ol in
August, 1814. They were equally manifest in a well-laid plan for a
great assault on the country's southern borders and on the great
Mississippi Valley beyond.

The last-mentioned project meant that, after two years of immunity,
the Southwest had become a main theater of the war. There was plenty
of warning of what was coming, for the British squadron intended for
the attack began assembling in the West Indies before the close of
summer. No one knew, however, where or when the blow would fall. To
Jackson the first necessity seemed to be to make sure of the defenses
of Mobile. For a time, at all events, he believed that the attack
would be made there, rather than at New Orleans; and an attempt of a
British naval force in September to destroy Fort Bowyer, at the
entrance to Mobile Bay, confirmed his opinion.

But the chief attraction of Mobile for the General was its proximity
to Florida. In July he had written to Washington asking permission to
occupy Pensacola. Months passed without a reply. Temptation to action
grew; and when, in October, three thousand Tennessee troops arrived
under one of the subordinate officers in the recent Creek War, longer
hesitation seemed a sign of weakness. Jackson therefore led his forces
against the Spanish stronghold, now in British hands, and quickly
forced its surrender. His men blew up one of the two forts, and the
British blew up the other. Within a week the work was done and the
General, well pleased with his exploit, was back at Mobile.

There he found awaiting him, in reply to his July letter, an order
from the new Secretary of War, James Monroe, forbidding him to touch
Pensacola. No great harm was done, for the invaded territory was no
longer neutral soil, and the task of soothing the ruffled feelings of
the Spanish court did not prove difficult.

As the autumn wore on, signs multiplied that the first British
objective in the South was to be New Orleans, and no efforts were
spared by the authorities at Washington to arouse the Southwest to its
danger and to stimulate an outpouring of troops sufficient to repel
any force that might be landed at the mouth of the Mississippi. On the
21st of November, Jackson set out for the menaced city. Five days
later a fleet of fifty vessels, carrying ten thousand veteran British
troops under command of Generals Pakenham and Gibbs, started from
Jamaica for what was expected to be an easy conquest. On the 10th of
December the hostile armad