Audubon was planning during the coming year to explore the west coast of Florida, in company with his son and Edward Harris, and to proceed as far as possible along the coast of Texas. From Philadelphia he went to Baltimore, and on November 8 he arrived at Washington. His steadfast friend and supporter, Colonel John James Abert, then at the head of the Topographical Bureau, took him to the White House to call on President Andrew Jackson and present his letters. The General, said Audubon, looked well and was smoking a pipe; after reading his letters attentively, he said at once: "Mr. Audubon, I will do all in my power to serve you, but the Seminole war, will, I fear, prevent you from having a cutter; however, as we shall have a committee at twelve o'clock, we will consider this, and give you an answer tomorrow." Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury, was as friendly as ever, and offered the party passage to Charleston on the _Campbell_, a vessel of fifty-five tons carrying three guns and twenty-one men, but Audubon, who was a poor sailor, preferred to travel by land and await the coming of this boat at the Bachman home. Before leaving the capital the naturalist and his son were invited to dine informally at the White House, and he had the opportunity of studying at close range "a man who had done much good and much evil to our country." Said Audubon of this dinner: I sat close to him; we spoke of olden times, and touched slightly on politics, and I found him very averse to the cause of the Texans.... The dinner was what might be called plain and substantial in England; I dined from a fine young turkey, shot within twenty miles of Washington. The general drank no wine, but his health was drunk by us more than once; and he ate very moderately, his last dish consisting of bread and milk.[141] Audubon, with his son, John, left Washington on the 10th of November, and after traveling six days on one of "the most extraordinary railroads in the world," they reached the city of Charleston, where, under the hospitable roof of John Bachman, the party eventually passed the winter, though momentarily expecting their vessel, which did not arrive. During this long interval of waiting, Audubon made drawings of all the new birds in the Nuttall-Townsend collection, representing upwards of seventy figures, and Miss Maria Martin, Bachman's sister-in-law, again assisted him in drawing plants and insects.