Pierce  administration.  Aggressive  or  not,  the  fact  was,  of 
course,  that  the  slavery  forces  could  not  long  compete  in  Kansas  with 
the  antislavery  advocates  who  ultimately  rushed  into  the  territory  in  far 
greater  numbers.  In  Nebraska  the  slavocracy  had  no  chance  at  all. 
When  this  became  apparent,  the  initially  agreeable  doctrine  of  popular 
sovereignty  soured  suddenly  in  the  South  and  the  suspicion  grew  that  the 
wily  Douglas  had  advocated  the  principle  in  the  full  knowledge  that 
slavery,  unable  to  compete  in  any  of  the  still  unorganized  territories, 
would  be  confined  forever  within  its  1854  boundaries. 

Tyler  had  opposed  the  Missouri  Compromise  limitation  on  slavery. 
As  a  young  congressman  he  had  argued  in  1820  that  Congress  had  no 
constitutional  prerogative  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  territories  one 
way  or  another.  While  he  had  never  been  particularly  interested  in 
slavery  expansion  as  such  (indeed,  he  had  regarded  this  as  the  least 
relevant  argument  for  Texas  annexation  in  1844-1845),  he  still  believed 
slavery  should  be  legally  permitted  to  expand  into  regions  where  the 
climate  and  soil  conditions  were  particularly  favorable  to  the  institution. 
He  had  never  been  militant  on  the  subject;  he  had  accepted  the  hydro- 
logical  limitations  on  expansion  implicit  in  the  Compromise  of  1850. 
He  knew  that  the  slave  institution  could  not  flourish  in  arid  New  Mexico 
or  Utah.  He  correctly  saw  that  the  alleged  victory  for  the  South  in  those 
desert  sections  was  far  outweighed  by  the  political  advantages  the  North 
achieved  through  the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  state.  Nor  did  he 
think  that  more  than  a  few  Missouri  planters  would  want  to  carry  their 
"domestics"  into  neighboring  Kansas.  Nevertheless,  he  thought  they 
should  have  the  right  to  do  so  until  such  time  as  the  settlers  of  Kansas 
Territory  declared  against  the  institution  in  a  democratic  and  orderly 
manner.  He  therefore  publicly  favored  the  passage  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  as  recognition  of  the  legal  "equality"  of  Southern  and 
Northern  institutions  in  the  unorganized  territories.  It  would  mark  an 
end  to  three  and  a  half  decades  of  "busy  intermeddling  of  Congress"  in 
the  slavery  question  in  those  areas.  Popular  sovereignty,  as  conceived 
by  Douglas,  publicly  received  his  support  in  1854  as  a  reasonable  solu- 
tion to  the  question  of  slavery  expansion  in  the  territories.  Nevertheless, 

407 


he  remained  fearful  in  Ms  own  mind  that  the  revival  of  the  whole  issue 
would  lead  only  to  the  ultimate  "despoilment  of  the  South."  He  was 
certain  that  "these  agitations  cannot  end  in  good."  For  these  reasons  he 
devoutly  wished  that  the  whole  question  had  never  come  up.  Privately, 
he  defended  the  judgment  of  his  own  congressman,  John  Singleton  Mill- 
son,  in  voting  against  the  measure.30 

With  confusion  enough  abroad  in  the  land,  it  particularly  galled 
Tyler  to  observe  that  some  segments  of  the  Northern  clergy  were  willing 
to  interject  theological  and  ecclesiastical  considerations  into  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  debate.  As  he  wrote  Margaret: 

I  am  especially  vexed  with  the  Northern  Clergy  who  have  left  their  ap- 
propriate sphere  of  peace  on  Earth  and  good  will  to  men  to  enter  upon  the 
battlefield  of  politics — an  arena  from  which  they  cannot  depart  without  bear- 
ing all  the  marks  of  a  wretched  and  unhallowed  conflict  about  them.  Mr. 
Bedell  even  is  of  the  number.  Alas,  alas!  I  thought  him  so  absorbed  in  the 
saving  of  souls,  as  to  have  no  time  to  devote  to  us  poor  devils  of  the  South 
as  their  learned  and  very  pious  men  of  the  pulpit  would  have  us.  Don't  ask  me 
to  accompany  you  to  any  church  in  which  any  one  of  these  busybodies  may 
have  to  preach.  I  should  have  to  deny  your  request  altho'  to  do  so  would 
give  me  pain.31 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  passed  Congress  in  May  1854  and  was 
duly  signed  by  South-leaning  Pierce.  Hailed  initially  in  the  South  as  a 
triumph  for  the  future  health  and  welfare  of  Southern  institutions,  the 
measure  immediately  set  into  motion  a  series  of  dangerous  reactions, 
which,  as  Tyler  had  feared,  brought  civil  war  a  step  closer.  Within  two 
years  a  coalition  of  Northern  Whigs,  abolitionists,  Free  Soilers,  and  anti- 
slavery  Democrats  had  organized  the  new  radical  Republican  Party; 
Kansas  had  become  a  bloody  battleground  fought  over  by  pro-slavery 
and  abolitionist  guerrilla  forces;  the  Democratic  Party  began  disinte- 
grating in  a  great  centripetal  motion;  and  in  the  midst  of  the  growing 
social  and  political  disorder  the  short-lived  Know-Nothing  Party  made 
its  wild  bid  for  government  by  hate. 

John  Tyler  watched  these  tragic  developments  with  consternation. 
It  distressed  him  to  see  the  Roman  Catholic  issue  hurled  into  the  politi- 
cal arena.  He  had  condemned  the  intolerant  Nativist  movement  in  the 
18405,  and  with  equal  vigor  and  consistency  he  attacked  its  anti- 
Catholic  and  anti-immigrant  Know-Nothing  offspring  in  1854.  To  Tyler, 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  above  all  others,  was  to  be  commended  for 
its  noninvolvement  in  the  slavery  controversy.  Catholicism,  said  Tyler 
in  July  1854,  "seems  to  me  to  have  been  particularly  faithful  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  country,  while  their  priests  have  set  an  example  of 
non-interference  in  politics  which  furnishes  an  example  most  worthy  of 
imitation  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  of  the  other  sects  at  the  North,  who 
have  not  hesitated  to  rush  into  the  arena  and  soil  their  garments  with 
the  dust  of  bitter  strife."  In  defending  the  Roman  Church  against 

408 


Know-Nothing  charges  of  treason,  un-Americanism,  and  worse,  Tyler 
saw  that  the  hate  crusade  fed  principally  on  the  broader  sectional  con- 
fusion engendered  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska  controversy  and  the  threat- 
ening breakup  of  the  two  party  structure.  Thus  he  felt  that  the  new 
party's  real  danger  turned  on  its  bid  to  "unite  the  malcontents  of  all 
parties"  and  compromise  the  prospects  of  a  victory  for  moderate  Demo- 
crats in  1856.  For  these  views  he  was  heavily  indebted  to  Robert  Tyler 
whose  war  against  the  Know-No  things  in  Philadelphia  on  behalf  of 
James  Buchanan's  continuing  candidacy  for  the  Democratic  nomination 
was  reported  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  great  detail.  As  for  the  future  of 
the  Know-Nothing  movement,  Tyler  could  only  hope  that 

The  Intolerant  spirit  manifested  against  the  Catholics,  as  exhibited  in  the 
burning  of  their  churches,  etc.,  will,  so  soon  as  the  thing  becomes  fairly 
considered,  arouse  a  strong  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  a  large 
majority  of  the  American  people;  for  if  there  is  one  principle  of  higher  im- 
port with  them  than  any  other,  It  is  the  principle  of  religious  freedom. 

Tyler  predicted  that  the  madness  would  eventually  run  its  course.  The 
Know-Nothings  would  soon  split  helplessly  into  their  own  pro-  and 
antislavery  sectional  components  and  with  that  division  the  church- 
burners  and  immigrant-beaters  would  play  but  a  small  role  in  the  1856 
canvass.32 

In  the  meantime,  Tyler  supported  the  gubernatorial  aspirations  in 
Virginia  of  his  old  friend  Henry  A.  Wise.  Not  only  did  former  Guards- 
man Wise  "denounce  and  satirize  by  turn  the  Know  Nothings"  in  the 
Old  Dominion,  but  his  campaign  included  as  well  a  vigorous  ex  post 
facto  defense  of  the  accomplishments  of  the  Tyler  administration.  "The 
Democratic  press,  in  order  to  sustain  him,"  observed  Tyler,  "has  to 
eulogize  me;  and  thus  Mr.  Wise's  nomination  has  been  better  for  me 
than  any  other  incident  which  has  occurred."  Wise's  impressive  victory 
in  May  1855  over  an  ideologically  rudderless  Whig-Know-No  thing  coa- 
lition smashed  the  anti-Catholic  movement  in  Virginia  and  elated  the 
Sherwood  Foresters.  "The  opponents  to  that  miserable  know-nothingism 
are  so  anxious  to  bring  in  Wise,"  Julia  wrote  on  the  eve  of  the  election. 
Even  little  Alex,  barely  seven,  was  reported  to  have  declared  he  did  "not 
wish  to  live  a  day  longer  in  the  world  if  Henry  A.  Wise  is  defeated." 
Not  only  was  Wise  victorious ;  the  size  of  his  sweep  was  enough  to  bring 
his  name  prominently  before  the  South  as  a  possible  candidate  for  the 
Democratic  nomination  in  1856.  John  Tyler,  his  personal  struggle  for 
reputation  over,  hastened  into  Governor  Wise's  corner.  With  Republican, 
Democratic,  Whig,  and  Know-Nothing  parties  now  in  the  national  po- 
litical picture,  all  save  the  Republicans  badly  divided  on  the  slavery 
issue,  the  election  of  1856  loomed  as  one  of  the  most  unpredictable  in 
American  political  history.  Nor  would  the  task  facing  the  victorious 
candidate,  Wise  or  otherwise,  be  enviable.  As  Tyler  saw  the  immediate 
political  future  in  November  1855: 

409 


Rely  upon  it,  that  the  next  four  years  will  prove  to  be  the  turning  point  of 
our  destiny,  and  that  it  requires  no  ordinary  man  at  the  head  of  affairs  to 
weather  the  storm.  I  even  doubt  whether  the  presidency  would  be  desirable. 
He  would  be  but  a  wreck  in  history,  whose  administration  should  witness  a 
destruction  of  the  government.  But  I  must  here  end  my  gloomy  reflec- 
tions  33 

Never  had  the  former  President  been  so  clairvoyant.  President 
James  Buchanan  turned  out  to  be  a  very  "ordinary  man,"  and  his  ad- 
ministration, a  "wreck  in  history,"  did  little  more  than  preside  paralyti- 
cally  over  the  steady  erosion  of  the  Union.  Tyler,  of  course,  was  not  an 
enthusiastic  partisan  of  Buchanan  in  1856,  even  though  his  son  Robert 
continued  to  labor  loyally  in  the  Buchaneer  cause.  Tyler  favored  the 
Democracy's  nomination  of  Wise,  Pierce,  and  then  Buchanan — in  that 
order.  When  it  was  apparent  that  Governor  Wise  could  hope  to  com- 
mand little  or  no  Northern  support,  Tyler  "inclined  strongly"  toward 
Franklin  Pierce,  who  had  "on  the  absorbing  question  of  the  times  been 
true  as  steeL"  This  attitude  toward  Pierce,  whose  administration  had 
proved  something  less  than  a  glorious  success,  was  in  part  determined 
by  Tyler's  unwillingness  to  trust  Buchanan  fully.  As  the  Democratic 
convention  in  Cincinnati  in  June  1856  came  to  its  end,  he  worried  that 
Old  Buck  was  still  "wedded  to  the  men  who  most  figured  as  partisans 
during  General  Jackson's  administration."  About  the  only  thing  that 
reconciled  him  to  Buchanan  at  all  was  the  thought  that  a  Pennsylvania- 
Virginia  alliance  within  the  Democracy  might  serve  to  preserve  the 
transsectional  integrity  of  the  party  and  with  it  "the  integrity  of  the 
Union  and  the  Constitution."  34 

The  various  nominations,  counternominations,  walkouts,  endorse- 
ments, divisions,  and  deals  of  the  politicians  turned  the  preconvention 
and  convention  activities  of  the  several  parties  into  near-chaos.  The 
Know-Nothings,  meeting  in  Philadelphia  in  February  1856,  had  no 
difficulty  condemning  immigrants  and  Catholics  to  hell,  but  they 
promptly  split  on  the  slavery  issue.  In  the  confusion  the  Northern  anti- 
slavery  delegates  walked  out,  leaving  the  remainder  to  nominate  Mil- 
lard  Fillmore  and  launch  the  so-called  American  Party.  The  ex-President 
was  available.  Since  Fillmore's  moderate  role  in  the  Compromise  of  1850 
assured  him  some  following  among  Southern  Whigs,  the  fanatics  who 
ran  the  Know-Nothing  rump  decided  that  he  was  the  man  of  the  hour. 
His  only  other  support  came  from  a  scattering  of  conservative  Whigs  in 
upstate  New  York  who  were  not  militant  on  the  slavery  question.  This 
attempt  by  the  Know-Nothings  to  attach  Southern  and  New  York 
Whigs  to  the  hard  core  of  anti-Catholic  and  anti-immigrant  lunatics 
who  dominated  the  Americans  stimulated  talk  in  Virginia  that  the 
Democracy  might  well  bring  Tyler  forward  again  to  lure  the  Southern 
Whigs  away  from  the  Fillmore  standard.  But  Tyler  scotched  this  talk 
with  the  statement  in  mid-May  1856  that  he  had  "neither  longings  or 

410 


ardent  desires"  for  the  White  House.  At  this  point  he  was  still  for  Pierce 
and  he  was  now  sure  the  Know-No  things  would  disintegrate  in  the 
sectional  heat  of  the  campaign.35 

The  antislavery  Know-Nothing  secession  group  nominated  Speaker 
of  the  House  N.  P.  Banks  with  the  understanding  that  he  would  with- 
draw in  favor  of  John  C.  Fremont  if  the  new  Republican  Party  nomi- 
nated the  Pathfinder.  Since  Fremont's  nomination  on  a  strong  anti- 
slavery  platform  was  a  possibility  if  not  a  probability,  the  threat  of  that 
prospect  hung  over  the  Democratic  convention  in  Cincinnati.  By  the 
time  the  Democracy's  delegates  reached  the  Queen  City  on  June  i,  the 
influential  Virginia  delegation  was  strongly — though  not  unanimously — 
for  Buchanan.  Thanks  in  part  to  tireless  liaison  work  of  Robert  Tyler 
between  the  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  delegations,  Wise's  own  ambi- 
tions for  the  nomination  had  been  blunted  and  his  sensibilities  in  the 
matter  salved.  Indeed,  both  Wise  and  John  Tyler  had  swung  over  to  a 
reluctant  acceptance  of  Old  Buck.  Tyler's  shift  was  dictated  largely  by 
the  realization  that  much  of  Pierce's  support  within  the  Northern 
Democracy  had  seeped  away  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas  during  the  months 
before  the  convention,  a  point  employed  by  Robert  with  telling  effect 
at  Sherwood  Forest  in  his  successful  effort  to  bring  his  father  around 
to  Buchanan.  Old  Buck,  absent  in  London  for  two  years,  had  the  ad- 
ditional advantage  of  not  having  taken  a  public  stand  on  the  popular- 
sovereignty  feature  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  question.  Thus  when  the 
convention  met  in  Cincinnati,  Buchanan,  Pierce,  and  Douglas  (in  that 
order)  were  the  front  runners.36 

As  one  of  Buchanan's  floor  managers  at  Smith  and  Nixon's  Hall  in 
Cincinnati,  Robert  Tyler  was  in  the  thick  of  Old  Buck's  fight  for  the 
nomination.  Speaking,  cajoling,  banqueting,  and  buttonholing,  the  Tyler 
touch  was  so  prominent  among  the  delegates  that  there  were  rumors 
of  Robert's  nomination  for  the  Vice-Presidency  should  Buchanan  fail 
to  receive  the  top  spot.  "Think  of  that/'  he  informed  his  father.  "But 
I  laughed  it  off,  when  mentioned  to  me,  as  a  good  joke.  If  I  were  a 
rich  man,  and  the  Union  does  not  'slide,'  I  might  be  something  yet. 
But  as  it  is  I  float  helplessly  in  the  waves  of  doubt  and  debt."  As  it 
turned  out,  the  efforts  of  Wise  and  Robert  Tyler  were  decisive  for 
Buchanan.  Leading  all  the  way,  he  was  nominated  on  the  seventeenth 
ballot  after  Pierce  had  withdrawn  and  thrown  his  support  to  Douglas. 
Virginia  held  firm  for  Buchanan  during  this  maneuver.  As  a  result,  the 
Pierce  vote  (largely  Southern)  that  went  over  to  Douglas  at  the  crucial 
juncture  did  not  trigger  a  general  stampede  to  the  Little  Giant.  When 
the  expected  rush  failed  to  materialize,  Douglas  also  withdrew  rather 
than  see  the  convention  hopelessly  deadlocked. 

The  platform  on  which  Buchanan  and  Vice-Presidential  nominee 
John  C.  Breckinridge  of  Kentucky  were  pledged  to  stand  upheld  the 
Compromise  of  1850,  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  the  concept  of  popular 

411 


sovereignty,  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  and  states7  rights  generally.  For 
Virginia's  constancy  hi  his  cause  Buchanan  was  extremely  grateful. 
As  he  had  said  to  Robert  a  week  before  the  convention,  "Should  the 
Old  Dominion  stand  firm,  it  is  my  opinion  that  my  friends  will  suc- 
ceed at  Cincinnati."  Succeed  they  had,  and  Robert  was  soon  in  receipt 
of  the  "warmest  sort  of  letter"  of  thanks  from  Buchanan  who  had 
assured  him  earlier  that  his  many  services  to  the  Buchanan  candidacy 
over  the  years  were  eternally  "recorded  in  my  heart."  Elated  by  the 
vital  role  he  had  played  in  the  Buchanan  nomination,  Robert  was 
momentarily  overwhelmed  by  the  patronage  implications  of  the  nomi- 
nee's debt  to  him.  "After  all,  I  do  not  know  what  he  can  do  for  me," 
he  remarked  in  some  bewilderment.  Margaret  experienced  no  such 
hesitation.  She  knew  exactly  what  Buchanan  could  do  for  Robert.  He 
could  bestow  the  "good  fat  office"  which  Robert  had  obviously  earned 
and  "ought  to  have."  37 

When  Tyler  received  the  news  of  Buchanan's  nomination  he  pro- 
nounced the  selection  "fortunate,"  although  the  feeling  still  nagged 
him  that  if  "anyone  ever  deserved  a  renomination  it  was  General  Pierce, 
especially  at  the  hands  of  the  South."  Nonetheless,  he  realized  correctly 
that  "the  great  game  is  the  Union,  and  with  Pennsylvania  sound  the 
Union  is  safe."  He  was  hopeful  that  Buchanan  would  win  in  November, 
and  that  the  Know-Nothings  would  "entirely  melt  away"  during  the 
campaign.  That  latter  prospect  being  likely,  the  "Black  Republicans," 
he  said,  "will  either  have  to  rush  into  the  embraces  of  the  Abolitionists, 
and  recognize  the  lead  of  Garrison  and  Phillips,  or  go  into  so  violent  and 
rabid  a  course  as  to  abandon  and  disgust  all  reflecting  men."  38 

When  on  June  17  the  "Black  Republicans"  predictably  nominated 
John  C.  Fremont  at  Philadelphia  on  a  frankly  sectional  platform  that 
opposed  the  extension  of  slavery  in  the  territories  and  called  boldly 
for  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  state,  the  distress  felt  throughout 
the  Tyler-Gardiner  family  was  profound.  Similarly,  when  what  remained 
of  the  broken  Whig  Party  endorsed  the  Know-Nothing  nomination  of 
Fillrnore  at  Baltimore  in  September,  on  a  platform  appealing  vaguely 
for  national  unity,  the  concern  at  Sherwood  Forest  increased  to  ill- 
disguised  alarm.  With  three  major  candidates  now  in  the  field,  the  anti- 
Republican  vote  could  conceivably  split  so  badly  between  Buchanan 
and  Fillmore  that  Fremont  might  slip  into  the  White  House  by  the 
side  door.  That  result,  thought  the  Tylers,  would  lead  straight  to  the 
disruption  of  the  Union.  As  Tyler  pointed  out  to  David  Lyon,  "it 
is  quite  sensibly  felt  by  all  that  the  success  of  the  Black  Republicans 
would  be  the  knell  of  the  Union."  39 

As  a  momentary  panic  developed  within  the  family,  Robert  Tyler 
argued  that  in  the  event  of  a  Republican  victory  the  South  should  im- 
mediately secede  lest  the  "infidels,  atheists  and  rascals"  who  ran  the 
Fremont  crusade  undertake  to  reduce  the  section  to  a  "tributary  peo- 

412 


pie."  His  father's  views  were  more  moderate,  but  Tyler's  sense  of  im- 
minent doom  reached  a  new  peak  of  intensity.  Sanguine  that  Buchanan 
would  somehow  squeeze  through  to  victory,  Tyler  was  still  forced  to 
admit  that  some  Southern  Whigs,  among  them  many  Virginians,  were 
so  hostile  to  the  Democracy  that  they  were  willing  to  take  "Fremont  or 
the  Devil  in  preference  to  Buchanan."  The  Know-Nothings,  he  pre- 
dicted, unimportant  in  themselves,  would  bend  every  effort  to  "divide 
and  distract  us  here  at  the  South."  Their  unholy  alliance  with  the 
Whigs  behind  Millard  Fillmore  and  his  American  Party  might  well  cast 
the  election  into  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Were  this  to  occur,  reasoned  the  former  President,  the  South 
could  be  certain  "of  the  union  of  the  malcontents  upon  Fremont  over 
Buchanan."  If  Fremont  were  elevated  to  the  White  House  in  this 
manner,  the  South  would  find  itself  in  serious  trouble.  Tyler  rejected 
Robert's  radical  concept  of  immediate  secession,  just  as  he  turned  his 
back  on  similar  recommendations  from  Henry  A.  Wise  and  other  South- 
ern  fire-eaters.  But  he  admitted  to  his  eldest  son  that  Fremont's  elec- 
tion would  force  the  South  into  some  sort  of  collective  regional  action. 
The  alternative  was  to  stand  by  helplessly  and  watch  the  Republican 
abolitionists  legislate  the  South's  slave  property  out  of  existence: 

I  know  not  what  to  say  about  the  course . . .  Virginia  will  pursue  in  the  event 
of  Fremont's  election  [he  wrote  in  September  1856].  The  Democracy  looks 
the  danger  in  the  face,  and  is  prepared  to  meet  it;  and  there  is  a  large 
minority  who  are  entirely  indisposed  to  any  action.  They  wish  to  see  the 
inaugural,  and  to  await  some  hostile  movement.  For  myself,  I  scarcely  know 
what  to  counsel.  To  await  the  inauguration  is  to  find  ourselves  under  the 
guns  of  every  fortification  and  our  trade  at  the  mercy  of  our  enemies.  It  is, 
therefore,  the  dictate  of  prudence  that  the  Southern  States  should  understand 
each  other  at  once.  A  concentrated  movement  would  control  the  fate  of  the 
country  and  preserve  the  Constitution.  I  believe  that  such  measures  are 
looked  to  by  those  in  high  places  in  the  South.  A  call  of  all  of  the  legislatures 
of  this  section  to  make  a  distinct  avowal  of  their  sentiments  and  to  place 
their  States  in  a  condition  to  maintain  their  resolves  would  not  fail  to  roll 
back  the  tide — or  at  least  to  restrain  all  arbitrary  legislation.40 

This,  in  broad  outline,  would  be  Tyler's  reaction  to  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion four  years  later.  In  1856,  however,  he  need  not  have  been  so 
nervous  or  concerned.  Buchanan  ran  well  throughout  the  campaign,  and 
he  looked  the  probable  winner  when  the  first  returns  began  coming  in 
in  late  October.  This  happy  outcome  was  in  no  small  measure  a  result 
of  the  labors  of  Robert  Tyler  who  became  the  work  horse  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania-Virginia alliance  within  the  Democracy  and  served  as  a  roving 
ambassador  of  good  will  between  Buchanan  and  the  Wise  faction  during 
the  campaign.  Patiently  he  undertook  to  explain  the  politics  of  each 
man  to  the  other.  He  calmed  the  mercurial  Wise's  suspicions  that  Old 
Buck  was  not  sound  on  the  popular-sovereignty  concept  the  Southern 

413 


extremists  now  so  clearly  feared.  In  addition,  Robert  stumped  Phila- 
delphia and  mustered  the  Irish- American  vote  there  for  Buchanan.  In 
fact,  Robert  was  on  the  verge  of  a  nervous  breakdown,  so  complete 
was  his  physical  exhaustion  as  the  campaign  drew  to  a  close.  But  his 
effort  was  rewarded  when  the  first  returns  reached  Sherwood  Forest. 
Buchanan  outpolled  the  combined  Fremont  and  Fillmore  vote  in  both 
Pennsylvania  and  Indiana.  To  an  elated  John  Tyler  this  news  from  the 
North  and  West  filled  the  "Democratic  people  with  unspeakable  joy." 
To  his  daughter,  Letitia  Tyler  Semple,  then  touring  in  Europe,  he 
expressed  the  belief  that  Buchanan's  now-certain  election  would  "for- 
ever strangle  the  monster  which  has  threatened  to  devour  the  Con- 
federacy." Returning  again  to  a  long-standing  and  deep-seated  Anglo- 
phobia, Tyler  informed  Letitia  that 

I  can  enjoy  the  confusion  and  mortification  of  our  foreign  enemies  if  the  B. 
ticket  shall  prevail  by  a  large  majority.  The  Westminster  Review  had 
chuckled  in  anticipation  of  Fremont's  election,  and  had  pronounced  it  the 
knell  of  the  Union.  Old  Mother  Britain  may  yet  put  on  sackcloth  and  ashes 
before  the  epitaph  of  this  Republic  is  written.41 

Whether  Buchanan's  narrow  election  in  1856  preserved  the  Union 
or  merely  postponed  its  dissolution  and  whether  the  subsequent  paralysis 
of  the  Buchanan  administration  actually  contributed  to  the  catastrophe 
of  1 86 1  remain  moot  points.  Certainly  Tyler's  view  of  the  Republican 
Party  as  a  "treasonable  sectional  movement"  contributed  more  heat 
than  light  to  a  political  situation  already  burdened  with  excessive 
emotion.  Tyler  did  not  ponder  the  fact  that  Buchanan's  success  was 
by  plurality  rather  than  majority  vote.  The  combined  Fremont-Fillmore 
vote  exceeded  Old  Buck's  by  some  400,000.  Nor  did  the  former  Presi- 
dent seem  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  the  Democracy,  now  moving 
toward  the  status  of  a  minority  party,  had  been  forced,  like  the  Whigs 
before  them,  to  purchase  sectional  unity  at  the  price  of  nominating  a 
faceless  man  who  posed  as  all  things  to  all  Democrats. 

These  fundamental  problems  apparently  disturbed  Sherwood  For- 
est not  at  all.  In  the  general  elation  over  Buchanan's  victory  the 
Tyler-Gardiner  family  speculated  mainly  on  the  bread-and-butter  issue 
of  just  what  "good  fat  office"  the  struggling  Robert  had  earned  with 
his  heroic  effort  for  Old  Buck.  Much  to  their  evident  and  bitter  dismay 
they  quickly  discovered  that  Buchanan  would  set  no  speed  records  in 
rewarding  Robert  with  a  patronage  appointment  commensurate  with 
the  value  of  his  years  of  labor  for  the  President-elect.  Although  Bu- 
chanan told  him  he  could  have  "anything  he  wanted,"  the  specific 
tender  of  the  ministry  to  Switzerland  in  November  1856  had  to  be 
rejected.  Desirable  as  this  post  was  from  a  prestige  standpoint,  it  paid 
little  and  Robert  therefore  had  no  choice  but  to  turn  it  down.  This 
decision  was  a  "dreadful  blow"  to  Priscilla,  who  considered  it  a  "very 

414 


nice,  quiet  and  dignified"  job  that  would  "take  Mr.  Tyler  away  from  all 
the  din  and  fury  of  party  politics,  from  personal  hostilities,  and  from 
this  vulgar,  hurried  turmoil  of  city  life."  She  agreed,  however,  that 
her  husband's  economic  situation  would  not  permit  him  the  luxury  of 
the  Swiss  post.  As  Robert  explained  his  postelection  financial  status  to 
Wise,  "I  have  never  yet  for  fifteen  years  known  one  day  free  from 
pecuniary  embarrassments  and  the  most  painful."  And,  although  he 
thought  he  saw  a  "dawning  political  future"  ahead  of  him,  this  dawn 
could  scarcely  be  pursued  in  the  mountains  of  distant  Switzerland.  Just 
what  Robert  had  in  mind  for  himself,  just  how  glorious  a  political  sun- 
rise he  anticipated,  cannot  be  determined.  When,  for  example,  his 
brother  John  undertook  after  the  election  to  enlist  Henry  Wise's  in- 
fluence with  Buchanan  to  secure  Robert  a  Cabinet  post,  Robert  dis- 
missed the  attempt  with  the  observation  that  "I  would  not  think  of  ac- 
cepting a  place  in  Mr.  Buchanan's  Cabinet.  I  am  wanting  in  the  specific 
information  and  talents  for  the  only  two  Cabinet  positions  of  any 
value,  and  I  regard  the  others  as  mere  clerkships." 

There  is  no  evidence,  of  course,  that  Buchanan  considered  offer- 
ing Robert  a  Cabinet  appointment.  Nevertheless,  a  full  year  and  a 
half  passed  before  he  again  offered  Robert  anything,  and  when  the  offer 
finally  came  it  evidenced  a  rather  pronounced  deflation  in  the  Chief 
Executive's  estimation  of  his  obligation  to  the  Philadelphia  lawyer. 
Thus  in  May  1858  Robert  disdainfully  declined  a  clerkship  in  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court  for  Eastern  Pennsylvania,  informing  Bu- 
chanan testily  that  he  was  "distinctly  my  own  master  and  no  office 
seeker."  He  was  still  burdened  with  "debt  and  poverty,"  but  he  let  the 
President  know  that  he  expected  political  favors  from  no  man,  at  least 
not  at  the  clerkship  level.  "While  I  am  by  no  means  insensible  to  po- 
litical honors  and  advancement,  I  do  not  want  them  unless  they  come 
to  me  unsolicited  and  unquestioned,"  he  told  Buchanan.  Nor  during 
these  lean  months  of  waiting  could  his  father  aid  him  financially.  "I 
am  as  hard  put  up,  to  use  a  vulgar  phrase,  as  any  one,"  Tyler  confessed 
in  1859.  In  November  of  that  year  Robert  turned  down  the  offer  of  a 
paymastership  in  the  Navy  Department  on  the  advice  of  Sherwood 
Forest.  The  job  itself,  like  the  Circuit  Court  clerkship,  was  almost  an 
insult.  "Give  up  politics,"  Tyler  finally  urged  him,  "by  which  no  man 
profits  other  than  a  knave;  retrench,  as  far  as  retrenchment  be  prac- 
ticable, and  wait  for  political  preferment  to  reach  you  at  its  own  gait." 
Tyler  firmly  believed  that  Robert's  long  devotion  to  the  President's 
career  should  be  handsomely  rewarded,  but  he  certainly  wanted  no  Tyler 
to  have  to  beg  a  minor  sinecure  from  the  likes  of  James  Buchanan. 
The  independent  and  haughty  attitude  of  the  Tylers,  father  and  son, 
ended  the  patronage  matter  and  Robert  had  to  be  content  with  the 
chairmanship  of  the  Democratic  Executive  Committee  in  Pennsylvania, 
to  which  Buchanan  appointed  him  in  1858.  While  this  post  had  con- 

415 


siderable  prestige  it  had  no  salary,  and  Robert's  modest  income  con- 
tinued to  be  derived  from  his  job  as  Prothonotary  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Supreme  Court  and  from  his  marginal  law  practice  in  Philadelphia. 

Similarly,  John,  Jr.'s  attempt  to  land  a  patronage  job  from  Bu- 
chanan came  to  grief.  With  little  else  to  occupy  his  time,  John,  Jr.,  had 
worked  as  hard  for  Buchanan's  election  as  Robert  had.  He  vigorously 
supported  the  administration  after  it  took  office,  frequently  placing 
articles  in  Virginia  newspapers  designed  to  explain  and  rationalize  the 
decisions  and  policies  of  the  President.  Yet  by  June  1858  Tyler  saw 
there  would  be  no  reward  for  his  second  son  either.  "The  people  in 
Washington  seem  to  be  resolved  to  give  him  nothing,"  the  former  Presi- 
dent complained.  "That  a  man  of  his  fine  talents  and  accomplishments 
should  not  be  able  to  earn  his  daily  bread,  or  should  fail  to  set  about 
the  task  of  doing  so,  is  to  me  incomprehensible.  I  had  rather  see  him 
following  the  plough  than  doing  nothing." 

By  July  1860  John  Tyler  was  quite  upset  by  the  treatment  his  sons 
had  received  at  Buchanan's  hands.  As  he  told  Robert: 

He  has  been  uniformly  polite  to  you  . . .  but  he  is  altogether  your  debtor.  No 
one  has  been  so  true  to  him  or  rendered  him  greater  service . . .  but  now  his 
political  days  are  numbered,  and  his  sand  nearly  run.  He  might  now  recipro- 
cate by  rendering  you  service.  Will  he  volunteer  to  do  it,  or,  having  squeezed 
the  orange,  will  he  throw  the  rind  away?  I  may  do  Mm  injustice  in  regarding 
him  as  a  mere  politician  without  heart.  I  hope  I  am  mistaken. 

Tyler  was  not  mistaken.  Robert  was  squeezed  dry  and  cast  aside.  The 
Confederate  States  of  America  would  do  much  better  by  him  politically 
than  had  the  United  States  under  James  Buchanan.42 


416 


RUMORS  OF  WAR: 
AN   END   TO   NORMALCY,   1855-1860 


We  have  fallen  on  evil  times.  The  day  of  doom  for 
the  great  model  Republic  is  at  hand.  Madness  rules 
the  hour. .  . .  /  sigh  over  the  degeneracy  of  the  times. 

JOHN    TYLER,    NOVEMBER    i860 


On  the  surface  of  things  life  at  Sherwood  Forest  reflected  little  of  the 
confusion  and  turmoil  that  gripped  the  nation  during  the  last  years 
before  the  Civil  War.  As  the  country  proceeded  steadily  down  the  road 
to  sectional  conflict,  the  Tylers  and  Gardiners  continued  their  normal 
habits.  They  enjoyed  their  extensive  social  life  at  various  fashionable 
spas  during  the  summers  and  they  advised  one  another  on  the  complex 
problems  of  health  and  longevity  throughout  the  winters.  Julia  con- 
tinued having  babies,  and  John  Tyler  continued  to  tend  his  wheat-  and 
cornfields,  confident  that  whatever  the  nation's  agony  on  the  slavery 
question  it  would  surely  be  solved  short  of  the  idiocy  of  civil  strife. 
Visits  back  and  forth  between  New  York  and  Charles  City  also  marked 
these  final  innocent  years  in  the  history  of  the  family.  Julia  still 
thrilled  to  hear  that  her  reign  as  First  Lady  had  not  been  forgotten. 
She  applauded  the  sagacity  of  the  Ohio  riverboat  captain  who,  with 
more  persistence  than  imagination,  named  all  of  his  boats  The  Gentle 
Julia.  Indeed,  when  Henry  M.  Denison  reported  seeing  The  Gentle 
Julia  No.  17  near  Louisville,  the  mistress  of  Sherwood  Forest  was  con- 
fident that  an  immortality  of  sorts  was  hers.  Only  under  the  impact  of 
the  John  Brown  raid  at  Harpers  Ferry  in  October  1859  did  normalcy 
flee  Sherwood  Forest.1 

Until  then,  Julia  and  her  husband  enjoyed  the  pleasant  existence 
afforded  by  the  plantation  and  their  frequent  exposures  at  Saratoga, 

417 


Old  Point  Comfort,  or  the  Virginia  springs.  "It  is  but  reasonable,"  Tyler 
held,  "that  Julia  should  like  to  look  out  on  the  great  world  once  a 
year."  Whether  they  journeyed  to  the  Virginia  mountains  (Tyler's 
preference)  or  to  the  North  (which  his  wife  preferred),  Julia  was  in- 
variably "all  agog  to  go."  True,  Tyler's  increasingly  precarious  health 
in  the  late  18503  limited  the  duration  of  these  excursions,  on  occasion 
threatening  to  cancel  them  entirely,  but  he  was  generally  able  to  sum- 
mon the  necessary  strength  and  energy  for  Julia's  forays  into  the  outside 
world.2 

Visits  with  Robert  and  Priscilla  in  Philadelphia  and  with  Juliana, 
Margaret,  and  David  Lyon  on  Staten  Island  and  at  the  New  England 
watering  holes  were  combined  with  joint  family  gatherings  at  Old 
Point  and  the  Virginia  springs,  Margaret  and  her  mother  enjoyed  these 
escapes  to  Virginia's  beaches  and  mountains  from  the  heat  of  New 
York.  For  Tyler,  the  occasional  journey  to  New  York  or  New  England 
had  the  additional  advantage  of  allowing  him  to  test  the  political 
opinions  of  the  area,  to  say  nothing  of  the  medicinal  advantages  he 
thought  he  derived  from  "taking  the  waters"  at  Saratoga  or  Sharon 
Springs.  Still,  the  "numerous  retinue  of  servants  and  children"  involved 
in  such  northerly  operations  increasingly  dictated  the  logic  of  vacation- 
ing in  Virginia.  In  1855  and  1856,  for  example,  the  summer  vacation 
was  confined  to  a  month  at  Old  Point  Comfort  and  a  month  touring 
White  Sulphur  Springs,  Rockbridge  Alum  Springs,  and  Warm  Springs. 
Margaret,  Harry  Beeckman,  and  Juliana  came  down  to  Sherwood  Forest 
in  June  and  the  ladies  then  took  turns  tending  the  children  while 
the  adults  proceeded  to  Old  Point  Comfort  or  to  the  Virginia  springs. 
On  one  occasion,  in  August  1855,  Julia  sent  Gar  die,  Alex,  and  Julie  to 
Staten  Island  to  visit  their  grandmother  while  she,  Tyler,  and  Margaret 
casually  toured  the  Virginia  spas.  This  arrangement  was  a  failure. 
Julia  spent  much  of  her  vacation  time  nervously  bombarding  her 
harassed  mother  with  detailed  instructions  on  child  care.3 

Whether  they  had  any  therapeutic  value  or  not,  the  Virginia 
mineral  springs  were  the  nerve  center  of  the  Old  Dominion's  ante-bellum 
society.  Like  the  Tylers  and  the  Gardiners,  those  wealthy  and  socially 
prominent  Americans  who  could  afford  the  luxury  of  taking  the  waters 
believed  that  their  health  was  improved  by  the  experience.  "The  com- 
pany is  now  so  good  and  the  waters  agree  so  well  with  me  I  have  very 
little  disposition  to  move,"  Margaret  wrote  from  Alum  Springs  in 
August  1856.  Indeed,  Margaret  reported  the  Rockbridge  County  resort 
so  crowded  that  summer  that  guests  of  the  hotel  were  packed  five  to 
a  room  and  were  reduced  to  sleeping  on  mattresses  in  the  drawing  and 
reception  rooms.  But  the  salutary  effect  of  drinking  and  bathing  in 
the  waters  was  thought  to  be  well  worth  the  inconvenience.  "I  am  now 
fairly  under  the  influence  of  the  waters,"  Margaret  informed  her  city- 
bound  brother.  "They  have  taken  hold  of  me  pretty  severely."  Tyler  also 
felt  rejuvenated  by  the  sulphuric  ingestions. 

418 


In  addition,  the  family  found  the  company  good  and  the  social 
activities  pleasant  at  the  western  Virginia  spas  they  frequented.  Old 
friends  were  invariably  present,  and  old  recollections  and  new  gossip 
could  be  exchanged.  When,  for  example,  the  families  of  Commodore 
Beverly  Kennon  and  Thomas  W.  Gilmer  arrived  at  Rockbridge  Alum 
Springs  in  August  1856,  Margaret  thought  it  singular  that  three  of  the 
five  prominent  families  connected  with  the  Princeton  disaster  should 
again  have  been  brought  accidentally  together.  The  somber  remem- 
brance and  recounting  of  that  tragedy  did  not  dull  the  merrymaking 
of  the  survivors.  On  the  contrary,  dances  and  picnics  were  the  order  of 
the  day.  The  appearance  of  Governor  Wise  added  the  inevitable  po- 
litical touch.  Tyler,  however,  preferred  not  to  mix  his  politics  with  his 
sulphur,  and  all  efforts  to  persuade  him  to  speak  to  the  guests  on  the 
issues  of  the  day  proved  unavailing.4 

In  her  frequent  travels  to  Virginia,  winter  and  summer,  Margaret 
was  searching  for  health  and  recreation,  not  for  another  husband.  She 
had  developed  a  nagging  cough  in  1854,  and  she  was  more  interested 
in  treating  that  condition  than  she  was  in  finding  a  new  father  for  young 
Harry.  Julia  could  only  dimly  perceive  this  fact.  With  all  the  match- 
making power  and  instinct  at  her  command  she  persistently  endeavored 
to  involve  Margaret  in  a  serious  romance.  Thus  when  the  young  widow 
visited  Sherwood  Forest  during  the  winters  of  1854-1856,  Julia  and  her 
neighbors  sponsored  numerous  dances  and  dinner  parties  for  her  enter- 
tainment. These  gave  Julia  an  opportunity  to  nudge  a  bewildering 
array  of  unattached  Tidewater  men  toward  the  comely  Margaret  in 
her  campaign  to  find  the  husband  she  was  sure  her  sister  sorely  needed. 
Not  surprisingly,  Margaret  responded  no  more  positively  to  Julia's 
new  effort  than  she  had  to  her  sister's  matchmaking  in  1845-1847.  She 
did,  of  course,  enjoy  the  attentions  of  the  men  and  the  excitement  of 
the  various  neighborhood  "blowouts"  immensely.  "The  F.F.V.s  of 
Charles  City  are  not  so  bad,"  she  had  confided  to  her  mother  in  1854. 
"You  must  try  to  appreciate  them  better.  They  improve  upon  acquaint- 
ance —  but  I  find  many  of  them  have  as  extensive  ideas  as  their  lands 
are. . . .  Here's  this  young  Wilcox,  heir  apparent  to  his  uncle's  estate 
and  half  heir  to  his  father's.  Both  are  rich . . .  [and]  his  father  who  is 
a  widower  took  quite  a  fancy  in  this  direction  and  wishes  very  much 
to  pay  a  visit.  Don't  laugh!"  5 

Margaret  had  "no  little  fun"  at  Sherwood  Forest  among  her 
"many  admirers."  She  danced,  teased,  and  flirted  with  all  of  them  al- 
though most  of  the  eligible  men  were  quite  a  bit  older  than  she.  Her 
most  loyal  suitor,  Dr.  Henry  Wilcox,  was  "upwards  of  sixty"  by  Julia's 
frank  reckoning.  Margaret  also  made  it  clear  that  a  classic  May-and- 
December  match,  however  well  it  had  worked  for  Tyler  and  her  sister, 
was  not  her  idea  of  torrid  romance.  Julia  was  quick  to  admit  that  many 
of  the  aging  land-rich  local  beaux  left  much  to  be  desired  as  "eligible 
matches  for  fashionable  ladies  unless  the  lady  can  produce  a  good  part 

419 


of  the  cash."  But  she  was  certain  that  this  condition  was  not  a  Charles 
City  phenomenon.  In  her  opinion  it  was  a  universal  malady.  Margaret 
was  foolish,  therefore,  not  to  grab  whatever  she  could  get — rich,  poor, 
old,  or  young.  After  all,  Julia  reasoned,  Margaret  was  fortunate  to  be 
able  to  meet  a  variety  of  "Colonels,  Doctors,  Lawyers,  planters,  Honor- 
ables  and  ex-Presidents"  in  Virginia.  "Won't  that  do?  To  dress  up  for? 
...  if  one  is  going  to  be  always  looking  for  a  suitable  offer  and  nothing 
but  that  they  will  waste  a  good  deal  of  time."  Nevertheless,  during 
the  winter  of  1855-1856  Margaret  managed  to  work  her  merry  way 
through  "no  less  than  eight  balls,  eleven  dinner  parties,  a  countless 
number  of  tea  drinkings,"  and  a  flock  of  fox  hunts  without  rewarding 
Julia's  romantic  interests  in  her  behalf.  Tyler  better  understood  Mar- 
garet's feelings  in  the  matter,  and  he  flatly  informed  one  of  her  suitors 
that  "the  lady  in  question  is  not  to  be  won  even  by  a  Prince  Alton 
or  a  Duke  of  Brunswick."  6 

Margaret  never  did  remarry.  She  still  mourned  for  John  Beeck- 
man.  It  is  not  certain,  however,  that  she  would  have  remained  con- 
tent with  widowhood  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  She  died  before  the  question 
could  be  tested,  before  Beeckman7s  memory  had  dimmed.  On  June  i,  1857, 
while  visiting  at  Sherwood  Forest  preparatory  to  a  visit  to  the  Virginia 
springs  with  Julia  and  the  ex-President,  the  thirty-five-year-old  widow 
suddenly  passed  away.  Death  came  as  quickly  to  her  as  it  had  to  Alex- 
ander in  1851,  and  as  it  had  to  her  young  Shelter  Island  cousin  Mary 
Gardiner  Horsford  in  November  1855.  It  would  come  with  equal  celerity 
to  Henry  Mandeville  Denison,  Alice  Tyler's  widower,  in  October  1858. 
But  to  the  lovely  Margaret  it  came  inexplicably.  Mary  died  at  the 
age  of  thirty-one,  "without  a  struggle  or  a  groan,"  in  the  grim  gamble 
that  was  childbirth  in  1855.  That  was  normal.  The  thirty-six-year-old 
Denison  was  predictably,  almost  suicidally,  carried  away  by  yellow  fever 
in  Charleston  after  he  refused  to  leave  his  stricken  parishioners  at 
the  height  of  an  epidemic  there.  Margaret,  on  the  other  hand,  was  alive 
and  healthy  one  day  and  dead  within  the  week.  Her  last  letter,  dated 
May  28,  1857,  indicated  the  mystery  of  her  ailment  as  well  as  the  un- 
witting contribution  of  the  medical  profession  to  her  sudden  demise: 

Dr.  Giddeon  Christian  . . .  appeared  to  understand  my  ailing  better  than  any- 
one I  have  seen  yet.  Said  at  once  I  had  sneaking  chills  with  torpor  of  liver 
and  deranged  digestion — all  of  which  I  believe  to  be  true.  He  gave  me  right 
off  a  dose  I  shan't  soon  forget.  It  made  me  so  sick.  I  think  it  must  have  been 
antimony  mingled  with  a  good  quantity  of  quinine  and  a  nervine.  However  I 
believe  it  was  a  good  dosing.  He  does  not  go  for  small  doses  of  quinine.  It  must 
be  taken  until  the  ears  ring,  and  to  this  end  I  have  taken  some  thirty  grains 
since  yesterday — and  with  fine  effect. 

The  initial  "fine  effect"  was  compromised  by  continued  ear-ringing 
quantities  of  dangerous  drugs,  and  a  few  days  later  the  gay  Margaret 
was  gone,  probably  from  a  heavy  overdose  of  morphine.  The  funeral  was 

420 


held  at  Sherwood  Forest  on  June  3.  Harry  Beeckman  and  Juliana 
came  down  to  Virginia  for  the  melancholy  amenities.  When  these  were 
completed  Tyler  and  Julia  returned  with  them  to  New  York  that  they 
might  all  attend  graveside  ceremonies  for  Margaret  at  East  Hampton. 
It  was  "our  most  sad  and  bitter  mission/7  said  Julia.  It  was  decided 
during  this  crisis  that  Margaret's  orphaned  nine-year-old  son  would  be 
reared  by  his  grandmother  in  her  Staten  Island  home.7 

The  death  of  her  beloved  sister  removed  from  the  earth  Julia's 
closest  and  dearest  confidante.  "We  were  always  in  such  close  com- 
munion. She  was  included  in  all  my  arrangements  past,  present  and 
future."  Julia  went  into  deep  mourning  for  a  year.  She  tormented  her- 
self with  the  thought  that  perhaps  "the  skill  of  Margaret's  physician 
was  at  fault."  She  derived  only  a  bit  of  consolation  from  the  fact 
that  her  sister  had  passed  away  "under  the  influence  of  a  dose  of 
morphine."  At  least  "Death  stole  upon  her  without  producing  a  dread 
or  a  pang."  In  mid- July  the  sorrowing  Tylers  and  their  children  went 
to  Staten  Island  to  be  with  Juliana  for  the  remainder  of  that  desolate 
summer.8 

For  Julia  it  marked  the  end  of  an  era.  After  1857  she  did  not 
visit  the  Virginia  springs  or  travel  north  for  casual  vacations  on  Staten 
Island  and  at  the  New  England  watering  places.  For  the  mourning 
Julia  these  once-happy  excursions  were  meaningless  without  Margaret's 
cheerful  presence.  Not  until  November  1862  did  she  appear  again  at 
Castleton  Hill — this  time  to  deposit  four  of  her  children  in  the  safety 
of  her  mother's  home  for  the  duration  of  the  Civil  War.  Until  the 
outbreak  of  that  conflict  the  reunions  of  the  family  brought  Juliana 
and  Harry  to  Sherwood  Forest  or  to  Old  Point  Comfort.  A  summer 
place  at  Hampton  was  purchased  in  1858,  and  named  Villa  Margaret 
in  Margaret's  memory.  It  provided  a  stationary  vacation  spot  for  the 
clan.  Here  Harry  could  swim  and  fish  and  play  with  his  first  cousins 
while  Julia  visited  with  her  mother. 

David  Lyon  did  not  visit  in  Virginia  during  the  last  five  years 
before  the  war.  Julia  had  always  felt  less  close  to  him  than  she  had 
to  either  Margaret  or  Alexander,  and  the  tragic  upheaval  that  would 
mark  their  relations  during  the  Civil  War  had  seeds  that  germinated  in 
their  long  separation  on  the  eve  of  the  conflict.  Settled,  self-satisfied, 
and  lazy,  the  Colonel  had  all  he  could  do  to  muster  the  strength  to 
override  his  mother's  opposition  and  get  married  in  1860.  Traveling 
to  Virginia  was  apparently  well  beyond  his  energy,  and  Julia  was  too 
husy  with  too  many  children  and  an  aging  husband  to  dash  off  to 
New  York.  And  so  brother  and  sister  drifted  gradually  apart.  They 
seldom  corresponded.  Only  a  new  baby  at  Sherwood  Forest  seemed  im- 
portant enough  to  produce  an  exchange  of  letters. 

The  birth  of  Robert  Fitzwalter  Tyler,  Julia's  sixth  child  and  fifth 
son,  on  March  12,  1856,  was  accomplished  without  incident  save  that 

421 


the  sturdy  expectant  mother  had,  in  her  husband's  words,  "a  violent 
pneumonia"  accompanied  by  a  cough  "so  severe  and  violent  and  of 
such  long  continuance  as  much  to  have  enfeebled  her,  a  circumstance 
particularly  unfortunate  at  this  time  as  the  period  is  near  at  hand  for 
her  regular  confinement."  (Tyler  reconsidered  the  sentence  for  a  mo- 
ment and  then  primly  struck  through  the  word  regular.)  But  Julia 
coughed  her  way  through  the  ordeal  and  was  soon  out  of  danger. 
Juliana  was  on  hand  for  the  blessed  event,  as  usual,  and  nothing  con- 
nected with  the  arrival  of  little  Fitz  was  allowed  to  disturb  the  normal 
flow  of  visitors  and  dinner  parties  at  Sherwood  Forest.  Childbirth  had 
indeed  become  a  regular  thing  for  Julia.9 

Fortunately,  her  children  were  as  healthy  as  she.  They  passed 
through  their  various  adolescent  diseases  without  serious  difficulty. 
The  most  severe  of  their  illnesses  was  Gardie's  "bilious  attack"  in 
October  1856.  Julia  was  on  Staten  Island  at  the  time.  For  a  time  Tyler 
feared  he  would  lose  the  boy,  but  the  ten-year-old  responded  to  opiates 
and  extensive  cupping  and  somehow  pulled  through.  He  was  pronounced 
out  of  danger  the  same  day  Tyler  learned  that  Buchanan  had  carried 
Indiana  and  Pennsylvania.  The  former  President  was  thus  "in  the 
happiest  condition  to  enjoy  the  good  political  news."  By  the  time  a 
panicky  Julia  had  rushed  home  to  Virginia,  Gardie  had  entirely  re- 
covered. Nevertheless,  she  was  so  frightened  by  the  incident  that  she 
determined  never  again  to  leave  her  children.  To  be  sure,  they  con- 
tinued to  have  their  bouts  with  boils,  mumps,  measles,  and  chicken 
pox,  but  they  survived  these  childhood  shocks  just  as  they  managed 
to  survive  the  beginnings  of  their  formal  educations.  Chicken  pox  was 
no  worse  than  arithmetic  and  composition,  and  it  was  over  and  done 
with  a  lot  faster.  The  Tyler  children  were  not  bad  scholars.  Like 
most  children,  however,  they  were  less  than  entranced  by  the  beauties 
of  irregular  French  verbs  and  Latin  conjugations — especially  when  the 
fish  were  biting  and  the  rabbits  were  jumping.10 

They  were  happy,  active  children  who  lacked  nothing.  Christmas 
at  Sherwood  Forest  was  their  day,  and  Tyler  had  all  he  could  do  to 
prevent  them  from  finding  the  presents  and  opening  them  before  the 
appointed  hour.  As  he  described  the  scene  on  December  25,  1855: 

The  children  last  night  hurried  to  bed  at  an  early  hour  in  order  to  sleep 
away  the  tedious  hours  which  were  to  elapse  before  the  dawning  of  day,  but 
I  went  to  Gardie  and  Alex's  room  at  near  eleven  o'clock,  and  sleep  had  not 
visited  their  eyes.  They  were  watching  for  Santa  Claus,  and  complained  of  his 
tardiness.  Being  told  that  Santa  Claus  objected  to  being  seen,  and  did  not 
like  boys  to  watch  for  him,  they  finally  went  to  sleep;  but  the  day  had  not 
fairly  dawned  when  their  exclamations  filled  the  whole  house.  Having 
dispatched  the  sweet  things,  they  then  opened  their  toy  boxes:  Gardiner  is 
still  (eleven  o'clock)  carrying  on  the  siege  of  Sebastopol;  Alex  is  busily  en- 
gaged with  "Wttittington  and  his  Cat";  Julia  arranges  her  furniture;  Lachlan 

422 


spurs  Ms  hobby  horse;  and  Lionel . . .  calls  for  his  drummer.  A  happier  con- 
cern you  rarely  ever  saw. 

Nor  was  the  Christmas  season  at  the  plantation  entirely  a  children's 
festival.  It  was  an  opportunity  for  Julia  to  entertain  her  neighbors 
and  their  holiday  houseguests.  "Before  midnight,"  said  Tyler  of  one  of 
these  gatherings,  "the  fun  grew  fast  and  furious."  u 

As  the  years  sped  by  Tyler  had  more  and  more  difficulty  keep- 
ing up  with  his  spirited  children  and  with  the  "fast  and  furious"  parties 
sponsored  by  his  socially  zealous  wife.  Unlike  the  other  members  of 
his  hearty  family,  the  aging  Tyler  complained  increasingly  of  his  health 
after  1854.  His  late  sixties  found  him  with  numerous  aches  and  pains 
located  in  a  variety  of  inaccessible  organs.  His  medical  problem  centered 
chiefly  in  his  digestive  tract,  as  it  had  since  his  early  thirties.  After 
his  sixty-fifth  birthday  he  was  also  prone  to  heavy  colds  and  influenza, 
arthritic  attacks,  and  kidney  disturbances.  When  in  1854  he  threatened 
to  try  homeopathy  for  his  "dyspepsia"  (as  all  gastric  problems  were 
then  termed),  Julia  urged  him  to  go  instead  to  Baltimore  and  place 
himself  under  the  care  of  competent  physicians  there.  Tyler  rejected 
this  advice,  preferring  to  rely  on  local  medical  talent.  He  also  rejected 
his  wife's  various  home  medical  remedies  (for  example,  her  standard 
cure  for  flu — small  doses  of  morphine  combined  with  the  copious  drink- 
ing of  "chicken  water").  He  always  objected  to  extensive  and  experi- 
mental self -medication,  and  he  spent  much  of  his  life  with  Julia  caution- 
ing her  against  the  persistent  tinkering  with  her  body  she  (and  her 
mother)  so  thoroughly  enjoyed.  While  he  was  not  slow  to  summon  a  doc- 
tor, he  had  little  confidence  in  the  medical  profession.  He  was,  however, 
no  faith  healer.  On  the  contrary,  he  spent  some  $700  a  year  for  four 
long  years  procuring  his  talented  son  Tazewell  an  expensive  medical 
education  at  the  Philadelphia  Medical  College.  It  was  just  that  the 
diagnoses  and  nostrums  of  the  medical  fraternity  seemed  to  vary  so 
widely  on  the  same  set  of  symptoms.  "I  wish  that  I  could  entirely  cure 
myself,"  he  wrote  in  February  1856,  "for  I  am  never  perfectly  clear 
of  pain.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  32  and  65 — especially  in 
cold  weather. . . .  What  a  delight  it  would  have  been  to  have  fled  [to 
Florida]  from  this  oversevere  winter."  He  was  sure  his  illnesses  were 
God's  will.  "I  am  the  oldest  and  most  infirm  and  cannot  move  about 
much,"  he  complained  in  1856.  "I  have  many  aches  and  pains.  They 
will  attend  upon  a  sexagenarian,  however,  and  so  be  it,  for  I  am  con- 
vinced that  all  is  wisely  ordered  by  Providence."  Taking  the  waters 
at  the  Virginia  springs  seemed  to  ease  these  multiple  aches  and  pains 
for  a  time,  and,  as  has  been  noted,  Tyler  became  a  devotee  of  sulphuric 
hydrotherapy.  Frequent  and  massive  doses  of  calomel  also  became 
standard  with  him.  Nevertheless,  he  was  often  rendered  "quite  feeble" 
by  digestive  upheavals,  and  his  continuing  war  against  this  "old  enemy" 

423 


was  one  of  attrition.  In  November-December  1856  he  became  so  ill 
he  "despaired  at  times  of  recovery."  12 

During  this  two-month  crisis  in  late  1856  he  began  planning  for 
a  "fair  history"  of  his  administration.  Too  ill  and  weak  to  complete 
a  biographical  account  of  his  public  service  he  had  commenced  in 
the  late  18405,  he  ordered  his  public  and  private  papers  turned  over  to 
his  old  friend  Caleb  Gushing.  He  had  heard  that  the  distinguished 
lawyer  was  contemplating  a  scholarly  reminiscence  of  the  Tyler  ad- 
ministration after  his  stint  as  Pierce's  Attorney  General  had  ended. 
Alexander  Gardiner  had  originally  been  selected  for  this  task,  but  his 
death  in  1851  had  caused  the  project  to  be  abandoned.  Now  Tyler  was 
anxious  to  see  the  book  launched  before  death  overtook  him.  "That  a 
fair  history  of  my  administration  should  be  written  by  a  competent 
person  is  a  matter  very  near  to  my  heart,"  he  told  John,  Jr.,  in  January 
1857.  "Whatever  time  might  be  assigned  for  the  publication  of  such 
a  work,  whether  during  my  life  or  after  my  death,  I  feel  it  to  be  im- 
portant that  it  should  be  written  while  I  live.  My  own  explanations 
might  be  wanting  to  render  the  narrative  clear  and  perfect."  Unfor- 
tunately, Gushing  turned  to  other  pursuits  in  1857,  and  Tyler's  un- 
finished manuscript,  with  most  of  his  private  papers,  was  burned  in 
1865  when  the  retiring  Confederate  defenders  set  fire  to  Richmond.  Nor 
was  the  former  President's  health  ever  again  robust  enough  prior  to 
his  death  in  1862  to  permit  him  to  finish  the  work  himself.13 

By  1858  Tyler  was  loath  to  leave  Sherwood  Forest  for  very  long 
for  fear  he  would  take  ill  and  die  in  strange  surroundings.  In  January- 
February  of  that  year  he  again  very  nearly  joined  his  fathers.  Weakened 
by  severe  gastric  upset  and  crippled  by  arthritis,  he  was  confined  to  bed 
for  two  months.  But  on  March  29,  1858,  his  sixty-eighth  birthday,  he 
was  able  to  report  to  David  Lyon  that 

I  now  walk  about  the  house  and  take  my  seat  at  the  table  with  the  rest  of  the 
family,  but  I  cannot  adventure  out  of  doors  except  in  a  closed  carriage — then 
I  ride  over  the  estate  and  see  how  matters  are  going  on.  I  have  had  a  terrible 
winter,  and  when  I  look  back  upon  it  I  am  at  a  loss  to  know  how  I  have 
survived.  Nothing  but  the  kind  providence  of  our  heavenly  Father  could  have 
saved  me.  For  an  entire  month  I  remained  suspended  between  life  and  death 
without  perceptible  change.  I  am  at  this  time  laboring  under  one  of  my  old 
attacks  which  has  I  hope  nearly  run  its  course.  Today  I  am  better.  It  is  my 
birthday  and  I  now  number  68  years — my  three  score  and  ten  nearly  attained 
and  I  can  well  appreciate  what  the  Psalmist  says  of  living  to  three  score  and 
ten — aches  and  pains,  etc.  etc.  But  I  do  not  mean  to  sermonize. 

Shaken  by  Ms  close  brushes  with  death  in  1856  and  again  in  1858, 
Tyler  drew  up  his  will  in  1859,  leaving  everything  he  owned  to  Julia 
and  her  children.  His  private  papers  were  left  to  his  sons  Robert,  John, 
Tazewell,  and  Gardie,  and  to  his  sons-in-law  James  A.  Semple  and 
William  N.  Waller,  all  of  whom  were  to  serve  as  his  literary  executors.14 

424 


As  he  contemplated  the  provisions  of  his  will  and  the  approach- 
ing end  of  his  allotted  days,  Tyler  became  more  attached  to  the  scenes 
of  his  youth.  William  and  Mary  College  received  a  good  deal  of  his 
time  and  interest  in  the  late  18505.  As  Rector  of  its  Board  of  Visitors 
and  Governors  he  concerned  himself  with  the  details  of  faculty  appoint- 
ments, the  renovation  of  the  physical  plant,  and  institutional  finances. 
Awarded  an  LL.D.  by  the  college  in  1854,  he  was  named  its  Chancellor 
in  1860,  a  post  held  before  only  by  George  Washington.  Both  of 
these  honors  pleased  him  immensely,  and  he  frankly  confessed  his 
"egotism"  in  being  so  conspicuously  signalized.  William  and  Mary,  with 
its  solid  academic  emphasis  on  the  Greco-Roman  classics  and  states' 
rights,  was,  he  felt,  the  "nursery  of  the  great  principles"  which  had 
contributed  to  the  "glorious"  elevation  of  his  lifelong  friend,  Henry  A. 
Wise,  to  the  Governor's  Mansion  in  Richmond  in  January  1856.  The 
William  and  Mary  LL.D.  he  therefore  considered  a  real  "feather  in  his 
cap."  The  chancellorship  was  an  honor  of  which  he  was  "quite  as 
proud  as  any  other  ever  conferred  upon  me  by  my  fellow  men."  As 
often  as  his  health  permitted  and  his  presence  on  campus  was  needed, 
he  journeyed  to  WilHamsburg  to  attend  to  his  official  duties  or  to  address 
commencement  exercises  and  other  college  gatherings.  At  these  he  was 
always  enthusiastically  received.  "The  cheering  was  immense,"  he 
wrote  of  one  of  his  better  performances  in  October  1859.  "I  never  spoke 
better.  Every  sentence  was  followed  by  loud  applause.  I  was  twice  after 
toasted  with  rapturous  applause."  15 

His  few  public  speeches  during  these  years  of  increasing  infirmity 
also  demonstrated  a  growing  tolerance  of  conflicting  political  and  sec- 
tional viewpoints.  Gone  was  the  sharp  and  sarcastic  invective  of  his 
great  free-trade  orations  in  the  Senate.  Gone  was  the  absolute  certainty 
of  his  ringing  Presidential  messages  on  states'  rights,  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  Manifest  Destiny.  Departed  too  was  the  self- 
conscious  sense  of  moral  righteousness  that  had  often  characterized 
his  political  outlook  and  tiresomely  manifested  itself  in  his  public  pro- 
nouncements. Instead,  John  Tyler,  his  own  political  wars  apparently 
concluded,  sought  to  pour  soothing  oil  on  the  troubled  waters  of  the 
Buchanan  administration.  To  him  states'  rights  as  a  concept  seemed 
not  nearly  so  important  now  as  the  reality  of  continued  national  unity. 
His  almost-compulsive  need  to  defend  the  total  record  of  his  administra- 
tion before  the  altar  of  Clio  and  in  the  memories  of  his  fellow  men  also 
became  less  evident.  While  he  still  felt  obliged  to  counter  and  correct 
the  more  obvious  distortions  of  his  Presidential  motives  and  acts,  par- 
ticularly those  casting  shadow  on  his  personal  honesty  in  office  and 
on  his  motives  in  the  Texas  matter,  he  no  longer  lashed  out  at  his 
tormentors  with  the  wounded  pride  and  savagery  of  1845-1852.  "I 
am  almost  indifferent  to  what  others  think,"  he  told  Robert  in  i859.16 

His  speech  at  the  Maryland  Mechanics  Institute  in  Baltimore 

425 


on  March  20,  1855,  to  an  overflow  audience  of  five  thousand,  reflected 
something  of  his  newfound  political  peace  of  mind  and  his  interest  in 
pacifying  sectional  passions.  Titled  "The  Prominent  Characters  and 
Incidents  of  Our  History  from  1812  to  1836,"  the  address  sought  to 
bury  the  factional  and  sectional  rancors  of  the  immediate  past  in  an 
appeal  to  the  glories  of  the  Union.  It  was,  said  Margaret,  who  heard 
it,  "considered  magnanimous  in  its  bearing  towards  those  who  had  not 

spared  the  P politically."  A  gratuitous  tribute  to  the  departed 

Henry  Clay  particularly  impressed  Henry  M.  Denison  as  the  beginning 
of  a  whole  new  orientation  in  Tyler's  political  life — one  in  which  "you 
have  attained  the  cool  eventide  of  life  where  the  meridian  heats  of 
party  spirit  and  indiscriminating  passions  have  passed  away."  To 
Tyler's  delight,  the  Maryland  Institute  address  was  well  received  by 
all  who  heard  it,  and  the  Baltimore  trip  was  marred  only  by  the  cir- 
culation of  a  story  that  the  former  President  had  suddenly  died  in 
Barnum's  Hotel  the  following  night.  Some  eight  hundred  persons  called 
at  the  hostelry  during  the  evening  hours  to  make  "anxious  inquiries" 
about  the  report  which,  Julia  hastily  assured  her  mother,  "had  not  the 
slightest  foundation  ...  he  is  remarkably  well  at  present."  Neverthe- 
less, the  rumor  blighted  an  otherwise  gay  round  of  shopping,  parties, 
and  receptions  that  the  journey  to  Baltimore  had  provided  Julia.17 
Similarly,  Tyler's  "The  Dead  of  the  Cabinet"  speech  delivered 
in  Petersburg  on  April  24,  1856,  was  designed  to  calm  troubled  sectional 
waters  roiled  by  the  bitterness  of  the  1856  Presidential  campaign.  On 
the  advice  of  Thomas  Ritchie,  and  by  his  own  inclination,  he  scrupu- 
lously avoided  any  mention  of  the  growing  menace  of  "Black  Republi- 
canism." Instead,  he  was  resolved  to  maintain  a  "dignified  silence  and 
graceful  non-interference  in  the  political  questions  of  the  day."  Widely 
published  in  newspapers  North  and  South,  the  Petersburg  address  was 
the  plea  of  an  elder  statesman  to  the  nation  to  bury  the  animosities 
of  the  past.  Eulogizing  the  deeds,  patriotism,  and  memory  of  men  as 
different  in  their  attitudes  and  politics  as  Hugh  Swinton  Legare,  Abel 
P.  Upshur  (who  "failed  not  to  see  in  virtual  monopoly  of  the  cotton 
plant  what  the  annexation  of  Texas  would  accomplish"),  Daniel  Web- 
ster, John  C.  Calhoun,  John  C.  Spencer,  and  Henry  Clay,  Tyler  asked 
his  audience  to  view  these  dead  patriots  as  he  did — as  Americans 

undisturbed  by  the  ravings  of  faction  or  the  roar  of  the  political  tempest, 
intent  only  on  the  public  good,  and  earnest  to  record  their  names  on  the  pages 

of  history  as  public  benefactors We  were  comrades — sat  at  the  same  table 

— brake  bread  and  ate  salt  together,  bared  our  bosoms  to  the  same  storms, 
and  when  the  angry  clouds  so  far  parted  as  to  admit  a  ray  of  sunshine,  we 
basked  in  it  together. . . .  Let  no  man  fear  that  I  shall . . .  introduce  into  my 
address  anything  that  can  excite  party  feeling.  I  shall  do  no  such  injustice  to 
the  memory  of  those  of  whom  I  design  to  speak 18 

426 


Having  made  his  peace  with  the  American  political  spectrum  from 
Webster  to  Calhoun,  Tyler  lovingly  tackled  the  history  of  his  native 
state  in  a  major  speech  in  Jamestown  on  May  14,  1857.  Eight  thousand 
Virginians  were  present  to  celebrate  two  and  a  half  centuries  of  the 
white  man's  presence  in  the  Old  Dominion.  Tyler  was  the  featured 
orator.  Of  the  hundreds  of  speaking  invitations  he  received  annually, 
the  Jamestown  address  was  one  of  the  very  few  he  felt  obliged  to  ac- 
cept. The  remainder  were  declined,  usually  because  his  health  was 
"too  precarious."  To  the  Jamestown  speech  he  devoted  weeks  of  prep- 
aration, attempting  to  cram  a  two-hundred-fifty-year  survey  of  Virginia 
history  into  a  two-and-a-half-hour  eulogy  to  the  glories  of  the  Old 
Dominion.  "They  have  not  given  me  time  enough/'  he  complained.  In 
spite  of  the  careful  preparation,  the  final  result  was  not  satisfactory. 
It  was  a  tedious,  rambling,  superficial  effort  which  taxed  his  health 
and  the  attention  span  of  his  audience  with  equal  severity.  Neverthe- 
less, the  ancestor  worship  in  it  strongly  appealed  to  those  Virginia 
Shintoists  near  enough  the  platform  to  hear  it  over  the  din  of  crying 
babies,  lost  children,  and  mint-julep  merrymaking  that  characterized 
the  carnival  atmosphere  of  the  celebration.19 

In  spite  of  his  various  physical  infirmities,  John  Tyler  had  much 
to  live  for  as  the  18505  came  to  a  close.  His  growing  children  brought 
him  great  joy,  and  he  enthusiastically  continued  bringing  more  of  them 
into  the  world.  His  marriage  to  Julia  remained  the  honeymoon  it  had 
been  since  1844.  On  his  sixty-fifth  birthday  his  doting  wife  could 
lovingly  tell  him: 

I  would  that  I  could  add,  love, 

To  wreaths  that  deck  thy  brow 
A  leaf  of  brighter  hue,  love 

Than  shines  among  them  now. 

But  if  my  fondness  serves,  love, 

To  gild  those  wreaths  of  thine, 
Then  will  thy  path  be  marked,  love, 

By  radiance  divine! 

On  this  thy  natal  day,  love, 

I  will  renew  the  vow 
Always  to  keep  undimmed,  love, 

The  lustre  on  thy  brow!  20 

Luster  John  Tyler  had  achieved.  His  sincere  efforts  to  stay  the 
sectional  whirlwind  seemed  to  him  neither  a  mean  nor  a  hopeless  task, 
and  as  he  approached  his  seventieth  birthday  he  could  take  pride  in 
the  fact  that  his  had  been  a  firm  voice  for  moderation  on  the  slavery 
question  for  a  solid  decade,  a  "wreath"  not  to  be  scorned.  If  his  auto- 

427 


biography  remained  unwritten,  if  his  speeches  lacked  the  intellectual 
power  and  incisiveness  of  bygone  days,  if  the  patronage-stingy  Bu- 
chanan commanded  little  of  his  respect,  Tyler's  psyche  had  healed  from 
the  rude  buffeting  of  1841-1845.  He  was  content. 

Little  did  he  suspect  in  1859  that  the  final  storm  was  about  to 
break  in  all  its  fury.  The  summer  of  1859  was  a  relaxed  and  happy  one. 
The  family  spent  three  wonderful  months  at  Villa  Margaret.  Juliana 
and  Harry  visited  there  in  August  and  found  the  six-acre  retreat  a 
"gem  of  a  place,"  its  peach  trees  "filled  with  peaches  not  yet  ripe 
but  large  and  fine  looking."  The  children  rode  their  ponies,  swam,  and 
fished,  Tyler  accompanying  them  on  their  excursions  and  fish  fries.  For 
the  adults  there  were  dances  and  masquerade  balls  at  the  Fortress. 
Tyler  commuted  back  and  forth  between  Hampton  and  Sherwood 
Forest,  keeping  one  eye  on  his  sickly  wheat  and  the  other  on  his  vaca- 
tioning family.  When  the  trek  back  to  Sherwood  Forest  commenced 
in  early  October  Julia  was  happy,  relaxed — and  pregnant  again.  She 
saw  Julie  race  eagerly  off  to  her  first  day  of  school  "as  blithe  as  a 
bird,"  and  she  busied  herself  with  supervising  the  setting  out  of  new 
shrubs,  evergreens,  and  fruit  trees  purchased  from  a  nursery  at  Staun- 
ton.  Although  Tyler's  wheat  crop  had  been  a  disappointing  one  for  the 
second  successive  year,  the  plantation  had  never  been  more  beautiful 
in  its  colorful  fall  clothing.21 

Then  it  happened.  The  three  days  that  shook  the  South.  On 
October  16,  1859,  John  Brown  and  his  desperate  little  band  struck  at 
Harpers  Ferry,  Virginia,  briefly  seized  the  federal  arsenal,  and  called 
for  an  armed  insurrection  of  all  Virginia  slaves.  Faced  with  this  chal- 
lenge to  domestic  peace,  order,  and  safety,  to  say  nothing  of  the  seizure 
of  government  property,  Buchanan  had  no  alternative  under  the  Con- 
stitution but  to  send  a  company  of  United  States  Marines  and  two 
artillery  units  into  Harpers  Ferry.  Taken  prisoner  by  federal  troops 
on  October  18,  Brown  was  turned  over  to  the  hastily  mobilized  Vir- 
ginia militia  and  brought  to  trial  in  Charles  Town  on  October  25  for 
treason  against  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia.  Speedily  convicted  on 
this  charge  and  for  criminal  conspiracy  to  incite  a  slave  uprising,  the 
psychopathic  murderer  of  Pottawatomie  fame  was  hanged  on  Decem- 
ber 2.  Northern  abolitionists  and  "Black  Republicans"  who  had  financed 
and  encouraged  the  confused  liberator's  ill-starred  venture  now  eulo- 
gized their  unstable  pawn  as  a  hero,  martyr,  and  latter-day  Christ. 
They  wept  and  screamed  and  gnashed  their  teeth  in  frustrated  anguish. 
They  demanded  an  early  end  to  the  infamous  slavery  institution  in 
the  most  incendiary  terms,  disunion  and  civil  war  foremost  among  them. 
"I  feel,"  said  Tyler  in  shocked  response  to  the  abolitionist  outcry, 

great  concern  about  the  present  condition  of  things  in  the  Country.  Matters 
have  arrived  at  such  a  pass  disunion  must  soon  come.  A  few  years  ago  a  man 

428 


to  have  dared  to  utter  such  treasonable  discourses  as  proceed  from  so  many 
lips  at  the  North  now  would  have  been  at  once  mobbed,  stoned,  and  put 
down  instead  of  listened  to — and  they  would  have  been  pointed  at  as  objects 
of  disgust — but  how  is  it  now?  They  are  lions,  and  soon  they  will  have  follow- 
ers enough  to  overthrow  the  government  or  create  more  terrible  mischief.22 

The  audacity  of  the  Brown  raid,  the  mental  picture  it  generated 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  slaves  rising  in  armed  revolt  against  the 
handful  of  white  masters  who  owned  them,  sent  waves  of  panic  through 
the  Southern  aristocracy.  Visions  of  widespread  Nat  Turner  rebellions, 
organized,  coordinated,  and  directed  from  the  North,  even  caused 
moderates  among  Southern  plantation  owners,  Tyler  among  them,  to 
begin  stockpiling  arms  and  preparing  local  defenses  against  an  ex- 
pected black  revolution.  Whatever  sophisticated  historians  of  another 
century  would  say  "caused"  the  Civil  War,  the  primary  issue  at  Sher- 
wood Forest  during  the  final  months  before  the  deluge  turned  on  Negro 
slavery — not  on  states'  rights,  Southern  nationalism,  Free-Soilism,  the 
semantics  of  the  Constitution,  or  on  any  of  the  other  reasons  separately 
and  in  combination  since  adduced  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  1861 
catastrophe.  To  John  Tyler,  who  labored  as  diligently  and  selflessly  as 
any  man  to  prevent  civil  war,  the  fundamental  question  was  nothing 
more  complex  than  the  status  of  the  Negro  slave  and  the  grim  pros- 
pect that  the  abolitionism  sponsored  by  Northern  Republicans  would 
eventually  produce  in  Tidewater  Virginia,  and  throughout  the  South, 
tiny  islands  of  privileged  whites  isolated  in  angry  seas  of  shiftless,  liber- 
ated blacks.  All  other  issues  were  subordinate  to  this,  all  other  arguments 
became  mere  rationalizations  and  extensions  of  this  primary  fear  of  ulti- 
mate racial  inundation.  Especially  was  this  true  at  Sherwood  Forest 
after  the  John  Brown  raid  on  Harpers  Ferry. 

In  Charles  City  County,  where  Negroes  outnumbered  whites  more 
than  two  to  one,  the  alarmed  citizenry  quickly  began  organizing  an 
armed  mounted  patrol  for  "general  security."  As  Julia  explained  its 
function  to  her  mother  in  mid-November,  "if  it  does  no  other  good 
it  will  prevent  stealing  and  keep  the  black  people  where  they  ought 
to  be  at  night."  By  December  i,  as  the  date  for  John  Brown's  execu- 
tion neared,  Tyler's  friend  and  neighbor  Robert  Douthat  of  Weyanoke 
plantation  had  completed  the  mustering  of  the  volunteer  "Charles 
City  Cavalry"  which  he  captained.  At  the  same  time,  the  "Silver  Greys," 
a  mounted  unit  of  older  men  "who  cannot  leave  home  to  do  active 
service,"  was  raised.  Tyler  was  offered  the  captaincy  of  this  second- 
line  security  force.  It  was  an  honor  he  promptly  accepted.  Meanwhile, 
Ms  son  Dr.  Tazewell  Tyler  joined  the  New  Kent  County  militia  as 
its  surgeon  and  marched  with  the  outfit  to  Richmond  to  tender  his 
services  to  Governor  Wise  in  the  emergency.  The  Governor's  energetic 
mobilization  of  the  Virginia  militia,  and  his  deployment  of  several  of 
its  units  to  Charles  Town  during  the  trial  and  execution  of  Brown, 

429 


was  vigorously  supported  by  the  former  President  and  Ms  neighbors. 
"Wise's  energy/'  Tyler  reported  to  Robert  in  Philadelphia,  "receives 
unqualified  approval."  2a 

On  other  aspects  of  the  crisis,  however,  the  Tylers  differed.  John, 
Jr.,  wrote  Wise  two  letters  urging  him  to  spare  Brown's  life  on  the 
ground  of  political  expediency.  Robert,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted 
Brown  and  his  little  army  of  "thugs,"  murderers,  and  horse  thieves  hung 
promptly  and  without  a  backward  glance.  "Why  they  should  incite  the 
least  sympathy  is  very  surprising  to  all  Virginians  and  I  may  say  to  most 
conservative  men,"  he  fumed.  Unless  abolitionism  were  speedily  crushed 
root  and  branch,  Robert  predicted  the  South  would  be  forced  to  "estab- 
lish a  separate  Confederacy  in  less  than  two  years."  John  Tyler  was  less 
pessimistic  than  his  eldest  son,  although  for  a  moment  in  late  December 
1859  he  gave  ear  to  Ohio  congressman  C.  L.  Vallandigham's  proposal 
for  three  separate  confederacies  in  the  event  of  dissolution.  "If  broken 
up,  the  fragments  would  collect  around  three  centers,  the  North,  the 
West,  and  the  South,"  Tyler  explained.  "You  may  rely  upon  it  that 
Virginia  will  prepare  for  the  worst."  24 

Tyler  expected  local  slave  uprisings  would  follow  the  hanging  of 
Brown.  Fortunately,  all  remained  quiet  along  the  lower  James.  The 
Sherwood  Forest  Negroes  remained  docile  throughout  the  crisis.  They 
went  about  their  usual  routines  without  incident.  They  gave  no  evi- 
dence that  they  understood  what  the  furor  at  Charles  Town  was  all 
about.  Very  likely  they  had  been  carefully  shielded  from  all  information 
about  the  events  in  Harpers  Ferry.  "They  are  a  strange  set,  are  they 
not?"  Julia  asked  her  mother.  "Generally  kind  and  happy  and  don't 
want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  poor  white  people"  Nevertheless,  local 
and  state  security  measures  were  pushed  energetically  forward.  "Virginia 
is  arming  to  the  teeth,"  Tyler  pointed  out,  "more  than  fifty  thousand 
stand  of  arms  already  distributed,  and  the  demand  for  more  daily  in- 
creasing. Party  is  silent,  and  has  no  voice.  But  one  sentiment  pervades 
the  country:  security  in  the  Union,  or  separation. ...  I  hope  there  is 
conservatism  enough  in  the  country  to  speak  peace,  and  that,  after  all, 
good  may  come  out  of  evil."  25 

Enough  conservatism  was  mustered  to  prolong  peace,  although  little 
lasting  good  came  out  of  the  Harpers  Ferry  evil.  At  the  outset  of  the 
Brown  crisis  Julia  was  positive  that  disunion  was  near  at  hand  unless 
there  was  an  immediate  and  "important  demonstration  of  good  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  North  toward  the  South."  Southerners,  she  warned, 
"are  now  completely  wrought  up  and  will  not  be  tampered  with  any 
longer."  Only  when  she  learned  that  Americans  as  prominent  as  Edward 
Everett  and  Caleb  Gushing  had  spoken  out  at  Boston's  Faneuil  Hall  for 
peace  and  conciliation  did  she  decide  that  the  Union  could  probably  be 
saved.  "The  best  minds  are  really  with  the  South,"  she  said  of  the 
Faneuil  Hall  rally.  Still,  she  supported  a  movement  originating  in  Rich- 

430 


mond  to  boycott  the  use  of  Northern  textiles  in  the  hope  that  suck 
pressure  on  the  Yankee  pocketbook  would  awaken  businessmen  in  that 
section  to  the  economic  implications  of  "forcing"  the  South  out  of  the- 
Union  on  the  Negro  question.  The  "Wear- Virginia-Cloth'7  campaign,, 
and  the  fashionable  "Calico  Balls"  in  Richmond  that  launched  it,, 
would,  Julia  calculated,  compel  New  York  City  to  "follow  the  example, 
of  Boston  and  Philadelphia  in  making  such  demonstrations  as  will  soothet 
the  wounded  South."  26 

In  spite  of  young  Gardie's  prediction  that  "the  times  are  very- 
threatening  and  I  do  not  think  there  is  much  hope  of  a  reconciliation, 
between  the  North  and  the  South,"  the  "wounded  South"  was  gradually- 
soothed.  "Old  Brown"  went  to  his  doom,  reaping,  said  the  angry  Julia, 
"the  miserable  consequence  of  his  shameful  outrage."  Conservative 
Democratic  newspapers  in  the  North,  like  the  pro-Southern  New  York 
Express,  mounted  shrill  attacks  on  Brown  and  the  abolitionists.  The* 
Express,  said  Tyler,  "is  really  battling  the  cause  for  the  South  bravely." 
Julia  was  pleased  to  learn  that  unionist  meetings  and  rallies  in  New- 
York  City  and  on  Staten  Island  had  received  the  full  support  of  her 
mother.  The  Shelter  Island  branch  of  the  family  also  followed  the- 
Southern  line  during  the  Harpers  Ferry  crisis,  urging  sectional  concilia- 
tion and  an  end  to  abolitionist  provocations.  On  the  other  hand,  Julia, 
was  disturbed  to  hear  from  her  mother  that  David  Lyon  had  refused 
to  sign  the  call  for  a  union  meeting  held  on  Staten  Island  in  mid- 
December.  Inexplicably,  he  had  also  refused  to  endorse  a  formal  denun- 
ciation of  abolitionist  excesses  emerging  from  the  rally.  This  meeting,, 
sponsored  by  Virginia  expatriate  W.  Farley  Grey  and  an  organization 
called  "Friends  of  the  Union  and  Constitution,"  convinced  Sherwood 
Forest,  nevertheless,  in  Grey's  words,  that  "the  feeling  here  in  New  York 
is  all  we  could  wish.  An  army  of  fifty  thousand,  I  am  persuaded,  could 
be  raised  here  at  the  tap  of  a  drum  to  march  to  your  aid  if  necessary. 
Many  are  as  violent  as  any  Southern  man  could  be."  Whatever  David 
Lyon's  refusal  to  sustain  incipient  Copperheadism  on  Staten  Island 
boded  for  the  future  harmony  of  the  family,  Julia  and  Tyler  were  con- 
fident by  February  1860  that  the  threat  of  actual  secession  had  passed.27 

Neither  Tidewater  Virginia  nor  Sherwood  Forest  was  ever  again 
quite  the  same  after  the  Harpers  Ferry  upheaval.  The  relative  merits  of 
union  and  secession  were  debated  with  such  emotional  fury  throughout 
Charles  City  and  in  nearby  Richmond  that  few  social  functions  could  be; 
held  without  the  sectional  crisis  injecting  itself  into  the  gaiety.  Every- 
where nervous  Virginians  looked  they  saw  abolitionist  plots  unfolding. 
A  Richmond  reception  held  in  February  1860  at  the  Exchange  Hotel 
in  honor  of  Commissioner  Christopher  G.  Memminger  of  South  Carolina, 
(dispatched  to  Virginia  to  address  the  state  legislature  on  joint  Southern 
defense  plans  against  future  Brown  raids)  was  ruined  when  one  of  the* 
guests,  a  spurious  Roman  Catholic  "priest"  from  Massachusetts, 

43* 


detected  circulating  among  the  Negro  waiters,  encouraging  them  to  enter 
the  ballroom  and  dance  with  the  ladies  present.  This,  he  whispered  to 
them,  was  their  "right."  The  sham  ecclesiastic  was  challenged  and 
severely  beaten  by  outraged  gentlemen  at  the  reception.  He  barely  man- 
aged to  flee  the  building  before  the  police  arrived,  and  he  was  run  out 
of  town  the  next  day.  As  Julia  evaluated  the  incident,  it  conclusively 
proved  that  "Northern  intermeddlers  have  not  ceased  their  mischief."  28 

Even  polite  parlor  conversation  could  produce  explosions.  In  March 
1860,  for  example,  the  drawing  room  at  Sherwood  Forest  very  nearly 
became  the  scene  of  a  fist  fight  when  two  of  Tyler's  neighbors,  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Wade,  the  local  Episcopal  clergyman,  and  planter  John 
Clopton  angrily  exchanged  words  on  Governor  Wise's  handling  of  the 
Brown  affair.  Wade,  an  outspoken  Whig  and  unionist,  argued  that  Wise 
had  over-reacted  to  the  Harpers  Ferry  incident,  needlessly  contributing 
to  the  tension  by  placing  Virginia  on  a  virtual  war  footing.  The  gov- 
ernor had,  Wade  charged,  misrepresented  the  relative  calm  prevailing  at 
Harpers  Ferry  after  Brown's  capture  in  order  to  whip  up  support 
throughout  the  state  for  a  militant  policy  of  anti-abolitionism.  At  this 
point  Clopton  sprang  from  his  chair,  fists  clenched,  shouting:  "I  have  no 
opinion  of  clergymen  coming  from  the  pulpit  to  make  themselves  Sun- 
day evening  politicians  and  slander  and  accuse  of  perjury  such  a  man  as 
Governor  Wise  whose  honor  and  word  I  have  never  heard  doubted  by 
his  bitterest  political  opponents."  Fortunately,  no  blows  were  struck. 
Tyler  and  his  wife  clearly  sided  with  Clopton,  however.  Julia  thought 
he  had  acted  with  "a  spirit  and  independence  truly  becoming,"  while 
Tyler  dismissed  the  thrust  of  Wade's  arguments  with  the  observation 
that  the  clergyman  was  a  fuzzy-minded  Federalist  who  had  "married 
for  his  second  wife  one  of  the  granddaughters  of  Chief  Justice  Mar- 
shall." Obviously  a  bad  sort.29 

Parlor  heroics  of  the  Wade-Clopton  type  pointed  up  the  fact  that 
Virginians  were  badly  divided  on  the  political  issues  of  the  hour  after 
the  John  Brown  affair.  The  most  dangerous  legacy  of  the  Brown  incident 
was  its  tendency  in  Virginia,  and  throughout  the  South,  to  polarize  and 
then  freeze  opinions ;  to  reduce  complex  sectional  questions  to  the  decep- 
tive either-or  simplicity  of  union  or  secession,  abolitionism  or  civil  war. 
These  post-Harpers  Ferry  pressures  drove  many  Southern  moderates, 
caught  in  a  no  man's  land  of  verbal  cannonading  between  sectional 
extremists,  into  frightened  silence  or  pell-mell  into  the  South's  extremist 
camp. 

Other  moderates,  like  Tyler,  were  fearful  that  if  the  Republicans 
managed  to  win  the  election  of  1860  that  event  alone  would  trigger  a 
civil  war  by  converting  thousands  of  Southern  moderates  into  secession- 
ists overnight,  particularly  if  the  new  party  nominated  and  elected  aboli- 
tionist William  H.  Seward  as  President.  Seward's  October  1859  state- 
ment that  the  sectional  controversy  was  an  "irrepressible  conflict"  which 

432 


could  only  lead  to  a  United  States  "either  entirely  a  slaveholding  nation 
or  entirely  a  free-labor  nation"  provided  Dixie  moderates  few  straws  to 
grasp  in  their  desire  for  a  long-range  sectional  accommodation. 

To  John  Tyler  the  main  question  in  1859-1860  was  no  longer 
whether  slavery  could  or  could  not  expand  legally  into  the  territories. 
Although  the  Dred  Scott  decision  of  March  1857  declared  that  the 
institution  could  expand,  the  controversial  Supreme  Court  ruling  had 
elated  Tyler  not  at  all.  Southern  extremists,  of  course,  cheered  it  as  a 
great  victory.  The  whole  argument  over  the  legal  status  of  slavery  in 
the  territories  remained  to  Tyler  a  "mere  abstraction"  since  from  a 
practical  standpoint  the  further  expansion  of  slavery  was  topographi- 
cally, climatically,  and  politically  impossible.  He  had  not  been  outraged 
by  the  popular-sovereignty  concept  espoused  as  an  article  of  political 
faith  by  Douglas  and  the  Northern  Democracy  at  the  time  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  controversy.  Nor  in  1858  did  he  share  the  South 7s 
horror  when  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  in  his  famous  debate  with  Lincoln, 
announced  his  so-called  Freeport  Doctrine,  that  politically  motivated 
clarification  of  popular  sovereignty  which  argued  that  the  people  of  a 
territory  could,  in  spite  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  lawfully  exclude 
slavery  from  their  midst  prior  to  drawing  up  a  state  constitution  and 
applying  for  admission  to  the  Union.  That  Douglas  was  prepared  to 
subordinate  legalistic  abstractions  to  practical  realities  ("Slavery  can- 
not exist  a  day  or  an  hour  anywhere  unless  it  is  supported  by  local  police 
regulations/7  he  maintained)  infuriated  Southern  extremists  and  un- 
doubtedly cost  the  Little  Giant  the  nomination  of  a  united  Democracy 
in  1860. 

Tyler  did  not  support  Douglas'  final  bid  for  the  White  House.  But 
neither  was  he  infected  by  the  divisive  anti-Douglas  hydrophobia  that 
broke  out  south  of  the  Potomac  as  the  Presidential  campaign  got  under 
way.  On  the  contrary,  his  political  behavior  immediately  before  the 
crucial  election  of  1860  was  conditioned  almost  entirely  by  his  belief 
that  abolitionist  radicals  would  eventually  seize  control  of  the  overtly 
sectional  and  rapidly  growing  Republican  Party.  By  exercising  a  tyranny 
of  the  majority  in  Congress,  and  ultimately  in  the  Supreme  Court,  they 
would  soon  be  in  a  position  to  legislate  and  adjudicate  slavery  out  of 
existence  in  Southern  states,  where  it  had  long  been  an  economically 
viable  and  constitutional  institution. 

Tyler  was  willing  to  go  far  toward  adjusting  the  slavery  controversy 
peacefully.  He  was  willing  to  surrender  a  great  deal  to  prevent  a  civil 
war.  He  had  accepted  the  ominous  upset  of  the  Free  State-Slave  State 
political  balance  of  power  inherent  in  the  Compromise  of  1850  and  in 
the  popular-sovereignty  basis  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  of  1854.  He 
strenuously  opposed  Southern  demands  in  the  late  18503  that  the  in- 
famous African  slave  trade  be  revived  and  legalized.  In  this  unpopular 
stand  (among  the  extremists  at  least)  he  defended  the  Tightness  and 

433 


morality  of  the  antislave  trade  article  of  his  Webster-Ashburton  Treaty 
when  it  came  under  severe  attack  by  Southern  fire-eaters  in  1857-1858. 
But  Tyler  could  not  accept  the  prospect  of  a  Charles  City  County 
dominated  by  emancipated  Negroes,  with  or  without  financial  compensa- 
tion to  their  owners.  Nor  could  he  accept  the  risk  of  a  "Black  Republi- 
can" Congress  or  an  abolitionist-oriented  Supreme  Court  depriving  him 
at  some  future  date  of  his  private  property  while  it  subjugated  the 
owners  to  the  owned.  He  did  not  want  secession  or  civil  war,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  could  not  abide  the  social  and  economic  dislocations  im- 
plicit in  abolition. 

As  viewed  from  the  quiet  of  the  Sherwood  Forest  piazza,  the  only 
sure  bulwark  between  these  multiple  dangers  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
status  quo  along  the  lower  James  was  the  continued  unification  of  the 
Democratic  Party  under  the  permissive  leadership  of  its  pro-slavery 
Pierces  and  Buchanans,  however  innocuous  and  inefficient  these  men 
might  prove  to  be  as  Presidents.  The  long-range  solution,  as  Tyler  saw 
it,  was  essentially  political.  The  Republicans  must  not  win  the  Presi- 
dency in  1860 — or  for  that  matter,  ever.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  re- 
alistic in  believing  that  no  Southern  Democrat  could  ever  again  hope  to 
gain  the  White  House.  "I  am  the  last  of  the  Virginia  Presidents,"  he 
lamented  in  July  1858.  "The  times  indicate  that  the  South  has  but  little 
out  of  the  line  of  commerce  to  give  the  North  but  the  patronage  of 
government  to  ensure  the  support  of  the  latter."  Instead,  the  South 
would  have  to  pin  its  future  hopes  on  Northern  or  border-state  Demo- 
crats who  leaned  safely  southward.  This  was  the  best  the  beleaguered 
section  could  expect.30 

In  spite  of  these  realistic  views  and  his  accurate  impression  that 
Virginia's  Governor  Henry  Wise  was  far  too  ultra  on  the  slavery  issue 
to  capture  the  White  House,  Tyler  privately  supported  Wise  for  the 
Democratic  Presidential  nomination  during  the  spring  of  1859.  More 
than  anything  else  this  gesture  was  an  act  of  personal  loyalty.  He  still 
felt  a  substantial  personal  debt  to  Wise  for  his  enlistment  in  the  Corporal's 
Guard  of  1841-1842.  And  in  the  Wise-Letcher  gubernatorial  campaign 
of  1859  the  governor,  as  he  had  in  1856,  took  special  pains  to  praise 
Tyler  for  Texas  annexation  and  his  bank  vetoes.  "My  acts  while  in  the 
White  House  and  my  course  of  conduct  in  office  has  been  extensively 
canvassed . . .  my  name  has  become  more  familiar  to  the  lips  of  the 
many  than  since  I  left  Washington,"  he  told  Robert  proudly.  Convinced 
that  Buchanan  himself  had  no  chance  of  renomination  (Bloody  Kansas 
and  Dred  Scott  had  settled  that),  Tyler  in  May  1859  began  urging  a 
Henry  Wise-Robert  Tyler  ticket.  Indeed,  the  former  President  argued 
that  his  eldest  son  should  take  advantage  of  his  longstanding  connection 
with  the  politically  doomed  Buchanan  and,  utilizing  his  chairmanship 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Democratic  State  Central  Committee,  commence  a 

434 


serious  campaign  for  the  Vice-Presidential  nomination.  Were  this  drive 
successful  (and  Tyler  dispatched  much  unsolicited  political  advice  to 
Philadelphia  to  insure  its  success),  Robert  would  anchor  to  northward 
a  sectionally  balanced  ticket.  This  would  re-create  the  Virginia-Pennsyl- 
vania coalition  that  had  held  the  disintegrating  Democracy  together  in 
1856.  "The  only  possible  objection  to  the  union  of  your  two  names  at 
Charleston  is  in  the  fact  of  the  birthplace  of  both  being  Virginia — but 
that  objection  is  easily  met."  Just  how,  Tyler  did  not  say.31 

Wise's  ultraism  on  the  slavery  question  was,  however,  approaching 
outright  secessionism.  This  and  his  increasingly  angry  attacks  on  the 
wishy-washiness  of  the  Buchanan  administration  caused  dismay  at 
Sherwood  Forest.  Wise  was  talking  himself  out  of  any  possible  con- 
sideration for  the  Democratic  nomination.  Thus  when  Robert  told  his 
father  that  a  Wise-Tyler  ticket  was  "totally  out  of  the  question"  be- 
cause there  were  "forty  men  the  Democratic  Party  would  sooner  take," 
Tyler  quietly  abandoned  the  extremist  governor  and  gave  ear  to  the 
faint  rumblings  of  a  tiny  boomlet  for  the  squire  of  Sherwood  Forest 
himself. 

In  response  to  Robert's  conviction  that  "Virginia  can  make  you 
the  President  if  she  will,"  Tyler  admitted  in  July  1859  that  he  was  re- 
ceiving "daily  assurances  from  plain  men  of  an  anxious  desire  on  their 
part  to  restore  me  to  the  presidency."  At  first  he  paid  little  attention 
to  these  unorganized  importunities.  "I  could  not  improve  upon  my  past 
career,"  he  declared  flatly.  But  by  October  1859  his  popularity  in  Vir- 
ginia seemed  so  solid  and  enthusiasm  for  his  moderate  approach  to  the 
slavery  issue  seemed  so  broadly  based  that  he  began  seriously  to  weigh 
his  prospects  as  a  compromise  nominee  should  the  Charleston  convene 
tion,  scheduled  for  April  1860,  reach  a  deadlock.  "I  verily  believe,"  he 
said  somewhat  immodestly,  "that  I  should  at  this  day  meet  with  more 
enthusiasm  from  the  rank  and  file  than  has  occurred  since  Jackson's 
time."  Fearful  that  a  divided  convention  might  well  prove  "the  grave  of 
the  Democratic  party,"  he  therefore  encouraged  the  formation  of  a  small 
committee  to  direct  the  Tyler  movement.  And  in  the  classic  manner  of 
all  American  politicians  seeking  to  project  a  disinterested  availability, 
he  began  cautiously  to  tell  those  of  his  friends  who  asked  him  whether 
he  would  accept  the  nomination  that  "it  will  be  time  enough  to  respond 
when  it  takes  place."  To  a  certain  extent  he  coveted  a  nomination  for 
the  contribution  it  would  make  to  his  historical  reputation.  It  would  be 
valuable  to  Clio's  recollection  of  John  Tyler  whether  he  won  the  White 
House  or  not.  "The  historic  page  is  the  most  that  I  look  to,"  he  told 
Robert  on  October  6,  "and  that  would  be  embellished  by  the  thing  and 
would  impart  to  it  value."  The  thought  of  actually  sitting  in  the  Presi- 
dential chair  once  again  gave  him  pause.  "Things  are,  too,  terribly  out 
of  sorts,  and  he  who  undertakes  to  put  them  right  would  assume  or  have 
thrown  upon  him  a  fearful  responsibility."  Nevertheless,  he  pushed 

435 


forward  with  what  he  called  his  "movement."  There  was  the  barest 
possibility  that  the  Virginia  delegation  to  Charleston,  unable  to  unite 
on  either  Wise  or  Senator  R.  M.  T.  Hunter  as  the  Old  Dominion's 
favorite-son  candidate,  might  toss  his  name  into  the  ring  as  Virginia's 
compromise  favorite-son  nominee  for  a  compromise  Democratic  nomina- 
tion.32 

The  Tyler  movement  of  1859  was  headed  by  A.  Dudley  Mann  of 
Washington,  editor  James  D.  B.  De  Bow  of  the  influential  De  Bow's 
Review,  and  the  Reverend  Father  James  Ryder,  S.J.,  former  president 
of  Georgetown  College  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  De  Bow  opened  the 
columns  of  his  magazine  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  and  John,  under  the 
pseudonyms  Python  and  Tau,  supplied  articles  which  praised  his 
father's  administration  while  suggesting  that  only  John  Tyler  was  ex- 
perienced enough  and  moderate  enough  to  cope  with  the  gathering 
storm.  Father  Ryder  served  the  minuscule  Tyler  crusade  as  liaison  with 
the  Northern  Roman  Catholic  community  long  assiduously  wooed  by 
Robert  Tyler  in  his  capacity  as  president  of  the  Irish  Repeal  Association 
in  Philadelphia.  This,  then,  was  the  politically  obscure  triad  which 
planned  to  make  "Honest  John"  Tyler  "available"  for  the  Democratic 
nomination  should  a  fortuitous  combination  of  factors  and  flukes  at 
Charleston  produce  another  lucky  turn  of  the  wheel  for  "His  Accidency." 
These  men,  said  Tyler,  should  plan  to  be  on  hand  at  Charleston  when 
the  convention  met.  When  the  iron  of  deadlock  was  hot  they  could 
strike. 

Tyler  meanwhile  did  all  the  things  a  dark-horse  candidate  was  ex- 
pected to  do.  He  let  it  be  known  that  he  would  certainly  support 
Buchanan  if  the  President  was  renominated  by  the  party;  he  reminded 
the  friends  of  Henry  Wise  that  his  longstanding  political  obligation  to 
the  governor  had  not  weakened;  he  remained  scrupulously  quiet  in 
public  on  the  controversial  issues  of  the  moment;  and  he  predicted  that 
a  Democratic  split  in  1860  would  surely  bring  the  hated  and  feared 
"Black  Republicans"  to  power.  Under  no  conditions,  thought  Tyler, 
should  the  Democracy  therefore  risk  adopting  a  platform  at  its  forth- 
coming Charleston  convention.  Not  only  was  a  platform  "at  most  a 
useless  thing,"  but  it  would  surely  atomize  the  party.  "We  had  in  1839- 
'40  far  greater  dissensions  at  Harrisburg,  and  a  platform  would  have 
scattered  us  to  the  winds,"  he  recalled.33 

The  Harpers  Ferry  crisis  in  Virginia  did  nothing  to  harm  the  Tyler 
movement.  It  did  however  severely  damage  extremist  Wise's  favorite-son 
prospects  for  the  nomination  while  strengthening  those  of  Senator  Hunter 
and  Tyler.  More  significantly,  the  resulting  talk  of  secession  in  the 
South  stimulated  speculation  in  New  York  City,  within  Tammany  and 
among  various  old-line  Conservative  Democrats  in  Gotham,  that  the 
Democracy  could  bring  forward  no  stronger  compromise  candidate  in 
1860  than  experienced  John  Tyler.  With  visions  of  a  Virginia-New  York 

436 


political  alliance  that  might  sustain  Democratic  conservative  principles 
and  prevent  a  party  split,  Robert  Tyler,  Prosper  M.  Wetmore,  and  other 
former  Tyler  leaders  in  New  York  began  working  to  transform  this 
casual  talk  into  something  politically  solid.  For  a  brief  and  exciting 
moment  the  ambitious  Julia  was  encouraged  to  believe  that  her  hus- 
band's public  career  was  about  to  bloom  again.  The  serious  illness  of 
Stephen  Douglas'  wife  in  November  1859  would,  she  felt,  "check 
Douglas'  wish  for  the  Presidency"  and  open  the  field  to  a  Southern 
candidate.  The  distaff  optimism  at  Sherwood  Forest  was  further  en- 
couraged when  editor  John  S.  Cunningham  of  Portsmouth  came  to  the 
support  of  the  Tyler  cause  in  Virginia.  While  Julia  did  not  go  to  the 
extreme  of  planning  the  details  of  another  White  House  reign,  she  did 
inform  her  mother,  in  March  1860,  that  her  husband  was  being  talked 
of  "very  freely  as  being  the  second  choice  of  at  least  three  candidates. 
Wise,  Hunter  and  Douglas,  they  say,  will  all  turn  to  him  if  they  each 
find  there  is  no  chance  for  themselves,  and  all  these  you  know,  are 
bitterly  opposed  to  one  another The  President  seems  to  have  out- 
lived the  abuse  of  his  enemies,  and  is  every  day  more  and  more  properly 
appreciated  by  all  parties."  34 

Unfortunately  for  Julia's  renewed  dream  of  the  Presidential  Man- 
sion, the  Tyler  "boom"  collapsed  as  quickly  and  quietly  as  it  had  been 
launched.  Wise's  loss  of  the  governorship  to  the  moderate  if  not  outright 
unionist  John  Letcher  in  the  fall  of  1859  brought  R.  M.  T.  Hunter 
gradually  to  the  fore  as  Virginia's  most  likely  favorite-son  candidate  at 
the  Charleston  convention.  His  skillful  direction  of  the  compromise  1857 
tariff  bill  through  the  Senate  had  won  Hunter  many  friends  and  sup- 
porters in  the  North,  and  his  relative  temperateness  on  the  sectional 
controversy  commended  him  to  many  Virginia  Democrats  who,  like 
Governor-elect  Letcher,  saw  no  future  in  political  extremism.  With  the 
decline  of  the  fire-eating  Henry  A.  Wise  and  the  emergence  of  the  ob- 
viously more  available  Hunter,  nothing  more  was  heard  of  the  possible 
candidacy  of  John  Tyler.  At  a  banquet  in  Richmond  on  April  12,  1860, 
honoring  the  memory  of  Henry  Clay,  Tyler  removed  himself  from  any 
further  consideration  as  Virginia's  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomina- 
tion, citing  (and  slightly  doctoring  to  fit  the  situation)  those  lines  from 
Poe's  "To  One  in  Paradise"  which  ran: 

Alas!  alas!  for  me! 
Ambition  all  is  o'er; 

No  more — no  more — no  more — 

(Such  language  holds  the  solemn  sea 

To  the  sands  upon  the  shore) 
Shall  bloom  the  thunder-blasted  tree; 

Or  stricken  eagle  soar.35 

On  April  23,  the  day  the  Democracy  convened  at  Charleston  for  the 
purpose  of  committing  political  suicide,  the  Stricken  Eagle  left  his 

437 


Sherwood  Forest  aerie  for  what  would  be  his  last  trip  to  the  North.  The 
occasion  was  the  belated  marriage  of  David  Lyon  Gardiner  to  Sarah 
Griswold  Thompson,  a  respectable  New  York  lady  whose  humorlessness 
was  exceeded  only  by  her  considerable  wealth.  Julia,  seven  months 
pregnant,  was  not  well  enough  to  make  the  trip.  Nor  was  her  enthusiasm 
for  the  match  high.  She  therefore  confined  her  modest  contribution  to 
suggesting  what  prominent  Virginians  David  Lyon  might  invite  to  the 
ceremony.  The  marriage  was  also  opposed  by  the  matriarchal  Juliana, 
who  consented  to  it  only  when  her  forty-three-year-old  son  promised  to 
move  with  his  bride  into  the  Gardiner  home  at  Castleton  Hill.  Two 
earlier  engagements  had  been  broken  off  by  David  Lyon  when  the 
ladies  in  question  had  categorically  refused  to  accept  such  an  arrange- 
ment. The  thirty-year-old  Sarah  Thompson  consented  to  the  cloying 
conditions  involved.  She  knew  nothing  whatever  about  housekeeping  or 
cooking.  She  had  never  even  dressed  herself  for  a  formal  occasion  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  servant.  She  was  quite  willing,  therefore,  to  have  her 
mother-in-law  usurp  her  function  as  housewife.  She  and  David  Lyon 
also  consented  to  having  Juliana  bear  the  entire  cost  of  maintaining  them 
at  Castleton  Hill.  Needless  to  say,  this  capitulation  to  rampant  mom- 
ism  gave  the  lonely  Juliana  an  opportunity  to  manage  the  private  lives 
of  the  couple  literally  down  to  and  including  detailed  instructions  on 
how  best  to  put  the  cat  out  for  the  night.  To  make  matters  even  more 
difficult,  the  sixty-one-year-old  Juliana  had,  by  1860,  come  under  the 
influence  of  spiritualism  and  was  beginning  to  "talk"  regularly  with  her 
departed  husband  and  with  Alexander  and  Margaret.  Her  migraine 
headaches  also  became  worse  and  more  frequent  with  her  advancing 
years.  Were  this  not  enough,  additional  tensions  were  introduced  into 
the  West  New  Brighton  household  when  it  became  evident  that  David 
Lyon  and  Sarah  were  as  pro-Northern  as  Juliana  and  the  Tylers  were 
pro-Southern.36 

By  the  time  John  Tyler  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  from  the  wed- 
ding in  early  May  the  political  situation  had  taken  an  ominous  turn. 
Unable  to  agree  on  either  platform  or  candidate,  the  Democratic  con- 
vention in  Charleston  had  broken  up  in  chaos  and  confusion.  Northern 
Democrats  would  not  accept  a  platform  plank  declaring  it  the  duty  of 
the  federal  government  to  protect  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  South- 
ern Democrats  would  accept  nothing  less.  Enough  delegates  from  the 
Deep  South  finally  walked  out  to  make  it  mathematically  impossible  for 
Stephen  A,  Douglas,  the  leading  candidate  for  the  nomination,  to  amass 
the  necessary  two-thirds  majority  for  selection.  Fifty-eight  ballots 
availed  the  Little  Giant  nothing.  Before  adjourning,  the  delegates 
voted  to  convene  again  in  Baltimore  on  June  18  and  have  another  try 
at  nominating  a  candidate  acceptable  to  all  factions.  Meanwhile,  the 
seceders  from  the  shattered  convention  moved  to  another  hall  in 
Charleston,  chose  Delaware  Senator  James  A.  Bayard  their  chairman, 

438 


and  adopted  a  platform  that  was  uncompromisingly  pro-slavery.  They 
decided,  however,  to  withhold  a  Presidential  nomination  until  the  re- 
convened Democratic  convention  had  acted  in  Baltimore  in  June.  To 
insure  the  choice  of  a  man  acceptable  to  the  extremist  South  they  voted 
to  hold  their  own  watchdog  convention  in  Richmond  on  June  u. 

The  centrifugal  developments  in  Charleston  struck  Tyler  as  ex- 
tremely dangerous  and  unwise.  The  Democracy's  bitter  split  filled  him 
with  "apprehension  and  regret,"  and  he  could  only  hope  that  the  Balti- 
more convention  would  somehow  magically  produce  a  reunified  party 
able  to  salvage  American  conservatism  and  prevent  the  election  of  a 
radical  Republican.  The  strategy  of  the  Southern  delegates  at  Charleston 
he  considered  stupid  and  self-defeating.  Either  they  should  have  all  re- 
mained in  the  convention  hall  and  pressed  for  the  nomination  of  "some- 
one whose  name  would  have  constituted  a  platform  in  itself,"  or  they 
should  have  all  walked  out  together  and  instantly  nominated  a  South- 
leaning  Northerner  like  Joseph  Lane  of  Oregon  or  James  Bayard  of 
Delaware.  They  had  done  neither.  Instead,  they  had  "played  the  game 
badly  by  throwing  away  their  trump  card,"  their  unity  of  action  as  a 
solid  sectional  bloc.37 

That  unity  of  action  would  be  needed  to  prevent  the  triumph  of 
"Black  Republicanism"  became  more  apparent  on  May  9  when  a  poly- 
glot group  of  moderate  Northern  and  Southern  Whigs  combined  with 
a  body  of  Union  Democrats  and  the  remnants  of  the  shattered  Know- 
Nothing  sect  in  the  South  to  launch  the  Constitutional  Union  Party.  The 
new  group  nominated  John  Bell  of  Tennessee  and  Edward  Everett  of 
Massachusetts  on  a  purposely  vague  platform  calling  for  the  Union,  the 
Constitution  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws.  Designed  as  it  was  to  rally 
moderates  on  both  sides  of  the  Mason-Dixon  line  with  a  call  for  peace 
and  patriotism,  particularly  moderates  in  the  border  states,  the  Con- 
stitutional Union  Party,  whatever  its  ideological  fuzziness,  was  definitely 
more  acceptable  to  Tyler  than  was  the  Republican  Party  which  met  in 
Chicago  on  May  16  and  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  Republican  platform,  demanding  as  it  did  an  end  to  slavery 
expansion  in  the  territories,  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  state,  and 
the  revocation  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  struck  Southern  extremists  as 
little  less  than  a  call  to  arms.  Tyler's  reaction  was  much  calmer  and 
more  reasonable  than  this.  After  all,  the  Republican  platform  also  called 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  disavowed  abolitionism,  and  con- 
demned armed  attacks  on  the  South  in  the  John  Brown  manner.  Too, 
the  Republicans  had  passed  over  the  (by  Southern  lights)  wild-eyed 
abolitionist  William  H.  Seward,  and  had  nominated  instead  the  moderate 
and  relatively  unknown  Abraham  Lincoln.  No  missionary  for  the  radical 
notion  of  racial  equality,  Lincoln  was  mainly  opposed  to  the  further 
extension  of  Negro  slavery  into  the  territories.  In  spite  of  his  rather 
inflammatory  "House  Divided"  speech  of  June  1858  he  was  willing  ta 

439 


accept  the  institution  where  it  legally  and  traditionally  existed.  In  this 
sense,  he  was  certainly  no  recruit  to  the  abolitionist  stand  on  the  Negro 
question. 

For  these  reasons  Tyler  did  not  panic  when  news  of  the  Republican 
platform  and  Lincoln's  nomination  reached  Sherwood  Forest.  He  was 
not  happy  about  it,  but  he  did  not  fly  off  in  all  directions  as  did  so  many 
Southern  slaveowners.  Instead,  he  worried  principally  about  the  reaction 
of  the  lunatic  fringe  in  the  Deep  South  should  Honest  Abe  be  elected. 
"The  consequences  of  Lincoln's  election  I  cannot  foretell,"  he  wrote 
Robert  in  July.  "Neither  Virginia,  nor  North  Carolina,  nor  Maryland 
(to  which  you  may  add  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  Missouri)  will  secede 
for  that.  My  apprehension,  however,  is  that  South  Carolina  and  others 
of  the  cotton  States  will  do  so,  and  any  attempt  to  coerce  such  seceding 
States  will  most  probably  be  resisted  by  all  the  South."  3S 

The  probability  of  Lincoln's  election  loomed  large  when  the  Democ- 
racy failed  to  heal  its  wounds  at  the  reconvened  Baltimore  convention 
in  June.  Once  again  the  Southerners  present  walked  out  in  anger,  leaving 
the  Northern  Democracy  to  nominate  Stephen  A.  Douglas  on  a  platform 
which  reaffirmed  the  1856  Cincinnati  platform  and  assigned  the  specific 
problems  of  slavery  and  slaves  in  the  territories  to  Supreme  Court  ad- 
judication. This  was  neither  a  radical  nor  an  anti-Southern  program.  But 
because  it  failed  to  demand  that  the  federal  government  actively  protect 
slavery  in  the  territories,  the  Southern  extremists  bolted  the  convention 
and  the  party.  The  dissidents  promptly  convened  nearby  and,  with  Caleb 
Cushing  in  the  chair,  nominated  the  conciliatory  John  C.  Breckinridge 
of  Kentucky  for  President  and  the  pro-Southern  Joseph  Lane  of  Oregon 
for  Vice-President.  Vigorous  federal  protection  of  slavery  in  the  slave 
states  and  in  the  territories  was  demanded  by  the  splinter  party  in  its 
platform.  The  Breckinridge-Lane  ticket,  more  moderate  in  personnel 
than  in  the  platform  it  was  forced  to  transport  as  baggage,  was  promptly 
endorsed  by  the  rump  Democratic  convention  meeting  simultaneously  in 
Richmond.  With  this  action  the  Democracy  was  hopelessly  and  irretriev- 
ably split. 

Tyler  surveyed  the  shambles  of  the  Democratic  Party  first  with 
alarm,  then  with  stoic  resignation.  "I  fear  that  the  great  Republic  has 
seen  its  last  days,"  he  worried  in  August.  Nevertheless,  throughout  the 
summer  of  1860  he  supported  attempts  in  Virginia  to  create  a  Breckin- 
ridge-Douglas  fusion  ticket  and  similar  efforts  in  New  York  to  fashion 
a  Bell-Douglas  alliance.  He  deplored  the  sniping  back  and  forth  between 
Northern  and  Southern  Democrats  during  the  campaign,  and  between 
Douglas  and  Breckinridge  he  found  "nothing  to  approve  on  either 
side."  The  defeat  of  Lincoln  was  "the  great  matter  at  issue,"  and  he 
saw  no  hope  for  this  "unless  some  one  of  the  so-called  free  States  is 
snatched  from  him."  New  York,  he  felt,  was  the  great  hope.  As  he 
explained  the  situation  to  David  Lyon  in  October, 

440 


There  is  a  deeper  gloom  resting  on  the  country  than  I  ever  expected  to  see. 
Should  New  York  rise  up  in  her  might,  and  declare  against  Lincoln,  all  will 
unite  in  ascribing  to  her  great  glory.  She  will,  in  truth,  be  hailed  as  the  great 
conservative  State.  She  will  have  rebuked  the  disorganizes,  and  imparted  new 
vitality  to  our  institutions.  Should,  however,  the  picture  be  reversed,  and  her 
great  popular  voice  unite  to  swell  the  notes  of  triumph  for  the  sectional  hosts, 

then  indeed  will  a  dark  and  heavy  cloud  rest  upon  the  face  of  the  country 

Property  has  already  fallen  in  value  amongst  us,  and  there  is  an  obvious 
uneasiness  in  the  minds  of  all  men.  I  will  not  permit  myself  to  abandon  the 
hope  that  the  cloud  which  hovers  over  us  will  be  dispersed  through  the 
action  of  your  large  and  powerful  State.  I  am  busily  engaged  in  seeding  a 
large  crop  of  wheat.  Shall  I  be  permitted  to  reap  it  at  its  maturity  in  peace? 
Time  will  decide !  39 

Tyler  reluctantly  supported  the  Breckinridge  candidacy,  embar- 
rassed in  so  doing  to  find  himself  making  common  cause  with  some  of 
the  worst  fist-shakers  in  Dixie.  While  the  logic  of  his  convictions  dictated 
his  support  of  Bell  and  the  Constitutional  Unionists,  he  endorsed 
Breckinridge  on  the  practical  and  arithmetical  grounds  that  a  vote  in 
Virginia  for  John  Bell  was  a  wasted  and  divisive  vote.  If  the  Southern 
and  border  states  could  all  be  swung  to  Breckinridge,  he  reasoned,  and 
if  Lincoln  should  lose  either  New  York  or  Pennsylvania  to  Douglas,  the 
election  would  then  be  thrown  into  Congress,  where  practical  politicians 
might  successfully  negotiate  a  peaceful  solution.  It  was  Tyler's  fervent 
hope  that  neither  Lincoln,  Douglas,  nor  Breckinridge  would  secure  the 
152  electoral  votes  constituting  a  majority,  and  that  Joseph  Lane  would 
somehow  emerge  from  the  trial  in  Congress  as  the  compromise  President 
of  the  United  States.  By  this  analysis,  any  electoral  votes  that  Bell  re- 
ceived would  weaken  both  Douglas  and  Breckinridge,  strengthen  Lin- 
coln, and  frustrate  Tyler's  prayer  that  the  November  balloting  would 
result  in  a  neat  standoff.40 

In  July  and  August  1860  this  thinking  was  not  unreasonable.  Bell 
narrowly  carried  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky,  although  in  all 
three  of  these  border  states  the  combined  Douglas-Breckinridge  Demo- 
cratic vote  well  exceeded  the  Constitutional  Unionists'  tally.  Had  BelPs 
39  electoral  votes  been  added  to  Breckinridge's  72,  the  Southern 
Democracy  would  have  secured  in.  And  had  the  Douglas-Bell  fusion 
ticket  won  in  New  York  (it  lost  by  50,000  popular  votes  of  the  775,000 
cast),  Lincoln's  electoral  count  would  have  been  reduced  to  145,  seven 
shy  of  a  majority.  It  was  the  logic  of  this  Electoral  College  numbers 
game  that  caused  Tyler  to  deplore  Southern  attacks  on  Douglas  ("You 
are  too  bitter  on  Douglas,"  he  scolded  Robert)  and  promote  Douglas- 
Breckinridge  fusions  that  would  frustrate  the  divisive  Bell  movement. 
At  the  same  time,  he  refrained  from  any  attack  on  Lincoln.  Instead,  he 
concentrated  his  fire  on  Seward  ("a  more  arch  and  wily  conspirator  does 
not  live")  and  the  Northern  abolitionist  extremists  around  Lincoln  in 

441 


the  hope  "that  a  defeat  of  the  negro-men  now  will  dissolve  their  party." 
He  also  attempted  to  link  Seward  to  alleged  British  machinations  to 
"foment  sectional  divisions  among  us"  by  sending  over  abolitionist 
agents  and  provocateurs.  This,  of  course,  was  sheer  campaign  non- 
sense.41 

The  confused  political  situation  cast  a  distinct  pall  of  anxiety  over 
the  last  summer  vacation  the  family  enjoyed  together  in  peace  at  Villa 
Margaret.  In  the  epicurean  spirit  of  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford,  who 
advised  Julia  that  "we  may  as  well  have  good  times  as  long  as  we  can," 
a  determined  effort  was  made  to  function  normally  and  happily  in  the 
midst  of  loud  predictions  of  secession  and  civil  war  should  Lincoln  be 
elected.  Julia  had  made  careful  plans  for  the  summer  season  and  for  her 
seventh  accouchement  that  would  open  it.  A  change  in  personnel  at 
Fortress  Monroe  assured  a  ready  supply  of  new  officers,  "all  equally 
agreeable  and  accomplished."  Juliana  and  Harry  Beeckman,  now  an 
active  eleven-year-old,  were  expected  to  visit  the  Villa,  Harry  to  join 
the  play  of  Julia's  own  brood  of  six  (she  called  them  "my  troop"),  whom 
she  pronounced  "pictures  of  health  and  happiness  ...  all  fat  and  rosy, 
gay  as  larks  . .  .  progressing  and  improving  in  all  respects."  In  the  mean- 
time, Tyler's  niece  Patty,  who  had  lived  for  several  years  at  Sherwood 
Forest  as  Julia's  companion,  would  be  married  in  May  1860  and  her 
place  in  the  family  circle  would  be  taken  by  her  sister  Maria  Tyler. 
This  assured  Julia  a  "useful  intimate"  as  the  time  for  her  confinement 
approached  in  early  June.  She  was  determined  to  hold  off  the  event  until 
all  had  been  made  ready  for  her  comfort  at  the  Villa.  "You  may  depend 
upon  it  I  shall  try  to  reach  the  seaside  before  the  event  transpires  with 
me,"  she  informed  her  mother.  In  mid-May  Tyler  was  dispatched  to 
Hampton  with  furniture  and  household  goods  and  a  knocked-down  frame 
house  that  he  erected  on  the  property  for  the  use  of  the  body  servants 
and  house  slaves  making  the  trip.42 

All  was  in  readiness  for  Julia  at  Villa  Margaret  when  she  arrived 
there  on  May  25.  Juliana  reached  Hampton  on  June  12;  her  presence 
was  a  signal  that  labor  could  officially  begin.  Julia  therefore  promptly 
delivered  herself  of  a  nine-and-a-half-pound  baby  girl  at  9  A.M.  on  June 
13.  Save  for  a  "nervous  blind  sick  headache"  the  birth  was  accomplished 
without  incident.  At  first  it  was  decided  to  name  the  infant  "Margaret 
Gardiner  Tyler,"  but  this  nostalgic  idea  was  dropped  and  the  child  was 
christened  Pearl.  Within  a  few  days  the  hardy  mother  was  up  and 
around,  the  older  children  were  happily  shouting,  playing,  fishing,  and 
crabbing  again,  and  Tyler  was  commuting  up  to  Sherwood  Forest  to 
supervise  his  wheat  harvest. 

Gardie  and  Alex,  now  fourteen  and  twelve  respectively,  accom- 
panied their  father  to  the  harvest  and  while  at  Sherwood  Forest  took 
several  hours'  instruction  each  day  at  Mr.  Ferguson's  school  in  Charles 
City  where  they  were  in  regular  attendance  during  the  winter  months. 
Harry  Beeckman  and  the  school-age  younger  Tyler  children  attended 

442 


as  part-time  students  a  small  private  school  in  Hampton  during  the 
summer  months.  It  was  conducted  by  a  "well  educated  lady"  from 
Baltimore,  for  young  ladies  seeking  to  become  well  educated.  Harry 
strenuously  objected  to  being  sent  to  a  "girls'  school."  He  would  have 
much  preferred  attending  the  highly  regarded  Hampton  Academy 
nearby.  Tyler  was  an  honorary  "Old  Boy'7  of  the  institution,  and  in 
1858  Julia  had  considered  wintering  at  Hampton  so  that  Gardie  and 
Alex  might  attend  the  Academy  as  day  pupils.  Tyler  did  not  "fancy 
staying  at  Sherwood  alone/'  and  he  vetoed  the  idea  with  the  clinching 
argument  that  the  "air  would  be  too  severe  for  his  health — the  planta- 
tion being  inland  is  milder."  The  Academy  was  military  in  its  discipline, 
and  from  the  porch  at  Villa  Margaret  the  hundred-odd  cadets,  clad  in 
gray  uniforms,  could  be  seen  drilling  and  exercising.  Occasionally  Gardie 
and  Alex  would  stroll  over  to  watch  the  cadets  perform,  but  neither  of 
them  gave  any  evidence  at  this  time  of  a  yearning  for  the  military  life.43 

While  the  children  combined  vacations  with  educations,  harvesting 
with  French  verbs,  the  adults  picnicked,  danced,  and  visited  at  the 
Fortress.  Colonel  Justin  Dimick,  USA,  later  brigadier  general  in  com- 
mand at  Fort  Warren  Prison  in  Boston,  was  senior  officer  present  that 
summer,  and  he  did  everything  in  his  power  to  see  that  the  former 
Commander-in-Chief,  his  wife,  and  his  mother-in-law  were  entertained 
royally.  In  mid- August  the  British  liner  Great  Eastern,  largest  iron 
ship  ever  built,  visited  Hampton  Roads  and  provided  the  family  a 
"merry  and  exciting"  day  of  shipboard  tourism.  Julia,  only  eight  weeks 
from  childbed,  clambered  up  and  down  the  steep  ladders  with  cautious 
indecision.  But  she  managed  it.44 

By  the  time  the  family  returned  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  early 
October  it  appeared  to  Tyler  that  Lincoln  would  very  likely  win  the 
election.  The  former  President  did  not  feel,  however,  that  such  an  out- 
come would  necessarily  mean  disunion.  Indeed,  on  November  5  he  ad- 
vised his  grandson,  Cadet  William  G.  Waller,  not  to  resign  from  the 
plebe  class  at  West  Point  "until  Virginia  had  distinctly  and  plainly 
marked  out  her  course  after  the  election."  Disunion  was  not  inevitable, 
he  instructed  Waller,  and  there  was  also  a  practical  military  considera- 
tion involved  in  remaining  at  West  Point:  "May  it  not  prove  very 
injurious  to  the  interests  of  the  South  for  all  the  Southern  young  men  to 
leave,  thus  giving  exclusive  command  of  the  army,  at  least  to  the  extent 
of  the  present  classes,  to  the  North?  My  advice  is  to  stay  where  you 
are  until  events  have  fully  developed  themselves."  45 

Five  days  later,  however,  John  Tyler  was  cast  into  gloom.  "So  all 

is  over,  and  Lincoln  elected.  South  Carolina  will  secede Virginia 

will  abide  developments For  myself,  I  rest  in  quiet,  and  shall  do  so 

unless  I  see  that  my  poor  opinions  have  due  weight."  He  was  right. 
Lincoln  was  elected,  receiving  180  electoral  votes  on  39.8  per  cent  of  the 
popular  vote.  The  South  Carolina  legislature  immediately  called  for  a 
state  convention  which,  several  weeks  later,  on  December  20,  passed  an 

443 


ordinance  of  secession  without  a  dissenting  vote.  In  a  "Declaration  of 
Immediate  Causes"  issued  on  December  24  the  aroused  Carolinians 
called  attention  to  Lincoln's  1858  "House  Divided"  speech  as  damning 
evidence  of  the  President-elect's  intractability  on  the  slavery  question. 
"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand/7  Lincoln  had  remarked. 
"I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and 
half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved;  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  to  fall;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 
become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other."  This  enigmatic  utterance  which 
carefully  avoided  any  specifics  on  the  how  or  the  when,  was  (and  has 
since  been)  interpreted  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Suffice  it  to  say  here  that 
the  South  Carolina  radicals  in  December  1860  preferred  to  view  it  as 
a  virtual  declaration  of  sectional  war.  Their  action  in  Charleston 
was  also  justified  with  the  further  argument  that  the  North  had  long 
attacked  the  slavery  institution  and  that  a  crudely  sectional  party 
had  finally  seized  power  under  the  leadership  of  a  President-elect  "whose 
opinions  and  purposes  are  hostile  to  slavery."  That  Lincoln's  opinions 
were  not  hostile  to  slavery  as  such,  that  his  purposes  with  regard  to  it 
were  far  from  formed,  was  not  the  point.  The  lunatic  fringe  in  South 
Carolina  took  the  bit  in  its  teeth  and  ran  crazily  away.  From  Northern 
abolitionists  came  shrill  demands  for  instant  and  bloody  retaliation 
against  the  South  Carolina  secessionists. 

