Zeré's field on the
afternoon
of the twenty-third.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
The story dealt with a certain social phase in the
life of New Orleans; it had a touch of Gallic quality, and was
subtle reading of Creole character and of the negro race also; but
otherwise it had the note of universality which is found in all gen-
uine original literature.
The writer was Grace Elizabeth King of
New Orleans, the daughter of William M.
King, during his life a prominent lawyer,
and before the war a sugar planter in
Louisiana. Miss King passed her childhood
in the city and upon her father's plantation,
and was educated in the French schools
of New Orleans. It is evident from her
writings that she was a keen observer of
country and city life, and a close student of
human nature. New Orleans, when she was
a child, had more affiliations with Paris
than with New York, and her education was GRACE ELIZABETH King
decidedly French; indeed, it may be said
that her sympathy for French literature and her comprehension of it
were so strong and native, that when lately she made a considerable
sojourn in the French capital she did not seem to be in a foreign
atmosphere. To her knowledge of French she added an almost equal
facility in Spanish; so that she was well equipped for both the inves-
tigation and interpretation of the history and romance of Louisiana.
Her first success was followed by several short novels and sto-
ries: 'Bonne Maman,' (Earthlings,' Balcony Stories, some of which
were collected in a volume called "Tales of a Time and Place. The
Balcony Stories) were exquisite and subtle creations, and revealed
in the author an art, a finish in form, and a refined literary quality
which we are accustomed in criticism to call Parisian. No better
work in this sort has been done by any modern writer.
It was natural that Miss King, who is an enthusiastic and accurate
student, should be attracted to the dramatic and romantic history of
eam abort
over the
K'O sturer
ere it was
shed. -
zuch con
ondor lar
Archer
## p. 8574 (#182) ###########################################
8574
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
1
the lower Mississippi. The first results of this study were a life of
Bienville, the founder of New Orleans; a school history of Louisiana,
in collaboration with Professor Fichlin of Tulane University; and a
volume on New Orleans, a sort of personal tribute to her beloved
city. At this writing she is engaged on a life of De Soto, and as a
member of the Louisiana Historical Society is doing excellent work
in original research. While she is likely to increase her reputation
as a local historian, it is easy to predict that her strong constructive
imagination and her bent for fiction will lead her to make use of
her knowledge of early Louisiana for a romance, or for romances,
that will truly interpret the achievements and chivalry of the early
adventurers on our southwest coast. This abundant material for his-
torical novels of a high order she is already trained to handle.
The short stories of Miss King reveal a rare literary artist, and
many of them a power of depicting passion and the actualities of
life transmuted into ideal pictures by her genius of sympathy. They
would be marred unless given entire; and we have preferred to pre-
sent in this volume a brilliant description of an episode in American
history, which has never been so picturesquely and adequately set
forth.
THE GLORIOUS EIGHTH OF JANUARY
From New Orleans, the Place and the People. ) Copyright 1895, by Macmil-
lan & Co. Reprinted by permission of the author and publishers
T
our
I
WAS on the morning of the 2d of December, 1814, as
preferred chronicler of this period, Alexander Walker, relates,
that General Jackson and escort trotted their horses up the
road that leads from Spanish Fort to the city. On arriving at
the junction of Canal Carondelet and Bayou St. John, the party
dismounted before an old Spanish villa, the residence of one of
the prominent bachelor citizens of the day; where, in the marble-
paved hall, breakfast had been prepared for them,-a breakfast
such as luxury then could command from Creole markets and
cooks, for a guest whom one wished to honor. But, the story
goes, the guest of honor partook --- and that sparingly-only of
hominy. This reached a certain limit of endurance. At a whis-
per from a servant, the host excused himself, left the table, and
passed into the antechamber.
He was accosted by his fair friend
and neighbor who had volunteered her assistance for the occa-
sion.
"Ah, my friend, how could you play such a trick upon me?
You asked me to prepare your house to receive a great general.
## p. 8575 (#183) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8575
re a life di
f Louisiana
'sity; and
er beora
, and as a
lent werk
eputatlar
structive
? use
mances
che eats
al for his
idle.
artist, and
tualities
thy. The
red to pares
America
juately set
I did so.
And I prepared a splendid breakfast. And now! I
find that my labor is all thrown away upon an old (Kaintuck'
flatboatman, instead of a great general with plumes, epaulettes,
long sword, and mustache. ”
Indeed, to female eyes, trained upon a Galvez, a Carondelet,
a Casa Calvo, Andrew Jackson must have represented indeed
a very unsatisfactory commandant-general. His dress — a small
leathern cap, a short blue Spanish cloak, frayed trousers, worn
and rusty high-top boots was deficient; and even for a flatboat-
man, threadbare.
But his personality, to equitable female eyes,
should have been impressive if not pleasing: a tall, gaunt, inflex-
ibly erect figure; a face sallow, it is true, and seamed and
wrinkled with the burden of heavy thought, but expressing to
the full the stern decision and restless energy which seemed the
very soul of the man; heavy brows shaded his fierce bright eyes,
and iron-gray hair bristled thick over his head.
From the villa the party trotted up the Bayou Road to its
intersection with the city, where stood a famous landmark in old
times: the residence of General Daniel Clarke, a great American
in the business and political world of the time. Here carriages
awaited them, and a formal delegation of welcome, — all the nota-
bilities, civil and military, the city afforded, headed by Governor
Claiborne and the mayor of the city: a group which, measured
by after achievements, could not be considered inconsiderable
either in number or character.
General Jackson, who talked as he fought — by nature - and
had as much use for fine words as for fine clothes, answered the
stately eloquence addressed him, briefly and to the point. He
had come to protect the city, and he would drive the enemy into
the sea or perish in the attempt. It was the eloquence for the
people and the time. As an interpreter repeated the words in
French, they passed from lip to lip, rousing all the energy they
conveyed. They sped with Jackson's carriage into the city,
where heroism has ever been most infectious; and the crowd that
ra n after him through the streets to see him alight, and to cheer
the flag unfurled from his headquarters on Royal Street, expressed
not so much the conviction that the savior of the city was there
in that house, as that the savior of the city was there in every
man's soul.
That evening the “Kaintuck” flatboatman was again subjected
to the ordeal of woman's eyes. A dinner party of the most
by Macmi
hers
4, as our
-; relates
s up the
riving at
he party
f one of
marble-
breakfast
sets and
de stort
only of
3 whic
le, and
T friend
e acca
On 720
general
## p. 8576 (#184) ###########################################
8576
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
(
>>
fashionable society had already assembled at a prominent and
distinguished house, when the host announced to his wife that he
had invited General Jackson to join them. She, as related by a
descendant, did what she could under the trying circumstances;
and so well prepared her guests for the unexpected addition to
their party, that the ladies kept their eyes fixed upon the door
with the liveliest curiosity, expecting to see it admit nothing
less than some' wild man of the woods, some curious specimen
of American Indian, in uniform. When it opened and General
Jackson entered, grave, self-possessed, martial, urbane, their aston-
ishment was not to be gauged. When the dinner was over and
he had taken his leave, the ladies all exclaimed with one impulse
to the hostess, “Is this your red Indian! Is this your wild man
of the woods! He is a prince. ”
!
From now on, the city was transformed into a martial camp.
Every man capable of bearing arms was mustered into service.
All the French émigrés in the community volunteered in the
ranks, only too eager for another chance at the English. Pris-
oners in the Calaboose were released and armed. To the old
original fine company of freemen of color another was added,
formed of colored refugees from St. Domingo, - men who had
sided with the whites in the revolution there. Lafitte, notwith-
standing the breaking up and looting of his establishment at
Barataria, made good his offer to the State by gathering his
Baratarians from the Calaboose and their hiding-places, and or-
ganizing them into two companies under the command of Domi-
nique You and Beluche. From the parishes came hastily gathered
volunteers, in companies and singly. The African slaves, catching
the infection, labored with might and main upon the fortifica-
tions ordered by Jackson; and even the domestic servants, it is
recorded, burnished their masters' arms and prepared ammunition
with the ardor of patriots.
The old men
were formed into a
home guard and given the patrol of the city. Martial law was
proclaimed. The reinforcements from the neighboring territories
arrived: a fine troop of horse from Mississippi, under the gallant
Hinds; and Coffee, with his ever-to-be-remembered brigade of
"Dirty Shirts,” who after a march of eight hundred miles, an-
swered Jackson's message to hasten by covering in two days the
one hundred and fifty miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
At the levee, barges and flatboats landed the militia of Tennes-
see, under Carroll.
## p. 8577 (#185) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8577
On the oth of December, eight days after Jackson's arrival
in the city, the British fleet entered Lake Borgne. In the har-
bor of Ship Island, in the pass between it and Cat Island, out to
Chandeleur Islands, as far as the spy-glass could carry, the eye
of the lookout saw; and saw British sails. Never before had so
august a visitation honored these distant waters. The very names
of the ships and of their commanders were enough to create a
panic. The Tonnant, the heroic Tonnant, of eighty guns, capt-
ured from the French at the battle of the Nile, with Vice-
Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane and Rear-Admiral Codrington;
the Royal Oak, seventy-four guns, Rear-Admiral Malcolm; the
Ramillies, under Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's friend; the Norge,
the Bedford, the Asia, all seventy-four-gunners; the Armide, Sir
Thomas Trowbridge; the Sea Horse, Sir James Alexander Gor-
don, fresh from the banks of the Potomac, — there were fifty sail,
in all carrying over a thousand guns, commanded by the élite of
the British navy, steered by West-Indian pilots, followed by a
smaller fleet of transports, sloops, and schooners. It seemed only
proper that with such ships and such an army as the ships car-
ried, a full and complete list of civil officers should be sent out,
to conduct the government of the country to be annexed to his
Majesty's dominions, - revenue collectors, printers, clerks, with
printing-presses and office paraphernalia. Merchant ships accom-
panied the squadron to carry home the spoils; and even many
ladies, wives of the officers, came along to share in the glory and
pleasure of the expedition. «I expect at this moment,” remarked
Lord Castlereagh in Paris almost at the exact date, “that most
of the large seaport towns of America are laid in ashes; that we
are in possession of New Orleans, and have command of all the
rivers of the Mississippi Valley and the Lakes; and that the
Americans are now little better than prisoners in their own
country. ”
The city must indeed have appeared practically defenseless to
any foe minded to take it. There was no fortification, properly
speaking, at the Balise. Fort St. Philip, on the river below the
city, was small, out of repair, badly equipped and poorly muni-
tioned. Back of the city there was pretty, picturesque Spanish
Fort, a military bauble; a hasty battery had been thrown up
where Bayou Chef Menteur joins Bayou Gentilly; and further
out, on the Rigolets, was the little mud fort of Petites Coquilles
(now Fort Pike). As every bayou from lake to river was, in
high water, a high-road to the city, these had been closed and
XV-537
## p. 8578 (#186) ###########################################
8578
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
rafted by order of the government; and by the same token,
Bayou Manchac has remained closed ever since.
Vice-Admiral Cochrane promptly commenced his programme.
Forty-five launches and barges, armed with carronades and manned
by a thousand soldiers and sailors, were sent to clear the lakes
of the American flag.
What the Americans called their fleet on the lakes consisted
of six small gunboats, carrying thirty-five guns, commanded by
Lieutenant T. Ap Catesby Jones. These had been sent by Com-
modore Patterson to observe the English feet, and prevent if
possible the landing of their troops. If pressed by a superior
force, they were to fall back through the Rigolets upon Fort
Petites Coquilles. In obeying his orders, Jones in vain tried to
beat through the Rigolets, with the current against him; his
boats were carried into the narrow channel between Malheureux
Island and Point Clear, where they stuck in the mud.
