Livingston decided to invite New Orleans’s finest and Jackson to dinner to help the general secure the confidence of the city’s elite. His wife’s reaction to the idea demonstrated just how badly the introduction was needed. When Livingston told Louise that he had invited the Tennessean to take a seat at her table of fashionable friends, she expressed some annoyance. The man’s fame had preceded him, of course, but wasn’t he supposed to be a “wild man of the woods—an Indian almost”?
Jackson may have been a man of the woods, but he could hold his own with the haughty. When he entered the Livingston drawing room that afternoon, the other guests saw a man “erect, composed, perfectly self-possessed, with martial bearing.” In place of his worn and dirty traveling clothes he wore a full dress uniform, and “the soldier who stood before them [was] one whom nature had stamped a gentleman.” When dinner was announced, he exhibited perfect manners, offering his hostess his arm and, during dinner, he proved agreeable company. Mr. Livingston—soon to be Jackson’s aide-de-camp—and the general departed early. But one guest who remained, both surprised and favorably impressed, remarked, “Is this your backwoodsman? He is a prince!”13
In a matter of hours, Jackson had left a strong impression on the inhabitants. In the same span, Edward Livingston had demonstrated he could be invaluable to the general. Livingston possessed skills as an orator and a translator, as well as a deep knowledge of Creole society. He was also an attorney, and his opinions on martial law might soon be put to use. In recognition of the man’s usefulness, Jackson made him a colonel. In the coming weeks, Livingston would function as Jackson’s military secretary and confidant. His inside knowledge of the peculiar circumstances of New Orleans society would prove invaluable.
Surveying the Surroundings
A wise general imprints on his mind the local topography as he prepares to do battle. So Andrew Jackson began with the maps, even as he wondered whether the fight would commence in two days or twenty-two.
New Orleans was the nation’s seventh-largest city. The dense streetscapes at its center were packed together in the Vieux Carré and a few surrounding suburbs that stretched along the Mississippi riverbank and atop curving ridges just inland.
The swampy land surrounding New Orleans looked nothing like the rugged rolling hills that encircled Jackson’s Nashville. The city resembled an island amid a marsh, with little dry land in any direction. Jackson was in the midst of a vast wetland, with millions of acres of waterlogged swamps dominated by towering cypress trees. A breeding ground for mosquitoes, the swamplands provided a better habitat for water snakes and alligators than for man.
Thanks to trade from upriver, New Orleans had become a place where people got rich. To his surprise, however, Jackson found that the city’s people knew little of their larger surroundings. “The numerous bayous and canals,” he noted, “appear to be almost as little understood by the inhabitants as by the citizens of Tennessee.”14
Clearly, this was a precarious place, one subject to fires and hurricanes and floods. But Jackson’s job was to cut through all the paradoxes and mysteries to figure out how to keep it out of British hands. As one of the engineers on Jackson’s staff, Major Howell Tatum, noted in his log, “The first days of the General’s arrival at New Orleans [were] devoted to the acquisition of such information, upon various points, as were deemed necessary, in order to enable him to adopt the most efficacious plan for the defense of Louisiana.”15
First, that meant identifying—and then obstructing—any and all routes the British might take to attack the city. To help with that process, Edward Livingston brought the architect Arsène Lacarrière Latour to Jackson’s headquarters on Royal Street. Jackson was impressed, both with the man and with the maps of New Orleans and its vicinity. Because Latour displayed the kind of knowledge the general needed, Jackson promptly named him principal engineer of the U.S. Army’s Seventh Military District.
From afar, Jackson’s pet theory had been that the British would put their troops ashore well east of the city—namely, landing at Mobile—then march in a great arc north of their objective. When they reached the Mississippi River upstream from New Orleans, Jackson reasoned, they could commandeer boats and barges; then, carried by the current, they would attack from the river. That thinking had led Jackson to secure both Mobile and Pensacola.
