On the northern frontier such a man as Andrew Jackson might have changed the whole aspect of the war.

He was a great general with the rare attribute of reading correctly the mind of an opponent and divining his course of action, endowed with an unyielding temper and an iron hand, a relentless purpose, and the faculty of inspiring troops to follow, obey, and trust him in the last extremity.
He was one of them, typifying their passions and prejudices, their faults and their virtues, sharing their hardships as if he were a common private, never grudging them the credit in success.
In the light of previous events it is probable that any other American general would have felt justified in abandoning New Orleans without a contest.

In the city itself were only eight hundred regulars newly recruited and a thousand volunteers.

But Jackson counted on the arrival of the hard-bitted, Indian-fighting regiments of Tennessee who were toiling through the swamps with their brigadiers, Coffee and Carroll.
The foremost of them reached New Orleans on the very day that the British were landing on the river bank.

Gaunt, unshorn, untamed were these rough-and-tumble warriors who feared neither God nor man but were glad to fight and die with Andrew Jackson.