Jones
anchored therefore in as close line as he could, across the chan-
nel; and after a spirited address to his force of one hundred and
eighty-two men, awaited the attack.
It was about ten o'clock of a beautiful December morning.
The early fog lifted to show the British halting for breakfast,
gay, careless, and light-hearted as if on a picnic party. The sur-
face of the lake was without a ripple, the blue heavens without
a cloud.
At a signal the advance was resumed. On the flotilla
came, in the beautiful order and in the perfect line and time with
which the sturdy English oarsmen had pulled it through the
thirty-six miles, without pause or break, from Ship Island; each
boat with its glittering brass carronade at its prow, its serried
files of scarlet uniforms and dazzling crest of bayonets, and the
six oars on each side flashing in and out of the water.
The American boats lay silent, quiet, apparently lifeless.
Then
a flash, a roar, and a shot went crashing through the scarlet line.
With an
answer from their carronades, the British barges leaped
forward and clinched with the gunboats. It was musket to mus-
ket, pistol to pistol, cutlass to cutlass, man to man; with shouts
and cries, taunts and imprecations, and the steady roar through-
out of the American cannon, cutting with deadly aim into the
open British barges, capsizing, sinking them,—the water spot-
ting with struggling red uniforms.
Two of the American boats were captured, and their guns
turned against the others; and the British barges closing in, the
American crews one by one were beaten below their own decks
## p. 8579 (#187) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8579
and overpowered. By half-past twelve the British flag waved
triumphant over Lake Borgne.
The British troops were forwarded in transports from the fleet
to the Île des Pois, near the mouth of Pearl River: a bare little
island and a desolate camp, where, with no tents, the men were
drenched with dew and chilled with frosts during the night, and
during the day parched with the sun; many died from it. From
some fisherman it was learned that about fifty miles west of Île
aux Pois there was a bayou that had not been closed and was
not defended, and which was navigable by barges for twelve
miles, where it joined a canal leading to a plantation on the
river a few miles below the city. To test the accuracy of the
information, Sir Alexander Cochrane dispatched a boat under
charge of the Hon. Captain Spencer, son of the Earl of Spencer,
to reconnoitre the route. Arrived at the Spanish fishermen's
village on the banks of Bayou Bienvenu, the young captain and
a companion, disguising themselves in the blue shirts and tar-
paulins of fishermen, paddled in a pirogue through the bayou
and canal (Villeré's), walked to the Mississippi, took a drink of
its waters, surveyed the country, interviewed some negroes; and
returned with the report that the route was not only practicable
but easy.
Sixteen hundred men and two cannon were embarked imme-
diately for the bayou. The sky was dark and lowering; heavy
rains fell during the whole day; the fires of charcoal, which could
be kept burning in daylight, were extinguished at night; and the
sharp frost cramped the soldiers into numbness. A detail sent
in advance on a reconnoissance surprised and captured four pick-
ets, who were held at the mouth of the bayou until the flotilla
came up to it. One of the prisoners, a Creole gentleman, was
presented to Sir Alexander Cochrane, the British commander,-
a rough-looking, white-haired old gentleman, dressed in plain
and much-worn clothing; and to General Keane, a tall, youthful,
black-whiskered man in military undress. Their shrewd cross-
questioning extracted from the Creole only the false statement
that Jackson's forces in the city amounted to twelve thousand
men, and that he had stationed four thousand at English Turn.
As the untruth had been preconcerted, it was confirmed by the
other prisoners, and believed by the British officers.
At dawn the barges entered the bayou. The English sail-
ors standing to their oars, pushed their heavy loads through the
## p. 8580 (#188) ###########################################
8580
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
»
tortuous shallow water. By nine o'clock the detachment was safe
on shore. «The place," writes the English authority, an officer
during the campaign, “was as wild as it is possible to imagine.
Gaze where we might, nothing could be seen except a huge
marsh covered with tall reeds. The marsh became gradually
less and less continuous, being intersected by wide spots of firm
ground; the reeds gave place by degrees to wood, and the wood
to inclosed fields. "
The troops landed, formed into columns, and pushing after
the guides and engineers, began their march. The advance was
slow and toilsome enough to such novices in swamping. But
cypresses, palmettos, cane-brakes, vines, and mire were at last
worried through; the sun began to brighten the ground, and the
front ranks, quickening their step, broke joyfully into an open
field near the expected canal. Beyond a distant orange grove,
the buildings of the Villeré plantation could be seen. Advancing
rapidly along the side of the canal and under cover of the orange
grove, a company gained the buildings, and spreading out, sur-
rounded them. The surprise was absolute. Major Villeré and
his brother, sitting on the front gallery of their residence, jumped
from their chairs at the sight of the red-coats before them; their
rush to the other side of the house only showed them that they
were bagged.
Secured in one of his own apartments, under guard of Brit-
ish soldiers, the young Creole officer found in his reflections the
spur to a desperate attempt to save himself and his race from a
suspicion of disloyalty to the United States, which under the cir-
cumstances might easily be directed against them by the Ameri-
cans. Springing suddenly through his guards, and leaping from
a window, he made a rush for the high fence that inclosed the
yard, throwing down the soldiers in his way. He cleared the
fence at a bound, and ran across the open field that separated
him from the forest. A shower of musket-balls fell around him.
“Catch or kill him! ” was shouted behind him. But the light,
agile Creole, with the Creole hunter's training from infancy, was
more than a match for his pursuers in such a race as that.
He
gained the woods, a swamp, while they were crossing the field,
spreading out as they ran to shut him in.
He sprang over
the boggy earth, into the swamp; until his feet, sinking deeper
and deeper, clogged and stuck. The Britons were gaining; had
reached the swa mp.
He could hear them panting and blowing,
## p. 8581 (#189) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8581
6
i
1
1
.
1
umns.
and the orders which made his capture inevitable. There was
but one chance: he sprang up a cypress-tree, and strove for the
thick moss and branches overhead. Half-way up, he heard a
whimpering below. It was the voice of his dog, his favorite set-
ter, whining, fawning, and looking up to him with all the pathos
of brute fidelity. There was no choice; it was her life or his,
and with his, perhaps the surprise and capture of the city. Drop-
ping to the earth, he seized a billet of wood and aimed one blow
between the setter's devoted eyes; with the tears in his own eyes,
he used to relate. To throw the body to one side, snatch some
brush over it, spring to the tree again, was the work of an in-
stant. As he drew the moss around his crouching figure and
stilled his hard breathing, the British foundered past. When
they abandoned their useless search, he slid from his covert,
pushed through the swamp to the next plantation, and carried
the alarm at full speed to the city.
The British troops moved up the road along the levee, to the
upper line of the plantation, and took their position in three col-
Headquarters were established in the Villeré residence, in
the yard of which a small battery was thrown up. They were
eight miles from the city and separated from it by fifteen planta-
tions, large and small. By pushing forward, General Keane in
two hours could have reached the city; and the battle of New
Orleans would have taken place then and there, and most proba-
bly a different decision would have been wrested from victory.
The British officers strongly urged this bold line of action; but
Keane, believing the statement that General Jackson had an army
of about fifteen thousand in New Orleans, a force double his
own, feared being cut off from the fleet. He therefore concluded
to delay his advance until the other divisions came up. This
was on the twenty-third day of December.
"Gentlemen,” said Jackson to his aides and secretaries, at half-
past one o'clock, when Villeré had finished his report, “the British
are below: we must fight them to-night. ”
He issued his orders summoning his small force from their
Plauche's battalion was two miles away at Bayou
St. John, Coffee five miles off at Avart's, the colored battalion
at Gentilly.
They were commanded to proceed immediately to
Montreuil's plantation below the city, where they would be joined
by the regulars. Commodore Patterson was directed to get the
gunboat Carolina under way. As the Cathedral clock was strik-
ing three, from every quarter of the city troops were seen coming
various posts.
## p. 8582 (#190) ###########################################
8582
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
>
-
at a quickstep through the streets, each company with its own
vernacular music, Yankee Doodle, La Marseillaise, Le Chant
du Depart. The ladies and children crowded the balconies and
windows to wave handkerchiefs and applaud; the old men stood
upon the banquettes waving their hats, and with more sorrow
in eyes and heart over their impotence than age had ever yet
wrung from them.
Jackson, on horseback, with the regulars drawn up at his
right, waited at the gate of Fort St. Charles to review the troops
as they passed. The artillery were already below, in possession
of the road. The first to march down after them were Beale's
Rifles,- or as New Orleans calls them, Beale's famous Rifles,—
in their blue hunting-shirts and citizens' hats, their long-bores
over their shoulders; sharpshooters and picked shots every one
of them; all young, active, intelligent volunteers, from the best
in the professional and business circles, asking but one favor, the
post of danger. At a hand gallop, and with a cloud of dust,
came Hinds's dragoons, delighting General Jackson by their
gallant, dare-devil bearing. After them Jackson's companion in
arms, the great Coffee, trotted at the head of his mounted gun-
men, with their long hair and unshaved faces, in dingy woolen
hunting-shirts, copperas-dyed trousers, coonskin caps, and leather
belts stuck with hunting-knives and tomahawks. “Forward at a
gallop! ” was Coffee's order, after a word with General Jackson,
and so they disappeared. Through a side street marched a gay,
varied mass of color; men all of a size, but some mere boys in
age, with the handsome, regular features, flashing eyes, and un-
mistakable martial bearing of the French. "Ah! here come the
brave Creoles,” cries Jackson; and Plauche's battalion, which had
come in on a run from Bayou St. John, stepped gallantly by.
And after these, under their white commander, defiled the
freemen of color, and then passed down the road a band of
hundred Choctaw Indians in their war paint; last of all, the reg-
ulars. · Jackson still waited, until a small dark schooner left the
opposite bank of the river and slowly moved down the current.
This was the Carolina, under Commodore Patterson. Then Jack-
son clapped spurs to his horse, and followed by his aides, galloped
after his army.
The veteran corps took the patrol of the now deserted streets.
The ladies retired from balcony and window, with their brave
smiles and fluttering handkerchiefs; and hastening to their re-
spective posts, assembled in coteries to prepare lint and bandages,
a
.
## p. 8583 (#191) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8583
»
»
1
1
and cut and sew; for many of their defenders and Jackson's
warriors had landed on the levee in a ragged if not destitute
condition. Before Jackson left Fort St. Charles, a message had
been sent to him from one of these coteries, asking what they
were to do in case the city was attacked. "Say to the ladies,”
he replied, “not to be uneasy. No British soldier shall ever enter
the city as an enemy, unless over my dead body. ”
As the rumored war-cry of the British was Beauty and
Booty,” many of the ladies, besides thimbles and needles, had
provided themselves with small daggers, which they wore in
their belts.
Here it is the custom of local pride to pause and enumerate
the foes set in array against the men hastening down the levee
road.
First, always, there was that model regiment the Ninety-third
Highlanders, in their bright tartans and kilts; men chosen for
stature and strength, whose broad breasts, wide shoulders, and
stalwart figures widened their ranks into a formidable appear-
ance. The Prince of Orange and his staff had journeyed from
London to Plymouth to review them before they embarked. Then
there were six companies of the Ninety-fifth Rifles; the famous
Rifle Brigade of the Peninsular campaign; the Fourteenth Regi-
ment, the Duchess of York's Light Dragoons; two West-Indian
regiments, with artillery, rocket brigade, sapper and engineer
corps — in all four thousand three hundred men, under command
of Major-General John Keane, a young officer whose past reputa-
tion for daring and gallantry has been proudly kept bright by
the traditions of his New Orleans foes. To these were added
General Ross's three thousand men, fresh from their brilliant
Baltimore and Washington raid. Choice troops they were: the
gallant and distinguished Fourth, or King's Own; the Forty-fourth,
East Essex Foot; the Eighty-fifth, Buck Volunteers, commanded
by one of the most brilliant officers in the British service, Colo-
nel William Thornton; the Twenty-first Royal, North British
Fusileers,— with the exception of the Black Regiments and the
Highlanders, all tried veterans, who had fought with Wellington
through his Peninsular campaign, from the beginning to his tri-
umphant entry into France.
