Produced by Geoffrey Cowling
The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans,
1814-1815
by Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A.,
Chaplain-General to the forces;
Author of _The Subaltern_; _Story of the Battle of Waterloo_;
_Life of Lord Clive_; _Life of Sir Thomas Munro_, etc.
NEW EDITION
1879
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following Narrative contains, it is believed, the only connected
and authentic account, which has yet been given, of the expedition
directed against Washington and New Orleans, towards the close of the
late American war. It has been compiled, not from memory alone, but
from a journal kept by the author whilst engaged in the enterprise; and
as the adventures of each were faithfully noted down as they occurred,
and such remarks made upon passing events as suggested themselves to
his mind at the moment, the public may rely with confidence upon
general correctness of the details. The issues of the expedition were
not, indeed, of the most gratifying nature, but it is hoped that a
plain relation of the proceedings of those to whom it was intrusted,
will not, on that account, prove uninteresting; whilst nothing can be
more evident than that the portion of our history which it embraces
ought not to be overlooked because it is little conducive to the
encouragement of national vanity. It was chiefly, indeed, upon this
account, as well as with a view to redeem from an oblivion which they
hardly merit, the actions and sufferings of a few brave men, that the
Narrative now submitted to the public was written.
Contents
CHAPTER I.
Cessation of Hostilities—Expected Embarkation for America—Encampment
near Passages—March towards Bordeaux-Anglet
CHAPTER II.
Bayonne—St. Etienne—March through Bayonne, to Ondres
CHAPTER III.
Les Landes—March to Bordeaux—Bordeaux—Macan—La Moe—At Sea
CHAPTER IV.
At Sea—St. Michael’s—Villa Franca
CHAPTER V.
St Michael’s—Ponto del Gada—At Sea
CHAPTER VI.
Bermuda
CHAPTER VII.
America—The Chesapeake—The Partuxent—St. Benedicts
CHAPTER VIII.
Nottingham—Marlborough
CHAPTER IX.
March to Washington—Bladensburg
CHAPTER X.
Washington
CHAPTER XI.
Washington—Bladensburg—Marlborough—St Benedicts
CHAPTER XII.
Alexandria—The Patuxent—The Patapsco
CHAPTER XIII.
March—Attack—Halt
CHAPTER XIV.
March—Halt—Search—March—Rally—Halt
CHAPTER XV.
The Patuxent—The Potomac—The Chesapeake—At Sea—The West Indies
CHAPTER XVI.
The West Indies—Port Royal—Kingston—Jamaica—The Blue Mountains
CHAPTER XVII.
The Blue Mountains—Port Royal—Negril Bay
CHAPTER XVIII.
At Sea—New Orleans—Lake Borgne—Pine Island
CHAPTER XIX.
Pine Island—The Lake—Landing—March—Halt
CHAPTER XX.
Halt—Attack—Field of Battle—Hospital
CHAPTER XXI.
Advance—Attack—March—Attack—Retreat—Preparations
CHAPTER XXII.
Attack—Retreat—Pause—Attack—Re-embarkation
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Camp—Preparations for Retreat—Retreat—Halt
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Lake—Mobile—Siege—Peace—Havannah
CHAPTER XXV.
Havannah—Remarks
THE BRITISH ARMY
AT
WASHINGTON AND NEW ORLEANS.
CHAPTER I.
A revolution must occur in the condition and sentiments of mankind more
decided than we have any reason to expect that the lapse of ages will
produce, before the mighty events which distinguished the spring of
1814 shall be spoken of in other terms than those of unqualified
admiration. It was then that Europe, which during so many years had
groaned beneath the miseries of war, found herself at once, and to her
remotest recesses, blessed with the prospect of a sure and permanent
peace. Princes, who had dwelt in exile till the very hope of
restoration to power began to depart from them, beheld themselves
unexpectedly replaced on the thrones of their ancestors; dynasties,
which the will of one man had erected, disappeared with the same
abruptness with which they had arisen; and the influence of changes
which a quarter of a century of rapine and conquest had produced in the
arrangements of general society, ceased, as if by magic, to be felt, or
at least to be acknowledged. It seemed, indeed, as if all which had
been passing during the last twenty or thirty years, had passed not in
reality, but in a dream; so perfectly unlooked for were the issues of a
struggle, to which, whatever light we may regard it, the history of the
whole world presents no parallel.
