Lot 170E email save

JACKSON, Andrew. ALS. to his wife Rachel. 1818.

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"Creek Nation one mile in advance of Hertford Georgia": 19 February 1818. 1 p., folded sheet with integral address leaf (253 x 205 mm). Postscript additionally signed with initials. Condition: usual folds, minor fading, hole on the address leaf from the opening of the seal. rare jackson letter written to his wife during the first seminole war. The letter begins with an acknowledgement of the receipt of her letter and on his relief to find his wife in good health and his boys behaving in his absence. He then continues the letter admitting that his own health has been poor, writing, "I had a small attack since I set out but I am perfectly restored, the weather was inclement and I suppose I caught cold, that gave me great pain in my limbs and head, which thank God was removed by a dose of medecine and I enjoy at present good health." The letter then turns to the military expedition towards Florida, commenting on the movement and supply of his forces and responding to her inquiry on the duration of the war: "We shall move from here in an hour. I sho[u]ld not have an opportunity of again writing you untill I reach Ft. Scott. When I arrive there & assume the command, if the supplies ordered has reached there, I trust with the smiles of heaven the campaign will be but a short one, but until I reach there I can form no idea of its duration." The letter concludes with messages for his children and regards to and from various associates. Just a few weeks after this letter, Jackson and his forces entered Florida and began a path of destruction, burning numerous Indian towns until the surrender of Pensacola in May 1818. The conflict is best remembered, however, for Jackson's brutal execution of two traders in the region, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister. Few Jackson letters written during his First Seminole War campaign have survived. A similar letter to his wife, written three weeks prior to this one, was part of the famed collection of Philip O. Sang (Sotheby's New York, 26 April 1978, lot 133).

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