supported by ten pieces of artillery, with a view to a final assault.
They did not do much more than the bringing on of a heavy artillery
duel, in which they were severely worsted and driven back to camp.
That the Americans are excellent shots, as well with artillery as
with rifles, we had frequent cause to acknowledge; but perhaps on no
occasion did they assert their claim to the title of good
artillerymen more effectually than on the present. Scarcely a shot
passed over, or fell short; but all striking full into our ranks,
occasioned terrible havoc. The crash of the fire-locks and the fall
of the killed and wounded, caused at first some confusion. In half an
hour three of our heavy guns were dismounted, many gunners killed,
and the rest obliged to retire. The infantry advanced under a heavy
discharge of round and grape shot, until they were checked by a canal
in front. A halt was ordered, and the men commanded to shelter
themselves in a wet ditch as best they could.
Thus it fared with the left of the army. The right failing to
penetrate through the swamp, and faring no better, was compelled to
halt. All thought of a general attack for this day was abandoned. It
only remained to withdraw the troops from their perilous position
with as little loss as possible. This was done, not in a body, but
regiment by regiment, under the same discharge which saluted their
approach.
There seemed now but one practicable way of assault; to treat these
field-works as one would treat a regular fortification, by erecting
breaching batteries against them, and silencing, if possible, their
guns. To this end three days were employed in landing heavy cannon,
bringing up ammunition, and making other preparations, as for a
siege. One half of the army was ordered out on the night of the
thirty-first, quietly led up to within three hundred yards of the
enemy's works, and busily employed in throwing up a chain of works.
Before dawn, six batteries were completed, with thirty pieces of
heavy cannon mounted, when the troops, before the dawn of day, fell
back and concealed themselves behind some thick brush in the rear.
The Americans had no idea of what was going on until morning came.
This whole district was covered with the stubble of sugar-cane, and
every storehouse and barn was filled with large barrels containing
sugar. In throwing up the works this sugar was used. Rolling the
hogsheads towards the front, they were placed in the parapets of the
batteries. Sugar, to the amount of many thousand pounds sterling, was
thus disposed of.
On the morning of January 1st, a thick haze obscured the sun, and all
objects at the distance of a few yards, for some hours. Finally, as
the clouds of fog drifted away, the American camp was fully exposed
to view, but three hundred yards away. The different regiments were
upon parade, and presented a fine appearance. Mounted officers rode
to and fro, bands were playing, and colors floating in the air. All
seemed gala, when suddenly our batteries opened. Their ranks were
broken; the different corps dispersing, fled in all directions, while
the utmost terror and disorder appeared to prevail.
While this consternation lasted among the infantry, their artillery
remained silent; but soon recovering confidence, they answered our
salute with great precision and rapidity. A heavy cannonade on both
sides continued during the day, until our ammunition began to
fail--our fire slackening, while that of the enemy redoubled. Landing
a number of guns from their flotilla, they increased their artillery
to a prodigious amount. They also directed their cannon on the
opposite bank against the flank of our batteries, and soon convinced
us that all endeavors to surpass them in this mode of fighting would
be useless. Once more, we were obliged to retire, leaving our heavy
guns to their fate. The fatigue of officers and men, it would be
difficult to form a conception of. For two entire nights and days not
a man had closed his eyes, except to sleep amid showers of
cannon-balls. We retreated, therefore, baffled and disheartened. It
must be confessed that a murmur of discontent began to be heard in
the camp. The cannon and mortars of the enemy played on our men night
and day, from their main position; likewise a deadly fire from
eighteen pieces on the opposite bank swept the entire line of our
encampment. The duty of a picket was as dangerous as to go into
battle. The American sharpshooters harassed them from the time they
went on duty till they were relieved; while to light fires served
only as marks for the enemy's gunners. The murmurs were not of men
anxious to escape from a disagreeable situation; but rather resembled
the growlings of a chained animal, when he sees his adversary, but
can not reach him. All were eager to bring matters to the issue of a
battle, at any sacrifice.
TENNESSEE AND KENTUCKY TROOPS ARRIVE--GOVERNMENT CENSURED FOR
NEGLECT.
