Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans

by Brian Kilmeade

  Across the Atlantic, a quieter confrontation brewed. The American and British negotiators in Ghent grew closer to a meeting of the minds and, as November became December, the Americans had begun to think a treaty was within reach. The differences between the parties seemed to have been whittled down to talk of fishing rights off the New England coast and navigation of the Mississippi.

  These discussions had revealed a regional rift between the American negotiators. John Quincy Adams saw no great harm in trading away access to the Mississippi and, to him, the right to fish off his native coast was an essential and absolute right. He felt bound to protect it, partly because his father had negotiated similar terms in the Treaty of Paris when the American Revolution ended. For the Kentuckian Henry Clay, however, the importance of the fisheries was dwarfed by the matter of navigating the great river that defined the westernmost boundary of his state. For him, the Mississippi was central to the development of his nation’s middle, and he could never agree to compromise those American rights.

  In the midst of these distractions, the American ministers briefly furrowed their brows at a new wrinkle the British introduced to the discussion.

  In early December, the English diplomats returned once more to the language concerning territory captured by either party in the war. At first, the renewed discussion seemed a simple continuation of the earlier negotiations concerning the Latin phrase uti possidetis (“as you possess”) and the restoration of territory with a peace. But the wrangling over language puzzled the ever-thoughtful John Quincy Adams. He pondered the British insistence on splitting linguistic hairs concerning who owned what and when—and what it might mean in practical terms.

  In Louisiana, he knew, a battle for New Orleans might just be unfolding. If so, the city would be successfully defended or it would fall. Neither he nor anyone else—in Europe or in North America—knew what the outcome would be.

  Yet a great deal might hinge on that result: half hidden in the diplomatic and legal language of the document lay a grave danger—one that, despite Adams’s suspicions, remained undetected by Adams and the American negotiators.

  What would happen if the British captured New Orleans?

  In the new draft of the document, all “territories, places, and possessions” captured by one side were to be returned. Regardless of the outcome when Admiral Cochrane’s forces met up with General Jackson’s, the Treaty of Ghent would assure that Louisiana remained the property of the United States of America. Right?

  However, to a legalistic eye, wasn’t that subject to interpretation? What if there was a deeper subtext to the British insistence upon the insertion of the word possessions? Given that the British had never accepted Louisiana as a legitimate American possession—the Crown regarded the territory as the rightful property of the king of Spain, taken wrongly by Napoleon and therefore illegally transferred to the United States of America—might this open-ended treaty invite dispute?

  And in the event the British captured New Orleans, did they intend to keep it?

  What none of the Americans knew was that Edward Pakenham, the new general sent to defeat the Americans in the great battle for New Orleans, had very specific instructions. The British secretary of state for war, Earl Bathurst, had instructed Pakenham precisely. Even if he heard a treaty had been signed, Earl Bathurst ordered, “hostilities should not be suspended until you shall have official information” that the treaty had been ratified. The British commander was, quite specifically, to fight on to gain “Possession of the Country.”16

  If Adams didn’t recognize them, how could Pakenham’s opponent, Andrew Jackson, have known of the perils posed by a treaty being negotiated five thousand miles away? He could no more have anticipated the peace terms than he could have sensed an earthquake in the days before it struck. But Jackson’s own remarkable instincts did tell him that holding New Orleans—keeping it out of the hands of the British—meant everything to his beloved country.

  The British Approach

  Admiral Cochrane had begun the process of landing his attack force, but he still had serious reason to be cautious. Some days earlier two men had arrived under a flag of truce, and the admiral received them aboard the HMS Tonnant. One of them, a physician named Dr. Robert Morrell, explained they came on behalf of Commodore Patterson. Morrell wanted to attend to the wounded American sailors, while his companion, Thomas Shields, a purser, wanted to negotiate the release of Lieutenant Jones and the other prisoners.

  Cochrane suspected they were spies.

