The day of party strife and bitterness toward General Jackson has passed away forever, and the nobility and refined sensibility of his nature are at last appreciated. The slanders and falsehoods which embittered his earthly life, have been eclipsed by the sunlight of truth, and over the lapse of years comes ringing the prophetic assertion of the immutability of right. He is avenged. Once it was the fashion to revile him, and multitudes in this country who had no independent judgments of their own, took up the gossip of the day and pursued their congenial calling, even after death had taken him from their sight forever. [Illustration: MRS. ANDREW JACKSON. ] Down from the canvas beams his speaking eye upon us, and its meaning seems to say, justice to her is honor to me. With feelings an American only can appreciate, the task is undertaken, and whatever its defects may be, its merit is its truthfulness. In 1779 Colonel John Donelson, a brave and wealthy old Virginia surveyor, started to the banks of the Cumberland with a party of emigrants. He had been preceded by Captain James Robertson and his companions, nine sturdy pioneers, who had engaged to build huts, plant corn, and make as comfortable a home as possible for the band that was to follow. This consisted of families, and among them the families of several of those adventurous pioneers. The country was full of Indians, the forests deep, wild and unexplored, and the perils very great. In order to escape the toil and danger of travelling through the wilderness, Colonel Donelson accomplished the journey by water. It was a distance of more than two thousand miles, and never before had any man been bold enough to project such a voyage. They sailed down the Holston river to the Tennessee, down the Tennessee to its junction with the Ohio, up the Ohio till they reached the Cumberland, and up this stream to the French Salt Springs, on the spot where now stands the city of Nashville. Colonel Donelson kept an account of this remarkable and perilous voyage, entitled, “Journal of a voyage, intended by God’s permission, in the good boat Adventure, from Fort Patrick Henry on Holston river, to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland river, kept by John Donelson,” and the thrilling incidents and remarkable personal adventures are deeply interesting.