Only the first boat loads, eighteen hundred men, were in Vil.
Zeré's field on the afternoon of the twenty-third. They lay around
their bivouac fires, about two hundred yards from the levee,
## p. 8584 (#192) ###########################################
8584
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
1
(
enjoying their rest and the digestion of the bountiful supper of
fresh meat, poultry, milk, eggs, and delicacies, which had been
added to their rations by a prompt raid on the neighboring
plantations. General Keane and Colonel Thornton paced the gal-
lery of the Villeré house, glancing at each turn towards the wood,
for the sight of the coming of the next division of the army.
The only hostile demonstration during the afternoon had been
the firing of the outpost upon a reconnoitring squad of dragoons,
and a bold dash down the road of a detachment of Hinds's horse-
men - who, after a cool, impudent survey of the British camp,
had galloped away again under a volley from the Rifles.
Darkness gathered over the scene. The sentinels were doubled,
and officers walked their rounds in watchful anxiety. About
seven o'clock some of them observed a boat stealing slowly down
the river. From her careless approach, they thought she must
be one of their own cruisers which had passed the forts below
and was returning from a reconnoissance of the river. She
answered neither hail nor musket shot, but steered steadily on,
veering in close ashore until her broadside was abreast of the
camp. Then her anchor was let loose, and a loud voice was
heard: «Give them this, for the honor of America. " A flash
lighted the dark hulk, and a tornado of grape and musket shot
swept the levee and field. It was the Carolina and Commodore
Patterson: volley after volley followed with deadly rapidity and
precision; the sudden and terrible havoc threw the camp into
blind disorder. The men ran wildly to and fro seeking shelter,
until Thornton ordered them to get under cover of the levee.
There, according to the British version, they lay for an hour.
The night was so black that not an object could be distinguished
at the distance of a yard. The bivouac fires, beat about by the
enemy's shot, burned red and dull in the deserted camp.
A straggling fire of musketry in the direction of the pickets
gave warning of a closer struggle. It paused a few moments,
then a fearful yell, and the whole heavens seemed ablaze with
musketry. The British thought themselves surrounded.
regiments flew to support the pickets; another, forming in close
column, stole to the rear of the encampment and remained there
reserve. After that, all order, all discipline, were lost.
Each officer, as he succeeded in collecting twenty or thirty men
about him, plunged into the American ranks, and began the fight
that Pakenham reported as — “A more extraordinary conflict
Two
as
a
## p. 8585 (#193) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8585
has perhaps never occurred: absolutely hand to hand, both officers
and men. ”
Jackson had marshaled his men along the line of a plantation
canal (the Rodriguez Canal), about two miles from the British.
He himself led the attack on their left. Coffee, with the Ten-
nesseans, Hinds's dragoons, and Beale's rifles, skirting along the
edge of the swamp, made the assault on their right. The broad-
side from the Carolina was the signal to start. It was on the
right that the fiercest fighting was done. Coffee ordered his
men to be sure of their aim, to fire at a short distance, and not
to lose a shot. Trained to the rifle from childhood, the Tennes-
seans could fire faster and more surely than any mere soldier
could ever hope to do. Wherever they heard the sharp crack of
a British rifle, they advanced; and the British were as eager to
meet them. The short rifle of the English service proved also
no match for the long-bore of the Western hunters. When they
came to close quarters, neither side having bayonets, they clubbed
their guns, to the ruin of many a fin weapon.
But the canny
Tennesseans, rather than risk their rifles, their own property,
used for close quarters their long knives and tomahawks, whose
skillful handling they had learned from the Indians.
The second division of the British troops, coming up the
Bayou, heard the firing, and pressing forward with all speed,
arrived in time to reinforce their right; but the superiority in
numbers which this gave them was more than offset by the guns
of the Carolina, which maintained their fire during the action,
and long after it was over.
A heavy fog, as in Homeric times, obscuring the field and the
combatants, put an end to the struggle. Jackson withdrew his
men to Rodriguez Canal; the British fell back to their camp.
A number of prisoners were made on both sides. Among the
Americans taken were a handful of New Orleans's most promi-
nent citizens, who were sent to the fleet at Ship Island. The most
distinguished prisoner made by the Americans was Major Mitch-
ell of the Ninety-fifth Rifles; and to his intense chagrin he was
forced to yield his sword, not to regulars, but to Coffee's uncourtly
Tennesseans. It was this feeling that dictated his answer to
Jackson's courteous message requesting that he would make
known any requisite for his comfort: Return my compliments
o General Jackson, and say that as my baggage will reach me in
a few days I shall be able to dispense with his polite attentions. ”
## p. 8586 (#194) ###########################################
8586
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
a
The chronicler of the anecdote aptly adds, that had the major per-
sisted in this rash determination, he would never have been in a
condition to partake of the hospitalities which were lavished upon
him during his detention in New Orleans and Natchez, where
the prisoners were sent. On his way to Natchez he became the
guest at a plantation famed for its elegance and luxury. At the
supper table he met the daughter of the house, a young Creole
girl as charming and accomplished as she was beautiful. Speak-
ing French fluently, he was soon engaged in a lively conver-
sation with her. She mentioned with enthusiasm a party of
Tennesseans entertained by her father a few days before. Still
smarting from his capture, the major could not refrain from say-
ing: “Mademoiselle, I am astonished that one so refined could
find pleasure in the society of such rude barbarians. ” “Major,
«
she replied with glowing face, “I had rather be the wife of one
of those hardy, coarsely clad men, who have marched two thou-
sand miles to fight for the honor of their country, than wear a
coronet. ”
To return to the battle-field. The Rodriguez Canal, with its
.
embankment, formed a pretty good line of fortifications in itself.
Jackson, without the loss of an hour's time, sent to the city for
spades and picks, and set his army to work deepening the canal
and strengthening the embankment. For the latter, any material
within reach was used: timber, fence rails, bales of cotton (which
is the origin of the myth that he fought behind ramparts of
cotton bales). His men, most of them handling a spade for the
first and last time in their lives, dug as they had fought a few
hours before,- every stroke aimed to tell.
General Jackson established his headquarters in the residence
of the Macarty plantation, within two hundred yards of his in-
trenchments.
The British passed a miserable night. Not until the last fire
was extinguished, and the fog completely veiled the field, did
the Carolina cease her firing and move to the other side of the
river. The men, shivering on the damp ground, exposed to the
cold moist atmosphere, with now none but their scant half-spoiled
rations, were depressed and discouraged; and the officers were
more anxious and uncertain than ever, and more completely in
as to the force opposed to them. From the intrepid ity
and boldness of the Americans, they imagined that at least five
thousand had been in the field that night. Other observations
error
## p. 8587 (#195) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8587
1
1
+
strengthened this misapprehension: each volunteer company, with
its different uniform, represented to military minds so many
different regiments, a tenfold multiplication of the Americans.
Besides, in the din of commands, cries, and answers, as much
French was heard as English. The truth began to dawn upon
the British, that much as the Creoles hated the Americans, they
were not going to allow a foreign invader to occupy a land
which they considered theirs by right of original discovery, occu-
pation, and development, whatever might be the flag or form of
government over them.
The dawning of the twenty-fourth disclosed in the river
another vessel, the Louisiana, in position near the Carolina; and
all day the camp lay helpless under their united cannonading. A
gloomier Christmas-tide, as our genial chronicler Walker puts it,
could hardly be imagined for the sons of Merrie England. Had
it been in the day of the cable, they would have known that
their hardships and bloodshed were over; that at that very date,
the twenty-fourth of December, the peace that terminated the
war between the two contending countries was being signed in
Ghent. The unexpected arrival, however, on Christmas Day, of
the new commander-in-chief, Sir Edward Pakenham, accompanied
by a distinguished staff, sent through the hearts of the British
a thrill of their wonted all-conquering confidence; and the glad
cheers of welcome that greeted Sir Edward from his old com-
panions in arms and veterans of the Peninsula rang over into the
American camp.
Well might Jackson's men, as they heard it, bend with more
dogged determination over their spades and picks. Sir Edward
Pakenham was too well known, in a place so heavily populated
from Europe as New Orleans was, not to make the thrill of joy
in his own army a thrill of apprehension in an opposing one.
It is perhaps from this thrill of apprehension at that moment in
their breasts that dates the pride of the people of New Orleans
in Pakenham, and the affectionate tribute of homage which they
always interrupt their account of the glorious eighth to pay to
him.
The son of the Earl of Longford, he came from a family
which had been ennobled for its military qualities. From his
lieutenancy he had won every grade by some perilous service,
and generally at the cost of a wound; few officers, even of that
hard-fighting day, had encountered so many perils and hardships,
## p. 8588 (#196) ###########################################
8588
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
-
and had so many wounds to show for them. He had fought side
by side with Wellington (who was his brother-in-law) through the
Peninsular War; he headed the storming party at Badajoz, actu-
ally the second man to mount one of the ladders; and as brig-
adier of the Old Fighting Third, under Picton, in the absence by
illness of his chief, he led the charge at Salamanca, which gained
the victory for England and won him his knighthood. An earl-
dom and the governorship of Louisiana, it is said, had been
promised him as the reward of his American expedition,- an
expedition which the government had at first seriously contem-
plated confiding to no less a leader than the Iron Duke himself.
Sir Edward's practiced eye soon took in the difficulties and
embarrassments of the British position. His council of war was
prolonged far into the night; and among the anxiously waiting
subalterns outside, the rumor was whispered that their chief was
so dissatisfied after receiving Keane's full report that he had but
little hope of success, and that he even thought of withdrawing
the army and making a fresh attempt in another quarter. But
the sturdy veteran Sir Alexander Cochrane would hear of no
such word as fail. "If the army,” he said, “shrinks from the
task, I will fetch the sailors and marines from the fleet, and with
them storm the American lines and march to the city. The sol.
diers can then," he added, “bring up the baggage. ”
The result of the council was the decision, first to silence the
Carolina and Louisiana, then to carry the American lines by
storm. All the large cannon that could be spared were ordered
from the fleet; and by the night of the twenty-sixth a powerful
;
battery was planted on the levee. The next morning it opened
fire on the vessels, which answered with broadsides; a furious
cannonading ensued. Pakenham, standing in full view on
levee, cheered his artillerists. Jackson, from the dormer window
of the Macarty mansion, kept his telescope riveted on his boats.
The bank of the river above and below the American camp was
lined with spectators watching with breathless interest the tem-
pest of cannon-balls, bursting shells, hot shot, and rockets, pour-
ing from levee and gunboats. In half an hour the Carolina
was struck, took fire, and blew up. The British gave three loud
cheers. The Louisiana strained every nerve to get out of reach
of the terrible battery now directed full upon her; but with wind
and current against her she seemed destined to the fate of the
Carolina, when her officers bethought them of towing, and
T
the
so
## p. 8589 (#197) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8589
moved her slowly up-stream. As she dropped her anchors oppo-
site the American camp, her crew gave three loud cheers in defi-
ant answer to the British. That evening the British army, in
two columns, under Keane and Gibbs, moved forward: the former
by the levee road, the latter under cover of the woods, to within
six hundred yards of the American lines, where they encamped
for the night. But there was little sleep or rest for them.