At the period above alluded to, it was the writer’s fortune to form one
of a body of persons in whom the unexpected cessation of hostilities
may be supposed to have excited sensations more powerful and more mixed
than those to which the common occurrences of life are accustomed to
give birth. He was then attached to that portion of the Peninsular army
to which the siege of Bayonne had been intrusted; and on the 28th of
April beheld, in common with his comrades, the tri-coloured flag,
which, for upwards of two months, had waved defiance from the
battlements, give place to the ancient drapeau blanc of the Bourbons.
That such a spectacle could be regarded by any British soldier without
stirring up in him strong feelings of national pride and exultation, is
not to be imagined. I believe, indeed, that there was not a man in our
ranks, however humble his station, to whose bosom these feelings were a
stranger. But the excitation of the moment having passed away, other
and no less powerful feelings succeeded; and they were painful, or the
reverse, according as they ran in one or other of the channels into
which the situations and prospects of individuals not unnaturally
guided them. By such as had been long absent from their homes, the idea
of enjoying once more the society of friends and relatives, was hailed
with a degree of delight too engrossing to afford room for the
occurrence of any other anticipations; to those who had either no homes
to look to, or had quitted them only a short time ago, the thoughts of
revisiting England came mixed with other thoughts, little gratifying,
because at variance with all their dreams of advancement and renown.
For my own part I candidly confess, that though I had just cause to
look forward to a return to the bosom of my family with as much
satisfaction as most men, the restoration of peace excited in me
sensations of a very equivocal nature. At the age of eighteen, and
still enthusiastically attached to my profession, neither the prospect
of a reduction to half-pay, nor the expectation of a long continuance
in a subaltern situation, were to me productive of any pleasurable
emotions; and hence, though I entered heartily into all the
arrangements by which those about me strove to evince their
gratification at the glorious termination of the war, it must be
acknowledged that I did so, without experiencing much of the
satisfaction with the semblance of which my outward behaviour might be
marked.
EXPECTED EMBARKATION FOR AMERICA.
Such being my own feelings, and the feelings of the great majority of
those immediately around me, it was but natural that we should turn our
views to the only remaining quarter of the globe in which the flame of
war still continued to burn. Though at peace with France, England, we
remembered; was not yet at peace with the United States; and reasoning,
not as statesmen but as soldiers, we concluded that she was not now
likely to make peace with that nation till she should be able to do so
upon her own terms. Having such an army on foot, what line of policy
could appear so natural or so judicious as that she should employ, if
not the whole, at all events a large proportion of it, in chastising an
enemy, than whom none had ever proved more vindictive or more
ungenerous? Our view of the matter accordingly was, that some fifteen
or twenty thousand men would be forthwith embarked on board of ship and
transported to the other side of the Atlantic; that the war would there
be carried on with a vigour conformable to the dignity and resources of
the country which waged it; and that no mention of peace would be made
till our general should be in a situation to dictate its conditions in
the enemy’s capital.
Whether any design of the kind was ever seriously entertained, or
whether men merely asserted as a truth what they earnestly desired to
be such, I know not; but the white flag had hardly been hoisted on the
citadel of Bayonne, when a rumour became prevalent that an extensive
encampment of troops, destined for the American war, was actually
forming in the vicinity of Bordeaux. A variety of causes led me to
anticipate that the corps to which I was attached would certainly be
employed upon that service. In the progress of the war which had been
just brought to a conclusion, we had not suffered so severely as many
other corps; and though not excelling in numbers, it is but justice to
affirm that a more effective or better organized battalion could not be
found in the whole army. We were all, moreover, from our commanding
officer down to the youngest ensign, anxious to gather a few more
laurels, even in America; and we had good reason to believe that those
in power were not indisposed to gratify our inclinations. Under these
circumstances we clung with fondness to the hope that our martial
career had not yet come to a close; and employed the space which
intervened between the eventful 28th of April and the 8th of the
following month, chiefly in forming guesses as to the point of attack
towards which it was likely that we should be turned.
ENCAMPMENT NEAR PASSAGES.