Even now, after moving his army to New Orleans, Jackson understood the British might still return to Mobile Bay and overpower Fort Bowyer, making an overland attack route possible. In order to prevent that, Jackson had dispatched General Coffee; he and his Volunteer cavalry had parted with Jackson on the march from Mobile, going on to Baton Rouge. Coffee’s job would be to halt any such assault from upstream or, on Jackson’s orders, to come at double time to New Orleans, when and if intelligence reports determined the British were approaching via another route.
That left half a dozen other distinct paths for a possible British invasion. Jackson had no way of knowing which the enemy would choose but, again, he would have to take steps to obstruct their progress, whatever the angle of approach.
Three of the possibilities involved rivers, the most obvious being the Mississippi itself. That approach was guarded by fortifications well downstream; but those he needed to inspect personally. In a day or two, he’d go there.
Bayou Lafourche, which lay to the west, was another option for the British. A narrow but deep stream that veered south off the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, it emptied into the Gulf. If the British could sail up Bayou Lafourche and reach the parent river, they could then attack New Orleans from upstream. However, the breadth of the river and its ever-changing currents would make attacking from the opposite bank difficult. This seemed to Jackson and his advisers an unlikely—though still possible—British strategy.
To the east of the city was the River aux Chenes, which connected to Bayou Terre aux Boeufs. Both of these watercourses were sluggish but navigable for small boats. Again, Jackson was doubtful that the British attack would approach via these waters.
The other three angles of attack were via larger bodies of water.
Barataria Bay, south of the city, was linked to a maze of smaller waterways. Even though the pirates routinely used this network of streams to bring their goods to New Orleans, landing an army was another matter, especially without skilled pilots—and, it seemed, the Lafittes and the corsairs of Barataria had rejected the British offer. Again, the likelihood was low.
East of the city, Lake Borgne offered two plausible lines of attack: If the British could take possession of this large inlet, they might move on New Orleans via Bayou Chef Menteur, which led to a mile-wide strip of dry land called the Plain of Gentilly. Or they could carry the boats some five miles from the lake toward the Mississippi. On reaching the far side, however, the army could then march along the dry land that bordered the river through a series of plantations directly to the city. These two attack routes seemed to pose the greatest risk.
After absorbing the larger picture using the maps provided to him by Latour, Jackson and Governor Claiborne issued orders on December 2. Jackson sent guards to the least likely lines of attack, where they would watch and report if he had gambled wrong and the British were coming that way. Commanded by General Jacques Villere, detachments of the Louisiana militia marched out to the bayous and toward Barataria Bay armed not only with guns but also with axes. Their job was to clog the waterways with enough logs and other debris to slow the progress of boats carrying an oncoming army. Guards were then to be posted to speed the word if the enemy did approach. Jackson wasn’t going to commit many soldiers to these low-probability lines of attack, but the sentries would become part of the intelligence network he needed to monitor enemy movements.
Because there was one route that might allow Royal Navy warships to get within firing range of the city, Jackson himself headed downriver the next day. As the engineer Latour reported, Jackson, “adher
ing to his constant practice of seeing everything himself,” and his command, with Latour as their guide, went to inspect the fortifications on the banks of the Mississippi.16
Fort St. Philip was about sixty-five miles downstream; it was manned by regular troops and armed with two dozen cannons. This was enough to make it a formidable obstacle to a British onslaught, but Jackson knew that an attacking armada would have vastly greater firepower that would probably overcome the American defenders. He ordered the construction of new batteries before moving on to the next fort.
Closer to the city, he visited Fort St. Leon, which overlooked one of the Mississippi’s many great bends. The abrupt curve was known as English Turn, having gained its name in 1699, when the future founder of New Orleans, the sieur de Bienville, persuaded a band of English explorers to turn back because, he said, France had already claimed the territory. Jackson hoped to convince the British to turn back there, too, and planned to take advantage of the difficulties the British navy would have navigating the arching bend. Sailing ships needed a change of wind in order to make the curve, which meant a naval force coming up the river might have to linger for hours exposed to Fort St. Leon’s guns. To increase chances of holding the British there, Jackson again ordered the construction of added artillery batteries.
