he change wrought by his timely appearance on the theater
of active operations. The partial attempts to adopt measures of defense
were of little avail. The joint committee of the Legislature to act in
concert with Governor Claiborne, Commodore Patterson, and the military
commandant, had done but little as yet. There was wanting the
concentration of power always needed in military operations. Latour, in
his "Memoirs of the War of 1814-15," graphically describes the condition
of affairs as he saw and knew them to exist:

Confidence was wanting in the civil and military authorities, and a
feeling of distrust and gloomy apprehension pervaded the minds of the
citizens. Petty disputes on account of two committees of defense,
unfortunately countenanced by the presence and influence of several
public officials, had driven the people to despondency. They
complained, not without cause, that the Legislature wasted time, and
consumed the money of the State, in idle discussions, when both time
and money should have been devoted to measures of defense. The banks
had suspended payment of their notes, and credit was gone. The
moneyed men had drawn in their funds, and loaned their money at the
ruinous rates of three or four per cent per month. The situation
seemed desperate; in case of attack, none could hope to be saved only
by miracle, or by the wisdom and genius of a great commander.

After his habit of giving his personal attention to every detail,
General Jackson, on his arrival, visited Fort St. Philip, ordered the
wooden barracks removed, and had mounted additional heavy artillery. He
caused two more batteries to be constructed, one on the opposite bank of
the Mississippi, and the other half a mile above, with twenty-four
pounders in position, thus fully guarding the approach by the mouth of
the river. He then proceeded to Chef Menteur, as far as Bayou Sauvage,
and ordered a battery erected at that point. He continued to fortify or
obstruct the larger bayous whose waters gave convenient access to the
city between the Mississippi and the Gulf.

As early as July before, the Secretary of War, in view of the formidable
armaments of England, had made requisition of the several States for
ninety-three thousand five hundred men for general defensive purposes,
under a law of Congress enacted the previous April. The quota of
Kentucky was fifty-five hundred infantry; of Tennessee, twenty-five
hundre