The American riflemen, with individual enterprise, bushwhacked
them without intercession, driving in their outposts and picking
off picket after picket,- a mode of warfare that the English,
fresh from Continental etiquette, indignantly branded as barba-
rous.
Jackson, with his telescope, had seen from the Macarty house
the line of Pakenham's action, and set to work to resist it, giving
his aides a busy night's work. He strengthened his battery on
the levee, added a battery to command the road, reinforced his
infantry, and cut the levee so that the rising river would flood
the road. The Mississippi proved recreant, however, and fell
instead of rising; and the road remained undamaged.
The American force now consisted of four thousand men and
twenty pieces of artillery, not counting the always formidable
guns of the Louisiana, commanding the situation from her van-
tage ground of the river. The British columns held eight thou-
sand men.
The morning was clear and frosty; the sun, breaking through
the mists, shone with irradiating splendor. The British ranks
advanced briskly, in a new elation of spirits after yesterday's
success. Keane marched his column as near the levee as possi-
ble, and under screen of the buildings of the two plantations,
Bienvenu's and Chalmette's, intervening between him and the
American line; Gibbs hugged the woods on the right. The
Ninety-fifth extended across the field, in skirmishing order, meet-
ing Keane's men on their right. Pakenham, with his staff and
a guard composed of the Fourteenth Dragoons, rode in the centre
of the line so as to command a view of both columns, Just as
Keane's column passed the Bienvenu buildings, the Chalmette
buildings were blown up; and then the general saw, through his
glasses, the mouths of Jackson's large cannon completely cover-
ing his column. And these guns, as our authority states, were
manned as guns are not often manned on land. Around one
of the twenty-four-pounders stood a band of red-shirted, bewhis-
kered, desperate-looking men, begrimed with smoke and mud:
## p. 8590 (#198) ###########################################
8590
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
they were the Baratarians, who had answered Jackson's orders
by running in all the way from their fort on Bayou St. John
that morning. The other battery was in charge of the practiced
crew of the destroyed Carolina. Preceded by a shower of rock-
ets, and covered by the fire from the artillery in front and their
battery on the levee, the British army advanced, solid, cool,
steady, beautiful in the rhythm of their step and the glitter of
their uniforms and equipments, moving as if on dress parade, -
to the Americans a display of the beauty and majesty of power
such as they had never seen.
The great guns of the Baratarians and of the crew of the
Carolina and those of the Louisiana flashed forth almost simul-
taneously, and all struck full in the scarlet ranks. The havoc
was terrible. For a time Keane held his men firm in a vain
display of valor, under the pitiless destructive fire, no shot or
bullet missing its aim or falling short. Then the Americans saw
the heaving columns change to a thin red streak, which disap-
peared from view as under the wand of an enchanter, the men
dropping into the ditches, burying head and shoulders in the
rushes on the banks. Pakenham's face grew dark and gloomy at
the sight. Never before, it is said, had a British soldier in his
presence quailed before an enemy or sought cover from a fire.
Gibbs had fared no better. He who had led the storming
party against Fort Cornelius, who had scaled the parapets of
Badajoz and the walls of St. Sebastian, could not but despise
the low levee and the narrow ditch of the American fortifica-
tions; but after one ineffectual dash at the enemy's lines, his
men could be brought to accomplish nothing, remaining inactive
in the shelter of the woods until ordered to retire. As the Amer-
ican batteries continued to sweep the field, the British troops
could be withdrawn only by breaking into small squads and
so escaping to the rear. Sir Thomas Trowbridge, dashing for-
ward with a squad of seamen to the dismounted guns, succeeded
with incredible exertion in tying ropes to them and drawing
them off.
The British army remained on the Bienvenu plantation. Pak-
enham and his staff rode back to their headquarters at Villeré's.
Another council of war was called. Pakenham's depression was
now quite evident, but the stout-hearted Cochrane again stood
indomitably firm. He showed that their failure thus far was due
to the superiority of the American artillery. They must supply
this deficiency by bringing more large guns from the fleet, and
1
## p. 8591 (#199) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8591
(
equip a battery strong enough to cope with the few old guns
of the Americans. It was suggested that the Americans were
intrenched. “So must we be,” he replied promptly.
It was
determined therefore to treat the American lines as regular for-
tifications, by erecting batteries against them and so attempt-
ing to silence their guns. Three days were consumed in the
herculean labor of bringing the necessary guns from the fleet.
While the British were thus employed, Commodore Patterson
constructed a battery on the opposite side of the river, equipped
it with cannon from the Louisiana, and manned it by an impress-
ment of every nautical-looking character to be found in the sailor
boarding houses of New Orleans, gathering together as motley a
corps as ever fought under one flag: natives of all countries
except Great Britain, speaking every language except that of
their commander.
On the night of the thirty-first, one half of the British army
marched silently to within about four hundred yards of Jackson's
line, where they stacked their arms and went to work with spades
and picks under the superintendence of Sir John Burgoyne. The
night was dark; silence was rigidly enforced; officers joined in
the work. Before the dawn of New Year 1815, there faced the
American lines three solid demilunes, at nearly equal distances
a part, armed with thirty pieces of heavy ordnance, furnished with
ammunition for six hours, and served by picked gunners of the
fleet, veterans of Nelson and Collingswood.
As soon
as their
work was completed, the British infantry fell back to the rear
and awaited anxiously the beginning of operations, ready to take
advantage of the expected breach in the American works. The
sailors and artillerists stood with lighted matches behind their
redoubts. A heavy fog hung over the field, so that neither army
could see twenty yards ahead. In the American camp, a grand
parade had been ordered. At an early hour the troops were
astir, in holiday cleanliness and neatness. The different bands
sounded their bravest strains; the various standards of the regi-
ments and companies fluttered gayly in the breeze. The British
had one glance at it, as the fog rolled up, and then their cannon
crashed through the scene. For a moment the American camp
trembled; and there was confusion, not of panic, but of men
rushing to their assigned posts. By the time the British smoke
cleared, every man was in his place, and as the British batteries
came into view their answer was ready for them. Jackson strode
## p. 8592 (#200) ###########################################
8592
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
down the line, stopping at each battery, waving his cap as the
men cheered him.
During the fierce cannonade the cotton bales in the American
breastworks caught fire, and there was a moment of serious peril
to that part of the line; but they were dragged out and cast
into the trench. The English were no happier in their use of
hogsheads of sugar in their redoubts, the cannon-balls perforat-
ing them easily and demolishing them.
In an hour and a half the British fire began to slacken; and
as the smoke lifted, it was seen that their intrenchments were
beaten in, the guns exposed, and the gunners badly thinned.
Not long after, their batteries were completely silenced and their
parapets leveled with the plain. The British battery on the levee
had with their hot shot kept the Louisiana at a distance; but
now, the Americans turning their attention to it, that battery was
reduced to the same condition as the redoubts.
The English army again retired, baffled; and during the night,
such of their guns as had not been destroyed were removed.
The soldiers did not conceal their discouragement. For two
whole days and nights there had been no rest in camp, except
for those that were cool enough to sleep in a shower of cannon-
balls. From the general down to the meanest sentinel, all had
suffered in the severe strain of fatigue. They saw that they
were greatly overmatched in artillery, their provisions were scant
and coarse, they had, properly speaking, no rest at night, and
sickness was beginning to appear.
Sir Edward had one more plan, one worthy of his bold char-
acter. It was to storm the American lines on both sides of the
river, beginning with the right bank, which would enable the
British to turn the conquered batteries on Jackson's lines, and
drive him from his position and cut him off from the city.
By the 7th of January, with another heroic exertion, Villeré's
canal was prolonged two miles to the river, and the barges to
transport the troops to the other bank carried through. During
the delay a reinforcement arrived, two fine regiments: Pakenham's
own, the Seventh Fusileers, and the Forty-third under Major-
General John Lambert, also one of Wellington's apprentices.
Pakenham divided his army, now ten thousand strong, into three
brigades, under command respectively of Generals Lambert, Gibbs,
and Keane. His plan of attack was simple. Colonel Thornton,
.
with fourteen hundred men, was to cross the river during the
## p. 8593 (#201) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8593
night of the seventh, and steal upon and carry the American line
before day. At a signal to be given by him, Gibbs was to storm
the American left, whilst General Keane should threaten their
right; Lambert held the reserve.
Jackson steadied himself for what he understood to be the last
round in the encounter. He also had received a reinforcement.
A few days before, the long-expected drafted militia of Ken-
tucky, twenty-two hundred men, arrived; but arrived in a con-
dition that made them a questionable addition to his strength.
Hurried from their homes without supplies, they had traveled
fifteen hundred miles without demur, under the impression that
the government would plentifully furnish and equip them in
New Orleans. Only about a third were armed, with old muskets,
and nearly all of them were in want of clothing. The poor fel-
lows had to hold their tattered garments together to hide their
nakedness as they marched through the streets. The government
of course did nothing. The citizens, acutely moved, raised a
sum of sixteen thousand dollars and expended it for blankets and
woolens. The latter were distributed among the ladies; and by
them, in a few days, made into comfortable garments for their
needy defenders.
The American force now amounted to about four thousand
men on the left bank of the river. One division of it, the right,
was commanded by General Ross; the other by General Coffee,
whose line extended so far in the swamp that his men stood in
the water during the day, and at night slept on floating logs
made fast to trees, - every man “half a horse and half an alli-
gator,” as the song says. The artillery and the fortifications
had been carefully strengthened and repaired. Another line of
defense had been prepared a mile and a half in the rear, where
were stationed all who were not well armed or were regarded
as not able-bodied. A third line, for another stand in case of
defeat, still nearer the city, was being vigorously worked upon.
Owing to the caving of the banks of the canal, Thornton could
get only enough boats launched in the river to carry seven hun-
dred of his men across; these the current of the Mississippi bore
a mile and a half below the landing-place selected, and it was
daylight before they reached there.
Gibbs and Keane marched their divisions to within sight of
the dark line of the American breastworks, and waited impatiently
for the signal of Thornton's guns. Not a sound could be heard
XV-538
## p. 8594 (#202) ###########################################
8594
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
from him. In fact, he had not yet landed his men. Although
sensible that concert of action with the troops on the right
bank had failed, and that his movement was hopelessly crippled,
Pakenham, obstinate, gallant, and reckless, would nevertheless
not rescind his first orders. When the morning mists lifted, his
columns were in motion across the field.
Gibbs was leading his division coolly and steadily through the
grape-shot pouring upon it, when it began to be whispered among
the men that the Forty-fourth, who were detailed for the duty,
had not brought the ladders and fascines, Pakenham, riding to
the front and finding it was true, ordered Colonel Mullen and the
delinquent regiment back for them. In the confusion and delay,
with his brave men falling all around him, the indignant Gibbs
exclaimed furiously: "Let me live until to-morrow, and I'll hang
him to the highest tree in that swamp! ” Rather than stand ex-
posed to the terrible fire, he ordered his men forward. “On they
went,” says Walker (who got his description from eye-witnesses),
“in solid, compact order, the men hurrahing and the rocketers
covering their front with a blaze of combustibles. The American
batteries played upon them with awful effect, cutting great lanes
through the column from front to rear, opening huge gaps in
their flanks.
Still the column advanced without pause
or recoil, steadily; then all the batteries in the American line,
including Patterson's marine battery on the right bank, joined in
hurling a tornado of iron missiles into that serried scarlet column,
which shook and oscillated as if tossed on an angry sea. (Stand
to your guns! ' cried Jackson; 'don't waste your ammunition, see
that every shot tells;' and again, Give it to them, boys! Let
us finish the business to-day. ”
On the summit of the parapet stood the corps of Tennessee
sharpshooters, with their rifles sighted; and behind them, two
lines of Kentuckians to take their places as soon as they had
fired.
life of New Orleans; it had a touch of Gallic quality, and was
subtle reading of Creole character and of the negro race also; but
otherwise it had the note of universality which is found in all gen-
uine original literature.
