CHAPTER 9

The Armies Assemble

Our lakes are open to the approach of the enemy, and I am with my feeble force prepared to meet him and die in the last ditch before he shall reach the city.

—Andrew Jackson, December 16, 1814

When, hours later, the news of Lieutenant Jones’s defeat reached New Orleans, its citizens were terrified. But General Jackson was not in the city to hear the news. A full day would pass before Jackson learned that the American defense on the lakes had been shredded like the sails on the U.S. Navy gunboats.

While Jones was being taken captive, Jackson had been north of town, scouting the terrain, believing the lake waters were well protected. If the British did attack from the north—and even without knowing about Jones’s loss, the location of Cochrane’s armada in Mississippi Sound suggested to Jackson that they would come from that quarter—then the general must have a clear picture in his mind of the lay of the land.

Despite a recurrence of his dysentery, which made riding a horse intensely painful, Jackson ventured to the head of Lake Borgne. There he inspected the end of the large lake opposite from where Jones confronted Lockyer. Next Jackson went west to look at the expanse of Lake Pontchartrain, then traveled along the Chef Menteur Road, which seemed to him the best and most likely route for a British attack on the city. He issued many orders. Streams he saw were to be blocked, defenses enhanced, guards stationed, and a chain of sentinels organized to bring him word of any British appearance.

Then, on December 15, he received the bad news of Jones’s defeat. Having assured now secretary of war James Monroe just days before that the lakes were still secure, he learned that, quite to the contrary, they were not. Jones’s flotilla now belonged to the British and the American lieutenant was their prisoner.

Jackson galloped back to his headquarters in New Orleans, knowing that, almost overnight, he had to pull together his army to protect the city. His journey had taken a toll on his worn body and, too ill to stand, he lay upon a sofa, dictating orders to his aides and reinforcing himself with sips of brandy.

With barely a thousand regular troops in his command, he wrote to General Coffee, the man he called his “right arm.”¹ His order sounded like a plea: “You must not sleep until you reach me, or arrive within striking distance.”² He sent a letter to Natchez, where he hoped it would reach William Carroll, another Tennessee militia general. Carroll was on his way downriver with some 1,400 men with arms and ammunition.

Jackson also anticipated the arrival of General John Thomas’s Kentucky militia, an estimated 2,500 troops. And he worried about a shipment of guns and munitions, en route from Pittsburgh since November 3.³ Would it arrive on time?

Even as General Jackson fretted, he received some spiritual assurance. From their convent overlooking Ursuline and Chartres Streets, four nuns wrote him a letter. They wanted to do their bit, volunteering to take in wounded men. Since word of the British arrival in the region had reached them, they had already taken the precaution of sending the boarding students and orphans in their care out of New Orleans and had plenty of space.⁴ But most of all, they offered their prayer for Jackson and his men and for the safety of the city they had come to love.

The people of New Orleans needed prayers desperately—and not just prayers for ammunition and troops to stand up to the fighting force that had defeated Napoleon. Most immediately, it looked like it might take a miracle to pull the city’s factions together. The townsfolk had been comforted by Jackson’s return, but one of his attempts to unite the city’s population against the British almost destroyed the fragile unity he had achieved in his weeks in New Orleans. Against the advice of some Louisianans, Jackson accepted into his army two battalions of freemen of color. Though he required that officers of the two corps be white men, he also ordered that black soldiers be treated the same way as white volunteers, a shocking attitude in a society that doubted the humanity and trustworthiness of nonwhites. When one paymaster objected, Jackson made his position clear. He needed every man he could get and was determined not to worry about the prejudices of the white men: “Be pleased to keep to yourself your opinions . . . without inquiring whether the troops are white, black or tea.”⁵

The people of New Orleans, no matter their skin color, whether French or American, male or female, young or old, devout or not, would have to rally behind General Andrew Jackson if the city was to fight off its attackers. Outnumbered and outgunned, they were unlikely to defeat the British even if they did unite. Divided, they had no chance.

