Out of Bounds

If he could. Secretary of War James William Good last week might have charged out into a grassy field just below New Orleans, waved his Arms wildly, uttered loud noises from his throat. This he might have done to rout a herd of cows complacently grazing over the site of one of the few U.S. victories in the War of 1812. But as decorous conduct is expected of the Secretary of War, and as he was hundreds of miles from New Orleans, Mr. Good had to content himself with drafting a bill and forwarding it to the House Military Affairs Committee providing that the U. S. take over and maintain this famed battleground, empowering him to send somebody out to chase away bovine desecrators.

In 1907 Congress appropriated $25,000 for a monument to mark the spot where General Andrew Jackson with his 4,000 raw recruits lay behind cotton bales as Sir Edward Michael Pakenham's 5,000 British veterans made their dawn attack on Jan. 8, 1815. Twice the redcoats charged. Twice they withered under U. S. fire, twice were driven back. Pakenham himself was killed. Jackson lost 13 men, the British 1,300.

The victory was really out of bounds, because the Treaty of Ghent had been executed two weeks before; 'but no more out of bounds, in Secretary Good's opinion, than the cows that now roam the unguarded field where it was achieved. After his victory at New Orleans, "Old Hickory" Jackson returned to Tennessee, where in a cedar grove a dozen miles from Nashville he built for his misunderstood Rachel the Hermitage, famed in Democratic song and story. When Jackson was the first U. S. President of the "common people" (1829-37), the fine ok southern mansion was the political centre of the land. Later it served its owner as a refuge from political storms. "Old Hickory" and his Rachel lie buried nearby under a huge magnolia. In 1856 his adopted son sold it to Tennessee for $48,000. Now it is valued at a million.

Last fortnight flames licked about this Democratic shrine. Two barns, a corn crib and the carriage house went up in smoke, down in ashes. Damage: $19,999 (no insurance). Cause: unknown (Republicans were locally suspected of arson on general principles). Caretakers trundled out to safety the coach in which Jackson rode for 30 days to his first inaugural. Six valiant fire companies from Nashville saved the old mansion.