The whole army having come up, formed along the brink of the Lake; a line of outposts was planted, and the soldiers commanded to make themselves as comfortable as possible. But there was little comfort. Without tents or shelter of any kind, our bed was the morass, and our sole covering the clothes which had not quitted our backs for a month. Our fires, so necessary to a soldier's happiness, were composed solely of weeds, which blazed up and burned out like straw, imparting but little warmth. Above all, our provisions were expended, with no way to replenish in reach. Our sole dependence was the fleet, nearly one hundred miles away, at anchor. It was necessary to wait until our barges could make the trip there, and return. For two entire days, the only provisions issued to the troops were some crumbs of biscuit and a small allowance of rum. As for myself, being fond of hunting, I determined to fare better. I took a fire-lock and went in pursuit of wild ducks, of which there seemed plenty in the bog. I was fortunate enough to kill several, but they fell in the water, about twenty yards out. There was no other alternative. Pulling off my clothes, and breaking the thin ice, I waded out and got my game, and returned to shore, shivering like an aspen. As I neared the shore, my leg stuck fast in the mire, and in pulling it out my stocking came off, a loss that gave me great discomfort, until we went aboard the fleet. I request that I may not be sneered at when I record this loss of my stocking as one of the disastrous consequences of this ill-fated expedition.
As the boats returned, regiment after regiment set sail for the fleet. But, the wind being foul, many days elapsed before all could be got off. By the end of January, we were all once more on board our former ships. But our return was far from triumphant. We, who only seven weeks ago had set out in the surest confidence of glory, and I may add, of emolument, were brought back dispirited and dejected. Our ranks were woefully thinned, our chiefs slain, our clothing tattered and filthy, and our discipline in some degree injured. A gloomy silence reigned throughout the armament, except when it was broken by the voice of lamentation over fallen friends. The interior of each ship presented a scene well calculated to prove the misadventures of human hope and human prudence. On reaching the fleet, we found that a splendid regiment, the 40th Foot, of one thousand men, had just arrived to reinforce us, ignorant of the fatal issue of our attack. But the coming of thrice their number could not recover what was lost, or recall the fateful past. There was no welcome, nor rejoicing; so great was the despondency that no attention was given to the event. A sullen indifference as to what might happen next seemed to have succeeded all our wonted curiosity, and confidence of success in every undertaking.
On the 4th of February, the fleet weighed anchor and set sail, though detained by adverse winds near the shore of Cat Island until the 7th, when it put to sea. Our course, towards the east, led to the conjecture that we were steering towards Mobile. Nor was it long before we came in sight of the bay which bears that name.
Second Attack on Fort Bowyer, Mobile Bay.
So great and so repeated had been the reverses of the British arms, that an opportunity to retrieve lost prestige, even in a small degree, could not well be permitted to pass unimproved. The great flotilla of sixty vessels, with the fragments of the shattered army, which set sail with flags and pennants gayly flying in the breeze from Negril Bay, Jamaica, but a little over two months ago, was still a power upon the sea, at a safe distance from Jackson's triumphant army. The little outpost of a fort that guarded Mobile Bay, which had inflicted a heavy loss on, and beaten off, a squadron of the enemy's ships a few months before, lay in their path homeward, and it was determined to invest it, and to overwhelm it with numbers. On the sixth of February, the great armament appeared in sight of Dauphin Island. On the seventh, twenty-five ships anchored in a crescent position extending from the island toward Mobile Point, where stood the fort. On the morning of the eighth, the enemy landed five thousand troops opposite the line of ships at anchor, investing the fort by sea and land. The fortification was erected for defense mainly on the sea side, to render it formidable to ships attempting to enter the pass into Mobile Bay. On the land side was a sandy plain, rendering it incapable of defense against a superior force protected by extensive siege works. The enemy mounted a number of batteries behind parapets and epaulements, which directed their fire upon the weakest parts of the defense. The fort was gallantly defended by a garrison of three hundred and fifty men, under command of Colonel William Lawrence. Some losses were inflicted on the besiegers as they continued to push their works to within short musket-range of the fort. But the heavy cannonading and fire from small-arms encircled the besieged from every direction, and further defense became hopeless. Terms of surrender were agreed to on the eleventh, and on the twelfth the garrison marched out with the honors of war, yielding possession to the enemy.
Negotiations for Peace Concluded on the 24th of December, 1814.
The small victory at Mobile Bay was barren of any gain to the British cause; for, on the fourteenth, two days after the surrender, intelligence came from England to General Lambert that articles of peace had been signed by the plenipotentiaries of the belligerent nations, in session at Ghent. Gleig remarks, in his "Narrative": "With the reduction of this trifling work ended all hostilities in this quarter of America; for the army had scarcely reassembled, when intelligence arrived from England of peace. The news reached us on the fourteenth, and I shall not deny that it was received with much satisfaction."
On the nineteenth, General Jackson issued an address from headquarters, from which we reproduce as follows: "The flag-vessel, which was sent to the enemy's fleet at Mobile, has returned, and brings with it intelligence, extracted from a London paper, that on the twenty-fourth of December articles of peace were signed by the commissioners of the two nations."
Thus, on the day after the first landing of the British army on Louisiana soil, and after the first battle was fought at night, terms of peace were agreed on. It was fifteen days after that auspicious event until the battles on the eighth occurred, causing such disaster and loss of valuable lives to the English army and nation; and fifty-two days from the signing of articles until a message of the good news was received by the commander-in-chief of the British forces. There was no alternative but to await the slow passage of the ship across the wide Atlantic, with sails set to breeze and calm, and sometimes tossed and delayed by adverse storm. To-day, the news of such an event would be flashed over the great cables under the sea and the network of electric wires throughout the land, in the twinkling of an eye after its occurrence. Such an advantage at the time would have been worth to England the entire cost of the telegraph system of the world.