CHAPTER XIV.
Effectually stopped by these repeated miscarriages, General Pakenham, with fully five thousand good soldiers at his command, decided to wait an entire week for Major-General Lambert, who was then on his way with two fresh regiments. In the meanwhile Pakenham adopted a suggestion made first by Vice-Admiral Cochrane,[548] to prepare for throwing a force across the river to turn Jackson’s line from the opposite bank. The plan required that the Villeré canal should be extended through the levee to the river without the knowledge of the Americans. Perhaps Pakenham would have done better by dragging his boats across the intervening space; but he preferred to dig a canal, and the work, begun January 4, was done so successfully that until January 6, when it was completed, Jackson did not suspect the movement. On the same day Lambert’s division arrived.
From this week of inaction the Americans gained little advantage. The lines were strengthened; but although the Kentucky reinforcements, more than two thousand in number, under General Thomas and John Adair, arrived January 4, they were ill provided with arms, and Jackson could furnish them neither with arms, clothing, nor equipment. The Louisiana militia were in the same condition. Jackson did his utmost to supply these wants; the people of New Orleans did more, and lent at last the few hundred muskets reserved against the danger of a slave insurrection,[549] until in the end, if Adair was correct, a thousand of the Kentuckians were placed in the line of battle. Yet after all the reinforcements had been mustered, Jackson’s main dependence was still on his artillery and his intrenchments. In the open field he could not meet the British force.
In his immediate front, Jackson had little to fear. Three thousand marksmen, behind intrenchments everywhere at least five feet high, defended by heavy guns and supported by the “Louisiana” on the river and a strong battery on the opposite shore, could defy twice or three times their number advancing across an open plain under fire of eight or ten heavy guns. The result of the artillery battle of January 1, as well as the reconnaissance of December 28, showed what the British general and his staff thought of their chances in a front attack. Twice they had refused to attempt it when Jackson’s lines were unfinished; they were not likely to succeed when the lines were strengthened by another week of labor.
In his direct front, therefore, Jackson had reason to think that the British did not intend serious attack. Their next attempt could hardly fail to be a flanking movement. Jackson had been surprised, December 23, by such a movement, and feared nothing so much as to be surprised again. For this reason he still kept a large body of troops, three regiments of Louisiana militia, on the north of the city.[550] “His greatest fear, and hence his strongest defence next to the one occupied by himself, was on the Chef Menteur road, where Governor Claiborne, at the head of the Louisiana militia, was posted.” He kept close watch on the bayous which extended on his immediate flank, and constructed other lines in his rear to which he could retreat in case his left flank should be turned through the swamp. Apparently the idea did not occur to him that the British might more easily turn his right flank by throwing a force across the river; and when he learned, January 7, that the British were engaged in making this movement, the time had already passed when he could prevent it.
No means had been provided for transporting troops directly from one bank of the river to the other. If obliged to protect the batteries established by Commodore Patterson on the west bank, Jackson must march troops from his lines back five miles to New Orleans, cross them by the ferry, and march them down the other shore. Such a movement required a whole day, and divided the army in a manner hazarding the safety of both wings.
Practically the west bank was undefended when Jackson, January 7, first heard that the British were about to occupy it. Commodore Patterson had mounted there, as has been told, a number of heavy guns in battery, but these guns were not in position to cover their own bank against attack from below. Major Latour was engaged with negroes in laying out lines of defence, but nothing was completed. In an advanced position, about a mile below the line of Jackson’s works, a bastion had been raised close to the river, and near it a small redan, or salient, had been constructed. This work, which was untenable in case of attack in flank or rear, was occupied by four hundred and fifty Louisiana militia, commanded by General David Morgan. During the afternoon of January 7, after the British plan of attack was suspected, General Morgan caused three guns—one twelve-pounder and two six-pounders—to be mounted on his line. Late the same evening General Jackson ordered four hundred men of the Kentucky division to New Orleans, where they were to obtain muskets, then to cross the river, and march down the opposite shore to reinforce Morgan. The Kentuckians obeyed their orders, but they found only about seventy muskets at New Orleans; and not more than two hundred and fifty armed men, weary with marching and faint from want of food, reached Morgan’s quarters at four o’clock on the morning of January 8.[551] Adair, who should have known the number best, declared that only one hundred and seventy men were then in the ranks.[552] They were sent a mile farther and stationed as an advanced line, with one hundred Louisiana militia.
