"Pretty good work, too, general," responded the buccaneer. "It looks to
me as if the British have discovered that there has been a change of
powder in this battery." He was right. Before the combined rifle and
artillery fire of the Americans the British columns were melting like
snow under a spring rain. Still their officers led them on, cheering,
pleading, threatening, imploring. Pakenham's arm was pierced by a
bullet; at the same instant another killed his horse, but, mounting the
pony of his aide-de-camp, he continued to encourage his disheartened and
wavering men. Keane was borne bleeding from the field, and a moment
later Gibbs, mortally wounded, was carried after him. The panic which
was just beginning to seize the British soldiery was completed at this
critical instant by a shot from one of the Baratarians' big guns which
burst squarely in the middle of the advancing column, causing terrible
destruction in the solid ranks. Pakenham's horse fell dead, and the
general reeled into the arms of an officer who sprang forward to catch
him. Terribly wounded, he was carried to the shelter of a spreading
oak, beneath which, five minutes later, he breathed his last. Then the
ebb-tide began. The shattered regiments, demoralized by the death of
their commander, and themselves fearfully depleted by the American fire,
broke and ran. Ten minutes later, save for the crawling, agonized
wounded, not a living foe was to be seen. But the field, which had been
green with grass half an hour before, was carpeted with scarlet now, and
the carpet was made of British dead. Of the six thousand men who took
part in the attack, it is estimated that two thousand six hundred were
killed or wounded. Of the Ninety-third Regiment, which had gone into
action nine hundred strong, only one hundred and thirty-nine men
answered to the roll-call. The Americans had eight men killed and
thirteen wounded. The battle had lasted exactly twenty-five minutes. At
eight o'clock the American bugles sounded "Cease firing," and
Jackson--whom this victory was to make President of the United
States--followed by his staff, rode slowly down the lines, stopping at
each command to make a short address. As he passed, the regimental fifes
and drums burst into "Hail, Columbia," and the rows of weary,
powder-grimed men, putting their caps on the ends of their long rifles,
swung them in the air and cheered madly the victor of New Orleans.
There is little more to tell. On March 17 the British expedition,
accompanied by the judges and customs-inspectors and revenue-collectors,
and by the officers' wives who had come out to take part in the
festivities which were to mark the conquest, set sail from the mouth of
the Mississippi, reaching Europe just in time to participate in the
Waterloo campaign. In the general orders issued by Jackson after the
battle the highest praise was given to the Lafittes and their followers
from Barataria, while the official despatches to Washington strongly
urged that some recognition be made of the extraordinary services
rendered by the erstwhile pirates. A few weeks later the President
granted a full pardon to the inhabitants of Barataria, his message
concluding: "Offenders who have refused to become the associates of the
enemy in war upon the most seducing terms of invitation, and who have
aided to repel his hostile invasion of the territory of the United
States, can no longer be considered as objects of punishment, but as
objects of generous forgiveness." Taking advantage of this amnesty, the
ex-pirates settled down to the peaceable lives of fishermen and
market-gardeners, and their descendants dwell upon the shores of
Barataria Bay to this day. As to the future movements of the brothers
Lafitte, beyond the fact that they established themselves for a time at
Galveston, whence they harassed Spanish commerce in the Gulf of Mexico,
nothing definite is known. Leaving New Orleans soon after the battle,
they sailed out of the Mississippi, and out of this story.