In  the  midst  of  the  immediate  postelection  confusion,  Tyler  at- 
tempted to  maintain  some  degree  of  emotional  and  intellectual  equilib- 
rium. He  found  this  increasingly  difficult  to  do  as  extremist  bleatings  in 
one  section  triggered  extremist  counterblasts  in  the  other.  Writing  to  his 
old  friend  Dr.  Silas  Reed  on  November  16,  he  lamented  that 

We  have  fallen  on  evil  times  . . .  the  day  of  doom  for  the  great  model  Republic 
is  at  hand.  Madness  rules  the  hour,  and  statesmanship . . .  gives  place  to  a 

miserable  demagogism  which  leads  to  inevitable  destruction The  fate  of 

the  Union  trembles  in  the  balance.  Ever  since  a  senator,  regardless  of  his 
oath  to  sustain  the  Constitution,  set  up  a  law  for  each  man  above  the  Con- 
stitution, I  foresaw  that  the  game  of  demagogism  and  treason  was  fairly 
started,  and  that  unless  arrested  it  would  end  in  ruin. ...  In  the  midst  of  all 
this  I  remain  quiescent.  No  longer  an  actor  on  the  stage  of  public  affairs,  I 
leave  to  others  younger  than  myself  the  settlement  of  existing  disputes . . . 

sometimes  I  think  it  would  be  better  for  all  peaceably  to  separate I  sigh 

over  the  degeneracy  of  the  times 

As  the  sigh  escaped  his  lips  Tyler  did  not  lose  sight  of  what  the  sectional 
controversy  was  at  bottom  all  about.  To  be  sure,  states'  rights  was  part 
of  the  problem,  but  only  because  it  was  related  to  the  more  deeply  rooted 
slavery  question.  Concluding  his  letter  to  Reed  was  a  paragraph,  omitted 
from  the  1885  version  printed  by  his  biographer,  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  which 
indicated  Tyler's  primary  concern  with  the  Negro  problem  in  Charles 
City  County  and  throughout  Virginia: 

444 


Nor  can  I  say  what  course  Virginia  will  adopt On  one  thing  I  think  you 

may  rely,  that  she  will  never  consent  to  have  her  blacks  cribbed  and  confined 
within  proscribed  and  specified  limits — and  thus  be  involved  in  all  the  conse- 
quences of  a  war  of  the  races  in  some  20  or  30  years.  She  must  have  expansion, 
and  if  she  cannot  obtain  for  herself  and  sisters  that  expansion  in  the  Union, 
she  may  sooner  or  later  look  to  Mexico,  the  West  India  Islands  and  Central 
America  as  the  ultimate  reservations  of  the  African  race.  But  now  everything 
is  reversed,  and  no  more  Slave  States  has  apparently  become  the  shibboleth 
of  Northern  political  faith.46 

Earlier,  of  course,  Tyler  had  been  quite  willing  to  accept  the  pros- 
pect of  "no  more  Slave  States."  His  position  on  the  Compromise  of  1850 
and  on  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  demonstrated  that  beyond  question. 
That  he  was  now,  for  the  first  time,  seriously  proposing  slavery  expan- 
sion as  a  fundamental  condition  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  pro- 
vides an  accurate  barometric  measure  of  the  panic  that  swept  Charles 
City  County  in  the  first  weeks  following  Lincoln's  election.  Relatively 
speaking,  Tyler  remained  less  agitated  than  some  of  his  neighbors,  but 
he  too  began  evidencing  signs  of  the  political  hypertension  that  seized 
Tidewater  Virginia  as  South  Carolina  prepared  to  secede.  Within  four 
months  Tyler  himself  would  become  a  leader  in  Virginia's  secession 
movement.  His  conversion  to  this  position  was  dictated  by  military 
rather  than  political  considerations.  Nevertheless,  the  metamorphosis 
in  his  thinking  began  shortly  after  South  Carolina  departed  the  Union 
on  December  20. 

Virginia,  to  be  sure,  was  predominantly  unionist  in  sentiment  dur- 
ing these  trying  months.  The  state  had  gone  for  Bell  over  Breckinridge 
by  74,681  to  74,323  in  November.  Douglas  had  polled  16,290,  mainly 
in  the  western  counties,  and  even  Lincoln  had  commanded  1929  votes. 
The  election  of  1860  in  the  Old  Dominion  was  no  mandate  for  secession, 
no  call  for  radical  experimentation  with  the  organic  structure  of  the 
federal  government.  In  the  Tidewater  counties,  however,  particularly  in 
Charles  City  where  the  Negroes  so  decisively  outnumbered  the  whites, 
there  was  alarm.  Renewed  visions  of  John  Browns  descending  upon 
Virginia  produced  nightmares  along  the  lower  James.  To  these  fears 
Tyler  was  not  immune.  Indeed,  he  frankly  advised  his  neighbors  to 
prepare  for  the  worst.  They  should  sell  their  slaves  outright  or  move 
with  them  into  the  Deep  South,  where  the  germs  of  Northern  abolition- 
ism would  be  less  likely  to  infect  the  master-slave  relationship.  This  was 
advice  for  others,  advice  he  would  not  follow  himself.  He  considered  his 
obligation  to  his  own  slaves  based  on  something  more  elevated  than  a 
mere  property  relationship.  For  this  reason  he  felt  a  strong  and  con- 
tinuing moral  obligation  to  stand  by  and  protect  their  physical  and  ma- 
terial welfare,  come  what  may.  He  was  determined,  therefore,  neither 
to  sell  his  servants  south  nor  abandon  his  plantation,  although  given 
the  severe  drought  and  bad  harvests  of  1858-1860  it  would  have  been 

44S 


to  his  financial  advantage  to  have  liquidated  his  slave  property  at  the 
high  prices  then  prevailing  in  the  lower  South.  Instead,  John  Tyler  stood 
firm,  hoping  that  some  compromise  political  solution  to  the  sectional 
controversy  would  appear,  one  that  would  guarantee  the  private  prop- 
erty of  the  plantation  aristocracy  from  abolitionist  expropriation  and 
in  so  doing  preserve  the  social  and  racial  status  quo  of  the  Charles  City 
neighborhood.47 

Firsthand  reports  reaching  Sherwood  Forest  from  the  Deep  South 
permitted  little  optimism  that  such  a  compromise  would  be  allowed  to 
emerge.  In  mid-December  1860  Tyler's  neighbor  and  physician,  Dr. 
James  Selden,  returned  to  Charles  City  from  a  survey  trip  through 
Alabama,  Georgia  and  South  Carolina.  He  had  gone  there,  on  Tyler's 
advice,  to  study  prospects  for  moving  his  plantation  and  his  slaves  to 
the  cotton  belt.  He  brought  back  to  Sherwood  Forest  the  disturbing 
news,  as  Julia  relayed  it,  that  "the  South  is  perfectly  ripe  for  secession. 
„ . .  The  South  Carolina  ladies  say  they  would  rather  be  widows  of 
secessionists  than  wives  of  submissionists !  and  that  they  will  never 
again  attend  a  ball  in  the  United  States.  Blue  cockades  are  as  thick  as 

hops "  Still,  the  mistress  of  Sherwood  hoped  that  "the  Union  on  a 

right  and  just  basis  will  be  preserved,"  and  Tyler  took  pen  in  hand  to 
plead  anew  for  sectional  harmony.  "It  is  the  duty  of  every  citizen,"  he 
wrote,  "however  profound  his  retirement  from  public  affairs,  and  what- 
ever may  have  been  his  position  in  relation  to  them  and  the  country  in 
other  days,  to  contribute  his  best  efforts  to  restore  harmony  when  dis- 
cord prevails,  and  aid  in  rescuing  the  country  from  danger."  By  De- 
cember 14,  less  than  a  week  before  South  Carolina  finally  seceded,  Tyler 
had  matured  a  tentative  plan  for  sectional  unity,  although  by  this  date 
he  was  beginning  to  blame  the  deepening  crisis  more  on  the  Northern 
extremists  than  on  the  Charleston  hotheads.  As  he  explained  the  tragic 
situation  to  Caleb  Gushing, 

I  confess  that  I  am  lost  in  perfect  amazement  at  the  lunacy  which  seems  to 
have  seized  the  North.  What  imaginable  good  is  to  come  to  them  by  com- 
pelling the  Southern  States  into  secession?  I  see  great  benefits  to  foreign 
governments,  but  nothing  but  prostration  and  woe  to  New  England.  Virginia 
looks  on  for  the  present  with  her  arms  folded,  but  she  only  bides  her  time. 
Despondency  will  be  succeeded  by  action.  My  own  mind  is  greatly  disturbed. 
I  look  around  in  every  direction  for  a  conservative  principle,  but  I  have  so 
far  looked  in  vain.  I  have  thought  that  a  consultation  between  the  Border 
States,  free  and  slaveholding,  might  lead  to  adjustment.  It  would  embrace  six 
on  each  side.  They  are  most  interested  in  keeping  the  peace,  and  if  they 
cannot  come  to  an  understanding,  then  the  political  union  is  gone. . . .  When 
all  things  else  have  failed,  this  might  be  tried.  It  would  be  a  dernier  ressort.48 

It  was. 


446 


FROM  PEACE   TO   PARADISE 
1861-1862 


These  are  dark  times,  dearest,  and  I  think  only  of 
you  and  our  little  ones.  . . .  /  shall  "vote  secession. 

JOHN   TYLER,  APRIL    16,    1861 


John  Tyler  was  not  the  only  American  casting  about  for  a  dernier  ressort 
to  stave  off  civil  war.  In  his  last  Annual  Message  to  Congress  on  De- 
cember 3,  1860,  Buchanan  blamed  the  crisis  on  the  "long-continued  and 
intemperate  interference  of  the  Northern  people  with  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  Southern  States"  and  offered  a  three-point  pacification 
proposal  to  this  end  in  the  form  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
which  would  recognize  slavery  as  a  property  right  where  it  already 
existed,  provide  federal  protection  of  slavery  in  the  territories  until  such 
time  as  a  given  territory  elected  to  enter  the  Union  as  a  free  state,  and 
uphold  the  right  of  a  master  to  have  his  runaway  slave  promptly  re- 
turned to  him  through  the  police  action  of  the  federal  government.  In 
the  same  breath,  the  nervous  Buchanan  (desiring  little  more  than  to  get 
safely  out  of  office  before  the  dam  broke)  confessed  his  belief  that  the 
"Executive  has  no  authority  to  decide  what  shall  be  the  relations  be- 
tween the  Federal  Government  and  South  Carolina. . .  .  He  possesses 
no  power  to  change  the  relations  heretofore  existing  between  them."  Not 
surprisingly,  these  tired  proposals  from  a  supine  administration  caused 
little  stir  among  the  political  literati  of  the  North.  Still,  they  struck 
Tyler  as  reasonable.  Encouraged  by  Buchanan's  modest  example,  he 
offered  on  December  14  his  own  proposal  for  a  peace  convention  of  the 
twelve  border  states,  six  slave  and  six  free.1 

As  the  former  President  matured  his  plan  and  began  soliciting 
support  for  it  in  Richmond  political  circles,  Senator  John  J.  Crittenden 

447 


of  Kentucky  offered  a  peace  resolution  in  the  Senate  on  December  18, 
two  days  before  South  Carolina  formally  seceded.  The  resolution  con- 
tained as  its  central  feature  the  legalization  and  recognition  of  slavery 
in  all  territories  south  of  36°3o'.  Under  the  proposed  Crittenden  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution,  states  formed  from  territories  below  36°3o' 
could  enter  the  Union  slave  or  free  as  their  inhabitants  decreed,  but 
until  such  decision  was  rendered  by  the  territorials  themselves,  slavery 
was  legal  in  and  could  extend  into  areas  south  of  36°3o'.  This  projected 
revitalization  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  which  had  been  repealed  by 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  and  declared  unconstitutional  in  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  Lincoln  could  not  accept.  He  was  unalterably  opposed 
to  any  further  extension  of  slavery  even  if  extension  was  accomplished 
by  democratic  means.  The  Republican  platform  had  been  clear  on  this 
point,  and  Lincoln  had  campaigned  on  the  platform.  Consequently,  the 
joint  Senate  committee  appointed  to  consider  the  Crittenden  proposal 
was  hopelessly  deadlocked  by  December  31.  "No  ray  of  light  yet  ap- 
pears to  dispel  the  gloom  which  has  settled  upon  the  country,"  Tyler 
wrote  David  Lyon  on  New  Year's  Day.  "A  blow  struck  would  be  the 
signal  for  united  action  with  all  the  slave  States,  whereas  the  grain 
States  of  the  border  are  sincerely  desirous  of  reconciling  matters  and 
thereby  preserving  the  Union. . . .  They  are  so  deeply  interested  in  pre- 
serving friendly  relations. . . ."  2 

Events  moved  swiftly  as  the  new  year  opened.  Between  January  9 
and  January  19  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Georgia,  and  Florida  all  seceded 
and,  following  South  Carolina's  example,  seized  federal  forts  and 
arsenals  as  they  departed  the  Union.  On  January  5  Buchanan  dispatched 
the  unarmed  Star  of  the  West  to  Charleston  harbor  to  reinforce  and 
provision  the  small  garrison  at  Fort  Sumter,  still  in  federal  hands.  The 
ship  was  fired  upon  and  turned  back  on  January  9,  and  a  confused 
Buchanan  resumed  playing  the  role  of  an  undulating  cobra  transfixed 
by  secessionist  flutes.  This  nonprovocative  White  House  policy,  virtually 
paralytic  in  its  effect,  Tyler  considered  a  "wise  and  statesmanlike 
course."  He  was  willing  to  appease  the  South  Carolina  radicals  without 
shame  if  such  a  policy  would  buy  cooling-off  time,  however  little.  On 
January  15  his  advocacy  of  appeasement  seemed  justified  when  the 
Virginia  General  Assembly  proposed  that  a  peace  convention  of  all  the 
states  convene  in  Washington  on  February  4.  Although  this  mitigatory 
gesture  was  largely  the  legislative  work  of  Governor  John  Letcher  and 
William  C.  Rives,  Tyler's  behind-the-scenes  work  in  the  Virginia  peace 
movement  was  so  prominent  that  in  a  very  real  sense  he  was  the  father 
of  the  peace  convention.3 

Paternity  has  its  problems  as  well  as  its  joys.  The  specific  proposal 
passed  by  the  General  Assembly  seemed  to  Tyler  a  horribly  misshapen 
child.  Unfortunately,  Virginia  had  called  for  a  convention  of  all  the 
states.  Tyler,  conversely,  favored  a  convention  of  commissioners  from 

443 


twelve  "border"  states —  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Il- 
linois, and  Michigan  from  among  the  free  states;  Delaware,  Maryland, 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri  to  represent  the  slave 
states.  Correctly  seeing  that  a  convention  of  all  the  states  would  merely 
add  to  the  number  of  extremists  present  from  both  sections  and  would 
produce  an  administratively  unmanageable  bedlam,  the  former  Presi- 
dent marched  into  the  columns  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer  for  January 
17  to  call  loudly  for  the  smaller,  more  efficient  convention.  If  the  twelve 
border  states  could  agree,  Tyler  argued,  "I  think  their  recommendation 
will  be  followed  by  the  other  States  and  incorporated  into  the  Constitu- 
tion  If  they  cannot  agree,  then  it  may  safely  be  concluded  that  the 

restoration  of  peace  and  concord  has  become  impossible."  The  bloody 
alternative  to  speedy  accommodation  Tyler  also  outlined  to  his  fellow 
Virginians: 

If  the  Free  and  Slave  States  cannot  live  in  harmony  together  . . .  does  not  the 
dictate  of  common  sense  admonish  to  a  separation  in  peace?  Better  so  than 
a  perpetual  itch  of  irritation  and  ill  feeling.  Far  better  than  an  unnatural  war 
between  the  sections. . . .  Grant  that  one  section  shall  conquer  the  other,  what 
reward  will  be  reaped  by  the  victor?  The  conqueror  will  walk  at  every  step 
over  smoldering  ashes  and  beneath  crumbling  columns. Ruin  and  desola- 
tion will  everywhere  prevail,  and  the  victor's  brow,  instead  of  a  wreath  of 
glorious  evergreen . . .  will  be  encircled  with  withered  and  faded  leaves  be- 
dewed with  the  blood  of  the  child  and  its  mother  and  the  father  and  the  son. 
The  picture  is  too  horrible  and  revolting  to  be  dwelt  upon.4 

The  picture  was  horrible  and  revolting.  For  this  reason  Tyler  sug- 
gested that  should  a  convention  fail,  the  secessionist  states  should  be 
permitted  their  exit  from  the  Union  in  peace.  These  departed  states,  he 
felt,  might  then  convene,  adopt  the  United  States  Constitution  as  their 
own  constitution,  amend  it  with  "guarantees  going  not  one  iota  beyond 
what  strict  justice  and  the  security  of  the  South  require,"  and  then 
invite  the  other  states  "to  enter  our  Union  with  the  old  flag  flying  over 
one  and  all."  This  interesting  if  wholly  impractical  idea  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  confusing  the  question  of  just  who  would  be  seceding  from 
whom,  and  Tyler  apparently  offered  it  to  delay  and  complicate  the 
formulation  of  a  legal  basis  for  federal  military  coercion  should  the  sec- 
tional crisis  come  to  that.  In  mid- January  1861  he  was  still  willing  to 
buy  peace  at  nearly  any  price  and  he  was  anxious  to  frustrate  any 
prospect  of  aimed  intervention.5 

On  the  very  day  Tyler's  appeal  for  a  twelve-state  peace  convention 
saw  print  in  Richmond,  the  legislatures  of  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  two 
of  Tyler's  "border"  states,  were  reported  in  Virginia  papers  as  having 
offered  troops  and  funds  to  the  federal  government  to  subjugate  the 
seceded  states.  At  the  same  time,  the  General  Assembly  in  Richmond 
rejected  Tyler's  convention  concept  and  voted  for  a  conference  of  all 
the  states.  "The  course  of  the  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  Legislatures  . . . 

449 


leaves  but  little  hope  of  any  adjustment/'  lie  wrote  Robert  in  dismay. 
"The  Legislature  of  Virginia  have  so  trammelled  their  [peace]  conven- 
tion bill  that  I  fear  that  we  shall  have  a  doubtful  result."  Since  none  of 
the  five  already  seceded  states  would  be  likely  to  send  delegates  to  such 
a  conference  (they  did  not),  the  rump  conclave  could  scarcely  be  ex- 
pected to  restore  the  Union.  Further,  the  free  states  would  have  such  a 
pronounced  majority  in  the  convention  that  no  truly  meaningful  dialogue 
could  be  expected  to  take  place.6 

Gloomy  as  the  future  seemed,  Tyler  reluctantly  accepted  appoint- 
ment as  one  of  Virginia's  five  commissioners  to  the  peace  convention. 
His  colleagues  were  James  A.  Seddon,  William  C.  Rives,  John  W.  Brock- 
enbrough,  and  George  W.  Summers.  Summers  and  Rives  were  moderate 
Constitutional  Unionists;  Seddon  was  a  fire-eating  Virginia  secessionist; 
Brockenbrough  was  more  moderate  than  Seddon  but  tended  to  lean 
toward  the  secessionist  point  of  view.  Tyler,  of  course,  was  still  a 
moderate,  albeit  a  frightened  one,  in  search  of  some  panacea  that 
would  prevent  federal  military  coercion  of  the  seceded  states.  If  that 
happened,  he  reasoned,  Virginia's  secession  was  inevitable  and  with  it  a 
civil  war.  He  wanted  to  preserve  the  Union  and  keep  Virginia  in  it,  but 
not  at  the  price  of  having  his  slave  property  liberated  around  his  ears, 
or  at  the  cost  of  having  to  watch  federal  troops  march  through  Virginia 
en  route  to  slaughter  South  Carolinians  and  Georgians.  His,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  the  only  vote  against  Jackson's  Force  Bill  in  1833. 

Given  the  temper  and  confusion  of  the  times,  Virginia's  delegation 
to  the  peace  convention  was  remarkably  well-balanced  in  attitude.  It 
fairly  represented  a  state  in  which  sectional  opinions  ranged  from  pre- 
dominantly secessionist  in  the  eastern  Tidewater  to  predominantly 
unionist  on  the  Ohio  River.  All  shades  and  intensities  of  viewpoint  were 
to  be  found  between  these  terminal  points  and  even  at  both  ends  of  the 
geographic  scale.  Nor  did  the  General  Assembly's  instructions  to  the 
Virginia  delegates  manifest  overt  extremism.  They  were  directed  to  work 
for  peace  along  the  general  lines  of  the  Crittenden  compromise  resolu- 
tions, the  principles  of  which  Tyler  had  already  endorsed.7 

On  the  day  Tyler  was  named  a  peace  commissioner,  January  19, 
he  was  also  appointed  Virginia's  special  commissioner  to  President 
Buchanan.  Similarly,  Judge  John  Robertson  was  dispatched  to  Charles- 
ton as  special  commissioner  to  the  seceded  states.  Both  men  were  in- 
structed to  persuade  their  respective  charges  to  "agree  to  abstain . . . 
from  any  and  all  acts  calculated  to  produce  a  collision  between  the 
States  and  the  government  of  the  United  States,"  pending  the  conven- 
ing of  the  Peace  Conference  on  February  4,  the  day  Alabama  had  chosen 
for  the  seceded  states  to  meet  in  Montgomery  to  establish  the  Confeder- 
ate States  of  America.  News  of  his  two  appointments  and  the  details  of 
his  instructions  reached  Tyler  at  Sherwood  Forest  on  January  20.  He 
was  feeling  quite  unwell  at  the  time,  but  Julia  gave  him  heavy  doses  of 

450 


hydrargyrum  cum  creta  (mercury  with  chalk),  and  by  the  morning  of 
the  twenty-second  he  was  feeling  shaky  but  strong  enough  to  depart  for 
Richmond  for  a  conference  with  Governor  Letcher  prior  to  taking  the 
train  to  Washington  that  afternoon.  "The  P started  off  very  un- 
well/' Julia  informed  Staten  Island,  "but  he  felt  that  go  he  must,  and  I 
hope  as  the  excitement  of  convention  always  agrees  with  him  he  will  im- 
prove and  not  grow  worse."  On  the  eve  of  his  departure  a  family  confer- 
ence had  determined  that  Gardie  would  accompany  his  father  to  Wash- 
ington as  a  bearer  of  dispatches  between  Brown's  Hotel  (where  Tyler 
would  stay)  and  the  White  House;  it  was  also  decided  that  Tyler  would 
return  briefly  to  Sherwood  Forest  before  the  peace  convention  officially 
opened.  Julia  would  then  accompany  him  back  to  Washington.8 

Julia  was  elated  at  the  prospect  of  a  return  to  the  capital.  When 
she  learned,  on  January  22,  that  her  husband  had  also  been  elected  by 
Charles  City,  James  City,  and  New  Kent  counties  to  serve  as  their 
representative  in  the  emergency  Virginia  State  Convention  called  for 
February  13  in  Richmond,  she  knew  that  her  return  to  Washington 
would  be  as  the  wife  of  a  very  important  man  indeed.  She  immediately 
instructed  her  mother  to  send  her  Margaret's  silk  evening  dresses,  and 
she  promised  her  family  that  with  her  husband  serving  as  special  Vir- 
ginia commissioner  to  Buchanan,  Virginia  commissioner  to  the  Peace 
Conference,  and  Charles  City  delegate  to  the  state  convention,  all  would 
be  well:  "The  seceding  States  on  hearing  that  he  is  conferring  with  Mr. 
Buchanan  will  stay,  I  am  sure,  their  proceedings  out  of  respect  to  him. 
If  the  Northern  States  will  only  follow  up  this  measure  in  a  conceding 
Union,  peace  will  be  insured.  The  South  asks  no  other  than  just  treat- 
ment, and  this  she  must  have  to  be  induced  to  remain  in  the  Union." 
Juliana  needed  no  such  propaganda  from  Sherwood  Forest.  She  was 
already  a  convert  to  the  Southern  line.  The  problem  was  with  David 
Lyon  and  Sarah.9 

While  Tyler  had  received,  in  Julia's  words,  "honor  enough  to 
gratify  the  most  ambitious,"  his  mere  presence  in  the  capital  did  not 
cause  the  rumbling  glacier  of  secessionism  suddenly  to  stand  still,  respect 
or  no  respect  for  the  tenth  President.  Within  ten  days  of  his  arrival 
Louisiana  and  Texas  seceded,  and  Virginia,  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  and 
North  Carolina  had  all  warned  Buchanan  they  would  oppose  any  federal 
attempt  to  coerce  a  seceded  state  militarily.  But  Buchanan,  as  Tyler 
quickly  discovered  during  an  interview  on  January  24,  was  in  no  con- 
dition, psychologically  or  emotionally,  to  coerce  anybody.  The  man  was 
in  a  daze,  and  he  whined  to  the  former  President  that  "the  South  had 
not  treated  him  properly;  that  they  had  made  unnecessary  demonstra- 
tions by  seizing  unprotected  arsenals  and  forts . . .  acts  of  useless  bra- 
vado which  had  quite  as  well  been  let  alone."  Tyler  could  see  that  his 
job  in  Washington  was  going  to  be  quite  a  bit  easier  than  Judge 
Robertson's  in  Charleston.  He  assured  Buchanan  that  these  Southern 


actions  were  minor  things,  calculated  only  "to  fret  and  irritate  the 
Northern  mind  . . .  the  necessary  results  of  popular  excitement  which, 
after  all,  worked  no  mischief  in  the  end  if  harmony  between  the  States 
was  once  more  restored."  Grasping  at  any  straw  floating  past,  Buchanan 
accepted  this  strained  interpretation  without  comment.10 

A  few  days  later  the  Virginia  commissioner  scored  another  success 
in  the  reduction  of  tensions  when  Buchanan  cooperatively  helped  him 
quash  two  groundless  rumors  which  had  inflamed  many  Virginians.  Had 
either  been  true,  the  whole  purpose  of  Tyler's  mission  to  Washington 
as  a  special  commissioner  would  have  collapsed  instantly.  The  rumor 
mill  had  it,  first,  that  the  USS  Brooklyn  had  been  sent  to  Charleston 
with  a  load  of  federal  troops;  and,  secondly,  that  the  guns  of  Fortress 
Monroe  had  been  trained  menacingly  inland  upon  the  Virginia  country- 
side. Buchanan,  pressed  by  a  nervous  Tyler,  assured  the  commissioner 
that  the  Brooklyn  had  sailed  for  Pensacola  on  an  errand  of  mercy  and 
relief,  and  that  the  guns  of  Fortress  Monroe  still  pointed  peacefully 
seaward.  Tyler's  relief  at  these  assurances  turned  to  positive  gratifica- 
tion on  January  28.  On  that  date  the  President,  at  the  Virginia  com- 
missioner's request,  sent  a  special  message  to  Capitol  Hill  communicat- 
ing to  Congress  the  resolutions  of  the  Virginia  General  Assembly  calling 
for  peace  and  compromise.  To  these  resolutions  Buchanan  added  the 
personal  plea  that  Congress  refrain  from  any  hostile  act  against  the 
South.  "What  he  recommends  Congress  to  do  he  will  do  himself/'  Tyler 
reported  with  satisfaction.  "His  policy  obviously  is  to  throw  all  re- 
sponsibility off  of  his  shoulders."  Given  the  appeasing  paralysis  of  the 
Buchanan  administration,  Tyler  felt  free  to  return  to  Sherwood  Forest 
on  January  29.  There  would  be  no  federal  military  coercion  of  the  South 
so  long  as  nervous  Old  Buck  was  still  in  the  White  House.11 

The  question  now,  however,  was  whether  South  Carolina  would 
militarily  coerce  the  United  States.  On  January  31  the  Charleston 
government  dispatched  Colonel  I.  W.  Hayne  to  Washington  to  demand 
formally  of  Buchanan  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter.  Hayne  7s  request 
took  the  form  of  a  "highly  improper  letter"  which  Buchanan  refused 
to  receive.  The  President  stalled  and  fretted  for  a  few  days,  but  finally 
on  the  advice  of  Secretary  of  War  Joseph  Holt  he  rejected  the  Game- 
cock ultimatum  with  the  argument  that  since  the  fort  was  federal 
property  he  had  no  power  to  sell  it  or  otherwise  divest  the  federal  gov- 
ernment of  its  possession  without  authorization  from  Congress.  Be- 
cause the  fort  was  still  legally  a  federal  military  installation  he  main- 
tained the  right,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  to  reinforce  its  garrison  if 
the  situation  called  for  such  a  step.  He  did  not,  however,  contemplate 
this  necessity.  Delivered  to  Colonel  Hayne  on  February  6,  two  days 
after  the  Peace  Conference  convened,  the  Holt-Buchanan  rejection  of 
the  South  Carolina  demand  (which  the  agitated  Hayne  termed  "highly 
insulting"  to  him  personally)  brought  the  nation  to  the  brink  of  war. 

452 


This  was  the  immediate  crisis  Tyler  would  face  shortly  after  he  re- 
turned to  the  capital  for  the  peace  convention.  He  arrived  on  February 
3,  accompanied  by  Julia,  Alex,  baby  Pearl,  and  the  body  servant  Fanny. 
No  sooner  had  the  Tylers  settled  into  their  suite  at  Brown's  Hotel 
than  their  rooms  were  filled  with  a  throng  of  milling,  frightened  people 
all  looking  to  John  Tyler,  the  probable  president  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence, to  work  some  quick  miracle  to  save  the  Union.  Letters  and  tele- 
grams poured  in  pleading  for  peace,  many  offering  plans  and  formulae 
to  accomplish  this  end.  Julia  described  the  chaotic  scene,  heavy  as 
it  was  with  portents  of  disaster.  "Perhaps  I  am  here  during  the  last 
days  of  the  Republic,"  she  told  her  mother  on  February  3. 

The  President  has  been  surrounded  with  visitors  from  the  moment  he  could 

appear  to  them It  would  interest  you  to  see  how  deferentially  they  gather 

around  him.  They  will  make  him  President  of  the  Convention,  I  presume, 
from  what  I  hear. . . .  All  of  the  South  or  border  States  will  enter  upon  the 
deliberations  with  very  little  expectation  of  saving  the  Union,  I  think.  There 
seems  such  a  fixed  determination  to  do  mischief  on  the  part  of  the  Black 
Republicans.  General  Scott's  absurd  and  high-handed  course  here  in  Wash- 
ington is  very  much  condemned.  The  rumor  today  is  afloat  that  he  is  collect- 
ing here  troops  to  overawe  Virginia  and  Maryland.  If  the  President  concludes 
so,  upon  observation,  I  think  he  will  recommend  the  Governor  of  Virginia 
to  send  five  thousand  troops  at  once  to  Alexandria  to  stand  on  the  defensive 
side  and  overawe  General  Scott's  menacing  attitude;  but  this  is  entre  nous 
and  a  "State  secret."  . . .  There  seems  to  be  a  general  looking  to  him  by  those 
anxious  to  save  the  Union.  I  wish  it  might  be  possible  for  him  to  succeed  in 
overcoming  all  obstacles.  They  all  say  if  through  him  it  cannot  be  accom- 
plished, it  could  not  be  through  any  one  else.12 

Julia  did  not  accompany  her  husband  to  Washington  solely  to 
satisfy  her  "most  intense  interest"  in  all  things  political.  Instead,  she 
planned  the  trip  as  a  social  reconquest  of  the  capital  she  had  left  to 
the  dry  mercies  of  Sarah  Polk  sixteen  years  earlier.  Nor  was  she  dis- 
appointed in  her  ambition.  With  her  husband  "the  great  center  of 
attraction"  as  the  nation's  political  Moses7  Julia  tripped  happily  through 
the  social  bulrushes  to  the  point  of  physical  exhaustion.  Parties,  recep- 
tions, dinners,  and  balls  broke  out  like  measles  as  proper  Washing- 
tonians  made  one  last  effort  to  drown  the  throb  of  martial  drums  in 
a  sea  of  alcohol  and  in  the  lulling  swish-swish  of  dancing  slippers.  This 
suited  Julia.  "You  ought  to  hear  the  compliments  that  are  heaped 
upon  me. ...  I  haven't  changed  a  bit  except  to  improve,  etc.,  etc.," 
she  boasted  to  her  mother.  At  forty  Julia  had  energy  to  burn;  at  nearly 
seventy-one  Tyler  had  difficulty  keeping  up  with  her,  although  Julia 
assured  her  mother  that  her  aging  husband  was  "quite  bright,  bearing 
up  wonderfully  and  looking  remarkably  well."  His  ego  sustained  by 
the  thought  that  he  was  "looked  to  to  save  the  Union,"  his  stomach 
disorder  made  endurable  by  massive  doses  of  hydrargyrum  cum  creta, 

453 


John  Tyler  rode  boldly  forth  to  grapple  with  all  dragons,  sectional  and 
social,  while  Julia  danced  on.  "I  have  not  been  allowed  a  moment's 
leisure/'  she  wrote  her  mother  on  February  13: 

Within  the  hotel  it  has  been  an  incessant  stream  of  company,  and  then  I  have 
had  visits  to  return,  the  Capitol  to  visit,  etc.,  etc.  Last  night  I  attended,  with 
the  President,  the  party  of  Senator  Douglas. ...  I  paraded  the  rooms  with  the 
handsomest  man  here,  Governor  Morehead  of  Kentucky — one  of  the  best 
likenesses  to  Papa  you  ever  saw  in  appearance,  voice,  laugh  and  manner.  I 
suppose  I  may  conclude  that  I  looked  quite  well.  No  attempts  at  entertain- 
ment have  succeeded  before,  I  was  told,  this  winter,  and  to  the  hopes  that  are 
placed  upon  the  efforts  of  this  Peace  Convention  is  to  be  attributed  the  suc- 
cess of  this.  People  are  catching  at  straws  as  a  relief  to  their  pressing  anxieties, 
and  look  to  the  Peace  Commissioners  as  if  they  possessed  some  divine  power 
to  restore  order  and  harmony.13 

John  Tyler  had  no  divine  power.  Instead,  he  had  a  bad  stomach 
and  a  socially  ambitious  wife;  the  combination  rendered  his  role  at 
the  Peace  Conference  a  difficult  one.  Convening  in  Willard's  Hall  on 
February  4,  the  convention  adjourned  to  the  following  day  to  permit 
more  delegates  time  to  arrive.  On  the  fifth,  as  expected,  Tyler  was 
unanimously  elected  president  of  the  gathering.  As  he  mounted  the 
rostrum  to  deliver  his  welcoming  address  he  could  see  the  faces  of  several 
old  political  friends — Robert  F.  Stockton  of  New  Jersey,  Charles  S. 
Morehead  and  Charles  A.  Wickliffe  of  Kentucky.  There  were  also 
ancient  enemies  in  the  hall — Francis  Granger  of  New  York,  David 
Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Thomas  Ewing  of  Ohio.  He  could  also 
see  that  the  free  states  outnumbered  the  slave  states  fourteen  to  seven. 
Of  the  132  delegates  assembled  most  of  them  were  as  old,  tired,  and 
sick  as  himself.  John  C.  Wright  of  Ohio  was  blind  and  feeble  and  would 
die  within  the  week;  Charles  A.  Wickliffe  was  lame;  the  lungs  of 
Missouri's  Alexander  W.  Doniphan  were  "so  much  inflamed  that  I  deem 
it  unsafe  to  go  out  in  the  damp  atmosphere."  To  some,  Tyler  himself 
appeared  a  "tottering  ashen  ruin."  But  there  was  much  political  skill 
and  experience  present.  The  group  numbered  six  former  Cabinet 
officers,  nineteen  former  governors,  fourteen  ex-United  States  senators, 
fifty  former  congressmen,  and  a  scattering  of  former  ambassadors,  min- 
isters, state  supreme  court  justices,  and  circuit  court  judges.14 

Tyler's  speech  to  this  distinguished  if  spent  assemblage  was  not 
one  of  his  better  forensic  efforts.  Calling  attention  to  his  own  "variable 
and  fickle"  health  and  to  his  personal  ambition  to  be  numbered  among 
those  history  would  remember  as  saviors  of  the  Union,  Tyler  devoted 
the  major  part  of  a  cliche-ridden  address  to  pleading  in  general  terms 
for  peace,  compromise,  reconciliation,  and  adjustment.  In  eulogistic 
detail  he  recalled  the  past  historical  glories  of  each  state  with  a  delega- 
tion present.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  however,  he  admitted  that 
the  Founding  Fathers  had  "probably  committed  a  blunder"  in  not 

454 


rendering  the  Constitution  more  easily  amendable.  He  began  dimly  to 
see  that  the  document  was  a  living,  growing  thing,  not  the  dead  fossil 
strict  obstructionists  had  for  years  insisted  it  remain.  Unfortunately, 
said  Tyler,  the  Fathers  "have  made  the  difficulties  next  to  insurmount- 
able to  accomplish  amendments  to  an  instrument  which  was  perfect  for 
five  millions  of  people,  but  not  wholly  so  as  to  thirty  millions."  This 
defect  he  thought  the  assembled  delegates  might  remedy  by  their 
patriotism  and  by  their  willingness  to  "accomplish  but  one  triumph  in 
advance ...  a  triumph  over  party."  The  convention  applauded  enthu- 
siastically.15 

February  6,  1861,  was  an  eventful  day.  As  the  twenty-one-member 
resolutions  committee  under  the  direction  of  Kentucky's  James  Guthrie 
settled  down  to  the  task  of  hammering  out  a  proposed  constitutional 
amendment  that  would  stave  off  civil  war,  Tyler,  encouraged  by  the 
almost-universal  acclaim  his  speech  the  preceding  day  had  generated, 
hurried  with  Julia  to  the  White  House  to  snuff  out  the  sputtering  Fort 
Sumter  fuse.  He  pleaded  with  Buchanan  to  accept  the  South  Carolina 
ultimatum  of  January  31  and  abandon  Sumter.  The  government,  after 
all,  had  already  given  up  other  forts  and  arsenals  in  the  seceded  states. 
Furthermore,  the  fort  could  not  possibly  be  defended  by  "that  noble 
boy/7  Major  Robert  Anderson,  and  his  tiny  garrison  of  eighty-odd 
men.  Indeed,  the  very  presence  of  Anderson  in  the  fort,  Tyler  insisted, 
was  a  provocation  that  imperiled  the  prospects  of  the  peace  convention. 
In  daily  threatening  an  overt  collision  at  Charleston  it  risked  precipitat- 
ing the  nervous  border  states  headlong  into  secession.  Why  not,  Tyler 
suggested,  reduce  the  garrison  to  a  token  guard  of  six  men  and  thereby 
appease  the  South  Carolinians  who  "in  spite  of  the  Northern  bluster 
that  denounces  them  as  rebels  in  arms  thirsting  for  blood  are  bent  on 
peace."  Buchanan  would  not  agree  to  a  reduction  in  force.  There  was 
really  no  force  to  speak  of  in  Sumter.  But  he  did  authorize  Tyler  to 
enter  into  direct  communication  with  South  Carolina  Governor  Francis 
W.  Pickens,  Julia's  old  admirer,  to  assure  the  governor  that  the  ad- 
ministration was  interested  only  in  peace.  His  refusal  of  South  Caro- 
lina's ultimatum  was  in  no  manner  intended,  in  tone  or  wording,  to 
"insult"  Colonel  Hayne  or  anyone  else,  Buchanan  averred.  This  im- 
portant task  Tyler  immediately  undertook.  Within  a  few  days  he  and 
Judge  Robertson  had  calmed  Pickens  and  Hayne  and  had  snipped  the 
fuse  of  the  crisis  in  Charleston  Harbor.  For  this  service  Buchanan 
was  extremely  grateful.  On  the  evening  of  February  n  he  showed  his 
appreciation  by  paying  Tyler  the  singular  compliment  of  calling  at  his 
parlor  to  thank  him  personally.  "I  suppose  it  is  the  first  visit  he  has 
paid  since  being  the  nation's  chief,"  Julia  exclaimed,  thrilled  at  the 
social  coup.lQ 

Scarcely  had  this  small  blow  for  peace  and  sanity  been  struck 
when  Tyler  began  to  realize  that  the  deliberations  of  the  Peace  Con- 

455 


ference  were  destined  to  end  in  abject  failure.  Not  only  was  debate  on 
the  floor  often  a  raucous  and  disorderly  affair  (Tyler  occasionally  lost 
control  of  the  proceedings  entirely),  but  the  dissension  within  Guthrie's 
resolutions  committee  became  so  severe  Tyler  despaired  that  any 
proposal  would  emerge  from  it  at  all.  Northern  extremists  in  the  com- 
mittee and  on  the  floor  of  the  convention  argued  that  any  concession 
to  the  South's  position  on  slavery  extension  in  the  territories  would  be 
a  rank  betrayal  of  the  Republican  platform  of  1860  and  would  stand  no 
real  chance  of  ratification  before  Republican-dominated  state  legis- 
latures in  the  North.  Southern  spokesmen  argued  that  unless  the  North 
at  least  accepted  the  possibility  of  slavery  extension  along  the  demo- 
cratic, popular-sovereignty  lines  of  the  Crittenden  proposal,  the  seven 
seceded  states  could  not  possibly  be  enticed  peacefully  back  into  the 
Union.  From  February  6  to  February  15  the  matter  stood  thus  dead- 
locked in  the  resolutions  committee  while  the  convention  as  a  whole 
marked  time.  There  were  sincere  men  of  good  will  on  both  sides,  men 
dedicated  to  genuine  compromise,  but  Tyler  soon  saw,  as  he  had  earlier 
feared,  that  the  convention  had  attracted  too  many  delegates  and  too 
many  extremists  to  function  either  harmoniously  or  efficiently.17 

By  February  13,  two  days  before  the  resolutions  committee  fi- 
nally reported,  Tyler's  thinking  had  undergone  a  significant  change. 
Despairing  that  there  could  be  any  workable  or  acceptable  compromise, 
he  began  to  consider  the  sectional  problem  in  military  terms.  Specifi- 
cally, he  began  to  worry  about  Virginia's  military  security  should  the 
convention  fail  and  war  result.  Tyler  came  to  the  convention  in  search 
of  peace  through  political  compromise;  he  left  it  wedded  to  a  plan  for 
peace  through  a  military  balance  of  power.  This  fundamental  change 
in  his  thinking  had  taken  place  by  the  end  of  the  ninth  stormy  day  of  the 
Conference.  Publicly,  he  still  urged  the  Virginia  State  Convention,  which 
convened  in  Richmond  on  the  thirteenth,  to  adjourn  its  deliberations 
from  day  to  day  until  the  Peace  Conference  in  Washington  had  acted 
one  way  or  another.  Privately,  he  began  toying  with  the  idea  of  secession. 
Julia,  who  invariably  reflected  her  husband's  thinking  in  her  own,  told 
Staten  Island  on  the  afternoon  of  February  13  that 

All  is  suspense,  from  the  President  down.  The  New  York  and  Massachusetts 
delegation  will  no  doubt  perform  all  the  mischief  they  can;  and  it  may  be,  will 
defeat  this  patriotic  effort  at  pacification.  But  whether  it  succeeds  or  not, 
Virginia  will  have  sustained  her  reputation,  and  in  the  latter  event  will  retire 
with  dignity  from  the  field  to  join  without  loss  of  time  her  more  Southern 
sisters;  the  rest  of  the  slave  Border  States  will  follow  her  lead,  and  very 
likely  she  will  be  able  to  draw  off,  which  would  be  glorious,  a  couple  of 
Northern  States.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  state  of  suspense,  which  is  bring- 
ing disaster  to  trade  everywhere,  will  soon  be  removed  in  one  way  or  another. 

If  this  result  could  be  counted  upon  to  follow  on  the  heels  of  Virginia's 
secession,  if  "a  couple  of  Northern  states"  could  indeed  be  drawn  out 
of  the  Union  by  the  Old  Dominion,  the  weakened  North  would  likely 


not  feel  itself  strong  enough  militarily  to  crush  so  powerful  a  con- 
federacy. There  would  therefore  be  no  war.  Or  so  Tyler  reasoned.  In- 
stead, a  peaceful  balance  of  power  would  be  created — two  scorpions 
in  a  bottle — and  Virginia  would  be  spared  invasion  and  bloodshed.  This 
calculation  was,  of  course,  a  wild  gamble.  It  was  based  on  a  dangerous 
overestirnation  of  Virginia's  prestige  and  pulling  power,  a  disastrous 
underestimation  of  South  Carolina's  urge  to  lunacy  when  the  Fort 
Sumter  crisis  was  resumed  in  April  1861,  and  a  tragic  misevaluation 
of  the  temper  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Nevertheless,  Tyler  embraced  it  as 
preferable  to  either  civil  war  or  a  supine  acceptance  of  the  occupation 
of  Virginia  by  the  armed  forces  of  an  abolitionist  regime.18 

The  proposed  constitutional  amendment  brought  in  by  the  Guthrie 
committee  on  February  15  was  an  eight-section  proposal  which  closely 
followed  the  Crittenden  plan.  Section  i,  the  key  clause,  permitted 
slavery  south  of  36°3o',  prohibited  it  north  of  that  line,  and  allowed 
slaveowners  to  carry  their  property  into  a  territory  anywhere  south  of 
the  designated  boundary  until  such  time  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  ter- 
ritory drew  up  a  state  constitution  specifically  prohibiting  involun- 
tary servitude.  However  unacceptable  this  slavery-expansion  program 
was  to  President-elect  Lincoln  and  to  the  Republican  Party  in  general, 
it  was  not  from  the  Southern  standpoint  a  radical  proposal.  For  this 
reason  Tyler  might  well  have  supported  it.  That  he  did  not  was  in 
sharp  contradiction  to  what  he  had  been  advocating,  publicly  and 
privately,  for  nearly  a  year.  Instead,  Tyler  supported  James  A.  Seddon 's 
disruptive  minority  report.  This  would  have  amended  the  Constitution 
to  permit  the  South  a  virtual  veto  on  Executive  appointments  south  of 
3603</.  Not  only  did  the  Seddon  amendment  visualize  the  South  as  a 
state  within  a  state,  it  also  maintained  the  constitutional  right  of  any 
state  to  secede  from  the  Union  whenever  it  wished. 

There  is  some  evidence  that  Tyler  had  a  Machiavellian  hand  in 
forging  the  extremist  Seddon  amendment,  acceptable  only  to  the  most 
rabid  secessionists.  Whether  he  did  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  Virginia's 
subsequent  vote  against  the  resolutions  committee's  majority  report 
was  largely  Tyler's  doing.  He  joined  with  Seddon  and  Brockenb rough 
to  outvote  Rives  and  Summers  on  each  test  within  the  Old  Dominion's 
delegation.  In  the  end,  Virginia's  unit  vote  was  not  found  on  the  side 
of  conciliation  and  adjustment.  Tyler's  motives  in  his  apostasy  were 
dual.  He  had  arrived  at  his  hopeful  peace-through-secession-and-balance- 
of-power  idea;  in  this  plan  he  had  growing  confidence;  and  he  could 
see  immediately  that  the  resolutions  committee's  proposed  constitu- 
tional amendment,  however  conciliatory,  had  no  mathematical  chance 
whatever  of  adoption.  With  seven  states  already  out  of  the  Union, 
every  one  of  those  still  remaining  in  would  have  to  approve  it  to 
command  the  necessary  three-fourths  majority  required  under  the  Con- 
stitution. Realistically,  this  could  not  be  expected  to  happen.19 

The  final  vote  on  the  Guthrie  committee's  majority  resolution  and 

457 


Seddon 's  minority  report  did  not  take  place  until  February  26.  In  the 
interim,  a  period  characterized  by  parliamentary  chaos  and  a  floor 
debate  that  often  threatened  to  degenerate  into  blows,  Tyler  maintained 
public  silence  on  the  issues.  On  the  eighteenth  the  Confederate  States 
of  America  was  proclaimed  in  Montgomery  and  Jefferson  Davis  in- 
augurated President.  This,  however,  brought  no  new  sectional  incidents 
and  Tyler  continued  as  before  his  close  liaison  with  Buchanan  in  their 
joint  efforts  to  maintain  peace  until  the  convention  had  officially 
spoken.  Although  he  was  seen  increasingly  in  the  company  of  seces- 
sionist delegates,  he  did  not  step  down  from  the  neutrality  of  the  chair 
and  openly  support  the  radical  Seddon  proposal  on  the  floor  of  the 
convention  until  February  25,  two  days  after  his  interview  with  Lincoln. 
Following  that  revealing  experience  Tyler's  muted  secessionism  came 
loudly,  positively,  and  publicly  to  the  fore.20 

The  confrontation  with  Lincoln  took  place  at  9  P.M.  on  Febru- 
ary 23,  fifteen  hours  after  the  President-elect  had  arrived  secretly  in 
the  capital.  Tyler  and  other  delegates  to  the  Conference  waited  upon 
Lincoln  in  his  Willard  Hotel  suite.  It  was  a  tense  moment  which 
Lincoln  sought  to  relieve  with  a  show  of  sincere  good  will,  even  jocu- 
larity. Then  the  fire-eating  James  A.  Seddon  began  to  bait  him,  ac- 
cusing him  of  supporting  in  the  past  the  most  extreme  abolitionist 
excesses — from  the  John  Brown  raid  to  the  distribution  throughout 
the  South  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison's  incendiary  pamphlets.  Lincoln's 
mood  suddenly  hardened. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Seddon,"  he  said.  "I  intend  no  offense, 
but  I  will  not  suffer  such  a  statement  to  pass  unchallenged,  because 
it  is  not  true.  A  gentleman  of  your  intelligence  should  not  make  such 
assertions." 

As  the  political  temperature  in  the  room  cooled,  delegate  William 
E.  Dodge,  New  York  merchant-capitalist,  said,  "It  is  for  you,  sir,  to 
say  whether  the  whole  nation  shall  be  plunged  into  bankruptcy,  whether 
the  grass  shall  grow  in  the  streets  of  our  commercial  cities." 

"Then  I  say  it  shall  not,"  replied  Lincoln.  "If  it  depends  upon 
me,  the  grass  shall  not  grow  anywhere  except  in  the  fields  and  meadows." 

"Then  you  will  yield  to  the  just  demands  of  the  South.  You  will 
not  go  to  war  on  account  of  slavery!"  Dodge  pressed  him. 

"I  do  not  know  that  I  understand  your  meaning,  Mr.  Dodge," 
Lincoln  answered  stiffly.  "If  I  shall  ever  come  to  the  great  office  of 
President  of  the  United  States,  I  shall  take  an  oath . . .  that  I  will,  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States . . .  not  the  Constitution  as  I  would  like  to  have 
it,  but  as  it  is. . . .  The  Constitution  will  not  be  preserved  and  defended 
until  it  is  enforced  and  obeyed  in  every  part  of  every  one  of  the  United 
States.  It  must  be  so  respected,  obeyed,  enforced  and  defended,  let 
the  grass  grow  where  it  may." 

458 


With  that  declaration  some  of  the  Southern  delegates  stalked  out 
of  the  room  in  anger.  But  Tyler  stayed  to  hear  Lincoln  say  further, 
in  answer  to  a  question  whether  territories  democratically  choosing 
and  legalizing  slavery  could  ever  again  hope  to  enter  the  Union  as  slave 
states,  "It  will  be  time  to  consider  that  question  when  it  arises. ...  In 
a  choice  of  evils,  war  may  not  always  be  the  worst."  21 

Tyler  had  heard  enough.  This  ugly,  rawboned  man  was  no  Bu- 
chanan. Rumors  reaching  him  next  day  that  Lincoln  might  be  persuaded 
to  withdraw  federal  troops  from  Fort  Sumter  if  Virginia  would  promise 
to  stay  in  the  Union  failed  to  stay  Tyler's  decision  on  secession.  As- 
surances from  Secretary  of  State-designate  Seward  that  there  would  be 
no  coercion,  that  Sumter  would  very  likely  be  abandoned,  likewise 
had  no  effect  on  his  now  single-track  thinking.  He  was  completely  con- 
vinced that  Virginia  must  secede  quickly,  pulling  the  border  states  "and 
perhaps  New  Jersey"  with  her  into  the  Southern  Confederacy.  Only 
this  could  insure  a  lasting  peace.  Only  this  could  produce  the  military 
balance  of  power  that  would  give  Lincoln  pause  in  his  coercive  instincts 
and  intents. 

For  Tyler,  then,  the  last  three  days  of  the  Peace  Conference  were 
entirely  anticlimactic.  From  the  enforced  detachment  of  the  chair  he 
descended  onto  the  floor  to  support  the  disruptive  Seddon  amendment. 
When  it  was  overwhelmingly  disapproved  by  16  to  4,  Virginia  then 
voted  against  Section  i  of  the  resolutions  committee's  majority  report. 
The  crucial  section  similarly  went  down  to  an  n-to-8  defeat.  A  pe- 
riod of  panicky  logrolling  followed.  Demands  for  another  vote  were 
voiced.  Fear  and  confusion  stalked  the  convention,  on  the  verge  now 
of  accomplishing  absolutely  nothing.  Thanks  in  part  to  New  York's 
angry  abstention  from  the  second  vote,  Section  i  was  finally  approved 
by  a  narrow  Q-to-8  count,  with  Virginia  still  in  stubborn  opposition. 
With  that  shaky  decision  made,  the  remaining  sections  of  the  proposed 
constitutional  amendment  slipped  through  with  small  majorities. 

In  his  farewell  address  to  the  delegates  Tyler  promised  he  would 
submit  the  Conference's  decisions  to  Congress  with  a  "recommenda- 
tion" for  their  adoption.  He  had  no  heart  for  this  task,  however.  In 
his  eagerness  to  return  to  Richmond  and  enter  into  the  secession  debates 
of  the  state  convention,  he  merely  forwarded  the  suggested  constitu- 
tional amendment  to  Congress  with  the  laconic  comment  that  he  had 
been  instructed  to  do  so.  There,  as  Tyler  expected,  it  reposed  without 
action.  Ridiculed  and  unsung,  it  was  a  blank  cartridge  fired  by  a 
spiked  gun  into  an  angry  mob.  Several  Northern  state  legislatures 
immediately  denounced  it,  as  did  both  of  Virginia's  senators.  Within 
a  few  weeks  it  was  dead  and  buried  as  a  live  option,  hastened  to  its 
grave  by  Northern  extremists,  Southern  fire-eaters — and  by  John  Tyler 
himself.  As  he  would  say  nine  months  later  of  the  failure  of  the  Peace 
Conference,  "No  man  could  have  been  more  earnest  to  avert  the  sad 

459 


conditions  of  things  which  now  involve  us  in  the  terrible  realities  of 
war  than  myself,  but  at  the  Peace  Conference  I  had  to  address  'stocks 
and  stones'  who  had  neither  ears  to  hear  or  hearts  to  understand. 
Blinded  by  lust  of  power,  they  have  heedlessly  driven  the  ship  of 
state  upon  rocks  and  into  whirlpools  which  have  dashed  it  to  pieces."  22 

.MO^ 

Memories  are  short.  On  the  foundered  ship  of  state  John  Tyler 
was  one  of  the  chief  pilots.  Arriving  back  in  Richmond  on  February 
28,  he  delivered  an  incendiary  speech  from  the  steps  of  the  Exchange 
Hotel — denouncing  the  Peace  Conference  and  all  its  works  and  calling 
for  Virginia's  immediate  secession  as  the  only  means  of  preserving  the 
general  peace  and  the  safety  of  the  Old  Dominion.  The  following  day 
he  took  his  seat  in  the  Virginia  State  Convention  meeting  in  the  hall 
of  the  Mechanics'  Institute.  There  he  began  working  actively  with 
extremists  Henry  A.  Wise  and  Lewis  E.  Harvie  for  secession.  He  had 
been  elected  to  the  state  convention  on  January  22  as  a  moderate  who 
would  make  "every  effort  in  his  power  to  effect  a  reconciliation."  He 
had  returned  from  the  peace  convention  breathing  fire  and  brimstone. 
For  a  few  days  he  worried  that  he  had  betrayed  his  constituents.  "Have 
you  any  information  of  what  is  the  sentiment  of  Charles  City?"  he 
asked  Julia  nervously.  Whatever  her  answer,  Tyler  learned  a  few  days 
later  that  Robert  and  Priscilla's  eldest  daughter,  nineteen-year-old 
Leti-tia  Tyler,  had  hoisted  the  new  Confederate  flag  to  the  top  of  the 
Capitol  at  Montgomery  in  ceremonies  on  March  5.  The  Tylers  were 
seceding  with  commendable  dash. 

Not  until  March  13  did  Tyler  gain  the  floor  of  the  state  con- 
vention to  deliver  his  slashing  speech  for  secession,  Lincoln's  Inaugural 
Address  of  March  4  had  breathed  a  mixed  spirit  of  menace  and  ad- 
justment, and  Tyler  was  fearful  that  the  latter  element  in  it  might 
seduce  the  Old  Dominion  into  a  policy  of  continued  inaction.  True, 
Lincoln  had  announced  his  intention  to  enforce  the  Constitution.  He 
had  defined  secession  as  unconstitutional.  But  he  had  also  rejected  a 
violent  solution  to  the  nation's  sickness  "unless  it  be  forced  upon  the 
national  authority,"  and  he  declared  he  had  no  "purpose  directly  or 
indirectly  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where 
it  exists."  While  Tyler  complained  that  the  speech  had  certain  gram- 
matical deficiencies,  he  could  not  deny  its  impact  in  Virginia,  where 
unionist  sentiment  was  still  running  strong.  A  large  bloc  of  delegates 
in  the  state  convention,  well  over  half,  was  willing  to  endorse  either 
the  Peace  Conference  compromise  or  the  Crittenden  compromise.  Any- 
thing but  secession  and  war.23 

The  Tyler  who  rose  to  his  feet  on  March  13  to  begin  a  speech 
that  lasted  well  into  the  next  day  was  the  oratorical  Tyler  of  old. 
Although  the  pain  in  his  abdomen  was  intense,  it  did  not  still  a  voice 
filled  with  equal  measures  of  indignation,  pathos,  morality,  derision, 

460 


and  bitter  sarcasm.  The  address  had  everything:  an  arithmetical  analy- 
sis which  demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  the  adoption  of  the  Peace 
Conference's  proposed  constitutional  amendment;  a  point-by-point  se- 
mantic and  legal  demolition  of  the  amendment  itself;  a  healthy  twist 
of  the  British  Lion's  tail;  a  eulogy  of  Henry  Clay;  a  gratuitous  de- 
fense of  the  Tyler  administration;  the  coronation  of  King  Cotton;  a 
review  of  the  glories  of  Colonial  Virginia;  a  defense  of  the  Seddon 
amendment;  the  economic  need  for  slavery  expansion;  the  Heaven- 
ordained  racial  suitability  of  the  African  Negro  for  work  in  hot  fields; 
an  attack  on  the  abolitionists,  their  murderous  plans,  and  their  under- 
ground railroad ;  and  an  assault  on  Abraham  Lincoln  for  ordering  home 
the  Pacific  and  Mediterranean  squadrons  for  the  sole  hostile  purpose 
of  "intimidating"  the  South.  Let  Lincoln  abandon  Fort  Sumter  and 
Fort  Pickens  in  Pensacola,  suggested  Tyler.  Let  him  recognize  the 
Confederate  States  and  begin  to  negotiate  commercial  and  defensive 
alliances  with  the  Montgomery  government  and  all  would  be  well.  But 
this  the  stubborn  Lincoln  would  probably  not  do.  Virginia,  Tyler  con- 
cluded, must  therefore  secede.  Her  long  frontier,  stretching  from  Nor- 
folk on  the  Atlantic  to  Wheeling  on  the  Ohio,  was  indefensible.  Only 
by  seceding  and  drawing  the  border  states,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
and  New  York  City  ("the  South  is  her  natural  ally,  and  she  must 
come  with  us")  out  of  the  Union  with  her  could  Virginia  hope  to  pre- 
serve peace  and  avoid  invasion  and  subjugation: 

Brennus  may  not  be  yet  in  the  Capitol,  but  he  will  soon  be  there,  and  the 
sword  will  be  thrown  into  the  scale  to  weigh  against  our  liberties,  and  there 
will  be  no  Camillus  to  expel  him.  ...  I  look  with  fear  and  trembling  to  some 
extent,  at  the  condition  of  my  country.  But  I  do  want  to  see  Virginia  united. 
...  I  have  entire  confidence  that  her  proud  crest  will*  yet  be  seen  waving  in 
that  great  procession  of  States  that  will  go  up  to  the  temple  to  make  their 
vows  to  maintain  their  liberties,  "peacefully  if  they  can,  forcibly  if  they  must." 
Sir,  I  am  done.24 

Powerful  as  it  was,  Tyler's  speech  triggered  no  stampede  toward 
secession.  Instead,  the  former  President  was  forced  to  sit  and  listen, 
hour  after  hour,  day  after  day,  to  speeches  variously  advocating  union, 
secession,  or  continued  inaction.  It  was  clear  that  there  was  yet  no 
majority  for  secession  in  Virginia.  On  week  ends  Tyler  left  his  room  at 
the  Ballard  House  and  visited  with  Julia  and  the  children  at  Sherwood 
Forest.  Gardie  stayed  with  him  for  a  few  days  at  the  Ballard,  and 
while  he  was  in  town  father  and  son  visited  Julie,  boarding  at  Miss 
Pegram's  school.  If  secession  were  not  large  enough  a  problem  for 
Tyler  to  handle,  Julie  got  measles,  gave  them  to  Gardie,  and  he  demo- 
cratically spread  them  to  all  his  brothers  and  sisters  at  Sherwood. 
And  to  make  quite  sure  Tyler  had  enough  to  keep  Mm  busy  between 
convention  sessions  and  the  innumerable  dinners  to  which  the  delegates 

461 


were  invited  ("Dinner  party  succeeds  dinner  party,"  he  complained), 
Julia  loaded  him  down  with  shopping  commissions. 

Meanwhile,  Tyler  fretted  that  the  Richmond  Enquirer  was  slow 
in  printing  his  secession  speech,  which,  he  told  Julia,  had  been  called 
the  "great  speech  of  the  session."  When  it  finally  saw  print  on  March 
30  he  immediately  sent  a  copy  to  David  Lyon  in  Staten  Island.  Copies 
were  also  distributed  throughout  his  Charles  City-New  Kent- James 
City  district  in  an  effort  to  bring  his  constituents  to  the  level  of  his 
own  fever-pitch  secessionism.  Through  Julia  he  kept  David  Lyon  and 
Juliana  informed  on  the  course  of  the  debates  at  the  Mechanics'  In- 
stitute. For  example,  he  characterized  Professor  James  P.  Holcombe's 
speech  for  secession  a  "magnificent  effort.  His  invective  against  Seward 
was  one  of  the  most  terrible  invectives  I  ever  heard.  The  Convention 
and  galleries  were  greatly  moved."  On  the  other  hand,  when  a  group 
of  Richmond  "Union  Ladies"  came  into  the  chamber  to  present  Staun- 
ton  delegate  John  B.  Baldwin  a  floral  tribute  for  his  powerful  three- 
day  antisecessionist  speech,  Tyler  was  so  "disgusted  with  the  proceeding 
I  left  the  room  as  did  many  others."  Similarly,  the  debate  on  and  the 
demise  of  the  Peace  Conference's  proposal,  the  vain  attempts  of  the 
state  convention  to  create  an  alternative  based  upon  it,  and  the  progress 
of  Tyler's  own  fly-by-night  plan  to  create  a  separate  Union  comprised 
of  seceded  states  and  border  states  were  reported  to  Castleton  Hill. 
"A  number  of  the  Northern  States  will  come  into  the  plan  which  he 
proposes,"  Julia  assured  her  mother.  Not  mentioned  in  these  reports 
to  Staten  Island  was  the  fact  that  on  April  3  the  state  convention 
firmly  voted  down  a  secession  resolution  90  to  45.  On  the  eve  of 
Lincoln's  call  for  75,000  volunteers  on  the  fifteenth,  the  convention, 
in  a  secret  vote,  again  divided  60  to  53  against  secession.  Although 
Tyler  spoke  of  "great  changes"  in  the  public  mind  and  predicted  that 
Virginia  would  "adopt  an  ultimatum. . . .  The  people  of  the  State  are 
becoming  very  restless,"  there  was  no  majority  for  secession  in  Rich- 
mond until  after  Lincoln's  call  for  troops.25 

Lincoln's  April  6  decision  to  provision  the  helpless  little  garrison 
at  Fort  Sumter  triggered  the  great  carnage  of  1861-1865.  The  guns  of 
General  P.  G.  T.  Beauregard's  Confederate  artillery,  in  noisy  rejoinder 
to  the  President  on  April  13,  blew  Virginia  out  of  the  Union  just  as 
decisively  as  they  reduced  the  Fort  to  untenable  rubble.  Whether 
Lincoln  provoked  South  Carolina's  angry  response,  or  whether  he  was 
merely  responding  to  the  four-month-old  provocation  inherent  in  South 
Carolina's  unconstitutional  act  of  secession,  cannot  be  decided  here. 
A  century  later  it  remains  an  open  question  in  historical  interpreta- 
tion. Tyler,  however,  solved  it  neatly  and  quickly  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion with  the  observation  that  "Mr.  Lincoln,  having  weighed  in  the 
scales  the  value  of  a  mere  local  Fort  against  the  value  of  the  Union 
itself  resolved  to  send  ships  of  war  and  armed  men  to  bring  on  that 

462 


very  collision  which  he  well  knew  would  arise."  Tyler  admitted  that 
Lincoln's  strategy  at  Charleston  had  been  brilliant.  The  whole  purpose 
of  the  provocative  Sumter  provisioning  had  been  "to  rally  the  masses  of 
the  North  around  his  own  person  and  to  prevent  the  faction  which  had 
brought  him  to  power  from  falling  asunder.  In  this  he  has  succeeded. 
The  upheaving  of  the  people  of  the  North  fully  attests  to  this.'7  What- 
ever the  truth  concerning  Lincoln's  motives,  it  is  certain  that  his  de- 
cision to  punish  the  Confederacy  for  the  Fort  Sumter  outrage  by  calling 
75,000  volunteers  to  the  colors  on  April  15  gave  Virginia  little  choice 
but  to  defend  her  soil.  Quickly  meeting  in  secret  session  on  April  16, 
the  state  convention  debated  a  new  ordinance  of  secession.  That  evening 
Tyler  wrote  Julia  that 

The  prospects  now  are  that  we  shall  have  a  war,  and  a  trying  one.  The  battle 
at  Charleston  has  aroused  the  whole  North.  I  fear  that  division  no  longer 
exists  in  their  ranks,  and  that  they  will  break  upon  the  South  with  an  im- 
mense force. . . .  Submission  or  resistance  is  only  left  us.  My  hope  is  that  the 
Border  States  will  follow  speedily  our  lead.  If  so,  all  will  be  safe ...  do  not 
understand  me  as  saying  an  ordinance  will  be  passed.  On  the  contrary,  it  will 

be  in  doubt  until  the  vote These  are  dark  times,  dearest,  and  I  think  only 

of  you  and  our  little  ones. ...  I  shall  vote  secession.26 

Tyler's  theory  that  peace  could  be  preserved  through  a  balance 
of  power  had  collapsed  overnight,  although  he  still  hung  grimly  to  a 
shadow  of  it.  By  being  maneuvered  into  firing  the  first  shot,  the 
Charleston  hotheads  had  effectively  unified  the  North,  leaving  Tyler 
only  the  faint  hope  that  the  immediate  secession  of  Virginia  and  all  the 
border  states  might  still  provide  safety  for  the  Old  Dominion  by 
creating  a  balance  of  power  which  would  preserve  peace  or,  at  worst, 
an  initial  military  stalemate  from  which  a  negotiated  peace  might 
emerge.  But  he  was  realistic  enough  to  see  now  that  the  coming  war 
would  likely  be  more  blitzkrieg  than  sitzkrieg  and  he  warned  Julia 
accordingly. 

Julia  regarded  it  at  the  outset  as  a  medieval  tournament  fought 
by  Southern  White  Knights  against  Northern  Black  Knaves.  The 
Charles  City  Cavalry,  under  Captain  Robert  Douthat,  comprising 
"eighty  well-horsed,  well-armed,  and  well-drilled  and  brave,  true,  high- 
toned  gentlemen,  who  love  the  right  and  scorn  the  wrong,"  could  only 
be  victorious  in  any  engagement  it  fought.  She  heard  heavy  cannonad- 
ing all  day  on  the  seventeenth  from  the  direction  of  Richmond  and 
assumed,  correctly,  that  the  vote  in  the  state  convention  there  had 
been  for  secession.  She  immediately  wrote  her  mother  the  glad  tidings, 
thanking  her  for  her  past  pro-Southern  views  and  expressing  the  hope 
that  like-rninded  New  Yorkers  would  "now  make  a  demonstration  and 
form  a  party  against  coercion."  Juliana  needed  no  urging.  From  the 
moment  the  war  began  she  was  a  full-fledged,  charter-member  Copper- 
head.27 

463 


Julia  soon  learned  from  her  husband  in  Richmond  that  secession 
from  "the  Northern  hive  of  abolitionists"  had  indeed  been  voted  by 
a  margin  of  88  to  55  (adjusted  to  103  to  46  when  some  members  later 
changed  their  vote  for  the  record)  on  the  afternoon  of  the  seventeenth. 
Virginia  troops,  she  was  informed,  were  already  marching  to  seize  the 
arsenal  at  Harpers  Ferry  and  the  Navy  Yard  at  Norfolk.  More  im- 
portantly, she  heard  from  her  husband  that  Robert  Tyler  had  been 
threatened  with  "mob  violence"  in  Philadelphia.  "Do,  dearest,"  Tyler 
pleaded  with  her,  "live  as  frugally  as  possible  in  the  household — trying 
times  are  before  us."  This,  of  course,  was  like  asking  a  hurricane  to 
stop  hurrying.28 

The  excitement  of  the  final  secession  vote  and  the  unrestrained 
celebrations  in  Richmond  which  followed  it  were  too  much  for  John 
Tyler's  ailing  stomach.  He  accepted  membership  on  a  state  commission 
to  negotiate  a  union  with  the  Confederate  States  government  and  he 
personally  drafted  the  agreement  placing  Virginia's  armed  forces  under 
the  direction  of  Jefferson  Davis.  Nevertheless,  he  turned  down  an  ap- 
pointment to  the  Provisional  Confederate  Congress  at  Montgomery. 
He  was  simply  too  "debilitated  from  a  protracted  participation  in  the 
exciting  scenes  of  the  convention"  to  make  the  long  journey  to  Ala- 
bama. He  thus  missed  an  opportunity  to  see  John,  Jr.,  who,  com- 
missioned major  in  the  Confederate  Army,  was  attached  to  the  War 
Department  at  Montgomery.  Fortunately,  the  mountain  was  brought 
to  Mohammed.  When  the  seat  of  the  Rebel  government  was  moved 
from  Montgomery  to  Richmond  in  May,  John  Tyler  was  unanimously 
elected  by  the  Virginia  State  Convention  to  serve  in  the  Provisional 
Congress  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America.29 

During  the  first  few  weeks  of  confusion  following  Virginia's 
secession  one  of  the  family's  main  concerns  was  the  safety  of  Robert 
Tyler.  Robert's  outspoken  defense  of  the  Southern  position  in  the  early 
months  of  1861  had  made  him  less  than  popular  in  Philadelphia.  He 
had  publicly  criticized  the  Peace  Conference  as  a  plot  to  "demoralize 
the  people  of  the  Southern  section."  The  Crittenden  proposals  were 
designed,  he  charged,  "to  prepare  the  South ...  for  final  submission 
to  Squatterism  or  Abolitionism,  or  both."  On  several  occasions  he  had 
loudly  predicted  that  Pennsylvania  "will  assuredly  wish  to  secede  from 
the  Northern  Confederacy . . ."  in  the  event  of  civil  war.  Not  surpris- 
ingly, a  speaker  at  a  mass  patriotic  meeting  in  Independence  Square 
on  April  17  condemned  him  as  a  traitor,  and  cries  of  "He  ought  to  be 
lynched  1"  sent  one  of  his  friends  hurrying  to  Robert's  office  to  warn 
him  that  a  Vigilance  Committee  mob  was  stirring.  Quickly  hiring  a 
hack,  Robert  escaped  to  Frankford.  There  he  caught  a  train  to  Bristol, 
where  he  hid  for  a  day  in  the  attic  of  a  friend's  house  while  a  mob 
of  his  neighbors  burned  him  in  effigy  in  his  own  front  yard.  On  April 
19  he  managed  to  slip  aboard  a  steamer  for  New  York,  where  he  was 

464 


taken  in  by  Priscilla's  sister,  Julia  Cooper  Campbell.  A  few  days  later 
Priscilla  joined  him  in  New  York  to  plan  their  next  move.  It  was  de- 
cided that  Robert  should  proceed  alone  to  Richmond.  He  arrived  there 
on  May  8,  thankful  that  he  had  left  "no  creditors  among  the  savages" 
back  in  Pennsylvania.  "Poor  Bob  Tyler!"  lamented  Buchanan  when 
he  learned  of  Robert's  flight  to  Richmond  and  his  subsequent  employ- 
ment by  the  Confederate  government.  "He  was  a  warm  hearted  and 
eloquent  man,  and  a  true  and  faithful  friend.  I  am  truly  sorry  he  went 
so  far  astray  from  his  line  of  duty.  I  knew  he  was  as  poor  as  a  church 
mouse. ..." 

Priscilla  returned  to  Bristol  with  her  sisters  Julia  and  Louisa.  The 
ladies  closed  up  the  old  Cooper  homestead  while  Priscilla  procured  a 
pass  through  the  lines  from  General  Robert  Patterson.  Gathering  up 
her  children  and  a  few  personal  items,  she  proceeded  to  Richmond  via 
Washington.  Departing  Bristol  was  a  wrenching  experience.  "The  grief 
of  my  children  is  more  than  I  can  stand,"  she  wrote  her  sister  Mary 
Grace.  "I  can't  tell  you  how  many  people  accompanied  us  to  the 
landing. .  . .  Poor  Major  [the  family  dog]  ran  along  with  the  chil- 
dren, evidently  knowing  something  to  be  wrong.  And  the  last  thing 
I  saw  while  the  boat  steamed  away  was  Major  held  by  two  or  three 
boys,  and  the  last  thing  to  be  heard  was  the  crying  of  the  children 
on  the  shore  and  mine  in  the  boat  responding."  By  May  28,  after  a 
brief  stopover  at  the  Exchange  Hotel  in  Richmond,  Priscilla  and  her 
children  were  safe  at  Sherwood  Forest.  "How  terrible  the  times  are," 
she  lamented.  "Richmond  and  Washington  both  bristling  with  bayonets. 
I  saw  a  S.C.  Regiment  pass  the  hotel  while  I  was  there.  Such  a  splendid 
looking  set  of  men!  With  a  bouquet,  thrown  by  the  ladies,  upon  every 
bayonet.  Every  man  you  see  is  in  uniform.  Even  Father  [John  Tyler] 
talks  of  fighting. ...  I  very  much  fear  that  Mr.  [Robert]  Tyler  will 
go  into  the  army.  He  is  exceedingly  anxious  to  do  so  himself,  and 
Father  also  wants  it.  The  thought  of  it  gives  me  the  greatest  agony."  80 

At  seventy-one  John  Tyler  could  only  talk  of  fighting.  Even  the 
forty-four-year-old  Robert  was  considered  a  little  advanced  in  age  for 
combat  duty.  Therefore  he  accepted  from  President  Davis  an  ap- 
pointment as  Register  of  the  Treasury  of  the  Confederacy  at  $3000 
per  annum,  and  he  satisfied  his  martial  spirit  by  enlisting  as  a  private 
in  the  "Treasury  Regiment."  Composed  of  civil  servants,  it  was  a  second- 
line  unit  organized  especially  for  the  defense  of  Richmond.  In  this  he 
saw  action  on  several  occasions  during  the  war.  The  rest  of  the  family 
also  speedily  mobilized  when  the  trumpets  sounded  in  Richmond.  Major 
-John  Tyler,  Jr.,  served  as  an  assistant  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  Taze- 
well  Tyler  became  a  surgeon  in  the  Confederate  Army.  James  A. 
Semple  resigned  his  purser's  commission  in  the  United  States  Navy, 
moved  from  Brooklyn  to  Richmond  with  his  wife  Letitia,  and  took  a 
post  in  the  Confederate  States  Navy  Department.  Henry  and  Robert 
^ 


Jones,  sons  of  Henry  L.  Jones  and  the  deceased  Mary  Tyler  Jones, 
entered  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia.  Both  were  mentioned  in  orders 
for  gallantry,  and  young  Robert  was  awarded  a  field  commission  for 
bravery  at  Gettysburg,  where  he  received  three  wounds.  William 
Griffin  Waller,  son  of  William  and  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  resigned 
from  West  Point  when  Virginia  seceded  and  joined  the  Confederate 
Ordnance  Department.  His  younger  brother,  John  Tyler  Waller,  "a 
gallant  but  rash  young  officer,"  fell  in  combat  during  the  conflict.  The 
Long  Island  Gardiners,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not  rush  forward  to 
save  the  Union  with  quite  so  much  enthusiasm  as  the  Tylers  came 
forward  to  destroy  it,  although  John  Lyon  Gardiner,  later  the  eleventh 
proprietor  of  Gardiners  Island,  did  serve  as  a  colonel  in  the  New  York 
Sixth  Brigade,  National  Guard.  No  one  in  the  family  on  either  side 
of  the  fight  surpassed  Julia  in  her  eagerness  for  the  war.  She  joined 
various  local  ladies'  volunteer  groups  to  help  the  war  effort,  and  she 
encouraged  Gar  die  and  Alex  to  enlist  in  the  Charles  City  Junior  Guard, 
in  which  the  thirteen-year-old  Alex  served  as  second  lieutenant.  The 
boys,  in  turn,  solemnly  warned  their  cousin  Harry  Beeckman  in  Staten 
Island  that  they  would  have  nothing  further  to  do  with  him  "if  he 
countenances  the  invasion  of  Southern  homes."  31 

David  Lyon  Gardiner  did  countenance  the  "invasion."  When  Julia 
learned  from  her  mother  on  May  6  that  her  own  brother  supported  the 
North,  she  was  beside  herself  with  rage: 

I  think  D.  lias  been  bitten  by  the  rabid  tone  of  those  around  him  and  the 
press.  It  seems  he  belongs  to  a  different  school  of  politics  from  his  experienced 
friend,  the  President,  and  is  ready  to  deny  State-sovereignty.  Therefore  he 
opposes  the  movement  of  the  South  to  save  itself  from  destruction  through 
an  abolition  attack,  and  sympathizes  with  the  dominant  power  of  the  North. 
I  was  so  unprepared  for  his  views  that  I  read  his  letter  aloud  to  the  President 
without  first  perusing  it,  which,  if  I  had  done,  I  should  not  have  committed 
so  decided  [a]  mistake.  He  says  the  government  at  Washington  will  not  in- 
vade, but  will  only  reclaim  its  property,  and  take  by  force  the  forts  now  in 
possession  of  Southern  States.  What  is  that  but  invasion,  I  should  like  to 
know?  The  government  at  Washington  has  no  business  with  the  forts  that 
were  built  for  the  protection  of  the  States  that  have  seceded. .  . .  For  my  part, 
I  am  utterly  ashamed  of  the  State  in  which  I  was  born,  and  its  people.  All  soul 
and  magnanimity  have  departed  from  them — "patriotism"  indeed!  A  com- 
munity sold  to  the  vilest  politicians.  The  President  tells  me  ...  to  ask  D.  if  he 
does  not  recognize  the  existing  blockade  a  positive  war  upon  the  South.  Even 
our  river  boat  would  be  fired  at  and  taken,  if  that  impudent  war  steamer, 
lying  off  Newport  News  could  get  the  chance.32 

Juliana  was  entirely  sympathetic  with  her  daughter's  Southern 
nationalism.  The  other  New  York  Gardiners,  however,  remained  loyal 
to  the  Union  and  this  fact  produced  complications.  A  chill  wind  soon 
blew  into  Juliana's  relations  with  her  eldest  son  and  his  wife,  and  the 
home  at  Castleton  Hill,  like  so  many  others  in  America,  became  a  house 

466 


divided.  Her  first  worried  reaction  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities 
was  to  suggest  to  Sherwood  Forest  that  Julia  bring  her  children  to 
the  safety  of  Staten  Island.  Tyler  vetoed  this  idea.  Virginia,  he  told  her 
confidently,  was  "clad  in  steel"  and  had  more  troops  in  the  field  "pant- 
ing for  conflict"  than  could  readily  be  armed  and  trained.  Given  the  recent 
secession  of  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina,  and  a  Southern  population 
"filled  with  enthusiasm"  for  war,  he  was  certain  his  children  were  in 
no  danger.  "In  a  week  from  this  time,"  he  told  his  mother-in-law  on 
May  2,  "James  River  will  bristle  with  fortifications,  and  Charles  City 
will  be  far  safer  than  Staten  Island."  33 

Convinced  this  was  true,  Julia  called  loudly  for  the  blood  of  the 
Yankee  aggressor.  She  reported  as  great  Confederate  victories  battles 
that  never  took  place  and  she  repeated  as  gospel  truths  war  rumors 
that  bordered  on  the  fantastic.  A  group  in  Massachusetts  was  said  to 
have  offered  $20,000  for  the  severed  head  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  for  ex- 
ample. Tyler  demanded  in  the  Confederate  Congress  that  a  strong  cav- 
alry force  be  immediately  sent  to  seize  Washington.  Considering  the  chaos 
in  the  capital  at  that  moment,  this  was  not  a  bad  idea.  But  the  sug- 
gestion was  voted  down  on  grounds  that  the  state  should  take  no 
offensive  military  action  until  the  ordinance  of  secession  had  been 
ratified  by  the  voters.  By  a  96,750^0-32,134  count  this  formality  was 
finally  accomplished  on  May  23. 

Julia  was  slow  to  realize  that  war  was  not  a  delightful  game  played 
by  "high-toned  gentlemen."  She  seemed  to  feel  that  it  should  take  place 
in  a  large  field,  distant  from  Camelot,  where  it  might  be  observed  and 
enjoyed  as  an  exciting  spectacle  without  its  interfering  in  the  normal 
routine  of  the  castle.  She  was  disturbed,  therefore,  to  discover  that  it 
unsettled  her  regular  correspondence  with  her  mother  and  otherwise 
upset  her  accustomed  pattern  of  life.  Moreover,  it  was  no  respecter  of 
private  property.  This  insight  she  began  to  grasp  in  late  April  when  a 
Massachusetts  outfit  ("these  scum  of  the  earth,"  Julia  called  them) 
landed  at  Old  Point  Comfort  to  reinforce  Fortress  Monroe  and  promptly 
seized  Villa  Margaret  for  use  as  a  barracks.  The  loss  of  the  Villa  earned 
for  the  Tylers  the  dubious  distinction  of  being  among  the  first  Southern- 
ers to  lose  their  property  by  act  of  war. 

As  the  Union  garrison  at  Fortress  Monroe  was  gradually  increased, 
fear  momentarily  swept  Sherwood  Forest  that  a  Yankee  foray  into 
Charles  City  County  might  be  attempted.  Sherwood  Forest  itself  might 
even  fall  to  the  "fiendish"  invaders.  By  early  May  there  was  nervous 
talk  at  the  plantation  of  an  evacuation  "into  the  mountains."  While 
flight  did  not  become  necessary,  thanks  to  the  rapid  fortification  of 
the  river  below  Richmond,  the  loss  of  Villa  Margaret  to  the  Yankees 
infuriated  Julia.  "Was  there  ever  such  a  savage  wicked  war?"  she 
fumed.  To  make  the  Villa  Margaret  matter  more  disturbing,  Julia 
learned  in  June  that  Quartermaster  T.  Bailey  Myers  of  New  York  had 

467 


proudly  exhibited  before  the  City's  Union  Defense  Committee  a  Con- 
federate flag  which  he  claimed  he  had  "captured  from  Villa  Margaret." 
The  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser  described  the  alleged  trophy  as 
"a  dirty  looking  affair  of  red,  white  and  blue  flannel  with  eight  stars 
. . .  roughly  made,  the  sewing  having  been  done  by  half -taught  fingers." 
That  Quartermaster  Myers  was  a  tradesman  with  whom  Juliana  had 
done  business  in  peacetime  suggested  that  war  was  also  no  respecter  of 
socially  prominent  persons.34 

Unlike  her  mother,  who  felt  that  the  North  could  not  lose  the  war 
("My  fears  are  they  will  overpower  the  South  with  numbers  and  their 
Blockade"),  Julia  never  for  a  moment  doubted  Southern  victory.  She 
had  absolute  faith  that  the  invaded  South  was  "favored  of  Heaven." 
She  had  complete  confidence  in  President  Davis  and  General  Lee.  They 
were  both  "splendid"  men  of  proper  social  background,  a  judgment 
strengthened  after  she  had  met  and  mingled  with  them  socially  in  Rich- 
mond in  1862.  So  desperately  did  she  want  to  believe  in  military  myths 
that  she  had  no  difficulty  converting  the  little  skirmish  at  Big  Bethel 
in  York  County  on  June  10  into  a  major  Confederate  victory.  When 
the  myth  momentarily  took  on  the  flesh  of  reality  at  Manassas  on  July 
21  she  was  nearly  overcome  with  glee.  "What  a  brilliant  victory  for 
the  South  has  been  the  battle  at  Manassas!"  she  exulted.  "[We]  may 
talk  now  of  the  revival  of  feudal  times,  for  never  in  the  days  of  chivalry 
were  there  such  knights  as  this  infamous  Northern  war  has  made  of 
every  Southern  man."  Tyler,  sick  abed  at  the  time,  was  equally  elated. 
When  he  heard  the  news  of  Manassas,  he  raised  himself  up  in  bed, 
"called  for  champagne,  and  made  his  family  and  friends  drink  the  health 
of  our  generals."  Big  Bethel  and  Manassas  convinced  Julia  that  the 
South  was  unconquerable.  Excitement  over  the  victories  ran  so  high 
in  Richmond  that  Gardie  and  Alex  ("all  fired  up  with  enthusiasm 
for . . .  such  a  sacred  cause  as  the  defense  of  their  soil  from  the  wicked 
and  cruel  invader")  wanted  to  join  the  army  at  once.  "It  makes  the 
heart  beat  and  the  eyes  fill  to  witness  such  noble  resolution  on  the 
part  of  all,"  Julia  told  her  mother.  "In  particular  on  the  part  of 
those  who,  bred  in  ease  and  luxury,  still  cheerfully  accept  every  and 
any  hardship  that  comes  with  a  soldier's  life. . . .  The  men  have  become 
heroes. . . .  An  unlawful  war  has  been  waged  against  them,  and  if  the 
possession  of  every  warrior  trait  will  enable  them  to  'conquer  a  peace,' 
there  will  soon  be  one  for  us."  35 

Sustaining  Julia's  confidence  in  Southern  victory  at  the  outset  of 
the  conflict  were  frequent  reports  from  her  mother  that  England  might 
enter  the  war  on  the  Confederate  side.  "England  will  and  must  have 
Southern  cotton  and  war  with  her  is  threatened  by  the  Government  if 
she  tries  to  enter  the  [blockaded]  ports,"  read  one  hopeful  pronounce- 
ment from  Staten  Island.  Similarly,  Juliana  assured  the  Tylers  that 
there  was  much  Southern  sentiment  in  New  York  City,  and  this  news 
cheered  Sherwood  Forest  considerably. 

468 


This  horrible  war  keeps  me  excited  and  harassed  all  the  time  [she  said] .... 
I  can  give  slight  attention  to  anything  else.  I  do  not  pretend  to  visit  friends 
or  neighbors.  I  have  such  a  dread  of  opposition.  I  understand,  however,  there 
are  a  great  many  Southern  sympathizers  on  this  [Staten]  Island  who  are 
entirely  opposed  to  this  war.  I  have  no  doubt  there  will  be  a  great  reaction  in 
public  sentiment,  but  I  fear  nothing  will  be  effected  before  another  dreadful 
battle  will  be  fought.  How  much  I  wish  such  a  dire  calamity  could  be  pre- 
vented. 

The  calamity  could  not  be  averted  and  the  "dreadful  battle"  was  the 
first  fight  at  Bull  Run.36 

Three  and  a  half  months  later  Tyler  swept  the  field  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Third  Congressional  District  with  equal  elan.  Running  in  Novem- 
ber 1 86 1  for  a  seat  in  the  Confederate  House  of  Representatives  on 
a  platform  of  patriotism  and  more  patriotism  until  the  enemy  was 
crushed,  the  old  politician  signally  defeated  two  of  his  devoted  personal 
friends,  William  H.  Macfarland  and  Richmond  attorney  James  Lyons, 
brother-in-law  of  Henry  A.  Wise.  In  his  last  race  for  public  office, 
Tyler  flanked  both  his  opponents  and  amassed  twice  their  combined 
vote.  His  record  of  never  having  been  defeated  in  a  public  election 
remained  intact. 

His  success  at  the  polls  and  the  joy  it  occasioned  within  his 
family  and  among  his  neighbors  could  not  conceal  the  fact  that  after 
six  months  of  war  and  blockade  a  pinch  was  already  beginning  to  be 
felt  at  Sherwood  Forest  and  throughout  Charles  City.  Julia  began  to 
"miss  a  few  luxuries."  But  she  bore  up  bravely  and  carried  on  at  home 
as  if  all  were  normal.  Gardie,  Alex,  Lachlan,  and  Lonie  (Julia  some- 
times called  him  Lionel  at  this  age)  were  in  school  as  usual  in  Charles 
City.  Julie  was  withdrawn  from  Miss  Pegram's  in  Richmond  "until 
better  times,"  and  was  being  tutored  at  home.  Fitz  was  still  underfoot, 
too  young  to  go  to  school  but  not  too  young  to  begin  his  instruction 
in  French  conversation.  Pearlie  was  still  in  arms.  Discouraged  by  the 
three-year  drought  which  had  cut  severely  into  his  corn  and  wheat 
yields,  Tyler  shifted  some  of  his  acreage  to  potatoes  in  an  effort  to  help 
feed  the  Southern  armies.  The  1861  potato  crop  was  "truly  astonish- 
ing." This,  Julia  admitted,  was  "fortunate  under  the  circumstances." 
The  two  older  boys,  meanwhile,  made  their  contribution  to  the  South's 
wartime  economy  by  trapping  the  rabbits  of  the  plantation  ("Their 
skins  are  in  great  demand,"  Julia  noted)  and  selling  the  pelts  in  the 
Richmond  market.  In  spite  of  shortages  of  luxury  items,  optimism  pre- 
vailed at  Sherwood  Forest  as  the  first  winter  of  the  war  began.37 


During  the  week  of  January  5,  1862,  Tyler  left  Sherwood  Forest 
and  went  up  to  Richmond  to  take  his  seat  in  the  Confederate  House 
of  Representatives.  Julia  planned  to  join  him  in  town  the  following 
week,  pausing  first  for  brief  New  Year's  visits  at  Brandon  and  Shirley. 
On  the  night  of  January  9,  however,  she  had  a  singular  dream  which 


caused  her  to  abandon  her  plans  to  visit  the  Harrisons  and  the  Carters 
and  to  proceed  straight  to  Richmond.  She  dreamed  that  her  husband 
had  fallen  dangerously  ill  and  had  taken  to  his  bed  at  the  Exchange 
Hotel.  Unlike  her  mother,  who  took  seances,  levitation,  and  other 
manifestations  of  the  occult  seriously,  Julia  thought  spiritualism  ridicu- 
lous, the  celebrated  Fox  sisters  fraudulent,  and  levitation  no  more  than 
a  parlor  game.  Nonetheless,  she  had  long  put  great  store  in  dreams. 
So  had  Margaret.  Julia  believed,  in  a  vague  way,  in  what  a  later  genera- 
tion would  call  extrasensory  perception.  While  she  made  no  fetish  of 
these  alleged  psychic  phenomena,  she  felt  that  dreams  served  as  vehicles 
for  thought-transference.  For  this  reason  and  in  this  belief,  she  gathered 
up  Pearl  and  hastened  to  Richmond  to  tend  her  "fallen"  spouse.  She 
arrived  at  the  Exchange  Hotel  on  Friday  evening,  January  10 — and 
found  Tyler  entirely  well. 

On  Sunday  morning,  January  12,  Tyler  arose  early.  He  felt  nau- 
seated and  dizzy  and  he  soon  began  vomiting.  Julia  was  half  awakened 
by  the  sound  of  his  retching  and  he  told  her  to  go  back  to  sleep.  He  had 
only  a  slight  "chill,"  he  said,  and  he  would  go  down  to  the  hotel  din- 
ing room  for  a  cup  of  hot  tea.  The  tea  seemed  to  restore  him.  Rising 
to  leave  the  table,  he  suddenly  staggered  and  fell  unconscious.  He 
was  carried  to  a  sofa  in  the  parlor  and  regained  consciousness  in  a  few 
minutes.  Assuring  the  early  diners  who  had  gathered  around  him  that 
he  was  quite  all  right,  he  somehow  managed  to  stumble  back  upstairs 
to  his  room.  Julia,  still  abed,  saw  him  totter  into  their  chamber,  his 
collar  open,  cravat  in  hand.  "I  would  not  have  had  it  happen  for  a  good 
deal,"  he  exclaimed,  still  badly  shaken  by  the  experience.  "It  will  be  all 
around  the  town."  True  to  his  foreboding,  friends  were  soon  streaming 
into  the  parlor  to  help.  Before  Julia  could  get  out  of  bed  and  get 
dressed,  he  had  been  persuaded  to  lie  down  again  on  the  sofa.  Dr. 
William  Peachy  arrived  and  pronounced  his  condition  "a  bilious  at- 
tack, united  with  bronchitis."  This  did  not  come  very  close  to  the 
cerebral  vascular  accident  he  had  had,  but  at  least  he  was  seen  by  a 
doctor. 

Save  for  frequent  and  severe  headaches  and  a  persistent  cough, 
Tyler  seemed  well  enough  for  the  next  few  days.  He  sat  in  his  parlor 
and  received  his  political  friends,  lucidly  discussing  with  them  the 
aff airs  of  the  new  nation.  Peachy  treated  his  cough  with  morphine, 
and  the  former  President  slept  well.  Robert  Tyler  moved  onto  the 
sofa  in  the  parlor  to  be  near  his  father  at  night,  and  his  brother  Dr. 
Tazewell  Tyler,  stationed  in  Richmond,  looked  in  on  the  patient  from 
time  to  time.  When  neither  the  headaches  nor  the  cough  responded 
to  treatment,  however,  Peachy  ordered  the  congressman  to  return  to 
Sherwood  Forest  for  a  complete  rest.  It  worried  Tyler  that  he  was 
missing  the  opening  sessions  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  but  he  finally 
decided  he  would  go  home  on  Saturday,  the  eighteenth. 

470 


During  the  night  of  January  17-18,  Julia  suddenly  awoke  to  the 
sound  of  her  husband's  gasping  for  air.  The  vascular  thrombosis  had 
spread,  paralyzing  the  respiratory  center.  Robert  was  awakened  and  im- 
mediately ran  to  summon  a  Dr.  Brown  who  had  a  room  on  the  same 
floor  of  the  hotel.  Pearl,  who  occupied  a  cot  on  Julia's  side  of  the  bed, 
awoke  and  began  crying.  "Poor  little  thing,  how  I  disturb  her,"  Tyler 
apologized.  While  the  nurse  was  comforting  the  baby,  Julia  rubbed  her 
husband's  head  and  chest  with  alcohol.  Brown  arrived  and  prescribed 
brandy  and  mustard  plasters.  "Doctor,  I  think  you  are  mistaken/7  said 
Tyler,  refusing  the  plasters.  But  he  took  a  sip  of  brandy/ At  that 
moment  Dr.  Peachy  also  appeared. 

"Doctor,  I  am  going,"  Tyler  sighed  when  he  saw  Peachy  at  his 
bedside. 

"I  hope  not,  Sir,"  replied  the  physician. 

"Perhaps  it  is  best,"  said  the  former  President. 

Julia  moved  to  put  the  brandy  glass  again  to  his  lips.  His  teeth 
chattered  on  the  rim.  Then  he  looked  at  her  and  smiled,  and,  "as  if 
falling  asleep,"  he  died.  It  was  12:15  A.M.,  January  18,  1862.  The  bed 
in  which  he  died,  Julia  recalled,  "was  exactly  like  the  one  I  saw  him 
upon  in  my  dream,  and  unlike  any  of  our  own." 38 

It  was  Tyler's  last  wish  that  Julia  continue  to  make  Sherwood 
Forest  her  home.  This  at  least  was  Julia's  recollection  of  his  final  re- 
quest after  the  Civil  War,  when  she  was  fighting  so  desperately  to  hold 
onto  the  plantation.  But  in  May  1865  when  she  was  being  criticized  by 
Tazewell  for  having  abandoned  the  estate  to  flee  to  the  safety  of  Staten 
Island  with  her  children,  she  challenged  her  stepson's  version  of  his 
father's  last  entreaty.  "Julia,  let  no  consideration  induce  you  to  go 
North,"  Tazewell  remembered  Tyler's  having  said.  This,  Julia  retorted, 
was  a  faulty  recollection.  What  her  husband  had  actually  said,  "only  a 
few  hours  before  my  trembling  fingers  closed  the  lids  of  his  departing 
sight,"  was  "Ah,  dearest,  you  will  go  North— [but]  don't  bring  up  the 
children  there.  I  prohibit  it."  And  she  had  answered  him,  "Dearest,  I 
will  never  do  anything  that  you  do  not  approve."  Then  the  President 
had  smiled  and  said  quietly  to  her,  "Love  piled  on  love  will  not  convey 
an  idea  of  my  affection  for  you.  It  is  idolatrous."  89 

Whatever  his  final  wishes  about  Sherwood  Forest,  John  Tyler's 
death  left  his  forty-one-year-old  widow  frightened  and  unsettled.  With 
seven  children  to  rear,  one  still  in  arms,  a  plantation  of  sixteen  hundred 
acres  and  seventy  slaves  to  manage,  Tyler's  debts  to  face,  and  a  savage 
war  still  to  be  reckoned  with,  Julia  was  understandably  shaken.  Her 
religious  ideas  had  never  transcended  the  moralistic,  anthropomorphic 
Protestant  Christianity  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century,  nor  had  she  ever 
penetrated  theologically  beneath  the  beautiful  rote  of  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer.  She  did  not,  therefore,  turn  to  her  Anglican  God  in 
lamentations.  She  turned  instead  to  her  mother  in  New  York,  and  to 

471 


Robert  and  Priscilla  in  Richmond.  But  most  characteristically,  she  dried 
her  eyes,  put  on  mourning  clothes,  and  fell  back  upon  her  own  consider- 
able inner  strength. 

On  January  20  Tyler's  body  lay  in  state  in  the  black-draped  hall  of 
the  Confederate  Congress.  The  Stars  and  Bars  covered  him,  and  on  his 
chest  rested  a  wreath  of  evergreens  and  white  roses.  Several  thousand 
citizens  filed  mournfully  by  his  open  casket  to  "take  a  last  look  at  his 
well-known  features."  The  business  of  Congress  that  day  was  devoted 
entirely  to  eulogies  to  the  former  President  of  the  United  States.  Funeral 
services  were  held  the  following  day  in  St.  Paul's  Episcopal  Church,  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Charles  Minnigerode  and  the  Right  Reverend  John  Johns, 
Bishop  of  Virginia,  officiating.  The  church  was  jammed  with  Confederate 
dignitaries  headed  by  President  Jefferson  Davis.  After  the  ceremony  a 
solemn  train  of  150  carriages,  stretching  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  followed 
the  hearse  through  the  drizzling  rain  to  Hollywood  Cemetery.  There  on 
a  knoll  overlooking  the  James  River  he  loved  so  much,  John  Tyler  was 
buried  beside  the  tomb  of  James  Monroe.40 

Although  his  will  specified  his  wish  to  be  buried  simply  and  un- 
ostentatiously in  the  grove  at  Sherwood  Forest,  his  funeral  had  been 
conducted  with  great  pomp  and  circumstance  in  Richmond.  No  official 
notice  was  taken  of  his  passing  in  Washington  by  the  nation  he  had 
served  for  half  a  century.  John  Tyler  had  died  a  rebel  and  a  "traitor." 
Julia  must  have  winced  at  the  high-flown  obituaries,  the  political 
eulogies,  and  the  propaganda-laden  tributes  that  drummed  her  departed 
husband  into  his  grave.  None  caught  the  spirit  of  the  man.  None  cap- 
tured his  wry  humor,  his  selfless  devotion  to  his  wife  and  children,  his 
stubborn  loyalty  to  his  friends.  None  saw  the  soft,  human  side  of  his 
personality — the  John  Tyler  struggling  to  meet  a  payment  due,  or  rid- 
ing through  his  fields  in  his  floppy  straw  hat;  or  the  Tyler  who  laughed 
and  danced  and  bounced  his  babies  and  fiddled  on  his  piazza  for  the 
children  of  the  plantation.  None  saw  John  Tyler  the  man,  the  husband, 
the  father,  the  poet,  or  the  planter.  Virginia  unfurled  her  battle  flags, 
sounded  her  bugles,  shook  a  mailed  fist  at  the  Yankees — and  buried  a 
Confederate  caricature  of  the  real  man.  He  was,  said  Henry  A.  Wise, 
"an  honest,  affectionate,  benevolent,  loving  man,  who  had  fought  the 
battles  of  his  life  bravely  and  truly,  doing  his  whole  great  duty  without 
fear,  though  not  without  much  unjust  reproach."  The  flag-draped  patri- 
otic ceremony  that  was  his  funeral  caught  little  of  this.41 


472 


MRS.   EX-PRESIDENT  TYLER 
AND   THE   WAR,   1862-1865 


Will  President  Lincoln  have  the  kindness  to  inform 
Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler  whether  her  home  on  the 
James  River  can  be  withdrawn  from  the  hands  of 
the  negroes  who  were  placed  in  possession  of  it  by 
Gen.  Wild  and  restored  to  the  charge  of  her  man- 
ager . . .  even  though  her  estate  has  been  subjected 
to  wreck  and  devastation  within  doors  and  without? 

JULIA   GARDINER   TYLER,   AUGUST    1864 


Juliana  Gardiner  made  every  effort  to  procure  a  pass  through  the  lines 
to  reach  her  daughter's  side  during  the  melancholy  weeks  following  John 
Tyler's  death.  She  even  bearded  old  General  Winfield  Scott  in  the  lobby 
of  the  Brevoort  Hotel  and  demanded  that  he  help  her  reach  the  South. 
But  her  request  was  denied  in  Washington  "for  military  reasons,"  and 
Julia  discouraged  further  efforts  in  this  direction  for  fear  her  mother's 
health  was  not  up  to  the  rigors  of  a  wartime  journey  to  Sherwood  Forest. 
Nevertheless,  Juliana  kept  trying  to  obtain  a  pass  to  the  South.  To 
accomplish  this  she  worked  through  an  old  New  York  friend,  Louise 
Ludlow,  wife  of  Major  William  H.  Ludlow,  who  was  then  in  charge  of 
prisoner  exchange  at  Fortress  Monroe.  Unfortunately,  she  had  no  suc- 
cess. The  preliminary  movement  of  Union  soldiers  assigned  to  Mc- 
Clellan's  Peninsula  campaign  had  begun  and  civilian  travel  into  and  out 
of  Virginia  was  sharply  restricted.1 

That  a  great  battle  was  developing  below  Richmond,  near  Sherwood 
Forest,  worried  Juliana  considerably.  Great  concern  for  Julia's  welfare 
and  safety,  and  that  of  her  children,  ran  strongly  through  the  Gardiner 
family  as  McClellan  made  ready  to  end  the  war  in  one  crushing  blow 

473 


against  the  Confederate  capital  in  the  spring  of  1862.  Although  Phoebe 
and  Eben  Horsford  were  "strong  Union  people"  (Horsford  resigned  his 
Harvard  science  professorship  in  1863  to  manage  the  explosives  division 
of  the  Rumford  Chemical  Works  near  Providence),  they  were  not  in- 
sensitive to  Julia's  plight.  Being  for  the  Union  "does  not  make  us  love 
our  friends  the  less/3  Phoebe  said.  This  too  was  the  feeling  of  Mrs. 
James  I.  Roosevelt  and  other  of  Julia's  prewar  friends  in  New  York. 
They  did  everything  in  their  power  to  help  her.2 

Julia  was  frightened  as  McClellan's  advance  up  the  Peninsula  in 
April  threatened  to  engulf  the  plantation.  To  make  matters  more  dif- 
ficult, she  and  all  her  children  fell  seriously  ill  with  influenza  that  month. 
Fitzwalter's  life  "hung  by  a  thread  for  days,"  and  Pearl  experienced 
"two  shocking  convulsions."  Priscilla  rushed  down  to  the  plantation 
from  Richmond  to  help  the  stricken  household,  and  Doctors  John 
Selden  and  James  B.  McCaw  interrupted  busy  practices  in  town  to 
journey  to  Sherwood  Forest  and  treat  the  immobilized  family.  The 
Reverend  Dr.  Wade  also  stayed  with  Julia  and  her  children  at  the 
plantation  at  night,  as  did  various  of  the  neighbors.  By  the  end  of  April 
the  disease  had  run  its  course  and  the  family  was  functioning  again. 

Fortunately,  Julia  was  able  to  communicate  with  her  worried 
mother  during  this  crisis.  She  worked  out  a  system  of  sending  letters  by 
private  hand  to  occupied  Leesburg  in  Loudoun  County.  From  Leesburg 
they  were  transmitted  regularly  to  Baltimore  and  on  to  the  North  by 
United  States  postal  authorities.  In  this  manner  she  kept  her  mother 
informed  of  her  situation  at  Sherwood  Forest  and  her  determination  to 
stay  at  the  plantation,  come  what  may.  Thus  on  April  28,  two  months 
after  Tyler's  funeral,  she  told  Juliana: 

Though  we  shall  be  within  hearing  of  the  roaring  battle  when  it  takes  place 
on  the  Peninsula  at  Yorktown  I  do  not  intend  to  desert  my  home  whichever 
army  carries  the  day.  If  I  am  molested  by  brutal  men  it  will  be  more  than  I 
expect  in  this  civilized  age  though  it  would  seem  as  if  we  had  collapsed  into 
barbarism  from  the  quantity  of  kindred  blood  that  has  already  flowed  upon 
the  battlefield.  I  cannot  flee  and  leave  all  my  servants  who  would  consider  it 
a  cruel  act  to  desert  them.  If  I  leave  they  wish  me  to  take  them  along,  but 
how  would  it  be  possible  to  remove  so  many  women  and  children?  No,  I  have 
concluded  to  remain  where  I  am  and  have  the  worst,  and  as  you  know  my 
timidity  you  can  judge  I  do  not  anticipate  much  inconvenience . . .  would 
that  the  better  class  at  the  north  would  have  the  sense  and  feeling  to  put  a 
stop  to  this  war.  I  know  I  am  dreadfully  tired  of  it.3 

Not  only  was  Julia  finding  the  war  an  increasing  inconvenience  and 
bore,  she  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  people  were  killed  in  combat. 
When  the  Reverend  Peyton  Harrison,  a  kinsman  of  the  Harrisons 
at  Brandon,  lost  one  son  at  Manassas  and  another  at  Fort  Donelson, 
Julia  soberly  concluded  that  knighthood  was  no  longer  in  flower.  War, 
she  finally  decided,  was  "sad,  sad,  cruel  and  melancholy."  More  and 

474 


more  she  gave  heed  to  her  mother's  pleas  to  bring  her  children  to  the 
safety  of  Staten  Island.  At  one  point  she  even  began  considering  a 
European  trip  "for  the  sake  of  educating  the  children." 

Juliana,  meanwhile,  continued  her  efforts  to  secure  a  pass  into 
Virginia,  and  she  praised  her  daughter's  spunk  in  staying  with  the 
plantation  during  the  Peninsula  fighting.  "Under  the  circumstances/' 
she  told  Priscilla's  sister,  "I  think  it  would  be  cruel  to  run  away  and 
I  am  glad  she  is  determined  to  remain.  I  shall  make  all  haste  to  join 
her,  but  I  must  get  well  first  to  prepare,  and  we  are  now  in  the  midst  of 
house  cleaning  which  renders  everything  confused  here."  First  things 
first.4 

While  Juliana  finished  her  spring  cleaning,  the  war  swirled  around 
Sherwood  Forest.  Moving  steadily  up  the  Peninsula  toward  Richmond, 
McClellan's  patrols  reached  the  plantation  shortly  after  the  Union  oc- 
cupation of  Yorktown  and  Williamsburg  on  May  5-6,  1862.  By  May  14 
Sherwood  Forest  lay  well  behind  Union  lines  as  McClellan  established 
his  headquarters  at  White  House  on  the  Pamunkey  River  twenty  miles 
from  the  Confederate  capital.  No  harm  befell  Julia  or  the  estate  during 
these  troop  movements.  Thanks  to  the  direct  intercession  of  Mrs.  James 
I.  Roosevelt  through  her  friend  General  John  E.  Wool  of  Newburgh, 
New  York,  McClellan  placed  a  protective  guard  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
There  was  no  looting,  raping,  or  burning  of  buildings.  Save  for  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  plantation's  fencing  into  a  hundred  soldiers'  camp- 
fires,  nothing  of  substance  was  destroyed.  Julia  was  quite  safe  during  the 
great  battle  for  Richmond,  although  she  was  cut  off  from  her  kin  and 
friends  in  the  city  and  was  entirely  dependent  on  the  protection  of  the 
invader.  To  keep  the  plantation  going  during  these  trying  months  the 
inexperienced  Gardie  was  given  the  task  of  overseeing  the  harvest  and 
the  planting.  Although  he  worked  hard  at  his  new  responsibility,  lie 
managed  to  get  in  but  a  "meager  crop  of  wheat"  that  summer.  Crop  or 
no  crop,  Julia  and  her  brood  were  secure. 

They  were  also  thoroughly  isolated.  Julia  did  not  learn  until  later 
that  Robert  had  taken  up  a  rifle  in  the  defense  of  the  capital.  Nor  could 
she  assist  the  gallant  Richmond  ladies  who  furiously  made  sandbags  for 
the  breastworks.  She  was  not  present  to  cheer  the  Confederate  soldiers 
from  the  Shenandoah  Valley  as  they  were  deployed  through  the  city  to 
do  battle  with  the  Yankees  on  the  Peninsula.  She  could  not  comfort  the 
nervous  Priscilla.  Nor  was  she  on  hand  to  witness  the  patriotic  self- 
assurance  of  sixteen-year-old  Grace  Tyler,  Priscilla's  daughter: 

When  I  think  of  the  rivers  of  blood  that  must  flow  in  a  few  days  from  now 
[Priscilla  wrote] ,  my  heart  sinks  and  faints  within  me.  Our  soldiers,  our  noble 
soldiers,  travel-worn  and  weary,  have  been  arriving  here  from  Manassas  and 
going  down  to  Yorktown  for  the  last  two  weeks.  Thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  them  have  passed  within  a  few  yards  of  our  door.  Every  en- 
couragement that  waving  handkerchiefs,  smiles,  tears  and  prayers  could  give 

475 


them . . .  bunches  of  flowers,  and  kisses  blown  from  fair  fingers,  they  have 
received.  And  sometimes  warmer  words  and  wishes  than  are  usual  upon  a 
first  acquaintance.  Imagine  Grace,  for  instance,  with  all  her  reserve,  beckon- 
ing a  young  lieutenant  from  the  ranks  of  the  gallant  Georgia  yth,  leaning 
over  a  bank,  handing  him  a  bunch  of  flowers  and  saying  with  the  tears  flow- 
ing over  her  cheeks,  "God  bless  you.  I  shall  pray  for  you  every  night."  He 
with  an  earnest  look  of  gratitude,  "While  you  ladies  do  the  praying,  be  sure 
we  shall  do  the  fighting."  Then  joining  his  ranks  and  looking  back  at  Grace 
till  his  column  passed  out  of  sight.5 

Julia  was  wholly  cut  off  from  her  family  until  Lee's  counterattacks 
in  the  Seven  Days'  battles  of  late  June  drove  the  invaders  back  down 
the  Peninsula  toward  Hampton.  Her  main  problem  during  these  uncer- 
tain days  of  bloodshed  was  the  unheard-of  behavior  of  two  of  the  Negro 
women  of  the  plantation,  one  a  "free  negress  whom  charity  alone,  from 
pity  for  her  friendless  condition,  had  induced  me  to  give  a  home/7  the 
other  a  slave,  "my  supposed  faithful  maid  and  seamstress."  On  the  eve- 
ning of  May  24  the  two  women  gathered  up  as  many  of  Julia's  and  the 
children's  clothes  as  they  could  carry  and  made  off  in  the  night.  Julia 
was  outraged  to  lose  several  of  her  best  dinner  gowns,  and  she  immedi- 
ately dispatched  a  strong  letter  to  the  commanding  officer  at  Williams- 
burg  demanding  that  federal  authorities  arrest  and  punish  the  thieves, 
then  return  them  to  Sherwood  Forest  lest  "the  success  of  the  expedition 
be  apt  to  produce  a  restless  feeling  among  the  rest  of  my  hitherto  happy 
family  of  Negroes  who  are  in  fact  blessed  in  being  situated  above  every 
want  with  a  very  moderate  effort  on  their  own  part."  The  women  were 
not  apprehended.6 

The  incident  did  produce  a  "restless  feeling"  among  the  slaves.  The 
Negroes  on  the  plantation  remained  relatively  quiet  and  in  place  during 
McClellan's  campaign.  But  when  it  was  over  the  young  male  slaves 
began  to  drift  away  one  by  one,  making  their  way  to  Hampton  and  the 
protection  of  the  Union  forces  at  Fortress  Monroe.  Julia  could  do  noth- 
ing about  this  leakage.  She  fell  quite  ill  again  in  July,  this  time  with 
malaria,  and  her  mother  could  "almost  wish  her  negroes  would  decamp 
as  she  would  then  feel  more  at  liberty  to  join  me.  If  the  war  continues  I 
suppose  her  plantation  would  not  avail  her  much  for  a  house,  and  she 
will  be  obliged  to  come  to  me  for  safety. ...  I  shall  use  every  effort  to 

join  Julia I  go  to  try  to  save  the  life  of  Julia  if  possible.  I  shall 

endeavor  to  bring  her  North.  The  climate  during  the  summer  is  all  but 
death  to  her."  Try  as  she  might,  and  in  spite  of  the  helpful  efforts  of 
Major  Ludlow  at  Fortress  Monroe  and  General  Egbert  L.  Viele,  Mili- 
tary Governor  of  Norfolk,  Juliana  could  still  procure  no  pass  into 
Virginia.  She  did  manage  to  work  out  a  way  of  getting  an  occasional  let- 
ter to  her  daughter  through  a  commercial  forwarding  service  in  Franklin, 
Kentucky.  Aside  from  that,  she  could  only  wait  and  worry  and  console 
herself  with  the  observation  that  "the  fashion  of  Washington  are  seces- 

476 


sionists — this  must  be  uncomfortable  to  the  occupants  of  the  White 
House."  Weeks  became  months  at  Castleton  Hill  without  word  of  Julia 
and  her  children.  Rumors  reaching  her  that  Villa  Margaret  had  been 
burned,  that  the  Sherwood  slaves  had  decamped  en  masse,  and  that 
eastern  Virginia  lay  desolated  turned  her  in  a  desperate  search  for  as- 
sistance to  her  old  New  York  friend  from  Tyler  administration  days  and 
before,  General  John  A.  Dix,  Chief  of  the  Seventh  Army  Corps  of  the 
Department  of  Virginia.  Dix  promised  her  a  pass  to  Virginia  just  as 
soon  as  the  military  situation  permitted.  Thus  she  stewed  and  fretted 
and  waited  for  news  of  the  second  great  battle  pending  at  Bull  Run, 
which,  she  hoped,  would  clear  Virginia  of  Yankees  and  permit  her  to 
reach  Sherwood  Forest.7 

Julia  survived  the  fever  as  well  as  the  departure  of  the  first  of  her 
field  hands.  By  October  1862  she  decided  that  Charles  City  County  was 
destined  to  become  a  great  battlefield  in  all  future  campaigns  around 
Richmond.  It  would  therefore  be  wise  to  begin  removing  her  children  to 
the  safety  of  Staten  Island.  In  November  1862,  through  the  cooperation 
of  General  Dix  and  various  officers  of  his  staff,  principally  Captain 
Wilson  Barstow,  whose  wife  was  one  of  Juliana's  friends,  Julia  procured 
a  federal  pass  which  permitted  her  to  board  the  weekly  flag-of-truce 
boat  on  the  James  River  and  proceed  with  her  children  to  Hampton. 
There  she  was  authorized  to  board  a  bay  steamer  to  Baltimore.  Leaving 
Sherwood  Forest  to  the  management  of  sixteen-year-old  Gardie  and  his 
cousin  Maria  Tyler,  Julia's  personal  companion,  she  took  Alex,  Julie, 
Lachlan,  Lyon,  Fitzwalter,  and  Pearl  to  Staten  Island. 

The  homecoming  was  not  particularly  pleasant  although  Juliana 
was  overjoyed  to  see  her  daughter  at  long  last.  The  house  was  crowded 
with  adults  and  noisy  children.  It  was  so  crowded,  Julia  told  David 
Lyon,  that  he  and  his  family  would  certainly  have  to  seek  other  quarters 
before  she  returned  in  the  near  future  for  the  duration  of  the  war.  To 
this  declaration  her  brother  replied  testily  that  he  would  leave  his 
mother's  house  only  when  she  ordered  him  out.  Brother  and  sister  also 
argued  bitterly  about  politics  and  the  war.  Fortunately,  her  tense  visit 
was  a  short  one.  Before  leaving  for  Virginia,  however,  Julia  transferred 
the  ownership  of  Villa  Margaret  to  her  mother,  who  in  turn  instituted 
correspondence  designed  to  secure  indemnification  and  compensation 
from  federal  authorities  for  the  occupation  and  use  of  the  property  by 
Union  soldiers.8 

Soon  after  New  Year's  Day  Julia,  Fitz,  and  Pearlie  returned  to 
Virginia,  arriving  at  Hampton  by  bay  steamer  from  Washington  on 
January  8,  18^63.  Again  General  Dix  and  Captain  Barstow  saw  to  it  that 
the  former  First  Lady  received  every  consideration.  Barstow  even  man- 
aged to  get  Julia  and  her  two  small  children  off  the  packed  little  steamer 
and  into  a  room  at  Willard's  Hotel  in  Old  Point  Comfort.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  passengers  were  confined  to  the  boat  for  the  night,  "hud- 

477 


died  together  like  so  many  animals."  After  a  comfortable  night  ashore, 
Julia  was  put  aboard  the  flag-of-truce  boat  on  the  morning  of  January  9 
and  deposited  safe  and  sound  at  her  own  landing  that  afternoon.  Hap- 
pily, she  found  everything  in  order  at  the  plantation  and  in  the  county: 

Everything  in  the  Southern  Confederacy  is  most  auspicious  [she  wrote 
Juliana] — a  more  hopeful,  determined  community  cannot  be  imagined.  Separa- 
tion is  the  one  thing  believed  in  and  all  their  deprivations  are  borne  without 
a  murmur  so  far  as  they  themselves  are  concerned,  but  oh!  how  the  wicked- 
ness of  the  North  is  stamped  upon  their  very  souls!  It  is  a  perfect  surprise 
to  them  when  I  assure  them  there  is  some  good  feeling  there.  They  are  hardly 

prepared  to  believe  in  the  exceptions It  is  well  I  am  back.  Many  persons 

were  beginning  to  murmur  at  my  wishing  to  be  North. . . .  Property  is  selling 

very  high You  may  depend  upon  it  I  shall  not  hold  back  Sherwood  if  I 

consider  it  best  not  to  do  so I  passed  without  search — thanks  to  Capt. 

Barstow,  Capt.  [John  E.]  Mulford,  and  last  but  not  least  Gen.  Dix.  Do  not 
take  the  charge  of  the  children  entirely  upon  yourself.  It  worries  me  very 
much  to  think  how  much  care  I  left  upon  your  hands — but  how  could  I 
have  helped  it!!  ...  The  negroes  are  well  disposed  and  in  order.  There  are 
[Confederate]  soldiers  dispersed  all  over  the  County  so  that  we  were  never 
more  safe 9 

Julia's  return  home  signaled  a  round  of  visits  and  modest  celebra- 
tions. The  war  in  the  Virginia  theater  was  going  well  for  the  South. 
Patriotism  ran  high  and  the  Charles  City  neighborhood  ignored  the 
presence  of  the  Union  garrison  at  Fortress  Monroe  and  the  federal  gun- 
boats on  the  river.  The  flag-of-truce  boats  plied  regularly  up  and  down 
the  river,  bringing  in  the  mail  and  news  of  the  outside  world.  On  the 
lower  James,  at  least,  the  war  was  temporarily  stalemated.  The  Yankees 
controlled  most  of  the  river  and  the  Confederates  controlled  most  of  the 
hinterland,  and  both  sides  had  learned  for  the  time  to  live  with  the 
other's  tactical  situation. 


With  four  of  her  children  safe  in  New  York,  Julia  began  to  plan  for 
the  immediate  future.  It  was  her  determination,  regardless  of  those  who 
might  "murmur  at  my  wishing  to  be  North,"  to  place  Gardie  in  school 
in  Virginia,  sell  Sherwood  Forest  if  possible,  and  go  with  her  two  young- 
est children  to  Staten  Island  for  the  duration.  Julia  was  thoroughly  fed 
up  with  the  conflict  and  the  thought  of  another  fever-ridden  summer  at 
Sherwood  Forest  was  too  much  to  contemplate.  Berkeley  plantation  had 
recently  sold  for  $50,000  although  it  was  "in  its  present  horrible  state/' 
and  Julia  was  confident  that  Sherwood  could  be  also  disposed  of  with- 
out sacrifice — indeed,  at  a  considerable  profit. 

With  these  thoughts  in  mind,  Julia  entered  her  husband's  will  in 
probate  at  the  Charles  City  courthouse  on  January  15  and  let  it  be 
known  that  the  plantation  was  for  sale.  The  following  month  she  took 
Gardie  to  Lexington  and  enrolled  him  in  Washington  College  (now 

478 


Washington  and  Lee  University).  She  was  distressed  at  having  to  leave 
him  by  himself  "away  off  there  among  entire  strangers/7  but  he  adapted 
well  to  the  new  situation,  socially  and  academically.  Within  two  months 
he  was  elected  to  membership  in  the  school's  select  Washington  Literary 
Society,  and  by  October  1863  he  decided  he  really  "preferred  College  to 
Farming."  10 

Attempts  to  find  a  buyer  for  Sherwood  Forest  were  not  successful, 
although  Julia  did  manage  to  sell  the  plantation's  well-stocked  wine 
cellar  for  an  inflationary  $4000  and  dispose  of  two  fine  riding  horses  for 
$800.  But  both  transactions  were  made  for  rapidly  depreciating  Con- 
federate dollars.  No  buyer  for  the  estate  itself  came  forward.  Even  had 
there  been  one,  the  plantation  was  so  encumbered  by  various  claims, 
large  and  small,  against  John  Tyler's  estate  that  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  have  effected  transfer  of  a  clear  title  in  1863.  To  pay  these 
claims,  totaling  at  least  $2000  in  sound  pre-Civil  War  United  States 
currency,  and  the  principal  and  interest  on  several  notes  Tyler  had  left 
unpaid  behind  him,  Julia  deposited  $5000  in  Confederate  money  (the 
proceeds  from  the  wine  and  horse  sale,  no  doubt)  in  the  Farmer's  Bank 
of  Virginia  in  March  1863. 

Unable  to  sell  the  plantation,  she  reluctantly  decided  to  continue 
operating  it  during  her  projected  absence  in  the  North.  To  this  purpose 
she  hired  John  C.  Tyler,  her  deceased  husband's  nephew,  son  of  Dr.  Wat 
Henry  Tyler,  as  her  plantation  manager;  she  also  engaged  two  white 
men  ("the  only  two  white  men  about  here")  as  farm  laborers.  She  de- 
cided to  hold  on  to  the  remaining  slave  population,  especially  the  younger 
Negroes.  But  she  left  instructions  that  they  should  be  sold  south  im- 
mediately or  hired  out  to  the  Confederate  government  for  service  in 
labor  battalions  should  the  reappearance  of  the  Union  Army  in  the 
neighborhood  give  them  notions  of  freedom  and  flight.  "I  should  not 
keep  them  even  now,"  she  explained  to  her  mother  in  April,  abut  release 
myself  of  all  anxiety  concerning  them  . . .  but  it  is  impossible  to  hire  free 
labor.  There  are  no  working  free  people  around,  either  black  or  white, 
and  at  Richmond  the  wages  of  the  common  whites  are  so  high  they 
would  not  come  into  the  country  for  any  consideration  a  farmer  would 
be  willing  to  pay."  u 

By  mid-May  Julia  could  report  that  she  was  ready  to  leave  again 
for  Staten  Island.  Inflation  had  by  this  juncture  become  a  major  prob- 
lem in  Virginia.  With  calico  and  cotton  goods  at  $2.50  to  $3  per  yard, 
"homespun  will  soon  be  entirely  worn  by  at  least  the  country  people.  I 
am  spinning  altogether  for  the  servants,"  she  confessed.  Still,  inflation 
had  its  advantages  and  the  "immense  prices  we  get  for  everything,"  even 
the  "meager"  1862  wheat  crop,  encouraged  Julia  to  believe  that  she 
might  pay  off  all  the  claims  against  the  Tyler  estate  in  cheap  Con- 
federate dollars.  "What  a  fortunate  thing  I  came  home  when  I  did,"  she 
boasted  to  her  mother,  "for  no  one  could  have  managed  as  I  have  done." 

479 


Much  to  her  dismay  she  discovered  that  Tyler's  creditors  were  in  no 
hurry  to  press  their  claims  against  the  estate.  Better  to  wait  and  collect 
in  sound  dollars,  they  reasoned. 

Working  with  "the  small  force  we  have  left,"  John  C.  Tyler  began 
seeding  oats  and  planting  corn  at  Sherwood  Forest  as  Julia  departed  the 
plantation  on  May  15  for  Richmond.  She  had  decided  to  stay  in  the 
Confederate  capital  until  the  necessary  arrangements  could  be  made 
with  Union  authorities  for  another  pass  to  the  North.  On  the  eve  of  her 
removal  to  the  city  she  informed  her  mother  that  inflation,  however 
inconvenient  for  the  poorer  classes,  had  not  disturbed  the  Virginia 
aristocracy  or  the  Southern  war  effort.  Even  the  death  of  Stonewall 
Jackson  at  Chancellorsville  was  not  regarded  an  insurmountable  disaster 
among  Richmond  fashionables: 

Ladies  and  gentlemen  dress  as  well  and  tastefully  as  ever  and  calico  is  rarely 
purchased.  It  is  not  considered  worth  wasting  money  upon ...  rich  things 
direct  from  Paris  are  worn  as  much  as  ever  in  dress  at  prices  of  course 
enormously  high.  A  wedding  took  place  in  Petersburg  the  other  day  at  an 
expense  of  ten  thousand  dollars  ($10,000)  for  the  wedding  supper  and  other 
hospitalities — everything  imported  from  France,  the  rarest  confectionery,  etc. 
. . .  The  South  has  lost  a  beloved  General,  but  no  difficulty  is  found  in  supply- 
ing his  place  as  heroism  and  skill  is  the  rule,  not  the  exception.12 

Julia's  return  to  Staten  Island  could  not  come  too  soon  to  suit 
Juliana.  Five  children  (including  Harry  Beeckman)  were  more  than  she 
could  handle.  And  with  David  Lyon  and  Sarah's  two  infants  also  in 
the  house,  the  din  and  confusion  were  considerable.  Grandmother 
Catherine  Beeckman  died  in  May  1863  and  with  her  passing  the  entire 
responsibility  for  Harry  devolved  upon  Juliana,  who  found  to  her  con- 
sternation that  the  mere  "keeping  of  these  five  children  in  a  comfortable 
wardrobe  has  reduced  me  to  the  dimensions  of  a  skeleton."  Clothing 
bills,  dental  bills,  and  tuition  bills  (the  children  attended  Mr.  Major's 
private  school  near  Castleton  Hill)  steadily  mounted.  In  August  1863, 
at  a  great  expense  of  money  and  energy,  she  transported  the  entire  "little 
troop"  to  the  Catskills  for  a  vacation.  At  other  times  she  consoled  Alex 
and  Harry  when  they  were  intimidated  by  neighborhood  children 
("rowdy  . . .  untrusted  Irish  children,"  Juliana  called  them)  for  articu- 
lating their  pronounced  Southern  views.  Indeed,  she  had  all  she  could 
do  to  keep  the  two  little  Rebels  from  running  away  from  home  to  join 
the  Confederate  Army.  "Alex  appears  to  be  resolved  upon  a  desperate 
determination  to  return  South  and  Harry  equally  earnest  to  prepare  for 
a  gunning  excursion,"  Juliana  exhaustedly  reported  in  April  i863.13 

In  addition  to  her  energy-draining  obligations  to  Julia's  children, 
Juliana's  spirits  were  steadily  beaten  down  by  the  unfavorable  war  news 
from  the  South.  The  Union  victories  at  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg  in 
July  1863  she  correctly  interpreted  as  the  disasters  they  were  for  the 

480 


Confederacy.  "The  cause  of  the  Confederacy  looks  gloomy,"  she  con- 
fessed to  Julia  in  August.  "When  will  this  awful  war  end?  It  Is  horrible. 
The  next  thing,  they  will  have  Gardie  in  the  Army  unless  you  can  all 
come  North.  Do  try  to  send  him  to  Europe."  The  crushing  of  the  draft 
riots  in  New  York  City  also  distressed  her,  since  for  a  short  time  during 
the  summer  of  1863  they  gave  much  aid  and  comfort  to  the  South  and 
encouraged  some  of  New  York's  more  optimistic  Copperheads  to  hope 
that  the  city  might  be  wrenched  out  of  the  Union.  "Many  think  this  is 
the  commencement  of  civil  war  at  the  North/7  Juliana  remarked  hope- 
fully in  July.  "I  hear  from  all  quarters  that  the  Irish  in  particular  are 
opposed  to  the  introduction  here  of  Negro  labor  and  are  resolved  to  do 
no  more  fighting  as  they  are  dissatisfied  with  the  objects  of  the  war." 
The  death  of  the  brilliant  Stonewall  Jackson  further  saddened  her  and 
her  Copperhead  friends,  as  did  their  realization  that  the  federal  block- 
ade, for  all  the  times  it  was  successfully  run,  was  slowly  crushing  the 
South  to  death.  Only  the  hope  of  Anglo-French  intervention  on  the 
Confederate  side  gave  Juliana  any  comfort  at  all.  And  this  too  had  faded 
for  her  as  a  real  prospect  in  mid-i863.  But  the  situation  that  gave  her 
the  greatest  concern  in  1863  was  Julia's  tardiness  in  coming  North.  "I 
sometimes  think  it  is  destined  that  we  shall  never  meet  again,"  she 
worried.14 

Julia  stopped  at  the  Ballard  House  in  Richmond  while  she  worked 
on  the  increasingly  difficult  problem  of  obtaining  a  federal  pass  to  New 
York.  She  had  no  trouble  securing  permission  from  the  Confederate 
government  to  leave  Virginia.  She  had  easy  access  to  both  President  and 
Mrs.  Davis.  She  knew  them  socially  and  she  visited  them  frequently. 
Indeed,  William  G.  Waller,  Tyler's  grandson,  was  engaged  to  Mrs. 
Davis'  youngest  sister,  Jenny  Howell  (they  were  married  in  the  Con- 
federate White  House  in  November  1863),  and  the  South 's  First  Lady 
already  delighted  in  calling  Julia  "my  beautiful  step  mother,"  even 
though  Julia's  actual  connection  with  the  Davis  family  would  be  that 
of  step-grandmother-in-law  to  the  First  Lady's  sister.  However  remote 
the  relationship,  Varina  Howell  Davis  thought  Julia  "positively  did  not 
look  one  day  over  twenty"  and  always  appeared  "so  fresh,  agreeable, 
graceful  and  exquisitely  dressed." 

