THE PETTICOAT AFFAIR

The women won. The power of the marital bed succeeded. Women ruled the roost.

The Petticoat Affair an interesting time in Presidential politics. Equal to the Clinton fiasco.

The lady in question Margaret O'Neal. Nicknamed Peggy. A beauty.

Her father owned the Franklin House in Washington, DC. A popular boarding house and bar. Primarily for politicians. At some point, the Franklin House limited its guests to members of Congress.

Peggy's Dad educated  her well. This at a time when education was not considered a woman's thing. She was intelligent. Quick witted.

Peggy went to work in her father's boarding house. Her education had not made her a lady. She frequented the beds of many guests. Openly and notoriously.

At the age of 17, she married her first husband. John Timberlake. He was 39 at the time. A businessman. He became a drunk and failure. His financial difficulties overwhelming. He was convinced that because of his failures, his wife no longer respected him.

The couple were friends with Tennessee Senator John Henry Eaton, a widower. Eaton was newly elected to the Senate and was a close friend of the soon to be President Andrew Jackson.

Eaton coveted Timberlake's wife Peggy. He paid all of Timberlake's debts. Following which he procured a lucrative post as purser for him in the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron.

While the cat was away, the mice played.

Timberlake died at sea in 1828. It is thought Timberlake's death was a suicide. Committed following discovery of his wife's infidelity with Eaton.

Peggy and Eaton were obvious lovers. At the boarding house. Overnight trips to other Washington area boarding houses where they registered as man and wife. Eaton openly escorted Peggy to Washington parties and balls. They were known to take frequent walks in a wooded area where they engaged in sexual activity.

Peggy and Eaton married.

President Jackson appointed Eaton to his Cabinet as Secretary of War.

People talked. Washington insiders were indignant. They said Eaton had just married his mistress and the mistress of eleven dozen others. Peggy and Eaton were the talk of the Capital. 

The scandal was ripping at the roots of government. Jackson's cabinet was broken. It could not be fixed. The wives of Cabinet members, with one exception, would neither socialize not attend any function that Peggy attended. The Cabinet wives prohibited their husbands attending these affairs also. The good husbands toed the mark regarding not attending Washington events. The women controlled.

A schism had developed in Washington society. One which was adversely affecting Jackson's ability to govern.

The Cabinet wives further justified their position by claiming Peggy had not grieved properly upon her husband's death and had failed to wait a proper time before marrying Eaton.

Leading the pack of vultures was Floride Calhoun. Wife of Vice President John Calhoun. Politics was involved. Calhoun wanted to be President. He was hoping to prevent Jackson from running for a second term.

The one man in Jackson's Cabinet who did not dance to the tune of the wives was Martin Van Buren. He was a bachelor. He also was a close friend of Jackson's.

Van Buren arrived at a solution. Eaton should resign from the Cabinet. Following which Jackson should ask for the resignations of all other Cabinet members. This Jackson did. With one exception. The Postmaster General.

He appointed a new Cabinet. The business of government once again moved forward.

Jackson was at all times supportive of Peggy and Eaton. His wife Rachel had been subjected to similar Washington abuse. He and Rachel had married before her divorce was final. Jackson had no sympathy for the ladies.

Jackson thought the Cabinet wives were wielding political power. They were. Improperly so. He called Peggy a victim. A virtuous and much injured female.

Jackson was blinded by his Rachel's experience and his friendship with Eaton.

Calhoun ended up getting screwed. Jackson did not have him as his Vice Presidential running mate in the next election. Instead, he offered the position to Van Buren. The term thereafter, Van Buren was the Democratic Party's candidate for President. He was elected. It would have been Calhoun had he not been a fomentor of the Cabinet wives' attacks.

Following the resignation of his first Cabinet, Jackson commented to the effect that he wanted his new Cabinet to be made up of all bachelors or ones who left their women at home.

Eaton died at some point. Peggy  married again. Her third husband. She married Antonio Gabriele Buchignani, an Italian music teacher and dancing master. Peggy was 59 at the time. He, 19. 

