Another child destined for future greatness visited the Hermitage when the log buildings were the family dwellings. He was Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederate States of America. What would “Old Hickory” have said, when little “Jeff” Davis raced ponies and played with Andrew Jackson, Jr., and other little boys at the Hermitage, had he been able to foretell the future of his small guest? Fortunately for the children, no shadow crossed their pathway, and even “Old Hickory” had not been forced to declare in thunderous tones: “Our Federal Union—it must be preserved.” [Let it always be remembered, however, that Andrew Jackson’s passionate loyalty to the Union was based upon an equally passionate devotion to the Rights of the States. He said in a rough draft of his second inaugural address, dated March 1, 1833 (Bassett, _Correspondence of Andrew Jackson_, Vol. V, p. 26): “In proportion, therefore, as the general government encroaches upon the rights of the states, in the same proportion does it impair its own power and detract from its ability to fulfil the purposes of its creation.”] The story of Jefferson Davis’ journey from Mississippi to the Hermitage is told briefly in his _Memoirs_. “When I was seven years old,” he states, “I was sent on horseback through what was then called ‘The Wilderness’—by the country of the Choctaw and the Chickasaw nations—to Kentucky, and placed in a Catholic institution then known as St. Thomas, in Washington County, near the town of Springfield. In that day (1815) there were no steamboats, nor were there stage-coaches traversing the country. The river trade was conducted on flat and keel-boats. The last named only could be taken up the river. Commerce between the Western States and the Lower Mississippi was confined to the water routes. The usual mode of travel was on horseback or afoot. Many persons who had gone down the river in flat-boats walked back through the wilderness to Kentucky, Ohio, and elsewhere. We passed many of these, daily, on the road.... “The party with which I was sent to Kentucky consisted of Major Hinds (who had command of the famous battalion of Mississippi dragoons at the battle of New Orleans), his wife, his sister-in-law, a niece, a maid-servant, and his son Howell, who was near my own age, and, like myself, mounted on a pony. A servant had a sumpter mule with some supplies, besides bed and blankets for camping out. The journey to Kentucky occupied several weeks. “When we reached Nashville we went to the Hermitage. Major Hinds wished to visit his friend and companion-in-arms, General Jackson. The whole party was so kindly received that we remained several weeks. During that period I had the opportunity a boy has to observe a great man—a standpoint of no small advantage—and I have always remembered with warm affection the kind and tender wife who then presided over his house....