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

by Brian Kilmeade

Through his translator, Lockyer assured Lafitte the offer was a generous one. For his cooperation in fighting the United States, Lafitte would be paid $30,000 in cash. There would be grants of land for him and his men, pardons for former British subjects, and other guarantees.

But along with the carrot came the stick: Should Lafitte and the Baratarians choose not to side with the British, a great armada of ships would make Grand Terre their target. The refusal of the offer to join forces would result in the obliteration of the village at Barataria, along with every pirate sailing vessel.

Washington may have fallen, but little Fort Bowyer still stood.

September 12, 1814, British troops had gone ashore east of Baltimore for a land assault on the city.

Robert Ross, the man responsible for the burning of Washington. He had fallen from his steed, mortally wounded with a musket ball to his chest. The old gentlemen’s agreement not to target officers had been breached during the Revolution—to the outrage of the British—and targeting officers had since become an accepted strategy.

once Fort Bowyer was reinforced with the new guns, the best course, Jackson decided, would be to eject the British force from Pensacola, the next large port town some fifty miles east of Mobile.

Madison’s government was afraid that the United States, already at war with one powerful European foe, risked a war with Spain, too, if they threatened Pensacola.

control Fort Barrancas was to control the finest harbor on the Gulf Coast.

The governor should give him Barrancas, he insisted—and he gave the Spaniard one hour to respond. Governor Manrique deemed the terms unacceptable, insisting that his duty did not permit him to do as Jackson asked. Piere brought the news back to the American camp.

The American team had little choice but to continue talking until a subtle British move shocked them anew. The British asked that the treaty include two Latin words: uti possidetis. Meaning “as you possess,” the term specified that the land held by each

side at ratification of the treaty would remain with its possessor.

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.

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.

The Spanish agreed to relinquish control of Fort Barrancas, and Jackson sent men off to take charge of it, but before they could get there, the retreating British lit a fuse that ignited three hundred barrels of powder stored in its magazine. The explosion left the fort unusable, and the enemy fleet was seen heading out to sea.

A mere three and a half days later, on November 11, 1814, they were back in Mobile.

Cochrane’s interest in beating the Americans was personal. Many years before, he had fought in the American Revolution, but it had been an older brother, Charles, who died at the hands of the rebellious colonists. At the deciding battle of that war, in Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, a cannonball parted Charles Cochrane’s head from his body.

Against the odds, his army reached its destination in ten, covering some three hundred miles,

Governor Claiborne and the city’s mayor, an affable Creole named Nicholas Giroud.

First, that meant identifying—and then obstructing—any and all routes the British might take to attack the city.

From afar, 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 attack from the river. That thinking had led Jackson to secure both Mobile and Pensacola.

Lake Borgne. There, the British intended to land the ground troops who would march through to New Orleans.

Cochrane

favored ferrying the troops across Lake Borgne to a landing site.

Before any of this could happen, however, Lake Borgne would have to be cleared of enemy ships.

Captain Lockyer had handed his admiral the signal advantage of clear sailing on the lakes.

Jackson accepted into his army two battalions of freemen of color. Though he required that officers of the two corps be white men, he also ordered that black soldiers be treated the same way as white volunteers, a shocking attitude in a society that doubted the humanity and trustworthiness of nonwhites.

New Orleans was a city that loved a parade, and Jackson decided there was no better way to cheer and inspire the anxious townspeople. He announced there would be a procession into the city’s central downtown square, the Place d’Armes, on Sunday, December 18.

The parade had been a stroke of genius, galvanizing the fighting force of freed slaves, Indians, pirates, woodsmen, militiamen, and French colonials.

martial law.

The streets would go dark at 9:00 p.m.

advance. Because deep-draft warships could not penetrate Lake Borgne, the British embarked once again in barges.

Five full days were required to move the first several thousand troops to Pea Island but morale remained high.

even the lowliest of cabin boys could expect a share of the spoils when the wealth of New Orleans was divided up.

Jean who, at great risk to himself, had relayed word of the British approach. The motives of the pirates were hard to decipher—were they really pro-American or was Lafitte just looking for pardons for past offenses?—but

on December 14, the Louisiana legislature passed a resolution promising amnesty for their piratical transgressions if the Lafittes and their men helped fight the British.

With the British now so near at hand, Jackson consulted Edward Livingston. For three years, Livingston had been Jean Lafitte’s legal adviser.

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army was low on matériel—and he had gotten wind of Lafitte’s boast that he could outfit an army of thirty thousand.

Lafitte explained he could offer more than his allegiance. He claimed to have one thousand men, all willing to fight. Just as important to Jackson, however, was the cache of powder, shot, and essential flints—some seven thousand of them, he said—which were needed to provide the spark used to fire muzzle-loaded flintlock muskets and pistols.

The differences between the parties seemed to have been whittled down to talk of fishing rights off the New England coast and navigation of the Mississippi.

Given that the British had never accepted Louisiana as a legitimate American possession—the Crown regarded the territory as the rightful property of the king of Spain, taken wrongly by Napoleon and therefore illegally transferred to the United States of

British confidence ran so high that Admiral Cochrane and General Keane had ordered the posting of handbills on plantation fences that announced their coming. “LOUISIANIANS! REMAIN QUIET IN YOUR HOUSES,” the flyers read. “YOUR SLAVES SHALL BE PRESERVED TO YOU, AND YOUR PROPERTY RESPECTED. WE MAKE WAR ONLY AGAINST AMERICANS!”

Shortly after seven o’clock, one of Keane’s lookouts atop the levee spotted a ship in the

Mississippi just out of musket range.

In the quiet of the night, the American schooner had just become a floating battery. Armed with three long nine-pound cannons and a dozen twelve-pound carronades, she was perfectly positioned to unleash a broadside.

After ten minutes the bombardment from the Carolina slackened—but Andrew Jackson’s second surprise was about to be delivered.

In the hours before the battle, those British who had faced the American militia outside Washington hadn’t felt “the smallest sensation of alarm” at seeing American troops nearby. “We held them in too much contempt to fear their attack.”17 A dozen hours later, however, they had been shocked into acknowledging that these American forces, under the command of Andrew Jackson, were a high-caliber opponent.

Aside from a few minor skirmishes, the opposing armies maintained their distance for three days.

The key was a direct attack on the American line on the west bank. Once the guns across the river had been captured, they could turn Patterson’s cannons back on Jackson’s army,

On Saturday, January 7, Pakenham confidently issued his orders. William Thornton was to lead the west bank attack force. Using vessels floated into the Mississippi via the newly dug canal, his two regiments, together with 200 sailors and 400 marines, would embark at midnight. He and his 1,300 men were to land at daylight and capture the American force on the right bank.