  The admiral questioned the Americans closely. They were quick to assure him that Jackson’s was an enormous and powerful force, that “myriads of Western riflemen . . . were flocking to his standard.”17

  Cochrane remained skeptical of American battle skills after the pathetic failure of the militia outside Washington on August 24, when thousands of ill-trained farmers and shopkeepers had scattered in the face of a British charge and beneath a sky alight with exploding rockets.

  But Cochrane asked himself: Was he sending his men to face an army that might be two thousand strong—or did it number twenty thousand, as these men told him? As much as the possibility worried him, he doubted so large a force existed. In any case, he certainly couldn’t permit these men to leave the fleet to report to Jackson what they had seen of his ships and soldiers.

  “Until the battle was over,” Cochrane had told them, “and the fate of the town determined,” they were going nowhere.18 They would be guests of the Royal Navy, waiting out the battle aboard the frigate HMS Gordon.

  From Pea Island, Cochrane decided to send two of his own men on a spying mission.

  He consulted with General John Keane, commander of the army forces, and, on December 20, Captain Robert Spencer of the Royal Navy and Quartermaster Lieutenant John Peddie of His Majesty’s army set out for Bayou Bienvenue, a watercourse that led from Lake Borgne to the outskirts of New Orleans. Their task was to determine whether Cochrane’s plan was indeed the best route for landing the army.

  The men returned the next day from reconnoitering Bayou Bienvenue bearing good news. After spotting Fisherman’s Village, a small settlement of a dozen cabins a short distance upstream on the bayou, the two Englishmen had gone ashore. Spencer and Peddie hired as their guides two Spanish fishermen who sold their catch upstream in New Orleans and knew the area well. Having disguised themselves in the blue shirts and the oilskin hats the locals wore, Spencer and Peddie studied the landscape as the fishermen stroked them miles inland. Amazingly, they saw no sentinels, and Spencer and Peddie went ashore and walked to the high road that led into the city. They took in a view of the Mississippi. Within a mere six miles of New Orleans, the two British spies tasted the water of the big river.

  Back on Pea Island, they told Cochrane that the plan to land at Bayou Bienvenue was “perfectly practicable,” because the bayou was both unobstructed and—this was almost laughable—unguarded (“the enemy had no look-out in that quarter”).19 The bayou was roughly a hundred yards wide and more than six feet deep. Not only could the army could go ashore at Bayou Bienvenue, but the advance men had done their job doubly well, returning with more than a dozen fishermen, all with intimate knowledge of Lake Borgne. They would act as pilots for the British barges.

  A definite plan was in place.

  Bayou Bienvenue

  Cochrane gave the order to move. The first of General Keane’s force embarked on December 22. The advance guard would be a light brigade consisting of the Fourth Regiment, Eighty-Fifth Light Infantry, and the green-uniformed Ninety-Fifth Rifles. Its commander would be Colonel William Thornton, who had distinguished himself in August at the big victory in Washington.

  In addition to regular troops, Thornton took rocketeers armed with rockets. A squad of artillerymen went along, too, with two portable three-pound guns, as did a company of sappers, engineers charged with repairing roads and building bridges. Two other brigades acco
mpanied by heavier armaments would follow.

  The first barges shoved off by ten o’clock: the lead expeditionary force of more than 1,600 men was on its way, and after a long row, they entered Bayou Bienvenue in the darkness.

  Spotting U.S. pickets on guard a half mile ahead near Fisherman’s Village, a party of British infantrymen, stealthy under the cover of night, surprised and quickly overcame the Americans. None of them were able to run back to New Orleans to warn Jackson that the British were on the way.

  In the morning, when they resumed their advance after some hours of sleep, a vanguard of troops commanded by Thornton led the string of barges upstream on Bayou Bienvenue and its extension, Bayou Mazant. When they reached the head of the waterway, they found the water shallower than expected, and the soldiers had to walk from one boat to the next, as over an unsteady bridge, to reach land. The sappers went on ahead to clear a path and, where necessary, improvised bridges over streams. The British force-marched toward their destination, camouflaged by reeds that stood seven feet tall.

