Andrew Jackson, unfortunately, did not keep a journal or diary and thus leave behind him a record of his movements from day to day; but from the extensive files of his correspondence it is possible to patch together an accurate record of his goings and comings after he started living at the Hermitage. Jackson was essentially a home-loving man; his letters are full of unmistakably sincere evidences of it. But in spite of his dislike for being away from home, he did a powerful lot of traveling from time to time. In February, 1822, Mrs. Jackson wrote: “In the thirty years of our wedded life ... he has not spent one-fourth of his days under his own roof.” Jackson’s first notable absence from home after he moved to the Hermitage was when on that bright May day in 1806 he kissed Rachel goodbye and, together with his seconds, rode soberly off to the rendezvous across the Kentucky line where he was to meet Mr. Charles Dickinson, the gay young Nashville blade who had signed his death warrant by provoking a duel with the up-and-coming young lawyer. Dickinson was a famous crack shot, and when Jackson rode away from home that morning he had every reason to fear that he would never see the Hermitage again. But two days later his friends brought him home—alive but severely, almost fatally, wounded. Rachel fluttered over him and nursed him back to health, gladdened by his safe return though saddened by the tragic outcome of the affray. It was not until 1813 that Jackson, now a major general of militia, left home to head the abortive expedition of the Tennessee militia and volunteers to Natchez in the early stages of the War of 1812. As a result of either a stupid blunder or a malicious conspiracy (Jackson naturally believed the latter) his troops were ordered by the Secretary of War to be discharged at Natchez—500 miles from home. But Jackson, with characteristic fire and steadfastness, defied the Secretary and insisted on marching his men back up the Natchez Trace to Tennessee so that they could be mustered out at home. It was on this painful homeward march that he shared the privations of his men with such fortitude that he gained the everlasting nickname of Old Hickory; and this was his first step up the ladder of fame. He left the Hermitage in January a commonplace backwoods militia officer; he came back in April a hero.