From Lippincott’s Magazine.
“It was just after the close Of the Florida war and General Jackson was in Washington on official business of some kind. It was a beautiful morning in early May, and I was standing with the General and an officer who had acted as his chief of staff before Tennison’s Tavern, a famous old Washington hostlery. We were deeply engaged in the discussion of a bill then before Congress which was directly concerned with the growth and formation of the United States Army, when there came trotting toward us a stout, moon faced little man, whom I at once recognized as the leading tailor of the capital. When opposite to Jackson the little man stopped and held out his hand, which was at once grasped in the General’s strong, sun browned fingers, though his eyes wandered over the portly person of the Washington Poole with a puzzled expression. The little tailor (whose role in life it was to be on terms of seeming intimacy with all the political, military and naval celebrities of the day) saw that he was not recognized by the great man, and, standing on tiptoe to reach the tall soldier’s ear, he whispered:
“I made your breeches.”
“Imperfectly catching the sound of the words, and supposing the fat little man to be some outlandish officer of militia, who had, perhaps, served under him against the Seminoles, General Jackson turned to his friends and said:
” ‘Gentlemen, permit me to introduce my friend, Major Breeches.’
“It is scarcely necessary to add that to the end of his days the Poole of Washington was known to all Army men as ‘Major Breeches.'”
New-York Tribune, July 22, 1900