The Grand Parade

Jackson turned his attention to calming a panicked populace and persuading everyone to pull together.

New Orleans was a city that loved a parade, and Jackson decided there was no better way to cheer and inspire the anxious townspeople. He announced there would be a procession into the city’s central downtown square, the Place d’Armes, on Sunday, December 18.

On the day of the parade, the people of New Orleans crowded together in the doors and windows lining the square. Even more townspeople lined the balconies and roofs, and the surrounding streets were packed with sailors and laborers and freemen.

With the towering old Spanish Cathedral of St. Louis as the backdrop, and accompanied by the roll of drums and the cheers of the crowd, two regiments of Louisiana state militia marched in, most dressed in civilian clothes. Not all carried guns, and those who did brought what they had, shouldering a mix of rifles, muskets, and fowling pieces. The militia was followed by uniformed companies resplendent in full parade dress. Major Jean Baptiste Plauché, a cotton broker who had volunteered when he felt the call of duty, led one battalion of 287 men, which consisted of two generations of local businessmen, planters, and lawyers. Stirred to patriotic fervor, women of the town waved scarves and handkerchiefs as their husbands and sons marched by.

But would they cheer for the next wave of marchers? As martial music was played, the troops of Frenchmen were followed by a well-drilled battalion of 210 freemen, most of them Haitians, commanded by a bakery owner, Major Jean Daquin. Choctaws marched, too, commanded by Pierre Jugeat, a trader who had married into the tribe. Here was a test of the unity that Jackson hoped the parade would create. The townspeople had celebrated their own; now would they celebrate these protectors who didn’t look like them and whom they sometimes regarded with suspicion?

It’s possible there was a break in the cheering, but if there was, it was not long enough to record. Whatever the motive—fear of the British, a change of heart, or the frenzy of the moment—the people of New Orleans together honored even these troops that they had so recently questioned.

Proudly following the Haitians and Choctaws were representatives of the city’s high society. Thomas Beale, a gentleman from Virginia, had just days before persuaded several dozen of his friends—a range of merchants and New Orleans professionals—to don blue hunting shirts and wide-brimmed black hats and to shoulder their long Kentucky rifles.⁶ These sharpshooters called themselves Beale’s Rifles and many of them wore miniature bouquets of flowers pinned to their shoulders, good luck tokens from wives and mothers.

The force that filled the square, some 1,500 men, seemed suddenly formidable and impressive. Together with the militiamen en route, the number of troops defending New Orleans had doubled in the sixteen days since Jackson arrived. This army had come together in a matter of weeks. Even more remarkably, the patchwork force of the high- and low-born seemed prepared to work together to save their city, perhaps in answer to the nuns’ prayers, perhaps because of Jackson’s leadership genius.

Although the total number of soldiers was not large, Jackson made a point of giving each group representation on his staff. In addition to Livingston and Claiborne, a mix of merchants, French nationals, and other locals held freshly issued officer ranks. Now, because of Jackson’s careful delegation and savvy reading of the city’s mood, a once-divided New Orleans was caught up in the fervor of the moment, and morale soared as they saw the clear proof that they would not go unprotected. The parade had been a stroke of genius, galvanizing the fighting force of freed slaves, Indians, pirates, woodsmen, militiamen, and French colonials.

But the general wasn’t there only to display the growing power of his army. He wished to deliver a message himself. Riding his favorite horse, Duke, Jackson cut an imposing figure as he rode to the center of the square. Again, he entrusted Edward Livingston to deliver his message in French and, as the cheers quieted, Livingston began his translation.

First, he complimented the people of New Orleans on their bravery even as he exhorted them to further heroism: “The American nation shall applaud your valour, as your general now praises your ardour.” Jackson’s promise, he told them, was of victory: “Continue with the energy you have began, and he promises you not only safety, but victory.”⁷ Then he addressed the various factions, with specific words for the militia, for the Creoles, and for the blacks.

