Robards–Donelson–Jackson relationship controversy

The circumstances of the end of Rachel Donelson's relationship with Lewis Robards and transition to Andrew Jackson resurfaced as a campaign issue in the 1828 U.S. presidential election. Historians Robert V. Remini and Ann Toplovich argue effectively that the official Jackson version presented during the election of 1828 is bunk and that the fact trail shows Jackson and Rachel Donelson Robards ran off to Natchez together via the Natchez Trace sometime between December 1789 and July 1790, Robards filed for divorce in December 1790, the divorce was granted on grounds of adultery in September 1793, Robards unofficially remarried Hannah Winn in December 1792 and officially remarried her in November 1793, while Andrew Jackson and Rachel Donelson Robards were legally married in January 1794.

One of Robards' descendants, grandson William J. Robards, defended his grandfather's honor into the 20th century, as retold by the Louisville Herald in 1904:

"'Historians say Mrs. Jackson's first marriage was an unhappy one, that she was superior to her environment, and that she abandoned the home of her husband in Kentucky and sought solace at the home of her mother in Tennessee near Nashville. These statements, the records of the courts and traditions of the Robards family do not verify, and William J. Robards, though prostrated with illness that may prove fatal and bearing heavily the weight of eighty-four years, becomes indignant whenever the subject is mentioned. He vehemently denounces Jackson for despoiling his ancestor's home and severely criticises historians who, in order to shield from a crime of his youth, the man who later became president of the United States, have placed his grandfather and family in a false position before posterity. 'Andrew Jackson despoiled my grandfather's home, stole his wife and married that woman two years before a divorce had been obtained,' exclaimed Mr. Robards with emphasis, 'and this after receiving the hospitalities of my grandfather's home. My grandfather was one of the highly esteemed men of his time in Kentucky, and his family was one of the most prominent in the territory, equal to, if not better, than that of the woman to whom he first married.'"

Six years later, a Mississippi history journal article written by Eron Rowland surfaced some other inconsistencies: "'In connection with this often disputed point of history, the writer reproduces here a letter just received from Mr. E. R. Jones, an old resident of Jefferson County: 'I never heard that Mrs. Robards was married to General Jackson in the home of Thos. Marston Green until it came out in McCardle's History of Mississippi, such being contrary to tradition. My father, Rev. Jno. G. Jones, was born in 1804 and resided for many years at Belle Grove, just across the Natchez Trace from Mrs. Robards' home, the site of which he often pointed out to me as our farm was less than a mile off. He used this language: 'I fear Major McCardle's vanity and his connection with the Green family has led him into an error. Ths old people of the time while I was growing up about Greenville told me, she owned her own farm, near Greenville, and had on it a double log house with an open hall, and here they say she was married to General Jackson....all of my life I was often with Allen Collier (colored), who was a body servant of General Thomas Hinds and was once a slave of Thomas Marston Green, and went as such to General Hinds, who married Miss Laminda Green. When I informed him what History has said about Jackson's being married at Green's house, his reply was: ''Twain't so; Ole Marster's house—the Great House warn't built at that time—I 'members it, and Miss Robards don't have to go over thar to be married, when she had a good house of her own right by what da call the Jackson Springs.' So, I believe this is a true story of the marriage.'"The 1938 WPA history of Jefferson county quotes one Green family member on the controversy: "Col. Jas. Payne Green, writing of Springfield in 1922, states: 'Col. Green's (Thomas) family were the first settlers of this section now know as the Maryland Settlement (Church Hill). He gave his oldest son, Thomas Marston, the plantation now known as Springfield...Jackson became acquainted with the Springfield Green by commercial transactions made at Bruinburg, and his wife became acquainted with the Greens through the brother, who was a wealthy planter in Adams County, near Natchez. She was on a visit to the Springfield home of Thomas M. Green, the third, and was married by Col. Thomas Green, the second. All of the above statements are matters of re-cord," but the WPA editor notes that the informant does not claim it was "in the house now standing."