220 Naval War of 1812 



pushing their toilsome and weary way toward the 

 city. Every effort was made to hurry their march 

 through the almost impassable roads, and at last, in 

 the very nick of time, on the 23d of December, 

 the day on which the British troops reached the 

 river bank, the vanguard of the Tennesseeans 

 marched into New Orleans. Gaunt of form and 

 grim of face; with their powder-horns slung over 

 their buckskin shirts; carrying their long* rifles on 

 their shoulders and their heavy hunting-knives stuck 

 in their belts ; with their coon-skin caps and fringed 

 leggings; thus came the grizzly warriors of the 

 backwoods, the heroes of the Horse- Shoe Bend, the 

 victors over Spaniard and Indian, eager to pit them 

 selves against the trained regulars of Britain, and 

 to throw down the gage of battle to the world-re 

 nowned infantry of the island English. Accustomed 

 to the most lawless freedom, and to giving free rein 

 to the full violence of their passions, defiant of dis 

 cipline and impatient of the slightest restraint, car 

 ing little for God and nothing for man, they were 

 soldiers who, under an ordinary commander, would 

 have been fully as dangerous to themselves and their 

 leaders as to their foes. But Andrew Jackson was 

 of all men the one best fitted to manage such troops. 

 Even their fierce natures quailed before the ungov 

 ernable fury of a spirit greater than their own ; and 

 their sullen, stubborn wills were bent at last before 



