Battle-ground--Scenery on the road--A peaceful scene--
American and British quarters--View of the field of battle
--Breastworks--Oaks--Packenham--A Tennessee rifleman--
Anecdote--A gallant British officer--Grape-shot--Young
traders--A relic--Leave the ground--A last view of it from
the Levee.
I have just returned from a visit to the scene of American resolution
and individual renown--the battle-ground of New-Orleans. The Aceldama,
where one warrior-chief drove his triumphal car over the grave of
another--the field of "fame and of glory" from which the "hero of two
wars" plucked the chaplet which encircles his brow, and the _eclat_
which has elevated him to a throne!--
The field of battle lies between five and six miles below the city, on
the left bank, on the New-Orleans side of the river. The road conducting
us to it, wound pleasantly along the Levee; its unvarying level relieved
by delightful gardens, and pleasant country seats--(one of which,
constructed like a Chinese villa, struck me as eminently tasteful and
picturesque)--skirting it upon one side, and by the noble, lake-like
Mississippi on the other, which, beating upon its waveless bosom a
hundred white sails, and a solitary tow-boat leading, like a conqueror,
a fleet in her train--rolled silently and majestically past to the
ocean. When, in our own estimation, and, no doubt, in that of our
horses, we had accomplished the prescribed two leagues, we reined up at
a steam saw-mill, erected and in full operation on the road-side, and
inquired for some directions to the spot--not discerning in the peaceful
plantations before us, any indications of the scene of so fierce a
struggle as that which took place, when England and America met in proud
array, and the military standards of each gallantly waved to the "battle
and the breeze." Although, on ascending the river in the ship, I
obtained a moonlight glance of the spot, I received no impression of its
_locale_ sufficiently accurate to enable me to recognise it under
different circumstances. An extensive, level field was spread out before
us, apparently the peaceful domain of some planter, who probably resided
in a little piazza-girted cottage which stood on the banks of the river.
But this field, we at once decided, could not be the battle-field--so
quiet and farm-like it reposed. "There," was our reflection, "armies can
never have met! there, warriors can never have stalked in the pride of
victory with
"---- garments rolled in blood!"
Yet peaceful as it slumbered there, that domain had once rung with the
clangor of war. It _was_ the battle-field! But silence now reigned
"---- where the free blood gushed
When England came arrayed--
So many a voice had there been hushed;
So many a footstep stayed."
In reply to our inquiries, made of one apparently superintending the
steam-works, we received simply the tacit "Follow me gentlemen!" We
gladly accommodated the paces of our spirited horses to those of our
obliging and very practical informant, who alertly preceded us, blessing
the stars which had given us so unexpectedly a cicerone, who, from his
vicinity to the spot must be _au fait_ in all the interesting minutiae of
so celebrated a place. Following our guide a few hundred yards farther
down the river-road, we passed on the left hand a one story wooden
dwelling-house situated at a short distance back from the road, having a
gallery, or portico in front, and elevated upon a basement story of
brick, like most other houses built immediately on the river. This, our
guide informed us, was "the house occupied by General Jackson as
head-quarters: and there," he continued, pointing to a planter's
residence two or three miles farther down the river, "is the
mansion-house of General, (late governor, Villere) which was occupied by
Sir Edward Packenham as the head-quarters of the British army."
"But the battle-ground--where is that sir?" we inquired, as he silently
continued his rapid walk in advance of us.
"There it is," he replied after walking on a minute or two longer in
silence, and turning the corner of a narrow, fenced lane which extended
from the river to the forest-covered marshes--"there it is,
gentlemen,"--and at the same time extended his arm in the direction of
the peaceful plain, which we had before observed,--spread out like a
carpet, it was so very level--till it terminated in the distant forests,
by which and the river it was nearly enclosed. Riding a quarter of a
mile down the lane we dismounted, and leaving our horses in the road,
sprang over a fence, and in a few seconds stood upon the American
breast-works!
"When," said a mercurial friend lately, in describing his feelings on
first standing upon the same spot--"when I leaped upon the embankment,
my first impulse was to give vent to my excited feelings by a shout that
might have awakened the mailed sleepers from their sleep of death." Our
emotions--for strong and strange emotions will be irresistibly excited
in the breast of every one, "to war's dark scenes unused," on first
beholding the scene of a sanguinary conflict, between man and man,
whether it be grisly with carnage, pleasantly waving with the yellow
harvest, or carpeted with green--our emotions, though perhaps equally
deep, exhibited themselves very differently. For some moments, after
gaining our position, we stood wrapped in silence. The wild and terrible
scenes of which the ground we trod had been the theatre, passed vividly
before my mind with almost the distinctness of reality, impressing it
with reflections of a deep and solemn character. I stood upon the graves
of the fallen! Every footfall disturbed human ashes! Human dust gathered
upon our shoes as the dust of the plain! My thoughts were too full for
utterance. "On the very spot where I stand"--thought I, "some gallant
fellow poured out the best blood of his heart! Here, past me, and
around me, flowed the sanguinary tide of death!--The fierce
battle-cry--the bray of trumpets--the ringing of steel on steel--the
roar of artillery hurling leaden and iron hail against human
breasts--the rattling of musketry--the shouts of the victor, and the
groans of the wounded, were here mingled--a whirlwind of noise and
death!"
