Battle of New Orleans
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- For other uses of the name, see Battle of New Orleans (disambiguation)
| American South |
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| Creek War – Pensacola – New Orleans – Fort Bowyer |
Move to engagement
On December 13, 1814, a British fleet commanded by Admiral Cochrane arrived off the Louisiana coast. In a brief, but violent naval Battle of Lake Borgne, 42 British rowing boats armed with bow-chasers overwhelmed five American gunboats protecting the waters near New Orleans. A few days later, the British forces under Major General Edward Pakenham landed along the lower Mississippi River. At first, they met with only minor resistance. The Americans, led by Andrew Jackson (a colonel in the United States Army and a Major-General of the Tennessee militia), set up defensive positions at Chalmette, Louisiana, some five miles (8 km) downriver from the city of New Orleans. Jackson, because he needed time to get his artillery into position, decided to immediately attack the British. In a night attack on December 23, Jackson led a three-pronged attack on the British army camp which lasted until early morning. After capturing some equipment and supplies, the Americans withdrew back to New Orleans suffering 24 killed, 115 wounded and 74 missing or captured while the British claimed their losses as 46 killed, 167 wounded, and 64 missing or captured. This stalled the British advance long enough for the Americans to bring in their heavy artillery and throw up earthworks along a portion of the east bank of the Mississippi river. On Christmas Day, Pakenham arrived on the battlefield and ordered a reconnaissance-in-force against the American earthworks protecting the roads to New Orleans. On December 28, 1814, groups of British troops made probing attacks against the American earthworks. When the British withdrew, the Americans began construction of artillery batteries to protect the earthworks which were then named 'Line Jackson'. The Americans installed seven batteries which included one 32-pound gun, three 24-pounders, one 18-pounder, three 12-pounders, three 6-pounders and a 6in howitzer. On the left back on the Mississippi, Jackson also sent a detachment of men to man two 24-pounders and two 12-pounders from the grounded warship Louisiana.The main British army arrived on January 1, 1815 and attacked the earthworks using their artillery. An exchange of artillery fire between the British and American guns began which lasted for three hours. Several of the American guns were destroyed or knocked out which included the 32-pounder, a 24-pounder and a 12-pounder and some damage was done to the earthworks. But the Americans held their ground. As fate would have it, the British guns ran out of ammunition, whereas the American guns did not, which led Pakenham to cancel the attack. Pakenham decided to wait for his entire force which made up of over 8,000 men (which included native American members of the Hitchiti tribe, led by Kinache, and several hundred black soldiers from the British West Indies colonies) to assemble, before launching his attack.
The battle
On the eighth of January, Pakenham ordered three large, direct assaults on the American positions; all of his attacks were cut down by American fire. Pakenham himself was fatally wounded in the third attack when he was hit by grapeshot on horseback while 500 yards from the earthworks. The British suffered defeat in part because ladders needed to scale the earthworks defended by the Americans were never brought forward to the soldiers. As a result, with most of their senior officers dead or wounded, the British infantry could do nothing but stand out in the open and be shot apart with a combination of muskets and grapeshot by the Americans stationed behind unreachable defenses. General John Lambert, who assumed command upon Pakenham's death, ordered the British withdrawal, despite the fact that Pakenham, before dying, ordered Lambert to continue the battle. The British had suffered a loss of nearly 2,000 dead, wounded or taken prisoner; while the Americans only had 13 dead, with 58 wounded. The only British success was across the Mississippi, where a 700-man detachment attacked and overwhelmed the American line on the west bank of the river. But when they saw the defeat and withdrawal of their main army on the east back, they decided to withdraw also, taking some American prisoners and a few cannons with them.
United States forces at the time of the Battle of New Orleans were between 3,500 and 4,500. This detachment was composed of United States army troops (Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana Militia), Barataria pirates, Choctaw warriors, and free black soldiers. Major Gabriel Villeré commanded the Louisiana Militia, and Major Jean-Baptiste Plauché headed the New Orleans uniformed militia companies.
Throughout the battle, the Americans were greatly aided by the famed Jean Lafitte and his group of pirates. Lafitte's men joined the American cause because the pirating in the seas south of Louisiana had largely been ignored by the U.S. government since the pirates mostly attacked the Spanish and other pirates. Lafitte's men wore red shirts as their uniform, which caused much confusion in the British ranks, who were also clothed in red. Some daring pirates came down from Gen. Jackson's ramparts and merged with the British ranks, thus allowing them to kill small pockets of isolated British troops before the British would realize that there was an intruder.
Carl Degler has attributed the ease with which the Americans defeated the British to the American artillery, which was loaded with lead shot. Due to the compact British lines, this lead shot had a deadly effect.
Aftermath
Unknown to both armies, the end of the war had been negotiated with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24 1814. However, by the terms of the treaty, the war was not officially over until ratifications were exchanged on February 17, 1815 and proclaimed the following day. In some circles it is postulated that the battle may not have been completely pointless. This is because it has been speculated that had the British been in control of the key port of New Orleans, they would have attempted to use this to seek additional concessions from the United States. However this is a somewhat falacious argument since the British government had already ratified the treaty. A comparison is with the Battle of the Saintes in the American War of Independence, which did have an effect as it actually affected peace negotiations.
With the defeat of the British army and the death of Pakenham, Lambert decided that despite reinforcements and the arrival of a siege train to besiege New Orleans, the price of victory was not considered worth it. Within a week, all of the British troops had redeployed onto the ships and sailed away to Biloxi, Mississippi where the fleet took Fort Bowyer on February 12. But the next day, the frigate HMS Brazen arrived with the news of the peace treaty that had been signed which ended the war nearly two months earlier. The British fleet then abandoned Biloxi and sailed back to its base in the West Indies. For the British troops who fought in that battle as well as in the Peninsular War in Spain before, and later that year at the great Battle of Waterloo, the defeat at New Orleans to them was just an "unfortunate sideshow" to Great Britain’s string of military victories.
But for the Americans, the victory was celebrated with great enthusiasm in the United States, and gave Andrew Jackson the reputation of a hero, which later propelled him to the presidency.
See also
References
- Remini, Robert V. The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory. Viking Penguin, 1999. ISBN 0670885517
- Pickles, Tim New Orleans 1815; Osprey Campaign Series, #28. Osprey Publishing, 1993.
External links
- [Map]
- [The Battle of New Orleans] — summary account by the Louisiana State Museum, with photographs
- [History of Louisiana, Vol. 5, Chapter 10] — detailed account by Charles Gayarré
- [The Battle of New Orleans] — detailed account by John Smith Kendall
- [The Glorious Eighth of January] — colorful account by Grace King
- [Battle of New Orleans] - song lyrics by Jimmy Driftwood, which won two 1959 Grammy Awards
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