As Monday will be the anniversary of New Orleans, I thought I would send
you the inclosed letter from General Jackson [who was of Irish
parentage], which will help you to celebrate the great event. The
introduction is somewhat mutilated, but you can get enough from it to
serve as an introduction to the letter. A number of years ago I visited
New Orleans, and I need not tell you that one of my most pleasant
recollections of the visit was inspecting the field where 1,500 Kentucky
and Tennessee riflemen killed or wounded 2,117 of England’s choicest
troops, including their commander, General Pakenham, who was
brother-in-law of the Iron Duke.
I saw while on the field an unfinished monument in honor of the brave
men who won the battle. I made all the inquiries possible about the
monument (which I regarded as a monument of ingratitude), but could find
no one who could give me any information concerning it. I even wrote to
the _Picayune_ suggesting that as the exposition to celebrate the
Louisiana Purchase was about to be held, the event would be a good
opportunity to raise the funds necessary to finish the monument, but
nothing was done and it still remains as a reproach to the last
generation as well as to this.
Of course you know that the treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Day,
1814, so it was three weeks after that that the battle was fought; but
it came in time to redeem the series of blunders that characterized the
so-called campaign on the Canadian frontier. In this connection permit
me to say that the house we live in was bought from a gentleman whose
two grandfathers were present at the battle. I knew a man when I was a
boy who fought on the British side, and also fought on the fatal field
of Waterloo, in the Twenty-seventh Inniskillen Foot.
* * * * *
Following are the excerpts from General Jackson’s letter to which Mr.
Morrison alludes above:
“The battle (says General Jackson) commenced at a very little before 7
a. m., January 8, 1815, and as far as the infantry was concerned it was
over by 9 a. m. My force was very much mixed. I had portions of the 7th
and 44th regular infantry regiments, Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen,
Creoles, United States marines and sailors, Baratarian men—one of them,
Captain Dominique You, commanded part of my artillery (and a famous
gunner he was)—and two battalions of free negroes. I had in the action
about 6,000 men. The British strength was almost the same as mine, but
vastly superior in drill and discipline. Of their force my riflemen
killed and wounded 2,117 in less than an hour, including two general
officers (both died on the field, each a division commander), seven full
colonels, with seventy-five line and staff officers. I lost six killed
and seven wounded.
“As to tactics, there were very little in use on either side. We had
some works of earth fronting the river, but the Kentucky and Tennessee
riflemen, who sustained the main attack, had protected themselves by a
work about two feet and a half high, made of logs placed two feet apart,
and the space between filled in with earth. This work began at the
Mississippi River, and ended in the swamp, being at a right angle with
the river.
“Thinking this the weakest portion of our line, and seeing ununiformed
men behind the trifling defenses, General Pakenham thought it the best
thing to begin his attack by carrying this part of my line with the
bayonet. On the 3d of January I had ordered that each rifleman’s
powder-horn be filled, and enough lead for 100 bullets issued, besides
good material for bullet-patching be furnished. This order required
every soldier to thoroughly clean his rifle and put a new flint into the
hammer; so we were ready as we could be for the attack.
“There was a very heavy fog on the river that morning, and the British
had formed and were moving before I knew it. The disposition of the
riflemen was very simple. They were told off in numbers one and two.
Number one was to fire first, then step back and let number two shoot
while he reloaded. About six hundred yards from the riflemen there was a
great drainage canal running back from the Mississippi River to the
swamp in the rear of the tilled land on which we were operating. Along
this canal the British formed under the fire of the few artillery pieces
I had, near enough to them to get their range. But the instant I saw
them I said to Coffee, whom I directed to hurry to his line, which was
to be first attacked: ‘By ——, we have got them; they are ours!’ Coffee
dashed forward, and riding along his line, called out, ‘Don’t shoot till
you can see their belt-buckles.’ The British were formed in mass, well
closed up, and about two companies front.
