196 Years Ago - The American Agincourt and Thermopylae

Self | 01/08/2011 | Self

[SES1066]

Like so many other things in history, the further back that they are, the more we take them for granted.

In this case, it would be a mistake to not reflect upon this 196th Anniversary of the "Battle of New Orleans" and the fact that it could be referred to as the United States' "Agincourt".

The British military intent in the "War of 1812" was to emasculate their former North American Colonies by shutting off their abilities to trade with the rest of the world. The British were flush from completing the defeat of Napoleon and had the experienced and trained troops to finally do the same to the USofA. By using their greatly superior Navy, they could come at the United States from any direction.

Having singed Washington DC and bombarded many places along the coast, the British were now ready for a master stroke that would forever cripple the United States' effort to move into the Mississippi and Ohio river basins. If they could take and hold New Orleans, the capital of the 10 year old Louisiana Purchase, they could strangle all commerce and make those new lands financially unproductive. Then they could perhaps move into those lands from both Canada and Louisiana and thus squeeze the fledgling United States into impotency.

Thus the invasion of New Orleans began before Christmas of 1814 and led to the build-up of a British army of more than 8,000 Napoleonic War veterans. In opposition, the United States had sent down General Andrew Jackson with mixed regulars and militia from Kentucky and Tennessee. Arriving in New Orleans he had rallied the less than enthusiastic locals and made an army of 5,000 with local militia, "Free Blacks", Lafitte's pirates and Native Americans. Jackson was a veteran of both the Revolutionary War and of frontier fighting against the 'Injuns'. His opposites were the British Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane who planned the attack here and earlier on Washington & Baltimore, and General Sir Edward Pakenham, veteran of the Peninsular War, victor of the Battle of Salamanca in that war and brother-in-law through his sister to the Duke of Wellington.

That the British were arrogant and self-confident cannot be denied. After all they had made a lightning raid upon Washington and had 'put it to the torch' in retaliation for the United States doing the same to the Canadian town of Windsor and had generally had their way in a very secondary theater of war to their main battles with the French and Napoleon. Now they had these experienced troops and generals to do what they wanted to do to the United States. They were convinced that they could persuade the French city of New Orleans to throw out the Americans as France, now under King Louis XVIII, was allied to Great Britain. Even if they didn't, an experienced army of 8,000 supported by the heavy Naval guns would surely find no match in a motley ad hoc gathering of militia and pirates.

General Andrew Jackson was, in no sense of the word, a man of breeding and the city. He was both orphaned and lost his only brother by the British in the American Revolution and bore a burning hatred towards them for that reason. He became largely self-educated and rose by his own strengths in being a leader of the western frontier of the United States. His hatred towards the British was sharpened by their constant material support of the Native American 'Indians' that kept the raids and deaths a constant on the western frontier. Before New Orleans, he barely won the "Creek War" where the initial leaders of the "Red Stick" Creeks were active British allies. In fact, the initial war plan of Admiral Cochrane was to land at Pensacola in Spanish Florida and join with the Indian allies to sweep towards New Orleans while the British Navy blockaded it and attacked from the sea. Jackson's victory negated that idea along with the British inability to get the right kind of landing ships for that plan.

Jackson arrived in New Orleans in late November of 1814 with his regulars & volunteers and little munitions. The temper of New Orleans was apparently indifferent towards both the Americans and the British in a form of "leave us alone" and a "pox on both of you". However in the month that he had before the British arrived, he was able to recruit most of the populace into support, persuaded the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte to 'donate' considerable cannons, powder and shot and added everybody from the local aristocratic New Orleans Militia to former Haitian "Free Blacks" and friendly Indians into a 5,000+ man force.

After multiple raids and small battles, the climax came on January 8th, 1815, when Gen. Pakenham marched his veterans against Gen. Jackson's prepared fortress defenses across the narrowest approach to New Orleans buttressed on either side by the Mississippi and deep swamps. This was the equivalent of the Spartan stand at Thermopylae, where the enemy had locked themselves into a frontal attack against prepared positions.

