As Monday will be the anniversary of New Orleans, I thought I would send you the inclosed letter from General Jackson [who was of Irish parentage], which will help you to celebrate the great event. The introduction is somewhat mutilated, but you can get enough from it to serve as an introduction to the letter. A number of years ago I visited New Orleans, and I need not tell you that one of my most pleasant recollections of the visit was inspecting the field where 1,500 Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen killed or wounded 2,117 of England’s choicest troops, including their commander, General Pakenham, who was brother-in-law of the Iron Duke.
I saw while on the field an unfinished monument in honor of the brave men who won the battle. I made all the inquiries possible about the monument (which I regarded as a monument of ingratitude), but could find no one who could give me any information concerning it. I even wrote to the Picayune suggesting that as the exposition to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase was about to be held, the event would be a good opportunity to raise the funds necessary to finish the monument, but nothing was done and it still remains as a reproach to the last generation as well as to this.
Of course you know that the treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Day, 1814, so it was three weeks after that that the battle was fought; but it came in time to redeem the series of blunders that characterized the so-called campaign on the Canadian frontier. In this connection permit me to say that the house we live in was bought from a gentleman whose two grandfathers were present at the battle. I knew a man when I was a boy who fought on the British side, and also fought on the fatal field of Waterloo, in the Twenty-seventh Inniskillen Foot.
Following are the excerpts from General Jackson’s letter to which Mr. Morrison alludes above:
“The battle (says General Jackson) commenced at a very little before 7 a. m., January 8, 1815, and as far as the infantry was concerned it was over by 9 a. m. My force was very much mixed. I had portions of the 7th and 44th regular infantry regiments, Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen, Creoles, United States marines and sailors, Baratarian men—one of them, Captain Dominique You, commanded part of my artillery (and a famous gunner he was)—and two battalions of free negroes. I had in the action about 6,000 men. The British strength was almost the same as mine, but vastly superior in drill and discipline. Of their force my riflemen killed and wounded 2,117 in less than an hour, including two general officers (both died on the field, each a division commander), seven full colonels, with seventy-five line and staff officers. I lost six killed and seven wounded.
“As to tactics, there were very little in use on either side. We had some works of earth fronting the river, but the Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen, who sustained the main attack, had protected themselves by a work about two feet and a half high, made of logs placed two feet apart, and the space between filled in with earth. This work began at the Mississippi River, and ended in the swamp, being at a right angle with the river.
“Thinking this the weakest portion of our line, and seeing ununiformed men behind the trifling defenses, General Pakenham thought it the best thing to begin his attack by carrying this part of my line with the bayonet. On the 3d of January I had ordered that each rifleman’s powder-horn be filled, and enough lead for 100 bullets issued, besides good material for bullet-patching be furnished. This order required every soldier to thoroughly clean his rifle and put a new flint into the hammer; so we were ready as we could be for the attack.
“There was a very heavy fog on the river that morning, and the British had formed and were moving before I knew it. The disposition of the riflemen was very simple. They were told off in numbers one and two. Number one was to fire first, then step back and let number two shoot while he reloaded. About six hundred yards from the riflemen there was a great drainage canal running back from the Mississippi River to the swamp in the rear of the tilled land on which we were operating. Along this canal the British formed under the fire of the few artillery pieces I had, near enough to them to get their range. But the instant I saw them I said to Coffee, whom I directed to hurry to his line, which was to be first attacked: ‘By ——, we have got them; they are ours!’ Coffee dashed forward, and riding along his line, called out, ‘Don’t shoot till you can see their belt-buckles.’ The British were formed in mass, well closed up, and about two companies front.
“The British, thus formed, moved on at a quick step, without firing a shot, to within one hundred yards of the kneeling riflemen, who were holding their fire till they could see the belt-buckles of their enemies. The British advance was executed as though they had been on parade. They marched shoulder to shoulder, with the step of veterans, as they were. At one hundred yards’ distance from our line the order was given, ‘Extend column front. Double quick, march! Charge!’ With bayonets at the charge, they came on us at a run. I own it was an anxious moment; I well knew the charging column was made up of the picked troops of the British army. They had been trained by the duke himself, were commanded by his brother-in-law, and had successfully held off the ablest of Napoleon’s marshals in the Spanish campaign. My riflemen had never seen such an attack, nor had they ever before fought white men. The morning, too, was damp; their powder might not burn well. ‘God help us!’ I muttered, watching the rapidly advancing line. Seventy, sixty, fifty, finally forty yards were they from the silent kneeling riflemen.