Seeing the Americans were vigilant, Captain Lockyer anchored his squadron, served breakfast, gave the men time to smoke and rest, and then ordered the advance. Captain Lockyer himself led the way, and with two other barges strove to board Number 156, where Jones commanded. For the moment it was a force of not less than seventy-five against the forty-one under Jones. But not one of them got over the rail of the gun-boat. Almost every man in Lockyer’s barge was killed or wounded, Lockyer himself being severely hurt; and as for the two other barges, both were sunk.
But a whelming host had come. There were thirty-nine well-manned boats left to continue the attack, and this entire host was concentrated on the two gun-boats that had drifted down from the original line. They surrounded the two as a pack of hounds surround a fox. They rushed in until they felt the teeth of the bayed; they backed off and barked, and rushed in again, only to be beaten off once more by the desperate crew fighting under an indomitable leader. In a little time that leader was cut down, but another as heroic—Midshipman George Parker—took his place, and with equal gallantry and skill continued the fight. Almost the entire British force was now directed at the flag-boat. With their great guns they hailed grape and canister at short range, and again and again sought to carry it by boarding, only to be driven off, until at last Parker, too, fell wounded and wholly disabled. The boarding-nets had now been shot away. The crew was cut to pieces and there was no longer any officer to direct them. And yet when the British, seeing the advantage gained, made a last rush, these sailors stood to their posts until the sheer weight of numbers—a dozen of the enemy on one man—bore them down.
Repeating for the sake of emphasis that there were, for the time, forty-two boats against two, how long does the uninformed reader suppose those American heroes held out against the hosts that swarmed to the rails? To the honor of the flag be it said that the firing began at 10.50 o’clock and it was not until 12.10 o’clock that the British were able to carry the deck of Number 156. For more than one hour the Americans had held the ship. And Sailing-master George Ulrich in Number 163, the smallest of the American fleet, did still better. For although he had at the beginning but twenty-one men on his boat, he was still fighting when the flag-boat was captured, and he did not surrender until her guns were turned upon him.
The heart of the Americans was broken when the flag came down on these two, for the full force of the now victorious squadron was turned on the three above. Nevertheless, it was not until 12.30 o’clock that the last boat surrendered. It had taken nine hundred and eighty men with forty-two great guns one hour and forty minutes to whip the one hundred and seventy-two men on the five Yankee gun-boats.
There was the usual Court of Inquiry to determine how it was that these five boats were lost. The officers and seamen of the little fleet were examined separately under oath, and when the evidence was all in, it was declared that “the action has added another and distinguished honor to the naval character of our country.”
The Americans lost six men killed and thirty-five wounded. The British historians admit that their loss was seventeen killed and seventy-seven wounded. The American officers estimated the British loss at nearly three hundred, and when we recall the deliberation as well as desperation of the American resistance, and the length of time that the little force held out, it is safe to say that the American estimate was much nearer the truth than the British report. For it is not possible that so small a loss as ninety-four in killed and wounded could hold in check nine hundred and eighty men under determined officers for more than one hour. Among the British wounded were one captain, five lieutenants, three master’s mates, and seven midshipmen. The killed on the British side included three midshipmen.
The American gun-boats, though few by count and insignificant in the number of their men, when compared with the British hosts, had nevertheless served not only to check the advance of the enemy at a time when every day gained for preparing to defend the city was precious, but to give the arrogant enemy a foretaste of the character of the resistance that was to be met at the city, and it was a foretaste that remained in the mouth.
Besides the little fleet of gun-boats on the bayous, the Americans had two war-vessels in the river. One was the schooner Caroline, Master-Commandant Daniel T. Patterson, that mounted six short twelves on each side and one long twelve on a pivot. After the British had effected a landing and were encamped at Villeré’s plantation on the Mississippi below the city, the Caroline dropped down with the current until opposite the British camp. It was on December 23, 1814, and at 7 o’clock at night that she left the city. The position taken was so close in to the camp that the British heard the orders given on her deck distinctly. They hailed her but got no answer. Then they fired some muskets at her, but these had no effect until at 8 o’clock, when they heard a voice say:
“Give them this for the honor of America.”
A broadside of grape-shot followed that threw the British camp into confusion. As a British account says: