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

by Brian Kilmeade

The weather was fair—the thermometer read a tropical eighty-four degrees—when Admiral Cochrane and his fleet left Jamaica. But, as Andrew Jackson took his tour of the Mississippi’s fortifications, the British encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of Mexico. During the last few days of the passage swells rocked the warships violently enough that the soldiers on board stayed below.

Just thirty miles beyond lay the mouth of Lake Borgne. There, the British intended to land the ground troops who would march through to New Orleans. There was a distinct chill in the air as the fleet’s flagship, the HMS Tonnant, along with the other tall ships, dropped anchor in the deep water off the Chandeleurs. Smaller warships sailed deeper into the sound, reefing their sails as they found anchorage between Cat and Ship Islands.

When one of the smaller ships, the HMS Sophie, approached the nearby coast, it came upon two small American gunboats, which sailed quickly away,

A sandbar lay dead ahead, guarding the mouth of Lake Borgne, and the lake’s shoals were known to pose a danger to all boats with more than the shallowest draft. The Americans, knowing the waters, escaped unscathed as the British watched, unable to stop them from ruining Cochrane’s surprise. Within a day or two, Andrew Jackson would know that his fears were confirmed and that a huge British invasion force was heading toward Lake Borgne.

Andrew Jackson had no choice but to rely on the men of the U.S. Navy. But he didn’t know quite what to think of Daniel Todd Patterson. Although Patterson was just twenty-eight, his career in the navy had already spanned more than fifteen years. He had served two years in the West Indies before shipping out as a midshipman aboard the USS Philadelphia during the war with the Barbary pirates.

he had been a prisoner for eighteen months. Yet even that experience had added to his store of naval knowledge, because the Philadelphia’s captain had used the time wisely, running an informal academy to tutor his young officers while in captivity.

Patterson had told Jackson that he thought coming to Mobile was a fool’s errand. In his judgment, if he went to Jackson’s aid, the more powerful Royal Navy would inevitably blockade his vessels in Mobile Bay, rendering his gunboats useless for the more important job of protecting New Orleans.

had joined Jackson and his engineers on their reconnaissance trip down the Mississippi. He proved useful, his counsel valuable in improving the fortifications along the river. Jackson began to appreciate that, after almost five years in New Orleans, Patterson knew the city and, in particular, the big river, the many lakes, and the seascapes that surrounded it.

Patterson had also thought long and hard about protecting New Orleans. Some of his thinking appeared suddenly prescient, because he had been pleading with the secretary of the navy for twelve months to send him more men, matériel, and warships. New Orleans was in danger: “The great depot of the western country,” he warned, was “left open to the enemy.”2 Jackson recognized that he and Patterson had shared the same fears for many months.

Back at headquarters on 106 Royal Street, the two men considered how to protect the city from a northeastern attack via the lakes. Having never seen a gunboat, Jackson looked to Patterson; as a former gunboat commander, Patterson knew the vessels intimately.

They were small by the standards of naval ships, typically fifty to sixty feet in length and eighteen feet wide, with a shallow draft and rigged with mast and sails. Armed with a large-bore cannon each and several smaller guns, the little vessels were notoriously top-heavy, making them unstable in heavy seas. Still,...

Five U.S. Navy gunboats already actively patrolled the waters near the mouth of Lake Borgne. The gunboats were served by a schooner, the Sea Horse, to carry dispatches, and the Alligator, a converted fishing boat used for transporting men and supplies from shore to ship. Armed with a total of...

If challenged by the British, Jones was under instructions to retire to the Rigolets, the narrow strait that was the passage from Lake Borgne to Lake Pontchartrain. There he was to “wait for the enemy, and sink him or be sunk.”3

Jackson agreed that Patterson’s plan seemed sound. The mouth of the big lake offered defensive advantages, and the two men believed that Jones and his well-armed boats could hold off any small craft Admiral Cochrane might send his way. Patterson also assured Jackson that no deep-draft warship could possibly sail into Lake Borgne.

Jackson wrote to James Monroe. “The gun boats on the lakes,” he told the secretary of war confidently, on December 10, “will prevent the Brit...

