The Battle of New Orleans by Don Troiani.
This week marked the bicentennial of the
Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Despite the fact that the clash occurred a full week after hostilities officially ceased, the battle remains a celebrated moment of the understudied war. Regardless of this peculiarity, the battle offered
resonance to the young American republic by vindicating the results of the Revolution. With the outcome of the war unknowingly decided, the green troops of the thirty-nine year old United States
squared off with battle-hardened Britons, many of whom would help thrash Napoleon
into submission only six months later at Waterloo.
By
December 1815, the war stood at a point of uncertainty. The previous August, British forces under the
command of Robert Ross drove American forces from Washington City and subsequently torched the capitol. Within the month, however, the United States
attained resounding victories at the Battle of Plattsburgh in New York and at
the gates of Baltimore. Amidst this
tactical seesaw of defeat and victory, displeased anti-war Federalists congregated
in Hartford, Connecticut in December to contemplate the possibility of
secession from the Union.[i] This home front unrest occurred against
the backdrop of ongoing peace negotiations between British and American
diplomats at Veldstraat in Ghent, Belgium.
The British officials wanted to negotiate from a position of
strength. At this time, they hoped Sir
Alexander Cochrane and his massive force of 10,000 men could capture the
port city of New Orleans to lend leverage at the treaty table.[ii]
But
one man in particular was determined to prevent this scenario:
General Andrew Jackson. Although not
looked favorably upon by President James Madison, Jackson was appointed
commander of the 7th Military District and oversaw actions
of the greater New Orleans region. His
colorfully gruff experiences as a soldier, frontiersman, lawyer, and duelist earned him a confident aura that prepared him to face
off with the enemy he so despised.
Jackson’s intense abhorrence of anything British was bitterly linked to
his experiences during the Revolutionary War. That conflict claimed his mother and two brothers while Jackson himself was scarred by a spiteful British officer. Facing his old foe at New Orleans was Andrew Jackson’s opportunity for retribution.[iii]
Arriving
in New Orleans on December 1, 1814, “Old Hickory” defiantly exclaimed to crowds
in the city’s Place d’Armes (now Jackson Square), “[Y]ou must all rally around
me in this emergency, cease all differences and divisions, and unite with me in
patriotic resolve to save this city from dishonor and disaster which a presumptuous
enemy threatens to inflict upon it.”[iv]
He continued his oration by revealing what was at stake by explaining they, as
Americans, belonged to no czar or emperor: “No – we are the free born sons of
America; the citizens of the only republick [sic] now existing in the world; and the
only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they
dare call their own.”[v] Despite the fact Jackson was a slave owner,
he viewed military service by the men of New Orleans as a civic obligation regardless of race. Therefore, Jackson commanded what was likely
the most racially and culturally diverse fighting force seen until
the military’s desegregation in 1948.
Standing in the general’s ranks were Creoles, Spanish settlers, Native
American scouts, African Americans (both free and enslaved), Kentucky militia,
U. S. Regulars, and even Baratarian pirates under the command of infamous
buccaneer Jean LaFitte. By this time, Jackson’s eclectic force
numbered 4,000 men.[vi]
But
that number remained a far cry from Cochrane’s 10,000 crack troops. By early December, the Brits
entered Louisiana from the Gulf of Mexico and sailed their way to the northern
rim of Lake Borgne, located about a dozen miles southeast of the city. There, on December 14, American officer
Thomas Ap Catesby Jones reformed his gunboats to engage the much larger British
flotilla. The Yanks lost
two vessels and incurred a causality rate slightly greater than they inflicted.
(Jones was among the wounded.) Despite
the sinking of several British barges and buying Jackson some time, the
encounter at Lake Borgne was an unsuccessful endeavor for the Americans as
it offered the British free access of the surrounding lakes. Furthermore,
many of the bayous and canals were not blocked, giving even further flexibility
to the British boatmen.[vii]
The
British began landing in force the following day. Before day’s end, scores of infantry advanced
to the Villeré and La Coste Plantations a sheer eight miles south of the city –
and then stopped. This halt became a
lost opportunity for the British to capture the city
while American forces remained largely disorganized. The invading army believed Jackson had
far more men than he actually did.