The  problem  with  the  pass  stemmed  therefore  not  from  high  Rich- 
mond officials  but  from  Union  authorities,  who  insisted  that  all  Virginia 
applicants  for  passes  take  an  Oath  of  Allegiance  to  the  United  States  at 
Fortress  Monroe  before  receiving  clearance  north.  This  oath  Julia  would 
not  and,  in  all  honesty,  could  not  take.  Letters  from  Juliana  in  Staten 
Island  to  President  Lincoln  requesting  that  the  degrading  requirement 
be  waived  for  "Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler"  were  unavailing.  Julia  told 
General  Dix  that  "while  I  would  be  ready  to  give  my  parole  d'honneur 
to  be  inoffensive  in  all  respects  to  the  U.S.  Govt.  I  wish  to  be  spared  the 
presentation  of  any  other  oath — which  I  could  not  take."  Since  she 

481 


was  a  female  noncombatant  and  only  wanted  to  "see  the  faces  of  my 
darling  mother  and  my  little  children  who  are  with  her,"  she  was  certain 
an  old  Washington  friend  like  former  New  York  Senator  Dix  would  not 
insist  on  "forms  and  ceremonies  which  I  learn  are  imposed  on  others/' 
Old  friend  or  no,  Dix  could  do  nothing  for  Julia  (save  graciously  for- 
ward her  mail  to  New  York)  without  the  oath.15 

All  hope  of  leaving  Virginia  legally  dashed,  Julia  began  making  ar- 
rangements to  depart  illegally — from  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  by 
blockade  runner.  From  his  post  in  the  Confederate  Navy  Department 
James  A.  Semple  was  instrumental  in  helping  Julia  make  the  necessary 
plans.  Actually,  his  task  was  not  a  difficult  one.  It  was  complicated, 
however,  by  Julia's  desire  to  take  a  few  bales  of  cotton  out  of  the  coun- 
try with  her  for  speculative  purposes  and  to  travel  with  the  shipment  to 
Bermuda,  where  she  could  personally  dispose  of  it.  Working  through 
William  G.  Waller,  who  was  attached  to  the  Confederate  Ordnance  De- 
partment's arsenal  at  Augusta,  Georgia,  and  through  Colonel  Josiah 
Gorgas,  Chief  of  Confederate  Ordnance,  Julia  finally  secured  an  Ord- 
nance Department  authorization,  dated  August  10,  1863,  directing 
"J.  M.  Seixas,  Esq.,  Special  Agent  of  the  War  Department,  at  Wilming- 
ton, N.C.,  to  furnish  free  passage  to  yourself,  two  young  children  and 
one  servant  on  the  Govmt.  R.  E.  Lee,  as  requested,  with  permission  to 
take  out  also  on  same  Str.  Five  bales  of  Cotton."  Since  the  R.  E.  Lee, 
Captain  John  Wilkinson,  had  just  sailed,  Julia  was  told  she  would  have 
to  wait  for  her  next  voyage  "probably  early  in  September."  Unfortu- 
nately, when  the  R.  E.  Lee  was  ready  to  depart  Wilmington  again  in 
late  September,  Julia  had  not  yet  completed  arrangements  for  the 
cotton  she  wanted  to  take  with  her.  Her  tardiness  in  leaving  the  South 
was  due  entirely  to  her  inability  to  get  herself  and  her  cotton  allotment 
together  on  the  same  ship.  While  trying  to  solve  this  logistic  problem 
she  was  constrained  to  turn  down  passage  for  herself,  her  children,  and 
her  Negro  servant  Celia  Johnson  on  vessels  leaving  port  in  early  and 
middle  October.  While  the  delay  afforded  her  an  opportunity  to  press  a 
niggling  claim  against  the  Confederate  War  Department  for  a  horse  and 
some  oats  commandeered  from  Sherwood  Forest  by  a  cavalry  foraging 
party,  Semple  urged  her  to  leave  as  quickly  as  possible  for  Bermuda, 
permit  him  to  handle  the  claim,  and  let  Seixas  consign  the  cotton  to 
Nassau.  To  this  importunity  Julia  finally  agreed.  She  sailed,  therefore, 
from  Wilmington  on  October  28  aboard  the  CSS  Cornubia,  Captain 
R.  H.  Gayle,  and  arrived  in  Bermuda  on  November  2.  The  five  bales  of 
cotton  were  shipped  to  Nassau  in  December  aboard  the  steamer  Eugenie. 
There  an  agent  sold  them  for  Julia  to  a  Spanish  buyer  for  the  handsome 
sum  of  £225.n.6d.  So  handsome  was  the  sum,  in  fact,  that  Julia  would 
attempt,  unsuccessfully,  in  May  1864  to  get  another  profitable  cotton 
lot  through  the  ever-tightening  blockade.16 

Scarcely  had  Julia  settled  down  to  enjoy  briefly  the  pleasant  society 

482 


that  peacetime  Bermuda  afforded,  while  waiting  for  passage  to  New 
York,  than  she  learned  of  the  capture  of  the  gallant  Captain  Gayle  and 
the  Cornubia  on  the  vessel's  return  trip  to  Wilmington.  Gayle,  who  was 
in  his  early  thirties,  had  treated  his  distinguished  passenger  with  great 
kindness  on  the  outward  voyage  to  Bermuda,  and  it  may  be  assumed 
that  the  eligible  and  still  attractive  widow  did  not  discourage  his  flatter- 
ing attentions.  In  any  event,  his  capture  distressed  her  terribly.  Not 
until  January  1864,  after  she  had  safely  reached  Staten  Island,  did  she 
learn  that  he  had  heroically  stayed  with  his  ship,  attempting  to  burn  the 
vessel,  while  his  panicky  crew  fled  to  the  boats  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
escape.  He  was  the  only  man  remaining  on  deck  when  the  Union  board- 
ing party  came  over  the  side.  "If  Capt.  Gayle's  commands  had  been 
obeyed,"  Jefferson  Davis  was  reported  to  have  said,  "the  ship  could 
have  escaped."  Whatever  the  truth  of  the  loss  of  the  Cornubia  and  the 
responsibility  for  it,  the  dashing  Gayle,  member  of  a  distinguished  Rich- 
mond family,  was  sent  to  Fort  Warren  Prison  in  Boston.17 

Equally  disturbing  to  Julia  was  news  from  Gardie  in  Lexington  that 
the  Washington  College  students  had  marched  off  to  war,  or  at  least  in 
eager  search  of  war.  Under  the  emergency-manpower  provisions  of  a 
proclamation  by  Governor  Letcher,  the  college  had  formed  a  reserve 
infantry  company  which  was  attached  to  the  Rockbridge  Regiment  of 
the  Virginia  Home  Guard,  Colonel  Thomas  Massey  commanding.  Ac- 
tually trained  for  less  than  two  weeks,  the  Washington  College  boys, 
together  with  the  more  experienced  Virginia  Military  Institute  Cadets, 
were  ordered  to  Alleghany  County  in  late  October  1863  to  help  repel  a 
federal  cavalry  raid  in  the  area.  Under  the  command  of  Professors 
Alexander  Nelson  and  John  L.  Campbell,  the  civilian  undergraduates 
hiked  the  forty-five  miles  into  the  mountains  "  'spiling7  for  a  fight."  It 
was  a  lark.  Passing  through  the  Rockbridge  Alum  Springs,  Gardie  and 
his  mates  "found  the  place  entirely  deserted  and  drank  alum  water  to 
our  heart's  content  free  of  cost!"  Marching  on,  the  column  learned  that 
the  enemy  was  at  Covington.  "We  immediately  began  to  advance  against 
them,"  wrote  Gardie.  "Everybody  expected  a  fight  and  while  on  our  way 
an  old  woman  came  out  of  her  house  and  commenced  cheering  us  on 
saying  that  the  Yanks  were  only  two  miles  ahead.  This  greatly  excited 
us  and  we  marched  ahead  with  loud  cheers."  The  information  from  the 
small  Rebel  cheering  section  proved  wrong.  Only  when  they  reached  the 
vicinity  of  Clifton  Forge  did  they  learn  that  General  J.  D.  Imboden's 
Cavalry  Brigade  had  already  driven  the  Federals  out  of  Covington  and 
back  toward  the  West  Virginia  line.  There  would  be  no  fight.  So  the 
boys  and  their  professors  turned  around  and  marched  back  to  Lexington, 
arriving  there  "pretty  well  worn  out."  To  seventeen-year-old  Gardie  the 
whole  experience  was  wonderful.  "I  liked  camp  life  amazing,"  he  told 
his  mother.  "I  try  to  study  as  much  as  possible  but  I  find  it  quite  hard 
to  do  so  as  everything  is  so  full  of  war  fever."  18 

483 


With  all  her  worries  about  Captain  Gayle  and  her  eldest  son,  Julia 
nonetheless  found  a  pleasant  life  awaiting  her  among  congenial  friends 
in  peaceful,  booming  Bermuda.  She  immediately  attached  herself  to  the 
gay  community  of  Confederates  who  for  various  reasons — business, 
pleasure,  escape,  adventure — had  established  themselves  in  St.  George. 
Confederate  officers  and  civil  servants,  Confederate  purchasing  agents 
and  ship's  captains,  Confederate  speculators,  transients,  and  tourists 
were  present  in  number  in  Bermuda,  many  in  the  company  of  their  ladies 
— or  someone  else's  lady.  Along  with  the  British  officers  and  officials 
stationed  on  the  island,  they  peopled  the  numerous  dances  and  dinner 
parties,  the  opulence  of  which  made  wartime  Richmond  with  its  growing 
shortages  and  inflation  seem  another  world.  The  British  39th  Regimen- 
tal band  generally  played  for  these  gala  affairs  and  there  were  always 
plenty  of  "Red  coats  to  liven  the  scene."  Mrs.  Norman  J.  Walker,  wife 
of  a  Confederate  Army  purchasing  agent,  became  Julia's  principal 
friend  during  her  two-week  stay  in  St.  George  prior  to  her  voyage  to 
New  York  on  the  British  ship  Harvest  Queen  in  mid-November.  The 
Walkers'  Christmas  party  was  a  typical  Southern  function  of  the  time 
and  place.  It  was  dedicated  more  to  the  birth  of  the  Confederacy  than 
to  the  birth  of  Christ: 

We  are  becoming  quite  gay  in  our  little  Island  home  [Mrs.  Walker  wrote 
Julia  in  January  1864] ;  that  is  the  civilians  and  military  are The  Con- 
federate Flag  gaily  decorated  my  little  cottage  [on  Christmas  Day],  and  at 
supper,  I  myself,  proposed  the  health  of  "Our  President"  which  was  drunk 
with  a  hearty  good  will;  and  then  went  up  one  cheer  after  another,  which 
resounded  to  every  corner  of  the  house-  We  were  body,  and  heart,  and  soul 
Confederates;  and  I  laughingly  remarked  to  the  [British]  Colonel  at  my  side, 
"Now  we  may  cheer  our  own  Flag  and  abuse,  if  we  choose,  all  the  rest  of 
the  governments  of  the  earth." ...  I  had  made  them  forget  the  war,  and  that 
was  certainly  next  to  spending  their  Xmas  night  in  Dixie!  Of  course,  we  had 
our  own  national  drink,  "egg-nog,"  made  in  the  old  Virginia  style.19 

Fortunately,  Julia,  Fitz,  and  Pearlie  were  quite  safe  at  Castleton 
Hill  on  Christmas  Day,  1863.  And  if  their  arrival  there  on  November  24 
brought  the  resident  population  of  the  Gardiner  homestead  to  four 
adults,  nine  children,  Juliana's  nurse,  and  Julia's  maid  (four  other 
servants  lived  out),  there  was,  at  first,  general  satisfaction  that  the 
family  was  united  again.  Juliana,  old  and  sick,  more  often  confined  to 
her  room  than  not,  was  relieved  to  have  her  daughter  with  her  again. 
But  the  premises  were  terribly  crowded.  In  December  Mr.  Ralph  Dayton 
of  New  York  was  introduced  into  the  already  bursting  household  as 
private  tutor  to  the  children. 

By  Christmas  Day,  while  Southern  patriots  celebrated  in  Bermuda, 
there  was  little  peace  on  earth  at  Castleton  Hill.  Tension  between  Julia 
and  her  brood  of  Rebels  and  David  Lyon  and  his  Union  family  in- 
creased during  the  holiday  season  and  became  almost  unbearable  during 

484 


January  1864.  Political  arguments  raged  incessantly.  With  so  many 
children  underfoot  there  was  also  constant  confusion.  Alex  and  Harry 
enjoyed  playing  harmless  pranks  on  their  Yankee  uncle  and,  predictably, 
the  humorless  David  Lyon,  "very  much  tried  by  the  children,"  retali- 
ated. On  at  least  three  occasions  he  cuffed  Alex  and  Julie  around 
severely,  actions  which  produced  screams  of  bloody  murder  from  the 
children  and  angry  exchanges  between  Julia  and  her  brother.  During  one 
of  these  scenes  with  David,  Julia  was  struck  and  knocked  to  the  floor. 
Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner  was  caught  in  the  middle  of  this  acrimony. 
"My  position  is  a  most  unpleasant  one,"  she  told  Juliana.  "I  cannot 

take  sides  against  my  husband  or  his  Mother It  makes  me  sick  to 

think  of  what  has  taken  place."  Juliana  experienced  no  mixed  loyalties. 
She  sided  completely  with  Julia  and  she  protected  Julia's  children  from 
David  Lyon's  abuse.  On  one  occasion  she  told  her  nurse  that  she  "didn't 
feel  safe  in  the  house  when  Mr.  Gardiner  was  with  the  children."  In- 
deed, so  angry  did  she  become  with  her  son  that  on  February  10,  1864, 
with  Julia's  urging,  she  removed  all  her  business  affairs  from  his  hands 
and  summarily  ordered  him  and  his  family  from  her  house.  He  returned 
to  his  own  farm  at  nearby  Northfield  and  never  saw  his  mother  alive 
again.  He  made  no  effort  to.20 

There  is  little  doubt  that  underlying  this  tragic  family  split  was  the 
sectional  emotion  engendered  by  the  Civil  War.  No  sooner  had  Julia 
arrived  in  Staten  Island  and  treated  herself  to  a  series  of  shopping 
sprees  in  the  well-stocked  New  York  City  stores,  notably  Lord  &  Taylor, 
than  she  began  involving  herself  in  local  Copperhead  activities.  These 
were  subversive  enterprises  to  which  the  patriotic  David  Lyon  strenu- 
ously objected. 

Julia's  first  and  most  extensive,  certainly  her  most  trying  and  dedi- 
cated, project  was  to  secure  the  exchange  and  release  of  Captain  R.  H. 
Gayle  from  Fort  Warren  Prison.  At  this  task  she  worked  throughout 
1864  and  into  1865.  Gayle  was  no  ordinary  war  prisoner.  His  sister  was 
Mrs.  Josiah  Gorgas,  wife  of  the  capable  Chief  of  the  Confederate 
Ordnance  Department.  Another  of  his  brothers-in-law  was  Brigadier 
General  H.  K.  Aiken  of  the  Sixth  South  Carolina  Cavalry.  Nor  was 
Gayle,  as  he  himself  disdainfully  put  it  to  the  military  commission 
examining  his  exchange  status  in  April  1864,  a  mere  "blockade  runner." 
He  was,  he  told  the  commission  proudly,  "an  officer  in  the  Navy  of  the 
Confederate  States,  and  am  consequently  a  'prisoner  of  war.'  "  The  fact 
that  the  Cornubia  had  been  operated  by  the  Confederate  government, 
Gayle  being  paid  according  to  his  naval  rank,  elevated  the  Captain 
above  the  status  of  the  free-enterprising  Rhett  Butlers  of  the  South  and 
legally  placed  him  in  a  prisoner-exchange  category.  Julia  thus  had  great 
hopes  that  she  might  hasten  his  passage  to  freedom  through  the  red-tape 
blockade. 

485 


Meanwhile  he  was  allowed  to  receive  a  single-page  letter  a  week 
from  each  of  his  correspondents  on  the  outside,  and  no  week  passed 
that  Julia  did  not  send  him  a  cheering  missive.  She  also  made  arrange- 
ments regularly  to  send  him  books,  cigars,  food,  wine,  and  small  sums 
of  money.  Fort  Warren  was  no  Andersonville.  But  mainly  she  worked 
directly  through  and  on  General  John  A.  Dix,  now  stationed  in  New 
York,  to  effect  Gayle's  exchange.  She  also  listened  patiently  and  under- 
standingly  to  the  complaints  and  frustrations  of  an  active  man,  cooped 
up  in  prison,  dreaming  of  freedom  and  a  return  to  the  wars,  "When  I 
read  in  the  papers  of  all  the  bustle  and  busy  life  that  is  sweeping  over 
the  land,"  he  wrote  his  benefactress  in  March  1864,  "I  almost  am 
tempted  to  attempt  the  leap  of  Fort  Warren's  high  walls."  Julia,  of 
course,  was  permitted  to  write  him  no  politically  oriented  letters — these 
were  subject  to  confiscation.  But  Gayle  and  his  fellow  prisoners  kept 
abreast  of  the  war  through  the  Boston  newspapers  and  he  interpreted 
for  Julia  the  military  implications  of  passing  events.  "We  can  tell  what 
Grant  will  do,  and  know  what  Lee  ought  to  do,"  he  laughed.  "To  hear 
us  talk,  one  would  think  the  combined  military  talent  of  the  country 
was  wasting  itself  within  these  walls." 

By  May  1864  the  bored  and  lonely  prisoner's  letters  to  Julia  were 
becoming  increasingly  personal.  He  asked  her  for  her  picture,  received  it, 
and  sent  one  of  himself  in  return.  "Photographs  seldom  do  justice  to 
their  subject,"  he  told  her,  "but  he  must  indeed  be  a  poor  artist,  who  in 
your  case,  could  make  a  failure  with  such  a  model."  Her  picture  helped 
him  pass  the  lengthening  months  of  his  captivity.  "I  feel  no  longer 
alone,"  he  thanked  her.  His  boredom  became  unbearable  when  exchange 
negotiations  were  suspended  during  Grant's  1864  summer  campaign 
around  Richmond.  Gayle  began  to  wonder  whether  he  would  ever  leave 
Fort  Warren:  "I  shall  consider  the  loss  of  my  liberty  for  a  whole  year 
as  equal  to  the  loss  of  a  leg,"  he  complained  to  Julia.  "I  might  have 
been  a  Commodore  by  this  time."  The  weeks  and  months  dragged  on. 

On  August  28,  1864,  the  claustrophobic  Gayle  finally  learned  from 
Colonel  Robert  Ould,  Confederate  agent  for  prisoner  exchange  in  Rich- 
mond, that  he  would  soon  be  exchanged  for  Lieutenant  Commander 
Edward  P.  Williams,  USN.  Julia  shared  his  joy  and  excitement.  At  the 
beginning  of  October  the  necessary  papers  had  been  arranged,  and 
Gayle,  in  company  with  other  Confederate  naval  officers  from  the  Ten- 
nessee, Selma,  Atlanta,  and  Tacony,  left  Fort  Warren  for  City  Point, 
below  Richmond.  There  on  October  20  he  was  duly  exchanged.  "For  my 
part,"  he  wrote  Julia  before  leaving  Boston,  "I  should  look  back  upon  the 
last  ten  months  as  a  hideous  nightmare,  to  be  remembered  only  with  a 
shudder,  were  it  not  for  the  bright  beams  which  you,  my  dear  Madam, 
have  occasionally  darted  within  these  frowning  walls."  21 

Within  a  few  weeks  Gayle  had  another  ship,  the  steamer  Stag,  and 
was  "employed  again"  on  the  Wilmington-Bermuda  run.  "I  ran  her  out 

486 


of  Wilmington  while  the  fleet  was  thundering  at  Fort  Fisher,"  he  hap- 
pily wrote  his  "ministering  angel"  from  Bermuda  on  New  Year's  Day. 
Leaving  Bermuda  for  Wilmington  on  January  14,  1865,  the  Stag  reached 
the  Cape  Fear  River  around  midnight  on  the  nineteenth.  There  she  was 
captured,  the  last  Confederate  ship  attempting  to  run  the  Union  block- 
ade to  be  taken  in  the  war.  Her  captain  could  not  appreciate  the  histori- 
cal uniqueness  of  the  event.  "Imagine,  my  dear  Madam,"  Gayle  fumed 
from  Fort  Warren  in  February, 

how  astonished  I  was  when,  fancying  myself  safely  at  home,  I  found  myself  a 
prisoner.  No  intimation  of  the  fall  of  Fort  Fisher  had  ever  reached  me,  and 
without  a  suspicion  of  anything  being  wrong  I  confidently  ran  my  ship  up  to 
the  usual  anchorage.  At  the  entrance  to  the  harbor  there  was  no  suspicious 
appearance — the  usual  lights  were  properly  set,  and  I  unsuspectingly  ran  into 
the  trap  so  cleverly  laid . .  .  and  here  I  am  once  more,  as  quietly  settled 

down  in  my  old  quarters  as  if  I  had  never  left  them I  find  it  somewhat 

difficult  to  realize  that  I  have  had  a  holiday.  I  was  exchanged  on  the  2oth  of 
Oct.  and  captured  again  on  the  2oth  of  Jan. — only  three  months.  Had  my 
ship  been  shot  to  pieces,  or  fairly  run  down  at  sea,  I  would  not  mind  it  so 
much;  but  to  have  deliberately  walked  into  a  trap  purposely  prepared  for  me 
makes  me  feel  so  foolish  that  I  can  hardly  look  anyone  in  the  face.  Most  of 
the  prisoners  whom  I  left  behind  me  are  still  here,  and  you  can  imagine  what 
a  commotion  there  was  when  I  made  my  appearance  within  the  sally-port. 

Upon  my  word,  Mrs.  Tyler,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  caught  in  a  theft Tell 

Pearly  that  I  appreciate  her  sympathy 

And  so  Julia  again  took  up  her  Fort  Warren-Gayle  project.22 

Other  war  ventures  had  meanwhile  been  pressed  with  vigor.  With 
her  inflated  Confederate  money  Julia  loyally  purchased  sinking  Con- 
federate war  bonds.  She  sent  money  and  clothes  to  needy  friends  in  the 
South  and  to  Confederate  soldiers  of  her  acquaintance  who  were  lan- 
guishing in  Union  prison  camps.  She  became  a  working  member  of  a 
small  cell  of  Staten  Island  Copperheads,  a  group  of  women  who  distrib- 
uted peace  pamphlets,  conducted  relief  activities  in  Southern  cities  oc- 
cupied by  the  Union  Army,  cheered  Confederate  victories  and  plugged 
for  General  George  B,  McClellan's  election  to  the  Presidency  in  1864.  In 
these  activities  she  was  assisted  by  her  mother  and  by  Louisa  Cooper 
(Priscilla's  sister)  who  lived  in  the  city.23 

Throughout  1864  Julia  held  as  an  unimpeachable  article  of  faith 
the  belief  that  the  Confederacy  would  eventually  win  the  war  even 
though  all  the  private  information  she  could  gather  from  her  Southern 
friends  and  correspondents  told  her  otherwise.  She  knew  that  inflation 
was  completely  out  of  hand  in  Virginia;  she  realized  that  the  blockade 
was  squeezing  the  Confederacy  to  death;  she  knew  also  that  the  strug- 
gling nation  was  split  militarily  in  twain,  and  that  Union  armies  and 
cavalry  units  were  plunging  deeper  into  the  vitals  of  the  South  with 
less  and  less  opposition.  Yet  she  preferred  to  believe  that  somehow  all 

487 


would  turn  out  well.  She  believed  in  slogans,  not  facts;  and  this  at  a 
time  when  the  history  of  Charles  City  County  alone  told  her  all  was  lost, 
that  the  Old  South  was  dying.  "The  news  from  home  certainly  gives  us 
•  no  occasion  for  rejoicing,''  Mrs.  Walker  wrote  her  from  Bermuda  in 
February  1864.  Julia  simply  would  not  believe  it.24 

The  last  full  year  of  the  war  opened  quietly  in  Charles  City.  Maria 
Tyler  reported  everything  at  Sherwood  Forest  in  excellent  condition  as 
of  January  1864,  "all  the  servants  are  well  and  their  clothing  attended 
to."  Only  a  single  Union  cavalry  raid,  which  destroyed  the  county 
courthouse  in  November,  had  disturbed  an  otherwise  peaceful  winter  in 
the  neighborhood.  The  Confederate  Congress  had  passed  a  new  draft  act 
extending  the  military  age  from  eighteen  to  fifty-five  and  this  promised, 
in  Maria's  words,  to  "swell  our  army  it  is  thought  to  two  hundred  thou- 
sand." Except  for  complaints  about  the  soaring  inflation  from  the 
poverty-ridden  Richmond  masses,  confidence  in  the  future  was  generally 
high  in  the  Tidewater.  "Things  look  brighter  for  our  cause,"  Maria  told 
Julia.  "Our  soldiers  here  are  perfectly  confident  of  success  and  Gen.  Lee 
is  the  same  good  Christian  and  great  General."  The  local  Charles  City 
Cavalry  was  disbanded  and  its  personnel,  in  search  of  rest  and  relaxa- 
tion, whiled  away  the  time  jousting  for  the  hands  of  fair  maidens  at 
mock  medieval  tournaments.  "Charles  City  has  been  unusually  gay  this 
winter,  party  after  party,  dinners  and  even  Tournaments,"  John  C. 
Tyler  wrote  Julia.  He  had  great  hope  that  a  normal  crop  would  be 
planted  and  harvested  at  Sherwood  Forest.  At  the  end  of  March  1864, 
then,  the  only  winter  casualty  sustained  by  the  plantation  was  one 
raided  smokehouse  and  the  theft  of  the  meat  therein.25 

At  Lexington  Gardie  remained  impatiently  in  college,  struggling 
unequally  with  Tacitus  and  Xenophon.  "The  truth  is  my  mind  is  so  full 
of  war  and  rumors  of  war  that  I  cannot  study  with  any  sort  of  plan." 
The  march  to  Covington  had  whetted  his  martial  appetite  and  filled  him 
with  the  most  intense  patriotism.  He  spent  most  of  the  winter  of  1863- 
1864  trying  to  decide  which  branch  of  the  Confederate  service  to  join 
when  he  became  eighteen  in  July.  The  thought  of  slaughtering  Yankees 
filled  him  with  delight.  "Come  one,  come  all,"  he  crowed  to  Alex,  "we 

are  ready  for  them Our  army  was  never  in  such  a  fine  condition  as 

it  is  now.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  delicacies  we  live  as  well  as  we 
ever  did.  Never  believe  a  word  about  our  starvation,  etc."  20 

Heralded  in  early  April  1864  by  Union  cavalry  raids  through  the 
county  and  gunboat  reconnaissance  along  the  river,  the  opening  of 
Grant's  spring  campaign  in  May  struck  Charles  City  and  Sherwood 
Forest  like  a  thunderclap.  Striking  south  from  Culpeper  through  the 
Wilderness,  Grant's  ioo,ooo-man  Army  of  the  Potomac  coordinated  a 
massive  attack  on  Richmond  with  General  Benjamin  Butler's  36,000- 
man  Army  of  the  James,  which  moved  up  the  south  side  of  the  river 

488 


from  Norfolk  to  hit  the  Confederate  capital  from  the  east  and  south. 
In  the  Shenandoah  Valley  Franz  SigePs  force  of  20,000  began  to  advance 
southward  toward  Staunton  and  Lynchburg  in  a  twin  effort  to  pin 
Jubal  A.  Early  in  the  Valley  and  strip  Virginia's  granary  of  food  and 
supplies  that  might  otherwise  reach  Lee  at  Richmond.  In  the  west 
Sherman  departed  Chattanooga  on  his  celebrated  march  to  the  sea.  The 
Confederacy  was  coming  apart  at  the  seams.  Or  so  it  seemed. 

Once  again  Sherwood  Forest  was  in  the  midst  of  a  Peninsula  cam- 
paign as  Butler  drove  toward  Richmond  along  the  south  bank  of  the 
James.  This  time,  however,  the  plantation  was  not  spared.  On  May  7, 
1864,  the  ist  Brigade,  Hink's  Division,  XVIII  Corps,  Negro  troops 
commanded  by  Brigadier  General  Edward  A.  Wild,  crossed  the  river  at 
Kennon's  Landing  and  occupied  Sherwood  Forest  and  the  surrounding 
countryside.  Save  for  a  sharp  scrap  at  Wilson's  Landing  with  roving 
units  of  Fitzhugh  Lee's  cavalry,  the  Negro  troops  easily  took  possession 
of  Charles  City  County.  It  was  during  this  fighting,  however,  that  some 
of  the  outbuildings  were  burned  at  Sherwood  Forest,  probably  by  re- 
treating Confederate  cavalrymen.  A  reign  of  terror  was  soon  unleashed 
against  the  defenseless  county  by  the  conquerors.  Mr.  Lamb  Wilcox  was 
shot  dead  in  his  yard  by  Negro  soldiers  for  refusing  to  salute  them. 
George  Walker  was  shot  down  by  colored  soldiers  for  resisting  their 
plunder,  although  he  was  more  fortunate  than  Wilcox  and  lived  to  go 
to  prison.  Throughout  the  county  plantations  were  plundered,  homes 
sacked,   livestock   driven  off,  and   outbuildings  burned.   Slaves  were 
"liberated"  and  carried  away  by  their  dusky  emancipators.  William  H. 
Clopton,  reported  by  "some  of  my  negro  women"  for  being  a  "most 
cruel  master,"  was  seized  by  Wild's  troopers,  stripped  naked,  and  lashed 
while  his  slaves  stood  by  and  cheered.  John  C.  Tyler  was  arrested.  He, 
Clopton,  G.  B.  Major,  A.  H.  Ferguson,  R.  J.  Vaiden,  J.  C.  Wilson, 
Thomas  Douthat,  and  other  civilian  planters  and  professional  men  of 
the  neighborhood  were  hauled  down  to  Fortress  Monroe  where  they 
were  imprisoned.  "My  wife  and  family  are  at  Weyanoke/'  said  Douthat 
sadly,  "everything  lost  on  the  farm  and  themselves  surrounded  by  U.S. 
Colored  troops.  God  will  protect  them  I  feel  assured,  and  in  his  hands  I 
leave  them."  As  at  Weyanoke,  the  Sherwood  Forest  farm  buildings  were 
raided,  meat  seized  and  livestock  expropriated.  Fortunately,  James  A. 
Semple  and  John  C.  Tyler  had  managed  to  get  most  of  the  deceased 
President's  papers  and  all  of  the  family  silverware  and  portraits  to  a 
warehouse  and  bank  vault  in  Richmond  during  the  cavalry  raids  in 
April.  On  the  farm,  however,  "they  have  not  left  five  dollars  worth," 
John  C.  informed  Julia  on  May  20,  So  brutal  was  the  Yankee  visitation 
in  Charles  City  that  even  the  infamous  General  Butler  was  shocked. 
General  Wild  was  reprimanded  and  his  rampaging  troops  finally  brought 
under  control.  The  detained  planters  were  treated  with  "marked  respect" 
at  Fortress  Monroe  by  Butler  and  formal  charges  against  the  most 

489 


vicious  of  the  looters,  plunderers,  and  lashers  were  entertained  by 
Butler's  Provost  Marshal.  Clopton  promptly  preferred  charges  against 
General  Edward  A.  Wild.  Needless  to  say,  nothing  came  of  them.27 

When  Julia  learned  of  the  Yankee  deluge  in  Charles  City  she  im- 
mediately wrote  letters  to  General  Butler  and  to  President  Lincoln, 
signed  "Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler/'  asking  that  her  friend,  William 
Clopton,  and  her  plantation  manager,  John  C.  Tyler,  be  released  from 
prison  and  returned  to  their  farms.  They  were  needed  at  home  to  pro- 
tect what  property  remained.  The  presence  of  John  C.  Tyler  was  espe- 
cially required  at  Sherwood  Forest  to  give  comfort,  succor  and  protec- 
tion to  Miss  Maria  Tyler,  "the  delicate  orphan  girl . . .  exposed  to  a  fate 
I  dread  even  to  think  of."  Julia  pleaded  with  Lincoln:  "By  the  memory 
of  my  Husband,  and  what  you  must  be  assured  would  have  been  his 
course  in  your  place,  had  your  Wife  appealed  to  him,  remove  from  me 
these  causes  for  anxious  suspense."  Benjamin  Butler  may  have  been  the 
"Beast77  of  New  Orleans,  but  he  promptly  responded  to  Julia's  entreaty 
and  saw  to  it  that  Maria  Tyler  was  made  safe.  "For  your  prompt  action 
in  this  respect  I  owe  you  many  thanks,77  Julia  admitted.28 

Her  plea  to  the  President  was  less  expeditiously  processed.  Lincoln 
referred  Julia's  letter  to  General  Butler  and  he  in  turn  forwarded  it  back 
to  Colonel  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advocate  General,  in  Washington  with 
a  request  for  instructions.  Holt,  meantime,  had  received  a  direct  tongue- 
lashing  from  Julia  protesting  the  whipping  of  Clopton  and  the  "complete 
dismantlement  of  Sherwood  Forest."  She  demanded,  as  the  widow  of  a 
former  President  of  the  United  States,  immediate  restoration  of  "the 
resources  of  which  I  have  been  suddenly  and  violently  deprived.77 
Thanks  in  part  to  the  former  First  Lady's  paper  barrage,  John  C.  Tyler 
and  Clopton  were  finally  released,  Clopton  in  late  June,  Tyler  in  mid- 
July. 

But  while  this  round-robin  correspondence  was  in  progress,  Sher- 
wood Forest  was  turned  over  to  local  Negroes  and  they  sacked  its  in- 
terior. Early  in  June  General  Wild  placed  the  plantation  house  in  the 
possession  of  two  of  the  Tyler  slaves,  Randolph  and  Burwell.  Within  a 
few  days  the  house  furnishings  had  disappeared.  Beds  were  carted  off, 
marble  table  tops  were  smashed,  and  furniture  was  removed  to  the 
open-air  Negro  camp  Wild  had  established  near  his  command  post  at 
Kennon's  Landing.  Sofas  were  stripped  of  their  velvet  and  "mirrors 
crushed  all  to  atoms.7'  Busts  and  windows  were  broken.  "Old  Fanny  was 
the  leader  in  tearing  down  the  curtains  and  gathering  things  up  gen- 
erally,77 Clopton  reported.  Randolph,  Burwell,  and  some  half-dozen 
other  Negroes  from  surrounding  plantations  (the  remaining  Tyler  slaves 
had  run  aimlessly  off)  temporarily  moved  their  women  and  children 
into  the  debris.  Under  Wild's  orders  the  Sherwood  Forest  barns  and 
smokehouses  still  standing  were  opened  to  the  drifting  neighborhood 
Negroes  and  the  last  of  the  livestock  was  seized  and  distributed  among 

490 


them.  "They  kill  a  hog  nearly  every  day.  The  negroes  have  eaten  all  the 
sheep  that  were  left  and  the  hogs  and  are  now  going  on  upon  the  neigh- 
bor's stock."  Structurally,  the  main  house  was  not  harmed  beyond  a 
few  smashed  windows  and  a  split  door  or  two,  but  the  plantation  itself 
was  rendered  a  wasteland.  The  white  laborer,  Oakley,  was  "no  better 
than  the  negroes,"  and  he  joyously  joined  in  the  plunder.  When  John  C. 
returned  to  Sherwood  in  mid- July  the  Negro  occupants  sassily  refused 
to  vacate  the  main  house.  "Give  up  nothing  to  anyone,"  Wild  had  in- 
structed them.29 

When  she  received  the  news  of  General  Wild's  arrogance  Julia 
wrote  the  White  House:  "Will  President  Lincoln  have  the  kindness  to 
inform  Mrs.  (Ex-President)  Tyler  whether  her  home  on  the  James  River 
can  be  withdrawn  from  the  hands  of  the  negroes,  who  were  placed  in 
possession  of  it  by  Gen.  Wild,  and  restored  to  the  charges  of  her  man- 
ager, Mr.  J.  C.  Tyler  . . .  [even]  though  her  estate  has  been  subjected 

to  wreck  and  devastation  within  doors  and  without "  While  she  was 

in  the  letter-writing  mood  she  also  demanded  of  Lincoln  that  the  govern- 
ment either  vacate  Villa  Margaret  or  begin  paying  rent  for  using  it. 
These  requests  were  also  referred  by  the  President  to  General  Butler, 
who  had  already  received  similar  missives  directly  from  Julia.  Under 
this  bombardment  of  pen  and  ink  from  Staten  Island  and  Washington, 
Butler  undertook  an  investigation  into  Julia's  complaints.  General  Wild 
assured  his  commanding  officer  that  he  had  placed  no  impediment  in  the 
way  of  John  C.  Tyler's  recovery  of  the  estate.  As  for  the  Negroes  living 
there,  they  were,  said  Wild,  merely  " three  colored  men  (two  old  and 
one  middle-aged)  with  their  families,  said  to  be  claimed  by  Mrs.  Tyler  as 
her  servants,  who  now  live  as  they  have  done  for  many  years  upon  the 
estate  of  the  late  Mr.  Tyler. . , .  They  have  cultivated  some  portion  of 
the  estate  and  I  suppose  desire  to  reap  where  they  have  sown."  This 
view,  endorsed  by  Butler,  became  the  official  one  and  was  made  known 
to  Julia  in  September.30 

The  federal  authorities  at  Fortress  Monroe  did  not  see  fit  to  inform 
Julia  that  the  downstairs  rooms  of  Sherwood  Forest  had  been  converted 
into  a  temporary  schoolhouse  for  "negroes  and  whites"  in  June.  This 
distressing  information  came  from  William  H.  Clopton,  whose  release 
from  the  Fortress  Julia  had  been  instrumental  in  securing  and  whose 
wife,  Lu  Clopton,  had  given  Maria  Tyler  refuge  in  her  home  during  the 
upheaval  in  Charles  City  in  May.  "It  is  occupied  yet  as  a  School  house/' 
William  wrote  Julia  on  July  i.  "The  trees  are  nearly  all  destroyed  and 
a  good  many  houses  erected  around  the  lot.  The  land  is  all  ploughed  up 
and  cultivated  pretty  close  to  the  Dwelling.  The  house  looked  to  be  in 
very  good  repair  outside  as  far  as  I  could  see  from  the  road."  31 

Sherwood  Forest  was  not  unique  under  the  new  order  of  things  in 
Charles  City  County.  An  entire  social  system  had  disappeared  overnight. 
The  two-to-one  Negro  majority  in  name  had  become  a  two-to-one 

491 


majority  in  fact.  King  Numbers  was  enthroned.  The  whites  were  stunned 
and  bewildered  by  the  swiftness  of  the  revolution.  When  planter  Clop- 
ton's  slaves  denounced  him  and  had  him  thrashed  by  Negro  soldiers,  his 
reaction  was  outrage.  But  when  his  servants  fled  his  property,  his  feeling 

was  indifferent.  "The  loss  of  my  negroes  gives  me  no  concern 

My  feelings  have  been  so  changed  in  regard  to  them  that  I  don't  feel 
that  I  ever  care  to  see  another."  Julia  felt  much  the  same  way.  When 
Celia  Johnson,  her  Negro  maid  on  Staten  Island,  asked  to  be  sent  home 
to  Charles  City,  Julia  did  nothing  to  dissuade  her.  She  arranged  the 
necessary  pass  with  Butler's  headquarters.  She  too  had  had  enough  of 
Negroes.  The  benevolent  paternalism  of  the  plantation  system  was  dead, 
casually  abandoned  by  the  very  people  it  had  sought  to  civilize.  Julia 
felt  that,  having  bitten  the  hand  that  fed  them,  the  ungrateful  Negroes 
could  begin  looking  after  themselves  on  a  free-enterprise  basis.  She  was 
through  with  them.32 

Among  the  numerous  tidings  of  disaster  that  wended  north  to 
Julia  from  Charles  City  during  the  summer  of  1864,  none  distressed 
her  so  much  as  the  sudden  marriage  of  Maria  Tyler  to  a  Yankee 
soldier.  Soon  after  the  Union  Army  overran  Charles  City  and  turned 
Sherwood  Forest  over  to  the  local  Negroes,  Julia  received  a  pitiful 
letter  from  the  frightened  woman  asking  to  be  allowed  to  come  to 
Staten  Island.  She  was  sick  and  she  was  panicky,  and  with  Clopton 
and  John  C.  Tyler  both  incarcerated  in  Fortress  Monroe  she  was  also 
helpless.  "I  do  not  know  what  is  to  become  of  me"  she  moaned  to 
Julia.  "My  health  is  feeble,  very  [and]  ...  I  am  surprised  that  you  do 

not  seem  yet  to  understand  the  complete  wreck  at  Sherwood Wish  I 

could  have  an  interview  if  only  of  one  hour's  duration  with  you,  dearest 
of  all  friends — perhaps  you  could  then  form  a  more  correct  idea  of  my 
desolate  condition . . .  provisions  are  scarce  I  assure  you — almost  to 
starvation.  The  prospect  is  gloomy  in  the  extreme."  Julia  had  a  lively 
imagination  when  it  came  to  THE  FATE  WORSE  THAN  DEATH.  In  a 
letter  to  the  New  York  Evening  Post  on  June  26  she  pictured  the 
twenty-seven-year-old  Maria  as  "a  delicate  orphan  girl . . .  deprived  of 
her  protector  and  exposed  to  the  terrible  vicinity  of  an  unscrupulous 
colored  soldiery."  She  was  naturally  much  relieved  when  Mrs.  Clopton 
took  Maria  in  at  Selwood,  more  relieved  when  she  later  learned  that 
Generals  Butler  and  Wild  had  consented  to  Maria's  departure  for  the 
North  whenever  she  wished  to  go.  Further,  the  Union  officers  assured 
Julia  the  girl  would  be  shielded  from  THE  FATE;  she  could  also  receive 
any  clothes  or  money  Julia  wished  to  send  to  her  through  Federal 
lines.  Thus  when  General  Wild  informed  Staten  Island  in  mid- June  that 
Maria  had  suddenly  decided  not  to  leave  Charles  City,  Julia  was 
puzzled.  But  she  accepted  Wild's  explanation  that  Maria  was  "liable 
to  haemorrage  [sic]  and  troubled  with  rheumatism."  83 

The  real  reason  for  Maria's  hesitancy  soon  became  apparent. 

492 


"Maria  is  married  to  a  little  Dutchman/'  Clopton  informed  Castleton 
Hill  in  shock  on  August  2, 

who  will  be  twenty  one  in  August  from  Buffalo,  N.Y.,  entirely  without  any  of 
the  civilities  of  life  about  him.  He  sits  in  the  parlor  or  dining  room  and  spits 
on  the  floor  as  though  he  was  outdoors.  When  I  got  home  [to  Selwood]  she 
had  made  it  all  up  to  suit  herself.  He  was  left  at  Mr.  Major's  in  hire  for  a 

guard Lu  thinks  it  awful  she  did  not  consult  anyone  about  it,  John 

[C.  Tyler]  nor  me. . . .  She  passed  herself  off  for  23 Mr.  James  Christian 

came  and  married  them. ...  He  spits  on  the  floor  and  piles  fish  bones  on  the 
table  around  his  plate — but  enough!  I  feel  that  I  am  lowered  in  the  world  by 
being  compelled  to  admit  such  a  thing  to  take  place  in  my  house.  But  the 
force  of  circumstances  could  not  be  overcome. 

"Beast"  Butler  filled  in  the  harrowing  details  for  Julia  a  few  days 
later.  The  happy  groom  who  spat  on  the  floor  was  Private  John  Kick 
of  Company  F,  2nd  Regiment,  New  York  Mounted  Rifles.  If  Julia  was 
to  see  no  humor  in  the  marriage,  Butler  did.  He  had  been  extremely 
polite  to  Julia  and  to  all  her  kin  in  Charles  City.  Every  possible  con- 
sideration had  been  extended  them  by  his  headquarters,  even  while  he 
was  brilliantly  botching  up  Grant's  campaign  before  Richmond.  Ben- 
jamin F.  Butler  was  one  of  the  most  incompetent  general  officers  ever 
to  wear  a  United  States  Army  uniform.  But  he  knew  something  of  the 
intense  Gardiner-Tyler  concern  with  proper  marriage  alliances,  and  he 
could  not  resist  the  comment  that  Julia  need  no  longer  worry  about 
Maria's  virtue.  In  Private  John  Kick,  Maria  Tyler  had  at  last  found 
"a  natural  protector." 

I  have  just  taken  measures  to  give  the  bridegroom  a  furlough  to  spend  the 
honeymoon  in.  This  step  of  Miss  Tyler's  may  tend  to  relieve  your  mind  of 
any  anxiety  as  to  her  health  which  you  have  suffered  for  some  time  past. 
Allow  me  my  dear  Madam  to  congratulate  you  upon  so  loyal  an  alliance  of 
your  relative  and  so  happy  a  recovery  of  her  health. 

Julia  was  no  amateur  in  the  barbed-words  game.  Declining  Butler's 
offer  of  a  pass  to  come  to  Charles  City  to  visit  the  newlyweds,  she 
testily  informed  him  that  poor  Maria  had  for  some  weeks  been 

bordering  on  insanity.  The  terrible  scenes  she  depicted  [in  her  last  letter] 
have  evidently  banished  reason  from  its  throne.  Otherwise  I  think  she  would 
have  braved  the  starvation  which  by  her  account  stared  her  in  the  face,  or  met 
death  in  any  form  rather  than  have  taken  the  step  of  which  you  inform  me. 
It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  the  loyalty  of  her  husband  to  which  you 
particularly  allude  will  soon  promote  him  to  high  military  rank. . .  ,34 

The  Cloptons  would  not  let  Maria  bring  her  Yankee  husband  to 
live  with  them  at  Selwood,  and  they  ordered  her  from  their  home.  Mrs. 
Henry  Holt  of  Charles  City  at  last  took  the  girl  in,  but  she  would 
not  accept  Maria's  bridegroom  in  her  house  either.  It  did  not  matter 

493 


in  the  long  run.  Private  Kick  was  shortly  arrested  by  Union  military 
police  and  sent  out  of  the  area  when  it  was  discovered  he  already  had 
a  wife  in  New  York  state.  The  "marriage"  therefore  was  bigamous  and 
illegal  from  the  beginning. 

While  the  marital  exploitation  of  the  hapless  Maria  was  under 
•way,  Julia  in  New  York  and  Major  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  in  Richmond 
wrote  various  newspapers  in  the  North  and  South  announcing  to  one 
.and  all  that  Maria  Tyler  was  neither  the  daughter  nor  the  "adopted 
daughter"  (as  the  New  York  Herald  had  identified  her)  of  the  tenth 
President.  James  A.  Semple  advanced  the  theory  that  Maria  had  mar- 
ried the  Yankee  soldier  as  part  of  a  plot  to  seize  Sherwood  Forest: 
"Maria's  plan  was  to  marry  and  then  quietly  settle  at  Sherwood  as 
.owner  of  it  and  if  the  war  lasted  long  enough  possession  would  have 

given  her  the  right She  is  a  bigger  goose  than  I  gave  her  credit 

tfor."  This  thesis,  wrongheaded  as  it  was,  was  generally  accepted  within 
the  embarrassed  family.  That  Maria  was  a  frightened,  insecure,  half- 
isick,  hungry,  confused,  unmarried  twenty-seven  seems  not  to  have 
occurred  to  anyone  as  a  possible  explanation  of  her  strange  behavior. 
JBut  the  initial  shock  of  the  thing  was  a  little  too  much  to  absorb. 
Virginia  ladies  normally  did  not  marry  common  Yankee  soldiers  in  the 
middle  of  the  Civil  War.35 


The  opening  of  Grant's  spring  campaign  of  1864  in  Virginia  put 
ran  end  to  Gardie's  helpless  struggle  with  Tacitus  and  Xenophon  at 
Washington  College.  Franz  Sigel's  drive  up  the  Shenandoah  in  May 
produced  a  manpower  crisis  in  western  Virginia  of  serious  proportions. 
To  help  stem  the  Union  tide  in  the  Valley  the  young  Cadets  of  the 
Virginia  Military  Institute,  boys  fifteen  to  seventeen,  were  hastily 
marched  north  to  New  Market  and  attached  to  General  John  C. 
Breckinridge's  command.  At  the  Battle  of  New  Market  on  May  15  they 
"behaved  splendidly,  driving  the  enemy  off  the  field  and  capturing  6 
pieces  of  artillery."  Gardie  watched  them  form  up  and  march  out  of 
their  barracks  the  night  they  left  Lexington  for  New  Market,  hopes 
high,  drums  throbbing.  So  many  of  his  friends  were  among  them.  "I 
would  have  liked  so  much  to  have  been  with  them/'  he  lamented  to 
!his  mother.  "None  of  the  Cadets  were  killed  that  I  was  acquainted  with. 
Only  five  were  killed  and  forty  wounded."  30 

The  defeat  of  the  hapless  Sigel  at  New  Market  and  his  retreat 
north  to  Cedar  Creek  seemed  for  a  moment  to  write  finis  to  the  Valley 
campaign  of  1864.  A  large  segment  of  General  Breckinridge's  force  in 
western  Virginia  was  confidently  deployed  to  the  Richmond  area  to 
reinforce  the  beleaguered  Lee.  Brigadier  General  William  E.  Jones  was 
left  in  the  Valley,  headquarters  in  Lynchburg,  with  little  more  than  a 
scratch  army  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  battered  enemy.  The  replacement 
<of  Sigel  by  Union  General  David  Hunter  caused  no  particular  alarm 

494 


in  Jones'  undermanned  camp.  Hunter  was  known  to  be  no  Bonaparte 
even  though  he  could  muster,  all  told,  some  18,000  men  to  oppose  the 
6000  Rebels  left  in  the  Shenandoah.  It  was  therefore  a  matter  of  some 
surprise  to  Confederate  commanders  in  the  Valley  to  learn  in  late  May 
that  the  unskilled  Hunter  actually  harbored  notions  of  offensive  warfare 
and  was  preparing  an  advance  south  from  Woodstock  into  the  Staunton- 
Harrisonburg  area. 

On  May  26  the  Rockbridge  reserves,  old  men  and  young  boys, 
including  among  the  boys  Gardie  Tyler  and  a  number  of  other  Washing- 
ton College  students,  were  called  to  the  colors  and  marched  north  to 
Staunton  on  what  was  identified  at  the  outset  as  a  routine  "training 
operation"  in  the  field.  They  reached  Staunton  on  May  29,  the  same 
day  Hunter's  army  of  8500  departed  Woodstock  for  Harrisonburg.  This 
ominous  movement  of  the  Yankees  put  an  end  to  all  prospects  of  a 
training  exercise.  Instead,  General  Jones  ordered  the  attachment  of 
the  untried  Rockbridge  troops  to  his  force  as  combat  reinforcements 
while  he  hastily  moved  his  meagerly  supplemented  little  army  north- 
ward from  Lynchburg  to  stern  the  Yankee  plunge  up  the  Valley.  For 
nearly  a  week,  from  May  29  to  June  4,  the  Rockbridge  soldiers 
marched,  countermarched  and  prepared  fortifications  near  Mount  Craw- 
ford, Virginia,  under  Jones'  command,  as  the  Confederate  general 
maneuvered  to  stay  between  Hunter  and  Staunton.  Into  this  exciting 
real-war  situation  Gardie  joined  enthusiastically.  He  had  learned  of  the 
sacking  of  Sherwood  Forest  before  leaving  Lexington,  and  he  burned 
with  vengeance  as  he  waited  impatiently  to  come  to  grips  with  Hunter's 
despicable  Yankees. 

Unhappily  for  young  Tyler,  he  reported  sick  with  "ague  and  fever" 
on  June  2  and  was  ordered  by  the  surgeon  to  a  military  hospital  in 
Staunton.  He  therefore  luckily  missed  the  disastrous  Battle  of  Piedmont 
(variously  called  Mount  Meridian  and  New  Hope)  eleven  miles  north- 
east of  Staunton  on  Sunday,  June  5.  Here  a  superior  Union  force  of 
8500  flanked  the  Confederate  right,  crushed  it,  rolled  it  up,  and  drove 
the  stunned  Confederates  streaming  from  the  field  in  disarray.  It  was 
Hunter's  finest  hour.  General  Jones  himself  died  in  the  fight.  In  addi- 
tion to  460  Confederates  killed  and  some  1450  wounded,  more  than 
1000  Rebels  were  taken  prisoner.  Jones'  mixed  arrny  of  5600  regulars 
and  reserves  practically  disintegrated  under  the  shock  of  the  Union 
attack.  "Gen.  Wm.  E.  Jones  was  in  command  on  our  side,"  Gardie 
dejectedly  wrote  his  mother,  "and  altho'  he  was  a  brave  man  and  a 
fine  cavalry  officer  yet  he  showed  himself  to  be  no  infantry  leader. 
He  was  killed  in  the  battle  while  gallantly  striving  to  rally  his  men. 
The  reserves  fought  with  the  steadiness  of  regular  troops  and  were  the 
last  to  give  way.  They  suffered  severely.  We  lost  i  killed,  3  wounded 
and  two  captured  out  of  our  company." 

The  decisive  defeat  at  Piedmont  opened  Staunton  to  the  enemy. 

495 


At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  night  of  June  5  Gardie  hastily  fled  the  hos- 
pital there  and  made  his  way  by  carriage  to  nearby  Waynesboro,  where 
he  managed  to  rejoin  his  retreating  comrades.  He  narrowly  missed  being 
captured  by  Hunter's  victorious  army  when  it  entered  Staunton  at 
2  A.M.  on  the  sixth  and  took  prisoner  400  sick  and  wounded  Con- 
federate soldiers  caught  in  the  town.  Dispirited  and  dejected,  and 
somewhat  disabused  of  the  widespread  Southern  myth  that  one  Rebel 
soldier  in  the  field  was  somehow  worth  ten  Yankees,  Gardie  straggled 
southward  through  Rockfish  Gap  toward  Lynchburg  with  his  unit,  now 
temporarily  under  the  command  of  Brigadier  General  John  C.  Vaughn. 
Meanwhile,  Lee  detached  General  Breckinridge  and  his  division  from 
the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  and  rushed  them  by  forced  marches  to 
the  defense  of  crucial  Lynchburg,  the  southern  anchor  of  the  entire 
Valley  defense  system. 

Fortunately  for  the  Confederate  cause  in  the  Shenandoah,  the  con- 
quering Hunter  suddenly  developed  a  severe  case  of  hesitancy,  the  pe- 
culiar tactical  malady  that  so  frequently  debilitated  Union  generalship 
throughout  the  Civil  War.  Instead  of  vigorously  pursuing  the  beaten 
and  retreating  Confederates  directly  south  through  Rockfish  Gap  to- 
ward Lynchburg,  Hunter  rested  a  day  in  Staunton  and  then  marched 
obliquely  southwestward  to  Lexington.  There  he  casually  frittered  away 
another  two  days  accomplishing  little  but  the  vindictive  burning  of 
V.M.I,  and  the  home  of  Governor  John  Letcher  on  June  12-13.  Wash- 
ington College  was  also  sacked  by  Hunter's  soldiers.  Its  science  equip- 
ment was  destroyed,  its  library  scattered,  doors  and  windows  were 
broken,  geological  and  fossil  specimens  were  thrown  around  the  campus 
like  rocks,  and  army  horses  were  stabled  in  the  college  dormitory.  By 
the  time  the  dilatory  general  finally  appeared  before  Lynchburg  on 
June  17,  Breckinridge  had  reached  the  town.  Jubal  A.  Early  and  his 
Second  Corps,  also  detached  by  Lee  from  the  Richmond  theater  and 
rushed  to  Lynchburg,  were  arriving  in  the  area,  elaborate  trenches  and 
fortifications  had  been  dug,  and  Confederate  forces  in  the  Valley  had 
been  thoroughly  reorganized.  A  frontal  assault  by  Hunter  on  the  Lynch- 
burg trenches  on  June  18  produced  no  more  than  a  small-scale  Union 
blood  bath  and  an  opportunity  for  young  Gardie  Tyler  to  shoot  at  the 
hated  Yankees  at  last — and  from  the  relative  safety  of  a  shoulder- 
deep  rifle  pit  at  that.  Following  his  predictable  repulse  at  Lynchburg, 
the  confused  Hunter  withdrew  westward  through  Salem  and  into  West 
Virginia,  hotly  pursued  by  Early.  This  foolish  tactic  abandoned  the 
entire  Shenandoah  Valley  to  the  Confederates  and  virtually  ended  the 
summer  campaign  in  the  region.  What  had  opened  brilliantly  for  the 
Union  commander  at  Piedmont  ended  in  a  gloom  rivaling  that  which 
gripped  the  Yankee  army  following  Sigel's  disaster  at  New  Market. 

By  the  time  Gar  die's  unit  returned  again  to  Lexington  to  be  de- 
mobilized in  late  June  the  inadequate  Hunter  was  wandering  aimlessly 

496 


and  ineffectually  through  the  West  Virginia  mountains.  He  had,  how- 
ever, left  his  mark  on  Lexington.  Gardie  found  the  proud  V.M.I,  re- 
duced to  "a  mass  of  ruins."  The  Yankee  visit  to  the  little  town  had 
also  terminated  the  semester  at  Washington  College.  The  institution 
was  in  no  fit  condition  to  function,  although  some  students  stayed  on  to 
complete  the  disrupted  term.  The  desolation  of  the  rifled  campus  and 
the  excitement  of  the  jaunt  to  Staunton  and  Lynchburg  and  back  com- 
bined to  convince  Gardie  that  he  could  not  return  to  the  stricken  col- 
lege in  the  fall  "I  am  going  to  join  the  Drewry's  Bluff  battery,"  he 
told  his  mother  firmly.  "You  must  get  over  the  notion  that  I  am  only 
a  child  for  indeed  I  feel  fully  able  to  take  care  of  myself."  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  had  become  a  soldier  and  a  man  simultaneously.  On 
July  12,  1864,  he  turned  eighteen.37 

Gardie  arrived  in  Richmond  from  Lexington  on  July  23  and 
moved  into  a  flat  occupied  by  James  A.  Sernple.  The  capital  was 
quiet  and  confident  still,  and  young  Tyler  expressed  to  Harry  Beeckman 
something  of  its  defiant  mood: 

From,  present  appearances  one  would  infer  that  the  war  is  fast  drawing  to  an 
end,  but  appearances  are  deceitful  sometimes;  God  grant  it  may  be  so  this 
time.  Still,  if  our  enemies  are  determined  on  war  we  are  better  prepared  than 
ever  before  to  meet  the  shock.  Our  cry  will  be,  and  is:  "Come  one,  Come  all  I" 

This  is  not  the  language  of  a  few  enthusiasts  only  but  of  the  whole  nation 

The  Northern  people  are  at  last  coming  to  their  senses  and  begin  to  see  the 
war  in  its  true  light.  They  have  only  two  alternatives  upon  which  to  decide 
and  those  are:  peace  or  subjugation  of,  not  the  South,  but  of  the  North  itself, 
for  they  are  fast  losing  every  vestige  of  their  former  boasted  freedom  and 
are  lapsing  into  a  despotism  worse  than  that  of  Russia.88 

There  were,  more  persuasively,  solid  military  reasons  for  the  op- 
timism felt  in  Richmond  that  the  war  might  yet  be  brought  to  an  end 
by  a  negotiated  peace  recognizing  Confederate  independence.  By  Sep- 
tember 1864  Grant's  casualties  in  the  Wilderness,  at  Spotsylvania,  and 
at  Cold  Harbor  had  added  up  to  a  total  so  staggering  that  the  bloody 
record  had  been  introduced  into  the  1864  Presidential  campaign  as  an 
anti-Lincoln  issue.  Unable  to  take  Richmond  by  frontal  assault,  Grant 
had  slipped  around  the  city  to  the  east  and  south  in  June  and  laid 
siege  to  Petersburg  in  an  attempt  to  enter  Richmond  by  the  back  door. 
By  the  end  of  July  this  maneuver  had  bogged  down  in  the  trenches  be- 
fore Petersburg.  Butler's  Peninsula  campaign  had  also  come  to  grief. 
Badly  mauled  by  an  inferior  force  under  General  Beauregard  in  June, 
the  incompetent  Butler  had  managed  to  get  himself  locked  up  in  the 
Bermuda  Hundred  Peninsula  on  the  James  River  some  thirty  miles  be- 
low Richmond  where,  in  the  words  of  one  historian,  his  army  was 
"actually  as  much  out  of  the  war  as  if  they  had  been  transported  bodily 
to  South  America."  In  the  Shenandoah  Valley  Sigel's  defeat  at  New 
Market  in  May,  followed  by  the  containment  of  Hunter  before  Lynch- 

497 


burg  in  June,  might  not  have  been  such  a  Union  disaster  had  not 
Hunter  stupidly  withdrawn  from  Lynchburg  to  the  west.  This  un- 
covered the  Valley  and  permitted  Jubal  Early's  daring  and  psycho- 
logically satisfying  raid  to  within  five  miles  of  Washington  on  July 
ii.  Only  Sherman  in  Georgia  had  met  with  success  in  the  1864  summer 
campaigns.  But  if  Atlanta  was  under  his  guns  on  September  i,  Rich- 
mond, for  the  moment  at  least,  was  safe.  Ringed  by  powerful  entrench- 
ments and  batteries,  the  Confederate  capital  appeared  inviolable.39 

After  discussing  the  matter  thoroughly  with  Semple,  Gardie  de- 
cided to  join  one  of  the  artillery  units  protecting  Richmond.  As  a  soldier 
in  the  Virginia  Home  Guard,  he  had  been  assigned  duty  guarding 
prisoners  at  the  Libby  Prison  shortly  after  his  arrival  in  town  in  late 
July.  This  he  found  to  be  uninteresting  and  unheroic  work.  Therefore 
on  September  i  he  volunteered  for  service  in  the  Rockbridge  Battery, 
a  distinguished  artillery  unit  which  had  earned  much  glory  earlier  in 
the  war  when  attached  to  the  famous  Stonewall  Brigade  under  Jackson. 
At  one  time  it  had  been  commanded  by  Lee's  son,  G.  W.  C.  Lee.  It  was 
now  under  the  direction  of  Captain  Edward  Graham.  Former  Maryland 
Senator  William  D.  Merrick's  son  and  other  young  men  of  quality 
served  in  its  enlisted  ranks.  When  Gardie  joined  it  the  outfit  was  at- 
tached to  A.  P.  Hill's  command  and  was  stationed  fourteen  miles  below 
Richmond  at  Deep  Bottom.  The  unit,  as  Gardie  assessed  its  multiple 
advantages,  was  "so  convenient  to  Richmond"  and  was  "composed  of 
gentlemen  of  the  best  standing  belonging  to  the  F.F.V.'s."  Several  of 
Gardie's  classmates  had  also  joined  the  Rockbridge  Battery,  so  there 
was  something  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  Washington  College  alumni 
reunion  about  the  whole  enlistment  venture. 

For  the  next  few  months  David  Gardiner  Tyler  served  with  the 
Battery  in  various  defensive  positions  around  Richmond.  During  these 
months  he  quieted  Julia's  fears  with  constant  assurances  that  he  was 
in  no  danger  whatever.  Save  for  shelling  an  occasional  Federal  gun- 
boat on  the  river,  the  Battery  had  little  to  do.  The  food  served  the 
gunners  was  good.  There  was  ample  coffee  and  sugar  in  the  battery 
mess.  Guard  duty  was  light  and  leaves  into  town  were  frequent.  "My 
dear  mother  do  not  be  anxious  about  me,"  he  wrote  her,  "for  you  know 
that  I  am  just  as  safe  where  I  arn  as  I  would  be  were  I  at  a  peaceful 
home. . . .  The  artillery  is  by  far  the  easiest  service. ...  I  would  have 
been  ashamed  to  show  my  face  if,  after  we  had  gained  our  independ- 
ence, it  should  be  said  that  I  did  not  assist  to  establish  it Further- 
more I  like  soldiering  first  rate."  40 

His  brother  Alex  thought  he  would  like  soldiering  first-rate,  too. 
As  early  as  April  1864  he  began  nagging  Julia  to  be  permitted  to  go 
south  and  join  his  brother  so  that  he  too  might  "take  my  stand  in 
Dixie's  land,  to  live,  fight  and  die  in  Dixie's  land."  Translating  Sallust 
bored  him.  It  was  no  decent  occupation  for  a  red-blooded,  no-per-cent 

498 


Confederate  patriot  all  of  sixteen  years  old.  He  wanted  to  massacre 
Yankees.  Julia  pleaded  with  her  son  not  to  go.  But  he  insisted,  and 
she  finally  gave  way — after  Alex  had  run  away  from  home  in  mid- April 
and  gone  to  Baltimore,  determined  to  leave  for  Virginia  whether  his 
mother  approved  or  not.  Brought  back  to  Staten  Island,  he  was  pun- 
ished for  disobedience.  This  formality  attended  to,  Julia  then  reluc- 
tantly helped  him  make  plans  to  leave  for  the  South.  She  made  him 
promise  her,  however,  that  he  would  join  the  Confederate  Navy  rather 
than  the  high-casualty-rate  infantry.  For  a  moment  in  July  1864  she 
considered  going  south  with  him.  She  was  at  this  juncture  very  much 
worried  about  Maria  Tyler  (whose  "marriage"  to  Private  Kick  had 
not  yet  taken  place),  and  she  thought  she  might  be  able  to  salvage 
something  from  the  reported  chaos  at  Sherwood  Forest.  But  Semple 
strongly  advised  her  against  the  trip.  "I  do  not  want  you  to  run  the 
risk  even  of  being  maltreated  by  the  Feds,  much  less  by  the  abominable 
Yankee  darkies  who  would  be  all  around  you,"  he  warned.  So  Alex 
departed  New  York  for  Halifax  alone  in  July,  determined  to  join  the 
Confederate  Navy  when  he  reached  Richmond.  Arriving  in  Bermuda 
from  Halifax  on  July  31,  he  contacted  Major  Norman  Walker,  who  saw 
that  he  got  aboard  the  speedy  CSS  Mary  Celestia,  Lieutenant  Arthur 
Sinclair,  CSN,  sailing  for  Wilmington  on  August  3.  As  he  observed 
Confederate  naval  officers  strolling  in  the  streets  of  St.  George,  Alex 
decided  the  makeshift  naval  uniform  Julia  had  fitted  him  out  with  in 
New  York  "will  not  do  at  all."  He  told  his  mother  to  send  him  gold 
lace,  gray  cloth,  a  Bowditch  Navigation  text,  and,  most  important,  a 
dress  sword.  And  to  do  it  promptly.41 

By  his  own  account,  Alex  had  a  perfectly  "bully  time  coming 
through  the  blockade,  and  boy  the  old  Yanks  were  as  thick  as  bees 
round  a  man's  head  when  he  goes  to  get  the  honey;  but  they  didn't 
happen  to  see  us  ere  they  were  all  after  the  privateer  Tallahassee  who 
was  agoing  out  when  we  was  acoming  in."  For  sixteen  days,  however, 
the  grammatically  retrograde  patriot  was  quarantined  aboard  the  Mary 
Celestia  "because  we  had  the  yaller  fever  on  board."  Not  until  August 
26  did  Alex  walk  casually  into  his  brother's  tent  at  Camp  Lee  where 
Gardie  was  living  while  he  was  attached  to  the  Libby  Prison  guard 
detail. 

It  was  a  happy  reunion,  and  it  called  for  a  family  conference. 
Semple  made  it  clear  to  Alex,  and  later  in  a  letter  to  Julia,  that  the 
boy  would  have  great  difficulty  securing  a  midshipman's  warrant. 
Few  midshipman  appointments  were  being  made  in  September  1864  as 
the  Confederate  Navy  fast  disappeared  from  the  seas.  Nevertheless, 
Semple  arranged  personal  interviews  for  Alex  with  President  and  Mrs. 
Davis  and  with  the  Confederate  Secretaries  of  the  Navy  and  the 
Treasury.  "Strong  influences"  were  thus  brought  to  bear  in  behalf  of 
Alex's  naval  ambitions,  but  to  no  avail.  He  was,  Semple  argued,  "en- 

499 


tirely  too  young  to  enter  the  Army  and  it  is  not  desirable  that  he 
should  do  so."  And  since  he  could  not  get  into  the  Navy,  Semple 
recommended  to  Julia  that  the  youngster  be  sent  to  Washington  Col- 
lege for  the  fall  semester.  In  October  1864  the  embryonic  Confederate 
admiral  found  himself  right  back  at  his  Latin  translations.  He  was 
one  of  the  tiny  band  of  twenty-two  students  the  battered  institution 
enrolled  that  term.  He  remained  in  Lexington  until  December,  when 
the  threatened  closing  of  the  college  for  lack  of  students  brought  him 
back  again  to  Richmond  to  resume  his  vain  quest  for  a  midshipman's 
commission.42 

The  appearance  in  Richmond  of  Gardie  in  July  and  of  Alex  in 
August  1864  swelled  to  nine  the  number  of  adult  Tylers  in  the  city 
who  had  taken  their  stands  "in  Dixie's  land."  Present  in  the  beleaguered 
Confederate  capital  for  the  last  Christmas  of  the  war  were  Robert  and 
Priscilla,  John,  Jr.,  Dr.  Tazewell  Tyler  and  his  wife,  Nannie  Bridges 
Tyler,  and  James  A.  Semple  and  his  spouse,  Letitia  Tyler  Semple.  If 
they  disagreed  on  other  questions,  they  were  all  vigorous  Rebels. 
They  kept  the  remainder  of  their  relatives  and  in-laws  informed  of  their 
activities  and  the  progress  of  the  war.  The  shared  hardships  of  life  in 
a  city  virtually  cut  off  from  what  was  left  of  the  Confederacy  gave 
them  a  strong  degree  of  adhesion.  From  Gardie  and  Alex's  standpoint, 
Semple  was  the  linchpin  in  the  group.  He  gave  the  boys  their  room 
and  board  when  they  reached  Richmond,  arranged  their  financial  affairs, 
and  helped  them  with  their  military  ambitions.  "The  kindness  of 
Brother  James/7  Alex  told  his  mother,  "we  will  never  be  able  to  repay. 
He  is  the  best  man  that  ever  lived  without  any  exception.  I  love  him 
next  to  yourself  and  the  children."  Semple  did  all  he  could  for  the 
Tyler  boys,  and  through  him  Julia  maintained  close  contact  with  her 
sons  and  stepsons.  It  was  a  liaison  she  desperately  needed  after  Juliana 
died  in  October  1864  and  as  Julia's  relations  with  her  brother  came  to 
a  point  of  showdown  in  December  1864.  "I  am  so  sorry  to  hear  that 
you  are  likely  to  be  troubled  by  that  man,  Mr.  G.,"  Gardie  sympathized 
with  her.  "I  have  heard  of  his  cowardly  course  towards  you.  But  per- 
haps one  of  these  days  he  will  have  occasion  to  repent  it."  43 

-•ay^-^-^n*. 

David  Lyon's  course  toward  Julia  involved  his  decision  to  con- 
test the  deathbed  will  Juliana  left  when  she  expired  on  October  4,  1864. 
It  was,  indeed,  a  controversial  will  which  raised  the  legal  question  of 
whether  Julia  exerted  "undue  influence"  on  her  rapidly  failing  mother 
when  Juliana  formally  executed  the  document  a  bare  four  hours  before 
her  passing.  The  case  was  a  long  and  stormy  one.  Following  hearings 
before  the  Surrogate  Court  of  Richmond  County,  New  York,  hearings 
demanded  by  David  Lyon,  the  will  was  denied  admission  to  probate 
on  August  29,  1865,  on  the  ground  that  undue  influence  had  been  ex- 
ercised by  the  chief  beneficiary,  Julia,  on  the  testatrix.  Julia  promptly 

500 


carried  this  ruling  to  the  New  York  Supreme  Court.  There,  on  May 
18,  1866,  by  a  vote  of  4  to  o,  the  Surrogate's  decision  was  reversed 
and  the  will  ordered  admitted  to  probate.  David  Lyon,  in  turn,  ap- 
pealed the  Supreme  Court  decision  to  the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals, 
the  Empire  State's  highest  tribunal.  On  January  2,  1867,  the  Court  of 
Appeals  ruled,  in  a  controversial  s-to-3  decision,  that  the  will  was  void 
because  of  undue  influence.  Lacking  a  valid  will,  both  parties  then 
went  back  into  the  Supreme  Court  to  fight  over  the  actual  division  of 
the  estate.  A  compromise  was  eventually  hammered  out  on  October 
3,  1868.  This  gave  Julia  the  Castleton  Hill  house  and  three  eighths  of 
the  Gardiner  real  estate  in  downtown  New  York;  David  Lyon  got 
three  eighths  of  the  city  property;  and  Harry  Beeckman  received  one 
quarter.  The  financial  burdens  of  the  various  assessments,  taxes,  and 
mortgage  payments  on  and  against  the  estate  were  fairly  distributed 
along  these  fractional  lines,  as  was  the  income  from  the  inheritance. 
Personal  and  household  items  of  sentimental  value  were  also  divided 
equally.  To  help  heal  the  family  breach  opened  by  three  years  of 
bitter  litigation,(  the  1868  compromise  agreement,  on  its  face,  accepted 
the  principle  that  "the  last  will  and  testament  of  Juliana  Gardiner  shall 
be  deemed  and  adjudged  a  valid  instrument."  In  broad  outline,  this 
was  true.  The  fractional  grants  were  similar,  but  the  severe  restrictions 
on  David  Lyon's  enjoyment  of  his  three-eighths  share,  written  into  his 
mother's  1864  will,  were  properly  abolished. 

Actually,  the  final  compromise  in  1868  hewed  closer  in  spirit  to 
an  earlier  will  Juliana  had  drawn  in  1858,  after  Margaret's  death,  than 
it  did  to  her  deathbed  testament  six  years  later.  Under  the  prewar 
1858  will,  David  Lyon,  Julia,  and  Harry  were  each  to  have  received 
one  third  of  the  Gardiner  properties  in  New  York  City.  David  Lyon, 
however,  was  given  the  Castleton  Hill  property,  then  valued  at  $20,000, 
in  special  consideration  for  having  managed  his  mother's  legal  and 
financial  affairs  in  the  city  after  his  return  from  San  Diego  in  1851. 
But  since  he  was  also  saddled  with  carrying  the  $5000  mortgage  on 
the  Staten  Island  house,  this  extra  boon  under  the  original  will  was  not 
unreasonable — even  though  he  had  been  a  poor  manager  of  his  mother's 
interests.  Julia,  after  all,  would  eventually  inherit  Sherwood  Forest 
and  have  it  for  her  own  home  as  long  as  she  lived. 

The  deathbed  will  of  1864,  however,  was  quite  different  in  orienta- 
tion from  the  equitable  1858  document.  Under  its  provisions  Julia  re- 
ceived Castleton  Hill,  now  valued  at  $27,000,  while  David  Lyon  was 
charged  with  carrying  the  mortgage  payments  on  the  property.  Harry 
Beeckman  received  one  quarter  instead  of  one  third  of  the  residue  of 
the  estate.  The  remaining  three  quarters  were  divided  equally  between 
Julia  and  David  Lyon,  three  eighths  each,  but  with  the  proviso  that 
all  of  the  rental  income  and  interest  from  David  Lyon's  portion  was  to 
go  to  Julia  "until  her  losses  in  the  rebel  States  should  be  made  up  to 

501 


her"  by  the  federal  government  or  until  such  time  as  she  died.  Never- 
theless, David  Lyon  was  expected  to  shoulder  three  eighths  of  the  taxes, 
maintenance,  and  mortgage  payments  on  the  downtown  Gardiner  rental 
properties.  These  discriminatory  provisions  disappeared  in  the  final 
compromise  of  1868 — as  indeed  they  should  have.  In  addition,  under 
the  1864  will  Julia  was  named  Harry's  trustee  with  the  power  to  con- 
trol the  income  from  his  one-quarter  inheritance  until  he  attained  his 
majority  in  1869.  The  estate,  including  Castleton  Hill,  was  valued  at 
roughly  $180,000  in  1864.  Outstanding  mortgages  on  the  rental  parcels 
amounted  to  about  $35,000.  Steadily  increasing  in  market  value  under 
the  impact  of  Civil  War  prosperity,  it  was  an  estate  worth  fighting 
over. 

The  tragedy  of  the  contested  1864  will  was  that  it  was  unfair;  so 
unfair  that  it  raised  the  suspicion  (however  untrue)  of  a  dark  con- 
spiracy, mired  in  greed,  carried  out  by  a  Copperhead  subversive  against 
a  dutiful  and  patriotic  son  over  the  expiring  body  of  a  foolish  old  woman 
as  she  attempted  to  make  psychic  contact  wth  relatives  beyond  the 
grave  toward  which  she  herself  was  hastening.  The  will  might  have  been 
challenged  on  the  moral  ground  of  rank  inequity  rather  than  on  the 
tricky  undue-influence  proposition.  This  latter  emphasis  admitted  into 
consideration,  implicitly  and  explicitly,  numerous  political,  psychic, 
and  economic  irrelevancies.  Juliana  fully  appreciated  the  fact  that  the 
1864  arrangement  was  inequitable.  In  the  language  of  the  will  she 
pointed  to  Julia's  army  of  dependent  children  and  noted  that  her  daugh- 
ter, whom  she  admitted  she  was  consciously  favoring,  had  been  "sub- 
jected to  much  injury  and  loss  during  the  existing  war."  Sherwood 
Forest,  she  announced,  was  "in  ruins"  and  "could  afford  her  no  in- 
come— none  whatsoever." 

Actually,  Sherwood  Forest's  physical  wounds  were  more  super- 
ficial than  real,  a  fact  better  appreciated  in  1866  than  in  1864.  The 
main  house  remained  intact.  Only  the  fences  and  outbuildings  had  been 
destroyed.  The  furniture,  livestock,  and  farm  implements,  to  be  sure, 
had  been  carried  off.  It  was  true,  therefore,  that  the  plantation  might 
no  longer  be  expected  to  produce  a  livable  income  for  a  family  the 
size  of  Julia's.  Still,  the  garbled  and  excited  reports  on  the  condition 
of  the  plantation  which  Julia  received  from  Charles  City  in  the  late 
spring  and  early  summer  of  1864  were  grim  enough  to  convey  the  im- 
pression of  near-total  destruction  that  found  its  way  into  the  will.  As 
Juliana  told  Louisa  Cooper  three  months  before  she  died:  "Julia  is 
poor,  has  a  large  family  and  is  unprotected.  She  cannot  afford  to  be 
poor.  She  must  have  enough.  David  is  a  man  and  he  has  one  of  the 
handsomest  farms  on  the  island.  His  wife's  father  is  rich.  Don't  think 
that  I  don't  care  for  David,  but  I  must  take  care  of  Julia." 

That  David  Lyon  had  married  well  and  was  capable  of  sustain- 
ing himself  with  Thompson  money  was  but  one  of  the  irrelevancies 

502 


dragged  into  the  case.  Julia's  lawyers,  among  them  the  brilliant  William 
M.  Evarts,  later  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Hayes  administration,  made 
much  of  the  point  that  David  Lyon  had  managed  his  mother's  busi- 
ness and  legal  affairs  in  the  city  from  1851  until  his  expulsion  from  her 
household  in  February  1864  with  an  indifference  and  inefficiency 
bordering  on  the  chaotic,  and  that  he  really  deserved  no  more  than  the 
will  allowed  him.  This  charge  was  true.  David  Lyon  never  was  much 
of  a  businessman  or  a  lawyer.  But  the  argument  was  scarcely  germane 
to  the  undue-influence  charge.  Similarly  irrelevant  was  the  fact  that 
during  a  family  quarrel  in  January  1864  Gardiner  had  struck  his  sister 
and  knocked  her  senseless  to  the  floor. 

The  entire  case  was  also  conditioned,  if  not  actually  influenced, 
by  Julia's  arrant  Copperheadism  and  by  the  converse  fact  that  David 
Lyon  and  Sarah  were  loyal  Unionists  as  well  as  old-line  citizens  of 
wealth  and  social  standing  in  New  York  City.  Newspaper  accounts  of 
the  litigation,  as  it  made  its  weary  and  bitter  three-year  journey  through 
the  courts,  invariably  emphasized  Julia's  connection  with  the  deceased 
President  and  identified  him  as  one  of  Virginia's  leading  slavers  and 
secessionists.  On  the  other  hand,  David  Lyon  was  pictured  as  a  staunch 
American  patriot.  Indeed,  in  December  1864  he  threatened  to  have 
the  rest  of  the  members  of  the  Staten  Island  Board  of  Supervisors,  on 
which  body  he  served,  shipped  to  Fort  Lafayette  for  Copperhead  dis- 
loyalty. He  was  a  patriot's  patriot. 

Finally,  the  whole  question  of  undue  influence  was  not  nearly  so 
clear  in  the  law  of  1865-1867  as  it  would  be  a  century  later.  Not  that 
it  is  an  open-and-shut  proposition  today.  The  conflicting  legal  prec- 
edents offered  by  opposing  counsel  in  their  attempts  to  define  the  term 
were  inconclusive  to  the  point  of  mutual  cancellation.  The  plaintiff's 
case  thus  turned  essentially  on  specific  evidences  of  Julia's  actual 
physical  interference  in  the  drawing  and  signing  of  the  will,  with  a  view 
toward  demonstrating  that  the  degree  of  this  influence  constituted  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  of  a  premeditated  conspiracy.  The  main  con- 
tentions of  the  plaintiff  did  not  center  on  the  emotional  and  psycho- 
logical intent  of  the  parties  to  the  alleged  conspiracy. 

At  the  risk  of  pronouncing  a  gratuitous  obiter  dictum  on  the  case 
a  full  century  after  it  was  argued,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  there 
was  on  Julia's  part  no  conscious  intent  to  conspire.  While  her  actions 
did,  in  fact,  manifest  some  evidence  of  "influence"  over  her  dying 
mother,  Juliana  clearly  wanted  her  1864  will  to  read  exactly  as  it  did. 
The  deep  personal  relations  between  mother  and  daughter,  the  intimate 
tone  of  their  private  correspondence  during  the  Civil  War,  their  long 
concern  for  each  other's  health  and  welfare,  the  identity  and  similarity 
of  their  political  views,  their  mutual  concern  for  the  financial  fate  of 
Julia's  young  children  after  Tyler's  death  and  after  Sherwood  Forest 
was  plundered  and  its  labor  f orce  militarily  manumitted  all  support  the 

503 


contention  that  the  provisions  of  the  overturned  will  were  exactly 
what  the  dying  Juliana  wished  them  to  be.  The  fact  that  she  was 
desperately  ill  (organically,  not  mentally)  when  she  authorized  Julia 
to  have  the  document  drawn  did  not  necessarily  uphold  David  Lyon's 
argument  that  she  was  incapable  of  straight  thinking  because  disease 
had  reduced  her  will  power  to  jelly.  On  the  contrary,  Juliana  Mc- 
Lachlan  Gardiner  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-five  with  her  considerable  will 
power  still  intact.  And  while  she  imagined  herself  in  communication 
with  her  husband  and  her  departed  children,  that  quaint  notion  did 
not  establish  her  as  mentally  incompetent  in  a  legal  sense.  Much,  how- 
ever, was  made  of  her  psychic  peculiarity  by  David  Lyon's  counsel  and 
this  irrelevancy  found  its  way  into  the  majority  opinion  of  the  Court  of 
Appeals. 

It  was  the  specific  manner  in  which  the  will  was  executed  that 
brought  ultimately  the  undue-influence  decision  that  negated  it.  On 
the  surface  it  looked  bad.  For  several  months  prior  to  the  drawing  of 
the  will  Julia  had  been  writing  all  her  mother's  letters  for  her.  She 
also  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  closeted  with  her  mother  in  Juliana's 
sickroom.  Indeed,  Juliana  spoke  to  no  one  else.  She  relied  exclusively 
on  her  daughter  for  her  every  need  and  want.  She  appeared  to  be,  as 
the  plaintiff  later  argued,  under  Julia's  "influence"  -during  her  last 
months  on  earth. 

On  Saturday,  October  i,  when  it  appeared  Juliana  had  taken  a 
bad  turn,  Julia  wrote  out  certain  provisions  her  mother  wished  in- 
corporated in  a  new  will.  On  Monday  morning,  October  3,  tutor  Ralph 
Dayton  carried  these  suggestions  to  Mr.  Clark,  Juliana's  lawyer.  Clark 
called  at  Castleton  Hill  early  that  evening  and  said  he  could  not  pre- 
pare a  new  will  without  personal  instructions  from  the  devisor.  Julia 
told  him  to  return  the  following  morning  for  an  interview  with  her 
mother.  Accordingly,  at  9:30  A.M.  on  Tuesday,  October  4,  Clark  reached 
the  house  and  spoke  with  Juliana.  He  found  her  at  this  time  cogent, 
but  "exhausted,  vomiting,  weak,  signifying  her  wishes  and  assent  some- 
times by  words  and  sometimes  by  nods."  Nevertheless,  a  rational  con- 
versation ensued  during  which  the  lawyer  suggested  some  minor  changes 
from  Julia's  written  list  of  provisions.  He  promised  to  return  that  after- 
noon at  five  o'clock  with  the  finished  document. 

At  noon,  however,  Clark  was  instructed  by  a  messenger  from 
Julia  to  complete  the  work  at  once  and  come  quickly  to  the  house, 
as  Juliana  was  dying.  The  lawyer  arrived  at  2  P.M.  and  found  Juliana 
attended  by  Dr.  Rice,  an  Islip,  Long  Island,  physician  who  had  treated 
her  the  preceding  summer.  Julia  had  called  Rice  into  the  case  on 
Monday,  October  3.  That  evening  she  had  been  informed  by  the  doctor 
that  in  his  opinion  her  mother's  illness  was  terminal.  When  Clark 
reached  the  bedside  Juliana  was  indeed  so  far  gone  that  Julia  had  to 
hold  her  head  for  her  while  she  coughed  and  vomited.  She  could  not 

504 


speak.  Clark  read  the  finished  will  to  her  after  asking  Dr.  Rice  whether 
in  his  judgment  his  patient  still  possessed  the  ability  and  capacity  to 
make  a  will.  The  physician  said  he  thought  so.  As  Clark  read,  Juliana 
nodded  her  head  in  assent  to  the  provisions.  Julia  then  raised  her  mother 
up  and  held  her  steady  while  Juliana  affixed  her  signature.  Rice  and 
Dayton  then  signed  as  witnesses.  Juliana  slumped  back  in  the  bed.  Four 
hours  later,  at  6  P.M.  on  October  4,  1864,  the  powerful  matriarch  of 
the  Gardiner  family  passed  silently  away.  "I  am  so  happy  to  see  with 
what  Christian  fortitude  you  stand  the  blow,"  Gardie  sympathized  from 
Richmond.  "Oh!  how  I  wish  that  I  could  have  seen  her  before  her 
death."  David  Lyon  probably  wished  the  same  thing. 

At  no  time  during  these  final  crucial  days  and  hours  was  David 
Lyon  told  that  his  mother  was  dying,  or  summoned  to  her  house,  or 
informed  that  she  had  executed  a  new  will.  It  seems  clear,  as  David 
Lyon  argued  and  as  the  Court  of  Appeals  later  held,  that  Julia  had 
persuaded,  or  influenced,  her  mother  to  order  her  eldest  son  and  his 
family  away  from  Castleton  Hill  in  February  1864.  It  may  also  be  true 
(the  evidence  is  not  quite  so  conclusive)  that  Julia  somehow  induced, 
or  influenced,  her  mother  to  believe  that  David  Lyon  had  purchased  his 
Northfield  farm  in  1853  with  her  money.  If  so,  this  false  accusation 
on  the  part  of  the  daughter,  whatever  its  morality,  merely  compounded 
a  split  between  mother  and  son  produced  earlier  by  political  differ- 
ences and  the  tension  of  too  many  people  of  unlike  mind  and  habit 
living  together  under  the  same  roof.  In  any  event,  the  precise  relevance 
of  these  two  evidences  of  Julia's  "influence"  over  her  mother  remains 
obscure  in  a  case  turning  on  the  physical  execution  of  a  will  several 
months  later.  To  argue,  as  the  majority  opinion  of  the  New  York  Court 
of  Appeals  subsequently  did,  that  this  puissant  matron  was  "infirm 
of  purpose,  sick  and  old  . . .  imbued  with  false  impressions,  and  brought 
to  a  condition  of  nervous  and  causeless  suspicion  and  alarm"  by  a 
Machiavellian  daughter  under  whose  nefarious  influence  she  supinely 
ordered  and  executed  her  will,  is,  in  retrospect,  difficult  to  accept.  More 
reasonable  is  Justice  Peckham's  minority  opinion  that 

undue  influence  within  the  meaning  of  the  law . . .  must  be  an  influence  exer- 
cised by  coercion  or  by  fraud  to  set  aside  the  will  of  a  person  of  sound  mind. 
. . .  This  undue  influence  cannot  be  presumed,  but  must  be  proved  to  have 
been  exercised,  and  exercised  in  relation  to  the  will  itself  and  not  merely  to 

other  transactions This  will  was  executed  according  to  law  when  the  mind 

of  the  testatrix  was  sound  and  clear.  It  was  carefully  read  over  to,  and  fully 
understood  by,  her.  She  expressed  her  gratification  that  it  was  made.  It  was 
also  prepared  by  her  own  personal  directions  and  instructions.  It  was  in  sub- 
stance in  accordance  with  her  wishes  expressed  in  New  York,  when  her 
daughter  was  not  present,  several  months  prior  to  its  execution.  There  is 
nothing  rising  to  the  dignity  of  evidence,  to  show  any  undue  influence  over 
the  testatrix.44 

SOS 


Be  that  as  it  may,  Julia  ultimately  lost  her  battle.  The  will  was 
formally  overturned  in  January  1867.  And  for  a  period  of  nearly  three 
years  after  the  Civil  War,  while  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner  was  being  fought, 
the  income  from  the  estate  was  held  in  escrow  and  dribbled  out  by  a 
court-appointed  referee  pending  the  final  decision.  During  these  grim 
Reconstruction  years  Julia  was,  by  Gardiner  standards  at  least,  poor. 
She  borrowed  to  the  hilt  to  make  ends  meet  in  the  style  to  which  she 
had  been  long  accustomed.  Sherwood  Forest  was  almost  lost  for  back 
taxes.  The  education  of  her  children  at  home  and  abroad  was  deficit- 
financed.  Old  mortgages  were  extended  and  second  mortgages  were 
negotiated  to  cover  these  expenses.  And  the  bitterness  she  developed  for 
her  brother  was  absorbed  in  all  its  intensity  by  her  progeny.  It  split 
the  Gardiner-Tyler  family  alliance  to  the  bone,  creating  a  gaping  wound 
that  could  not  be  bandaged  with  a  compromise  settlement,  however 
fair,  four  years  after  the  event.  In  the  final  analysis  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner 
was  a  small-scale  Civil  War. 

Julia  began  her  long  legal  battle  in  October  1864  by  warning  her 
brother  that  a  will  contest  could  only  expose  Gardiner  dirty  linen  to  a 
sensation-hungry  public  and  bring  discredit  upon  the  whole  family.  She 
pleaded  with  him  not  to  undertake  a  suit.  His  response  to  her  plea  was 
to  force  his  way  into  Castleton  Hill,  armed  with  a  search  warrant  and 
in  company  with  a  policeman  "bearing  a  club,"  to  gather  evidence  to 
sustain  his  side  of  the  contest.  Julia's  1864  winter  campaign  thus  opened 
rather  inauspiciously. 

One  thing  was  clear  to  her,  however.  She  would  have  to  hold  on 
to  Castleton  Hill  in  the  legal  trials  that  lay  ahead.  Continuing  reports 
from  Charles  City  gave  her  little  confidence  that  Sherwood  Forest  would 
ever  again  suffice  the  needs  of  her  family.  To  be  sure,  a  few  of  the 
former  Tyler  slaves — Bennett,  Burwell,  Randolph,  Randall,  and  their 
women — had  drifted  back  and  settled  down  on  the  place.  "In  con- 
nection with  some  free  negroes"  they  had  even  harvested  a  "tolerable 
crop  of  corn"  in  the  fall  of  1864,  Having  always  lived  at  Sherwood 
Forest  they  had  no  other  home.  Emancipation  as  an  idea  came  through 
to  them  only  dimly.  And  without  tools  or  money  they  could  not  begin 
repairs  on  the  demolished  farm  buildings  or  on  the  house  they  had 
foolishly  helped  sack.  So  they  squatted  on  the  land  and  waited,  and 
pleaded  for  their  old  mistress  to  return  and  help  them.  Her  former 
servant,  Celia  Johnson,  reported  to  Julia  in  November  1864,  how- 
ever, that  the  house  was  completely  uninhabitable.  Only  two  carpets 
had  been  salvaged.  "One  or  two  tables  I  think  are  whole  but  they  are 
the  ends  of  dining  tables."  In  the  early  winter  Julia  again  sought  a 
Union  Army  pass  to  return  to  the  plantation,  if  only  "for  a  day,"  to 
evaluate  for  herself  its  livability  and  bring  away  whatever  was  left 
worth  saving.  Again  she  was  dissuaded.  "Don't  you  let  mother  think  of 
coming  south"  Alex  told  his  sister  Julie.  "If  she  goes  anywhere  let  it 

506 


be  England  or  the  Continent."  News  that  "Confed  scouts"  had  burned 
some  of  the  outbuildings  during  the  confusion  in  May  and  June  made 
the  estate  no  more  livable  than  if  the  hated  Union  Army  had  set  the 
fires.  And  as  Julia  and  everybody  else  with  clear  vision  could  see,  the 
sands  of  the  Confederacy  were  running  out.  She  decided  therefore  to 
heed  her  son's  objections  and  not  return  to  the  plantation.45 

—•MBfr    <&    •gBBtm- 

Increasing  inflation,  shortages  of  raw  materials,  and  widespread 
desertions  from  the  Confederate  Army  badly  compromised  the  South's 
ability  to  carry  on  the  unequal  struggle.  President  Davis1  desperation 
proposal  in  November  1864  to  arm  the  Negro  slaves  was  an  oblique 
announcement  of  the  gathering  disaster  staring  the  Confederacy  full 
in  the  face.  The  fall  of  Fort  Fisher  in  January  1865  (which  landed  the 
unlucky  Captain  Gayle  back  at  Fort  Warren  for  his  sophomore  year 
and  closed  Wilmington,  the  South's  last  open  port)  raised  the  curtain 
on  the  final  act  of  the  bloody  drama.  As  Sherman  slashed  boldly  up 
through  the  Carolinas  in  February  and  March,  Lee  and  his  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  outnumbered  115,000  to  54,000,  made  their  last 
heroic  attempts  to  break  through  Grant's  lines  and  lift  the  siege  of 
Petersburg  and  Richmond.  These  efforts  failing,  Lee  had  no  choice 
but  to  abandon  Petersburg  and  Richmond  on  April  2,  1865,  and  begin 
his  last  march  westward  toward  Lynchburg  away  from  the  jaws  of  the 
closing  Yankee  trap.  The  Confederate  government  fled  to  Danville, 
where,  it  was  hoped,  the  Army  would  eventually  catch  up  with  the 
politicians  and  then,  somehow,  all  would  join  General  Joseph  E.  John- 
son's battered  forces  in  North  Carolina  and  carry  on  the  fight  in  the 
mountains.  It  was,  of  course,  a  hopeless  prospect. 

But  the  Tylers  caught  in  Richmond  at  the  end  refused  to  abandon 
hope.  Convinced  that  the  collapsing  government  still  had  prospects, 
Major  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  announced  himself  a  candidate  for  the  Con- 
federate Congress  in  February  and  commenced  a  brisk  campaign.  Until 
late  March,  Alex  Tyler  kept  working  for  a  midshipman's  commission 
in  the  Navy  even  though  there  were  no  Confederate  ports  left  from 
which  to  sail.  In  early  April,  when  Lee's  evacuation  of  the  capital 
began,  Alex  joined  the  Virginia  First  Artillery  Battalion  and  together 
with  his  older  brother  began  the  last,  sad  march  to  Appomattox, 
"tugging  and  pulling  at  the  cannon"  all  the  way.  As  the  lower  city  rose 
in  the  flames  set  by  the  retreating  army,  neither  he  nor  Gardie  could 
know  that  the  Moncure  and  Dunlap  building  where  John  Tyler's  papers 
and  the  family  portraits  were  stored  would  go  up  in  the  holocaust.  The 
bank  where  the  family  silver  was  vaulted  also  caught  fire  and  burned, 
badly  scarring  the  metal.  Before  leaving  Richmond,  Gardie,  Alex, 
Semple,  and  Robert  all  forwarded  their  trunks  to  Danville,  determined 
to  fight  on  for  the  Confederacy  as  long  as  any  semblance  of  a  govern- 
ment or  an  army  remained.46 

507 


The  end  came  with  merciful  suddenness.  Surrounded  at  Appomat- 
tox  Court  House  on  April  7,  Alex's  seventeenth  birthday,  Lee  had  no 
choice  but  to  surrender  his  starving,  wet,  and  bedraggled  army  of 
30,000  thoroughly  beaten  men  and  boys — among  the  latter  the  dis- 
pirited Tyler  brothers.  On  April  9,  1865,  it  was  over.  Grant  paroled 
Lee's  veterans  to  their  homes,  and  the  once-mighty  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  disappeared  into  song  and  legend  down  a  hundred  country 
roads.  For  Alex  it  had  been  a  very  short  war.  As  he  described  his 
two-week  experience  to  Ralph  Dayton,  his  old  Staten  Island  tutor, 
from  occupied  Richmond  on  April  19, 

I  arrived  on  "Parole"  three  days  ago  after  a  weary  inarch  of  14  days — some- 
times up  in  mud  to  my  knees,  tugging  and  pulling  at  the  cannon  and  fighting 
nearly  every  day  and  rations  of  two  ears  of  corn  a  day  with  no  where  to 
parch  and  burn  it.  It  is  true  we  had  two  days  "rest,"  but  then  it  was  no  rest 
for  both  days  it  was  raining  "pitchforks"  and  we  had  nothing  to  cover  with 
but  our  blankets  which  were  soon  wet  through  which  you  can  readily  perceive 
was  far  from  making  us  more  comfortable — but  pish  I  I  am  telling  only  what 
will  worry  you  so  I'll  stop.  I  was  sorry  to  hear  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
for  I  expect  it  will  be  very  hard  for  us  "Rebels."  . . . 

A  conference  between  the  paroled  brothers  was  held  at  Appomattox 
immediately  after  the  surrender.  It  was  decided  that  Gardie  should 
proceed  to  Lexington  and  re-enter  Washington  College;  Alex  would  go 
to  Sherwood  Forest  and  "try  to  fix  things  up  there."  And  so  the  boys 
separated,  Alex  reaching  Richmond  again  on  April  16  "completely  in 
rags,"  Brigadier  General  John  E.  Mulford,  USA,  the  polite  New  Yorker 
who  had  done  Julia  several  favors  during  the  war  in  his  capacity  as  a 
prisoners-exchange  officer  at  Fortress  Monroe,  befriended  the  lad,  help- 
ing him  cash  a  check  on  his  mother's  account  in  the  Manhattan  Bank 
and  providing  him  with  a  pass  to  New  York  City.  But  Alex  was  de- 
termined to  return  to  Sherwood  Forest.  This  he  did,  reaching  the  planta- 
tion on  May  i.  Meanwhile,  Robert  Tyler  had  returned  to  Richmond 
via  Danville  from  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  where  he  and  Semple 
had  gone  with  Jefferson  Davis  in  the  last-ditch  stand  of  the  Confederate 
government.47 

As  the  Confederacy  breathed  its  last,  Julia  experienced  her  own 
Appomattox,  a  degrading  and  humiliating  defeat  that  clouded  her  ex- 
pectations of  receiving  judicial  impartiality  in  the  "Yankee  Courts"1 
on  the  status  of  her  mother's  will.  At  ten  o'clock  on  the  rainy  Saturday 
evening  of  April  15,  fifteen  hours  after  Abraham  Lincoln's  tragic  death 
in  Washington,  three  inflamed  and  vengeful  local  toughs,  armed  with 
"swords  and  clubs"  and  led  by  one  Bertram  Delafield  of  Staten  Island, 
burst  suddenly  into  the  parlor  at  Castleton  Hill  and  demanded  that 
Julia  give  up  the  "Rebel  flag"  she  was  "known"  to  be  displaying  some- 
where in  the  house.  Spying  a  flag  of  sorts  hanging  over  a  picture  in 

508 


the  parlor,  the  muddy-booted  invaders  climbed  up  on  chairs,  ripped  it 
down,  knocked  over  some  furniture,  and  made  off  into  the  night  with 
their  trophy.  "Secessionism,  open  or  secret,  will  not  be  tolerated  here," 
boasted  one  of  the  patriotic  trespassers  in  an  anonymous  letter  to 
the  New  York  Herald  two  days  later.  "You  are  aware  that  we  are  blest 
with  having  as  a  resident  among  us,  Mrs.  Tyler,  widow  of  the  deceased 
rebel  ex-President  John  Tyler.  She  seems  to  be  successful  in  passing 
the  lines  of  our  army,  and  of  returning  at  her  pleasure,  and  with  her 
two  eldest  sons  in  the  rebel  army  would  seem  to  be  a  privileged  per- 
son." Other  city  newspapers  picked  up  the  story,  playing  it  as  a  timely 
blow  against  latent  Copperheadism  as  the  martyred  Lincoln  went  to 
his  Rebel-dug  grave.  None  of  the  published  accounts  pointed  out  that 
Julia's  "Rebel  flag"  was  actually  a  small  piece  of  nondescript,  tricolored 
bunting  sewn  by  Margaret  ten  years  earlier  as  a  handkerchief  for 
Harry  and  sentimentally  retained  in  the  family  as  a  souvenir  of  Mar- 
garet's handicraft.  Julia  was  an  out-and-out  secessionist  and  Copper- 
head, but  she  was  not  so  foolish  in  her  sentiment  as  to  have  risked 
displaying  an  actual  Confederate  flag  in  her  parlor. 

She  strongly  suspected  that  David  Lyon  was  behind  the  violation 
of  her  home.  Delafield  later  implied  this  much,  confessing  that  a  "near 
relative"  of  Julia's  had  told  him  of  a  Confederate  flag  hanging  in  the 
subversive  den  that  was  Castleton  Hill.  She  muted  these  suspicions  of 
her  brother,  and  in  her  angry  protests  to  the  newspapers  and  to  Union 
Army  authorities  in  New  York  she  emphasized  only  the  cowardly 
audacity  of  the  Delafield  gang  in  its  raid  on  a  parlor  inhabited  by 
helpless  women  and  children.  She  demanded  the  return  of  the  souvenir, 
and  she  pointed  out  that  the  only  flag  at  Castleton  Hill  was  an  Ameri- 
can flag.  But  what  the  newspapers  referred  to  casually  as  a  "spirited 
little  affair"  that  had  rid  Staten  Island  of  a  "secesh  banner"  Julia  saw 
as  a  preview  of  dark  things  to  come  for  Confederate  sympathizers 
caught  in  the  North  during  the  emotional  period  following  Lincoln's 
assassination.  Anonymous  threats  to  burn  down  her  house  were  received. 
So  frightened  did  she  become  that  she  moved  her  family  into  a  New 
York  hotel  for  a  few  days  for  safety.  Simultaneously,  she  pressed 
charges  against  Delafield  for  trespass  through  General  Dix's  head- 
quarters, asking  also  that  the  general  protect  her  from  future  mob 
violence.  Dix  investigated  her  complaint  and  admitted  that  Julia  had 
indeed  been  "subjected  to  insult  and  calumny  without  in  the  slightest 
degree  deserving  it."  Little  more  came  of  it  than  that.  Margaret's 
handkerchief  was  not  recovered  and  Delafield  was  not  punished.48 

From  Fort  Warren  prison  Captain  Gayle  wrote  Julia  a  gentle 
note  expressing  sympathy  for  her  in  her  harrowing  experience  with  the 
superpatriot  fringe.  From  Lexington  came  an  outraged  expression  of 
Cardie's  frustrated  desire  to  have  been  present  in  the  parlor  to  thrash 
the  rascals  when  they  pushed  their  way  in.  To  Alex  the  Delafield 

509 


incident  argued  for  but  one  decision:  "Now  my  dear  mother/7  he  ad- 
vised her  as  he  was  leaving  Richmond  for  Sherwood  Forest, 

I  cannot  see  for  my  life  how  you  can  live  North  where  you  endure  such 
insults.  It  is  the  wish,  and  I  pray  of  you,  for  both  Gardie  and  myself  to  sell 
out  directly  all  your  property  and  go  to  Europe — anywhere  so  that  you  leave 
and  take  the  children  from  the  U.  States.  I  would  even  sell  Sherwood,  for  if 
the  South  is  conquered,  which  with  the  help  of  God  it  never  will  be,  neither 

G or  A will  ever  live  here  under  Northern  rule.  My  mother,  grant 

our  prayer.49 

As  Julia  considered  Alex's  suggestion  she  wondered  what  there 
was  left  of  the  old  way  of  life  worth  struggling  to  preserve.  The 
prospect  of  Europe  was  appealing.  The  Old  South  was  dead.  Her  hus- 
band, her  father,  and  her  mother  were  all  dead.  Alexander  and  Margaret. 
were  gone.  Her  plantation  was  destroyed  and  its  labor  force  forever 
scattered.  Her  two  oldest  sons,  bitter  and  disillusioned  in  defeat,, 
advised  her  flight.  Her  surviving  brother  had  broken  with  her  entirely 
and  ahead  lay  a  rigorous  and  expensive  legal  battle  with  him.  Her 
Copperhead  sympathies  actually  endangered  her  younger  children  and 
threatened  to  bring  down  on  their  heads  the  fiery  destruction  of  her 
Castle  ton  Hill  refuge.  From  Gardie  in  particular,  and  from  her  friends1, 
in  the  conquered  South  generally,  came  a  picture  of  despair  and  hope- 
lessness. "Here  I  am,"  Gardie  wrote  from  Washington  College  in  June,, 

without  home,  without  means  and,  I  may  almost  say,  without  hope.  Some- 
times I  begin  to  think  that  I  will  have  to  hire  myself  out  as  a  day-laborer- 
My  clothes  are  entirely  played  out  and  I  have  had  them  patched.  So  you  see 
I  am  a  perfect  "rag,  tag  and  bobtail."  How  much  happier  I  was  in  the  army 
than  I  am  now.  I  would  rather  have  remained  in  it  twenty  years  than  be  in 
the  situation  that  we  are  now  in.  No  country,  no  home,  no  freedom.  What  a, 
deplorable  case  we  present.  I  will  not  be  able  to  come  to  you  as  I  (even  if  I 
could  get  the  necessary  funds)  have  only  my  uniform  which  I  am  not  per- 
mitted to  wear.50 

Julia  pondered,  then  she  decided.  She  would  stay  in  the  United 
States  and  fight — for  the  Gardiner  estate,  for  Sherwood  Forest,  for  her 
children's  educations,  for  the  standard  of  living  to  which  the  Gardiners 
were  accustomed,  for  the  social  and  political  principles  her  husband 
had  embraced,  and  for  the  sheer  cussedness  of  it.  This  was  what  John. 
Tyler  would  have  wanted  her  to  do. 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND   EPILOGUE 

1865-1890 


Desolation  has  set  its  seal  upon  all  around  us,  and 
the  gloom  like  the  veil  of  the  grave  has  settled  upon 
the  land.  ,  . .  It  can  never  again  be  as  it  was. 

DAVID  GARDINER  TYLER,  JUNE  1 868 


The  first  bleak  months  following  Lee's  surrender  found  Julia  hard  at 
work  trying  to  help  old  friends  in  the  conquered  South  who  had  lost 
everything  in  the  "late  political  contest.77  Pleas  for  clothes,  money 
and  food  could  not  go  unanswered.  The  situation  of  Varina  Davis  was 
particularly  piteous.  The  former  First  Lady  of  the  Confederacy  was 
destitute.  Her  husband  had  been  arrested  as  a  traitor  and  was  im- 
prisoned in  Fortress  Monroe.  While  his  fate  was  still  uncertain,  there 
was  much  wild  talk  in  the  North  of  a  firing  squad.  His  wife  was  des- 
perate. Because  of  her  relationship  to  Julia  through  Jenny  Howell 
Waller  she  felt  no  embarrassment  asking  her  "beautiful  step  mother7* 
for  help.  "We  are  very  poor,77  she  wrote  Julia  in  July  from  Savannah. 
"In  what  a  maze  of  horrors  we  have  been  groping  for  these  two  months. 
...  I  sometimes  wonder  if  God  does  not  mean  to  wake  me  from  a  terrific 
dream  of  desolation  and  penury. .  .  ."  To  Mrs.  Davis7  plea  Julia 
promptly  responded  with  gifts  of  shoes  and  clothing  for  her  and  for 
those  of  her  children  who  were  bound  to  school  in  Canada  away  from 
"Yankee  influences.77  Julia  had  been  thinking  along  the  same  educa- 
tional lines  herself.  All  over  the  South  schools  and  colleges  were  closed. 
She  knew  her  children  would  not  accept  education  under  Yankee 
auspices.  Therefore,  like  Varina  Davis,  she  started  investigating  Cana- 
dian and  German  institutions.1 

Simultaneously,  she  undertook  to  ease  Captain  Gayle7s  last  boring 


months  in  Fort  Warren  Prison  with  packages  of  food  and  tobacco.  "We 
have  become  assured  that  under  no  circumstances  will  a  man  of  us  be 
liberated  without  taking  the  amnesty  oath/'  Gayle  sadly  informed  her. 
"As  the  Confederacy  has  ceased  to  exist,  I  do  not  see  what  else  remains 
for  us  to  do  ...  but  to  accept  with  as  good  a  grace  as  possible  the  exist- 
ing condition  of  affairs  and  subscribe  to  the  'oath.7 "  Julia  agreed  there 
was  no  other  choice. 

Gayle's  realism  was  not  as  widespread  among  some  defeated  Con- 
federates as  it  might  have  been  under  the  blunt  new  circumstances  of 
the  post-Appomattox  world.  Thousands,  like  Gardie  and  Alex  Tyler, 
could  not  absorb  the  idea  that  the  war  was  really  over  and  that  the 
gallant  South  had  been  beaten.  It  was  as  though  personal  bravery, 
suffering,  dedication,  and  devotion  had  counted  for  nothing — that  God 
had  somehow  made  a  frightful  mistake  in  permitting  the  Yankees  to 
win.  "Sometimes  I  think,"  said  Gardie,  "that  the  heroes  who  fell  during 
the  war  are  ten  thousand  times  better  off  than  the  survivors.  All  the 
future  is  dark  and  cheerless  before  us,  our  sorrows  can  only  end  in  the 
grave."  At  first,  the  confused  and  dejected  nineteen-year-old  thought  he 
might  join  the  stream  of  high-ranking  Confederate  officers  and  officials 
who  were  fleeing  the  South  for  lives  of  exile  in  Brazil  and  Mexico.  Cer- 
tainly he  could  not  accept  the  prospect  of  living  under  the  flag  of  the 
invader;  nor  could  he  abide  the  humiliation  of  having  to  take  the 
"damnasty  oath"  and  come  crawling  back  "like  a  whipped  cur"  into  the 
United  States.  For  a  brief  time  in  August  1865  he  prayed  to  God  that 
the  diplomatic  crisis  over  the  Emperor  Maximilian's  continued  presence 
in  Mexico  would  lead  to  a  rousing  war  between  the  United  States  and 
Napoleon  Ill's  government.  "You  would  know  very  well  which  side  I'd 
be  apt  to  join  in  such  an  event,"  he  told  his  cousin  Harry.2 

When  a  war  with  France  failed  to  materialize,  Gardie  reluctantly 
decided  that  his  mother's  idea  of  sending  him,  Alex,  and  Harry  Beeck- 
man  to  college  in  Germany  was  a  good  one.  After  all,  the  season  for 
"'slaughtering  larger  game  such  as  Yankees"  was  over,  and  he  did  not 
think  he  could  accustom  himself  to  watching  the  former  Sherwood 
Forest  slaves  riding  around  Charles  City  in  their  own  buggies  free  and 
sassy  as  you  please.  Alex,  meanwhile,  had  had  no  luck  getting  the 
plundered  plantation  functioning  again  during  the  late  spring  and  early 
summer  of  1865.  The  job  was  much  too  big  for  him  and  Julia  had 
matured  other  plans  for  farming  the  estate  anyway.  Discouraged  and 
beaten,  he  too  was  ready  for  a  change  of  occupation  and  scenery. 

So  it  was  that  in  September  1865  the  two  Tyler  boys  and  their 
cousin  Harry  were  aboard  the  SS  Hansa  bound  for  Europe  and  for 
college  in  Karlsruhe,  Germany.  They  sailed  in  the  company  of  the 
Reverend  John  Fulton  and  his  wife,  old  Copperhead  associates  of 
Julia's  from  Staten  Island.  It  was  Fulton's  plan  to  open  a  boardinghouse 
in  Karlsruhe  and  take  in  British  and  American  students  there  for  a 

512 


livelihood.  "Our  crowd  is  a  jolly  one/'  Gardie  wrote  his  mother  from 
shipboard,  "all  except  five  being  southerners.  We  talk  'Secesh7  as  much 
as  we  please  and  sing  Southern  songs  on  deck  every  evening."  Behind 
him  Gardie  Tyler  left  an  iambic  record  of  his  attitude  toward  the 
Yankees  and  all  their  works,  a  parting  salvo  into  the  Union  positions 
as  the  youthful  artilleryman  retreated  into  distant  Baden.  It  was 
schoolboyish  verse,  but  it  made  crystal-clear  the  fact  that  David  Gardi- 
ner Tyler,  former  Confederate  gunner,  future  Virginia  farmer,  lawyer, 
state  senator,  Circuit  Court  judge,  and  United  States  congressman, 
would  live  and  die  proudly  "unreconstructed." 

Yes,  we'll  fight  them  again, 
Tho'  vanquished  as  before; 
We'll  break  the  tyrant's  chain, 
Or  die  Jmid  cannon's  roar. 
Better  die  as  they  have  done, 
Than  live  as  we  do  now; 
With  no  rights  beneath  the  sun, 

And  shame  upon  our  brow 

We  fought  for  four  long  years, 
For  liberty  and  fame; 
Our  flag  went  down  'mid  tears, 
Shed  for  our  country's  shame. 
But  we'll  up  at  them  once  more, 
With  Jehovah  for  our  shield; 
This  time  we'll  whip  the  foe, 
Or  be  left  upon  the  field.3 

It  was  one  thing  to  anathematize  the  hated  Yankees  in  verse.  It  was 
quite  another  to  learn  to  function  normally  again  under  their  heavy- 
handed  occupation  of  the  South,  to  try  to  reclaim  something  of  the 
ante-bellum  way  of  life  from  the  junkpile  of  defeat  and  subjugation.  To 
this  difficult  if  not  impossible  task  Julia  turned  during  the  summer  of 
1865  in  an  effort  to  get  Sherwood  Forest  once  again  into  production. 

Shortly  after  Appornattox  she  hired  Si  evert  von  Oertzen  as  her 
farm  manager  and  dispatched  the  immigrant  Swede,  cousin  of  a  Staten 
Island  acquaintance,  to  Sherwood  Forest  to  begin  the  restoration  of  the 
plantation.  Julia  had  read  many  novels  of  castle  and  manor  life  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  Walter  Scott's  Ivanhoe  and  kindred  works,  and  it  was  her 
plan  to  reproduce  something  resembling  the  medieval  manorial  system  in 
Charles  City.  But  instead  of  employing  freed  Negroes  as  her  peasant 
labor  force  she  contemplated  the  hiring  of  Swedish  immigrant  farmers 
and  their  families  on  an  informal  contract  basis.  Under  her  verbal  agree- 
ment with  Oertzen  and  the  four  Swedish  farmers  and  their  families  who 
were  subsequently  recruited  in  New  York  in  June  and  sent  down  to 
Sherwood,  each  immigrant  was  given  a  "few  acres"  of  ground  for  his 
personal  use.  In  return,  the  farmers  agreed  to  work  four  days  each  week 

513 


on  Sherwood  land  and  two  days  on  their  own.  Julia,  in  turn,  paid  the 
transportation  costs  for  each  family  from  New  York  to  Virginia,  and 
she  agreed  to  supply  her  Nordic  laborers  with  food  and  clothing,  seed 
and  tools,  until  the  first  crop  was  harvested.  After  this  they  were  to  be 
on  their  own  until  the  three-year  agreement  had  expired.  John  C.  Tyler 
thought  this  an  excellent  arrangement,  "the  best  scheme  I  have  had  pre- 
sented to  my  mind;  for  as  to  the  negroes,  they,  so  far,  are  perfectly 
worthless."  Similarly,  other  Charles  City  plantation  owners,  faced  with 
the  same  labor  problem  as  Sherwood  Forest,  watched  the  Swedish  ex- 
periment with  considerable  interest.  "Everyone  who  has  heard  of  it 
thinks  it  excellent,"  Alex  wrote  his  mother  in  July.4 

The  Swedish  interlude  began  on  July  3,  1865,  when  the  first  of 
the  immigrant  families  arrived  at  Sherwood.  Oertzen  had  purchased  two 
"condemned"  U.S.  Army  horses  at  Fortress  Monroe  and  his  small  labor 
force  immediately  began  plowing  the  caked  and  long-neglected  earth  in 
an  attempt  to  get  turnips,  beans,  and  potatoes  into  the  ground  before 
undertaking  the  major  job  of  planting  a  wheat  crop.  In  addition  to  the 
funds  sent  to  Oertzen  for  the  horses,  Julia  dispatched  the  first  of  several 
shipments  of  beef,  flour,  sugar,  salt,  nails,  and  tools  from  New  York  to 
the  plantation  to  feed  and  provision  her  Swedes. 

What  began  in  optimism  ended  in  gloom.  By  the  beginning  of  Sep- 
tember Oertzen  was  demanding  more  and  more  cash  for  groceries, 
horses,  harnesses,  seed  wheat,  and  farm  equipment.  "We  are  doing 
nothing/'  he  confessed.  "It  is  so  very  dry  here  that  everything  is  dying 
away.  The  ground  so  hard  that  not  two  horses  are  able  to  get  a  plough 
through  the  ground,  and  so  we  are  waiting  for  rain  or  money  or  both. . . . 
We  are  living  already  on  milk  and  peaches  and  peaches  and  milk  morn- 
ings, noons  and  nights.  The  meat  is  nearly  all  gone  ...  we  do  not  know 
how  sugar  looks."  Julia  did  not  respond  very  sympathetically  to  this 
urgent  appeal  for  "a  few  hundred  dollar  now,"  coming  as  it  did  within 
a  week  of  the  Surrogate  Court's  ruling  that  her  mother's  will  was  in- 
admissible to  probate.  Still,  she  sent  $400  to  John  C.  Tyler  with  instruc- 
tions to  purchase  mules,  plows,  fencing,  and  other  farm  gear  for  Sher- 
wood. In  the  same  mail,  however,  she  summarily  discharged  Oertzen 
and  ordered  him  from  her  property.  She  was  fortified  in  this  precipitate 
action  by  John  C.  Tyler's  opinion  that  the  Swede  "is  of  no  earthly 
account.  None  of  the  persons  you  sent  here  have  earned  their  salt  since 
they  have  been  here ...  it  would  be  to  your  interest  to  get  rid  of  all  of 
them."  Julia  agreed,  and  the  Swedish  experiment  ended  a  few  months 
after  its  inception. 

To  fill  the  labor  void  and  keep  something  growing  on  the  old  plan- 
tation, the  mistress  of  Sherwood  Forest  accepted  the  pattern  into  which 
most  of  the  postwar  agricultural  South  was  gradually  drifting.  She 
followed  John  C.  and  Gardie's  advice  to  let  out  various  parcels  of  Sher- 
wood land  to  the  "damned  niggers"  on  a  straight  sharecrop  basis.  "I 

SI4 


have  applications  from  several  persons  to  work  portions  of  it  on  shares/' 
her  former  manager  informed  her  in  late  September  1865,  "and  have  no 
doubt  but  the  whole  or  nearly  all  the  plantation  could  be  worked  that 
way.  I  let  out  a  part  of  [your]  land  this  year  to  two  persons  to  cultivate 
in  corn.  They  will  make  about  eighty  barrels  and  they  are  to  pay  one 
half  of  what  they  make."  5 

Von  Oertzen  did  not  accept  his  summary  discharge  in  good  spirit. 
On  the  contrary,  he  calculated  the  value  of  the  work  he  had  already 
done  at  Sherwood  Forest  at  $20  per  month  and  suggested  that  Julia  pay 
him  $100  or  "what  you  think  proper."  Julia  did  not  think  more  than  half 
that  amount  "proper/7  and  her  decision  in  the  matter  prompted  the 
Swede  to  sue  her  for  $100  in  March  1866.  The  suit  was  eventually 
thrown  out  of  court,  but  not  before  Julia  had  spent  nearly  the  amount 
of  Oertzen's  claim  in  legal  fees.6 

Thanks  to  David  Lyon  Gardiner  and  Sievert  von  Oertzen  among 
others,  Julia  was  rapidly  becoming  one  of  the  most  sued  women  in 
America.  From  1865  until  1874  she  was  almost  constantly  before  the 
courts  in  one  capacity  or  another  and  for  one  reason  or  another.  There 
was  the  long  struggle  over  Juliana's  will,  the  numerous  claims  against 
her  husband's  estate,  various  suits  involving  tax  liens  and  real  estate 
transfers,  the  attempt  to  regain  control  of  Villa  Margaret,  and  a  desper- 
ate struggle  to  hold  onto  Sherwood  Forest  in  i87o-i874.7 

The  fight  to  regain  possession  of  Villa  Margaret,  if  not  typical  of 
Julia's  multiple  legal  tribulations,  revealed  something  of  the  difficulties 
encountered  by  a  "Rebel  lady"  in  securing  satisfaction  from  the  federal 
government  during  the  Reconstruction  years,  and  the  massive  amounts 
of  sheer  patience  the  process  demanded.  Actually,  Julia  anticipated  no 
conscious  obstructionism  from  the  Johnson  administration  in  the  Villa 
Margaret  matter.  Shortly  after  hostilities  ended  and  Andrew  Johnson 
of  Tennessee  had  taken  office,  she  dispatched  a  strong  letter  to  the  new 
President  lecturing  him  on  how  he  should  run  the  distracted  country. 
Only  a  policy  of  kindness  and  conciliation  toward  the  conquered  South, 
she  assured  him,  would  earn  him  the  everlasting  plaudits  of  Southerners 
like  himself: 

Now,  President  Johnson,  you  can  redeem  yourself  in  the  hearts  of  your  real 
fellow  countrymen,  your  brave  and  noble  fellow  citizens  of  the  South,  whose 
blood  runs  in  your  veins,  for  whom  you  must  have  a  mellow  feeling,  a  natural 
sympathy. . . .  You  have  only  to  move  in  the  right  way — the  way  of  righteous- 
ness, peace  and  mercy — with  a  memory  of  the  terrible  trials  and  sufferings 
that  have  rent  the  hearts  and  souls  of  your  own  people  in  flesh  and  blood  to 

be  blessed  thrice  by  them May  your  heart  be  the  abode  of  gentle  mercy, 

so  that  when  your  last  hour  shall  come  you  can  hope  to  be  forgiven,  even 
as  you  forgave.8 

Since  one  of  the  "terrible  trials  and  sufferings"  Julia  herself  had 
sustained  during  the  war  was  the  loss  of  Villa  Margaret,  she  began  a 

SIS 


heavy  pen-and-ink  bombardment  of  the  White  House  and  Washington 
officialdom  demanding  the  return  of  her  Hampton  property.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  problem  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  Tyler  house 
was  occupied  in  early  1866  by  white  schoolteachers  from  the  North  sent 
down  to  Virginia  by  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  to  instruct  the  emancipated 
Negroes  in  the  Hampton  area.  The  Bureau,  however,  did  not  directly 
control  or  administer  the  property,  so  Julia's  protesting  letters  to  Gen- 
eral O.  O.  Howard,  Bureau  chief  in  Washington,  fell  on  fallow  ground. 
Instead,  the  Villa  was  managed  by  the  American  Missionary  Society  in 
New  York  under  an  authority  secured  directly  from  the  Secretary  of 
War.  The  Missionary  Society  provided  room  and  board  at  the  Villa  for 
the  "school  marms"  and  other  Freedmen's  Bureau  officials  in  the  area. 
Julia  therefore  began  a  correspondence  with  the  Reverend  George  Whip- 
pie,  Secretary  of  the  American  Missionary  Society,  asking  that  he  clear 
the  Negro  squatters  and  their  ugly  little  shacks  from  the  six  acres  sur- 
rounding the  main  house.  She  suggested  also  that  the  Society  either 
begin  paying  a  fair  rent  for  the  continued  use  of  the  property  ($250  per 
year  was  mentioned)  or  commence  evacuating  it  altogether.  Whipple 
referred  her  demands  to  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment. They  in  turn  passed  Julia's  complaints  around  Washington  and 
then  threw  them  back  into  Whipple's  lap.  As  the  bureaucratic  buck- 
passing  became  an  exact  science,  Julia  and  her  lawyers  tried  to  ascertain 
whom  to  sue,  in  what  court,  and  on  what  charge.  For  three  frustrating 
years  this  merry-go-round  spun  around  while  the  property  deteriorated 
alarmingly  in  appearance  and  value.  "They  have  never  yet  surrendered 
willingly  one  foot  of  property  real  or  personal  that  they  could  possibly 
make  use  of,"  lawyer  Charles  B.  Mallory  had  accurately  warned  her  in 
August  1866. 

In  October  1868  the  War  Department  did  authorize  the  not  overly 
generous  payment  of  four  dollars  rent  per  month  for  the  property,  but 
when  Julia  at  last  obtained  control  of  the  once-beautiful  Villa  in  1869 
it  was  in  dreadful  condition.  It  was,  she  protested  angrily  to  President 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  "shorn  of  its  beauty — the  furniture  gone,  the  out- 
buildings destroyed  and  the  grounds  covered  with  negro  huts."  Since 
she  had  no  available  funds  with  which  to  restore  it  herself,  she  suggested 
to  Grant  that  the  government  buy  it.  "The  house  which  is  of  the  Italia 
gothic  style  can  be  restored  without  much  cost  to  good  condition,"  she 
informed  him.  "It  seems  to  me  a  desirable  piece  of  property  for  the 
government  to  possess  being  near  the  Artillery  School  which  you  have 
instituted."  The  government  was  not  interested.  Julia  was  therefore 
forced  to  sell  the  unsightly  Villa  Margaret  privately  in  September  of  the 
depression  year  1874  for  a  mere  $3500,  less  than  a  third  of  its  1860 
value.  She  was  lucky  to  get  that  for  it.9 

As  the  former  First  Lady  became  suffocatingly  immersed  in  the 
complex  world  of  wills,  suits,  depositions,  tax  claims,  and  real  estate 


transfers,  she  did  not  lose  sight  of  or  sympathy  for  the  difficult  adjust- 
ments, emotional  and  economic,  faced  by  all  the  Confederate  Tylers 
during  Radical  Reconstruction.  Sending  her  oldest  sons  and  Harry 
Beeckman  off  to  college  in  Germany  and  putting  her  plantation  into 
marginal  operation  were  but  the  first  evidences  of  her  determination  to 
do  all  she  could  to  help  the  Tyler  family  regain  its  ante-bellum  status 
and  dignity.  To  be  sure,  some  members  of  the  proud  family  responded 
better  to  the  challenge  of  the  new  order  than  others  and  needed  her 
assistance  not  at  all.  Some  were  nearly  helpless  and  clung  to  her  bounty 
and  psychological  support  tenaciously. 

Robert  Tyler,  for  example,  adjusted  quickly.  He  moved  with  Pris- 
cilla  to  Montgomery,  Alabama,  after  the  conflict.  There  he  did  what  had 
long  come  naturally  to  Tyler  men.  In  November  1866  he  became  a 
candidate  before  the  state  legislature  for  the  office  of  Adjutant  General 
and  Inspector  General  of  Alabama.  "To  live  at  all  is  a  great  struggle  to 
us/7  he  told  his  stepmother  in  October  1866.  "This  country  is  almost 
unredeemable.  The  negroes  are  violent  politicians  and  I  look  forward 
with  dread  to  the  election  next  month,  not  that  I  would  mind  much  the 
dying,  but  I  hate  the  idea  of  being  murdered."  Robert  neither  won  the 
election  nor  was  he  murdered.  Too  proud  to  accept  financial  assistance 
graciously  offered  him  by  James  Buchanan  and  some  of  his  old  prewar 
Pennsylvania  political  friends  (he  returned  a  check  for  $1000  to  Bu- 
chanan), he  accepted  instead  a  loan  of  $1000  from  Priscilla's  brother-in- 
law,  Allan  Campbell,  to  sustain  his  family  until  he  secured  the  editor- 
ship of  the  Montgomery  Advertiser  in  1867.  As  editor  of  the  influential 
newspaper  and  as  chairman  of  the  State  Democratic  Executive  Commit- 
tee and  a  leader  in  the  racist  White  Man's  Party,  Robert  spent  the  last 
years  of  an  active  life  successfully  fighting  the  Radical  Republican- 
Negro  domination  of  Alabama.  He  died  of  a  stroke  on  December  3, 
1877,  but  not  before  he  had  seen  the  Carpetbagger  power  broken  in 
1874  and  suffering  Alabama  freed  of  corrupt  and  venal  Radical  rule. 
Montgomery,  Priscilla  wrote  in  1866  when  she  and  her  husband  first 
arrived  there,  was  a  town  where 

Negro  women  sit  along  the  sidewalks  with  their  baskets  of  provisions  while 
the  men  fill  the  street.  They  never  move  an  inch  to  let  a  lady  pass  and 
actually  at  times  I  walk  into  the  streets  to  get  around  them.  They  are  dirty 
and  ragged,  looking  unhappy,  restless  and  hungry The  Negro  is  the  in- 
habitant of  the  town,  the  arbiter  of  its  destinies,  while  over  all  floats  in  every 
direction  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  a  hollow  mockery!  God  only  knows  where 
it  will  all  end. 

Thanks  in  part  to  editor  Robert  Tyler,  it  all  ended  in  White  Supremacy, 
a  racial  despotism  as  morally  corrosive  as  the  one  it  replaced.10 

If  Robert  Tyler  found  the  key  to  Ms  personal  reconstruction  in  a 
crusade  against  Negro  rule  in  Alabama,  King  Numbers  in  Black,  James 
A.  Semple  found  his  in  mental  fantasy  and  political  make-believe.  He 
was  incapable  of  absorbing  psychologically  the  reality  of  the  South's 


defeat.  For  the  first  year  and  a  half  after  Appomattox  he  spent  most  of 
his  time  attempting  to  organize  Confederate  underground  cells  in  Can- 
ada. Dedicated  to  the  dubious  proposition  that  the  South  would  some- 
how rise  again  militarily,  these  little  expatriate  groups,  as  short-lived 
as  they  were  ineffectual,  maintained  contact  with  Confederate  officials 
who  had  fled  the  country,  opposed  the  Union  military  occupation  of  the 
South,  fought  Radical  Republican  political  policy,  attempted  to  get  un- 
reconstructed Confederates  into  public  office  (Semple  worked  hard,  for 
example,  to  secure  Robert  Tyler's  election  in  Alabama  in  1866),  sought 
the  release  of  Jefferson  Davis  from  Fortress  Monroe,  and  generally 
labored  to  maintain  focal  points  of  Southern  resistance  pending  the  ar- 
rival again  of  Der  Tag.  In  this  pathetic  comic-opera  cause  Semple  func- 
tioned as  liaison  man,  courier  and  propagandist,  and  as  a  working  scribe 
in  an  unofficial  Confederate  Committee  of  Correspondence  patterned 
after  the  Colonial  models  of  1772-1773.  Throughout  this  period  he 
teetered  dangerously  on  the  brink  of  a  complete  psychological  crack-up, 
occasionally  drifting  across  the  thin  dividing  line  into  moments  of  ir- 
rationality. 

Refusing  to  take  the  amnesty  oath  in  1865,  Semple  went  under- 
ground. He  changed  his  name,  first  to  John  Doe  and  then,  with  a  shade 
more  imagination,  to  Allan  S.  James,  took  a  disguise,  and  became  a 
cloak-and-dagger  fugitive  from  the  Union  occupation.  "So  far  I  am  free 
and  have  no  fears,"  the  forty-four-year-old  conspirator  informed  Julia 
in  November  1865,  "as  I  am  pretty  well  by  this  time  acquainted  with 
my  own  powers  of  adroitness,  courage,  etc.,  and  can  provide  pretty  well 
for  emergencies."  He  helped  Julia  maintain  contact  with  Varina  Davis, 
and  Julia  in  turn  gave  him  shelter  when  he  passed  through  New  York 
en  route  to  and  from  Canada. 

