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

by Brian Kilmeade

158 soldiers had prevented the British from winning a beachhead and, more important, gaining access to a harbor from which they might march overland to invade New Orleans. Washington may have fallen, but little Fort Bowyer still stood. The Americans had finally held.

Far away, a full one thousand miles to the north and east, another fort had just been bombarded by the British, and a major American victory had been won. The fight for the nation’s third-largest city would help launch a turnaround of U.S. military fortunes—and national morale would rise as Francis Scott Key’s poem about the events in Baltimore Harbor reverberated around the country.

Earlier in the war, Francis Scott Key, a Federalist by affiliation, had opposed the decision to go to war. But recent events—the burning of Washington, the fight for Baltimore—had allied him with President Madison, who was calling for national unity after Washington’s destruction, exhorting “all the good people . . . in providing for the defense” of the nation.4 Though Key’s anthem was published anonymously, it would help the cause.

Francis Scott Key’s four verses had sparked a patriotic fire that would help draw the nation together and, after years of defeats, America’s fighting spirit had been stirred. Washington may have fallen, but the Union Jack did not fly over Baltimore.

the British would strike again, reasonably believing that the greatest naval power on earth would ultimately be able to conquer New Orleans. The only thing standing in their way was Andrew Jackson.

After the Fort Bowyer victory, Jackson’s sense of elation was short-lived. He knew it was only a matter of time before the next attack. Without sufficient land forces to defend the entire coast, his job, above all, was to outguess his enemy.

Jackson himself would remain at Mobile. He would work his network of spies, monitoring British military moves from Florida to Louisiana and in the Caribbean.

the British attack on Fort Bowyer confirmed that the enemy had hoped to use Mobile as a base ...

As he waited for reinforcements, he set about further improving the defenses at Fort Bowyer.

salvage the cannons from the blasted wreck of the Hermes. If the British returned, they would find the fort even harder to take than before.

Jackson decided, would be to eject the British force from Pensacola, the next large port town some fifty miles east of Mobile.7 That seemed the obvious next step.

Pensacola was in Spanish territory, and the Spaniards were not proving friendly to the Americans. The Spanish governor, Don Mateo González Manrique, had granted the British Royal Navy safe harbor in Pensacola two months earlier, which meant that the British were free to land troops there for an overland assault on New Orleans—and

On November 6, Jackson’s army halted two miles west of Pensacola. First, the general tried approaching in peace.

That evening, Major Piere, now welcomed by the governor, went to Pensacola to deliver Jackson’s demands. The governor read Jackson’s note: “I come not as the enemy of Spain; not to make war but to ask for peace.” But though Jackson used words of peace, his demands hinted at the consequence of war should his request be ignored.

When the news had arrived, on October 1, of the August burning of Washington, John Quincy Adams spent a sleepless night worrying about the fortunes of his country. A habitual diarist, he found, on the morning after hearing of his capital’s capture, that his sense of shock remained so great that “it was almost impossible to write.”12

He had suspected for some time that the British were attempting to capture the mouth of the Mississippi, writing to Monroe six weeks earlier, “It appears to me most likely that their true and immediate object is New Orleans.”13 Now that they had introduced this term into the treaty, he was even more certain. If the British were able to conquer New Orleans before the treaty was signed, America’s westward expansion would be cut off, and the future shape of the United States would be determined by the British.

Gallatin was right to be worried. Late in 1814, delegates of the New England states met secretly in what became known as the Hartford Convention to discuss their complaints about Madison and his war. Several delegates pushed for secession even as the British moved toward New Orleans.

The diplomats considered all the obstacles and could offer no optimism at the likelihood their negotiations would succeed. As Clay bluntly put it to Monroe, “The safest opinion to adopt is . . . that our mission will terminate unsuccessfully.”15

Jackson and his American soldiers would get no help from Ghent—and, in the coming weeks, the predictions of Ministers Gallatin a...