General Carroll's division of Tennessee troops arrived about this time;
also the Louisiana militia were reinforced by several companies from the
more distant parishes. On the fourth of January the entire body of
Kentucky militia reached New Orleans, twenty-two hundred in number, and
went into camp on Prevost's plantation. The day following, seven hundred
and fifty of these repaired to the lines, and went into camp in the
rear, arms being furnished to but five hundred of the number. There
were, at this time, nearly two thousand brave and willing men within
Jackson's lines, whose services were lost to the army and to the country
for the want of arms. The dangerous delay of the arrival of the troops,
and with this, the failure of the arrival of the arms and munitions
necessary to equip the men for service, had their beginning in the
culpable negligence of the War Department at Washington, of which
history has had occasion to complain. But a more immediate cause for the
irreparable delay in the arrival of the stores for arming and equipping
the troops is found in the conduct of the quartermaster who
superintended the shipment of the same from Pittsburgh. Though he was
offered a contract to ship these supplies by a steamboat, and to
deliver them at New Orleans in ample time for use, for some reason he
declined the offer. He then had them loaded on a flatboat and slowly
floated to their destination, when there was little or no hope of their
arrival in time for use. At the date of the final battle at New Orleans
they were afloat somewhere near the mouth of the Ohio River, and of
course did not arrive until many days after all need of them was over.
On the twenty-ninth of December, General Jackson wrote to the Secretary
of War these words of protest against this failure to make provision for
his army in such a crisis as the present:
I lament that I have not the means of carrying on more offensive
operations. The Kentucky troops have not arrived, and my effective
force at this point does not exceed three thousand men. That of the
enemy must be at least double; both prisoners and deserters agreeing
in the statement that seven thousand landed from their boats.
When the militia of Kentucky were called for, Governor Shelby was
assured that the United States quartermaster would furnish
transportation for the troops to New Orleans; but no such officer
reported himself, and no relief came from Washington. The men had
rendezvoused on the banks of the Ohio in waiting, and here the
expedition must have ended had not Colonel Richard Taylor, of Frankfort,
then quartermaster of the State militia, on his own credit, borrowed a
sum sufficient to meet the immediate emergency. With this he purchased
such boats as he could, some of which were unfit for the passage. Camp
equippage could not be had in time, and about thirty pots and kettles
were bought at Louisville, one to each company of eighty men. At the
mouth of the Cumberland River they were detained eight days, with their
axes and frows riving boards with which to patch up their old boats.
From this point they started with half a supply of rations, to which
they added as they could on the way down the Mississippi River. The men
knew there was due them an advance of two months' pay when ordered out
of the State. The United States quartermaster distributed this pay to
the Tennessee troops who had preceded them, but withheld it from the
Kentuckians. Believing that they would be furnished suitable clothing or
pay, blankets, tents, arms, and munitions with reasonable promptness,
they left home with little else than the one suit of clothing they wore,
usually of homespun jeans. As a writer has said: "Rarely, if ever, has
it been known of such a body of men leaving their homes, unprovided as
they were, and risking a difficult passage of fifteen hundred miles in
the crudest of barges to meet an enemy. They could have been prompted
alone by a patriotic love of country and a defiance of its enemies."
This contribution of Kentucky for the defense of Louisiana was made just
after she had furnished over ten thousand volunteer troops in the
campaigns of Harrison in the Northwest, who made up the larger part of
the soldiers in that army for the two years previous, and who recently
had won the great victory at the battle of the Thames. Governor Shelby
tendered to the government ten thousand more Kentuckians for the army of
the Southwest, if they were needed to repel the invaders.