Semple  soon  discovered  with  considerable  disgust  that  the  Confeder- 
ate sympathizers  in  Montreal  were  mutually  suspicious  of  one  another 
and  hopelessly  split  in  doctrine  and  policy.  "There  is  the  devil  to  pay 
among  the  'tribe'  here,"  he  informed  Julia  from  Canada  in  August  1866. 
"No  one  speaks  to  the  other  and  I  have  heard  the  most  astounding  re- 
ports and  been  questioned  by  a  member  of  the  'tribe'  and  had  no  hesi- 
tation in  at  once  answering  all  questions  in  writing,  and  I  tell  you  now 
that  by  my  own  volition  I  will  never  pass  another  word  with  one  of  the 

members  here I  shall  write  to  Mrs.  Davis  and  inform  old  Jeff  of  the 

circumstances  ...  at  the  same  time,  I  am  ready  to  engage  in  any  matter 
which  will  further  the  interests  of  the  South."  But  after  eighteen  months' 
work  he  was  ready  to  quit  the  whole  futile  business.  Old  friends  wrote 
Mm  that  his  work  for  the  defunct  Confederacy  was  really  hopeless.  The 
South,  said  one,  "should  yield  at  once  to  inevitable  fate  and  accept  the 
Constitutional  Amendment  [Fourteenth]  which  it  is  shown  that  nothing 
can  defeat.  It  seems  to  me  all  Idle  to  prolong  the  struggle,  especially  after 
the  sword  has  proved  so  worse  than  useless Would  that  all  had  your 


wise  and  manly  views!"  Semple  finally  agreed  that  the  lost  cause  was 
beyond  resurrection.  "I  am  tired  of  being  hunted  down,"  he  confessed 
to  Julia  in  November  1866.  Thus  when  Jefferson  Davis,  Semple's  "For- 
tress Monroe  correspondent/'  asked  him  to  visit  Mississippi  on  a  "con- 
fidential matter,"  Semple  declined  the  commission.  With  that  decision, 
James  A.  Semple,  alias  John  Doe,  alias  Allan  S.  James,  acknowledged  at 
last  the  Civil  War  victory  of  the  United  States  of  America.11 

It  was  a  decision  dictated  by  a  near-total  nervous  breakdown  in 
October-November  1866  and  by  the  final  rupture  at  that  time  of  his 
never  very  satisfactory  marriage  to  Letitia  Tyler  Semple.  Indeed,  while 
Semple  was  playing  cat  and  mouse  with  the  Yankees  in  1865-1866, 
Letitia  left  him,  moved  to  Baltimore,  and  opened  a  private  school  there 
called  the  Eclectic  Institute.  During  his  mental  illness  in  late  1866  Julia 
nursed  him,  worried  about  him,  and  gave  him  shelter  at  Castleton  Hill. 
She  paid  for  his  room  and  board  in  a  New  York  hotel  while  he  was 
convalescing  in  1867.  She  also  urged  the  purser  to  abandon  the  sea  of 
alcohol  on  which  the  South's  defeat,  the  failure  of  the  Confederate  under- 
ground, and  his  own  despair  had  launched  him.  He  did  not  heed  her 
advice.  Wine,  women,  and  cards  temporarily  became  his  life's  work.  And 
he  worked  hard.  Tazewell  Tyler  saw  him  in  New  York  in  October  1866 
"constantly  around  the  Theaters,  traveling  about  the  country  with 
actresses,  gallivanting  them  to  Central  Park."  January  1867  found 
him  in  New  Orleans,  drinking  and  gambling  heavily,  threatening  suicide. 
For  a  time  the  confused  Semple  even  imagined  himself  in  love  with 
Julia.  "You  are  good,  /  know,  and  beautiful  to  my  eyes,  but  you  are  not 
mine! !  My  love  you  know  you  have  taken,  one  day  share  my  lot ...  my 
Sister  darling,"  he  wrote  her  in  March  1866.  Julia  was  mildly  flattered 
by  all  this,  but  she  quickly  put  Semple  straight  on  her  feeling  for  him. 
"Shall  I  admit,"  she  asked, 

that  it  gave  me  pleasure  to  read  your  professions  of  ardent  affection?  Per- 
haps it  should  have  been  otherwise,  and  I  shall  rather  chide  you  for  avowals 
that  do  not  entirely  agree  with  the  abiding  friendship  I  wish  should  grow  up 
between  us— but  it  is  so  sweet  to  be  caressed  when  the  heart  finds  little 
difficulty  in  responding  that  I  will  forgive  you  the  mere  expressions  of  a 
letter  and  reproach  only  myself  for  suffering  their  influence  to  be  so  agreeable 
and  soothing.  But  why  should  I  not  regard  you  most  tenderly?  To  that  ques- 
tion there  are  many  answers  in  my  heart,  each  one  so  satisfactory  that  I 
shall  not  under  any  circumstances  strive  to  weaken  the  tie  which  I  trust  with 
time  will  rather  grow  firmer  between  us. ...  [But]  if  necessary  Cestorus 
himself  must  be  invoked  to  stand  guard  between  us.  I  will  become  your 
mentor  to  guide  you  into  the  right  path  whenever  there  is  danger  of  your 
needing  [guidance] ,  Thus  I  am  sure  our  friendship  will  be  unmistakable. . . . 

Nevertheless,  reports  of  Sample's  debauchment  in  New  York  and 
New  Orleans  and  Julia's  patient  attempts  to  snap  him  out  of  his  moral 
and  mental  decline  reached  Letitia  in  Baltimore  and  convinced  her  that 


her  errant  husband  and  her  still-attractive  stepmother  were  up  to  no 
good.  She  had  never  liked  Julia  anyway.  To  be  sure,  Julia  owed  Semple 
a  great  debt  of  gratitude.  He  had  done  much  for  Gardie  and  Alex  in 
Richmond  during  the  war,  and  for  Julie  after  the  war.  Julia  fully  repaid 
this  debt  to  him,  but  not  in  the  fashion  the  suspicious  Letitia  imagined. 
And  while  Semple  had  indeed  "led  a  wild,  roving  and  checkered  life," 
Julia  had  not  figured  in  that  side  of  it.  She  was  never  the  "other  woman'7 
in  any  triangle,  and  she  strenuously  objected  to  Letitia's  insinuations 
that  she  was.  Semple  also  challenged  those  insinuations  after  he  emerged 
from  his  illness  and  intemperance  in  July  1867  and  was  able  to  see 
clearly  and  sensibly  the  sad  drift  of  affairs. 

Your  remarks  relative  to  Mrs.  T.  are  not  worthy  of  a  daughter  of  John  Tyler 
[he  told  his  estranged  wife] .  No  matter  what  I  may  think  of  a  lady,  I  rather 
think  I  would  keep  it  to  myself.  I  was  suffering  and  Mrs.  T.  offered  me  a 
home  (I  have  never  had  one  before)  and  I  accepted  it  and  passed  many 
pleasant  hours  there.  As  to  your  terms  relative  to  her  I  throw  them  back  with 
the  scorn  which  they  deserve,  a  lady  she  is  and  always  will  be.  As  to  "carrying 
my  name"  to  save  it  from  disgrace,  it  is  incredulous.  I  am  the  custodian  of 

my  own  honor You  are  yet  on  the  sunny  side  of  maidenhood.  Take  your 

own  steps  and  resume  your  own  name. 

There  was  no  formal  divorce.  Semple  never  lived  with  his  wife  again, 
however.  The  acrimonious  Letitia  sought  to  punish  Julia  for  her  innocent 
role  in  Semple's  erratic  postwar  behavior  by  instituting  a  petty  legal 
fight  with  her  stepmother  over  possession  of  some  family  portraits 
Semple  had  salvaged  from  Sherwood  Forest  during  the  war.12 

If  the  various  emotional  problems  of  Semple  and  Letitia  distressed 
Julia,  the  outward  adjustment  of  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  the  new  order  of 
things  in  the  South  gave  her  cause  for  great  happiness.  Psychologically 
the  least  stable  of  the  deceased  President's  children  by  his  first  wife, 
John's  maturation  was  hastened  and  fixed  by  the  trauma  of  the  conflict. 
Forty-six  years  old  when  the  organized  bleeding  stopped,  he  left  Rich- 
mond and  his  post  in  the  collapsed  Confederate  War  Department  for 
Baltimore.  For  a  short  time  he  lived  with  his  sister  Letitia  on  Mount 
Vernon  Place  while  he  began  building  a  law  practice.  He  brought  his 
drinking  habits  under  control.  He  did  not,  however,  resume  his  marriage 
with  Martha  Rochelle  Tyler,  who  died  January  n,  1867,  at  the  age  of 
forty-six.  In  1869  he  was  appointed  to  a  position  in  the  Internal  Revenue 
Office  in  Washington.  By  1872  he  was  in  Tallahassee,  Florida,  at  work 
in  the  Assessor's  Office  of  the  Internal  Revenue  Bureau  there,  a  patron- 
age post  that  required  him  to  announce  publicly  for  Grant  in  the  1872 
campaign.  Julia  defended  his  shocking  defection  from  Rebel  orthodoxy 
with  the  argument  that  "the  political  parties  are  so  mixed  that  one 
should  not  be  judged  harshly  for  any  course  he  chooses  or  sees  fit  to 
take."  She  thought  Republican  Grant  terrible,  but  not  much  worse  than 
former  abolitionist  editor  Horace  Greeley,  nominee  of  both  the  Demo- 

520 


cratic  and  Liberal  Republican  parties.  Privately,  of  course,  John  Tyler, 
Jr.,  remained  politically  unreconstructed  until  his  death  in  1896.  He 
was  always  a  Rebel  patriot  and  eager  secessionist  ready  to  join  in  a 
new  civil  war.  In  the  late  i88os  he  was  known  as  "General"  John  Tyler, 
his  military  rank  having  increased  more  rapidly  as  a  Confederate 
veteran  than  it  had  while  he  was  on  active  duty  in  the  Confederate 
Army.  His  only  reconstruction  was  in  the  spiritual  realm.  Finding  the 
Episcopal  Church  in  Tallahassee  weighed  down  with  dogmatism  and 
ritualism,  he  converted  to  Methodism  in  1873.  For  a  time  he  even  con- 
sidered entering  the  Methodist  ministry  in  order  better  "to  hammer  the 
wicked  and  denounce  sin."  This  urge  fortunately  passed.  General  John 
was  simply  not  the  ecclesiastical  type. 

Still,  John  adjusted  better  to  the  postwar  world  in  the  South  than 
his  younger  brother,  Dr.  Tazewell  Tyler.  Taz  broke  angrily  with  Julia 
after  the  conflict,  accusing  her  of  cowardly  running  away  from  Sher- 
wood Forest  to  the  comforts  of  Staten  Island  during  the  war.  Embittered 
by  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy,  refusing  to  live  under  the  Yankee 
occupation  of  Virginia,  he  drifted  to  California  in  1867.  There  he  at- 
tempted to  mix  the  practice  of  medicine  with  the  "wine  cup."  The  com- 
pound was  not  stable.  Divorced  in  1873  for  his  "dissipation"  by  Nannie, 
his  wife  of  sixteen  years,  the  broken  Taz  found  surcease  at  last  in  an 
early  grave.  He  died  in  California  on  January  8,  1874,  at  the  age  of 
forty-three.  In  a  real  sense  he  was  as  much  a  casualty  of  the  Civil  War 
as  if  he  had  fallen  in  combat  in  the  Wilderness. n 

While  Julia  sympathized  with  the  postwar  problems  of  her  step- 
children and  their  families,  she  was  naturally  more  concerned  with  the 
fate  of  her  own  children.  After  sending  Gardie  and  Alex  off  to  Germany 
in  September  1865  she  realized  that  something  would  also  have  to  be 
done  with  her  sixteen-year-old  daughter  Julie,  who  was  already  very 
much  a  woman  and  "as  wild  as  the  waves  that  dash  upon  the  shore." 
Actually,  Julie  was  not  that  wild.  She  was  just  boy-crazy,  and,  as  she 
put  it  herself,  "only  a  little  gay"  West  Point  Cadets  and  young  Army 
officers  particularly  captivated  her.  Flirtation  came  naturally  to  her. 
Julia  decided  the  time  had  come  to  curb  her  romantic  activities  with  at 
least  one  semester  in  a  boarding  school.  She  had  long  considered  Roman 
Catholic  schools  "generally  very  thorough — much  better  than  any 
other."  Thus  when  she  learned  something  about  the  Convent  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  in  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,  she  decided  to  enroll  Julie  there 
for  a  few  months.  It  was  inexpensive,  cultured  (classes  were  conducted 
in  French),  and  located  in  Canada,  well  removed  from  Yankee  educa- 
tional influences.14 

On  March  31,  1866,  young  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  left  New  York 
for  Halifax  in  the  care  of  James  A.  Sample,  who  was  bound  in  that 
direction  on  one  of  his  clandestine  voyages  for  the  Confederate  under- 
ground. Just  as  Juliana  Gardiner  had  once  lectured  her  daughter  when 

521 


Julia  had  departed  East  Hampton  for  the  Chagaray  Institute  in  New 
York  City,  so  now,  thirty  years  later,  Julia  introduced  Julie  to  the  ways 
of  the  world  and  to  the  expected  deportment  of  young  ladies  therein: 

Do  cultivate  your  voice  to  the  best  of  your  ability  and  do  not  waste  your 
time  as  you  have  done.  People  do  blame  me  so  much  for  letting  you  flirt 
around  among  the  beaux  and  neglect  all  your  studies.  I  am  particularly  sorry 
you  ever  wrote  to  any  of  them.  Miss  Julia  Tyler  is  expected  to  hold  herself 
in  reserve. ...  I  wish  you  could  see  the  carriage  bill  from  Quarantine  of  your 
various  drives  from  there  and  back!  It  mounts  up  nicely.  You  must  buy 

nothing  in  Halifax  that  is  not  absolutely  necessary  for  your  school You 

must  write  every  week  to  me,  telling  me  everything,  and  write  to  very  few 
others — and  to  no  gentlemen.  I  shall  be  very  much  offended  if  you  disobey  me. 
I  wish  you  to  attend  particularly  to  your  spelling  and  arithmetic  in  your 
English  studies.  You  must  learn  to  be  a  good  accountant. 

Julia  had  great  ambitions  for  her  daughter  in  society  and  was  cer- 
tain Julie  would  be  "a  great  belle  one  of  these  days  judging  from  her 
commencement."  Like  her  mother  at  the  same  age,  Julie  was  an  incor- 
rigible flirt.  Indeed,  on  the  ship  to  Halifax  she  took  a  young  West 
Pointer  "in  tow" -and  soon  had  his  photograph  on  her  dresser.  "She 
certainly  has  'Army'  on  the  brain,"  Semple  reported  to  Julia  in  amaze- 
ment. Amazed  for  quite  different  reasons  was  Gardie,  who  thought  it 
positively  seditious  that  his  sister  could  become  interested  in  West 
Pointers.  "They  may  be  very  brave  boys,  as  you  say,"  he  snorted,  "but 
it  would  be  a  source  of  much  unhappiness  to  me  to  see  a  sister  of  mine 
hanging  on  the  arm  of  one  of  those  mighty  heroes  who  are  being  bred  up 
now  for  the  express  purpose  of  tyrannizing  over  the  South. ...  I  hope 
never  to  see  an  infernal  Yankee  in  the  house.  They  have  ruined  our 
country  and  we  are,  morally  speaking,  bound  to  hate  every  one  of  'em 
without  exception,  which  I  do  with  an  intensity  you  can't  under- 
stand." 15 

That  heated  statement  from  Karlsruhe  ended  Julie's  West  Point 
phase  and  she  began  concentrating  on  the  civilian  youth  of  Halifax.  At 
the  same  time  she  settled  down  to  the  challenge  of  being  a  Protestant 
student  in  a  Roman  Catholic  school.  She  liked  the  Roman  Church  im- 
mediately. "Don't  be  astonished  if  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  months 
you  hear  of  my  becoming  a  nun"  she  warned  her  mother.  "I  don't  know 
what  may  happen,  I  like  everything  in  the  convent  so  much."  Even 
Semple,  who  believed  in  very  little  beyond  the  divinity  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  was  impressed  with  what  he  saw  of  the  school.  "Say  what  you 
will,"  he  told  Julia,  "these  Romish  Bishops  are  the  best  educated  and 
smartest  men  you  can  find  anywhere  almost,  and  on  all  subjects  are 
agreeable  and  entertaining."  All  in  all,  the  brief  experience  at  Sacred 
Heart  was  a  good  one  for  the  young  Tyler  lady.  She  became  no  nun,  of 
course.  She  studied  diligently  and  responded  constructively  to  the  mild 
discipline  of  the  convent.  And  when  she  returned  to  New  York  in  July 

522 


i866,  leaving  behind  her  a  small  blizzard  of  unpaid  bills  in  various  Hali- 
fax stores,  she  also  left  at  least  one  broken-hearted  male  admirer  in 
Nova  Scotia.  It  was  not  all  prayer  and  no  play  at  the  Sacre  Coeur,  and 
she  experienced  no  difficulty  resuming  her  flirtatious  ways  in  New 
York.16 

For  the  Tyler  boys  in  Germany,  formal  education  was  a  more 
difficult  matter.  Arriving  in  Karlsruhe  in  late  September  1865  after  a 
brief  sightseeing  trip  through  northwestern  Germany,  the  Confederate 
innocents  abroad  took  counsel  with  John  Fulton,  their  guide  and  men- 
tor, and  made  their  educational  plans.  At  first  they  did  little  except 
study  German  intensively  with  private  tutors.  Within  a  few  months, 
however,  they  were  all  taking  formal  courses — Gardie  in  the  sixth  class 
of  the  local  Lyceum,  Harry  and  Alex  in  the  fourth  and  sixth  classes 
respectively  at  the  Karlsruhe  Burger  Schule.  Gardie  quickly  abandoned 
his  interest  in  engineering  and  settled  down  instead  to  a  not  overly 
successful  study  of  modern  languages  and  classics  with  a  view  toward 
entering  law.  The  German  language  came  very  slowly  to  him  and  he 
often  felt  he  was  wasting  his  time  and  his  mother's  money  sitting  in 
classes  in  which  he  barely  understood  what  was  going  on.  By  October 
1866  he  was  discouraged  enough  with  his  lack  of  linguistic  progress  to 
think  seriously  of  returning  home.  "I  have  never  believed  that  I  could 
do  as  well  here  as  in  an  American  College,"  he  confessed  to  Julia.17 

Alex,  on  the  other  hand,  did  extremely  well  at  the  Burger  Schule. 
He  leaped  the  language  barrier  easily  and  decisively.  When,  therefore,  in 
the  spring  of  1866  it  threatened  to  come  down  to  the  simple  financial 
question  on  Staten  Island  of  which  son  Julia  could  afford  to  maintain 
in  Germany,  both  boys  agreed  it  should  be  Alex.  He  had  a  flair  for  math 
and  science,  and  his  desire  to  become  a  mining  engineer  was  no  passing 
fancy.  "I  am  tolcl  that  I  have  first  rate  talents  for  Mathematics,"  he 
boasted  to  his  mother  in  September  1866.  "Well,  if  I  haven't,  I  haven't 
talents  for  anything."  Fortunately,  he  did  have  scientific  talents,  and  his 
academic  ambitions  carried  him  far  beyond  wanting  to  become  an  "edu- 
cated country  gentleman"  in  Virginia.  The  Burger  Schule  would  ready 
him  for  the  mathematics  curriculum  at  the  Karlsruhe  Polytechnic,  and 
this  in  turn  would  prepare  him  for  the  engineering  course  at  Freiburg. 
And  a  Freiburg  education  in  mining  engineering  would,  he  reasoned,  be 
worth  uan  income  of  from  five  to  six  thousand  yearly  in  gold."  a8 

Harry  Beeckman  did  not  belong  in  Germany  at  all.  Deprived  of  a 
father  in  infancy  and  a  mother  at  the  age  of  nine,  raised  first  by  a  crotch- 
ety grandmother  and  now  by  his  Aunt  Julia,  the  seventeen-year-old  boy 
possessed  neither  emotional  stability  nor  professional  goals.  He  was  a 
good  enough  student,  but  he  much  preferred  the  beer  halls  and  the 
friendly  jrdulein  of  Karlsruhe  to  the  disciplined  quiet  of  the  study  and 
the  library.  He  gave  up  engineering  before  he  really  tried  it.  Instead,  he 

523 


began  to  study  for  a  business  career  with  the  vague  idea  of  someday 
entering  his  Uncle  Gilbert  Beeckman's  retail  dry  goods  store  in  New 
York  City.  Gardie  did  not  think  the  Beeckman  store  "at  all  fit  for  a 
young  man  to  commence  his  career  in"  and  he  soon  came  to  feel  that 
Harry  was  by  and  large  wasting  his  time  in  Karlsruhe.  Had  Margaret 
lived  it  might  have  been  different.  As  it  was,  Harry's  decline  began  be- 
fore his  rise  was  completed. 

It  was  a  decline  to  which  Julia  unwittingly  contributed  when  she 
empowered  Fulton  to  dole  out  very  little  spending  money  to  her  sons 
and  nephew.  Possessing  little  conception  of  currency-exchange  ratios, 
Julia  put  the  boys  on  an  allowance  which  came  to  about  twenty  cents 
a  week  in  German  money.  This  scarcely  covered  the  cigars,  beer,  late 
suppers,  and  other  pleasures  to  which  the  student  community  of  Karls- 
ruhe was  addicted.  Even  haircuts  were  well  beyond  the  economic 
competence  of  the  Tylers.  The  bare  trickle  of  allowance  money  through 
Fulton's  spigot  produced  much  tension  between  the  clergyman  and  his 
charges,  and  it  eventually  led  to  a  flurry  of  bitter  protests  to  Julia  de- 
manding more  money  and  the  discharge  of  the  penurious  Fulton.  Fulton, 
of  course,  was  not  to  blame.  He  merely  carried  out  his  instructions  from 
Staten  Island.  Julia  knew  this  and  she  supported  him.  "His  sympathies 
with  the  South  cover  a  multitude  of  faults,"  she  told  her  sons.  Never- 
theless, she  did  finally  promise  more  realistic  currency  dispensations, 
although  several  thin  months  passed  before  the  new  allowance  schedule 
went  into  effect. 

Julia  had  grave  money  problems  herself  during  her  long  will  fight 
with  David  Lyon.  But  severe  as  these  were,  she  managed  in  May  and 
June  1866  to  find  $768.15  for  the  purchase  of  four  dresses  and  one  $40 
black  silk  petticoat  at  Mme.  Gigon-RusselPs  exclusive  New  York  shop 
preparatory  to  vacationing  in  Newport.  "You  must  spend  as  little  as 
you  can,"  she  pleaded  with  her  sons  and  nephew,  "for  you  must  remem- 
ber your  expenses  are  enormous,  or  at  least  will  seem  so  to  me  until  my 
affairs  are  fully  settled."  Her  entreaties  did  not  influence  young  Beeck- 
man. So  desperate  did  Harry  become  for  funds  that  he  sold  his  gold 
watchchain  in  February  1866.  Punished  by  Fulton  for  the  deed  by 
having  his  meager  allotment  suspended  altogether,  he  enlisted  Cardie's 
aid  with  Julia.  "Money  makes  the  mare  go  here  as  well  as  elsewhere," 
Gardie  told  his  mother  patiently.  "It  is  all  very  well  for  you  to  tell  us  we 
make  ourselves  unnecessarily  uneasy  but  a  fellow  is  very  apt  to  incline 
that  way  when  he  puts  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  finds  no  comfort 
thar!"10 

Before  Julia  eased  the  boys7  financial  agony  Harry  foolishly  took 
money  matters  into  his  own  hands.  Unable  to  buy  cigars  or  borrow  them 
from  Gardie  ("How  can  I  supply  the  whole  school  with  cigars  on  twenty 
cents  a  week?"  his  cousin  snapped),  he  approached  a  breaking  point. 
This  craving  and  Julia's  refusal  to  let  him  purchase  a  guitar  and  take 

524 


instruction  on  it  at  forty  cents  a  lesson  finally  conspired  to  force  his 
hand  into  Fulton's  locked  desk  and  remove  forty  florins  (about  $15) 
from  it.  For  a  few  days  he  was  the  big-spending  sport  of  the  school, 
treating  the  other  boys  to  billiards,  beer;  and  cigars.  Promptly  found 
out,  he  contritely  returned  most  of  the  money  to  Fulton.  Still,  Harry's 
unthinking  act  was  reported  to  Julia  and  she  immediately  removed  him 
from  the  school.  With  Fulton  escorting  him  as  far  as  Bremen,  Harry 
was  returned  to  New  York  in  August  1866.  Gardie  and  Alex  were  much 
embarrassed  by  their  cousin's  indiscretion.  They  were  gratified  to  learn, 
however,  that  their  mother  had  decided  to  send  the  wayward  lad  to 
Washington  College  in  Lexington.  "It  is  much  better  than  a  Yankee 
college  and  he  will  be  less  liable  to  be  led  astray,"  said  Gardie.20 

Harry's  disgrace  notwithstanding,  the  Tyler  boys  found  Germany 
an  interesting  experience.  If  their  studies  were  difficult,  if  pangs  of 
homesickness  occasionally  seized  them,  there  were  the  compensating 
educational  and  social  advantages  of  Karlsruhe's  extensive  cultural  life. 
The  city  of  some  30,000  population  was  a  delightful  one,  strewn  with 
beautiful  walks  and  parks.  Its  band  was  "superior  to  any  I  ever  heard 
in  the  United  States,"  admitted  Gardie.  The  palace  of  the  Grand  Duke 
of  Baden  was  the  local  architectural  and  political  attraction.  Old  wine 
cellars  vied  with  older  churches  for  the  boys'  attention.  Schiller's  Joan 
of  Arc  was  only  one  of  the  first-rate  plays  the  Karlsruhe  theater  ran 
during  their  stay  in  Baden  (its  main  impact  on  Gardie  was  to  make  him 
"feel  like  eating  something  after  coming  out").21 

The  Germans  even  thoughtfully  provided  a  war  against  the  Aus- 
trians  in  June  1866  to  amuse  the  militant  young  Confederates  during 
their  residence  in  Karlsruhe.  This  brief  and  decisive  conflict  disturbed 
the  flow  of  funds  from  Staten  Island,  put  an  end  to  plans  for  a  summer- 
vacation  tour  of  Central  Europe,  and  threatened  for  a  time  to  force 
them  to  seek  refuge  in  Switzerland.  Nevertheless,  it  provided  the  Tylers 
with  a  look  into  the  Prussian  character  and  an  opportunity  to  play 
amateur  war  correspondent.  They  were  impressed  with  what  they  saw 
and  heard  of  the  war,  and  they  reported  its  course  with  mounting  ex- 
citement to  Staten  Island,  Prussian  efficiency  and  military  precision  truly 
amazed  the  young  veterans  of  Appomattox.  They  had  brought  with 
them  to  Karlsruhe  the  curious  notion  that  all  German  soldiers  were  like 
those  ill-trained  Cincinnati  and  New  York  immigrant  troops  under  Franz 
Sigel  who  had  been  routed  at  New  Market  by  Breckinridge.  "Great 
people  for  talking  and  not  much  for  acting,  except  in  the  running  away 
style,"  Gardie  had  sized  up  German  soldiery  in  April  1866.  The  smash- 
ing Prussian  victory  over  Austria  changed  his  opinion  radically.  The 
Seven  Weeks'  War  was  over  almost  before  it  fairly  commenced,  so  bril- 
liantly did  the  well-honed  Prussian  army  sweep  each  field  of  combat 
against  the  hopelessly  outclassed  Austrians  and  their  German  Catholic 
allies  (Baden  among  them)  in  the  doomed  Germanic  Confederation.  The 

S2S 


boys  could  not,  however,  understand  the  stolid  manner  in  which  the 
Germans  seemed  to  make  war  and  alliances  with  one  another. 

These  folks  over  here  [Gardie  reported  in  July]  don't  act  in  regard  to  military 
matters  like  we  do  in  America,  that  is,  pitch  in  with  immense  enthusiasm,  fight 
six  or  seven  battles  in  so  many  days,  then  gradually  cool  down  'til  we  fight 

on  a  certain  line  all  the  summer,  more  with  spade  than  musket Instead 

. . .  these  Germans  go  at  it  with  a  great  deal  of  circumspection  and  delibera- 
tion, whetting  their  swords  with  as  much  care  as  a  butcher  does  his  knife, 
listening  now  to  what  this  nation  [and  that]  has  to  say  in  regard  to  their 
little  family  quarrel,  not  being  the  least  offended  at  an  outsider's  meddling  in 
family  matters . . .  and  on  the  whole  acting  with  astonishing  coolness  and  not 
at  all  disturbed  by  patriotic  appeals . . .  but  looking  on  with  a  cairn  and  com- 
posed air  deliberating  whether  it  would  be  more  for  their  interest  to  go  with 
sister  Austria  or  cousin  Prussia.  As  a  general  thing  most  of  them  have  de- 
termined to  take  sides  with  their  nearest  relation  anot  because  they  hated 
Prussia  more  but  because  they  loved  themselves  the  best." 

The  young  Confederates  could  only  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Ger- 
mans were  an  impassive,  mechanical  people  devoid  of  all  emotion,  all 
values  save  that  of  calculating  self-interest.  "Confound  the  Germans/7 
Harry  cursed  them,  "they  are  in  fact  good  for  nothing  but  to  work  out 
mathematical  problems  and  that  they  are  really  good  at."  Or  as  Gardie 
put  it;  "Just  suppose  these  thick-skulled  Germans  could  hear  a  regular 
Confederate  yell;  wouldn't  that  make  them  open  their  eyes  in  won- 
der!"22 

The  German  girls  certainly  elicited  no  Rebel  yells  from  the  Con- 
federate expatriates  in  Baden.  "The  ladies  are  passing  up  and  down  our 
street  this  morning  in  great  numbers,"  Gardie  told  his  sister  with  mock 
salaciousness,  "but  the  wind  isn't  blowing  strong  enough,  so  it  isn't 
worth  the  trouble  to  look  out  the  window."  Sex,  when  it  reared  its  ugly 
head  at  all  in  1866,  reared  it  no  higher  than  a  well-turned  ankle — at 
least  not  for  the  Tyler  boys.  By  their  critical  standards  there  wasn't 
much  to  look  at  anyway.  "I  haven't  seen  a  pretty  girl  since  I  have  been 
in  Germany,"  said  Gardie  disgustedly  to  his  mother.  "They  are  without 
exception  the  ugliest  set  of  beer-barrels  you  ever  heard  or  read  of.  I  am 
nearly  dying  to  see  a  pretty  face  again.  If  I  conclude  to  settle  down 
here  I  will  have  to  import  my  wife  ...  I  will  let  you  know  when  I  want 
her ...  so  you  can  send  her  on,  'right  side  up  with  care.' "  Harry,  less 
difficult  to  please,  or  less  bashful  in  such  matters,  found  a  "great  many 
pretty  girls"  in  Karlsruhe,  "and  between  the  girls  and  the  Lager  Beer 
we  are  halj  tipsy  all  the  time''  This  was  an  exaggeration,  obviously, 
since  Julia  had  exacted  strict  prohibition  pledges  from  her  sons  and 
nephew  prior  to  their  departure  for  Europe.  She  had,  however,  excluded 
beer  and  egg-nog  from  the  promises  so  that  Karlsruhe  was  not  entirely 
transported  to  the  Gobi  Desert  for  the  thirsty  young  men.  Still,  Gardie 
considered  the  maternal  prohibition  on  wine  and  hard  liquor  an  un- 

526 


realistic  one  and  he  begged  to  be  released  from  it,  "For  you  will  know 

that  I  am  cut  off  from  all  social  enjoyment The  Germans  consider 

it  really  a  breach  of  etiquette  not  to  partake  of  the  jovial  bowl. ...  It  Is 
the  last  temperance  pledge  you  will  ever  get  from  me.77  Julia  was  un- 
moved by  his  arguments. 

Even  without  wine  and  liquor  the  social  enjoyments  in  Karlsruhe 
were  considerable.  American  Consul  George  F.  Kettell  of  Massachusetts 
and  his  young  wife  ("She  is  quite  pretty,  but,  ye  heavenly  powers,  what 
a  foot  and  ankle!")  often  entertained  the  American  students  resident  in 
town.  Frau  Steinbach,  Gardie  and  Alex's  landlady  after  Harry's  de- 
parture in  August  1 866,  saw  to  it  that  they  met  young  German  girls 
of  good  bourgeois  background.  It  was  a  pleasant  enough  life.  "The 
theaters  and  music  of  Karlsruhe  are  splendid,"  Gardie  admitted,  "and 
with  ten  thousand  a  year  how  a  fellow  could  live.  Life  in  Germany  is 
certainly  very  pleasant  if  one  has  the  where-with-all  to  enjoy  it."  23 

Other  leisure  hours  were  filled  with  sports.  With  the  dozen  or  so 
other  American  students  in  Karlsruhe,  most  of  them  Confederate  ex- 
patriates like  the  Tylers,  the  boys  formed  an  American  baseball  club  in 
February  1866,  the  first  of  its  kind,  surely,  in  Germany.  Together  with 
some  English  students  they  also  helped  organize  a  local  cricket  club. 
In  addition,  Gardie  absorbed  the  German  passion  for  gymnastics  and 
urged  his  mother  to  put  up  parallel  bars  for  his  younger  brothers  at 
home  to  exercise  on.  He  also  joined  a  student  shooting  fraternity.  He 
and  Alex  both  took  up  boxing  so  that  "during  leisure  moments  we  may 
scientifically  bung  up  each  other's  peepers.  It  is  a  pleasant  and  healthy 
amusement  and  saves  the  expense  of  calling  in  a  doctor  for  bleeding 
purposes."  Julia  put  her  foot  down  when  it  came  to  fencing,  fearful  that 
it  would  lead  her  combat-happy  sons  straight  into  the  dangerous  student 
dueling  clubs.  But  Gardie  assured  her  that  he  would  eschew  fencing  and 
dueling  completely,  "When  I  fight  it  will  be  with  'pistol  and  coffee  for 
two/  or  perhaps  with  the  'Arkansas  Toothpick'  [bayonet].  I  ain't 
pertickular,  anything  from  a  cannon  to  a  pen  knife!"  Alex  complained 
that  both  his  athletic  and  social  life  was  being  compromised  by  the 
lingering  "camp  itch"  he  had  picked  up  during  his  brief  tour  with  the 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  "I  don't  like  to  go  to  a  Doctor  here,"  he 
told  his  mother,  "for  it  is  considered  dreadful,  so  please  send  me  by  first 
opportunity  a  good  remedy,"  24 

With  all  the  academic,  social,  cultural,  and  athletic  advantages 
Karlsruhe  afforded,  Gardie  still  wanted  to  come  home.  "Notwithstand- 
ing all  these  attractions  I  would  rather  be  in  'Old  Virginia,7  "  he  told  his 
mother.  He  was  disturbed  with  the  way  the  fight  against  David  Lyon 
was  going  in  the  courts,  and  he  found  it  frustrating  to  be  able  to  con- 
tribute nothing  more  to  the  family  effort  than  harmless  anathemas 
hurled  at  his  uncle  from  a  distance  of  four  thousand  miles.  He  followed 
the  will  suit  closely  and  was  alternately  elated  and  depressed  as  the 

527 


direction  of  his  mother's  cause  was  first  up  and  then  down.  As  he  ex- 
pressed his  deep  concern  to  Julia  in  April  1867: 

He  [David  Lyon]  seems  to  be  lost  to  all  feeling  of  gentleness  and  moderation 

and  deserves  to  be  branded  as  a  public  coward  and  woman-insulter Never 

mind,  we'll  have  a  settlement  with  the  gent  one  of  these  days  or  I'm  a 
Dutchman.  I  am  sorry  that  I  am  not  with  you.  I  don't  relish  this  idea  of  your 
being  eternally  troubled  by  a  pack  of  villains  and  we  over  here  at  our  ease. 
I'd  feel  much  more  satisfied  if  I  could  share  your  troubles  or  do  something 

to  mitigate  them I  feel  savage  about  the  way  those  dogs  have  treated 

you. ...  I  know  we  have  never  heard  half  of  what  you  have  suffered  since 
that  confounded  lawsuit  commenced.  However,  the  calm  follows  the  storm 
and  we'll  have  a  good  time  together  yet. . . .  The  whole  concern  has  been 
bribed  and  you  are  among  the  meanest  people  in  the  world — and  no  good 
will  ever  come  out  of  Nazareth.25 

Similarly,  Gardie  was  distressed  at  reports  of  what  was  happening 
in  the  South  under  the  Reconstruction  program  of  the  Radical  Republi- 
cans. So  angry  did  he  become  over  his  mother's  treatment  in  the 
"bribed"  Yankee  courts,  and  over  the  South's  treatment  by  the  Yankee 
occupation,  he  could  hardly  study  or  think  about  anything  save  return- 
ing home  to  take  a  stand  against  such  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune.  He  hoped  that  President  Johnson  and  the  Radicals  would  come 
to  such  an  impasse  that  civil  war  would  again  break  out.  "It  would  be 
my  duty  to  be  with  Gen.  Lee  (God  bless  him)  again.  How  I  would  like 
to  meet  my  old  comrades  once  more  under  the  'Bonnie  Blue  Flag,7  " 
he  sighed.  News  of  the  Reconstruction  Act  of  March  1867,  which  di- 
vided the  South  into  five  military  districts,  and  the  subsequent  station- 
ing of  federal  troops  (including  Negro  militia)  throughout  the  section 
to  supervise  the  registering  and  voting  of  Negroes,  filled  the  Tyler  boys 
with  sadness.  "Our  poor  South,"  Gardie  mourned.  "  7Tis  too  dreadful  to 

contemplate It  absolutely  makes  one  sick.  Farewell  to  States'  rights 

and  liberty!  Triumph,  Puritans  and  negro-worshippers!  But  remember, 
we  bide  our  time."  Threats  of  the  Radicals  to  impeach  Johnson  struck 
them  as  insane.  They  cheered  the  President's  courage  in  vetoing  Radical 
Republican  legislative  excesses,  just  as  they  hailed  the  good  news  of  Jeff 
Davis'  parole  from  Fortress  Monroe.  "We  yelled  with  joy,"  Gardie  re- 
ported. "That  Andy  Johnson  is  something."  There  was  actually  very 
little  to  yell  about.  The  passage  of  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth 
amendments  cast  the  boys  into  despair.  The  Report  of  the  Joint  Com- 
mittee of  15  in  June  1866,  recommending  that  the  former  Confederate 
states  be  denied  representation  in  Congress,  impressed  them  as  the  be- 
ginning of  a  "yoke  of  servitude,  for  in  reality  we  are  nothing  else  but 
slaves,  however  we  may  hate  to  say  the  degrading  word."  The  only  en- 
couraging news  reaching  them  from  the  South  was  a  much  exaggerated 
report  from  Lexington  of  riots  there  in  March  1867.  White  boys  had 
smashed  and  looted  a  Negro  school,  and  the  V.M.I,  cadets  had  teamed 

528 


up  with  Washington  College  students  to  "turn  the  Yankee  Garrison  out 
of  the  town."  Or  so  it  was  said.  "By  Jove! "  exulted  Gardie,  "there's  life 
in  the  old  Land  yet!"26 

David  Gardiner  Tyler  could  not  sit  safely  on  the  sidelines  in  far- 
away Karlsruhe  forever.  His  agitations  to  return  home,  begun  as  early 
as  February  1866,  increased  in  tempo  and  intensity.  He  procured  cata- 
logues from  the  University  of  Virginia  and  from  Washington  College. 
He  carefully  compared  the  schools  and  decided  he  would  re-enter  the 
Lexington  institution,  now  under  the  direction  of  Robert  E.  Lee.  "To  be 
under  Gen.  Lee  is ...  one  of  the  greatest  honors,  whether  in  war  or 
peace,"  he  told  Julia  in  October  1866.  Also,  the  professors  there  were 
"among  the  most  enlightened  men  of  the  South."  Julia  finally  consented, 
and  on  September  24,  1867,  just  two  years  from  the  time  he  had  arrived 
in  Karlsruhe,  he  left  for  home.  Five  hundred  students  were  expected  at 
Washington  College  for  the  1867-1868  session  and  Gardie  was  sure  that 
"with  so  many  young  Southerners  together  'twill  be  the  freest  place  in 
America.  The  Yanks  won't  dare  to  try  their  negro  equality  politics 
there!"27 

Alex  remained  behind  in  Germany  by  choice.  He  was  subsequently 
graduated  from  both  Karlsruhe  and  Freiburg  as  a  mining  engineer,  and 
not  until  March  1873  did  he  return  to  the  United  States.  He  arrived 
home  speaking  fluent  German  and  French  and  displaying  a  "magnificent 
physical  development  and ...  all  the  polish  and  address  of  a  foreigner." 
In  the  intervening  years  he  had  run  up  a  series  of  monumental  debts. 
On  one  occasion  his  creditors  saw  him  into  a  Baden  "dungeon  keep" 
where  he  spent  several  defiant  weeks.  Julia  painfully  paid  off  enough  of 
these  longstanding  obligations  for  Alex  to  escape  Germany  for  home. 

She  was  not  at  all  happy  about  his  free-spending  ways  in  college. 
But  she  thought  he  had  completely  lost  his  mind  when  he  volunteered 
to  fight  for  the  Germans  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Failing  in  an  at- 
tempt to  join  the  Baden  Army  in  October  1870  because  he  was  too  well 
known  in  Karlsruhe  as  an  American  citizen,  he  dropped  out  of  school 
for  a  semester,  took  an  assumed  name,  and  finally,  in  December  1870, 
managed  to  enlist  in  the  ist  Company,  i5th  Regiment  of  the  Saxon 
Army.  Two  weeks  under  Lee  had  not  been  enough  war  to  suit  Mm. 
While  he  missed  the  heavy  fighting  at  Mars-la-Tour,  Gravelotte,  and 
Sedan  in  August  and  September  1870,  he  did  serve  as  a  Uhlan  trooper 
in  the  occupation  of  France  for  several  months  early  in  1871.  For  this 
modest  military  contribution  he  was  awarded  a  ribbon  by  the  Kaiser  for 
"faithful  service"  in  the  German  Army.  He  admitted  his  enlistment  had 
a  "romantical"  cast  about  it,  but  he  enjoyed  himself  thoroughly.  It  was 
quite  an  adventure  and  he  managed  to  amass  some  wonderful  new  debts 
in  occupied  France.  "You  know  how  excitable  I  am,"  he  told  his  mother, 
"and  then  I  think  Germany  perfectly  right."  28 

The  war  Gardie  saw  after  Ms  return  to  Staten  Island  was  of  a 

529 


quite  different  sort.  Andrew  Johnson  was  locked  in  mortal  struggle  with 
the  Radical  Republican  Congress  over  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  and  the 
related  question  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton's  status  in  Johnson's  Cabinet.  As 
Gardie  observed  the  political  situation  from  Castleton  Hill  in  January 
1868,  "a  very  serious  collision  between  the  President  and  Congress  is 
anticipated ...  the  Dogs  of  War  are  very  like  being  loosed  again,  and 
this  time  we  can  look  on  and  rub  our  hands  with  great  satisfaction." 
While  this  bitter  contest  between  the  President  and  the  Congress  was 
approaching  the  showdown  of  the  unsuccessful  Radical  attempt  in 
February  to  impeach  the  Chief  Executive,  Gardie  left  Staten  Island  for 
Lexington  to  enroll  in  Washington  College  for  the  spring  semester.29 
There  he  found  a  distinguished  student  body  of  unreconstructed 
young  Rebels  like  himself.  Among  them  were  Henry  Clay's  grandson,  a 
cousin  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  two  nephews  of  General  Lee,  General  John 
C.  Breckinridge's  son,  and  many  others  "from  the  best  families"  of  the 
South.  Harry  Beeckman  was  there  too.  "Look  out,  ye  Yanks,"  Gardie 
shouted  in  glee,  "we  are  a-coming."  Mainly  he  was  impressed  with 
Robert  E.  Lee,  the  revered  president  of  the  college  who  had  already 
become  a  folk  hero  in  the  South.  His  matriculation  interview  with  the 
general  left  Gardie  misty-eyed: 

I  found  the  Old  Hero  as  erect  and  noble  looking  as  ever  [he  told  Julia] ,  and 
affable  and  kind  and — but  it  is  no  use  to  attempt  to  describe  him;  all  the 
adjectives  in  the  English  language  could  not  begin  to  do  him  justice.  He  is 
universally  beloved  and  reverenced  by  all  the  students,  and  his  word  is  law 
with  them.  His  influence  and  energy  alone  have  made  what  was  formerly  a 
simple  Academy  one  of  the  finest  colleges  in  America;  aye,  I  believe  in  the 
world. . . .  The  European  plan  has  been  adopted,  and  everything  is  carried  on 
with  the  most  perfect  order.  "Old  Marse  Bob"  is  good  at  everything  he 
turns  his  hand  to. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  Lee's  kindness  and  encouragement  ("I  never  meet 
the  General  but  that  he  asks  after  you,"  Gardie  wrote  his  mother) 
young  Tyler  became  a  hard-working  student  of  the  law,  classics,  and 
modern  languages.  He  saw  his  beloved  general  frequently  on  campus, 
and  Mrs.  Lee,  who  had  known  Julia  in  Richmond  in  1862-1863,  oc- 
casionally invited  Gardie  and  other  students  into  her  home  for  tea. 
While  Gardie  was  constantly  forced  to  dun  his  mother  for  money  to 
meet  the  most  obvious  college  expenses — tuition,  board,  clothes,  books 
— he  remained  in  good  spirits  until  his  graduation  in  1869  very  near 
the  top  of  his  class.  White  rule  had  by  that  time  been  firmly  re-estab- 
lished in  Lexington.  "No  news  except  the  knocking  down  of  an  African 
by  a  Student  last  week,  which  is  no  unusual  occurrence,"  he  informed 
Julia  in  June  i868.30 


Even  before  he  was  graduated  Gardie  was  fighting  against  any  form 
of  political  accommodation  with  the  carpetbagging  Radical  Republicans 

530 


and  their  scalawag  allies  who  ran  the  Old  Dominion  with  the  aid  of 
Negro  votes.  Instead,  he  preached  resistance  and  nothing  but  resistance 
to  the  Yankee  occupation.  "If  we  remain  quiet,"  he  exploded  to  Julia 
on  the  eve  of  the  1868  election,  "and  submit  to  ...  Radical  enormities, 
allow  ourselves  to  be  insulted,  knocked  down,  and  spit  upon  without 
resistance,"  the  South  would  never  escape  its  bondage.  Similarly,  the 
Radicals'  proposed  new  state  constitution,  the  so-called  Underwood 
Constitution,  which  enfranchised  the  Negro  and  permitted  him  to  hold 
public  office,  was  to  young  Tyler  nothing  more  than  a  "political  mon- 
ster, born  of  Radical  malignity  and  scalawag  negrophilism."  The  idea  of 
the  Negro's  voting  in  Virginia  or  receiving  any  of  the  normal  rights  of 
citizenship  there  was  a  notion  Gar  die  (in  common  with  most  other  white 
Southerners)  could  not  readily  absorb.  "No  true  Virginian  is  going  to 
give  an  assenting  vote  to  his  own  degradation.  I  for  one  will  never  by 
my  vote  allow  the  Negro  to  exercise  such  a  right."  In  spite  of  Cardie's 
opposition  the  Underwood  Constitution  was  overwhelmingly  ratified  in 
June  I86Q.31 

These  views,  as  politically  unrealistic  as  they  were  emotionally 
sincere,  were  partly  conditioned  by  Gardie's  visit  to  Sherwood  Forest 
during  his  vacation  from  college  in  the  summer  of  1868.  There  he  looked 
out  over  weed-choked  fields  and  saw  that 

Desolation  has  set  its  seal  upon  all  around  us,  and  the  gloom  like  the  veil  of 
the  grave  has  settled  upon  the  land.  Sherwood  looks  as  forlorn  as  ever, 
everything  is  going  to  yet  greater  ruin.  With  the  exception  of  some  one  hun- 
dred acres  which  are  being  cultivated  by  negroes  on  shares,  all  the  plantation 
is  fast  growing  up  in  scrub  pine,  sassafras,  and  red  oak  bushes.  The  house  . . . 
is  gradually  rotting,  and  in  a  few  years  longer  it  will  be  beyond  the  possibility 
of  repair.  Deserted,  tenantless,  forsaken,  the  once  beautiful  home  of  our  then 
happy  family!  Can  I  ever  forgive  or  forget  the  fiendish  wretches  who  have 
wrought  this  work  of  desolation?  If  I  should  ever  affiliate  or  stand  on  a 
friendly  footing  with  a  single  one  of  this  foul  brood,  may  the  direst  vengeance 
of  the  Omnipotent  fall  upon  me  and  mine. ...  It  can  never  again  be  as  it  was 
. . .  when  the  negroes  work  merely  on  shares  they  are  so  indolent  that  they 
often  entirely  neglect  what  little  they  have  under  cultivation,  and  the  whites 
have  now  no  authority  over  them  unless  they  are  hired  monthly  as  in  the 
North. . .  ,^ 

Julia  twice  visited  the  decaying  plantation  in  1866-1867,  but  she 
had  virtually  given  up  on  the  place  after  the  failure  of  her  Swedish  ex- 
periment in  1865.  In  1866  she  again  made  up  her  mind  to  sell  the 
property.  Only  the  pained  protests  of  Gardie  and  Alex  from  Karlsruhe 
and  the  knowledge  that  depressed  farm  land  on  the  peninsula  was 
selling  for  $40  to  $50  per  acre  caused  her  to  procrastinate.  "I  really  think 
that  the  loss  of  our  working  population  has  decreased  the  real  value  of 
the  land  at  least  one  fourth  to  one  third,"  Sample  correctly  informed  her 
at  the  time.  The  boys,  of  course,  had  strong  sentimental  attachments  to 


the  scene  of  their  childhood.  Gardie  was  determined  to  restore  the  estate 
and  live  on  it. 

After  reading  law  in  the  Richmond  offices  of  family  friend  James 
Lyons  in  1869-1870  and  gaining  admission  to  the  Virginia  bar  in  June 
1870,  Gardie  moved  back  to  Sherwood  Forest  to  do  what  his  father  and 
grandfather  before  him  had  done  (and  what  his  son  is  now  doing) — 
combine  the  practice  of  law  in  Charles  City  with  farming  and  local 
politics.  He  turned  down  an  appointive  county  judgeship  on  the  sensible 
ground  that  he  first  needed  actual  experience  in  the  law.  He  was,  after 
all,  only  twenty-four  years  old  in  1870  and  he  had  never  practiced  law 
a  day.  Not  that  the  stipend  for  the  post  would  not  have  been  welcome. 
Ready  cash  was  so  tight  in  the  Tyler  family  in  1870  that  to  satisfy  a  tax 
lien  of  $58.09  on  the  plantation  the  Sherwood  cattle  (three  cows)  were 
ordered  put  up  to  public  auction  by  the  local  sheriff.  Fortunately  Julia, 
who  hastened  to  Charles  City  to  attend  to  this  crisis,  managed  to  buy 
the  cows  herself,  and  she  picked  up  three  heifers  in  addition,  all  for 
$79.00.  "If  I  had  not  been  present  I  do  not  suppose  anyone  could  have 
made  so  good  a  bargain  for  me,"  she  boasted  happily.33 

Her  good  luck  in  this  single  instance  did  not  conceal  the  fact  that 
Sherwood  Forest,  like  almost  all  the  other  Tidewater  plantations,  re- 
mained in  serious  financial  trouble  throughout  the  entire  Reconstruction 
period.  The  price  of  guano,  seed  wheat,  and  hired  labor  was  so  high  in 
1870 — and  the  potential  market  for  wheat  so  uncertain — Gardie  decided 
it  would  not  pay  to  put  in  a  wheat  crop  at  all.  Brother  Lonie  was  sched- 
uled to  enter  the  University  of  Virginia  that  year,  and  to  Gardie  it  did 
not  seem  a  good  gamble  to  have  his  mother  "strain  and  scuffle"  to  raise 
two  or  three  hundred  dollars  to  invest  in  a  wheat  crop  that  would  prob- 
ably bring  in  no  more  than  three  or  four  hundred.  Better  to  invest  the 
money  in  college  tuition  in  the  fall  and  plant  oats  in  the  spring,  a  crop 
for  which  guano  was  not  required.  A  wheat  crop  would  simply  tie  up  too 
much  capital.  "The  negroes  will  not  work  unless  they  are  paid  punctually 
every  Saturday  night,  dependent  as  they  are  on  the  proceeds  of  their 
daily  labor  for  sustenance,"  he  explained  to  his  mother  in  September 
1870.  "You  already  find  it  very  difficult  to  throw  up  temporary  dams  to 
keep  back  the  tide  of  debt. . .  [and]  as  matters  now  are,  a  bird  in  the 
hand,  let  him  be  ever  so  poor  a  one,  is  certainly  worth  two  in  the 
bush."  34 

Julia  agreed.  Cash  was  extremely  scarce.  Overwhelmed  with  law- 
yers' fees,  tuition  payments,  taxes,  the  everyday  expenses  of  her  smaller 
children,  the  maintenance  of  Castleton  Hill,  and  claims  against  the 
Tyler  estate,  she  was  in  no  mood  to  gamble  two  hundred  dollars  in 
the  unpromising  Sherwood  fields  to  win,  at  best,  three  hundred  and  fifty 
in  return.  Nor  did  her  financial  situation  improve.  In  1871  the  little  herd 
of  livestock  almost  went  on  the  sheriff's  block  again  to  satisfy  a  $85  tax 
bill.  Judgments  totaling  $2000  against  the  plantation  kept  Gardie  fre- 

532 


quently  in  court  after  1870  and  nearly  resulted  in  the  forced  sale  of  the 
estate  in  1872  to  satisfy  the  creditors.  In  that  desperate  year  of  1872 
Gardie  had  but  one  lone  worker  on  the  place,  David  Brown.  "He  has 
a  mule,  and  supplies  the  labor  and  I  have  the  land  and  my  mule  on 
terms  of  %  the  product.  This  is  the  best  I  can  do,  and  has  the  merit  of 
avoiding  the  outlay  of  money."  As  he  looked  out  upon  the  snowy  Christ- 
mas season  of  1872  it  pained  him  to  see  his  "poor  cattle  standing  shiver- 
ing on  the  dreary  hillside,  and  no  feed  to  warm  the  poor  beasts  in  the 
barn.  I  hope  this  will  be  the  last  winter  our  herd  will  be  forced  to  en- 
dure, unsheltered  and  uncared  for,  the  piercing  blasts  of  winter.  Christ- 
mas greetings "  35 

Gardie's  political  career  in  Charles  City  County  began  almost  as 
inauspiciously  as  did  his  attempt  to  re-enter  the  ranks  of  the  landed 
gentry  astride  a  long-neglected  farm.  The  Old  Dominion  political  arena 
contained  more  lions  than  Christians.  The  Republican  governor  of  Vir- 
ginia in  1870  was  Gilbert  C.  Walker  of  Norfolk.  He  had  been  elected  to 
the  office  in  1869  by  an  informal  coalition  of  relatively  moderate  white 
Radical  Republicans  and  old-line  white  Virginia  Democrats.  The  latter 
group  had  opportunistically  supported  him  because  he  was  a  lesser  evil 
than  Radical  Republican  New  Yorker  Henry  H.  Wells,  the  demagogic 
candidate  of  the  militant  Negro  bloc.  General  Wells  had  served  as  Vir- 
ginia's governor  from  1867  to  1869  under  a  federal  military  appoint- 
ment. While  Walker  was  a  great  improvement  over  the  rabble-rousing 
Wells  (the  Norfolk  Journal  crowed  that  Virginia  had  been  "redeemed, 
regenerated  and  disenthralled"  by  Walker's  victory),  to  Gardie  Tyler  he 
was  no  more  than  a  "superb  apollo  and  guttermanly  carpetbagger." 
This  harsh  view  was  conditioned  by  the  fact  that  twenty-seven  Negroes 
had  also  been  elected  to  the  General  Assembly  in  the  June  1869  state 
canvass  that  swept  the  new  governor  in  and  approved  the  Underwood 
Constitution.  In  October,  soon  after  the  Walker  regime  took  power  in 
Richmond,  the  Republican-dominated  General  Assembly,  to  Gardie?s 
disgust,  formally  ratified  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  amendments. 
Only  by  this  action  could  Virginia  comply  legally  with  federal  require- 
ments leading  to  the  restoration  of  her  statehood.  There  was,  therefore, 
no  practical  or  sensible  (or  moral)  alternative  to  this  belated  decision  in 
Richmond.  Gardie  nonetheless  viewed  Governor  Walker  as  a  carrier  of 
bubonic  plague  because  he  was  committed  to  a  policy  of  sectional  recon- 
ciliation. 

His  reluctant  decision  to  run  for  Commonwealth's  Attorney  of 
Charles  City  County  in  the  November  1870  elections  seemed  the  only 
way  he  could  contribute  in  some  small  manner  to  the  downfall  of  the 
governor  and  his  scalawag  and  carpetbagger  friends.  He  believed  that 
if  he  ran  as  an  independent  on  a  platform  of  "political  neutrality  and 
residence  in  the  County,"  he  might  draw  enough  local  Negro  votes  to 
slip  into  office.  He  certainly  could  not  run  as  a  white-supremacy  candi- 

533 


date  in  a  heavily  Negro  county,  and  he  knew  he  could  not  win  at  all 
unless  the  Charles  City  whites  united  solidly  behind  his  candidacy. 
"Unless  an  out-and-out  Radical  is  run  by  the  Negroes  my  chances  for 
election  are  good,"  he  decided.  Unfortunately  for  Cardie's  ambition 
and  for  the  logic  of  his  nonracist  tactics,  the  Republicans  ran  in  John 
Talley  an  extremist  Radical.  Nor  did  the  whites  fall  in  solidly  behind 
young  Tyler.  They  were  unimpressed  with  his  moderate  position  on  race 
relations  and  Radical  Reconstruction,  and  they  failed  to  see  that  it  was 
mainly  a  campaign  stance  designed  to  "split  the  Black  vote."  They 
stayed  home  from  the  polls  in  droves.  Only  a  third  of  the  eligible  whites 
bothered  to  vote  at  all,  and  Gardie  attracted  but  forty  scattered  Negro 
ballots.  Talley  pulled  the  Negro  bloc  and  beat  Tyler  by  an  "over- 
whelming" majority.  "This  is  the  last  time  that  I  shall  run  as  an  Inde- 
pendent," Gardie  told  Julia  in  disgust,  "with  one  foot  on  shore  and  one 
at  sea.  I  was  opposed  to  it  all  along  and  yielded  at  the  expense  of  my 
feelings  and^  better  judgment  to  the  advice  of  soi-disant  friends.  From 
this  day  forth  I  am  a  Rebel,  Democrat,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call 
it  here,  but  never  more  a  Trimmer."  36 

The  national  political  scene  of  the  early  18703  cast  a  light  no  more 
bright  by  Tyler  standards  than  Radical  rule  in  Charles  City.  Julia  railed 
bitterly  against  military  Reconstruction  in  the  South,  condemned  the 
venal  and  corrupt  Grant  administration,  and  did  what  she  could  in  the 
way  of  letters  of  recommendation  to  help  her  politically  correct  friends 
obtain  patronage  appointments.  The  Democratic  Party,  however,  seemed 
to  offer  the  distracted  nation  little  more  than  did  the  corrupt  Republican 
regime  of  the  bewildered  Grant.  The  plunders  of  Boss  William  M. 
Tweed's  infamous  Ring  in  New  York  City,  and  Tweed's  cynical  use  of 
Tammany  Hall  as  a  vehicle  for  municipal  piracy  on  a  classic  scale, 
struck  Julia  and  Gardie  as  the  end  of  the  Democracy  John  Tyler  had 
loved.  "It  is  rotten  to  the  core,"  Julia  proclaimed  in  full  exasperation. 
"Let  the  cry  be  reform  anywhere. . . .  New  York  seems  like  a  paralyzed 
city — so  dull  is  business."  37 

A  breath  of  political  fresh  air  in  Virginia,  the  first  since  Appomat- 
tox,  seemed  to  stir  in  the  "refreshing  victory"  the  white  Conservative 
Democracy  achieved  in  the  state  elections  of  November  1871.  Thanks 
to  "a  complete  fusion  of  old-line-Whigs  and  dyed-in-the-wool  Demo- 
crats," the  white-supremacy  party  captured  Richmond.  Though  the 
Radicals  continued  their  local  domination  of  Charles  City,  Gardie  was 
now  hopeful  that  an  anti-Grant,  anti-Radical  Reconstruction,  anti- 
Tweed  coalition  reform  movement  on  the  national  level,  crossing  party 
lines  North  and  South,  might  save  "what  little  there  remains  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  by  a  defeat  in  '72  of  the  stupid  dog  that  kennels  in 
the  White  House."  The  stunning  defeat  of  the  Democracy  in  the  Empire 
State  in  November  1871,  a  setback  occasioned  by  the  unsavory  Tweed 
exposes  in  New  York  City,  dashed  this  momentary  optimism  at  Sher- 
wood Forest.  It  was,  Gardie  argued,  "the  severest  blow  that  has  befallen 

534 


the  South  since  the  downfall  of  the  Confederacy,  because  it  insures  us 
four  years  more  (perhaps  a  perpetuation)  of  carpet-baggers,  ku  klux 

legislation  and  military  tyranny Grant's  hands  are  strengthened  and 

the  bulwark  of  our  safety  overthrown." 

Nor  did  the  emergence  of  the  Liberal  Republican  movement  in 
1872  impress  Gardie.  Although  it  was  dedicated  to  reform,  the  inter- 
ment of  the  "bloody  shirt,"  and  an  end  to  the  military  occupation  of  the 
South,  its  nomination  of  former  abolitionist  Horace  Greeley  seemed  "a 
nasty  dose  to  take  even  to  get  rid  of  Butcher  Grant.77  The  Tylers  thus 
strenuously  opposed  Democratic  Party  endorsement  of  the  Liberal  Re- 
publican ticket  of  Greeley  and  B.  G.  Brown.  Indeed,  Gardie  was  instru- 
mental in  seeing  that  Charles  City  delegates  to  the  Virginia  Conservative 
[Democratic]  Convention  on  June  27,  1872,  went  to  Richmond  com- 
mitted to  no  endorsement  of  "such  a  vile  concoction  as  Greeley."  When, 
however,  the  national  Democratic  convention,  meeting  in  Baltimore  on 
July  9,  did  accept  and  endorse  the  Greeley-Brown  ticket,  Gardie  re- 
luctantly came  out  for  old  Horace  with  the  rationalization  that  anybody 
would  be  an  improvement  over  Grant.  Greeley  had,  after  all,  helped 
bring  about  Jefferson  Davis'  release  from,  prison,  and  his  election  would 
encourage  some  hope  of  an  end  to  carpetbag  rule  in  the  South. 
The  Democratic-Liberal  Republican  coalition  ticket  was  a  "nauseous 
emetic,"  but  Gardie  held  his  nose  and  swallowed  it.  He  was  not  sur- 
prised, however,  when  Grant,  "bloody  shirt"  flying  in  the  political 
breeze,  overwhelmed  "Horace  of  the  White  Hat"  with  a  popular  ma- 
jority of  763,000  and  an  electoral  vote  margin  of  286  to  66.  "In  our 
County,"  Gardie  reported  to  his  mother,  "the  negroes  thronged  ...  to  the 
polls,  voting  nearly  as  a  unit  for  Grant;  the  white  vote  was  small,  many 
refusing  to  take  Greeley,  casting  their  ballots  only  for  County  officers 
and  Congressional  candidates. . . .  Many  of  the  lower  classes  of  whites 
voted  for  Grant."  The  Democratic  Party,  concluded  Julia  after  the  elec- 
tion, "is  at  present  defunct  and  I  pity  all  wedded  to  it."  38 


The  institutional  problems  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  the  early 
18705  were  no  more  complicated  than  the  personal  problems  of  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler.  Nor  were  they  any  more  susceptible  to  ready  solution. 
On  the  surface  of  things,  however,  Julia  seemed  to  have  more  effective 
stabilization  machinery  in  her  hull  than  did  the  floundering  Democracy. 
In  her  early  fifties,  she  was  still  a  very  attractive  woman.  She  had 
started  getting  plump,  but  she  remained  quite  pretty  and  she  enjoyed 
excellent  health  throughout  the  decade.  To  James  Lyons  she  was  "the 
best  as  well  as  the  loveliest  of  women."  She  could  still  race  in  and  out 
of  Richmond  stores  with  a  speed  and  a  determination  that  left  her 
sturdy  children  trailing  far  behind.  "A  few  more  days  of  shopping,77 
Gardie  complained  to  her  in  1870,  "would,  I  have  no  doubt,  have  made 
me  a  fit  inmate  of  the  Lunatic  Asylum  at  Staunton."  Her  flying  visits  to 

535 


Washington  were  invariably  noted  in  the  papers  of  the  capital.  In  March 
1872,  with  considerable  newspaper  fanfare  and  much  to  Cardie's  dis- 
may, she  visited  Julia  Dent  Grant  in  the  White  House.  Her  correspond- 
ence with  Laura  Holloway  promised  her  a  secure  historical  niche  in  that 
author's  forthcoming  Ladies  of  the  White  House.  Her  portrait  had  been 
hung  in  the  President's  Mansion  with  appropriate  ceremony.  She  was  not 
obscure.  News  that  Henry  A.  Wise  was  writing  a  eulogistic  memoir  of 
her  husband  (published  in  1871  as  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union) 
pleased  her  a  great  deal  even  though  the  crusty  Wise  had  "once  told 
the  President  that  he  did  very  wrong  to  marry  me!"  Wise  laughed  at 
her  sally  and  promptly  assured  her  that  she  had  "certainly  proved  ex- 
ceptional in  making  the  President  the  most  discreet  and  winning  of  wives 
on  whom  he  doted  to  the  last."  39 

But  with  all  of  these  safety  nets  separating  her  from  sickness  and 
obscurity,  Julia  was  by  1872  a  very  distraught  woman.  Entirely  aside 
from  her  multitudinous  legal  and  financial  worries,  she  was  unhappy  and 
rootless.  She  was  pained  to  learn  in  1870,  for  example,  that  she  was  still 
considered  "a  bitter  enemy  of  the  Government"  in  Internal  Revenue 
circles.  More  importantly,  she  watched  the  continuing  decline  of  Harry 
Beeckman  with  sadness.  She  had  always  felt  a  special  responsibility  for 
Margaret's  child.  After  he  reached  his  twenty-first  birthday  in  1869  he 
withdrew  from  Washington  College,  moved  to  Sherwood  Forest,  and 
began  a  life  of  aimless  dissipation.  Julia  lost  all  control  over  him.  He 
was  a  pleasant,  generous  young  man.  On  several  occasions  he  loaned  his 
Aunt  Julia  money,  income  from  his  quarter  of  the  Gardiner  estate,  that 
she  might  remain  a  tiny  step  ahead  of  her  creditors.  But  all  attempts  by 
Julia  and  Gardie  to  persuade  him  to  buy  land  in  Charles  City  and  settle 
down  to  the  stable  life  of  the  planter  failed.  "He  is  irreclaimable  and 
neither  affection  nor  duty  demands  that  you  should  trouble  yourself 
about  him  more  than  you  have  already  done,"  Gardie  told  Julia.  "Let 
him  run  his  course  . . .  between  us,  I  am  tired  of  him  as  a  dweller  under 
the  same  roof."  40 

Of  all  Julia's  postwar  experiences  nothing  elated  her  quite  so  much 
as  the  marriage  of  the  nineteen-year-old  Julie  to  William  H.  Spencer  in 
1869;  and  nothing  broke  her  so  decisively  as  the  young  bride's  death  in 
childbirth  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  on  May  8,  1871.  Little  is  known  of 
Will  Spencer's  background  or  of  his  courtship  with  Julie  save  that  he 
was  an  impecunious,  debt-ridden  young  man  who  wrote  insipid  love 
letters  to  his  intended.  But  Julie  loved  him  and  that  was  what  mattered. 
They  were  married  in  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  in  New  York  City  on 
June  26,  1869,  exactly  twenty-five  years  to  the  day  after  Julia's  wedding 
there  to  John  Tyler.  Following  their  marriage,  they  moved  to  Tuscarora, 
New  York,  where  Spencer  had  a  mortgaged  farm.  Not  surprisingly,  Julia 
packed  her  newlywed  daughter  off  to  her  new  home  with  the  reminder 
that  she  must  "do  your  duty  in  society. . . .  You  should  not  hold  back 

536 


when  an  occasion  presents  itself  worth  your  exertions.7'  To  encourage 
this  exertion  and  to  instruct  Julie  further  in  the  nuances  and  ramifica- 
tions of  her  social  duties,  Julia  visited  the  young  couple  at  Tuscarora 
in  1869.  The  three  of  them  also  vacationed  together  at  Saratoga  Springs 
in  the  summer  of  1870.  Then,  without  warning,  Julie  died  in  May  1871 
following  the  birth  of  a  daughter,  Julia  Tyler  Spencer,  nicknamed 
"Baby."  No  death  in  the  family  struck  Julia  so  powerfully — not  even 
Margaret's  or  John  Tyler's.  She  was  absolutely  crushed.  She  spent  the 
rest  of  her  life  mourning  Julie  while  she  provided  a  home  for  and  raised 
Baby  Spencer  as  her  own  child.  For  several  years  she  loaned  Will 
Spencer  money,  made  good  his  bad  debts,  and  settled  his  overdue  notes 
(one  of  them  for  $2650).  Will,  in  turn,  wandered  aimlessly  to  the  silver 
mines  of  Colorado  and  the  citrus  groves  of  California,  and  back  again, 
in  search  of  fame  and  fortune.  He  found  neither,  and  Julia  was  that 
much  the  poorer.  In  the  mid~i88os  he  disappeared  from  the  family's 
sight  forever.41 

The  death  of  young  Julie  brought  Julia  back  to  Washington.  In 
1871  she  decided  to  quit  Staten  Island,  sell  Castleton  Hill,  the  upkeep 
and  taxes  on  which  were  becoming  oppressive,  and  move  to  Georgetown 
in  the  District  of  Columbia.  There  she  could  be  near  the  scene  of  her 
great  triumph  of  1844-1845  and  closer  to  Sherwood  Forest.  Equally 
important  in  her  decision  was  the  prospect  of  placing  fifteen-year-old 
Fitz  and  eleven-year-old  Pearlie  in  the  excellent  Roman  Catholic  schools 
the  District  afforded.  She  had  been  very  well  impressed  with  Julie's 
earlier  experience  at  the  Sacred  Heart  in  Halifax,  and  she  was  persuaded 
that  the  Roman  Church  ran  better  and  less  expensive  schools  than  were 
generally  to  be  found  under  other  auspices.  Accordingly,  she  moved  into 
a  flat  on  Fayette  Street  in  Georgetown  in  January  1872.  Pearlie  was 
immediately  enrolled  in  the  nearby  Georgetown  Academy  of  the  Visita- 
tion, and  Fitz  entered  Georgetown  College  the  following  fall.  Julia  was 
delighted  with  both  institutions  and  with  the  friendliness  and  kindness 
of  the  priests  and  nuns  with  whom  she  soon  came  in  contact.42 

Her  return  to  Washington  permitted  Julia  to  involve  herself  once 
more  in  the  social  swirl  of  the  capital.  The  newspapers  again  became 
"frequent  in  their  allusions  to  me"  as  she  happily  made  the  social 
rounds.  A  friendly  reception  by  Grant  at  the  White  House  caused  James 
Lyons  to  remark  that  "your  witchery — your  beauty  . . .  have  enlightened 
the  President  and  softened  him  to  the  South."  Julia,  of  course,  had  noth- 
ing but  contempt  for  the  Grant  administration  and  it  is  doubtful  that 
anybody  could  have  enlightened  the  dull-witted  Chief  Executive.  But 
the  more  she  was  entertained  in  Republican  homes  in  Washington,  some 
of  them  the  homes  of  Radical  Republicans,  the  more  developed  became 
her  Paris-is-worth-a-Mass  social  philosophy.  In  January  1873  sne  de- 
scribed one  of  these  Radical  Republican  affairs  and  her  reaction  to  it 
to  her  son  Lyon,  who  was  then  at  the  University  of  Virginia: 

537 


I  went,  and  the  consequence  was  the  handsomest  attentions ...  as  the  ladies 
crowded  in  at  the  reception  and  were  introduced  to  me  as  "Mrs.  Ex-President 

Tyler."  I  was  enthusiastically  received  by  those  who  had  formerly  met  me 

I  was  taken  by  surprise  ...  at  the  warmth  of  my  old  acquaintances — with  the 
gulf  of  so  many  years  between.  The  fact  is,  dear  Lonny,  the  only  way  now 
to  get  along  is  to  take  the  world  as  you  find  it  and  to  make  the  best  of  it.  It 
will  be  the  means  of  satisfying  your  feelings  much  better  than  by  showing 
them  your  dislike  or  opposition.  That  is  the  way  to  triumph  and  to  make  your 
enemies  even  speak  well  of  you.  People  can  hold  to  all  their  opinions  without 

pressing  them  forward  on  unnecessary  occasions And  so  I  was  glad  I 

went,  though  it  was  as  much  as  I  could  do  to  have  the  spirit  to  dress  myself 
for  it  beforehand. 

When  Gardie  heard  that  his  mother  was  consorting  with  the  Republicans 
he  gave  her  a  proper  tongue-lashing: 

Were  I  in  your  place,  and  remembering  circumstances  past  and  present,  I 
should  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  present  Administration  or  any  of  its  satel- 
lites. Our  family  have  suffered  so  much  from  the  acts  of  those  people  as  any 
in  the  North  or  South,  and  nationally  and  privately  we  would  have  too  much 
to  forgive  and  forget  to  ...  benefit  from  association  with  them. . . .  Before  the 
public  you  occupy  a  position  similar  to  that  of  Mrs.  Gen'l  Lee,  the  widow  of 
one  of  the  leading  men  in  a  dead  cause,  and  that  position  must  be  exclusive. 
. . .  Think  of  the  widow  of  Marco  Bazzan's  entertaining  a  Turkish  governor  of 
Athens. 

After  that  explosion  from  Sherwood  Forest,  Julia  began  choosing  her 
Washington  friends  with  more  care.43 

Her  recaptured  social  life  did  not  put  to  flight  her  basic  loneliness 
or  bring  young  Julie  back  from  the  grave.  The  social  adulation  her  per- 
sonality had  long  fed  upon  for  its  psychological  nourishment  no  longer 
sufficed  to  make  her  happy  or  contented.  Julia  needed  something  else  to 
sustain  her  in  her  middle  years,  something  more  substantial  than  party 
dresses,  pretty  compliments,  crowded  ballrooms,  dependent  babies,  and 
loving  relatives.  During  this  period  of  financial  crisis  and  mourning 
for  Julie  she  began  reading  deeply  in  the  history  and  theology  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  She  also  began  a  serious  investigation  of 
spiritualism  in  the  hope  that  it  might  give  her  an  answer  to  the  meaning 
of  human  existence  and  permit  her  to  "talk"  with  the  departed  Julie. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  searched  frantically  for  God  and  for 
some  means  of  approaching  the  Godhead.  She  desperately  needed 
spiritual  comfort.  As  her  search  progressed  she  quickly  and  sensibly  re- 
jected the  spiritualists  and  their  spurious  seances  and  table  tremblings. 
Instead,  she  gravitated  more  and  more  toward  the  rigid  ideology  and 
discipline  of  the  Roman  Church  in  the  belief  that  Rome's  ancient 
dogmas  and  mystical  ceremonies  might  provide  an  anchor  to  a  life  that 
had  become  increasingly  storm-tossed  since  John  Tyler's  death  in  1862. 

Much  to  the  surprise  of  her  children  and  some  of  her  oldest  and 

538 


dearest  friends,  she  finally  made  up  her  mind  to  convert  to  Roman 
Catholicism  in  March  1872.  The  following  month  she  formally  embraced 
the  Roman  Church  and  took  Pearlie  into  the  new  faith  with  her.  Bishop, 
later  Cardinal,  James  Gibbons  performed  the  appropriate  rituals  in 
Washington.  Guiding  her  study  and  instruction  as  she  prepared  for  this 
important  transition  was  the  Reverend  Father  Patrick  F.  Healy,  S.J., 
Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Vice-President  (later  President)  of  George- 
town College.  Sister  Loretto  of  the  Convent  of  the  Visitation  and  Father 
Daubresse  of  Georgetown  also  helped  Julia  with  her  search,  advising 
her  and  answering  her  theological  questions.  During  this  preliminary 
period  of  instruction  and  preparation  for  conversion  no  pressure  of  any 
kind  was  exerted  on  the  former  First  Lady.  No  emotional  appeals  to  her 
despair  for  the  dead  Julie  were  made  or  suggested.  On  the  contrary, 
Julia  came  willingly  and  eagerly  into  the  Roman  communion.  The 
Church  neither  pursued  her,  manipulated  her,  nor  promised  her  pie  in 
the  sky.  She  was  treated  honestly,  fairly,  and  intelligently  throughout 
the  catechistical  process.  Indeed,  Sister  Loretto  tried  to  talk  Julia  out 
of  the  idea  of  rebaptism  that  possessed  her.  "The  fact  of  another  baptism 
will  avail  nothing — it  will  be  but  an  empty  ceremony/7  said  the  Sister. 
Nevertheless,  Julia  firmly  insisted  on  a  second  baptism  and  it  was 
granted  her  in  May  1872.  In  August  Pearlie  Tyler  was  also  rebaptized. 
Julia  demanded  this  when  her  twelve-year-old  daughter  fell  ill  that 
month,  and  she  stuck  to  the  demand  even  though  Father  Healy  saw  no 
reason  why  the  "empty  ceremony"  should  be  visited  upon  the  child. 

Julia's  conversion  was  a  spiritual  coup  for  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  Much  favorable  newspaper  publicity  was  derived  by  the  often- 
persecuted  Church  in  America  and  Julia  began  receiving  letters  from 
other  troubled  women  all  over  the  United  States  asking  her  to  help  them 
find  their  way  into  the  Roman  communion.  Even  Father  Healy,  who 
became  Julia's  "godfather,"  was  not  unmindful  of  the  pleasant  realiza- 
tion that  his  convert  and  new  godchild  was  none  other  than  "Mrs.  Tyler, 
widow  of  the  late  John  Tyler,  President  of  the  United  States."  It  was 
about  as  close  as  the  Roman  Church  would  come  to  the  White  House 
until  Alfred  E.  Smith  threatened  its  Protestant  doors  in  1928  and  John 
F.  Kennedy  finally  battered  them  down  in  1960.  When  newspapers  in 
New  York  and  Richmond  carried  accounts  of  her  conversion  and  re- 
baptism,  Julia  assured  her  politely  skeptical  family  and  friends  that  it 
was  all  her  own  idea.  As  she  explained  to  Lonie  in  May: 

I  suppose  you  see  by  all  the  papers  that  I  have  turned  Roman  Catholic.  I 
have  indeed,  and  much  to  my  satisfaction.  No  Priest  or  nun  had  anything  to 
do  with  it.  It  was  simply  from  my  conviction  of  its  being  the  best  and  truest 
religion  as  well  as  the  oldest.  There  is  unity  and  system  in  it,  as  well  as 
beauty  and  real  Christianity.  The  other  sects  I  came  to  see  were  like  ships  at 
sea  without  anchor  or  rudder,  though  until  one  comes  to  understand  this 
one  is  not  to  blame  for  continuing  with  them.44- 

539 


Julia  seldom  did  things  halfway.  Once  converted  to  the  " unity  and 
system"  she  so  desperately  craved,  she  began  heavy  mailings  of  Roman 
Catholic  literature  to  her  friends  and  kinsmen.  This  pamphlet  and 
letter- writing  crusade  was  blessed  by  Father  Healy.  "To  disarm  people 
of  prejudice  is  the  first  step  toward  inculcating  sound  principles,"  he 
told  her.  "May  our  good  God  bless  your  efforts  with  success."  To 
Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  "it  seemed  very  natural . . .  [that]  left  alone 
as  you  have  been  you  should  seek  shelter  in  the  protecting  arms  of 
the  Church";  and  Julia's  friend  Belle  Chalmers  of  Nyack,  New  York, 
agreed  she  "did  perfectly  right  to  become  a  living  member  of  the  church 
that  roused  you  from  a  life  of  coldness."  But  almost  all  Julia's  heretical 
Protestant  intimates  soon  wearied  of  the  stream  of  Roman  Catholic 
propaganda  from  her  escritoire.  Gardie  put  the  matter  to  her  most 
forcefully  in  May  1872: 

Of  course,  such  an  addition  to  their  Church  Catholics  will  not  fail  to  express 
their  jubilant  satisfaction  over,  and  the  knowledge  thereof  will  soon  be 
diffused  over  the  Continent.  Well,  ma  ch&re,  if  you  feel  all  right  about  it  I 
shall  not  deprecate  the  step.  It  doesn't  clash  with  any  sectarian  feelings  of 

my  own Don't  fear  an  argument  from  me. ...  I  wouldn't  take  any  great 

satisfaction  in  roasting  a  fellow-mortal  because  he  happened  to  differ  with 
me  as  to  what  kind  of  fish  swallowed  the  unquenchable  Jonah,  nor  would  I 
care  to  be  grid-ironed  myself. ...  I  have  learned  too  well . . .  how  unavailing 
and  futile  it  is  to  talk  logic  with  you  Catholics. . .  .  What  are  you  going  to  do 
about  your  embryo  Spiritualism? ...  In  fact,  my  dear  mother  ...  I  have  some 
curiosity  to  see  what  sort  of  a  Catholic  you  will  make.  All  those  I  have  yet 
seen  are  so  supremely  complacent  about  their  dogmas  that  I  could  find  no 

other  name  for  their  state  of  mind  but  bigotry You  threaten  to  convince 

me.  That  is  an  utter  impossibility.  If  I  am  ever  to  be  a  Christian  the  Church 

of  my  Fathers  will  fully  satisfy  [me] I  place  no  sort  of  value  upon 

forms . . .  and  if  a  man  is  conscientious  and  obeys  moral  law,  the  Church  is 
simply  a  house  for  the  soul  to  worship  in,  and  whether  its  style  of  architecture 
is  that  of  the  cathedral  or  of  a  chapel  is  not  of  the  slightest  importance. . . . 

Gardie's  curiosity  was  soon  satisfied.  Julia  turned  out  to  be  an  ex- 
cellent Roman  Catholic,  although  she  finally  did  give  up  trying  to 
proselytize  the  rest  of  her  family.  Only  Pearlie  among  the  Tylers  em- 
braced Roman  Catholicism  and  she  did  not  bring  up  her  own  children 
in  the  Church.  She  remained  a  "very  mild"  Catholic  all  her  life.45 

ii«MH»     *     iBBiiiii    

Julia's  newfound  faith  in  the  Church  carried  her  safely  through  the 
serious  economic  crisis  that  confronted  her  when  the  great  Panic  of 
1873  and  the  long,  deep  depression  that  followed  it  struck  the  nation. 
Income  from  her  rental  properties  in  Manhattan  quickly  dropped  from 
a  monthly  average  of  $750  to  less  than  half  that  amount.  By  1878  there 
was  scarcely  any  income  from  this  source  at  all.  Mortgage  payments, 
taxes,  and  assessments  on  the  properties  remained  the  same.  The  Tyler 

540 


tenants  either  ducked  out  without  paying  or  asked  for  extensions  and 
moratoriums  on  their  rent.  New  York  City  itself  ground  to  an  economic 
standstill.  "You  cannot  by  any  means  calculate  safely  that  the  tenants 
of  any  property  in  New  York  are  to  pay  their  rent  when  it  becomes 
due  under  present  circumstances,"  Julia's  New  York  agent  informed 
her.  "We  would  be  glad  to  get  $2000  per  annum  for  property  formerly 
bringing  $4000.  There  is  scarcely  a  full  building  in  the  neighborhood 
[Chatham  St.].  Landlords  are  ready  to  take  anything  they  can  get  in 
preference  to  having  empty  places."  Julia  decided  she  too  had  better 
take  what  she  could  get.  Lachlan,  now  studying  medicine  at  the  New 
York  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  on  Fourth  Avenue,  reinforced 
this  decision  with  his  report  of  "terrible  times  in  Wall  Street."  He  told 
his  mother  she  had  no  idea  "how  hard  up  everybody  here  is. ...  I  can't 
imagine  where  the  mischief  so  much  [of  our]  money  goes  to!  Every 
little  five  cents  seems  to  amount  up  to  so  many  dollars,  though  at  the 
time  it  seems  to  be  almost  nothing!" 

Indeed,  cash  dried  up  so  rapidly  in  the  Tyler  family  after  the 
onset  of  the  Panic  of  1873  that  the  purchase  of  the  simplest  necessities 
of  life  often  had  to  be  postponed.  At  Sherwood  Forest  the  financial 
situation  became  critical.  In  July  1873  the  Bank  of  Virginia  finally  en- 
tered suit  against  the  estate  for  payment  of  the  longstanding  Tyler  note 
due  it.  On  top  of  this  new  threat  to  the  plantation,  disease  decimated 
the  small  herd  of  cows  in  September.  "The  spirits  of  deceased  cattle 
are  ascending  in  battalions  towards  the  bovine  Heaven  all  over  this 
section,"  Gardie  sadly  informed  his  mother.46 

On  the  eve  of  these  financial  difficulties  Alex  returned  from  Ger- 
many in  March  1873,  penniless  but  happy.  Thanks  to  Julia's  efforts  and 
to  those  of  William  M.  Evarts  and  Prlscilla's  brother-in-law,  railroad 
executive  Allan  Campbell,  Alex  immediately  found  work  in  the  Floyd 
Aspinvale  mines  near  Salt  Lake  City.  But  within  a  few  months  he  too 
joined  the  growing  army  of  American  unemployed  made  jobless  by  the 
Panic  and  depression.  For  nearly  a  year  he  could  find  nothing  suitable 
to  do  in  spite  of  Julia's  intercession  with  various  Washington  politicians 
to  secure  a  government  job  for  him.  In  October  1874  Allan  Campbell 
finally  found  him  a  modest  position  with  the  Southside  Railroad  Com- 
pany at  $800  per  annum.  Between  these  jobs  the  impoverished  Alex 
lived  at  the  still-unsold  Castleton  Hill.  Physically  he  was  a  handsome 
man,  cultured  and  well  educated,  and  he  soon  became  quite  a  social  lion 
on  Staten  Island.  Known  as  "Captain"  Tyler,  "much  to  the  gratification 
of  his  vanity,"  said  Lachlan,  Alex  attended  all  the  right  balls  and  recep- 
tions. He  found  Staten  Island  a  miserable  place  to  live  yet  he  agreed  it 
was  a  good  place  to  hide  from  his  German  creditors  while  searching 
for  employment.  "What  a  treadmill  they  make  of  me.  I  would  think  the 
dogs  would  weary."  His  sense  of  humor  never  deserted  him  during  these 
jobless  months.  "I  am  penniless,"  he  told  Julia,  "but  I  suppose  golden 


days  will  yet  come.  Lachlan  says  I  laugh  too  much;  I'm  always 
laughing."  47 

Julia  was  not  laughing.  So  dangerous  had  her  economic  situation 
become  in  late  1873  she  was  fearful  the  hard-pressed  Lachlan  might 
have  to  drop  out  of  medical  school.  The  simple  fact  of  the  matter  was 
that  Julia  was  badly  overextended  financially.  With  Lachlan  at  Physi- 
cians and  Surgeons,  Lyon  at  the  University  of  Virginia,  Fitz  at  George- 
town College,  and  Pearlie  in  boarding  school,  she  had  an  immense  room, 
board,  tuition,  books,  and  clothing  load  to  carry.  There  was  also  Baby 
Spencer  to  support.  In  addition,  she  was  trying  to  maintain  Castleton 
Hill,  Sherwood  Forest,  Villa  Margaret,  an  apartment  in  Georgetown, 
and  all  her  rental  properties  in  New  York.  Her  hotel  bills,  as  she  flitted 
back  and  forth  between  New  York,  Washington,  and  Richmond,  were 
enormous.  She  could  not  and  would  not  economize  on  her  own  clothes. 
Her  personal  appearance  had  to  be  maintained  at  all  costs  and  for 
Julia  the  costs  were  invariably  high,  even  by  modern  standards.  Sher- 
wood Forest  had  long  since  become  economically  marginal.  The  Castle- 
ton  Hill  house  leaked  badly  and  extensive  repairs  were  needed.  Villa 
Margaret  was  in  appalling  condition.  Alex  was  unemployed,  his  German 
creditors  pressing  him  vigorously.  Faced  with  this  situation,  Julia  had 
no  choice  but  to  accept  the  advice  of  her  sons,  her  New  York  agent, 
A.  J.  Mathewson,  and  her  lawyers  and  effect  a  radical  consolidation  of 
her  entire  financial  position.48 

Castleton  Hill,  Villa  Margaret,  and  the  Tyler  property  on  Green- 
wich Street  in  New  York  City  were  all  advertised  for  sale  in  1873- 
1874.  Castleton  Hill,  offered  privately  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
for  $20,000,  attracted  no  buyers,  secular  or  ecclesiastical.  The  Green- 
wich Street  property,  placed  on  the  market  at  $60,000,  found  no  takers 
at  that  depressed  price.  Villa  Margaret  produced  no  stampede  of  eager 
realtors.  For  a  period  in  the  spring  of  1874  Sherwood  Forest  was  there- 
fore in  grave  danger.  The  Charles  City  sheriff  again  stalked  the  insecure 
(and  presumably  not  contented)  Sherwood  milch  cows  for  a  $60  over- 
due tax  bill.  Even  the  animal  kingdom  conspired  to  bring  the  planta- 
tion to  ruin.  The  "enormous  expenditures  of  this  family  have  been 
still  more  increased  by  the  recent  addition  of  three  blind  kittens," 
Gardie  wrote  in  dismay.  Finally,  a  Richmond  court  ordered  the  planta- 
tion sold  in  May  1874  to  satisfy  the  Bank  of  Virginia's  $1300  judgment 
against  the  Tyler  estate.  Although  Harry  Beeckman  helped  out  with 
a  small  loan,  the  proud  plantation  was  actually  advertised  for  public 
sale.  Indeed,  Julia  had  already  received  a  letter  from  Father  Healy 
expressing  Jesuit  interest  in  buying  the  historic  property  when,  Deo 
gratias,  salvation  came.  Villa  Margaret  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
found  a  buyer,  and  the  $3500  realized  in  the  sacrifice  transaction 
lowered  the  Damoclean  sword  hanging  over  Sherwood  Forest.  "I  am 

542 


so  glad  you  have  dear  old  Sherwood  secure,"  wrote  Alex  with  joy  from 
Staten  Island.  "At  all  events  we  have  a  place  to  'retire'  to!"49 

As  part  of  Julia's  economy-and-retrenchment  program,  she  gave 
up  her  Georgetown  apartment  in  the  spring  of  1874  and  moved  with 
Baby  Spencer  to  Sherwood  Forest.  She  refused,  however,  to  withdraw 
Pearlie  from  the  Academy  of  the  Visitation  and  place  her  in  the  less 
costly  and  not  so  fashionable  St.  Joseph's  Academy  in  Richmond.  Still, 
the  responsible  Gardie  could  now  watch  his  mother's  personal  accounts 
more  closely.  Seldom  did  she  venture  forth  to  visit  Pearlie  in  George- 
town without  his  warning  ringing  in  her  ears:  "And,  Madam,  be  careful 
about  your  own  expenses  while  in  Georgetown  and  beyond  my  restrain- 
ing control. . . .  Economy  must  be  the  watchword  for,  as  I  regard  it,  this 
is  our  last  chance  for  recuperation." 

Gradually  the  family  financial  situation  improved.  Lachlan  began 
the  practice  of  medicine  in  Jersey  City  in  1876  and  became  more  or  less 
self-sufficient.  He  also  married  Georgia  Powell  of  Richmond  that  year. 
Lyon  finished  college  at  Charlottesville  in  1874,  took  a  master's  degree 
there  in  1875,  and,  after  a  brief  stint  on  the  William  and  Mary  faculty, 
moved  to  Memphis  to  continue  his  teaching  career.  In  November  1878 
he  married  Annie  Baker  Tucker,  daughter  of  the  gallant  Colonel  St. 
George  Tucker  of  the  Confederate  cavalry,  and  began  raising  his  own 
family.  "I  do  not  know  how  we  could  teach  nine  long  months  if  we  were 
not  cheered  by  the  prospect  of  our  summer  visit  to  Sherwood,"  Annie 
wrote  from  distant  Memphis  in  1881.  Still,  a  job  was  a  job  in  these  de- 
pression years.  While  there  was  no  money  to  waste  in  the  Tyler  family, 
Gardie  complained  in  April  1878  that  his  farm  "hands  are  clamorous  for 
their  wages."  At  least  he  had  "hands" — plural.  And  while  "every  dollar" 
remained  to  him  "as  precious  in  my  sight  as  the  ruby  drops  that  visit  my 
sad  heart,"  he  had  sufficient  credit  in  1878  to  secure  a  Riggs  Bank 
loan  of  $5000  and  he  was  creditor  for  $2000  to  a  neighbor.  Also  by 
1878  Julia  was  able  to  employ  a  governess  at  Sherwood  for  seven-year- 
old  Baby  Spencer.  By  the  end  of  the  decade  the  Tylers  had  gradually 
struggled  back  from  the  twin  blows  of  Reconstruction  and  the  Panic 
of  1873,  and  from  the  depths  of  the  financial  crisis  of  May-June  1874 
when,  for  a  time,  everything  had  seemed  lost.  All  Julia's  children  had, 
in  the  meantime,  been  educated.  Tuition  had  proved,  after  all,  a  better 
investment  than  seed  wheat  and  guano.  Nor  in  1880  was  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  any  longer  poor.  Like  his  father  before  him,  the  master 
of  Sherwood  Forest  had  recaptured  the  status  of  being  seasonally  cash 
poor  in  the  manner  of  all  American  farmers  in  the  18705  and  i88os. 
In  terms  of  respect  and  self-respect  it  was  a  vastly  different  kind  of 
poverty  .5(> 

Julia's  return  to  Sherwood  Forest  in  1874  allowed  her  without 
gratification  to  witness  the  final  chapter  of  Harry  Beeckman's  ill-starred 

543 


life.  Disappointed  in  love,  the  income  from  his  inheritance  reduced  to 
near  zero  by  the  Panic  of  1873,  Harry  took  the  liquid  way  out.  By 
April  1874  the  twenty-six-year-old  playboy  was  on  "a  continuous 
debauch  for  an  indefinite  period."  He  had,  said  the  disgusted  Gardie, 
"squandered  enough  to  have  insured  the  happiness  of  a  prudent  man." 
Early  in  August  1875  the  rootless  Harry  was  killed  one  night  while 
riding  back  to  Sherwood  Forest.  The  party  he  had  attended  had  lasted 
late  into  the  evening  and  Harry  was  in  no  condition  to  ride  a  horse. 
Galloping  along  homeward  at  high  speed,  he  struck  his  head  accidentally 
on  a  low-hanging  branch.  The  impact  broke  his  neck  instantly  and 
pitched  him  to  the  ground  dead.  Julia  was  heartsick.  She  blamed  herself 
for  Harry's  death.  His  will  left  her  his  quarter  share  of  the  Gardiner 
estate  in  Manhattan,  but  that  economic  balm  did  little  to  salve  her 
deep  sense  of  guilt  at  his  death.51 

Happily,  the  unexpected  blow  was  softened  somewhat  by  the  joy 
she  experienced  when  her  son  Alex  married  his  third  cousin,  Sarah 
Griswold  Gardiner.  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Charles  Gardiner  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  East  Hampton 
on  August  5,  1875.  It  was  a  good  match  for  Alex.  Sarah — or  Sally, 
as  she  was  called — was  the  daughter  of  the  prominent  Samuel  Buell 
Gardiner,  tenth  proprietor  of  Gardiners  Island  and  a  New  York  State 
Assemblyman.  Alex  had  met  her  on  Staten  Island  before  leaving  Castle- 
ton  Hill  for  Richmond  in  1864  to  fight  the  Yankees.  He  had  kept  in 
touch  with  her  during  his  eight  years  in  Germany  and  upon  his  return 
in  1873  a  serious  romance  flowered.  Sally  was  not  a  beautiful  woman, 
nor  was  she  extroverted  like  so  many  of  the  Gardiners,  but  she  did 
have  (as  Phoebe  Horsford  described  her)  a  great  deal  of  style.  "I  think 
her  appearance,  especially  in  some  of  her  elegant  dresses,  is  exceedingly 
aristocratic."  Alex  was  very  much  in  love  with  her.  Following  a  wedding 
and  reception  for  five  hundred  people,  he  brought  her  to  Sherwood 
Forest  for  part  of  the  honeymoon.52 

Sally  Tyler  was  not  to  have  a  very  happy  life.  She  lost  her  first 
baby  at  birth  in  June  1876.  Within  a  year  of  her  marriage  her  hus- 
band was  again  unemployed,  and  for  two  years  he  remained  jobless.  The 
first  of  her  children  to  survive  infancy,  Gardiner  Tyler,  born  in  Janu- 
ary 1878,  died  in  March  1892  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  Her  second  child, 
Lillian  Horsford  Tyler,  called  Daisy,  contracted  an  unfortunate  mar- 
riage in  August  1910  with  Alben  N.  Margraf,  a  German  naval  officer, 
and  divorced  him  before  the  birth  of  their  daughter  in  March  19x2. 
She  died  in  May  1918  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine.  Most  tragically,  Sally 
lost  her  husband  on  September  i,  i883.53 

Julia  moved  heaven  and  earth  in  Washington  in  1877-1879  to 
get  the  idle  Alex  a  job  with  the  Department  of  the  Interior  as  an  en- 
gineer or  surveyor.  Working  through  her  old  friend  and  lawyer,  Wil- 
liam M.  Evarts,  President  Hayes'  Secretary  of  State,  Julia  made  several 

544 


trips  to  the  capital  seeking  her  son's  appointment  to  a  government  post. 
She  also  buttonholed  various  legislators  in  a  campaign  for  larger  In- 
terior Department  appropriations  in  the  hope  that  Alex  might  secure 
employment  of  some  kind  in  an  expanding  department.  During  this 
dogged  quest  she  was  several  times  entertained  in  the  White  House  by 
Lucy  Webb  Hayes,  "That's  right/'  Alex  cheered  when  he  learned  of 
his  mother's  social  contact  with  the  First  Family,  "go  it  while  you  can! " 
Fortunately,  she  and  Evarts  were  successful  in  securing  from  Congress 
a  $20,000  appropriation  for  one  Daniel  G.  Major  to  survey  Indian  lands 
in  the  Dakota  Territory.  Major  was  an  experienced  surveyor;  he  had 
executed  similar  contracts  for  the  Department  of  the  Interior  for  many 
years.  The  private  understanding  behind  this  particular  appropriation 
was  that  Major  and  Alex  would  form  a  partnership  to  execute  the  con- 
tract. Crews  would  have  to  be  hired  and  supplies  for  months  in  the 
wilderness  would  have  to  be  purchased.  This  took  capital,  and  Alex 
agreed  to  supply  $4000  to  cover  the  initial  operating  costs  of  the  part- 
nership. "Hurrah  for  Mr.  Evarts!"  Alex  shouted  when  Major's  con- 
tract finally  came  through  in  November  1878;  "God  knows  I  have 
struggled  to  get  employment  in  every  way  I  could. . . .  What  a  wonderful 
friend  in  need  he  has  been!"  Julia,  of  course,  supplied  the  money  for 
Alex  to  buy  into  the  deal  with  Major.  "I  only  want  four  thousand 
dollars  ($4000) — three  thousand  ($3000)  cash  and  one  thousand 
($1000)  to  hold  in  reserve  .  . . ,"  Alex  told  her  blandly.  Without  Ms 
investment  the  agreement  with  Daniel  Major  was  void,  Alex  was  cer- 
tain he  would  make  a  $5000  profit  on  the  Dakota  venture.  Thanks  to 
his  energetic  mother's  influence  and  money,  and  the  intercession  of 
Secretary  of  State  Evarts  ("God  bless  him!"),  J.  Alexander  Tyler  was 
launched  into  the  Indian  lands  surveying  business  in  the  summer  of 
1879.  Sally  saw  him  infrequently  after  that.04 

After  he  had  gained  experience  in  the  desolate  Indian  country, 
Alex  was  appointed  United  States  Surveyor  in  the  Department  of  the 
Interior.  On  September  i,  1883,  while  serving  as  Government  In- 
spector of  Surveys  in  New  Mexico,  the  thirty-five-year-old  Alex  Tyler, 
graduate  of  Karlsruhe  and  Freiburg,  Uhlan  for  the  Kaiser,  artillerist  for 
Robert  E.  Lee,  died  suddenly  at  the  Governor's  Palace  in  Santa  Fe. 
He  apparently  ran  out  of  fresh  water  on  a  surveying  expedition  in 
the  nearby  desert,  drank  alkaline  water  in  desperation,  and  contracted 
the  dysentery  that  killed  him.  But  Julia  learned  in  Richmond  in  April 
1884  from  a  Virginia  engineer  and  surveyor  named  Coleman,  "lately 
arrived  from  Santa  F6,"  that  "Alex  was  murdered."  This  is  a  much  more 
poetic  version  of  his  demise  than  the  alkaline-water  story,  but  it  is 
untrue.  The  sorrowing  Sally  was  left  with  two  small  children,  both  of 
whom  she  outlived,  and  the  prospect  of  a  lengthy  widowhood.  When 
she  died  in  East  Hampton  on  September  25,  1927,  at  seventy-nine, 
she  had  been  a  widow  for  forty-four  years.55 

545 


Julia  had  as  much  success  getting  Lachlan  on  the  public  payroll  as 
she  did  finding  Alex  a  position  in  the  federal  government.  After  prac- 
ticing medicine  for  a  year  in  Jersey  City,  Lachlan  discovered  he  had 
few  patients,  fewer  dollars,  and  a  bride  to  support.  In  June  1877  he 
sought  his  mother's  aid  in  an  application  for  the  job  of  Police  Surgeon  of 
the  town.  Julia  had  no  influence  in  Journal  Square  and  that  hope  died 
aborning.  Disgusted  with  Jersey  City,  Lachlan  moved  to  Washington 
to  seek  federal  employment.  So  pinched  for  funds  did  he  become  by 
early  1878  that  he  was  forced  to  consider  the  then-radical  idea  of 
permitting  his  wife,  Georgia  Powell  Tyler,  to  seek  work  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture.  Indeed,  several  Virginia  congressmen  were  sounded 
out  on  this  and  they  agreed  to  help  Georgia  find  employment.  Mean- 
while, Lachlan  began  working  for  a  surgeoncy  in  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment. He  knew  his  medical  knowledge  was  adequate  for  the  post,  but 
he  feared  that  his  grasp  of  grammar,  orthography,  geography,  history, 
and  modern  languages  was  insufficient  to  win  the  stiff  comprehensive 
competitive  examination  for  one  of  the  Navy's  "soft  berths."  He  could 
only  hope  that  "perhaps  they  modified  things  to  those  applicants  who 
came  forward  highly  recommended,  or  were  undoubtedly  gentlemen.79 
Under  no  circumstances  did  he  want  to  risk  the  "discomfiture  and 
degradation  of  a  failure."  He  therefore  asked  Julia  to  find  out  if  "my 
name  and  the  Teace  Policy'  of  the  [Hayes]  Government  towards  the 
South  will  go  a  sufficient  way  in  the  examination  to  almost  certainly 
insure  my  success."  Urged  to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  ever-helpful  Evarts 
("Ask  Mr.  Evarts  point  blank  if  influence  amounts  to  anything  in 
the  matter"),  Julia  again  approached  the  Secretary  of  State  on  behalf 
of  one  of  her  children.  He  was  helpful  and  sympathetic.  Unfortunately, 
Lachlan  failed  the  Navy's  preliminary  physical  examination  in  October 
1878  for  reasons  of  "general  debility"  which,  he  explained  to  Julia, 
"means  in  the  medical  vocabulary  everything  and  nothing."  Dr.  Tyler 
also  ruefully  discovered  that  on  the  Board  of  Medical  Examiners  he 
had  "no  friends  or  influence  as  you  [Julia]  supposed  I  would  have,  and 
I  had  to  tell  the  Board  who  I  was  and  everything."  It  was  a  shock. 

Nevertheless,  Lachlan  and  his  mother  persisted.  Julia  went  to  work 
on  Evarts  and  Evarts  spoke  with  Secretary  of  the  Navy  R.  W.  Thomp- 
son. Both  Cabinet  officers  led  Lachlan  to  understand  confidentially, 
through  Father  Patrick  F.  Healy,  that  if  he  could  pass  the  Navy  phys- 
ical the  remainder  of  the  examination  would  "present  no  difficulty." 
Lachlan  promptly  began  a  body-building  regimen  and  in  July  1879  he 
passed  both  the  physical  and  the  academic  examinations  and  was  certi- 
fied for  appointment  as  a  surgeon  in  the  United  States  Navy.  Com- 
bined with  an  outside  private  practice  the  post  afforded  Lachlan  a 
secure  future.  Straightway  he  called  on  Evarts  to  thank  him  for  his  help 
and  encouragement.  He  found  the  Secretary  to  be  "the  same  grand 
gentleman,  ever  attentive  and  kindly  disposed  to  me."  Evarts  suggested 

546 


that  if  Lachlan  preferred  not  to  take  the  Navy  post,  he  might  be  in- 
terested instead  in  a  position  in  the  Pension  Office  or  on  the  District  of 
Columbia  Board  of  Health.  But  the  struggling  young  physician  de- 
murred. The  Board  of  Health  post  paid  very  little,  and  "a  certainty, 
however  small,  is  more  than  an  uncertainty,  and  I  have  a  certainty  of 
some  kind  here  [with  the  Navy] ."  Julia  had  again  prevailed  in  Wash- 
ington. You  are,  Lachlan  confessed  to  his  patronage-wise  mother,  "a 
remarkable  woman  in  all  respects."  56 

Julia's  own  campaign  for  a  federal  pension  as  a  President's  widow 
also  ended  in  success.  The  precedent  for  such  a  pension  was  established 
in  July  1870  when  Congress  passed  legislation  giving  Mary  Todd 
Lincoln  an  annual  stipend  of  $3000.  Needless  to  say,  Julia  saw  no 
reason,  particularly  after  her  friend  Evarts  became  Secretary  of  State, 
why  she,  Sarah  Childress  Polk,  and  Caroline  Fillmore  should  not  receive 
the  same  consideration  from  the  Congress.  The  Hayes  administration 
was  embarked  on  a  policy  of  burying  the  "bloody  shirt'1  of  the  Civil 
War  which  Grant  and  the  Radicals  had  waved  so  frantically  from  the 
White  House  staff  for  eight  corruption-sodden  years.  Consequently, 
former  Rebels  were  in  somewhat  better  repute  in  the  capital.  By 
Julia's  reckoning,  1879  seemed  a  propitious  year  for  the  launching  of 
her  pension  campaign. 

Enlisting  the  assistance  of  Secretary  Evarts  and  former  Colonel 
Robert  E.  Withers,  CSA,  now  Senator  from  Virginia  and  Chairman  of 
the  Senate  Committee  on  Pensions,  and  the  aid  of  various  Old  Dominion 
congressmen,  principally  Representative  John  Goode  of  Norfolk,  Julia 
manned  her  trusty  desk  and  began  firing  letters  at  Capitol  Hill  de- 
signed to  enlist  legislative  support  for  the  pension  proposition.  These 
she  combined  with  occasional  trips  to  the  capital  to  beard  the  law- 
makers in  their  dens.  It  was  a  maximum  effort  in  every  respect. 

First,  however,  she  claimed  the  $8  per  month  allowed  the  widows 
of  all  veterans  of  the  War  of  1812  who  had  served  actively  for  over 
fourteen  days.  This  she  received  without  contest.  Her  claim  that  the 
payments  should  be  made  retroactive  to  January  1862,  when  the  legisla- 
tion was  passed,  was  denied.  Nonetheless,  her  argument  that  she  was 
entitled  to  the  retroactive  pay  because  "Captain"  Tyler  had  died 
before  the  legislation  came  into  law  and  had  never  been  placed  on 
the  disallowed  list  as  a  "traitor"  had  a  certain  ingenuity.  The  War 
of  1812  pension  payments  to  Julia  commenced  in  March  1879  and  m~ 
eluded  five  months'  accumulated  benefits  in  the  first  payment.  It  was 
a  modest  triumph,  but  one  "gratefully  received." 

"Do  you  not  think  now  would  be  a  favorable  time  to  suggest  that 
the  only  two  other  Presidents'  widows  now  living  shall  be  generously 
allowed  the  same  pension  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  receives?"  she  inquired 
of  Evarts.  This  rhetorical  interrogatory  was  followed  by  letters  to 
Representative  Goode  in  January  1880  asking  him  to  prepare,  intro- 

547 


duce,  and  manage  the  necessary  legislation  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
when  it  convened  again  in  March.  In  her  instructions  to  Goode  she 
asked  only  for  the  same  $3000  treatment  Mary  Lincoln  had  received. 
Letters  to  Representative  James  B.  Garfield  of  Ohio  and  other  legis- 
lators stressed  her  "impatience  to  be  heard"  and  produced  still  an- 
other version  of  John  Tyler's  deathbed  wish:  "With  my  pension  of 
three  thousand  dollars  my  days  will  be  made  comfortable.  ...  I  now 
remember  the  exclamation  of  my  Husband  when  he  was  so  suddenly 
taken  with  his  last  illness  to  the  group  around  him  and  when  he  thought 
he  was  passing  away  immediately:  'I  leave  my  wife  and  young  children 
to  God  and  my  country/  Well,  the  time  has  come  when  the  necessity 
arises  for  me  to  turn  to  the  country  he  spent  his  life  in  serving  for 
relief. . . ."  5r 

Gardie  was  very  much  opposed  to  his  mother's  quest  for  a  federal 
pension.  It  was,  he  thought,  degrading  to  have  to  appeal  to  former 
Union  Army  officers  like  Generals  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  and  James  A. 
Garfield  for  charity.  Evarts  and  Senator  Withers  also  advised  her  against 
pushing  the  pension  campaign  in  1880.  They  feared  that  to  agitate 
the  question  in  a  Presidential  election  year  would  hand  the  Radical 
Republicans  in  Congress  another  "bloody  shirt"  political  issue  with 
which  to  flail  the  Democracy.  Rebel  John  Tyler  had  been  the  only 
American  President  who  seceded  with  his  state  from  the  very  Union  he 
had  governed.  "The  stalwarts  of  the  Republican  party  are  ready  to 
catch  at  anything  out  of  which  political  capital  can  be  made,"  Withers 
informed  Sherwood  Forest.  So  the  matter  was  temporarily  dropped, 
even  though  Julia  was  assured  by  her  Washington  friends  that  she  had 
strong  support  on  Capitol  Hill  for  the  pension  concept.58 

In  1 88 1  she  was  resolutely  back  in  action.  She  had  carefully 
drawn  up  a  petition  in  1879  detailing  her  financial  needs  and  pointing 
out  the  extent  of  her  property  losses  during  the  Civil  War  at  Sherwood 
Forest  and  Villa  Margaret.  This  petition  was  now  formally  submitted 
to  the  Congress.  In  it  she  outlined  the  heavy  costs  of  four  years  of 
litigation  in  the  will  fight  with  her  brother,  and  argued  that  she  simply 
could  not  live  on  the  income  "from  the  remnant  of  my  mother's  estate," 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  "my  distinguished  counsel  Hon.  Wm.  M. 
Evarts  (present  Secretary  of  State),  Judge  Edwards  Pierrepont  (now 
Minister  to  England)  and  Hon.  James  Lyons  of  Richmond,  Va.?  pro- 
posed to  forego  their  claims  for  arduous  and  indefatigable  services 
rendered  me."  She  concluded  her  plea  with  the  heartrending  observation 
that 

By  great  effort  and  economy  I  have  continued  to  struggle  up  to  this  period — 
have  educated  my  children  as  far  as  it  was  possible,  and  paid  many  debts 
for  which  I  was  not  originally  accountable.  But  now,  so  depressed  have  my 
fortunes  become,  I  am  forced,  though  reluctantly,  to  appear  before  you  to 
seek  that  aid  that  was  not  denied  Mrs.  Lincoln. . . .  The  continued  financial 
depression  permeating  the  remotest  corners  of  the  country  has  deprived  me 

548 


for  two  years  of  the  rents  I  depended  upon,  foreclosures  of  mortgages  are 
threatening,  and  executions  on  judgments  will  leave  me  without  means  to 
satisfy  the  most  necessary  expenditures.  Against  this  torment  of  misfortune  I 
can  no  longer  contend  without  assistance. .  . .  Surely  the  Widow  of  a  President 
who  served  his  country  so  arduously  and  successfully  during  fifty  years,  and 
held  every  position  in  its  councils,  deserves  your  consideration.50 

The  appeal  was  successful.  In  1881  Julia  was  awarded  by  Con- 
gress an  annual  pension  of  $1200,  less  than  half  that  being  paid  Mary 
Todd  Lincoln.  Before  she  had  time  to  protest  this  inequity,  the  death 
by  assassination  of  President  Garfield  on  September  19,  1881,  added 
a  fourth  "Mrs.  Ex-President"  to  the  group  of  widowed  former  First 
Ladies — Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sarah  Childress  Polk,  Mary  Todd  Lin- 
coln; and  now  Lucretia  Rudolph  Garfield.  Caroline  Fillmore  had  died  on 
August  ii,  1 88 1.  The  tragic  addition  of  Mrs.  Garfield  to  the  trio  solved 
Julia's  pension  problem  quickly. 

On  March  31,  1882,  Congress  awarded  all  four  annual  pensions 
of  $5000  each  and  ordered  payments  made  retroactive  to  September 
19,  1 88 1,  the  date  of  Garfield 's  death.  The  Pension  Act  canceled  Mary 
Lincoln's  earlier  award  of  $3000  and  Julia's  lesser  stipend  of  $1200. 
Julia's  small  War  of  1812  pension  was  not  affected.  Although  she  had 
covertly  written  the  Washington  Post  in  October  1881  (signing  herself 
"A  Lady  Subscriber")  suggesting  a  $10,000  annual  payment  to  the 
widowed  First  Ladies,  "that  they  may  be  placed  above  want  and 
enabled  in  some  measure  to  meet  the  requirements  their  actual  position 
in  the  society  of  the  country  imposes  upon  them — and  let  there  be  no 
invidious  distinctions,"  she  was  delighted  with  the  1882  legislation  as 
it  stood.  She  immediately  thanked  Evarts  for  his  influence  on  the 
passage  of  the  bill.  But  he  informed  her,  through  Lachlan,  that  "its 
success  was  so  certain  that  any  movement  of  [mine]  would  have  been 
unnecessary."  He  playfully  warned  his  former  client,  however,  that  she 
should  "not  indulge  in  any  extravagance"  with  her  windfall.  The  advice 
came  too  late.  The  sixty- two-year-old  Julia  had  already  overceleb rated 
her  good  fortune.  At  Shirley  and  Westover  dinner  parties  she  had 
"crammed"  herself  with  "good  and  rich  things"  and  suffered  a  bad  at- 
tack of  indigestion.  This  indisposition  passed  swiftly  and  June  1882 
found  her  healthy  and  happy  once  again  in  Newport,  as  in  days  of 
yore,  enjoying  the  summer  season  there  in  grand  style.  More  im- 
portantly, the  pension  permitted  her  to  lease  a  town  house  in  the  Church 
Hill  section  of  Richmond.  Later  she  moved  into  a  house  on  the  corner 
of  Grace  and  Eighth,  opposite  St.  Peter's  Roman  Catholic  Cathedral. 
There  she  lived  peacefully  and  comfortably  the  last  few  years  of  her 
life.  At  the  same  time,  the  nation  gradually  emerged  from  the  great 
depression  and  the  New  York  real  estate  and  rental  situations  steadily 
improved.  Not  all  her  income  in  the  i88os  was  received  from  Con- 


gress.60 


Paradoxically,  the  Hayes  administration,  which  through  William 

549 


M.  Evarts  had  done  so  much  for  Alex,  Lachlan,  and  Julia,  commanded 
none  of  Cardie's  respect.  He  remained  as  unreconstructed  as  ever.  True 
to  his  resolve  in  1870,  he  had  held  himself  aloof  from  all  elective  office. 
In  1873  he  turned  down  a  chance  to  run  for  the  state  senate.  With 
a  predictable  Radical  majority  of  nearly  5000  against  any  white  Con- 
servative Democratic  candidate  who  might  be  put  up  for  the  state 
senate  the  prospect  of  election  seemed  hopeless  anyway.  So  Gardie 
politely  passed  up  the  "glorious  but  extremely  profitless  honor  of 
leading  a  forlorn  hope"  in  Charles  City.  Importunities  from  Julia  and 
from  Samuel  Buell  Gardiner  in  1875  to  change  his  mind  and  run  for 
public  office  failed.  Instead,  he  campaigned  occasionally  for  Con- 
servative Democrats  who  were  leading  less  hopeless  crusades  against 
Radical  domination  elsewhere  in  the  Old  Dominion.  While  affecting 
this  politically  detached  stance  he  watched  in  disgust  as  the  Republicans 
made  off  with  the  Presidential  election  of  i876.ci 

When  the  votes  were  counted  in  November,  Samuel  J.  Tilden  of 
New  York,  the  Democratic  nominee,  emerged  with  a  250,000  popular 
margin  over  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  of  Ohio.  He  also  had  184  electoral 
votes,  one  short  of  the  necessary  majority.  Hayes  had  165  undisputed 
electoral  votes.  Twenty  electoral  votes,  centering  in  South  Carolina, 
Florida,  and  Louisiana,  were  vigorously  contested.  Hayes  needed  all 
twenty  of  these  disputed  votes  to  win  the  election.  A  Republican-domi- 
nated fifteen-man  Electoral  Commission  was  finally  appointed  in  Janu- 
ary to  investigate  and  certify  the  confused  electoral  returns  in  the 
contested  states,  and  by  February  1877  the  Commission,  along  straight 
8-to-7  party  lines,  had  awarded  every  one  of  the  controversial  votes  to 
Hayes.  Hayes  therefore  "won7'  the  canvass  of  1876  by  an  Electoral 
College  count  of  185  to  184  and  was  duly  declared  elected  March 
2.  Behind  the  scenes  during  this  critical  period  stalked  chicanery, 
corruption,  and  multiple  other  pressures. 

The  main  thing  that  reconciled  the  Democrats  to  being  "counted 
out"  of  the  White  House  was  a  series  of  Republican  promises  to  re- 
move the  last  of  the  federal  troops  from  the  South,  appoint  a  Southerner 
to  the  Cabinet,  and  appropriate  substantial  sums  for  Southern  internal 
improvements.  Also  promised  by  the  Republicans  was  the  construction 
of  the  Texas  and  Pacific  Railroad  from  East  Texas  to  San  Diego.  This 
would  provide  the  transcontinental  rail  route  for  which  Dixie  legislators 
had  been  agitating  since  the  18503.  These  guarantees  seemed  to  many 
Democrats  substantial — as  good  as  anything  they  might  secure  for 
themselves  were  they  actually  in  the  White  House.  And  so  the  bargain 
was  struck.  The  Democracy  accepted  the  Republican  arithmetic,  and 
Hayes  in  turn  delivered  on  most  of  the  Republican  commitments. (}~ 

Gardie  considered  this  deal  a  supine  surrender  to  the  Yankees  in 
every  respect,  even  though  a  Hayes  administration  gave  every  prospect 
of  following  pro-Southern  policies.  He  urged  his  mother,  en  route  to 

550 


Georgetown  in  February  1877  to  visit  Pear  lie,  to  "use  your  influence 
with  the  Southern  Congressmen  and  get  them  to  prevent  Hayes'  in- 
auguration by  every  possible  means. "  He  was  certain  that  "the  people 
would  consider  any  evil  preferable  to  the  success  of  fraud  and  the 
Radical  Party.  But  I  have  long  since  despaired  of  seeing  anything 
like  backbone  among  the  Dems,  Dem  Jem!"  Julia  did  not  agree  with 
her  angry  son.  When  she  learned  that  her  friend  Evarts  would  be  named 
Secretary  of  State  in  the  Hayes  Cabinet,  her  personal  reconciliation 
to  the  fraud  developed  speedily  and  realistically.  She  could  not  there- 
fore accept  Cardie's  extremism  when  he  declared  in  March  1877  that 

My  hatred,  prejudice  or  whatever  you  may  choose  to  call  it,  against  Yankees 
of  whatever  sort,  Democrat  or  Radical . . .  grows  greater  every  day. . . .  My 
greatest  wish  is  that  I  may  live  to  strike  another  blow  for  Southern  Inde- 
pendence, with  "Old  Bob"  God  bless  him,  in  the  lead.  If  I  did  not  live  in  hopes 
of  this,  I'd  be  desperate.  The  idea  of  being  forever  under  Yankee  thrall- 
dom . . .  !  The  bare  thought  is  enough  to  set  me  crazy !  Excuse  this  effusion, 
but  if  I  didn't  put  my  thoughts  on  this  subject  on  paper  sometimes  I  verily 
believe  I  would  burst  with  concentrated  emotion.  7TIs  such  a  luxury  to  curse 
one's  enemies!  0a 

It  was  a  luxury  Julia  no  longer  indulged  after  her  federal  pension 
was  voted  and  she  moved  to  Richmond  in  1882.  Her  last  days  there 
were  spent  pleasantly  although  she  was  in  failing  health.  In  1883  she 
fractured  an  arm  and  the  recurrent  pain  of  it  was  with  her  until  her 
death.  In  1885,  and  again  in  1887,  she  had  what  was  diagnosed  as  a 
serious  "congestive  chill"  that  forced  her  to  bed  for  several  weeks.  The 
1885  attack  rendered  her  unconscious  for  five  days  and  nearly  ended 
her  life  then  and  there.  But  she  struggled  back.  During  these  twilight 
years  Julia  visited  frequently  with  her  friends  in  town  and  in  Charles 
City.  Until  Lachlan  moved  his  medical  practice  from  Washington  to 
Elkhorn,  West  Virginia,  in  1887,  she  visited  him  regularly  in  the  city 
she  loved  so  much.  She  was  still  "the  subject  of  great  attention  from 
the  society  people"  when  she  returned  to  Washington.  In  spite  of  her 
enthusiastic  traveling  about  she  invariably  clothed  herself  in  deep 
mourning.  She  had  so  many  dead  to  lament.  The  lines  in  her  face 
deepened,  her  hair  grayed,  and  she  put  on  a  great  deal  of  weight.  In 
the  house  on  Grace  Street  the  aging  First  Lady  raised  Baby  Spencer  to 
young  womanhood.  She  pursued  her  Roman  Catholicism  without  os- 
tentation at  St.  Peter's.  No  longer  did  she  feel  it  her  bounden  duty 
to  convert  anyone  else  to  her  faith,  however. 

During  these  final  years  she  kept  in  close  touch  with  her  chil- 
dren. She  saw  Fitz  begin  the  difficult  life  of  a  Virginia  farmer  on  leased 
land  near  Ashland  in  Hanover  County.  She  urged  Gardie  toward 
marriage  so  that  Sherwood  Forest  might  have  a  new  mistress,  and  she 
became  impatient  with  his  lack  of  enterprise  in  the  matter.  "I  still 


sport  in  unfettered  freedom  amid  my  unhooked  brothers  of  the  deep 
although  there  never  swam  a  fish  who  made  lustier  efforts  to  get  hooked," 
he  teased  her.  Not  until  June  6, 1894,  did  he  "hook"  the  attractive  Mary 
Morris  Jones.  More  rewardingly,  Julia  saw  her  beloved  Pearlie  married 
in  St.  Peter's  Cathedral  to  Major  William  Mumford  Ellis  of  Shawsville, 
Virginia.  He  had  formerly  served  as  a  Montgomery  County  repre- 
sentative to  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates.  The  family  that  eventually 
numbered  eight  Ellis  children  commenced  its  expansion  almost  im- 
mediately. Julia  and  Baby  Spencer  often  visited  Pearlie  and  the  Major 
at  Madison,  their  home  near  Roanoke,  in  the  years  that  followed. 

Julia  was  particularly  proud  when  her  scholarly  son,  Lonie,  brought 
out  in  1885  his  massive  two-volume  The  Letters  and  Times  of  the 
Tylers,  and  she  was  glad  to  have  the  author  and  his  family  in  her 
home  while  the  extensive  work  was  in  preparation.  Not  surprisingly, 
Lyon  Gardiner  Tyler's  book  was  a  detailed  defense  and  justification 
of  his  father's  political  career  in  every  regard.  For  this  reason  it  did 
much  to  quiet  the  anger  of  Julia's  other  children  when  they  happened 
on  memoirs  that  threatened  to  demote  their  revered  father  in  the  eyes 
of  Clio.  "Poor  old  fools,"  Lachlan  fretted  when  he  read  a  less  than 
eulogistic  article  about  John  Tyler  in  the  January  1880  Southern 
Farmer  and  Planter  by  former  Governor  William  Smith. 

They  thought  that  father  was  courting  their  wisdom  whereas  he  was  just 

using  them  as  old  brooms  to  sweep  [forward]  his  own  and  original  ideas 

What  would  have  become  of  Wise,  Smith,  et  al.  if  they  hadn't  in  some  way 
or  another  been  in  association  with  John  Tyler?  It  is  the  light  from  his  name 
that  casts  a  glow  upon  theirs  in  the  . . .  remote  corners  of  History. 

Julia  did  not  enlist  again  in  the  family  crusade  for  her  husband's 
reputation.  She  had  already  served  her  tour  of  duty  in  that  enterprise. 
She  now  had  sturdy  sons  to  carry  the  banner  for  her.  Indeed,  Lonie 
spent  the  remainder  of  his  days,  until  his  death  in  1935,  fighting  and 
refightmg  his  deceased  father's  battles.  In  dozens  of  books  and  articles 
the  distinguished  president  of  William  and  Mary  College  maintained 
the  political,  moral,  and  intellectual  superiority  of  President  John 
Tyler  over  every  one  of  his  contemporaries — Abraham  Lincoln  promi- 
nently and  specifically  included.64 

Julia  also  watched  Sherwood  Forest  gradually  returned  to  its  ante- 
bellum beauty  under  Gardie's  sure  touch.  And  though  she  frequently 
visited  the  plantation  in  the  i88os,  she  tried  to  avoid  the  place  in  the 
summer  months.  "How  I  do  wish  Sherwood  agreed  with  me,"  she  sighed 
in  July  1886,  in  one  of  the  last  of  her  letters  that  has  survived.  "I 
think  I  would  never  care  to  leave  it  for  I  do  love  farm  life.  But  there  is 
death  in  the  ague  and  fever  for  me  and  for  Baby  Spencer  too.  Gardie 
is  young  enough  now  to  rise  from  such  attacks,  but  they  will  injure 

SS2 


him  yet The  great  remedy  [for  malaria]  there  no  doubt  is  calomel 

and  quinine."  65 

During  these  last  years  in  Richmond  Julia  had  no  contact  with 
brother  David  Lyon  or  his  wife  Sarah.  Their  estrangement  was  com- 
plete. The  marriage  of  Alex  Tyler  to  Sally  Griswold  Gardiner  in  1875 
had  done  nothing  to  heal  the  Tyler-Gardiner  breach.  Indeed,  if  the  pro- 
Confederate  inscription  on  Alex  Tyler's  monument  in  the  East  Hampton 
cemetery  is  any  indication,  Sally  had  accepted  her  husband's  sectional 
politics  when  she  accepted  his  wedding  ring.  Lyon  had  some  correspond- 
ence with  his  Uncle  David  in  1882-1883  relative  to  collecting  family- 
held  materials  for  inclusion  in  his  biography  of  John  Tyler.  In  this  effort 
David  Lyon  cooperated.  "The  letters  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time,"  Lonie 
thanked  him,  "and  I  find  them  of  immense  importance  in  supplying 
missing  links  and  suggesting  new  ideas."  This  was  the  only  contact  be- 
tween the  Long  Island  Gardiners  and  the  Virginia  Tylers  in  the  i88os.66 

While  the  Tylers  suffered  severely  (though  never  in  silence)  under 
the  dual  blow  of  Black  Reconstruction  and  the  Panic  of  1873,  David 
Lyon  Gardiner  remained  comfortable.  Armed  with  his  own  inheritance 
and  Sarah's,  he  experienced  no  difficulties.  In  1878  he  took  his  family 
to  Europe  for  a  casual  tour  of  the  Continent.  Through  his  New  York 
agent,  William  Cruikshank,  he  managed  his  New  York  City  properties 
with  casual  competence.  He  also  sold  his  long-valueless  San  Diego  lots  to 
excellent  advantage  when  the  Texas  and  Pacific  finally  pushed  its  tracks 
into  the  reviving  town.  By  1885  he  owned  a  large  yacht  and  employed 
a  crew  to  sail  her.  His  politics  were,  and  remained  until  his  death  on 
May  9,  1892,  conservative  and  "bloody  shirt"  Republican.67 

The  older  David  Lyon  grew,  the  more  concerned  he  became  with 
defending  the  purity  of  the  Gardiner  name.  His  interest  in  family  his- 
tory and  genealogy  became  a  passion,  and  he  devoted  his  leisure  time 
(which  was  all  the  time)  to  its  study.  He  soon  became  the  family 
expert  on  all  Gardiner  matters.  In  1871  he  saw  his  father's  unfinished 
Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East  Hampton  posthumously  into  print.  Thus 
when  Curtiss  C.  Gardiner  of  St.  Louis  published  in  the  Brooklyn  Eagle 
and  other  Long  Island  papers  in  1885  excerpts  from  his  planned 
Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  David  Lyon,  defender  of  the 
faith,  erupted  in  anger.  Curtiss  Gardiner  had  the  temerity  to  suggest 
that  not  all  the  descendants  of  Lion  Gardiner  were  equal  combinations 
of  Cincinnatus,  Sir  Galahad,  George  Washington,  and  thrifty  Ben 
Franklin.  Perhaps  eleven  generations  of  Gardiners  in  America  had  pro- 
duced fewer  failures,  wastrels,  alcoholics,  and  wartime  pacifists  than 
other  prominent  families  over  a  comparable  period  of  two  and  a  half 
centuries.  But  they  had  produced  some.  No  family  has  been  wholly 
perfect.  In  a  sharp  letter  to  Curtiss  Gardiner,  David  Lyon  informed  the 
wayward  genealogist  that  his  vicious  work  was  a  failure.  "You  have 

553 


shown  yourself  to  be  entirely  unfitted  for  literary  work  . . .  your  object 
is  notoriety."  Curtiss  Gardiner  was  not  intimidated  by  this  blast.  "I 
have  received  your  letter . . .  and  placed  it  in  our  file  for  reference," 
he  replied  wearily. 

This  did  not  suit  David  Lyon.  To  stem  the  poison  flowing  from 
distant  St.  Louis  he  encouraged  the  circulation  of  pro-Gardiner  articles 
and  book  reviews  prepared  by  Martha  J.  Lamb,  editor  of  the  Magazine 
of  American  History  in  New  York  City.  "Concerning  the  St.  Louis 
assaulter  . . .  your  letter  to  him  was  excellent  and  I  thank  you  warmly," 
said  the  more  malleable  Martha.  Her  always-charitable  accounts  of  the 
Gardiner  clan  swiftly  earned  her  the  imprimatur  of  David  Lyon.  There 
was  never  any  suggestion  in  any  of  her  work  that  "Gardiners  Island 
was  never  a  manor,  nor  its  early  proprietors  Lords."  In  fact,  she  be- 
lieved this  nonsense  implicitly.  David  Lyon  believed  it  too,  and  in 
1888  he  was  a  leading  force  within  the  family  to  provide  an  elaborate 
tomb  in  the  East  Hampton  cemetery  for  the  remains  of  the  magnificent 
Lion,  builder  of  towns,  victor  over  the  Pequots,  founder  of  the  family 
in  America.  A  reclining  marble  statue  of  the  seventeenth-century  for- 
tifications engineer  portrayed  him  impressively  decked  out  in  fourteenth- 
century  armor.  Sergeant  Lion  Gardiner  became  a  medieval  knight  at 
last.68 

The  ex  post  facto  knighting  of  Sir  Lion  in  East  Hampton,  Long 
Island,  produced  no  flourish  of  trumpets  on  Grace  Street  in  Richmond. 
In  many  ways  Julia  was  no  longer  a  Gardiner.  When  she  seceded  fr^m 
the  Union  she  seceded  from  the  family.  Juliana's  death  and  the  court 
battles  with  David  Lyon  had  virtually  ended  her  connection  with  the 
other  descendants  of  the  immortal  Lion.  Julia  was  thus  more  interested 
in  the  election  of  son  Lyon  to  the  presidency  of  William  and  Mary 
College  in  1888  than  she  was  with  the  elevation  of  forebear  Lion  to 
some  mythical  Round  Table.  It  was  with  great  pride  in  Lonie's  ac- 
complishment that  she  attended  the  first  commencement  exercise  over 
which  he  presided  in  Williamsburg,  in  June  1889.  She  attended  the  ball 
that  preceded  it,  and  seemed  in  good  health  and  excellent  spirits.  She 
visited  in  Lome's  home  in  Williamsburg  for  a  few  days  after  the  gradua- 
tion, and  on  Sunday,  July  7,  she  returned  to  Richmond.  Since  her  own 
house  had  been  closed  up  during  the  hot  days  of  her  absence,  she  and 
eighteen-year-old  Baby  Spencer  took  a  room  in  the  Exchange  Hotel. 
It  was  her  intention  to  consult  with  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire  on  Monday 
morning  about  the  pain  her  previously  fractured  arm  was  giving  her  and 
then  take  the  river  boat  down  to  Sherwood  Forest  that  afternoon  for  a 
visit  with  Gardie. 

