ese motley processions which trailed through the
American woods, stopping to beg at the American posts, were not slow in
being reported. It did not take a vivid imagination to see that the
renewal of border warfare was inevitable.[38]

This danger was increased by the rapid development of the West following
the war. Just as over the mountain trails and down the rivers, Kentucky
and Tennessee had been settled before the war, now the States of the Old
Northwest received their pioneers. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who made his
first trip down the Ohio at this time (1818), remarked: "I mingled in
this crowd, and, while listening to the anticipations indulged in, it
seemed to me that the war had not, in reality, been fought for 'free
trade and sailors' rights' where it had commenced, but to gain a
knowledge of the world beyond the Alleghanies.... To judge by the tone
of general conversation, they meant, in their generation, to plow the
Mississippi Valley from its head to its foot."[39]

The flatboats on the rivers, the crowded ferries, and the caravans
crossing the prairies were familiar scenes. In _The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow_, which appeared in 1819, Washington Irving puts this fondest
dream into the mind of his hero, Ichabod: "Nay, his busy fancy already
realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina with a
whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded
with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he
beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels,
setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where." When he
wrote this the author was not using his imagination: it was a picture he
saw daily.[40]

The extent of this westward movement is indicated by the provisions made
for the political organization of these growing settlements. Indiana
achieved statehood in 1816 and Illinois in 1818. Across the river in
Missouri the population had grown from 20,000 in 1810 to 66,000 in
1820,[41] and the weighty questions concerning her admission were being
discussed in Washington.

With an expanding frontier brought into contact with hostile Indians,
trouble was bound to result. Various plans were proposed to deal with
the problem. It was reported that General Jackson would take charge of
active military operations against the Indians of the upper
Mississippi.[42] One agent suggested that "three or four months' full
feeding on meat and bread, even without ar