Nevertheless, panic ensued in the streets of New Orleans. Out of fears that many citizens would
corroborate with the enemy, Jackson established martial law. He warned the
citizenry: “[L]ook to your liberties, your
property, the chastity of your wives and daughters” by serving rather than
shirking.[viii]
The
Americans quietly rushed to the nearby Laronde Plantation bordering the
Mississippi River. Only a few hundred
yards separated the two lines as dusk fell.
Into the early evening of December 23, the U.S.S. Carolina covertly sailed its way downriver into the darkness of the
vast Mississippi, hoping to catch the British encampment off guard.[ix] At 7:30, its guns echoed in the still
Louisiana night, raining iron upon unsuspecting Redcoats unaccustomed to combat
in the darkness. “By the Eternal they
shall not sleep on our soil,” Jackson smirked.
The Battle of New Orleans had begun.[x]
Immediately following this loud commencement of hostilities, some 1,500 U. S.
troops ambushed the British camp, engaging in brutal hand-to-hand combat with
bayonets, knives, and tomahawks. Despite
having the element of surprise, the boisterous Americans were
forced to withdraw amidst a thick fog that created confusion and friendly fire. The two armies remained in a tense standoff
for several days as they mended their wounds.
This situation, however, did not prevent Jackson’s furtive Tennessee
rifleman from sneaking into British camps to wreak havoc under the cover of night.[xi]
On
December 25, the day following the signing of the Ghent Treaty, Sir Edward Pakenham arrived on the field. As the
replacement for General Robert Ross (killed in the Baltimore Campaign), Pakenham
was a flamboyant and battle-tested leader who was also the brother-in-law of
the Duke of Wellington. Aspiring to Wellington’s
feats in Europe, Pakenham was eager to achieve his own decisive Waterloo-style
victory against the American bumpkins.
At thirty-seven years of age, Pakenham was undeniably one of Britain’s
most trusted officers.[xii] Upon arrival, the general immediately
surveyed the lines. In the time since
the December 23 skirmish, Jackson transformed the Rodriguez Canal into a
formidable line of fortifications. Pakenham
concluded the only way to drive the enemy from the field was to attack them
head-on, for the Mississippi on their left and the Cypress Swamps on their
right largely prohibited the British from exercising any grand flanking maneuvers. (The main British advance was delayed
thanks to the marshy conditions. The
commanders did not wish to repeat such an exercise.) Three days later, Pakenham sent forth scouts
and pickets to test the American lines and determine the weakest points in
their defenses. Shortly thereafter a
massive British cannonade was initiated to further weaken “Line Jackson.”[xiii]
Shortly
after ten o’clock, over two dozen heavy British guns and scores of rocket
launchers unleashed a flurry of shot and shell upon the
American defenses. Jackson’s
headquarters, located as the Macarty Plantation, suffered damage from
over 100 artillery projectiles.
Initially frightened by the rockets streaming through the air, the
American defenders soon realized they posed little threat and were nothing more
than ineffective psychological weapons.
The men were further assured when Jackson himself rode up and noted,
“Don’t mind those rockets . . .they are mere toys to amuse children.” Another colorful tale of the artillery contest
involved British batteries which used barrels of sugar for their fortifications. As
ideal targets for American gunners, these barrels burst upon impact and rained
sugar on the guns. When matched with the
heat of the artillery, the sugar quickly melted into sludge and disabled
multiple cannon. Yet, the bombardment as a
whole was no laughing matter. Jackson
lost several of his precious guns while the duel raged. Major Howell Tatum later noted, “I had never
before witnessed so severe a cannonade for the time it lasted, as on this
occasion (even in the 6 weeks of siege of the City of Charleston in 1780) the
firing was, almost, without interruption on both sides for nearly three hours.”[xiv] The main attack was soon to follow.
