Charlton and I were in the act of smoking our cigars, the men having
laid themselves down about the blaze, when word was passed from sentry
to sentry, and intelligence communicated to us, that all was not right
towards the river. We started instantly to our feet. The fire was
hastily smothered up, and the men snatching their arms, stood in line,
ready to act as circumstances might require. So dense, however, was the
darkness, and so dazzling the effect of the glare from the bivouac, that
it was not possible, standing where we stood, to form any reasonable
guess, as to the cause of this alarm. That an alarm had been excited,
was indeed perceptible enough. Instead of the deep silence which five
minutes ago had prevailed in the bivouac, a strange hubbub of shouts,
and questions, and as many cries, rose up the night air; nor did many
minutes elapse, ere first one musket, then three or four, then a whole
platoon, were discharged. The reader will _easily_ believe that the
latter circumstance startled us prodigiously, ignorant as we were of the
cause which produced it; but it required no very painful exertion of
patience to set us right on this head; flash, flash, flash, came from
the river; the roar of cannon followed, and the light of her own
broadside displayed to us an enemy's vessel at anchor near the opposite
bank, and pouring a perfect shower of grape and round shot into
the camp.
For one instant, and only for an instant, a scene of alarm and
consternation overcame us; and we almost instinctively addressed to each
other the question, "What can all this mean?" But the meaning was too
palpable not to be understood at once. "The thing cannot end here," said
we--"a night attack is commencing;" and we made no delay in preparing to
meet it. Whilst Charlton remained with the picquet, in readiness to act
as the events might demand, I came forward to the sentries, for the
purpose of cautioning them against paying attention to what might pass
in their rear, and keeping them steadily engaged in watching their
front. The men were fully alive to the peril of their situation. They
strained with their hearing and eyesight to the utmost limits; but
neither sound nor sight of an advancing column could be perceived. At
last, however, an alarm was given. One of the rifles challenged--it was
the sentinel on the high road; the sentinel who communicated with him
challenged also; and the cry was taken up from man to man, till our own
most remote sentry caught it. I flew to his station; and sure enough the
tramp of many feet was most distinctly audible. Having taken the
precaution to carry an orderly forward with me, I caused him to hurry
back to Charlton with intelligence of what was coming, and my earnest
recommendation that he would lose no time in occupying the ditch. I had
hardly done so, when the noise of a column deploying was distinctly
heard. The tramp of horses, too, came mingled with the tread of men; in
a word, it was quite evident that a large force, both of infantry and
cavalry, was before us.
There was a pause at this period of several moments, as if the enemy's
line, having effected its formation, had halted till some other
arrangement should be completed; but it was quickly broke. On they came,
as far as we could judge from the sound, in steady array, till at length
their line could be indistinctly seen rising through the gloom. The
sentinels with one consent gave their fire. They gave it regularly and
effectively, beginning with the rifles on their left, and going off
towards the 85th on their right, and then, in obedience to their orders,
fell back. But they retired not unmolested. This straggling discharge on
our part seemed to be the signal to the Americans to begin the battle,
and they poured in such a volley, as must have proved, had any
determinate object been opposed to it, absolutely murderous. But our
scattered videttes almost wholly escaped it; whilst over the main body
of the picquet, sheltered as it was by the ditch, and considerably
removed from its line, it passed entirely harmless.
Having fired this volley, the enemy loaded again, and advanced. We saw
them coming, and having waited till we judged that they were within
excellent range, we opened our fire. It was returned in tenfold force,
and now went on, for a full half hour, as heavy and close a discharge of
musketry as troops have perhaps ever faced. Confident in their numbers,
and led on, as it would appear, by brave officers, the Americans dashed
forward till scarcely ten yards divided us; but our position was an
admirable one, our men were steady and cool, and they penetrated no
farther. On the contrary, we drove them back, more than once, with a
loss which their own inordinate multitude tended only to render the
more severe.
