In pursuance of this plan, Lieutenant-Colonel David E. Twiggs was ordered to receive into service the eight companies of volunteers requested of the Governor of Louisiana, adding them to the command of such regular troops as might be in the vicinity of New Orleans, all to be held in readiness for a movement to Tampa Bay.  The troops were mustered into service on February 3d.  General Gaines having arrived in New Orleans on January 27th, chartered three steamers to convey the troops and stores.  The Legislature of Louisiana had appropriated eighty-five thousand dollars for the equipment of her volunteers, and on February 4th the chartered steamers, with the Louisiana volunteers and one company of regulars, were under way, and on the same day another steamer, with Colonel Twiggs and Companies B, E, G, H, I, and K of the regulars, left New Orleans.  The vessels arrived safely at Hillsboro Bay, four miles distant from the garrison, on February 8th, 9th, and 10th, and the troops were immediately disembarked and camped just outside of the fort.

The fort was a triangular work formed by pickets with blockhouses at the apex, the base resting on the bay and flanked on the west by Hillsboro River.  It was found that there were at the fort about two hundred regular troops, composed of Companies A, B, C, and H of the Second Artillery, and Company A of the Fourth Infantry, with Majors Francis S. Belton, Richard Augustus Zantzinger, and John Mountford, Lieutenants John Breckenridge Grayson, Samuel McKenzie, John Charles Casey, Thomas C. Legate, Edwin Wright Morgan, Augustus Porter Allen, and Benjamin Alvord, and Surgeons Henry Lee Heiskell and Reynolds.  Major Belton was the commanding officer of the post.

General Gaines, having received instructions at Pensacola from the Secretary of War to repair and take charge of the forces which were assembling on the Mexican frontier, announced the fact to Colonel Twiggs; but the troops, on hearing this, manifested great dissatisfaction, and insisted that as they had volunteered to go under the command of General Gaines, he in good faith should be their leader.  Following is the text of the letter of the Secretary of War to General Gaines: 

“WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, January 23, 1835.

“SIR:  I am instructed by the President to request that you will repair to some proper position near the western frontier of the State of Louisiana, and there assume the personal command of all the troops of the United States which are or may be employed in any part of the region adjoining the Mexican boundary.

“It is not the intention of this order to change at all the relations between yourself and the military departments under your command, to require your personal presence at a point where public considerations demand the exercise of great discretion and prudence....”

The pressure not only from the troops in the field but from outside sources was so great that General