Unaware of the dark turn in British negotiations, General Jackson nonetheless continued to move to the defense of New Orleans. He waited for no man—in Europe or in Washington—and under the cover of night, on November 7, 1814, he marched all but five hundred of his men into the woods on the outskirts of Pensacola. The town’s Spanish defenders, believing the Americans were still in their original camp, kept their guns pointed toward the nearly empty tents, while their British allies repositioned their warships to bear on the westward approach to Pensacola. At daylight, the token force Jackson left behind made a feint toward Pensacola from the west, while the much larger army, which Jackson had led around the town in darkness, attacked along the narrow beach from the northeast.

Jackson’s infantrymen, and General Coffee’s brigade quickly overwhelmed the first band of startled defenders. As the Americans entered the town, Spanish musket fire raked the attackers from gardens and houses along the center street, but the Royal Navy was no help. Unprepared, their supporting fire came too late.

The British had relinquished the fort and, though Jackson had not won quite the victory he expected—he had come to capture Fort Barrancas, only to see it destroyed—Pensacola had been rendered defenseless. The British would not be able to use it as a base of attack, and Jackson needed to waste no men garrisoning the town or the blasted hulk that had been Fort Barrancas.

General Jackson had repulsed the British at Pensacola. His men had sent one British warship to the bottom of the sea at Fort Bowyer, and twice the Royal Navy flotilla had been forced to abandon good harbors on the Gulf Coast. The British had hoped to enlist the rebellious Creeks into their

Monroe somehow came up with $100,000. And the secretary of war promised more troops would be sent to his winning general. But Jackson could feel the pressure rising. His health was far from perfect, with his left shoulder still nearly useless and his gut a constant discomfort.

On Tuesday, November 22, 1814, Andrew Jackson and his army began a new trek, this time to Louisiana to defend America’s heartland from a looming enemy.

No one on the west coast of Jamaica or anywhere else in the Caribbean had seen anything like it before. The fifty large vessels, each flying the Union Jack, amounted to the largest naval force ever assembled in the hemisphere.

On November 26, 1814, the hardened old Scotsman in command surveyed his flotilla, proud of its power. He watched with care as his captains carried out his orders to set sail. After months of planning,

High on the poop deck of the eighty-gun HMS Tonnant, fifty-six-year-old Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, his hair turned white, looked older than his years. His courtly manner revealed his pedigree: he was a younger son of an earl. Though softened by age—round through his middle, jowls overhanging his high collar—Cochrane revealed a steelier side. As one...

Edward Livingston had demonstrated he could be invaluable to the general. Livingston possessed skills as an orator and a translator, as well as a deep knowledge of Creole society. He was also an attorney, and his opinions on martial law might soon be put to use. In recognition of the man’s usefulness, Jackson made him a colonel. In the coming weeks, Livingston would function as Jackson’s military secretary and confidant.

A wise general imprints on his mind the local topography as he prepares to do battle. So Andrew Jackson began with the maps, even as he wondered whether the fight would commence in two days or twenty-two. New Orleans was the nation’s seventh-largest city.

“The first days of the General’s arrival at New Orleans [were] devoted to the acquisition of such information, upon various points, as were deemed necessary, in order to enable him to adopt the most efficacious plan for the defense of Louisiana.”15

First, that meant identifying—and then obstructing—any and all routes the British might take to attack the city. To help with that process, Edward Livingston brought the architect Arsène Lacarrière Latour to Jackson’s headquarters on Royal Street. Jackson was impressed, both with the man and with the maps of New Orleans and its vicinity. Because Latour displayed the kind of knowledge the general needed, Jackson promptly named him principal engineer of the U.S. Army’s Seventh Military District.

Jackson’s pet theory had been that the British would put their troops ashore well east of the city—namely, landing at Mobile—then march in a great arc north of their objective. When they reached the Mississippi River upstream from New Orleans, Jackson reasoned, they could commandeer boats and barges; then, carried by the current, they would...

after moving his army to New Orleans, Jackson understood the British might still return to Mobile Bay and overpower Fort Bowyer, making an overland attack route possible. In order to prevent that, Jackson had dispatched General Coffee; he and his Volunteer cavalry had parted with Jackson on the march from Mobile, going on to Baton Rouge. Coffee’s job would be to hal...

