The Smear Campaign That Killed Andrew Jackson’s Wife In 1828, one of the most bitter elections in American history unfolded in Nashville, Tennessee. At the center of the storm stood Andrew Jackson, a fierce frontier general who had become the champion of ordinary Americans. But while he fought for the presidency, his enemies discovered a devastating way to attack him — through the woman he loved most. His wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson, had lived a complicated past. She had first married Lewis Ro