Jackson did not, like Winder, pass the hours in looking at his enemy, nor did he, like General Smith at Baltimore, send out militia under militia officers, to stand in close order on an open field and wait attack. His chief difficulty was due to the ground, which obliged him to make his main assault in a narrow column along the road. To gain the advantage of his numbers, he detached Coffee with seven hundred and thirty-two men, mostly armed with rifles, to make a detour toward the left and fall on the British flank and rear, while Jackson himself, with fourteen hundred men and two guns, should strike the British advance where it was posted on the levee.
PLAN OF THE
Attack made by MAJ.-GEN. JACKSON
On a division of the British Army commanded
by
MAJOR-GEN. J. KEANE,
On the 23rd December, 1814, at 7 o’clock at night.
by MAJOR A. LACARRIERE LATOUR, principal Engineer in the
7th Military District U. S. Army.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N. Y.
The signal for battle was to be given by the “Carolina’s” guns. Commodore Patterson in the “Carolina” received his orders at half-past six, and getting out sweeps, brought his vessel in a few minutes abreast of the British camp, where he anchored close in shore and began a heavy fire,[512] soon after seven o’clock. Ten minutes later, Jackson, waiting about two miles above, ordered his men to advance, and moving down the road with his regulars and New Orleans companies struck the British outposts about a mile below his point of departure, at a few minutes before eight o’clock. At the same time Coffee, as he marched along the edge of the swamp, hearing the signal, wheeled to the right, and moved toward the British flank.
Night had then fallen. The weary British troops had lain down, when their sentries on the levee gave the alarm, and immediately afterward the roar of seven cannon close beside them threw their camp into confusion. About half an hour afterward, while the “Carolina” still swept the camp with its shot, the British sentries on the levee a mile above gave another alarm, and in a few moments the outposts were sharply attacked.
The accounts of the battle fought along the levee, under the command of Jackson in person, were both confused and contradictory. Thornton’s brigade was composed of the Eighty-fifth and Ninety-fifth regiments, a company of rocketeers, one hundred sappers and miners, and the Fourth regiment as a support,—in all, sixteen hundred and eighty-eight rank-and-file.[513] At the point where the fighting began the British had merely an outpost, which was forced back by Jackson’s attack, with some difficulty, about one hundred and fifty yards.[514] Colonel Thornton ordered two of his regiments—the Eighty-fifth and Ninety-fifth, eight hundred rank-and-file[515]—to support the outpost, and their arrival checked Jackson’s advance. Indeed, the American line was driven back and lost ground, until the two field-pieces were in danger, and were hastily withdrawn.[516] Each party claimed that the other first withdrew from fire; but the American report admitted that the battle which began on the levee at eight ceased before nine, while Jackson seemed not to regard his attack as successful. His first brief report, written December 26,[517] said,—
“The heavy smoke occasioned by an excessive fire rendered it necessary that I should draw off my troops, after a severe conflict of upward of an hour.”
Jackson’s official report of December 27 said,[518]—