It lay in the cards that Jackson was to be a principal agent in wresting the Florida, country from the Spaniards; and while there was at Washington no intention of allowing him to set off post-haste upon the mission, all of the services which he was called upon to render during the war converged directly upon that objective.  After what seemed an interminable period of waiting came the first order to move.  Fifteen hundred Tennessee troops were to go to New Orleans, ostensibly to protect the city against a possible British attack, but mainly to be quickly available in case an invasion of West Florida should be decided upon:  and Jackson, freshly commissioned major general of volunteers, was to lead the expedition.

The rendezvous was fixed at Nashville for early December; and when more than two thousand men, representing almost every family of influence in the western half of the State, presented themselves, Governor Blount authorized the whole number to be mustered.  On the 7th of January the hastily equipped detachment started, fourteen hundred infantrymen going down the ice-clogged Cumberland in flatboats and six hundred and seventy mounted riflemen proceeding by land.  The Governor sent a letter carrying his blessing.  Jackson responded with an effusive note in which he expressed the hope that “the God of battles may be with us.”  Parton says with truth that the heart of western Tennessee went down the river with the expedition.  In a letter to the Secretary of War Jackson declared that his men had no “constitutional scruples,” but would, if so ordered, plant the American eagle on the “walls” of Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine.

After five weeks the troops, in high spirits, reassembled at Natchez.  Then came cruel disappointment.  From New Orleans Governor James Wilkinson, doubtless moved by hatred of Jackson quite as much as by considerations of public policy, ordered the little army to stay where it was.  And on the 15th of March there was placed in the commander’s hands a curt note from the Secretary of War saying that the reasons for the undertaking had disappeared, and announcing that the corps under the Tennesseean’s command had “ceased to exist.”

Jackson flew into a rage—­and with more reason than on certain other occasions.  He was sure that there was treachery somewhere; at the least, it was all a trick to bring a couple of thousand good Tennessee volunteers within the clutches of Wilkinson’s recruiting officers.  He managed to write to the President a temperate letter of protest; but to Governor Blount and to the troops he unbosomed himself with characteristic forcefulness of speech.  There was nothing to do but return home.  But the irate commander determined to do it in a manner to impress the country.  He kept his force intact, drew rations from the commissary department at Natchez, and marched back to Nashville with all the eclat that would have attended a returning conqueror.  When Wilkinson’s subordinates refused to pay the cost of transporting the sick, Jackson pledged his own credit for the purpose, to the amount of twelve thousand dollars.  It was on the trying return march that his riflemen conferred on him the happy nickname “Old Hickory.”