But  on  Monday  morning,  July  8,  she  felt  so  ill  and  her  arm  hurt 
so  much  she  summoned  McGuire  to  her  room.  She  complained  of  chills, 
fever,  and  biliousness  and  the  physician  treated  her  accordingly.  To  this 

554 


therapy  she  did  not  respond.  On  Wednesday  morning,  the  tenth,  she 
asked  Baby  to  go  for  Dr.  McGuire  at  his  office.  The  young  girl  left  her 
grandmother  with  a  chambermaid  and  set  out  on  the  errand.  During 
her  brief  absence,  at  about  u  A.M.,  Julia  suffered  a  stroke.  When 
Baby  returned  she  found  Room  27  crowded  with  hotel  employees. 
Julia  was  nearly  unconscious.  A  porter  who  lifted  her  from  her  chair 
into  bed  said,  "I  believe  she  is  dying."  Baby  immediately  had  telephone 
messages  sent  to  several  physicians;  Dr.  Edward  McGuire  responded 
first.  He  diagnosed  Julia's  ailment  as  "congestive  chill"  and  summoned 
his  uncle,  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire.  Dr.  J.  B.  McCaw,  Julia's  regular  family 
physician,  was  also  called  in.  When  someone  at  Julia's  bedside  sug- 
gested that  she  be  given  a  sip  of  liquor,  she  shook  her  head  slightly 
and  whispered,  "Tea."  It  was  her  last  word.  A  moment  later  she  lapsed 
into  unconsciousness.  In  midafternoon  Father  Dinneen  was  called  from 
St.  Peter's  to  administer  extreme  unction.  At  5:15  P.M.,  on  July  10, 
1889,  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  died  without  regaining  consciousness.  Three 
doctors  worked  over  her  until  the  end.  At  her  bedside  were  Baby 
Spencer  and  three  Richmond  ladies  who  were  old  friends  of  the  former 
First  Lady.  Room  27,  the  scene  of  her  death,  was  only  a  few  doors 
down  the  hall  from  where  John  Tyler  had  died  in  1862. 

At  noon  on  July  10  all  of  Julia's  five  living  children  were  notified 
of  her  illness  by  telegraph.  Lonie  was  the  first  to  reach  the  Exchange 
Hotel.  He  left  Virginia  Beach  where  he  was  participating  in  an  educa- 
tional convention  and  reached  Richmond  at  n  P.M.,  too  late,  of  course, 
to  see  his  mother  alive.  On  July  n  Pearlie  arrived  from  Shawsville  in 
Montgomery  County,  Fitz  came  on  from  Ashland,  and  Gardie  arrived 
from  Sherwood  Forest.  The  funeral  was  held  in  St.  Peter's  Cathedral  at 
u  A.M.  on  Friday,  July  12,  Bishop-elect  A.  Van  de  Vyver  officiating. 
Julia's  body,  "with  thoroughly  natural  features,  was  in  a  neat  casket 
covered  with  black."  Reverend  Father  Charles  E.  Donahoe  of  Fred- 
ericksburg  celebrated  the  Requiem  Mass  for  the  dead.  In  the  middle  of 
the  service,  Lachlan  and  his  wife  arrived  at  the  church  from  Elkhorn, 
West  Virginia.  The  Cathedral  was  packed  with  Richmond  notables  and 
fashionables,  mostly  Protestants.  Indeed,  Father  Van  de  Vyver  could 
not  resist  the  golden  opportunity  to  instruct  the  captive  Protestants, 
several  clergymen  among  them,  in  the  meaning  and  symbolism  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  service  for  the  dead,  and  it  was  to  this  educational 
subject  that  the  Bishop-elect  devoted  much  of  his  eulogy  to  Julia. 
Neither  David  Lyon  nor  any  of  the  New  York  Gardiners  attended 
Julia's  funeral.  When  it  was  all  over,  "Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler,"  Con- 
federate patriot,  the  "Rose  of  Long  Island,"  was  taken  to  Hollywood 
Cemetery  and  buried  beside  her  distinguished  husband  and  her  beloved 
Julie.  Father  Donahoe  conducted  the  graveside  prayers.  At  the  age  of 
sixty-nine  the  former  First  Lady's  energetic  "reign"  was  over. 

555 


There  in  Hollywood  Cemetery  she  lies  today,  beside  John  Tyler, 
under  the  tall  marble  shaft  belatedly  erected  by  Congress  in  1915  to  the 
memory  of  the  tenth  President  of  the  United  States.  Within  a  few  feet  of 
her  grave  rest  such  prominent  Virginians  and  Americans  as  President 
James  Monroe  and  Matthew  Fontaine  Maury,  "Pathfinder  of  the 
Seas."  It  is  a  fashionable  and  accomplished  group — "altogether  select" 
— just  as  Julia  would  have  wanted  it  to  be.69 


556 


NOTES 


Key  to  frequently  cited  footnote  abbreviations: 

GPY:  Gardiner  Family  Papers,  Yale  University  Library 
LTT:  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  by  Lyon  G.  Tyler 
TFP:  Tyler  Family  Papers 
TPLC:  Tyler  Papers,  Library  of  Congress 

Footnote  citations  have  generally  been  placed  at  the  end  of  paragraphs  in  the  text 
(sometimes  at  the  end  of  two  or  three  paragraphs  in  sequence)  with  a  view  toward 
grouping  the  relevant  citations  to  a  particular  point,  argument  or  series  of  inter- 
related facts  in  one  place.  References  within  each  footnote  have  been  arranged  in 
series  corresponding  to  the  order  of  the  data  each  supports  in  the  text  above.  For 
this  reason  the  pagination  in  a  given  citation  may  appear  numerically  out  of  se- 
quence. 


CHAPTER    I 

1  [Benjamin  TJ  Onderdonk  to  [Alexander]  Gardiner,  Memorandum  of  Ap- 
pointment, n.d.  [June  20,  1844],  Gardiner  Papers,  Manuscript  Division,  Yale  Uni- 
versity Library.  Hereafter  cited  as  GPY  (Gardiner  Papers,  Yale). 

3  John  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  April  20,  1844,  GPY.  An  offset 
print  of  this  letter  has  been  published  in  the  Yale  University  Library  Gazette.  It  is 
accompanied  by  an  excellent  article  analyzing  the  historiographical  importance  of 
the  Gardiner  Papers  at  Yale  by  Howard  Gotlieb  and  Gail  Grimes.  See  their  "Presi- 
dent Tyler  and  the  Gardiners:  A  New  Portrait,"  Yale  University  Library  Gazette, 
XXXIV  (July  1959),  2-~i2. 

3  Juliana  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  April  22,  1844,  Tyler  Family 
Papers.  Hereafter  cited  as  TFP  (Tyler  Family  Papers). 

*The  account  of  the  wedding  is  taken  from  the  New  York  Herald,  June  27, 
1844.  Two  accounts  of  the  ceremony  appeared  in  that  issue,  the  principal  and  most 
detailed  version  being  based  on  facts  supplied  by  someone  quite  close  to  the  family, 
probably  Alexander  Gardiner.  See  also  "Interview  with  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler," 
Washington,  Winter,  1888-1889,  in  Philadelphia  Press,  July  11,  1889;  reprinted  in 
Richmond  Dispatch,  July  12,  1889. 

8  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  17,  1844. 

"Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  28,  1844;  also 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  30,  1844,  TFP. 

7  New  York  Herald,  June  27,  1844. 

8  Ibid. 

0  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  28,  1844. 
Juliana  Gardiner  confessed  that  "we  have  had  something  to  laugh  at  you  may 
suppose  although  the  effect  upon  the  public  never  occurred  to  us  in  making  our 
arrangements,"  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  28, 
1844;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  n,  1844,  TFP. 
10  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  10,  1844.  Mar- 
garet reported  "a  general  stir  among  the  congregation"  when  the  usual  Episcopal 
prayer  was  read  in  church  on  Sunday,  Aug.  n,  1844,  blessing  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  "They  gave  a  sly  glance  at  me  to  see  the  effect,"  Margaret  Gardiner 

557 


to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  N.Y.,  Aug.  n,  1844,  TFP;  see  also  David  L. 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  N.Y.,  July  7,  1844,  GPY;  and 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  14,  1844,  Tyler  Papers, 
Manuscript  Division,  Library  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.C.  Hereafter  cited  as 
TPLC  (Tyler  Papers,  Library  of  Congress}. 

u  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  June  4;  28,  1844,  TPLC. 

"Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lynchburg,  Va.,  Sept.  n, 
1844,  TFP. 

13  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  June  30,  1844,  TFP. 

u  Ibid.  So  great  were  the  demands  for  souvenir  bits  of  the  wedding  cake  that 
Julia  had  a  replica  baked  in  New  York  for  distribution  to  her  friends  and  relatives 
there.  On  the  insistence  of  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  the  President  instructed  Wilkins, 
the  White  House  cook,  to  prepare  still  a  third  replica  for  distribution  in  the  Phila- 
delphia area.  Elizabeth  Tyler  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  and  the  American 
Scene,  i8i6-i8Sp  (University,  Ala.,  1955),  112. 

16  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  [New  York],  July  4,  1844,  TFP. 

16  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  July  3,  1844,  TFP. 

17  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  [July  61,  1844,  TFP. 

18  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  8,  1844;  see  also 
Juliana   Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler   [New  York],   July   10    [1844];   Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  Va.,  July  [3],  1844,  TFP. 

wNew  York  Herald,  Nov.  12,  1844;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Old  Point  Comfort,  July  1844,  TFP. 

20  Ibid.,  July   13,   1844;  Sherwood  Forest,  July   14,   1844,  TFP.  The  honey- 
moon cottage  was  a  one-story  affair  consisting  of  a  living  room,  dining  room,  bed- 
room, and  pantry-kitchen.  Colonel  De  Russy  later  served  as  brigadier  general  in  the 
Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War  and  was  cited  for  gallantry  in  action. 

21  Ibid.;  see  also  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  [8], 

1844,  TFP.  William  Compton  Bolton  began  life  as  William  Bolton  Finch,  changing 
his  name  in  1831. 

22  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  July  [5],  1844; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  [8],  1844,  TFP. 

^  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  July  [5],  1844; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [New  York],  July  10  [1844!,  TFP. 

24  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  14,  1844, 
TFP. 

26  Ibid.,  Old  Point  Comfort,  July  13,  1844;  Sherwood  Forest,  July  14,  1844, 
TFP.  Today  Sherwood  Forest  is  a  Registered  National  Historic  Landmark,  so 
designated  by  the  United  States  Department  of  the  Interior.  It  is  located  on  Vir- 
ginia Route  5  midway  between  Williamsburg  and  Richmond.  Open  to  the  public, 
it  is  a  unique  house  in  that  it  is  not  a  formal  monument  to  a  bygone  era.  It  is 
the  home  of  Mr.  J.  Alfred  Tyler  and  his  family,  Mr.  Tyler  is  the  grandson  of  John 
and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  the  son  of  David  Gardiner  Tyler. 

20  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washington,  Oct.  14,  1844.  Julia 
sent  the  ballad  to  Alexander  in  New  York  urging  him  to  see  that  it  was  published. 
Apparently  it  never  was.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
July  14,  1844,  TFP.  A  copy  of  the  verse  in  Tyler's  handwriting  is  found  in  TPLC. 
The  music  has  not  survived.  The  verse  was  written  for  Julia  shortly  after  her  father 
was  killed  on  board  the  U.S.S.  Princeton  in  Feb.  1844. 

-^  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  [8],  1844,  TFP; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  6,  1843 ;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  25,  1842,  GPY;  Margaret  Gar- 
diner to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  17,  1845;  see  also  ibid.,  Oct.  12, 

1845,  in  which  Margaret  says,  "I  believe  I  have  a  greater  penchant  for  old  people 
than  young.  What  does  this  augur?  That  I  shall  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  rny 

558 


illustrious  predecessor  ?  Heigh  ho !  it  will  never  do  to  print  this" ;  and  also  ibid.,  n.d. 
[1844],  TFP,  in  which  she  remarked  that  a  daguerreotype  of  Tyler  made  him  "look 
as  if  he  had  put  his  veto  upon  everything  but  age" 

28  Henry  A.  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union  (Philadelphia,  1881),  233. 

20  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  UA  Birthday  Song,"  March  1852,  TFP. 

30  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  235. 

81  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Sept.  8,  1844,  TFP. 


CHAPTER    2 

1  Allan  Nevins  and  Milton  H.  Thomas  (eds.),  The  Diary  of  George  Templeton 
Strong,  3  vols.  (New  York,  1952),  I,  238. 

2  Pierre  S.  R.  Payne,  The  Island  (New  York,  1958),  17;  W.  F.  Williams  to 
David  Gardiner,  Norwich,  Conn.,  Feb.  13,  1839,  GPY. 

3  Payne,  The  Island,  22-23;  Curtiss  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  De- 
scendants (St.  Louis,  Mo.,  1890),  3,  48-49;  Lion  Gardiner,  Relation  of  the  Pequot 
Wars  (East  Hampton,  1660),  reprinted  in  C.  C.  Gardiner,  op.  cit.t  9-13,  55,  24i  I7» 
6$,  21,  19. 

*  Ibid. ,  57~$8;  Payne,  The  Island,  77-82. 

cLion  Gardiner  to  John  Winthrop,  Isle  of  Wight  (Gardiners  Island),  Apr.  27, 
1650,  in  C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  34;  ibid.,  3.  Lion 
Gardiner's  East  Hampton  period,  1653-1663,  is  fully  treated  in  David  Gardiner, 
Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East  Hampton,  County  of  Suffolk,  N.Y.  (New  York, 
1871) ;  William  S.  Pclletrcau,  History  of  East  Hampton  Town  (New  York,  1882) ; 
and  Benjamin  Thompson,  History  of  Long  Island,  2  vols.  (New  York,  1843),  Vol.  I, 

"Will  of  David  Gardiner  (1691-1751),  fourth  proprietor,  May  16,  1751,  in 
C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  108. 

7  Ibid.  The  herds  on  the  island  at  this  time  numbered  200  cows,  40  horses  and 
3000  sheep.  Sarah  Diodati  Gardiner,  Early  Memories  of  Gardiners  Island  (East 
Hampton,  1947),  73?  79~8o. 

8  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  17,  1844.  On  the  slavery  issue  in  New  York  at  this 
time,  1810-1820,  see  Dixon  Ryan  Fox,  The  Decline  of  the  Aristocracy  in  the  Politics 
of  New  York   (New  York,  1919),  269-70.  For  Alexander  Gardiner's  pro-slavery 
views  see  his  "An  Oration  Delivered  At  Princeton  College,  July  4,  1838,"  GPY. 
See  also  Sarah  D.  Gardiner,  Early  Memories  of  Gardiners  Island,  73-74. 

8  No  two  versions  of  John  Gardiner  and  the  Captain  Kidd  treasure  agree  in 
details  or  in  the  degree  of  John's  complicity,  if  any,  in  hiding  the  treasure  on  the 
island.  Compare  Payne,  The  Island,  111-49;  Sarah  D.  Gardiner,  Early  Memories 
of  Gardiners  Island,  63-64,  17-18;  C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  De- 
scendants, 98-101.  The  Payne  account  is  the  most  detailed  and  best  researched.  See 
also  W.  F.  Williams  to  David  Gardiner,  Lebanon,  Conn.,  Mar.  18,  1839,  GPY; 
Sarah  D.  Gardiner,  Early  Memories  of  Gardiners  Island,  64-67;  75-87;  C.  C.  Gar- 
diner, Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  101 ;  Thomas  Hardy  to  John  Lyon  Gar- 
diner, HMS  Ramillies,  off  Gardiners  Island,  July  31,  1813;  Charles  Paget  to  John 
Lyon  Gardiner,  British  Squadron  off  New  London,  n.d.,  GPY. 

10  C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  108-26.  Abraham  Gar- 
diner married  Phoebe  Dayton  in  1781.  Their  five  children  were  Abraham  (1782- 
1827),  Julia's  father  David  (1784-1844),  Mary  (1786-1858),  Samuel  (1789-1859), 
and  Nathaniel  (1792-1856).  Julia's  aunt  and  her  three  uncles  all  married  and  had 
large  families.  Julia  thus  had  twenty-two  first  cousins  who  survived  infancy.  She 
was  on  intimate  terms  with  only  three  of  them,  however:  Mary,  Phoebe,  and 
Frances  (Fanny),  daughters  of  her  Uncle  Samuel,  who  lived  on  Shelter  Island,  L.I., 
N.Y.  Captain  Abraham  Gardiner  (1763-1796)  and  his  father,  Colonel  Abraham 

:  559 


Gardiner  (1722-1782),  were  both  residents  of  East  Hampton.  Gardiner  family 
genealogies  list  the  marriage  of  David  Gardiner  to  Juliana  McLachlan  as  1816. 
Their  first  son,  however,  was  born  on  May  23,  1816.  Hence  the  wedding  year  was 
very  likely  1815. 

11  David  Gardiner  to  Mary  Smith  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  27,  1805 ;  July  31, 
1809;  and  David  Gardiner  to  Mary  Smith  Gardiner  Van  Wyck,  Croton,  N.Y., 
Aug.  25,  1814,  GPY. 

13  David  Gardiner  to  Mary  Smith  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  31,  1809;  see  also 
David  Gardiner  to  Phoebe  Dayton  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  18,  1809,  GPY. 

13  C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants,  149;  Franklin  B.  Dexter, 
Biographical  Sketches  of  the  Graduates  of  Yale  College  (New  York,  1911),  V,  659- 
60;  David  Gardiner  Account  Book,  1841-1844.  These  properties  were  located  at 
numbers  181,  183,  185,  187  Chatham  St.;  i,  3,  5,  7,  9  Oliver  St.;  349*  3Si,  353  Green- 
wich St.;  and  22  Harrison  St.  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Dec.  9, 1850,  GPY. 

14  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences  of  Mrs.  Julia  G.  Tyler,"   Cincinnati 
Graphic  News,  June  25,  1887.  Reprinted  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Letters  and  Times  of 
the  Tylers,  3  vols.  (Richmond,  Va.,  1884;  1894),  III,  194-201.  Hereafter  cited  as 
LTT  (Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers).  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Samuel  Gardiner, 
New  York,  Feb.  19,  1849,  GPY.  The  Gardiner  home  in  East  Hampton  was  pur- 
chased in  1822  from  a  Mr.  Jones  who  had  bought  it  in  1819  from  Abraham  Smith. 

w  Sarah  D.  Gardiner,  Early  Memories  of  Gardiners  Island,  gi ;  "The  Guardians 
of  David  J.  Gardiner  in  Account  with  David  Gardiner,  1818-1822,"  GPY;  Assets 
and  Liabilities  of  David  Gardiner  (March  1844),  TFP ;  D.  S.  Gardiner  to  David 
Gardiner,  Gardiners  Island,  Mar.  22,  1828;  David  Gardiner  to  D.  S.  Gardiner, 
New  York,  Apr.  19,  1828,  GPY;  East  Hampton  Cemetery  Records,  East  Hampton 
Free  Library.  Julia  apparently  did  not  know  exactly  when  she  was  born.  John  Tyler's 
son  and  biographer,  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  listed  her  birthday  as  May  4,  1820.  Julia's  tomb- 
stone in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond,  uses  the  July  23,  1820  date.  Julia  often 
mentioned,  however,  as  did  newspaper  accounts  of  her  wedding  at  the  time,  that 
she  was  twenty-four  when  she  married  John  Tyler  on  June  26,  1844.  She  never 
mentioned  her  birthdate  in  any  of  her  many  letters. 

16  Journal  of  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New  York,  Forty-Seventh  Session  (Al- 
bany, 1824)  28-29,  121,  129,  354-55,  364;  ibid,,  Forty-Eighth  Session  (1825),  118, 
205,  338,  554-56;  ibid.,  Forty-Ninth  Session  (1826),  212,  245,  546;  482-83;  ibid., 
Fiftieth  Session  (1827),  29,  5i-5a>  92-93,  3i5~i6,  3S4~55,  544~45,  576-77J  Jabez  D. 
Hammand,  Life  and  Times  of  Silas  Wright  (Syracuse,  N.Y.,  1848),  56-59;  De  Alva 
S.  Alexander,  A  Political  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  3  vols.  (New  York, 
1906),  I,  334-56. 

17  John  Donley  to  David  Gardiner  [New  York],  Apr.  30  [1834] ;  J.  R.  Hobble 
to  David  Gardiner,  Washington,  Oct.  26,  1832;  George  B.  Hanley  to  David  Gardiner, 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  Jan.  n,  1834,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  June  8,  1840,  GPY.  His  work  on  East  Hampton  was  first  published 
in  article  form  in  the  Sag  Harbor  (N.Y.)  Corrector  and  posthumously  in  book  form 
as  the  Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East  Hampton  in  1871.  See  Benjamin  F.  Thompson 
to  David  Gardiner,  Hempstead,  N.Y.,  Dec.  i,  1838;  W.  F.  Williams  to  David  Gar- 
diner, Norwich,  Conn.,  Feb.  13,  1839;  Lebanon,  Conn.,  Mar.  18,  1839;  Juliana  Gar- 
diner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  17,  1840;  Alexander  Gardiner  to 
David  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  3,  1840.  David  Gardiner's  interest  in  Clinton 
Academy,  particularly  in  the  hiring  of  teaching  personnel,  is  seen  also  in  David 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Sept.  6,  1835;  N.  D.  Chagaray  to 
Julia  Gardiner  [New  York],  Dec.  8,  1838,  GPY. 

M  Jonathan  Thompson  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  14;  Oct.  2;  27, 
1832 ;  E.  Hand  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  4,  1832 ;  John  A.  King  to  David 

560 


Gardiner,  Jamaica,  N.Y.,  Nov.  9,  1832,  GPY.  Jonathan  Thompson,  former  Col- 
lector of  the  Port  of  New  York  during  the  John  Quincy  Adams  administration,  was 
a  cousin  of  David  Gardiner.  He  provided  the  $200  which  Gardiner  disbursed.  Sarah 
Frances  Bering  to  Eliza  Gardiner  Brumley,  Sag  Harbor,  Nov.  7,  1832,  Gardiner 
Papers,  Long  Island  Collection,  East  Hampton  Free  Library. 

10  J.  G.  Dychman  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  2,  1834,  TFP;  H.  Ketchum 
to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  30,  1834,  in  [Lyon  G.  Tyler  (ed.)],  "Letters 
From  Tyler  Trunks,  Sherwood  Forest,  Virginia.  Political  Letters — 1832-1834," 
Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine,  XVII  (January  1936),  156. 
(Hereafter  cited  as  Tyler's  Quarterly}.  Ketchum  was  Clerk,  Whig  General  Com- 
mittee of  New  York  City.  Thurlow  Weed  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  14, 
1837;  L.  Bassedill  to  David  Gardiner,  Albany,  N.Y.,  Feb.  21,  1838;  David  Gardiner 
to  [N.  N.  Hunt],  n.p.,  n.d.  [East  Hampton,  Dec.  1838];  N.  N.  Hunt  to  David 
Gardiner,  Sag  Harbor,  Dec.  25,  1838;  Jan.  12,  1839;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David 
L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  16,  1840,  GPY. 

120  Joseph  G.  Albertson  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  Jan.  8,  1834; 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Princeton,  N.J.,  n.d.  [1834] ;  Samuel  B. 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Dec.  x,  1833 ;  David  Gardiner  to 
James  Carnahan,  East  Hampton,  May  24,  1834;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gar- 
diner, New  York,  Mar.  25  [1835],  GPY;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Princeton,  N.J.,  Aug.  7,  1834,  TFP;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander 
Gardiner  [East  Hampton],  May  31,  1835;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  Aug.  3,  1835;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  [Princeton}, 
July  15,  1837,  GPY.  David  Gardiner  built  a  new  home  in  East  Hampton  in  1835- 
1836  which  placed  a  temporary  strain  on  the  family  resources. 

21  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  and  Margaret  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Mar.  1836,  GPY; 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Dec.  13,  1833;  Nov.  16,  1834; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Nov.;  Dec.  18,  1834,  in  Lyon 
G.  Tyler,  "Letters  From  Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  tit.,  157-58,  161-62;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Nov.  22,  1835,  TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Aug.  24,  1834,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Letters  From 
Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  cit.,  x6o-6x;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Princeton, 
Jan.  i,  1835,  GPY;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Dec.  13, 
1833,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Letters  From  Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  cit.,  158;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Professor  Alexander,  East  Hampton,  Feb.  28,  1837,  GPY.  See  also 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Princeton  Diary,  1834-1838,  passim,  GPY.  Alexander  Gar- 
diner to  Julia  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Dec.  28,  1836;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David 
and  Juliana  Gardiner,  Princeton,  July  12,  1837,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Nov.  22,  1835,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David 
Gardiner,  Princeton,  Dec.  18,  1834;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  Princeton, 
Jan.  5,  1834,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Letters  From  Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  cit.}  163,  158; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  [Princeton],  July  15,  1837,  GYP. 

w  David  L*  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  Princeton,  Jan.  5;  Mar.  2;  Mar.  1834, 
in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Letters  From  Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  cit.,  158-59,  161. 

38  Alexander  Gardiner,  "Notes  For  an  Essay  in  Classical  History,"  Princeton 
College,  May  16,  1837;  Alexander  Gardiner,  "An  Oration  Delivered  at  Princeton 
College,  July  4,  1838,"  GPY.  A  marginal  note  on  this  manuscript  states  that  portions 
of  the  speech  "were  suggested  by  Father."  See  also  Alexander  Gardiner,  Princeton 
Diary,  1834-1838,  GPYf  passim. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Feb.  12,  1837,  TFP; 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  23,  [1835],  in  Lyon  G. 
Tyler,  "Letters  From  Tyler  Trunks,"  loc.  cit.}  160;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gar- 
diner, New  York,  May  22,  1835;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Prince- 
ton, Nov.  22,  1835,  TFP.  Eliza  Packer  Gardiner  Brumley  (1788-1863)  was  the  wife 

561 


of  Reuben  Brumley  (1799-1860).  They  had  no  children.  East  Hampton  Cemetery 
Records,  East  Hampton  Free  Library. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  ij  5,  1835;  May  i, 
1837,  TFP. 

26  Julia  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  23;  May  22,  1835,  TFP. 
Minunet  was  Julia's  phonetic  spelling  of  the  flower  mignonette.  This  horticultural 
information  made  available  to  the  author  by  Helen  Hales  Seager,  Granville  Garden 
Club,  Granville,  Ohio. 

27  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  7,  1835;  Feb.  12, 
1837,  TFP.  Just  where  Margaret  attended  school  is  not  known. 

28  David  L.  Gardiner  to  C.  F.  Jones  [Princeton],  June  1836.  David  Lyon  read 
law  and  clerked  in  the  offices  of  Richard  and  Emerson,  70  Wall  St.  Alexander  studied 
in  the  Anthon  firm.  Alexander  Gardiner  Notebooks — 1839;  Julia  Gardiner  to  David 
L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  19,  1842;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  May  30,  1842,  GPY. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  15,  1839;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  20;  June  19,  1840;  David 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [East  Hampton],  July  16,  1840;  Alexander  Gar- 
diner to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  28,  1842 ;  David  L.  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Jan.  2,  1843;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  David 
Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  24,  1843 ;  David  L,  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New 
York,  Mar.  7,  1843 ;  East  Hampton,  May  4,  1843 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  n,  1843,  GPY.  The  Gardiner  law  office  at  14  Wall  St. 
rented  for  $70  per  month.  When  the  rent  was  raised  to  $90  per  month  they  moved 
to  49  Williams  St, 

30  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Oct.   31    [1842]; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York  [Oct.  1842].  A  large  room  with 
small  attached  bedroom  on  the  second  floor,  adequate  for  two,  could  be  had  for  $13 
per  week  at  Madame  Garcia's.  Board  was  included.  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  4  [1840],  GPY,  This  warning  was  delivered  on  the 
occasion  of  the  move  of  her  sons  to  Mrs.  Boyd's  house  at  422  Houston  St.,  a  few 
doors  from  Madame  Chagaray's  Institute. 

31  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [Julia  Gardiner],   [New  York],  June   [1839]    (draft 
copy  of  a  letter) ;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  14,. 
1839;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  2;  May  24,  1839; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  [David  L.  Gardiner]  [New  York],  June  9,  1841  (fragment  of 
draft  copy  of  a  letter).  In  1843  the  connection  with  the  Livingston  family  was 
broken  when  Julia  informed  Alexander:  "Ma  says  she  would  prefer  you  not  to  visit 
the  Livingstons  again  this  summer — No  reason  only  no   object"  Julia  Gardiner 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  June  4,  1843 ;  Julia  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East 

Hampton,  May  31,  1840;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  J L [Julia  Lane]   [New 

York],  June  14,  1841,  GPY. 

33  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  [New  York],  May  1840;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  24;  June  2;  15,  1839;  Alexander  Gar- 
diner to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  2,  1840,  GPY ;  see  also  Caroline  Clark- 
son  to  Julia  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  2,  1840,  TFP. 

33  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  2,  1840;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  8,  1840,  GPY. 

34  Julia  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner  [East  Hampton],  April  5,  1840;  see  also 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  10,  1840;  Julia 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  12,  1840;  David  L.  Gardiner 
to  [Margaret  Gardiner]  [New  York],  May  1840,  GPY. 

^'Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  10,  1840; 
Julia  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  31,  1840;  see  also  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  8,  1840;  Margaret  Gar- 

562 


diner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  29,  1840.  Juliana  did  not  dispute 
this  characterization,  but  she  softened  it  considerably  in  her  view  that  "he  is  not  very 
great  as  a  preacher."  Quoted  in  ibid.  He  was  to  become  a  good,  loyal,  and  dear 
friend  of  the  Gardiners.  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June 
14,  1840,  GPY. 

36  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  29,  1840, 
GPY;  printed  invitation  from  Corps  of  Cadets,  United  States  Military  Academy, 
to  Ball  given  August  28,  1839,  with  notation:  "Will  Miss  Gardiner  be  so  good  to 
fill  up  the  enclosed  invitations  at  her  pleasure  and  much  oblige  Cadet  Rogers."  That 
Julia  corresponded  with  beaux  in  New  York  and  that  on  occasion  she  would  receive 
poetry  from  them  is  indicated  in  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New 
York  [May],  1840,  GPY. 

37  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  24,  1839;  Julia  Gar- 
diner to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  31,  1840;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alex- 
ander Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  27;  Aug.  r;  27  1842;  [Summer]  1843,  GPY. 

33 Ibid.,  June  14;  May  4;  10;  12;  June  29,  1840;  May  30;  July  27,  1842,  GPY. 

80  P.  S.  R.  Payne  recounts  this  incident  interestingly  in  The  Island,  202-3,  but 
adds  some  colorful  speculation  not  warranted  by  the  facts.  He  guesses,  for  instance, 
that  the  strange  man  present  "looks  suspiciously  like"  David  Gardiner  "disguised  with 
mustache  and  chin  whiskers."  That  Julia  posed  voluntarily  would  seem  indicated  by 
David  Gardiner's  failure  to  press  a  lawsuit  against  Bogert  and  Mecamly. 

*°  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  17,  1840,  GPY. 
Julia  guessed  that  the  author  of  the  poem  was  a  "Mr.  G-,"  otherwise  unidentified. 

41  Nathaniel  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner3  New  Haven,  July  8,  1840;  Benjamin 
F.  Butler  to  Lewis  Cass,  New  York,  Sept.  22,  1840;  Charles  King  to  Georges  W. 
Lafayette,  New  York,  Oct.  r,  1840,  GPY.  Charles  King  was  the  son  of  Rufus 
King  of  New  York,  Federalist  Vice-Presidential  nominee  in  1808;  Georges  Wash- 
ington Lafayette  was  the  son  of  the  celebrated  marquis. 

4a  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [New  Haven],  Aug.  3,  1840;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Washington,  Aug.  9  [1840];  Philadel- 
phia, Aug.  27,  1840,  GPY. 

43  Margaret  Gardiner,  Leaves  From  a  Young  Girl's  Diary,  1840-1841,  Sarah  D. 
Gardiner  (ed.),  (privately  published,  1926),  Sept.  28;  Nov.  3,  1840,  8,  24-25.  Here- 
after cited  as  Margaret  Gardiner,  Diary. 

44  David  Gardiner  to  Samuel  Gardiner,  London,  Nov.  2,  1840,  GPY. 
^Margaret  Gardiner,  Diary,  Nov.  10,  1840,  29-30. 

40 Ibid,,  Nov.  28;  Dec.  2,  1840;  Jan.  6,  1841,  38-40,  49-50. 

47  David  Gardiner  to  Editor,  New  York  American,  Paris,  Jan.  14,  1841;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Samuel  Gardiner,  [New  York],  Mar.  28,  1841,  GPY;  New  York 
American,  Mar.  25,  1841.  The  piece  in  the  American  was  captioned  "Presentation  at 
Court." 

^  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Rome,  Feb.  21,  1841; 
David  Gardiner  to  Nathaniel  Gardiner,  Florence,  Apr.  20,  1841,  GPY;  Margaret 
Gardiner,  Diary,  Apr.  13 ;  July  4,  1841,  97-98,  135;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  [David  L. 
and  Alexander  Gardiner"],  Rome,  Feb.  23,  1841,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner,  Diary, 
Feb.  21,  1841,  70;  Leonard  Wood  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Brunswick,  N.S.,  Dec.  2, 
1872;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Baden,  Jan.  10,  1867; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  19,  1866,  TFP. 
Wood,  who  had  served  as  an  intermediary  in  the  romance,  recalled  it  as  "that  con- 
quest of  yours  of  which  I  became  a  witness."  David  Gardiner  Tyler  feared  that  if 
he  and  his  brother  Alex  did  find  the  baron  he  might  become  "so  far  wrought  up  as 
to  'kiss  us  for  our  mother.' " 

40  Margaret  Gardiner,  Diary,  Mar.  12,  1841,  84-8$;  David  Gardiner  to  Nathaniel 
Gardiner,  Florence,  Apr.  20,  1841;  John  J.  Bailey  to  Andrew  Stevenson,  Genoa, 
Apr.  15,  1841,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner,  Diary,  Apr.  i5~July  3,  1841,  100-35;  Julia 

563 


Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  194;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  [New  York],  Aug.  2  [1849] ,  TFP.  A  brief  romantic  fling  with 
a  Belgian  count  was  so  successful  for  Julia  that  according  to  Margaret  the  gentle- 
man was  on  the  verge  of  leaving  Brussels  for  America  to  ask  for  her  hand  when  he 
learned  of  her  marriage  to  Tyler. 

50  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Leamington,  Aug.  27, 
1841,  GPY. 

51  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  194. 

53  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  [9],  1841,  GPY. 

63  [Alexander  Gardiner]  to  the  Editor  of  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
Oct.  ii,  1841  (Private),  GPY. 

54  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  195. 

55  Ibid.,  194-95- 

^Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  93;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gar- 
diner, Washington,  Jan.  21,  1842,  GPY. 

57  Ibid,;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  196-97. 

58  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Mar.  6,  1842;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Nov.  9;  13,  1842,  GPY.  John 
Griswold  Gardiner   (1812-1861),  ninth  proprietor  of  Gardiners  Island,   died  un- 
married. 

50  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  26,  1842;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Nov.  13,  1842 ;  Julia  Gardiner 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  27,  1842;  Julia  Gardiner  to  David  L. 
Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  19,  1842 ;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  July  27,  1842 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton, 
Nov.  13,  1842;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  27; 
May  30,  1842,  GPY. 

80 Ibid.,  Aug.  i,  1842;  J.  J.  Bailey  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  12, 
1842;  David  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Mar.  6;  Nov.  13, 
1842;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Nov.-Dec. 
1842],  GPY. 

81  Moses  Yale  Beach,  Wealth  and  Pedigree  of  the  Wealthy  Citizens  of  New  York 
City.  Comprising . . .  Persons  Estimated  to  be  Worth  $100,000  and  Upwards,  Third 
Edition  (New  York,  1842),  2.  Beach  was  the  editor  of  the  New  York  Sun. 

62  Ibid.,  8.  Following  his  death  in  1844^  David  Gardiner  was  listed  in  the  1846 
edition  as  "Estate  of  $200,000."  The  figure  was  a  bit  high.  Gardiner's  brother 
Nathaniel  of  Sag  Harbor  (Julia's  Uncle  Nathaniel),  did  not  make  the  1842  edition 
of  Beach,  but  he  was  included  in  the  1846  version  at  a  comfortable  $100,000.  Julia 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  21,  1842,  GPY.  The  sur- 
prised lady  whose  parlor  was  violated  was  Sarah  Griswold  Gardiner  (1781-1863), 
wife  and  widow  of  John  Lyon  Gardiner  (1770—1816),  seventh  proprietor  of  Gar- 
diners  Island,  and  mother  of  John  Griswold  Gardiner. 

^Ibid.;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L,  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  21,  1842; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  19,  1842,  GPY;  Beach, 
Wealth,  6,  9,  19. 

04  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Norwich,  Conn.,  June  27,  1842; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Nov.  13,  1842 ;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  David  Gardiner,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Nov.-Dec.  1842],  GPY. 

CHAPTER    3 

1  Oliver  P.  Chitwood,  John  Tyler:  Champion  of  the  Old  South  (New  York, 
1939),  10,  202-3;  LTT,  I,  198-200;  John  S.  Wise,  Recollections  of  Thirteen  Presi- 
dents (New  York,  1906),  13-16;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Staten  Island,  N.Y.,  Oct.  30,  1869,  TFP;  A.  G.  Abell,  Life  of  John  Tyler  (New  York, 


1844)  >  i-io;  Rudolph  Marx,  The  Health  of  the  Presidents  (New  York,  1960),  134; 
Katharine  Tyler  Ellett,  Young  John  Tyler:  A  True  Story  -for  Boys  and  Girls 
(Richmond,  Va.,  1957),  10-12,  29-33.  In  the  Ellett  book  for  children  (ages  S-io) 
the  story  is  told  that  Tyler  had  memorized  large  passages  of  Patrick  Henry's  "If 
this  be  treason"  speech  at  the  age  of  eight.  See  also  W.  Burlie  Brown,  The  People's 
Choice:  The  Presidential  Image  in  the  Campaign  Biography  (Baton  Rouge,  La., 
1960),  passim,,  for  a  delightful  discussion  of  the  hokum  surrounding  the  youthful 
years  of  American  Presidents.  For  some  inexplicable  reason  the  marbles-at-dawn 
story  found  its  way  into  the  otherwise  excellent  Hugh  Russell  Fraser,  Democracy  in 
the  Making:  The  Jackson-Tyler  Era  (Indianapolis,  1938),  152. 

2  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  29,  1854,  TPLC; 
LTT,  I,  200;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  17-18;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  32—33. 

8  Over  the  years  Tyler  served  as  William  and  Mary's  benefactor,  legal  adviser, 
Rector  of  its  Board  of  Visitors,  and  Chancellor.  He  spoke  frequently  on  the  campus 
and  in  1825  he  blocked  an  ill-considered  scheme  to  move  the  college  to  Richmond. 
See  LTT,  I,  344,'  Henry  A.  Wise  to  John  Tyler,  Onancock,  Va.,  Aug.  7,  1855;  John 
Tyler  to ,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  22,  1860;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Feb.  i,  1851;  Prof.  W.  E.  Hopkins  to  John  Tyler,  Williamsburg, 
Aug.  21,  1850;  John  Tyler  to  Prof.  George  F.  Holmes,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  31, 
1848;  Williamsburg,  Feb.  22,  1847;  John  Tyler  to  Prof.  Ewell,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Feb.  n,  1859,  TPLC.  For  Tyler's  legal  training  see  Abell,  Tyler,  136;  Chitwood, 
Tyler,  20-21;  LTT,  I,  280-81,  204,  272;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington, 
Dec.  8,  1820,  in  ibid.,  336. 

A  Ibid.,  55-56,  70;  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  12, 
1852;  Dec.  23,  1859.  For  additional  evidence  of  Tyler's  genealogical  interests  see 
ibid.,  Feb.  15,  1848;  Nov.  12,  1850,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gar- 
diner, Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  14,  1859,  TFP. 

*LTT,  I,  41-42;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  10,  64-65,  122;  John  Tyler  to  John  C. 
Hamilton,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  14,  1855,  TPLC, 

9  LTT,  I,  142-143,  149-50;  John  Tyler,  Sr.,  to   George  Tucker,  Greenway, 
July  io?  1795,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  12, 
1852 ;  May  22,  1854,  in  LTT,  II,  496,  510;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  Glouces- 
ter, Va.,  June  20,  1831,  TPLC. 

7  LTT,  I,  154,  567-70;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  S.  Foote,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21, 
1850,  in  ibid.,  II,  489;  see  also  John  Tyler's  speech  at  Jamestown  on  May  13,  1857, 
in  which  the  point  is  made  concerning  slavery  in  British  colonial  policy,  ibid.,  I, 
10-11 ;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  154;  LTT,  I,  266-67;  Margaret  Gardiner  Becckman  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Niagara  Falls,  Sept.  21,  1851,  TFP. 

8  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Woodburn,  Sept.  30,  1821,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 
Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  531;  ibid.,  280-81;  III, 
183;  Anon.,  John  Tyler:  His  History,,  Character  and  Position  (Pamphlet;  New 
York,  1843),  ii  J  Chitwood,  Tyler,  20-21. 

9  Richard  B.  Morris  (ccl.),  Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  Founding  of  the  Nation 
(New  York,  1957),  266;  for  a  brief  history  of  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States 
see  Davis  R.  Dewey,  Financial  History  of  the  United  States  (New  York,  1903),  98- 
101. 

10  John  Tyler  to  Hugh  Blair  Grigsby,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  16,  1855,  TPLC; 
Chitwood,  Tyler,  27-28;  LTT,  I,  274.  The  Tyler  resolution  was  introduced  on 
Jan.  14,  1812, 

ia[Lyon  G.  Tyler  (ed.)],  "Will  and  Inventory  of  Hon.  John  Tyler,"  William 
and  Mary  College  Quarterly  Historical  Magazine,  XVII  (April  1909),  231-35.  The 
estate  of  John  Tyler,  Sr.,  also  included  40  slaves.  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Christian, 
Richmond,  Dec.  5,  1812,  in  Laura  C.  Hollo  way  Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White 
House;  Or,  In  the  Home  of  the  Presidents  (Philadelphia,  1881),  309-10. 

M  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Greenway,  Mar.  23,  1813 ;  Richmond,  May  18, 
1813,  in  LTT,  I,  276,  277;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  22-23. 

565 


13Letitia  Tyler  to  Letitia  Christian  Tyler,  Parsonage,  Jan.  7,  1837,  TFP;  John 
Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  26,  1827;  Feb.  24;  Apr.  30,  1828;  Mar.  4; 
Apr.  28;  Dec.  24,  1830,  in  LTT,  I,  389-92,  546,  549,  551-52;  Armistead  C.  Gordon, 
John  Tyler:  Tenth  President  of  the  United  States.  An  Address  at  the  Dedication  of 
the  Monument  Erected  by  Congress  in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond,  Va.,  in 
Memory  of  President  Tyler,  Oct.  12,  1915  (Pamphlet;  [Richmond],  1915),  19; 
Anne  Royall,  Letters  From  Alabama  (Washington,  1830),  189;  LTT,  I,  550;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  9,  1843,  GPY  ; 
Langford,  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  312-17. 

14Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Mary  Grace  Cooper  Raoul,  Williamsburg,  Oct. 
1839,  m  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  73-75;  Langford,  Ladies  of  the  White 
House,  325-26. 

15Abell,  Tyler,  59;  LTT,  I,  266-67,  280-81. 

™Ibid.,  278-79;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  29-30;  Abell,  Tyler,  13. 

17  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,   June   14, 
1855,  TPLC;  Rufus  Stone  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  June  8,  1869, 
TFP. 

18  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Apr.  13,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  439. 

1B  Abell,  Tyler,  13-14;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  34;  LTT,  I,  296-97;  John  Tyler  to  Le- 
titia Christian  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  i,  1817,  in  ibid.,  288. 

80  Chitwood,  Tyler,  41-44;  LTTf  I,  316-17,  334. 

21  Abell,  Tyler,  18-19. 

32  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Feb.  22,  1830,  in  LTT,  I,  408; 
Chitwood,  Tyler,  318. 

28  John  Tyler  to  Robert  McCandlish,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  22,  1851,  in  LTT, 
I,  402-3;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  June  23,  1834,  in  ibid., 
499;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  254. 

84  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Philadelphia,  Dec.  18,  1818;  Washington,  Jan.  19, 
1819,  in  LTT,  I,  303,  305. 

25  Abell,  Tyler,  34-52. 

3(1  Carl  Brent  Swisher,  American  Constitutional  Development  (New  York,  1943), 
175-76;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  June  23,  1834,  in  LTT, 
I,  499« 

'*  Abell,  Tyler,  65-74. 


**lbid.,  55-62  ;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Jan.  19,  1818,  in  LTT, 
I,  305- 

»Q  Niles'  Weekly  Register  (Aug.  8,  1818),  XIV,  399. 

31  Claude  C,  Bowers,  John  Tyler:  An  Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Bust  of 
President  Tyler  in  the  State  Capitol,  Richmond,  Va,,  June  16,  1931  (Pamphlet; 
Richmond,  1932),  8-9;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  53;  LTTf  III,  26-27;  I,  319-20. 

""John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Feb.  5,  1820,  TPLC;  LTT,  I, 
319-20. 

83  Abell,  Tyler,  64;  LTT,  II,  540. 

ulbid.,  I,  318-19;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  49-50;  Gordon,  John  Tyler:  Tenth  Presi- 
dent, 20. 

"LTT,  I,  329- 

*°Ihid.,  335-36;  Marx,  Health  of  the  Presidents,  133-34. 

37  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Charles  City,  July  20,  1821,  TPLC. 

CHAPTER   4 

1  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Charles  City,  June  21,  1822,  TPLC, 
a  Journal  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  1823-1824  Session  (Richmond, 
1824),  55,  74-76,  95;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  60-61;  LTT,  I,  341-42. 


3  Eugene  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections  (New  York,  1959), 
82 ;  LTT,  III,  28-29. 

*  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  84;  Samuel  Flagg  Bemis, 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  the  Union  (New  York,  1956),  11-57;  Charles  M.  Wiltse, 
John  C.  Calhoun:  Nationalist,  1782-1828  (Indianapolis,  1944),  304-6;  Glyndon 
G.  Van  Deusen,  The  Life  of  Henry  Clay  (Boston,  1937),  219-22. 

5  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Clay,  Charles  City,  Mar.  27,  1825,  in  Calvin  Colton  (ed.), 
The  Private  Correspondence  of  Henry  Clay  (Cincinnati,  1856),  119-20. 

°Chitwood,  Tyler f  64;  Abell,  Tyler,  78-84;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  67-69;  Abell, 
Tyler,  85-86;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  60,  70;  LTT,  I,  345;  Bowers,  Tyler,  g. 

7H.  S.  Foote,  A  Casket  of  Reminiscences  (Washington,  1874),  58;  LTT,  I,  356. 

8  Ibid.,  69. 

8  The  cautiously  worded  letters  between  Tyler  and  the  committee  of  anti- 
Randolph  legislators  urging  the  Tyler  candidacy  are  reproduced  in  Abell,  Tyler, 
87-89;  see  also  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  86-87;  John  Tyler  to  Henry 
Curtis,  Greenway,  Sept.  4,  1827,  TPLC;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  76;  W.  C.  Bruce,  John 
Randolph  of  Roanoke,  2  vols.  (New  York,  1922),  I,  513,  543;  Chitwood,  Tyler, 
74-75,  78-79;  LTT,  I,  357-62;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  82. 

10  Bemis,  John  Quincy  Adams  and  the  Union;  69;  Abell,  Tyler,  92;  Wise, 
Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  88-89. 

31  The  tariff  policies  of  the  18205  and  the  Jacksonian  tariff  plot  of  1828  are 
treated  in  many  standard  sources,  principally  F.  W.  Taussig,  The  Tariff  History  of 
the  United  States  (New  York,  1909),  70-102;  George  Dangerfield,  The  Era  of  Good 
Feelings  (New  York,  1952),  396-409;  and  Bemis,  John  Quincy  Adams  and  the 
Union,  87—91. 

wjohn  Tyler  to  John  Rutherfoord,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1827,  John  Ruther- 
foord  Papers,  Duke  University  Library ;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington, 
Mar.  18;  May  i,  1828,  in  LTT,  I,  384-85,  387;  Apr.  23,  1828,  TPLC. 

wjohn  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Dec.  16,  1827;  Mar.  18,  1828; 
Greenway,  Sept.  4,  1827,  in  LTT,  I,  379,  386,  375;  ibid.,  365. 

14  John  Tyler  to  John  Rutherfoord,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1827,  John  Ruther- 
foord Papers,  Duke  University  Library ;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington, 
Dec.  16,  1827,  in  LTT,  I,  379. 

15  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  90-91. 

10  John  Tyler  to  John  B.  Ctopton,  Washington,  Dec.  14,  1828,  Tyler  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library* 

17  Claude  C.  Bowers,  The  Party  Battles  of  the  Jackson  Period  (Boston,  1928), 

37- 

™lbid.,  48. 

19  Arthur  M.  Schlesinger,  Jr.,  The  Age  of  Jackson  (Boston,  1946),  67~73>  *°4- 

20  James  D.  Richardson  (comp.)j  A  Compilation  of  the  Messages  and  Papers  of 
the  Presidents  (Washington,  1902),  II,  448-49;  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson, 
46-47. 

<ALTT,  I,  408-9;  John  Tyler  to  John  B.  Seawell,  Washington,  Jan.  25,  1832, 
TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  2,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  426-27. 

22  Abell,  Tyler,  102,  105-7;  LTT,  I,  421. 

23  John  Tyler  to  John  Rutherfoord,  Washington,  Mar.  14,  1830,  John  Ruther- 
foord Paper$,*Duke  University  Library. 

'*LTT,  I,  412;  Abell,  Tyler,  97-99- 

*6  Wiltse,  John  C.  Calhoun:  Nationalist,  390-98;  Richard  M.  Hofstadter,  "John 
C.  Calhoun:  The  Marx  of  the  Master  Class,"  in  The  American  Political  Tradition 
and  the  Men  Who  Made  It  (New  York,  1949),  67-91;  Margaret  Bayard  Smith, 
The  First  Forty  Years  of  Washington  Society.  Gaillard  Hunt,  (ed.)  (New  York, 
1906),  252-53;  Charles  M.  Wiltse,  John  C.  Calhoun:  Nullifier,  1820-1839  (Indi- 
anapolis, 1949),  26-38. 

26  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Gloucester,  May  8,  1831,  in  LTT,  I, 

567 


422-23;  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  2  vols.  (New  York,  1889),  I, 
219,  215;  for  Tyler's  continued  distrust  of  Van  Buren  see  John  Tyler  to  James 
Iredell,  Jr.,  Washington,  Jan.  10,  1835,  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Papers,  Duke  University 
Library.  In  this  letter  Tyler  characterizes  Van  Buren  as  Jackson's  "sweetest  little 
fellow,"  the  "Sejanus  of  the  mighty  Tiberius." 

27  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  20,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  429-30. 

28  J.  S.  Bassett,  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson  (New  York,  1928),  599;  Schlesinger, 
The  Age  of  Jackson,  87. 

20  J.  C.  Fitzpatrick  (ed.),  Martin  Van  Buren,  Autobiography  (American  His- 
torical Association  Annual  Report  for  the  Year  jpiS),  II,  625. 

30AbeU,  Tyler,  132;  LTT,  I,  474-75- 

31  Nicholas  Biddle  to  Henry  Clay,  Philadelphia,  Aug.  i,  1832,  in  Colton,  The 
Private  Correspondence  of  Henry  Clay,  341 ;  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of 
the  Presidents,  II,  590;  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson,  91. 

82  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Apr.  13,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  439. 

^Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  104-5. 

^Wiltse,  John  C.  Calhoun:  Nullifier,  171-72,  173. 

35  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  122-23;  Henry  T.  Shanks,  The  Secession 
Movement  in  Virginia,  1847-1861  (Richmond,  1934),  21. 

38  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  26,  1832  ;  John  Tyler  to  John  B. 
Seawell,  Washington,  June  15,  1832;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington, 
Apr.  13,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  559,  437,  439;  Abell,  Tyler,  113,  121-23;  Congressional 
Debates,  1831-1832,  VIII  (Washington,  1832),  355-67  5  LTT,  III,  69. 

37  Henry  St.  George  Tucker  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Richmond,  Jan.  24,  1833, 
in  William  and  Mary  College  Quarterly  Historical  Magazine,  XII  (October  1903), 
91—92 ;  Shanks,  The  Secession  Movement  in  Virginia,  21 ;  Arthur  C.  Cole,  The  Whig 
Party  in  the  South  (Washington,  1913),  20-21.  The  quotation  is  Duff  Green's  in  a 
letter  to  Richard  K.  Cralte,  dated  Dec.  15,  1832. 

88  John  Tyler  to  John  Floyd,  Washington,  Jan.  16,  1833;  John  Tyler  to  Little- 
ton W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Feb.  2,  1833,  TPLC. 

30  John  Tyler  to  John  B.  Seawell,  Washington,  Jan.  25,  1832,  TPLC;  John  H. 
Pleasants  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Jan.  i,  1833,  in  LTT,  I,  452 ;  John  Tyler  to 
Littleton  W,  Tazewell,  Washington,  Feb.  2,  1833;  John  Tyler  to  John  Floyd,  Wash- 
ington, Jan.  16,  1833;  John  Tyler  to  William  F.  Pendleton,  Washington,  Jan.  19, 
1833,  TPLC;  LTT,  I,  454 J  Abell,  Tyler,  135-46. 

40  LTT,  I,  444,  447,  461 ;  II,  143- 

41Chitwood,  Tyler,  119;  LTT,  I,  467;  John  Tyler  to  John  Floyd,  Washington, 
Jan,  16,  1833,  TPLC. 

^  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Feb.  2,  1833,  TPLC; 
Abell,  Tyler,  145;  John  Tyler,  Speech  at  a  Banquet  Honoring  Henry  Clay,  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  April  12,  1860,  in  LTT,  I,  467. 

**Ibid.,  462;  John  Tyler  to  John  Floyd,  Gloucester,  Nov.  21,  1833,  TPLC. 

44  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson,  97-105;  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  374. 

^John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Dec.  3;  25,  1833;  John 
Tyler  to  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Washington,  Jan.  7,  1834;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W. 
Tazewell,  Washington,  Dec.  25,  1833,  TPLC;  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson,  106- 
7,  109;  Van  Deusen,  The  Life  of  Henry  Clay,  279-81. 

w  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Jan.  9,  1834,  TPLC;  LTT, 
I,  484;  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Christian  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  17,  1834,  in  ibid., 
485;  Abell,  Tyler,  149-56.  Abell  produced  the  entire  Tyler  speech  on  the  deposits 
question  as  he  did  most  of  Tyler's  important  addresses  in  Congress  and  out.  Ap- 
parently he  had  access  to  the  original  manuscript  copies  of  Tyler's  pre-i842  utter- 
ances. These  documents,  it  may  be  assumed,  were  among  those  burned  in  Richmond 
in  April  1865. 

^Ibid. 


"Ibid.;  LTT,  I,  489,  597;  Abell,  Tyler,  158. 

d9  John  Tyler  to  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Washington,  Jan.  7,  1834;  John  Tyler  to 
Littleton  W.  TazeweU,  Senate  Chamber,  Washington,  May  9,  1834,  TPLC;  LTT,  I, 
484-85- 

50  John  Tyler  to  William  Patterson  Smith,  Washington,  Mar.  31,  1834,  William 
Patterson  Smith  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis, 
Washington,  Mar.  28,  1854;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington, 
June  23,  1834,  TPLC. 


CHAPTER    5 

a  John  Tyler,  "Oh  Child  of  My  Love,"  TPLC. 

2  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Charles  City,  July  20,  1821;  Oct.  9,  1820, 
TPLC. 

9  Ibid.,  Washington,  May  i;  16,  1828,  TPLC. 

*Ibid.f  Greenway,  Sept.  4;  Oct.  26;  Nov.  16,  1827,  TPLC. 

*  John  Tyler  to  John  B.  Seawell,  Washington,  Jan.  25,  1832;  John  Tyler  to 
Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Washington,  Jan.  16,  1843,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  John  B. 
Seawell,  Washington,  June  15,  1832;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Rich- 
mond, May  2,  1826,  in  LTT,  I,  437,  331. 

6  Ibid.,  575-77- 

7  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Christian  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  i,  1835;  John  Tyler 
to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Washington,  Feb.  19,  1834;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Wash- 
ington, June  15,  1832;  Dec.  26,  1827;  Feb.  8,  1831;  Dec.  24,  1830;  Jan.  20,  1832; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  6,  1834;  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Chris- 
tian Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  i,  1835,  in  ibid.,  510,  563,  562,  390,  552,  551,  554> 
562-63,  510. 

8  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Greenway,  Nov.  23,  1827,  TPLC;  John  Tyler 
to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  30,  1828;  Dec.  24,  1830;  Mar.  n,  1832,  in  LTT, 
I»  392>  552>  555;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  18;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington, 
Mar.  4;  18;  Apr.  28,  1830,  in  LTT,  I,  546,  547,  549;  Letitia  Tyler  to  John  Tyler, 
[Williarnsburg],  Jan.  21,  1837,  TFP. 

°John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1836;  John  Tyler 
to  Robert  Tyler,  Gloucester,  Nov.  28,  1836;  Dec.  n,  1834.  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  received 
similar  academic  pep  talks  from  his  father  in  Washington.  See  John  Tyler  to  John 
Tyler,  Jr.,  Washington,  Feb.  19,  1834;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington, 
Mar.  28,  1834;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  u,  1834;  Jan.  24, 

1835,  in  LTT,  I,  531,  564,  514,  5^3,  49*>  5*4,  5^4- 

10  Ibid.,  Gloucester,  Nov.  28,  1836,  in  ibid.,  564-65. 

11  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  28,  1831;  Jan.  20;  June  15, 
1832;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1836,  in  ibid.,  428-29, 
554,  562,  53i. 

32  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  26,  1827;  Feb.  16,  1831;  Mar. 
n,  1832;  Mar.  4;  May  13,  1830;  Feb.  8,  1831.  The  Jeffersonian  anger  adage  was 
also  urged  upon  Robert.  See  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Jan.  16, 

1836,  in  ibid.,  390,  553,  555,  547,  550,  553,  530;  John  Tyler  to  James  Iredell,  Jr., 
Gloucester,  Nov.  16,  1836,  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Papers,  Duke  University  Library; 
John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Mar.  25,  1836,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Robert 
Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  15,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  535?  Royall,  Letters  From  Alabama, 
178. 

14  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  30,  1828;  John  Tyler  to  Robert 
Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  2,  1832;  Jan.  16;  Feb.  15,  1836;  John  Tyler  to  Mary 
Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Feb.  18,  1836;  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Christian  Tyler, 

S69 


Washington,  Feb.  i,  1835;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  23,  1835; 
Dec.  ii,  1834,  in  LTT,  I,  392,  427,  530,  535,  535,  5*o,  S">  5*4;  John  Tyler  to 
John  B.  Seawell,  Washington,  June  13,  1832,  TPLC ;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis, 
Washington,  May  i,  1828;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  16,  1831, 
in  LTT,  I,  387,  553;  ibid.,  II,  22;  John  Tyler  to  George  G.  Waggaman,  Williams- 
burg,  Feb.  15,  1838;  John  Tyler  to  John  H.  Waggaman,  Williamsburg,  Aug.  30, 
1839,  TPLC. 

14  John  Tyler,  Speech  at  the  Memorial  Service  for  Thomas  Jefferson,  Richmond, 
July  ii,  1826,  in  Chitwood,  Tyler,  66;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington, 
Dec.  26,  1827;  Feb.  24,  1828,  in  LTT  I,  390,  390-91;  Jo*1*1  Tyler,  Speech  to  the 
Virginia  Colonization  Society,  Richmond,  Jan.  10,  1838,  in  ibid.,  567-69. 

15  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1832,  in  ibid.,  S54~55;  John 
Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Washington,  Jan.  25,  1844,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Mary 
Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  28,  1831;  June  15,  1832;  Mar.  4,  1830,  in  LTT,  I,  429, 
561-62,  547. 

10  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Jan.  16,  1836,  in  ibid.,  530. 

17Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  471;  LTT,  I,  503-5;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  129-32; 
Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  481-87.  Besides  Tyler,  the  antiadministration  mem- 
bers of  the  committee  were  Senators  Daniel  Webster,  Thomas  Ewing  of  Ohio,  and 
Willie  P.  Mangum  of  North  Carolina.  The  lone  pro-Jacksonian  was  Senator  William 
Wilkins  of  Pennsylvania,  later  Tyler's  Secretary  of  War.  He  boycotted  the  com- 
mittee and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  its  work  or  its  subsequent  December 
1834  report. 

18/6zU,  483,  487. 

"John  Tyler  to  Col.  Thomas  Smith,  Washington,  Dec.  16,  1835,  in  LTT,  I, 
525.  The  offer  was  made  to  Tyler  by  the  Reverend  William  S.  Morgan,  member  of 
Congress  from  Virginia.  Col.  Thomas  Smith  was  Gloucester  delegate  in  the  Virginia 
House  of  Delegates. 

^Benjamin  W.  Leigh  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  July  5,  1835,  in  ibid.,  523. 

21  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Jan.  16,  iS36,  in  ibid.,  529-30. 
Tyler  had  sounded  out  his  friend  William  F.  Gordon  on  the  idea  of  appealing  to 
the  people  in  order  to  "put  our  adversaries  on  the  defensive."  John  Tyler  to 
William  F.  Gordon,  Washington,  Jan.  8,  1836,  James  Rochelle  Papers,  Duke  Uni- 
versity Library. 

23  William  F.  Gordon  to  John  Tyler,  Albemarle,  Jan.  15,  1836,  TPLC;  John  H. 
Pleasants  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Jan.  13,  1836;  James  Barbour  to  John  Tyler, 
Richmond,  Jan.  14,  1836;  in  LTT,  I,  526,  527;  see  also  Robert  Allen  to  John  Tyler, 
Mt.  Jackson,  Va.,  Dec.  22,  1835,  TPLC. 

23  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  531. 

21  Col.  Thomas  Smith  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Feb.  ii,  1836;  William  Crump 
to  John  Tyler,  Powhatan  County,  Va.,  Feb.  14,  1836;  D.  F.  Slaughter  to  John 
Tyler,  Richmond,  Feb.  28,  1836,  in  ibid.,  532,  533-34,  536-37.  The  key  test  vote 
in  the  House  of  Delegates  to  instruct  Tyler  and  Leigh  to  vote  for  the  Benton 
expunging  resolution  showed  a  Jacksonian-Democratic  majority  of  only  14.  On 
the  more  general  proposition  of  the  right  of  the  legislature  to  instruct  and  the  duty 
of  the  representative  to  obey,  or  resign,  the  affirmative  margin  was  an  over- 
whelming 114  to  14.  In  the  Virginia  senate  the  Jacksonian-Democratic  working 
majority  was  only  6,  yet  the  right  of  instruction  proposition,  which  carried  114  to 
14  in  the  House  of  Delegates,  was  carried  25  to  5  in  the  senate.  The  instructions 
issue  transcended  faction. 

25  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  15,  1836,  TPLC;  John  Tyler 
to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Feb.  18,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  535.  Tyler  told  Robert 
that  his  decision  to  resign  "seems  to  be  the  wish  of  my  friends  in  Richmond,"  a 
rather  strange  misreading  of  the  bulk  of  the  advice  he  seems  to  have  received.  John 
Tyler  to  William  F.  Gordon,  Washington,  Jan.  8,  1836,  James  Rochelle  Papers, 

570 


Duke  University  Library.  He  was  also  worried  that  the  Jacksonians  would  carry 
his  own  Gloucester  County  in  the  state  elections  in  April.  "It  is  necessary  that  you 
should  put  everything  in  motion  at  once  for  the  election  in  April,"  he  wrote  William 
Patterson  Smith  at  Gloucester  Courthouse.  "Success  always,  as  you  know,  depends 
on  diligence  and  industry.  The  Expungers  would  rather  carry  Gloucester  than  any 
other  County."  John  Tyler  to  William  Patterson  Smith,  Washington,  Mar.  7,  1836, 
William  Patterson  Smith  Papers,  Duke  University  Library. 

26  John  Tyler  to  Hugh  Blair  Grigsby,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  16,  1855?  TPLC. 

27  John  Tyler  to  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  Washington,  Feb.  29,  1836, 
in  Abell,  Tyler,  166-71. 

88  John  Tyler  to  William  F.  Pendleton,  Gloucester,  Oct.  27,  1836,  TPLC. 

»  LTT,  I,  541-42. 

*°The  standard  work  on  the  emergence  of  the  Whig  Party  is  E.  Malcolm 
Carroll,  Origins  of  the  Whig  Party  (Durham,  N.C.,  1925),  passim.  See  also  Cole, 
The  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  20,  69 ;  Barton  H.  Wise,  The  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise 
of  Virginia,  1806-1876  (New  York,  1899),  178.  An  excellent  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  Whig  Party  in  Virginia  is  found  in  Henry  H.  Simms,  The  Rise  of  the  Whigs 
in  Virginia,  1824-1840  (Richmond,  1929),  passim. 

81  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson,  284.  For  a  detailed  history  of  Anti-Masonry 
see  Charles  McCarthy,  The  Antimasonic  Party,  1827-1840  (Washington,  1903)* 
passim;  see  also  the  chapter  on  Anti-Masonry  in  William  B.  Hesseltone,  The  Rise 
and  Fall  of  Third  Parties,  From  Anti-Masonry  to  Wallace  (Washington,  1948). 

32  John  Tyler  to  William  F.  Gordon,  Gloucester,  Nov.  9,  1834,  James  Rochelk 
Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  John  Tyler  to  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Washington, 
Jan.  to,  1835,  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Papers,  Duke  University  Library. 

38  Freeman  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe:  William  Henry  Harrison  and  His  Times 
(New  York,  1939)*  202-4,  294- 

a*  John  Tyler  to  Col.  Thomas  Smith,  Gloucester  Place,  May  8,  1835,  in  LTTf 
I,  516-17.  Throughout  1835  such  papers  as  the  Richmond  Virginia  Free  Press,  the 
Washington  Sun,  and  the  Richmond  Whig  boomed  Tyler's  Vice-Presidential  nomina- 
tion. See  LTT,  II,  517-18. 

38  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  45~49>  35*i  240-41,  247-48,  252,  254-55,  263, 
266-67,  269,  274-75,  282,  284,  291;  Henry  Clay  to  John  Bailhache,  Ashland, 
Sept.  13,  1835,  in  Colton,  The  Private  Correspondence  of  Henry  Clay,  400; 
Nicholas  BiddJe  to  Herman  Cope,  Philadelphia,  Aug.  n,  1835,  in  R.  C.  McGrane 
(ed.),  Correspondence  of  Nicholas  Biddle  Dealing  with  National  Affairs  (Boston, 
1919),  255;  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  305-8. 

86  Robert  Allen  to  John  Tyler,  Mt.  Jackson,  Va.,  Dec.  22,  1835,  TPLC;  John 
Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  531;  Chitwood, 
Tyler,  149-50;  John  G.  Miller  to  John  Tyler,  Columbus,  0.,  Feb.  23,  1836;  see  also 
Robert  Ware  to  John  Tyler,  Columbus,  Feb.  24,  1836,  in  LTT,  I,  520-22. 

87  Chitwood,  Tyler,  i49~5°- 

38  John  Tyler  to  William  F.  Pendleton,  Gloucester,  Oct.  27,  1836,  TPLC;  John 
Tyler  to  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Gloucester,  Nov.  16,  1836,  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library.  mrr 

**  John  Tyler  to  William  F.  Pendleton,  Gloucester,  Oct.  27,  1836,  TPLL; 
Chitwood,  Tyler,  155-56;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Gloucester,  Jan,  23,  1837, 

in  LTT,  111,  70-71-  -or/- 

*°John  Tyler  to  Thomas  Ritchie,  Williamsburg,  Mar,  ar,  1840,  TPLL;  John 
Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Gloucester,  Jan.  23,  1837,  in  LTT,  III,  70-71- 

4:1  Robert  Tyler,  Poems  (Richmond,  1839)1  passim;  Robert  Tyler,  Ahasuerus. 
A  Poem  (Richmond,  1842),  passim;  and  Robert  Tyler,  Death;  Or,  Medonts>  Dream 
(Richmond,  1843),  *««*»;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Mary  Grace  Cooper,  Wffliams- 
burg,  Oct.  1839,  in  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  75;  John  Tyler  to  Mrs.  Martha 
Rochelk,  Williamsburg,  Oct.  20,  1838;  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Williamsburg, 

571 


Nov.  4,  1838;  John  Tyler  to  Mrs.  Martha  Rochelle,  Washington,  Sept.  4,  1841 ;  Oct. 
22,  1843,  James  Rochelle  Papers,  Duke  University  Library.  See  also  Priscilla  Cooper 
Tyler  to  Mary  Grace  Cooper,  Williamsburg,  Oct.  1839,  in  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper 
Tyler,  75.  John,  Jr.,  returned  to  Jerusalem  in  early  May  1844  to  see  the  new  baby 
daughter  Mattie  had  given  birth  to.  A  son,  James  Rochelle  Tyler,  had  been  born 
in  1841.  Tyler's  letters  to  Mattie  in  May  1844  sent  "Many  kisses  to  the  little 
stranger"  and  apologized  for  his  son's  tardy  departure  from  Washington.  John 
Tyler  to  Mrs.  Mattie  Rochelle  Tyler,  Washington,  May  i,  1844,  TPLC  (photostat). 
Midshipman  James  H.  Rochelle  became  Passed  Midshipman  on  Aug.  10,  1847; 
Master  on  Sept.  14,  1855;  Lieutenant  on  Sept.  15,  1855.  When  the  Civil  War  came 
he  went  with  the  Confederacy  and  Navy  records  list  him  as  "dismissed,  17  April, 
1861." 

^Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  1-6,  8-10,  26-27,  31-37,  38-58.  The  only 
good  house  they  had  on  the  1837-1838  tour  was  in  Charleston  on  Dec.  19,  1837. 
They  played  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.  Happily,  the  great  Florida  Indian  Chief 
Osceola  was  in  the  audience  and  a  curious  crowd  paid  in  $1200  to  see  him  react 
to  the  Coopers'  presentation  of  Shakespeare.  Ibid.,  60. 

43  Ibid.,  65-66. 

**Ibid.,  69-73.  Mrs.  Coleman  in  her  excellent  study  of  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler 
cites  passages  from  ten  of  Robert's  love  letters  to  Priscilla  written  during  the  spring 
and  summer  of  1839.  Details  of  the  romance  during  1837  and  1838,  and  the  letters 
of  that  period,  have  apparently  not  survived. 

"Ibid.,  78-79,  81-82. 

46  Ibid.,  79-80,  81,  84-85. 


CHAPTER    6 

1  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Williamsburg,  Sept.  26,  1837;  John  Tyler 
to  James  Lyons,  Williamsburg,  Dec,  29,  1838;  John  Tyler  to  George  G.  Waggaman, 
Williamsburg,  Feb.  15,  1838,  TPLC;  William  C.  Preston  to  John  Tyler,  Washing- 
ton, Dec.  20,  1837,  in  LTT,  I,  587;  Cole,  The  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  56;  Carter 
Beverley  to  John  Tyler,  Westmoreland  County,  Jan.  28,  1839,  TPLC;  John  Tyler 
to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Williamsburg,  Dec.  26,  1838,  in  LTT,  III,  74. 

2  Schlesinger,  The  Age  of  Jackson,  217-26;  Robert  Gray  Gundcrson,  The  Log 
Cabin   Campaign    (Lexington,   Kentucky,   1957),   13-19;   Van   Deusen,    The  Life 
of  Henry  Clay,  301-4;  William  C,  Preston  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec,  30^ 

1837,  in  LTT,  I,  586. 

8 LTT,  I,  596;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  162-63,  167-69.  Wise  dates 
these  important  interviews  and  commitments  only  as  occurring  "one  evening  in  the 
session  of  1838-1839."  Internal  evidence,  however,  would  indicate  that  the  Clay- 
White  exchanges  took  place  in  late  January  or  early  February  1839*  For  further 
evidence  of  Clay's  accommodation  with  the  states'  rights  viewpoint  see  Henry  Clay 
to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Ashland,  Oct.  10,  1839;  William  C.  Preston  to  John  Tyler, 
Washington,  Dec.  20,  1837;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Williamsburg,  Dec.  26,, 

1838,  in  LTT,  I,  601-2,  587;  III,  73~74. 

4  Henry  Clay  to  Francis  Brooke,  Washington,  Dec.  26;  20,  1838,  in  Colton, 
The  Private  Correspondence  of  Henry  Clay,  435,  432;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A. 
Wise,  Williamsburg,  Dec.  26,  1838,  in  LTT,  III,  73 ;  John  Tyler  to  James  Lyons,, 
Williamsburg,  Dec.  29,  1838,  TPLC, 

BChitwood,  Tyler,  157-58;  LTT,  I,  591-93;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union, 
158-60. 

'Chitwood,  Tyler,  160,  162-63,  170-71;  LTT,  I,  587-93;  Cole,  The  Whig 
Party  in  the  South,  56;  Simms,  The  Rise  of  the  Whigs  in  Virginia,  141. 


7  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Clay,  Williamsburg,  Sept.  18,  1839,  in  LTT,  III,  75-77; 
John  Tyler  to  John  H.  Waggaman,  Williamsburg,  Aug.  30,  1839,  TPLC. 

8  John  Tyler,  Speech  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  Feb.  14,  1839,  in  LTT, 
II,  140-48;  ibid.,  I,  608;  John  Tyler  to  the  Whigs  of  Louisville,  Ky.  [Williams- 
burg], July  19,  1839,  in  ibid.,  618. 

9  [Lyon  G.  Tyler],  "John  Tyler  and  the  Vice  Presidency,"  Tyler's  Quarterly, 
IX  (October  1927),  89-95. 

10  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin   Campaign.,  45—47,   52 ;   T.  W.  Barnes,  Memoirs   of 
Thurlow  Weed,  2  vols.  (Boston  and  New  York,  1884),  I,  480-82;  II,  75-77;  Wise, 
Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  165-66. 

11  Gunderson,   Log   Cabin   Campaign,   57-62;    Harriet   A.  Weed    (ed.),   Auto- 
biography of  Thurlow  Weed  (New  York,  1883),  481;  LTT,  I,  593-94. 

12  Horace  Greeley,  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life  (New  York,  1868),  131;  Chit- 
wood,  Tyler,  166-67;  LTT,  I,  595.  Greeley  suggested  that  the  tear-shedding  story 
actually   brought  Tyler  the  Vice-Presidential  nomination.   Tyler  later   told  Julia 
Gardiner   Tyler,   however,   that   the   story   was    "the   greatest   of   the   falsehoods 
propagated"  against  him. 

18  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  170-72;  LTT,  I,  595. 

14  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  62-64;  [Lyon  G.  Tyler],  "John  Tyler  and 
the  Vice  Presidency,"  loc.  cit.,  89-95;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  169-71;  LTT,  III,  36; 
Barnes,  Memoirs  of  Thurlow  Weed,  II,  76-77;  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  318. 

**LTT,  I,  596,  618;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  172-73;  Appendix  B,  472-73.  Professor 
Chitwood  carefully  analyzes  the  charge  that  Tyler  quietly  made  pro-Bank  noises 
at  Harrisburg  to  improve  the  chances  of  his  nomination.  He  demonstrates  that  the 
evidence  for  the  charge  ranges  from  the  weak  to  the  imaginary.  Gunderson,  Log 
Cabin  Campaign,  65-66;  Allan  Nevins  (ed.),  The  Diary  of  Philip  Hone,  2  vols. 
(New  York,  1927),  II,  553;  Abraham  Lincoln  to  John  T.  Stuart,  Jan.  20,  1840, 
in  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  The  Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
12  vols.  (New  York,  1905)  I,  39-40. 

™LTT,  II,  1-2;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  176-77,  239-40;  Nathan 
Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events.  2  vols.  (Philadelphia,  1875),  II,  115—16;  Gunder- 
son, Log  Cabin  Campaign,  25,  114-15,  101-7,  154-55,  133-34,  141,  128. 

17  Cleaves,    Old    Tippecanoe,   303,    312-13,   316,   319;    Gunderson,   Log   Cabin 
Campaign,  51,  73-75,  170-71,  225;  LTT,  I,  620;  Abcll,  Tyler,  181. 

18  John  Tyler  to  James  Iredell,  Jr.,  Williamsburg,  June  5,  1840,  James  Iredell, 
Jr.,  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  see  also  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise, 
Williamsburg,  Apr.  28,  1840,  TPLC. 

10  Abcll,  Tyler,  181 ;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  177-78;  LTT,  I,  619-20. 

30  Chitwood,  Tyler,  184-88,  195;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  195-97; 
LTT,  I,  620,  621-22;  Abell,  Tyler,  181;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  191-92;  Appendix  C, 
475-77.  In  a  speech  in  the  House  on  Sept.  10,  1841,  Rep.  John  Minor  Botts  of 
Virginia,  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  Tyler  administration,  quoted  an  excerpt  from  the 
Wheeling  Gazette  of  August  21,  1840,  which  declared  that  Tyler  had  advocated  a 
national  bank  in  a  Wheeling  address.  According  to  the  extract  Botts  cited,  Tyler 
"pulled  from  his  pocket  an  empty  purse,  and,  shaking  it  at  the  multitude,  ridiculed 
the  idea  of  a  metallic  currency,  abused  the  Sub-treasury  [i.e.,  Independent  Treas- 
ury], and  avowed  a  preference  for  'good  United  States  bank  notes.' "  An  attempt 
by  Professor  Chitwood  in  the  19305  to  locate  a  copy  of  the  Wheeling  Gazette  for 
Aug.  21,  1840,  failed,  as  did  an  effort  by  this  writer  in  1959.  The  Botts  charge  is  thus 
impossible  to  check  one  way  or  the  other.  It  might  be  pointed  out,  however,  that 
the  Botts  speech  of  Sept.  10,  1841,  was  otherwise  filled  with  factual  inaccuracies. 

^The  letter  of  the  Henrico,  Virginia,  Democrats  to  Tyler  is  dated  Henrico, 
Oct.  3,  1840;  Tyler's  answer  is  dated  Williamsburg,  Oct.  16,  1840.  Both  letters  are 
published  in  Abell,  Tyler,  176-80. 

*  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  187-91,  198-200;  LTT,  I,  597~98»  6°9>  6*2» 
615-16;  II,  60. 

573 


23  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  5,  78-83. 

^Ibid.,  3-4,  6,  219-21,  242-46,  249-51;  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential 
Elections,  122. 

^Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  254-58;  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presi- 
dential Elections,  122-23;  LTT,  I,  629-32. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to ,  New  York,  Sept.  26,  1840;  Alexander  Gardiner 

to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  1841,  GPY. 

27  LTT,  I,  600;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Williamsburg,  Nov.  25;  Dec.  20, 
1840,  in  ibid,,  III,  84-88.  For  a  similar  view  see  Virginia  Governor  Thomas  W. 
Gilmer's  open  letter  to  Louisa  County,  Va.,  Whigs,  in  ibid.,  I,  609-10. 

28Cleaves5  Old  Tippecanoe,  333- 

^Charles  F.  Adams  (ed.),  Memoirs  of  John  Quincy  Adams.  12  vols.  (Phila- 
delphia, 1874-1877),  X,  372;  LTT,  II,  9,  95,  127;  HI,  52-53J  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  [9],  1841,  GPY;  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  331. 

30  Ibid.,  333;  LTT,  II,  lo-n;  Benjamin  Perley  Poore,  Reminiscences,  2  vols. 
(New  York,  1886),  I,  245-46;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  179-80;  E.  F. 
Ellet,  Court  Circles  of  the  Republic   (Hartford,  1869),  284;   John  Tyler  to  Mr. 
Higgins,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  26,  1853,  in  LTT,  II,  163. 

31  George  R.  Poage,  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party   (Chapel  Hill,   1936), 
18-20 ;  LTT,  II,  Appendix  E,  704;  III,  89-91;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign, 
265;  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  330-31. 

32  John  Tyler  to  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  WHHamsburg,  Jan.  7,  1841,  in  LTT,  II, 
14;  ibid.,  Ill,  86-87;  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  335. 

33  Ellet,  Court  Circles  of  the  Republic,  286;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign, 
266;   Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  336.  For  text  of  Tyler's  speech  see  Washington, 
Madisonian,  Mar.  6,  1841;  also  Chitwood,  Tyler,  200-1. 

34  Cleaves,   Old  Tippecanoe,   229,  336-37;   Peter  Harvey,   Reminiscences   and 
Anecdotes  of  Daniel  Webster  (Boston,  1890),  160-63;  Poore,  Reminiscences,  I,  250; 
Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  5-21. 

86  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  339;  LTT,  II,  u;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Cam- 
paign, 269. 

a<}  Poage,  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  30-31. 

™  Ibid.,  31;  Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  115-16;  Henry  Clay  to- 
William  Henry  Harrison,  Washington,  Mar.  15,  1841,  in  Colton,  Private  Correspond- 
ence of  Henry  Clay,  432;  Ellet,  Court  Circles  of  the  Republic,  287. 

38  Cleaves,  Old  Tippecanoe,  342-43;  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  273; 
LTT,  II,  ii ;  Marx,  Health  of  the  Presidents,  130-131;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the 
Union,  180. 


CHAPTER    7 

*LTT,  II,  11-12;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  202.  The  myths  relating  to  Tyler's  tears 
and  to  his  attempt  to  borrow  money  from  lawyer  William  S.  Peachy  are  found  in 
Fraser,  Democracy  in  the  Making:  The  Jackson-Tyler  Era,  152-57.  Where  they 
originated  is  anyone's  guess. 

2  Chitwood,  Tyler,  203 ;  John  Tyler  to  James  Buchanan,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Oct.  16,  1848,  in  LTT,  II,  13. 

"Robert  J.  Morgan,  A  Whig  Embattled:  The  Presidency  under  John  Tyler 
(Lincoln,  Neb.,  1954),  59-60;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  270;  Abel  P,  Upshur  to  Nathaniel 
B.  Tucker,  July  28,  1841,  in  LTT,  II,  115, 

*  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  July  28,  1841;  John  Tyler 
to  William  C.  Rives,  Washington,  Apr.  9,  1841,  in  ibid.,  53,  20. 

6  Duff  Green  to  Abel  P.  Upshur,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1842,  in  ibid.,  25-26; 


John  Tyler  to  [?]  Lord,  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  Sept.  7,  1849,  ia  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VIII 
(January  1927),  181. 

8  Chitwood,  Tyler,  204-5;  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington, 
Apr.  25,  1841;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Clay,  Washington,  Apr.  30,  1841,  in  LTTf 
II,  32 ;  III,  93-94- 

7  Henry  Clay  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Ashland,  Apr.  15,  1841,  in  ibid.,  II,  30; 
Mordecai  N.  Noah  [pseud.  "Horace  Walpole"],  "Reminiscences  and  Random  Recol- 
lections of  the  Tyler  Administration,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  May  10,  1846. 
Hereafter  cited  as  Noah,  "Reminiscences."  Chitwood,  Tyler,  212;  John  Tyler  to 
William  C.  Rives,  Washington,  May  8,  1841,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  XII  (October 
1930),  85-86. 

8 Daniel  Webster,  The  Writings  and  Speeches  of  Daniel  Webster  (Nat.  Ed.), 
18  vols.  (Boston,  1905),  XV,  187. 

"Chitwood,  Tyler,  210;  Thomas  W.  Gilmer  to  George  Stilknan,  Richmond, 
Apr.  13,  1841,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VII  (October  1925),  106;  Henry  A.  Wise  to 
Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  May  29,  1841 ;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B. 
Tucker,  Washington,  Aug.  u,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  34,  178-79. 

10  Poage,  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  43;  James  H.  Hopkins,  Political 
Parties  in  the  United  States  (New  York,  1900),  66;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  217;  R.  P. 
Letcher  to  J.  J.  Crittenden,  Frankfort,  June  21,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  5;  Morgan, 
A  Whig  Embattled,  39-40. 

u  Waddy  Thompson  to  John  Tyler,  Mexico  City,  Jan.  30,  1843 ;  Henry  A.  Wise 
to  Leslie  Coombs,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  15-17;  III,  106. 

33  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  July  28,  1841,  in  ibid,,  II, 
54;  John  Tyler  to  William  C.  Rives,  Washington,  May  8,  1841,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly , 
XII  (October  1930),  85;  John  Tyler,  Statement  Published  in  the  Washington  M-adi- 
sonian,  Apr.  23;  26,  1845,  in  LTT,  II,  68-69,  33-34. 

18 Chitwood,  Tyler,  221;  LTT,  II,  33-34;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [David  Gardi- 
ner], [New  York],  June  9,  1841,  GPY  (fragment  of  draft  letter). 

14  John  Rutherfoord  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  June  21,  1841,  John  Ruther- 
foord  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  John  Tyler  to  John  Rutherfoord  (Con- 
fidential), Washington,  June  23,  1841,  Tyler  Papers,  Duke  University  Library. 

"Chitwood,  Tyler,  223-24;  LTT,  III,  39. 

10  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  July  23,  1841,  in  ibid.,  II, 
54;  George  Poindexter  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  July  16,  1^41,  TPLC, 

17  Chitwood,  Tyler,  225-26;  New  York  Herald,  Aug.  5,  1841;  Thomas  W. 
Gilmer  to  Franklin  Minor,  Washington,  Aug.  7,  1841,  in  LTT,  II,  Appendix  E, 
706-9;  Poage,  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  70-72;  John  B.  Christian  to 
Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Aug.  10,  1841,  in  [Lyon  G.  Tyler  (ed.)],  "Cor- 
respondence of  Judge  N.  B.  Tucker,"  William  and  Mary  College  Quarterly  Historical 
Magazine,  XII  (January  1904),  143-44;  A.  H.  H.  Stuart  Statement,  in  LTT,  II, 
78;  John  M.  Botts  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Aug.  10,  1841,  in  anon.,  A  Defense 
of  the  President  Against  the  Attacks  of  Mr,  Botts  and  the  Clay  Party  (Pamphlet; 
n.p.,  n.d.  [1842]),  5-6. 

™LTT,  II,  71-72,  101;  Carl  Schurz,  Life  of  Henry  Clay,  2  vols.  (Boston,  1887), 
II,  207;  Bcnton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  328-30;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  228-29;  New 
York  Herald,  Nov.  22,  1841;  Amos  Kendall  to  John  Tyler  [Washington],  Aug.  21, 
1841;  J.  Johnson  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  Aug.  23,  1841,  TPLC.  Jackson's 
initial  opinion  of  Tyler  as  President  was  low — "an  imbecile  in  the  Executive 
Chair,"  he  designated  Tyler.  But  after  the  first  Bank  veto  one  of  Jackson's  friends 
wrote  him  that  "it  will  do  Old  Hickory's  heart  good  when  he  hears  of  the  veto. 
It  is  said  that  Tyler  got  hold  of  one  of  Jackson's  pens  and  it  wouldn't  write  any 
other  way  but  plain  and  straightforward."  Oscar  D.  Lambert,  Presidential  Politics 
in  the  United  States,  1841-1844  (Durham,  N.C.,  1936),  37. 

™LTTf  II,  92,  166;  Congressional  Globe,  27  Cong.,  x  Sess.,  368-69;  Poage, 
Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  75-78. 

575 


20 The  Coffee  House  Letter  is  printed  in  LTT,  II,  112. 

^Professor  Chitwood  had  carefully  examined  these  charges  in  great  detail  and 
categorically  rejected  them.  See  Chitwood,  Tyler,  218,  237,  172-73,  191-92;  Ap- 
pendix B,  472-73;  Appendix  C,  475-77-  Similarly,  this  writer  has  found  no  evidence 
of  even  a  circumstantial  sort  that  would  lend  credence  to  the  Botts  allegations. 
See  also  LTT,  II,  105-6;  and  A  Defense  of  the  President  Against  the  Attacks  of 
Mr.  Botts  and  the  Clay  Party,  passim. 

22 LTT,  III,  39-40,  53;  II,  86-87;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  241-42,  258-59;  Poage, 
Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  83-84. 

23 Henry  A.  Wise  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Aug.  29,  1841,  in  LTT, 
II,  91;  Lyons  is  quoted  in  ibid.,  41. 

24  Adams,  Memoirs,  X,  544-45;  Poage,  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  Party,  88- 
89;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  244. 

25 LTT,  II,  102,  in;  Duff  Green  to  Abel  P.  Upshur,  Washington,  Dec.  29, 
1842,  in  ibid.,  25;  John  J.  Crittenden  to  [John  Tyler],  Draft  Book  of  Notes, 
Speeches  and  Letters,  n.d.,  John  J.  Crittenden  Papers,  Duke  University  Library. 

£6  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  68-72 ;  Chitwood, 
Tyler,  244-46;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  190;  Abell,  Tyler,  202;  John 
Tyler  to  Daniel  Webster,  Washington,  Oct.  n,  1841,  in  LTT,  II,  126. 

27  See  editorial  comments  collected  in  TPLC,  Book  V,  Items  95,  101,  152. 

^Chitwood,  Tyler,  277;  LTT,  II,  81,  115-16;  III,  41;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to 
Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Washington,  Jan.  29,  1883,  in  ibid.,  122;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  274; 
LTT,  II,  94-95;  110-11;  John  J.  Crittenden,  Draft  Book  of  Notes,  Speeches  and 
Letters,  John  J.  Crittenden  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  John  J.  Crittenden  to 
John  Tyler,  Washington,  Sept.  u,  1841;  and  John  J.  Crittenden  to  Chapman  Cole- 
man,  Washington,  Sept.  10,  1841,  John  J.  Crittenden  Papers,  Duke  University  Li- 
brary; John  Tyler  to  J.  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  26,  1851,  TPLC; 
John  Tyler,  Letter  to  Norfolk  [Va.]  Democratic  Association  [Washington],  Dec.  2, 

1844,  in  LTT,  II,  96 ;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  6, 

1845,  TPLC;  John  Tyler,  Statement  in  Answer  to  the  Report  of  the  House  Com- 
mittee, in  August,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  100. 

20  Diary  of  Philip  R.  Fendall,  Sept.  23,  1841,  PhiUp  Richard  Fendall  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library;  Nevins,  Diary  of  Philip  Hone,  Sept.  n,  1841,  II,  560. 

80  The  Andover  Husking:  A  Political  Tale,  Suited  to  the  Circumstances  of  the 
Present  Time,  and  Dedicated  to  the  Whigs  of  Mass.   (Pamphlet;   Boston,  1842), 
14-15;  Henry  A.  Wise  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Aug.  29;  Sept.  5,  1841, 
in  LTT,  II,  90,   120;   John  B.   Christian  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington, 
Aug.  10,  1841,  in  [Lyon  G.  Tyler],  "Correspondence  of  Judge  N.  B.  Tucker,"  loc. 
cit.,  143;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  279-80;  Daniel  Webster  to  Nicholas  Biddle,  Washington, 
Mar.  2,  1843,  in  McGrane,  The  Correspondence  of  Nicholas  Biddle,  345-46. 

81  John  Tyler  to  Thomas  A.  Cooper,  Washington,  Oct.  8,  1841 ;  John  Tyler  to 
Daniel  Webster,  Washington,  Oct.  i,  1841;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewcll, 
Washington,  Oct.   u,   1841,  in  LTT,  II,   125,   123,   128;   John  Tyler   to   Daniel 
Webster,  Washington,  Oct.  n,  1841,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VIII   (July  1926),  18; 
John  Tyler  to  John  C.  Spencer,  Washington,  Mar.  13,  1843,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 
Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Aug.  26,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  184, 

**  George  T.  Curtis,  Life  of  Daniel  Webster,  2  vols.  (New  York,  1870),  II, 
207-9;  tJ-  P-  Kennedy],  Defense  of  the  Whigs  (New  York,  1844),  122-24;  LTTf  II, 
102—3 ;  New  York  Herald,  Apr.  9,  1842. 

83  For  a  sampling  of  these  pamphlets  see  John,  the  Traitor;  or,  the  Force  of 
Accident.  A  Plain  Story  by  One  Who  Has  Whistled  at  the  Plough  (New  York, 
1843),  I-435  Anti-Janius,  Who  and  What  is  John  Tyler  (New  York,  1843),  1-16; 
see  also  Anon.,  John  Tyler:  His  History,  Character,  and  Position  (New  York, 
1843),  i~4o;  John  L.  Dorsey,  Observations  on  the  Political  Character  and  Serv- 
ices of  President  Tyler  and  His  Cabinet.  By  a  native  of  Maryland  (Washington, 
1841),  1-13 1  j  The  Andover  Husking,  1-27. 


54  John  B.  Christian  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Aug.  10,  1841,  in 
[Lyon  G.  Tyler],  "Correspondence  of  Judge  N.  B.  Tucker,"  loc.  cit.,  143-44;  Wash- 
ington Seawell  to  Maria  Tyler  Seawell,  Fort  Micanopy,  Fla.,  Sept.  18,  1841,  in 
Tyler's  Quarterly,  II  (October  1920),  in.  Major  Seawell  (1802-1888)  was  the 
brother  of  John  Boswell  Seawell,  a  prominent  attorney  of  Gloucester,  Va.,  who  had 
married  Maria  Henry  Tyler,  the  President's  sister.  LTT,  II,  98-102 ;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  15,  1844;  Margaret  Gardiner  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  n,  1844,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  14,  1844,  TPLC;  New  York  Herald,  May  5,  1843; 
Oct.  23,  1844;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Robert  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  May  [7],  1843, 
TFP;  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Mar.  29,  1846. 

85  E.  Littell  to  Daniel  Webster,  Philadelphia,  Sept.  14,  1841;  John  Tyler  to 
Daniel  Webster,  Washington,  Oct.  n,  1841 ;  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell, 
Washington,  Oct.  n,  1841;  Williamsburg,  Nov.  2,  1841,  in  LTT,  III,  97;  II,  126, 
127,  129-31. 

30  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  84-87;  Abell,  Tyler, 
213-15;  LTT,  II,  131-34;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington, 
Dec.  23,  1841,  in  ibid.,  155. 

w  John  Tyler,  Letter  to  the  Philadelphia  Fourth  of  July  Committee,  Washing- 
ton, July  2,  1842,  in  ibid.,  171;  see  also  Dorsey,  Observations  on  the  Political 
Character  and  Services  of  President  Tyler,  128-29;  John  Tyler  to  Nathaniel  B. 
Tucker,  Washington,  June  16,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  168. 

38  John  Tyler,  Letter  to  the  Philadelphia  Fourth  of  July  Committee,  Washing- 
ton, July  2,  1842;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  McCandlish,  Washington,  July  10,  1842; 
Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Mar.  6;  13;  28,  1842  in  ibid., 
171,  173,  156-58,  165. 

30  David  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  n;  20;  Feb.  6, 
1843;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington  [Feb.  13,  1843].  Gar- 
diner's political  friends  in  New  York  had  decidedly  less  sympathetic  views  of  Tyler. 
See  J.  J.  Bailey  to  David  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  12,  1842,  GPY. 

MLTT,  II,  150-51- 

41  J-  J-  Crittcnden  to  Henry  Clay,  Washington,  July  1842,  in  Anna  M.  B.  Cole- 
man  (ed.),  The  Life  of  John  J.  Crittenden,  2  vols.  (Philadelphia,  1871),  I,  199; 
John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Aug.  26,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  184; 
Daniel  Webster  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Aug.  8,  1842,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VIII 
(July  1926),  21 ;  LTT,  II,  174-75;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Wash- 
ington, Aug.  u,  1842,  in  ibid.,  179;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  298-301. 

^Ibid.,  301-2. 

43  The  bill  passed  the  House  105  to  102  and  the  Senate  24  to  23.  LTT,  II,  182; 
see  also  The  Andover  Husking,  18-21.  There  is  some  speculation  that  Tyler  felt 
honor-bound  to  sign  the  controversial  "Black  Tariff"  because  he  had  based  his 
earlier  veto  of  the  1842  tariff  measure  on  the  fact  that  it  contained  a  distribution 
clause.  The  bill  he  signed  at  least  contained  no  distribution  proviso.  There  is  no 
specific  evidence  for  this  interpretation  of  Tyler's  motives,  although  it  is  not  an 
improbable  one.  In  any  event,  the  President's  acceptance  of  the  high  tariff  measure 
(it  went  far  beyond  the  revenue  needs  of  the  moment)  was  later  a  major  im- 
pediment to  his  return  to  the  Democratic  party. 

44  Chitwood,  Tyler,  303 ;  Henry  Clay  to  J.  J.  Crittenden,  Ashland,  July  16, 
1842,  in  Coleman,  Crittenden,  I,  199,  It  was  Upshur's  opinion  that  the  "Clay-men 
are  afraid  to  impeach  the  President.  I  daresay  that  Botts  will  attempt  it,  but 
even  his  own  party  will  not  sustain  him."  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker, 
Washington   [July]    1842;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  McCandlish,  Washington,  July 
10,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  174,  173. 

48  Ibid.,   189;    Chitwood,   Tyler,  303;   Abell,    Tyler,  242;   David   Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  n,  1843,  GPY. 

49  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Mar.  28,  1842,  in  LTT, 

577 


II,  165;  Poore,  Reminiscences,  I,  271-72;  [Alexander  Gardiner]  to  Editor  of  the 
Washington  Globe  [New  York],  Nov.  15,  1842;  LTT,  II,  150-51;  Abell,  Tyler, 
204. 

47  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  n,  1846,  in  LTT, 
II,  341;  ibid.,  188;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington  [July] 
1842;  John  Tyler  to  Mr.  Higgins,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  26,  1853,  in  ibid.,  174, 
163-64. 

48  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July   n,   1846;   John 
Tyler  to  Daniel  Webster,  Williamsburg,  Oct.  u,  1841,  in  ibid.,  341,  254. 

*lbid.,  374-79,  383- 


CHAPTER    8 

aLangford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  330-31;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper 
Tyler,  86-88.  In  the  Langford  book  the  details  of  life  in  the  White  House  dur- 
ing Priscilla's  tenure  as  hostess  and  much  of  the  surviving  information  on  Letitia 
Christian  Tyler's  illness  there  are  taken  from  two  letters  made  available  to  Mrs. 
Langford  years  later  by  John  Tyler,  Jr.  They  are:  Letitia  Tyler  Semple  to 
John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Baltimore,  Mar.  27,  1869;  and  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Laura  Holloway 
Langford,  n.p.,  n.d.  (late  18703).  Both  letters,  particularly  the  latter,  contain 
factual  inaccuracies,  mistaken  recollections,  and  confused  chronology  and  must  be 
treated  with  extreme  care. 

*Ibid.,  89. 

8  Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  331-32;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper 
Tyler,  87,  99;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  i,  1850,  TPLC. 

*  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  88-89. 

B  Ibid.,  89-91;  Chevalier  de  Bacourt,  Souvenirs  of  a  Diplomat  (New  York, 
1885),  191,  209,  214;  Adams,  Memoirs,  XI,  174;  LTT,  II,  177. 

*  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  101. 
7  Ibid,,  101-2. 

92. 


™Ibid.,  93-94,  90-91. 

11  LTT,  II,  311-12;  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  12,  1844. 

™Ibid.,  Nov.  27,  1844;  John  Tyler  to  Mr.  Benson,  Washington,  Nov.  5,  1842; 
John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Dec.  20,  1843,  TPLC. 

18  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  84-85,  98. 

a*  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  July  6,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  172; 
John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Washington,  Jan.  16,  1843,  Tyler  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library. 

IB  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  99;  Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White 
House,  329;  H.  March  to  John  Tyler,  Trades,  [Va.],  Dec.  25,  1841,  Tyler  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library. 

"  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  99;  LTT,  II,  189;  Letitia  Tyler  Semple  to 
Norma  Doswell,  Washington,  Mar.  29,  1897,  TFP.  Letitia  Christian  Tyler  was 
buried  at  Cedar  Grove  in  New  Kent  County,  Va. 

17  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  n.d.  [Dec.  i842-Jan. 
1843],  GPY. 

"Emmie  F.  Farrar,  Old  Virginia  Houses  Along  the  James  (New  York,  1957), 
123-25;  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  July  6,  1842,  in  LTT,  II, 
172;  ibid.,  Dec.  20,  1843;  June  4,  1844,  TPLC;  Mary  Tyler  Jones  to  John  Tyler, 
Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [early  1843],  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  June  4,  1843,  GPY. 


39  Ibid.,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1842,  GPY. 

30  Ibid.;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  19-23,  1842, 
GPY. 

21  Ibid.,  Juliana  Gardiner  to  [Alexander  Gardiner],  Washington,  Feb.  12,  1843, 
GPY. 

22  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  and  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec. 
26,  1842 ;  Jan.  7,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec,  27; 
29,  1842;  David  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  25  [1842],  GPY. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  29,  1843;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  [Alexander  Gardiner],  Washington,  Feb.  12.  1843,  GPY. 

2*  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1842;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  and  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  26,  1842;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  19-23,  1842,  GPY. 

a5  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  29,  1843;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  and  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  17,  1843,  GPY, 

^Ibid.,  Feb.  12;  15;  17,  1843;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  Apr.  7,  1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  and  Margaret  Gardiner,  New 
York,  May  28,  1843,  GPY. 

37  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.   13,   1842,   GPY. 

28  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  18,  1842;  Jan.  i; 
7;  Feb.  5;  14,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29, 

1842,  GPY. 

M  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  6,  1843;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  29,  1843,  GPY.  Margaret  had 
excellent  recollect! ve  powers.  In  this  letter  she  quoted  with  surprising  accuracy  a 
humorous  section  of  McDuffie's  speech  given  four  days  earlier. 

30  Julia    Gardiner   to   Alexander   Gardiner,   Washington,   Dec.    27;    29,    1842; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington, 
Jan.  14,  1843 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  29,  1843 ; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  7,  1843,  GPY. 

31  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  18,  1842.  Congressmen  and  senators  who  regularly 
called  on  the  Gardiners  at  Peyton's  included  Senators  Richard  H.  Bayard  (Del.) 
and  Nathaniel   P.   Tallmadge    (N.Y.) ;    Representatives   Caleb    Gushing    (Mass.), 
Edmund  W.  Hubard  (Va.),  Ira  A.  Eastman  (N.H.),  Francis  Marion  Ward  (N.Y.), 
Richard   D.   Davis    (N.Y.),   Henry  Van   Rensselaer    (N.Y.),   Daniel  D.   Barnard 
(N.Y.),  John  B.  Thompson  (Ky.),  Augustus  A.  Sellers  (Md.)  Francis  W.  Pickens 
(S.C.),  and   John  Thompson   Mason    (Md.).  Julia  and  Margaret  attended  the 
debates  in  the  House  or  Senate  on  Dec.  12,  16,  21,  29,  1842;  Jan.  i,  3,  6,  u, 
25;  Feb.  7,  15;  and  on  Mar.  3,  1843.  See  Gardiner  Papers,  Dec.  13,  1842  to  Mar.  7, 

1843,  Yale  University  Library,  passim.  One  congressional  caller,  John  T.  Mason 
of  Md.,  had  roomed  with  David  L.  Gardiner  at  Princeton.  This  gave  him  an  entree 
some  of  the  others  did  not  have.  But  Margaret  thought  Mason  "a  common  looking 
man,  and,  as  you  say,  not  clean."  Nor  was  Julia  particularly  overwhelmed  when 
Mason  rushed  her  at  dances  and  sent  her  valentines.  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David 
L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  7;  14;  Feb.  15,  1843,  GPY. 

82  Ibid.,  Dec.  26,  1842;  Jan.  i,  1843.  David  Gardiner  chatted  with  Calhoun  from 
time  to  time  in  December  and  January  1842-1843,  and  received  from  him  the 
distinct  impression   that  he   planned  to  run  in   1844.  He  hoped  to  establish  a 
Northern  anchor  for  his   aspirations  in  New   York  state,   counting  on  a  break 
there  between  Van  Buren's  Albany  Regency  machine  and  that  of  Tammany  Hall  in 
New  York  City  as  an  entree  for  his  ambitions.  See  David  Gardiner  to  David  L. 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  25  [1842],  GPY. 

83  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  13,   1842,   GPY. 
ulbid.;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  18,  1842; 

Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  27,  1842;  Jan.  6,  1843; 

579 


Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  i ;  Feb.  5 ;  8,  1843  j 
Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  23,  1843;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  19-23,  1842,  GPY.  For  the 
few  sparse  facts  on  the  career  of  Richard  R.  Waldron  see  Daniel  C.  Haskell, 
The  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  1838-1842,  and  Its  Publications,  1844- 
1874  (New  York,  1942),  139;  R.  R.  Waldron  to  Charles  Wilkes,  USS  Vincennes, 
at  Sea,  Jan.  31,  1840,  in  Charles  Wilkes,  Narrative  of  the  United  States  Explor- 
ing Expedition,  5  vols.  (Philadelphia,  1844),  II,  490.  Waldron's  Island  is  found 
on  a  chart  in  Charles  Wilkes,  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  Vol.  XXIII. 
Hydrography  (Philadelphia,  1861),  opp.  p.  7.  Waldron  died  Oct.  20,  1846,  causes 
unknown,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven. 

85  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1842;  Jan.  6, 
1843;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan. 
7,  1843  5  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  10,  1843, 
GPY. 

38  Julia   Gardiner   to   Alexander   Gardiner,  Washington,   Jan,    6,    1843,   GPY. 

87 Juliana  Gardiner  to  [Alexander  Gardiner],  Washington,  Feb.  12,  1843; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  15;  16, 
1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  19-23,  1842; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  7,  1843,  GPY. 

38  Ibid. 

^Pickens'  letter  of  proposal  dated  Edgewood,  May  8,  1843,  has  not  survived. 
The  section  quoted  is  taken  from  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  May  21,  1843,  GPY.  For  her  reply  see  Julia  Gardiner  to  Francis  W. 
Pickens,  East  Hampton,  May  25,  1843.  Margaret's  view  of  the  matter  is  found 
in  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Robert  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  6,  [1843],  TFP. 

40  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  3;  June  12, 
1843,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  6,  1843; 
Woodhouse  Stevens  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Devonshire,  England,  July  16,  1843,  TFP; 
Francis  W.  Pickens  to  David  Gardiner,  Edgewood,  S.C.,  near  Edgeficld,  Nov.  20, 
1843;  Feb.  n,  1844,  GPY. 

41  Margaret   Gardiner  to  Alexander   Gardiner,   Washington,  Feb.    5;    Mar.   7, 
1843;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  14,  1843,  GPY. 

**  McLean's  first  letter  to  Julia  was  posted  in  Cincinnati  around  Mar.  30, 
1843.  It  was  enclosed  in  a  cover  letter  addressed  to  Alexander  Gardiner  at  14 
Wall  St.  with  instructions  to  forward  it  to  Julia  in  East  Hampton.  In  this  way 
McLean  hoped  to  keep  the  correspondence  confidential  from  the  gossipy  post- 
office  officials  in  East  Hampton.  For  the  same  reason  Julia  sent  her  letters  to 
Tyler,  Pickens,  and  McLean  through  Alexander  in  New  York  and  received  their 
replies  to  her  in  like  manner.  She  invariably  insisted  that  Alexander  pay  the 
postage  on  all  her  letters  to  her  beaux.  As  the  intermediary  in  all  this,  Alexander 
financed  a  rather  expensive  correspondence — there  was  a  twenty-five-cent  charge 
on  a  letter  from  New  York  to  Cincinnati,  for  example.  Until  this  arrangement  was 
worked  out,  however,  there  could  be  no  certainty  of  privacy.  Julia  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  3  [1843]  ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner,  New  York  [Apr,  1843] »  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  Apr.  7,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton, 
Apr.  30,  1843,  GPY;  John  McLean  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Cincinnati,  Apr.  19,  1843, 
TFP. 

48  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  21,  1843,  GPY. 

u  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  14,  1843 ;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  17,  1843,  GPY. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  8,  1843;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  n;  14;  28,  1843;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  15,  1843,  GPY. 


At  the  Webster  ball  on  Feb.  13  Julia  was  squired  by  Francis  P.  Granger,  Harrison's 
Postmaster  General,  while  Margaret  was  escorted  by  Arkansas  Senator  Ambrose 
H.  Sevier  until  rescued  by  Robert  Tyler.  It  was  at  this  function  that  Henry  A. 
Wise  flirted  so  openly  with  Margaret.  At  General  Easton's  on  Feb.  14  the  girls 
were  waltzed  and  otherwise  rushed  by  Representative  Edward  D.  White  of  Loui- 
siana, Senator  John  Sargeant  of  Pennsylvania  (Henry  A.  Wise's  brother-in-law), 
Senator  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Representative  Henry  Van  Rensselaer 
of  New  York.  At  the  Wickliffe  party  of  Feb.  28,  Julia  was  handed  in  by  John 
Tyler,  Jr.,  and  Margaret  by  Robert  Tyler.  "You  have  no  idea  how  much  atten- 
tion this  attracted,"  wrote  Margaret.  At  most  of  the  private  functions  the  Presi- 
dent's sons  were  particularly  attentive  to  the  Gardiner  ladies. 

48  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  27,  1843;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  26,  1842; 
Jan.  7;  14;  Mar.  u,  1843,  GPY. 

*7  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  18,  1842;  Julia 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  27;  29,  1842,  GPY. 

™Ibid.,  Dec.  27,  1842;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington, 
Jan.  i,  1843,  GPY. 

d°  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  6,  1843.  Juliana's 
Jan.  31  opinion  of  the  celebrated  Madame  Bodisco  was  a  minority  one:  "...a 
healthy  fair  looking  woman  well  featured  and  good  teeth,  but  not  an  interesting 
expression.  Her  manners  are  plain  without  any  marked  elegance  or  refinement.  She 
is  comely  but  destitute  of  the  spirit  and  ate  plateful  upon  plateful  until  your  father 
thought  Mr.  [James  I.]  Roosevelt  must  be  tired  of  serving  her  at  supper."  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  I,  1843,  GPY. 

G0  David  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  20,  1843 ;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  27,  1843;  Margaret  Gardiner 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  5,  1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L. 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  i,  1843,  GPY. 

Gt  Robert  Tyler,  Death;  or,  Medorus*  Dream;  see  also  Robert  Tyler,  Ahasuerus. 
A  Poem,  and  Robert  Tyler,  Poems;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Washington,  Feb.  $;  8,  1843,  GPY. 

mlbid.,  Feb.  8,  1843,  GPY. 

mlbid. 

B*  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  15, 
1843;  David  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  6,  1843;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  10,  1843,  GPY. 

05  Juliana  Gardiner  to  [Alexander  Gardiner],  Washington,  Feb.  12,  1843,  GPY. 

60  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  14,  1843,  GPY. 

67  "Interview  with  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,"  Washington,  Winter,  1888-1889,  loc. 
cit. 

58  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  i$,  1843;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  7,  1843,  GPY;  J.  J. 
Bailey  to  Julia  Gardiner  [New  York],  May  12,  1843,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to 
David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  14,  1843 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [Margaret 
Gardiner],  New  York,  Feb.  16,  1843:  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  Mar.  30,  1843,  GPY/^ 

50  Constance  M.  Green,  Washington:  Village  and  Capital,  1880-1878  (Princeton, 
N.J.,  1962),  153;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [Margaret  Gardiner],  New  York,  Feb.  16, 
1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  17,  1843;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  26,"  28,  1843,  GPY. 

™Ibid.,  Feb.  26,  1843,  GPY. 

01  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  9, 
1843;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  12,  1843; 
copy  of  poem  in  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  u, 

581 


1843  ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar. 
9;  14,  1843;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  7,  1843. 
The  poem  concludes: 

It  speaks  in  praise  of  holy  shrine; 
Of  eyes  upturned  to  Him  divine, 
By  whom  are  sins  forgiven. 

II 

It  tells  the  rose,  which  blooms  so  gay 

And  courts  the  Zyphers  kiss  today, 

As  if  t'would  never  die; 

Its  leaves,  which  perfume  all  around, 

Strew'd  on  the  earth  shall  soon  be  found; 

Unnoticed,  there  to  die. 

Unwelcome  truth  it  tells  to  thee, 

Lovely  in  Beauty's  majesty, 

The  roses  fate — is  thine: 

Unlike  in  this — thy  soul,  so  pure, 

Through  endless  ages  shall  endure. 

Kneel  thou  at  Holy  Shrines ! 

Margaret,  her  poetic  ear  trained  by  the  serious  efforts  of  Robert  Tyler,  did  not 
think  much  of  this  as  poetry.  In  relaying  it  to  her  brothers  she  made  them  "promise 
you  won't  laugh."  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Wash- 
ington, Mar.  9,  1843,  GPY. 

83  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar,  7,  1843;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  14,  1843,  GPY. 

63  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  15,  1843,  GPY. 
(Emphasis  added.) 

6i  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort  [July  1844], 
TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  14,  1843,  GPY. 

**  Ibid.,  Feb.  14,  1843,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Robert  Tyler,  East  Hamp- 
ton, May  [6-8],  1843,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washing- 
ton, Jan.  i ;  Mar.  7,  1843 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Washington,  Dec.  26,  1842,  GPY. 

M  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  30,  1844;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  3,  1843  5  Juliana  Gardi- 
ner to  Julia  and  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  28,  1843,  GPY. 

87  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  and  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar. 
9;  14,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler  [East  Hampton,  May  1843],  quoted  in 
Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  21,  1843;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  21,  1843,  GPY. 

08  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  3,  1843;  John 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  28,  1843;  Washington,  Apr.  [14], 
1843,  quoted  in  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  4,  1843; 
Apr.  17,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  4,  1843, 
John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Washington,  GPY, 

fl°  Ibid.,  Apr.  3,  1843;  J.  J.  Bailey  to  Julia  Gardiner  [New  York,  Apr.  1843], 
quoted  in  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  21,  1843, 
GPY. 

™  Ibid.,  Apr.  30;  23,  1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  June  6,  1843;  Alexander  Gardiner,  Draft  Tyler  Article,  Apr.  1843,  GPY. 

71  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  4,  1843 ; 
David  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  11,  1843;  Margaret 

582 


Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  14,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  21,  1843;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alex- 
ander Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  May  4;  «,  1843;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  and 
Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  28,  1843,  GPY. 

72  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Troy,  N.Y.,  Aug.  3,  1843;  Julia 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  June  4,  1843-  At  this  time  Julia 
wore  her  dresses  43%  inches  in  the  front  and  47  inches  in  the  back;  her  height 
therefore  was  around  $'3".  Her  riding  hat  was  20%  inches  around  the  forehead 
with  a  6-inch  crown  and  a  3 -inch  brim.  Alexander  understandably  had  trouble 
keeping  all  these  data  straight.  Ibid.;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
East  Hampton,  Nov.  2;  4,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  Nov.  21,  1843,  GPY.  The  house  on  Lafayette  Place  still  stands.  It  is  the 
current  site  of  a  restaurant  and  seems  well  beyond  the  possibility  of  restoration. 

7SIbid.,  June  4,  1843,  GPY. 

74  Margaret   Gardiner   to   Alexander    Gardiner,    Saratoga    [Aug.    1843];    East 
Hampton,  June  12;  Oct.  31,  1843;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  Aug.  6,  1843 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug. 
3,  1843 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Troy,  N.Y.,  Aug.  3,  1843,  GPY. 

75  John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Washington,  Oct.  25,  1843,  quoted  in  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Oct.  31,  1843;  Julia  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Nov.  21,  1843;  Leonard  Wood,  Jr.,  to  David 
Gardiner,   Steamship   Columbia,  approaching  Halifax,  Aug.   17,   1844*  GPY.  The 
mortgages,  held  by  James  Van  Antwerpt,  were  for  $2500,  dated  Dec.  27,  1843,  and 
for  $4342,  dated  Jan.  3,  1844.  Both  were  at  6  per  cent,  to  be  paid  off  in  full,  principal 
and  interest,  by  Jan.  3,  1849.  See  Assets  and  Liabilities  of  David  Gardiner  (March 

1844),  TFP. 

70  New  York  Herald,  Oct.  27,  1845. 

77  See  Alfred  H.  Miles,  "The  'Princeton1  Explosion,"  United  States  Naval  Insti- 
tute Proceedings,  LII   (November  1926),  for  an  excellent  study  of  the  Princeton 
affair ;  also  an  attractively  illustrated  condensation  of  Miles  in  the  Lynchburg  (Va.) 
Foundry   Company,   The  Iron  Worker,  XXI   (Spring   195 7) >   *-«•  The  account 
herein  of  the  Princeton  explosion  is  based  primarily  upon  an  extensive  recounting 
of  it  set  down  within  a  week  of  the  disaster  by  Alexander  Gardiner  in  a  letter  to 
the  Reverend  S.  R.  Ely  of  East  Hampton,  dated  New  York,  Mar.  7»  1*44,  GPY. 
While  in  general  it  is  similar  in  broad  outline  to  previously  reported  accounts  of  the 
tragedy,  it  differs  in  the  important  details  of  the  exact  time  of  the  explosion  and 
in  the  movements  and  the  sequence  of  movements  of  the  principals  on  board  the 
Princeton  at  that  moment.  With  Alexander's  version  have  been  correlated  various 
eyewitness  and  other  accounts  taken  from   Miles,   "The  'Princeton'  Explosion." 
Tyler's  own  recollection  of  the  Princeton  disaster  did  not  appear  until  his  "The 
Dead  of  the  Cabinet"  speech  delivered  at  Petersburg,  Va.,  Apr.  24,  1856,  printed  in 
LIT,  II,  390-91.  This  too  has  been  utilized.  See  also  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler 
Jones,  Washington,  Mar.  4,  1844,  in  ibid.,  289. 

78  Alexander  Gardiner  to  S.  R.  Ely,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1844;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  Feb.  29,  1844,  GPY. 

70  Alexander  Gardiner  to  S.  R.  Ely,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1844,  GPY;  John  Tyler, 
"The  Dead  of  the  Cabinet,"  speech  in  Petersburg,  Va.,  Apr.  24,  1856,  in  LTT,  II, 
390-91.  The  expenses  of  the  public  funeral  were  paid  for  by  the  United  States.  See 
Thomas  Hart  Benton,  Abridgment  of  the  Debates  of  Congress  from  1780  to  1856, 
16  vols.  (New  York,  1857-1861),  XV  (June  12,  1844),  iS*. 

80  S.  R.  Ely  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Mar.  5,  1844,  GPY;  "Stranger 
Friend"  to  Gardiner  Family,  Mountains  of  Virginia,  Mar.  3,  1844*  TFP;  John  Tyler 
to  Mrs.  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Washington,  Mar.  4,  1844,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  15,  1844;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler, 
New  York,  Mar.  30,  1844,  GPY. 

583 


81  David  Gardiner  was  buried  in  East  Hampton  during  the  week  of  March  25, 
1844,  probably  on  Tuesday,  March  26.  Pallbearers  at  the  funeral  were  former  New 
York  Governor  Silas  B.  Wright,  Charles  H.  Canott,  Silas  B.  Strong,  and  Richard 
D.  Davis — the  same  "Old  Davis"  who  so  recently  had  pursued  Julia.  In  July  1846 
an  obelisk  monument  of  polished  granite  was  erected  over  the  grave  at  a  total  cost 
of  $700  for  cutting,  polishing,  hauling,  and  setting.  The  lengthy  inscription  was 
worked  out  by  Alexander.  The  family  had  some  difficulty  raising  the  cash  to  pay 
for  it,  so  tied  up  in  real  estate  was  the  Gardiner  money.  Julia  said,  however,  she 
would  not  "consent  to  have  one  of  less  value  erected."  At  the  time  of  his  death, 
David  Gardiner  held  title  deeds  on  Juliana's  property — Lots  181,  183,  185,  187 
on  Chatham  St.,  and  Lots  i,  3,  5,  7  and  9  on  Oliver  St.,  New  York  City.  These 
formed  a  solid  block  of  property,  since  the  Chatham  St.  lots  backed  onto  those 
on  Oliver  St.  The  assessed  value  for  these  properties  and  for  the  house  and  lot  in 
East  Hampton  for  tax  purposes  was  $30,500.  They  were  worth,  of  course,  much 
more  (over  $100,000),  and  they  began  rapidly  appreciating  again  as  the  1837-1843 
depression  wore  off.  The  Gardiner  furniture  and  personal  belongings  added  an  ad- 
ditional $5000  to  the  estate.  Juliana  still  held  in  her  own  name  three  lots  on 
Greenwich  St.  and  one  on  Harrison  St.  Gardiner's  children  inherited  the  East 
Hampton  and  Greenwich  and  Oliver  Sts.  property  in  equal  shares  under  his  will. 
They  deeded  their  shares  to  Juliana  on  April  18,  1844,  for  a  consideration  of  $i 
until  her  death.  However,  they  apparently  got  some  income  from  their  portions. 
Gardiner's  liabilities  in  the  form  of  mortgages  (most  of  the  obligations  had  already 
been  paid  off)  on  his  various  properties  came  to  $21,842.  Of  this  $8000  had  been 
borrowed  in  1826  at  6  per  cent  and  would  be  fully  retired  Jan.  3,  1849;  $2500  had 
been  borrowed  in  Dec.  1843  and  $4342  in  Jan.  1844  at  6  per  cent  and  would  be 
fully  retired  Jan.  3,  1849.  For  the  remaining  $7000  at  7  per  cent  there  are  no  details. 
In  sum,  it  was  often  difficult  for  the  Gardiners  to  procure  hard  cash  quickly.  On 
these  and  related  points,  see  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  30, 
1844;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Hon.  Silas  Wright,  Hon.  Charles  H.  Canott,  Hon. 
Silas  B.  Strong,  Hon.  Richard  D.  Davis  [New  York,  Mar  .-Apr.  1844] ;  David  L. 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  2,  1846;  Lenny  Gibson  to 
David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  22,  1846;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Benjamin  F. 
Thompson,  New  York,  July  u,  1846,  GPY ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York  [Feb.  1846];  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Norfolk 
[Sept.-Oct.  1845];  Gardiner  Property  Deed,  Apr.  18,  1844;  Assets  and  Liabilities 
of  David  Gardiner  (March  1844),  TFP. 

8a  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton  [Summer  1844]; 
Julia  Gardiner  to  [David  L.  Gardiner,  New  YorkJ,  Mar.  27,  1844,  TFP;  Coleman, 
Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  log ;  John  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Apr.  20, 
1844,  GPY;  "Interview  with  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,"  Washington,  Winter,  1888- 
1889,  loc.  cit. 

88 John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  [Jones],  Washington,  Mar.  24,  1844,  Pequot 
Collection,  Yale  University  Library. 

M  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov.  1844!;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  9;  June  12,  1845,  TPP; 
"Interview  with  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,"  Washington,  Winter,  1888-1889,  toe.  cit. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  [Editor  ?J,  New  York,  Apr.  27,  1844,  GPY;  John 
Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Mar.  4,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  289. 


CHAPTER    9 

*UT,  II,  310;  Isaac  Van  Zandt  to  Anson  Jones,  Washington,  Mar.  15,  1843, 
in  ibid.,  Ill,  129.  This  conversation  took  place  around  March  xo.  It  may  be  doubted 

584 


the  language  Van  Zandt  put  in  Tyler's  mouth  was  exact.  Tyler  would  never  have 
split  the  infinitive .  Van  Zandt  reported  to  his  government  in  the  same  letter  that 
"the  President,  though  much  abused,  is  gaining  ground;  the  Democrats  and  moder- 
ate Whigs  are  falling  into  his  ranks  and  coming  to  his  support.  Our  principal 
strength  in  this  country  is  with  the  Democrats," 

2 1  bid.,  II,  273-80;  III,  116-22;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  344-45;  John  Tyler  to 
Editor,  Richmond  Enquirer,  New  York,  Sept.  i,  1847;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25,  1848,  in  LTT,  II,  428-31,  433. 

3  Abell,  Tyler,  129;  LTT,  I,  436.  Speech  against  the  Tariff  Bill  of  1832,  Feb.  12, 
1832 ;  John  Tyler,  Draft  of  Speech  to  Virginia  Convention,  Sherwood  Forest  [March 
1861],  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  John  Rutherfoord,  Washington,  Feb.  4,  1831,  John 
Rutherfoord  Papers,  Duke  University  Library.  In  his  letter  to  Rutherfoord  he 
cheered  the  Polish  uprising  against  Czarist  Russia.  Abell,  Tyler,  127;  John  Tyler, 
"Letter  of  Withdrawal  From  the  Campaign  of  1844,"  Washington,  Aug.  20,  1844;  on 
the  Zollverein  Treaty  see  Henry  Wheaton  to  John  Tyler,  Berlin,  Mar.  27,  1844; 
Andrew  Jackson  to  James  K.  Polk,  Hermitage,  Sept.  2,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  347, 
326-27;  III,  148-49;  Minister  von  Geralt  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Mar.  19, 
1845.  For  Tyler's  thoughts  on  and  hopes  for  a  free-trade  arrangement  with  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  see  William  Boulware  to  John  Tyler,  Naples,  Oct.  30, 
1844,  TFP.  John  Tyler  to  John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  4,  1855, 
in  LTT,  II,  200-1;  Julia  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  13, 
1842,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Hugh  S.  Legar£,  Charles  City  County,  May  16,  1843, 
in  LTTt  III,  in;  John  Tyler,  Special  Message  to  Congress  on  Hawaii,  Dec.  30, 
1842,  in  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  212 ;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec,  5,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  358;  Caleb  Cush- 
ing  to  John  Tyler,  Macao,  July  18,  1844;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  8,  1844,  TPLC.  Cushing's  gift  to  the  Tylers  on  his  return 
from  China,  two  lovely  blue  Chinese  vases,  are  still  to  be  seen  at  Sherwood  Forest. 
John  Tyler  to  Caleb  Gushing,  Charles  City,  Oct.  14,  1845,  in  LTTf  II,  445. 

*  John  Tyler  to  Robert  McCandlish,  Washington,  July  10,  1842 ;  John  Tyler 
to  Daniel  Webster,  Washington,  July  10,  1842,  in  ibid.,  173,  257;  Daniel  Webster 
to  Waddy  Thompson,  Washington,  June  27,  1842,  in  C.  H.  Van  Tyne  (ed.),  Letters 
of  Daniel  Webster  (New  York,  1902),  269-70;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Dec.  u,  1845;  John  Tyler  to  Daniel  Webster  (two  letters),  Washing- 
ton [Jan.  1843] ;  Silas  Reed  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Boston,  Apr,  8,  1885,  in  LTT,  II, 
448,  261;  Appendix  D,  696;  Chitwood,  Tyler,  336-37. 

B  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Washington,  Oct.  24,  1842,  in  LTT,  II, 
248;  ibid.,  225-26;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Mar.  6; 
Aug.  n,  1842,  in  ibid.,  157,  179.  Tyler  and  Webster  worked  as  a  well-coordinated 
team  on  this  treaty.  Webster  undertook  the  daily  negotiations  under  Tyler's  im- 
mediate and  detailed  supervision.  The  drafts  of  all  Webster's  correspondence  with 
Ashburton  were  brought  to  Tyler  for  revisions,  corrections,  and  suggestions.  Ac- 
cording to  Julia,  these  were  "always  adopted  by  Mr.  Webster  word  for  word." 
The  President  was  also  responsible  for  some  definite  improvements  in  the  finished 
document,  and  the  tact  and  charm  with  which  he  handled  Ashburton  were  remarked 
upon  by  many  observers.  Tyler  was  a  smooth  diplomat.  Julia  claimed  in  1846  that 
he  was  "the  direct  and  Webster  only  the  passive  agent  in  every  act  and  every  line 
of  correspondence"  relating  to  the  treaty,  a  view  embraced  by  Robert  Tyler — who 
was  at  his  father's  side  during  the  negotiations.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  16,  1846;  Robert  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Montgomery,  Ala,,  Mar.  22  [1866] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [Eben  N.J  Horsford, 
Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [but  probably  1868],  TFP.  Most  of  Tyler's  correspondence 
with  Webster  on  the  treaty  was  consumed  in  the  1865  Richmond  fire.  This  loss, 
said  Robert,  was  "a  great  national  calamity."  See  also  Chitwood,  Tyler,  3*4--i5- 

9  Isaac  Van  Zandt  to  Anson  Jones,  Washington,  Mar.  15,  1843,  in  LTT,  III, 

5&S 


I29J  ibid.,  152-53;  II,  441;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  n, 
1845,  in  ibid.,  447- 

7  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  258,  261-62. 

8  The  American-Texan  diplomatic  correspondence  of  January-February  1844  on 
the  deployment  of  500  American  dragoons,  1000  infantry,  and  an  undetermined 
force  of  naval  vessels  is  reproduced  in  LTT,  II,  282-90;  as  is  the  correspondence 
relating  to  Texan  demands  for  operational  control  over  these  forces  and  Tyler's 
rejection  of  the  request  on  constitutional  grounds. 

9  As  early  as  Mar.  7,  1820,  Ritchie's  Richmond  Enquirer  had  denounced  the 
Missouri  Compromise  and  instructed  the  South  to  keep  its  eyes  "firmly  fixed  on 
Texas.  If  we  are  cooped  up  on  the  north,  we  must  have  elbow  room  to  the  west." 
Quoted  in  LTT,  I,  325-26;  see  also  Abel  P.  Upshur  to   [Nathaniel  B.  Tucker], 
Washington,  Nov.  5,  1842 ;  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  W.  S.  Murphy,  Washington,  Jan.  16, 
1844;  John  C.  Calhoun  to  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Fort  Hill,  Dec.  25,  1843;  Thomas  W. 
Gilmer  to  John  C.  Calhoun,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1843,  in  ibid.,  II,  268,  284,  296; 
III,  131;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  221-22;  LTT,  III,  116-17;  John  Tyler 
to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  17,  1850,  in  ibid.,  II,  483;   John  Tyler, 
Message  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  Washington,  Apr.  22,  1844,  in  Richard- 
son, Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  308-9 ;  John  Tyler  to  "Mr.  Editor" 
[Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  1847!,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Hamilton  Smith,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Feb.  5,  1849,  printed  in  Richmond  Enquirer,  Mar.  23,  1849  >  John  Tyler  to 
Daniel  Webster,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  17,  1850;  John  Tyler,  Draft  Speech  to 
Virginia  Convention  [Sherwood  Forest,  March  1861],  TPLC.  To  Robert  Tyler  he 
wrote  in  1850:  "The  monopoly  of  the  cotton  plant . . .  now  secured,  places  all  other 
nations  at  our  feet.  An  embargo  of  a  single  year  would  produce  in  Europe  a  greater 
amount  of  suffering  than  a  fifty  years'  war.  I  doubt  whether  Great  Britain  could 
avoid  convulsions."  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Foest,  Apr.  17,  1850,  in 
LTT,  II,  483- 

10  John  Tyler,  Message  to  the  Senate,  Washington,  Apr.  22,  1844,  in  Richardson, 
Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  310,  312. 

11  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  221-22;  Thomas  W.  Gilmer  to  John  C. 
Calhoun,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1843 ;  John  C.  Calhoun  to  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Fort 
Hill,  Dec.  25,  1843,  in  LTT,  III,  131;  II,  296. 

12  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  223-24. 
"Ibid.,  224-25;  LTT,  II,  293-95. 

14 Democratic  Tyler  Meeting  at  Washington  (Pamphlet;  n.p.,  n.d.  [April  1844]), 
1-24;  LTT,  II,  285-86,  305-6.  Tyler  had  offered  Jackson  protege  Jarnes  K.  Polk  the 
Cabinet  post  of  Secretary  of  the  Navy  after  Gilmer  was  killed  on  the  Princeton. 
Polk  refused  it,  he  being  an  announced  Vice-Presidential  hopeful  at  the  time,  but 
the  gesture  was  not  wasted  on  Old  Hickory.  James  K.  Polk  to  Theophilus  Fisk, 
Columbia,  Tenn.,  Mar.  20,  1844,  in  ibid.,  Ill,  133-34.  Polk,  a  confirmed  expansion- 
ist, endorsed  Calhoun's  appointment  to  the  Cabinet,  "especially  in  reference  to 
the  Texas  and  Oregon  questions." 

15  John  Tyler,  Message  to  the  Senate,  Washington,  Apr.  22,  1844,  in  Richardson, 
Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  311;  LTT,  II,  298;  Roseboom,  A  History 
of  Presidential  Elections,  128,  127;  Glyndon  G.  Van  Deusen,  The  Jacksonian  Era 
(New  York,  1959),  182-83. 

