CHAPTER VII
Andrew Jackson was appointed Major General, United States Army, and assigned to the command of the Seventh Military District, with the task of defending Louisiana and the Gulf coast. New Orleans seemed desperately vulnerable. General Jackson strongly suspected that Louisiana would be invaded, and that New Orleans was designed to be the main and final point of attack.
General Jackson left Mobile on the twenty-first of November and arrived with his little army at New Orleans on the second of December, and established headquarters at 984 Royal Street. He found the city well-nigh defenseless. After his habit of giving his personal attention to every detail, General Jackson, on his arrival, visited Fort St. Philip, ordered the wooden barracks removed, and had mounted additional heavy artillery.
He caused two more batteries to be constructed, one on the opposite bank of the Mississippi, and the other half a mile above, with twenty-four pounders in position, thus fully guarding the approach by the mouth of the river. He then proceeded to Chef Menteur, as far as Bayou Sauvage, and ordered a battery erected at that point. He continued to fortify or obstruct the larger bayous whose waters gave convenient access to the city between the Mississippi and the Gulf.
The preparations for defense on shore were now pushed forward with redoubled energy. General Jackson gave unremitting attention to the fortifying of all points which seemed available for the approach of the enemy; it was impossible to know at what point he might choose to know at what point he might choose to make his first appearance on land.
Captain Newman, in command of Fort Petit Coquille, at the Rigolets, next to Lake Pontchartrain, was reinforced, and the order given to defend the post to the last extremity. If compelled to abandon it, he was instructed to fall back on Chef Menteur. A grand review of the Louisiana troops was held by Jackson in front of the old Cathedral, now Jackson Square.
The day was memorable by many incidents, not all in harmony with the purposes and plans of the civil and military leaders of defense. The entire population of the city and vicinity were present to witness the novel scenes, men and women vying with each other in applauding and enthusing the martial ardor of the soldiers on parade.
Such an army, hastily improvised in a few brief days from city, country, and towns, made up of a composite of divergent race elements, as was that of the Louisiana contingent with the command of Jackson at New Orleans, was perhaps never paralleled in the history of warfare before.
Major Plauche’s battalion of uniformed companies was made up mainly of French and Spanish creoles, with some of American blood, enlisted from the city; and from the same source came Captain Beale’s Rifle Company, mostly American residents. The Louisiana militia, under General Morgan, were of the best element of the country parishes, of much the same race-types as Plauche’s men, of newer material, and without uniforms.
Then came the battalion of Louisiana free men of color, nearly three hundred strong, led by Major Lacoste, and another battalion of men of color, two hundred and fifty in number, commanded by Major Daquin, recruited from the refugees in New Orleans from St. Domingo, who had taken part in the bloody strifes in that island, and who bore like traditional hatred to the English, with all who spoke the French tongue.
Add to the above a small detachment of Choctaw Indians; and lastly, the loyal pirates of Lafitte, who were patriotic enough to scorn the gold of England, and brave enough to offer their services and their lives, if need be, to the cause of our country; and together, these give us a picture of the men under review, whom Jackson was to lead to battle in a few days against the best-trained troops of Europe. Though of new material, and suddenly called into service, this provincial contingent of twelve hundred men, animated with the spirit of battle against an invading foe, proved themselves, when ably officered, the equals of the best troops in the field.
General Jackson issued from his headquarters an order declaring the city and environs of New Orleans under martial law. This imperious edict was resorted to in the firm belief that only the exercise of supreme military authority could awe into silence all opposition to defensive operations. Every person entering the city was required to report himself to headquarters, and any one departing from it must procure a pass.
The street lamps were extinguished at nine o’clock at night, and every one found passing after that hour was subject to arrest. All persons capable of bearing arms who did not volunteer were pressed into the military or naval service.
Rumors were rife that British spies were secretly prowling in the city, and coming into the American camp. Reports of disloyal utterances and suspicious proceedings on the part of certain citizens came repeatedly to the ears of the commander-in-chief.
More serious yet, he was aroused to fierce anger by personal and direct intelligence that certain leading and influential members of the Legislature favored a formal capitulation and surrender of Louisiana to the enemy, by that body, in the event of a formidable invasion, for the greater security of their persons and property.