It was in the midst of an unusually severe winter in Louisiana, in a
season of almost daily rainfalls, when the Kentucky and part of the
Tennessee troops reached their destination. They went into camp without
tents or blankets or bedding of straw even, on the open and miry
alluvial ground, with the temperature at times at freezing point. This
destitution and consequent suffering at once enlisted the attention and
sympathies of the public. The Legislature of Louisiana, in session,
promptly voted six thousand dollars for relief, to which the generous
citizens added by subscription ten thousand dollars more. With these
funds materials were purchased. The noble women of New Orleans, almost
without an exception, devoted themselves day and night to making up the
materials into suitable garments and distributing them as they were most
needed. In one week's time the destitute soldiers were supplied and made
comfortable. These backwoodsmen, defenders of their country, did not
forget till their dying day the generous and timely ministries in a time
of trial, in which the women and the men of Louisiana, and especially of
New Orleans, seemed to vie; nor did they cease to speak in their praise.
Again, in view of the approaching battle, Jackson, in correspondence
with the Secretary of War, complains that the arms from Pittsburgh had
not yet arrived, expressing grave apprehensions of the consequences.
"Hardly," said he, "one third of the Kentucky troops, so long expected,
are armed; and the arms they have are barely fit for use." He presages
that the defeat of our armies and the dishonor of the officers
commanding, and of the nation, may be consequences chargeable to the
neglect of the government.
The American batteries on both sides of the river continued day and
night to fire upon and harass the British. Wherever a group of the
latter appeared, or an assailable object presented, the American fire
was directed to disperse or destroy. This incessant cannonading
exercised our gunners in the more skillful use of their pieces, annoyed
the enemy in the work of his fortifications, and rendered his nights
well-nigh sleepless.
JACKSON'S ENTRENCHED LINE, AND THE POSITIONS OF THE TROOPS AND
ARTILLERY.
Jackson's lines, five miles below the city, were along the canal, or old
mill-race, on the border of the plantations of Rodrique and Chalmette.
The old ditch, unused for years, had filled up in part with the washings
of the earth from its sides, and grown over with grass. It was chosen
because it lay at a point the shortest in distance from the river to the
swamp, and thus the more easily defended. Along the upper bank of the
canal a parapet was raised, with a banquet behind to stand upon, by
earth brought from the rear of the line, thus raising the original
embankment. The opposite side of the canal was but little raised,
forming a kind of glacis.
Plank and posts from the adjacent fencing were taken to line the parapet
and to prevent the earth from falling back into the canal. All this was
done at intervals of relief, by the different corps, assisted by labor
from the plantations near. It was not until the seventh of January that
the whole extent of the breastwork was proof against the enemy's cannon.
The length of the line was less than one mile, more than half of which
ran from the river to the wood, the remainder extending into the depths
of the wood, taking an oblique direction to the left and terminating in
the impassable swamp. The parapet was about five feet in height and from
ten to twenty feet thick at the base, extending inland from the river
one thousand yards. Beyond that, to the wood and swamp, where artillery
could not well be employed, the breastwork was formed of a double row of
logs, laid one over the other, leaving a space of two feet, which was
filled with earth.
The artillery was distributed on the line as follows:
Battery 1, Captain Humphries, of the United States artillery, consisted
of two twelve-pounders and a howitzer, on field carriages, and was
located thirty yards from the river, outside the levee.
Battery 2, ninety yards from Battery 1; Lieutenant Norris, of the navy;
one twenty-four pounder.
Battery 3, fifty yards from Battery 2; Captains Dominique and Bluche, of
the Baratarians; two twenty-four pounders.
Battery 4, twenty yards from Battery 3; Captain Crawly, of the navy, one
thirty-two pounder, served by part of the crew of the Carolina.
Battery 5, Colonel Perry and Lieutenant Carr, of the artillery; two
six-pounders, one hundred and ninety yards from Battery 4.
Battery 6, thirty-six yards from Battery 5; Lieutenant Bertel; one brass
twelve-pounder.
Battery 7, one hundred and ninety yards from Battery 6; Lieutenants
Spotts and Chauveau; one eighteen-and one six-pounder.
Battery 8, sixty yards from Battery 7; one brass carronade, next
Carroll's and Adair's commands.