The scouting trip down the Mississippi left Jackson and his officers feeling confident. “It is almost impossible for an invading enemy to gain possession of New Orleans,” noted his aide, the engineer Tatum, “by ascending the Mississippi. . . . At the English Turn . . . heavy cannon . . . would destroy every armed vessel that dared to attempt the ascent.”17
After his six-day tour of the Mississippi, Jackson returned to New Orleans on December 9 and informed Claiborne that, given the added batteries, the river could be well defended.
But Jackson still needed to evaluate the last and perhaps the most likely approach for the British, via Lake Borgne. Repelling an attack there would be a challenge, but the general was ready and willing. He had already, almost single-handedly, lifted the morale of New Orleanians. As the engineer Latour reported, “The citizens were preparing for battle as cheerfully as if it had been a party of pleasure, each in his vernacular tongue singing songs of victory. The streets resounded with ‘Yankee Doodle,’ the ‘Marseilles Hymn,’ the ‘Chat du Depart,’ and other martial airs.”18 In a matter of less than a fortnight, Jackson had brought a new sense of unity to the city’s factions, turning them into a patriotic force eager to fight off the British no matter which approach Cochrane and his invading army chose.
CHAPTER 8
Losing Lake Borgne
The courage and skill which was displayed in the defense of the gun vessels . . . against such an overwhelming force as they had to contend with, reflects additional splendor on our naval glory.
—Master Commander Daniel T. Patterson to the secretary of the navy
The weather was fair—the thermometer read a tropical eighty-four degrees—when Admiral Cochrane and his fleet left Jamaica. But, as Andrew Jackson took his tour of the Mississippi’s fortifications, the British encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of Mexico. During the last few days of the passage swells rocked the warships violently enough that the soldiers on board stayed below. “So great was the motion,” Lieutenant George Gleig noted, “that all walking was prevented.”1
After the storm exhausted itself, on December 9, 1814, blue skies appeared and, with sight distances increased, the sailors spied the Chandeleurs, a string of barrier islands with few signs of habitation. Just thirty miles beyond lay the mouth of Lake Borgne. There, the British intended to land the ground troops who would march through to New Orleans.
There was a distinct chill in the air as the fleet’s flagship, the HMS Tonnant, along with the other tall ships, dropped anchor in the deep water off the Chandeleurs. Smaller warships sailed deeper into the sound, reefing their sails as they found anchorage between Cat and Ship Islands.
When one of the smaller ships, the HMS Sophie, approached the nearby coast, it came upon two small American gunboats, which sailed quickly away, presumably to warn their army of the coming attack. The captain of the Sophie, Nicholas Lockyer, may have wished to follow, but the coastal waters were tricky. A sandbar lay dead ahead, guarding the mouth of Lake Borgne, and the lake’s shoals were known to pose a danger to all boats with more than the shallowest draft. The Americans, knowing the waters, escaped unscathed as the British watched, unable to stop them from ruining Cochrane’s surprise. Within a day or two, Andrew Jackson would know that his fears were confirmed and that a huge British invasion force was heading toward Lake Borgne.
Patterson and Jones, USN
Lacking experience with warships, Andrew Jackson had no choice but to rely on the men of the U.S. Navy. But he didn’t know quite what to think of Daniel Todd Patterson.
Although Patterson was just twenty-eight, his career in the navy had already spanned more than fifteen years. He had served two years in the West Indies before shipping out as a midshipman aboard the USS Philadelphia during the war with the Barbary pirates. In the Mediterranean, after the big frigate’s grounding in the harbor at Tripoli, he had been a prisoner for eighteen months. Yet even that experience had added to his store of naval knowledge, because the Philadelphia’s captain had used the time wisely, running an informal academy to tutor his young officers while in captivity.
