The bustling young town did itself proud in entertaining its distinguished visitor. There were military reviews to the sound of martial music, the firing of salutes, and the cheers of the crowds along the way. Crowning the celebration was a banquet at which General Jackson undertook to repay Burr’s hospitality in kind, and where toasts were drunk until late in the evening. After the public festivities were concluded Burr stayed on for five days as a guest of Andrew and Rachel Jackson at the Hermitage. The Jacksons had only recently moved in and the dwelling that was to become so intimately associated with them was a mere blockhouse consisting of a single room downstairs, two rooms upstairs, a kitchen, and a detached guest house in the yard. From Nashville Burr proceeded to New Orleans where his welcome was as cordial as that extended him in Kentucky and Tennessee. In August he was back in Nashville after a strenuous journey on horseback through wild country that would have tested the physical vigor of any man and satisfied the Tennesseans that here was no effete easterner but a red-blooded individual who could keep pace with the best of them. This was not the Burr of the drawing room but the veteran warrior of the Quebec campaign and numerous pitched battles of the Revolution. On this occasion Burr was a guest at the Hermitage for eight days. Of the second visit the Colonel wrote in glowing terms to Theodosia: “For a week I have been lounging at the house of General Jackson, once a lawyer, after a judge, now a planter; a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank ardent souls whom I love to meet.” What bond held the two men together? No formal record was kept of their conversations but more than a year later, when much had happened, the General wrote a letter to a friend in Washington, George W. Campbell, that throws light on the two meetings. Prevalent throughout the western country was the belief that war with Spain was inevitable and imminent. Spain had been forced against her will to consent to the sale of Louisiana by Napoleon to the United States. New Orleans, though now an American possession, was flanked by the Floridas on one side and by Mexico on the other, both still Spanish territory. A Spanish army stood threateningly on the Sabine River which separated Texas from Louisiana. Acquisition of Louisiana Territory, too, brought on a renewed fever for expansion in the western country. Underlying the spirit of unrest was the fact of an aged dying empire faced by a young and virile country. The West was so confident of itself and so contemptuous of the Spaniards that it longed for action. No person there was more impatient than Andrew Jackson who looked scornfully at the dilatory policy in Washington. In Aaron Burr he thought he saw the dynamic leader needed to put an end to dilly-dallying.