Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/215

Rh ize him to occupy East Florida for the double purpose of restoring order and of anticipating any movement of Great Britain. He had taken steps, in advance, to put the measures which Congress was expected to adopt into volunteers, to which the state had responded by furnishing 2,000, under Gen. Andrew Jackson, who had marched to Natchez, when he unexpectedly received orders to disband his troops. It was on this occasion that he surprised the war department by marching his men back to Nashville in defiance of orders, and disbanding them on the spot where they had entered service, becoming personally responsible for their pay. His spirited letter to the war department, remonstrating against the injustice of the order to disband his men at such a distance from their homes, with no means of livelihood or transportation, was the first evidence of his inflexible spirit, and gained the enthusiastic love and confidence of the Tennessee soldiery.

General Wilkinson, commander at New Orleans, took possession of West Florida and planted the United States flag at Mobile, April 5th. The entire province of West Florida was now reduced to possession, and the portion between the Pearl and Perdido rivers was attached to Mississippi Territory. General Pinckney withdrew the United States troops from East Florida, Amelia island being abandoned May 16, 1813.

Soon followed the Creek war, in which the Indians, instigated and aided by Great Britain, attacked the whites, beginning August 30, with the massacre at Fort Minis. General Pinckney advanced against the Indians from Georgia, and Gen. Andrew Jackson was again called into the field with 2,500 Tennessee volunteers. In this remarkable campaign Jackson crushed the Creeks in a series of historic battles, closing with the battle of the Horseshoe, and the capitulation of the Indians, August 9, 1814. The successful issue of this campaign won for