ndred
and fifty of these repaired to the lines, and went into camp in the
rear, arms being furnished to but five hundred of the number. There
were, at this time, nearly two thousand brave and willing men within
Jackson's lines, whose services were lost to the army and to the country
for the want of arms. The dangerous delay of the arrival of the troops,
and with this, the failure of the arrival of the arms and munitions
necessary to equip the men for service, had their beginning in the
culpable negligence of the War Department at Washington, of which
history has had occasion to complain. But a more immediate cause for the
irreparable delay in the arrival of the stores for arming and equipping
the troops is found in the conduct of the quartermaster who
superintended the shipment of the same from Pittsburgh. Though he was
offered a contract to ship these supplies by a steamboat, and to
deliver them at New Orleans in ample time for use, for some reason he
declined the offer. He then had them loaded on a flatboat and slowly
floated to their destination, when there was little or no hope of their
arrival in time for use. At the date of the final battle at New Orleans
they were afloat somewhere near the mouth of the Ohio River, and of
course did not arrive until many days after all need of them was over.

On the twenty-ninth of December, General Jackson wrote to the Secretary
of War these words of protest against this failure to make provision for
his army in such a crisis as the present:

I lament that I have not the means of carrying on more offensive
operations. The Kentucky troops have not arrived, and my effective
force at this point does not exceed three thousand men. That of the
enemy must be at least double; both prisoners and deserters agreeing
in the statement that seven thousand landed from their boats.

When the militia of Kentucky were called for, Governor Shelby was
assured that the United States quartermaster would furnish
transportation for the troops to New Orleans; but no such officer
reported himself, and no relief came from Washington. The men had
rendezvoused on the banks of the Ohio in waiting, and here the
expedition must have ended had not Colonel Richard Taylor, of Frankfort,
then quartermaster of the State militia, on his own credit, borrowed a
sum sufficient to meet the immediate emergency. With this he purchased
such boats as he could, some of which were unfit for the passage. Camp