The writer was Grace Elizabeth King of
New Orleans, the daughter of William M.
King, during his life a prominent lawyer,
and before the war a sugar planter in
Louisiana. Miss King passed her childhood
in the city and upon her father's plantation,
and was educated in the French schools
of New Orleans. It is evident from her
writings that she was a keen observer of
country and city life, and a close student of
human nature. New Orleans, when she was
a child, had more affiliations with Paris
than with New York, and her education was GRACE ELIZABETH King
decidedly French; indeed, it may be said
that her sympathy for French literature and her comprehension of it
were so strong and native, that when lately she made a considerable
sojourn in the French capital she did not seem to be in a foreign
atmosphere. To her knowledge of French she added an almost equal
facility in Spanish; so that she was well equipped for both the inves-
tigation and interpretation of the history and romance of Louisiana.
Her first success was followed by several short novels and sto-
ries: 'Bonne Maman,' (Earthlings,' Balcony Stories, some of which
were collected in a volume called "Tales of a Time and Place. The
Balcony Stories) were exquisite and subtle creations, and revealed
in the author an art, a finish in form, and a refined literary quality
which we are accustomed in criticism to call Parisian. No better
work in this sort has been done by any modern writer.
It was natural that Miss King, who is an enthusiastic and accurate
student, should be attracted to the dramatic and romantic history of
eam abort
over the
K'O sturer
ere it was
shed. -
zuch con
ondor lar
Archer
## p. 8574 (#182) ###########################################
8574
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
1
the lower Mississippi. The first results of this study were a life of
Bienville, the founder of New Orleans; a school history of Louisiana,
in collaboration with Professor Fichlin of Tulane University; and a
volume on New Orleans, a sort of personal tribute to her beloved
city. At this writing she is engaged on a life of De Soto, and as a
member of the Louisiana Historical Society is doing excellent work
in original research. While she is likely to increase her reputation
as a local historian, it is easy to predict that her strong constructive
imagination and her bent for fiction will lead her to make use of
her knowledge of early Louisiana for a romance, or for romances,
that will truly interpret the achievements and chivalry of the early
adventurers on our southwest coast. This abundant material for his-
torical novels of a high order she is already trained to handle.
The short stories of Miss King reveal a rare literary artist, and
many of them a power of depicting passion and the actualities of
life transmuted into ideal pictures by her genius of sympathy. They
would be marred unless given entire; and we have preferred to pre-
sent in this volume a brilliant description of an episode in American
history, which has never been so picturesquely and adequately set
forth.
THE GLORIOUS EIGHTH OF JANUARY
From New Orleans, the Place and the People. ) Copyright 1895, by Macmil-
lan & Co. Reprinted by permission of the author and publishers
T
our
I
WAS on the morning of the 2d of December, 1814, as
preferred chronicler of this period, Alexander Walker, relates,
that General Jackson and escort trotted their horses up the
road that leads from Spanish Fort to the city. On arriving at
the junction of Canal Carondelet and Bayou St. John, the party
dismounted before an old Spanish villa, the residence of one of
the prominent bachelor citizens of the day; where, in the marble-
paved hall, breakfast had been prepared for them,-a breakfast
such as luxury then could command from Creole markets and
cooks, for a guest whom one wished to honor. But, the story
goes, the guest of honor partook --- and that sparingly-only of
hominy. This reached a certain limit of endurance. At a whis-
per from a servant, the host excused himself, left the table, and
passed into the antechamber.
He was accosted by his fair friend
and neighbor who had volunteered her assistance for the occa-
sion.
"Ah, my friend, how could you play such a trick upon me?
You asked me to prepare your house to receive a great general.
## p. 8575 (#183) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8575
re a life di
f Louisiana
'sity; and
er beora
, and as a
lent werk
eputatlar
structive
? use
mances
che eats
al for his
idle.
artist, and
tualities
thy. The
red to pares
America
juately set
I did so.
And I prepared a splendid breakfast. And now! I
find that my labor is all thrown away upon an old (Kaintuck'
flatboatman, instead of a great general with plumes, epaulettes,
long sword, and mustache. ”
Indeed, to female eyes, trained upon a Galvez, a Carondelet,
a Casa Calvo, Andrew Jackson must have represented indeed
a very unsatisfactory commandant-general. His dress — a small
leathern cap, a short blue Spanish cloak, frayed trousers, worn
and rusty high-top boots was deficient; and even for a flatboat-
man, threadbare.
But his personality, to equitable female eyes,
should have been impressive if not pleasing: a tall, gaunt, inflex-
ibly erect figure; a face sallow, it is true, and seamed and
wrinkled with the burden of heavy thought, but expressing to
the full the stern decision and restless energy which seemed the
very soul of the man; heavy brows shaded his fierce bright eyes,
and iron-gray hair bristled thick over his head.
From the villa the party trotted up the Bayou Road to its
intersection with the city, where stood a famous landmark in old
times: the residence of General Daniel Clarke, a great American
in the business and political world of the time. Here carriages
awaited them, and a formal delegation of welcome, — all the nota-
bilities, civil and military, the city afforded, headed by Governor
Claiborne and the mayor of the city: a group which, measured
by after achievements, could not be considered inconsiderable
either in number or character.
General Jackson, who talked as he fought — by nature - and
had as much use for fine words as for fine clothes, answered the
stately eloquence addressed him, briefly and to the point. He
had come to protect the city, and he would drive the enemy into
the sea or perish in the attempt. It was the eloquence for the
people and the time. As an interpreter repeated the words in
French, they passed from lip to lip, rousing all the energy they
conveyed. They sped with Jackson's carriage into the city,
where heroism has ever been most infectious; and the crowd that
ra n after him through the streets to see him alight, and to cheer
the flag unfurled from his headquarters on Royal Street, expressed
not so much the conviction that the savior of the city was there
in that house, as that the savior of the city was there in every
man's soul.
That evening the “Kaintuck” flatboatman was again subjected
to the ordeal of woman's eyes. A dinner party of the most
by Macmi
hers
4, as our
-; relates
s up the
riving at
he party
f one of
marble-
breakfast
sets and
de stort
only of
3 whic
le, and
T friend
e acca
On 720
general
## p. 8576 (#184) ###########################################
8576
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
(
>>
fashionable society had already assembled at a prominent and
distinguished house, when the host announced to his wife that he
had invited General Jackson to join them. She, as related by a
descendant, did what she could under the trying circumstances;
and so well prepared her guests for the unexpected addition to
their party, that the ladies kept their eyes fixed upon the door
with the liveliest curiosity, expecting to see it admit nothing
less than some' wild man of the woods, some curious specimen
of American Indian, in uniform. When it opened and General
Jackson entered, grave, self-possessed, martial, urbane, their aston-
ishment was not to be gauged. When the dinner was over and
he had taken his leave, the ladies all exclaimed with one impulse
to the hostess, “Is this your red Indian! Is this your wild man
of the woods! He is a prince. ”
!
From now on, the city was transformed into a martial camp.
Every man capable of bearing arms was mustered into service.
All the French émigrés in the community volunteered in the
ranks, only too eager for another chance at the English. Pris-
oners in the Calaboose were released and armed. To the old
original fine company of freemen of color another was added,
formed of colored refugees from St. Domingo, - men who had
sided with the whites in the revolution there. Lafitte, notwith-
standing the breaking up and looting of his establishment at
Barataria, made good his offer to the State by gathering his
Baratarians from the Calaboose and their hiding-places, and or-
ganizing them into two companies under the command of Domi-
nique You and Beluche. From the parishes came hastily gathered
volunteers, in companies and singly. The African slaves, catching
the infection, labored with might and main upon the fortifica-
tions ordered by Jackson; and even the domestic servants, it is
recorded, burnished their masters' arms and prepared ammunition
with the ardor of patriots.
The old men
were formed into a
home guard and given the patrol of the city. Martial law was
proclaimed. The reinforcements from the neighboring territories
arrived: a fine troop of horse from Mississippi, under the gallant
Hinds; and Coffee, with his ever-to-be-remembered brigade of
"Dirty Shirts,” who after a march of eight hundred miles, an-
swered Jackson's message to hasten by covering in two days the
one hundred and fifty miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
At the levee, barges and flatboats landed the militia of Tennes-
see, under Carroll.
## p. 8577 (#185) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8577
On the oth of December, eight days after Jackson's arrival
in the city, the British fleet entered Lake Borgne. In the har-
bor of Ship Island, in the pass between it and Cat Island, out to
Chandeleur Islands, as far as the spy-glass could carry, the eye
of the lookout saw; and saw British sails. Never before had so
august a visitation honored these distant waters. The very names
of the ships and of their commanders were enough to create a
panic. The Tonnant, the heroic Tonnant, of eighty guns, capt-
ured from the French at the battle of the Nile, with Vice-
Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane and Rear-Admiral Codrington;
the Royal Oak, seventy-four guns, Rear-Admiral Malcolm; the
Ramillies, under Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's friend; the Norge,
the Bedford, the Asia, all seventy-four-gunners; the Armide, Sir
Thomas Trowbridge; the Sea Horse, Sir James Alexander Gor-
don, fresh from the banks of the Potomac, — there were fifty sail,
in all carrying over a thousand guns, commanded by the élite of
the British navy, steered by West-Indian pilots, followed by a
smaller fleet of transports, sloops, and schooners. It seemed only
proper that with such ships and such an army as the ships car-
ried, a full and complete list of civil officers should be sent out,
to conduct the government of the country to be annexed to his
Majesty's dominions, - revenue collectors, printers, clerks, with
printing-presses and office paraphernalia. Merchant ships accom-
panied the squadron to carry home the spoils; and even many
ladies, wives of the officers, came along to share in the glory and
pleasure of the expedition. «I expect at this moment,” remarked
Lord Castlereagh in Paris almost at the exact date, “that most
of the large seaport towns of America are laid in ashes; that we
are in possession of New Orleans, and have command of all the
rivers of the Mississippi Valley and the Lakes; and that the
Americans are now little better than prisoners in their own
country. ”
The city must indeed have appeared practically defenseless to
any foe minded to take it. There was no fortification, properly
speaking, at the Balise. Fort St. Philip, on the river below the
city, was small, out of repair, badly equipped and poorly muni-
tioned. Back of the city there was pretty, picturesque Spanish
Fort, a military bauble; a hasty battery had been thrown up
where Bayou Chef Menteur joins Bayou Gentilly; and further
out, on the Rigolets, was the little mud fort of Petites Coquilles
(now Fort Pike). As every bayou from lake to river was, in
high water, a high-road to the city, these had been closed and
XV-537
## p. 8578 (#186) ###########################################
8578
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
rafted by order of the government; and by the same token,
Bayou Manchac has remained closed ever since.
Vice-Admiral Cochrane promptly commenced his programme.
Forty-five launches and barges, armed with carronades and manned
by a thousand soldiers and sailors, were sent to clear the lakes
of the American flag.
What the Americans called their fleet on the lakes consisted
of six small gunboats, carrying thirty-five guns, commanded by
Lieutenant T. Ap Catesby Jones. These had been sent by Com-
modore Patterson to observe the English feet, and prevent if
possible the landing of their troops. If pressed by a superior
force, they were to fall back through the Rigolets upon Fort
Petites Coquilles. In obeying his orders, Jones in vain tried to
beat through the Rigolets, with the current against him; his
boats were carried into the narrow channel between Malheureux
Island and Point Clear, where they stuck in the mud.