Peggy and Antonio were married seven years. At the end of that time, Antonio ran off to Europe with the bulk of Peggy's fortune and her 17 year old granddaughter Emily Randolph.

Peggy never recovered her fortune and died penniless.

Even in today's society, sexual escapades cannot be openly flaunted. 
There is a line that should not be crossed. Peggy stepped over that line her entire life. From her young days working in the boarding house to her third marriage to a man 40 years her junior.

I feel sorry for Peggy in that her final years were spent penniless and she suffered the trauma of a granddaughter running off with her husband. On the other hand, what goes around comes around. Maybe it was her just due.

ISRAEL BISSELL

 Listen, my children,

                           And you shall hear

                           Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

 

The distinguished American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made Paul Revere famous when he penned the above opening lines to his famous poem.

 

One problem, however. It was not Paul Revere who was the hero in 1775 at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington which marked the beginning of the Revolution. It was Israel Bissell. Historians suspect that Longfellow took a bit of literary license. Bissell did not rhyme as well as Revere.

 

Paul Revere did make a ride that day. Several men did. Historians conclude Revere only rode somewhere between 1.5 and 20 miles shouting..... To arms, to arms, the British are coming.

 

Israel Bissell rode 345 miles. The trip took 4 days and 6 hours. He rode from Watertown, Massachusetts to Philadelphia. The trip was over the Old Post Road.

 

Longfellow apparently took further literary license with the actual words Bissell shouted.....To arms, to arms, the war has begun. Again for rhyming purposes.

 

Bissell carried with him a message from the colonists' General Joseph Palmer. The message told of the Lexington attack and what the colonists should do to prepare for the British invasion. The message also stated that its bearer, Israel Bissell, was charged with alarming the citizenry. He was to be given fresh horses along the way as needed.

 

Bissell rode two horses to their deaths on the four day trip. His first horse died 2.5 hours into the trip at Worcester. A second died further along the way.

 

Every community Bissell passed through rang Church bells and fired muskets. Many colonists supported a war with the British and were happy to know it had begun.

 

In the 1950s, two columnists writing for the Berkshire Eagle wrote poems finally giving Bissell credit for the ride. Gerard Chapman and Clay Perry.

 

Chapman's poem was appropriately titled Israel Bissell's Ride. Certain lines read as follows.

 

                                 Listen, my children, and you shall hear

                                 Of Israel Bissell's yesteryear:

                                 A port less patriot whose fame , I fear,

                                 Was eclipsed by that of Paul Revere.....

                                

Perry's poem was titled I. Bissell's Ride. Certain lines from the poem read as follows.

 

                                  Listen, my children, to my epistle

                                  Of the long, long ride of Israel Bissell,

                                  Who outrode Paul by miles and time

                                  But didn't make a poet's rhyme...

                              

Two questions arose over the years having to do with Bissell.

 

The first is whether he actually made it to Philadelphia. Documents from the time indicate an Issac Bissell who only rode to Hartford. He stayed in Hartford. He did not continue the ride. He was a less than an honorable man. He billed the new United States government for a six day stay in Hartford.

 

Historian Lion G. Miles came up with the story. He found his information in only one source. The Massachusetts Archives. All other historians and documents disagree with Miles. Issac was not Israel.

 

The other issue that arose was whether Israel Bissell was of the Jewish faith. I was amazed at how much time and effort was spent to arrive at a definitive conclusion. Israel Bissell was not Jewish.

 

A few historians believe that Bissell's ancestry was of a Norman French / Swiss source. The majority however concluded that Bissell was part of the Byshelle family who in 1639 left Birmingham, England. The family was part of a Puritan group. All Bissell's were determined to have been descended from the Byshelles.

 

I suspect Bissell's first name Israel is what caused the inquiries. Historians discussing the Bissell issue pointed out that most children born in the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries were given Biblical names.

 

So goes the story of Israel Bissell. A man almost forgotten not by history, but by poetry.