Still suffering and weak from his wound, Jackson arrived at Huntsville with his command the next day, October 11, 1813. The men were wearied with the forced march, and their feet were blistered and lame, so they went to their tents while the volunteers kept watch for the enemy. Although now in charge of at least two thousand men, Jackson was without supplies, and at this time Major Reid, of his staff, wrote to a friend: “At this place [Thompson’s Creek, on the Tennessee] we remain a day to establish a depot for provisions; but where these provisions are to come from, God Almighty only knows. I speak seriously when I declare that we may soon have to eat our horses, which may be the best use we can put a great many of them to.” Of Davy’s movements between October 11th and the following month, we have no account, but he could have played only a minor part in the waiting game that took place. But one day in November, Coffee, with eight hundred volunteers, including Davy’s company, went west to Mussel Shoals, where they crossed the Tennessee, losing some of their horses in the dangerous and rocky fording. From there the expedition struck south, crossing the Warrior River, to Black Warrior’s town, near the present site of Tuscaloosa. Here they found some corn and a lot of dried beans, but no Indians. They burned the town, and turned back to meet the main army at the place where Davy and his scouts had waited in vain for Major Gibson, in October. The next day the supply of meat gave out, and Davy went to Coffee and asked permission to hunt while the march progressed. He says Coffee told him he might do so, but to take good care of himself. Within an hour he found a freshly-killed deer, skinned and still warm. He knew that an Indian must have fled at his approach, and, even under the conditions, had scruples against taking the meat. What he tells of this is so typical of his character that it should be repeated: “Though I was never much in favor of one hunter stealing from another, yet meat was so scarce in camp that I thought I must go in for it. So I just took up the deer on my horse before me, and carried it on till night. I could have sold it for almost any price I would have asked; but this wasn’t my rule, neither in peace nor war. Whenever I had anything, and saw a fellow-being suffering, I was more anxious to relieve him than to benefit myself. And this is one of the secrets of my being a poor man to this day. But it is my way; and while it has often left me with an empty purse, which is as near the devil as anything else I have ever seen, yet it has never left my heart empty of consolations which money couldn’t buy, of having sometimes fed the hungry and covered the naked.” Davy kept enough of the deer for his own mess, and gave the rest away. Most of the men were living on parched corn.