tless kindness of heart and good nature were inexhaustible.
Those in want never appealed to him in vain. He would even go hungry
himself that he might feed others who were more hungry. He would,
without a moment's consideration, spend his last dollar to buy a
blanket for a shivering soldier, and, without taking any merit for the
deed, would never think of it again. He did it without reflection, as
he breathed.

Such was the David Crockett who, from the mere love of adventure, left
wife and children, in the awful solitude of the wilderness, to follow
General Jackson in a march to Pensacola. He seems fully to have
understood the character of the General, his merits and his defects.
The main body of the army, consisting of a little more than two
thousand men, had already commenced its march, when Crockett repaired
to a rendezvous, in the northern frontiers of Alabama, where another
company was being formed, under Major Russel, soon to follow. The
company numbered one hundred and thirty men, and commenced its march.

They forded the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, and marched south
unmolested, through the heart of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, and
pressed rapidly forward two or three hundred miles, until they reached
the junction of the Tombeckbee and Alabama rivers, in the southern
section of the State. The main army was now but two days' march before
them. The troops, thus far, had been mounted, finding sufficient
grazing for their horses by the way. But learning that there was no
forage to be found between there and Pensacola, they left their animals
behind them, under a sufficient guard, at a place called Cut-off, and
set out for the rest of the march, a distance of about eighty miles, on
foot. The slight protective works they threw up here, they called Fort
Stoddart.

These light troops, hardy men of iron nerves, accomplished the distance
in about two days. On the evening of the second day, they reached an
eminence but a short distance out from Pensacola, where they found the
army encamped. Not a little to Crockett's disappointment, he learned
that Pensacola was already captured. Thus he lost his chance of having
"a small taste of British fighting."

The British and Spaniards had obtained intelligence of Jackson's
approach, and had made every preparation to drive him back. The forts
were strongly garrisoned, and all the principal streets of the little
Spanish city were barricaded. Several British war-vessels