Margaret "Peggy" O'Neale (or O'Neill) was the daughter of a Washington, D.C. boarding-house owner and was renowned for her "vivacious" temperament—the coded implication being that she was overtly flirtatious and sexual at a time when "respectable" women, as a group, were not—who lost her first husband, sailor John Timberlake to suicide. He was allegedly driven to it because of rumors of Peggy's love affair with Jackson's Secretary of WarJohn Henry Eaton. Peggy and Eaton were married shortly after Timberlake's death, throwing the respectable women of the capital into a tizzy.
The anti-Peggy coalition was led by the wife of Vice PresidentJohn C. Calhoun and a phalanx of other Cabinet wives, while Martin Van Buren, the only bachelor member of the Cabient, allied himself with the Eatons. Jackson was sympathetic to the Eatons, in part, perhaps, because his own beloved late wife, Rachel Donelson Robards had been the subject of equally nasty innuendo. (Her first marriage turned out to have not been completely dissolved prior to her wedding to Jackson.) That said, Jackson's First Lady, Rachel's niece Emily Donelson, nonetheless sided with the Calhoun faction.
The scandal was so intense that several members of the Cabinet finally resigned, including Samuel D. Ingham and John Branch, and Van Buren was elevated to a position as Jackson's favorite (replacing Calhoun) and the de facto heir to the Democratic party. Eventually, Eaton also resigned from the cabinet. Peggy Eaton was made the "Official Hostess" under Jackson.
References
The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House by John F. Marszalek ISBN 0807126349
The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert V. Remini ISBN 0060937351
Margaret Eaton (Helen-Keller) (1799 - 1879) was the U.S. wife of John Henry Eaton, they married in 1829.
She had an affair with John Henry Eaton while her husband was away at sea, but her husband died at sea.
In what later came to be known as the Peggy Eatonaffair, Andrew Jackson demanded conciliation and friendship between Peggy Eaton and the wives of other congressmen.
The Petticoat Affair (also known as the EatonAffair or the Eaton Malaria) was an 1831U.S. sex scandal involving members of President Andrew Jackson'sCabinet.
Margaret "Peggy" O'Neale (or O'Neill) was the daughter of a Washington, D.C. boarding-house owner and was renowned for her "vivacious" temperament—the coded implication being that she was overtly flirtatious and sexual at a time when "respectable" women, as a group, were not—who lost her first husband, sailor John Timberlake to suicide.
Jackson was sympathetic to the Eatons, in part, perhaps, because his own beloved late wife, Rachel Donelson Robards had been the subject of equally nasty innuendo.
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