Thus seven or eight hundred tired, ill-armed, and unprotected militia, divided in two bodies a mile apart, waited on the west bank to be attacked by a British column which was then in the act of crossing the river. Their defeat was almost certain. A thousand British troops could easily drive them away, capture all the batteries on the west bank, destroy the “Louisiana” as they had destroyed the “Carolina,” thus turning all Jackson’s lines, and probably rendering necessary the evacuation of New Orleans. For this work Pakenham detached the Eighty-fifth regiment, about three hundred strong, the Fifth West India, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines,—about twelve hundred men in all,[553]—under command of Colonel Thornton, who had led the light brigade at Bladensburg and across Lake Borgne to the Mississippi. The movement was ordered for the night of January 7, and was to be made in boats already collected in the Villeré canal.
With some hesitation[554] Pakenham decided to make a simultaneous attack on Jackson. The arrangements for this assault were simple. The usual store of fascines and ladders was provided. Six of the eighteen-pound guns were once more mounted in battery about eight hundred yards from the American line, to cover the attack. The army, after detaching Thornton’s corps, was organized in three divisions,—one, under Major-General Gibbs, to attack Jackson’s left; another, under Major-General Keane, to attack along the river-side; a third, the reserve, to be commanded by Major-General Lambert.
“The principal attack was to be made by Major-General Gibbs,” said the British official report.[555] The force assigned to Gibbs consisted of the Fourth, Twenty-first, and Forty-fourth regiments, with three companies of the Ninety-fifth,—about two thousand two hundred rank-and-file.[556] The force assigned to Keane consisted of “the Ninety-third, two companies of the Ninety-fifth, and two companies of the Fusileers and Forty-third,”[557]—apparently about twelve hundred rank-and-file. “The first brigade, consisting of the Fusileers and Forty-third, formed the reserve” under Major-General Keane, apparently also twelve hundred strong. Adding two hundred artillerists and five hundred black troops of the First West India regiment, employed as skirmishers along the edge of the swamp, the whole body of troops engaged on the east bank in the assault, according to the official report and returns of wounded,[558] numbered about five thousand three hundred rank-and-file, consisting of the Fourth, Seventh (Fusileers), Twenty-first, Forty-third, Forty-fourth, Ninety-third, and Ninety-fifth regiments, of whom twenty-two hundred were to attack on the right, twelve hundred on the left, and twelve hundred were to remain in reserve.
Thus of the whole British force, some eight thousand rank-and-file, fifty-three hundred were to assault Jackson’s line; twelve hundred were to cross the river and assault Morgan; eight hundred and fifty men were detailed for various duties; and the seamen, except two hundred with Colonel Thornton, must have been in the boats.
To meet this assault, Jackson held an overwhelming force, in which his mere numbers were the smallest element. According to a detailed account given by Jackson two years afterward, his left wing, near the swamp, was held by Coffee’s brigade of eight hundred and four men; his centre, by Carroll’s brigade of fourteen hundred and fourteen men; his right, near the river, by thirteen hundred and twenty-seven men, including all the regulars; while Adair’s Kentucky brigade, numbering five hundred and twenty-five men, were in reserve.[559] Adair claimed that the Kentuckians numbered fully one thousand. The dispute mattered little, for barely one third of the entire force, whatever it was, discharged a gun.
Besides three thousand or thirty-five hundred men on the parapets and a thousand in reserve, Jackson had twelve pieces of artillery distributed along the line, covering every portion of the plain. The earth-wall behind which his men rested was in every part sufficiently high to require scaling, and the mud was so slippery as to afford little footing.[560] Patterson’s battery on the opposite shore increased in force till it contained three twenty-four-pounders and six twelve-pounders,[561] covered the levee by which the British left must advance. The “Louisiana” took no part in the action, her men being engaged in working the guns on shore; but without the “Louisiana’s” broadside, Jackson had more than twenty cannon in position. Such a force was sufficient to repel ten thousand men if the attack were made in open day.
