war
supplies--records his impression as follows: "After supper we were
treated to a most delicious _pas de deux_ by the conqueror and his
spouse. To see these two figures, the General, a long haggard man,
with limbs like a skeleton, and Madame la Generale, a short fat
dumpling, bobbing opposite each other like half-drunken Indians, to
the wild melody of _Possum up de Gum Tree_, and endeavoring to make a
spring into the air, was very remarkable, and far more edifying a
spectacle than any European ballet could possibly have furnished." But
Jackson was only less proud of his accomplishments as a dancer than as
a fighter, and it was the part of discretion for a man of Nolte's
critical turn to keep a straight face on this occasion.

In early April the General and his wife started homeward, the latter
bearing as a parting gift from the women of New Orleans the somewhat
gaudy set of topaz jewelry which she wears in her most familiar
portrait. The trip was a continuous ovation, and at Nashville a series
of festivities wound up with a banquet attended by the most
distinguished soldiers and citizens of Tennessee and presided over by
the Governor of the State. Other cities gave dinners, and legislatures
voted swords and addresses. A period of rest at the Hermitage was
interrupted in the autumn of 1815 by a horseback trip to Washington
which involved a succession of dinners and receptions. But after a few
months the much feted soldier was back at Nashville, ready, as he
said, to "resume the cultivation of that friendly intercourse with my
friends and neighbors which has heretofore constituted so great a
portion of my happiness."

After Jackson had talked over his actions at New Orleans with both the
President and the Secretary of War, he had received, as he says, "a
chart blank," approving his "whole proceedings"; so he had nothing
further to worry about on that score. The national army had been
reorganized on a peace footing, in two divisions, each under command
of a major general. The northern division fell to Jacob Brown of New
York, the hero of Lundy's Lane; the southern fell to Jackson, with
headquarters at Nashville.

Jackson was the last man to suppose that warfare in the southern half
of the United States was a thing of the past. He knew that the late
contest had left the southern Indians restless and that the existing
treaties were likely to be repudiated at any moment. Florida was still
in the hands of the Spaniards,