The Battle of New Orleans / including the Previous Engagements between the Americans / and the British, the Indians and the Spanish which led to / the Final Conflict on the 8th of January, 1815

by Z. F. Smith

ANDREW JACKSON. Seventh President of the United States.

From this point toward the center and left, for eight hundred yards, the breastwork was manned by the troops from Tennessee, commanded by General Carroll, and the Kentuckians, under command of General Adair, supported by the men of the nearest batteries. General Carroll reported that he had over one thousand Tennesseans in his immediate command, in line of action. General Adair had, on the morning of the seventh of January, received arms for only six hundred of the Kentucky troops. He says, in a subsequent correspondence, that on the seventh, anticipating the attack of the British the following day, he went into New Orleans, and plead with the Mayor and Committee of Safety to lend him, for temporary use, several hundred stand of arms stored in the city armory and held for the defense of the city in emergency, and to put a check to any possible insurrectionary disturbance. To this the Mayor and committee finally consented, on the condition that the removal of the arms out of the city should be kept secret from the public. To this end, instead of General Adair marching in and arming his men, the city authorities had the arms, concealed in boxes, hauled out to the camp and delivered there. This was done late in the dusk of the evening, and on the night of the seventh four hundred more of the Kentuckians were thus armed and marched forward to take a position with their comrades just in the rear of the entrenchment, making one thousand Kentuckians under arms and ready for to-morrow's battle.

In council with General Jackson, General Adair had suggested that the British would most probably endeavor to break our line by throwing heavy columns against it at some chosen point; and that such was the discipline of their veterans, they might succeed in the effort without very great resistance was made. To be prepared for such a contingency, it would be well to place a strong reserve of troops centrally in the rear of the line, ready at a moment's notice to reinforce the line at the point of assault. Jackson approved this suggestion, and gave orders to General Adair to hold the Kentucky troops of his command in position for such contingency. With Colonel Slaughter's regiment of seven hundred men, and Major Reuben Harrison's battalion, three hundred and five men (the Kentuckians under arms), Adair took position just in the rear of Carroll's Tennesseans, occupying the center of the breastwork line.

By the statements of their commanders, the joint forces of the Tennesseans and Kentuckians defending the left center were about two thousand men. General Coffee's Tennesseans, five hundred in number, occupied the remainder of the line on the left, which made an elbow-curve into the wood, terminating in the swamp. Ogden's squad of cavalry and a detachment of Attakapas dragoons, about fifty men in all, were posted near the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, and these were later joined by Captain Chauvau, with thirty mounted men from the city. The Mississippi cavalry, Major Hinds in command, were held in reserve, one hundred and fifty strong, posted on Delery's plantation. Detachments of Colonel Young's Louisiana militia, in all about two hundred and fifty men, were placed on duty at intervals on the skirts of the wood, behind the line as far as Piernas' Canal. Four hundred yards in the rear a guard was posted to prevent any one going out of the camp, and a line of sentinels was extended to the wood for the same purpose.

The above details show that there were of Jackson's army on the left bank of the river, on active duty, about forty-six hundred men; yet on the battle-line of the eighth of January there were less than four thousand to engage the enemy. The remainder were in reserve, or on guard duty at various points.

From official reports and historical statements derived from British sources, there were present and in the corps of the British army of assault, on the morning of the eighth of January, about eleven thousand men, fully eight thousand of whom were in the attacking columns and reserve on the left bank of the river, the flower of the English army.

The Battle of Sunday, the Eighth of January.

It was not yet daybreak on the morning of the eighth of January when an American outpost came hastily in, with the intelligence that the enemy was in motion and advancing in great force. In brief time, as the day began to dawn, the light discovered to our men what seemed the entire British army in moving columns, occupying two thirds of the space from the wood to the river. Obedient to the commands of their officers, who gallantly led in front of their men, the massive columns of the enemy moved up with measured and steady tread. Suddenly a Congreve rocket, set off at a point nearest the wood, blazed its way across the British front in the direction of the river. This was the signal for attack. Immediately the first shot from the American line was fired from the twelve-pounder of Battery 6. This was answered by three cheers from the enemy, who quickly formed in close column of more than two hundred men in front and many lines deep. These advanced in good order in the direction of Batteries 7 and 8, and to the left of these. It was now evident that the main assault would be made upon that part of the breastwork occupied by Carroll's Tennesseans, with the intent to break the line here and flank Jackson's army on the right.

As soon in the morning as word came that the British were in motion for an advance, General Adair formed his Kentuckians in two lines in close order, and marched them to within fifty paces of the breastwork, in the rear of Carroll's command. The day had dawned, and the fog slowly lifted. There was no longer doubt of the point of main assault, as the enemy's heaviest columns moved forward in Carroll's front. The lines of the Kentucky troops were at once moved up in order of close column to the Tennesseans, deepening the ranks to five or six men for several hundred yards. Batteries 6, 7, and 8 opened upon the enemy when within four or five hundred yards, killing and wounding many, but causing no disorder in his ranks nor check to his advance. As he approached in range, the terrible fire of rifles and musketry opened upon him from the Tennessee and Kentucky infantry, each line firing and falling back to reload, giving place to the next line to advance and fire.

The British attack was supported by a heavy artillery fire, while a cloud of rockets continued to fall in showers throughout the contest. The assaulting columns did little execution with small arms, as they came up relying more on the use of the bayonet in case of effecting a breach in our line. Some of them carried fascines and ladders in expectation of crossing the ditch and scaling the parapet. But all in vain. The musketry and rifles of the Tennessee and Kentucky militia, joining with the fire of the artillery, mowed down whole files of men, and so decimated their ranks as to throw them into a panic of disorder and force a retreat. This first disastrous repulse was within twenty-five minutes after the opening of the battle. Writers present who have undertaken to describe the scene at the time say that the constant rolling fire of cannon and musketry resembled the rattling peals of thunder following the lightning flashes in a furious electric storm. An English officer present mentions the phenomenon, that though the flashes of the guns were plainly visible in front, the firing seemed to be from the wood and swamp a mile or two away on the left. They did not hear the sound from the front, but only the echoes from the direction named, as though the battle raged out there.