The action might have continued in this state about two hours, when, to
our horror and dismay, the approaching fire upon our right flank and
rear gave testimony that the picquet of the 85th, which had been in
communication with us, was forced. Unwilling to abandon our ground,
which we had hitherto held with such success, we clung for awhile to the
idea that the reverse in that quarter might be only temporary, and that
the arrival of fresh troops might yet enable us to continue the battle
in a position so eminently favourable to us. But we were speedily taught
that our hopes were without foundation. The American war-cry was behind
us. We rose from our lairs, and endeavoured, as we best could, to retire
upon the right, but the effort was fruitless. There too the enemy had
established themselves, and we were surrounded. "Let us cut our way
through," cried we to the men. The brave fellows answered only with a
shout; and collecting into a small compact line, prepared to use their
bayonets. In a moment we had penetrated the centre of an American
division; but the numbers opposed to us were overwhelming; our close
order was lost; and the contest became that of man to man. I have no
language adequate to describe what followed. For myself, I did what I
could, cutting and thrusting at the multitudes about me, till at last I
found myself fairly hemmed in by a crowd, and my sword-arm mastered. One
American had grasped me round the waist, another, seizing me by the
wrist, attempted to disarm me, whilst a third was prevented from
plunging his bayonet into my body, only from the fear of stabbing one or
other of his countrymen. I struggled hard, but they fairly bore me to
the ground. The reader will well believe, that at this juncture I
expected nothing else than instant death; but at the moment when I fell,
a blow upon the head with the butt-end of a musket dashed out the brains
of the man who kept his hold upon my sword-arm, and it was freed. I saw
a bayonet pointed to my breast, and I intuitively made a thrust at the
man who wielded it. The thrust took effect, and he dropped dead beside
me. Delivered now from two of my enemies, I recovered my feet, and found
that the hand which dealt the blow to which my preservation was owing,
was that of Charlton. There were about ten men about him. The enemy in
our front were broken, and we dashed through. But we were again hemmed
in, and again it was fought hand to hand, with that degree of
determination, which the assurance that life and death were on the
issue, could alone produce. There cannot be a doubt that we should have
fallen to a man, had not the arrival of fresh troops at this critical
juncture turned the tide of affairs. As it was, little more than a third
part of our picquet survived, the remainder being either killed or
taken; and both Charlton and myself, though not dangerously, were
wounded. Charlton had received a heavy blow upon the shoulder, which
almost disabled him; whilst my neck bled freely from a thrust, which the
intervention of a stout leathern stock alone hindered from being fatal.
But the reinforcement gave us all, in spite of wounds and weariness,
fresh courage, and we renewed the battle with alacrity.
In the course of the struggle in which we had been engaged, we had been
borne considerably out of the line of our first position, and now found
that the main-road and the picquet of the rifles, were close in our
rear. We were still giving way--for the troops opposed to us could not
amount to less than fifteen hundred men, whilst the whole force on our
part came not up to one hundred--when Captain Harris, major of brigade
to Colonel Thornton, came up with an additional company to our support.
Making way for them to fall in between us and the rifles, we took ground
once more to the right, and driving back a body of the enemy, which
occupied it, soon recovered the position from which we had been
expelled. But we did so with the loss of many brave men, and, among
others, of Captain Harris. He was shot in the lower part of the belly at
the same instant that a musket-ball struck the hilt of his sword, and
forced it into his side. Once more established in our ditch, we paused,
and from that moment till the battle ceased to rage we never changed
our attitude.
It might be about one o'clock in the morning,--the American force in our
front having fallen back, and we having been left, for a full half hour
to breathe, when suddenly the head of a small column showed itself in
full advance towards us. We were at this time amply supported by other
troops, as well in communication as in reserve; and willing to
annihilate the corps now approaching, we forbade the men to fire till it
should be mingled with us. We did even more than this. Opening a passage
for them through our centre, we permitted some hundred and twenty men to
march across our ditch, and then wheeling up, with a loud shout, we
completely enclosed them. Never have I witnessed a panic more perfect or
more sudden than that which seized them. They no sooner beheld the snare
into which they had fallen, than with one voice they cried aloud for
quarter; and they were to a man made prisoners on the spot. The reader
will smile when he is informed that the little corps thus captured
consisted entirely of members of the legal profession. The barristers,
attorneys, and notaries of New Orleans having formed themselves into a
volunteer corps, accompanied General Jackson in his operations this
night; and they were all, without a solitary exception, made prisoners.
