Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: The Battle That Shaped America's Destiny

by Brian Kilmeade

Jackson initially gave Monroe an estimate of 1,500, a number he later revised to 2,600. The American losses on the Chalmette Plain on January 8 amounted to no more than a dozen dead. More would be killed on the west bank and in skirmishes in the days following, but the battle, indisputably, was a far greater disaster for the British. General Jackson’s earthworks and his unlikely melding of men had held. The city of New Orleans no longer feared a British invasion. For the nation, the meaning was larger, too. Against all odds, General Jackson had preserved the mouth of the Mississippi for America. At the center of the muddy earthworks, atop its staff, untouched by British hands and overlooking the Chalmette Plain, the Stars and Stripes still waved. General Jackson and his multiethnic, multigenerational army made up of people from every American social class and occupation had come together to do what Napoleon had failed to do: destroy the finest fighting force in the world. Thanks to Jackson’s military instincts, his impeccable planning, and his ferocious leadership, America had prevailed in the most important fight of its young life.