But Jackson’s action to unify the city went one step further. He left his appreciative audience reassured and inspired—but he had also, just the day before, issued a declaration of martial law. Henceforth, anyone entering the city would have to report to the office of the general; those wishing to leave needed written permission from Jackson or a member of his staff. The streets would go dark at 9:00 p.m. Every able-bodied man was expected to fight, while the old or infirm would police the streets. The legality of the declaration wasn’t clear, but Jackson would stop at nothing to beat back the British.

The declaration of martial law also meant that men, whatever their color or nationality, could be conscripted forthwith to become sailors—and Commodore Patterson chose to put this new authority to immediate use. With the loss of the flotilla on Lake Borgne, Patterson’s force had shrunk to one warship on the Mississippi, the schooner USS Carolina, and a converted merchantman, the USS Louisiana. Reportedly a speedy ship before she was armed with sixteen guns, the Louisiana had no crew, but now, under Jackson’s authority, Patterson and his officers could draft the sturdiest sailors they could find to man the ninety-nine-foot sloop. In a matter of hours, the new tars of the Louisiana were drilling on its decks.

Jackson’s words in the Place d’Armes calmed the city; panic had ebbed as the citizens witnessed his preparations and leadership, and little grumbling was heard. Applause had rippled across the crowd as Livingston brought the speech to a close, and when the troops in the Place d’Armes were dismissed, they melted into the crowd of well-wishers. Everyone knew this might be his last chance to visit with family before the call to fight.

The urgency of their need to defend family and friends was one of the few advantages the Americans had. Jackson and his men might be less experienced than the British, but they had the added motivation of fighting for their homes and their loved ones. If they lost, they had nowhere to go, unlike Gleig and his men, who could return to their families in England.

The stakes of the battle weighing on him, Jackson, ailing and anxious, returned to his quarters more determined than ever to hold off the British. Little did he know that the invaders were already well on their way.

Men on the Move

On the morning before Jackson’s parade, the British had begun their advance. Because deep-draft warships could not penetrate Lake Borgne, the British embarked once again in barges. Stroke by wearying stroke, oarsmen propelled the first loads of British soldiers westward from the navy’s anchorage in Mississippi Sound into the lake.

The danger of the American gunboats had been eliminated, but the trip across the lake was still not an easy one for the British. The men sat so tightly packed that shifting position was almost impossible, and storms that blew across the lake soon made the ten-hour, thirty-mile journey truly miserable. As the infantry officer Lieutenant Gleig noted, he and his men were pummeled by “heavy rains, such as an inhabitant of England cannot dream of, and against which no cloak will furnish protection.”⁸ The open boats posed a particular hardship to African-Caribbeans, dressed in light clothing and unused to chilly temperatures, and many of them died later after becoming ill in the cold.⁹

Many hours into the journey across the lake, the invaders’ first destination came into view. Known to the Creoles as Isle aux Pois, but called Pea Island by the British, this swampy mound of land, little more than a sandbar, would serve as a staging point in the attack. The soldiers disembarked and then the empty boats reversed course back to the fleet. At least three round-trips would be needed to move the full invading force to Pea Island, meaning the sailors would have to row the thirty-mile distance five times before returning to the ships once again for stores and artillery.

Even then, however, the job of ferrying Cochrane’s force was only half complete: Pea Island with its wild ducks and alligators sat at the northern end of Lake Borgne, halfway to the beachhead from which the troops could march on the city. Another hard row of some thirty miles was necessary before the march to New Orleans could commence.

Pea Island offered neither buildings nor trees for shelter. The soldiers, stiff and wet from the crossing, carried no tents and suffered as bad weather continued. After the rain slowed to a stop, the conditions improved little. The temperature dropped rapidly at night and, with a sharp wind off the water, the soldiers’ uniforms stiffened with frost. The dinner fare wasn’t very appetizing, consisting of “salt meat and ship biscuit . . . moistened by a small allowance of rum . . . not such as to reconcile us to the cold and wet under which we suffered,” as one officer noted.¹⁰ Even Admiral Cochrane and the commanding army general, John Keane, far from the comforts aboard the HMS Tonnant, had to adapt, their island quarters makeshift shelters of thatched grasses.

