BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS, JANUARY 8, 1815.
These demonstrative movements of the enemy, with his busy reconnoitering, foreboded an attack in force.
In the night of the thirty-first he erected, under cover of darkness, two other batteries of heavy guns at a distance of six hundred yards from the front of Jackson's entrenchments, on a ditch running along the side of Chalmette's plantation, at distances of three and six hundred yards from the river. During the night the men working on the platforms and mounting the ordnance could be distinctly heard.
On the morning of the 1st of January, 1815, the earth was veiled by a dense fog until eight o'clock. As the misty cloud lifted above the horizon, the enemy opened up a terrific fire from his three batteries in front, mounting respectively two, eight, and eight pieces of heavy cannon. A meteor-like shower of Congreve rockets accompanied the balls, filling the air for fifteen minutes with these missiles of terror. The two batteries nearest the river directed their fire against McCarty's house, some hundreds of yards behind our front line, where Jackson and his staff had their headquarters. In less than ten minutes more than one hundred balls, rockets, and shells struck the house. Bricks, splinters of wood, and broken furniture were sent flying in all directions, making the premises dangerously untenable. General Jackson and his staff occupied the house at the time; yet, strange to say, not a person was even wounded. There is no account that the old hero "ingloriously fled," but it is in evidence that he retired with commendable dispatch to a safer place.
Though the batteries of the enemy were in a better position, on a lower plane, and with a narrower front than those of the Americans, the gunners of the latter fired with more precision and effect on this day, and on other occasions, as their own officers afterward admitted. In an hour's time the fire from the enemy's side began to slacken, and continued to abate until noon, when his two batteries to the right were abandoned. Our balls dismounted several of his guns early in the day, and in the afternoon the greater part of his artillery was dismounted or unfit for service. The carriages of three of the guns on the American side were broken, and two caissons, with over one hundred rounds of ammunition, were blown up by rockets, at which the enemy loudly cheered. The cheeks of the embrasures of our batteries were formed of cotton bales, which the enemy's balls struck, sending the cotton flying through the air. The impression that Jackson's breastwork line was constructed of bales of cotton is a mistake. Bales of cotton were used only at the bottom and sides of the embrasures, for a firmer support for the artillery, beneath a casing of heavy plank. The British, in the absence of cotton bales, used hogsheads of sugar, which were conveniently near, for the same purposes. These our shot easily knocked to pieces, saturating the damp earth around with the saccharine sweets. Our breastworks were more substantially and easily made of the alluvial earth.
The guns of the British batteries nearest the levee were directed in part against the marine battery across the river during the day, but with little effect. Before the close the enemy's guns were silenced, and several of them abandoned. The British columns were in readiness, drawn up in several parallel lines, prudently awaiting in the back ditches and the trenches between the batteries a favorable moment to advance to an assault of our lines. In this they were disappointed; the superiority of the American artillery left them no hope of an advantage by breaching our lines with this arm. That this was their object their own authorities state. The losses this day of the Americans were thirty-five killed and wounded; the enemy admitted a loss of seventy-five. During the night of the first of January, the latter succeeded in removing his heavy guns from the dismantled batteries, dragging them off with much difficulty through the mired earth.
A View From the Enemy's Standpoint.
It is interesting to view a situation from an enemy's standpoint, and to know the impressions made upon an enemy's mind in a great issue like the one of contest. We quote again from Gleig's "Campaigns of the English Army":
It was Christmas Day, and a number of officers, clubbing their scant stocks of provisions, resolved to dine together in memory of former times. But at so melancholy a Christmas dinner, I do not remember to have been present. We dined in a barn; of tableware, of viands, and of good cookery, there was a dismal scarcity. These were matters, however, of minor thought; the want of many well-known and beloved faces thrilled us with pain. While sitting at the table, a loud shriek from outside startled the guests. On running out, we found that a shot from the enemy's ship had cut almost in twain the body of a soldier, and he was gasping in death.
On the twenty-eighth, the British army advanced in full force, supported by ten pieces of artillery, with a view to a final assault. They did not do much more than the bringing on of a heavy artillery duel, in which they were severely worsted and driven back to camp. That the Americans are excellent shots, as well with artillery as with rifles, we had frequent cause to acknowledge; but perhaps on no occasion did they assert their claim to the title of good artillerymen more effectually than on the present. Scarcely a shot passed over, or fell short; but all striking full into our ranks, occasioned terrible havoc. The crash of the fire-locks and the fall of the killed and wounded, caused at first some confusion. In half an hour three of our heavy guns were dismounted, many gunners killed, and the rest obliged to retire. The infantry advanced under a heavy discharge of round and grape shot, until they were checked by a canal in front. A halt was ordered, and the men commanded to shelter themselves in a wet ditch as best they could.