Patterson had served on the Mississippi River, rising to the rank of lieutenant while commanding a dozen gunboats operating at Natchez in the Mississippi Territory. Having been elevated to the rank of master commander in 1813, he now ran the New Orleans station. Married to a daughter of New Orleans and with a growing family, Patterson called the city home.
A stout, compact man, Patterson carried himself with confidence, but that very boldness gave Andrew Jackson pause. Writing from Mobile on his arrival there in August, the general had summoned Patterson to help defend Mobile Point—only to have Patterson flat out refuse to come. In the most respectful terms (he wrote that it was his “most ardent wish” to cooperate with the U.S. Army), Patterson had told Jackson that he thought coming to Mobile was a fool’s errand. In his judgment, if he went to Jackson’s aid, the more powerful Royal Navy would inevitably blockade his vessels in Mobile Bay, rendering his gunboats useless for the more important job of protecting New Orleans.
Whatever the merits of Patterson’s argument, this smacked of insubordination even if, strictly speaking, the chain of command called for Patterson to report to the secretary of the navy rather than to Jackson.
On the general’s arrival in New Orleans, the two men had been thrown into a collaboration. Patterson, as the city’s naval commander, had joined Jackson and his engineers on their reconnaissance trip down the Mississippi. He proved useful, his counsel valuable in improving the fortifications along the river. Jackson began to appreciate that, after almost five years in New Orleans, Patterson knew the city and, in particular, the big river, the many lakes, and the seascapes that surrounded it.
Furthermore, Jackson had to admit, Patterson was no yes-man; he was willing to stand up to his superiors. Having himself seen the need from time to time to disobey orders, Jackson had a grudging respect for the fact that Master Commander Patterson was clearly his own man.
Patterson had also thought long and hard about protecting New Orleans. Some of his thinking appeared suddenly prescient, because he had been pleading with the secretary of the navy for twelve months to send him more men, matériel, and warships. New Orleans was in danger: “The great depot of the western country,” he warned, was “left open to the enemy.”2 Jackson recognized that he and Patterson had shared the same fears for many months.
Back at headquarters on 106 Royal Street, the two men considered how to protect the city from a northeastern attack via the lakes. Having never seen a gunboat, Jackson looked to Patterson; as a former gunboat commander, Patterson knew the vessels intimately. They were
small by the standards of naval ships, typically fifty to sixty feet in length and eighteen feet wide, with a shallow draft and rigged with mast and sails. Armed with a large-bore cannon each and several smaller guns, the little vessels were notoriously top-heavy, making them unstable in heavy seas. Still, Patterson advised, they were well adapted to the shallow waters of the Gulf Coast.
Five U.S. Navy gunboats already actively patrolled the waters near the mouth of Lake Borgne. The gunboats were served by a schooner, the Sea Horse, to carry dispatches, and the Alligator, a converted fishing boat used for transporting men and supplies from shore to ship. Armed with a total of twenty-three guns, the little flotilla was manned by 182 officers and seamen.
Its commander was Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones. He and his sailors were to be General Jackson’s eyes and ears, watching and reporting to Patterson frequently concerning the enemy’s movements. If challenged by the British, Jones was under instructions to retire to the Rigolets, the narrow strait that was the passage from Lake Borgne to Lake Pontchartrain. There he was to “wait for the enemy, and sink him or be sunk.”3
Jackson agreed that Patterson’s plan seemed sound. The mouth of the big lake offered defensive advantages, and the two men believed that Jones and his well-armed boats could hold off any small craft Admiral Cochrane might send his way. Patterson also assured Jackson that no deep-draft warship could possibly sail into Lake Borgne.
Jackson wrote to James Monroe. “The gun boats on the lakes,” he told the secretary of war confidently, on December 10, “will prevent the British from approaching in that quarter.”4
Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans Page 9