Five full days were required to move the first several thousand troops to Pea Island but morale remained high. “From the General, down to the youngest drum-boy, a confident anticipation of success seemed to pervade all ranks; and in the hope of an ample reward in store for them, the toils and grievances of the moment were forgotten.”¹¹ As the troops assembled, there was heady talk of a “speedy and bloodless conquest,” as well as of rich booty, because even the lowliest of cabin boys could expect a share of the spoils when the wealth of New Orleans was divided up.

On its way into battle, despite the hardships of the trip, the finest army in the world had little doubt that New Orleans would soon be theirs.

The British Make Landfall

While the British shuttled their troops to shore, Jackson waited blindly. He knew the enemy now controlled Lake Borgne, but what route would they take from the lake?

One clue arrived compliments of a schooner captain named Brown. Sailing on Lake Borgne, together with his pilot, a black man named Michaud, he had seen a daunting sight, “count[ing] three hundred and forty-eight barges, carrying each forty or fifty men, infantry, cavalry, and two regiments of Negroes.” Brown was brought to Jackson.

Where, the general asked, did they observe this flotilla?

“They disembarked at Ile-aux-Poix,” Brown replied.¹² Jackson wished to know more, but the schooner captain could offer no further details.

Jackson was left to ponder—as he advised the secretary of war—where the enemy would “choose his point of attack.”¹³ He knew from his own reconnoitering that the best approach from Pea Island could be along the Plain of Gentilly, so Jackson dispatched defenders, including a regiment of Louisiana militia and a battalion of free blacks. Because it was also possible that His Majesty’s soldiers would take a route south of the plain, Jackson ordered another Louisiana regiment downriver to be posted at Jumonville. At the Villeré plantation just downstream, a picket was posted to watch for danger from that approach, while another division of the militia marched toward English Turn, in case the British came that way. Every fort in the vicinity was manned and everyone was on watch and alert.

The most direct routes were now covered, but Jackson still had two problems. First, he did not have enough ammunition for his men. Second, he had insufficient knowledge of the bayous to truly plan to repel every possible attack. He had examined the local topography to the best of his ability, but it wasn’t enough. To ensure the safety of the city, he would need to add one more group to his motley coalition of troops.

Partnering with the Pirates

For months, Jackson resisted making a deal with the devil. When Governor Claiborne had forwarded Jean Lafitte’s warning back in September concerning the British attempt to recruit the pirates of Barataria Bay, Jackson had written back, angrily dismissing the Lafitte brothers and their fellow privateers as “hellish banditti.” Claiborne concurred: Louisiana’s governor was a sworn enemy of the privateers and, in September, had even ordered a raid of Barataria Bay, driving the outlaws into hiding elsewhere in the marshes south of the city.

Yet the Lafittes still had powerful friends in New Orleans and, with the danger of invasion on everyone’s mind, attitudes softened toward Jean who, at great risk to himself, had relayed word of the British approach. The motives of the pirates were hard to decipher—were they really pro-American or was Lafitte just looking for pardons for past offenses?—but many in the Creole community wanted to enlist their help under these desperate circumstances. Indeed, on December 14, the Louisiana legislature passed a resolution promising amnesty for their piratical transgressions if the Lafittes and their men helped fight the British.

With the British now so near at hand, Jackson consulted Edward Livingston. For three years, Livingston had been Jean Lafitte’s legal adviser. Until now, Jackson had followed William Claiborne’s lead and regarded the Baratarians as infamous bandits. But Jackson’s army was low on matériel—and he had gotten wind of Lafitte’s boast that he could outfit an army of thirty thousand.

The time had come for Monsieur Lafitte and General Jackson to meet.

After obtaining a pass into the city from a federal judge—there remained a warrant out for his arrest—Jean Lafitte arrived at the three-story brick house on Royal Street. Major Latour, now a trusted member of Jackson’s brain trust, offered to bring his friend Lafitte in. He did the introductions and helped bridge the language gap.

