Notwithstanding she had leaped to the
redoubt amid screaming shells and whistling balls, to persuade him back
to the trenches, he could see nothing more tender than love of humanity
in her act. He was so thoroughly convinced that she would wed Lieutenant
Matson, that he was once on the point of asking her when the marriage
would take place, but the subject was too painful to mention.
She followed him quite to the door, and here he said in a voice that was
husky despite his efforts to prevent it:
"Miss Lane,--Morgianna, I had him paroled for your sake. He can remain
in the village."
He was gone before she could make any response. His men were mustered
at peep of day and marched away to Baltimore.
General Andrew Jackson, to whom Fernando Stevens was marching, was the
hero of the war of 1812 in the South. Having utterly crushed the Creek
power and wrung from them a treaty which extinguished them politically
as a nation, he set about securing that portion of the country against
further molestation. The belief that the war in the South was ended
proved a deception when the British suddenly appeared in a large force
in the Gulf of Mexico. By permission of the Spanish governor of Florida,
the British took possession of one of the forts at Pensacola, where they
fitted out an expedition for the capture of Fort Bowyer, [Footnote: Now
Fort Morgan.
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