Though there was peace between the French and British nations, the form
of hostilities was so far kept up between the garrison of Bayonne and
the army encamped around it, that it was only by an especial treaty
that the former were allowed to send out parties for the purpose of
collecting forage and provisions from the adjacent country. The
foraging parties, however, being permitted to proceed in any direction
most convenient to themselves, the supplies of corn and grass, which
had heretofore proved barely sufficient for our own horses and cattle,
soon began to fail, and it was found necessary to move more than one
brigade to a distance from the city. Among others, the brigade of which
my regiment formed a part, received orders on the 7th of May to fall
back on the road towards Passages. These orders we obeyed on the
following morning; and after an agreeable march of fifteen or sixteen
miles, pitched our tents in a thick wood, about half-way between the
village of Bedart and the town of St. Jean de Luz. In this position we
remained for nearly a week, our expectations of employment on the other
side of the Atlantic becoming daily less and less sanguine, till at
length all doubts on the subject were put an end to by the sudden
arrival of a dispatch, which commanded us to set out with as little
delay as possible towards Bordeaux.
It was on the evening of the 14th that the route was received, and on
the following morning, at daybreak, we commenced our march. The country
through which we moved had nothing in it, unconnected with past events,
calculated in any extraordinary degree to attract attention. Behind us,
indeed, rose the Pyrenees in all their grandeur, forming, on that side,
a noble boundary to the prospect; and on our left was the sea, a
boundary different it is true in kind, though certainly not less
magnificent. But, excepting at these two extremities, there was nothing
in the landscape on which the eye loved particularly to rest, because
the country, though pretty enough, has none of that exquisite richness
and luxuriance which we had been led to expect as characteristic of the
South of France. The houses, too, being all in a ruinous and
dilapidated condition, reminded us more forcibly of the scenes of
violence and outrage which had been lately acted among them, than of
those ideas of rural contentment and innocence which various tales and
melodramas had taught us to associate in our own minds with thoughts of
the land of the vine.
MARCH TOWARDS BORDEAUX
Regarded, however, in connexion with past events, the scene was indeed
most interesting; though to a stranger fresh from England—a man, we
will suppose, of retired and peaceful habits, I can readily imagine
that it would have been productive of much pain; for on each side of
the road, in whatever direction we cast our eyes, and as far as the
powers of vision extended, we beheld cottages unroofed and in ruins,
chateaux stripped of their doors and windows, gardens laid waste, the
walls demolished, and the fruit-trees cut down; whole plantations
levelled, and vineyards trodden under foot. Here and there, likewise, a
redoubt or breastwork presented itself; whilst caps, broken firelocks,
pieces of clothing, and accoutrements scattered about in profusion,
marked the spots where the strife had been most determined, and where
many a fine fellow had met his fate. Our journey lay over a field of
battle, through the entire extent of which the houses were not only
thoroughly gutted (to use a vulgar but most expressive phrase), but for
the most part were riddled with cannon-shot. Round some of the largest,
indeed, there was not a wall nor a tree which did not present evident
proofs of its having been converted into a temporary place of defence,
whilst the deep ruts in what had once been lawns and flower-gardens,
showed that all their beauty had not protected them from being
destroyed by the rude passage of heavy artillery.
Immediately beyond the village of Bedart such spectacles were
particularly frequent. It was here, it may be remembered, that in the
preceding month of December there had been fighting for four successive
days; and the number of little hillocks now within our view; from under
most of which legs and arms were beginning to show themselves, as well
as the other objects which I have attempted to describe, sufficiently
attested the obstinacy with which that fighting had been maintained.
In the bosom of a man of peace it is very conceivable that all this
would have excited feelings exceedingly painful; in ours, such feelings
were overborne by others of a very different nature. If we gazed with
peculiar interest upon one hovel more than upon another, it was because
some of us had there maintained ourselves; if we endeavoured to count
the number of shot-holes in any wall, or the breaks in any hedge, it
was because we had stood behind it when “the iron hail” fell thick and
fast around us. Our thoughts, in short, had more of exultation in them
than of sorrow; for though now and then, when the name of a fallen
comrade was mentioned, it was accompanied with a “poor fellow” the
conversation soon returned again to the exploits and hair-breadth
escapes of the survivors. On the whole, therefore, our march was one of
deep interest and high excitement, feelings which did not entirely
evaporate when we halted, about two hours after noon, at the village of
Anglet.