Lieutenant Jones and his men, on that very morning, awakened to the sight of a flotilla of enemy vessels at anchor and, with the chiming of every hour, even more ships were sailing into view. All J...

December 10, British sailors and officers alike looked curiously at the tall grasses that lined an unfamiliar shoreline. As one artilleryman noted, the landscape resembled “trembling prairies,” with no beaches in sight, and only matted reeds and soggy ground where the water and land merged.

moving troops and hauling big guns on this terrain would not be easy.

Admiral Cochrane had a...

He favored ferrying the troops across Lake Borgne to a landing site. On the advice of two former Spanish residents of New Orleans, Cochrane thought the beachhead on the far side might be Bayou Bienvenue, a waterway said to be navigable by good-size barges.6 From there a short march of a few miles would take the invading army to the outskirts of New Orleans.

Lake Borgne would have to be cleared of enemy ships. Though there were only five small American gunboats in the lake, their cannons were a grave danger to the open boats the British would use to ferry soldiers ashore. Cochrane would not expose his men to that kind of danger and gave an order: “[No] movement of the troops could take place till this formidable flotilla was either captured or destroyed.”

outside the waters of Lake Borgne, Cochrane gave the reliable Nicholas Lockyer, captain of the Sophie, command of the venture to exterminate the gunboats. Having visited the pirate Lafitte in Barataria Bay, patrolled the Gulf, and commanded the attack on Lake Bowyer, he was the Briton most experienced in the ways and waters of the Gulf Coast.

Monday, December 12, a mix of seamen in blue coats and marines in red jackets boarded forty-two barges. Three unarmed ship’s boats accompanied the barges and, taken together, the vessels carried 1,200 men.

Lockyer’s assignment: Dispose of the gunboats. Capture them, if possible, Cochrane ordered; the shallow-draft boats might well be useful in the operation to come. But, most of all, the admiral w...

Aboard one of the American gunboats in Lake Borgne, Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones watched and waited for the British attack. For the past three days, the twenty-four-year-old commander had played a cautious game of cat and mouse with the enemy. He had ventured near to the channel near Ship Island where many of the Royal Navy ships rocked with the tides, close enough to confirm how many ships were there, and had then retreated, dispatching one of his boats with a report to Patterson.

Jones had decided it was “no longer safe or prudent for me to continue on that part of the lakes.”8 He retreated to the mouth of Lake Borgne just north of Malheureux Island.

December 13, he spotted the British barges at 10:00 a.m. As he watched the flotilla proceed westward, he knew that the assault on New Orleans had begun. Cochrane would be taking the route Jackson had thought most likely...

Seeing how much larger the British force was than his own, Jones quickly took action. Reasoning that the British were likely to reach vital supplies waiting on the nearby shore, he dispatched the schooner Sea Horse to blow up the...

his little fleet of gunboats was much too small to stop the enemy completely. Lieutenant Jones watched as the British convoy made steady though laborious progress across the lake. The front of the imposing flotilla was half a mile wide and moved relentlessly westward despite strong headwinds. As noon came and went, Jones waited for the enemy force to make a move south toward shore—and to New Orleans—to unload the troops. But the flotilla did not change course. At...

If the British wanted to destroy his little fleet—and they clearly had the manpower to do it—the time had come to retreat deeper into Lake Borgne. Per Patterson’s orders, Jones prepared to sail his badly outnumbered force to the narrow strait, the Rigolets, where he might make a stand. If that failed, he could retreat into Lake Pontchartrain.

Ordered to weigh anchor and set sail, his men soon discovered that days of sustained winds and low tide had made the marshy waters off Malheureux Island uncommonly shallow: three of the gunboats ran aground on the sandy bottom. In a frantic effort to lighten the craft, Jones’s men threw all dispensable heavy items overboard, but the boats still refused to budge. They sat helplessly, watching the British approach, until 3:30 when, finally, the rising tide floated the boats free.

Jones noticed that, while most of the British boats were still heading for him and his recently freed flotilla, three of the British barges were veering northward toward shore. Their unmistakable target was the schooner Sea Horse, still visible on its mission to keep the supplies on land from falling into British hands. With darkness falling, the Sea Horse attempted to fight off its attackers, firing a deadly discharge of grapeshot at the British boats. The rain of iron balls brought the British attack to a temporary halt and gave the Sea Horse time to make for the...