™LTT,  II,  324-25,  331;  III,  122-23;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Apr.  20,  1852,  in  ibid.,  II,  317.  This  letter  was  published  again  in  Vol.  Ill  a 
few  years  later;  in  this  version  Lyon  G.  Tyler  rendered  the  word  scheme  to  read 
theme.  John  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  20,  1852,  in  ibid., 
Ill,  170-71;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  n,  1846,  in 
ibid.,  II,  341. 

"Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Oct.  30;  Dec.  23,  1841; 

586 


Mar.  6,  1842,  in  ibid.,  308,  153-54,  156-58;  ibid.t  256;  III,  116-22;  Chitwood, 
Tyler,  344- 

18  Abel  P.  Upshur  to  Nathaniel  B.  Tucker,  Washington,  Dec.  23,  1841,  in  LTT, 
II,  i53~54;  Alexander  Hamilton  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  23,  1842,  TPLC; 
LTT,  II,  291-92;  Andrew  Jackson  to  John  Tyler,  Hermitage,  Sept.  9,  1842;  Amos 
Kendall  to  [John  Tyler],  Washington,  Oct.  20,  1843,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Andrew 
Jackson,  Rip  Raps,  Va.,  Sept.  20,  1842,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Some  Letters  of  Tyler, 
Calhoun,  Polk,  Murphy,  Houston  and  Donelson,"  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VI  (April 
1925),  225.  Tyler's  decision  to  appoint  Fremont  came  in  March  1842  on  the  urging 
of  Silas  Reed.  "You  have  it  in  your  power  to  touch  his  [Benton's]  heart  through 
his  domestic  affections,"  suggested  the  then  Surveyor-General  for  Illinois  and  Mis- 
souri. Silas  Reed  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Boston,  Apr.  8,  1885,  in  LTT,  II,  Appendix  D, 
697.  Tyler's  later  decision  to  promote  Fremont  for  his  exploits  in  the  West  was  less 
politically  motivated.  See  William  Wilkins  to  John  Tyler,  War  Dept.,  Washington, 
Jan.  1 6,  1844,  TPLC.  Kendall  needed  his  printing  commission  badly.  "The  emolu- 
ments of  this  station,"  he  thanked  Tyler,  "would  be  an  inexpressible  relief  to  me 
under  existing  circumstances." 

10  John  Tyler  to  Littleton  W.  Tazewell,  Oct.  24,  1842,  in  LTT,  II,  248-49. 

^Washington  Globe,  Nov.  29,  1842,  quoted  in  LTT,  II,  303-4;  ibid.f  249-50; 
Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Dec.  21,  1845;  LTT,  II,  188, 
250;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  u,  1846,  in  ibid.f  341. 

21  William  Taggart  was  Surveyor  of  the  Port  of  New  York;   George  himself 
served  variously  as  Naval  Storekeeper  at  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  Military  Store- 
keeper on  Governors  Island,  and  Secret  Inspector  in  the  N.Y.  Customs  House. 
Hallet  was  a  clerk  of  the  U.S.  Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of  Southern  New  York; 
Fowler  was  a  small  shop   tailor  in   the   Bowery  who   was  vice-president  of   an 
organization  called  the  Tyler  State  Convention.  He  aspired  to  employment  in  the 
Customs  House  but  obtained  instead  the  Surveyorship  of  the  Port.  Robert  C.  Wet- 
more  served  as  Navy  Agent  in  Brooklyn  until  removed  by  Tyler  for  corruption.  A 
former  Whig,  he  had  been  prominently  involved  in  a  vote-fraud  case  in  New  York 
in  1838.  Gunderson,  Log  Cabin  Campaign,  249-51 ;  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  9,  1845. 
This  account  of  the  Tyler  party  in  New  York  City  in  1843-1844  is  based  largely 
on  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Dec.  21;  28,  1845;  Jan.  n; 
18;  25;  Feb.  i;  8;  22;  Mar.  15;   22;  29;  Apr.  5;  12;  26;  May  10,  1846.  While 
Noah's  account  is  biased  and  must  be  regarded  with  care,  its  main  outline  may  be 
substantiated  by  reference  to  the  New  York  Herald  and  the  Washington  Madison- 
ian  for  the  1842-1844  period  and  to  the  Gardiner  Papers,  1842—1844,  Yale  Univer- 
sity Library,  passim. 

22  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Mar.  29;  Jan.  25,  1846. 
Robert  Tyler  worked  through  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Herald,  N.  T. 
Parnelle,  in  his  attempt  to  bring  the  paper  solidly  over  to  Tyler.  James  Gordon 
Bennett,  editor  of  the  Herald,  would  have  none  of  this,  although  his  paper  was, 
and  remained,  reasonably  friendly  to  the  administration.  John  I.  Mumford  later 
(Jan.  1845)  sought  from  Tyler  an  appointment  as  Surveyor  of  the  Port  of  New 
York,  Needless  to  say,  he  got  nothing.  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  25,  1845;  Noah, 
"Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Jan.  25;  Mar.  15,  1846.  Curtis  put 
up  $500,  Graham  $200,  Taggart  $200.  Other  contributors  were  Wetmore,  Hoffman, 
Stilwell,  Fisher,  Fowler,  and  some  dozen  others  who  held  offices  in  New  York  City 
salaried  in  the  $i5oo-to-$25oo  bracket. 

^Ibid.,  Jan.  25,  1846.  Noah  never  blamed  Tyler  for  his  disappointment.  He 
blamed  John  Lorimer  Graham  and  Robert  Tyler. 

a*Ibid.,  Mar.  15,  1846.  Noah's  suggestion  that  Webster  actually  left  the  Cabinet 
because  of  the  Tylerite  absorption  of  the  Aurora  is  not  substantiated  by  any  other 
evidence. 

587 


25 New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Dec.  28,  1845;  Jan.  n;  Mar.  22,  1846. 

^LTT,  II,  250;  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Parties  and  Patronage  in  the  United  States 
(New  York,  1891),  82. 

23 'LTT,  II,  250;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  n, 
1846,  in  ibid.,  341;  Rep.  George  H.  Proffit  quoted  in  ibid.,  225. 

28  John  Tyler  to  John  C.  Spencer,  Charles  City  County,  May  12,  1843,  TPLC. 

^Washington  Madisonian,  July  21,  1843. 

80 Daniel  Webster  to  John  Tyler,  Boston,  Aug.  29,  1843,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly, 
VIII  (July  1926),  25-26.  For  a  standard  Whig  scream  of  anguish  over  the  Tyler 
proscription,  see  the  pamphlet  John,  the  Traitor;  or,  the  Force  of  Accident.  A  Plain 
Story,  30,  36-37,  42. 

aAbell,  Tyler,  154-55;  io7J  see  also  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington, 
Feb.  2,  1832,  in  LTT,  I,  427.  This  delicate  feeling  about  the  unrestrained  use  of  the 
appointing  power  persisted  in  Tyler  until  June  1841.  See  ibid.,  II,  310-11.  By 
October  1842,  however,  the  President  was  hard  at  work  building  a  Tyler  group  in 
Missouri  by  patronage  appointments.  Silas  Reed  to  John  Tyler,  St.  Louis,  Oct.  i, 
1842,  TPLC;  John  Minge  to  John  Tyler,  Petersburg,  Mar.  18,  1844,  in  LTT,  II, 
404. 

82 Tyler  kin  appointed  to  various  posts:  Thomas  A.  Cooper  was  appointed 
Military  Storekeeper  at  the  Frankford,  Pa.,  Arsenal  in  1841.  When  Congress  abol- 
ished that  job  in  1843  (to  strike  at  the  President),  Tyler  nominated  him  as  Sur- 
veyor of  the  Port  of  Philadelphia  (1844).  Failing  Senate  confirmation  for  that  post 
in  1845,  the  President  and  son  Robert  got  the  old  actor  placed  finally  by  Polk  in 
the  New  York  Customs  House,  where  he  remained  until  senility  overtook  him  in 
1846  and  he  retired.  Coleman,  Prisdlla  Cooper  Tyler,  84-85,  111-12,  120-21;  Noah, 
"Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Feb.  i,  1846;  New  York  Herald, 
Feb.  9,  1845;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  8,  1845, 
GPY;  ibid.,  Feb.  14,  1845;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
May  16,  1845,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  N.  M.  Miller,  Washington,  Mar.  13, 
1845,  GPY. 

Robert  Tyler  was  appointed  to  a  clerkship  in  the  Land  Office  in  1841.  He  re- 
mained in  that  job  until  March  1844,  resigning  to  begin  a  law  practice  in  Phila- 
delphia. In  May  1844  he  abandoned  his  practice  to  manage  his  father's  campaign. 
From  May  1844  to  April  1845  Tyler  virtually  supported  Robert  and  his  family. 
Robert  later  unsuccessfully  sought  office  from  the  Polk,  Pierce  and  Buchanan  ad- 
ministrations. Coleman,  Prisdlla  Cooper  Tyler,  84-85 ;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler, 
New  York,  Dec.  30,  1847,  TPLC. 

John  Tyler,  Jr.,  served  as  his  father's  private  secretary  until  1844  when  he  was 
discharged  for  inefficiency.  His  salary  was  apparently  paid  from  the  President's 
own  pocket,  however.  Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  330-31;  John 
Tyler  to  Martha  Rochelle,  Washington,  Oct.  22,  1843,  James  Rochelle  Papers,  Duke 
University  Library. 

James  Rochelle,  John  Tyler,  Jr.'s  young  brother-in-law,  received  a  midship- 
man's appointment  in  the  Navy;  James  A.  Semple,  the  President's  son-in-law, 
received  a  purser's  berth  in  the  same  service.  John  Tyler  to  Martha  Rochelle, 
Washington,  Sept.  4,  1841,  James  Rochelle  Papers,  Duke  University  Library ;  Lang- 
ford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  331;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Oct.  14,  1844,  TFP. 

John  H.  Waggaman  and  his  brother  Floyd  Waggaman,  Tyler's  nephews,  both 
received  minor  appointments — John  in  the  Treasury  Department,  and  Floyd  as  a 
diplomatic  courier.  John  Tyler  to  Thomas  Ewing,  Washington,  Mar.  5,  1841,  TPLC; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1845,  TFP. 

588 


Dr.  N.  M.  Miller  of  Ohio,  the  President's  brother-in-law,  was  first  appointed 
a  clerk  in  the  Appointment  Office  and  then  Second  Assistant  Postmaster  General. 
Polk  demoted  him  to  Third  Assistant  and  finally  purged  him  altogether.  New  York 
Herald,  Nov.  21,  1844;  Mar.  30,  1845. 

Alexander  Gardiner's  appointment  to  a  clerkship  in  the  U.S.  Circuit  Court  for 
the  Southern  District  of  New  York  was  an  appointment  the  President  arranged 
through  Attorney  General  John  Nelson  of  Maryland  and  Chief  Justice  Samuel 
Nelson  of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court.  Tyler  elevated  Samuel  Nelson  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  just  before  he  left  office. 

Most  of  the  Corporal's  Guardsmen  were  also  appointed  to  the  diplomatic 
service  or  to  the  Cabinet:  Proffit  and  Wise  to  Brazil,  Gushing  to  China;  Virginia 
Cliqueman  Gilmer  and  Upshur  of  course  were  brought  into  the  Cabinet.  LTT,  II, 
162-64;  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  19;  Mar.  5,  1845;  John  Tyler  to  [Henry  A.  Wise], 
Clarke  County,  Va.,  Sept.  13,  1843,  TPLC.  Charles  Cody  of  the  Palmyra  (Mo.) 
Courier,  on  the  strong  recommendation  of  Silas  Reed,  Tylerite  patronage  chief  in 
St.  Louis,  was  given  a  post  in  St.  Louis.  This  act,  said  Reed,  would  "add  strength 
to  our  Cause  in  Missouri. ...  It  would  aid  us  much  in  presenting  a  bold  and  strong 
front  to  our  V[an]  B[uren]  rivals  here,  to  have  the  Courier  at  Palmyra  warmly 
on  our  side."  George  Roberts,  editor  of  the  Boston  Times,  was  appointed  Naval 
Officer  of  the  Port  of  Boston.  "He  is  a  well  known  friend  of  President  Tyler,"  said 
the  New  York  Herald.  Silas  Reed  to  John  Tyler,  St.  Louis,  Oct.  i,  1842,  TPLC; 
New  York  Herald,  June  27,  1844;  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday 
Dispatch,  Mar.  29,  1846;  LTT,  III,  49.  In  1832  Tyler  had  voted  against  an  attempt 
by  Jackson  to  appoint  Noah  to  office  because  Noah  was  then  editor  of  the  New 
York  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

33  Abell  was  first  nominated  for  consul  to  Marseilles  in  December  1844.  Rejected 
by  the  Senate,  he  was  stubbornly  nominated  again  by  Tyler — to  the  Sandwich 
Island  post.  For  this  spot  he  gained  Senate  approval.  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  13, 
18445  Jan.  18,  1845. 

Hiram  Gumming,  a  Vermont  teacher  and  lawyer,  sometime  friend  of  Robert 
Tyler  and  frequent  visitor  at  the  White  House  in  1842-1843,  was  a  high-pressure 
(and  corrupt)  founder  of  fly-by-night  pro-Tyler  newspapers  in  various  New  Eng- 
land villages.  These  were  financed  by  capital  levies  on  Tylerite  officeholders  in  these 
backwater  locales.  Gumming  was,  said  Noah  (praising  Tyler  for  never  having 
"knowingly  appointed  a  disreputable  man  to  office"),  one  of  the  "bunch  of  charlatans, 
vagabonds,  leeches,  vampires  and  scoundrels"  who  attached  themselves  to  the  skirts 
of  the  Tyler  movement.  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Jan. 
11,  1846;  Hiram  Gumming,  Secret  History  of  the  Perfidies,  Intrigues,  and  Cor- 
ruptions of  the  Tyler  Dynasty  (New  York,  1845),  passim;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  23,  1845,  TFP. 

84  John  Tyler  to  [Henry  A.  Wise],  Clarke  County,  Va.,  Sept.  13,  1843;  Bodie 
Peyton  to  John  Tyler,  New  Orleans,  Dec.  17,  1843;  John  Tyler  to  John  C.  Spencer, 
Jordans  Springs,  Va.,  Sept.  2,  1843,  TPLC. 

85  LTT,  II,  313-14.  The  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald, 
a  journalist  generally  friendly  to  the  Tyler  administration,  kept  a  tally  of  the 
Senate  rejections  of  Tyler  appointees.  The  number  he  reported  was  102.  New  York 
Herald,  Feb.  19;  Mar.  8,  1845.  Those  rejected  for  Cabinet  posts  were  Caleb  Gushing 
as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  (three  times!),  David  Henshaw  of  Massachusetts  as 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  James  M.  Porter  of  Pennsylvania  as  Secretary  of  War. 
Henshaw  and  Porter  were  Conservative  Democrats.  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the 
Union,  213-14. 

^Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Frederick  Raoul,  Boston  [June  1843]  in  Coleman, 

589 


Pristilla  Cooper  Tyler,  103-4;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  New  York, 
May  28,  1843,  GPY.  Tyler  was  also  flatteringly  received  in  Princeton,  N.J.,  where 
he  was  the  houseguest  of  Captain  Robert  P.  Stockton,  USN.  The  Grand  Marshal 
of  the  New  York  reception  for  Tyler  was  Prosper  M.  Wetmore  whose  brother, 
Robert  C.  Wetmore,  was  a  leading  figure  in  the  Tyler  group  in  New  York  City. 

37  John  Tyler  to  John  B.  Jones  [Clarke  County,  Va.],  Sept.  13,  1843,  in  LTT, 
III,  113-14. 

88  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Apr.  12,  1846;  LTT, 
II,  314-16;  Washington  Madisonian,  June  I,  1844;  Lambert,  Presidential  Politics 
in  the  United  States,  159-60.  Delegations  were  present  from  18  of  the  26  states. 
Individuals  were  present  from  all  the  states. 

38  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  128—29. 

40  John  Tyler,  Letter  of  Acceptance,  Washington,  May  30,  1844,  in  LTT,  II, 
319-21. 

41  Van  Deusen,  The  Jacksonian  Era,  186;  LTT,  II,  324-25,  331,  334-37-;  III, 
47,  121-22.  There  were  28  Whigs  in  the  Senate;  27  voted  against  the  treaty,  as  did 
7  agrarian  Democrats,  Benton  among  them,  against  the  expressed  wishes  of  Jack- 
son. 

42  John  Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  June  4,  1844,  TPLC. 
^Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  June  4,  1844,  in  Cole- 
man,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  no— u. 

**  Robert  J.  Walker  to  James  K.  Polk,  Washington,  July  10,  1844;  John  Tyler 
to  Robert  Tyler  [Sherwood  Forest],  July  6,  1844,  in  LTT,  III,  139,  141;  II,  Ap- 
pendix G,  710;  Jay  A.  Micheals  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  7,  1844,  GPY. 

45  Robert  J.  Walker  to  James  K.  Polk,  Washington,  July  10,  1844,  in  LTT,  III, 
I39-4I- 

"Ibid. 

47  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  u,  1846,  in  ibid.,  II, 
342;  see  also  ibid.,  337—38;  III,  49,  56,  124-25.  Jackson's  letter  was  published  in 
Niles*  Register,  LXVI,  416.  See  also  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  7,  1845,  for  influence 
of  the  Jackson-Lewis  letter  on  Tyler's  decision  to  withdraw;  also  Lambert,  Presi- 
dential Politics  in  the  United  States,  204. 

48  Alexander  Gardiner  to    [Editor    ?],   New  York,   Apr.   27,   1844;   Alexander 
Gardiner  [pseud.  "Cyrus  Smith"],  to  [Editor  ?],  New  York,  May  19,  1844;  John 
Lorimer   Graham  to  Alexander   Gardiner,   New  York,   Aug.   20,    1844;    Alexander 
Gardiner,  Draft  Manuscript  Speech  on  Texas  Annexation,  [July  1844],  GPY.  Most 
of  Alexander's  Texas  propaganda  appeared  in  the  Washington  Madisonian,  the  New 
York  Herald,  and  the  New  York  Aurora. 

49  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Feb.  i;   8;   22,  1846. 
At  this  time  George  was  a  Secret  Inspector  in  the  Customs  House,  a  do-nothing 
job  paying  $3  per  day. 

50  John  Tyler  to  the  St.  Patrick's  Anniversary  Celebration  Committee,  Wash- 
ington, Mar.  15,  1844,  TPLC;  LTT,  II,  645. 

51  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York   [Late  June-early 
July  1844] ;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  29,  1844, 
TFP. 

52  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  14,  1844,  TPLC; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  14 ;  June  5 ;  Dec.  10, 
1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.   [1845],  TFP.  In 
these  letters  his  mother  and  sister  complained  regularly  of  Alexander's  advancement 
of  money  "for  political  purposes."  When  Alexander  lent  Aurora  editor  Thomas 
Dunn  English  the  sum  of  $50  in  June  1845,  Margaret  was  certain  that  this  was  but 
a  "small  portion  of  the  [political]  demands  upon  his  funds. . . .  Duce  take  the  Poli- 
tics," she  snapped  angrily. 

63  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [John  Tyler],  New  York,  July  21,  1844,  in  LTT,  II, 
338. 

590 


"Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  23,  1844,  TPLC. 
Delazon  Smith  (1816-1860)  was  virtually  unique  in  the  Tyler  party.  He  was  the 
editor  of  a  small  Ohio  newspaper,  the  Dayton  Western  Empire,  who  had  attended 
the  Baltimore  convention  in  May  as  a  Tyler  delegate  from  Ohio.  He  believed  that 
Tyler  could  actually  be  re-elected  and  became  an  enthusiastic  Tyler  supporter.  In 
June  he  had,  at  his  own  expense,  toured  Maryland  and  Virginia  holding  Tyler 
rallies  and  drumming  up  Tyler  sentiment.  In  July  he  arrived  in  New  York  City, 
where  he  launched  a  series  of  indifferently  attended  sidewalk  Tyler  meetings.  His 
utterings  saw  print  in  both  the  Aurora  and  the  Madisonian.  He  asked  nothing  of 
Tyler.  Tyler,  however,  appointed  him  Commissioner  to  Ecuador  (1842-1845).  His 
later  career  carried  him  to  Oregon.  From  Feb.  14,  1859,  te  Mar,  3,  1859,  he  served 
as  a  U.S.  senator  from  Oregon  (Democrat),  a  very  short  term  indeed.  See  Noah, 
"Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Apr.  5;  12,  1846.  William  Shaler 
was  a  more  typical  Tylerite.  His  modest  contribution  to  the  Tyler  cause  led  to  his 
nomination  as  consul  to  Hong  Kong  in  January  1845.  The  appointment  still  pend- 
ing before  the  Senate  when  Tyler  left  office,  Shaler  was  renominated  by  Polk  (one 
of  the  few  Tylerites  so  honored),  but  was  finally  rejected  by  the  Senate.  See  New 
York  Herald,  Jan.  18;  Mar.  12;  21,  1845.  Mike  Walsh  had  the  gall  to  soHcit  an 
office  from  Tyler  in  Dec.  1844.  Understandably,  Tyler  refused.  See  Margaret  Gardi- 
ner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  30,  1844,  GPY. 

65  Alexander  Gardiner,  Draft  of  Memorandum  [New  York,  July  29,  1844], 
GPY.  The  Tyler  letter  to  Alexander  from  Old  Point  Comfort  has  not  been  found. 
Its  existence  and  content  can  be  inferred,  however,  from  the  chronology  of  the 
situation,  Tyler's  known  political  concerns  that  week  at  Old  Point  Comfort, 
and  internal  evidence  in  Alexander  Gardiner's  memorandum.  It  was  probably 
written  July  26,  1844- 

06 Alexander  Gardiner  to  [John  Tyler],  New  York,  Aug.  2,  1844;  Abraham 
Hatfield,  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness,  et  al.  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Aug.  6,  1844; 
John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  n,  1846;  Joel  B.  Sutherland 
to  Andrew  Jackson,  Philadelphia,  Aug.  20,  1844;  John  Tyler  to  Messrs.  Hatfield, 
Van  Ness,  et  al.,  Washington,  Aug.  22,  1844,  in  LTT ',  II,  338,  339.  342;  III,  147; 
II,  339-40 ;  John  Tyler  to  Andrew  Jackson,  Washington,  Aug.  18,  1844,  in  Lyon  G. 
Tyler  (ed.),  "Some  Letters  of  Tyler  . . . ,"  loc.  cit.,  232.  The  Tylerites  who  signed  the 
Carleton  House  treaty  of  Aug.  2  were  Van  Ness,  J.  Paxton  Hallet,  George  D.  Strong, 
and  John  O.  Fowler. 

67  John  Tyler  to  "Friends  Throughout  the  Union,"  Washington,  Aug.  20,  1844, 
in  LTT,  II,  342-49.  "I  never  saw  a  person  who  could  write  more  rapidly,"  ex- 
claimed Julia  in  amazement  at  the  speed  with  which  Tyler  produced  his  with- 
drawal statement.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [Juliana  Gardiner]  [Washington],  Aug. 
22,  1844,  in  ibid.,  342,  fn. 

5b  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  20;  24,  1844, 
GPY;  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  Aug.  22,  1844;  see  also  New  York  Herald, 
Aug. '22,  1844;  New  York  Evening  Express,  Aug.  22,  1844;  New  York  Democrat, 
Aug.  22,  1844;  New  York  Daily  Plebeian,  Aug.  22,  1844.  Tyler  himself  thought 
the  statement  quite  bold.  "You  know,"  he  told  a  friend,  "that  I  can  neither  talk  nor 
write  upon  any  subject  without  doing  so  frankly  and  somewhat  boldly."  John  Tyler 
to  M.  S.  Sprigg,  Washington,  Aug.  20,  1844,  TPLC. 

50  Andrew  Jackson  to  Joel  B.  Sutherland,  Hermitage,  Sept.  2,  1844;  Andrew 
Jackson  to  James  K.  Polk,  Hermitage,  Sept.  2,  1844;  Joel  B.  Sutherland  to  Andrew 
Jackson,  Philadelphia,  Aug.  20,  1844;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  July  u,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  341,  342  ;  III,  147-48,  i5o-$i.  Tyler  further 
cemented  his  relations  with  Jackson  in  early  September,  appointing  Major  A.  J. 
Donelson,  Old  Hickory's  nephew,  U.S.  Minister  to  Texas.  At  the  same  time_  he 
warned  Santa  Anna  that  any  invasion  of  Texas  would  mean  war  with  the  United 
States.  "This  is  the  true,  energetic  course,"  Jackson  told  Polk. 

"°  John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller  [Washington],  Sept.  13,  1844,  in  ibid., 

591 


155;  ibid-,  Sept.  4,  1844,  TPLC;  see  also  New  York  Herald,  June  27,  1844;  Alexan- 
der Gardiner  to  John  Tyler  [New  York],  Dec.  9,  1844,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 
Thomas  Ritchie,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  9,  1851,  in  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan,  17, 
1851.  Tyler  was  stunned  to  learn,  however,  that  William  Waller,  his  son-in-law,  was 
leaning  toward  Clay.  "I  am  still  abused  as  the  violent  wretch  by  all  the  newspapers 

in  his  advocacy I  hope  Mr.  Waller  will  seriously  ponder  this  before  he  commits 

himself  for  Clay."  John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Washington,  Sept.  5, 
1844,  TPLC. 

61  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Ju^ia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Sept  3,  1844;  R.  M. 
Price  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [New  York],  Sept.  16,  1844;  Samuel  Gardiner  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  N.Y.,  Aug.  16;  Sept.  17,  1844;  Vanbrugh 
Livingston  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Oct.  3,  1844;  John  Lorimer  Graham 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Oct.  13,  1844;  John  Pierce  to  Nathaniel  Gardi- 
ner (forwarded  to  Alexander  Gardiner),  Brooklyn,  Oct.  28,  1844;  T.  W.  Letson  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Dry  Dock  Office,  Brooklyn,  Oct.  29;  30,  1844;  Garrit  H.  Stukes, 
Jr.,  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Oct.  30,  1844;  John  E.  Ross  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  18,  1844,  GPY ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  18,  1844,  TFP. 

63  Garrit  H.  Stukes,  Jr.,  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Oct.  30,  1844,  GPY; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [New  York],  July  22,  1844;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  15;  16,  1844,  TPLC;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  18,  1844.  On  this  trip  to  New 
York  Robert  and  Priscilla  Tyler  were  the  houseguests  of  Surveyor  Henry  C.  At- 
wood.  Priscilla  had  given  birth  to  her  third  child,  a  son,  in  July.  See  ibid.,  July  10 ; 
Aug.  5,  1844,  TFP;  Samuel  Osgood  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Tammany  Hall,  Oct.  5, 
1844;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [Samuel  Osgood]  [New  York,  Oct.  6,  1844] ;  [Alexan- 
der Gardiner],  Statement  of  Qualifications  [New  York,  Oct.  1844];  Committee  of 
Stone  Cutters  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York  [Oct.  1844] ;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  Committee  of  Stone  Cutters,  New  York,  Oct.  28,  1844,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  15,  1844.  For  his  labors  on  Alexander's 
behalf,  Broderick  ("an  invaluable  friend")  was  later  (December)  rewarded  by  Tyler 
with  an  appointment  as  Secret  Inspector  in  the  Customs  House,  replacing  Paul  R. 
George.  See  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Oct.  n,  1844,  TFP; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  23,  1844,  TPLC;  David  H. 
Broderick  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  12,  1844,  GPY;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  6,  1844,  TFP. 

63  Fox,  The  Decline  of  the  Aristocracy  in  the  Politics  of  New  York,  431-35; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  u;  16;  14,  1844,  TFP; 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Memorandum  of  a  Conversation  with  Joseph  T.  Sweet,  New 
York,  Oct.  31,  1844,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Oct.  31,  1844,  TPLC;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct. 
29,  1844,  TFP;  New  York  Herald,  Oct.  29,  1844;  Alexander  Gardiner,  Notice,  New 
York  Evening  Post,  New  York,  Oct.  30,  1844. 

e*Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  131-35.  Polk:  1,337,243; 
Clay:  1,229,062;  Birney:  62,300.  Electoral  votes:  Polk,  170;  Clay,  105.  Clay  carried 
Ohio,  N.C.,  Tenn.  (by  113  votes),  Ky.,  Md.,  Del.,  Mass.,  R.I.,  Conn.,  Vt.,  and  NJ. 
Polk  carried  Virginia,  the  entire  Deep  South,  the  West  save  Ohio,  and,  most  signifi- 
cantly, N.Y.  and  Penna.  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Dec.  6,  1844,  GPY;  Unsigned  Letter  to  Editor  [James  Watson  Webb]  of  New  York 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  Washington,  Dec.  4,  1844;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  [9],  1844,  TFP.  This  too  was  the  view  of  former 
New  York  Senator  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge,  Tyler's  appointee  as  governor  of  the 
Wisconsin  Territory.  N.  P.  Tallmadge  to  Robert  J.  Walker,  Faycheedah,  Wis.,  Dec. 
9,  1844,  in  LTT,  III,  153-54.  See  also  Jay  A.  Micheals  to  John  Tyler,  New  York, 
Nov.  7,  1844,  GPY. 

592 


^Andrew  Jackson  to  James  K.  Polk,  Hermitage,  Sept.  2,  1844,  i*1  LTT,  III, 
150;  D.  B.  Tallmadge  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  14,  1844.  This  was  also  the 
reasoned  view  of  George  F.  Thompson.  George  F.  Thompson  to  Robert  Tyler,  New 
York,  Nov.  n,  1844,  GPY.  That  many  Van  Burenites  had  cut  Polk  was  agreed  to 
by  Alexander  Gardiner  but  he  did  not  carry  the  implications  of  this  to  Tallmadge's 
conclusion.  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  [9],  1844, 
TFP. 

06  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  n,  1846,  hi  LTT,  II, 
342;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov.  1844],  TFP; 
John  Tyler  to  Andrew  Jackson,  Washington,  Aug.  18,  1844,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler  (ed.), 
"Some  Letters  of  Tyler...,"  loc.  cit.,  222,  232;  Edward  Stanwood,  A  History  of 
Presidential  Elections  (New  York,  1892),  158;  W.  Dean  Burnham,  Presidential  Bal- 
lots, 1836-1892  (Baltimore,  1955),  704,  716,  820. 

67  See  election  returns  in  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  12,  1844.  Clarkson  Crolius, 
running  as  a  straight  Whig  for  the  Assembly,  polled  947  votes.  Compare  Alexander 
Gardiner's  26,183  votes  to  Folk's  28,402,  Wright's  29,220  and  Lt.  Gov.  Addison 
Gardiner's  29,117.  Alexander  even  ran  behind  Henry  Clay,  who  polled  26,518  in 
New  York  City.  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Nov.  7;  [9],  1844, 
TFP. 

68  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  n;   21,  1844;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to    [Juliana 
Gardiner],  Washington,  Nov.  27;   29,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  356;  Mary  Gardiner  to 
Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  Dec.  5,  1844;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner,  President's  Mansion  [ Washington] ,  Nov.  13,  1844;  Juliana  Gardiner  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  17;  19,  1844.  TFP. 

68  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  21,  1844;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  York,  Nov.  19,  1844,  TFP. 

70  John  Tyler  to  John  Jones,  Washington  [Nov.  1844],  TPLC. 


CHAPTER    10 

1New  York  Herald,  Nov.  21;  Oct.  23,  1844;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Nov.  17,  1844,  TFP. 

2  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  27,  1844;  Feb.  20,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov.  1844] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Washington,  Sept.  9,  1844,  TFP. 

3  William  Boulware  to  John  Tyler,  Naples,  Oct.  30,  1844,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Nov.  25,  1844,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  13,  1844,  TFP.  The  consul  insisted  that 
such  a  dog  was  "exceedingly  delicate  and  particularly  sensitive  to  cold"  and  sug- 
gested that  shipment  be  delayed  until  March  1845.  Tyler  agreed. 

4  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  21,  1844,  TFP; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  28,  1844,  GPY;  LTTt 
I,  390.  The  wines  were  shipped  from  France  on  the  Marietta  Burr  on  December  5. 
Tyler  feared  that  the  vessel  had  gone  down  in  one  of  the  heavy  gales  reported  in 
the  Atlantic  that  winter.  The  Marietta  Burr  happily  came  through,  although  far 
behind  schedule.  See  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  21, 
1844,  GPY.  The  furniture  included  French  mirrors,  rugs,  chandeliers,  wallpapers, 
occasional  tables,  etc.  They  were  later  transshipped  from  New  York  to  Sherwood 
Forest.  Somewhat  over  $1000  worth  of  dry  goods  and  furniture  was  ordered  from 
New  York  to  be  shipped  directly  to  Kennon's  Landing,  James  River,  near  Sher- 
wood Forest.  See  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844,  in 
LTT,  II,  358-59;  Farrar,  Old  Virginia  Houses  Along  the  James,  124. 

6  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Nov.  25,  1844.  Neither 

593 


the  Thompson  painting  nor  the  Tyler  engraving  based  on  it  has  survived.  Thomp- 
son also  executed  a  portrait  of  Senator  David  Gardiner,  dunning  Alexander  for 
payment  with  the  artist's  age-old  observation,  "O !  This  painting  business  is  bad!" 
E.  G.  Thompson  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [New  York],  n.d.,  GPY. 

6 Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  u,  1845,  GPY; 
New  York  Herald,  Oct.  31,  1844;  Hervey  Allen,  "Special  Biographical  Introduc- 
tion," in  The  Works  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe  (New  York,  1927),  xvii;  Margaret  Gardi- 
ner to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  23,  1844,  TFP. 

7  New  York  Herald,  Oct.  27,  1844. 

8  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Nov.  25,  1844,  GPY; 
ibid.,  Nov.  27,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  356;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Washington   [Jan.  1845],  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT, 
III,  199;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  12,   1845, 
GPY.  The  Phimb  daguerreotype  unfortunately  has  not  survived. 

*  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  IV,  341-45- 
10  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  5,   1844,  in 
LTT,  II,  358;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  8, 
1844;  Joseph  S.  Watkins  to  John  Tyler,  Birch  Pond,  Tenn.,  Dec.  21,  1844,  TPLC; 
John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  359. 

21  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  7;  15,  1844,  TFP.  By 
this  time  the  behavior  of  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  had  become  so  erratic  and  his  personal 
habits  so  unpredictable  that  the  President  replaced  him  in  September  1844  as  his 
private  secretary  and  gave  the  duties  to  a  Mr.  C.  B,  Moss.  Said  the  New  York 
Herald  of  Moss:  "This  gentleman ...  is  decidedly  a  very  civil  and  worthy  young 
man — always  at  his  post  during  office  hours,  ready  and  willing  to  attend  to  all 
business  matters  coming  within  the  range  and  scope  of  his  official  duty."  New  York 
Herald,  Oct.  23,  1844. 

12  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  198. 

13  Ibid.,  197. 

14  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  6,  1844,  in  ibid., 
II,  358. 

15  The  Gardiner  Papers,  Yale  University  Library,  show  much  evidence  for  this 
statement  on  the  franking  privilege,  particularly  during  the  period  August  1844  to 
March  1845.  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  2,  1845; 
JuKana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [New  York,  1844].  For  typical  clemency, 
etc.,  requests  see  Cornelius  Dreslane  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  10, 
1845;  Mary  de  John  to  Mrs.  President  Tyler  [Washington],  Jan.  31,  1845;  Lucy 
Marie  Murphy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Chillicothe  [Ohio],  Feb.  14,  1845;  Calvin 
Durphree  to  John  Tyler,  East  Walpole,  Mass.,  Jan.  13,  1845;  L.  D.  Dewey  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Sept.  16,  1844;  Mary  Smith  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Fort  Monroe,  Va.,  July  21,  1844;   Esther  M.  Gibbons  to  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler, 
Albany,  N.Y.,  July  13,   1844;   Tris  P.  Coffin  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,   Granville 
[Ohio],  Jan.  15,  1845,  TFP;  Mrs.  William  Lynde  to  Mrs.  John  Tyler,  New  York, 
Dec.  u,  1844,  GPY.  For  Julia's  role  in  Tyler's  pardoning  of  one  "Babe,"  a  New 
York  seaman  under  sentence  of  death  for  alleged  piracy,  see  N.Y.  Herald,  Jan.  31, 
1845.  For  "The  Julia  Waltzes"  see  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New 
York,  Oct.  31,  1844;  Feb.  27,  1845;  and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Washington  [Dec.  1844].  "The  Julia  Waltzes  were  composed  by  Lovel  Purdy . . . 
dedicated  to  Mrs.  Tyler,"  and  published  by  Firth  and  Hall  at  No.   i  Franklin 
Square  and  239  Broadway,  New  York  City.  Julia  heard  that  they  were  "so  popular" 
that  the  first  edition  of  1400  copies  had  been  sold  out  quickly.  "I  understand  they 
are  very  pretty,"  she  told  her  mother.  She  instructed  Margaret  to  promote  knowl- 
edge of  the  music  among  friends  of  the  Gardiners  in  New  York.  "She  must . . .  say 
to  her  friends,  'Have  you  seen  the  Julia  Waltzes  which  are  just  out?  dedicated  to 

594 


Mrs.  Tyler.  They  are  quite  beautiful.'"  See  also  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  16,  1845,  TFP,  wherein  Margaret  dubs  Lovel 
Purdy  "the  last  of  Pea-Time"  and  notes  his  interest  in  procuring  a  consulship. 
Margaret  did  not  think  the  "Julia  Waltzes"  very  pretty,  nor  Purdy  much  of  a 
human  being. 

M  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Shelter  Island,  Dec.  3,  1844,  TFP. 
Julia  was  very  close  to  her  Uncles  Samuel  and  Nathaniel,  her  father's  younger 
brothers.  Samuel,  a  lawyer  by  profession,  lived  most  of  Ms  life  on  Shelter  Island, 
L.I.,  and  was  prominent  in  N.Y.  state  politics,  having  served  at  various  times  as 
Secretary  of  the  N.Y.  State  Constitutional  Convention  (1821),  Member  of  the 
N.Y.  State  Assembly  from  N.Y.C.  (1823-1824),  and  Deputy  Collector  of  the  Port 
of  New  York  (1825-1828).  Julia  was  particularly  close  to  his  daughters,  Mary 
(1824-1855),  Phoebe  (1826-?),  and  Francis  Eliza  (1832-?).  Julia's  Uncle  Nathaniel 
married  Elizabeth  Stensin  (1793-1842),  and  by  her  he  had  six  children.  The  eldest, 
John  Bray  Gardiner  (1821-1881)  was  Yale  1840  and  became  a  lawyer  in  N.Y.C. 
The  next  eldest  was  William  Henry  Gardiner  (1822-1879),  NYU  1844,  who  became 
a  physician  in  Brooklyn.  Julia  liked  neither  of  these  cousins  and  indeed  had  little 
to  do  with  any  of  Nathaniel's  children.  The  Nathaniel  Gardiners  lived  in  Sag 
Harbor,  L.I.,  during  Julia's  childhood.  Soon  after  Julia's  Aunt  Elizabeth  died  in 
June  1842  her  Uncle  Nathaniel  married  a  young  Miss  Ho  well,  a  match  which 
generally  horrified  the  family.  Nothing  is  known  of  Miss  Howell  save  the  family 
opinion  that  she  was  a  fortune-hunter.  For  these  and  other  genealogical  facts  about 
the  extensive  Gardiner  family  see  C.  C.  Gardiner,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  De- 
scendants, passim. 

"Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  27,  1844,  GPY; 
ibid.,  Jan.  2,  1845,  TFP. 

18  Ibid.,  Dec.  30,  1844;  Jan.  u,  1845,  GPY.  Dr.  Wat  Tyler,  the  President's 
brother,  was,  on  the  other  hand,  quite  welcome  at  the  White  House  and  he  was 
graciously  entertained  there  in  January  1845.  See  ibid.,  Jan.  25,  1845,  GPY. 

10  Mary  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  Feb.  6,  1840;  Nov.  27, 
1839;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov.  1844],  TFP. 
Alexander  Gardiner,  a  stern  judge  of  women,  said  of  Mary  and  Phoebe  when  they 
were  sixteen  and  fourteen  respectively:  "They  altogether  lack  matter  of  conversa- 
tion and  hide  their  talents  under  a  bushel  [but]  they  are  somehow  interesting." 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner  [New  York,  Summer  1840],  GPY. 

20  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  i;  8;  22,  1845, 
GPY.  Horsford  was  A.M.,  Union  College,   1843;   A.M.   (Hon.)   Harvard  College, 
1847;  and  M.D.,  Castleton  Medical  College   (Vt),  1847.  In  1861-1862  he  served 
as  Dean,  Lawrence  Science  School,  Harvard  University. 

21  Samuel  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  June  2,  1843 ;  Alex- 
an-der  Gardiner  to  Samuel  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  5,  1843,  GPY. 

22  Unidentified  newspaper  clipping ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Washington,   Jan.   8,    1845,   GPY;   Robert   Tyler,   "Phoebe  the   Coquette,"   poem 
quoted  in  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  27,  1845, 
TFP. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  5;  10,  1845, 
GPY. 

24 Ibid.,  Jan.  22;  Feb.  12;  20,  1845,  GPY.  In  1847  Douglas  married  Martha 
Martin,  daughter  of  Col.  Robert  Martin  of  North  Carolina.  Her  death  in  1853  very 
nearly  broke  him  psychologically.  In  1856  he  married  Adele  Curtis,  a  Maryland 
belle  and  grandniece  of  Dolley  Madison.  Adele  Curtis  Douglas  later  became  the 
undisputed  leader  of  Washington  society,  especially  during  the  winter  of  1857-1858, 
when  bachelor  President  James  Buchanan  was  in  the  White  House. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  [Mid- Jan.  1845], 
GPY. 

595 


28  Ibid.,  Jan.  10,  1845,  GPY;  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  15,  1845. 

27  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1844;  Jan. 
5;  ii ;  22;  Feb.  8;  Jan.  10;  i,  1845,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  and  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  8,  1845,  TFP. 

38  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  22;  23,  1845; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  28,  1845,  GPY. 

28  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington  [Dec.  1844],  TFP; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander   Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29,   1844;  Jan.  23, 
1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  11,  1845,  GPY. 

30  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  27,  1844;  Jan.  i, 
1845,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  8,  1845, 
TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  9,  1845,  GPY. 

31  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  5,  1845,  GPY. 
82  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington  [Dec.  1844];  Juliana 

Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  11,  1845,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardi- 
ner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  12;  20,  1845;  Margaret  Gardiner  and 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington  [Feb.  12,  1845] ;  David  L. 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  14,  1845,  GPY, 

33  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner  (two  letters),  Washington,  Feb.  n, 
1845,  GPY;  and  ibid.,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washing- 
ton, Jan.  n,  1845;  see  also  ibid.,  Jan.  10;  Feb.  12;  20,  1845,  for  further  data  on 
David  Lyon's  relations  with  the  Misses  Henderson,  Wright,  and  Bayard.  For  the 
Alice  Tyler-David  L.  Gardiner  rumor,  see  ibid.,  Jan.  22,  1845,  GPY. 

Z4clbid.}  Jan.  23,  1845;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Shelter 
Island,  Mar.  28,  1845,  TFP.  (Alice  Tyler's  proposals  came  from  a  Mr.  Lawrence  of 
New  York,  a  Dr.  Esselman  of  Tennessee,  and  a  Judge  Irvin  of  Virginia.)  David  L. 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  21,  1844,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Mary  Hedges,  Washington  [Jan.  22,  1845],  TFP. 

85  Alice  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [Williamsburg] ,  Nov.  6,  1844;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [New  York],  n.d.  [probably  mid-Nov.  1844], 
TFP. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  22,  1845;  Dec. 
29,  1844;  Feb.  12,  1845,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Phoebe  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Mar.  27,  1845;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Shelter  Island,  Mar.  28, 
1845,  TFP.  Gushing  had  married  Caroline  Elizabeth  Wilde  in  Newburyport,  Mass., 
in  November  1824.  She  was  frail,  her  health  was  poor,  and  she  was  often  confined 
indoors  until  her  death  in  August  1832.  Her  passing  left  Gushing  truly  grief- 
stricken,  Claude  M.  Fuess,  The  Life  of  Caleb  Gushing,  2  vols.  (New  York,  1923),  I, 
58-59,  129-30.  His  interest  in  Alice  Tyler  seems  to  have  been  the  first  in  any  other 
woman  since  the  death  of  his  wife. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  12,  1845;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington  [mid- Jan.  1845],  GPY;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  n.d.  [.circa  Jan.  25,  1845] ;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Mary  Hedges,  Washington  [Jan.  22,  1845],  TFP. 

38  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  i  [1844] ;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Feb.  25;  28,  1845,  TFP;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  8,  1845,  GPY. 

»/6itfv  Jan.  i,  1845,  GPY;  ibid.,  Jan.  2,  1845,  TFP. 

40  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  3,  1845. 

*^lbid.t  Jan.  12,  1845. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  8,  1845,  GPY. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  8,  1845,  GPY. 

u Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  10:  n,  1845, 
GPY. 

45  Bess  Furman,  White  House  Profile  (Indianapolis,  1951),  129. 

596 


46  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Mary  Hedges,  Washington  [Jan.  22,  1845],  TFP; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  22,  1845,  GPY. 
*  Ibid.,  GPY. 

48  Ibid.,  Jan.  n;  24,  1845,  GPY. 
48  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  8,   1845,  GPY. 

50  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  Post  Office,  New  York,  midnight,  Jan. 
24,  1845,  GPY. 

51  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  22;   25;   Feb. 
7,  1845,  GPY;  F.  W.  Thomas  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  (two  letters),  Washington, 
n.d.   [circa  Feb.  10-12,  1845];  O.  B.  Goldsmith  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan. 
15,  1845,  TFP. 

52  David   L.    Gardiner    to   Alexander    Gardiner,    Washington,   Feb.    14,    1845; 
Margaret    Gardiner   to   Alexander    Gardiner,   Washington,    Feb.    12,    1845,   GPY; 
Juliana    Gardiner   to   Alexander    Gardiner,   Washington    [Feb.   9,    1845] ;    Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  19,  1845;  F.  W.  Thomas  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  n.d.  [Feb.  10-12,  1845],  TFP. 

53  Juliana  Gardiner  and  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
May  19,  1845,  TFP. 

54  This  account  of  the  Feb.  18  ball  is  based  primarily  upon  Margaret  Gardiner 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  20,  1845,  GPY;  and  upon  Thomas'  ac- 
count in  the  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  22,  1845;  see  also  LTT,  II,  361. 

^Alexander  Gardiner,  "Mrs.  Tyler's  Farewell  Ball,"  Washington,  Feb.  20, 
1845,  TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Feb.  26,  1845, 
GPY. 

56  John  Tyler  to  Editors  of  the  US.  Journal,  James  City,  Va.,  Dec.  27,  1845, 
in  Noah,  "Reminiscences,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch,  Jan.  n,  1846. 


CHAPTER    II 

1  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  5;  8;  10;  Feb. 
ii ;  12,  1845,  GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov. 
1844] ;  Dec.  i,  1844,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington 
[Jan.  1845],  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Mary  Hedges,  Washington  [Jan.  22, 
1845],  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  12,  1845, 
GPY. 

2  John  Tyler  to  N.  P.  Tallmadge,  Washington,  Nov.  7,  1844,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler 
(ed.) ,  "Some  Letters  of  Tyler  . . . ,"  loc.  cit.,  g ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardi- 
ner, Washington,  Dec.  23,  1844,  TFP;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  8,  1845. 

8  He  suggested  that  the  District  Attorney,  Ogden  Hoffman  ("The  fact  is  he  is  a 
Webster  man")  be  replaced  by  R.  H.  Morris;  that  Surveyor  Jonathan  O.  Fowler 
give  way  to  Charles  G.  Ferris,  a  protege  of  Robert  Tyler  and  onetime  Tyler 
nominee  for  the  collectorship  but  rejected  by  the  Senate;  and  that  U.S.  Marshal 
Stilwell  be  replaced  by  William  Shaler.  He  was  not  convinced,  however,  that 
Shaler  would  gain  Senate  approval,  and  suggested  for  him  the  alternate  job  of 
consul  at  Havana,  a  post  once  held  by  Shaler's  father  under  Jackson.  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  27,  1844,  TFP;  ibid.,  Nov.  23,  1844, 
TPLC.  Tyler  had  no  use  for  Hoffman  or  Stilwell  and  was  quite  ready  to  purge 
them.  But  largely  on  the  advice  of  Gen.  William  Gibbs  McNeill,  a  frequent  White 
House  visitor  during  these  months  and  according  to  Margaret  "not  at  all  afraid 
to  speak  his  thoughts,"  Tyler  nominated  Henry  C.  Atwood  as  Surveyor  and 
James  H.  Suydam  as  Navy  Agent.  When  Suydam  was  rejected  by  the  Senate, 
thanks  in  large  measure  to  the  hostile  intervention  of  James  Watson  Webb,  editor 
of  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  Tyler  nominated  Prosper  M.  Wetmore  as 

597 


Navy  Agent.  Wetmore's  brother,  Robert  C.,  had  earlier  been  removed  from  the  same 
job  by  Tyler  for  corruption.  He  had,  however,  the  strong  support  of  the  New 
York  mercantile  community.  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washing- 
ton, Jan.  10 ;  Feb.  12,  1845;  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan. 
4,  1845,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  i,  1844,  in 
LTT,  II,  357.  See  also  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  13,  1844;  Jan.  14;  15;  18;  Feb.  9, 
1845;  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  Dec.  4,  1844.  On  the  Ely  Moore  appoint- 
ment, see  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  8,  1845, 
TFP. 

4  David  H.   Broderick   to   Alexander   Gardiner,   New  York,   Nov.    12,    1844; 
Thomas  Dunn  English  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  20,  1844;  William 
Shannon   to   Alexander   Gardiner,   New   York,   Nov.   20,    1844,   GPY;   Alexander 
Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  6;  Nov.  28,  1844,  TFP;  ibid.,  Nov.  23, 
1844,  TPLC;  David  Palmer  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  Nov.  24;  Dec.  5, 
1844;  David  Palmer  to  John  Tyler,  Brooklyn,  n.d.;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David 
Palmer  [New  York,  Nov.  26,  1844] ;  William  Gibbs  McNeill  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Brooklyn,  Dec.  13,  1844,  GPY. 

5  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  8,  1844,  TPLC; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York  [Nov.  27,  1844];  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  27,  1844,  TFP;  Judge  Ogden 
Edwards  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York  [Nov.  1844],  GPY. 

"Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Aug.  18,  1844; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Nov.  25,  1844 ;  Mrs.  Wil- 
liam Lynde  {.nee  M.  P.  Stimson]  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  n, 
1844,  GPY. 

7  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  30,   1844;   Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  8,  1845 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  10,  1844,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  359. 

8  Southampton  Citizens  Petition  to  Charles  A.  Wickliffe,  Forwarded  to  Alex- 
ander Gardiner,  Southampton,  N.Y.,  Dec.  n,  1844,  GPY ;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  i,   1844,  in  LTT,  II,  357;   Judge  R.  J.  Church  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  Dec.  4,  1844;  Amos  Palmer  to  the  Appriser's  [sic] 
Office,  Forwarded  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  30,  1844;  John  Lorimer 
Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  6,  1844,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  15,  1844,  TFP;  New  York  Courier  and 
Enquirer,  Dec.  4,   1844.  The  criticism  from  the   Conner  and  Enquirer,  sent  to 
Alexander  by  John  Lorimer  Graham,  was  found  carefully  preserved  among  his 
papers  a  century  and  a  quarter  later.  He  apparently  got  a  wry  pleasure  from  it. 
Better  notoriety  than  anonymity. 

9  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  15,  1844,  TFP; 
Alexander  L.  Botts  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  2,  1844;  Daniel  Day- 
ton to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Feb.  15,  1845.  The  appointment  of 
distant  cousin  Charles  Gardiner  of  Brooklyn  to  a  clerkship  in  the  Brooklyn  Navy 
Yard  was  somewhat  more  smoothly  handled.  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  June  n,  1844,  GPY. 

10  John  D.  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  Sag  Harbor,  Dec.  6,  1844,  TFP;  Mary 
L'Hommedieu  Gardiner  [Mrs.  John  D.  Gardiner],  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sag 
Harbor,  Dec.   18,   1844,   GPY;   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to   Juliana   Gardiner    [Old 
Point  Comfort],  July  [5],  1844;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East 
Hampton,  Aug.  8,  1844,  TFP. 

11  New  York  Herald,  Apr.  27,  1845;   [David  L.  Gardiner?]  to  James  Gordon 
Bennett,  Apr.  7,  1845,  (draft  fragment  of  a  letter),  GPY. 

u  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sag  Harbor,  Jan.  19,  1845,  GPY. 

598 


13  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Sept.  3,  1844, 
TFP. 

"  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Sept.  8,  1844;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Sept.  3,  1844;  New  York, 
Oct.  14,  1844,  TFP. 

15  Ibid.,  Dec.  7,  1844;  Jan  8,  1845,  TFP;  Ezra  L'H.  Gardiner  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Sag  Harbor,  Jan.  2,  1845,  GPY ';  New  York  Herald,  Feb.  u,  1845; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  23,  1844,  TPLC. 

™Ibid.,  Nov.  28;  Dec.  15,  1844,  TFP;  ibid.,  Nov.  23,  1844,  TPLC. 

17  Ibid.,  Dec.  15,  1844,  TFP;  Mary  L'H.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sag 
Harbor,  Dec.  18,  1844,  GPY. 

18  Samuel  L.   Gardiner  to   David   L.   Gardiner,   Sag  Harbor,   Jan.   19,   1845; 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Memorandum,  n.p.,  n.d.   [New  York,  circa  mid- Jan.  1845], 
GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  9,  1845;  David 
L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  19,  1845,  TFP. 

19  George  D.  Strong  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  4,  1845,  GPY; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  14,  1844,  TFP;  New 
York  Herald,  Feb.  u,  1845;  John  N.  Dayton  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Albany,  Jan. 
19,  1845,  GPY. 

20  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  9,   1845,  TFP; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to   Margaret   Gardiner    [Washington,   Feb.   27,   1845],   GPY; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [Washington,  circa  Jan.  25,  1845],  TFP. 

21  John  N.  Dayton  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Albany,  Feb.  12;   15,  1845,  GPY; 
New  York  Herald,  Apr.  27,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New 
York,  Apr.  10,  1845,  TFP. 

22 Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1844,  GPY; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  11,  1845,  TFP.  Juliana 
thought  Sarah  Polk  "looked  very  well  and  acted  her  part  well." 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  29,  1844,  GPY; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [Washington,  Feb.  9,  1845;  mid-Jan. 
1845],  TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  9,  1845, 
GPY;  New  York  Herald,  Dec.  30,  1844. 

24 Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  i,  1845,  GPY; 
J.  George  Harris  to  George  Bancroft,  Nashville,  Sept.  13,  1887,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler, 
"Some  Letters  of  Tyler . . . ,"  loc.  cit.t  14-15;  Silas  Reed  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Boston, 
Apr.  8,  1885;  A.  V.  Brown  to  James  K.  Polk,  Washington,  Jan.  24,  1845,  in 
LTT,  II,  Appendix  D,  698;  III,  157-58;  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  15;  16,  1845. 

*5  Ibid.,  Jan.  18;  Mar.  12,  1845. 

20  Ibid.,  Jan.  14,  1845;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington, 
Feb.  8;  26,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  n, 
1845,  GPY;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  6,  1845;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  2,  1845,  TPLC. 

27  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  19;  22;  25, 
1844;  Jan.  4,  1845;  N.  T.  Eldridge  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  9, 
1845,  GPY;  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  14,  1845.  Tyler's  use  of  profanity  was  often 
commented  upon.  "The  People  here  make  a  great  fuss  about  the  President's  swear- 
ing," Margaret  wrote  Julia  soon  after  the  Old  Point  Comfort  honeymoon.  "If  so, 

you  must  bid  him  read  St.  Matthew "  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 

Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [circa  Nov.  1844],  TFP. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  8,  1844,  TPLC. 

20 New  York  Herald,  Jan.  31;  Feb.  2;  6;  Jan.  29;  Mar.  6;  Jan.  2,  1845. 

30  Alexander  Gardiner,  Texas  Resolutions  and  Memorandum,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New 
York,  Jan.  24,  1845] ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  midnight, 
Jan.  24,  1845,  GPY;  LTT,  II,  360.  An  account  of  Tammany's  "Great  Texas  Meet- 

599 


ing"  and  Robert  Tyler's  speech  there  is  found  in  the  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  25, 
1845.  Also  addressing  the  rally  were  Cornelius  P.  Van  Ness,  John  I.  Mumford,  and 
David  H.  Broderick. 

31  Ibid.,  Jan.  27;  29,  1845;  New  York  Express,  Jan.  28,  1845. 

^Alexander  Gardiner,  Draft  Memorandum  on  Texas  Annexation,  n.p.,  n.d. 
[New  York,  Nov.  i844-Feb.  1845],  GPY ';  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  16,  1845,  TFP;  Interview  with  Judge  J.  Randall  Creel  and 
his  wife,  Alexandra  Gardiner  Creel,  Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island,  N.Y.,  Aug.  28,  1959. 
Judge  Creel  summarized  for  the  author  the  contents  of  some  dozen  Alexander  Gar- 
diner and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  letters  bearing  on  the  Texas  annexation  question. 
These  letters,  held  apart  from  those  deposited  by  Mrs.  Creel  in  the  Manuscript 
Collection  of  Yale  University  Library,  support  the  statement  on  Alexander  Gar- 
diner's considerable  propaganda  and  pressure  activities  on  behalf  of  Texas  annexa- 
tion during  the  period  November  1844  to  February  1845.  They  also  point  up 
Julia's  flirtations  and  social  machinations  for  annexation  at  various  White  House 
functions  in  greater  detail  than  do  those  letters  in  the  Gardiner  Papers  at  Yale. 
Unfortunately,  these  crucial  letters  became  lost,  were  misplaced  in  moving,  or  were 
accidentally  burned  during  the  winter  of  1958-1959. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  28;  Jan.  10; 
25,  1845;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  9,  1845, 
GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  u;  28,  1845, 
TFP. 

34  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [Alexander  Gardiner]  [Washington],  Feb.  23,  1845. 
in  LTT,  II,  361;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  [Washington,  Feb.  27, 
1845],  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1845, 
TFP;  LTT,  II,  362-65. 

85  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  ibid.,  Ill,  200;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  6,  1845,  in  ibid.,  II,  369;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1845,  TFP;  New  York 
Herald,  Mar.  4,  1845 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar. 
4,  1845,  TPLC;  LTT,  II,  365-66. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  2,  1845, 
TPLC;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  n.d.  [mid- Jan.  1845], 
TFP. 

37  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  May  n,  1844,  GPY. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Sept.  3,  1844; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Sept.  8,  1844;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844,  TFP. 

^Robert  Tyler  and  John  Tyler,  quoted  in  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  23,  1845,  GPY ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  9,  1844,  TPLC;  ibid.,  Jan.  8,  1845,  TFP. 

40  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  9;  Feb.  9,  1845; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander   Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.   12,    1845;   Juliana 
Gardiner   to    Alexander    Gardiner,    Washington,    Feb.    n,    1845;    William    Gibbs 
McNeill  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Feb.  4;  6,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  n.d.  [circa  Feb.  10-13,  1845],  GPY. 

41  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  8,  1844,  TPLC; 
Joel  B.   Sutherland  to  Andrew  Jackson,   Philadelphia,   Aug.   20,   1844,  in  LTT, 
III,  147;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  27,   1844,  TFP; 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  8,  1845,  GPY. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  n,  1845,  TFP; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  23,  1845,  GPY. 

a  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  9,  1845,  TFP; 
New  York  Herald,  Feb.  20,  1845;  Margaret  and  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander 

600 


Gardiner,  Washington  [Feb.  12,  1845] ;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  July  13,  1847,  GPY ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  York,  Apr.  i;  15,  1845,  TPLC.  Judge  Samuel  Nelson's  appointment  to  the 
Supreme  Court  was  strongly  urged  by  author  James  Fenimore  Cooper.  Tyler  later 
(1847)  said  that  Cooper's  endorsement  of  Nelson  most  influenced  his  nomination 
of  Nelson  to  the  Court.  Margaret  thought  Justice  Nelson  "not  very  remarkable 
in  any  way — about  equal  to  what  one  might  expect  [from]  such  a  village  as 
Cooperstown."  He  was,  she  told  Julia,  "quite  a  handsome  man  but  not  par- 
ticularly neat  in  his  dress."  See  on  Nelson,  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  July  13,  1847,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  May  16;  June  13,  1845,  TFP. 

44  The  financial  history  of  the  Gardiner-Tyler  family  alliance  is  discussed 
and  documented  further  in  various  following  chapters.  For  details  of  the  Alexander- 
Julia  loan  of  April  1845  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Feb.  14;  28,  1851,  TFP. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  13,  1846,  in 
LTT,  II,  451;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  2,  1847; 
Robert  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  July  18,  1847;  John  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  13,  1847,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  13,  1847;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  14,  1845 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Washington  [Feb.  9,  1845],  TFP. 


CHAPTER    12 

1  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  20,  1845,  GPY. 

2  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  28,  1845,  GPY; 
ibid.,  Feb.  27,   1845;   Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Feb. 
25,  1845   (Juliana  left  Washington  in  such  haste  that  she  did  not  return  some 
dozen  calls  she  owed.  She  instructed  Alexander  to  present  her  apologies  to  those 
she  had  neglected) ;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Shelter  Island,  Mar. 
28,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  28,  1845, 
TFP. 

3  John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Washington,  Mar.  i,  1845,  TPLC; 
Julia   Gardiner  Tyler   to   Mary    Gardiner,   Washington,  n.d.    [Mar.   1845] ;    Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  6,  1845;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  4,  1845,  in  LTT,  II,  365-66,  368-69,  368; 
New  York  Herald,  Mar.  4;  5,  1845. 

*  Tyler's  farewell  speech  in  the  Blue  Room  as  recorded  here  is  based  on  a 
composite  of  several  published  and  unpublished  eyewitness  accounts,  principally 
those  found  in  Alexander  Gardiner,  Memorandum,  Washington,  n.d.  [Mar.  5,  1845], 
GPY;  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  Washington,  Mar.  3,  1845,  reprinted  in 
LTT,  II,  366-67;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  5,  1845;  and  on  evidence  found  in 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  LTT,  III,  200.  The  author  has  changed 
verb  tenses  and  the  person  of  pronouns  to  cast  it  in  the  present  tense. 

5  Alexander  Gardiner,  Memorandum,  Washington,  n.d.  [Mar.  5,  1845],  GPY; 
ibid.,  Mar.  4,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  6, 
1845,  in  LTT,  II,  367-68,  368-70. 

6  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  9,  1845,  TFP; 
New  York  Herald,  Mar.  6,  1845. 

7  Alexander   Gardiner  to   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Mar.   73   1845, 

601 


TPLC;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York  [Mar.  3,  1845], 
TFP.  "Alas!"  mourned  Margaret,  "I  can  direct  no  more  [letters]  under  cover  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States." 

8  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  6,  1845,  in  LTT, 
II,  568-70;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  "Reminiscences,"  in  ibid.,  Ill,  201 ;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.   6,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  9,   1845;   Edmund  Ruffin  to   Jane  M. 
Ruffin,  Marlbourne,  Mar.  21,  1854  (copy),  TFP. 

9  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  9,  1845; 
Julia   Gardiner   Tyler   to   Alexander   Gardiner,    Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.    i,    1845; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Phoebe  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  27,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to   Margaret   Gardiner,   Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.   18,   1845;    Julia   Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  3,  1845,  TFP.  "Your  descriptions 
of  Broadway  and  its  promenades  made  me  feel  indeed  like  two  years  ago"  she 
confessed  to  her  mother.  "How  I  should  like  to  have  been  with  you  in  your 
walk  just  for  the  sake  of  Auld  Lang  Syne." 

10  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  30,  1845;  Julia 
Gardiner   Tyler  to   Margaret   Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.    10,    1845;    Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  27,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler   to   Alexander    Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.    [16],    1845,    TFP;    Julia 
Gardiner   Tyler   to   Margaret   Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.   25,    1845,    GPY. 
The  reclining  iron  dogs  may  still  be  seen  at  Sherwood  Forest,  guarding  the  main 
entrance.  Family  tradition  has  it  that  they  were  procured  from  the  Manor  House 
on  Gardiners  Island.  Julia's  guitar  music  has  not  survived.  "Collect  all  my  guitar 
music  that  is  left  at  home,"  Julia  instructed  Margaret  on  April  25,  "and  get  me 
besides — 'Come  Sing  That  Simple  Air  Again7  and  'The  Origin  of  the  Harp'  if  it  is 
set  easy  to  the  guitar." 

11  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.   [16], 
1845 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [.circa  Apr.— May 
1845] ;   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to   David  L.  Gardiner,   Sherwood  Forest,   Apr.   16, 
1845.  Juliana  thought  that  "liveries  in  our  country  are  bad  taste.  I  have  always 
thought  so."  Her  daughter,  obviously,  did  not  agree.  Juliana  Gardiner  to   Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  18,  1845,  TFP. 

12  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.    [June 
1845] ;  June  10,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  Benjamin  Butler,  Staten  Island, 
N.Y.,  Nov.  7,  1864,  TFP. 

13  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  10,  1845, 
TFP. 

"John  Tyler  to  Messrs.  Corcoran  and  Riggs,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  6,  1845, 
TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  22, 
1845,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Machen  Boswell  Seawell,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  n, 
1845,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  XIII  (October  1931),  76-77. 

15  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  18,  1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.   [circa  May  15, 
1845] ;   Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May   19,    [1845] ; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  June  5,  1845,  TFP. 

16  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [mid-May 
1845];  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  19;  22,  1845, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21,  1845,  TPLC; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  17,  1845,  TFP. 

17  Ibid.,  Mar.  26,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
n.d.  [May  1845] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Apr.  10 ;  16,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
June  17,  1845.  Margaret  had  written  her  sister  the  latest  New  York  scandal — 
a   messy    adultery    case    involving   members    of    the    prominent    Dow    and    Van 

602 


Rensselaer  families.  This  probably  produced  Julia's  sharp  view  of  the  decline  and 
fall  of  New  York  society.  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Mar.  22,  1845,  TFP. 

18  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  19,  1845; 
Julia   Gardiner  Tyler   to   Alexander   Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,  June   17,    1845, 
TFP, 

19  For  Tyler's  farming  operations  at  Sherwood  Forest,  1845-1855,  see  Julia  Gar- 
diner Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  19,  1845,  TFP;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  25,  1852, 
TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  6,  1849; 
Mar.  24;  Apr.  9;  June  19,  1851;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  June  17,  1845,   TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  14;  Mar.  19,  1851,  GPY ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gar- 
diner Tyler,  New  York,  Aug.  6,  1845,  TPLC;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardi- 
ner, Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  10;  17,  1850;  Sept.  27,  1855,  GPY;  ibid.,  Aug.  25,  1853, 
TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  Apr.  20,  1847, 
GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Philip  R.  Fendall,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  19,  1845,  Philip  R. 
Fendall  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Nov.  10,  1846,  TPLC;  ibid.,  Feb.  21;  Apr.  9,  1849,  GPY;  John  Tyler 
to  H.  A.  Cocke,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  21,  1848,  Tyler  Papers,  Duke  University 
Library;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  17,  1850,  in  LTT,  II, 
482. 

30  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  19,  1845, 
TFP.  For  further  details  of  Sherwood  Forest  agriculture  prior  to  1845,  see  John 
Tyler  to  Mary  Tyler  Jones,  Washington,  Dec.  20,  1843;  June  4,  1844,  TPLC. 

21  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  19,  1845, 
TFP. 

22  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  16,  1845, 
TFP.  See  Chapter  19. 

23  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  10;  May  27;  Oct. 
29;  Nov.  2;   18,  1845;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Nov.  10,  1845,  TFP.  Catherine  left  Sherwood  Forest  in  the  summer  of  1847  to  be 
married.  Alexander  was  sure  her  husband  would  "scatter  her  earnings  in  a  very 
brief  period,"  and  that  she  would  be  back  again.  But  she  never  returned.  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  i,  1847,  TPLC. 

**  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  17,  1847, 
TFP. 

23  Tyler  Family  Papers,  1845-1860,  passim. 

30  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  3,  1845; 
Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller  to  John  Tyler,  Williamsburg,  May  19,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25;  [Dec.]  1845,  TFP; 
John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  18,  1845,  TPLC. 
For  data  on  Julia's  relations  with  Alice  Tyler,  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [July];  July  8,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  18;  Apr.  15;  [Summer] 
1845;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  June  26-28,  1845; 
Alice  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Williamsburg,  May  29,  1845,  TFP. 

27  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  9,  1845,  GPY; 
New  York  Herald,  Apr.  7;  30,  1845;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  York,  Apr.  4;  May  2,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  May  8;  July  22,  1845,  TFP.  For  the  sad  career  of  John  Tyler, 
Jr.,  1845-1855,  see  Gardiner  Papers,  1845-1855,  Yale  University  Library,  passim; 
and  Tyler  Family  Papers,  1845-1855,  passim. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  19  [1845];  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1845,  TFP. 

603 


29 Ibid.,  June  2,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  TyJer  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  May  29;  June  $;  Oct.  9,  1845;  Margaret  F.  Ritchie  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Brandon,  n.d.  [June  3,  1845] ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
East  Hampton,  June  5,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Dec.  9,  1845,  TFP;  ibid.,  Richmond,  Aug.  3,  1845,  GPY.  Gushing 
at  various  times  on  this  trip  south  pursued  Miss  Ritchie,  Miss  Harper  of  Baltimore, 
Miss  Bromlee  of  Richmond,  and  Miss  Bruce  of  Richmond.  "Miss  Bruce  has  re- 
jected, so  they  say,  the  Minister  of  China,"  Julia  reported.  "All  his  laurels  were 
not  quite  enough  for  her  or  Miss  Harper  it  seems.  Perhaps  he  will  distinguish 
himself  another  time  and  then  try  somewhere  else  again."  Julia  thought  the 
Chinese  vases  were  "magninco  . . .  [though]  what  they  are  intended  for  I  do  not 
know  except  to  look  at,  and  so  I  have  placed  them  before  each  mirror." 

30  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  June  27,  1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  June  29,  1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  9,  1845, 
TFP.  The  campaign  to  propitiate  the  Ritchies  paid  handsome  dividends.  By 
February  1846  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  now  edited  by  Ritchie's  son  Robert,  was 
carrying  "flattering  notices"  of  Tyler.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  5,  1846,  TFP. 

81  Ibid.,  Old  Point  Comfort,  June  29,  1845,  TFP. 

32  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  12;  23; 
Nov.  20,  1845;  ibid.,  Norfolk,  n.d.   [Fall  1845],  TFP;  LTT,  II,  466.  There  are 
several  versions  of  the  "General"  epitaph.  See  also  Joseph  N.  Kane,  Facts  about 
the  Presidents  (New  York,  1959),  125. 

33  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  2,  1845;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.   29;    [Nov.   i],   1845;   Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  20;  Dec.  5,  1845,  TFP. 

**°Ibid.,  June  23,  1845.  For  Julia's  constant  struggle  against  ticks,  fleas,  mos- 
quitoes, and  other  insects  at  Sherwood  Forest,  see  ibid.  Needless  to  say,  her  com- 
passion for  God's  creatures  did  not  extend  to  these  miserable  pests.  The  insect 
problem  was  a  continuing  one  for  families  along  the  James.  Constant  war  raged 
between  the  human  and  insect  kingdoms  with  honors  about  even.  See  also  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [1846],  TFP. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  14,  1845;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  29,  1845,  TFP; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Aug.  3,  1845,  GPY. 

36  Alice  Tyler  and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  White  Sulphur 
Springs,  Va.,  Aug.  23,  1845,  TFP. 

37  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  16,  1845; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Newport,  R.I.,  Aug.  20,  1845;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  [Alice  Tyler],  New  York,  Aug.  28,  1845,  TFP. 

38  Margaret  Gardiner  and  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Aug.  19,  1845,  TFP. 

30  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  17,  1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  17,  1845, 
TFP;  ibid.,  Richmond,  Aug.  3;  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  16,  1845;  John  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  Sept.  15,  1845 ;  Robert  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner, Philadelphia,  Sept.  22,  1845,  GPY. 

40  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  2,  1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  23,  1845,  TFP. 

tt  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  16,  1845, 
GPY. 

42  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  4,  184$, 
TFP. 


604 


CHAPTER    13 

1  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [Margaret  Gardiner],  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [1846]; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  July  3,  1844,  TFP;  John 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1844,  in  LTT,  II,  359;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  1845;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  2,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1845,  TFP, 

2 Robert  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  July  25,  [1846],  GPY; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Rockaway,  LI.,  N.Y.,  Aug.  6,  1845, 
TPLC.  Among  papers  which  were  generally  pro-Tyler  and  were  financially  aided 
and  otherwise  sustained  by  Tyler,  Robert,  and  Alexander  were  Dunn  English's 
Aristidean  in  New  York,  Col.  John  S.  Cunningham's  Portsmouth  (Va.)  New  Era, 
the  Philadelphia  Truth-Teller,  and  the  Richmond  (Va.)  Old  Dominion.  The  Nor- 
folk (Va.)  Pilot  was  also  in  this  category.  On  this  point  see  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  29,  1845,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  17;  Apr.  23,  1846;  Robert 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  Mar.  30,  1846,  GPY;  Alexander  Gar- 
diner to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  17,  1846,  TPLC;  LTT,  II,  411-12. 

8  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  4,  1845 ;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  [New  York],  Mar.  22  [1846];  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  June  29,  1845;  J.  Holbrook  to  John  Tyler,  Boston, 
Nov.  9,  1844,  TFP;  New  York  Herald,  Jan.  7,  1845;  Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler, 
Philadelphia,  Sept.  22  [1846],  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  23,  1845,  GPY ;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood 
Forest,  June  14,  1848,  in  LTT,  II,  460;  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Jan.  23,  1848,  Tyler  Papers,  Duke  University  Library. 

4  Susan  [?]  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Mar.  27,  1845,  TFP;  N.  M. 
Miller  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  31;  20,  1845;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  N.  M.  Miller,  New  York,  Mar.  13,  1845,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  15,  1845,  TFP. 

5  Alexander  Gardiner  to  [James  K.  Polk],  New  York,  n.d.  [circa  Mar  .-May 
1845]  (two  draft  letters),  GPY. 

6  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  9,  1845;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  n,  1845,  TFP;  ibid., 
Apr.   15,   1845,   TPLC;  Coleman,  Priscilla   Cooper  Tyler,  111-12;   120-21.  Tom 
Cooper  retired  from  his  inspectorship  in  the  summer  of  1846.  He  was  then  71  and 
had  become  quite  senile. 

7  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  9,  1845;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner   [Sherwood  Forest],  n.d.  {circa  May  1845], 
TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler   [New  York,  Apr.   i,  1845], 
TPLC;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  6,  1845,  TFP; 
George  D.  Strong  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  13,  1845,  GPY;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  June  5,  1845;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  23,  1845,  TFP.  On  the  ques- 
tion of   Graham's  honesty  in  office  see  the  printed  brochure  of  his  December 
1848  correspondence  with  Matthew  St.  Clair  Clarke,  former  Auditor  of  the  Post 
Office  Department  in  GPY.  The  evidence  is  inconclusive. 

8  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21,  1845;  N.  P. 
Tallmadge  to  Robert  J.  Walker,  Faycheedah,  Wisconsin  Territory,  Apr.  15,  1845* 
in  LTT,  II,  445;  III,  159;  New  York  Herald,  Apr.  14,  1845;  Lyon  G.  Tyler, 
"The  Annexation  of  Texas,"  Tyler's  Quarterly,  VI  (October  1924),  88,  92-93- 

605 


*N.  M.  MiHer  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Mar.  20,  1845,  GPY ; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  27,  1845;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  27,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  10,  1845,  TFP ;  New  York  Herald, 
Mar.  22;  30,  1845;  William  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  June  2,  1845; 
Robert  Tyler  to  [Robert  J.]  Walker,  Philadelphia,  Oct.  17  [1845],  TPLC. 

10  William  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  June  2,  1845,  TPLC;  John  Tyler 
to  William  Collins,  New  York,  Sept.  17,  1845,  in  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "Some  Letters  of 
Tyler  . . . ,"  loc.  cit.,  10-11. 

11  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Summer  1848],  in 
LTT,  II,  461-62 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton, 
June  5,  1845,  TFP;  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  "The  Annexation  of  Texas,"  loc.  cit.,  92-93. 

12  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  5;  12;  Dec.  16, 
1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [May  1845;  1846], 
TFP;  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  14,   1845; 
June  30,  1846;  A.  B.  Conger  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sept.  20,  1846;  N.  M.  Miller 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  June  5,  1846,  GPY. 

13Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  113,  116-17,  122-23;  James  Buchanan  to 
Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1847,  TPLC.  In  May  1846  Priscilla's  daughter 
Grace  was  born.  When  he  began  his  Philadelphia  law  practice  in  1845  Robert 
lived  in  Bristol,  Pa.,  and  commuted  by  train  to  his  office  every  morning  at  six 
o'clock.  His  commuter's  fare  was  $10  per  year.  He  rented  a  small  house  in 
Bristol  for  $60  per  year.  With  some  justification  for  the  view,  Julia  thought 
that  he  tended  to  live  beyond  his  means.  See  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  22,  1845;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [May  1845],  TFP.  Robert  made  extra  money 
lecturing  on  such  topics  as  "The  Conflict  Between  Monarchial  and  Republican 
Principles"  and  "The  Oregon  Dispute/'  Alexander  helped  him  engage  halls  for  this 
activity  in  New  York.  See  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New 
York,  Feb.  22,  1846,  TPLC;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Robert  Tyler,  New  York, 
Feb.  27,  1846,  GPY.  For  concern  for  the  plight  of  Robert  and  Priscilla  felt  within 
the  family  as  a  whole,  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Washing- 
ton, Dec.  9,  1844;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  30, 
1845;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Fire  Island,  N.Y.,  Aug.  29, 
[1845];  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  10,  1844; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  6,  1845;  Mar.  26, 
1846;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  Dec.  7  [1849]. 
Shortly  after  the  death  of  Mary  Fairlee  in  1845,  Priscilla's  sense  of  sorrow  and 
her  feeling  of  economic  privation  caused  her  to  explode  in  a  jealous  rage  one  day 
while  visiting  at  43  Lafayette  Place.  This  unfortunate  but  human  outburst  against 
the  Gardiners  introduced  some  tension  in  her  later  relations  with  Julia  and 
Margaret  Julia  accused  the  distraught  Priscilla  of  having  an  unrealistic  amount  of 
pride.  See  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [circa 
June-July  1845],  TFP;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  114,  122-23.  For  a  brief 
biography  of  Robert  Tyler,  see  LTT,  II,  645-46,  684-87.  Priscilla's  children  and 
their  birthdates  were:  Mary  Fairlee  (Dec.  i84o-June  1845) ;  Letitia  Christian 
(Spring,  1842);  John  IV  (July  i844-July  1846);  Grace  (May  1846);  Thomas 
Cooper  (Summer  i848-July  1849) ;  Priscilla  Cooper  (Oct.  1849) ;  Elizabeth  (Jan. 
1852) ;  Julia  Campbell  (Dec.  1854) ;  Robert,  Jr.  (Dec.  1857). 

"Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  13,  1846,  in 
ibid.,  451-53,'  Furman,  White  House  Profile,  136;  New  York  Herald,  Mar.  16, 
1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  25,  1846;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1845,  TFP;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  May  7,  1845,  TPLC;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1845;  Juliana 

606 


Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [May  1845] ;  Margaret  Gardiner 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  2 ;  9,  1845,  TFP. 

15  Julia    Gardiner  Tyler   to   Juliana    Gardiner,    Sherwood   Forest,   n.d.    [June 
1845] ;   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to   Margaret   Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  19, 
1845;   Juliana   Gardiner  to  Margaret   Gardiner,  New  York,  July   7,   1845;   Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  17,  1845;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  9,  1845,  TFP;  Andrew  Jackson 
to  James  K.  Polk,  Hermitage,  Dec.  13,   1844,  in  LTT,  III,  155;   Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  23,  1845,  TFP. 

16  Margaret   Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler    [New  York],  July   18,   1845; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  22,  1845,  TFP; 
ibid.,   Richmond,    Aug.   3,    1845,    GPY;   ibid.,    Sherwood   Forest,   Oct.   23,    1845; 
Julia    Gardiner    Tyler    to    Juliana    Gardiner,    Sherwood    Forest,    Apr.    14,    1846; 
Margaret    Gardiner   to    Julia    Gardiner   Tyler,    New   York,   May   4,    1845;    Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,   Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.    [May   1845],  TFP; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Rockaway,  L.I.,  N.Y.  Aug.  6,  1845, 
TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  8,  1845, 
TFP. 

17  John  Tyler  to  John  Jones,  Charles  City,  Sept.  n,  1845,  TPLC;  Julia  Gar- 
diner Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  16,  1846,  TFP;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  4;  Jan.  27,  1846, 
GPY. 

18  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  12,  1848,  in  LTT,  II, 
107- 

w  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  17; 
Apr.  23,  1846;  Robert  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  Mar.  30,  1846, 
GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  25,  1846,  TFP; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  7,  1846,  GPY. 

30  Sarah  A.  Wharton  to  John  Tyler,  Brazoria  County,  Texas,  July  22,  1845; 
John  Tyler  to  Sarah  A.  Wharton,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  i,  1846,  in  Richmond 
Enquirer,  Jan.  29,  1846.  The  pitcher,  manufactured  by  Ball,  Tompkins  and  Black 
of  New  York  (formerly  Marquand  and  Co.),  was  badly  burned  and  blackened 
in  the  Richmond  fire  of  April  1865.  The  inscription  today  can  barely  be  read: 
"Presented  by  the  Ladies  of  Brazoria  County,  Texas,  to  Ex-President  Tyler  as  a 
small  token  of  their  gratitude  for  the  benefits  conferred  upon  their  Country  by  pro- 
curing its  Annexation  to  the  U.  States."  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  York,  Jan.  6;  9,  1846,  TFP. 

**  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  22,  1846, 
TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  17,  1846; 
May  4,  1847,  TPLC;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  12, 
1846;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  16,  1846, 
TFP. 

32  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  June  i,  1846;  Sherwood  For- 
est, Apr.  21,  1846.  For  additional  details  on  the  Ingersoll  hearings  and  Tyler's 
role,  see  John  Tyler  to  Daniel  Webster,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  12;  Apr.  21,  1846; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  May  30,  1846.  When  the  Maine  Boundary 
bribery  charges  were  aired  again  in  1857  Tyler  was  forced  to  repeat  his  denials. 
Ibid.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  17,  1857,  in  LTT,  II,  457;  455;  228-29;  456;  III, 

172-73- 

23  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  May  30,  1846,  in  ibid.,  II,  456; 
N.  M.  Miller  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  June  5,  1846,-  John  L.  Graham 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  June  30,  1846,  GPY. 

-4Calhoun's  speech  of  Feb.  24,  1847,  quoted  in  LTT,  II,  417. 

25  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  4,  1847,  GPY;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  u,  1847,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 

607 


Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  n;  June  17?  1847;  John  Tyler  to 
Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  n,  1847,  in  LTT,  II,  420-22.  The  Enquirer 
letter  of  June  5,  1847,  was  reprinted  in  the  New  York  Herald,  June  7,  1847. 

26  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  4,  1847, 
GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  27,  1847;  n.d. 
[circa  Mar.  6,  1847] ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d. 
{.circa  June  1847],  TFP. 

"LTT,  II,  427;  John  Tyler,  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer, 
Sherwood  Forest,  June  5,  1847;  New  York,  Sept.  i,  1847;  John  Tyler  to  Alex- 
ander Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25,  1848,  in  LTT,  II,  424-31,  433;  New 
York  Herald,  June  7,  1847. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  6,  1848,  GPY;  John 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25,  1848,  TPLC ;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  1848;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  2,  1849,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert 
Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  1856];  May  9,  1856;  John  Tyler  to  John  S. 
Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1856;  John  Tyler  to  Thomas  J.  Green, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  28,  1856;  Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  Aug. 
27,  1858,  in  LTT,  II,  297,  413-15;  HI,  171-72;  H,  239-40. 

29  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  30,  1847;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  4;  June  i,  1847,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  June  23,  1847,  GPY ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  27  [1847],  TFP. 

80  John  Tyler,  Letter  to  Editor  of  Richmond  Enquirer,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5, 
1847,  in  LTT,  II,  424;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Mar.  25,  1846,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner,  Speech  to  Tammany  Hall  Meeting  in 
Support  of  the  War,  Mar.  i,  1847,  GPY.  (Illness  prevented  Alexander  from  deliver- 
ing this,  a  rabble-rousing  address.)  The  same  position  on  the  origin  of  the  Mexican 
War  has  been  taken  by  the  family  biographer,  Lyon  G.  Tyler.  See  LTT,  II,  416-17; 
see  also  John  Tyler  to  Caleb  Gushing,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  14,  1845,  in  ibid.,  446. 

81  John  Tyler  to  Editor  of  [Richmond  Enquirer],  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest, 
Mar.  1847];  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  12,  1847,  TPLC; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  14,  1846,  in  LTTt  II,  455. 

32  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  n,  1847, 
GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  23,  1847,  TFP; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Washington,  May  30;   June   i,   1846,  in  LTT,  II, 
456-57;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  6,  1847, 
TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.   [May 
1847],  in  LTT,  II,  433.  When  Purser  Semple  called  at  Sherwood  Forest  after  the 
war,  appearing  "quite  a  Mexican  with  mustache  and  large  beard,"  and  bearing 
war-trophy  gifts  for  Tyler,  principally  a  suit  of  armor,  Julia  gave  him  a  friendly 
reception.  She  had  little  regard  or  respect  for  him  normally  because  she  could  not 
tolerate  his  wife,  Letitia  Tyler  Semple.  But  in  this  instance  the  returning  hero 
"behaved  so  well  and  complimented  me  so  highly . . .  that  I  was  not  sorry  I  con- 
sented to  see  him."  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
May  2,  1848,  TFP. 

33  Alexander  Gardiner,  Speech  to  Tammany  Hall  Meeting  in  Support  of  the 
War,  Mar.  i,  1847,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Feb.  19,  1847,  in  LTT,  II,  457~58;  ibid.,  Jan.  27,  1847,  TPLC;  John  H.  Beeckman 
to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York,  July  28,  1848,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  David  L,  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  27,  1848,  GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  i  [1847],  TFP. 

3i Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  22;  Apr.  6, 
1846,  in  LTT,  II,  453,  454;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Jan.  21 ;  Mar.  26,  1846,  TFP.  Robert  lectured  on  the  Oregon  question  before 

608 


Roman  Catholic  Irish  groups  in  New  York.  Alexander  and  David  Lyon  often 
shared  the  platform  with  him.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  in  March  1846,  Juliana 
and  Margaret  "had  a  merry  laugh"  over  David  Lyon's  account  of  his  entrance 
into  one  of  the  Irish  filled  lecture  halls  "arm  in  arm  with  a  cathoUc  Priest! ... 
D[avid]  looked  most  sober." 

^Quotation  is  a  composite  of  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Dec.  23,  1845;  Jan.  i;  26,  1846,  in  LTT,  II,  449-50. 

36  Ibid.;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  26, 
1846;   Alexander   Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,   New  York,  Mar.   29,   1846; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1845,  TFP; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1846,  GPY. 

37  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  2,  1847;   [John 
Tyler]  to  Editor  of  Portsmouth  [Va.]  Pilot,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Feb.  1847], 
in  LTT,  II,  479,  478;   Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Mar.  n,  1847,  TPLC;  Alexander  Gardiner,  Draft  Ms.  on  Political  Questions,  n.d. 
[1847] ;  Alexander  Gardiner,  Speech  to  Tammany  Hall  Meeting  in  Support  of  the 
War,  Mar.  i,  1847,  GPY.  The  Proviso,  in  stirring  up  criticism  of  pro-Wilmot  Van 
Burenism  from  the  Conservative  Democracy  in  New  York,  did  have  the  effect  of 
widening  further  the  gap  in  that  intraparty  struggle  in  the  Empire  State.  This  Tyler 
regarded  as  a  political  benefit.  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Nov.  i,  1847,  TPLC. 

^Robert  Tyler  to  John  C.  Calhoun,  Philadelphia,  Apr.  19,  1845;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  22,  1846,  in  LTT,  III,  160-61; 
II,  453-54;  ibid.,  New  York,  Apr.  17,  1846,  TPLC;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  26,  1845,  TFP. 

39  Ibid.,  Mar.  31;  May  26,  1845,  TFP. 

40  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  5,  1846, 
TFP. 


CHAPTER    14 

1  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  5,  1846, 
TFP. 

2  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [February  1846] ; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  21,  1846,  TFP. 

3 David  L.  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  22,  1846,  TFP; 
New  York  Morning  News,  Feb.  21;  22,  1846;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [Mar.];  Mar.  i;  Feb.  21,  1846;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  20;  27;  Mar.  6;  Apr.  17,  1846;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  3,  1846,  TFP. 

4  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  July  17,  1846, 
GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Aug.  17,  1846; 
Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  July  1846 ;  David  L.  Gardi- 
ner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  7,  1846 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  20,  1846,  TFP.  Phoebe  called  the  baby  "His  Little  Ex- 
cellency." Everyone  else  in  the  family  at  first  called  him  "The  Little  President." 
5  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Aug.  17,  1846; 
Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  28,  1846,  TFP;  ibid.,  Mar.  n,  1847,  GPY;  Juliana  Gardiner 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  18,  1846;  Mar.  23,  1847,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New 
York,  Mar.  1847] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Aug. 
21,  1846,  TFP. 

"Ibid.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  10,  1846;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Nov.  28,  1846,  TFP. 

609 


7  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  n,  1847, 
GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  n,  1847,  in  LTT, 
II,  420.  For  proud  references  to  the  excellence  of  her  offspring,  see  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  4,  1846;  July  13,  1847,  GPY; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  20,  1848;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  2,  1847;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Baltimore,  Nov.  14,  1847,  TFP. 

8  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  1847] ;  May 
25,  1847,  TFP. 

9  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  3,  1847; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  8,  1847,  TFP;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  4,  1847,  GPY. 

10  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to   Margaret   Gardiner   Beeckman,   Sherwood  Forest, 
Feb.  27,  1848,  TFP. 

11  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  15,  1848, 
GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  4,  1847;  John 
Tyler  to  Dr.  W.  A.  Patterson,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  9,  1848,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  24,  1848;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  i,  1848,  TFP. 

"Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  9,  1845;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Newport,  Aug.  28,  1845,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  14,  1851;  Jan.  29,  1846,  GPY;  Julia. 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  15;  Apr.  16,  1846; 
Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  1846;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  26,  1851;  Feb.  8,  1855;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  18,  1846,  TFP;  Robert  Tyler  to 
Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  July  18,  1847;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L. 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  9,  1858,  GPY. 

13  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  13,  1850, 
TFP;  Alexander   Gardiner  to    [John  Tyler],  New  York,   Sept.   28,    1849,   GPY:, 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  12,  1847,  TFP;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  i,  1843;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  Samuel  Gardiner,  New  York,  Feb.  19,  1849 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L. 
Gardiner  [New  York],  Jan.  n,  1851,  GPY. 

14  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  10, 
1848 ;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Shelter  Island,  Summer 
1847];  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  July  14;  28;  Oct.  13, 
1847,  TFP. 

18  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  n,  1845,  TFP. 

M  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  22,  1845;  May 
[1846] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  10, 
1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Newport,  Aug.  20,  1845;  New 
York  [March];  Apr.  27,  1847,  TFP. 

"Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  3,  1845;  Feb.  24, 
1846;  May  4,  1845;  Feb.  27,  1847;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  June  12 ;  July  8,  1845 ;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardi- 
ner, Fire  Island,  N.Y.,  Aug.  29,  1845;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner, 
Shelter  Island,  June  26;  28,  1845;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New 
York,  Jan.  18,  1846,  TFP. 

18  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25,  1845 ; 
Feb.  26,  1846;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  27; 
Mar.  6,  1846;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  i;  26, 
1846,  TFP. 

™Ibid.}  Feb.  27,  1847,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East 
Hampton,  June  21,  1842;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton, 
June  14,  1843,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d. 

&IO 


[May  1845];  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York, 
June  23,  1848;  Catherine  L.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York, 
n.d.  [1848];  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  17,  1847; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  27,  1847;  Margaret 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [1845-1846],  TFP. 

20 Ibid.,  Mar.  6,  1847;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Mar.  23,  1847,  TFP. 

21  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  Oct.  12,  1845;  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Mar.  24,  1846,  TFP. 

^Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  30,  1847;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  6,  1847,  TFP. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  9,  1847;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest  [Feb.  9,  1847] ;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  May  15;  18;  June  8,  1847;  David  L. 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  29,  1847;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to 
Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  Aug.  27;  Oct.  13,  1847,  TFP. 

24  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  1847,  TFP. 

35  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  26, 
1848;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Bristol,  Pa.,  Jan.  8, 
1848;  Clarissa  Dayton  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Jan.  25,  1848;  George  L. 
Huntington  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Jan.  25,  1848,  TFP. 

26  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1848, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1848,  TPLC. 

27  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  8;  17,  1848; 
Gilbert  Beeckman  to  John  H.  Beeckman,  Washington,  Jan.  22,   1848;   Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  20,  1848;   Rich- 
mond, Feb.  5;  Washington,  Feb.  8;  u,  1848,  TFP. 

28  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  20;  May  i, 
1848;  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York,  May  31; 
June  5;  19;  July  28;  [July] ;  Aug.  31;  [Sept.-Oct.]  1848,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  21,  1848,  GPY. 

20  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  8,  1848; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  12,  1846,  TFP; 
John  Tyler  to  Elizabeth  Tyler  Waller,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  21,  1846,  Tyler  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  n.d.  [Apr.  1848] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Nov.;  Feb.  10;  18,  1848,  TFP. 

30 1  bid.,  Feb.  17,  1848,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John  H. 
Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  7,  1849,  TFP.  Gilbert  Beeckman  became  a  small- 
store  owner  in  New  York  City  in  1850,  investing  a  small  inheritance  from  his 
father,  Henry  Beeckman,  who  died  in  June  1850,  in  the  enterprise.  In  1851  his 
business  was  adequate  enough  to  permit  his  engagement  and  marriage  to  Miss 
Margaret  Foster,  a  nineteen-year-old  whose  father  was  an  auctioneer  in  Fourteenth 
St.  "We  do  not  believe  she  will  prove  an  heiress,"  said  Juliana  quite  correctly.  The 
wedding  was  celebrated  on  June  4,  1851.  Margaret  Foster  Beeckman  soon  died, 
however,  just  why  and  when  is  not  known.  In  1857  Gilbert  married  again.  The 
name  of  his  second  wife  and  details  of  his  life  after  1857  are  also  not  known,  save 
that  he  continued  in  the  dry  goods  business  in  New  York  during  and  after  the  Civil 
War.  He  died  in  August  1875.  See  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Mar.  10,  1851,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Mar.  24,  1851;  May  7,  1857;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman, 
Sherwood  Forest,  June  4;  22,  1851;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Karlsruhe,  June  7,  1866,  TFP. 

31  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  1848,  TFP. 

611 


32  Ibid.,  Feb.  18,  1851,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Mar.  1851;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  24, 

1850,  GPY. 

83  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  2;  n;  23, 
1851;  May  7,  1852,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  Apr. 
26,  1851,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood 
Forest,  June  15,  1854;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Feb.  i,  1855,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec. 
29,  1854,  TPLC;  see  also  Tyler's  Quarterly,  XII  (January  1931),  194-95,  for  addi- 
tional genealogical  material  on  Tyler's  children  and  in-laws.  William  M.  Denison  was 
serving  as  assistant  to  the  Bishop  of  Kentucky  in  Louisville  when  Bessy  was  born 
and  Alice  died.  A  row  with  the  vestry  of  Christ  Church,  Brooklyn,  had  caused  him 
to  resign  that  post  a  year  after  he  began  in  it.  Following  Alice's  death  in  1854  he 
took  a  parish  in  Charleston,  S.C.,  where  he  remained  until  his  own  death  in  1858. 

3*  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  27,  1855,  GPY. 

85  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  9,  1858, 
GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  2,  1846 ; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  i,  1848;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  24,  1849; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  23,  1853, 
TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  27,  1855,  GPY. 

36  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  2,  1846; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  17,  1848;  Dec.  u, 
1854;  Dec.  28,  1846,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Dec.  20,  1850,  TPLC. 

87  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  29,  1849; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  23,  1847 ;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  2,  1846;  Dec.  8,  1847,  TFP. 

88  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d. ; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  ir,  1845;  Apr.  19, 

1851,  TFP. 

38  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  n, 
1853 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  5,  1846, 
TFP. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  12, 
1853,  TFP. 

^  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  28,  1851; 
May  24,  1852,  TFP. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  12,  1845;  Mar.  6; 
Nov.  21 ;  27,-  Apr.  17,  1846;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Sept.  15,  1846;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  18,  1846; 
Jan.;  May  18,  1847;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Jan.  7 ;  Dec.  8,  1847,  TFP. 

43  Margaret  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  10,  1845;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  n,  1845;  Mar.  23;  June  8, 
1847;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  Apr.  16,  1847;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  20,  1847,  TFP. 

4*John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  20,  1850,  TPLC; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  16,  1851,  TFP. 

46  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  27,  1850; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John  H.  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar. ;  Mar. 
8,  1850,  TFP. 

46  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Saratoga,  Sept.  12,  1847;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  20,  1849;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850,  TFP;  John  Tyler,  An  Address 

612 


Delivered  Before  the  Literary  Societies  of  the  University  of  Virginia  on  the  Anni- 
versary of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  By  the  State  of  Virginia,  June  2p,  1850 
(Pamphlet;  Charlottesville,  1850),  passim. 

47  John  Tyler  to  Alexander   Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.   22,   1849;   Alexander 
Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  9,  1849,  GPY;  Sylvia  S.  Rogers  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Saratoga  Springs,  May  n  [1850],  TFP. 

48  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  29,  1849; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  18,   1849,  TFP;  John 
Tyler   to   Alexander   Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,  Apr.   9,   1849;   May   21,    1850; 
Pittsfield,   Mass.,   Sept.    18,    1849;    Julia   Gardiner   Tyler   to   David   L.   Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  10,  1849,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  13,  1850,  TFP. 

49 Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  [Alexander  Gardiner],  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood 
Forest,  Dec.  1849] ;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Clarissa  [Dayton],  n.p.,  n.d. 
[Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  1849] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Feb.  27,  1850,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Josephine 
[Metcalfe],  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Jan.  1850],  TFP. 

50  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  17,  1851, 
TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  2;  June 
26;  Aug.  5,  1851;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Niagara  Falls, 
Sept.  21,  1851 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Dec.  10,  1851;  Mary  [Conger]  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Grassy  Point,  N.Y.,  Jan. 
15,  1852,  TFP.  The  date  of  Lachlan's  birth  is  given  as  December  2,  1851,  on  his 
tombstone  in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond,  Va.  But  Juliana's  letter  to  Margaret, 
clearly  dated  Sherwood  Forest,  December  10,  notes  that  "last  night  at  half-past 
eleven"  Julia  give  birth  to  Lachlan. 

51  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  17,  1851;  John  Tyler  to 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  25,  1852,  TPLC. 

52  Ibid.,  Mar.  18,  1854,  TPLC;  Edmund  Rumn  to  Jane  M.  Rumn,  Marlbourne, 
Mar.  21,  1854,  TFP. 

53  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  May  19,  1847,  TFP; 
John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  23,  1856,  GPY; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Mrs.  [?]  Harris,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Dec. 
1856],  TFP.  For  Tyler's  smoking  habits  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner  in  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  20,  1850, 
TPLC. 

54  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret   Gardiner  Beeckman,   Sherwood  Forest, 
May  24,  1853;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  i, 
1853,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  25, 
1853,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Mrs.  Henry  Waggaman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  8,  1853, 
TPLC. 

55  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  vs.  The  Bank  of  Virginia,  Legal  Deposition,  Aug.  3, 
1868,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  9;  25, 
1855,  GPY. 


CHAPTER    15 

xjohn  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  22,  1849;  Richard  E. 
Stilwell  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  26,  1849,  GPY. 

2  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Mar.  22,  1849;  Jonn  Tyler  to 
Tilford  and  Samuels,  Lawyers,  of  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  14,  1846; 
George  Stealy,  Memorandum  on  Size  and  Value  of  Tyler  Land  in  Union  County, 

613 


Ky.,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Aug.  16,  1847;  R.  G.  Samuels  to  John  Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky., 
Dec.  24,  1847,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  John  H.  Waggaman,  Williamsburg,  Aug.  30, 
1839,  TPLC. 

3  John  W.  RusseU  to  John  Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Sept.  12,  1845,  GPY;  John 
Tyler  to  Messrs.  Corcoran  and  Riggs,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  6,  1845,  TPLC;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  29,  1845,  TFP. 

*John  W.  Russell  to  John  Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Mar.  23;  Apr.  27,  1846; 
John  Tyler  to  Tilford  and  Samuels,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  14,  1846;  Tilford  and 
Samuels  to  John  Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Aug.  6,  1846,  GPY. 

6  Thomas  Wilson,  Nicholas  Casey,  Sanford  Conelly,  Coal  Survey  Report  to 
Tilford  and  Samuels,  Caseyville,  Ky.,  Oct.  9;  14,  1846;  Tilford  and  Samuels  to  John 
Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Oct.  9,  1846 ;  John  W.  Russell  to  John  Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky., 
Oct.  15,  1846,  GPY. 

6  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  26,  1846; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.   28,   1846,   TFP; 
N.  M.  Miller  to  John  Tyler,  Louisville,  Dec.  i,  1846;  John  W.  Russell  to  John 
Tyler,  Frankfort,  Ky.,  Dec.  16,  1846,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  5,  1846,  TFP;  John  Tyler,  Memorandum  of  G.  H.  Peck 
Letter,  dated  Caseyville,  Ky.,  Jan.  18,  1847.  It  was  estimated  at  Caseyville  in  August 
1847  that  a  5'  vein  of  coal  yielded  about  42  bu.  a  foot,  or  about  200,000  bu.  per 
acre.  Delivered  to  the  river  bank  from  Tyler's  mine  two  miles  away  at  4^  cost  per 
bu.,  the  profit  in  one  vein  per  acre  was  estimated  at  $8000,  assuming  8tf  per  bu. 
sale  price  to  passing  steamboats.  For  this  reason  the  G.  H.  Peck  offer  seemed  much 
too  low  to  Tyler  and  his  agents  advised  him  to  reject  it.  See  George  Stealy  Memo- 
randum, Aug.  16,  1847,  GPY. 

7  John  Tyler  to  John  W.  Russell,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  25,  1847;  John  Tyler 
to  Tilford,  New  York,  Oct.  4,  1847;  Joseph  L.  Watkins  to  John  Tyler,  Memphis, 
Oct.  10,  1847,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  i, 

1847,  TPLC;  Articles  of  Sale  of  Tyler  Land  in  Union  County,  Ky.,  Between  Robert 
P.  Winston  and  Samuel  L.  Casey,  Dated  Sept.  9,  1847,  GPY. 

8  John  Tyler  to  Messrs.  Corcoran  and  Riggs,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  23,  1848; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  7,  1848,  GPY. 

8  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Aug.  6,  1848; 
Richard  E.  Stilwell  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  29;  June  8;  Aug.  25, 
1849;  Apr.  20;  Aug.  9;  Aug.  12;  Sept.  4,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardi- 
ner, East  Hampton,  July  6,  1848,  GPY;  Andrew  Harris  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Detroit,  Apr.  i,  1846;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Jan.  14,  1846,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  7, 
1846;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Mar.  10,  1851;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  4,  1847;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Newport,  Aug.  21,  1847,  GPY;  ibid.,  New  York,  June  1850,  TFP;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  30,  1843,  GPY. 

10  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Steamboat  Hibernia,  No.  2,  On  the 
Ohio,  Nov.  17,  1847;  Louisville,  Nov.  21,  1847;  Caseyville,  Nov.  23,  1847,  GPY. 

11  George   Stealy,   Memorandum,   Frankfort,   Ky.,   Aug.    16,    1847;    Alexander 
Gardiner  to  Samuel  L.  Casey,  Baltimore,  Dec.  7,  1847;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John 
Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  19,  1848;   Baltimore,  Dec.  8,  1847;  New  York,  Feb.   n, 

1848,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1848, 
TPLC. 

12  Alexander  Gardiner,  Proposition  to  Form  a  Company  to  Purchase  Lands  of 
Coal  Mines  and  Work  the  Same  Near  Caseyville,  Union  County,  Kentucky,  n.d.; 
T.  William  Letson  to  Maj.  L.  A.  Sykes,  Baltimore,  Dec.  20,  1847;  T.  William 
Letson  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Baltimore,  Dec.  12,  1847;  Jan.  22,  1848;  Maj.  L.  A. 
Sykes  to  Gen.  William  G.  McNeill,  New  York,  Dec.  27,  1847;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan.  15,  1848,  GPY. 

614 


13  John  Tyler  to  Corcoran  and  Riggs,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  23,  1848 ;  Corcoran 
and  Riggs  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Mar.  10,  1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John 
Tyler,  New  York,  May  30,  1848;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner  [Sherwood 
Forest],  Nov.  14,  1848,  quoted  in  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York, 
June  2,  1849  (draft  letter  heavily  struck  over) ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler, 
New  York,  June  2,  1849,  GPY. 

"Agreement  Between  Alexander  Gardiner  and  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  May  22, 
1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  May  20,  1848;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Caseyville,  June  10,  1848,  GPY;  Alexander  Gardi- 
ner to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Pittsburgh,  June  i,  1848,  TFP. 

15  Ibid.,  Caseyville,  June  21,  1848;  Andrew  J.  Fenton  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Baltimore,  July  8,  1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  Telegram,  New 
York,  July  10,  1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  July  n,  1848; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  New  York,  July  12,  1848,  GPY. 

18 Andrew  J.  Fenton  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Caseyville,  July  18;  28,  1848; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  New  York,  Aug.  2,  1848;  Andrew  J. 
Fenton  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Caseyville,  Aug.  10;  24;  Sept.  2,  1848,  GPY. 

"Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  i,  1848;  Alexan- 
der Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  New  York,  Sept.  4;  n;  18;  Oct.  4,  1848;  An- 
drew J.  Fenton  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Caseyville,  Sept.  12;  Oct.  21,  1848; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  21,  1848,  GPY. 

18  Ibid.,  New  York,  Nov.  6,  1848;  Andrew  J.  Fenton  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Gardiner's  Point,  Ky.,  Nov.  10;  22;  25;  Dec.  15,  1848;  Louisville,  Dec.  22,  1848; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  New  York,  Nov.  20;  28;  Dec.  2;  5;  28, 
1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Samuel  L.  Casey,  New  York,  Nov.  30,  1848,  GPY. 

18  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  2;  21,  1849; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  Andrew  J.  Fenton,  New  York,  Feb.  23,  1849;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  26,  1849,  GPY. 

20  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  9;  May  10,  1849; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  June  2,  1849,  GPY ;  ibid.,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Dec.  25,  1848,  TPLC. 

21  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  June  2,  1849,  GPY.  For  the 
subsequent  history  of  the  Caseyville  property,  including  the  crude  attempt  by  land 
speculators  in  the  Kentucky  legislature  in  1850  to  seize  the  property  under  eminent- 
domain  legislation,  the  legal  problems  involved  in  Alexander's  deathbed  assignment 
of  his  share  to  Julia,  the  various  offers,  near-sales,  and  boundary  survey  suits  and 
difficulties,  and  the  growing  family  concern  to  secure  good  title  to  Julia's  share  and 
to  be  rid  of  the  Kentucky  holdings,  etc.,  see  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  May  29,  1850,  TPLC;  ibid.,  Saratoga,  Sept.  18,  1850;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  30,  1851,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.   13,   1851,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.   i,   1851,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to 
David.  L.   Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.   10,  1851,   GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  7,  1851,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5,  1851;  John  Tyler  to  Samuel  Page, 
Sherwood  Forest,  June  6,  1851,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner 
Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  9,  1851 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardi- 
ner, Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  30,  1852,  TFP;  ibid.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  14,  1853, 
GPY ;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan. 
31,  1853;  Deed  of  Sale  and  Trust  Between  John  Tyler,  David  L.  Gardiner,  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  and  C.  H.  Mathias,  N.  J.  M.  Smith,  Wilson  Carpenter,  For  Tyler 
Property  in  Union  County,   Ky.,  Dated  Oct.  4,   1853;    Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  16,  1855,  TFP. 

^Ibid.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  15,  1848;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John 
H.  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Jan.-Feb.  1849] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 

615 


Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  24,  1849,  TFP;  Samuel  Gardi- 
ner to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Shelter  Island,  Jan.  31,  1849;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  21;  Mar.  9,  1849,  GPY. 

23  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan  10,  1849; 
July  24,  1850,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Jan.  24;  May  25,  1849,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  2;  21,  1849;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New 
York,  Aug.  15,  1849;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Dec. 
9,  1850;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  14, 
1851 ;  Jan.  10,  1849,  GPY.  For  details  of  Egbert  Dayton's  voyage  and  death  see 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Oct.  21,  1849,  GPY;  Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Clarissa  Dayton,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  1849], 
TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Dayton  Family,  New  York,  Jan.  17,  1850,  GPY; 
Clarissa  Dayton  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  East  Hampton,  Feb.  13,  1850, 
TFP.  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  actually  joined  a  Richmond  company  scheduled  to  depart  for 
California  in  February  1849  but  when  he  failed  to  secure  a  patronage  job  in  Cali- 
fornia he  withdrew  from  the  enterprise.  For  John  Jr's.  frequent  comings  and  goings 
into  and  out  of  the  Temperance  Society  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardi- 
ner, Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  18,  1847,  TFP;  and  Tyler  Family  Papers,  1845-1860, 
passim. 

^  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  15,  1848, 
GPY;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  June;  June  28,  1850, 
TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  10,  1849; 
John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  2,  1849,  GPY;  John 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  16,  1851,  TPLC. 
Tyler  later  estimated  Beeckman's  cargo  at  worth  $10,000,  but  Beeckman's  subse- 
quent financial  history  in  California  would  suggest  its  value  at  nearer  half  that. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John  H.  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d. 
[early  1849];  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Catherine  Beeckman,  East  Hamp- 
ton, May  6,  1849,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Aug.  15,  1849 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb. 
21,  1849,  GPY;  Gilbert  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York, 
May  3,  1849;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John  H.  Beeckman,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New 
York,  Mar.— Apr.  1849] ;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  John  Tyler,  Sacramento,  Apr.  12, 
1851,  TFP. 

26  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacramento,  Sept.  23, 
1849,  GPY. 

27  Margaret   Gardiner   Beeckman  to   Juliana   Gardiner,   n.p.,   n.d.    [Sherwood 
Forest,  Jan.-Feb.  1850] ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 
June  1850;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Henry  B.  Livingston,  New  York,  June  13,  1850, 
TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Saratoga  Springs,  Sept. 
i,   1850,  GPY ;  Margaret   Gardiner  Beeckman  to  John  H.  Beeckman,   Sherwood 
Forest,  March  1850;  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacra- 
mento City,  n.d.  [Feb.  1850],  On  Beeckman's  disillusion  with  high  water  and  the 
future  of  merchandising  in  Sacramento  see  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Catherine  Beeck- 
man, quoted  in  Catherine  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York, 
May  13,  1850,  TFP. 

28  Beeckman's  partners  in  the  venture  were,  in  addition  to  Sutter,  Samuel  Moss, 
Edwin  Herrick,  Benjamin  W.  Bean,  and  Anson  V.  H.  LeRoy.  For  the  details  of  the 
deal  see  Contract  Between  John  A.  Sutter  and  Samuel  Moss,  Jr.,  etal.,  Sacramento, 
Mar.  6,  1850;  Edwin  Herrick  and  Samuel  Moss  to  B.  W.  Bean,  San  Francisco,  Apr. 
18,  1850  (copy) ;  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacramento, 
n.d.  [Apr.  10,  1850] ;  Catherine  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New 
York,  May  13,  1850;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  John  Tyler,  Sacramento  City,  Apr.  12, 
1851,  TFP. 

6x6 


39  John  H.  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacramento  City,  n.d. 
[Apr.  10,  1850],  TFP. 

30  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  Gilbert  Beeckman,  Fremont,  30  Miles  Above  Sacra- 
mento City,  Saturday  and  Sunday,  Apr.  27-28,  1850;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  Gilbert 
Beeckman,  quoted  in  Gilbert  Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  12, 
1850;  Edwin  Herrick  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  San  Francisco,  Apr.  30,  1850,  TFP. 
A  version  of  Beeckman's  death  by  Anson  LeRoy,  somewhat  scrambled  in  trans- 
mission, had  the  shotgun  discharge  as  Beeckman  tossed  it  into  the  boat  preparatory 
to  shoving  the  craft  into  the  stream  on  the  morning  of  Apr.  26.  This  version  empha- 
sized the  point  that  the  gun  was  loaded  because  Beeckman  thought  he  "might  shoot 
some  ducks  possibly"  that  morning  on  the  river. 

31  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  1850;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  15,  1850;  Alexander  Gardiner 
to  Henry  B.  Livingston,  New  York,  June  13;  July  27,  1850,  TFP;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850,  GPY;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner,  Poem  on  the  Death  of  John  H.  Beeckman,  n.p.,  n.d.  Icirca  1855- 
1856],   TFP.  See  also  sympathy  letters  to  Margaret,  viz.:   Catherine  Beeckman 
to    Margaret    Gardiner    Beeckman,    Sharon    (Conn.),    Aug.    29,    1850;    Newport, 
R.L,  July  8,  1851;  Robert  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Philadelphia,  June  9,  1850; 
Clarissa  Dayton  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  June  9,  1850,  TFP;  Samuel  L. 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  June  17,  1850,  GPY. 

32  On  the  Beeckman  estate  issue  see  particularly  John  Morgan  to  David  L. 
Gardiner,  Sacramento,  Aug.  13,  1850;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner 
Beeckman,  New  York,  Nov.  22,  1850;  Josiah  H.  Drummond  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sacramento,  Jan.  28,  1851,  GPY;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Henry  B.  Livingston,  New 
York,  July  10,  1851 ;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Henry  B.  Livingston,  New 
York,  May  26,  1851 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Henry  B.  Livingston,  New  York,  July 
27,   1850,   TFP;   Margaret   Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Saratoga 
Springs,  Sept.  i,  1850;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov. 
n,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Dec.  9,  1850; 
New  York,  Jan.  n;  30,  1851,  GPY;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  Margaret  Gardi- 
ner Beeckman,  Accounting  of  Beeckman  Estate,  May  1850  to  Sept.  1851    [Sac- 
ramento, Sept.  1851] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  For- 
est, Feb.  8,  1851,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood 
Forest,  May  16,  1851,  TPLC;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  John  Tyler,  Sacramento, 
Apr.  12,  1851 ;  Charles  Smith  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacramento,  July 
13;   Aug.  29,  1852;   Mar.  12,  1854;   Charles   Smith  to  Juliana  Gardiner,   Sacra- 
mento, July  ii,  1852;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Charles  Smith,  New  York,  Apr.  15,  1852; 
Benjamin  W.  Bean  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sacramento,  Jan.  31;  Oct.  30, 
1853;  ibid.,  Accounting  of  Beeckman  Estate,  1853,  Sacramento,  n.d.  [Jan.  1854]; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Benjamin  W.  Bean,  Staten  Island,  Nov.  3,  1853, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5,  1851, 
TPLC;  Henry  B.  Livingston  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Oregon  Bar,  North  Fork,  Amer- 
ican River,  Oct.  20,  1852 ;  Deed  of  Sale  of  John  H.  Beeckman  Property,  Lot.  No.  3, 
J.  Street,  Sacramento,  Jan.  6,  1853,  TFP. 

33  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  21;  Mar.  9,  1849, 
GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  26,  1849, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  General  Persifer  F.  Smith,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  5,  18495 
Robert  J.  Walker  to  General  Persifer  F.  Smith,  Washington,  Jan.  15,  1849,  enclosed 
in  Robert  J.  Walker  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Washington,  Jan.  15,  1849,  GPY; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  28,  1850,  TFP;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  10,  1849.  For  details 
of  Richard  E.  Stilwell's  engagement  and  duties  see  Richard  E.  Stilwell  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  New  York,  May  25;  26;  29;  31,  1849,  GPY. 

**  [David  L.  Gardiner],  "Extract  of  a  Letter  Dated  San  Francisco,  June  15, 

617 


i849>"  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  Aug.  14,  1849;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  Sept.  18,  1849;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
New  York,  Aug.  15,  1849,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Mar.  29;  Apr.  3,  1849;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  10,  1849;  John  EL  Beeckman  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeck- 
man,  Sept.  23,  1849,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Feb.  15,  1850;  New  York,  Jan.  n,  1851;  East  Hampton,  Oct.  22;  Nov. 
12,  1849;  Dec.  9,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Pittsfield,  Mass., 
Sept.  15;  27,  1849,  GPY;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Jan.  1850],  TFP. 

35  John  Tyler,  quoted  in  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Pittsfield, 
Mass.,  Sept.  15,  1849;  J°nn  Morgan  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sacramento,  Aug.  13, 
1850;  Benjamin  W.  Bean  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Nov.  u,  1850;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  15,  1850;  Margaret  Gardiner 
Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  13,  1850,  GPY. 

36  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  8;  21,  1851; 
John  Tyler  to  John  H.  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [circa  Feb.  1850],  TFP; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  21,  1850;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  20,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner 
to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  10,  1851,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [circa  mid-i8$i],  TFP. 

87  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan. 
24,  1849,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  26,  1849;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  13;  Aug.  15,  1849  (2  let- 
ters); Sept.  26,  1850,  GPY;  ibid.,  June  28,  1850;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  Edwin 
Herrick,  New  York,  June  13,  1850;  Michael  Mullone  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Jersey 
City,  N.J.,  May  7,  1851,  TFP;  John  R.  Sleeker  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  San  Diego, 
Jan.  2,  1851;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  n,  1851, 
GPY. 

38  John  R.  Bleeker  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  San  Diego,  Feb.  25;  Mar.  2;  14;  20, 
1851.  For  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Spring  Street  lot  and  the  Gardmer-Bleeker 
reaction  to  the  growth  of  modern  San  Diego  occasioned  by  the  coming  of  the  rail- 
road, see  John  R.  Bleeker  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  19;  May  26; 
June  18,  1873;  Dec.  4,  1878;  Apr.  n;  May  2,  1883;  Jan.  2;  Apr.  29;  May  5;  15; 
Oct.  6;  Nov.  18;  Dec.  24,  1886;  Jan.  8;  Apr.  15,  1887;  E.  W.  Morse  to  John  R. 
Bleeker,  San  Diego,  Dec.  17,  1885;  Apr.  19,  1886,  GPY.  See  also  David  L.  Gardiner 
and  John  R.  Bleeker  to  Charles  A.  Wetmore,  Deed  of  Sale  [Photostat],  New  York, 
Dec.  21,  1887.  Wetmore,  in  turn,  deeded  a  right  of  way  to  the  California  Central 
Railway  Company  on  Sept.  27,  1888.  Lewis  B.  Lesley,  "A  Southern  Transcontinental 
Railroad  Into  California:  Texas  and  Pacific  versus  Southern  Pacific,  1865-1885," 
Pacific  Historical  Review  (March  1936),  52-60.  The  Santa  Fe  Railroad  Station 
now  stands  on  the  Gardmer-Bleeker  property.  Details  of  the  Garra  Rebellion  and 
its  impact  on  San  Diego  may  be  found  in  Joseph  J.  Hill,  The  History  of  Warner's 
Ranch  and  Its  Environs  (Los  Angeles,  1927),  135-42;  James  Mills,  "San  Diego — 
Where  California  Began,"  San  Diego  Historical  Society  Quarterly,  VI  (January 
1960),  Special  Edition,  1-34. 

80  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  June  28,  1850,  TFP; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  24,  1850;  Jan. 
14,  1851,  GPY. 

*°John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  20,  1850,  TPLC; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  13,  1850,  TFP; 
William  McK.  Gwin  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Dec.  13,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner 
to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Dec.  9,  1850;  New  York,  Mar.  26,  1851; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  28,  1850;  Jan.  u,  1851; 
John  R.  Bleeker  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  San  Diego,  Feb.  25,  1851,  GPY. 

6l8 


41  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  San  Francisco,  Mar.  15, 
1851;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest}  June  7,  1851, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5,  1851, 
TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Apr.  24;  May  15;  June  22,  1851,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Brooklyn,  Mar.  10;  12,  1851;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Mar.  19,  1851,  GPY. 

42  John  R.  Bleeker  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  San  Diego,  Sept.  3;  Oct.  3;  17;  Nov. 
30;  Dec.  15,  1851;  Feb.  i;  15;  Mar.  17;  Apr.  17;  May  15;  17;  28;  June  3;  July 
16;  Aug.  16;  Oct.  18,  1852;  May  28,  1854,  GPY ;  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  26,  1852,  TPLC.  With  the  $3000  realized  from  his  Sacra- 
mento lot  speculation  David  L.  Gardiner  bought  a  property  on  i4th  Street  in  New 
York  City.  See  Office  of  Receiver  of  Taxes,  New  York  City  Hall,  Tax  Bill,  Nov. 
1858;   and  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Deposition  in  Gardner  vs.  Tyler,  n.p.   (Staten 
Island,  N.Y.),  n.d.  [1866],  TFP;  John  R.  Bleeker  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  San  Diego, 
July  20,  1856,  GPY. 


CHAPTER    1 6 

1  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  26,  1851, 

\ 

2  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  30;  Mar.  10,  1851; 

Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  26,  1851, 
GPY;  Richard  Stilwell  to  John  Tyler,  quoted  in  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  14;  21,  1851;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  4,  1849,  TFP.  Typical  of  the  New  York 
obituaries  was  that  run  in  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  Jan.  23,  1851.  John  Tyler 
himself  wrote  the  obituary  that  appeared  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer.  The  New 
York  doctors  who  attended  Alexander  were  Clark,  Bulkly,  and  Joseph  Smith,  "all 
standing  at  the  head  of  the  profession."  A  graveside  service  was  held  in  East 
Hampton,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Winans  reading  the  appropriate  passages  from  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer.  Margaret  and  her  Uncles  Nathaniel  and  Samuel  accompanied 
Alexander's  body  to  East  Hampton  for  burial. 

3  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  30;  Mar.;  Mar.  26, 
1851 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  19,  1851, 
GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  24;  26; 
Feb.  i;  8,  1851;  Feb.  14;  28;  Mar.  7;  28;  July  4,  1851,  TFP. 

4  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  13,  1851,  TFP.  The 
East  Hampton  house  and  its  thirteen  acres  sold  for  $5000.  After  passing  through 
the  hands  of  several  "strangers"  (as  Julia  called  them)  the  East  Hampton  property 
was  purchased  by  Mrs.  Samuel  L.  Gardiner  in  1864.  Castleton  Hill  cost  $9500, 
$4500  of  which  was  put  down  in  cash,  the  remaining  $5000  being  in  the  form  of  a 
mortgage  held  by  Judge  James  I.  Roosevelt.  David  paid  $13,250  for  his  farm,  $5000 
in  cash  and  $8250  in  the  form  of  a  mortgage  held  by  Patrick  Houston.  The  Castle- 
ton  Hill  property  rapidly  increased  in  value  and  in  1864  Juliana  turned  down  an 
offer  of  $20,000  for  it.  For  the  details  of  these  financial  and  real  estate  arrangements 
see  Gardiner   vs.  Tyler  in  John  Tiffany,  Comp.,  Reports  of  Cases  Argued  and 
Determined  in  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the  State  of  New  York.  (Albany,  1867), 
VIII,  "Gardiner  vs.  Tyler. "  Cited  as  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  35  New  York  Reports, 
563-65;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Deposition  in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New 
York,   1866],   TFP;  David  L.  Gardiner — Patrick  Houston  Mortgage  Agreement, 
Mar.  25,  1853;  Tax  Assessment,  School  District  No.  2,  West  New  Brighton,  Staten 
Island,  N.Y.,  July  23,  1875,  TFP;  B.  Piesrigg  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York, 

619 


Nov.  18,  1858;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  12,  1851; 
Old  Point  Comfort,  Va.,  July  25,  1855;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardi- 
ner, East  Hampton,  May  5,  1852,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeck- 
man,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  25,  1852,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  20,  1852,  TFP;  S.  R.  Ely  to  David  L.  Gardiner, 
Roslyn,  L.I.,  N.Y.,  Mar.  25,  1864,  GPY;  Richard  E.  StilweU  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
New  York,  July  31,  1850;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Dec.  31,  1851;  Jan.  29,  1852,  TFP. 

5  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  9,  1847,  TFP; 
LTT,  II,  465;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  30,  1847,  TPLC; 
Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Aug.  6,   1848,  GPY  ; 
John  Tyler  to  the  Editor,  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  New  York,  Jan.  8, 
1848,  reprinted  in  New  York  Herald,  Jan.   12,   1848;   John  Tyler  to  Alexander 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1848,  TPLC, 

6  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  23,  1848,  Tyler  Papers, 
Duke  University  Library;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Phila- 
delphia, Mar.  1848;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York, 
Mar.  10,  1848,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  19;  Nov. 
6,  1848;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Sept.  10,  1848,  GPY; 
John  Tyler  to  M.  Boswell  Seawell,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  13,  1848,  in  Tyler's  Quar- 
terly, XIII  (October  1931),  78;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  14,  1849,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,   Nov.    14,    1848,   LTT,   II,   462.   For   Robert   Tyler's   relationship   to    the 
Buchanan  candidacy  see  Philip  G.  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler:  Southern  Rights 
Champion,   1847-1866    (Duluth,   Minn.,   1934),    13-16;    Stanwood,   A    History   of 
Presidential  Elections,   161-76;    Roseboom,   A   History    of  Presidential   Elections, 


7  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  21;    9,   1849; 
Alexander   Gardiner  to  John   Tyler,   New  York,  Feb.   26,    1849;    John   Lorimer 
Graham  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  New  York,  May  2$,  1849;  Alexander  Gardiner  to 
Jacob  Collamer,  New  York,  Mar.  14,  1849,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  20,  1849;  George  L.  Huntington  to  John  Tyler, 
East  Hampton,  Mar.  i,  1849,  TFP;  Alexander  Gardiner  to  -  ,  Pittsfield,  Mass., 
June  25,  1849,  GPY. 

8  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  12,  1850,  in  LTT,  II,  481. 
8  John  Tyler  to  Daniel  Webster,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  17,  1850,  TPLC;  John 

Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  17,  1850,  in  LTT,  II,  483. 

10  John  Tyler  to  Henry  S.  Foote,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21,  1850;  John  Tyler 
to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  29,  1850,  in  LTT,  II,  485-89,  484; 
John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21,  1850,  GPY.  See  also 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Josephine  Metcalfe,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [.circa 
May  1850],  TFP. 

njohn  Tyler  to  John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  5,  1851; 
John  Tyler  to  Henry  S.  Foote,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21,  1850,  in  LTT,  II,  412, 
489- 

12  John  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  5,  1850,  in  LTT, 
II,  490;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Philadelphia,  Nov.  18,  1850,  in 
Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  20-21;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Alexander  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  13,  1850;  Samuel  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  Shelter  Island, 
Jan.  i,  1851,  TFP;  John  Tyler,  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Portsmouth  Pilot, 
Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Dec.  10,  1850],  TPLC. 


"Alexander  had  engaged  Hall  as  his  deputy  in  November  1850  largely  on  the 
strength  of  a  strong  recommendation  from  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  See  Charles  M.  Hall 
to  "Evidence,"  New  York  Herald  Office,  New  York,  Oct.  23,  1850;  Alexander 

620 


Gardiner  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  New  York,  Nov.  22,  1850,  GPY.  Hall 
was  29  years  old  and  came  from  Chatham,  Columbia  County,  N.Y.  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Dec.  28,  1850;  Jan.  u,  1851,  GPY. 
Details  and  testimony  in  the  Hamlet  case  may  be  found  in  the  pamphlet,  The 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill:  Its  History  and  Unconstitutionally:  With  an  Account  of  the 
Seizure  and  Enslavement  of  James  Hamlet  and  His  Subsequent  Restoration  to 
Liberty  (New  York,  American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery  Society,  1850),  1-5,  and 
passim.  See  also  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  Dec.  30,  1850;  and  Jan.  7, 
1851;  and  Louis  Filler,  The  Crusade  Against  Slavery }  1830-1860  (New  York,  1960), 
202. 

15  "Justice"  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Rockton,  111.,  Oct.  21,  1850,  GPY;  [Alex- 
ander Gardiner],  "The  Question  of  the  Day,"  New  York  Herald,  Nov.  10,  1850. 
See  also  Judge  Samuel  E.  Johnson  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  Oct.  26,  1850, 
TFP. 

18  John  Lorimer  Graham  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  14,  1851 ;  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  i;  21,  1851,  TFP;  John  S. 
Cunningham  to  John  Tyler,  Portsmouth,  Jan.  27,  1851,  in  LTT,  II,  412 ;  John  Tyler 
to  John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  5,  1851,  in  ibid.,.  413. 

17  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Saratoga,  Sept.   n,   1850,  TPLC;  Alexander 
Gardiner  to  J.  W.  Footh,  New  York,  Sept.  12,  1850,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Robert 
Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  17,  1851,  in  LTT,  II,  494;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Henry 
A.  Wise,  Philadelphia,  Apr.  16,  1852,  in  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  38-39. 

18  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  17;  Apr.  3; 
May  24,  1852,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  M.  B.  Seawell,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  29,  1852, 
in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  XIII   (October  1931),   79;   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.   17,   1852,   TFP;   John  Tyler,   Jr.,   to   Conway 
Whittle,  Philadelphia,  Apr.  8,   1852;   John  Tyler   to   Henry  A.   Wise,   Sherwood 
Forest,  Apr.   20,   1852;   John  Tyler  to   John   S.   Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Apr.  20,  1852,  TPLC.  Attacks  on  the  Tyler  administration  from  outside  Virginia 
were  still  carefully  monitored  and  challenged  by  Robert  Tyler.  See  Robert  Tyler 
to  John  W.  Forney,  Philadelphia,  July  20,  1852,  in  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler, 

45-47- 

10  Philip  G.  Auchampaugh,  "John  W.  Forney,  Robert  Tyler  and  James  Bu- 
chanan," Tyler's  Quarterly,  XV  (October  1933),  76;  John  Tyler  to  John  S.  Cun- 
ningham, Sherwood  Forest,  June  10,  1852,  in  LTT,  II,  497-98;  ibid.,  Apr.  20, 

1852,  TPLC;  James  Buchanan  to  Robert  Tyler,  Wheatland,  Penna.,  June  8,  1852, 
in  LTT,  II,  498;  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  43-45;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper 
Tyler,  129. 

20Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  144-48;  Stanwood,  A  History 
of  Presidential  Elections,  178-91. 

21  John  Tyler  to  Caleb  Cushing,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  17,  1853,  in  LTT,  II, 
5o5-6;  John  Tyler  to  Mrs.  John  Waggaman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  8,  1853,  TPLC; 
Henry  Wise  to  John  Tyler,  Onancock,  Va.,  Apr.  5,  1853,  in  LTT,  II,  505;  Robert 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  May  18,  1853,  in  ibid.,  505  Coleman, 
Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  129;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [Juliana  Gardiner],  White  Sul- 
phur Springs  [Aug.  1853],  in  LTT,  II,  505;  Roy  Franklin  Nichols,  Franklin  Pierce 
(Philadelphia,  1958),  421;  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  22, 
1854,  in  LTT,  II,  509-10;  ibid,,  506. 

22  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  25, 

1853,  TFP. 

23  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  16,  1845, 
TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  6,  1850; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Alexander  Gardiner,  Pittsneld,  Mass.,  July  7>  1849, 
GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  2,  1851, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to   John   S.   Cunningham,   Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.   15,   1852; 

621 


Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  June  13,  1856,  in  LTT,  II,  500,  527; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  15,  1855, 
TPLC. 

2*  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  18,  1852, 
TFP. 

25  Ibid.,  Jan.  23,  1856,  TFP. 

26  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler,   "To   the  Duchess   of  Sutherland  and   the  Ladies  of 
England,"   Southern  Literary   Messenger,   XIX    (Richmond,   Feb.    1853),    120-26. 
Article  originally  written  at  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  24,  1853,  and  published  in  the 
Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  28,  1853. 

*Ibid. 

^Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb. 
5;  12;  19;  23,  1853;  Josephine  Metcalfe  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Chicago, 
Aug.  12,  1853,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  29,  1853, 
in  LTT,  II,  507;  John  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  19,  1853, 
TPLC. 

