The Battle of New Orleans / including the Previous Engagements between the Americans / and the British, the Indians and the Spanish which led to / the Final Conflict on the 8th of January, 1815

by Z. F. Smith

Tennessee and Kentucky Troops Arrive—Government Censured for Neglect.

General Carroll's division of Tennessee troops arrived about this time; also the Louisiana militia were reinforced by several companies from the more distant parishes. On the fourth of January the entire body of Kentucky militia reached New Orleans, twenty-two hundred in number, and went into camp on Prevost's plantation. The day following, seven hundred and fifty of these repaired to the lines, and went into camp in the rear, arms being furnished to but five hundred of the number. There were, at this time, nearly two thousand brave and willing men within Jackson's lines, whose services were lost to the army and to the country for the want of arms. The dangerous delay of the arrival of the troops, and with this, the failure of the arrival of the arms and munitions necessary to equip the men for service, had their beginning in the culpable negligence of the War Department at Washington, of which history has had occasion to complain. But a more immediate cause for the irreparable delay in the arrival of the stores for arming and equipping the troops is found in the conduct of the quartermaster who superintended the shipment of the same from Pittsburgh. Though he was offered a contract to ship these supplies by a steamboat, and to deliver them at New Orleans in ample time for use, for some reason he declined the offer. He then had them loaded on a flatboat and slowly floated to their destination, when there was little or no hope of their arrival in time for use. At the date of the final battle at New Orleans they were afloat somewhere near the mouth of the Ohio River, and of course did not arrive until many days after all need of them was over.

On the twenty-ninth of December, General Jackson wrote to the Secretary of War these words of protest against this failure to make provision for his army in such a crisis as the present:

I lament that I have not the means of carrying on more offensive operations. The Kentucky troops have not arrived, and my effective force at this point does not exceed three thousand men. That of the enemy must be at least double; both prisoners and deserters agreeing in the statement that seven thousand landed from their boats.

When the militia of Kentucky were called for, Governor Shelby was assured that the United States quartermaster would furnish transportation for the troops to New Orleans; but no such officer reported himself, and no relief came from Washington. The men had rendezvoused on the banks of the Ohio in waiting, and here the expedition must have ended had not Colonel Richard Taylor, of Frankfort, then quartermaster of the State militia, on his own credit, borrowed a sum sufficient to meet the immediate emergency. With this he purchased such boats as he could, some of which were unfit for the passage. Camp equippage could not be had in time, and about thirty pots and kettles were bought at Louisville, one to each company of eighty men. At the mouth of the Cumberland River they were detained eight days, with their axes and frows riving boards with which to patch up their old boats. From this point they started with half a supply of rations, to which they added as they could on the way down the Mississippi River. The men knew there was due them an advance of two months' pay when ordered out of the State. The United States quartermaster distributed this pay to the Tennessee troops who had preceded them, but withheld it from the Kentuckians. Believing that they would be furnished suitable clothing or pay, blankets, tents, arms, and munitions with reasonable promptness, they left home with little else than the one suit of clothing they wore, usually of homespun jeans. As a writer has said: "Rarely, if ever, has it been known of such a body of men leaving their homes, unprovided as they were, and risking a difficult passage of fifteen hundred miles in the crudest of barges to meet an enemy. They could have been prompted alone by a patriotic love of country and a defiance of its enemies." This contribution of Kentucky for the defense of Louisiana was made just after she had furnished over ten thousand volunteer troops in the campaigns of Harrison in the Northwest, who made up the larger part of the soldiers in that army for the two years previous, and who recently had won the great victory at the battle of the Thames. Governor Shelby tendered to the government ten thousand more Kentuckians for the army of the Southwest, if they were needed to repel the invaders.

It was in the midst of an unusually severe winter in Louisiana, in a season of almost daily rainfalls, when the Kentucky and part of the Tennessee troops reached their destination. They went into camp without tents or blankets or bedding of straw even, on the open and miry alluvial ground, with the temperature at times at freezing point. This destitution and consequent suffering at once enlisted the attention and sympathies of the public. The Legislature of Louisiana, in session, promptly voted six thousand dollars for relief, to which the generous citizens added by subscription ten thousand dollars more. With these funds materials were purchased. The noble women of New Orleans, almost without an exception, devoted themselves day and night to making up the materials into suitable garments and distributing them as they were most needed. In one week's time the destitute soldiers were supplied and made comfortable. These backwoodsmen, defenders of their country, did not forget till their dying day the generous and timely ministries in a time of trial, in which the women and the men of Louisiana, and especially of New Orleans, seemed to vie; nor did they cease to speak in their praise.

Again, in view of the approaching battle, Jackson, in correspondence with the Secretary of War, complains that the arms from Pittsburgh had not yet arrived, expressing grave apprehensions of the consequences. "Hardly," said he, "one third of the Kentucky troops, so long expected, are armed; and the arms they have are barely fit for use." He presages that the defeat of our armies and the dishonor of the officers commanding, and of the nation, may be consequences chargeable to the neglect of the government.

The American batteries on both sides of the river continued day and night to fire upon and harass the British. Wherever a group of the latter appeared, or an assailable object presented, the American fire was directed to disperse or destroy. This incessant cannonading exercised our gunners in the more skillful use of their pieces, annoyed the enemy in the work of his fortifications, and rendered his nights well-nigh sleepless.