Posted on 01/08/2011 7:45:49 AM PST by 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.
If you read about the Siege of Badajoz, from the Peninsular War, which General Pakenham and his troops came from, you will see that there were times that these head-on assaults did win, even against dug-in troops, in this case French. Yes there were tremendous casualties but the objectives were accomplished. Of course every battle is different and the same tactics that win in one place can do you in in another.
Narrative by Jimmy Driftwood:
After the Battle of New Orleans, which Andrew Jackson won on January the 8th eighteen and fifteen, the boys played the fiddle again that night, only they changed the name of it from the battle of a place in Ireland to the Eighth of January.
Years passed and in about nineteen and forty-five an Arkansas school teacher slowed the tune down and put words to it and that song is The Battle Of New Orleans and I will try to sing it for you.
(*Note -- two minor revisions were made for classroom use)
Well, in eighteen and fourteen 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 near the town of New Orleans.
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'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, I see'd Mars Jackson walkin down the street
talkin' to a pirate by the name of Jean Lafitte [pronounced La-feet]
He gave Jean a drink that he brung from Tennessee
and the pirate said he'd help us drive the British in the sea.
The French said Andrew, you'd better run,
for Packingham's a comin' with a bullet in his gun.
Old Hickory said he didn't give a dang, [damn]
he's gonna whip the britches off of Colonel Packingham.
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'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, 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 their bugles ring
while we stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.
Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
if we didn't fire a musket til we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire til we see'd their faces well,
then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave a yell [em h*ll].
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'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, 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 they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.
We'll march back home but we'll never be content
till we make Old Hickory the people's President.
And every time we think about the bacon and the beans,
we'll think about the fun we had way down in New Orleans.
We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin,
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, 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 the hounds couldn't catch 'em
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Bang ping!
Bookmarked.
Thanks SES1066, good stuff!
Useless trivia: The ‘hounds’ in the song were not hounds at all... They were the Catahoula Cur, a mixed breed of Greyhound and Mastiff brought by Spanish Explorers years before.
Cool, good looking dogs for sure. Not recommended unless your ‘yard’ is acreage...
The Battle of New Orleans was a foregone conclusion. The ladders were too short to scale the walls and there wern’t enough of them in any case, so all the British could do was march forth bravely and get shot down. Had the war continued longer, Packenham would probably have done his country a favour by getting himself killed in that battle, because the man was clearly an idiot.
It is notable however, that his successor John Lambert (who ordered a retreat in defiance of Packenham’s dying orders), won the last significant engagement of the war by taking Fort Bowyer just before a planned attack on Mobile, Alabama, which was cancelled when news of the treaty arrived...
As for the war of 1812, anyone who has watched Sharpe will know that the riflemen were an important component of the British Army by this time, with many light companies being equipped with the Baker Rifles as well as the 5th battalion the 60th Regiment, which fought in the Americas during the War of 1812, as well as an entire regiment, the 95th Rifles....
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