In the early stages of the contest everything indicated Crawford’s triumph. Then Tragedy intervened. As a result of the administering of lobelia by an unskilled physician, Crawford suffered a stroke. For a time he lost both sight and the power of speech. His nervous system was shattered. He lost the use of his lower limbs. But such is the pull of an overshadowing ambition that even in this plight he refused to withdraw from the race. The Opposition press was not above exaggerating his condition. And at such a time the caucus was held. The galleries were packed, but the attendance on the floor was slight. Out of the 261 members, only 68 were present, the friends of Calhoun, Adams, Clay, and Jackson having reached an agreement not to enter the caucus. Thus the contest was thrown into the House, where Clay went over to Adams and elected him. There are few more poignant pictures associated with the failure of lofty political ambitions than that in the country home of the Georgian where he sat with his family about the blazing fire, awaiting the news from the Capitol.[268] His reputation had been dishonestly assailed, his health was broken, his fortune was gone, and, after having almost touched the Presidency, he calmly awaited the final word of failure. The daughters, who adored him, in their efforts to soften the expected blow, told him of their joyous dreams of a return to “Woodlawn,” the Georgia country home, where all could be much happier. When the expected messenger arrived and announced the election of Adams, the defeated statesman, without a change of tone or countenance, merely remarked that he thought it would be Jackson. The next day a letter from the new President urged him to continue in the Cabinet, Jackson called, “frank, courteous, and almost cordial,” and a little later Thomas Jefferson wrote his frank regrets.[269] And thus, having declined the Adams invitation, after a remarkable career in the service of his country, William H. Crawford, poorer than the day he entered public life, and physically a wreck, returned to “Woodlawn” in its magnificent oak forest, with its charming, winding driveways, with its peach and apple blossoms, and its gardens and its shrubbery. And here under an ancient oak he was to sit for many evenings with his children and his friends. That he sometimes thought over the lost hope, we may be sure; that he often associated it with Calhoun, there can be no doubt. VII