to Huntsville, Alabama, with five hundred men. As he advanced volunteers
came riding in armed and equipped, till he was at the head of thirteen
hundred men.

On the 7th of October Jackson himself reached the rendezvous. He was
still a mere wreck, thin as a shadow, tottering with weakness, and
needing to be lifted bodily to his horse. His arm was closely bound and
in a sling. His wounds were so sensitive that the least jar or wrench
gave him agony. His stomach was in such a state that he was in danger
of dying from starvation. Several times during his first two days' ride
he had to be sponged from head to foot with whiskey. Yet his dauntless
spirit kept him up, and he bore the dreadful ride of eighty miles with a
fortitude rarely equalled. So resolute was he that he reached
Fayetteville before half the men had gathered. He was glad there to
receive news that the Creeks were advancing northward towards Tennessee.

"Give them my thanks for saving me the pain of travelling," he said. "I
must not be outdone in politeness, and will try to meet them half-way."

On the 11th a new advance was made to Huntsville, the troops riding six
miles an hour for five hours, a remarkable feat for a man in Jackson's
condition. Many a twinge of bitter pain he had on that march, but his
spirit was past yielding. At this point Colonel Coffee was joined, and
the troops encamped on a bend of the Tennessee River. A false alarm of
the advance of the Indians had caused this hasty march.

Jackson and his men--twenty-five hundred in number with thirteen hundred
horses--now found themselves threatened by a foe more terrible than the
Indians they had come to meet. They were in the heart of the wilderness
of Alabama, far away from any full supply of food. Jackson thus
describes this foe, in a letter written by his secretary:

"There is an enemy whom I dread much more than I do the hostile
Creeks--I mean the meagre monster _Famine_. I shall leave this
encampment in the morning direct for the Ten Islands, and yet I have
not on hand two days' supply of bread-stuffs."

[Illustration: JACKSON'S BIRTHPLACE.]

A thousand barrels of flour and a proportionate supply of meat had been
purchased for him a week before. But the Tennessee River was low, the
flatboats would not float, and the much-needed food lay in the shallows
three hundred miles up-stream. There was nothing to do but to live on
the country, and this Colonel Coffee had swept almost clear of
p