Part 2

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Author, Frontispiece

Seat of War in Louisiana and Florida, 8

Position of the American and British Armies near New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815, 24

Battle of New Orleans, on the 8th of January, 1815, 56

General Andrew Jackson, 72

General John Adair, 112

Governor Isaac Shelby, 164

Colonel Gabriel Slaughter, 174

THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

GULF COAST CAMPAIGN, PRECEDING THE FINAL STRUGGLE.

On the 26th of November, 1814, a fleet of sixty great ships weighed anchor, unfurled their sails, and put to sea, as the smoke lifted and floated away from a signal gun aboard the Tonnant, the flagship of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, from Negril Bay, on the coast of Jamaica. Nearly one half of these vessels were formidable warships, the best of the English navy, well divided between line-of-battle ships of sixty-four, seventy-four, and eighty guns, frigates of forty to fifty guns, and sloops and brigs of twenty to thirty guns each. In all, one thousand pieces of artillery mounted upon the decks of these frowned grimly through as many port-holes, bidding defiance to the navies of the world and safely convoying over thirty transports and provisioning ships, bearing every equipment for siege or battle by sea and for a formidable invasion of an enemy's country by land. Admiral Cochrane, in chief command, and Admiral Malcombe, second in command, were veteran officers whose services and fame are a part of English history.

On board of this fleet was an army and its retinue, computed by good authorities to number fourteen thousand men, made up mainly of the veteran troops of the British military forces recently operating in Spain and France, trained in the campaigns and battles against Napoleon through years of war, and victors in the end in these contests. Major Latour, Chief Engineer of General Jackson's army, in his "Memoirs of the War in Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15," has carefully compiled from British official sources a detailed statement of the regiments, corps, and companies which constituted the army of invasion under Pakenham, at New Orleans, as follows:

Fourth Regiment-- King's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Brooks 750

Seventh Regiment-- Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Blakency 850

Fourteenth Regiment-- Duchess of York's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Baker 350

Twenty-first Regiment-- Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Patterson 900

Fortieth Regiment-- Somersetshire, Lieutenant-colonel H. Thornton 1,000

Forty-third Regiment-- Monmouth Light Infantry, Lieutenant-colonel Patrickson 850

Forty-fourth Regiment-- East Essex, Lieutenant-colonel Mullen 750

Eighty-fifth Regiment-- Buck Volunteers, Lieutenant-colonel Wm. Thornton 650

Ninety-third Regiment-- Highlanders, Lieutenant-colonel Dale 1,100

Ninety-fifth Regiment-- Rifle Corps, Major Mitchell 500

First Regiment-- West India (colored), Lieutenant-colonel Whitby 700

Fifth Regiment-- West India (colored), Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton 700

A detachment from the Sixty-second Regiment 350

Rocket Brigade, Artillery, Engineers, Sappers and Miners 1,500