The British and Spaniards had obtained intelligence of Jackson’s approach, and had made every preparation to drive him back.  The forts were strongly garrisoned, and all the principal streets of the little Spanish city were barricaded.  Several British war-vessels were anchored in the bay, and so placed as to command with their guns the principal entrance to the town.  Jackson, who had invaded the Spanish province unsanctioned by the Government, was anxious to impress upon the Spanish authorities that the measure had been reluctantly adopted, on his own authority, as a military necessity; that he had no disposition to violate their neutral rights; but that it was indispensable that the British should be dislodged and driven away.

The pride of the Spaniard was roused, and there was no friendly response to this appeal.  But the Spanish garrison was small, and, united with the English fleet, could present no effectual opposition to the three thousand men under such a lion-hearted leader as General Jackson.  On the 7th of January the General opened fire upon the foe.  The conflict was short.  The Spaniards were compelled to surrender their works.  The British fled to the ships.  The guns were turned upon them.  They spread sail and disappeared.  Jackson was severely censured, at the time, for invading the territory of a neutral power.  The final verdict of his countrymen has been decidedly in his favor.

It was supposed that the British would move for the attack of Mobile.  This place then consisted of a settlement of but about one hundred and fifty houses.  General Jackson, with about two thousand men, marched rapidly for its defence.  A few small, broken bands of hostile, yet despairing Creeks, fled back from Florida into the wilds of Alabama.  A detachment of nearly a thousand men, under Major Russell, were sent in pursuit of these fleas among the mountains.  Crockett made part of this expedition.  The pursuing soldiers directed their steps northwest about a hundred miles to Fort Montgomery, on the Alabama, just above its confluence with the Tornbeckbee, about twelve miles above Fort Stoddart.  Not far from there was Fort Mimms, where the awful massacre had taken place which opened the Creek war.

There were many cattle grazing in the vicinity of the fort at the time of the massacre, which belonged to the garrison.  These animals were now running wild.  A thousand hungry men gave them chase.  The fatal bullet soon laid them all low, and there was great feasting and hilarity in the camp.  The carouse was much promoted by the arrival that evening of a large barge, which had sailed up the Alabama River from Mobile, with sugar, coffee, and,—­best of all, as the soldiers said—­worst of all, as humanity cries,—­with a large amount of intoxicating liquors.

The scene presented that night was wild and picturesque in the extreme.  The horses of the army were scattered about over the plain grazing upon the rich herbage.  There was wood in abundance near, and the camp-fires for a thousand men threw up their forked flames, illumining the whole region with almost the light of day.  The white tents of the officers, the varied groups of the soldiers, running here and there, in all possible attitudes, the cooking and feasting, often whole quarters of beef roasting on enormous spits before the vast fires, afforded a spectacle such as is rarely seen.