29  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  17,  1855, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  29,  1854,  TPLC;  ibid., 
Sherwood  Forest,  May  22,  1854;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Jan.  20;  Nov.  19,  1855;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  8, 
1855,  in  LTT,  II,  510,  522,  517,  515.  For  Tyler's  view  of  the  Hungarian  Revolu- 
tion see  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July   16,   1849,  in  ibid., 
491 ;  Sanka  Knox,  "A  Tyler  Letter,"  New  York  Times,  Dec.  7,  1958. 

30  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.   2,   1854;   John 
Tyler  to  William  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  22,  1854,  in  LTT,  II,  509,  510;  Mar- 
garet Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  13,   1854; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  5, 
1854,  TFP. 

31  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,   Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.   23, 
1854,  TPLC. 

32  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  30,  1847;  Saratoga,  Aug.  n, 
1854;   Gov.  William  Bigler  to  Robert  Tyler,   Harrisburg,   July   6,    1854,   TPLC; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  17,   1854;   James  Buchanan 
to  Robert  Tyler,  London,  Jan.  18,  1855;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood 
Forest,  May  19;  June  10,  1856;  Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  Dec. 
23,  1855,  in  LTT,  II,  513,  516-17,  416,  527,  523. 

33  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  20,  1855,  in  ibid.,  517- 
18;  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  244-45;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  12,  1855,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert 
Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  19,  1855,  in  LTT,  II,  522. 

a*John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  19;  June  10,  1856,  in 
ibid.,  416,  527. 

85  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  19,  1856,  in  ibid.,  416. 

36  For  Robert  Tyler's  crucial  liaison  role  in  the  political  relations  between 
Buchanan,  Wise,  and  John  Tyler  see  the  Wise-Buchanan,  Buchanan-Robert  Tyler, 
and  Wise-Robert  Tyler  correspondence  in  LTT,  II,  518-26;  and  in  Auchampaugh, 
Robert  Tyler,  74-75,  77,  80-82,  86-88,  109,  113,  115,  117,  119.  See  also  John 
Tyler  to  John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  28,  1856,  TPLC;  Robert 
Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Philadelphia,  Mar.  17,  1856,  TFP. 

87  Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  June  13,  1856,  in  LTT,  II,  527; 
Robert  Tyler  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  Philadelphia,  June  9,  1856,  in  Auchampaugh, 
Robert  Tyler,  103;  Robert  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Philadelphia,  June  13,  1856, 
TPLC;  James  Buchanan  to  Robert  Tyler,  Wheatland,  May  23,  1856,  in  LTT,  II, 
526;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May 
12,  1856,  TFP. 

622 


38  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  10,  1856;  John  Tyler  to 
John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  14,  1856,  in  LTT,  II,  527,  530. 

39  The  details  of  the  conventions  and  nominations  are  drawn  from  Roseboom, 
A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  157-64;  and  Stanwood,  A  History  of  Presi- 
dential Elections,  192-213.  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
July  21,  1856,  in  LTT,  II,  532. 

40  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  25,   1856,  ibid.,  531; 
Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  127-29;  Henry  A.  Wise  to  Robert  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Aug.  15,  1856;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  27,  1856,  in 
LTT,  II,  531-32. 

41  Henry  A.  Wise  to  Robert  Tyler,  Richmond,  July  6,  1856;   John  Tyler  to 
Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  22,  1856,  hi  ibid.,  530,  534;  Auchampaugh, 
Robert  Tyler,  130;  John  Tyler  to  Letitia  Tyler  Semple,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  29, 
1856,  TPLC. 

*2Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  131-32;  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  143- 
44,  165-66,  237;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Henry  A.  Wise  [Philadelphia,  Nov.  1856],  in 
Auchampaugh,  "John  W.  Forney,  Robert  Tyler  and  James  Buchanan,"  loc.  cit.,  76 ; 
LTT,  II,  645-46;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  3,  1858, 
TPLC;  ibid.,  Nov.  23;  Dec.  6,  1859;  July  22,  1860,  in  LTT,  II,  554-55,  559~6o. 


CHAPTER    17 

1  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  21;  Dec. 
16,  1855,  TFP. 

2  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  17,  1854;  John  Tyler 
to ,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  21,  1857,  in  LTT,  II,  513,  537. 

8  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest, 
May  1854;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Saratoga,  Aug.  1854, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Saratoga,  Aug.  n,  1854;  John  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Saratoga,  Aug.  15,  1854,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  1854,  TFP;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to 
David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  17,  1855;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David 
L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  27,  1855,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  5,  1855,  TFP, 

4  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Alum  Springs,  Aug.  2; 
12;  14;  25,  1856,  GPY. 

5  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov. 
30,  1854,  TFP. 

6  Ibid.,   Jan.   5;   Mar.   2,    1855;   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to   Juliana   Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,   Feb.  8,   1855;    Mar.   i,   1856,   TFP;  John  Tyler  to   Margaret 
Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  27,  1855,  TPLC. 

7  Daniel  M.  Lord  to  John  Tyler,  Shelter  Island,  Nov.  25,  1855,  TFP.  Mary 
L'Hommedieu    Gardiner    Horsford    (1824-1855)    gave    birth    to    four    daughters: 
Lillian    (1848),   Mary   Catherine    (1850),   Gertrude    (1852),   and   Mary    Gardiner 
(1855).  Her  sister,  Phoebe  Gardiner,  married  her  widower,  Eben  N.  Horsford,  in 
1860  and  had  one  child,  Cornelia,  by  him  in  1861.  Denison's  death  left  his  daughter 
Bessie  an  orphan.  She  was  brought  up  by  her  aunt,  Letitia  Tyler  Semple.  Denison 
left  her  an  estate  of  $10,000,  and  some  lots  in  Kansas  City  and  Wilkes-Barre.  A 
few  slaves  were  also  in  the  inheritance.  Although  an  Episcopal  clergyman  and  a 
Pennsylvanian  by  birth,  Denison  was  a  strong  supporter  of  the  slavery  system. 
He  wrote  Tyler  in  September  1858  that  he  had  just  been  aboard  a  slaver  brought 
into  Charleston  harbor  and  "for  the  first  time  saw  naked  savages  in  their  primi- 
tive condition.  It  was  a  sad  spectacle.  Slavery  would  elevate  them  many  degrees." 

623 


W.  M.  Denison  to  John  Tyler,  Charleston,  Sept.  i,  1858,  TPLC ;  Juliana  Gardiner 
to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  Va.,  Oct.  1858,  GPY ';  James  A.  Semple  to  John 
Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  3,  1859;  Feb.  28,  1860,  TFP.  For  details  of  the  death  of 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  (1822-1857)  see  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  28,  1857;  Phoebe  Gardiner  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  June  7,  1857;  John  A.  Belvin  (Funeral  Director)  to 
John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Oct.  21,  1857,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Eliza  Gardiner 
Brumley,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  5,  1857,  Gardiner  Papers,  Long  Island  Collection, 
East  Hampton  Free  Library.  The  funeral  bill  of  $174.25  had  not  been  paid  by  Octo- 
ber 21.  A  family  tradition  is  that  Margaret  died  of  tuberculosis.  She  probably  had 
the  disease,  but  it  is  doubtful  that  it  Mlled  her  in  1857.  Interview  with  J.  Alfred 
Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,  1960. 

8  Julia   Gardiner   Tyler  to   Eliza   Gardiner   Brumley,   Sherwood   Forest,   July 
5,  1857,  Gardiner  Papers,  Long  Island  Collection,  East  Hampton  Free  Library. 

9  John  Tyler  to   Henry  A.  Wise,   Sherwood  Forest,   Mar.    [8-10] ;    17,    1856, 
TPLC;    Juliana    Gardiner    to    David    L.    Gardiner,    Sherwood    Forest,    Mar.    27, 
1856,  GPY.  Robert  Fitzwalter  Tyler  spent  his  entire  life  farming  in  New  Kent 
County.  He  married  a  Fannie   Glinn  and  died  in  Richmond   on  Dec.   30,   1927. 

10  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  22,  1856,  in  LTT,  II, 
534;  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  21;  24, 
1856,  TPLC.  For  the  health,  growth,  and  education  of  the  Tyler  children,  par- 
ticularly Gardie  and  Alex,  during  this  period,  see  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gar- 
diner Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  3,  1856,  in  LTT,  II,  529  ("I  . . .  reached  home, 
finding  Julia  well  and  the  children  wLh  the  chicken-pox;  and  so  ends  my  cate- 
chism") ;   David   Gardiner   Tyler   to    David   L.   Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr. 
15,  1857,  GPY  ("I  go  regularly  to  school  studying  Dictionary,  Latin,  Geography, 
English  grammer   [sic],  and  Arithmetic  besides  reading") ;   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler 
to   Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  May   12,   1855,   TFP;   John 
Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  14,  1855 ;  TPLC ; 
Julia    Gardiner   Tyler   to   David   L.    Gardiner,    Sherwood   Forest,    June   9,    1858; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  Oct.  19;  26,  1858,  GPY. 

11  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  25,  1855; 
John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  6,  1855,  in  LTT,  II,  523-24; 
5I4-I5. 

12  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  17,  1854; 
Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  22,  1854, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Henry  Curtis,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  14,  1855;  John  Tyler 
to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  23,  1855;  Feb.  17;  20; 
24,  1856,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  5,  1857, 
in  LTT,  II,   109.  For  Tazewell  Tyler's  medical  education  and  practice  in  Wil- 
Hamsburg  and  in  New  Kent  County  see  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeck- 
man,  Sherwood   Forest,   Jan.   8,   1853;    John   Tyler  to   Robert   Tyler,   Sherwood 
Forest,   Nov.    6,    1854;    John   Tyler   to    Letitia   Tyler   Semple,   Sherwood    Forest, 
Dec.  8,  1857,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest, 
July  i,  1853,  TFP. 

13  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Jr.,   Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  5,   1857,  in  LTT, 
II,  109. 

14  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Philadelphia,  Oct.  18, 
1856;  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Alum  Springs,  Aug.  2, 
1856,  TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  9, 
1858;    Hampton,    Oct.    26,    1858,    GPY;    John    Tyler    to    Silas    Reed,    Sherwood 
Forest,  Apr.  7,  1858,  in  LTT,  II,  541 ;  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood 
Forest,  Mar.  29,  1858,  TPLC;  Will  of  John  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  10,  1859 
(photostat),  entered  for  probate  in  Charles  City  County  Court   (by  Julia)    on 
Jan.  15,  1863,  TFP. 

624 


15  John  Tyler  to  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  14, 
1855;  Henry  A.  Wise  to  John  Tyler,  Onancock,  Va.,  Aug.  7,  1855;  William  Green 
to  John  Tyler,  Culpepper,  Va.,  Aug.  13,  1855,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  6,  1854,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David 
L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  July  12,  1860,  GPY;  John  Tyler  to  Professor  Ewell,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Feb.  n,  1859;  John  Tyler  to ,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  22,  1860, 

TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  19,  1859,  in  LTT, 
II,  547;  John  Tyler,  "Early  Times  of  Virginia — William  and  Mary  College," 
De  Bow's  Review,  XXVIII  (August  1859),  136-49. 

13  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  6,  1859,  in  LTT,  II,  553. 

17  Margaret  Gardiner  Beeckman  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  2, 
1856;  Mar.  26,  1855,  TFP;  Henry  M.  Denison  to  John  Tyler,  Louisville,  July  2, 
1855,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Baltimore,  Mar.  22,  1855; 
Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  7,  1855,  TFP. 

18  Thomas  Ritchie  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Mar.  14,  1856;   John  Tyler  to 
John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  28,  1856,  TPLC.  The  speech  is  re- 
printed in  LTT,  II,  384—99,  and  in  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger  for  August, 
1856. 

19  LTT,   II,    537-38;    John   Tyler   to    David   L.    Gardiner,    Sherwood   Forest, 
Apr.   6,   1857,   TPLC;   David   Gardiner   Tyler   to   David  L.   Gardiner,   Sherwood 
Forest,  Apr.   15,   1857,   GPY;   Ralph  H.   Rives,   "The  Jamestown  Celebration  of 
1857,"   The   Virginia  Magazine   of  History   and   Biography,   LXVI    (June   1958), 
259-71. 

20  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  31,  1855, 
TFP. 

21  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Hampton,  Aug.  10;  24;  Sept.  24, 
1859,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  14, 
1859,   TFP;   John  Tyler  to   Robert  Tyler,   Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.   23,   1859,  m 
LTT,  II,  554- 

22  Quotation  reconstructed  from  a  detailed  paraphrase  found  in  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  10,  1859,  TFP. 

23 Ibid.,  Nov.  14;  Dec.  I,  1859;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Dec.  I,  1859,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Dec.  6,  1859,  in  LTT,  II,  555.  The  1850  census  showed  Charles  City  County  with 
1664  whites,  772  Negro  freedmen,  and  2764  Negro  slaves. 

24  Auchampaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  275-76,  363;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  23,  1859,  TPLC. 

"5  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  i,  1859, 
TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  6,  1859,  in  LTTf  II, 

555- 

28  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  8;  14;  19; 
1859,  TFP. 

227  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  7,  1860; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  28;  Dec.  28, 
1859;  Samuel  Gardiner  to  John  Tyler,  Shelter  Island,  Nov.  29,  1858,  TFP;  W. 
Farley  Grey  to  John  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  22,  1859,  in  LTT,  II,  556;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  8,  1860;  Nov.  10, 
1859,  TFP;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  19,  1859,  in  LTT, 
H>  547;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  8, 
1859,  TFP. 

28  Ibid.,  Feb.  14,  1860,  TFP. 

20  Ibid.,  Mar.  13,  1860.  At  the  same  time,  the  Tylers  made  a  special  effort  to 
entertain  Judge  Richard  Parker  when  he  visited  in  the  county  in  February  1860. 
See  ibid.,  Feb.  29,  1860,  TFP. 

80 LTT,  II,  549;  236-39;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept. 

625 


6,  i857,  TPLC;  ibid.,  Villa  Margaret,  Aug.  28,  1858;  John  Tyler  to  John  Tyler, 
Jr.,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  7,  1858 ;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest, 
July  14,  1858,  in  LTT,  II,  241-42,  242-43,  544- 

31  Ibid.,  May  26,  1859,  TPLC. 

32  Robert  Tyler  to   John   Tyler,   Philadelphia,   July   13,    1859,    TPLC;   John 
Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Villa  Margaret,  July  16;  Aug.  i,  1859;  Sherwood  Forest, 
Oct.  6;  19,  1859,  in  LTT,  II,  551,  552,  547,  553- 

33  Ibid.,  Oct.  6,  1859,  in  ibid.,  553;  ibid.,  Dec.  23,  1859,  TPLC;  ibid.,  Jan.  19, 
1860,  in  LTT,  I,  596;  II,  557;  John  Tyler,  Jr.   [pseud.  "Python"],  "The  History 
of  Party,  and  the  Political  Status  of  John  Tyler,"  De  Bow's  Review,  XXVI  (March 
1859),  300-9;  John  Tyler,  Jr.  [pseud.  "Tau"],  "The  Relative  Status  of  the  North 
and  the  South,"  De  Bow's  Review,  XXVII  (July  1859),  I~29- 

34  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  28;  Nov.  8; 
10,  1859;  Feb.  8;  Jan.  3,  1860,  TFP;  Mar.  20,  1860,  in  LTT,  II,  546-47- 

35  Ibid.,  I,  467;  John  Tyler  to  H.  B.  Grigsby,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  16,  1860,  in 
Tyler's  Quarterly,  XI  (April  1930),  236-37. 

36  Ibid.;   Mary   Conger  to   Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,   Waldberg,   July   24,    1869; 
Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  June   1860,  TFP; 
Tyler  vs.  Gardiner,  35  New  York  Reports,  VIII,  600-1 ;  Receipts  from  Tiffany  and 
Co.  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  23;  25,  1860,  GPY ;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler   to   David   L.    Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.    12,    1860,    TFP;    Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  June   13;   14;    16;    23;   July   12;   26, 
1860,  GPY;  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  6,  1860, 
TFP;  Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Pomfret,  Conn.,  Aug.  25, 
1886,   GPY.   Three   children   were   born   to   David   Lyon   and   Sarah   Thompson 
Gardiner:  David  in  April  1861,  Sarah  Diodati  in  July  1862,  and  Robert  Alexander 
in  1864.  Robert  married  Norah  Loftus  in   1908.  Their  children  were  Alexandra 
Diodati  Gardiner  (Mrs.  J.  R.  Creel)    (1910-        ) ;  and  Robert  David  Lion  Gar- 
diner (1911-        ).  Sarah  Diodati  Gardiner  died  unmarried  in  1953,  as  did  David 
in   1927.  Robert  Alexander  died  in   1919.  See  John  Tyler  to   Juliana   Gardiner, 
Richmond,  May  2,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  664;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  L.  F.  Cooper,  New 
York,  Aug.  2,  1862,  TFP;  Interview  with  Judge  J.  Randall  Creel  and  Alexandra 
Gardiner  Creel,  Oyster  Bay,  L.I.,  N.Y.  Aug.  28,  1959;  East  Hampton  Cemetery 
Records,  East  Hampton  Free  Library. 

37  John  Tyler  to  John  S.  Cunningham,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  30,  1860;  John 
Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Villa  Margaret,  July  22,  1860,  in  LTT,  II,  558,  559. 

38  Ibid.;  Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  173-80. 

38  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Villa  Margaret,  Aug.  14,  1860;  Sherwood 
Forest,  Aug.  27,  1860;  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct. 
27,  1860,  in  LTT,  II,  559,  560,  561,  563- 

"John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Villa  Margaret,  July  22;  Aug.  14,  1860;  Sher- 
wood Forest,  Aug.  27,  1860,  in  ibid.,  559,  560,  561-62. 

^  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  27,  1860;  Villa  Margaret, 
Sept.  14,  1860;  John  Tyler  to  H.  S.  Foote,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  26,  1860,  in 
ibid.,  562,  561. 

42  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  n.d. 
[Sept.-Oct.  1860],  TFP:  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Villa  Margaret, 
June  9,  1858;  June  23,  1860,  GPY;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.;  Feb.  23;  29;  May  15,  1860,  TFP. 

^Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  June  13;  14;  23;  July 
12;  26,  1860,  GPY;  Fanny  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  July  17, 
1860,  TFP;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Hampton,  Oct.  [20-26!,  1858, 
GPY;  Society  of  the  "Old  Boys"  of  Hampton  Academy  to  John  Tyler,  Hampton, 
Jan.  3,  1860,  TPLC. 

626 


44  Juliana  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Villa  Margaret,  Aug.  15,  1860;  Sarah 
Thompson  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  June  29,  1860,  TFP. 

45  John  Tyler  to  William  G.  Waller,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  5,  1860,  TPLC. 
^John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  10,  1860,  in  LTT,  II, 

563;  John  Tyler  to  Silas  Reed,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  16,  1860,  TPLC.  Compare 
with  the  version  printed  in  LTT,  II,  574-75. 

*  J.  Selden  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Baltimore,  Dec.  26,  1874,  TFP. 

48  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  14,  1860, 

TFP;  John  Tyler  to  ,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  3,  1860,  TPLC;  John  Tyler 

to  Caleb  Gushing,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  14,  1860,  in  LTT,  II,  577, 


CHAPTER    1 8 

*LTT,  II,  576. 

2  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  i,  1861,  in  ibid., 

578- 

3 Ibid.,  580-81;  Robert  Gray  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention:  The 
Washington  Peace  Conference  of  1861  (Madison,  Wis.,  1961),  24-25. 

*  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  17,  1861;  John  Tyler  to  ,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sher- 
wood Forest,  Jan.  10-17,  1861],  TPLC. 

5  Richmond  Enquirer,  Jan.  17,  1861;  LTT,  II,  580,  Philadelphia  Pennsylvanian, 
Jan.  26,  1861,  quoted  in  Auchampaugh,  JRobert  Tyler,  320-21. 

ejohn  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  18,  1861,  in  ibid.,  578- 
79;  ibid.,  581. 

7  Ibid.;  John  Tyler  to  Robert  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  18,  1861,  in  ibid., 
579;   Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  25-26.  Gunderson  links  Tyler  to 
the  extremist  Seddon  viewpoint  at  this  time.  While  Tyler  later  did  identify  him- 
self with  Seddon  at  the  Peace  Conference,  he  was  clearly  no  secessionist  in  mid- 
January    1861.   Nevertheless,   the   Gunderson   study  is   by   far   the   best   on   this 
subject. 

8  LTT,  II,  581 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan. 
22,  1861,  TFP. 

"Ibid.;  LTT,  II,  619-20. 

™Ibid.,  589-90. 

n  John  Tyler  to  Wyndham  Robertson,  Washington,  Jan.  26,  1861;  John  Tyler 
to  James  Buchanan,  Washington,  Jan.  28,  1861,  in  ibid.,  590-91,  592. 

™Ibid,,  610;  James  D.  Halyburton  to  John  Tyler,  Richmond,  Jan.  25,  1861 ; 
Robert  Winthrop  to  John  Tyler,  Boston,  Feb.  12,  1861;  Robert  Dale  Owen  to  John 
Tyler,  Indianapolis,  Feb.  14,  1861,  TPLC;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Washington,  Feb.  3,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  596-97. 

13  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  4;  13,  1861,  in 
ibid.,  597-98,  612-13;  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  55,  58. 

"  Ibid.,  lo-n,  105-6;  Alexander  W.  Doniphan  to  James  Guthrie,  Washington, 
Feb.  14,  1861,  Tyler  Peace  Collection,  Alderman  Library,  University  of  Virginia. 

15  Unidentified  Newspaper  Clipping,  Feb.  6,  1861,  Tyler  Peace  Collection, 
Alderman  Library,  University  of  Virginia. 

1QLTT,  II,  610-12;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington, 
Feb.  13,  1861,  in  ibid.,  613. 

17  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  49,  63-64,  70,  50-60,  and  passim. 

18  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Washington,  Feb.  13,  1861,  in 
LTT,  II,  613. 

18  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  62-64,  107-9,  14*  J  Speech  of  John 

627 


Tyler,  Delivered  March  13,  1861,  in  the  Virginia  State  Convention  (Pamphlet; 
Richmond,  1861).  For  the  wording  of  the  radical  Seddon  proposal  see  LTT,  II, 
606.  The  question  and  degree  of  Tyler's  complicity  in  drafting  the  Seddon  proposal 
rests  on  an  interpretation  of  a  semantically  obscure,  undated  [February  1861],  John 
Tyler  to  James  A.  Seddon  note  in  the  Tyler  Peace  Collection,  Alderman  Library, 
University  of  Virginia.  It  reads:  "Here  is  my  suggestion  thrown  into  form.  I  cannot 
but  regard  it  as  important.  It  avoids  propagandism  and  secures  us  in  our  territories. 
The  distribution  clause  appropriately  follows — so  it  seems  to  me.  If  you  concur 
present  it  at  the  proper  time.  If  you  incline  against  it  [this  phrase  struck  through 
but  legible]  I  cannot  but  consider  it  as  well  calculated  to  heal  discontents  both 
North  and  South."  If  indeed  the  wording  of  this  informal  note  refers  to  the  most 
extreme  section  of  Seddon's  proposal  (most  of  it  ran  along  Crittenden  compromise 
lines),  then  a  knowledge  of  its  date  would  have  great  significance  in  detailing 
Tyler's  shift  to  the  radical  secessionist  position.  Given  Tyler's  changing  frame  of 
mind  on  February  13-15,  1861,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  he  actually  helped  Sed- 
don draw  up  the  proposal  in  the  hope  that  its  very  extremism  would  bring  the  con- 
vention to  grief  and  a  speedy  adjournment.  If  so,  one  might  hazard  Feb.  14  as  the 
date  of  the  letter. 

20  James  Buchanan  to  John  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  21,  1861,  TPLC;  LTT, 
II,  613-14;  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  68. 

21  Carl  Sandburg,  Abraham  Lincoln:  The  War  Years,  4  vols.  (New  York,  1939), 

I,  87-90. 

^LTT,  II,  615-16,  633;  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  86-94,  107; 
John  Tyler  to  Talbot  Sweeney,  Richmond,  Nov.  30,  1861,  TPLC. 

235  Gunderson,  Old  Gentlemen's  Convention,  95-97;  LTT,  II,  616,  620,  622, 
629;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  135—36;  Sandburg,  Lincoln,  I,,  125—37. 

^Speech  of  John  Tyler,  Delivered  March  13,  1861,  in  the  Virginia  State  Con- 
vention, 1-32;  LTT,  621-28;  Richmond  Enquirer,  Mar.  30,  1861. 

25  John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Mar.  24,  1861,  TPLC;  ibid.; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  19,  1861,  in 
LTT,  II,  629,  627;  John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Mar.  19-20, 
1861,  TPLC;  John  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Apr.  5,  1861,  in  LTT, 

II,  630;   John  Tyler,  "To  the  People  of  the  Northern  States,"  Richmond,  n.d. 
[Mar.  13-25,  1861],  TPLC;  Sandburg,  Lincoln,  I,  222;  LTT,  II,  630. 

28  John  Tyler  to  [Benjamin  Patton],  Sherwood  Forest,  May  7,  1861,  TPLC; 
John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Apr.  16,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  640. 

27  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  18,  1861,  in 
ibid,,  646-47. 

28  John  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Apr.  18,  1861,  in  ibid.,  641- 
42. 

20  Ibid.,  642-43,  647,  658-59- 

80  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  136-40;  Deran  Green,  Old  Houses  on 
Radcliff  Street  (Bristol,  Pa.,  1938),  151;  Aucharnpaugh,  Robert  Tyler,  342;  306- 
13;  336-39;  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  York,  Apr.  27,  1861, 
TFP;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  25;  May 
7;  ii,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  648,  649,  650-51.  For  Robert  Tyler's  escape  from  Phila- 
delphia and  the  subsequent  confiscation  of  his  Bristol,  Pa.,  property  in  September 
1861,  see  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  16,  1861,  and  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  Sept.  14, 
1861,  reprinted  in  Frank  Moore  (ed.),  The  Rebellion  Record.  A  Diary  of  Ameri- 
can Events,  3  vols.  (New  York,  1862),  I,  26;  III,  28.  Priscilla's  sister,  Julia  Cooper 
Campbell,  was  the  wife  of  Allan  Campbell,  president  of  the  New  York  and  Harlem 
Railroad.  They  lived  at  44  E.  39th  St.,  in  1861.  Still  at  home  with  Priscilla  at 
the  time  of  her  flight  were  these  of  her  children:  Grace  Raoul,  15;  Priscilla,  called 
"Tousie,"  ii ;  Elizabeth,  9;  Julia  Campbell,  5;  and  Robert,  called  "Robbie,"  3. 
Daughter  Letitia  Christian,  the  Confederate  flag- raiser,  was  then  with  her  aunt, 

628 


Priscilla's  sister,  Mary  Grace  Cooper  Raoul,  in  Montgomery.  She  was  19.  Three 
other  of  Priscilla's  children  died  young,  vis.:  Mary  Fairlee  (1840-1845) ;  John  IV 
(1842-1846) ;  and  Thomas  Cooper  (1848-1849).  When  she  fled  Philadelphia  Priscilla 
left  her  daughter  Elizabeth  with  her  sister  Julia  Cooper  Campbell. 

31  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  142-43 ;  L.  F.  Campbell  to  Juliana  Gardiner, 
Albany,  N.Y.,  Sept.  9,  1863.  TFP;  LTT,  II,  684-85;  Langford,  Ladies  of  the  White 
House,   327-29;    Sarah    D.    Gardiner,    Memories    of    Gar  diners   Island,    97;    Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  n;  7,  1861,  in  LTT, 
II,  651,  650.  William  G.  Waller  survived  the  war  and  later  served  as  assistant 
editor  of  the  Savannah  News  and  managing  editor  of  the  Richmond  Times.  His 
first  wife  was  Jenny  Howell,  his  second  was  Bessie  Austin.  See  Richmond  Dispatch, 
July  n,  1889. 

32  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  7,  1861,  in 
LTT,  II,  649-50. 

33  John  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  May  2,  1861,  in  ibid.,  643. 

84  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  John  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  27,  1861,  TPLC; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  25;  May  2;  4; 
7,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  644,  647-48,  649,  650;  ibid.,  659;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,   Staten  Island,   June   10,   1861 ;   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to   Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  n,  1860,  TFP.  The  Villa  Margaret  flag  incident 
of  June  3,  1861,  is  recounted  in  the  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser,  June  4, 
1861,  reprinted  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  I,  91. 

85  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  June  10,  1861,  TFP; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana   Gardiner,   Sherwood  Forest,  May  4;   June   16; 
July  2,  1861,  in  LTT,  II,  649,  653;  651-52.  The  champagne  celebration  of  Manassas 
story  is  found  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record,  III,  n. 

36  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  June  10,  1861; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to Cooper,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  9,  1861,  TFP. 

87  LTT,  II,  658-65;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  For- 
est, Nov.  4,  1861,  TFP. 

88  This  account  of  John  Tyler's  death  is  Julia's.  It  is  very  likely  a  recollection 
from  the  distance  of  the  late  18703  or  early  i88os  when  her  son,  Lyon  G.  Tyler, 
was  working  on  The  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers.  It  is  found  in  LTT,  II, 
670—72.  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  283;  LTT,  II,  667.  For  a  medical  in- 
terpretation of  the  cause  of  his  death  see  Marx,  Health  of  the  Presidents,  136-37. 

38  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Judge  Fitzhugh,  Sherwood  Forest,  n.d.  [Summer 
1865];  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Tazewell  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  n.d.  [May  1865], 
TFP. 

*°LTT,  II,  673-84;  Will  of  John  Tyler  (photostat),  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct. 
10,  1859,  TFP;  Richmond  Whig,  Jan.  21;  22,  1862,  cited  in  LTT,  674-76,  681-84. 

41  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  283. 

CHAPTER    IQ 

1  Juliana  Gardiner  to  L.  F.   Campbell,  Staten  Island,  Jan.  31,   1862;  Julia 
Gardiner    Tyler   to    Juliana    Gardiner,   Sherwood   Forest,   Apr.    i,    1862;    Louise 
Ludlow  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Baltimore,  Mar.  23;  28,  1862,  TFP. 

2  Phoebe   Gardiner   Horsford   to   Juliana   Gardiner,   Shelter   Island,  Aug.    21, 
1863;  Cambridge,  Mass.,  Jan.  27;  Sept.  9,  1862;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Staten  Island,  May  18,  1862,  TFP. 

"  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler ,  143 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gar- 
diner, Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  28,  1862;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Staten  Island,  May  18,  1862 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  L.  F.  Campbell,  Staten  Island, 
Apr.  21,  1862,  TFP. 

629 


*  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  i,  1862; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  L.  F.  Campbell,  Staten  Island,  May  18,  1862,  TFP. 

5  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  143-45 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Staten  Island,  May  18,  1862,  TFP. 

6  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Commanding  Officer,  U.S.  Forces  at  Jamestown  and 
Williamsburg,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  30,  1862,  GPY. 

7 Juliana  Gardiner  to  L.  F.  Campbell,  New  York,  Aug.  2;  n.d.  [Aug.];  July 
13,  1862;  L.  F.  Campbell  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  New  Rochelle,  N.Y.,  July  22;  Aug. 
20,  1862 ;  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Cambridge,  Sept.  9,  1862, 
TFP. 

8  See  n.  20,  below,  for  references  to  the  tensions  emerging  during  this  visit 
to  Staten  Island. 

9  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  ,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  early  1863];  Julia 

Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Old  Point  Comfort,  Jan.  8,  1863;  Sherwood 
Forest,  Jan.  12,  1863,  TFP. 

10  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Richmond,  Feb.  17,  1863;  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  Louisa  Cooper,  Staten  Island,  Mar.   8,    1863;   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to   Juliana   Gardiner,   Sherwood  Forest,  May    12,    1863 ;   William   H.    Clopton   to 
Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,    Charles    City,    Oct.    18,    1863;    David    Gardiner   Tyler   to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Oct.  2,  1863  ;  Dec.  24,  1863,  TFP. 

11  Chitwood,  Tyler,  255-56 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Judge  Fitzhugh,  Sherwood 
Forest,   n.d.    [Oct.   1862];    Julia   Gardiner   Tyler  to    Tazewell   Tayler,   Sherwood 
Forest,   Sept.   21,    1863;   L.   C.   Crump   to   Julia    Gardiner   Tyler,   Winslow,   New 
Kent  County,  Va.,  Sept.  24,  1863;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  L.  C.  Crump,  Sher- 
wood Forest,   Sept.  4,   1863,   TFP.  The  deposit  slip  for  $5048.25   is   dated   Mar. 
19,    1863,    and   is    found   in    TFP.   James   A.    Semple    to    Julia    Gardiner   Tyler, 
Drewry's  Bluff,   Va.,   Oct.  31,   1863;   Julia   Gardiner   Tyler   to   Juliana   Gardiner, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  8,  1863,  TFP.  The  two  white  laborers  Julia  was  "lucky" 
to  hire  were  named  Harod  and  Oakley.  Harod,  a  mason  by  trade,  was  to  run  the 
plantation  mill  for  which  he  was  paid  $150  annually  plus  board.  He  took  the 
job  in  order   to   feed  his   family   and   hold  it  together.   Oakley,   an   "old   man," 
had  been  the  last  overseer  at  nearby  Weyanoke  plantation  and  wanted  to  remain 
in   the   area.   His   services   were   purchased   for   $144   and   board   annually.   Both 
men  lived  in  "tenements  on  the  place,"  probably  abandoned  slave  quarters. 

12  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  8;  May  12, 
1863,  TFP. 

"Gilbert  Beeckman  to  Harry  Beeckman,  New  York,  May  20,  1863;  May  23, 
1863;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Louisa  Cooper,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  13,  1863;  Phoebe 
Gardiner  Horsford  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  Dec.  26,  1863 ;  John  B. 
Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  Apr.  8,  1863;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  July  19;  Aug.  19,  1863;  Harry  G.  Beeckman  to 
Juliana  Gardiner,  Gardiners  Island,  Aug.  27,  1864;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept.  6,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gar- 
diner, Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  8;  May  12,  1863;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Deposition, 
in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  1865]  ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Mrs. 
Crane,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  14  [1863],  TFP. 

"Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Aug.  19;  July  19;  20, 
1863;  J.  Meta  L.  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  May  22;  Sept.  9,  1863; 
Juliana  Gardiner  to  Mrs.  Crane,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  14  [1863],  TFP. 

15 Louisa  Cooper  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Montgomery,  n.d.  [May  13,  1863], 
quoted  in  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  12, 
1863,  TFP;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  147-48;  Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the 
White  House,  329;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Drewry's  Bluff,  Nov. 
9,  1863 ;  Juliana  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  20,  1863 ;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  20,  1863,  TFP. 

16  Major  Thomas  L.  Bayne  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Ordnance  Bureau,  Rich- 

630 


mond,  Aug.  10,  1863;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Drewry's  Bluff, 
Sept.  23;  Oct.  31,  1863;  H.  J.  Miller  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Bank,  Va.,  Oct. 
8,  1863 ;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Nov.  14,  1863  ; 
L.  Heyligery  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Nassau,  Dec.  29,  1863;  Jan.  16,  1864;  Norman 
J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Oct.  19,  1863;  J.  M.  Seixas 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Wilmington,  July  10,  1864.  For  Julia's  claims  against 
the  War  Department  for  the  horse  and  oats,  prosecuted  in  the  main  by  Semple, 
see  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Drewry's  Bluff,  Nov.  9,  1863;  Feb. 
10 ;  Apr.  3,  1864,  TFP.  Brig.  Gen.  A.  R.  Lawton,  CSA,  handled  the  claim  for  the 
government.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it  was  ever  paid.  The  R.  E.  Lee  was  a  long, 
narrow,  fast,  Clyde-built  iron  steamer  operated  by  the  Confederate  Ordnance  De- 
partment; Wilkinson,  a  former  U.S.  naval  officer  and  native  of  Norfolk,  was 
one  of  the  Department's  most  skillful  and  successful  skippers;  he  was  paid  as  a 
naval  officer  hi  the  grade  of  lieutenant.  He  was  not,  in  this  sense,  a  free-enterpris- 
ing blockade  runner,  but  an  officer  in  the  Confederate  States  Navy.  This  too  was 
the  status  of  Captain  R.  H.  Gayle  of  the  Cornubia. 

17  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Nov.  14,  1863; 
Mrs.  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  n.d.  [early 
January    1864] ;    Jan.    10,    1864,    TFP.   Gayle   was   taken   on   Nov.    7,    1863.   See 
R.  H.  Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Warren,  Boston,  Aug.  7,  1864,  TFP. 
Gayle's  exact  age  is  not  known.  He  was  appointed  midshipman  hi  the  U.S.  Navy 
in  1848   (resigned  in  1853),  which  would  probably  put  his  year  of  birth  around 
1830-1831. 

18  Professor  Nelson  served  as   Captain  of  the  Washington   College  Company 
with  Professor  Campbell  as  First  Lieutenant.  The  Washington  College  Company 
paused  or  bivouacked  at  Millerstown,  Jordan's  Furnace,  Rockbridge  Alum,  Cali- 
fornia Furnace,  and  Shirkey's  during  the  three-day  march  which  took  them  to 
within  eight  miles  of  Covington.  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Lexington,  Nov.  14,  1863.  Several  weeks  later  the  Washington  College  Company 
marched  off  on  another  "Quixotic  expedition  . . .  but  we  did  not  succeed  in  com- 
ing to  blows  with  the  enemy.  I  had  a  good  deal  of  fun  in  camp,  as  my  company 
was  a  jolly  one."  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Lexington,  Feb.  4, 
1864,  TFP. 

19  Mrs.  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Feb. 
18,  1864;  n.d.  [early  Jan.  1864].  Major  Norman  J.  Walker,  CSA,  was  a  purchasing 
agent   for   the    Confederate    government.    He   had   helped  Julia   with    her   cotton 
transaction.  Norman  J.  Walker  to   Julia   Gardiner   Ty>er,   St.   George,  Bermuda, 
Oct.  19,  1863,  TFP. 

20  The  residents  of  the  Castleton  Hill  house,  and  their  ages  as  of  Christmas 
1863   were:    Juliana    (64);    Julia    (43);    Alex    (15);   Julie    (14);    Lachlan    (12); 
Lyon  G.   (10) ;  Robert  Fitzwalter   (7);  Pearl  (3);  Harry  Beeckman  (15);  David 
Lyon  Gardiner   (47) ;   Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner   (34) ;   and  their  two  children: 
David  (2)  and  Sarah  Diodati  (i)  ;   (their  third  child,  Robert  Alexander,  was  not 
born   until   1864),  Julia's  maid  Celia,   of  course,  was  a  freed  Negro.  Details  of 
these  difficult  months,  Dec.   1863   to   Feb.   1864,  in  the   Gardiner  household  and 
during  Julia's  earlier  visit  in  Nov.-Dec.  1862  may  be  found  in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler, 
35  New   York  Reports,  VIII,  561-65;   and  passim,  559-616;  and  also  in  various 
draft  depositions  relating  to  this  case,  in  the  handwriting  of  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
found  in  TFP.  Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  note,  n.d.   [Jan.- 
Feb.  1864];  Julia  Tyler,  Draft  Deposition  in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr. 
1867;  Nurse  [name  unknown]  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Statement  in  a  Deposition 
in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.  [Spring  1867] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Draft 
Depositions  in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d.   [Spring  1867],  TFP.  Juliana 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  Feb.  10,  1864,  in  Gardiner  vs.  Tyler, 
35  New  York  Reports,  569. 

^  R.  H.  Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Warren,  Boston,  Mar.  10;  26; 

631 


Apr.  12;  May  3;  14;  19;  June  4;  9;  Aug.  7;  18;  22;  28;  Sept.  30,  18647 
City  Point,  Va.,  Oct.  18,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  Staten. 
Island,  Mar.  23,  1864;  Dr.  W.  Tucker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Brooklyn,  Feb.  18, 
1864;  Mrs.  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Feb. 
18;  Apr.  17,  1864;  Major  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Halifax,  N.S., 
Aug.  15,  1864,  TFP. 

22  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Dec.  18,  1864;  R.  H. 
Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Jan.  i,  1865;  Mrs.  Norman. 
J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Halifax,  N.S.,  Jan.  n,  1865;  R.  H.  Gayle  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Warren,  Boston,  Feb.  10;  17;  Mar.  24;  Apr.  10,  1865^ 
TFP. 

23  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Mar.  29,  1864; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  Sept.  i,  1864;  L.  C.  Clark 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  21,  1864;  Anna  M.  Atwood  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Pittsburgh,  Feb.  21,  1865;   Lucy  Trowbridge  to  Harriet  Francis, 
New  York,  Jan.  15,  1865;  J.  Meta  L.  to  Juliana  Gardiner,  Staten  Island,  Sept.  9, 
1863;  M.  F.  Vaiden  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  U.S.  Prison,  Point  Lookout,  Md., 
July  28,  1864;  Thomas  Douthat  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  U.S.  Prison,  Point  Look- 
out, Md.,  May  31,  1864;  William  H.  Clopton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Roseland,. 
Va.,  June  20,  1864;  Mrs.  D.  E.  L.  Carter  to  Capt.  Blake,  Philade'phia,  July  21, 
1864 ;  Lt.  T.  J.  King  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Military  Prison,  Fort  Delaware,  Del., 
Mar.  30,  1865 ;  William  P.  Ballard  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Prisoners'  Camp  Hospi- 
tal, Apr.  26,  1864,  TFP.  Coleman.  Priscitta  Cooper  Tyler,  146. 

24  Mrs.  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Feb. 
18;  Jan.  10,*  Mar.  18;  Apr.  17,  1864,-  C.  A,  L.  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d. 
[Spring  1864] ;  R.  H.  Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda,  Jan.  i, 
1865;  Anna  M.  Atwood  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Haywind  Springs,  Pa.,  July  22, 
1864;  N.  Ilewish  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Clarksville,  Tenn.,  June  30,  1864;  Jane 
Selden  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Reswick,  Va.,  May  4,  1864;  James  A.  Semple  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Feb.  10,  1864,  TFP. 

25  Maria  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Charles  City,  Jan.  2,  1864;  John  C. 
Tyler   to   Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,   Sherwood   Forest,   Feb.;    Feb.    27,    1864;    David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Mar.  29,  1864;  Thomas  Douthat 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Point  Lookout,  May  31,  1864,  TFP. 

26  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  Lexington,  Feb.  24,  1864  J  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Feb.  3;  Mar.  29,  1864;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Lexington,  Feb.  4,  1864,  TFP. 

27  Maria  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  10,  1864;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  May   22,   1864;   William  H. 
Clopton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Bermuda  Hundred,  May  17;   24,   1864;   Rose- 
land,  Charles  City  County,  June  20,  1864   (Clopton  reported  in  this  letter  that 
"Wild  and  his  horde"  had  been  removed  from  Kennon's  Landing,  but  he  was  mis- 
taken.) ;   John  C.  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Hamilton  near  Fortress 
Monroe,  May  20,  1864,  TFP. 

28  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Staten  Island,  May  21; 
June  2,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Staten  Island,  May  21, 
1864,  TFP. 

20  John  G.  Nicolay  to  Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler,  Washington,  Aug.  19,  1864; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Col.  Joseph  Holt,  Staten  Island,  June  8,  1864  (Holt  was  a 
close  friend  of  the  Charles  A.  Wickliffe  family  and  Julia  did  not  hesitate  to  mention 
their  mutual  connection  in  her  demand  for  the  "attention  to  which  under  any 
circumstance  I  should  certainly  conceive  myself  to  be  entitled") ;  David  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  July  19,  1864;  Capt.  John  Cornell,  Office 
of  the  Provost  Marshal,  Fortress  Monroe,  Va.,  July  16;  Aug.  2,  1864;  James  A. 
Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  July  30,  1864;  William  H.  Clopton  to 

632 


Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Selwood,  Charles  City  County,  Aug.  2,  1864;  Roseland, 
June  30,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Staten  Island, 
Aug.  23,  1864,  TFP. 

so  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  15,  1864;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  23,  1864;  John  G. 
Nicolay  to  Mrs.  Ex-President  Tyler,  Washington,  Aug.  19,  1864;  [Gen.  Edward  A. 
Wild]  to  Headquarters  District,  Army  of  the  James,  Wilson's  Landing,  Va.,  Sept.  n, 
1864,  TFP.  Julia's  Aug.  23  letter  to  Butler  was  referred  to  Wild  on  Sept.  8 ;  returned 
by  Wild  with  the  quoted  notation  on  it  to  HQ  on  Sept.  n,  it  was  endorsed  by 
Gilman  Marston  by  order  of  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler  on  Sept.  21,  1864;  and 
returned  to  Julia  on  Sept.  23. 

31  William  H.  Clopton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Roseland,  Charles  City  County, 
July  i,  1864,  TFP. 

32  Ibid.,  Office  of  the  Provost  Marshal,  Fortress  Monroe,  Va.,  Nov.  12,  1864, 
TFP. 

33  Maria  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Selwood,  June  20;  July  9,  1864;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  William  H.  Clopton,  Staten  Island,  July  2,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Editor,  New  York  Evening  Post,  Staten  Island, 
June  27,   1864;   Brig.  Gen.   Edward  A.  Wild,  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Wilson's 
Wharf,  Va.,  June  16,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Brig.  Gen.  Edward  A.  Wild, 
Staten  Island,  n.d.  [late  June  1864],  TFP. 

34  William  H.  Clopton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Selwood,  Charles  City  County, 
Aug.  2,  1864;  Capt.  Hale  Clarke  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Headquarters,  Dept.  of  Va. 
and  N.C.,  In  the  Field,  Aug.  3,  1864  (Pass  to  Wilson's  Wharf  but  not  valid  "be- 
yond the  Federal  pickets") ;  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Headquarters,  Dept.  of  Va. 
and  N.C.,  In  the  Field,  Va.,  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Aug.  6,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Staten  Island,  n.d.  [Aug.  1864],  TFP. 

35  New  York  Herald,  Aug.  12,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  the  Editor,  New 
York  Herald,  Staten  Island,  Aug.  12,  1864;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept.  7;  10,  1864;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Richmond,  Sept.  6,  1864,  TFP. 

mlbid.,  Lexington,  May  22,  1864,  TFP. 

87 Ibid.,  Lexington,  May  22;  June  29,  1864;  Richmond,  July  24,  1864,  TFP. 
Accounts  of  the  Valley  Campaigns  of  Sigel  and  Hunter  in  May— June  1864,  par- 
ticularly the  battles  at  New  Market  and  Piedmont,  may  be  found  in  Charles  H. 
Porter,  "The  Operations  of  Generals  Sigel  and  Hunter  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 
May  and  June,  1864,"  in  Papers  of  the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts. 
The  Shenandoah  Campaigns  of  1862  and  1864;  and  the  Appomattox  Campaign  of 
1865  (Boston,  1907),  61-82;  George  E.  Pond,  The  Shenandoah  Valley  in  1864 
(New  York,  1883),  9-45.  The  destruction  of  Washington  College  is  found  in  Walter 
Creigh  Preston,  Lee:  West  Point  and  Lexington  (Yellow  Springs,  Ohio,  1934), 
48-49. 

38  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Bseckman,  Richmond,  Sept.  2,  1864,  TFP. 

39  Bruce  Catton,  This  Hallowed  Ground  (New  York,  1956),  328-29. 

40  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  July  24;  Aug.  29; 
Sept.  2;  16;  Oct.  24;  Nov.  28,  1864;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Richmond,  Sept.  7,  1864,  TFP. 

41 J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  10,  1864; 
J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Baltimore,  Apr.  17,  1864;  Andrew  Reid  to 

Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Baltimore,  May  5,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  , 

n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  July  1864] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  [William  H.  Clopton], 
Staten  Island,  July  17,  1864;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Sept.  7,  1864;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  St.  George,  Bermuda, 
July  31,  1864;  Major  Norman  J.  Walker  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Halifax,  N.S., 
Aug.  15,  1864,  TFP, 

633 


42  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to ,  Richmond,  Sept.  2,  1864;  David  Gardiner  Tyler 

to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Aug.  29;  Oct.  24;  Dec.  13,  1864;  J.  Alexander 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Aug.  27;  Dec.  14,  1864;  James  A.  Semple 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept.  7;  10;  Dec.  18,  1864,  TFP. 

43  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Apr.  3;  May  27;  July 
5;  30;  Dec.  18,  1864,  TFP;  J.  B.  Jones,  A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary  (Philadelphia, 
1866),  294,  229;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Oct.  24; 
Dec.  13,  1864;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Dec.   14, 
1864,  TFP.  Tazewell  Tyler  married  Nannie  Bridges  in  1857.  A  son  was  born  to  them 
in  Richmond  in  December  1864.  Priscilla  and  her  children  fled  Richmond  during 
Grant's  approach  to  the  capital  in  May-June  1864  and  took  refuge  with  Priscilla's 
sister  Mary  Grace  Cooper  Raoul  at  Longwood  plantation  at  Mt.  Meigs,  Alabama. 
She  returned  for  Christmas  during  this  crisis.  Robert  again  took  up  arms  and 
marched  out  with  the  "Treasury  Battalion"  to  defend  the  city.  At  no  time  did  he 
surrender  hope  that  the  South  would  win  the  war  and  he  spent  considerable  time 
and  energy  combating  defeatism  and  defeatist  criticisms  of  the  Davis  administration 
in  Richmond.  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  150-52. 

**  The  record  of  the  case,  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner,  is  found  in  35  New  York  Reports, 
559-616.  William  Watson  represented  David  Lyon;  William  M.  Evarts  and  James  I. 
Roosevelt  represented  Julia.  Voting  to  overturn  the  will  were  Court  of  Appeals 
Justices  Porter,  who  wrote  the  majority  opinion,  Chief  Justice  Davies,  and  Justices 
Wright,  Leonard,  and  Morgan.  Voting  to  sustain  the  will  were  Justices  Peckham, 
who  wrote  the  minority  opinion,  and  Justices  Hunt  and  Smith.  A  reading  of  the 
precedent  cases  cited  by  both  sides  leads  this  writer,  not  a  lawyer,  to  con- 
clude that  the  definition  of  "undue  influence"  had  historically  been  both  vague  and 
variable  and  that  precedent  alone  served  one  side  as  well  as  the  other.  At  the  time 
of  the  court  fight  David  Lyon  was  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors  of  Rich- 
mond County,  N.Y.,  and  a  Trustee  of  the  Staten  Island  Savings  Bank.  See  S.  Clift 
to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Aug.  16,  1864,  GPY ;  L.  C.  Clarke  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  21,  1864.  In  April  1864  Juliana  Gardiner  had  had 
herself  appointed  Harry's  legal  guardian.  See  H.  B.  Metcalfe,  Surrogate,  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Richmond,  N.Y.,  April  8,  1864,  TFP.  For  opinions,  family  reactions  and 
legal  details  of  the  Surrogate  phase  of  the  case  in  mid-i865  see  A.  W.  W.  H.  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.;  James  I.  Roosevelt  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Bill  for 
Professional  Services  Covering  Period  April  1864  to  April  1865  (bill  was  for  $245)  ; 
James  A,  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Augusta,  Ga.,  Nov.  14,  1865  (expressing 
Mrs.  Jefferson  Davis'  support  of  Julia's  legal  fight)  ;  Edward  B.  Merville  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  19,  1865;  L.  C.  Clarke  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  York,  July  31,  1865.  For  similar  data  on  the  Supreme  Court  reversal  of  the 
Surrogate  in  May  1866  see  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  May  27, 
1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  G.  and  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  New  York,  May 
16;  Apr.  6,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  June  4,  1866 
("I  have  won  my  suit  in  one  Court — but  they  are  taking  it  to  another  Court  I 

believe I  am  still  busy  with  the  law  and  oh !  I  shall  so  rejoice  when  it  is  all  off 

my  hands") ;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Germany, 
June  15,  1866;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  18, 
1866;  July  9,  1866;  Charles  B.  Mallory  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Hampton,  Va., 
July  24,  1866,  TFP.  The  New  York  Supreme  Court  by  a  4  to  o  decision  ordered 
the  will  admitted  to  probate  on  May  18,  1866.  Judges  William  W.  Scrugham, 
Joseph  F.  Barnard,  John  A.  Lott,  and  Jasper  W.  Gilbert  all  held  that  the  Sur- 
rogate's decision  was  "erroneous,  illegal  and  improper."  Copy  of  order  found  in 
TFP.  When  the  Court  of  Appeals  reversed  the  Supreme  Court  in  January  1867  Julia 
and  her  friends  interpreted  it  as  punishment  for  her  Copperhead  views  during  the 
Civil  War.  Armed  with  this  decision,  and  as  Court-appointed  administrator  of 
Juliana's  personal  belongings,  David  Lyon  put  up  the  Castleton  Hill  furniture  at 

634 


public  auction  in  February  1867,  forcing  his  sister  to  buy  back  the  items  she 
needed.  On  these  points  see  A.  S.  Johnston  to  William  H.  Evarts,  Albany,  Jan.  4, 
1867;  Tazewell  Taylor  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Norfolk,  May  6,  1867;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  G.  and  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  29,  1867,  TFP. 
Julia  was  forced  out  of  Castleton  Hill  as  a  result  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  decision 
and  took  temporary  residence  at  170  Broadway.  Throughout  the  fight  and  after, 
both  sides  worked  to  build  suitable  public-relations  "images"  for  themselves.  For 
this  and  for  various  newspaper  references,  including  "inspired"  letters  to  editors, 
see  "A  Subscriber"  [Julia  Gardiner  Tyler]  to  Horace  Greeley,  Editor,  New  York 
Tribune,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Apr.  2,  1868],  TFP;  New  York  Tribune,  Apr.  4, 
1868;  John  A.  Taylor  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Brooklyn,  June  19;  Oct.  19,  1868; 
David  L.  Gardiner  to  John  A.  Taylor,  New  York,  June,  1868,  GPY.  Taylor  was  a 
Wall  Street  lawyer  who  worked  with  David  Lyon  on  a  project  designed  to  acquaint 
the  newspaper-reading  public  with  a  proper  view  of  the  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner  will 
case.  "I  am  quite  disposed  to  do  what  I  may  to  keeping  the  channels  of  public 
opinion  running  in  the  right  direction,"  Taylor  told  David  Lyon.  For  the  details 
of  the  compromise  settlement  of  Oct.  3,  1868,  see  various  documents  and  financial 
statements  and  personal  letters  relating  to  it,  including  copies  of  the  settlement 
itself,  in  GPY  and  in  TFP.  Additional  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner  legal  actions,  dealing  with 
court  costs,  etc.,  and  the  action  leading  to  the  compromise  agreement  may  be  found 
in  "Gardiner  vs.  Tyler  and  Beeckman,"  in  Benjamin  V.  Abbott  and  Austin  Abbott, 
(comps.),  Abbotts  Practice  Reports,  New  Series,  Vol.  IV  of  Reports  of  Practice 
Cases  Determined  in  the  Courts  of  the  State  of  New  York  (New  York,  1869),  463— 
69;  and  "Gardiner  vs.  Tyler,"  New  York  Common  Pleas,  General  Term,  January, 
1868,  in  ibid.,  V,  33-39.  When  Harry  Beeckman  reached  his  majority  in  1869  he 
drew  up  a  will,  dated  Nov.  20,  naming  his  Aunt  Julia  his  sole  beneficiary.  See  Will 
of  Henry  G.  Beeckman  (copy)  >  Nov.  20,  1869,  entered  in  Surrogate's  Court,  County 
of  New  York,  GPY.  For  Gardie's  lament  over  his  grandmother's  death,  see  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  In  Camp  Near  Richmond,  Nov.  28,  1864, 
TFP. 

45  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Oct.  1864] ; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Judge  Michael  Laugh  ten,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Nov.  1864] ; 
Judge  Michael  Laughten  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Nov.  1864]  ; 
James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept  10,  1864;  David  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept.  6;  Nov.  28,  1864;  Celia  Johnson  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Charles  City,  Nov.  16,  1864;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen. 
Benjamin  F.   Butler,  Staten  Island,   Nov.   7,    1864;    J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Dec.  14,  1864;  Col.  John  E.  Mulford  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Lowell,  Mass.,  Feb.  8,  1865 ;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Feb.  24,  1865,  TFP. 

46  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Feb.  24;  Mar.  25,  1865; 
J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Jan.  10,  1865;  n.p.,  n.d. 
[Richmond,  Apr.  1865] ;  William  H.  MacFarland  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Rich- 
mond, July  3,  1865,  TFP;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  156. 

47  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Ralph  Dayton,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Richmond,  Apr.  19,  1865] ; 
J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.   [Richmond,  Apr.   1865]; 
Sherwood  Forest,  May  5,  1865,  TFP;  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  156. 

48  Staten  Islander,  "Incident  on  Staten  Island,"  New  York  Herald,  Apr.   17, 
1865;  New  York  World,  Apr.  17,  1865;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Editor,  New  York 
World,  Apr.  19,  1865;  Henry  A.  Curtis  to  Editor,  New  York  Tribune,  June  2, 

1865;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  ,  Staten  Island,  n.d.  [Apr.  16,  1865]   (draft 

letter),  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Major  Wilson  Barstow,  Staten  Island,  n.d.  [Apr. 
1865];   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  General  John  A.  Dix,  Staten  Island,  n.d.   [Apr. 
1865];  John  Dean  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  16,  1865;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  ,  Staten  Island,  n.d.  [Apr.  1865]  (draft  letter),  TFP. 

635 


48  R.  H.  Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Warren,  Boston,  Apr.  28;  June  i, 
1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  June  26,  1865; 
J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Apr.  29,  1865,  TFP. 

50  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  June  26,  1865, 
TFP. 

CHAPTER    20 

1E.  G.  Points  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Oct.  19,  1865;  Catherine  P. 
Speed  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lynchburg,  July  21,  1865;  G.  Christian  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Charles  City,  June  20,  1865;  Lt.  T.  J.  King,  42nd  Batt,  Va. 
Cavalry,  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Ft.  Delaware,  Del.,  Mar.  30,  1865;  S.  F.  Bunch, 
Company  C,  ist  S.C.  Regiment,  isth  Div.  to  Mrs.  John  Tyler,  Fort  Delaware,  Del., 
May  12,  1865,  TFP;  Coleman,  Priscitta  Cooper  Tyler,  147-48 ;  Varina  H.  Davis  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Savannah,  Ga.,  July  24,  1865,  in  Tyler's  Quarterly,  XVII 
(July  1935),  24;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Varina  H.  Davis,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten 
Island,  August  1865],  TFP. 

2  R.  H.  Gayle  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Fort  Warren,  Boston,  May  12 ;  June  i ; 
Apr.  10,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  June  5; 
July  12,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Lexington,  July  30,  1865; 
Staten  Island,  Aug.  22,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  Lexing- 
ton, July  28,  1865,  TFP. 

3  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Lexington,  July  30,  1865 ;  Staten 
Island,  Aug.  22,  1865;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hamp- 
ton, Aug.  7,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  SS  Hansa,  At  Sea, 
Sept.  17,  1865;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Feb.  27,  1866 
(Fulton  had  thirteen  students  living  in  his  home  in  Feb.  1866) ;  David  Gardiner 
Tyler,  "Yes,  We'll  Fight  'Em  Again,"  n.p.,  n.d.  [Lexington,  July  1865],  TFP. 

4  Sievert  von  Oertzen  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  23,  1865; 
John  C.  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  10,  1865;  J.  Alexan- 
der Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  4,  1865,  TFP. 

5  Ibid.;  John  C.  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  10; 
Sept.  28,  1865;  John  H.  Lewis,  Ships  Chandler,  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
June  26,  1865;  A.  E.  Godeffroy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Nov.  28,  1865; 
Sievert  von  Oertzen  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  3,  1865;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  26,  1865,  TFP. 

6  Sievert  von  Oertzen  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  23,  1865; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  6,   1866;  J. 
Buchanan  Henry  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Receipt  for  Professional  Services  in  von 
Oertzen  vs.  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [1866],  TFP. 

7  The  Bank  of  Virginia  vs.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  1868,  turned  on  prewar  Tyler 
notes  amounting  to  $2155.07  held  by  the  bank.  Tazewell  Taylor  of  Norfolk  at  first 
represented  Julia  in  this  action.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  case  he  abandoned  her 
cause  and  became  counsel  for  the  bank.  Julia  was  indignant  at  Taylor's  "treachery" 
and  told  him  so  in  no  uncertain  language.  James  Lyons  of  Richmond,  brother-in- 
law  to  Henry  A.  Wise,  then  became  Julia's  attorney  in  the  case,  which  Julia, 
eventually  lost,  the  courts  not  substantiating  her  contention  that  the  statute  of 
limitations  negated  the  notes.  The  bank  attempted  to  attach  Villa  Margaret  to 
satisfy  the  debt.  Lyons'  argument  was  that  the  property  was  Julia's,  purchased 
with  her  own  money,  and  could  not  be  seized  to  satisfy  a  claim  against  Tyler's 
estate.  So  hard-pressed  for  cash  did  Julia  become  in  1866-1867  that  she  again  in- 
vestigated the  possibility  of  selling  Sherwood  in  April  1867.  Under  the  second 
codicil  of  Tyler's  will,  dated  Oct.  29,  1860,  this  could  only  be  done  with  approval 
from  Robert  Tyler  and  David  Lyon  Gardiner.  Robert  opposed  the  idea.  For  these 

636 


and  other  problems  relating  to  various  suits  and  claims,  large  and  small,  against 
Tyler's  estate,  see  Tazewell  Taylor  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Baltimore,  Oct.  25; 
Dec.  22,  1865;  Norfolk,  May  7,  1866;  Mar.  8,  1867;  Apr.  22,  1868;  Dr.  J.  McCaw 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Sept.  12,  1865;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Taze- 
well Taylor,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  1867]  ;  James  Lyons,  Deposition  in  Bank  of 
Virginia  vs.  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Aug.  3,  1868 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
William  M.  Evarts,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  1868] ;  Charles  B.  Mallory  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Hampton,  July  24,  1866;  John  P.  Pierce  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
New  Kent  C.H.,  Va.}  Apr.  15,  1867;  Richard  M.  Graves  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Charles  City,  Nov.  22,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten 
Island,  Sept.  2,  1869.  Julia  allowed  160  acres  of  land  in  Sioux  County,  Iowa,  in 
what  is  now  Sioux  City  (Section  36,  Block  94,  Range  48),  to  pass  out  of  her  hands 
for  back  taxes  in  1869,  although  these  taxes  amounted  to  little  more  than  $8  to  $12 
per  year.  Tyler  had  acquired  the  land  granted  him  as  a  veteran  of  the  War  of  1812. 
See  Thomas  J.  Stone  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  Jan.  25;  Apr. 
18,  1866;  Apr.  5,  1869;  Rufus  Stone,  Treasurer  of  Sioux  County,  Iowa,  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sioux  City,  June  8,  1869;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  18,  1866,  TFP.  In  1866  she  rejected  advice  to 
purchase  real  estate  at  rock-bottom  prices  in  what  is  now  downtown  Galveston, 
Texas,  Apr.  15,  1866,  TFP. 

8  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Andrew  Johnson,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  Summer 
1865] ,  TFP. 

9  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Apr.  30,  1866 ;  Jan. 
24,  1867;  Richmond,  June  6,  1872;  Charles  B.  Mallory  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Hampton,  Aug.  2,  1866;  G.  William  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Nov.  5,   1866;   T.  P.  McElrath  to  Wilson  Barstow,  Office  of  the  Post  Quarter- 
master, Fortress  Monroe,  Feb.  18,  1867;  Tazewell  Taylor  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Norfolk,  Apr.  17,  1867;  May  7,  1866;  May  22,  1867;  G.  M.  Peek  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Hampton,  July  12,   1869;   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to   President  U.S.   Grant, 
n.p.,  n.d.  [1874] ;  Thomas  Tabb  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Hampton,  Sept.  23,  1874, 
TFP. 

10  James  A.  Semple  to   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Albany,  N.Y.,  Nov.  27,   1866; 
Robert  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Montgomery,  Oct.  3,  1866,  TFP;  James 
Buchanan  to   Robert  Tyler,  Wheatland,  Aug.  3,  1865,  in  LTT,  II,  68$;   Robert 
Tyler  to   James  Buchanan,   Richmond,  Aug.   14,   1865,  in  ibid.,  686;   Coleman, 
Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler,  162-69.  Robert  served  as  editor  of  the  Advertiser  in  1867- 
1874  and  editor  of  the  Montgomery  News,  1874-1877.  He  was  Chairman  of  the 
State  Democratic  Executive  Committee  in  1872-1874,  and  worked  for  the  White 
Man's  Party  in  1874.  During  these  financially  thin  Reconstruction  years  in  Ala- 
bama Robert's  daughter  Letitia  taught  school  in  Montgomery;  daughter  Priscilla 
("Tousie")  went  to  Baltimore  in  1867  and  taught  in  Letitia  Tyler  Semple's  private 
school,  The  Eclectic  Institute;  daughter  Julia  Campbell  was  maintained  by  Allan 
and  Julia   Cooper   Campbell  in  New  York  City.  After  Robert's  death,  Priscilla 
remained  in  Montgomery  and  was  supported  by  the  prosperous  Campbells  until  her 
own  death  on  Dec.  29,  1889,  at  the  age  of  73.  Campbell  employed  her  youngest 
child,  Robbie,  as  his  secretary.  See  Coleman,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler }  171-75. 

11  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Augusta,   Ga.,  Nov.  14,   1865; 
Montreal,  Canada,  Jan.  3,  1866;   Savannah,  June  17,  1866;  New  York,  Aug.  3, 
1866;  Montreal,  Aug.  13,  1866;  New  York,  Sept.  6,  1866;  V.  B.  Rittenhouse  to 
James  A.  Semple,  Panama,  Oct.  i,  1866 ;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Albany,  Nov.  27,  1866,  TFP. 

12  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  28;  Aug.  3;  Sept. 
6;  Nov.   7;   Oct.   19;   Nov.  24;   27,  1866;   Jan.  12,  1867;  New  Orleans,  Feb.  5; 
15;  25,  1867;  New  York,  Aug.  i;  12,  1868;  James  A.  Semple  to  Letitia  Tyler 
Semple,  New  York,  July  27,  1867;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 

637 


Karlsruhe,  Feb.  13,  1867;  Lachlan  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb. 
22,  1867;  Letitia  Tyler  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Baltimore,  July  n,  1867; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Letitia  Tyler  Semple,  Staten  Island,  July  18,  1867;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple,  n.p.  [Sherwood  Forest],  July  1868;  [Mar. 
1866],  TFP.  In  March  1866  Semple  gave  Julia  control  of  his  financial  affairs,  fear- 
ing that  one  of  his  attacks  of  "brain  fever"  (as  it  was  called)  would  carry  him 
suddenly  to  his  grave.  In  December  1866  he  made  out  a  will  leaving  some  acreage 
he  owned  in  Texas  to  little  Pearlie  Tyler,  whom  he  called  "Birdie."  James  A. 
Semple,  Last  Will  and  Testament,  New  York,  Dec.  20,  1866,  TFP.  The  portraits  at 
stake  hi  1867-1868  were  those  of  John  Tyler's  mother  and  father  and  of  Mary 
Tyler  Jones  and  Alice  Tyler  Denison.  Semple's  career  after  his  break  with  Letitia 
is  obscure.  In  1870  he  was  working  for  the  York  Railroad  Company  at  Turnstalls 
Station  in  New  Kent  County,  Va. — in  what  capacity  is  not  known.  In  1875  he  was 
apparently  engaged  in  farming  in  New  Kent  County.  In  April  1881  he  visited  Julia 
in  Richmond  and  was  reported  "looking  so  well."  The  date  of  his  death  is  not 
known.  Letitia  Tyler  Semple  died  in  Baltimore  on  Dec.  28,  1907,  at  86.  She  had 
raised  Elizabeth  Russel  Denison  (1852-1928),  orphan  daughter  of  Alice  Tyler  and 
Henry  M.  Denison,  to  womanhood  and  had  seen  her  married  to  William  Gaston 
Allen  (1849-1891)  and  then  widowed.  See  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  Kent  Co.,  Va.,  Sept.  24,  1875;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Pearl  Tyler, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  27,  1881,  TFP;  Richmond  Dispatch,  July  n,  1889. 

13Langford,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House,  323;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Rep.  John 
Critchen  of  Va.,  Tallahassee,  Fla.,  Nov.  28,  1872 ;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  Sen  John  W. 
Johnston,  Tallahassee,  Nov.  28,  1872,  Tyler  Papers,  Duke  University  Library;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Georgetown,  Jan,  18,  1873;  James  A.  Semple  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Norfolk,  Jan.  i;  Nov.  30,  1873;  John  Tyler,  Jr.,  to  David 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  7,  1877;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Tazewell  Tyler,, 
n.p.,  n.d.  [Staten  Island,  late  1865] ;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  24,  1873,  TFP. 

14  Julia  Tyler  to  Etta ,  Staten  Island,  Sept.  26  [1865];  Marcia  C.  Roose- 
velt to  Julia  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [New  York,  Nov.  2,  1865] ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Juliana   Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  8,   1863,   TFP.  Julia's  high   opinion   of 
Roman  Catholic  schools  was  in  part  derived  from  prewar  conversations  with  artist 
G.  P.  A.  Healy,  official  portraitist  of  so  many  nineteenth-century  Presidents.  A. 
brochure  of  the  Convent  of  the  Sacred  Heart  at  Halifax  found  in  TFP  listed  tui- 
tion, room,  and  board  at  £30  quarterly  (or  $120  American  in  1866).  Private  singing- 
lessons  were  £10.  Needlework,  map  drawing,  and  French  lessons  were  free.  Each 
girl  brought  her  own  bedclothes,  veils,  and  tableware.  A  uniform  was  required  only 
for  Sunday  wear.  Regular  clothes  were  worn  at  other  times.  The  school  had  been, 
founded  by  a  Mother  Barat  who  had  died  in  1865  at  the  age  of  85. 

15  Julia  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Halifax,  Apr.  5,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner- 
Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  18,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  6,  1866;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Halifax,  Apr.  6,  1866;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June- 
12,  1867,  TFP. 

"Julia  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sacre  Coeur,  Halifax,  Apr.  29,  1866; 
James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Halifax,  May  2,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner- 
Tyler  to  David  G.  and  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  New  York,  May  16,  1866;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  15,  1866;  George  L.  Sin- 
clair to  Julia  Tyler,  Halifax,  July  1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  New- 
port, R.I.,  Aug.  10,  1866 ;  Burton  H.  Harrison  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,, 
Jan.  8,  1869;  Sally  Ruddel  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  31,  1866,  TFP. 

17  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  27,  1865;  John 
Fulton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  9,  1865;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to> 

638 


Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Feb.  27,  1866;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Apr.  5;  Spring;  June  6;  Oct.  31,  1866,  TFP. 

18  John  Fulton  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  9,  1865;  J.  Alexander 
Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  27,  1865;  May  24;  Aug.  28;  Sept.  6, 
1866;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple,  Karlsruhe,  June  i,  1866;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  7;  Oct.  31,  1866,  TFP. 
Alex  calculated  that  he  could  stay  on  in  Germany  and  complete  his  education  for 
$450  to  $600  per  year  gold,  including  the  cost  of  German-language  tutors.  Gardie 
reckoned  it  at  $600  if  one  wanted  to  "live  like  a  gentleman";  $200  to  $300  if  one 
lived  like  an  "Italian  artist  or  German  student  dragging  out  a  miserable  existence." 

™  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  20,  1865;  Feb.  27,  1866; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Nov.  28;  Dec.  14,  1865; 
June  6;  Sept.  17;  June  7,  1866;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karls- 
ruhe, Oct.  2,  1865;  Jan.  24;  28;  Feb.  25,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David 
Gardiner  and  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  New  York,  May  16,  1866;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  6,  1866;  Bill  from  Mme.  Gigon- 
Russell  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  1866  (Julia  customarily  spent  from. 
$150  to  $200  for  a  dress) ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Willow  Cottage, 
Newport,  R.I.,  Aug.  10,  1866,  TFP. 

20  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Nov.  21,   1865 
(Gardie  estimated  that  their  total  expenses  in  Karlsruhe  came  to  about  $100  gold 
per  month);  June  25;  Dec.  20,  1866;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe, 
Dec.  13,  1865;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  2;  July 
21,   1866;   John   Fulton  to  Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,   Karlsruhe,   June   18,   1866;   J. 
Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  6,  1866.  While  Fulton  was 
conducting  Harry  to   Bremen,   Gardie  and  Alex  moved  into   the  home   of  Frau 
Steinbach  at  No.  2  Stephanienstrasse,  Karlsruhe.  She  charged  them  $300  gold  each 
for  a  year's  room  and  board.  The  board  was  more  than  ample:  "What  would  you 
homefolks  think  of  having  two  or  three  courses  nearly  every  day  at  dinner,"  Gardie 
asked.  "Roast-beef,  fish,  veal;  then  fruits  of  different  varieties,  and  often  pies, 
cakes  and  dough-nuts?  I  can  just  see  the  children's  eyes  open  in  mute  wonderment, 
as  you  read  this  to  them Just  think  and  ponder  on  that,  ye  eaters  of  salt- 
codfish  and  cold  potatoes!"  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe, 
Sept.  6,  1866;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  July  n, 
1867,  TFP. 

21  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  27,  1865;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  25,  1865;  Oct.  31,  1866; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  12,  1866,  TFP. 

23  For  really  quite  pertinent  comments  on  the  Austro-Prussian,  or  Seven  Weeks' 
War  of  1866,  see  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Apr. 
20;  June  7;  15;  18;  25;  July  14,  1866;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Karlsruhe,  June  13;  July  9,  1866;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karls- 
ruhe, July  21,  1866.  "These  Germans  are  a  queer  set,"  said  Gardie  in  bewilderment 
"Sunday  is  to  them  as  any  other  day.  They  go  to  Church  in  the  morning  and  to 
the  Theater  at  night.  That  is  a  mixing  of  Godliness  and  worldliness  which  I  have 
no  great  admiration  for."  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe, 
n.d.,  TFP. 

23  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  12,  1867;  David  Gardi- 
ner Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  7;  19;  Dec.  20,  1866;  Harry 
Beeckman  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  19;  Dec.  21,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Nov.  22,  1865;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  6;  Nov.  14,  1866,  TFP. 

24  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Feb.  25,  1866;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Apr.  5;  June  15;  18,  1866;  J. 

639 


Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Nov.  14,  1866.  Among  the 
Confederate  Americans  in  Karlsruhe  in  1865-1866  were  Bryan,  Pickett,  and  Mac- 
Creary,  all  sons  of  former  Confederate  Army  officers.  See  Henry  Beeckman  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  6,  1865;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Sept.  n,  1866,  TFP. 

25  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  25,  1865; 
Apr.  4,  1867.  For  similar  remarks,  and  others  happily  cheering  their  mother's  4-to-o 
victory  in  the  New  York  Supreme  Court,  see  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Apr.  5,  1865;  Jan.  10,  1866;  Jan.  30;  May  8,  1867;  n.d. 
[1866];  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  20,  1865;  J. 
Alexander  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple,  Karlsruhe,  June  i,  1866;  Harry  Beeckman 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  June  2,  1866,  TFP. 

28  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  26,  1865; 
Feb.  14;  n.d.  [Feb.];  Apr.  30;  June  15;  July  14;  Dec.  17,  1866;  Jan.  17;  Apr.  4, 
1867;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Dec.  20,  1865;  July  9, 
1866,  TFP.  The  Negro  school  was  sacked  on  March  22,  1867.  President  Lee  promptly 
expelled  the  student  ringleader  and  placed  his  cohorts  on  disciplinary  probation. 
The  story  of  the  Yankee  garrison's  being  turned  out  of  Lexington  was  false.  See 
Preston,  Lee:  West  Point  and  Lexington,  82-83. 

27 David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Feb.  27;  July  18,  1866; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  31,  1866;  May  8; 
July  n,  1867;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  James  A.  Semple,  Karlsruhe,  June  i,  1866; 
J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Oct.  2,  1867,  TFP. 

28  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  23, 

1873;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  ,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Georgetown,  D.C.,  Mar.  1873]; 

J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  Feb.  24,  1869;  Beau- 
vais,  France,  Feb.  27,  1871;  A.  Baudman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York, 
Apr.  6,  1874;  A.  J.  Mathewson  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  8,  1874; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  9,  1874; 
Alfred  Schmidt,  Consul  General  of  Baden  in  New  York,  to  Gen.  Wilcox  Barshaw, 
New  York,  Nov.  17,  1868;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Tyler,  Lexington,  Jan.  26, 
1869;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lachlan  Tyler,  Lexington,  Feb.  5,  1869.  While 
languishing  in  a  Karlsruhe  jail  in  November  1868  for  his  debts,  Alex  would  not 
demean  himself  by  begging  a  pardon  from  the  Grand  Duke  of  Baden.  The  Germans 
were  naturally  embarrassed  to  have  an  American  citizen  in  their  prison  but  Alex 
would  not  help  them  liquidate  their  problem.  So  he  was  released  anyway.  "I  ap- 
plaud his  obstinacy/'  Gardie  told  Julie,  "and  admire  his  pluck. . . .  He's  a  glorious 
fellow  and  worth  a  thousand  of  your  milk-and-water  men."  For  Alex's  Franco- 
Prussian  War  experience  see  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Freiburg, 
Saxony,  Dec.  3,  1870;  Beauvais,  France,  Feb.  27,  1871;  Liancourt,  France,  Mar. 
19,  1871;  Lachlan  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Rochester,  N.Y.,  Feb.  16,  1871; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  4,  1871;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Hon.  William  W.  Belknap,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Georgetown,  D.C.,  1874] ; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Hon.  Hamilton  Fish,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Georgetown,  D.C.,  1874]. 
In  these  1874  draft  letters  to  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  State,  in  which  Julia 
was  trying  to  get  Alex  a  government  job,  Alex's  Franco-Prussian  War  decora- 
tion from  the  Kaiser  was  variously  described  as  "a  medal  and  ribbon  for  faith- 
ful service"  (to  Fish)  and  as  "a  ribbon — a  medal  for  gallantry"  (to  Belknap). 
Since  Alex  apparently  saw  no  combat,  the  "gallantry"  award  is  highly  unlikely. 
Julia  was  constantly  dunned  for  his  German  debts.  In  May  1872,  when  she  had 
little  cash  to  spare,  she  learned  that  Alex  had  one  debt  for  346  florins,  or  about 
$142,  two  years  old,  most  of  it  for  cigars  alone.  "How  many  a  dollar  here  ends 
in  smoke,"  Gardie  gasped  in  shock.  See  Veit  and  Nelson,  Importers,  to  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler,  New  York,  May  20,  1872,  TFP. 

640 


29  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Jan.  15,  1868, 
TFP.    During   his   brief    visit   with   his   mother,    Gardie    reported    to    Alex    that 

"Lachlan  has  grown  to  be  a  big  fellow,  measuring  five  feet  nine  in  his  boots 

Pearlie  is  going  to  be  the  belle  of  the  family  from  present  appearances.  Julie  is  as 
pretty  as  ever,  and  smashes  the  hearts  of  her  admirers  all  to  flinders."  Actually 
Julie  was  far  from  pretty.  She  had  protruding  eyes,  a  somewhat  concave  or  "dish- 
pan"  face,  and  large,  protruding  ears.  Her  hair,  a  reddish  brown,  was,  however, 
quite  beautiful. 

30  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Feb.  10,  1868.  The 
college  faculty  of  twenty  included  Colonel  William  Preston  Johnson,  professor  of 
history  and  English  literature,  son  of  "that  bravest  of  the  brave,"  General  Albert 
Sidney  Johnson.  Ibid.,  Jan.  7,  1869;  June  8;  Oct.  i,  1868;  May  30;  Feb.  20,  1869; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Lexington,  Jan.  2,  1869;  Washington  Col- 
lege, Grade  Report  for  David   Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  May  30,   1868,   TFP. 
Gardie  estimated  his  college  expenses  at  about  $600  annually.  Lee's  tenure  as  Presi- 
dent   (1865-1870)    and  his  status  with   the   students  is  adequately   discussed  in 
Preston,  Lee:  West  Point  and  Lexington,  50—93. 

31  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  1868; 
Lexington,  Mar.  4,  1869,  TFP. 

32 Ibid.,  June  27,  1868,  TFP. 

33  Ibid.,  Karlsruhe,  Apr.  30;  June  18,  1866;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler,  Karlsruhe,  May  24;  June  18,  1866;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Albany,  N.Y.,  Nov.  27,  1866;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Richmond,  Oct.   1869;   Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  2,  1870;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Julia  Tyler  Spencer,  Richmond,  May  15,  1870;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardi- 
ner Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  16,  1870;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner. 
Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  25,  1870,  TFP. 

34  To  put  in  20  acres  of  wheat  hi  1870,  Gardie  calculated  the  costs  as  follows: 
25  bu.  of  seed  wheat  @  $1.50  bu.,  or  $37.50;  Negro  farm  laborers,  $35.00;  2  tons 
of  guano,  $148.00  cash.  Total — $220.00.  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  16;  19;  n.d.  [Sept.] ;  Dec.  19,  1870.  A  good  mule  sold 
for  $175  in  Charles  City  in  1870.  In  addition  to  these  problems,  one  Sam  Brown,  a 
local  Negro  minister,  demanded,  and  got,  $50  for  some  seed  wheat  he  had  sold 
John  C.  Tyler  in  1864  when  John  C.  was  managing  the  estate.  Fearing  another 
suit  against  the  plantation,  Gardie  paid  the  debt  promptly.  Lyon  entered  the  Uni- 
versity in  February  1870.  "Study  hard  and  be  a  great  man  like  Papa  was  and  you 
will  astonish  the  world,"  Julia  assured  him.  See  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon 
[Lionel]  Tyler,  Tuscarora,  N.Y.,  Apr.  i,  1870,  TFP. 

85  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  8, 
1871;  Mar.  22;  Dec.  9;  28,  1872.  For  legal  action  relative  to  the  threatened  forced 
sale  of  Sherwood  Forest  in  1872  and  the  general  financial  plight  of  the  family  in 
1870-1872,  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Dec. 
16,  1869;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Tunstalls  Station,  New  Kent 
Co.,  Va.,  June  19,  1870;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Nov.  3,  1870;  Sherwood  Forest,  May  6,  1872;  Richmond,  June  6,  1872;  George 
L.  Christian,  Clerk's  Office,  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals,  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Richmond,  Jan.  30,  1872,  TFP. 

30  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  June  22;  12,  1870; 
Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  19,  1870;  Richmond,  Nov.  3,  1870;  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov. 
ii ;  Dec.  19,  1870;  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  Kent  Co.,  Va., 
Nov.  5,  1870,  TFP.  For  the  larger  background  of  Reconstruction  politics  in  Vir- 
ginia, 1869-1870,  see  Hamilton  J.  Eckenrode,  The  Political  History  of  Virginia 
During  the  Reconstruction  (Baltimore,  1904),  116—28. 

37  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Nov.  6,  1870; 

641 


New  York,  Nov.  15,  1871;  Staten  Island,  Dec.  4,  1871;  Rep.  Henry  A.  Reeves 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Apr.  7;  10,  1869;  David  Gardiner  Tyler 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  17,  1871,  TFP. 

38  Ibid.,  Nov.  17;  Sept.  5,  1871;  May  6;  June  23;  Nov.  7;   17,  1872;  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Georgetown,  Jan.   18,  1873,  TFP;  Roseboom, 
A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  222—34. 

39  James   Lyons   to   Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,   Richmond,   May    i,    1873;    David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  June  8,   1870,   TFP;  Frank 
Leslie's  Magazine,  "Washington  Items,"  Apr.  6,   1872 ;   David  Gardiner  Tyler  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Mar.  3,  1872 ;  Laura  C.  Holloway  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Brooklyn,  May  17,  1870;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Messrs.  Samuel 
Walker  and  Co.,  n.p.,  n.d.  [1870].  (When  Laura  C.  Holloway  Langford's  book  ap- 
peared in  1881  only  two  pages  were  devoted  to  Julia  and  these  were  studded  with 
factual  errors.  Julia  made  Holloway  privy  to  an  extensive  autobiographical  ac- 
count of  her  life,  detailed  and  correct,  but  the  author  could  scarcely  have  employed 
it  in  constructing  her  account  of  Julia.)  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Gen.  Michler,  n.p., 
n.d.  [Richmond,  Aug.  1874] ;  James  Dailey,  Office  of  Public  Buildings  and  Grounds, 
Washington,  Aug.  29,  1874.  On  the  Wise  memoir  of  Tyler,  to  which  Julia  con- 
tributed her  own  recollections,  see  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Staten  Island,  Oct.  30,  1869;  Henry  A.  Wise  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond, 
Mar.  6,  1872;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest, 
Mar.  22,  1872,  TFP.  "In  some  way  or  other,"  Gardie  confided  to  his  mother,  "his 
book — entre  nous  strictly — grated.  But  on  second  thought  I  think  we  owe  him 
thanks  for  his  vindication  of  Father.  If  there  is  brusqueness  and  a  vein  of  egotism 
running  through  it,  we  must  remember  that  the  style  is  but  a  true  reflex  of  the 
writer — and  the  truth  and  strength  of  the  book  redeems  its  faults."  The  Tylers  were 
particularly  proud  of  Wise's  unreconstructed  postwar  stand.  He  steadfastly  refused 
to  take  the  amnesty  oath  and  in  so  doing  he  forfeited  his  political  and  civil  rights. 
His  third  wife,  Mary  Elizabeth  Lyons,  was  sister  to  Julia's  good  friend  and  legal 
counselor  James  Lyons.  Wise  died  in  Richmond  in   1876,  age   70,  still   unrecon- 
structed; still  cursing  the  "damn  Yankees."  "They  [Congress]  have  never  been  able 
to  bend  or  break  his  spirit,"  said  Julia  in  admiration  in  October  1869.  "He  stands 
like  a  rock." 

40  William  R.  Cummings  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  U.S.  Internal  Revenue,  Long 
Island  City,  N.Y.,  Jan.  21,  1870;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Staten   Island,   Dec.    u,   1869;   Nov.   16,    1870;   Geneseo,   N.Y.,   Sept.   20,    1870; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Harry  Beeckman,  Staten  Island,  Nov.  28,  1871 ;  ibid.,  I.O.U. 
for  $1000,  Jan.  31,  1873;  William  Evarts  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar. 
17,  1871;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  12; 
Nov.  17,  1871.  In  1872  Harry  had  an  unrequited  courtship  with  the  niece  of  Abel  P. 
Upshur.  See  James  A.  Semple  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Waterloo  [N.Y.],  Aug.  13, 
1872;  Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Farmer's  Rest  [N.Y.],  May  13; 
Sept.  19,  1873,  TFP. 

tt  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lexington,  Mar.  4,  1869; 
William  H.  Spencer  to  Julia  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.  [early  June  1869] ;  Mrs.  John  Tyler, 
Wedding  Invitation  to  Marriage  of  Julia  Tyler  to  William  H.  Spencer,  New  York, 
June  26,  1869;  Card:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  H.  Spencer,  At  Home,  Tuscarora, 
[N.Y.],  July  5,  1869;  Julia  Tyler  Spencer  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Tuscarora,  N.Y., 
Jan.  27,  1871;  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  May  10,  1871;  Belle  B.  Chalmers  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  n.d. 
[May  1871].  See  Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.  15;  Apr. 
3,  1872;  Feb.  8;  10,  1875;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Staten  Island, 
May  13,  1872.  For  the  subsequent  unprofitable  (for  Julia)  financial  relations  be- 
tween Julia  and  the  wandering  Will  Spencer,  see  Fimmer  and  Weill,  Pawnbrokers, 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Feb.  14,  1873  (Spencer  had  pawned  Julie's 

642 


jewelry  to  these  people) ;  William  Evarts  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Jan. 
24,  1874;  S.  M.  Barton  and  Co.  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  San  Francisco,  July  ig} 
1875  (Spencer  had  used  Julia's  name  as  surety  on  personal  notes  for  $200  without 
her  authorization)  ;  William  H.  Spencer  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Lone  Pine  Ranch, 
Colorado,  Feb.  12,  1875;  Fort  Collins,  Colo.,  Aug.  n,  1875,  TFP ;  John  A. 
Taylor,  Lawyer,  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  28,  1870,  GPY.  Julia 
Tyler  Spencer  later  married  George  Fleurot. 

42  James  L  Roosevelt  to  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Mar.   16,   1872; 
Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Apr.  3,  1872 ;  West  New 
Brighton,  L.I.,  N.Y.  School  District  No.  2  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Tax  Bill  for 
1871;   Georgetown  College  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Nov.  25,  1872; 
Georgetown  Academy  of  the  Visitation  to   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler,   Bill  for  First 

Semester,   1872-1873 ;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Louise  ,  Georgetown,  D.C., 

Feb.  16,  1872,  TFP.  Pearlie's  room,  board,  tuition,  and  books  cost  but  $116  per 
semester;  Fitz's  charges  amounted  to  but  $170  per  semester. 

43  James  Lyons  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  May  i,  1873;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Georgetown,  Jan.  18,  1873;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  19,  1873,  TFP. 

44  J.  Selden  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Baltimore,  Mar.  21,  1872;  Lachlan  Tyler 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Georgetown,  Mar.  30,  1872 ;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  12,  1872;   Pearl  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Georgetown,  Mar.  14;  Nov.  7,  1875;  D.  Anna  Cook  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Baltimore,  Apr.  8;  Nov.  27,  1872;  Belle  B.  Chalmers  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p., 
n.d.  [Nyack,  N.Y.,  Apr.  1872];  May  10,  1872;  Sister  Loretto  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  Georgetown,  Aug.  9,  1872;  P.  F.  Healy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Boston, 

July  24;  Aug.  8,  1872 ;  John  P. to  JuHa  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June  19, 

1872;  P.   F.  Healy  to  the  Rev.  Father  Daubresse,   Georgetown,  May   20,   1872; 
Mother  Superior  of  the  Convent  of  the  Visitation  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  George- 
town, July  4,  1872 ;  Betty  B.  WalthaU  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Tarboro,  N.C.,  Jan. 
15,  1874;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  May  13,  1872,  TFP. 

45  P.  F.  Healy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Boston,  Aug.  8,  1872;  Phoebe  Gardiner 
Horsford   to   Julia    Gardiner   Tyler,    Cambridge,   Mass.,   Sept.    i,   1872 ;    Belle   C. 
Chalmers  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Nyack,  N.Y.,  May  10;  Nov.  12;  Dec.  15,  1872; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  9;  May  12, 
1872.  For  something  of  Julia's  flirtation  with  spiritualism  in  1871-1872,  see  Belle 
B,  Chalmers  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  n.p.,  n.d.   [Nyack,  N.Y.,  1871  or  1872].  A 
clipping   of   William   J.  Venable's  spiritualist   poem,   "Spirit  Visitants,"   is   found 
carefully  preserved  in  Julia's  papers  in  TFP.  Pearl  Tyler  Ellis  (1860-1947)  was  a 
"very  mild"  Roman  Catholic.  Julia  Tyler  Wilson  to  Robert  Seager,  Charlottesville, 
Va.,  Aug.  i,  1962. 

M  A.  J.  Mathewson  and  Son  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  3,  1872; 
Dec.  19;  July  19;  Sept.  16,  1873;  Mar.  24,  1877;  Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler,  New  York,  Sept.  24;  Nov.  3;  Dec.  10,  1873;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  13;  Sept.  20;  21;  Oct.  9,  1873;  Thomas  J. 
Evans,  Lawyer,  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  July  15,  1873.  A  groceries  and  sundries  bill 
for  $82.97  from  W.  D.  Blair  and  Co.,  Richmond,  could  not  be  met  at  Sherwood 
Forest  in  October  1873;  similarly,  a  coal  bill  for  $65.12  from  C.  W.  Hunt  and  Co., 
Staten  Island,  could  not  be  met  at  Castleton  Hill  in  October  1873.  These  and  ad- 
ditional evidences  of  financial  difficulty  in  1873-1875  may  be  found  in  TFP,  1873- 
1880,  passim. 

*  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  the  Hon.  William  W.  Belknap,  n.p.,  n.d.  [George- 
town, 1874];  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Hamilton  Fish,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Georgetown, 

1874];  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to ,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Georgetown,  Mar  .-Apr.  1873]; 

William  M.  Evarts  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  5,  1873;  Lachlan  Tyler 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Dec.  10,  1873;  Staten  Island,  May  4; 

643 


Oct.  6,  1874;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Staten  Island,  June  10; 
Aug.  17,  1874,  TFP. 

48  Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Sept.  29;  30;  Oct.  i;  6, 
1874,  TFP. 

49  William  M.  Evarts  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Apr.  5;  June  21 ;  Dec. 
26,  1873;  Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  8;  Nov.  3,  1873; 
Staten   Island,  May  4,   1874;   Julia   Gardiner  Tyler  to  Hon.  Peter   Cooper,  n.p., 
n.d.  [1873];  Leonard  Caryl  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  July  31,  1874; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Leonard  Caryl,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  10,   1874;  David 
Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia   Gardiner  Tyler,   Sherwood   Forest,   Mar.   20;    Apr.   14; 
17;  May  7;  Oct.  9,  1874;  Abbott  and  Sill  to  Mortimer  Seaver,  Geneseo,  N.Y., 
Apr.  18,   1874;   Harry  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Farmer's  Rest,  N.Y., 
May  8,  1874;  P.  F.  Healy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Boston,  May   i,   1874;   J. 
Alexander  Tyler  to   Julia   Gardiner   Tyler,   Staten   Island,   June    10,    1874,    TFP. 

50  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Sept.  21, 
1873;   Apr.  6,   1876;  Feb.  27,   1877;  Mar.   21;  Apr.   8,   1878;   Lachlan  Tyler   to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Jersey  City,  N.J.,  Jan.  6,    [1877] ;  Annie  Baker  Tyler  to 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Memphis,  Mar.  13,  1881;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Virginia 
Parker,  Sherwood  Forest,  Aug.  28,  1878,  TFP.  "I  wish  to  give  my  little  girl  who 
is  only  seven  years  suitable  companionship  and  propose  to  take  four  or  five  other 
little  scholars  into  my  family  between  the  ages  of  six  and  ten,"  Julia  told  Miss 
Parker,  a  friend  of  Priscilla  in  Bristol,  Penna. 

51  James  A.  Semple  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Waterloo,  N.Y.,  Aug.  13,  1872; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  13,  1873; 
Apr.  3;   29;   Oct.   9,   1874;   Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,   New  York, 
Sept.  30,  1874;  Madeleine  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Cornwall,  [N.Y.], 
Aug.  ii,  1875;  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Shelter  Island, 
Sept.  5,  1875;  William  M.  Evarts  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Windsor,  Vt,  Aug.  28, 
1875;  William  Cruikshank  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  Oct.  6,  1875;  M.  D. 
Rockwell  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Elizabeth,  N.J.,  Oct.  25,  1875,  TFP;  Interview 
with  J.  Alfred  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  27,   1960;  Will  of  Henry  Gardiner 
Beeckman,  Nov.  20,  1869,  GPY.  Gilbert  Beeckman's  death  also  occurred  in  1875. 

52  Samuel  Buell  Gardiner  (1815-1882)  was  the  youngest  of  three  sons   (there 
were  also  two  daughters)  of  John  Lyon  Gardiner  (1770-1816),  seventh  proprietor. 
His  oldest  brother,  David  Johnson   Gardiner    (1804-1829)    had  served   as  eighth 
proprietor.  David  Johnson  Gardiner's  death  in  1829  brought  in  the  second  brother, 
John   Griswold   Gardiner   (1812-1861),  the  colorful  and  erratic  ninth  proprietor 
mentioned  in  these  pages.  John's  death  by  dissipation  in  1861   brought  Samuel 
Buell  Gardiner  in  as  the  tenth  proprietor  of  Gardiners  Island.  He  married  (1837) 
Mary  Gardiner  Thompson,  his  brother-in-law's  sister.   Their   children  were  five, 
Sarah   Griswold   Gardiner   (1848—192-7)    being  the   youngest.   Sarah's   blood  rela- 
tionship to  her  husband,  Alex  Tyler,  was  actually  that  of  third  cousin,  Senator 
David  Gardiner,  Julia's  father,  and  Samuel  Buell  Gardiner  having  been  first  cousins. 
For  the  courtship  and  marriage  of  J.  Alexander  Tyler  and  Sarah  Griswold  Gar- 
diner, see  Invitation  to  the  Wedding  of  Sarah  Griswold  Gardiner  to  J.  Alexander 
Tyler,  East  Hampton,  L.I.,  N.Y.,  August  5,  1875;  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  J.  Alex- 
ander Tyler,  Staten  Island,  Jan.  15,  1868 ;  Phoebe  Gardiner  Horsford  to  Julia  Gar- 
diner Tyler,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  Jan.  31,  1875;   Shelter  Island,  Sept.  5,   1875;   J. 
Alexander  Tyler  to   Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  New  York,  June   7;    8,   1875;    Sarah 
Griswold  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  The  Ebbitt,  Washington,  Aug. 
13,  1875;  Madeleine  Beeckman  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Cornwall  [N.Y.],  Aug.  n, 
1875;  Pearl  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,   Georgetown,  Nov.   7,  1875;   Samuel 
Buell  Gardiner  to  Sarah  Griswold  Gardiner  Tyler,  Albany,  Feb.  13,  1876.  Ironically, 
when  Sally  was  born  on  May  24,  1848,  Julia  had  written  Juliana:  "To  think  of 
Sam's  wife  having  another,  and  a  daughter.  Suppose  Sam  should  ever  be  a  widower, 

644 


he  would  not  be  in  much  demand,  would  he?"  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Juliana 
Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  June  n,  1848,  TFP. 

^Coralie  Gardiner  to  Sarah  Griswold  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton,  June 
23,  1876 ;  E.  G.  Martston  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Providence,  R.I.,  Feb.  23,  1879, 
TFP;  East  Hampton  Cemetery  Records,  East  Hampton  Free  Library;  Julia  Tyler 
Wilson  to  Robert  Seager,  Charlottesville,  Va.,  Aug.  i,  1962. 

54  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Nov.  28, 
1877;  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  27,  1878; 
New  York,  Nov.  21,  1878;  East  Hampton,  Jan.  20;  Feb.  24,  1879;  New  York, 
May  5,  1879;  Rosebud  Agency,  Dakota  Territory,  Oct.  23;  Nov.  6,  1879;  Daniel 
G.  Major  to  J.  Alexander  Tyler,  San  Francisco,  Mar.  22,  1878;  Daniel  G.  Major 
to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Utica,  N.Y.,  May  13,  1879;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Daniel 
G.  Major,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  May  1879],  TFP. 

65  J.  Alexander  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Durango,  Colo.,  Oct.  3,  1881; 
David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Dec.  20,  1881; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  Richmond,  Apr.  18  [1884],  TFP; 
East  Hampton  Cemetery  Records,  East  Hampton  Free  Library.  See  also  dates  and 
inscriptions  on  the  gravestones  of  J.  Alexander  Tyler  (1848-1883),  Sarah  Griswold 
Gardiner  Tyler  (1848-1927),  Gardiner  Tyler  (1878-1892),  and  Lillian  Gardiner 
Horsford  Tyler  [Margraf]  (1879-1918).  Details  of  J.  Alexander  Tyler's  death  and 
supporting  documents  are  found  in  Margaret  Gardiner  Tyler  Costello  to  Robert 
Seager,  Sahuarita,  Ariz.,  Oct.  9,  1962. 

^Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Jersey  City,  N.J.,  June  9,  1877; 
Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  24;  Mar.  i,  1878;  Washington,  Oct.  15;  Aug.  5, 
1879;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  William  M.  Evarts,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest, 
Feb.-Mar.  1878] ;  P.  F.  Healy  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Georgetown  College,  Wash- 
ington, Oct.  27,  1878,  TFP. 

5T  James  A.  Semple  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  York  R.R.,  Feb.  15,  1879  ("I  have 
seen  Mrs.  Lincoln's  application  for  means  to  live  as  befitting  the  widow  of  a  Presi- 
dent ;  the  woman  is  insane  or  a  miser. ...  I  have  known  her  for  years  and  always 
thought  her  very  common  and  low  in  all  her  tastes  and  actions ") ;  Julia  Gar- 
diner Tyler  to  William  M.  Evarts,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.-Mar.  1879; 
Dec.  i879-Jan.  1880] ;  A.  F.  Posey  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Greenville,  Ala., 
Apr.  13,  1878;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Rep.  John  Goode,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood 
Forest,  Jan.;  Apr.  7,  1880];  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  A.  H.  Stevens,  n.p.,  n.d. 
[Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.-Mar.  1880],  TFP. 

58  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  James  Lyons,  n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Apr.  1880] ; 
Julia  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Sen.  Robert  E.  Withers,  Sherwood  Forest,  Jan.  31,  1880; 
Sen.  Robert  E.  Withers  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Feb.  7,  1880  (copy 
in  Julia's  handwriting)  ;  Rep.  John  Goode  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington, 
Apr.  15  [1880],  TFP. 

58  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  A  Petition  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives, 
n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  1879],  TFP. 

80  "A  Lady  Subscriber"  [Julia  Gardiner  Tyler]  to  the  Editor,  Washington  Post, 
n.p.,  n.d.  [Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  1881];  Lachlan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler, 
Washington,  Apr.  27;  29,  1882;  M.  D.  R.  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  %  E.  G.  Hart- 
shorn, Newport,  R.I.,  n.p.,  June  5,  1882,  TFP;  Kane,  Facts  About  the  Presidents, 
398-99;  Julia  Tyler  Wilson  to  Robert  Seager,  Charlottesville,  Aug.  i,  1962. 

61  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Oct.  2;  8, 
1873;  Oct.  3,  1875;  Samuel  Buell  Gardiner  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  East  Hampton, 
Dec.  $,  1875,  TFP. 

^Roseboom,  A  History  of  Presidential  Elections,  243-49. 

63  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  Feb.  n;  22 ; 
27;  Mar.  7;  21,  1877,  TFP. 

04  David  Gardiner  Tyler  to  Pearl  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  May  15,  1880;  David 

645 


Gardiner  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  28,  1881;  Lach- 
lan  Tyler  to  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,  Washington,  Mar.  7,  1880;  Julia  Gardiner 
Tyler  to  Annie  Ellis,  Shawsville,  Montgomery  Co.,  Va.,  July  27,  1886,  TFP. 
Lonie  returned  to  Virginia  in  1881  from  Memphis,  determined  to  abandon  teaching 
and  study  law.  This  he  did  in  1882-1883,  combining  it  with  work  on  the  Tyler 
biography.  He  practiced  law  in  Richmond  for  several  years,  but  in  1886  he 
drifted  back  into  teaching  at  William  and  Mary  although  his  mother  reported 
Mm  at  the  time  as  having  "an  intense  distaste  for  teaching  in  any  form." 

65  Ibid. 

66Lyon  G.  Tyler  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Sherwood  Forest,  July  25,  1882; 
Richmond,  Jan.  16;  Aug.  13,  1883,  TFP.  The  papers  David  Lyon  controlled 
in  1882  were  given  to  Yale  University  Library  by  his  grandniece,  Alexandria  Gar- 
diner Creel,  in  1959.  Lyon  G.  Tyler  saw  only  a  handful  of  them  when  he  was  pre- 
paring his  study. 

67  Sarah  D.  Thompson  to  Sarah  Thompson  Gardiner,  New  York,  Mar.  9,  1877; 
William  Cruikshank  to   David  L.  Gardiner,  New  York,  July  30;  Aug.  8,   1883; 
Feb.  9,  1881;  May  29,  1882;  Oct.  8;  22;  Dec.  i,  1883;  Jan.  31,  1884;   Oct.  13, 
1885;   Nov.   9,    1886;    Frederick   Thompson   to   David   L.   Gardiner,    New   York, 
Mar.   15,   1884;   Francis  H.  Lee  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  Petersham,  Mass.,  July 
14,    1885;   John   R.   Bleeker   to   David   L.   Gardiner,   New   York,   Dec.   4,    1878; 
Dec.  2,  1884;  Jan.  2;  Oct.  6,  Nov.  18;  Dec.  24,  1886;  Jan.  8,  1887;  Jonathan  T. 
Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  East  Hampton,  Oct.  4,  1888,  GPY. 

68  David  L.  Gardiner  to  Curtiss  C.  Gardiner,  New  Haven,   Conn.,  Jan.   16, 
1885;  Curtiss  C.  Gardiner  to  David  L.  Gardiner,  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  Jan.  19,  1885; 
Martha  J.  Lamb  to  David  Lyon  Gardiner,  New  York,  Jan.  3;  Mar.  15,  1885,  GPY. 
In  his  later  years  David  Lyon  changed  the  Lyon  to  "Lion,"  and  this  spelling  ap- 
pears on  his  ostentatious  tomb  at  East  Hampton  with  the  inscription:  Beati  mundo 
corde  quoniam  ipsi  deum  mdebunt. 

60  Julia  Tyler  Wilson  to  Robert  Seager,  Charlottesville,  Va.,  Aug.  i,  1962.  For 
details  of  Julia's  death,  funeral,  and  burial,  see  Richmond  Dispatch,  July  n; 
12;  13,  1889;  Richmond  State,  July  u;  12,  1889. 


646 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A.  Manuscript  Sources 

Henry  Clay  Papers,  Library  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.C. 

John   Clopton  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 

John   J.   Crittenden   Papers,   Duke   University   Library,   Durham,   N.C. 

East  Hampton  Cemetery  Records,  East  Hampton  Free  Library,  East  Hampton, 

N.Y. 

Philip  Richard  Fendall  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
Gardiner  Family  Papers,  Yale  University  Library,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
Gardiner   Papers,   Long   Island   Collection,   East   Hampton   Free   Library,   East 

Hampton,  N.Y. 

James  Iredell  (Sr.  and  Jr.)  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
Pequot   Collection,   Yale   University   Library,   New   Haven,   Conn. 
James  Henry  Rochelle  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
John  Rutherfoord  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
William  Patterson  Smith  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
John  Tyler  Papers,  Library  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.C. 
John  Tyler  Papers,  Duke  University  Library,  Durham,  N.C. 
Tyler  Collection,  Alderman  Library,  University  of  Virginia,  Charlottesville,  Va. 
Tyler  Collection,  William  and  Mary  College  Library,  Williamsburg,  Va. 
Tyler  Family  Papers,  scattered;  copies  in  possession  of  Author. 


B.  Tyler-Gardiner  Primary  Sources 
i.  BOOKS 

Abbott,  Benjamin  V.  and  Abbott,  Austin  (comps.),  Abbott's  Practice  Re- 
ports, New  Series,  Vol.  IV  and  Vol.  V  of  Reports  of  Practice  Cases  Deter- 
mined in  the  state  of  New  York.  Albany,  N.Y.,  1869.  (Briefs  and  deposi- 
tions in  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner). 

Congressional  Debates,  Vol.  VIII,  1831-1832.  Washington,  1832. 

Gardiner,  Alexander,  Princeton  Diary,  1834-1838.  Gardiner  Papers,  Yale  Uni- 
versity. 

Gardiner,  Curtiss  C.  (ed.),  The  Papers  and  Biography  of  Lion  Gardiner. 
St.  Louis,  1883. 

Gardiner,  Sarah  D.  (ed.),  Margaret  Gardiner,  Leaves  from  a  Young  Girl's 
Diary,  1840-1841.  Privately  published,  1926. 

Journal  of  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New  York,  1824-1827.  Albany,  N.Y., 
1825-1828. 

Journal  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  1823-1824.  Richmond,  Va., 
1825. 

Richardson,  James  D.  (comp.),  A  Compilation  of  the  Messages  and  Papers 
of  the  Presidents.  Vol.  IV,  1841-1849.  Washington,  1902. 

Tiffany,  John  (comp.),  Reports  of  Cases  Argued  and  Determined  in  the  Court 
of  Appeals  of  the  State  of  New  York.  Vol.  VIII.  Albany,  N.Y.,  1867. 
(Briefs  and  depositions  in  Tyler  vs.  Gardiner). 

Tyler,  Lyon  Gardiner,  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers.  3  vols.  Richmond, 
Va.,  1884;  1894. 

Tyler,  Robert,  Poems.  Richmond,  Va.,  1839. 

,  Ahasuerus.  A  Poem.  Richmond,  Va.,  1842. 

,  Death;  or  Medorus'  Dream.  Richmond,  Va.,  1843. 

647 


2.   ARTICLES    AND   PAMPHLETS 

Anon.,  "Interview  with  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler,"  Washington,  n.d.  [Winter 
1888-1889],  Philadelphia  Press,  July  u,  1889;  reprinted  in  Richmond 
Dispatch,  July  12,  1889. 

Gardiner,  David  Lyon,  "Extract  of  a  Letter  Dated  San  Francisco,  June  15, 
1849,"  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  Aug.  14,  1849. 

Gotlieb,  Howard  and  Grimes,  Gail,  "President  Tyler  and  the  Gardiners:  A 
New  Portrait,"  Yale  University  Library  Gazette,  XXXIV  (July  1959). 

Knox,  Sanka,  "A  Tyler  Letter,  New  York  Times,  Dec.  7,  1958. 

Noah,  Mordecai  M.  [pseud.  "Horace  Walpole"],  "Reminiscences  and  Random 
Recollections  of  the  Tyler  Administration,"  New  York  Sunday  Dispatch, 
Dec.  1845  to  May  1846. 

Tyler,  John,  "Early  Times  of  Virginia — William  and  Mary  College,"  De  Bow's 
Review,  XXVHI  (August  1859). 

,  An  Address  Delivered  Before  the  Literary  Societies  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Virginia  on  the  Anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
by  the  State  of  Virginia,  June  20,  1850.  Charlottesville,  Va.,  1850. 

,  Lecture  Delivered  Before  the  Maryland  Institute  . . .  Baltimore,  Md., 

March  20,  1855.  Richmond,  1855. 

,  Miscellaneous  Tyler  Letters.  Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and  Genealogi- 
cal Magazine,  II  (October  1920) ;  VII  (October  1925) ;  VIII  (July  1926) ; 
VIII  (January  1927) ;  XI  (April  1930) ;  XII  (October  1930) ;  XII  (Janu- 
ary 1931) ;  XIII  (October  1931) ;  William  and  Mary  College  Quarterly 
Historical  Magazine,  XII  (October  1903) ;  XVII  (July  1935)- 
-,  Speech  Delivered  March  13,  1861,  in  the  Virginia  State  Convention. 


Richmond,  1861. 

Tyler,  John,  Jr.  [pseud.  "Python"!,  "The  History  of  the  Party,  and  the  Po- 
litical Status  of  John  Tyler,"  De  Bow's  Review,  XXVI  (March  1859). 

,  [pseud.  "Tau"],  "The  Relative  Status  of  the  North  and  the  South," 

De  Bow's  Review,  XXVII  (July  1859). 

Tyler,  Julia  Gardiner,  "To  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland  and  the  Ladies  of 
England,"  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  XIX  (February  1853). 

,  "Reminiscences,"  Cincinnati  Graphic  News,  June  25,  1887;  reprinted 

in  Richmond  Dispatch,  July  21,  1889. 

Tyler,  Lyon  G.  (ed.),  "Correspondence  of  Judge  N.  B.  Tucker,"  William  and 
Mary  College  Quarterly  Historical  Magazine,  XII  (January  1904). 

(ed.),  "Will  and  Inventory  of  Hon.  John  Tyler,"  William  and  Mary 

College  Quarterly  Historical  Magazine,  XVII  (April  1909). 

(ed.),  "Some  Letters  of  Tyler,  Calhoun,  Polk,  Murphy,  Houston  and 

Donelson,"  Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine,  VI 
(April  1925);  VII  (July  1925). 

,  John  Tyler  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Richmond,  1927. 

,  "John  Tyler  and  the  Vice  Presidency,"  Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical 

and  Genealogical  Magazine,  IX  (October  1927). 

(ed.),  "Letters  from  Tyler  Trunks,  Sherwood  Forest,  Virginia.  Political 

Letters,  1832-1834,"  Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and  Genealogical  Maga- 
zine, XVII  (January  1936). 

Tyler,  Robert,  A  Reply  to  the  Democratic  Review.  New  York,  April  1845. 


C.  Newspapers 
New  York  American 
New  York  Aurora 
New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer 

648 


New  York  Daily  Plebeian 

New  York  Democrat 

New  York  Evening  Express 

New  York  Herald 

New  York  Journal  of  Commerce 

New  York  Morning  News 

New  York  Post 

New  York  Sunday  Dispatch 

New  York  Tribune 

New  York  World 

Niks'  Weekly  Register 

Philadelphia  Pennsylvanian 

Philadelphia  Truth-Teller 

Richmond,  Va.  Dispatch 

Richmond,  Va.  Enquirer 

Richmond,  Va.  Times 

Washington  Globe 

Washington  Madisonian 

Washington  Union 


D.  Tyler-Gardiner  Secondary  Sources 
i.  BOOKS 

Abell,  A.  G.,  Life  of  John  Tyler.  New  York,  1844. 

Auchampaugh,  Philip  G.,  Robert  Tyler:  Southern  Rights  Champion f  1847- 

1866.  Duluth,  Minn.,  1934. 
Chitwood,  Oliver  P.,  John  Tyler:  Champion  of  the  Old  South.  New  York, 

1939- 
Coleman,  Elizabeth  Tyler,  Priscilla  Cooper  Tyler  and  the  American  Scene f 

1816-1889.  University,  Ala.,  1955. 

Cronin,  John  W.,  A  Bibliography  of John  Tyler.  New  York,  1935. 

Gumming,  Hiram,  The  Secret  History  of  the  Perfidies,  Intrigues,  and  Corrup- 
tions of  the  Tyler  Dynasty.  New  York,  1845. 
EEett,  Katherine  Tyler,  Young  John  Tyler.  Richmond,  1957. 
Gardiner,  Curtiss  C.,  Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants.  St.  Louis,  1890. 
Gardiner,  David,  Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East  Hampton,  County  of  Suffolk, 

N.Y.  New  York,  1871. 
Gardiner,   John   Lion,    The   Gardiners  of   Gardiners  Island.   East  Hampton, 

N.Y.,  1927. 

Gardiner,  Lion,  Relation  of  the  Pequot  Wars.  East  Hampton,  N.Y.,  1660. 
Gardiner,  Sarah  D.,  Early  Memories  of  Gardiners  Island.  East  Hampton, 

N.Y.,  1947. 
Ireland,  Joseph  N.,  A  Memoir  of  the  Professional  Life  of  Thomas  Abthorpe 

Cooper.  New  York,  1888. 
Lambert,   Oscar   D.,   Presidential  Politics   in   the    United   States,    1841—1844. 

Durham,   N.C.,   1936. 

Marx,  Rudolph,  The  Health  of  the  Presidents.  New  York,  1960. 
Morgan,  Robert  J.,  A  Whig  Embattled:  The  Presidency  under  John  Tyler. 

Lincoln,  Neb.,  1954. 

Payne,  Pierre  S.  R.,  The  Island.  New  York,  1958. 

Perling,  J.  J.,  The  President  Takes  A  Wife.  Middleburg,  Va.,  1959.  (Fiction) 
Reeves,  Jesse  S.,  American  Diplomacy  under  Tyler  and  Polk.  Baltimore,  1907. 
Tyler,  Lyon  G.,  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers.  3  vols.  Richmond,  1884;  1894. 

649 


-,  Parties  and  Patronage  in  the  United  States.  New  York,  1891. 


Wise,  Henry  A.,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union.  Illustrated  by  a  Memoir  of 
John  Tyler.  Philadelphia,  1881. 

ARTICLES   AND   PAMPHLETS 

Anon.,  A  Defense  oj  the  President  Against  the  Attacks  of  Mr.  Botts  and  the 

Clay  Party.  N.p.,  n.d.  [Washington,  1842]. 

,  Brief  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  John  Tyler.  N.p.,  n.d.   [1842]. 

,  Democratic  Tyler  Meeting  at  Washington.  Washington,  1844. 

,  John}  the  Traitor;  or,  the  Force  of  Accident.  A  Plain  Story  by  One 

Who  Has  Whistled  at  the  Plough.  New  York,  1843. 

,  John  Tyler:  His  History,  Character  and  Position.  New  York,  1843. 

The  Andouer  Husking:  A  Political  Tale  Suited  to  the  Circumstances 


of  the  Present  Time,  and  Dedicated  to  the  Whigs  of  Massachusetts. 
Boston,  1842. 

Anti-Jtmius  [pseud.],  Who  and  What  Is  John  Tyler?  New  York,  1843. 

Auchampaugh,  Philip  G.,  "John  W.  Forney,  Robert  Tyler  and  James  Bu- 
chanan," Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and  Genealogical  Magazine,  XV 
(October  1933). 

Bowers,  Claude  C.,  John  Tyler:  An  Address  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Bust  of 
President  Tyler  in  the  State  Capitol,  Richmond,  Va.,  June  16,  1031. 
Richmond,  1932. 

Bradshaw,  Herbert  C.,  "A  President's  Bride  of  'Sherwood  Forest,7 "  Virginia 
Cavalcade,  VII  (Spring,  1958). 

Dorsey,  John  L.,  Observations  on  the  Political  Character  and  Services  of 
President  Tyler  and  His  Cabinet.  Washington,  1841. 

Gardiner,  Alexander,  "Lion  Gardiner,"  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society,  Series  3,  Vol.  X.  Boston,  1849. 

Gardiner,  Sarah  D.,  The  Gardiner  Manor.  Baltimore,  1916. 

Gordon,  Armistead  C.,  John  Tyler:  Tenth  President  of  the  United  States.  An 
Address  at  the  Dedication  of  the  Monument  Erected  by  Congress  in 
Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond,  Va.,  in  Memory  of  President  Tyler,  Oct. 
12,  i pi 5.  Richmond,  1915. 

Kennedy,  J.  P.,  Defense  of  the  Whigs.  New  York,  1844. 

Leslie,  Lewis  B.,  "A  Southern  Transcontinental  Railroad  Into  California: 
Texas  and  Pacific  versus  Southern  Pacific,  1865—1885,"  Pacific  Historical 
Review  (March  1936). 

Miles,  Alfred  H.,  "The  Princeton  Explosion,"  United  States  Naval  Institute 
Proceedings,  LII  (November  1926). 

,  "The  Princeton  Explosion,"  Lynchburg  (Va.)  Foundry  Iron  Worker, 

XXI  (Spring  1957). 

Mills,  James,  "San  Diego — Where  California  Began,"  San  Diego  Historical 
Society  Quarterly,  VI  (January  1960),  Special  Edition. 

Peterson,  Helen  Stone,  "First  Lady  At  22,"  Virginia  Cavalcade,  XI  (Winter, 
1961-62). 

Rives,  Ralph  H.,  "The  Jamestown  Celebration  of  "1857,"  The  Virginia  maga- 
zine of  History  and  Biography,  LXVI  (June  1958). 

Tyler,  Lyon  G.,  "The  Annexation  of  Texas,"  Tyler's  Quarterly  Historical  and 
Genealogical  Magazine,  VI  (October  1924). 


JE.  General  Studies  and  Related  Monographic  Works 
Adams,  Charles  F.  (ed.),  Memoirs  of  John  Quincy  Adams.  12  vols.  Philadelphia, 

1874-1877. 

Alexander,  De  Alva  S.,  A  Political  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  3  vols. 
New  York,   1906. 

650 


Alexander,  Holmes,  The  American  Talleyrand.  New  York,  1935. 

Allen,   Hervey,   "Special   Biographical   Introduction,"   in   The   Works   of  Edgar 

Allan  Poe.  New  York,  1927. 
Ambler,  Charles  EL,  Thomas  Ritchie:  A  Study  in  Virginia  Politics.  Richmond, 

1913. 
American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slave  Society,  The  Fugitive  Slave  Bill:  Its  History 

and  Unconstitutionally:  With  an  Account  of  the  Seizure  and  Enslavement 

of  James  Hamlet  and  His  Subsequent  Restoration  to  Liberty.  New  York, 

1850. 
Auchampaugh,   Philip   G.,   James   Buchanan   and  His   Cabinet   on   the  Eve    of 

Secession.  Lancaster,  Pa.,  1926. 

Bacourt,  Chevalier  de,  Souvenirs  of  a  Diplomat.  New  York,  1885. 
Ballagh,  James  C.,  A  History  of  Slavery  in  Virginia.  Baltimore,  1902. 
Barnes,  Gilbert  H.,  The  Antislavery  Impulse,  1830-1844.  New  York,  1933. 
Barnes,  T.  W.,  Memoirs  of  Thurlow  Weed.  2  vols.  Boston,  1884. 
Bassett,  J.  S.,  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson.  New  York,  1928. 
Beach,  Moses  Y.,  Wealth  and  Pedigree  of  the  Wealthy  Citizens  of  New   York 

City.  3rd  ed.,  New  York,  1842. 
Bemis,    Samuel    F.,   John    Quincy    Adams   and    the   Foundations    of   American 

Foreign  Policy.  New  York,  1949. 

,  John  Quincy  Adams  and  the  Union.  New  York,  1956. 

Benton,  Thomas  Hart,  Abridgment  of  the  Debates  of  Congress  From  1789  to  1856. 

16  vols.  New  York,  1857-1861. 

,  Thirty  Years  View.  2  vols.  New  York,  1889. 

Billington,  Ray,  The  Protestant  Crusade,  1800—1860.  New  York,  1938. 

Boucher,  Chauncy  S.,  The  Nullification  Controversy  in  South  Carolina.  Chicago, 

1916. 

Bowers,  Claude  C.,  The  Party  Battles  of  the  Jackson  Period.  Boston,  1928. 
Bradsher,  Earl  L.,  Matthew  Carey,  Editor,  Author,  Publisher.  New  York,  1912. 
Brown,  W.  Burlie,  The  People's  Choice;  The  Presidential  Image  in  the  Campaign 

Biography.  Baton  Rouge,  La.,  1960. 

Bruce,  W.  C.,  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke.  2  vols.  New  York,  1922. 
Burnam,  W.  Dean,  Presidential  Ballots,  1836—1802.  Baltimore,  1955. 
Callahan,  James  A.,  American  Foreign  Policy  in  Mexican  Relations.  New  York, 

1932. 

Capers,  Gerald  M.,  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Boston,  1959. 
Carroll,  E.  Malcolm,  Origins  of  the  Whig  Party.  Durham,  N.C.,  1925. 
Catterall,  Ralph  C.  H.,  The  Second  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Chicago,  1903. 
Catton,  Bruce,  This  Hallowed  Ground.  New  York,  1956. 
Chambers,  William  N.,  Old  Bullion  Benton,  Senator  from  the  New  West.  Boston, 

1956. 
Cleaves,   Freeman,   Old  Tippecanoe:    William  Henry  Harrison  and  His  Times. 

New  York,  1939. 

Cole,  Arthur  C.,  The  Whig  Party  in  the  South.  Washington,  1913. 
Coleman,  Anna  M.  B.  (ed.),  The  Life  of  John  J.  Crittenden.  2  vols.  Philadelphia, 

1871. 
Colman,   Edna   M.,   Seventy-five    Years   of  White   House   Gossip.  New  York, 

1925. 
Colton,  Calvin   (ed.),  The  Private  Correspondence  of  Henry  Clay.  Cincinnati, 

1856. 

Craven,  Avery,  The  Civil  War  in  the  Making,  1815-1860.  Baton  Rouge,  1959. 
Crawford,  Mary  C.,  Romantic  Days  in  the  Early  Republic.  Boston,  1912. 
Crenshaw,  Ollinger,  The  Slave  States  in  the  Presidential  Election  of  1860.  Balti- 
more, 1945. 
Curtis,  George  T.,  Life  of  Daniel  Webster.  2  vols.  New  York,  1870. 

651 


Dangerfield,  George,  The  Era  of  Good  Feelings.  New  York,  1952. 

Davis,  Varina,  Jefferson  Davis,  A  Memoir.  New  York,  1890. 

Dewey,  Davis  R.,  Financial  History  of  the  United  States.  New  York,  1903. 

Dexter,  Franklin  B.,  Biographical  Sketches  of  the  Graduates  of  Yale  College. 
New  York,  1911. 

Donovan,  Herbert,  The  Barnburners.  New  York,  1925. 

Dumond,  Dwight,  L.,  Antislavery  Origins  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States. 
Ann  Arbor,  1939. 

,  The  Secession  Movement,  1860-1861.  New  York,  1931. 

Eckenrode,  Hamilton  J.,  The  Political  History  of  Virginia  During  the  Recon- 
struction. Baltimore,  1904. 

Ellet,  E.  F.}  Court  Circles  of  the  Republic.  Hartford,  1869. 

Elliott,  Charles  W.,  Winfield  Scott.  New  York,  1937. 

Farrar,  Emmie  F.,  Old  Virginia  Houses  Along  the  James.  New  York,  1957. 

Filler,  Louis,  The  Crusade  Against  Slavery,  1830-1860.  New  York,  1960. 

Fitzpatrick,  J.  C.  (ed.)5  Martin  Van  Buren,  Autobiography.  Washington, 
1920. 

Fleming,  Walter  L.,  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction  in  Alabama.  Cleveland,  1911. 

Foote,  H.  S.,  A  Casket  of  Reminiscences.  Washington,  1874. 

Fox,  Dixon  R.,  The  Decline  of  the  Aristocracy  in  the  Politics  of  New  York.  New 
York,  1919. 

Fraser,  Hugh  R.,  Democracy  in  the  Making:  The  Jackson-Tyler  Era.  In- 
dianapolis, 1938. 

Fuess,  Claude  M.,  The  Life  of  Caleb  Gushing.  2  vols.  New  York,  1923. 

Furman,  Bess,  White  House  Profile.  Indianapolis,  1951. 

Garraty,  John  A.,  Silas  Wright.  New  York,  1949. 

Glover,   Gilbert   C.,  Immediate  Pre-Civil  War  Compromise  Efforts.  Nashville, 

1934- 

Goebel,  Dorothy  B.,  William  Henry  Harrison.  Indianapolis,  1926. 
Going,  David  B.,  David  Wilmot,  Free-Softer.  New  York,  1924. 
Go  van,  Thomas  P.,  Nicholas  Biddle.  Chicago,  1959. 
Graebner,  Norman  A.,  Empire  on  the  Pacific.  New  York,  1955. 
Gray,  Wood,  The  Hidden  Civil  War:  The  Story  of  the  Copperheads.  New  York, 

1942. 

Greeley,  Horace,  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life.  New  York,  1868. 
Green,  Constance  M.,  Washington:   Village  and  Capital,  1800-1873.  Princeton, 

N.J.,  1962. 
Green,  Deran,  Old  Houses  on  Radcliff  Street.  Bristol,  Pa.,  1938. 

,  A  History  of  Bristol  Borough.  Bristol,  Pa.,  1911. 

Gunderson,   Robert   G.,   Old   Gentlemen's   Convention:    The   Washington   Peace 

Conference  of  1861.  Madison,  Wis.,  1961. 

,  The  Log  Cabin  Campaign.  Lexington,  Ky.,  1957. 

Hamilton,  Holman,  Zachary  Taylor,  Soldier  in  the  White  House.  Indianapolis, 

1951- 

Hammand,  Jabez  D.,  Life  and  Times  of  Silas  Wright.  Syracuse,  N.Y.,  1848. 
Hammond,  Bray,  Banks  and  Politics  in  America.  Princeton,  N.J.,   1957. 
Harvey,  Peter,  Reminiscences  and  Anecdotes  of  Daniel  Webster.  Boston,   1890. 
Haskell,  Daniel  C.,  The  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  1838-1842,  and  Its 

Publications,  1844-1874.  New  York,  1942. 

Hesseltine,  William  B.,  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Third  Parties.  Washington,  1948. 
Hill,  Joseph  J.,  The  History  of  Warner's  Ranch  and  Its  Environs.  Los  Angeles, 

1927. 
Hofstadter,  Richard  M.,  The  American  Political  Tradition  and  the  Men  Who 

Made  It.  New  York,  1949. 
Hopkins,  James  H.,  Political  Parties  in  the  United  States.  New  York,  1900. 

652 


Houston,  David  F.,  A  Critical  Study  of  Nullification  in  South  Carolina.  Cam- 

bridge, Mass.,  1896. 

James,  Marquis,  Andrew  Jackson,  Portrait   of  a  President.  Indianapolis,   1937. 
Jones,  John  B.,  A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary.  Philadelphia,  1866. 
Kane,  Joseph  N.,  Facts  about  the  Presidents.  New  York,  1959. 
Kennedy,  John  F.,  Profiles  in  Courage.  New  York,  1956. 
Klein,  Philip  S.,  President  James  Buchanan.  University  Park,  Pa.,  1962. 
Langford,  Laura  Hollo  way,  The  Ladies  of  the  White  House.  Philadelphia,  1881. 
Levin,  Peter  R.,  Seven  By  Chance:  The  Accidental  Presidents.  New  York,  1948. 
Lynch,  Jeremiah,  Life  of  David  C.  Broderick.  New  York,  1911. 
McCarthy,  Charles,  The  Antimasonic  Party,  1827-1840.  Washington,  1903. 
McCormac,  Eugene  I.,  James  K.  Polk.  Berkeley,  1922. 
McGrane,  R.  C.  (ed.),  Correspondence  of  Nicholas  Biddle  Dealing  with  National 

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Meyer,  L.  W.,  Life  and  Times  of  Col.  Richard  M.  Johnson,  New  York,  1932. 
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Myers,  Gustavus,  History  of  Tammany  HalL  New  York,  1901. 
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-  (ed.),  The  Diary  of  Philip  Hone.  2  vols.  New  York,  1927. 

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Nichols,  Alice,  Bleeding  Kansas.  New  York,  1954. 
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Nicolay,  John  G.  and  Hay,  John,  (eds.),  The  Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lin- 

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Paul,  James  C.  N.,  Rift  in  the  Democracy.  Philadelphia,  1951. 
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Potter,  David,  Lincoln  and  His  Party  in  the  Secession  Crisis.  New  Haven,  1942. 
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Schlesinger,  Arthur  M.,  Jr.,  The  Age  of  Jackson.  Boston,  1946. 

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Wiltse,  Charles  M.,  John  C.  Calhoun.  3  vols.  Indianapolis,  1944-1951. 
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Woodburn,  James  A.,  Political  Parties  and  Party  Problems  in  the  United  States. 

New  York,  1924. 
Woodford,  Frank  B.,  Lewis  Cass,  the  Last  Jeffersonian.  New  Brunswick,  N.J., 

1950. 

