1812: The Navy's War

by George Daughan

  Finding the constant delays intolerable and knowing they were sapping the morale of his troops, Pakenham decided to assault Jackson’s line on the morning of the eighth. Ladders and fascines were readied to fill the ditch in front of Jackson’s great mud wall and scale it. Colonel Thornton prepared to cross the river on the evening of the seventh, seize Patterson’s guns, and enfilade Jackson while Pakenham made a frontal attack with the main body of his troops.

  Fifty boats assembled in Villeré’s canal to move Thornton’s men. The colonel planned to depart for the west bank at nine o’clock in the evening, but the extended canal collapsed, and few boats could be brought up to take him across. He did manage to embark six hundred men, but the current took them beyond their planned landing place, destroying Pakenham’s timetable. Nonetheless, Thornton carried on, still determined to attack Morgan and then Patterson.

  Behind Rodriguez Canal, Jackson had erected a strong fortification two to three feet thick. His 5,200 troops could wait there, protected behind a rampart, while the British advanced in the open, easy targets for his sharpshooters and especially for his heavy guns. Jackson had twelve artillery batteries on his line. Lieutenant Ortho Norris and seventeen seamen from the Carolina manned number two battery with one twenty-four-pounder. Lieutenant C. E. Crawley of the Carolina commanded battery number four with one thirty-two-pounder, also manned by seamen from the Carolina. Only battery number three, consisting of two twenty-four-pounders, was operated by Baratarian pirates.

  ON THE MORNING of January 8 Pakenham arose at five o’clock to find that Thornton had failed to make it across the river in time to coordinate with him. He was not surprised. He had always been skeptical about Thornton’s ability to get his men across the river in a timely fashion. Pakenham was prepared to go on without him. He was supremely confident in the superiority of his artillery and his regular infantry when pitted against American militiamen. He ordered Lieutenant John Craley to fire a rocket, signaling the attack to begin. Pakenham knew that without Thornton his casualties would be much higher, but he was willing to accept the losses rather than call off another action.

  It was no mystery to Jackson that Pakenham was going to attack, and he was ready. Sailing Master Johnson of the American navy had captured a British sloop in Lake Borgne, and the crew gave details of Pakenham’s plans. There were many British deserters reporting to Jackson as well. He knew what was coming and when.

  At six o’clock a heavy mist covered the battlefield as Dickson got his twenty heavy guns ready. He was to commence firing only when he heard musketry fire. Major General Sir Samuel Gibbs led the main thrust with 2,300 regulars against Jackson’s center left. Gibbs’s column stepped forward, two hundred yards to the left of the cypress swamp. When they were five hundred yards from Rodriguez Canal, the fog suddenly lifted, and Jackson’s men got a good view of what was coming at them. They waited with their loaded weapons for the enemy to get closer. Suddenly, American artillery opened fire. Dickson immediately replied, and the battle was on in earnest. When Gibbs was three hundred fifty yards from the canal, Jackson’s sharpshooters opened fire with their deadly rifles.

  General Keane, meanwhile, was advancing against Jackson’s center right with 1,200 men. As Keane’s column moved forward, Commodore Patterson kept up a heavy fire on it. Ahead of Keane was Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rennie with some light troops advancing to capture Jackson’s forward redoubt near the river and render the guns useless so that they could not enfilade the area directly in front of Jackson’s line.

  If Gibbs made a breakthrough, Keane was to immediately move to the right and join him. Gibbs was experiencing severe problems, however. Jackson’s number two and four batteries, those manned by seamen from the Carolina, were cutting a wide swath through Gibbs’s advancing line with grapeshot. Jackson wrote, “Lieutenant Norris of the Navy, with Mr. Walker Martin, and a detachment of seamen, was stationed at the 2nd battery, and Lieutenant Crawley, with Mr. W. Livingston, master’s mate, with a similar detachment, were stationed at number four with a 32-pounder, which was remarkably well directed.” The Baratarians, led by captains Dominique and Belluche, manned battery number 3, and they were commended by Jackson as well for “the gallantry with which they have redeemed the pledge they gave at the opening of the campaign to defend the country.”

