Description:

Jackson Andrew

Andrew Jackson ANS regarding U.S. Navy Midshipman Later indicted for voluntary manslaughter

 

1p manuscript annotated and signed by President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) as "Andrew Jackson" and initialed "A.J." near bottom. Also cosigned by Secretary of the Navy John Branch near center right. The watermarked cream paper is in very good condition, with some uneven toning. A few chipped edges and two small holes at bottom do not affect the text. Else very good to near fine. Measures 7.875" x 9.625".

 

President Jackson personally countermanded the orders of Secretary of Navy John Branch regarding U.S. Navy Midshipman Robert E. Hooe (1811-1847). The President wrote 20+ words in his own hand at the bottom of this May 12, 1831 Navy Department correspondence. Branch's orders in the original Navy Department letter read:

 

"Sir,

 

The order addressed to you on the 18th March last, by this Department, is hereby revoked.

 

You will report to Come Hull for duty on board the Schooner Spark under the command of Lient Wm P. Piercy, designed to be employed in the protection of Live-oak tc.

 

I am respy tc

Jn Branch

 

Midn Robt E. Hooe

U.S. Navy

Washington."

 

But President Jackson wrote:

 

"Let the order be reversed, and the original order enforced

 

Andrew Jackson

 

May 12th 1831.

 

The above is at the request of Midshipman Hooe - A.J."

 

According to an 1834 Naval Register in the collection of the Navy Department Library, Midshipman Robert Emmet Hooe still had the same rank three years later. The Virginia-born sailor who had entered naval service in 1828 was then stationed at the Naval School in Norfolk, Virginia.

 

In October 1836, Hooe was serving as Sailing Master of the U.S. Navy Brig Porpoise stationed off Savannah, Georgia. He became involved in a violent quarrel with the ship's surgeon, Dr. George E. Palmer of New York, and later shot Dr. Palmer in self-defense in front of multiple witnesses. Hooe was eventually indicted for voluntary manslaughter and court-martialed. His precise career trajectory after that point remains unclear, but Passed Midshipman Hooe was recommended for promotion by President Martin Van Buren by late 1840, and by 1843, he appears to have been fully reinstated in the U.S. Navy.

 

Would Midshipman Hooe's experience have been different if he had served on the Spark like Secretary of Navy Branch ordered? Perhaps. The U.S.S. Spark was a schooner built in Baltimore, Maryland and purchased by the U.S. Navy in 1831. It was commissioned in mid-May in Washington, D.C., around the time this letter was sent to Midshipman Robert E. Hooe. Under command of Lieutenant William P. Piercy, the Spark patrolled the waters off the southeastern seaboard for lumber smugglers, sailing from Washington, D.C. south to Florida and up the Gulf Coast of Georgia. After its voyage ended in 1832, the ship was sold.

 

Secretary of Navy John Branch (1782-1863) resigned from office on the same day this letter was written, as a consequence of the Petticoat Affair. Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife Margaret O'Neill Eaton were ostracized by Jackson cabinet members and their wives upon suspicions of impropriety. Jackson's cabinet was polarized into pro- and anti-Eaton camps, and the President pressured most of his cabinet members to resign in the spring of 1831.

 

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