Pakenham, aware of the probable consequences of attacking by daylight, arranged for moving before dawn; but his plan required a simultaneous advance on both banks of the river, and such a combination was liable to many accidents. According to the journal of Major Forrest, the British Assistant-Quartermaster-General,[562] forty-seven boats were brought up the bayou on the evening of January 7:
“As soon as it was dark, the boats commenced to be crossed over into the river. A dam erected below the sternmost boat had raised the water about two feet. Still there was a very considerable fall from the river; and through which, for an extent of two hundred and fifty yards, the boats were dragged with incredible labor by the seamen. It required the whole night to effect this, and the day had dawned before the first detachment of Colonel Thornton’s corps (about six hundred men) had embarked; and they just reached the opposite bank when the main attack commenced on the enemy’s line.”
At six o’clock in broad dawn the columns of Gibbs and Keane moved forward toward Jackson’s works, which were lined with American troops waiting for the expected attack. Gibbs’s column came first under fire, advancing near the swamp in close ranks of about sixty men in front.[563] Three of the American batteries opened upon them. Coming within one hundred and fifty yards of the American line, the British column obliqued to the left to avoid the fire of the battery directly in face. As they came within musketry range the men faltered and halted, beginning a confused musketry fire. A few platoons advanced to the edge of the ditch, and then broke. Their officers tried in vain to rally them for another advance. Major-General Gibbs was mortally wounded, according to the official report, “within twenty yards of the glacis.”[564] Pakenham himself rode forward to rally Gibbs’s column, and was instantly struck by a grape-shot and killed, nearly three hundred yards from the American line.[565] “As I advanced with the reserve,” said Lambert’s report, “at about two hundred and fifty yards from the line, I had the mortification to observe the whole falling back upon me in the greatest confusion.”
Keane’s column on the left moved along the road and between the river and the levee. Pressing rapidly forward, greatly annoyed by Patterson’s battery on the west bank, the head of this column reached the American line, and stormed an unfinished redoubt outside the main work at the edge of the river. The concentrated fire of the whole American right almost immediately drove the column back in disorder; the men who reached the redoubt were killed; Major-General Keane was severely wounded and carried off the field, while the casualties among officers of a lower grade were excessive. The Ninety-third regiment in Keane’s brigade lost its lieutenant-colonel and two captains killed, and four more captains severely wounded; three hundred and forty-eight rank-and-file were wounded, ninety-nine were reported missing, and fifty-eight killed. These losses amounted to five hundred and five in seven hundred and seventy-five rank-and-file.[566]
Lambert’s report continued:[567]—
“In this situation, finding that no impression had been made; that though many men had reached the ditch, they were either drowned or obliged to surrender, and that it was impossible to restore order in the regiments where they were,—I placed the reserve in position until I could obtain such information as to determine me how to act to the best of my judgment, and whether or not I should resume the attack; and if so, I felt it could be done only by the reserve.”
Just as the main attack ended, Colonel Thornton with his six hundred rank-and-file, having landed on the west bank, advanced against Morgan’s line, routed it, turned the redoubt, and advanced on Patterson’s heavy battery beyond. Patterson unable to use his guns had no choice but to spike his pieces and retreat. Thornton passed up the river a mile beyond Jackson’s line,[568] and needed only a field-piece and some hot shot to burn the “Louisiana” and march opposite New Orleans.
From the eastern shore Jackson watched the progress of Thornton with alarm. His official report of January 9 gave an idea of his emotions.