MARCH TOWARDS BORDEAUX—ANGLET
We found this village in the condition in which it was to be expected
that a place of so much importance during the progress of the late
siege would be found, in other words, completely metamorphosed into a
chain of petty posts. Being distant from the outworks of Bayonne not
more than a mile and a half, and standing upon the great road by which
all the supplies for the left of the British army were brought up, no
means, as may be supposed, had been neglected, which art or nature
could supply, towards rendering it as secure against a sudden excursion
of the garrison as might be. About one hundred yards in front of it
felled trees were laid across the road, with their branches turned
towards the town, forming what soldiers, in the language of their
profession, term an abattis. Forty or fifty yards in rear of this a
ditch was dug, and a breastwork thrown up, from behind which a party
might do great execution upon any body of men struggling to force their
way over that impediment. On each side of the highway again, where the
ground rises into little eminences, redoubts and batteries were
erected, so as to command the whole with a heavy flanking fire; while
every house and hovel lying at all within the line of expected
operations was loop-holed, and otherwise put in a posture of defence.
But upon the fortification of the church a more than ordinary degree of
care seemed to have been bestowed. As it stood upon a little eminence
in the middle of the hamlet, it was no hard matter to convert it into a
tolerably regular fortress, which might serve the double purpose of a
magazine for warlike stores and a post of defence against the enemy.
With this view the churchyard was surrounded by a row of stout palings,
called in military phraseology stockades, from certain openings in
which the muzzles of half a dozen pieces of light artillery protruded.
The walls of the edifice itself were, moreover, strengthened by an
embankment of earth to the height of perhaps four or five feet from the
ground, above which narrow openings were made, in order to give to its
garrison an opportunity of levelling their muskets; while on the top of
the tower a small howitzer was mounted, from which either shot or shell
could be thrown with effect into any of the lanes or passes near. It is
probably needless to add that the interior arrangements of this house
of God had undergone a change as striking as that which affected its
exterior. Barrels of gunpowder, with piles of balls of all sizes and
dimensions, now occupied the spaces where worshippers had often
crowded; and the very altar was heaped up with spunges, wadding, and
other implements necessary in case of an attack.
I have been thus minute in my description of Anglet, because what has
been said of it will apply more or less exactly to every village,
hamlet, or cluster of cottages, within the compass of what were called
the lines. It is true that neither here nor elsewhere, excepting at one
particular point, and that on the opposite side of the river, were any
serious intentions entertained of broaching or storming the place; and
that the sole object of these preparations was to keep the enemy within
his works, and to cut him off from all communication with the
surrounding country. But to effect even this end, the utmost vigilance
and precaution were necessary, not only because the number of troops
employed on the service was hardly adequate to discharge it, but
because the garrison hemmed in was well known to be at once numerous
and enterprising. The reader may accordingly judge what appearance a
country presented which, to the extent of fifteen or twenty miles
round, was thus treated; where every house was fortified, every road
blocked up, every eminence mined with fieldworks, and every place
swarming with armed men. Nor was its aspect less striking by night than
by day. Gaze where he might, the eye of the spectator then rested upon
some portion of one huge circle of fires, by the glare of which the
white tents or rudely constructed huts of the besiegers were from time
to time made visible.
While things continued thus, the condition of the peaceful inhabitant
of this district could hardly fail to be one of extreme discomfort. Of
these the greater number had indeed fled on the advance of the British
army, leaving their houses and effects a prey to the conquerors; but
there were some who, having probably no place of refuge to retire to,
remained in their homes, and threw themselves upon our mercy for
protection. It is not requisite that I should now inform the reader of
the strict discipline which Lord Wellington preserved in every division
of his army; his first step, on entering France, had been to inform the
people that against them no violence was intended; and the assurance
thus given, was in no instance, at least wantonly, violated. But,
however orderly the conduct of an invading force may be, their very
presence must occasion a thousand inconveniences to those upon whom
they are quartered; not the least distressing of which is, perhaps, the
feeling of degradation which the consciousness of being in the power of
armed foreigners can hardly fail to produce. Then there is the total
destruction of all domestic comfort, which the occupation of a man’s
house by large bodies of soldiers produces; the liability to which the
females, in particular, are exposed to insult from the common troopers;
and the dread of vengeance from any delinquent on whom their complaints
may have brought down chastisement, all these things must and do create
a degree of misery, of which the inhabitants of Great Britain may thank
God that they know nothing except by name. In the vicinity of Bayonne,
moreover, the country people lived in daily and nightly expectation of
finding themselves involved in all the horrors and dangers of a battle.
Sorties were continually looked for, and however these might terminate,
the non-combatants felt that they must be equally the sufferers. Nay,
it was no uncommon ground of complaint among them, that even the total
defeat of our forces would bring with it no relief, because, by
remaining to receive us, they had disobeyed the proclamations of
Marshal Soult, and were consequently liable to punishment as traitors.