The General was not overly pleased with the situation and, as soon as he was able to settle certain little difficulties, he was determined to return to his beloved Hermitage. Marquis James, in his _Andrew Jackson, the Border Captain_, writes of this period:
“How peaceful the Hermitage! ‘Our place looks like it had been abandoned for a season, But we have a cheirful fire for our friends, and a prospect of living at it for the ... ballance of our lives. I have sent on my resignation by Doctor Brunaugh.’
“It was over, this uncertain adventure into which Andrew Jackson had been drawn by an unreciprocated sense of loyalty to the President and a wish to help his young friends.... Rachel ... and Andrew undertook to make their home comfortable for the rest of their days. In the great hall stood seven cases of furniture and table silver purchased at New Orleans. However Rachel might deplore the wicked luxury of the complaisant Creole town there was no denying the comfort of good French beds. ‘1 Bedstead, of Mahogany, fluted, $100,’ was for her own and Andrew’s tall south chamber; likewise ‘1 Matress of fine ticking, $45, 1 moschette Bar of Muslin, $16, 1 Counterpane knotted, Marseilles, $24.’ There was also a new sideboard and something to fill the decanters....”
There was dancing in the hallways in these days—dancing to the sound of a flute which “Old Hickory” himself may have played. Horace Holley, writing from Nashville on August 14, 1823, to his father, Luther Holley, Esq., in Salisbury, Connecticut (copy given to the author by the late Judge John H. De Witt), related:
“We have just returned from the Hermitage, ... The General called upon us in town on the evening of our arrival and he is one of the most hospitable men in the state. Mrs. Jackson is not a woman of cultivation, but has seen a great many people, has fine spirits, entertains well, and is benevolent. She is short in her person and quite fat. The General is lean and has been in ill health but is now invigorated and promises to live out his three-score and ten. He has built him a good brick house within the last two years and has finished it handsomely. Mary has taken three views of it in her sketch book. We looked at all the presents which have been made to the old warrior in honour of his military achievements and were gratified not a little.... The General has papers from most parts of the Union, and his study is loaded with piles of them. Considerable company was at his house every day, and our ladies danced every evening in the entry to the sound of the flute....” (“Mary” was Mary Austin Holley, author and cousin of Stephen Austin. Where are the sketches she made of The Hermitage?)