“Another natural question,” I answered. “It is a question that must come to every mind in approaching this matter of clarification. I am not able to answer this question definitely, just as I was not able to answer your other question with any degree of certainty. The answer is not vital, except from the standpoint of the problem involved, of overcoming the inertia of a long-enthroned lie. My conjecture is that the false appraisal began when civil upheaval was imminent, and when most people were thinking only of the present—a state of mind which was continued for a long time. So the viewpoint of prejudice, unopposed, gradually crept into accepted history. There have been, and are, students of history adhering to the great fact that the Battle of New Orleans saved the Louisiana purchase, or another war with England. But school histories continue to purvey the false viewpoint to the youth of the land. But ‘truth is mighty and will prevail,’ and the time has now come.”
At this point a bell boy brought me a card, and I arose to bid goodbye to my young friend, saying;
“They have come for me, to go to the Hermitage for the exercises being held there today.”
The young man said:
“I wish it were so you could take me.”
I arranged to do so, very much pleased at this change in his attitude.
CHAPTER II.
Containing a High Commission and an Indictment.
There is no nobler calling than that of the school teachers of America, who are ministering to the instruction and development of the future citizens and leaders of the Republic. These teachers are bound to be deeply concerned when they find that through school histories furnished them, they have been imparting a falsehood about an important event in United States history—the Battle of New Orleans, fought January 8, 1815. These school histories minimize the value of the battle, describing it as needless, because fought after peace, when as a fact, the battle was not fought after peace, and the victory, in fact, prevented a carefully planned conquest of the then lately acquired Louisiana Domain, with all the attendant, untoward complications, another war being one of them.
It is the purpose of this volume to show by reliable authorities, the truth as to the value of this battle.
History, as is well known, is honey-combed with lies, originally projected either in ignorance, prejudice or adulation. We are always fortunate if able to arrest and correct one before too late.