Lewis Robards

Lewis Robards (December 5, 1758 – April 15, 1814) was an American Revolutionary War veteran and Kentucky pioneer who is best remembered as the first husband of Rachel Jackson, who was later married to Andrew Jackson, elected U.S. president in 1828.

For his grandson, the Louisville slave trader, see Lewis C. Robards.

Biography

Robards was born in Goochland County, Virginia.[1]: 26  The American Revolution began when Robards was a young man and he enlisted in May 1778 and by 1791 had been promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant and up to captain, and thus is sometimes designated in histories as Captain Lewis Robards to distinguish him from relatives with similar names.[1]: 26 

Robards may have been a "son-of-a-bitch" and he may have been a slave trader.[2] Another account describes him as "a rather suspicious minded and jealous individual, who constantly quarreled with his wife and accused her of all manner of improprieties, some of which he himself was guilty. Robards also quarreled with Jackson and at one point Jackson threatened 'to cut the ears out of [Robards's] head.' At length Robards swore he would never live with Rachel again and left Nashville and returned to Kentucky."[3]: 36  The circumstances of the end of Rachel's relationship with Robards and transition to Jackson resurfaced as a campaign issue in the 1828 U.S. presidential election. Lewis Robards later remarried as well and had five sons, one of whom, George Lewis Robards, served in the Battle of New Orleans (where Andrew Jackson came to national fame).[1] Two of George Lewis Robards' sons, Lewis C. Robards and Alfred O. Robards, were slave traders in the Louisville, Kentucky area; they were implicated in multiple kidnapping into slavery cases.[4] Lewis C. Robards was also notorious as a dealer in "fancy girls".[4]

References
  1. Robards, James Harvey (1910). History and genealogy of the Robards family. Whiteland, Indiana – via Allen County Public Library, Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. Daniels, Jonathan (1971). The devil's backbone : the story of the Natchez Trace. Internet Archive. New York : McGraw-Hill. pp. 59–60. ISBN 978-0-07-015306-6.
  3. Remini, Robert V. (Summer 1991). "Andrew Jackson's Adventures on the Natchez Trace". Southern Quarterly. 29 (4). Hattiesburg, Mississippi: University of Southern Mississippi: 35–42. ISSN 0038-4496. OCLC 1644229.
  4. Coleman, J. Winston. Slavery times in Kentucky / by J. Winston Coleman. State Library of Pennsylvania. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 157–163 – via Internet Archive.
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