Rachel was accosted and heckled when she appeared in public, and many people stopped speaking to her. Some even crossed the street to avoid meeting her. To escape the animosity and humiliation, she stayed at home, rarely going out in public. Jackson won the election, but instead of relieving the tension, his victory only made it worse for Rachel. She was now faced with the prospect of returning to Washington, where she had received such a cool welcome years earlier. When Jackson had taken his seat as U.S.
Senator in 1825, Rachel tried to keep to herself in Washington. She rarely left her rooms in Gadsby’s Hotel, where they lived. On January 8, 1825, she had to attend a party because it was given in honor of her husband. None of the ladies did anything to make her feel welcome or comfortable. The ladies said she was “stout, vulgar and illiterate” and made fun of her poor grammar. The ladies also used an old French saying that Rachel “shows how far the skin can be stretched.” Now, with the bitterness of the recent election, Rachel would be under even harsher scrutiny and criticism.
Rachel considered staying in Tennessee. The campaign had been a torture to her. She wrote in a letter, “The enemies of the Genls have dipt their arrows in wormwood and gall and sped them at me. They had no rite to do it.” The fact that Jackson won did not ease her discomfort. She also wrote, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my Lord than live in that palace in Washington. For Mr. Jackson’s sake, I am glad, for my own part, I never wished it.”
Rachel decided to accompany Jackson to Washington when a friend of theirs, John Eaton (who would be named Jackson’s Secretary of War) told her that everyone in Washington was watching to see what she would do. Eaton said that if she stayed away, her friends would be disappointed and her enemies would have the last laugh in that they had scared her into staying home. Never one to back down, Rachel began preparing for the trip to Washington.
Rachel had been in poor health for a number of years, suffering chest pains and shortness of breath. In December 1828, she suffered a heart attack, and died on December 22. She was buried on Christmas Eve in the garden of The Hermitage, their
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