“Simultaneously with his advance on my lines,” Jackson said, “the enemy had thrown over in his boats a considerable force to the other side of the river. These having landed were hardy enough to advance against the works of General Morgan; and what is strange and difficult to account for, at the very moment when their entire discomfiture was looked for with a confidence approaching to certainty, the Kentucky reinforcements ingloriously fled, drawing after them by their example the remainder of the forces, and thus yielding to the enemy that most formidable position. The batteries which had rendered me for many days the most important service, though bravely defended, were of course now abandoned, not however until the guns had been spiked. This unfortunate rout had totally changed the aspect of affairs. The enemy now occupied a position from which they might annoy us without hazard, and by means of which they might have been enabled to defeat in a great measure the effect of our success on this side the river.”
John Adair, who was then in command of the Kentucky brigade, General Thomas being unwell, took great offence at Jackson’s account of the battle on the west bank. “The detachment on the other side of the river,” he reported to Governor Shelby,[569] “were obliged to retire before a superior force. They have been calumniated by those who ought to have fought with them, but did not.” The tone of Jackson’s report, and his language afterward, showed a willingness to load the Kentucky troops on the west bank with the responsibility for a military oversight with which they had nothing to do; but the oversight was not the less serious, whoever was responsible for it. The Kentucky and Louisiana troops did not easily yield. The British returns of killed and wounded showed that Thornton’s column suffered a considerable loss. Thornton himself was wounded; his regiment, the Eighty-fifth, numbering two hundred and ninetyeight rank-and file, reported a loss of forty-three men killed, wounded, and missing, besides their colonel. Of one hundred sailors employed in the attack[570] twenty were killed or wounded, besides Captain Money of the royal navy, “who, I am sorry to say, was severely wounded,” said Thornton. The Americans made as good a resistance as could have been expected, and had they resisted longer they would merely have been captured when the next detachment of Thornton’s column came up. The chief blame for the disaster did not rest on them.
Jackson was helpless to interpose. As he and his men, lining the river bank, watched the progress of Thornton’s column on the opposite shore, Jackson could do nothing; but he ordered his men “that they should take off their hats, and give our troops on the right bank three cheers.” Adair, who inclined to a severe judgment of Jackson’s generalship, told the story more picturesquely:[571]—
“I was standing by him when he gave his order, and with a smile, not of approbation, observed I was afraid they could not hear us. The distance from us to them, on a straight line, was upward of one mile and a half; there was a thick fog, and I confess I could not see the troops of either army. All I could discover was the blaze from the guns; and seeing that continue to progress up the river was the only knowledge we had that our men were retreating.”
Jackson then ordered General Humbert, a French officer acting as a volunteer, to take four hundred men and cross the river at New Orleans to repulse the enemy, cost what it might;[572] but had the enemy pressed his advantage, no force at Jackson’s command could have stopped their advance, without causing the sacrifice of Jackson’s lines. Fortunately the only remaining British general, Lambert, was not disposed to make another effort. The eight regiments of regular troops which made the bulk of Pakenham’s army had suffered severely in the assault. One of these regiments, the Eighty-fifth, was with Thornton on the west shore. Two, the Seventh and Forty-third, had been in the reserve, and except two companies had never approached the works within musket-shot, yet had lost fifty-two killed, and about one hundred wounded and missing, in an aggregate of less than eighteen hundred. The five remaining regiments—the Fourth, Twenty-first, Forty-fourth, Ninety-third, and Ninety-fifth—were nearly destroyed. They went into battle probably about three thousand strong:[573] they lost seventeen hundred and fifty men killed, wounded, and missing. The total British loss was two thousand and thirty-six.[574] The American loss was seventy-one. Even on the west bank the American loss was much less than that of the British.
The loss of three major-generals was almost as serious as the loss of one third of the regular Infantry. Lambert, the fourth major-general, weighed down by responsibility and defeat, had no wish but to escape. He recalled Thornton’s corps the same evening from its position on the opposite bank, and the next day, January 9, began preparations for his difficult and hazardous retreat.[575]
Pakenham’s assault on Jackson’s lines at New Orleans, January 8, repeated the assault made by Drummond, August 15, at Fort Erie. According to the British account of that battle, Drummond’s engaged force numbered twenty-one hundred and forty men; the reserve, about one thousand.[576] Drummond’s direct attack, being made by night, was more successful than Pakenham’s; his troops approached nearer and penetrated farther than those of Gibbs and Keane; but the consequences were the same. Of three thousand men, Drummond lost nine hundred and five. Of six thousand, engaged in the double action of Jan. 8, 1815, Pakenham lost two thousand and thirty-six. In each case the officers commanding the assaulting columns were killed or wounded, and the repulse was complete.