  At first, progress was slow, but, after almost a mile, the boggy swampland gave way to firmer ground and a cover of cypress trees. A mile beyond, open fields came into view.

  Over the decades, farmers had reclaimed fertile soil along the Mississippi. Levees and canals made cultivation possible, and plantations now lined the river, where well-irrigated acreage produced valuable crops. One such property now lay directly in the British path—but little did Thornton realize that it was a station for Jackson’s sentinels.

  Under orders from Colonel Thornton, a company of soldiers fanned out, surrounding the main house of the Villeré plantation. Its owner, General Jacques Villeré, guarded the coastline elsewhere with his Louisiana militia; his son Gabriel remained at home, charged by Jackson with watching Bayou Bienvenue. As the British crept closer, Villeré stood on the house’s gallery, smoking a cigar. Deep in conversation with a younger brother, Major Gabriel Villeré failed to see the first redcoats as they approached through an orange grove near the house.

  When he did, it was too late. He attempted to flee, but the British quickly took possession of the house, capturing him and easily overcoming the entire company of thirty militiamen he commanded.

  New Orleans was now just seven miles away, an easy two-hour march along what General Keane regarded as a “tolerably good” road.20 Despite Colonel Thornton’s argument that they should take the fight immediately to the Americans, the British made camp. After long nights on the barges, they hoped for a full night’s rest. The invasion, months in the making, could wait until tomorrow. This would be their first critical mistake.

  A Daring Escape

  Though a captive in his own house, Major Villeré refused to resign himself to his fate. Despite being closely guarded, he saw an opportunity and made his move. Managing to get to a window, he leapt out, knocking several surprised British soldiers outside to the ground. He ran for the fence at the edge of a field; to the pop of gunfire and musket balls whistling past his head, he hurdled over the barrier. Before the riflemen could get him in their sights, he disappeared into the dense cypress wood.

  The fleeing prisoner understood he was one man pursued by many, but he knew his home terrain well. He raced deeper into the woods, headed for one of the enormous trees he had known since boyhood. He would climb high, he thought, and obscure himself in its dense vegetation. But when he halted at the foot of a great live oak with its netting of Spanish moss, he heard a familiar whimper. There, at his feet, crouched his bird dog, who had dutifully followed her master.

  Gabriel Villeré had only moments—he could hear the approaching voices of the British searchers calling to one another—but knew immediately that his dog would betray him. With a heavy heart, he struck the animal with a large stick, killing his friendly traitor. After concealing her body, he ascended into the canopy, and the British proceeded without finding him.

  Later that morning, after concluding he had eluded them, the British returned to the plantation. Villeré made his escape. As the Scotsman George Gleig ruefully observed, “The rumour of our landing would, we knew, spread faster than we could march.”21

  “The British Are Below”

  At 1:30 p.m. on December 23, 1814, Jackson, at work in his parlor, heard hoofbeats. Three men galloped up to the stoop at 106 Rue Royale and announced that they had important intelligence for the general.

  Jackson ordered them admitted.

  “What news do you bring, gentlemen?” Jackson asked from his seat.

  The breathless Gabriel Villeré, who just hours earlier had escaped the British, had borrowed a horse and hurried to Jackson’s headquarters along with two of his neighbors. Though Villeré spoke French, he had Jackson’s complete attention as one of the other men translated.

  “The British . . . nine miles below the city . . . Villeré”—indicating Gabriel—“captured . . . escaped.”

  At last Jackson had the information he needed. The long waiting game was over. The world’s most powerful army had at last invaded the shores of Louisiana, and after weeks of wondering where and when they would strike, Jackson finally had clarity. He hammered his fist on the table before him as he rose to his full height.

  “By the Eternal,” he exclaimed, “they shall not sleep on our soil!”

  Summoning his staff officers, Jackson ordered that wine be served and, with glass in hand, thanked Villeré for his news. Then he turned to his officers and aides-de-camp.

  “Gentlemen,” he said simply, “the British are below, we must fight them tonight.”22

  His voice was even, his manner calm, but no one missed the man’s absolute determination. Orders were soon flying in every direction. Drumbeats sounded in the streets, and the firing of three cannons signaled to the city a call to arms.

