The Richmond Palladium

Gen. Jackson's Mother.

The Rev. Dr. Hawks delivered a lecture before the Historical Society of New York, some years ago, in which he related an interesting story, illustrative of female heroism. Among those who formed part of a settlement in South Carolina during the Revolutionary struggle, was a poor widow, who having buried her husband, was left in poverty with the task upon her hands of raising three sons. Of these the two oldest ere long fell in the cause of their country, and she struggled on with the youngest as she best could. After the fall of Charleston, and the disastrous defeat of Colonel Buford, of Virginia, by Tarleton, permission was given to some four or five American females to carry necessaries and provisions, and administer some relief to the prisoners confined on board the prison ship and in jails of Charleston. This widow was one of the volunteers upon this errand of mercy She was admitted within the city, and braving the horrors of pestilence, employed herself to the extent of her humble means in alleviating the deplorable suffering of her countrymen. She knew what she had to encounter; but notwithstanding, went bravely on. Her message of humanity having been fulfilled she left Charleston on her return; but alas! her exposure to the pestilential atmosphere she had been obliged to breathe had planted in her system the seeds of fatal disease; and ere she reached her home she sank under an attack of prison fever, a brave martyr to the cause of humanity and patriotism : The dying mother, who now rests in an unknown grave, thus left her only son, the sole survivor of his family, to the world's charity, but little did she dream, as death closed her eyes, the future of that orphan boy. That son became President of this free Republic, for the widow was the mother of Andrew Jackson.