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."
The Secretary of War later sought to appease the irascible major
general by offering a wholly plausible explanation of the sudden
reversal of the Government's policy; and the expenses of the troops on
the return march were fully met out of the national treasury. But
Jackson drew from the experience only gall and wormwood. About the
time when the men reached Natchez, Congress definitely authorized the
President to take possession of Mobile and that part of Florida west
of the Perdido River; and, back once more in the humdrum life of
Nashville, the disappointed officer could only sit idly by while his
pet project was successfully carried out by General Wilkinson, the man
whom, perhaps above all others, he loathed.
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