That
moment came on January 8, 1815. Pakenham’s
battle plan was extremely complex. His
success rested in timing. The British strategy
involved a three-pronged attack on Line Jackson. General John Keane was to lead his 3rd
Brigade in an attack upon the American right flank along the river. At the same moment, Major General Samuel
Gibbs, with nearly four full regiments, would strike Major General William
Carroll’s defenses on the grounds of the Chalmette Plantation. For the grand finale, Major General John
Lambert would rush his highlanders into the breach as Gibbs overran Carroll’s
stronghold.[xv] However, Lieutenant
Colonel Thomas Mullins of the British 44th Regiment failed to order
his men to collect the ladders necessary for scaling the earthen walls of Line
Jackson. This seemingly insignificant logistical oversight
proved a fatal error for the attacking force.[xvi]
As
the fog lifted from No Man’s Land on the morning of the 8th, two
British rockets were fired from either flanks of the attacking force as signals to commence the assault. Almost 9,000
strong, ten regiments of seasoned troops emerged. Due to
the sheer size of the force, however, the three phases of the attack were
launched at different times – weakening the overall effectiveness of the
column. The British troops were cut down
at a significant rate before the American defenses. Canister shot decimated entire
companies. General Gibbs fell mortally wounded. Pakenham suffered the same fate when he was
struck down. Lambert too was wounded while trying to
assist Gibb’s efforts. With the British
chain of command literally shot to pieces, the attack quickly deteriorated into
a mass retreat. What resulted was one of
the most one-sided victories in American military history. While the Brits suffered in excess of 2,000
men killed, wounded, captured, or missing, Jackson’s force sustained only
seventy casualties. A resounding cheer
arose from the American lines as their enemy “skedaddled” across the open
field.[xvii]
Upon
their return to the city, Jackson and his men were greeted with a triumphant
celebration.
When word of the Treaty of Ghent arrived some weeks later, those
celebrations were echoed throughout the entire nation. Although the Battle of New Orleans took place
following the war’s official end, the engagement helped create the identity of
a stalwart nation that enabled itself to defeat overwhelming forces and cement
its national character.[xviii] This new sense of pride and patriotic
euphoria reignited the notion of Manifest Destiny – that it was America’s
providence to explore, expand, and endure.
Perhaps no person in the nation’s young history helped usher this ideal more than Andrew Jackson.
As a noted frontiersman and leader, he eventually rode his fame to the
White House. Jackson embodied all the
motivations and contradictions of the evolving nation. Although he was a firm defender of the Union
and stated that all were “born free,” these sentiments were not conveyed to
slaves or Native Americans during his administration. Nevertheless, the Battle of New Orleans
helped forge the man and his republic amidst a new age of
expansion and reinvention.
[i] Stuart, Reginald C. Civil-military
Relations During the War of 1812. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security
International, 2009, 110.
[ii] Borneman, Walter R. 1812: The
War That Forged a Nation. New York: HarperCollins, 2004, 292.
[iii] Remini, Robert Vincent. The
Battle of New Orleans. New York: Viking, 1999, 12.
[iv] Ibid., 43.
[v] Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson:
His Life and times. New York: Anchor, 2006, 163.
[vi] Vogel, Robert C. "Jean
Laffite, the Baratarians, and the Battle of New Orleans: A Reappraisal." Louisiana
History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 41.3 (2000):
261-76. JSTOR. Web. 8 Dec. 2010, 265.
[vii] Remini, 53-5.
[viii] Smith, Zachary F. The Battle of New Orleans. New York: Forgotten Books, 1904, 34.
[ix] Tallant, Robert. The Pirate
Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans. New York: Random House, 1951, 134.
[x] Remini, 73.
[xi] Ibid., 77.
[xii] Pickles, Tim. New Orleans
1815: Andrew Jackson Crushes the British. London: Osprey, 1997, 51.
[xiii] Groom, Winston. Patriotic
Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, 270.
[xiv] Remini, 111.
[xv] Picles, 24-5.
[xvi] Howe, Daniel Walker. What
Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York:
Oxford UP, 2007, 12.
[xvii] Remini, 149, 192.
[xviii] Ibid., 185-7.
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