“The British, thus formed, moved on at a quick step, without firing a
shot, to within one hundred yards of the kneeling riflemen, who were
holding their fire till they could see the belt-buckles of their
enemies. The British advance was executed as though they had been on
parade. They marched shoulder to shoulder, with the step of veterans, as
they were. At one hundred yards’ distance from our line the order was
given, ‘Extend column front. Double quick, march! Charge!’ With bayonets
at the charge, they came on us at a run. I own it was an anxious moment;
I well knew the charging column was made up of the picked troops of the
British army. They had been trained by the duke himself, were commanded
by his brother-in-law, and had successfully held off the ablest of
Napoleon’s marshals in the Spanish campaign. My riflemen had never seen
such an attack, nor had they ever before fought white men. The morning,
too, was damp; their powder might not burn well. ‘God help us!’ I
muttered, watching the rapidly advancing line. Seventy, sixty, fifty,
finally forty yards were they from the silent kneeling riflemen.
“All of my men I could see was their long rifles rested on the logs
before them. They obeyed their orders well; not a shot was fired until
the redcoats were within forty yards. I heard Coffee’s voice as he
roared out: ‘Now, men, aim for the center of the cross-belts! Fire!’ A
second after the order a crackling, blazing flash ran all along our
line. The smoke hung so heavily in the misty morning air that I could
not see what had happened. I called Tom Overton and Abner Duncan, of my
staff, and we galloped towards Coffee’s line. In a few seconds after the
first fire there came another sharp, ringing volley. As I came within
one hundred and fifty yards of Coffee, the smoke lifted enough for me to
make out what was happening. The British were falling back in a
confused, disorderly mass, and the entire first ranks of their column
were blown away. For two hundred yards in our front the ground was
covered with a mass of writhing wounded, dead and dying redcoats.
“By the time the rifles were wiped the British line was reformed, and on
it came again. This time they were led by General Pakenham in person,
gallantly mounted, and riding as though he was on parade. Just before he
got within range of Coffee’s line, I heard a single rifle-shot from a
group of country carts we had been using, about one hundred and
seventy-five yards distant, and a moment thereafter I saw Pakenham reel
and pitch out of his saddle. I have always believed he fell from the
bullet of a free man of color, who was a famous rifle-shot, and came
from the Atakappas region of Louisiana. The second advance was precisely
like the first in its ending. In five volleys the 1,500 or more riflemen
killed and wounded 2,117 British soldiers, two thirds of them killed
dead or mortally wounded. I did not know where General Pakenham was
lying, or I should have sent to him, or gone in person, to offer any
service in my power to render.
“I was told he lived two hours after he was hit. His wound was directly
through the liver and bowels. General Keene, I hear, was killed dead.
They sent a flag to me, asking leave to gather up their wounded and bury
their dead, which, of course, I granted. I was told by a wounded officer
that the rank and file absolutely refused to make a third charge. ‘We
have no chance with such shooting as these Americans do,’ they said.”
Commenting on the letter, and after referring to Napoleon’s expressions
of admiration for the American leader’s action at New Orleans, William
Hugh Roberts, the noted writer, said:
“This concludes the material part of General Jackson’s letter. It was in
the feverish glories of the Hundred Days that Napoleon came into
possession of Mr. Monroe’s translation. There was no doubt about the
facts. There happened to be abroad then in France two or three American
gentlemen who were accustomed to the use of the rifle. One of them
selected a weapon out of the four sent from America to the French
emperor, and in Napoleon’s presence did some really excellent
sharpshooting at one hundred yards.
“Had Napoleon won Waterloo, it is possible that he would have organized
a corps of sharpshooters and armed them with the American rifle, which
was capable of a more deadly accuracy than any European arm of the kind,
not excepting even the rifle of Switzerland. General Jackson repeated
the compliment of Napoleon to the typical American weapon to General
William Selby Harney, then a field officer of dragoons, who in turn
related the incident to the writer.”