When the President wrote that he was young and undecided whether he would hunt grizzlies or write poetry, I, for one, am glad he hunted the grizzly. Imagine any man standing on the melilotus-covered levees of the Father of Rivers and tracing from horizon to horizon the faint penciling of a sky so blue that it flushes at times into purple, corralling in the compass of its circle, now an old mansion, pecan-shadowed and wisteria-crowned, now a meadow, cattle-dotted and sheened with little lakes, now groves of oak and ash, moss swept with hoariness, now fields beyond, broad in their Southern fullness, big in benisons of eternal summer—imagine this true picture, and then hearing from the Far North the sepulchral croak of a sophomoric bullfrog: “Amid the g-l-o-omy semi-tropical s-w-a-a-mps that covered the q-u-a-king delta!”
I failed to see the gloomy swamps, and the only things that ever quaked there were the bull-bellied British, marching nearly a century ago for the lust and plunder on this fair Creole city, utterly unconscious that any foe worthy of their steel and stomachs stood before them, until suddenly out of the sunset and shadows of the memorable day of the evening of their landing Jackson’s grim Indian fighters fell on them in the darkness and fought them to a finish, as they fought all beasts, at close quarters, with clubbed guns and bear-knives.
That was the night of December 23d, 1814, the beginning of the battle of New Orleans.
Old breastworks, primrose-covered.
Let us briefly go back and bring events from our last paper—Jackson in the wilderness of Alabama, victor of an Indian war, remover of the strong allies of the Spaniard and British—the red, menacing, butchering wedge that was thrust in between the two parts of the young Republic. It really deserves a chapter itself, and that chapter might well be headed, “What Jackson Did to the Spanish.” Briefly, it is this:
Jackson, having finished the Indian War, marched, May, 1814, homeward, amid the plaudits of the pioneer West, disbanding his army at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and receiving an ovation and banquet in Nashville. He is appointed by the President Major General in the United States Army, and later, by his influence and the great fear and respect the Indians had for him, he closed a treaty with them at Fort Jackson, and the Southern territory to Florida (which belonged to Spain), became the Republic’s. And now, Jackson was free to turn on the treacherous and double-dealing Spaniard, who had secretly helped Britain in the Indian War, and, even then, contrary to her sworn neutrality, was housing and feeding British troops at Pensacola and other portions of her territory, and permitting them, five thousand strong, to rendezvous in Pensacola preparing for the expedition which they knew was already on the high seas bound for New Orleans.
As stated in our last paper, these were the darkest days of the Republic. Only Jackson could have saved it. He alone was the cog that fitted squarely into the wheel of things.
Jackson struck squarely out from the shoulder at the Spanish. He violated our treaty with Spain openly when he marched on Pensacola, for to his straight soul he saw more honor in doing a thing openly and aboveboard than in doing it treacherously and slyly, as Spain had done all along. If he had not whipped the British at New Orleans, we would have had a war with Spain on our hands. He had to act quickly. The British had come and were coming faster. By August, 1814, the sleepy town of Pensacola had awakened to new life—and the life was red—red English. Eight or ten English battleships lay in her harbor; regiments of negro soldiers from the West Indies went ashore, with other British, soldiers, all drilling daily. The English were repairing the forts, and their commander and the Spanish governor slept under the same roof.