After the battle General Lambert’s position was critical. His withdrawal of Thornton’s corps from the west bank betrayed his intention of retiring, and his line of retreat was exposed to attack from the bayou which headed near Jackson’s camp. Fortunately for him, Jackson was contented with checking his advance.
“Whether, after the severe loss he has sustained,” wrote Jackson, five days after the battle,[577] “he is preparing to return to his shipping, or to make still mightier efforts to attain his first object, I do not pretend to determine. It becomes me to act as though the latter were his intention.”
If Jackson’s inaction allowed Lambert to escape, it was likely to hazard a renewal of the attack from some other quarter; but the armies remained for ten days in their old positions without further hostilities, except from artillery fire, until on the night of January 18, after making careful preparations, the whole British force silently withdrew to fortified positions at the mouth of the bayou, disappearing as suddenly and mysteriously as it came, and leaving behind it only eight or, according to the American report, fourteen[578] of the guns which had covered the river and held the “Louisiana” at a distance.[579] At the mouth of the bayou the army remained until January 27, when it was re-embarked in the ships off Chandeleur’s Island.
MOBILE POINT
FROM ORIGINAL BY
Th. Campbell, Lieut. Royal Staff Corps.
British Archives.
On the day of the battle of January 8, a British squadron appeared in the river below Fort St. Philip. Two bomb-vessels, under the protection of a sloop, a brig, and a schooner, bombarded the fort without effect until January 18, when they withdrew at the same time with the army above.
Notwithstanding the disastrous failure of the campaign before New Orleans, the British expedition, as it lay off Chandeleur Island February 1, still possessed nearly as much strength as when it appeared there December 11. Reinforced by a thousand fresh soldiers, Lambert determined to attack Mobile. “It was decided,” reported Lambert,[580] “that a force should be sent against Fort Bowyer, situated on the eastern point of the entrance of the bay, and from every information that could be obtained it was considered that a brigade would be sufficient for this object, with a respectable force of artillery.” At daylight on the morning of February 8 a whole brigade and a heavy battering-train were disembarked in the rear of Fort Bowyer.
Jackson’s determination to defend Mobile had already deprived him of the use of more than half the regular troops assigned to his military district, who remained inactive at Mobile during the months of December and January. They were commanded by General Winchester, whose record as a military officer was not reassuring. Although Fort Bowyer was known to be untenable against attack by land, Jackson not only retained Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence there, but increased his force until he had three hundred and sixty men in his command,—equal to the average strength of an entire regiment, or half the force of regulars which Jackson commanded at New Orleans. This garrison was only large enough to attract, not to repel, an enemy. The obvious criticism on such a course was afterward made by Armstrong:[581]—
“After the arrival of the British armament the garrison of Fort Bowyer was not only continued but increased, though from its locality wholly unable to aid in any important purpose of the campaign. Nor was this the whole extent of the evil, for by the disposition made of this gallant corps it was not only subjected to present inaction, but ultimately ... to the perils of a siege and the humiliation of a surrender.”
Colonel Lawrence had no choice but to capitulate, which he did February 11. He had not even the opportunity to resist, for the British made regular approaches, and could not be prevented from capturing the place without the necessity of assault. Jackson reported to the Secretary of War[582] that this event was one which he “little expected to happen but after the most gallant resistance; that it should have taken place without even a fire from the enemy’s batteries is as astonishing as it is mortifying.” In truth, the military arrangements, not Lawrence’s defence, were responsible for the result; and Jackson had reason to fear that a greater disaster was at hand, for unless General Winchester should promptly evacuate Mobile, the disaster of the River Raisin was likely to be repeated on a larger scale.
END OF VOL. II.