These persons had circulated a story that Jackson would burn the city and all valuable property in reach rather than let it fall into the hands of the British. Determined that disloyalty should find no foothold to mar his military plans, or to disaffect the soldiery or citizens, General Jackson, on the day previous to his declaration of martial law, issued the following spirited order: The Major-general commanding, has, with astonishment and regret, learned that great consternation and alarm pervade your city.
It is true the enemy is on our coast and threatens to invade our territory; but it is equally true that, with union, energy, and the approbation of Heaven, we will beat him at every point his temerity may induce him to set foot on our soil. The General, with still greater astonishment, has heard that British emissaries have been permitted to propagate seditious reports among you, that the threatened invasion is with a view to restore the country to Spain, from the supposition that some of you would be willing to return to your ancient government.
Believe not such incredible tales; your Government is at peace with Spain. It is the vital enemy of your country,- the common enemy of mankind,-the highway robber of the world, that threatens you. He has sent his hirelings among you with this false report, to put you off your guard, that you may fall an easy prey.
Then look to your liberties, your property, the chastity of your wives and daughters. Take a retrospect of the conduct of the British army at Hampton, and other places where it entered our country, and every bosom which glows with patriotism and virtue, will be inspired with indignation, and pant for the arrival of the hour when we shall meet and revenge these outrages against the laws of civilization and humanity.
The General calls upon the inhabitants of the city to trace this unfounded report to its source, and bring the propagator to condign punishment. The rules and articles of war annex the punishment of death to any person holding secret correspondence with the enemy, creating false alarm, or supplying him with provision.
The General announces his determination rigidly to execute the martial law in all cases which may come within his province. The enemy was fully informed of every point of approach by spies within the military lines, and since the capture of the gunboats determined on an attempt to secretly invade the environing country, and to assault and capture New Orleans by surprise.
By Jackson’s order, Major Villere, son of General Villere, the owner of the plantation, placed a picket of twelve men at Fisherman’s Village, to watch and report promptly in case the enemy appeared there. After midnight, near the morning of the twenty-third, five advance barges bearing British troops glided noiselessly into Bienvenue from Lake Borgne, capturing the picket of twelve men without firing a gun. Then, as autumn leaves began to fall, a mighty British armada appeared off the Louisiana coast with the stated purpose of capturing New Orleans, America’s crown jewel of the West and gateway to all commerce in the great Mississippi River Basin, a misfortune that would have split the United States in two. New Orleans was as nearly defenseless as a city could be in those days, with only two understrength regular army regiments totaling about 1,100 soldiers and a handful of untrained milita to throw against the nearly 20,000 seasoned veterans of the British army and navy who were descending upon it as swiftly and surely as a tropical cyclone.
The British fleet contained more than a thousand heavy guns against the perhaps three dozen cannons New Orleans could muster, and what of powder and shot, or flints for muskets and rifles? Assuming that the British didn’t overrun them outright, to Jackson’s knowledge there was little or nothing in the way of equipment, munitions, or manpower in New Orleans for a sustained siege.
There were more than 10,000 trained, first-rateBritish redcoats bearing down, plus the larger roster of the British navy’s marines and sailors to support them- all this against fewer than a third that number of untrained and poorly armed Americans. Jackson’s task was daunting, to say the least.
Like the new nation in which he lived, Jackson was suspended between a difficult past and an uncertain future. He had no formal military training, but as a leader of military men he had few peers; he was smart, honest, brave as a lion, and, like the lion, he could be a coldblooded killer. Andrew Jackson’s brand of warfare, while not as brutal as that of the Red Sticks, was certainly no picnic for the Indians.
Whenever he reached a Creek village whose occupants were suspected of participating in the uprising, Jackson burned it to the ground and sent the inhabitants fleeing. If they resisted, he ordered them hunted down and killed. The leader of this band was a tall, handsome, magnetic Frenchman named Jean Laffite, who, using his blacksmith shop in New Orleans as a front, came to run a phenomenal business smuggling goods to the grateful citizens of New Orleans, rich and poor alike, who had been deprived for years by the American embargo and British blockade.
As the intelligence of a British invasion of Louisiana unfolded, the problems exacerbated, because Governor Claiborne began to fear that- as the British had implied-Creoles might not only refuse to help defend the city but actually join the enemy.
Ashore, and on the privateers ships anchored in the harbor, anxious men waited with their cannon at the ready, matches lighted, wondering if the approaching fleet was British or American. Laffite’s instructions had been to fight if it was the British but, if American, not to resist.