Jackson listened to Monsieur Lafitte’s proposal, as he “solicited for himself and for all the Baratarians, the honor of serving under our banners . . . to defend the country and combat its enemies.”¹⁴ Jackson had his doubts—more than once he had dismissed Lafitte and his men as “pirates and robbers.” Still, this proposal was beginning to make sense.

Lafitte explained he could offer more than his allegiance. He claimed to have one thousand men, all willing to fight. Just as important to Jackson, however, was the cache of powder, shot, and essential flints—some seven thousand of them, he said—which were needed to provide the spark used to fire muzzle-loaded flintlock muskets and pistols.

The general and the pirate regarded each other. The two shared little in life experience, yet both had a native gift for leadership; they were men around whom other men rallied. They had differing moral codes but shared a respect for what they regarded as fairness and natural law. Just as Jackson had recognized the Red Stick chief Weatherford as a man who, at great risk to himself, had confronted Jackson seeking common cause, he began to see Lafitte in the same light. The pirate just might prove to be a key ally.

Lafitte knew the backwaters of this region intimately.

The man who stood before Jackson promised him men and munitions.

The artillerists in his band were famously skilled.

His stores of gunpowder would be invaluable.

A deal was struck, and Jackson dictated a note saying, “Jean Lafitte has offered me his services to go down and give every information in his power. You will therefore please to afford him the necessary protection from insult and injury and when you have derived the information you wish, furnish him with a passport for his return, dismissing him as soon as possible as I shall want him here.”¹⁵

Lafitte’s intelligence would be critical, and some of his privateers would be assigned to help protect Bayou St. John north of the city and to reinforce Fort St. Philip downstream on the Mississippi. Others would be organized into two artillery companies. The stores of munitions the pirates had accumulated would be removed to Jackson’s magazine. Lafitte himself would then join Jackson’s officer corps.

Together, they would seek to save New Orleans.

Across the Sea, in Ghent

Across the Atlantic, a quieter confrontation brewed. The American and British negotiators in Ghent grew closer to a meeting of the minds and, as November became December, the Americans had begun to think a treaty was within reach. The differences between the parties seemed to have been whittled down to talk of fishing rights off the New England coast and navigation of the Mississippi.

These discussions had revealed a regional rift between the American negotiators. John Quincy Adams saw no great harm in trading away access to the Mississippi and, to him, the right to fish off his native coast was an essential and absolute right. He felt bound to protect it, partly because his father had negotiated similar terms in the Treaty of Paris when the American Revolution ended. For the Kentuckian Henry Clay, however, the importance of the fisheries was dwarfed by the matter of navigating the great river that defined the westernmost boundary of his state. For him, the Mississippi was central to the development of his nation’s middle, and he could never agree to compromise those American rights.

In the midst of these distractions, the American ministers briefly furrowed their brows at a new wrinkle the British introduced to the discussion.

In early December, the English diplomats returned once more to the language concerning territory captured by either party in the war. At first, the renewed discussion seemed a simple continuation of the earlier negotiations concerning the Latin phrase uti possidetis (“as you possess”) and the restoration of territory with a peace. But the wrangling over language puzzled the ever-thoughtful John Quincy Adams. He pondered the British insistence on splitting linguistic hairs concerning who owned what and when—and what it might mean in practical terms.

In Louisiana, he knew, a battle for New Orleans might just be unfolding. If so, the city would be successfully defended or it would fall. Neither he nor anyone else—in Europe or in North America—knew what the outcome would be.

Yet a great deal might hinge on that result: half hidden in the diplomatic and legal language of the document lay a grave danger—one that, despite Adams’s suspicions, remained undetected by Adams and the American negotiators.

What would happen if the British captured New Orleans?

In the new draft of the document, all “territories, places, and possessions” captured by one side were to be returned. Regardless of the outcome when Admiral Cochrane’s forces met up with General Jackson’s, the Treaty of Ghent would assure that Louisiana remained the property of the United States of America. Right?