Out beyond this last piece the line formed a receding elbow, mentioned
above, made unavoidable by great sinks in the soil, filled with water
from the canal. Here, and beyond into the wood, the ground was so low
that the troops were literally encamped in the water, walking often in
mire a foot in depth, their few tents being pitched on small mounds
surrounded with water or mud. Amid these discomforts, in this
ague-breeding miasm, the Tennesseans, under Generals Coffee and Carroll,
and the Kentuckians, under General Adair, for days endured the dangers
of battle and privations of camp and campaign. As one historian who was
with Jackson's army writes: "They gave an example of the rarest military
virtues. Though constantly living and sleeping in the mire, these
patriotic men never uttered a complaint or showed the least symptoms of
impatience. It was vitally necessary to guard that quarter against an
attack on our flank, and to repulse him on the edge of our breastwork,
where artillery could not be employed. We had no battery on the center
and left for thirteen hundred yards, the nature of the ground not
admitting. The Tennesseans and Kentuckians defended this entire two
thirds of our line with rifles and muskets only. As anticipated, the
enemy made his main assault against these rifles and muskets, in a vain
attempt to flank our army."
A view of the positions of the respective corps in Jackson's line will
be of interest here. The redoubt on the river, where the right of the
line rested, was guarded by a company of the Seventh United States
Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Ross; the artillery was served by a
detachment of the Forty-fourth United States Infantry, under Lieutenant
Marant. At the extremity of the line, between Battery 1 and the river,
was posted Captain Beale's company of New Orleans Rifles, thirty men
strong. The Seventh United States Regiment covered the space from
Batteries 1 to 3, four hundred and thirty men, commanded by Major Peire.
The interval between Batteries 3 and 4 was occupied by Major Plauche's
battalion of Louisiana uniformed companies, and by Major Lacoste's
battalion of Louisiana men of color, the former two hundred and
eighty-nine men, and the latter two hundred and eighty strong. From
Batteries 4 to 5, the line was held by Major Daquin's battalion of
St. Domingo men of color, one hundred and fifty in number; and next to
these were placed the Forty-fourth United States Regulars, two hundred
and forty men, commanded by Colonel Baker.
[Illustration: ANDREW JACKSON. Seventh President of the United States.]
From this point toward the center and left, for eight hundred yards, the
breastwork was manned by the troops from Tennessee, commanded by General
Carroll, and the Kentuckians, under command of General Adair, supported
by the men of the nearest batteries. General Carroll reported that he
had over one thousand Tennesseans in his immediate command, in line of
action. General Adair had, on the morning of the seventh of January,
received arms for only six hundred of the Kentucky troops. He says, in a
subsequent correspondence, that on the seventh, anticipating the attack
of the British the following day, he went into New Orleans, and plead
with the Mayor and Committee of Safety to lend him, for temporary use,
several hundred stand of arms stored in the city armory and held for the
defense of the city in emergency, and to put a check to any possible
insurrectionary disturbance. To this the Mayor and committee finally
consented, on the condition that the removal of the arms out of the city
should be kept secret from the public. To this end, instead of General
Adair marching in and arming his men, the city authorities had the
arms, concealed in boxes, hauled out to the camp and delivered there.
This was done late in the dusk of the evening, and on the night of the
seventh four hundred more of the Kentuckians were thus armed and marched
forward to take a position with their comrades just in the rear of the
entrenchment, making one thousand Kentuckians under arms and ready for
to-morrow's battle.
In council with General Jackson, General Adair had suggested that the
British would most probably endeavor to break our line by throwing heavy
columns against it at some chosen point; and that such was the
discipline of their veterans, they might succeed in the effort without
very great resistance was made. To be prepared for such a contingency,
it would be well to place a strong reserve of troops centrally in the
rear of the line, ready at a moment's notice to reinforce the line at
the point of assault. Jackson approved this suggestion, and gave orders
to General Adair to hold the Kentucky troops of his command in position
for such contingency. With Colonel Slaughter's regiment of seven hundred
men, and Major Reuben Harrison's battalion, three hundred and five men
(the Kentuckians under arms), Adair took position just in the rear of
Carroll's Tennesseans, occupying the center of the breastwork line.