Jackson had no way of knowing which the enemy would choose but, again, he would have to take steps to obstruct their progress, whatever the angle of approach.

Three of the possibilities involved rivers, the most obvious being the Mississippi itself. That approach was guarded by fortifications well downstream; but those he needed to inspect personally.

Bayou Lafourche, which lay to the west, was another option for the British. A narrow but deep stream that veered south off the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, it emptied into the Gulf. If the British could sail up Bayou Lafourche and reach the parent river, they could then attack New Orleans from upstream. However, the breadth of the river and its ever-changing currents would make attacking from the opposite bank difficult.

To the east of the city was the River aux Chenes, which connected to Bayou Terre aux Boeufs. Both of these watercourses were sluggish but navigable for small boats. Again, Jackson was doubtful that the British attack would approach via these waters.

The other three angles of attack were via larger bodies of water.

Barataria Bay, south of the city, was linked to a maze of smaller waterways. Even though the pirates routinely used this network of streams to bring their goods to New Orleans, landing an army was another matter, especially without skilled pilots—and, it seemed, the Lafittes and the corsair...

Lake Borgne offered two plausible lines of attack: If the British could take possession of this large inlet, they might move on New Orleans via Bayou Chef Menteur, which led to a mile-wide strip of dry land called the Plain of Gentilly. Or they could carry the boats some five miles from the lake toward the Mississippi. On reaching the far side, however, the army could then march along the dry land that bordered the river ...

Jackson and Governor Claiborne issued orders on December 2. Jackson sent guards to the least likely lines of attack, where they would watch and report if he had gambled wrong and the British were coming that way. Commanded by General Jacques Villere, detachments of the Louisiana militia marched out to the bayous and toward Barataria Bay armed not only with guns but also with axes. Their job was to clog...

Because there was one route that might allow Royal Navy warships to get within firing range of the city, Jackson himself headed downriver the next day. As the engineer Latour reported, Jackson, “adhering to his constant practice of seeing everything himself,” and his command, with Latour as their guide, went to inspect the fortifications on the banks of the Mississippi.16

Fort St. Philip was about sixty-five miles downstream; it was manned by regular troops and armed with two dozen cannons.

Jackson knew that an attacking armada would have vastly greater firepower that would probably ove...

Closer to the city, he visited Fort St. Leon, which overlooked one of the Mississippi’s many great bends. The abrupt curve was known as English Turn, having gained its name in 1699, when the future founder of New Orleans, the sieur de Bienville, persuaded a band of English explorers to turn back because, he said, France had already claimed the territory.

Jackson hoped to convince the British to turn back there, too, and planned to take advantage of the difficulties the British navy would have navigating the arching bend. Sailing ships needed a change of wind in order to make the curve, which meant a naval force coming up the river might have to linger for hours exposed to Fort St. Leon’s guns.

Jackson and his officers feeling confident. “It is almost impossible for an invading enemy to gain possession of New Orleans,” noted his aide, the engineer Tatum, “by ascending the Mississippi. . . . At the English Turn . . . heavy cannon . . . would destroy every armed vessel that dared to attempt the ascent.”17

After his six-day tour of the Mississippi, Jackson returned to New Orleans on December 9 and informed Claiborne that, given the added batteries, the river could be well defended.

But Jackson still needed to evaluate the last and perhaps the most likely approach for the British, via Lake Borgne. Repelling an attack there would be a challenge, but the general was ready and willing. He had already, almost single-handedly, lifted the morale of New Orleanians. As the engineer Latour reported, “The citizens were preparing for battle as cheerfully as if it had been a party of pleasure, each in his vernacular tongue singing songs of vic...