It is a fact not sufficiently emphasized in most of the published biographies of Andrew Jackson that during almost his entire life he was in bad health—not merely debilitated, but actually tortured with pain. His constitution, never particularly robust, was undermined by the grueling hardships of the early campaigns against the Indians from which he returned afflicted with chronic dysentery. Throughout his life he was a victim of severe, nerve-racking headaches, of which there is passing mention in many of his letters. During his last years he fell a victim of tuberculosis which, according to one of his biographers, entirely destroyed one of his lungs; and, as though that were not sufficient bodily ailments, dropsy attacked him during the last six months of his life and caused him such agony as to make his existence a burden to him. He had been dangerously wounded with pistol balls twice—in his duel with Dickinson and his brawl with the Bentons—and from the effects of these wounds he never entirely recovered. He was confined to his room in the White House during almost the whole of his last four months of his administration, and during that time he suffered a hemorrhage of the lungs so severe that attending physicians despaired of his life. He rallied all his strength and bravely rode to the inauguration with his successor, Martin Van Buren; but he returned to the Hermitage in 1837 a broken-down and seriously ill old man. At the time he frankly expressed doubt whether he would long survive; but the return home exerted a beneficial influence on his health, and he improved to such an extent that it was eight years before the end came. During this entire eight-year span, up almost to the very moment of his death, he never relaxed his active interest and participation in public affairs. Tennessee’s gubernatorial campaign of 1838 almost immediately engaged his attention, and he worked with all that was left of his old-time energy to elect his newest political protege, James K. Polk. Following the election all the Democratic big-wigs of Tennessee, including Jackson and Felix Grundy, repaired to Tyree Springs for a vacation and celebration of Polk’s victory. Again in 1840, despite his age and the enfeebled state of his health, he left the quiet shades of the Hermitage and went on an ill-advised stump-speaking trip through West Tennessee in support of Martin Van Buren who had been re-nominated for the Presidency by the Democrats. It was a bitter blow to the old man when, in spite of his active support of his favorite, the Whigs carried Tennessee for Harrison by a majority of more than 12,000 votes; but he accepted the blow philosophically, stating that his belief in the soundness of the republic was so great that he felt that it would survive even the terrible experience of four years under Harrison’s rule.