  General Carroll and his men were dispatched in the direction of upper Bayou Bienvenue. North of town, under the command of Governor Claiborne, Louisiana militiamen would stand guard over the wide road through the Plain of Gentilly—because Jackson fully expected a British assault on more than one front, he didn’t want to leave his back door open. Meanwhile, Edward Livingston relayed to Master Commander Patterson aboard the USS Carolina orders to weigh anchor and sail downstream.

  Jackson would lead the attack force, which would include the Seventh and Forty-Fourth U.S. Infantry, the Creole battalions, the Choctaws, and a corps of freemen. Together with the marines and the artillery company, Jackson would march south with more than 1,600 men. This assembled army would proceed six miles to the Rodriguez Canal and meet up with Coffee’s mounted brigade and the Mississippi dragoons.

  With the first stage of his plan prepared, General Jackson could respond to a message received from a lady of New Orleans who wrote on behalf of the women of the city. Alarmed at the rumored British approach, she asked what were they to do if the city was attacked.

  “Say to the ladies,” Jackson instructed an aide, “not to be uneasy. No British soldier shall enter the city as an enemy, unless over my dead body.”23

  With that, he ate a small helping of boiled rice, then stretched his lanky frame upon the sofa and closed his eyes for an afternoon nap.24 With a long and uncertain evening before him, the weary general could use a few minutes’ rest. By sunset, the city would be empty of troops—and Jackson would be at the head of his army, marching toward a nighttime fight. The British at their bivouac, just nine miles away, were going to get some unexpected visitors.

  CHAPTER 10

  The First Battle of New Orleans

  Wellington’s heroes discovered that they were ill-qualified to contend with us in woods where they must fight knee-deep in water.

  —Major Arsène Lacarrière Latour

  As Villeré had rushed to Jackson’s headquarters, the British took stock of their position in preparation for their attack. Admiral Cochrane remained at the mouth of Bayou Bienvenue at Fisherman’s Village,
while Keane made the Villeré dwelling house his army’s headquarters. The advance guard marched past the house and, bearing right, reached a larger road a short distance on. There the troops halted, taking in a view of more large plantations beyond. These great farms lined the flat, dry ribbon of land all the way to New Orleans.

  Though the landscape was dotted with fruit trees, sugarcane was the main crop grown there. Ditches that fed into bayous and swamps to the north drained the fields that, now brown and scruffy, had yielded the year’s harvest to machete-wielding slaves and overseers. Bounded as it was on one side by the marshes and, to the south, by the Mississippi, the site seemed defensible, as good a place to pause before the attack as any. Stacking their guns within reach, Keane’s men formed a bivouac in the open fields. Here they would lay out their bedrolls for the night.

  The levee—“a lofty and strong embankment, resembling the dykes in Holland, and meant to serve a similar purpose,” as George Gleig described it—protected the encampment, since the ground on which they camped was below the level of the water on the other side.1 Exhausted from their journey through this strange terrain, the British posted a watch, positioning pickets at the periphery of their mile-long camp. Scouting parties dispersed to reconnoiter; some returned having helped themselves at the abandoned cabins and poultry yards they found, carrying hams, cheeses, wines, and other goods. Meanwhile, other soldiers dismantled nearby rail fences made of resinous cypress to build large fires. With smoke swirling into the sky, water was brought from the river.

  “Fatigued,” General Keane noted, after their “long confinement in the boats,” the soldiers set about making an afternoon dinner.2

  With two brigades of reinforcements soon to land to his rear at Bayou Bienvenue, General Keane planned to wait until the full force from Pea Island caught up. Some of the soldiers took advantage of the warm afternoon, washing up in the river. The relaxed air was broken briefly when, shortly after three o’clock, a bugle warning sent the troops scrambling for their guns. Within minutes, however, the all clear was sounded. A few American cavalrymen had been sighted but they quickly scampered—one of them wounded, the pickets claimed—when fired on by the British advance guard.