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Show 22 LIFE OF GEN. JACltSO~. CHAP. He lost no time in making known to the secretary I. of war, the resolution he had adopted; to disregard the ....,..,....._,order he had given, and return his army to the place where he had received it. He painted in strong terms the evils it was calculated to produce, and expressed the astonishment he felt, that it should have originated with the famous author of the "Newburg Letters," the then redoubted advocate for soldiers' rights. General Wilkinson, to whom tl1e public property was directed to be delivered, learning that the determination had been taken, to march the troops back, and to take with them, so much of that property as should be necessary to their return, admonished Jackson, in a letter of solemn and mysterious import, of tl1e awful and dangerous responsibility he was taking on himself, by that measure. General Jackson replied, that his conduct, and the consequences to which it might lead, had been deliberately weighed, and that he was prepared to abide the result. Wilkinson had previously given orders to his officers, to recruit from Jackson's army; they were advised, however, on their first appearance, that tl10se troops were already in the service of the United States, and that thus situated, they should not be enlisted. The quarter master, having been ordered to furnish the necessary transportation, for the conveyance of the sick and baggage to TeJ;~nessee, immediately set about the performance of the task ; but, as the event proved, with no intention of executing it. Still, he continued to keep up the semblance of exertion; and the better to deceive, the very day before that, which had been appointed for breaking up the encampment, LIFE OF GEN. JA.CKSON. and commencing the return march, eleven wagons ar- CHAP. rived there by his order. The next morning, however 1· when every thing was about to be packed up, the· ~ quarter master entered the encampment, and discharg-ed the whole. He was grossly mistaken in the m•m he had to deal with, and had now played his own tricks too far, to accomplish the object, which he had, no doubt, been instructed to effect. Disregard-ing their dismissal, so evidently designed to prevent his marching back his men, general Jackson seized upon these wagons, yet within his lines, and used them for the transportation of his sick. It deserves to be recollected, that this quarter master; so soon as he had received directions for furnishing transportation, despatched an express to general Wilkinson : and there can be but little doubt, that the course of duplicity he afterwards pursued, was a concerted plan between him and that general, to defeat the design of Jackson; com-pel him to abandon the course he had adopted ; and, in this way, draw to the regular army many of tl1e sol-diers, who, from necessity, would be driven to enlist. In this attempt, they were fortunately disappointed. Adhering to his original purpose, he marched back the whole of his division, to the section of country whence they had been drawn, and dismissed them from service, as he had been instructed. _1,'o ~et a~1 example,. that might buoy up the sinking spmts of Ius troops, m the long and arduous march before them, he yielded up his horses to tl1e sick, and encountered all the hardships that were met by the soldiers. It was at a time of year when the roads were extremely bad, and the s'mmps, lying- in their passage, |