It is probably needless to add, that the circumstance was productive of
no trifling degree of mirth amongst us; and to do them justice, the poor
lawyers, as soon as they recovered from their first alarm, joined
heartily in our laughter.
This was the last operation in which we were engaged to-night. The
enemy, repulsed on all sides, retreated with the utmost disorder, and
the whole of the advance, collecting at the sound of the bugle, drew up,
for the first time since the commencement of the affair, in a continuous
line. We took our ground in front of the bivouac, having our right
supported by the river, and our left covered by the chateau and village
of huts. Among these latter the cannon were planted; whilst the other
divisions, as they came rapidly up, took post beyond them. In this
position we remained, eagerly desiring a renewal of the attack, till
dawn began to appear, when, to avoid the fire of the vessel, the advance
once more took shelter behind the bank. The first brigade, on the
contrary, and such portion of the second as had arrived, encamped upon
the plain, so as to rest their right upon the wood; and a chain of
picquets being planted along the entire pathway, the day was passed in a
state of inaction.
I hardly recollect to have spent fourteen or fifteen hours with less
comfort to myself than these. In the hurry and bustle of last night's
engagement, my servant, to whose care I had intrusted my cloak and
haversack, disappeared; he returned not during the whole morning; and as
no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light
fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger,
weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to
be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was
covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost,
or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning till
night. Nor were the objects which occupied our senses of sight and
hearing quite such as we should have desired to occupy them. In other
parts of the field, the troops, not shut up as we were by the enemy's
guns, employed themselves in burying the dead, and otherwise effacing
the traces of warfare. The site of our encampment continued to be
strewed with carcases to the last; and so watchful were the crew of the
schooner, that every effort to convey them out of sight brought a heavy
fire upon the party engaged in it. I must say, that the enemy's
behaviour on the present occasion was not such as did them honour. The
house which General Kean had originally occupied as head-quarters, being
converted into an hospital, was filled at this time with wounded, both
from the British and American armies. To mark its uses, a yellow flag,
the usual signal in such cases, was hoisted on the roof--yet did the
Americans continue to fire at it, as often as a group of six or eight
persons happened to show themselves at the door. Nay, so utterly
regardless were they of the dictates of humanity, that even the parties
who were in the act of conveying the wounded from place to place,
escaped not without molestation. More than one such party was dispersed
by grape-shot, and more than one poor maimed soldier was in consequence
hurled out of the blanket in which he was borne.
The reader will not doubt me when I say, that seldom has the departure
of day-light been more anxiously looked for by me, than we looked for it
now. It is true, that the arrival of a little rum towards evening served
in some slight degree to elevate our spirits; but we could not help
feeling, not vexation only, but positive indignation, at the state of
miserable inaction to which we were condemned.
There was not a man amongst us who would have hesitated one moment, had
the choice been submitted to him, whether he would advance or lie still.
True, we might have suffered a little, because the guns of the schooner
entirely commanded us; and in rushing out from our place of concealment
some casualties would have occurred; but so irksome was our situation,
that we would have readily run all risks to change it. It suited not the
plans of our general, however, to indulge these wishes. To the bank we
were enjoined to cling; and we did cling to it, from the coming in of
the first gray twilight of the morning, till the last twilight of
evening had departed.
As soon as it was well dark, the corps to which Charlton and myself were
attached received orders to file off to the right. We obeyed, and
passing along the front of the hospital, we skirted to the rear of the
village, and established ourselves in the field beyond. It was a
positive blessing this restoration to something like personal freedom.
The men set busily to work, lighting fires and cooking provisions;--the
officers strolled about, with no other apparent design than to give
employment to their limbs, which had become stiff with so protracted a
state of inaction. For ourselves we visited the wounded, said a few kind
words to such as we recognised, and pitied, as they deserved to be
pitied, the rest. Then retiring to our fire, we addressed ourselves with
hearty good will to a frugal supper, and gladly composed ourselves to
sleep.--_A Subaltern in America.--Blackwood's Magazine._
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