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.
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