Jones
anchored therefore in as close line as he could, across the chan-
nel; and after a spirited address to his force of one hundred and
eighty-two men, awaited the attack.
It was about ten o'clock of a beautiful December morning.
The early fog lifted to show the British halting for breakfast,
gay, careless, and light-hearted as if on a picnic party. The sur-
face of the lake was without a ripple, the blue heavens without
a cloud.
At a signal the advance was resumed. On the flotilla
came, in the beautiful order and in the perfect line and time with
which the sturdy English oarsmen had pulled it through the
thirty-six miles, without pause or break, from Ship Island; each
boat with its glittering brass carronade at its prow, its serried
files of scarlet uniforms and dazzling crest of bayonets, and the
six oars on each side flashing in and out of the water.
The American boats lay silent, quiet, apparently lifeless.
Then
a flash, a roar, and a shot went crashing through the scarlet line.
With an
answer from their carronades, the British barges leaped
forward and clinched with the gunboats. It was musket to mus-
ket, pistol to pistol, cutlass to cutlass, man to man; with shouts
and cries, taunts and imprecations, and the steady roar through-
out of the American cannon, cutting with deadly aim into the
open British barges, capsizing, sinking them,—the water spot-
ting with struggling red uniforms.
Two of the American boats were captured, and their guns
turned against the others; and the British barges closing in, the
American crews one by one were beaten below their own decks
## p. 8579 (#187) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8579
and overpowered. By half-past twelve the British flag waved
triumphant over Lake Borgne.
The British troops were forwarded in transports from the fleet
to the Île des Pois, near the mouth of Pearl River: a bare little
island and a desolate camp, where, with no tents, the men were
drenched with dew and chilled with frosts during the night, and
during the day parched with the sun; many died from it. From
some fisherman it was learned that about fifty miles west of Île
aux Pois there was a bayou that had not been closed and was
not defended, and which was navigable by barges for twelve
miles, where it joined a canal leading to a plantation on the
river a few miles below the city. To test the accuracy of the
information, Sir Alexander Cochrane dispatched a boat under
charge of the Hon. Captain Spencer, son of the Earl of Spencer,
to reconnoitre the route. Arrived at the Spanish fishermen's
village on the banks of Bayou Bienvenu, the young captain and
a companion, disguising themselves in the blue shirts and tar-
paulins of fishermen, paddled in a pirogue through the bayou
and canal (Villeré's), walked to the Mississippi, took a drink of
its waters, surveyed the country, interviewed some negroes; and
returned with the report that the route was not only practicable
but easy.
Sixteen hundred men and two cannon were embarked imme-
diately for the bayou. The sky was dark and lowering; heavy
rains fell during the whole day; the fires of charcoal, which could
be kept burning in daylight, were extinguished at night; and the
sharp frost cramped the soldiers into numbness. A detail sent
in advance on a reconnoissance surprised and captured four pick-
ets, who were held at the mouth of the bayou until the flotilla
came up to it. One of the prisoners, a Creole gentleman, was
presented to Sir Alexander Cochrane, the British commander,-
a rough-looking, white-haired old gentleman, dressed in plain
and much-worn clothing; and to General Keane, a tall, youthful,
black-whiskered man in military undress. Their shrewd cross-
questioning extracted from the Creole only the false statement
that Jackson's forces in the city amounted to twelve thousand
men, and that he had stationed four thousand at English Turn.
As the untruth had been preconcerted, it was confirmed by the
other prisoners, and believed by the British officers.
At dawn the barges entered the bayou. The English sail-
ors standing to their oars, pushed their heavy loads through the
## p. 8580 (#188) ###########################################
8580
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
»
tortuous shallow water. By nine o'clock the detachment was safe
on shore. «The place," writes the English authority, an officer
during the campaign, “was as wild as it is possible to imagine.
Gaze where we might, nothing could be seen except a huge
marsh covered with tall reeds. The marsh became gradually
less and less continuous, being intersected by wide spots of firm
ground; the reeds gave place by degrees to wood, and the wood
to inclosed fields. "
The troops landed, formed into columns, and pushing after
the guides and engineers, began their march. The advance was
slow and toilsome enough to such novices in swamping. But
cypresses, palmettos, cane-brakes, vines, and mire were at last
worried through; the sun began to brighten the ground, and the
front ranks, quickening their step, broke joyfully into an open
field near the expected canal. Beyond a distant orange grove,
the buildings of the Villeré plantation could be seen. Advancing
rapidly along the side of the canal and under cover of the orange
grove, a company gained the buildings, and spreading out, sur-
rounded them. The surprise was absolute. Major Villeré and
his brother, sitting on the front gallery of their residence, jumped
from their chairs at the sight of the red-coats before them; their
rush to the other side of the house only showed them that they
were bagged.
Secured in one of his own apartments, under guard of Brit-
ish soldiers, the young Creole officer found in his reflections the
spur to a desperate attempt to save himself and his race from a
suspicion of disloyalty to the United States, which under the cir-
cumstances might easily be directed against them by the Ameri-
cans. Springing suddenly through his guards, and leaping from
a window, he made a rush for the high fence that inclosed the
yard, throwing down the soldiers in his way. He cleared the
fence at a bound, and ran across the open field that separated
him from the forest. A shower of musket-balls fell around him.
“Catch or kill him! ” was shouted behind him. But the light,
agile Creole, with the Creole hunter's training from infancy, was
more than a match for his pursuers in such a race as that.
He
gained the woods, a swamp, while they were crossing the field,
spreading out as they ran to shut him in.
He sprang over
the boggy earth, into the swamp; until his feet, sinking deeper
and deeper, clogged and stuck. The Britons were gaining; had
reached the swa mp.
He could hear them panting and blowing,
## p. 8581 (#189) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8581
6
i
1
1
.
1
umns.
and the orders which made his capture inevitable. There was
but one chance: he sprang up a cypress-tree, and strove for the
thick moss and branches overhead. Half-way up, he heard a
whimpering below. It was the voice of his dog, his favorite set-
ter, whining, fawning, and looking up to him with all the pathos
of brute fidelity. There was no choice; it was her life or his,
and with his, perhaps the surprise and capture of the city. Drop-
ping to the earth, he seized a billet of wood and aimed one blow
between the setter's devoted eyes; with the tears in his own eyes,
he used to relate. To throw the body to one side, snatch some
brush over it, spring to the tree again, was the work of an in-
stant. As he drew the moss around his crouching figure and
stilled his hard breathing, the British foundered past. When
they abandoned their useless search, he slid from his covert,
pushed through the swamp to the next plantation, and carried
the alarm at full speed to the city.
The British troops moved up the road along the levee, to the
upper line of the plantation, and took their position in three col-
Headquarters were established in the Villeré residence, in
the yard of which a small battery was thrown up. They were
eight miles from the city and separated from it by fifteen planta-
tions, large and small. By pushing forward, General Keane in
two hours could have reached the city; and the battle of New
Orleans would have taken place then and there, and most proba-
bly a different decision would have been wrested from victory.
The British officers strongly urged this bold line of action; but
Keane, believing the statement that General Jackson had an army
of about fifteen thousand in New Orleans, a force double his
own, feared being cut off from the fleet. He therefore concluded
to delay his advance until the other divisions came up. This
was on the twenty-third day of December.
"Gentlemen,” said Jackson to his aides and secretaries, at half-
past one o'clock, when Villeré had finished his report, “the British
are below: we must fight them to-night. ”
He issued his orders summoning his small force from their
Plauche's battalion was two miles away at Bayou
St. John, Coffee five miles off at Avart's, the colored battalion
at Gentilly.
They were commanded to proceed immediately to
Montreuil's plantation below the city, where they would be joined
by the regulars. Commodore Patterson was directed to get the
gunboat Carolina under way. As the Cathedral clock was strik-
ing three, from every quarter of the city troops were seen coming
various posts.
## p. 8582 (#190) ###########################################
8582
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
>
-
at a quickstep through the streets, each company with its own
vernacular music, Yankee Doodle, La Marseillaise, Le Chant
du Depart. The ladies and children crowded the balconies and
windows to wave handkerchiefs and applaud; the old men stood
upon the banquettes waving their hats, and with more sorrow
in eyes and heart over their impotence than age had ever yet
wrung from them.
Jackson, on horseback, with the regulars drawn up at his
right, waited at the gate of Fort St. Charles to review the troops
as they passed. The artillery were already below, in possession
of the road. The first to march down after them were Beale's
Rifles,- or as New Orleans calls them, Beale's famous Rifles,—
in their blue hunting-shirts and citizens' hats, their long-bores
over their shoulders; sharpshooters and picked shots every one
of them; all young, active, intelligent volunteers, from the best
in the professional and business circles, asking but one favor, the
post of danger. At a hand gallop, and with a cloud of dust,
came Hinds's dragoons, delighting General Jackson by their
gallant, dare-devil bearing. After them Jackson's companion in
arms, the great Coffee, trotted at the head of his mounted gun-
men, with their long hair and unshaved faces, in dingy woolen
hunting-shirts, copperas-dyed trousers, coonskin caps, and leather
belts stuck with hunting-knives and tomahawks. “Forward at a
gallop! ” was Coffee's order, after a word with General Jackson,
and so they disappeared. Through a side street marched a gay,
varied mass of color; men all of a size, but some mere boys in
age, with the handsome, regular features, flashing eyes, and un-
mistakable martial bearing of the French. "Ah! here come the
brave Creoles,” cries Jackson; and Plauche's battalion, which had
come in on a run from Bayou St. John, stepped gallantly by.
And after these, under their white commander, defiled the
freemen of color, and then passed down the road a band of
hundred Choctaw Indians in their war paint; last of all, the reg-
ulars. · Jackson still waited, until a small dark schooner left the
opposite bank of the river and slowly moved down the current.
This was the Carolina, under Commodore Patterson. Then Jack-
son clapped spurs to his horse, and followed by his aides, galloped
after his army.
The veteran corps took the patrol of the now deserted streets.
The ladies retired from balcony and window, with their brave
smiles and fluttering handkerchiefs; and hastening to their re-
spective posts, assembled in coteries to prepare lint and bandages,
a
.
## p. 8583 (#191) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8583
»
»
1
1
and cut and sew; for many of their defenders and Jackson's
warriors had landed on the levee in a ragged if not destitute
condition. Before Jackson left Fort St. Charles, a message had
been sent to him from one of these coteries, asking what they
were to do in case the city was attacked. "Say to the ladies,”
he replied, “not to be uneasy. No British soldier shall ever enter
the city as an enemy, unless over my dead body. ”
As the rumored war-cry of the British was Beauty and
Booty,” many of the ladies, besides thimbles and needles, had
provided themselves with small daggers, which they wore in
their belts.
Here it is the custom of local pride to pause and enumerate
the foes set in array against the men hastening down the levee
road.
First, always, there was that model regiment the Ninety-third
Highlanders, in their bright tartans and kilts; men chosen for
stature and strength, whose broad breasts, wide shoulders, and
stalwart figures widened their ranks into a formidable appear-
ance. The Prince of Orange and his staff had journeyed from
London to Plymouth to review them before they embarked. Then
there were six companies of the Ninety-fifth Rifles; the famous
Rifle Brigade of the Peninsular campaign; the Fourteenth Regi-
ment, the Duchess of York's Light Dragoons; two West-Indian
regiments, with artillery, rocket brigade, sapper and engineer
corps — in all four thousand three hundred men, under command
of Major-General John Keane, a young officer whose past reputa-
tion for daring and gallantry has been proudly kept bright by
the traditions of his New Orleans foes. To these were added
General Ross's three thousand men, fresh from their brilliant
Baltimore and Washington raid. Choice troops they were: the
gallant and distinguished Fourth, or King's Own; the Forty-fourth,
East Essex Foot; the Eighty-fifth, Buck Volunteers, commanded
by one of the most brilliant officers in the British service, Colo-
nel William Thornton; the Twenty-first Royal, North British
Fusileers,— with the exception of the Black Regiments and the
Highlanders, all tried veterans, who had fought with Wellington
through his Peninsular campaign, from the beginning to his tri-
umphant entry into France.
