Commander-in-Chief.
The losses to the American army, in the five battles fought from the twenty-third of December to the eighth of January, inclusive, are summarized in the report of the Adjutant-general, which we give:
Camp Below New Orleans, Jan'y 16, 1815.
Sir: I enclose for the information of the War Department, a report of the killed, wounded, and missing, of the army under Major-general Jackson, in the different actions with the enemy since their landing.
Rob't Butler,
Adjutant-General.
| Battle. | Killed. | Wounded. | Missing. |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 23d | 24 | 115 | 74 |
| December 28th | 9 | 8 | None. |
| January 1st | 11 | 23 | None. |
| January 8th | 13 | 39 | 19 |
| ——— | ——— | ——— | |
| 57 | 185 | 93 |
A total of three hundred and thirty-five men. This includes the killed, wounded, and missing in the two battles on the eighth.
Our English authorities are so marked with exaggerations and discrepancies as to numbers in either army, and also as to losses and casualties, that they are unreliable. There is with nearly all their writers, and in the reports of their officers, a disposition to minimize numbers on their own side, and to overstate those on the side of the Americans. This was no doubt due to a sense of mortified pride and deep chagrin over their repeated defeats and final expulsion from the country, under humiliations such as English armies and navies had rarely before known in history. General Jackson was not far wrong in estimating the entire losses of the British, during the two weeks of invasion, at more than four thousand men. If the large number who deserted from their ranks after the battles of the eighth of January be included, the excess would doubtless swell the numbers much above four thousand. Their killed, wounded, and missing on the eighth approximated three thousand. So decimated and broken up were their columns that they dared not risk another battle.