"Under those two oaks, which you see about half a mile over the field,
Sir Edward was borne, by his retreating soldiers, to die"--said our
guide, suddenly interrupting my momentary reverie. I looked in the
direction indicated by his finger, and my eyes rested upon a venerable
oak, towering in solitary grandeur over the field, and overshadowing the
graves of the slain, who, in great numbers, had been sepultured beneath
its shadow. How many eyes were fixed, with the fond recollection of
their village homes amid clustering oaks in distant England, upon this
noble tree--which, in a few moments, amid the howl of war, were closed
for ever in the sleep of the dead! Of how many last looks were its
branches the repositories! How many manly sighs were wafted toward its
waving summit from the breast of many a brave man, who was never more to
behold the wave of a green tree upon the pleasant earth!
It has been stated that Sir Edward Packenham fell, and was buried under
this oak, or these oaks, (for I believe there are two,) but I have been
informed, since my return from the field, by a gentleman who was
commander of a troop of horse in the action, that when the British
retreated, he saw from the parapet the body of General Packenham lying
alone upon the ground, surrounded by the dead and wounded, readily
distinguishable by its uniform; and, that during the armistice for the
burial of the dead, he saw his body borne from the field by the British
soldiers, who afterward conveyed it with them in their retreat to their
fleet.
The rampart of earth upon which we stood, presented very little the
appearance of having ever been a defence for three thousand breasts;
resembling rather one of the numerous dikes constructed on the
plantations near the river, to drain the very marshy soil which abounds
in this region, than the military defences of a field of battle. It was
a grassy embankment, extending, with the exception of an angle near the
forest--about a mile in a straight line from the river to the cypress
swamps in the rear; four feet high, and five or six feet broad. At the
time of the battle it was the height of a man, and somewhat broader than
at present, and along the whole front ran a _fosse_, containing five
feet of water, and of the same breadth as the parapet. This was now
nearly filled with earth, and could easily be leaped over at any point.
The embankment throughout the whole extent is much worn, indented and,
occasionally, levelled with the surface of the plain. Upon the top of
it, before the battle, eight batteries were erected, with embrasures of
cotton bales, piled transversely. Under cover of this friendly
embankment, the Americans lay _perdus_, but not idle, during the
greater portion of the battle.
A daring Tennessean, with a blanket tied round him, and a hat with a
brim of enormous breadth, who seemed to be fighting "on his own hook,"
disdaining to raise his rifle over the bank of earth and fire, in safety
to his person, like his more wary fellow soldiers, chose to spring,
every time he fired, upon the breastwork, where, balancing himself, he
would bring his rifle to his cheek, throw back his broad brim, take
sight and fire, while the enemy were advancing to the attack, as
deliberately as though shooting at a herd of deer; then leaping down on
the inner side, he would reload, mount the works, cock his beaver, take
aim, and crack again. "This he did," said an English officer, who was
taken prisoner by him, and who laughingly related it as a good anecdote
to Captain D----, my informant above alluded to--"five times in rapid
succession, as I advanced at the head of my company, and though the
grape whistled through the air over our heads, for the life of me I
could not help smiling at his grotesque demi-savage, demi-quaker figure,
as he threw back the broad flap of his castor to obtain a fair
sight--deliberately raised his rifle--shut his left eye, and blazed away
at us. I verily believe he brought down one of my men at every shot."
As the British resolutely advanced, though columns fell like the tall
grain before the sickle at the fire of the Americans, this same officer
approached at the head of his brave grenadiers amid the rolling fire of
musketry from the lines of his unseen foes, undaunted and untouched.
"Advance, my men!" he shouted as he reached the edge of the
_fosse_--"follow me!" and sword in hand he leaped the ditch, and turning
amidst the roar and flame of a hundred muskets to encourage his men,
beheld to his surprise but a single man of his company upon his
feet--more than fifty brave fellows, whom he had so gallantly led on to
the attack, had been shot down. As he was about to leap back from his
dangerous situation, his sword was shivered in his grasp by a rifle
ball, and at the same instant the daring Tennessean sprang upon the
parapet and levelled his deadly weapon at his breast, calmly observing,
"Surrender, strannger--or, I may perforate ye!" "Chagrined," said the
officer, at the close of his recital, "I was compelled to deliver to the
bold fellow my mutilated sword, and pass over into the American lines."