By the statements of their commanders, the joint forces of the
Tennesseans and Kentuckians defending the left center were about two
thousand men. General Coffee's Tennesseans, five hundred in number,
occupied the remainder of the line on the left, which made an
elbow-curve into the wood, terminating in the swamp. Ogden's squad of
cavalry and a detachment of Attakapas dragoons, about fifty men in all,
were posted near the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, and these
were later joined by Captain Chauvau, with thirty mounted men from the
city. The Mississippi cavalry, Major Hinds in command, were held in
reserve, one hundred and fifty strong, posted on Delery's plantation.
Detachments of Colonel Young's Louisiana militia, in all about two
hundred and fifty men, were placed on duty at intervals on the skirts of
the wood, behind the line as far as Piernas' Canal. Four hundred yards
in the rear a guard was posted to prevent any one going out of the camp,
and a line of sentinels was extended to the wood for the same purpose.
The above details show that there were of Jackson's army on the left
bank of the river, on active duty, about forty-six hundred men; yet on
the battle-line of the eighth of January there were less than four
thousand to engage the enemy. The remainder were in reserve, or on guard
duty at various points.
From official reports and historical statements derived from British
sources, there were present and in the corps of the British army of
assault, on the morning of the eighth of January, about eleven thousand
men, fully eight thousand of whom were in the attacking columns and
reserve on the left bank of the river, the flower of the English army.
THE BATTLE OF SUNDAY, THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY.
It was not yet daybreak on the morning of the eighth of January when an
American outpost came hastily in, with the intelligence that the enemy
was in motion and advancing in great force. In brief time, as the day
began to dawn, the light discovered to our men what seemed the entire
British army in moving columns, occupying two thirds of the space from
the wood to the river. Obedient to the commands of their officers, who
gallantly led in front of their men, the massive columns of the enemy
moved up with measured and steady tread. Suddenly a Congreve rocket, set
off at a point nearest the wood, blazed its way across the British front
in the direction of the river. This was the signal for attack.
Immediately the first shot from the American line was fired from the
twelve-pounder of Battery 6. This was answered by three cheers from the
enemy, who quickly formed in close column of more than two hundred men
in front and many lines deep. These advanced in good order in the
direction of Batteries 7 and 8, and to the left of these. It was now
evident that the main assault would be made upon that part of the
breastwork occupied by Carroll's Tennesseans, with the intent to break
the line here and flank Jackson's army on the right.
As soon in the morning as word came that the British were in motion for
an advance, General Adair formed his Kentuckians in two lines in close
order, and marched them to within fifty paces of the breastwork, in the
rear of Carroll's command. The day had dawned, and the fog slowly
lifted. There was no longer doubt of the point of main assault, as the
enemy's heaviest columns moved forward in Carroll's front. The lines of
the Kentucky troops were at once moved up in order of close column to
the Tennesseans, deepening the ranks to five or six men for several
hundred yards. Batteries 6, 7, and 8 opened upon the enemy when within
four or five hundred yards, killing and wounding many, but causing no
disorder in his ranks nor check to his advance. As he approached in
range, the terrible fire of rifles and musketry opened upon him from the
Tennessee and Kentucky infantry, each line firing and falling back to
reload, giving place to the next line to advance and fire.
The British attack was supported by a heavy artillery fire, while a
cloud of rockets continued to fall in showers throughout the contest.
The assaulting columns did little execution with small arms, as they
came up relying more on the use of the bayonet in case of effecting a
breach in our line. Some of them carried fascines and ladders in
expectation of crossing the ditch and scaling the parapet. But all in
vain. The musketry and rifles of the Tennessee and Kentucky militia,
joining with the fire of the artillery, mowed down whole files of men,
and so decimated their ranks as to throw them into a panic of disorder
and force a retreat. This first disastrous repulse was within
twenty-five minutes after the opening of the battle. Writers present who
have undertaken to describe the scene at the time say that the constant
rolling fire of cannon and musketry resembled the rattling peals of
thunder following the lightning flashes in a furious electric storm. An
English officer present mentions the phenomenon, that though the flashes
of the guns were plainly visible in front, the firing seemed to be from
the wood and swamp a mile or two away on the left. They did not hear the
sound from the front, but only the echoes from the direction named, as
though the battle raged out there.