Most of the Jacksonian Forces were experienced rifle users and made the most of the chance to fire from protected positions. The vast experience of the British Regulars in movement and volley fire was made useless by the setup of the battlefield and their numerical superiority became just more cannon fodder. The British Navy never became a factor in the battle and Adm. Cochrane could only help in the post-battle evacuation.

While the British had the Congreve Rockets of the "rocket's red glare" at Fort McHenry, the American's had Jean Lafitte's and other experienced cannoneers to lay waste to the ordered British ranks. Generals and other officers made fine targets for the 'long rifles' as they were distinguished through the smoke for riding horses and distinctive head gear.

Gen. Parkenham returned to England "in good spirits" as his body was shipped in a cask of rum after he died from being on the wrong end of a dose of grape-shot. More than 2,000 other of his troops also lost their lives that day and 2,000 more in that campaign. The American toll was less than 100 dead and wounded and less than 300 for the entire campaign.

[SES1066]

Even though, as is now well known, this battle occurred after the "Treaty of Ghent" that had formally ended the Anglo-American "War of 1812", there can be little doubt of the importance of this outcome. If the British had succeeded, they would have been in possession and control over the richest city on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Mississippi terminus. What would have happened then? That is alternative history and an interesting speculation but I think that it is certain that it would not have been to the 40 year old American Republic's advantage.

Another side effect is that this battle against the best that Britain had to offer showed that the United States was becoming a military force to be wary of. Just as Crecy and Agincourt had convinced France that England was no push-over, so did this battle show all of Colonialist Europe that there were wolves in the New World. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine would have some proven teeth and would it have even happened without this victory and the earned British respect?

[DuncanWaring]

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.

[Chorus:]
We fired our guns and the British kept a’comin.
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin’ on
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We looked down the river and we see’d the British come.
And there must have been a hundred of’em beatin’ on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring.
We stood by our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing.

[Chorus]

Old Hickory said we could take ‘em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets ‘til we looked ‘em in the eye
We held our fire ‘til we see’d their faces well.
Then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave ‘em ... well

[Chorus]

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**

We fired our cannon ‘til the barrel melted down.
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

[Chorus]

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**

[Last Dakotan]

Thanks for the posting.

I never understood why the British simply re-cycled the same tactics that had failed for them 30-40 years previously in the American Revolutionary War.

[hinckley buzzard]

Control of New Orleans and the Mississippi had been a bone of contention from the beginning. At the time of the revolution it was held by the Spanish, then the French. The Brits held the northern reaches of the continent down into the Ohio Valley.

America's westward growth was not simply pacifying and subduing the Indians in otherwise virgin territory. We had Europeans all over the place and none of them were reliable friends.

This was why Washington fretted about "entangling alliances." As President he had had his own fill of them, playing the Spanish, French and British against each other, just trying to get some space for the Republic to breathe.

[dominic flandry]

“Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat-the Alamo had none.”
-Thomas Jefferson Green

(inscription on the first Alamo monument in Austin, Texas)

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx ! Very interesting. Fascinating actually. This is an area of US military history that I've yet to study about. My main interest is the WWII era.

I essentially audited from afar my daughter's freshman college course devoted to the military history of the US a few years back in that she audio taped the lectures and sent them to me for transcription. I also purchased my own set of the recommended literature. The course provided rather superficial coverage of the War of 1812.

[9422WMR]

Thanks for posting that song.
My grandmother used to sing it to me and I have not thought of that song in YEARS!!!

[Celtic Cross]

I believe the British deployed about 4,000 men in the attacks? Out of about 11,000?

[DuncanWaring]

7,000 REMFs.

[Licensed-To-Carry]

See this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEhG7q0Ncpo

[Celtic Cross]

I've always thought what a waste of life this battle was, as the treaty had already been signed.