  The fascines and ladders that were supposed to be available to Gibbs in large quantities and that he was counting on were not on hand because of a mix-up. But it hardly mattered. His men were being mowed down by the incessant, accurate fire from rifles, muskets, and especially the naval guns. Through it all, however, the disciplined British regulars kept reforming and marching forward to be slaughtered. Jackson reported that “twice the column which approached me on my left, was repulsed by the troops of General Carroll, those of General Coffee, and a division of the Kentucky militia, and twice [the British] formed again and renewed their assault.”

  Eventually, Gibbs’s troops broke and fled to the nearby swamp to get away from the grapeshot and rifles. The general tried to rally them, as did Pakenham, who road up on his horse and waved them forward. He was having some success when Gibbs suddenly fell, mortally wounded. Then Pakenham was hit in the knee by grapeshot, while a musket ball felled his horse. He was soon hit a second time, and a third struck him in the back, killing him. Utter confusion then reigned.

  General Keane, meanwhile, having been ordered by Pakenham himself to turn his column right and join Gibbs, was trying to do so when the deadly fire from Jackson’s line, and from Patterson across the river, forced Keane’s regulars to hit the ground and seek cover. Soon a ball struck Keane in the groin and mortally wounded him.

  Three of Britain’s generals were now out of action; only Lambert remained. He was an experienced commander, but he had only arrived at the front on January 5. His men had been held in reserve, but when conditions deteriorated, Pakenham ordered them into the fray. Lambert was moving 1,400 of them forward, but all around was slaughter and chaos, and he called a halt to the advance. If his reserves were decimated as the rest of the army had been, he would be forced to surrender to Jackson, something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

  Lambert sent Dickson across the river to see what Thornton’s situation was, and he held a council of war with those officers who were still alive. By then, American fire had ceased. Jackson’s artillery stopped around two o’clock, but his infantry had stopped five hours earlier for lack of targets. Lambert’s situation was desperate. If he renewed the attack and it failed, which it almost surely would, he would have to surrender. He had no alternative but to retreat.

  On the other side of the river, Dickson discovered that, although Thornton was severely wounded and reinforcements were needed, he had dispatched Morgan’s militiamen easily and captured Patterson’s battery. The commodore had fired at the British across the river with good effect and had turned a gun on Thornton as well, but as the British regulars closed in, Patterson spiked his guns in great haste and withdrew. Thornton easily cleaned them and carried them to a point where he could enfilade Jackson’s line, which could have destroyed him. Before Thornton could execute, however, Lambert ordered him back. Jackson was very lucky, and he knew it. When Thornton withdrew, Patterson returned, fixed the guns, and used them again against Lambert, cannonading sporadically day and night. Jackson never considered going on the offensive for the same reasons he did not do so after the previous engagements. He feared the British regulars, even in their weakened condition, would destroy his militiamen.

  The butcher’s bill on the British side was horrendous—291 killed and 1,262 wounded on January 8. An additional 484 were listed as missing, but they were surely either prisoners or deserters. Jackson had 13 killed, 39 wounded, and 19 missing, probably Morgan’s men. The numbers were so astounding that Jackson told Monroe they “may not everywhere be fully credited.”

  THE NEXT DAY, Cochrane attacked Fort St. Philip, which Jackson had strengthened long ago when he first came to New Orleans. The f
ort had a solid battery of twenty-nine twenty-four-pounders, two thirty-two-pounders, heavy mortars, and howitzers. Commodore Patterson’s sole remaining gunboat, under Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham, was in the water outside. Four hundred regulars manned the fort under Major Walter Overton.

  Cochrane sent five small ships to test the fort’s defenses. They arrived on January 9 and shelled it from a distance of one mile. That night they tried running past the fort with a fair wind, but they could not make it and returned to their previous position. They resumed the bombardment and kept at it until January 18. During the nine days, a thousand shells fell into the fort but had little effect.

