CHAPTER XX. THE CAMPAIGN ON THE GULF COAST.
British Occupation of Pensacola—Negotiations with Lafitte—Expedition against Mobile—Capture of Pensacola—Defence of New Orleans—The Battles before the City—Defeat of the British—Losses.
Though Pensacola was a Spanish town, in Spanish territory, the British forces used it as a station for fitting out expeditions against Mobile and New Orleans. Here they gathered arms and munitions of war; here their vessels found safe anchorage in a spacious harbor, where they were afforded every facility for refitting; and here the savage allies were equipped for war and murder. The British commander sent an embassy to Jean Lafitte, at Barataria Bay, offering him a captain's commission, together with a free pardon for all his gang, and grants of land to be carved out of such territory as might be conquered from the United States, on condition that he and his men would assist with their fleet the expeditions then fitting out. The English commander also hinted darkly at something which he called "the blessings of the British constitution"—probably meaning the abundant bone and muscle of a beef-eater—as an additional inducement to the famous little Frenchman. Lafitte was commonly called a pirate, but that was not precisely his character. He was a receiver of stolen goods captured by half-piratical privateers, which he smuggled into New Orleans. But, pirate or no pirate, he seems to have been too shrewd for the Englishman. He appeared to acquiesce till he obtained the terms in black and white, and then despatched the letters to Governor Claiborne of Louisiana, together with one in which he offered his services in defending the coast against the British, on condition that the proscription of himself and his adherents be terminated by an act of oblivion. The Governor laid the letters before a council of military and naval officers, who decided that they were forgeries and Lafitte a scoundrel. Consequently an expedition under Commodore Patterson was sent against him, by which his establishment was broken up, nine of his vessels were seized, and many of his men made prisoners.
One morning in July, General Jackson was presented with a new English musket, brought to his headquarters by a friendly Indian who had received it from the Creeks at Appalachicola. This told an alarming story, which the General at once communicated to Governor Claiborne and the Secretary of War. Of the latter he asked permission to make a descent upon Pensacola. Before an answer was received, Jackson was joined by new levies of troops from Tennessee, which he hurried to Mobile.
On Mobile Point, commanding the entrance to the bay, stood a ruinous earthwork known as Fort Bowyer. Major William Lawrence, with a garrison of one hundred and sixty men, took possession of this, and proceeded to put it in shape for defence. On the 12th of September, the British landed a detachment of marines and six hundred Indians on the peninsula of which Mobile Point is the extremity, and a few hours later four war-vessels, under Captain Percy, appeared at the entrance of the bay. Two or three days were passed in feeble demonstrations on the land side, and attempts to sound the channel; but on the afternoon of the 15th the fleet sailed up in line, dropped anchor in the channel, and opened the battle. For an hour the firing was incessant; it ceased for a moment when the colors of the flag-ship Hermes were shot away; but was soon renewed, when a chance shot cut the cable of the Hermes, the current swung her bow-on to the fort, and for twenty minutes she was raked mercilessly. She drifted down the channel and ran aground, when Captain Percy abandoned her and set her on fire. Another vessel was crippled and driven off, and the other two then withdrew.
The simultaneous assaults of the marines and Indians had been met and repelled with a few discharges of grape. In this action the garrison lost four men killed and four wounded; the British official report acknowledged a loss of thirty-two killed and forty wounded.
Early in November, Jackson, with three thousand men, marched on Pensacola, where he proposed to garrison the forts till the Spanish authorities were able to maintain for themselves the neutrality of the port. This proposition being rejected by the Spanish Governor, Jackson's men charged into the town and captured a battery, and took possession. That night Fort Barrancas, commanding the entrance to the harbor, was blown up, and the British vessels sailed away.
Hurrying back to Mobile, where he feared a second attack, Jackson learned of the revelations of Lafitte and was urged to go to the defence of New Orleans. He arrived in that city on the 2d of December, was enthusiastically welcomed, and at once set to work to prepare it for defence. He called out the Louisiana militia, appealed to the free negroes, released and enrolled convicts whose terms were within two months of expiration, accepted the services of Lafitte and his men, assigning them to duty as artillerists, and ordered Coffee with his two thousand men to join him from Mobile. While looking anxiously for new levies from Kentucky and Tennessee, who were to come by way of the river, he fortified the city, and proclaimed martial law.