Life had a rural quality in those days which it has since lost. Horse-racing was universal, and the great race between Eclipse and Sir Henry, run on Long Island May 27, 1823, for a purse of ten thousand dollars, was a national event. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had been staked, and Peggy O'Neill no doubt was intimately acquainted with some of the heaviest winners and losers, among the latter of whom was John Randolph. Though she was far too young to remember the opening of the first race-track in Washington, November 3, 1803, she was yet familiar with all the details of its inauguration, on which occasion both houses of Congress had adjourned, the Senate to have the ceiling repapered, and the House, which was apparently less resourceful, because it had no pressing business on hand. Growing up in a public house, she was undoubtedly familiar with much in the lives of men of which other women of her day, leading more secluded lives, feigned ignorance. Yet she had become in no way contaminated by the liberal atmosphere she had breathed from infancy. General Eaton and his bride returned from their honeymoon shortly before Jackson's inauguration. A few of the Senators' wives called upon her, but she was generally not well received, and slander had already begun its mischievous work when Jackson appeared in Washington and swore "by the Eternal" that his little friend, whom he had known all her life, should not be defamed. Her name was already on every lip at the capital, and there is no doubt that as many went to Jackson's inauguration ball to see her as to see the President. They stood on chairs and benches in their efforts to catch a glimpse of her, and she made a picture worthy of their endeavors, in her pink gown, with her headdress of nodding black plumes. Eaton was made Secretary of War. He was Jackson's old friend, and had labored unremittingly for his election. Moreover, thought the chivalrous old President, this would insure Mrs. Eaton's triumph. The women of the cabinet, however, refused to recognize her. Though Mrs. Calhoun, the wife of the Vice-President, had called upon her as a Senator's wife, she declined to associate with her as the wife of a cabinet minister. Calhoun, to whom an appeal was made, declared himself powerless, as "the quarrels of women, like those of the Medes and Persians, admitted of neither inquiry nor explanation."