“The storm has now abated—the angry tempest has ceased to howl. A verdict by the American people has been pronounced of that high and grateful character, that for the honor of your husband, you cannot but look back upon the past as an idle fading vision carrying in it nothing substantial—nothing that should produce to you one moments feeling, or a moments pain. No man has ever met such a triumph before.... The Ladies from distance—from remote parts of the Union will be here—brought essentially and altogether on your account and to manifest to you their feelings and high regard: they will be present to welcome and congratulate you....” (Bassett, Vol. III p. 449.) Nashville ladies were already busy doing their part to honor her—they were preparing a handsome wardrobe for her to carry to Washington with her, and the entire town was arranging a magnificent celebration for December 23, the anniversary of the night battle at New Orleans. Jackson leaders in Washington, Philadelphia, and other important places were preparing elaborate programs honoring the president-elect ... but on December 22 the rejoicing was turned into mourning. Rachel Jackson quietly slipped beyond the reach of cruel tongues. Her illness came suddenly and unexpectedly a few days before the anticipated celebration. There are many versions of its origin. Some say that while in Nashville she was resting at the Nashville Inn and accidentally overheard some unpleasant remarks about her part in the past campaign. Others carry the story still farther and say that she wept and that, in returning to the Hermitage, she stopped her carriage at a creek to bathe her swollen eyes, and thus caught a cold. There could have been little shock connected with anything which she may have overheard, for she had been familiar with the attacks made on her throughout the past campaign. One thing which may be accepted as certain is that in some way she caught cold. Wise quotes a young Dr. Heiskell, of Winchester, Virginia, who was just starting as a physician in the neighborhood, and was the first doctor to reach her, as saying: “We learned that she had caught cold and pleuritic symptoms supervened upon her constitutional nervous affections. She was sitting smoking her corncob pipe when she caught her last malady....” Wise further explains that “a pipe was prescribed by her physician for her phthisis, and she often rose in the night to smoke for relief.” Whatever the explanation of the pipe may be, its only importance was its use in the caricatures used by her husband’s opponents in the presidential campaign. She had long been subject to the bronchial trouble which was, undoubtedly, the chief cause of her death.