"Here," said our guide and cicerone, advancing a few paces up the
embankment, and placing his foot emphatically upon the ground, "_here_
fell Renie."
This gallant man, with the calf of his leg shot away by a cannon-ball,
leaped upon the breast-works with a shout of exultation, and was
immediately shot through the heart, by an American private. Packenham,
the favourite _eleve_ of Wellington, and the "beau ideal" of a British
soldier, after receiving a second wound, while attempting to rally his
broken columns, fell directly in front of our position, not far from
where Renie received his death-wound. In the disorder and panic of the
first retreat of the British, he was left bleeding and forsaken among
the dead and dying. Not far from this melancholy spot, Gibbes received
his mortal wound; and near the place where this gallant officer fell,
one of the staff of the English general was also shot down. The whole
field was fruitful with scenes of thrilling interest. I should weary you
by individualizing them. There was scarcely a spot on which I could cast
my eyes, where a soldier had not poured out his life-blood. "As I stood
upon the breast-works," said Captain Dunbar, "after the action, the
field of battle before me was so thickly strewn with dead bodies, that I
could have walked fifty yards over them without placing my foot upon the
ground." How revolting the sight of a field thus sown must be to human
nature! Man must indeed be humbled at such a spectacle.
We walked slowly over the ground, which annually waves with undulating
harvests of the rich cane. Our guide was intelligent and sufficiently
communicative without being garrulous. He was familiar with every
interesting fact associated with the spot, and by his correct
information rendered our visit both more satisfactory and agreeable than
it otherwise would have been.
"Here gentilhommes, j'ai finde some bullet for you to buy," shouted a
little French mulatto at the top of his voice, who, among other boys of
various hues, had followed us to the field, "me, j'ai trop--too much;"
and on reaching us, this double-tongued urchin turned his pockets inside
out and discharged upon the ground a load of rusty grape shot, bullets,
and fragments of lead--his little stock in trade, some, if not all of
which, I surmised, had been manufactured for the occasion.
"Did you find them on the battle-ground, garcon?"
"Iss--oui, Messieurs, me did, de long-temps."
I was about to charge him with having prepared his pockets before
leaving home, when Mr. C. exhibited a grape shot that he had picked from
the dark soil in which it was half buried. I bought for a piccaiune,[9]
the smallest currency of the country, the "load of grape," and we
pursued our walk over the field, listening with much interest to the
communications of our guide, conjuring up the past scenes of strife and
searching for balls; which by and by began to thicken upon us so fast,
that we were disposed to attribute a generative principle to grape-shot.
We were told by our cicerone that they were found in great numbers by
the ploughmen, and disposed of to curious visiters. On inquiring of him
if false ones were not imposed upon the unsuspecting, he replied
"No--there is no need of that--there is an abundance of those which are
genuine."
"I'm got half a peck on um to hum, mysef, I'se found," exclaimed a
little negro in a voice that sounded like the creaking of a shoe,
bolting off at the same time for the treasure, like one of his own
cannon-balls. What appalling evidence is this abundance of leaden and
iron hail strewed over the field, of the terrible character of that
war-storm which swept so fearfully over it. Flattened and round balls,
grape of various sizes, and non-descript bits of iron were the principal
objects picked up in our stroll over the ground.
The night was rapidly approaching--for we had lingered long on this
interesting spot--and precluded our visit to the oaks, to which it had
been our intention to extend our walk; and as we turned to retrace our
steps with our pockets heavy with metal, something rang to the touch of
my foot, which, on lifting and cleansing it from the loam, we discovered
to be the butt-piece of a musket. As this was the most valuable relic
which the field afforded, C. was invested with it, for the purpose of
placing it in the museum or Codman's amateur collection, for the benefit
of the curious, when he returns to that land of curious bipeds, where
such kind of mementos are duly estimated. Twilight had already
commenced, as, advancing over the same ground across which the gallant
Packenham led his veteran army, we fearlessly leaped the fosse and,
unresisted, ascended the parapet. Hastening to free our impatient horses
from their thraldom, we mounted them, and--not forgetting a suitable
douceur, by way of "a consideration" to our obliging cicerone--spurred
for the city. As we arrived at the head of the lane and emerged again
upon the high-way, I paused for an instant upon the summit of the Levee
to take a last view of the battle-ground which lay in calm repose under
the gathering twilight--challenging the strongest exercise of the
imagination to believe it ever to have borne other than its present
rural character, or echoed to other sounds than the whistle of the
careless slave as he cut the luxuriant cane, the gun of the sportsman,
or the melancholy song of the plough-boy.