Sam learned that the gun had been fired from Fort Bowyer, the guardian fortress, which, standing on Mobile Point, commanded the entrance to the bay.

The fort had been garrisoned only the day before, and Tandy was one of the garrison.

Sam's boat had drifted further west than he had supposed, and he found himself now precisely at the point he had tried to reach.
* * * * * As Sam was too weak to walk, and there was no wind with which to sail up to the town, a messenger was sent by land from the fort, bearing to General Jackson a detailed account of Sam's wanderings and adventures in the shape of a written report.

When the wind served, the little band of weary wanderers sailed up to Mobile, and when Sam reached the hospital to which he had been assigned for the treatment of his wounds, he found there an official despatch from General Jackson, from which the following is an extract:-- "The commanding General begs to express his high sense of the services rendered by Samuel Hardwicke and his band, and his appreciation of the rare courage, discretion and fortitude displayed by the youthful leader of the Pensacola scouting party.

A few blank commissions in the volunteer forces having been placed in the commanding General's hands for bestowal upon deserving men, he is greatly pleased to issue the first of them to Mr.Hardwicke, in recognition of his gallant conduct, creating him a captain of volunteers, to date from the day of his departure on his recent mission." "So, you're really 'Captain Sam' after all," said Sid Russell, when the document was read in his presence, and the formal commission had been inspected reverently by all the boys.
"Yes, an' he's been a real 'Captain Sam' all the time," said Billy Bowlegs.
What became of Jake Elliott?
If he had been an enlisted soldier he would have been tried by court martial.