By the time the combined British force of seven boats closed in on the schooner, the Sea Horse was moored at the shoreline, and some of its crewmen were on dry land, readying their cann...

Within half an hour, the British discovered that the single American ship put up a better fight than they’d expected. Despite their advantage in numbers, the British lost one boat and sustained many casualties before pulling back.

the British retreat was no victory for Jones’s men. Although the Americans on the Sea Horse had fought off this first attack, they remained trapped—and they understood they would not be able to hold off a second assault. Unwilling to let the ship fall into enemy hands, they made a painful decision. At 7:30 p.m., a tremendous explosion rent the air, sending flames high into the sky. The Americans had blown up the Sea Horse and the supplies. Neither would be of any use to the British.

As the Sea Horse burned, Jones and the men aboard the five gunboats continued north, attempting to avoid a fight with the many barges. For a few hours, they made progress but, as midnight approached, the wind failed them. They were well short of the shallow passage north of Malheureux Island that would lead them to safety when it became clear their sails would carry them no farther. But the British boats, powered by oarsmen, would be unaffected by the stillness. Though the enemy had stop...

Jones decided he and his becalmed force had only one option: they must turn and fight. Summoning the commanders of the five gunboats, he laid out the plan. They would form a line across the mile-wide strip of shallow water where they were becalmed, anchoring the boats at the stern. The tide retreating from Lake Borgne would keep their bows—and thus their cannons—pointing at the oncoming British. His intent, Jones expla...

Morning, December 14 The day started early. British sailors had begun rowing at 4:00 a.m. With the first light of day, Captain Nicholas Lockyer spied the American flotilla. Less than ten miles ahead, the gunboats, five abreast, were obviously looking to hold the line against the British onslaught. Lockyer’s orders were to capture or destroy any American ship he saw, whatever the cost.

The Alligator, sailing back toward the gunboats after delivering Jones’s letters for Commodore Patterson, attempted to make a run past the British barges despite the light winds. Lockyer ordered the small boat’s capture, and his barges moved on the Alligator too quickly for her to escape. Though the Americans attempted to ward off the British with their cannons, the shot splashed harmlessly into the lake.

Recognizing they would soon be overpowered by a force that numbered in the hundreds, the eight-man crew of the American vessel surrendered. Lockyer could now note in his log that the Alligator no longer flew the Stars and Stripes but henceforth would sail with Cochrane’s convoy.

The more than forty British boats continued to close in on the Americans. As they neared the five gunboats, they saw unmistakable signs of the American determination to fight: Jones’s men had hung their boarding nets on the sides of the vessels. These webs of thick rope, like coarse spiderwebs, would hamper British marines seeking to board once the close fighting began.

As the Americans watched and waited anxiously, the British commander gave his men thirty minutes to breakfast and rest. Confident of victory, the British were in no rush, and they would defeat their unhappy prey much more easily if they were refreshed.

American boats waited in an uneven row, despite the best efforts of Jones’s men. In the night strong currents from Lake Borgne had carried two gunboats a hundred yards forward of the planned line of defense. One of them, at the center, was Jones’s, and his position meant he would be the first target of the cannons in the prows of the British barges.

the U.S. Navy guns sounded first. The Americans’ long-barreled cannons possessed greater range than the shorter British guns, but at a distance of more than a mile, the barges made small targets. Undamaged and undeterred, the British flotilla drew closer with every stroke of the oars.

Jones’s men returned fire and, as the British boats grew nearer and nearer, the British marines aimed their muskets at the little flotilla. The maneuverable British boats held an advantage over Jones’s gunboats, which remained fixed at anchor. Three British barges led by Lockyer’s closed rapidly on Jones’s boat, their first target. This would be a battle of commanders.

Jones’s gunners landed shot in two of the attacking barges, and with water rising through holes in their hulls, the British boats began to sink. But the undamaged third barge soon pulled alongside Jones’s boat, and Royal Marines attempted to board the American ship.