  Cochrane’s maneuver was a distraction designed to hold Jackson’s attention while Lambert went about the difficult, time-consuming business of readying his army for a retreat back to their ships off Cat Island. Five hundred British soldiers had surrendered to Jackson, and many others had deserted, but Lambert still had a powerful force. He kept Jackson off balance by pretending he was going to attack again, and Jackson had to take the threat seriously, particularly with Cochrane’s bombardment going on. If Cochrane could get his warships up the Mississippi, he might turn the tables on the Americans.

  On January 18 Lambert was ready, and he conducted a masterly, secret retreat, while Jackson waited for another onslaught. The sorely tried British troops made it back to their troop transports off Cat Island and climbed aboard, chilled to the bone. They were hoping to weigh anchor immediately, but bad weather delayed the fleet, and it did not sortie until January 25.

  When Lambert was safely away, he decided to have another go at Fort Bowyer, and in this he easily succeeded. Major Lawrence surrendered with four hundred men on February 11. Lambert could now threaten Mobile and then possibly New Orleans itself again. But on February 14 he received word that the war was over, and he could relax. His men enjoyed Dauphin Island, which was something of a paradise.

  Lambert still had to negotiate with Jackson about prisoners and former slaves, who left with the British. Jackson wanted all the slaves back, viewing them simply as property. Lambert considered them human beings, and he refused to return anyone who did not want to go, even though they were more mouths to feed and a burden on his resources. He stuck to his guns; he would not return anyone to slavery. The ex-slaves who wanted their freedom sailed away with him.

  THE SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE of New Orleans had a decided impact on the attitude of Liverpool, Castlereagh, and their colleagues toward the United States. The military prowess of America now appeared far more substantial, and this new assessment would help alter relations between the two countries from then on. Britain and America, through two centuries, never fought each other again. The battle at New Orleans contributed to bringing about a remarkable new relationship. Thus, even though the battle occurred after the peace treaty was signed, it played a major role in winning the peace that followed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  An Amazing Change

  WHEN THE NEW year of 1815 began, a pervasive gloom hung over Washington while the city waited anxiously for reports from New Orleans and Ghent. Prospects for an acceptable peace appeared remote, and the British invasion of New Orleans seemed certain to succeed. Madison thought it was a good possibility that Spain would secretly turn Florida over to Britain. If Cochrane then captured New Orleans, the British would control the southern extremity of the United States and threaten all of Louisiana. They would also have northern Maine. The outcome of the meeting of disgruntled Federalists at Hartford was unknown but troubling. The country appeared to be coming apart.

  Even though the belief that the war would continue was widespread, the president could not get Congress to enact a system of taxation or a national bank to properly finance it. Nor would Congress approve the army Madison wanted. The United States seemed to be growing weaker, while Britain appeared stronger than ever. Thousands of veteran British troops and some of Wellington’s best generals were in Canada. And Admiral Yeo was again dominant on Lake Ontario. How long would it be before he regained control of lakes Erie and Champlain? All of these problems would disappear if the war ended, but the president saw little chance of that. What seemed more likely was a continuation of the fighting with an inadequate army and navy, and a divided country whose government was essentially bankrupt.

  The gloom in Washington was relieved somewhat by news the second week of January that the ultrasecret Hartford Convention had issued a moderate report that reflected the views of most Federalists, who, although unhappy with Madison, did not want to secede and ignite a civil war. “The proceedings are tempered with more moderation than was to have been expected,” the National Intelligencer wrote. “A separation from the Union, so far from being openly recommended, is the subject only of remote illusion.”

  This relatively good news was more than offset by word that on January 15 a British squadron forced Stephen Decatur to surrender the 44-gun President off New York after a bloody fight in which Decatur lost one-fifth of his crew, including Lieutenant Paul Hamilton, the son of the former secretary of the navy, who was cut in half by a cannonball.

