Having secured his men, Jackson's next care was to convert them as rapidly as possible into soldiers, and accordingly his next appeal was directed to this end. Finding that he would not be able to reach Fayetteville at the exact time appointed for the rendezvous, he sent an officer forward with the following address, which was read to the troops: "We are about to furnish these savages a lesson of admonition. We are about to teach them that our long forbearance has not proceeded from an insensibility to wrongs or an inability to redress them. They stand in need of such warning. In proportion as we have borne with their insults and submitted to their outrages, they have multiplied in number and increased in atrocity. But the measure of their offences is at length filled. The blood of our women and children recently spilt at Fort Mims calls for our vengeance; it must not call in vain. Our borders must no longer be disturbed by the war-whoop of these savages and the cries of their suffering victims. The torch that has been lighted up must be made to blaze in the heart of their own country. It is time they should be made to feel the weight of a power which, because it was merciful, they believed to be impotent. But how shall a war so long forborne, and so loudly called for by retributive justice, be waged? Shall we imitate the example of our enemies in the disorder of their movements and the savageness of their dispositions? Is it worth the character of American soldiers, who take up arms to redress the wrongs of our injured country, to assume no better models than those furnished them by barbarians? No, fellow-soldiers, great as are the grievances that have called us from our homes, we must not permit disorderly passions to tarnish the reputation we shall carry along with us. We must and will be victorious; but we must conquer as men who owe nothing to chance, and who in the midst of victory can still be mindful of what is due to humanity! We will commence the campaign by an inviolable attention to discipline and subordination. Without a strict observance of these, victory must ever be uncertain, and ought hardly to be exulted in even when gained. To what but the entire disregard of order and subordination are we to ascribe the disasters which have attended our arms in the north during the present war? How glorious will it be to remove the blots which have tarnished the fair character bequeathed us by the fathers of our Revolution! The bosom of your general is full of hope. He knows the ardor which animates you, and already exults in the triumph which your strict observance of discipline and good order will render certain." CHAPTER XV. THE MARCH INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.