When Madison and Gallatin in December, 1808, looked to a declaration of war, their first anxiety concerned New Orleans and West Florida. December 2, 1808, Secretary Dearborn gave Wilkinson, then at Washington, orders to direct the new levies of troops toward New Orleans, and to be ready to take command there in person as soon as practicable. In pursuance of these orders, two thousand raw soldiers were directed upon New Orleans from different quarters, and in the midst of war preparations, Jan. 24, 1809, Wilkinson himself embarked from Baltimore.[131] Stopping at Annapolis, Norfolk, and Charleston, he passed six weeks on the Atlantic coast. After the overthrow of the war policy and the close of the session he sailed March 12 from Charleston, and in his mysterious way stopped at Havana and then at Pensacola, “under a special mission from the Executive of the United States.” April 19 he re-entered New Orleans, the scene of his exploits three years before; and he returned as a victor, triumphant over Daniel Clark and the Burr conspirators, as well as over Governor Claiborne, Wade Hampton, and all ill-wishers in the subordinate ranks of the army, of whom Captain Winfield Scott was one. Wilkinson found at New Orleans, in his own words,[132]-- “A body of two thousand undisciplined recruits, men and officers with a few exceptions sunk in indolence and dissipation; without subordination, discipline, or police, and nearly one third of them sick; ... without land or water transport for a single company; medical assistance for two thousand men dependent on two surgeons and two mates, one of the former confined to his bed; a majority of the corps without paymasters; the men deserting by squads; the military agent representing the quartermaster’s department without a cent in his chest, his bills protested, and he on the eve of shutting up his office; a great deficiency of camp equipage; not a haversack in store; the medicine and hospital stores scarcely sufficient for a private practitioner.” The General decided that, first of all, the troops must be removed from the city and sent into camp; but rains made encampment impossible until the river should fall, and May 12 nothing had been done excepting to notify the Secretary of War that in the course of the following week the General meant to select an encampment which would be so placed as to meet an attack from every hostile quarter.[133] His decision was made known to the Secretary of War in a letter dated May 29:--