654 


INDEX 


Abell,  A.  G.,  226;  Life  of  John  Tyler, 

226;  patronage  appointment,  589 
Abolitionists,  104-105,  302 ;  in  Dem- 
ocratic Party,  394;   reaction  to 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  396;  James 
Hamlet  case  and,  398-400;  English, 
404;  John  Brown's  trial,  428-430; 
1860  election,  439—441 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  25,  74,  142,  167, 
170;  nationalism,  79;  "Corrupt  Bar- 
gain" charge,  82;  renomination,  82 
Adams-Onis  Treaty  with  Spain,  214 
African  Colonization  Society,  109 
African  slave  trade,  433—434 
Agrarianism  vs.  capitalism,  66 
Aiken,  Gen.  H.  K.,  485 
Alabama,  446,  448 
Albany  Regency,  227-228,  266,  278 
Allen,  William  Gaston,  637-638» 
Ambrister,  Robert  C.,  67-68 
American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery 

Society,  398,  400 

American  Missionary  Society,  516 
American  Party,  410,  413 
American  Colonization  Society,  404 
American  System,  62-63,  no;  national 
economic  self-sufficiency  and,  63; 
Tyler's  opposition,  65-66,  71,  So,  85; 
Adams  and,  74-75 
Anderson,  Major  Robert,  455 
Animals,  Tyler's  fondness  for,  305-306, 

357,  593«,  6o4rc 

Annapolis  (Md.)  Convention,  51 
Anti-Masons,  109,  117 
Appointment  power  of  Presidents,  83- 

85 

Appomattox  (Va.)  battle,  507-508 
Arbuthnot,  Alexander,  67 
Arbuthnot,  British  Admiral  Marriot,  22 
Arkansas,  451 

Articles  of  Confederation,  51 
Ashburton,  Lord,  175,  322-323 
Assembly  balls  in  Washington,  191-192 
Astor  family,  354,  366 
Atwood,  Henry  C.;  entertains  Tyler, 

592,  597-598 


Bacourt,  Chevalier  de,  175 

Badger,  George  E.,  143 

Bailey,  J.  J.,  14,  197 

Baldwin,  Judge  Henry,  189,  198 

Baldwin,  John  B.,  462 

Baltimore,  Md.,  Convention  of  1835, 
118;  depression  of  1837, 129;  nominat- 
ing conventions,  218-219;  1844  Demo- 
cratic Convention,  228-229;  Demo- 
cratic Convention  of  1848,  392;  1852 
Democratic  Convention,  401 ;   Demo- 
cratic Convention  of  1860,  438 

Bancroft,  George,  305,  317 

Bank  crisis  of  1841,  151-156 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  425;  first, 
54-55;  chartered  by  Congress,  55; 
second,  63-64,  65,  88;  charter  re- 
newal in  1832,  88-89  >  investigations 
of,  88,  in;  Jackson's  veto  message, 
89;  government  deposits  removed 
by  Jackson,  97-101;  Tyler  disliked, 
88,  97-98;  campaign  of  1840,  137- 

139 
Bankruptcy  Act  of  1842,   169-170, 

i§3 

Banks,  N.  P.,  411 
Banks,  Sir  Thomas,  18 
Banks  and  banking;  Fiscal  Corporation 

Bill,  I57-IS9 

(See  also  Bank  of  the  United  States; 

National  Bank  question) 
Barnard,  Daniel  D.,  579 
Barnum,  P.  T.,  354 
Barston,  Capt.  Wilson,  477-478 
Bayard,  Caroline,  255 
Bayard,  James  A.,  438-439 
Bayard,  Richard  H.,  579 
Bayley,  Thomas  H.,  323 
Beach,  Moses  Y.,  45 
Bean,  Major  Benjamin  W.,  376-377, 

380,  382,  6i6w 

Beauregard,  General  P.  G.  T.,  462,  497 
Bedell,  Dr.  Gregory  Thurston,  i,  4,  242, 

346,  388 
Beeckman,  Catherine  Livingston,  343- 


344 


6ss 


Beeckman,  Gilbert,  343-344,  34&~347> 
348-349,  524,  611;  desire  for  patron- 
age appointment,  347;  letters  about 
Sacramento,  Calif.,  375-376 

Beeckman,  Henry  Gardiner  ("Harry") , 
348,  418,  421,  428,  442-443>  466, 
480,  485,  497,  6nn,  642*1;  inheri- 
tance from  grandmother,  502 ;  edu- 
cation in  Germany,  512,  523-530; 
indiscretion  hi  money  matters,  524- 
525;  decline  and  death  of,  536,  543- 
544 

Beeckman,  John  H.,  254,  329,  343-348, 
420;  family  background,  344-345; 
death,  346,  348,  378,  617**;  financial 
position,  375,  379-380;  California 
experiences,  376-380,  6i6n;  es- 
tate of,  378-380,  389 

Beeckman,  Margaret  Foster,  6n« 

Beeckman,  Margaret  Gardiner;  on 
Tyler-Julia  Gardiner  age  difference, 
14,  $$8n;  recollective  powers,  183, 
579«;  low  opinion  of  Tyler's  poetry, 
198,  581*1;  marriage,  346;  birth  of 
son,  348 ;  return  to  Lafayette  Place 
house,  375;  death  of  husband,  379; 
death  of  Alexander,  388-389,  6i9»; 
on  Julia's  health,  403 ;  on  Buchanan, 
412;  vacations  with  the  Tylers, 
418-419;  Julia's  attempt  at  match- 
making, 419;  death,  420-421,  623*1; 
laments  loss  of  franking  privilege, 
601— 6o2M 
(See  also  Gardiner,  Margaret) 

Bell,  John,  143,  439,  441,  445 

Benton,  Thomas  Hart,  101,  no— in, 
156,  185,  205,  282 

Bermuda  during  the  Civil  War,  482- 
484,  499 

Bertrand,  Henri,  175-176 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  88,  97-98,  in 

Big  Bethel  (Va.),  battle,  468 

Bill  of  Rights,  52 

Bills,  passed  over  Presidential  veto, 
283 

Biographies  of  Tyler,  226,  320,  536, 
589%,  642 n;  Secret  History  of  the 
Tyler  Dynasty  (Gumming),  226,  320, 
589*1;  Tyler's  plan  for,  424 

Birney,  James  G.,  239-240 

"Black  Republicans,"  412,  426,  428,  434, 
436 
(See  also  Republican  Party) 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  83,  191,  220-221,  237, 
264,  3i5 

656 


Bleeker,   John,   384-386,   390;    political 

aspirations,  386 
Blockade  during  Civil  War,  482-483, 

487 

Bodine,  Polly,  $ 
Bodisco,  Russian  Ambassador,  Count  de, 

193 

Bodisco,  Madame  de,  42,  177,  263,  581*8 
Bogert  and  Mecamly,  35 
Bolton,  Commodore  William  C.,  n,  558 
Border  states,  448—449 
Boston,  Massachusetts,  depression  of 

1837,  129;  Civil  War  causes  and,  430- 

43i 

Boston  (Mass.)  Times,  405 

Botts,  Alexander  L.,  272 

Botts,  John  Minor,  154-157,  169;  at- 
tacks Tyler,  138,  573*1 

Botts  Compromise,  154 

Bouck,  William  C.,  220-221,  270 

Boycott  of  Northern  textiles,  431 

Brazoria  (Tex.)  pitcher  given  to  Tyler, 
322 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  440-441,  445; 
Vice-Presidential  nomination,  411- 
412  ;  in  command  of  Confederate 
troops,  494,  496,  525 

Brent,  Richard,  55-56 

Brockenbrough,  John  W.,  450,  457 

Broderick,  David  H.,  238,  280;  patron- 
age appointment,  59 2«,  599-600*1 

Brooklyn,  New  York,  271 ;  patronage 
appointments  at  Navy  Yard,  285- 
286;  Christ  Church,  349;  Gardiner 
family  resides  in,  389 

Brooklyn,  USS,  452 

Brooklyn  (N.Y.)  Daily  News,  36 

Brooklyn  (N.Y.)  Eagle,  553 

Brooks,  James,  385 

Brougham,  Lord,  321 

Brown,  B.  G.,  535 

Brown,  Gustavus,  398 

Brown,  John,  428-432;  raid  at  Harpers 
Ferry,  417,  428-432 

Brown,  Mary,  398 

Brown,  Thompson  S.,  342 

Bruen,  James,  342-343 

Brumley,  Eliza  Gardiner,  30,  561-562 

Brumley,  Reuben,  561-562 

Buchan,  Sir  John,  38,  450 

Buchanan,  President  James,  156,  180, 
iSS,  3i8,  355,  452,  455,  458,  465,  580- 
58 1«;  Baltimore  Convention  of  1848, 
392;  quest  for  Democracy's  nomina- 
tion in  1852,  400  j  Robert  Tyler 


worked  for  nomination  of,  401 ;  Am- 
bassador to  England,  402,  406 ;  ad- 
ministration, 410,  414;  nomination 
in  1856,  411-412;  Tyler  supported, 
411;  platform,  411-412;  election 
of,  413-415 ;  patronage  appointments, 
414-416;  Cabinet,  415;  sent  troops 
to  Harpers  Ferry,  428;  renomination 
possibility,  436;  pacification  pro- 
posals of  1860,  447 ;  role  in  seces- 
sion, 448;  aid  offered  Robert 
Tyler,  517 

Budget,  national,  166 

Bull  Run  (Va.)  battles,  469,  477 

Bulwer,  Sir  Henry  Lytton  and  Lady,  352 

Bunker  Hill  monument,  200,  227 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  37 

Butler,  Gen.  Benjamin,  488-493,  497 

Butler,  William  O.,  392 

Butteville   (Calif.)   land  speculation, 
377-378,  38o 


Cabinets,  1841,  164;  Tyler's,  393; 
resignation  of,  160-161,  393 ;  Bu- 
chanan, 415 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  8,  22,  74,  94,  156, 
272,  324,  426;  Vice-Presidential  can- 
didate, 75,  82 ;  States'  rights  advo- 
cate, 82,  87 ;  break  with  Jackson, 
87 ;  resignation  from  Vice-Presidency, 
90;  on  nullification  and  secession, 
92-96;  compromise  tariff  settle- 
ment, 95-96;  "South  Carolina 
Exposition  and  Protest,"  96;  mem- 
ber of  Whig  coalition,  117;  political 
talks  with  Sen.  David  Gardiner, 
184-185,  579w;  slavery  views, 
215;  appointed  Secretary  of  State, 
217-218 ;  Texas  treaty  vote,  229 ;  social 
affairs,  246 ;  takes  credit  for  Texas  an- 
nexation, 324-325 

Calhoun,  Floride,  87 

"Calico  Balls,"  431 

California,  521;  admittance  to  Union, 
326,  393j  407;  annexation  plan,  210- 
212;  gold  mining,  381;  merchandis- 
ing 381,  383;  slavery  question, 
393 

California  gold  rush,  345-346,  373-386; 
announced  by  Polk,  373;  gold  fever, 
373-374;  John  H.  Beeckman,  373- 
380 ;  David  Lyon  Gardiner,  381- 
386;  real  estate  speculations,  382- 
386 


Campaigns,  Presidential,  of  1840, 
135-140;  of  1844,  237-40,  266,  280, 
312;  of  1852,  401-402;  of  1856,  426 
(See  also  Elections) 

Campbell,  Allan,  517,  541,  606,  628- 
629,  637 

Campbell,  John  L.,  483 

Campbell,  Julia  Cooper,  465,  606,  628- 
629,  637 

Canada,  Confederacy  efforts  conducted 
from,  518 

Canott,  Charles  H.,  584 

Carlisle,  Countess  of,  403 

Carpetbaggers,  530,  535 

Carr,  Thomas  N.,  239 

Casey,  Samuel,  362,  365,  367-368 

Caseyville,  Kentucky,  coal  and  timber 
land,  296,  361-372;  attempts  to  sell, 
362-365,  372;  mineral  survey,  362- 
363 ;  land  purchased  by  Tyler, 
362 ;  Tyler- Gardiner  partnership 
to  develop,  363-364;  Tilford  and  Sam- 
uels agent  for,  363-364;  land  eval- 
uated by  N.  M.  Miller,  364; 
Alexander  purchased  half  of  Tyler's 
interest,  365,  368;  trip  of  Tyler 
and  Alexander  to,  366-367 ;  coal 
deposits,  367;  timber-cutting  opera- 
tions, 367-368;  joint  stock  company 
formed,  368;  Alexander's  second  trip, 
369 ;  Fenton  placed  in  charge,  369 ; 
lumber-cutting  project,  369-372; 
damage  done  by  floods,  371-372;  op- 
erating expenses,  371 ;  legal  problems, 
372-3 73,  615^;  Alexander  left  in- 
terest to  Julia,  388 

Cass,  Lewis,  37,  38,  117,  193,  222,  228, 
39i>  393  J  Presidential  nomination, 
391-392 

Castleton  Hill,  Staten  Island,  542,  619- 
620«,  63  7»;  Tyler  children  evacu- 
ated to,  421,  471-472,  477>  484- 
485 ;  Delafield  incident  over  Con- 
federate flag,  508-510;  Semple  cared 
for,  519 

Caucus  system  of  nominating  Presiden- 
tial candidates,  74 
Chagaray  Institute  for  young  ladies,  29™ 

30 

Chalmers,  Belle,  540 
Chancellorsville  (Va.)  battle,  480 
Charles  City,  Virginia,  336,  431,  445-446, 
451,  460,  467,  488;  Tyler  studied  law, 
50 ;  Tyler  elected  overseer  of  roads, 
390-391 ;  John  Brown's  trial, 

657 


428-432?'   Union  destruction,  489- 
490 
Charles  City  County  (Va.)  Cavalry,  429, 

463 

Charles  City  County,  Virginia, 
48,  293,  626*1;  panic  following 
Lincoln's  election,  445 ;  John 
Brown's  trial,  428-432 

Charleston,  South  Carolina,  448, 
452 ;  1860  Democratic  Conven- 
tion, 435-438;  Fort  Sumter, 
462-463 

Charlottesville,  Virginia,  118 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  394 

China,  trade  treaty  with,  211 

Christian,  Judge  John  B.,  131,  155, 
163 

Christian,  Letitia,  56-57 

(See  also  Tyler,  Letitia  Christian) 

Christian,  Robert,  56 

Christmas  holidays  at  Sherwood  Forest, 
250,  422-423 

Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East  Hampton 
(Gardiner),  553 

Cincinnati,  Ohio,  Democratic  Convention 
of  1856,  410—412 

Civil  War,  threat  of,  94;  Tyler's  at- 
tempts to  stave  off,  394,  447-472; 
events  leading  to,  417-446;  John 
Brown's  raid,  427-432;  causes,  452; 
Fort  Sumter,  462-463;  participation 
by  Tyler-Gardiner  families,  465— 
466;  Peninsula  campaigns,  475-485; 
federal  blockade,  481 ;  Anglo- 
French  intervention,  481 ;  campaigns 
of  1864,  488-500;  amnesty  oaths  after, 
512,  518 

(See  also  Confederate  States  of 
America ;  Reconstruction) 

Clare,  Thomas  J.,  398 

Clark,  Matthew  St.  C.,  605 

Class  privilege,  83,  122 

Clay,  Henry,  12,  62-63,  74,  78,  80,  86, 
90,  94,  107,  116,  156,  307,  437;  on 
the  tariff  of  1820,  66;  appointed 
Secretary  of  State,  75-76;  "cor- 
rupt bargain"  charge,  75-76,  78 ; 
Tyler's  letter  of  congratulation 
(1825),  76,  81;  campaign  for 
Bank  charter  renewal,  88-89; 
campaign  for  Presidency,  90, 
129-134,  236;  compromise  tariff 
settlement,  95-96;  Tyler's  personal 
feelings  for,  97,  152,  426;  resolutions 
to  censure  Taney  and  Jackson, 

658 


98-101 ;  Granger  nominated  by, 
120;  Great  Compromiser,  130;  sup- 
ported Rives  for  Senate  seat, 
131;  attempts  to  dominate  Har- 
rison, 142-146;  struggle  with  Tyler 
for  power,  150-171;  Bank  plan, 
150-156;  attempt  to  seize  control  of 
Whig  leadership,  151-152 ;  power  po- 
sition, 152-153;  Tyler  castigated  by, 
156-157 ;  planned  walkout  of  Tyler's 
Cabinet,   160-161;    Congress  domi- 
nated by,  165 ;  Distribution  Act  of 
1841,  166-167;  nomination  of,  218; 
"Raleigh  letter,"  218;  defeat,  241-242; 
election  of  1848,  391;  Compromise  of 
zSso,  394;  tribute  to,  426 
Clayton,  John  M.,  134,  143 
Clingman,  Thomas  J.,  253 
Clinton,  Governor  DeWitt,  Si 
Clinton,  Governor  George,  344 
Clinton  Academy,  East  Hampton,  N.Y., 

22,    24,    26 

Clopton,  John,  432 

Clopton,  William  H.,  489-493 

Coal  and  timber  speculations,  361- 

372 

Cody,  Charles,  588-589 
"Coffee  House  Letter"  written  by  Botts, 

156-157,  159 
Commercial  agreements  signed  by  Tyler, 

211 

Compromise  of  1850,  394-397,  410-411, 
433>  44SJ  extremists  and,  396-397 

Compromise  Tariff  Bill  of  1833,  96,  116, 
129,  132,  138,  166-167 

Confederate  "Committee  of  Correspond- 
ence," 518 

Confederate  Congress,  469,  488;  elec- 
tion of  Tyler  to,  268 

Confederate  States  of  America,  450,  458, 
461,  464;  boycott  of  Northern  tex- 
tiles, 431;  in  1863,  478—481;  inflation, 
487-488;  defeat  of,  489-510;  hope  for 
negotiated  peace,  497 ;  last  days,  507- 
510;  Julia  accused  of  possessing  flag, 
508-510;  attitudes  after  end  of  war, 
511-512;  adjustments  during  Recon- 
struction, 517 

Confederacy  (see  Confederate  States  of 
America) 

Conger,  Mary,  46,  357 

Congress,  first  Bank  of  the  United  States 
chartered  by,  55;  doctrine  of  "im- 
plied powers,"  55,  65;  regulation 
of  slavery,  71 ;  stalemate  between 


Tyler  and  (1842),  165-166;  de- 
bates,  182-184;   slavery  controversy 
and,  407 

(See  also  House  of  Representatives; 
and  Senate) 

Connecticut  Company,  2,  18,  19 

Conservative  Democrats,  46,  219,  279 
312-313,  396,  534,  550;  Tyler's 
rapprochement  with,  220;  anti- 
Van  Buren  bloc,  221 ;  New  York, 
270 
(See  also  Democratic  Party) 

Constitution,  Tyler's  views  on,  50, 
51-52,  148,  247,  455;  checks  and 
balances,  52;  ratification  opposed  by 
Judge  Tyler,  52 ;  Tyler's  speech  on, 
6 1 ;  M'Cttlloch  v.  Maryland 
decision,  65;  Jackson's  interpreta- 
tion, 8 1 ;  Tyler  as  strict  construc- 
tionist,  148,  247,  455 ;  Lincoln 
on,  458 

Constitutional  Amendments,  Thirteenth, 
528;  Fourteenth,  518,  528,  533;  Fif- 
teenth, 533;   on  slavery  expansion, 
447-460 

Constitutional  history,  Texas  Resolu- 
tion and,  247 

Constitutional  Union  Party,  439,  441, 

4So 

Conventions,  1835  in  Baltimore,  118; 
Whig   (1839),   132-135;    1844  Demo- 
cratic   in    Baltimore,    228—229;    1848 
Democratic,  392;  1852  Democratic, 
401;  Virginia  State  Democratic,  401; 
1856  Democratic  in  Cincinnati,  410- 
412;   1860  Democratic  in  Charleston, 
435;    1860   Democratic  in  Baltimore, 
438;   1872   Democratic  in  Baltimore, 

535 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  600—601 

Cooper,  Louisa,  487,  502 

Cooper,  Priscilla,  123-126 

(See  also  Tyler,  Priscilla  Cooper) 

Cooper,  Thomas  A.,  124-126,  162,  178, 
I94J  I95J  patronage  appoint- 
ment,  226,   315-316,   332,   588w; 
retirement,  316,  60571 

Copperheads,  431,  463,  481,  487,   502- 

503,  509-510 
Corcoran  and  Riggs,  bankers,  362,  365; 

option  on  Casey ville  land,  362-363 ; 

sold  land  back  to  Tyler,  368-369 
Corn  Laws  in  England,  330-331 
Cornubia,  CSS,  482-483,  485,  63 in 
"Corporal's  Guard,"  152,  159,  164,  170, 


226,   256,  402,  434;  patronage  ap- 
pointments, 588~589n 

Corse,  Mary,  46,  253,  255 

Cotton-monopoly  and  Texas  annexation, 
215-216 

"Court"  ladies,  249-257,  289 

Covington  (Va.)  episode,  483,  488 

Crawford,  William  EL,  74-75,  78 

Creel,  Alexandra  Diodati  Gardiner, 
62671,  64671 

Creel,  Judge  J.  Randall,  62671 

Crimean  War,  299,  406 

Crittenden,  John  J.,  143,  158-159,  167, 
447-448 

Crittenden  amendment,  448,  456-457, 

464 

Crolius,   Clarkson,  5937* 

Cruikshank,  William,  553 

Cumming,  Hiram,  226,  320, 

58971;  Secret  History  of  the  Ty- 
ler Dynasty,  226,  320,  5897* 

Cunningham,    John    S.,   397,   400,   405, 

437 

Currency  question,  164 
Curtis,  Christiana  Tyler,  64 
Curtis,  Edward,  145,  201,  221,  232-233, 

239 

Curtis,  Dr.  Henry,  297,  358, 
374;  Tyler's  letters  to,  57,  64,  69, 
71-72,  Si,  103,  358 

Gushing,   Caleb,  41,   164,  170,   183-184, 
200,   211,   253,   256,   430,   440,   5797*; 
gift  to  Tyler,  211,  58571;  marriage, 
256,  5967*;  romantic  endeavors,  304, 
60471;  visit  to  Sherwood  Forest, 
304-305 ;  appointed  Attorney 
General,  402 ;  Tyler  gives  papers  to, 
424;  letters  to,  446;  rejected  for 
Cabinet  post,  58  gn 

Gushing,  Caroline  Wilde,  59671 

Dallas,  George  M.,  264 

Dances,  244,  340 ;  Assembly  balls,  Wash- 
ington, 191-192 

Daubresse,  Rev.  Father,  539 

Davis,  Henry,  44 

Davis,  Jefferson,  54,  367,  394,  402,  458, 
464-465,  468,  472,  483,  499,  507-508; 
in  prison,  511,  518,  535;  parole, 
528 

Davis,  Richard  D.,  41,  184,  186-187, 
57973,  5847^ 

Davis,  Varina  Ho  well,  481,  518,  57871, 
634-63 5n;  during  Reconstruction,  511 

Dayton,  Daniel,  272 

659 


Dayton,  Egbert,  272,  375,  6i6n 
Dayton,  Dr.  John  N.,  273—277 
Dayton,  Ralph,  484,  504,  508 
"Dead  of  the  Cabinet,  The,"  speech  by 

Tyler,  426 

Dearing,  Marion  Antoinette,  259 
De  Bow,  James  D.  B.,  436 
Delafield,,  Bertram,  508—510 
Delancy,  Becky,  254 
Democratic  Empire  Club,  280 
Democratic  Executive  Committee,  415- 

416,  434 

Democratic  Party;  Conservative  Demo- 
crats, 46,  117,  129,  161,  163,  3965 
Jacksonian  Democracy,  46,  53,  81, 
100— 101 ;  Virginia,  81,  400-401 ;  re- 
nounced by  Tyler,  100;  Jeffer- 
sonian  Democracy,  116;  Locofoco- 
ism,  117,  128—129,  136;  nomination 
of  Van  Buren,  118;  radical 
element,  129,  394;  renomina- 
tion  of  Van  Buren,  138-139 ;  Southern, 
162-163;    convention   in   Baltimore 
(1844),    228-229;    sectionalism,    314- 
315,  400;  Van  Buren  faction,  391; 
1848  split,  392;  must  maintain  unity, 
394;  Tyler  urges  expulsion  of  extreme 
elements,  394;  Union  committees, 
395;  campaign  of  1852,  401-402; 
election  of  Pierce,  402 ;  effect 
of  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  on, 
406;  disintegration  of,  408,  414;  di- 
vided on  slavery  issue,  409; 
1856  Convention  in  Cincinnati,  410— 
412;   Pennsylvania- Virginia   alliance, 
410-411,  435;  need  for  unification  in 
1860,  434-446;   1860  Convention  at 
Charleston,  435;  1860  split,  436-440; 
1860  Baltimore  Convention,  440; 
corruption  in  early  18705,  534;  de- 
feat in  1871,  534-535;  election  of 
1872,  535;  election  of  1876,  550 
(See  also  Conservative  Democrats) 

Democratic  Republican  (Tyler)  third 
party,  218-219;  convention  in  Balti- 
more (1844),  228 

Denison,  Alice  Tyler,  349-350,  6io«, 
637-638^;  marriage,  349 

Denison,   Elizabeth    ("Bessy"),   350, 
6iow,  623-624^,  637-638^ 

Denison,  Rev.  Henry  M.,  349-350,  388, 

417,  420,  426 

Denison,  William  M.,  610,  623-624,  637- 

638 
Depressions,  65,  127,  129-130 

660 


Derby,  Countess  of,  403 

Dering,  Henry  T.,  272-273 

Dering,  Sarah,  26 

De  Russy,  Col.  Gustavus  A.,  10,  558*1 

Dew,  Thomas  R.,  106—107 

Dickinson,  Daniel  S.,  308,  385 

Dimick,  Justin,  443 

Dinneen,  Rev.  Father,  555 

Distribution  Act  of  1841,  166-167,  170 

Divorce  rumor,  335-336 

Dix,   Gen.  John  A.,  477-478,   481-482, 
486,  509 

Doctrine  of  "implied  powers,"  55,  6$ 

Doctrine  of  Instructions,  110—115,  570^ 

Dodge,  William  E.,  458 

Donahoe,  Rev.  Father  Charles  E.,  555 

Donelson,  Andrew  J.,  83,  89,  320,  591^ 

Donelson,  Emily,  107 

Doniphan,  Alexander  W.,  454 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  252,  255,  394,  433, 
437;  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  406; 
popular  sovereignty  doctrine, 
406-408;  debate  with  Lincoln,  433; 
Freeport  Doctrine,  433 ;  nomina- 
tion, 438,  440;  marriages,  5957* 

Douthat,  Robert,  429,  463,  489 

Downing,  Andrew  J.,  294 

Dred  Scott  decision,  433,  439 

Dromgoole,  George  C,  323 

"Duchess,  The,"  popular  song,  405 

Duels,  253 

Dychman,  Jacob  G.,  24 

Early,  Gen.  Jubal  A.,  489,  496,  498 

East  Hampton,  Long  Island,  New  York, 
348,  359,  544;  residence  of  Gardiners, 
2,  388;  news  of  the  wedding,  6;  Gar- 
diner family,  17-47  J  Clinton  Academy, 
22,  24,  26;  reaction  to  Julia  Gardiner's 
romance,  200-203;  Tyler's  visit  to, 
309,  335J  cemetery,  400,  553-554 

Eastman,  Ira  A.,  184,  579w 

Eaton,  John  H.,  87 

Eaton,  Peggy  O'Neale,  87 

Edwards,  Judge  Ogden,  197,  270,  342 

Eldridge,  Dr.  N.  T.,  279 

Elections,  of  1824,  75,  171;  of  1828, 
82;  of  1832,  90;  of  1836,  120-121;  of 
1840,  140;  of  1842,  170,  220-221;  of 
1848,  391-392;  of  1852,  401-402;  of 
1856,  410-416;  of  1860,  432-433,  436, 
438-441;  of  1872,  53B5;  of  1876,  550 

Electoral  College;  75,  441 

Elliot,  Commodore  Jesse  D.,  249 

Ellis,  Judge  Chesselden,  235 


Ellis,  Pearl  Tyler   (Pearlie),  552, 
Ellis,  Maj.  William  Mumford,  552 
Ely,  Rev.  Samuel  R.,  34,  220 
Empire  Club,  280-281,  291 
English,  Thomas  Dunn,  222-223,  235, 

279,  sgon 
English-  American  relations,  327-331,  468 

(See  also  Great  Britain) 
Equal  Rights  Party,  128-129 
Erie  Canal,  81 
Essex,  ferryboat,  5 
Evarts,  William  M.,  503,  541,  544-551, 


Everett,  Edward,  430,  439 

Ewing,  Thomas,  143,  152,  158,  393,  454 

Executive  role,  83,  144 

Expunging  Act,  132 

Expunging  resolution,   110-115, 


Fairlee,  Major  James,  124 

Farmer's  Reporter,  298 

Farming   operations,   Sherwood   Forest, 

298-300 

Farnum  Iron  Works,  364 
Federalist  principles,  50,  163,  393 
Fenton,  Andrew  J.,  369-372 
Ferguson,  A.  EL,  489 
Ferris,  Charles  G.,  597-598 
Fillmore,  Caroline,  547,  549 
Fillmore,  President  Millard,  41-42,  116, 

133,  355,  4*o>  413  J  administration,  385, 

396;  Vice-Presidential  nomination,, 

392;  accedes  to  the  Presidency,  395; 

patronage  appointments,  396;  election 

of  1856,  412 
Finley,  John,  225 
Fiscal  Corporation  Bill,  157-159;  veto 

by  Tyler,  159-160 
Fisher,  Redwood,  221,  224 
Fitzwalter,  Robert,  18 
Fleurot,  George,  642-643% 
Florida,  448;  invasion  by  Jackson,  67, 

87 

Floyd,  Governor  John,  92-94 
Floyd,  Governor  John  Buchanan,  353, 

355»  400 

Foote,  Henry  S.,  367,  394-396,  400 
Force  Bill  of  1833,  91-94,  132,  397,  450; 

Tyler's  speech  against,  93-94 
Fordham,  Peletiah  ("The  Duke"),  273- 

277 

Forrest,  Edmund,  124 
Fort  Fisher  (N.C.),  487,  5o7 
Fort  Sumter  (S.C.),  448,  462;  South 

Carolina  demands  surrender,  452- 


453;    surrender    of,    455;    crisis,    457 
Fort  Warren  Prison,  Boston,  483,  485- 

486 
Fortress  Monroe  (Va.)»  360,  442,  452, 

467,  476,  481,  489,  49i 
Fowler,   John  0.,   221,  224,   269,  58721, 


Fox  hunting  at  Sherwood  Forest,  347, 

35i 
France,  50,  481  ;  Louisiana  territory  ac- 

quired from,  69-70 
Frankford,  Pennsylvania,  Arsenal,   178, 

464 

Frankfort,  Kentucky,  367 
Franking  privilege,  249,  601-602?* 
Free  Soil  Party,  392,  394,  402 
Free  trade,  50,  65-66,  210-211 
Freedmen's  Bureau,  516 
Freemasonry,  117 
Freeport  Doctrine,  433 
Fremont,  John  C.,  220,  411 
"Friends   of  the  Union  and   Constitu- 

tion," 431 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  394,  396,  412;  James 

Hamlet  case,  397-400 
Fuller's  Hotel,  Washington,  291 
Fulton,  Rev.  John,  512-513,  523 

Gage,  General  Thomas,  21 

Gardiner,    Col.    Abraham    (1722-1782), 
559^ 

Gardiner,  Capt.  Abraham  (1763-1796), 
22,  559n 

Gardiner,  Abraham  (1782-1827),  5597* 

Gardiner,  Alexander,  4,  6,  25,  206—207, 
266-288,  466;  makes  arrangements  for 
sister's  marriage,   1-2;   temperament 
and  character,  27-28;  political  in- 
terests, 27,  40,  197,  208,  266-288; 
education,  28-32;  law  training, 
31-32,  202,  284,  287,  562^; 
joined  Democratic  Party,  46-47; 
social  life  in  New  York,  32-33  ; 
for  Whigs  in  1840,  140-141  ;  on  bank 
bills,  154  ;  forwards  Julia's  love  let- 
ters, 190,  580^;  account  of  USS 
Princeton   explosion,    204-205,   583^; 
patronage  matters  handled  by,    226, 
266,  269-272,  278,  283-288,  588-589^; 
New  York  City  politics,  232-234,  250  ; 
Polk  campaign,   237-238;  try  for 
elective  office,   238-239,  241;  pro- 
Texas  annexation  writings,  247-248, 
281,  6oo«;  relationship  with  mother, 
254;  pro-Tyler  defenses  in  news- 

661 


papers,  264,  320-321;  political 
analyses,  267;  dedication  to  Ty- 
ler, 268-269,  34*5  368,  387, 
6ign;  saves  hostile  clipping,  271-272, 
$g8n;  financial  condition,  284, 
287;    Circuit  Court   clerkship,   286, 
318;  loan  from  Julia,  287-288;  visits 
to  the  White  House,   289-290;    con- 
tacts with  Polk,  292;  shopping  com- 
missions from  Julia,  294,  337; 
Tammany  Hall  politics,  318;  Mexi- 
can War,  328-330,  6o8w;  hears  false 
rumors  of  Tyler's  marital  difficulties, 
335;  romantic  aspirations,  340-341; 
directed  John  Tyler's  financial  affairs, 
341;  coal  and  timber  speculations, 
361-372;  business  ability,  365-366; 
managed  New  York  properties,  366; 
stock  and  real  estate  speculations, 
366;  social  life,  370;  death  of, 
372,  385-388,  400,   6i9«;  interest  in 
David  Lyon's  California  busi- 
ness, 381,  383;  Hamlet  fugitive 
slave  case,  388,  397-400;  disposition 
of  estate,  388;   commissioner  under 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  397;  views 
on  slavery,  399 ;  letters  to  the  news- 
papers, 399;  obituaries,  400; 
planned  to  do  Tyler's  biography, 
424;  financial  relations  with  Thomas 
Dunn  English,  590^ 
Gardiner,  Charles,  598 
Gardiner,  Curtiss  C.,  344,  553-554 
Gardiner,  David  (1691-1751),  20-21 
Gardiner,  Senator  David  (1784-1844), 
22-47,  204,  5597*;  death  of,  1-2, 
205-208,   5847* ;    marriage,    24;    State 
Senator,  25-26;  political  ambitions, 
25-27;  wealth  of,  45,  564^;  on 
Congressional  inactivity,  166;  po- 
litical talks  with  Calhoun,  184- 
185,  579«;  estate,  207,  584^; 
Chronicle  of  the  Town  of  East 
Hampton,  553 
Gardiner,  David   (son  of  David  Lyon 

Gardiner),  62672, 

Gardiner,  David  Johnson,  24,  644 
Gardiner,  David  Lyon,  4,  25,  202,  206- 
207,  480 ;  temperament  and  character, 
27-28;  education,  31-32,  562;  political 
interests,  40,  385;  visits  to  White 
House,  250;   romantic  interests,  254— 
255,  339-340;  marriage,  254,  384,  421, 
438,  502  ;  financial  condition,  284,  381 ; 
reaction  to  false  rumors  of  Tyler's 

662 


marital  difficulties,  335;  dancing  les- 
sons, 340  ;  New  York  property  man- 
aged by,  381  ;  California  adventures, 
353,  381-390;  real  estate  specula- 
tions, 382-386,  6  1  9-6  2  on;  agitated  for 
customs  house  at  San  Diego,  Calif., 
383,  396;  interest  in  family  gen- 
ealogy, 384,  553-554;  death  of 
Alexander,  385-386,  388;  desired 
patronage  appointment,  383,  385, 
393s  396;  home  on  Staten  Island, 
390,  505;  supported  Northern 
cause,  431,  451,  466;  family  quar- 
rels, 477-478,  485,  553J  litigation 
over  Juliana's   will,   500—507,   634— 
635tt;  Delafield  affair,  509;  during 
Reconstruction,  553;  children, 


Gardiner,  Elizabeth  Stensin,  59$« 

Gardiner,   John    (1661-1738),   21,   559*1 

Gardiner,  John  Bray,  595*1 

Gardiner,  John  D.,  272 

Gardiner,   John   Griswold   (1812-1861), 
43-45,   564",   644^ 

Gardiner,  John  Lyon   (1770-1816),  21, 
22,  466,  5647*,  644« 

Gardiner,   Julia,   marriage   to   Presi- 
dent John  Tyler,  1-16;  reign- 
ing belle,  2  ;  courtship  of  John  Ty- 
ler and,  2,  192-208;  education, 
29-31;  social  debut,  30-31; 
poise  and   sophistication,   30-31; 
guitar  playing,  34-35;  European 
tour,  35-41  ;  advertising  litho- 
graph of,  35-36;  "Rose  of  Long  Is- 
land" incident,  35-36  ;  trip  to  Wash- 
ington, 37,  41-43,  172-200;  invitation 
to  White  House,  42-43,  192- 
200;  first  meeting  with  John  Ty- 
ler, 43;  social  position,  45-46; 
birth,  72,  560;  financial  assistance, 
103  ;  romantic  triumphs  in  Wash- 
ington, 172-200;  political  views, 
184-185  ;  impression  created  by,  191  ; 
Tyler's  proposals  of  marriage, 
198-199;  gifts  and  prerogatives,  249 
(See  also  Tyler,  Julia  Gardiner) 

Gardiner,  Juliana  McLachlan,  186, 
242;  gives  permission  for  Julia's 
marriage,  2-3  ;  letters  to  Julia, 
9-11;  temperament,  10,  24,  254; 
family  background,  23-24;   rental 
properties  in  New  York  City,  23, 
287,  366,  381,  390,  540-541  ;  contest 
over  will,  23,  27,  485,  500-507;  advice 


to  children,  9-11,  30;  impressions  of 
Washington    society,    192-193,    581^; 
informed  of  husband's  death,  206; 
visits  to  the  White  House,  250,  255- 
257;   marital  ambitions  for  children, 
254-255,  339-340;   possessiveness  to- 
ward children,  254 ;  desire  to  return  to 
New  York,  262-263;  patronage  sug- 
gestions, 270;  inheritance,   287;   on 
liveries,  295,  6o2n;  medical  diagnosis 
by  mail,  296-297,  306,  336,  338; 
Margaret's  marriage,  345 ;  loaned 
Beeckman  money  for  California  trip, 
375j  379-38o;  death  of  Alexander, 
388 ;  financial  assistance  to  Tyler, 
389;  moves  to  Staten  Island,  390; 
Tyler's  visits  to,  418;  death  of 
Margaret,  421;  visits  with  the  Ty- 
lers, 428,  442;  opposition  to  David 
Lyon's  marriage,  438 ;  interest  in 
spiritualism,  438;  Southern  sympa- 
thies, 451,  463,  466;  during  the 
Civil  War,  473-475;  care  of  Tyler 
children,  477,  480;  family  split,  485; 
death  of,  500,  595*1 ;  relations  with 
Julia,  503-504;  on  Sarah  Polk,  599^ 
Gardiner,  Lion  (1599-1663),  2,  18,  51, 

553-554 

Gardiner,  Margaret,  9-10,  25;  brides- 
maid, 4 ;  accompanied  newlyweds,  5 ; 
on  Julia's  marriage,  14 ;  temperament, 
27-28;  European  trip,  38-41;  presen- 
tation at  court  of  Louis  Philippe,  38 ; 
marriage,  46,  254,  346;  Washington 
season   (1842-1843),  180-200;  ro- 
mantic attachments,  199-200,  253—254, 
308-309,  341-348;   life  at  the  White 
House,  243-265,  289-292;  political  ac- 
tivity, 269—270;   on  Major  W.  H. 
Polk,  277;  at  Saratoga  and  Newport, 
202-203,  307-309,  359)  4i8 
(See   also   Beeckman,  Margaret   Gar- 
diner) 

Gardiner,  Mary,  249-251,  420;  marriage 
to  Eben  N.  Horsford,  341 

Gardiner,  Mary  Gardiner  Thompson, 
644** 

Gardiner,  Nathaniel,  3  6-3  7 ,  45,  388, 
559*1,  56471,  595n,  6i9tt 

Gardiner,  Norah  Loftus,  626 

Gardiner,  Phoebe,  249-252,  289-290,  341, 

345 

(See  also  Horsford,  Phoebe  Gardiner) 
Gardiner,  Phoebe  Dayton,  559n 
Gardiner,  Robert  Alexander,  626 


Gardiner,  Robert  David  Lion,  626 

Gardiner,  Samuel,  34,  45,  237,  249,  262,. 
272-277,  373,  559-560?*,  595^,  61971 

Gardiner,  Samuel  Burell,  544,  550,  644^. 

Gardiner,  Sarah  Diodati,  626^ 

Gardiner,  Sarah  Griswold,  24,  544,  553, 
564?*,  644^ 

Gardiner,  Sarah  Thompson,  626 

Gardiner,  William  Bray,  393 

Gardiner,  Dr.  William  Henry,  388,  595^ 

Gardiner  family,  17-47;  wealth  of,  17;. 
genealogy  of,  18,  26,  384,  553-554, 
559?t;  New  York  City  property,  23, 
287,  366,  381,  390,  540-541;  Wash- 
ington season,  1842-1843,  180- 
200;  calls  at  the  White  House,  192- 
200;  in  East  Hampton  (1843), 
200-203;  lobby  for  Tyler  and  Texas,. 
267—268;  dissatisfaction  with  Polk 
administration,  312-318;  background,, 
344;  service  during  the  Civil  War, 
466;  books  about,  553~554 

Gardiners  Island,  2,  17-18 ;  history 
and  folklore,  20—21;  managed  by  Sen., 
David  Gardiner,  24-25 

Gardner,  J.  McLean,  203 

Gardner,  James  B.,  84 

Garfield,  James  A.,  548,  549 

Garfield,  James  B.,  548 

Garfield,  Lucretia  Rudolph,  549 

Garra  Rebellion,  384 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  458 

Gayle,  Capt.  Robert  H.,  482,  484-487,, 
507,  509,  5H-5I2,  63iw 

Gentle  Julia,  The  (river  boat),  417 

George,  Paul  R.,  221,  222,  224,  233, 
5S7tt,  590**,  592fl 

Georgetown  College,  292,  436,  537 

Georgetown  home  of  Julia  Tyler,  537,, 

543 
Georgetown  Visitation  Academy,  537, 

539 

Georgia,  446,  448 

German  treaty,  211,  517 

Germany,  Tyler  boys  educated  in, 
512,  523-530;  social  life,  525-527;  mil- 
itary successes,  525 

Gettysburg  (Pa.),  466,  480 

Gibbon,  James  Cardinal,  539 

Giles,  William  B.,  55-56 

Gilmer,  Thomas  W.,  143,  152,  161,  205,, 
215,  217,  219,  417 

Gloucester  County  (Va.)  farm,  103 

Godwin,  William,  124 

Goode,  John,  547-548 

663 


Gordon,  William  F.,  92,  570** 
Gorgas,  Col.  and  Mrs.  Josiah,  482, 

485 

Graham,  John  Lorimer,   197,   221,  222, 
224,  232-233,  237,  279,  290,  316, 
324,  362,  598w,  605^;  attends 
Tyler  wedding,  3-4,  6;  request  for 
patronage,  393 

Granger,  Francis  P.,  117,  120,  121,  133, 
143,  454,  58o-58i» 

Grant,  Julia  Dent,  536 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  507;  campaigns,  486, 
488,  494-500;  Julia  Tylers  pleas  to, 
516;  Julia's  opinion  of,  520-521; 
election  of,   534-535;   administration, 
534-535,  537J  "bloody  shirt,"  535 

Great  Britain,  468;  Tyler's  distrust  of, 
54)  67,  332,  396-397,  404-406;  War  of 
1812,  58-59;  diplomatic  negotiations, 
161 ;  activities  in  Mexico,  210,  212 ; 
machinations  in  Texas,  216;  Ore- 
gon question,  327-328;  interference 
in  U.S.  domestic  affairs,  396-397, 
404-405 ;  letter  from  English  ladies  on 
slavery,  402-406 ;  Crimean  War,  406 ; 
Webster-Ashburton  Treaty 
(See  Webster-Ashburton  Treaty) 

Great  Eastern  (British  liner),  443 

Greeley,  Horace,  520,  535 

Green,  Duff,  82,  83,  150,  159,  181,  372 

Greene,  Gen.  Moses,  59 

Greenway  (Tyler  family  estate),  48,  56, 
58,  103 

Grey,  W.  Farley,  431 

Guthrie,  James,  455-456 

Gwin,  William  McKendree,  385-386 


Haines,  John,  181 

Hall,  Charles  M.,  397-399,  6i9~62o« 

Hallet,  J.  Paxton,  5-6,  221,  286-288, 


Hamilton,   Alexander,   91;    on  national 

bank  question,  55;  doctrine  of  im- 

plied powers,  65 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  Jr.,  219 
Hamiltonian  Federalists,  82,  116 
Hamlet,  James  (fugitive  slave  case), 

388;  hearing  before  Alexander  Gar- 

diner, 397-400 
Hampton,  Virginia,  421  ;  Villa  Margaret, 

372 

(See  also  Villa  Margaret) 
Hampton  (Va.)  Academy,  443 
Haolilio,  Prince  Timoleo,  185,  211 

664 


Harpers  Ferry,  Virginia,  367,  428-432, 
464 

Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania,  Whig  conven- 
tion, 132-135 

Harrison,  Mrs.  George,  295 

Harrison,  Peyton,  474 

Harrison,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  (Bran- 
don, Va.),  297-298 

Harrison,  President  William  Henry,  40, 
116,  118,  132;  Presidential  nomina- 
tion, 114,  119-120,  132-134;  legend  of 
Old  Tippecanoe,  119,  140;  Tyler  and 
the  election  of  1836,   120—122;   cam- 
paign of  1840,  136-140;  Clay's  at- 
tempt to  dominate,  142-146;  patron- 
age controversies,   142-144;   Cabinet, 
142-143;  health,  142;  inauguration, 
144;  opposes  abuse  of  executive  power, 
144;  death  of,  146-148;  funeral, 
149-150 

Harvard  College,  251,  341 

Harvie,  Lewis  E.,  460 

Hate  groups,  109 ;  Know-Nothing  Party, 
408-413 

Hawaiian  Islands,  185,  211,  226 

Hayes,  President  Rutherford  B.,  546, 
548 ;  administration,  547-550 ;  election 
of,  550 

Hayes,  Lucy  Webb,  545 

Hayne,  Col.  I.  W.,  452-453,  455 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  90,  117 

Healy,  G.  P.  A.,  63871 

Healy,  Rev.  Father  Patrick  F.,  S.J.,  539- 
540,  546 

Henderson,  Lucy,  255 

Hendren,  Patrick,  362 

Henry  (Tyler  slave),  403-404 

Henshaw,  David,  rejected  by  Senate  for 
Cabinet  post,  5897* 

Herrick,  Edwin,  616 

Hill,  Gen.  A.  P.,  498 

HiU,  Isaac,  83,  84 

Hoffman,  Ogden,  221,  269,  597- 

Holcombe  James  P.  462 

Holloway,  Laura,  536,  642 n 

Holt,  Mrs.  Henry,  493-494 

Holt,  Col.  Joseph,  452,  490,  632-63371 

Hone,  Philip,  135 

Horsford,  Cornelia,  623-624 

Horsford,  Eben  N.,  251-252,  341,  474, 
595n,  623-6247*;  attitude  toward  slav- 
ery, 623-62471 

Horsford,  Gertrude,  623-6247* 

Horsford,  Lillian,  623-6247* 


Horsford,  Mary  Catherine,  623-624?* 
Horsford,  Mary  L'H.  Gardiner  (1824- 

1855),  249-251,  420,  559-S6ow,  595», 

623-62471 
Horsford,  Phoebe  Gardiner,  442,  540, 

544>  559~56ow,  595«,  623-624?* 
House  of  Representatives,  413 ;  hostility 

to  Tyler,  10;  Tyler's  election  (1816), 

60-6 1 ;  Texas  Resolution  passed  by, 

281 

Houston,  Sam,  210,  213-214,  325 
Howard,  D.  D.,  4 
Howard,  Gen.  O.  O.  516 
Howell,  Jenny,  481,  511,  629^ 
Hubard,  Edmund  W.,  41,  184,  196-197, 

579W 

Hungarian  Revolution,  406 
"Hunker"  Democracy,  312,  314 
Hunt,  Harvey,  241 
Hunter,  Gen.  David,  494-496 
Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  436-437,  497-498 

Impeachment  talk,  167-169;  Andrew 
Johnson,  528,  530 

"Implied  powers,"  doctrine  of,  55,  65 

Independent  Treasury  plan,  128-130, 
132,  164;  repeal  of,  150-151,  156,  170 

Indian  land  survey,  545 

Indian  wars,  18-19 

Inflation,  of  1835-1837,  128;  during  the 
Confederacy,  479—480,  487 

Ingersoll,  Charles  J.,  322 

Instructions,  doctrine  of,  110-115,  57o»; 
Tyler  resigned  Senate  seat,  110-115 

Internal-improvements  program,  77 ; 
Adams  administration,  79 ;  veto  of 
Maysville  Road  Bill,  85-86 ;  govern- 
ment-financed, 86 

Iredell,  James,  Jr.,  118,  121,  137 

Irish  Repeal  Association,  330,  436 

Irish  vote,  136,  233,  401,  436 

Irving,  Washington,  107,  171 

Jackson,  Andrew,  46,  60-62,  75,  575»; 
popular  democracy  of,  26,  74;  re- 
moval of  the  Treasury  deposits,  28— 
29,  97-101 ;  on  Constitution,  52 ;  in- 
vasion of  Spanish  Florida,  67,  87 ; 
feared  by  Tyler,  67,  74 ;  hero  of  New 
Orleans,  68 ;  Tyler's  motion  to  cen- 
sure, 68 ;  vote-catching  image,  74 ; 
Tariff  Bill  of  1828,  79-80;  Tyler's  de- 
cision to  support,  80-8 1 ;  administra- 
tion, 82—101 ;  election  of  1828,  82 ; 


CaUioun  nominated  as  Vice-President, 
82 ;  appointment  policy,  83-84;  In- 
augural Address,  83 ;  "Kitchen  Cab- 
inet," 83 ;  social  graces,  85 ;  vetoed  the 
Bank  Bill  in  1832,  87-89 ;  break  with 
Calhoun,  87 ;  Proclamation  to  the 
People  of  So.  Carolina,  90-91 ;  elec- 
tion of  1832,  90;  policy  of  armed  co- 
ercion (Force  Bill),  91-97;  Tyler's  in- 
dictment of,  98-100;  Clay's  resolution 
to  censure,  98 ;  political  patronage,  99 ; 
political  techniques,  100;  Jeffersonian 
Democrats  dislike  of,  116;  criticism  of, 
117;  fiscal  policies,  127-128;  annexa- 
tion of  Texas,  218,  325;  letter  concern- 
ing Tyler  and  Polk,  232 ;  Tyler's  with- 
drawal, 236-237;  assurance  to  Tyler 
on  patronage,  312;  death  of,  320 

Jackson,  Rachel,  82 

Jackson,  Gen.  Thomas  J.  (Stonewall), 
480—481 

Jacksonian  Democracy,  46,  53 ;  re- 
nounced by  Tyler,  100-101;  upheaval 
of  1828,  25-26 

"James,  Allan  S."  (pseud,  of  Semple 
James  A.),  518-519 

James  City,  Virginia,  451 

James  River,  293,  403 

Jamestown  (Va.)  speech  of  Tyler's,  427 

Japan,  trade  policy,  211 

Jay,  William,  398-399 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  51,  107;  on  national 
bank  question,  55;  political  patron- 
age, 83-84 

Jeffersonian  Democrats,  116 

Jerusalem,  Virginia,  303 

Johnson,  Gen.  Albert  S.,  641 

Johnson,  President  Andrew,  515;  Julia 
Tyler  writes  to,  515;  threat  of  im- 
peachment, 528,  530;  and  Tenure  of 
Office  Act,  530 

Johnson,  Celia  (Negro  servant),  482, 
492,  506 

Johnson,  Gen.  Joseph  E.,  507 

Johnson,  Richard  M.,  60,  118,  121,  138, 

139 

Johnson,  Col.  William  Preston,  641 
Joinville,  Prince  de,  175 
Jones,  Henry  Lightfoot,  12,  108,  465- 

466 

Jones,  John,  6,  227 
Jones,  Mary  Morris,  552 
Jones,  Mary  Tyler,  7-8, 12,  108,  125, 

172,466 
Jones,  Brig.  Gen.  William  E.,  494—495 

665 


"Julia—  The  Rose  of  Long  Island"  by 

"Romeo  Ringdove,"  36 
"Julia  Waltzes,"  594*1, 


Kansas-Nebraska  controversy,  406-409, 

433,  445 
Karlsruhe,  Germany,  522-527  ;  social  life, 

526-527 

Kean,  Edmund,  124 
Keating,  James,  180 
Kendall,  Amos,  83,  84,  89,  220,  587** 
Kennedy,  President  John  F.,  539 
Kennon,  Commodore  Beverly,  205,  294, 

419 
Kentucky,  coal  and  timber  speculations, 

361-362 

Kettell,  George  F.,  527 
Kick,  John,  493 
Kidd,  Capt.  William,  21 
King,  Charles,  37,  563*1 
King,  Thomas  Butler,  41 
"King  Numbers"  and  "King  One,"  Ty- 

ler's opinion  on  as  political  dangers, 

62,  75,  82,  100,  122 
"Kitchen  Cabinet,"  83,  89 
Know-Nothing  Party,  109,  408-413  ; 

1856  Convention  in  Philadelphia,  410 
Kossuth,  Louis,  406 
Kremer,  George,  75-76 
Kruder,  Baron  von,  39,  563** 

Labor  problems,  lumber-cutting  opera- 
tion, in  Caseyville,  Ky.,  369-372 
(See  also  Slaves  and  slavery) 

Ladies  of  the  White  House  (Hollo  way), 
536 

Lafayette,  Georges  W.,  56371 

Lafayette  Place  (N.Y.C.)  town  house  of 
Gardiners,  1-2,  5,  202-203,  342,  387, 
58371;  Margaret's  return  to,  375 

Lamar,  Mirabeau  B.,  264 

Lamb,  Martha  J.,  554 

Lane,  Frances  ("Fanny")  Gardiner, 
S59-56o,  595 

Lane,  Joseph,  439-441 

Langford,  Laura  C.  Holloway,  536,  642« 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  145,  341 

Lawton,  Brig.  Gen.  A.  R.,  631 

Lee,  Henry,  84 

Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  468,  476,  488, 
494,  496,  507  ;  president  of  Washing- 
ton College,  529-530 

Lee,  Robert  E.f  CSS,  482,  63in 

Legare,  Caroline,  4 

Legare,  Hugh  Swinton,  4,  426 

666 


Leigh,  Benjamin  W.,  101,  110-115,  I32» 

134-135 

LeRoy,  Anson  V.  H.,  616-617^ 

Letcher,  Gov.  John,  437,  448,  451,  483, 
496 

Letcher,  R.  P.,  153 

Letson,  T.  William,  368 

Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  The 
(Tyler),  552 

Lewis,  William  B.,  83 

Lexington,  Virginia,  478,  494,  496;  riots, 
528-529 

Libby  Prison,  Richmond,  498-499 

Liberia,  404 

Life  of  John  Tyler  (Abell),  226 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  93,  135,  448;  Tyler's 
reaction  to  election  of,  413 ;  debate 
with  Douglas,  433 ;  "House  Divided" 
speech,  439-440,  444;  nomination, 
439;  electoral  count,  441;  election  of, 
443-446;  Tyler's  views  on,  457-458; 
Inaugural  Address,  460—461 ;  call  for 
volunteers,  462;  motives  for  Fort 
Sumter,  463;  letters  from  Juliana 
Gardiner,  481;  pleas  from  Julia  Tyler, 
490-491;  assassination,  508-509 

Lincoln,  Mary  Todd,  pension  received 
by,  547-549 

Lind,  Jenny,  354-355 

Lion  Gardiner  and  His  Descendants 
(Gardiner),  344,  553 

Livingston,  Catherine,  343-344 

Livingston,  Henry  B.,  373,  375,  380; 
handled  John  H.  Beeckman's  estate, 

378-379 

Livingston,  Mary,  32-33,  562 
Locofocoism,  117,  128-129,  136 
"Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider,"  slogan, 

135 

Lord,  Dr.  F.  W.,  273-277 

Louis  Philippe,  37;  Gardiner  presenta- 
tion at  court  of,  38,  44 

Louisiana,  451 

Louisiana  Purchase,  69-71,  214 

Low,  Sarah,  182 

Ludlow,  Louise,  473 

Ludlow,  Maj.  William  H.,  473,  476 

Lynch,  Lt.  Dominick,  356 

Lynchburg,  Virginia,  489,  496-497,  507 

Lyons,  James,  158,  469,  532,  535,  537, 
63 6-63 7 n 

McCaw,  Dr.  J.  B.,  555 
McClellan,  Gen.  George  B.,  473-476, 
487;  campaigns,  475~476 


McClellan,  Robert,  192 

McCormick  reapers,  299-300 

M'Culloch  v.  Maryland,  65 

McDowell,  James,  93 

McDuffie,  George,  183,  216 

Macfarland,  William  EL,  469 

McGuire,  Dr.  Edward,  555 

McGuire,  Dr.  Hunter,  554~S5S 

McKeon,  John,  41,  180 

McLachlan,  Juliana,  23-24 ;  marriage, 
24 

(See  also  Gardiner,  Juliana  Mc- 
Lachlan) 

McLachlan,  Michael,  23 

McLean,  Justice  John,  117,  184,  188-191, 
248,  257-258;  romantic  correspond- 
ence with  Julia  Gardiner,  190,  58on 

McMullin,  Fayette,  252 

McMurdo,  Mr.,  Scottish  schoolmaster, 

49 
McNeill,  William  Gibbs,  285,  316,  368, 

372,  507-508,  597-598*1 
Macon,  Colonel  John,  73 
Madison,  Dolley,  178,  204 
Madison,  President  James,  60 
Madisonian,  The  (Tyler  newspaper  in 

Washington),  6,  225,  227,  237,  242, 

292,  313 

Magazine  of  American  History,  554 
Maine,  admission  to  the  Union,  69 ; 

boundary  question,  161,  212,  322- 

323 

Major,  Daniel  G.,  545 
Majority  principle  in  government,  61- 

62,  75,  82,  IOO-IOI,  122 

Malaria,  370 

Mallory,  Charles  B.,  516 

Mallory,  Francis,  41,  170 

Manassas,  Virginia,  468 

Manchonake  (Gardiners)  Island,  17,  19 

Mangum,  Willie  P.,  116,  135 

Manhattan  Bank  in  New  York,  26 

Manifest  Destiny,  210,  214,  315,  425 

Mann,  A.  Dudley,  436 

Margraf ,  Alben  N.,  544 

Marriage  of  President  Tyler  to  Julia 
Gardiner,  i— 16;  secret  arrangements, 
1-2,  5-6;  ceremony,  4-5;  guests,  4,  6; 
effect  of  news  of  the  wedding,  5-6 ; 
reaction  of  Tyler's  family,  6-8 ;  dif- 
ference in  ages,  14;  gossip  concern- 
ing, 14;  honeymoon,  5-16;  White 
House  reception,  8-9 

Marseilles,  Alexander's  interest  in  consul- 
ship at,  284-285 


Marshall,  Justice  John,  52,  65,  91, 

432 

Marshall,  Thomas  F.,  184 
Mary  Celestia,  CSS,  499 
Maryland  Mechanics  Institute,  Balti- 
more, 425-426 

Mason,  John  Thompson,  579» 
Mason,  John  Yv  131,  246,  315,  3i9>  323 
Mathewson,  A.  J.,  542 
Maury,  Matthew  Fontaine,  556 
Maxcy,  Virgil,  205 

Maysville  (Ky.)  Turnpike  Road  Com- 
pany, 85-86 

Memminger,  Christopher  G.,  431 
Memphis  (Tenn.)  Navy  Yard,  364 
"Mere  majority  principle"  in  govern- 
ment, 62,  101 
Merrick,  William  D.,  264 
Merrick,  William  Matthew,  264 
Metcalf,  Governor  Robert,  367 
Mexican  War  of  1846-1848,  299,  314, 
323,  327-330,*  New  York  Volunteers, 

329 
Mexico,  annexation  of  Texas  and,  214- 

215;  Emperor  Maximilian,  512 
Military  career  of  John  Tyler,  58-60 
Miller,  John  G.,  120 
Miller,  Dr.  N.  M.,  313,  3*7,  324;  pa- 

tronage  appointments,  226,  588-58971; 

Casey ville  land  evaluated  by,  364 
Miller,  Sylvanus,  22 
Millson,  John  Singleton,  408 
Minge,  Collier  H.,  225 
Minge,  John,  226 
Mississippi,  448 

Missouri,  admission  to  the  Union,  69 
Missouri  Compromise,  331,  406-407; 

debate,  69-71;  Thomas  Amendment, 

70-71 ;  Tyler  opposed  limitation  on 

slavery,  407 

Monroe,  President  James,  472,  556 
Monroe  Doctrine,  211,  281 
Montgomery  (Ala.)  Advertiser,  517 
Moore,  Edwin  Ward,  264 
Moore,  Ely,  270 

Morehead,  Gov.  Charles  S.,  454 
Morgan,  William  S.,  57ow 
Morris,  R.  H.,  597-598** 
Morris,  Richard,  78 
Morrison,  David,  364 
Morse,  Samuel  F.  B.,  229 
Moss,  C.  B.,  594W 
Moss,  Samuel,  6i6n 
Mott,  Robert,  354 
Mulford,  Burnet,  25 

667 


Mulford,  Brig.  Gen.  John  E.,  508 
Munford,  John  I.,  222,  58771,  599-600?* 
Myers,  T.  Bailey,  467 

Napoleonic  Wars,  66;  American  in- 
volvement, 63 

Nat  Turner  slave  revolt,  103,  429 

National  bank  question,  54-55,  63 ;  ac- 
tion of  Giles  and  Brent,  55-56 ;  de- 
pository for  government  funds,  55 ; 
opposition  of  Tyler,  63-65 ;  Congres- 
sional investigation,  64-65 ;  constitu- 
tional amendment  proposed,  99; 
Jackson  destroyed,  127-128;  Tyler 
and,  147-171;  White  Plan  for  District 
Bank,  153-156;  Botts  compromise, 
154-155;  branching  process,  154;  Fis- 
cal Corporation  Bill,  157-159 

National  Intelligencer,  217,  325-326 

National  Republicans,  82,  86,  116,  119 

Native  American  Party,  109,  233,  238, 
241,  408 

Nebraska,  slavery  controversy,  406-409 
(See  also  Kansas-Nebraska  contro- 
versy) 

Negroes,  Charles  City,  Va.  plantations 
taken  over  by,  491—492;  effect  of 
Emancipation  on,  506;  during  Re- 
construction period,  532;  elected  to 
Virginia  General  Assembly,  533 
(See  also  Slaves  and  slavery) 

Nelson,  Alexander,  384 

Nelson,  Harriet,  302 

Nelson,  Judge  John,  259-260,  270,  287, 
335,  588-589 

Nelson,  Samuel,  287,  588-589;  appoint- 
ment to  Supreme  Court,  287,  6oo-6oi« 

New  Jersey,  Tyler  faction,  269,  313 

New  Kent,  Virginia,  451 

New  Market  (Va.)  battle,  494,  496,  525 

New  Mexico,  Compromise  of  1850,  394; 
slavery  question,  395,  407 

New  Orleans,  Tyler  Club,  226-227 

New  York  American,  38 

New  York  Aurora,  222,  279,  316 

New  York  City,  social  life,  3,  32-33,  45- 
46,  297-298,  309-310;  machine  pol- 
itics 117;  Locofocoism,  128;  patron- 
age appointments,  145,  233-235,  237, 
266-288;  Tyler  organization,  219,  223- 
224,  232,  234,  237,  267,  271,  313,  391, 
43  7  J  politics,  224;  Tyler  political  strat- 
egy, 227-242 ;  popularity  of  Tyler,  227 ; 
Irish  vote,  233 ;  pro -annexation  reso- 
lutions, 261-262;  visit  of  Tylers,  307- 

668 


309;  Conservative  Democracy,  312- 
313;  purge  of  the  Tylerites,  315-316, 
337;  gossip,  354;  cultural  events,  354; 
Gardiner  properties,  23,  287,  366,  381, 
390,  540-541 ;  Union  Committee,  395- 
396,  400;  sectional  controversy,  431; 
Democratic  Party  in  1860,  436 ;  1860 
election,  440—441 ;  Southern  sentiment, 
468-469;  draft  riots,  481 ;  Boss  Tweed, 
534;  Panic  of  1873,  541 

New  York  College  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons,  541 

New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  271 

New  York  Evening  Post,  492 

New  York  Express,  431 

New  York  Herald,  4,  5,  155,  160,  184, 
203,  222,  238-239,  242,  243,  258,  280, 
290,  385,  391,  399,  402,  494,  509 

New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  236, 
313,391,405 

New  York  Ledger,  335 

New  York  Morning  News,  335 

New  York  Plebeian,  264,  279,  316 

New  York  Post,  197 

New  York  Standard,  222 

New  York  State,  Albany  Regency,  227- 
228,  266,  278;  Tyler-Polk  alignment, 
266-267;  Van  Buren-Silas  Wright  fac- 
tion, 267;  1848  election,  392 

New  York  Union,  220,  227 

Newport,  Rhode  Island,  307—309,  549 

Newspapers,  pro-administration,  221— 
222,  313;  appointing  editors  to  federal 
jobs,  226;  pro-Tyler  communications, 
320-321;  treatment  of  Tyler  after 
1848,  392 ;  reaction  to  Julia  Tyler's 
defense  of  slavery,  405 ;  on  Tyler  ad- 
ministration, 409 ;  on  sectionalism, 
431 ;  accounts  of  litigation  over 
Juliana's  will,  503 

Niagara  Falls,  New  York,  54 

Noah,  Mordecai  M.,  84,  201,  220—222, 
226,  320,  587-58871;  conversation  with 
Tyler,  224 

Nomination  of  Presidential  candidates, 
74-75,  100 
(See  also  Conventions) 

North,  Fugitive  Slave  Act  and,  396; 
participation  of  clergy  in  Kansas- 
Nebraska  controversy,  408 
(See  also  Civil  War) 

Northwest  Ordinance,  69 

Nullification  doctrine,  87-96 

Oertzen,  Sievert  von,  513-515 


O'Hara,  Edward,  348-349 

Ohio  River,  370-371 

Old  Point  Comfort,  Va.,  10,  296,  304-305, 

359-360,  372,  418,  421,  467;  Tyler 

honeymoon  cottage,  10-13 

(See  also  Villa  Margaret) 
Onderdonk,  Bishop  Benjamin  Treadwell, 

1—2,  4 

Oregon,  boundary  problem,  161, 183, 
212-213,  327-331;  expedition  to,  220; 
slavery  question  and,  331 

Ould,  Col.  Robert,  486 


Page,  Samuel,  364 

Pageot,  French  Minister  and  Madame, 

245 

Pakenham,  Richard,  253 

Pahnerston,  Lord,  330 

Palmerston,  Viscountess,  403 

Panic  of  1873,  540-543 

Papers,  Tyler's  public  and  private,  168, 
425,  507 ;  destroyed  during  Civil  War, 
1 68,  489 ;  administrators,  424 

Parker,  Judge  Richard,  625 

Parker,  Virginia,  644 

Partisan  attacks  on  Tyler,  320 

Patronage,  83—84,  224-229;  purge  of  fed- 
eral officeholders,  224-225;  dispensed 
by  Jackson,  226;  friends  and  relatives 
appointed,  226;  "Reign  of  Terror," 
227;  Senate  approval  needed,  227, 
271,  285,  287 ;  New  York  City,  233- 
234,  266-288 ;  Alexander  Gardiner  and, 
226,  266,  269-272,  278,  283-288,  588- 
SSgn;  Tyler's  understanding  with 
Polk,  312-313;  Folk's  purge  of  Tyler 
officeholders,  315 

Parnelle,  N.  T.,  587 

Patterson,  General  Robert,  465 

Payne,  John  Howard,  171 

Peace  Conference  of  1861,  334,  447-460; 
Tyler's  proposals  for,  447 ;  Tyler's 
speeches,  454-455,  45 9-460;  Tyler's 
plan  for  twelve-state,  449-450;  Tyler 
elected  president,  453-454;  member- 
ship, 454 ;  Guthrie  resolution,  457  ; 
denounced  by  Tyler,  460 

"Peacemaker,"  firing  of,  204-205 

Peachy,  Dr.  William,  470-471 

Peachy,  William  S.,  574*1 

Peck,  G.  H.,  offers  to  lease  Tyler  coal 
lands,  6i4» 

Peckman,  Judge,  505 

Pennsylvania,  Tyler  faction,  240 ; 


Robert  Tyler's  political  activities, 
313-314,  318,  328-330,  401,  410-411, 
415-416,  434,  436;  Democratic  Execu- 
tive Committee,  415-416,  434 

Pennsylvania,  USS,  n 

Pennsylvania-Virginia  political  alliance, 
410-411,  435 

Pension  Act  of  1882,  549 

Pensions,  Julia  Tyler's  campaign  for, 
547-549 

Pequot  Indians,  18-19 

Perry,  Matthew  C.,  211 

Petersburg,  Virginia,  426,  497,  507 

Petersburg  (Va.)  Gazette,  405 

Peyster,  Captain  de,  37-38 

Peyton's  boardinghouse,  Washington, 
D.C.,  41-42,  179,  181-182 

Philadelphia,  128;  patronage,  222,  Ty- 
ler organization,  230,  237;  anti-Cath- 
olic riots,  233 ;  Irish  Repeal  Associa- 
tion, 330,  436;  Roman  Catholic  vote, 
401 ;  Robert  Tyler's  political  activities, 
313-314,  318,  328-330,  401,  410-411, 
414,  436;  Know-Nothings  in,  409-410 
(See  also  Pennsylvania) 

Philadelphia  Medical  College,  423 

Philadelphia  Pennsylvanian,  405 

Pickens,  Francis  W.,  117,  184,  187-189, 
259,  319,  33i»  455,  579~5Sow 

Piedmont  (Va.)  battle,  495-496 

Pierce,  Franklin,  355,  401-402,  410,  412 ; 
election  of,  401-402;  administration, 
402 ;  patronage,  402 

Pirates  visit  Gardiners  Island,  21-22 

Pleasants,  John  H.,  160 

Pocahontas,  small  boat,  294-295 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  245 

Political  organizations,  77,  82,  100, 117 
(See  also  Tammany  Hall) 

Political  parties,  82 

(See  also  Democratic  Party;  Republi- 
ran  Party ;  Third  Tyler  Party  move- 
ment) 

Polk,  President  James  K.,  4,  n,  116, 
264;  on  Calhoun's  appointment  to 
Tyler  Cabinet,  217-218,  586*1;  nomi- 
nation for  Presidency,  228—229;  nego- 
tiations with  Tyler,  230-232;  New 
York  City  followers,  235-236;  Tyler's 
withdrawal,  236;  election  of,  239-240; 
Tyler- Gardiner  interpretation  of  vic- 
tory, 239-242;  Tyler's  kindness  to, 
277;  Texas  victory  dinner,  283;  inau- 
guration ceremony,  289,  292 ;  adminis- 
tration, 312-333 ;  Tyler's  dissatisfac- 

669 


tion  with,  312-318  ;  patronage  appoint- 
ments, 312-317,  332,  392;  purge  of 
Tylerite  officeholders,  315,  323;  Mexi- 
can War,  327-330;  Annual  Message 
announcing  California  gold  discovery, 
373;  blamed  for  Cass's  defeat,  392 
Polk,  Sarah  Childress,  277,  334,  405,  453, 
547,  549  ;  dull  social  functions,  319, 

332-333 
Polk,  Maj.  William  H.,  252-253,  255, 

277-278,  280;  assurances  on  patron- 

age, 312 

Pope  Gregory  XVI,  39 
Popular  sovereignty  concept,  394,  406- 

407,  411,  413,  433 
Porter,  James  M.,  Senate  rejects  for 

Cabinet  post,  589** 
Portsmouth  (Va.)  Pilot,  397,  400 
Powell,  Georgia,  543,  546 
Power,  Tyrone,  124 
Powhatan  House,  Richmond,  292-293 
Preston,  William  C.,  117,  129,  135 
Princeton,  TJSS  disaster,  1-2,  5,  204-206, 

419 

Princeton  University,  26,  28-29 
Promt,  George  H.,  158,  164,  170,  224 
Protectionism,  66-67,  210-211 
Public  lands,  129;  distribution  scheme, 

166-167 
Purdy,  Lovel,  594~595 

<Juin,  Dr.,  297 

Radical  Republicans,  517,  528;  South- 

ern resistance  to,  530-531 

(See  also  Republican  Party) 
Railroad,  transcontinental,  384,  406,  550 
Randolph,  Edmund,  50 
Randolph,  John,  76,  78-79 
Raoul,  Mary  Grace  Cooper,  6  2  8-6  29  n, 


Reconstruction  Act  of  1867,  528 
Reconstruction  period,  506,  511-556; 

difficult  adjustments  for  Southerners, 

517;  amnesty  oath,  512,  518;  rule  of 

Radical  Republicans,  528 
""Red  Jackets"  political  group,  280,  290 
Reed,  Dr.  Silas,  317,  444,  58  jn 
Relation  of  the  Pequot  War  (Gardiner), 

19 
Religious  issues,  140  ;  views  of  Tyler, 

108-109 
Republican  Party,  409,  433  ;  organiza- 

tion of,  408;  1856  Convention,  411  ; 

Fremont  nominated  in  1856,  412  ; 

670 


Tyler's  views  of,  414,  434-446;  elec- 
tion of  1860,  432-433>  436j  438-439; 
platform,  448,  456;  Radical  Republi- 
cans, 517;  Liberal  movement,  535; 
election  of  1876,  550 

Revolutionary  War,  22,  344 

Richardson,  Holt,  362 

Richmond,  Virginia,  291,  307,  354-355? 
424,  451,  481,  507;  War  of  1812,  59; 
Washington  Memorial,  355 ;  boycott 
of  Northern  textiles,  43 1 ;  sectional 
crisis,  431 ;  political  activities  in  1860, 
447,  460-462 ;  Robert  Tyler's  flight  to, 
464-465 ;  vote  for  secession  in,  464 ;  de- 
fense of,  465 ;  Civil  War  period,  469- 
470;  Peninsula  campaigns,  475-485; 
attack  on,  488-489;  life  during  the 
war,  488 ;  Tyler  family  during  war, 
500;  evacuation  of,  507;  postwar 
politics,  534-535;  town  house  leased 
by  Julia  Tyler,  549-550;  Hollywood 
Cemetery,  555~556 

Richmond  (Va.)  Enquirer,  91,  115,  139, 
325:  4°3,  449»  4fo 

Richmond  (Va.)  Whig,  160 

"Ringdove,  Romeo,"  36 

Ritchie,  Ann  Eliza,  304 

Ritchie,  Thomas,  91,  115,  139,  293,  305, 
313-314,  426,  6o4« 

Rives,  William  C.,  94,  101,  115,  130-131, 
141,  149-150,  448,  450 

Robert  E.  Lee,  CSS,  482,  63 in 

Roberts,  Daniel  G.,  34 

Roberts,  George,  588-589?* 

Robertson,  Judge  John,  450-451,  455 

Rochelle,  James  H.,  5 7 1-57271,  588-589** 

Rochelle,  Mattie,  123,  192 

Rockbridge  (Va.)  Alum  Springs,  41$- 

419,  483 
Rockbrige  County  (Va.)  reserves,  495- 

496,  498 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  Julia  Tyler's 

conversion,  538-540 
Roman  Catholic  vote,  136,  323,  401,  408, 

436 

Rome,  Italy,  38-39 
Roosevelt,  James  I.,  170,  180,  194,  581, 

619-620,  634-635 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  James  I.,  474-475 
"Rose  of  Long  Island"  incident,  35-36 
Roy  all,  Anne,  108 
Ruffin,  Edmund,  62,  293,  298 
Rumford  (R.I.)   Chemical  Works, 

474 
Rush,  Richard,  82 


Russell,  James  M.,  160 

Russell,  Capt.  John  W.,  362-363 

Russell,  Lady  John,  403 

Russia,  406,  585?* 

Rutherfoord,  John,  85,  154 

Ruthville,  Virginia,  302 

Ryder,  Rev.  Father  James,  S.J.,  436 

Rynders,  Capt.  Isaiah,  279-280,  290 

Sacramento  City,  Calif.,  376-377,  380; 
social  life,  375~376 

Sacramento  (Calif.)  Valley,  373-374 

Sacred  Heart  Convent,  Halifax,  N.S., 
521-522,  537,  648^ 

Sag  Harbor,  Long  Island,  26,  37,  44;  pa- 
tronage appointments,  272-277 

St.  Mary,  launching  of  USS,  245-246 

Samson,  George,  342 

Samuels,  R.  G.,  363,  364 

San  Diego,  Calif.,  382-386;  attempt  to 
establish  customs  house,  383 

San  Francisco,  Calif.,  377,  381,  383-384 

San  Jacinto  (Tex.)  battle,  211 

San  Joaquin  (Calif.)  Valley,  373 

Santa  Anna,  Gen.  Antonio  Lopez  de, 
165,  211,  214,  229 

Sante  Fe  Railroad  system,  384 

Saratoga,  New  York,  202-203,  307-309, 
359,  418;  vacation  trips  to,  355-356; 
Alexander's  visits  to,  370 

Sargeant,  John,  580-581*1 

Say  brook,  Conn.,  18,  19 

Schools  and  colleges,  511-512;  Germany, 
512,  523-530 
(See  also  William  and  Mary  College) 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  116,  133,  209,  264, 
401,  473 

Seawell,  John  B.,  87,  108,  577** 

Sea  well,  M.  B.,  392 

Seawell,  Maria  Henry  Tyler,  577*1 

Seawell,  Maj.  Washington,  163,  577*1 

Secession,  445-472 ;  threat  by  South 
Carolina,  90-96,  431;  Compromise  of 
1850  and,  394,  397 ;  Tyler's  views, 
412-413;  threat  of,  431;  Tyler's  deci- 
sion on,  459-460;  Tyler's  speech  for, 
460-461 

Secret  History  of  the  Tyler  Dynasty 
(Cumming),  226,  320,  5897* 

Secret  Service  Fund,  322-323 

Sectional-balance-of -power  concept,  70 

Sectional  controversy,  331-332,  384,  417- 
446;  Tyler's  views,  80-8 1;  Oregon 
question,  331;  California's  application 
for  admission  and,  393-394;  Tyler's 


efforts  to  solve,  427-428,  446;  South- 
ern line  on,  430-431 ;  Tidewater  Vir- 
ginia, 431-432;  treatment  in  press, 
431;  moderates  in  1860,  432-433;  Ty- 
ler's views,  444-445;  secession  of 
South  Carolina,  444 

Seddon,  James  A.,  450,  457-458 

Seixas,  J.  M.,  482 

Selden,  Gary,  107 

Selden,  Dr.  James,  446 

Semple,  Judge  James,  50 

Semple,  James  A.,  122,  328,  424,  465, 
482,  489,  494,  497,  499-500 ;  moral 
and  mental  decline,  518-520,  637- 
63871;  work  in  underground  Confed- 
erate cells  in  Canada,  518;  returns 
from  Mexican  War,  6o8n 

Semple,  Letitia  Tyler,  8,  172-173,  291- 
292,  352,  500,  519;  relations  with 
Julia  Tyler,  302,  52ow,  6o8«,  623- 
6247*;  Tyler's  letters  to,  414 ;  later  life 
and  death,  500,  519,  637-63872 

Senate,  United  States,  Tyler's  election 
to  (1827),  78-79;  "advice  and  con- 
sent," 84;  Tyler  resigned  seat  over 
instruction  question,  110-115;  on  veto 
of  District  Bank  Bill,  155-156;  ap- 
proval of  Presidential  appointments, 
227;  approval  of  patronage  appoint- 
ments, 271;  approval  of  Texas  Res- 
olution, 282—84 

Senate  Journal,  101,  no;  Expunging 
Resolution,  114-115 

"Serenade  Dedicated  to  Miss  Julia 
Gardiner,"  13-14 

Seven  Decades  of  the  Union  (Wise) , 
536,  64271 

Sevier,  Ambrose  H.,  580-58171 

Seward,  William  H.,  117,  132,  140,  234, 
393-394,  432,  439,  441-442,  462 

Shaler,  William,  patronage  appoint- 
ment, 591,  597-59871 

Sharecroppers  at  Sherwood  Forest,  514- 

515 

Sharon  Springs,  Conn.,  418 
Shelter  Island,  New  York,  34,  249-251, 

25S,  34i 
Shenandoah  Valley  (Va.)  campaigns, 

489-490,  495-496 
Sheridan,  packet  ship,  37 
Sherman,  General  William  Tecumseh, 

489,  498,  507 
Sherwood  Forest,  Charles  City  County, 

Virginia,  5,  11-13,  179-180,  201,  558; 

slaves,  54,  103-104,  300-302,  403-406, 

671 


430 ;  transition  from  White  House  to, 
289-311;  furnishings,  293-294,  593, 
602,  604;  boat  and  oarsmen,  294-295; 
social  activities,  295-298,  304-305, 
347,  350-353,  421-423;  remodeling  of, 
296;  Julia's  emotional  attachment  to, 
297;  farming  operations,  298-300,  302, 
361,  64111;  wheat  crop,  298-300,  361, 
406;  white  labor,  301-302,  63173;  fam- 
ily circle,  302-304,  334-360;  visits  of 
Margaret  and  Juliana  to,  388 ;  during 
the  Civil  War,  465,  488 ;  potato  crop, 
469 ;  after  death  of  Tyler,  471-472 ; 
Julia's  desire  to  sell,  478-479 ;  occupa- 
tion and  damage,  489-490,  495, 
502 ;  destruction  wrought  by  Negroes, 
502;  Reconstruction  years,  506;  dur- 
ing Reconstruction  period,  512,  531; 
Swedish  immigrants  hired  for,  513- 
515;  restoration  of,  532-533,  552-553 J 
Panic  of  1873,  541-543;  financial 
problems  in  1874,  542-543;  property 
losses,  548 

Sierra  Madre  (Calif.)  mountains,  386 

Sigel,  General  Franz,  489,  494,  497,  525 

Sioux  City,  Iowa  land  grant,  60,  636- 
637« 

Sister  Loretto,  539 

Slamm,  Levi  D.,  239,  279 

Slaves  and  slavery,  12,  20-21;  attitude 
of  Gardiner  family,  21 ;  Tyler's  treat- 
ment of,  53-54,  103-104,  300-302, 
403-406,  423,  427-428,  430,  444-445> 
476;  Sherwood  Forest,  54,  300-302, 
403-406,  430,  506;  opposition  to  con- 
tinuation of  African  slave  trade,  53 ; 
African  colonization  scheme,  53 ;  Mis- 
souri Compromise  debate,  69-71; 
Congressional  regulation,  71 ;  aboli- 
tionist propaganda,  104-105;  leasing, 
302;  Wilmot  Proviso,  331-332,  609^; 
at  Caseyville,  Ky.,  372;  1848  cam- 
paign, 392 ;  "Squatter  sovereignty," 
393;  Compromise  of  1850,  394;  James 
Hamlet  case,  397-400;  Julia  Tyler's 
letter  defending  slavery,  402-406; 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  406-409;  Ty- 
ler's moderation  on,  427-428;  Tyler's 
views  in  1860,  433,  444-445 

Smith,  Adam,  50,  67 

Smith,  Alfred  E.,  539 

Smith,  Delazon,  228,  235;  relations  with 
Tyler  Party,  $gin 

Smith,  Col.  Thomas,  119,  57ow 

Smith,  William,  121 

672 


Smith,  Gov.  William,  552 

Social  life  of  the  Tylers,  417;  in  the 
White  House,  172-208;  Sherwood 
Forest,  295-298,  304-305,  347,  350- 
353, 421-423 ;  Virginia  mineral  springs, 
418-419;  Villa  Margaret,  442-443 

Sellers,  Augustus  A.,  579^ 

South,  reaction  to  Fugitive  Slave  Act, 
396;  plans  for  secession,  412-413;  re- 
action in  the  event  Fremont  elected, 
413 ;  Union  occupation,  513 
(See  also  Confederate  States  of  Amer- 
ica) 

South  Carolina,  446-447 ;  nullification  is- 
sue, 90-96 ;  nullification  and  secession 
acts,  91-96;  suspended  Ordinance  of 
Nullification,  95-96 ;  threat  of  seces- 
sion, 440,  443 ;  secession  of,  445,  448; 
ultimatum  on  Fort  Sumter,  452-455, 

457 

Southard,  Samuel  L.,  160 

Southern  Farmer  and  Planter,  552 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  402 

Specie  Circular,  128 

Speeches  of  John  Tyler,  54,  93-96,  138, 
425-428,  460;  on  national  bank  ques- 
tion, 65 ;  motion  to  censure  Jackson, 
68 

Spencer,  John  C.,  224-225,  426 

Spencer,  Julia  Tyler  ("Baby"),  537, 
542-543,  550-555,  642-643*1 

Spencer,  William  H.,  536,  642-643« 

Spirit  of  the  Times,  313 

"Spoils"  System,  83-84 

"Squatter  sovereignty,"  393-394,  407 

Stag,  CSS,  486-487 

Stage  travels,  367 

Star  of  the  West,  steamer,  448 

Staten  Island,  New  York,  Gardiner 
homes  on,  390,  471—472 
(See  also  Castleton  Hill) 

States'  rights,  50,  52,  60,  444;  position 
on  national  bank  question,  65 ;  Tyler's 
views,  73-101,  136,  148,  425 ;  Calhoun 
advocate  of,  82,  86-87 ;  Democrats, 
314;  1856  election,  412 

Staunton,  Va.,  489,  495-496 

Steinbach,  Frau,  527,  639^ 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  132-133 

Stevenson,  Andrew,  60,  72 

Stevenson,  Mrs.  J.  D.,  305 

Stewart,  Charles,  264 

Stilwell,  Richard  E.,  381,  388-389,  597- 
598n 

Stilwell,  Silas  M.,  5,  192,  221-222,  269 


Stock  market,  331 

Stockton,  John  Potter,  205 

Stockton,  Capt.  Robert  F.,  204-205,  367, 

454,  589-59°w 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  403,  405 

Strong,  George  D.,  5,  591^ 

Strong,  George  Templeton,  17 

Strong,  Silas  B.,  584*1 

Stuart,  A.  H.  H.,  155 

Suffolk  County,  New  York,  26;  patron- 
age appointments,  271-277 

Summers,  George  W.,  450 

Sumter,  Thomas  Delage,  41—42,  182, 
187,  192-193 

Supreme  Court,  to  settle  territorial  slav- 
ery disputes,  394,  407,  433;  slavery 
questions,  433 

Sutherland,  Duchess,  403-404 

Sutherland,  Dr.  Joel  B.,  222,  230,  232, 
236-237 

Sutter,  Johann  Augustus,  377,  616 

Suydam,  James  H.,  285,  597-598 

Sweet,  Joseph  T.,  239 

Sweet  Springs,  Virginia,  307 

Sykes,  L.  A.,  368 

Taggart,  William,  221,  587 

Taliaferro,  John,  160 

Talley,  John,  534 

Tallmadge,  Daniel  B.,  240 

Tallmadge,  James,  70 

Tallmadge,  Nathaniel  P.,  117,  129,  131, 

i34»  *35,  268,  317,  579»,  592* 
Tammany  Hall,  46-47,  129,  232,  436, 

534 ;  patronage  arrangements,  235, 

267;  Tyler  strategy  and,  227-242; 

Alexander  Gardiner  and,  239,  318; 

Texas  annexation  resolutions,  261-262, 

280-281;  Democratic  Empire  Club, 

280;  White  Eagle  Club,  290 
Taney,  Robert  B.,  89,  97-98 
Tariff  Act  of  1828,  79-80,  82,  86,  91 
Tariff  Act  of  1832,  90-91 
Tariff  Act  of  1842,  168-169 
Tariff  compromise  movement,  94—96 
"Tariff  of  Abominations"  (1828),  So,  82, 

86,  91 
Tariffs,  Tyler's  views  on,  50,  65-67,  210- 

21 1 ;  free  trade  vs.  protectionism,  66- 

67,  210-211;  revenue-raising  intent, 

166-167 

Tasistro,  Louis  F.,  5,  6,  221,  224,  303 
Taylor,  John  A.,  634-63 5 n 
Taylor,  President  Zachary,  116,  328,  355; 

patronage  appointments,  374,  393; 


Presidential  candidate,  391-392;  elec- 
tion of  1848,  392 ;  death  of,  395 

TazeweU,  Littleton  W.,  93,  98,  100-101, 
105,  122,  142,  163,  220;  Presidential 
boom,  117—118 

Tecumseh,  Indian  chief,  118 

Telegraphy,  171 

Tennessee  Resolution,  74 

Texas  and  Pacific  Railroad,  550,  553 

Texas  annexation,  5-6,  16,  168,  171,  209- 
219;  slavery  issue  and,  209,  215,  321, 
395;  secret  negotiations,  213—214,  218; 
economic  advantages,  215-216,  219, 
324-325,  395,  425;  British  machina- 
tions, 216;  Jackson  in  favor  of,  218; 
Clay's  opposition,  218;  treaty  signed, 
218;  treaty  defeated  in  Senate,  229; 
Tyler's  Annual  Message  (1844),  246- 
247 ;  joint  resolution  instead  of  treaty, 
247,  260-261,  269,  279—283;  resolu- 
tions passed  by  Tammany  Hall,  261- 
262 ;  accomplished,  265 ;  Alexander 
Gardiner's  attitude  toward,  266-267; 
signed  by  Tyler,  283;  national  char- 
acter of,  324-325;  Tyler's  role,  324- 
326;  Calhoun  tries  to  take  credit  for, 
324-325;  Tyler's  desire  to  achieve  a 
cotton  monopoly,  395;  Tyler's  mo- 
tives, 395,  425 

Texas  Republic,  recognition  of,  214 

Texas  Resolution,  260-261,  269;  passage 
through  Congress,  279-283 

Texas  Revolution,  214 

Thames  (Ont.)  battle,  118 

Third  (Tyler)  Party  movement  (1843- 
1844),  170-171,  201,  209,  218;  planned 
by  Tyler,  161,  179;  purpose,  210; 
Democratic  Republicans,  218-219; 
platform,  218;  following  in  New  York 
City,  221—224;  anti-Van  Buren  bloc, 
221 

Thomas,  F.  W.,  243,  258,  262,  290;  press 
agent  for  Julia  Tyler,  245 

Thomas,  Jesse  B.,  70 

Thomas  Amendment,  Missouri  Compro- 
mise, 70 

Thompson,  E.  G.,  593~594» 

Thompson,  George,  396 

Thompson,  George  F.,  593^ 

Thompson,  John  B.,  57971 

Thompson,  John  R.,  313 

Thompson,  Jonathan,  560-561^ 

Thompson,  Sarah  Gardiner,  254 

Thompson,  Sarah  Griswold,  438 

Thompson,  Judge  Smith,  189 

673 


Tidewater  Virginia,  sectional  contro- 
versy, 431-432  ;  after  Harpers  Ferry, 
431 ;  after  Lincoln's  election,  445 ; 
plantations  plundered,  489—490 
(See  also  Sherwood  Forest) 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  550,  619-620 

Tilford,  Henry,  363-364 

"Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  Too,"  40,  135 

Tom  Thumb  exhibit,  354 

Trade,  Tyler's  views  on,  50,  65-66,  210- 
211 
(See  also  Tariffs) 

Travels  and  traveling,  to  Kentucky, 
366-367;  to  California,  375,  386 

Tucker,  Annie  Baker,  543 

Tucker,  Henry  St.  George,  92 

Tucker,  Nathaniel  Beverley,  125,  150, 
155,  161,  165 

Tuscarora,  New  York,  536-537 

Tweed,  William  M.  ("Boss"),  534 

"Two  dollars  a  day  and  roast  beef," 
128-129,  136 

Tyler,  Alex  (see  Tyler,  John  Alexander) 

Tyler,  Alice,  172,  246,  249;  romantic  in- 
terests, 253,  255-256,  346-348;  rela- 
tions with  Julia,  302-303 ;  marriage 
to  Henry  M.  Denison,  349 

Tyler,  B.  O.,  245,  593~594» 

Tyler,  Chancellor  Samuel,  50 

Tyler,  Christiana,  64 

Tyler,  David  Gardiner  ("Gardie"),  311, 
335-336,  422,  442-4437  45*,  461,  466, 
488;  birth  of,  311,  335;  during  Civil 
War,  475,  483,  496-499,  $10;  super- 
visor of  Sherwood  Forest,  477,  532 ; 
education,  478-479,  508,  529-530; 
military  service,  483,  496—499,  510;  at 
Washington  College,  478,  483,  495- 
497,  5°°,  5°8,  529-530;  dedication  to 
the  Confederacy,  512-513,  550-551; 
education  in  Germany,  512,  523—530, 
63  9w;  postwar  problems,  521 ;  interest 
in  sports,  527 ;  feelings  about  David 
Lyon  Gardiner,  528;  law  practice, 
532;  political  activity,  532-534,  55o, 
Panic  of  1873,  543;  on  Julia  Tyler's 
pension  request,  548;  marriage,  551- 
552 ;  on  H.  A.  Wise  memoir  of  Tyler, 
636,  64271 

Tyler,  Elizabeth,  102,  172-173,  178-179, 
60  6nf  6  2  8-6  2  gn 
(See  also  Waller,  Elizabeth  Tyler) 

Tyler,  Fannie  Glinn,  624« 

Tyler,  Fitz  (see  Tyler,  Robert  Fitzwal- 
ter) 

674 


Tyler,  Gardie  (see  Tyler,  David  Gardi- 

ner) 

Tyler,  Gardiner  (1878-1892),  544 
Tyler,  Georgia  Powell,  543,  546 
Tyler,  Grace  Raoul,  475-476,  6o6»,  628- 


Tyler,  Henry,  51 

Tyler,  James  Rochelle,  571-572 

Tyler,  Judge  John,  48-51  ;  father  of  the 
President,  48-49  ;  political  and  social 
views  of,  50—51  ;  elected  Governor  of 
Virginia,  50;  Revolutionary  career,  51 

Tyler,  President  John,  marriage  to  Julia 
Gardiner,  1-16,  57,  189-190,  337,  350, 
358,  427,  58o«;  campaign  for  re- 
election, 5  ;  children  of  first  marriage, 
6—7  ;  poetic  composition,  13—14,  102, 
198,  35S-3S9,  58i«;  "A  Serenade  Ded- 
icated to  Miss  Julia  Gardiner,"  13-14; 
children,  16,  57,  71,  102,  105-107,  122- 
123,  178-179,  357-358,  427;  temper- 
ament and  character,  43,  62,  74,  147, 
472,  599w;  philosophy,  40-41,  50-54, 
61,  88-89,  108-110,  148,  219-242; 
death  of  Harrison,  40,  49,  147-148  ; 
first  meeting  with  Julia  Gardiner,  43  ; 
childhood,  48-72  ;  education,  48-50; 
birth,  48;  myths  concerning,  49,  148; 
William  and  Mary  College,  49-50, 
106-107,  425,  5657*;  love  for  music, 
49,  350-351  J  law  practice,  50,  54, 
114,  122—123;  Governor  of  Virginia 
(1825),  50,  57,  76-78;  family  back- 
ground, 51;  views  on  the  extension 
of  slavery,  53™54,  394~395,  427,  433  J 
political  career,  54-57,  102  ;  hatred  of 
Great  Britain,  54,  332,  396,  406;  ora- 
torical ability,  54,  93-96,  138,  425- 
428,  460;  marriage  to  Letitia  Chris- 
tian, 56—57;  Congressional  service,  57, 
60-61,  65-66,  71-72,  78-79,  93,  110- 
115  ;  delegate  to  House  of  Delegates, 
57,  65-66,  71-72,  74,  127;  military 
career,  59-60;  War  of  1812,  58-60; 
Sioux  City,  Iowa,  land  grant,  60,  636- 
637«;  lacked  the  "common  touch," 
61-62  ;  feared  the  power  of  the  peo- 
ple, 61-62  ;  efforts  to  preserve  Con- 
stitution, 62-63,  71  ;  re-elected  to  the 
House  in  1819,  65-66  ;  on  tariff  of 
1820,  65-66;  Jackson  distrusted  by, 
67,  74-75,  108;  resignation  from 
House,  71-72;  health,  72,  418,  423- 
424,  427,  450,  453-454;  dilemmas,  73- 
101;  states'  rights  views,  73-101,  136, 


148,  425J  re-elected  to  House  of  Dele- 
gates, 74 ;  support  of  Adams- Calhoun 
administration,  74—76,  79 ;  financial 
affairs,  77,  102-103,  112,  115,  177-178, 
296,  310,  341,  356,  361 ;  political  or- 
ganization, 77;  public  school  bills,  77; 
canal-  and  road-building  program,  77 ; 
election  to  the  Senate  (1827),  78-79; 
congratulatory  letter  sent  Clay,  76,  81 ; 
decision  to  support  Andrew  Jackson, 
80-8 1 ;  appointment  of  Donelson,  83, 
89,  320,  59iw;  attack  on  Jackson's  ap- 
pointment policy,  84-85 ;  support  of 
Jackson,  85-90 ;  on  Jackson's  veto  of 
Bank  Bill  in  1832,  87-88;  grasp  of 
banking  economics,  88—89;  So.  Caro- 
lina's nullification  bill,  91-96; 
speeches,  93-96,  138,  425-428,  460 ; 
against  the  Force  Bill,  93-96;  re-elec- 
tion to  the  Senate  (1833),  93;  break 
with  Jackson,  97-100,  108;  comes  to 
support  Clay,  97,  591-592^-  Whig 
sympathies,  97,  122;  renounces  the 
Democratic  Party,  97,  100;  middle 
years,  102-126;  political  advancement, 
102;  slaves,  103-104,  300-302,  403- 
406,  430;  lent  money  to  friends  and 
relatives,  103;  education  of  children, 
105—107,  442—443;  member  of  Board 
of  Visitors,  William  and  Mary  Col- 
lege, 106-107 ;  social  life  in  Washing- 
ton, 107—108 ;  use  of  franking  privi- 
lege, 1 08 ;  nickname  of  "Honest  John," 
108 ;  religious  toleration,  108-109 ; 
political  honesty,  108;  resigned  Senate 
seat  over  the  Instruction  question, 
110-115,  5 70-5 7 in;  nominated  for 
Vice-Presidency  by  Whigs,  111-115; 
letter  of  resignation,  114-115,  570- 
57 in;  censure  of  Giles  and  Brent, 
114;  moved  family  to  Williamsburg, 
115;  Presidential  boom  for  Tazewell, 
117-118;  endorses  nomination  of 
White,  118-119;  Vice-Presidential 
nomination,  120-121,  127-146,  57 in; 
election  of  1836,  120-121 ;  multiple 
candidates  of  Whig  Party,  120;  vote 
polled  by,  121-122;  did  not  campaign 
personally,  121 ;  class  bias,  122; 
election  of  1840,  122,  432-433  ;  re- 
turn to  politics  in  1838,  127-132; 
elected  to  Virginia  House  of  Delegates 
(1838),  127;  contest  for  Senate  seat 
(1838),  130-132;  supported  Clay, 
130-134;  precampaign  speeches,  132; 


nomination  for  Vice-Presidency,  134- 
135 ;  campaign  of  1840,  I35-I39J  tear- 
shedding  story,  132,  573^;  speech  at 
Columbus,  138 ;  on  the  Whig  coali- 
tion, 141 ;  sworn  in  as  Vice-P resident, 
144;  notification  of  Harrison's  death, 
147-148;  administration,  147-171, 
331-332,  392-393,  401,  409;  struggle 
with  Clay  and  the  Whigs,  147-171  ; 
training  in  government,  147 ;  adher- 
ence to  principles,  147 ;  strict  construe- 
tionist,  148;  Cabinet,  149,  155,  160- 
162,  164;  oath  of  office,  149;  fiscal 
changes,  150-171 ;  inaugural  address, 
150;  expulsion  from  the  Whig  Party, 
151,  162-163  j  resignation  of  Cabinet, 
151,  160-161;  personal  feelings  for 
Clay,  97,  152,  426;  veto  of  District 
Bank  Bill,  153-156;  bank  views,  153- 
154 ;  signed  bill  repealing  Van  Buren's 
Independent  Treasury,  156 ;  burnt  in 
effigy,  156;  castigated  by  Clay,  156; 
Fiscal  Corporation  Bill  vetoed  by, 
159-160;  personal  vilification,  160; 
foreign  policies,  161;  Third  party 
movement,  161, 170-171,  218-242; 
Exchequer  Plan,  163-165 ;  veto  of 
tariff-distribution  bill,  166—167;  im- 
peachment talk  about,  167-169;  Whig 
attacks,  167-168;  public  and  private 
papers,  168,  425,  489,  507;  domestic 
program,  170;  social  life  in  the  White 
House,  172-208;  personal  life,  172- 
180;  nepotism,  178;  love  letters  from 
Julia,  189-190,  s&on;  courtship,  192- 
208 ;  dedication  of  Bunker  Hill  monu- 
ment, 200,  227;  patronage,  201,  218, 
226-227,  385,  588w;  use  of  appoint- 
ing power,  201,  218,  226-227,  385, 
588w;  asks  Juliana  for  Julia's  hand, 
207;  Texas  annexation,  209-219,  283, 
324,  586n;  role  in  Webster- Ashburton 
treaty  negotiations,  212,  323,  585 n, 
6ofn;  appointment  of  Fremont,  218, 
586w;  appointment  of  Kendall,  218, 
586w;  offers  Polk  Cabinet  post,  218, 
586w;  conversation  with  Noah,  223- 
224;  purge  of  federal  officeholders, 
224-225;  attacks  on,  226;  opposes 
Noah  appointment,  226,  588n;  nom- 
ination in  1844,  228—229;  withdrawal 
from  1844  campaign,  229-242,  312; 
withdrawal  statement,  236-237;  in- 
terpretation of  Polk  victory,  239-242; 
final  Annual  Message,  246-247 ;  re- 

675 


lationship  with  Alexander  Gardiner, 
268-269,  341,  368,  387,  61971;  "avail- 
ability" for  1848,  268-269 ;  future  po- 
litical ambitions,  268-269,  293,  307, 
313,  322  ;  election  to  Confederate  Con- 
gress (1861),  268;  professional  poli- 
tician, 268;  kindness  to  President- 
elect Polk,  277;  annexation  measure 
signed  by,  283 ;  on  Samuel  Nelson's 
appointment  to  Supreme  Court,  287, 
600-60 1  n;  departure  from  the  White 
House,  289-292;  foreign-policy 
achievements,  290;  concern  for 
Julia's  comfort  at  Sherwood  Forest, 
293—294;  proud  of  Julia,  295-296; 
farming  operations,  298-300 ;  treat- 
ment of  slaves,  300-302,  403-406,  430, 
445—446 ;  fondness  for  animals,  305— 
306,  357,  S93«,  6047*;  conferences  in 
New  York  and  Philadelphia,  309 ;  dis- 
enchantment with  Polk  administra- 
tion, 312-333 ;  power  of  appointment, 
313  ;  political  appointments,  320; 
partisan  attacks  on,  320;  "President 
by  accident,"  slur,  321 ;  visit  to  Wash- 
ington (1846),  322-324;  appearance 
before  Congress  (1846),  322-323;  re- 
ceipt of  Brazoria  pitcher,  322,  60771; 
dinner  with  Polk  (1846) ,  323  ;  credit 
for  Texas  annexation  challenged,  324- 
326 ;  position  on  the  Mexican  War, 
327-330;  on  impact  of  Wilmot  Pro- 
viso, 332,  6ogn;  president  of  the  Peace 
Convention,  334 ;  life  at  Sherwood 
Forest,  334-360;  love  for  Julia,  337, 
350,  358;  Margaret's  wedding,  346; 
fox  hunting,  347,  351 ;  happiness  en- 
joyed by,  337,  350,  358;  deaths  of 
three  daughters,  350;  political  repu- 
tation, 355,  401,  409,  425,  435,  552; 
Caseyville  coal  and  timber  speculation, 
361—372;  enthusiasm  for  California, 
373~374;  financial  assistance  from 
Gardiners,  389 ;  elected  overseer  of 
roads,  390-391 ;  connection  with  poli- 
tics, 390-391 ;  on  Taylor's  candidacy, 
391-393 ;  political  influence  in  Wash- 
ington, 391 ;  1848  political  role,  391  ; 
blamed  Polk  for  Cass's  defeat,  392 ; 
patronage  requests,  393;  letter  to 
Webster  on  slavery,  394-395;  sup- 
ported Compromise  of  1850,  394-395, 
407  ;  views  on  Fillmore,  396;  views 
on  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  397,  400; 
views  on  Buchanan,  400-401,  411,  414, 

676 


416;  attack  of  pneumonia,  400-401  ; 
on  Pierce,  401-402,  410;  administra- 
tion endorsed  by  Virginia  Democracy, 
401 ;  on  Czarist  Russia,  406,  585?*;  on 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  407-408 ;  oppo- 
sition to  Missouri  Compromise  limi- 
tation on  slavery,  407 ;  defense  of 
Roman  Catholics,  408-409 ;  political 
future  in  1855,  409-410;  support  of 
Buchanan,  411,  414,  416;  on  secession, 
412-413;  reaction  to  election  of  Lin- 
coln, 413 ;  events  leading  to  Civil  War, 
417-446;  will,  424-425,  472,  478; 
plans  for  biography,  424 ;  honorary 
degree,  425 ;  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  425;  "The  Bead  of  the  Cab- 
inet" speech,  426;  Maryland  Institute 
address,  426 ;  moderation  on  slavery 
issue,  427,  440;  Julia's  poem  on  65th 
birthday,  427 ;  speech  at  Jamestown, 
427;  Virginia  history  love  of,  427; 
Presidential  "boom"  in  1860,  435-437; 
on  1860  split  of  the  Democratic  Party, 
439—441 ;  on  Lincoln's  nomination, 
440;  views  on  election  of  1860,  445- 
446 ;  pleas  for  sectional  harmony,  446 ; 
attempts  to  stave  off  the  Civil  War, 
447-472 ;  appointed  to  Peace  Confer- 
ence, 450,  453-454 ;  complicity  in 
Seddon  amendment,  450,  457,  627- 
628^;  elected  to  the  Virginia  State 
Convention,  451 ;  elected  president  of 
Peace  Conference,  453-454;  urges  Bu- 
chanan to  surrender  Fort  Sumter, 
455 ;  sought  peace  through  balance  of 
power,  456-460,  463 ;  change  to  pro- 
secessionism,  456—460;  interview  with 
Lincoln,  458 ;  forwarded  suggested 
constitutional  amendment  to  Con- 
gress, 459-460;  Peace  Conference  de- 
nounced by,  460 ;  speech  for  seces- 
sion, 460 ;  elected  to  Provisional  Con- 
gress of  the  Confederate  States,  464, 
469 ;  never  defeated  in  a  public  elec- 
tion, 469 ;  last  illness  and  death,  470— 
472,  548;  funeral,  472,  556;  claims 
against  estate  of,  515,  532,  63 6-63 7«; 
warns  Waller  on  Clay,  591-592^; 
warns  Santa  Anna,  591*1;  use  of  pro- 
fanity, 599w 

Tyler,  John,  Jr.,  4,  8,  u,  71,  106,  123, 
160,  163,  303-304,  401,  405,  424*  4^4; 
500,  507;  escorts  Julia  Gardiner,  191, 
580-581*1;  discharged  as  Presidential 
secretary,  226,  588-589^,  59472;  news- 


paper  articles  by,  248,  436,  494;  and 
Yancy-CIingman  duel  law  practice, 
303;  Mexican  War,  328-329;  desire 
to  go  to  California,  374-375,  6i6»; 
personal  habits,  374-375,  6i6n;  pa- 
tronage appointment,  393,  520-521; 
worked  for  Buchanan's  election,  416; 
service  during  Civil  War,  465 ;  post- 
Civil  War  adjustment,  520 

Tyler,  John  Alexander  ("Alex"),  338- 
339,  442-443,  485,  509-5io;  birth  of, 
338-339 ;  desire  to  join  Confederate 
Navy,  498-500 ;  military  service,  508 ; 
during  Reconstruction,  512 ;  educa- 
tion in  Germany,  512-530,  541-542; 
scientific  ability,  523 ;  fought  in 
Franco -Prussian  War,  529—530,  640?*  ; 
patronage  appointment,  544-545  ; 
marriage,  544,  553 ;  death,  545 

Tyler,  John  C.,  479-480,  488-490 

Tyler,  John  IV,  628-629** 

Tyler,  Julia  Campbell,  6o6«,  628-629, 

63  7» 

Tyler,  Julia  Gardiner,  marriage  to  John 
Tyler,  1-16,  246,  358;  appearance,  4, 
1*9,  352,  355-357,  542,  583**,  641**; 
reign  as  First  Lady,  8-9,  38,  208,  243- 
265,  268,  302,  417;  social  and  political 
ability,  12 ;  on  "Sweet  Lady  Awake," 
13,  55S«;  poem  written  by,  15,  427 ; 
temperament  and  character,  20,  27, 
246,  538;  attitude  toward  slavery,  21; 
guitar  playing,  34-35,  294,  351,  6o2«; 
Bogert  and  Mecamley  advertisement, 
35,  563«;  romance  with  Belgian 
Count,  39,  563«;  court  life  in  Wash- 
ington, 243-265,  302 ;  clothes,  244, 
263-264,  307-308,  352,  356,  542 ;  por- 
traits, 245,  536;  Texas  annexation 
promoted  by,  247-248,  268,  281-283, 
6oow;  mail  received  by,  249 ;  recep- 
tions and  levees,  257-265;  farewell 
ball,  261—265  j  patronage  matters  and, 
270-271 ;  transition  from  White  House 
to  Sherwood  Forest,  289-311;  social 
hospitality,  290 ;  strained  relations 
with  Tyler's  daughters,  291-292,  302- 
304,  352,  6o6n;  homesickness  for  New 
York  City,  294,  6o2w;  shopping  com- 
missions, 294,  337;  life  at  Sherwood 
Forest,  297,  334-360;  fondness  for 
animals,  305-306,  357,  593^,  6047*; 
economy  program,  310;  visit  to  New 
York,  308-309,  480;  pregnancies,  311, 
334-339>  356-359»  421-422,  428,  442; 


birth  of  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  311, 
335  ;  attitude  toward  Polk  adminis- 
tration, 319-320;  sensitive  to  criti- 
cism, 321-322;  divorce  rumors,  335- 
336;  happiness  with  President,  337, 
350,  358;  children,  337~338,  350,  359* 
422  ;  birth  of  John  Alexander  Tyler, 
338-339  ;  matchmaking  activities, 
339-350,  4I9  J  Margaret's  wedding  in 
New  York,  346;  vacations,  353-356, 
417-418,  421,  442-443;  birth  of 
daughter,  356-357  ;  effect  of  Alexan- 
der's death  on,  387  ;  letter  in  defense 
of  slavery,  402-406;  attack  on  British 
interference  in  domestic  affairs,  404— 
405  ,*  congratulatory  letters  received, 
405  ;  song  "The  Duchess,"  405  ;  chil- 
dren sent  to  New  York  during  war, 
421,  471-472,  477,  480;  effect  of  Mar- 
garet's death  on,  421  ;  poem  on  Tyler's 
6$th  birthday,  427  ;  return  to  Wash- 
ington, 451,  453,  455  ;  social  successes, 
453-454,"  Civil  War  period,  463-469, 
475-5*0;  death  of  husband,  470-472  ; 
at  Sherwood  Forest  after  Tyler's 
death,  474  ;  sickness  of  children,  474  ; 
return  to  Staten  Island,  480  ;  attempt 
to  secure  pass,  481  ;  departs  on  block- 
ade runner,  482  ;  split  with  David 
Lyon  Gardiner,  485,  500-507  ;  at- 
tempts to  secure  release  of  Capt. 
Gayle,  485-487  ;  pleas  to  Lincoln, 
490-491  ;  litigation  over  mother's 
will,  500-507,  524,  634-6357*;  rela- 
tionship with  mother,  503-504  ;  attack 
by  Delafield,  508-510;  postwar  de- 
cisions, 510;  Reconstruction  period, 
511—517;  friendship  with  Varina  Da- 
vis, 511  ;  Swedish  immigrants  hired 
by,  513-515  ;  letter  to  Andrew  John- 
son, 515;  Semple  cared  for  by,  518- 
520;  marriage  and  death  of  Julie, 
536-537;  visits  to  Washington,  536; 
social  life  in  Washington,  537-538; 
conversion  to  Roman  Catholicism, 
538-540;  during  Panic  of  1873,  540- 
543  ;  financial  problems,  540-543  ;  at- 
tempts to  get  Alex  a  government  ap- 
pointment, 544-545;  campaign  for  a 
federal  pension,  547-549;  last  days  in 
Richmond,  551-556  ;  death  and  fu- 
neral, 554-555;  exact  date  of  birth 
uncertain,  560;  "The  Julia  Waltzes," 


Tyler,  Julia  Gardiner  ("Julie"),  356- 

677 


357,  461,  469;  birth  of,  356-357 J  ed- 
ucation at  Sacred  Heart  Convent, 
Halifax,  521,  522,  537,  64871;  advice 
given  by  mother,  522 ;  marriage  and 
death,  536-537 

Tyler,  Lachlan,  357*  543,  55*-552,  555» 
613**;  study  of  medicine,  541 ;  seeks 
federal  employment,  546-547 

Tyler,  Letitia,  71,  102,  106,  123,  460; 
(See  also  Semple,  Letitia  Tyler) 

Tyler,  Letitia  Christian,  7,  43,  77,-  death 
of,  2,  1 68,  178-179,  578w;  children, 
7,  57,  102  ;  temperament  and  charac- 
ter, 57-58;  paralytic  stroke,  58,  172- 

173 

Tyler,  Letitia  Christian  II,  6o6n,  628- 
629/2,  63  7« 

Tyler,  Lillian  Horsford,  544 

Tyler,  Lyon  Gardiner  ("Lonie"),  51, 
168,  359,  444,  537~538,  542-543,  555  J 
education,  537,  641?*,  645-64671;  The 
Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  552 ; 
president  of  William  and  Mary  Col- 
lege, 552,  554 

Tyler,  Maria,  442,  447,  488,  490,  492- 

494 

Tyler,  Martha  Rochelle,  520,  571-572** 

Tyler,  Mary,  71,  87,  107-108,  350;  mar- 
riage to  Henry  L.  Jones,  107, 112 

Tyler,  Mary  Armistead,  48 

Tyler,  Mary  Fairlee,  628-6297* 

Tyler,  Nannie  Bridges,  500,  6347* 

Tyler,  Patty,  442 

Tyler,  Pearl  ("Pearlie"),  442,  537,  542 ; 
conversion  to  Catholicism,  539 ;  mar- 
ried to  Major  Ellis,  552 

Tyler,  Priscilla  Cooper,  43,  58,  148,  163, 
192-193,  227,  414-415,  465,  5oo,  517; 
marriage,  123-126;  White  House 
hostess,  172-175;  children,  318-319, 
6o6«;  Julia  Gardiner  Tyler's  wedding 
cake,  558*1;  economic  privations,  415, 
6o6w;  death,  63771 

Tyler,  Priscilla  ("Tousie"),  60671,  628- 
629*1,  63771 

Tyler,  Robert,  8,  42,  44,  58,  71,  106,  148, 
163,  173,  175,  178,  i_94,  236,  251-252, 
311 ;  marriage  to  Priscilla  Cooper, 
123-126;  New  York  politics,  221-222, 
,  270;  campaign  of  1844,  230;  efforts 
to  promote  Texas  annexation,  279 ; 
departure  from  the  White  House,  290; 
political  activities  in  Philadelphia, 
313-314,  318,  328-330,  401,  410-411, 

678 


414 >  436,*  patronage  appointments 
and  disappointments,  317,  39*~392, 
414-416,  588-5897^;  family,  318,  628- 
6297*,  63772;  law  practice,  318,  416; 
monitoring  of  the  press,  326-327  ; 
Mexican  War,  328-329;  on  route  of 
transcontinental  railroad,  384 ;  sup- 
ported Cass,  391 ;  worked  for  Buchan- 
an's election,  401,  411-416;  on  Julia's 
letter  in  defense  of  slavery,  405 ;  war 
against  the  Know-Nothings,  409 ; 
hope  for  patronage  appointment  from 
Buchanan,  414-416;  on  Democratic 
Executive  Committee,  415-416;  finan- 
cial status,  415,  6o6n;  visits  by  Tylers, 
418 ;  private  papers  of  President  left 
to,  424 ;  Vice-Presidential  possibility, 
434-435;  service  to  the  Confederacy, 
460,  464-465,  500,  508;  Bristol,  Pa., 
residence,  464-465,  6o6n,  628n;  death 
of  John  Tyler,  470-471 ;  during  Re- 
construction, 517,  63773;  Buchanan's 
offer  of  aid,  517;  editor  of  Montgom- 
ery Advertiser,  517  ;  death,  517;  es- 
corts Margaret  Gardiner,  580-58 in; 
on  Oregon  question,  6o6«,  608-60971; 
serves  in  "Treasury  Battalion,"  634n 

Tyler,  Robert,  Jr.  ("Robbie"),  628- 
62971,  637» 

Tyler,  Robert  Fitzwalter,  18,  421-422, 
537,  542,  SSi,  555,  6247* 

Tyler,  Sally  Gardiner,  546-547 

Tyler,  Sarah  Griswold  Gardiner 
("Sally"),  24,  544,  553,  564«,  64471 

Tyler,  Tazewell,  8,  49,  102,  105,  351- 
352,  423-424,  429,  47o-47*>  5o°>  5*9» 
636-637n;  education,  374,  624n;  sur- 
geon in  the  Confederate  Army,  465 ; 
marriage,  500,  63471;  postwar  adjust- 
ments, 521 

Tyler,  Thomas  Cooper,  6  2  8-6  2 gn 

Tyler,  Wat,  English  revolutionist,  51 

Tyler,  Dr.  Wat  Henry,  306,  5957* 

Tyler,  William,  317 

"Tyler  and  Texas,"  208 

Tyler  Doctrine,  211 

Tyler  family,  51,  105-107;  background, 
17 ;  anti-Tyler  campaign  and,  163 ; 
service  to  the  Confederacy,  465-466 ; 
during  Reconstruction  period,  517 

Tyler- Gardiner  family  alliance,  effect  of 
Alexander  Gardiner's  death  on,  387; 
legal  trouble  over  Juliana's  estate, 
500-507 


Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  (Stowe),  301,  403 

Underground  Railroad,  301 

Underwood  Constitution  (Va.),  53 r,  533 

Union,  Tyler's  speeches  on,  425-426 

Union  County,  Kentucky,  36i-362s  364 

Union  political  parties,  395 

United  States  Circuit  Court,  415 ;  Alex- 
ander Gardiner  appointed  to  clerkship, 
286-288,  388 

United  States  Telegraph,  118 

Upshur,  Abel  P.,  149,  152,  161, 164,  165, 
170,  205,  212-213,  219,  326,  426,  577«; 
negotiations  with  Texas,  210;  death, 
216 

Utah,  Compromise  of  1850,  394;  slav- 
ery question,  395,  407 


Vacations,  Tyler  and  Gardiner  family, 
353-356,  417-418,  421,  442-443 
(See  also  Villa  Margaret) 
Van  Antwerpt,  James,  583** 
Van  Buren,  Martin,  25,  37,  40,  46,  86- 
87,  90, 113,  129,  132,  240;  joins  with 
Jackson,  87 ;  leader  of  New  York 
Democrats,  87;  opposition  to,  117; 
nomination  of,  118;  election  to  Presi- 
dency, 12 1 ;  administration,  128—129; 
Independent  Treasury  plan,  128-129; 
defeat,  140-141 ;  opposition  to  Texas 
annexation,  218;  Albany  Regency, 
227—228,  266,  278;  loss  of  renomina- 
tion,  228;  ran  on  Free  Soil  ticket,  392 
Van  Buren  Democrats,  391 
Van  Buren-Silas  Wright  faction,  281 
Van  de  Vyvew,  Bishop-elect  A.,  555 
Van  Ness,  Cornelius  P.,  232-233,  269- 

270,  278-279,  316,  591,  599-600 
Van  Ness,  Gen.  John  P.,  42,  180,  245, 

290,  354 

Van  Rensselaer,  Henry,  579— 581 « 
Van  Wyck,  Mary  Gardiner,  559-560*1 
Van  Zandt,  Isaac,  209,  584-585*1 
Vetoes,  use  of  Presidential,  283 
Vice-Presidency,  121 ;  ascendancy  to 

Presidency,  148-149;  status,  322; 

Breckinridge,  411—412 
Vicksburg  (Miss.)  battle,  480 
Victoria,  Queen,  339 
Viele,  Gen.  Egbert  L.,  476 
Villa  Margaret,  Hampton,  Va.,  372, 

421,  428,  442,  467-468,  491,  515,  542; 

attempts  to  regain,  515-516;  property 

losses,  548 


Virginia,  House  of  Delegates,  51,  54,  56, 
58,  74,  no,  113-114,  552;  Democrats, 
81,  400;  Jacksonians,  81  ;  General  As- 
sembly, loo-ioi,  448,  452,  533  ;  Con- 
vention of  1831-1832,  104;  Jackson 
Democrats,  110-115;  Whigs,  113;  con- 
test for  Senate  seat  (1838),  130-132  ; 
vacation  spots,  304-305  ;  society,  309- 
310;  anti-Catholic  movement,  409; 
Pennsylvania-Virginia  alliance,  410- 
411,  435;  mineral  springs,  418,  423; 
Tyler's  speech  on  history  of,  427  ;  sec- 
tional crisis,  431-432  ;  policy  of  anti- 
abolitionism,  432;  election  of  1860, 
445  ;  secession  controversy,  450  ;  del- 
egation to  the  Peace  Convention,  450  ; 
secession  of,  457,  464;  State  Conven- 
tion, 451,  460;  Home  Guards,  498; 
Radical  Republicanism  in,  530-533, 
550;  Underwood  Constitution,  531, 
533  ;  restoration  of  statehood,  533  ; 
Conservative  Convention  of  1872,  535 
Virginia,  Bank  of,  63  6-63  7  n 
Virginia,  University  of,  356,  529 
"Virginia  Clique,"  152,  159,  161,  219, 
226;  patronage  appointments,  588- 
589^ 
Virginia  Military  Institute,  483,  494,  496 

Wade,  Reverend  Dr.,  432,  474 
Waggaman,  Floyd,  283,  328 
Waggaman,  George,  372 
Waggaman,  Henry,  103 
Waggaman,  John  H.,  108,  132  ;  patron- 

age appointment,  588-589** 
Waggaman,  William,  402 
Waldron,  Richard  R.,  42-43,  180,  184- 

186,  192-193,  196,  579-58°** 
Walker,  Gov.  Gilbert  C-,  533 
Walker,  Maj.  and  Mrs.  Norman  J.,  484, 


Walker,  Robert  J.,  215,  230-232,  282, 

323,381 

Walker,  William,  384 
Wall  Street  lobby,  164 
Watt  Street  Reporter,  313 
Waller,  Bessie  Austin,  62  gn 
Waller,  Elizabeth  Tyler,  7-8,  14,  250, 

349-350,  466,  578«;  strained  rela- 

tions with  Julia,  302 
Waller,  Jenny  Howell,  481,  511,  629*1 
Waller,  John  Tyler,  466 
Waller,  William  Griffin,  443,  466,  481- 

482,  578,  629*1 

679 


Waller,  William  N.,  173,  178-179,  204, 
250,  351,  424,  59i-592» 

Walsh,  Mike,  235,  59 in 

War  of  1812,  22,  25,  58-60;  causes,  58- 
59 ;  Tyler's  participation,  58-60 

Ward,  Gen.  Aaron,  42 

Ward,  Francis  Marion,  184,  579^ 

Warm  Springs,  Virginia,  418 

Washington,  President  George,  55,  425 

Washington,  D.C.,  living  conditions,  57, 
60-6 1 ;  Mrs.  Peyton's  boardinghouse, 
105,  179,  181-182;  social  and  political 
life,  107-108,  172-208,  243-265;  police 
force,  156;  meeting  of  Tyler's  follow- 
ers, 218;  burning  of  National  Theater, 
292 ;  Julia  Tyler  visits  to,  334,  536- 
537 ;  Margaret  Beeckman's  honey- 
moon, 347-348 ;  Confederate  raids 
near,  498 

Washington  College,  478,  483,  495~497, 
500,  508,  529-530;  Reserve  infantry 
unit,  483,  63 1 n;  Robert  E.  Lee  presi- 
dent of,  529-53o 

Washington  (D.C.)  Globe,  220,  237,  315 

Washington  (D.C.)  Madisonian,  6,  225, 
227,  237,  242,  292,  313 

Washington  Memorial  (Richmond,  Va.), 
laying  cornerstone  of,  355 

Washington  (D.C.)   "Union,  314 

Watkins,  Joseph  L.,  364-365 

Watkins,  Col.  Joseph  S.,  112 

Watson,  William,  634-635 

Wealth  and  Pedigree  of  the  Wealthy  Cit- 
izens of  New  York  City  (Beach) ,  45 

Wealth  of  Nations  (Smith),  50 

Webb,  James  Watson,  597-598 

Webster,  Daniel,  80,  83,  91,  n 6,  132, 
134,  139,  143,  145,  158-159, 323,  374, 
426;  on  nullification  and  secession,  92 ; 
Presidential  nomination,  119;  Bank 
crisis  of  1841,  152 ;  in  Tyler's  Cab- 
inet, 160-162  ;  social  life,  174-175  ; 
proteges,  221;  gossip  concerning,  222; 
Ingersoll  charges,  322-323  ;  Seventh 
of  March  speech,  394-395 

Webster,  Mrs.  Daniel,  180 

Webster,  Fletcher,  147-148 

Webster- Ashburton  Treaty,  161,  212, 
220,  325,  327,  434;  Tyler's  role  in  ne- 
gotiations, 212,  585 n;  bribery  charges, 
323,  6o7n 

Weed,  Thurlow,  41,  117,  132,  135 

Wells,  Henry  H.,  533 

West  Point,  New  York  (U.S.  Military 
Academy),  34,  295,  443 

680 


Wetmore,  Prosper  M.,  437,  589-590, 

597-598 

Wetmore,  Robert  C.,  221,  587^,  589- 
59ow,  597-598^ 

Wheat,  298-300,  361,  406 

Whig  Party,  26,  40,  116;  Tyler  Vice- 
Presidential  nominee,  in ;  coalition 
(1836),  115-122;  Southern,  116,  129- 
130,  410,  413;  Old  Dominion,  118; 
campaign  strategy,  119;  multiple- 
candidate  approach,  1 20 ;  Congres- 
sional election,  1838,  129;  convention 
at  Harrisburg  (1839),  132-135;  cam- 
paign of  1840,  135-140,  393 ;  National 
faction,  141 ;  Northern  wing,  141 ; 
Tyler  expelled  from,  151,  158,  162- 
163;  1842  elections,  170;  alliance  with 
Native  American  Party,  238,  241 ;  at- 
tempts to  humiliate  Tyler,  390;  elec- 
tions of  1848,  391-392 ;  antislavery 
Northern,  393;  election  of  1836,  400; 
1852  elections,  401-402;  end  of,  402; 
slavery  issue,  409;  New  York,  410; 
endorsed  Fillmore  in  1856,  412 

Whipple,  George,  516 

White,  Edward  C.,  58o-58i» 

White,  Edward  Douglass,  286,  313 

White,  Hugh  L.,  113,  116,  118-119,  129; 
Tyler's  support  of,  122 ;  District  Bank 
plan,  153-156 

White  Eagle  Club,  291 

White  House,  Tyler's  honeymoon  at, 
5-6;  condition,  10,  177-178,  243-244; 
rebuilding  of,  60;  social  life,  172—208, 
243-265;  receptions  and  levees,  173- 
177,  244-245,  257-265;  furnishings, 
177-178,  243-244;  New  Year's  Day 
reception,  257-259;  Tyler's  farewell 
ball,  261-265;  Texas  victory  dinner, 
283  ;  end  of  Tyler's  administration, 
289-292;  Polk  administration,  332- 
333  5  Julia  Tyler's  visits  to,  536,  545 

White  Man's  Party  (Ala.),  5*7,  534 

White  Sulphur  Springs,  Virginia,  37, 
296,  307,  359>  402,  418 

Wickliffe,  Charles  A.,  4,  42, 143,  203, 
315,  454,  632-633 

Wickliffe,  Nannie,  4,  254-255 

Wilcox,  Dr.  Henry,  419 

Wilcox,  Lamb,  489 

Wild,  Brig.  Gen.  Edward  A.,  489-490, 
492-493,  632« 

Wilderness  (Va.)  battle,  497 

Wilemson,  Mary,  18,  264 

Wilkes  Expedition,  180, 185 


Wilkins,  Charles,  2531  256 

Wilkins,  William,  246,  263,  369,  5yo« 

Wilkinson,  Capt.  John,  482 

Will  of  John  Tyler,  424-425,  472,  478 

Willard,  Capt.  Abijah,  21 

William  and  Mary  College,  59,  359 ; 

Tyler's  academic  career,  48-50; 

Tyler's  service  to,  106-107,  425,  56s«; 

Robert  and  John,  Jr.,  attended,  106- 

107;  Lyon  G.  Tyler  president  of,  552, 

554 

Williams,  Edward  P.,  486 

Williams,  Capt.  Paul,  21 

Williamsburg,  Virginia,  425,  475,  554; 
Tyler  educated  in,  50;  War  of  1812, 
59-60;  Tyler's  home,  115,  163 

Wilmington-Bermuda  blockade  run,  486, 

507 

Wilmot,  David,  331,  454 
Wilmot  Proviso,  314,  331-332,  391-392, 

609 n;  Tyler  on  impact  of,  332,  609 n 
Wilson,  J.  C.,  489 
Wilson,  Thomas,  363 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  61 
Wing,  Catherine,  301-302,  351,  603*1 
Winston,  Robert,  364-365 
Wise,  Henry  A.,  14-15,  91,  122,  130- 

131,  139,  146-147,  152,  158,  161,  164, 


170,  183,  200,  215-217,  401-402,  410, 
413,  460,  472 ;  flirts  with  Margaret 
Gardiner,  183,  58o-58iw;  letters  to, 
127,  141 ;  Governor  of  Virginia,  409, 
419,  425,  437 ;  Presidential  aspirations, 
410-411,  434-436;  mobilization  of 
Virginia  militia,  429-430;  John  Brown 
affair,  432 ;  supported  by  Tyler,  434- 
435 ;  biographer  of  Tyler,  536,  642^; 
Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  536, 
642 n;  postwar  career,  642 n 

Witchcraft,  19 

Withers,  Col.  Robert  E.,  547-548 

Wood,  Fernando,  42-43 

Wood,  Leonard,  563^ 

Woodbury,  Levi  P.,  180,  182 

Woodbury,  Ruth,  182 

Woodhill,  Maxwell,  181 

Wool,  Gen.  John  E.,  475 

Workingmen's  Party,  46,  128,  270 

Wright,  John  C.,  454 

Wright,  Mary,  255 

Wright,  Silas,  42,  129,  240,  281,  584^ 

Yale  University,  22 
Yancy,  William  L.,  253 
Yellow  fever,  420 
Yorktown,  Virginia,  475 


681 


ABOUT  THE  AUTHOR 


The  son  of  an  Episcopal  missionary,  Robert  Seager  II  was  born  in  Nan- 
king, China,  in  1924.  He  graduated  from  the  United  States  Merchant 
Marine  Academy  in  1944,  received  his  A.B.  and  M.A.  degrees  in  Ameri- 
can history  from  Rutgers  and  Columbia  Universities  and,  in  1956,  the 
Ph.D.  in  history  from  Ohio  State  University.  After  teaching  for  several 
years  at  Denison  University  in  Ohio,  he  joined  the  civilian  faculty  of 
the  United  States  Naval  Academy  in  1961,  where  he  is  presently  an 
assistant  professor  of  history.  In  addition  to  his  teaching  responsibilities, 
he  has  served  as  Consulting  Historian  to  the  Ohio  Civil  War  Centennial 
Commission  and  as  National  Councillor  of  Phi  Alpha  Theta,  the  national 
honor  society  in  history.  His  scholarly  historical  articles,  which  have 
appeared  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  Historical  Review  and  the  Pacific 
Historical  Review,  won  him  early  recognition,  and  in  1959  he  was  the 
recipient  of  the  Louis  Knott  Koontz  Prize  for  historiography,  presented 
by  the  Pacific  Coast  Branch  of  the  American  Historical  Association. 
And  Tyler  Too  is  Dr.  Seager's  first  book,  and  with  its  publication 
he  proves  himself  to  be  a  gifted  young  historian  who  has  the  exciting 
ability  to  make  obscure  characters  and  times  leap  vividly  and  amusingly 
to  life. 


(continued  from  front  flap) 

A  rigidly  honorable  man,  Tyler  believed 
in  slavery,  stated  rights,  and  secession. 
Psychologically,  he  Craved  historical  rec- 
ognition. But  he  l:"j«i  unfortunately,  at 
a  time  when  such  giants  as  Clay,  Calhoun, 
Douglas,  Jackson,  Lincoln,  and  Webster 
were  also  playing  their  roles  in  American 
history,  and  the  obscurity  that  Tyler  feared 
was  almost  unavoidable. 

His  beautiful,  determined  wife  was  one 
of  the  great  belles  of  the  century,  and  her 
drive  and  boundless  ambition  made  her  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  First  Ladies  in 
American  history.  With  her  maneuvers  to 
obtain  jobs  for  members  of  her  family,  and 
her  subtle  arrangements  of  their  personal 
lives,  she  could  well  have  been  a  Jane  Aus- 
ten heroine.  In  describing  the  Gardiner  clan 
as  it  descended  on  the  capital  for  a  season, 
Mr.  Seager  provides  an  amusing  picture 
of  Washington  social  life  a  century  ago. 

But  there  is  also  failure,  catastrophe, 
threats  of  impeachment,  of  assassination, 
and  the  unalterable  march  of  history  toward 
a  struggle  between  North  and  South.  With 
his  unprecedented  access  to  private  papers 
and  documents,  Mr.  Seager  is  able  to  fol- 
low Tyler  through  momentous  years  to  the 
lone,  "essentially  tragic"  figure  that  he  was 
to  become.  With  immense  narrative  skill, 
Mr.  Seager  gives  readers  an  unusual  ex- 
cursion intb  all  but  forgotten  Americana, 
re-creating  people  and  times  who  are  vi- 
brantly alive  once  more  in  And  Tyler  Too. 


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