War of 1812 -- Andrew Jackson's Intelligence Network

Jackson had a highly effective intelligence network, particularly considering how little he had to work with, in terms of funds and man-power, and how far away he was from even small towns from 1813 until going to New Orleans at the end of 1815. He must have had a lot of messengers, and very effective ones.  I'm sitting here with the volumes of his correspondence from these years, so I can see Jackson wrote  constantly, despite being so ill for so much of the time. He also seems to have had access to large numbers of newspapers from the Caribbean.  When he gets to Mobile and the Gulf in 1814, there is that route of information, which he combs assiduously to his and the nation's profit.

But his letters don't give clues as to who is sending him info.  It has nothing to do with the mission of The American Slave Coast, but my curiosity as to his spy network has been growing.  Finally, appears a book that carries some information on this subject, Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and The Battle of  New Orleans 1812 - 1815 (1981), by Frank Lawrence Owsley, Jr. University of Florida, Gainesville. The info comes from the papers of two of Jackson's correspondents, who, as even in this little book of scholarship, are ignored by history other than as cites and footnotes.

With this warning constantly being brought to the general's attention, he moved his headquarters to Mobile, closer to the source of his espionage reports.  The names and addresses of most of Jackson's informants indicate that they were located either in Pensacola or New Orleans .... Since Pensacola was a neutral Spanish port, it was not under the regular British blockade and received a constant supply of letters and newspapers from the islands of the Gulf and the Caribbean.

One of the best sources were the papers out of Havana, and out of Jamaica.

This is how Jackson, his governor and all the other interested parties came to the consensus that the target was going to be either Mobile or New Orleans.  Jackson decided it would be New Orleans with just barely enough time to leave Mobile and get to New Orleans and organize the defense.