Sunday morning he was lifted from his bed and placed in his big chair by the window. The warm June sun was sifting down onto the Hermitage lawn through the sheltering cedars and hollies. The diseased-wracked old man, as he looked out on the scene he loved so well, doubtless sensed that it was close to the last time he would ever see it. Dr. Esselman when he entered the room that morning, to use his own words, “immediately perceived that the hand of death was upon him.” Andrew, junior, was notified that the end was at hand, and a messenger was sent for Major Lewis whom Jackson had expressed a wish to have by his side when death approached. A servant was dispatched post-haste to the church to recall the children of the household who were attending Sunday School. The sad news traveled quickly over the plantation and the servants gathered on the broad front porch, fearfully looking in at the windows. The old General maintained his consciousness to the very end. When his old crony, Major Lewis, arrived he greeted him with: “Major, I am glad to see you. You like to have been too late,” and then carefully and methodically he gave him messages to some of his closest friends, like Colonel Benton and General Houston, who were unable to be at his bedside. Sadly but calmly he bade farewell to each member of the family, and mustered his failing strength to speak a kindly word of comfort to the weeping and wailing servants whose tear-stained black faces darkened the front windows. “Don’t cry,” he said gently to them, “Be good and we shall meet—” And then, with just a little gasp to mark its passing, his unconquerable spirit left his frail body. His little granddaughter, Rachel, was standing at the foot of his bed, her hand on the covering, and she felt the tremor that passed over his body as he expired. General Jackson had expressed the wish that his funeral services be simple and without pomp or ostentation; but such a funeral was hardly possible for the most distinguished private citizen of his day. The military company marched out from Nashville to attend the services, held two days later, and accompanied his body to the grave; and a great multitude of people, estimated at three thousand, gathered to pay their last tribute. The funeral was preached by Dr. Edgar, the minister who had received him into the church, the services being conducted from the front porch owing to the inability of the large crowd to get inside the house. There was a moment of disturbance while the mourners were assembling, caused by an untimely outburst of blistering profanity from old Poll, the Hermitage parrot who had so long been a favorite pet of the General’s. The solemnity of the occasion was completely upset by the sudden torrent of objurgation from the old bird on her perch on the upper front gallery, but she was quickly banished to the servants’ quarters at the back of the house and Dr. Edgar stepped out on the stone-paved portico and began to read the burial service.