Its a shame so many men died needlessly.

[Free Vulcan]

Their arrogance didn’t help, but I think they hadn’t done much beyond the European battlefield by this point in terms of fighting away from home. I would guess they simply had no more living knowledge of fighting by other methods because this was after they’d gotten the Scots and Irish under relative control. They just couldn’t adapt back to the simpler, cruder techniques of warfare in the bush. That seems to be the achilles heel of major powers.

[SunkenCiv]

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[70th Division]

They were liberals of course. Trying the same tactic over and over and hoping for a different outcome. Long rifles ruled the day and the war.

[Free Vulcan]

Well on second thought the British had fought the French-Indian war successfully about 40 years earlier. I’m not sure of the the tactics, but you’d think there’d be plenty left alive to know how to fight that way. It might have been politics or it might have been that those who were there didn’t stay in the military. Hard to say.

[NailInACoffin]

Thanks for the interesting history lesson. The War of 1812 is definitely one of those forgotten wars in our history.

[StonyBurk]

Can you imgaine Obama hiding in that red dress of the “I’m for sale ,but I ain’t cheap “ lady from That State while the Americans led by a Tea Party favorite grabs an alligater and teaches them what Johnny was singing about?

[VOA]

“
The vast experience of the British Regulars in movement and volley fire was
made useless by the setup of the battlefield and their numerical superiority
became just more cannon fodder.
“

As said in the first Gulf War, Jackson and company experienced
a “target-rich environment”.
And made the best of it.

I do like the two-hour documentary on The History Channel that included
The Battle of New Orleans.

[SES1066]

The "War of 1812" has such a multiplicity of causes and results that it can be hard to get a handle on it. The British still resented our independence and justly feared our ambitions for Canada. They were fighting for their lives against Napoleon and this war was a supreme distraction. A good recent book on this war from the British perspective is Jon Latimer's "1812:War with America"

For our part, we were a mess of a nation.The US Constitution was just 25 years old, we were on our 4th President (Madison), we were no where near digesting Mr. Jefferson's big real estate deal of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 but we were also facing a succession crisis of the New England states, in part because their Maritime interests were suffering from British predation and they felt that the national government was doing too little. We had a small but able Navy that had won our 1st foreign adventure against the Barbary Coast of Tunisia (1801-05) but were still having little luck in keeping British Navy ships from "impressing" American sailors.

We were trying to be neutral in the Napoleonic War but that basically meant that each side felt free to work against us. We had constant low-level war on our borders as the Native American 'Indians' justifiably hated our westward push, the Spanish in Florida turned a blind eye to fugitive slaves and smuggling while harboring pirates in Key West and other places.

What makes this "War of 1812" difficult is that it started without any real incident but with a lot of political desire and it ended in a brilliant peace treaty that returned everything back to where it was before the war. The only big concession was that Great Briton agreed to stop treating American Sailors as fugitive British Navy deserters.

Part of what the United States won was a sense of nation and bright stars that would play a big part in our history like Jackson, Winfield Scott, John Q. Adams and Henry Clay being just a few. A good book on a broad American overview would be Walter Borneman's "1812: The War That Forged a Nation"

[SES1066]

I do not know where you heard the assertion of only 4,000 British and I can’t buy that as the number of soldiers there. It is known that General Pakenham called off an earlier action the previous day in order to bring is forces to their full 8,000 strength. I would speculate that maybe what you are thinking of is that only 4,000 could effectively move against Jackson’s fortifications at any single time.

As for the “Treaty of Ghent” already being signed, you are using modern perspective on an 19th century world. This treaty was signed on December 24th, 1814, after the British negotiators could wait no longer for what they hoped would be good news from New Orleans. This 16 days would have been greatly insufficient for any sailing ship to cross the Atlantic. The best route from England to North America was to sail down to the Canaries and then follow the latitude line across to the Caribbean and then go north. This route, in the early 1800 took about 28-40 days.