  Decatur’s depressing story began during the evening of January 14, when he saw an opening and stood out from New York. A snowstorm had blown the British blockaders out to sea. Decatur had pilots at the bar off Sandy Hook positioning boats with blazing lights to mark a safe passage. But “owing to some mistake of the pilots” (or treachery) the President ran aground, where she struck heavily for an hour and a half, breaking rudder braces, cracking masts, and making her hogged. The tide rose, and it was necessary to force her over the bar lest she get stuck again. By ten o’clock Decatur was finally off the treacherous sand. He needed to return to port for repairs, but a strong westerly forced him out to sea. He sailed along the shore of Long Island for fifty miles and then steered southeast by east, hoping to break free.

  Decatur’s hopes were dashed, however, when at five o’clock in the morning lookouts spied three ships ahead. He had run into the British squadron. He immediately hauled up and tried passing to the northward of them, but he soon discovered that four ships were chasing him. The lead one was a razee (the 56-gun Majestic), and she commenced firing, but with no effect. At noon the President was outdistancing the razee, but another large ship (the 50-gun Endymion) was gaining because of the injuries the President had sustained and the amount of water she was taking in. Decatur immediately started lightening the ship by starting the water, cutting the anchors, and throwing overboard provisions, cables, spare spars, boats, “and every article that could be got at,” while keeping the sails wet from the royals down to coax every bit of speed out of her.

  At three o’clock Decatur had a light wind, but the ship in chase had a strong breeze, and she was coming up fast. The Endymion began firing her bow chasers, and Decatur responded with stern guns. By five o’clock the Endymion was close on the President’s starboard quarter, where neither Decatur’s stern guns nor his quarter guns would bear. He was steering east by north; the wind was from the northwest. Dusk was approaching, and the President was being cut up without being able to fight back. Decatur tried to close and board, but the Endymion was yawing from time to time to keep her distance and fire with impunity.

  Figure 32.1: President versus Endymion (courtesy of Naval Historical Center).

  Desperate to get out of this deadly trap, Decatur abruptly turned south and brought the enemy abeam. A savage battle ensued broadside to broadside for the next two and a half hours, during which Decatur’s superb gunnery dismantled the Endymion. For several minutes, the British ship was such a wreck she could not fire a gun.

  By now, it was 8:30, and two more enemy ships were coming up, the 38-gun frigates Pomone and Tenedos. Decatur threw on every sail he could and tried to outrun them, but by eleven o’clock the Pomone had caught up with him. Visibility was poor enough that Decatur thought the Tenedos was close as well, but she was much farther back, perhaps two or three miles.

  The Pomone fired two devastatin
g broadsides into the struggling President, causing Decatur to examine his alternatives. With one-fifth of the crew killed or wounded, his ship badly damaged, and so many enemy ships opposed to him, with no chance of escaping, he decided to strike his colors. Twenty-five of his veteran crew were dead and sixty wounded. Many of the men had been with Decatur when he fought the Macedonian. The British took the President and prisoners to Bermuda, where the big frigate, so long sought by the Admiralty, was repaired and taken to England.

  The loss of the President dramatically increased the sense of doom in Washington—but that pervasive pessimism disappeared practically overnight as wonderful news began flooding into the capital. On February 4, incredible, scarcely believable reports arrived of victory at New Orleans. Everyone breathed a giant sigh of relief. Only seven days later, on February 11, the British sloop of war Favorite , after a tempestuous passage, sailed into New York with the peace treaty.

  On the evening of February 13, the treaty was delivered to the secretary of state in Washington, and the following day the city erupted in a giant celebration. Torches and candles were everywhere. The charred reminders of the fires of August could not dampen the bliss. Overnight, the entire complexion of American politics changed, and everywhere a rebirth of national confidence was evident. Boston and all of New England were deliriously happy. The Senate ratified the treaty unanimously, and on February 17 an enormously relieved president declared the war was over.

  The actual terms of the peace treaty seemed unimportant; the country had been saved from the abyss, and that was enough. People would have willingly paid a much higher price for peace. The terms turned out to be relatively benign. In fact, they were much better than expected. The commissioners’ fear that the country would be unhappy with their compromises turned out to be unfounded.