spondence with General
Adair, of Kentucky, who defended the Kentucky troops from the charge of
cowardice at New Orleans.

It was late in the year 1817 before General Jackson was again called to
active service in the field. Once more the call was from the southward,
and his old enemies, the Red Sticks, the English, and the Spaniards,
were all in some measure responsible for it. A number of Red Sticks had
taken refuge with their kinsmen, the Seminoles, in Florida. Colonel
Nichols and a small force of British had also remained in Florida some
time after the war ended, and had done things of a nature to stir up the
Indians there against the Americans across the border. Negro slaves,
escaping from American masters, had fled to the Spanish province in
considerable numbers, and a body of them got possession of a fort on the
Apalachicola River which had been abandoned by the British. To add to
the disorder of the province, it was frequented by adventurers, some of
them claiming to be there in order to lead a revolution against Spain,
some of them probably mere freebooters. The Spanish authorities at
Pensacola were too weak to control such a population, and Americans near
the border were anxious to have their government interfere. The negro
fort was a centre of lawlessness, and some American troops marched down
the river, bombarded it, and by a lucky shot blew up its magazine and
killed nearly three hundred negroes. Troubles arose with the Indians
also, and Fowltown, an Indian village, was taken and burned. A
considerable body of Indians took to the war-path, and Jackson was
ordered to the scene.

Impatient as ever with the Spaniards, he wrote to President Monroe:
"Let it be signified to me through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that
the possession of Florida would be desirable to the United States, and
in sixty days it will be accomplished." Monroe was ill at the time, and
for some reason did not attend to the general's letter for a year. The
President was trying to get Florida peaceably, by purchase, and not by
conquest. Jackson, however, got the idea that his suggestion was
approved, and acted accordingly.

Raising troops in Tennessee on his own authority, he marched rapidly to
the scene of trouble, crossed the border into Florida, and in a few
weeks crushed the Seminoles. Of fighting, in fact, there was very
little; what there was fell almost entirely to the friendly Indians, and
not a single American soldier was killed. B