Only the first boat loads, eighteen hundred men, were in Vil.
Zeré's field on the afternoon of the twenty-third. They lay around
their bivouac fires, about two hundred yards from the levee,
## p. 8584 (#192) ###########################################
8584
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
1
(
enjoying their rest and the digestion of the bountiful supper of
fresh meat, poultry, milk, eggs, and delicacies, which had been
added to their rations by a prompt raid on the neighboring
plantations. General Keane and Colonel Thornton paced the gal-
lery of the Villeré house, glancing at each turn towards the wood,
for the sight of the coming of the next division of the army.
The only hostile demonstration during the afternoon had been
the firing of the outpost upon a reconnoitring squad of dragoons,
and a bold dash down the road of a detachment of Hinds's horse-
men - who, after a cool, impudent survey of the British camp,
had galloped away again under a volley from the Rifles.
Darkness gathered over the scene. The sentinels were doubled,
and officers walked their rounds in watchful anxiety. About
seven o'clock some of them observed a boat stealing slowly down
the river. From her careless approach, they thought she must
be one of their own cruisers which had passed the forts below
and was returning from a reconnoissance of the river. She
answered neither hail nor musket shot, but steered steadily on,
veering in close ashore until her broadside was abreast of the
camp. Then her anchor was let loose, and a loud voice was
heard: «Give them this, for the honor of America. " A flash
lighted the dark hulk, and a tornado of grape and musket shot
swept the levee and field. It was the Carolina and Commodore
Patterson: volley after volley followed with deadly rapidity and
precision; the sudden and terrible havoc threw the camp into
blind disorder. The men ran wildly to and fro seeking shelter,
until Thornton ordered them to get under cover of the levee.
There, according to the British version, they lay for an hour.
The night was so black that not an object could be distinguished
at the distance of a yard. The bivouac fires, beat about by the
enemy's shot, burned red and dull in the deserted camp.
A straggling fire of musketry in the direction of the pickets
gave warning of a closer struggle. It paused a few moments,
then a fearful yell, and the whole heavens seemed ablaze with
musketry. The British thought themselves surrounded.
regiments flew to support the pickets; another, forming in close
column, stole to the rear of the encampment and remained there
reserve. After that, all order, all discipline, were lost.
Each officer, as he succeeded in collecting twenty or thirty men
about him, plunged into the American ranks, and began the fight
that Pakenham reported as — “A more extraordinary conflict
Two
as
a
## p. 8585 (#193) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8585
has perhaps never occurred: absolutely hand to hand, both officers
and men. ”
Jackson had marshaled his men along the line of a plantation
canal (the Rodriguez Canal), about two miles from the British.
He himself led the attack on their left. Coffee, with the Ten-
nesseans, Hinds's dragoons, and Beale's rifles, skirting along the
edge of the swamp, made the assault on their right. The broad-
side from the Carolina was the signal to start. It was on the
right that the fiercest fighting was done. Coffee ordered his
men to be sure of their aim, to fire at a short distance, and not
to lose a shot. Trained to the rifle from childhood, the Tennes-
seans could fire faster and more surely than any mere soldier
could ever hope to do. Wherever they heard the sharp crack of
a British rifle, they advanced; and the British were as eager to
meet them. The short rifle of the English service proved also
no match for the long-bore of the Western hunters. When they
came to close quarters, neither side having bayonets, they clubbed
their guns, to the ruin of many a fin weapon.
But the canny
Tennesseans, rather than risk their rifles, their own property,
used for close quarters their long knives and tomahawks, whose
skillful handling they had learned from the Indians.
The second division of the British troops, coming up the
Bayou, heard the firing, and pressing forward with all speed,
arrived in time to reinforce their right; but the superiority in
numbers which this gave them was more than offset by the guns
of the Carolina, which maintained their fire during the action,
and long after it was over.
A heavy fog, as in Homeric times, obscuring the field and the
combatants, put an end to the struggle. Jackson withdrew his
men to Rodriguez Canal; the British fell back to their camp.
A number of prisoners were made on both sides. Among the
Americans taken were a handful of New Orleans's most promi-
nent citizens, who were sent to the fleet at Ship Island. The most
distinguished prisoner made by the Americans was Major Mitch-
ell of the Ninety-fifth Rifles; and to his intense chagrin he was
forced to yield his sword, not to regulars, but to Coffee's uncourtly
Tennesseans. It was this feeling that dictated his answer to
Jackson's courteous message requesting that he would make
known any requisite for his comfort: Return my compliments
o General Jackson, and say that as my baggage will reach me in
a few days I shall be able to dispense with his polite attentions. ”
## p. 8586 (#194) ###########################################
8586
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
a
The chronicler of the anecdote aptly adds, that had the major per-
sisted in this rash determination, he would never have been in a
condition to partake of the hospitalities which were lavished upon
him during his detention in New Orleans and Natchez, where
the prisoners were sent. On his way to Natchez he became the
guest at a plantation famed for its elegance and luxury. At the
supper table he met the daughter of the house, a young Creole
girl as charming and accomplished as she was beautiful. Speak-
ing French fluently, he was soon engaged in a lively conver-
sation with her. She mentioned with enthusiasm a party of
Tennesseans entertained by her father a few days before. Still
smarting from his capture, the major could not refrain from say-
ing: “Mademoiselle, I am astonished that one so refined could
find pleasure in the society of such rude barbarians. ” “Major,
«
she replied with glowing face, “I had rather be the wife of one
of those hardy, coarsely clad men, who have marched two thou-
sand miles to fight for the honor of their country, than wear a
coronet. ”
To return to the battle-field. The Rodriguez Canal, with its
.
embankment, formed a pretty good line of fortifications in itself.
Jackson, without the loss of an hour's time, sent to the city for
spades and picks, and set his army to work deepening the canal
and strengthening the embankment. For the latter, any material
within reach was used: timber, fence rails, bales of cotton (which
is the origin of the myth that he fought behind ramparts of
cotton bales). His men, most of them handling a spade for the
first and last time in their lives, dug as they had fought a few
hours before,- every stroke aimed to tell.
General Jackson established his headquarters in the residence
of the Macarty plantation, within two hundred yards of his in-
trenchments.
The British passed a miserable night. Not until the last fire
was extinguished, and the fog completely veiled the field, did
the Carolina cease her firing and move to the other side of the
river. The men, shivering on the damp ground, exposed to the
cold moist atmosphere, with now none but their scant half-spoiled
rations, were depressed and discouraged; and the officers were
more anxious and uncertain than ever, and more completely in
as to the force opposed to them. From the intrepid ity
and boldness of the Americans, they imagined that at least five
thousand had been in the field that night. Other observations
error
## p. 8587 (#195) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8587
1
1
+
strengthened this misapprehension: each volunteer company, with
its different uniform, represented to military minds so many
different regiments, a tenfold multiplication of the Americans.
Besides, in the din of commands, cries, and answers, as much
French was heard as English. The truth began to dawn upon
the British, that much as the Creoles hated the Americans, they
were not going to allow a foreign invader to occupy a land
which they considered theirs by right of original discovery, occu-
pation, and development, whatever might be the flag or form of
government over them.
The dawning of the twenty-fourth disclosed in the river
another vessel, the Louisiana, in position near the Carolina; and
all day the camp lay helpless under their united cannonading. A
gloomier Christmas-tide, as our genial chronicler Walker puts it,
could hardly be imagined for the sons of Merrie England. Had
it been in the day of the cable, they would have known that
their hardships and bloodshed were over; that at that very date,
the twenty-fourth of December, the peace that terminated the
war between the two contending countries was being signed in
Ghent. The unexpected arrival, however, on Christmas Day, of
the new commander-in-chief, Sir Edward Pakenham, accompanied
by a distinguished staff, sent through the hearts of the British
a thrill of their wonted all-conquering confidence; and the glad
cheers of welcome that greeted Sir Edward from his old com-
panions in arms and veterans of the Peninsula rang over into the
American camp.
Well might Jackson's men, as they heard it, bend with more
dogged determination over their spades and picks. Sir Edward
Pakenham was too well known, in a place so heavily populated
from Europe as New Orleans was, not to make the thrill of joy
in his own army a thrill of apprehension in an opposing one.
It is perhaps from this thrill of apprehension at that moment in
their breasts that dates the pride of the people of New Orleans
in Pakenham, and the affectionate tribute of homage which they
always interrupt their account of the glorious eighth to pay to
him.
The son of the Earl of Longford, he came from a family
which had been ennobled for its military qualities. From his
lieutenancy he had won every grade by some perilous service,
and generally at the cost of a wound; few officers, even of that
hard-fighting day, had encountered so many perils and hardships,
## p. 8588 (#196) ###########################################
8588
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
-
and had so many wounds to show for them. He had fought side
by side with Wellington (who was his brother-in-law) through the
Peninsular War; he headed the storming party at Badajoz, actu-
ally the second man to mount one of the ladders; and as brig-
adier of the Old Fighting Third, under Picton, in the absence by
illness of his chief, he led the charge at Salamanca, which gained
the victory for England and won him his knighthood. An earl-
dom and the governorship of Louisiana, it is said, had been
promised him as the reward of his American expedition,- an
expedition which the government had at first seriously contem-
plated confiding to no less a leader than the Iron Duke himself.
Sir Edward's practiced eye soon took in the difficulties and
embarrassments of the British position. His council of war was
prolonged far into the night; and among the anxiously waiting
subalterns outside, the rumor was whispered that their chief was
so dissatisfied after receiving Keane's full report that he had but
little hope of success, and that he even thought of withdrawing
the army and making a fresh attempt in another quarter. But
the sturdy veteran Sir Alexander Cochrane would hear of no
such word as fail. "If the army,” he said, “shrinks from the
task, I will fetch the sailors and marines from the fleet, and with
them storm the American lines and march to the city. The sol.
diers can then," he added, “bring up the baggage. ”
The result of the council was the decision, first to silence the
Carolina and Louisiana, then to carry the American lines by
storm. All the large cannon that could be spared were ordered
from the fleet; and by the night of the twenty-sixth a powerful
;
battery was planted on the levee. The next morning it opened
fire on the vessels, which answered with broadsides; a furious
cannonading ensued. Pakenham, standing in full view on
levee, cheered his artillerists. Jackson, from the dormer window
of the Macarty mansion, kept his telescope riveted on his boats.
The bank of the river above and below the American camp was
lined with spectators watching with breathless interest the tem-
pest of cannon-balls, bursting shells, hot shot, and rockets, pour-
ing from levee and gunboats. In half an hour the Carolina
was struck, took fire, and blew up. The British gave three loud
cheers. The Louisiana strained every nerve to get out of reach
of the terrible battery now directed full upon her; but with wind
and current against her she seemed destined to the fate of the
Carolina, when her officers bethought them of towing, and
T
the
so
## p. 8589 (#197) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8589
moved her slowly up-stream. As she dropped her anchors oppo-
site the American camp, her crew gave three loud cheers in defi-
ant answer to the British. That evening the British army, in
two columns, under Keane and Gibbs, moved forward: the former
by the levee road, the latter under cover of the woods, to within
six hundred yards of the American lines, where they encamped
for the night. But there was little sleep or rest for them.
The American riflemen, with individual enterprise, bushwhacked
them without intercession, driving in their outposts and picking
off picket after picket,- a mode of warfare that the English,
fresh from Continental etiquette, indignantly branded as barba-
rous.
