General Jackson [according to Colonel Chester]..."always escorted Mrs. Jackson from the Hermitage to Nashville — twelve miles — on horseback, riding beside her carriage, but never in it."
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"Was that," I asked, " because he feared some ruffianly attacks on her?" "Oh, no," he replied; but the question recalled to him the story of Russell Bean, the outlaw of East Tennessee." Bean had a very pretty wife [Rosamond Robertson], of whom he was frantically and unjustly jealous. Her youngest child was born during his absence from home. When he came back he took a pocket knife and cut off its ears, saying ' that he'd mark it so as to know it from his own.' The child died and his wife was given a divorce.
He [Bean] was summoned to appear in court, but refused; and a sheriff's posse sent for him, found him in the top of a tree armed with a rifle. His reply to the sheriff's summons was a threat to shoot the first man who came within range. No one dared to come near him.
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The sheriff decided to wait until dinner time, when [Andrew] Jackson, who was then on the bench, could be summoned as a private citizen to assist him during the court's recess for dinner. To Jackson's summons Bean yielded, saying, 'I know Jackson is such a fool, he'd shoot me if I didn't.' Bean, continued Colonel Chester, was once convicted of felony in Carthage, where I then lived. [Source]
A 1947 newspaper article of this historical incident here.
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