Jackson, with his telescope, had seen from the Macarty house
the line of Pakenham's action, and set to work to resist it, giving
his aides a busy night's work. He strengthened his battery on
the levee, added a battery to command the road, reinforced his
infantry, and cut the levee so that the rising river would flood
the road. The Mississippi proved recreant, however, and fell
instead of rising; and the road remained undamaged.
The American force now consisted of four thousand men and
twenty pieces of artillery, not counting the always formidable
guns of the Louisiana, commanding the situation from her van-
tage ground of the river. The British columns held eight thou-
sand men.
The morning was clear and frosty; the sun, breaking through
the mists, shone with irradiating splendor. The British ranks
advanced briskly, in a new elation of spirits after yesterday's
success. Keane marched his column as near the levee as possi-
ble, and under screen of the buildings of the two plantations,
Bienvenu's and Chalmette's, intervening between him and the
American line; Gibbs hugged the woods on the right. The
Ninety-fifth extended across the field, in skirmishing order, meet-
ing Keane's men on their right. Pakenham, with his staff and
a guard composed of the Fourteenth Dragoons, rode in the centre
of the line so as to command a view of both columns, Just as
Keane's column passed the Bienvenu buildings, the Chalmette
buildings were blown up; and then the general saw, through his
glasses, the mouths of Jackson's large cannon completely cover-
ing his column. And these guns, as our authority states, were
manned as guns are not often manned on land. Around one
of the twenty-four-pounders stood a band of red-shirted, bewhis-
kered, desperate-looking men, begrimed with smoke and mud:
## p. 8590 (#198) ###########################################
8590
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
they were the Baratarians, who had answered Jackson's orders
by running in all the way from their fort on Bayou St. John
that morning. The other battery was in charge of the practiced
crew of the destroyed Carolina. Preceded by a shower of rock-
ets, and covered by the fire from the artillery in front and their
battery on the levee, the British army advanced, solid, cool,
steady, beautiful in the rhythm of their step and the glitter of
their uniforms and equipments, moving as if on dress parade, -
to the Americans a display of the beauty and majesty of power
such as they had never seen.
The great guns of the Baratarians and of the crew of the
Carolina and those of the Louisiana flashed forth almost simul-
taneously, and all struck full in the scarlet ranks. The havoc
was terrible. For a time Keane held his men firm in a vain
display of valor, under the pitiless destructive fire, no shot or
bullet missing its aim or falling short. Then the Americans saw
the heaving columns change to a thin red streak, which disap-
peared from view as under the wand of an enchanter, the men
dropping into the ditches, burying head and shoulders in the
rushes on the banks. Pakenham's face grew dark and gloomy at
the sight. Never before, it is said, had a British soldier in his
presence quailed before an enemy or sought cover from a fire.
Gibbs had fared no better. He who had led the storming
party against Fort Cornelius, who had scaled the parapets of
Badajoz and the walls of St. Sebastian, could not but despise
the low levee and the narrow ditch of the American fortifica-
tions; but after one ineffectual dash at the enemy's lines, his
men could be brought to accomplish nothing, remaining inactive
in the shelter of the woods until ordered to retire. As the Amer-
ican batteries continued to sweep the field, the British troops
could be withdrawn only by breaking into small squads and
so escaping to the rear. Sir Thomas Trowbridge, dashing for-
ward with a squad of seamen to the dismounted guns, succeeded
with incredible exertion in tying ropes to them and drawing
them off.
The British army remained on the Bienvenu plantation. Pak-
enham and his staff rode back to their headquarters at Villeré's.
Another council of war was called. Pakenham's depression was
now quite evident, but the stout-hearted Cochrane again stood
indomitably firm. He showed that their failure thus far was due
to the superiority of the American artillery. They must supply
this deficiency by bringing more large guns from the fleet, and
1
## p. 8591 (#199) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8591
(
equip a battery strong enough to cope with the few old guns
of the Americans. It was suggested that the Americans were
intrenched. “So must we be,” he replied promptly.
It was
determined therefore to treat the American lines as regular for-
tifications, by erecting batteries against them and so attempt-
ing to silence their guns. Three days were consumed in the
herculean labor of bringing the necessary guns from the fleet.
While the British were thus employed, Commodore Patterson
constructed a battery on the opposite side of the river, equipped
it with cannon from the Louisiana, and manned it by an impress-
ment of every nautical-looking character to be found in the sailor
boarding houses of New Orleans, gathering together as motley a
corps as ever fought under one flag: natives of all countries
except Great Britain, speaking every language except that of
their commander.
On the night of the thirty-first, one half of the British army
marched silently to within about four hundred yards of Jackson's
line, where they stacked their arms and went to work with spades
and picks under the superintendence of Sir John Burgoyne. The
night was dark; silence was rigidly enforced; officers joined in
the work. Before the dawn of New Year 1815, there faced the
American lines three solid demilunes, at nearly equal distances
a part, armed with thirty pieces of heavy ordnance, furnished with
ammunition for six hours, and served by picked gunners of the
fleet, veterans of Nelson and Collingswood.
As soon
as their
work was completed, the British infantry fell back to the rear
and awaited anxiously the beginning of operations, ready to take
advantage of the expected breach in the American works. The
sailors and artillerists stood with lighted matches behind their
redoubts. A heavy fog hung over the field, so that neither army
could see twenty yards ahead. In the American camp, a grand
parade had been ordered. At an early hour the troops were
astir, in holiday cleanliness and neatness. The different bands
sounded their bravest strains; the various standards of the regi-
ments and companies fluttered gayly in the breeze. The British
had one glance at it, as the fog rolled up, and then their cannon
crashed through the scene. For a moment the American camp
trembled; and there was confusion, not of panic, but of men
rushing to their assigned posts. By the time the British smoke
cleared, every man was in his place, and as the British batteries
came into view their answer was ready for them. Jackson strode
## p. 8592 (#200) ###########################################
8592
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
down the line, stopping at each battery, waving his cap as the
men cheered him.
During the fierce cannonade the cotton bales in the American
breastworks caught fire, and there was a moment of serious peril
to that part of the line; but they were dragged out and cast
into the trench. The English were no happier in their use of
hogsheads of sugar in their redoubts, the cannon-balls perforat-
ing them easily and demolishing them.
In an hour and a half the British fire began to slacken; and
as the smoke lifted, it was seen that their intrenchments were
beaten in, the guns exposed, and the gunners badly thinned.
Not long after, their batteries were completely silenced and their
parapets leveled with the plain. The British battery on the levee
had with their hot shot kept the Louisiana at a distance; but
now, the Americans turning their attention to it, that battery was
reduced to the same condition as the redoubts.
The English army again retired, baffled; and during the night,
such of their guns as had not been destroyed were removed.
The soldiers did not conceal their discouragement. For two
whole days and nights there had been no rest in camp, except
for those that were cool enough to sleep in a shower of cannon-
balls. From the general down to the meanest sentinel, all had
suffered in the severe strain of fatigue. They saw that they
were greatly overmatched in artillery, their provisions were scant
and coarse, they had, properly speaking, no rest at night, and
sickness was beginning to appear.
Sir Edward had one more plan, one worthy of his bold char-
acter. It was to storm the American lines on both sides of the
river, beginning with the right bank, which would enable the
British to turn the conquered batteries on Jackson's lines, and
drive him from his position and cut him off from the city.
By the 7th of January, with another heroic exertion, Villeré's
canal was prolonged two miles to the river, and the barges to
transport the troops to the other bank carried through. During
the delay a reinforcement arrived, two fine regiments: Pakenham's
own, the Seventh Fusileers, and the Forty-third under Major-
General John Lambert, also one of Wellington's apprentices.
Pakenham divided his army, now ten thousand strong, into three
brigades, under command respectively of Generals Lambert, Gibbs,
and Keane. His plan of attack was simple. Colonel Thornton,
.
with fourteen hundred men, was to cross the river during the
## p. 8593 (#201) ###########################################
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
8593
night of the seventh, and steal upon and carry the American line
before day. At a signal to be given by him, Gibbs was to storm
the American left, whilst General Keane should threaten their
right; Lambert held the reserve.
Jackson steadied himself for what he understood to be the last
round in the encounter. He also had received a reinforcement.
A few days before, the long-expected drafted militia of Ken-
tucky, twenty-two hundred men, arrived; but arrived in a con-
dition that made them a questionable addition to his strength.
Hurried from their homes without supplies, they had traveled
fifteen hundred miles without demur, under the impression that
the government would plentifully furnish and equip them in
New Orleans. Only about a third were armed, with old muskets,
and nearly all of them were in want of clothing. The poor fel-
lows had to hold their tattered garments together to hide their
nakedness as they marched through the streets. The government
of course did nothing. The citizens, acutely moved, raised a
sum of sixteen thousand dollars and expended it for blankets and
woolens. The latter were distributed among the ladies; and by
them, in a few days, made into comfortable garments for their
needy defenders.
The American force now amounted to about four thousand
men on the left bank of the river. One division of it, the right,
was commanded by General Ross; the other by General Coffee,
whose line extended so far in the swamp that his men stood in
the water during the day, and at night slept on floating logs
made fast to trees, - every man “half a horse and half an alli-
gator,” as the song says. The artillery and the fortifications
had been carefully strengthened and repaired. Another line of
defense had been prepared a mile and a half in the rear, where
were stationed all who were not well armed or were regarded
as not able-bodied. A third line, for another stand in case of
defeat, still nearer the city, was being vigorously worked upon.
Owing to the caving of the banks of the canal, Thornton could
get only enough boats launched in the river to carry seven hun-
dred of his men across; these the current of the Mississippi bore
a mile and a half below the landing-place selected, and it was
daylight before they reached there.
Gibbs and Keane marched their divisions to within sight of
the dark line of the American breastworks, and waited impatiently
for the signal of Thornton's guns. Not a sound could be heard
XV-538
## p. 8594 (#202) ###########################################
8594
GRACE ELIZABETH KING
from him. In fact, he had not yet landed his men. Although
sensible that concert of action with the troops on the right
bank had failed, and that his movement was hopelessly crippled,
Pakenham, obstinate, gallant, and reckless, would nevertheless
not rescind his first orders. When the morning mists lifted, his
columns were in motion across the field.
Gibbs was leading his division coolly and steadily through the
grape-shot pouring upon it, when it began to be whispered among
the men that the Forty-fourth, who were detailed for the duty,
had not brought the ladders and fascines, Pakenham, riding to
the front and finding it was true, ordered Colonel Mullen and the
delinquent regiment back for them. In the confusion and delay,
with his brave men falling all around him, the indignant Gibbs
exclaimed furiously: "Let me live until to-morrow, and I'll hang
him to the highest tree in that swamp! ” Rather than stand ex-
posed to the terrible fire, he ordered his men forward. “On they
went,” says Walker (who got his description from eye-witnesses),
“in solid, compact order, the men hurrahing and the rocketers
covering their front with a blaze of combustibles. The American
batteries played upon them with awful effect, cutting great lanes
through the column from front to rear, opening huge gaps in
their flanks.
Still the column advanced without pause
or recoil, steadily; then all the batteries in the American line,
including Patterson's marine battery on the right bank, joined in
hurling a tornado of iron missiles into that serried scarlet column,
which shook and oscillated as if tossed on an angry sea. (Stand
to your guns! ' cried Jackson; 'don't waste your ammunition, see
that every shot tells;' and again, Give it to them, boys! Let
us finish the business to-day. ”
On the summit of the parapet stood the corps of Tennessee
sharpshooters, with their rifles sighted; and behind them, two
lines of Kentuckians to take their places as soon as they had
fired.