However, to a legalistic eye, wasn’t that subject to interpretation? What if there was a deeper subtext to the British insistence upon the insertion of the word possessions? Given that the British had never accepted Louisiana as a legitimate American possession—the Crown regarded the territory as the rightful property of the king of Spain, taken wrongly by Napoleon and therefore illegally transferred to the United States of America—might this open-ended treaty invite dispute?

And in the event the British captured New Orleans, did they intend to keep it?

What none of the Americans knew was that Edward Pakenham, the new general sent to defeat the Americans in the great battle for New Orleans, had very specific instructions. The British secretary of state for war, Earl Bathurst, had instructed Pakenham precisely. Even if he heard a treaty had been signed, Earl Bathurst ordered, “hostilities should not be suspended until you shall have official information” that the treaty had been ratified. The British commander was, quite specifically, to fight on to gain “Possession of the Country.”¹⁶

If Adams didn’t recognize them, how could Pakenham’s opponent, Andrew Jackson, have known of the perils posed by a treaty being negotiated five thousand miles away? He could no more have anticipated the peace terms than he could have sensed an earthquake in the days before it struck. But Jackson’s own remarkable instincts did tell him that holding New Orleans—keeping it out of the hands of the British—meant everything to his beloved country.

The British Approach

Admiral Cochrane had begun the process of landing his attack force, but he still had serious reason to be cautious. Some days earlier two men had arrived under a flag of truce, and the admiral received them aboard the HMS Tonnant. One of them, a physician named Dr. Robert Morrell, explained they came on behalf of Commodore Patterson. Morrell wanted to attend to the wounded American sailors, while his companion, Thomas Shields, a purser, wanted to negotiate the release of Lieutenant Jones and the other prisoners.

Cochrane suspected they were spies.

The admiral questioned the Americans closely. They were quick to assure him that Jackson’s was an enormous and powerful force, that “myriads of Western riflemen . . . were flocking to his standard.”¹⁷

Cochrane remained skeptical of American battle skills after the pathetic failure of the militia outside Washington on August 24, when thousands of ill-trained farmers and shopkeepers had scattered in the face of a British charge and beneath a sky alight with exploding rockets.

But Cochrane asked himself: Was he sending his men to face an army that might be two thousand strong—or did it number twenty thousand, as these men told him? As much as the possibility worried him, he doubted so large a force existed. In any case, he certainly couldn’t permit these men to leave the fleet to report to Jackson what they had seen of his ships and soldiers.

“Until the battle was over,” Cochrane had told them, “and the fate of the town determined,” they were going nowhere.¹⁸ They would be guests of the Royal Navy, waiting out the battle aboard the frigate HMS Gordon.

From Pea Island, Cochrane decided to send two of his own men on a spying mission.

He consulted with General John Keane, commander of the army forces, and, on December 20, Captain Robert Spencer of the Royal Navy and Quartermaster Lieutenant John Peddie of His Majesty’s army set out for Bayou Bienvenue, a watercourse that led from Lake Borgne to the outskirts of New Orleans. Their task was to determine whether Cochrane’s plan was indeed the best route for landing the army.

The men returned the next day from reconnoitering Bayou Bienvenue bearing good news. After spotting Fisherman’s Village, a small settlement of a dozen cabins a short distance upstream on the bayou, the two Englishmen had gone ashore. Spencer and Peddie hired as their guides two Spanish fishermen who sold their catch upstream in New Orleans and knew the area well. Having disguised themselves in the blue shirts and the oilskin hats the locals wore, Spencer and Peddie studied the landscape as the fishermen stroked them miles inland. Amazingly, they saw no sentinels, and Spencer and Peddie went ashore and walked to the high road that led into the city. They took in a view of the Mississippi. Within a mere six miles of New Orleans, the two British spies tasted the water of the big river.

Back on Pea Island, they told Cochrane that the plan to land at Bayou Bienvenue was “perfectly practicable,” because the bayou was both unobstructed and—this was almost laughable—unguarded (“the enemy had no look-out in that quarter”).¹⁹ The bayou was roughly a hundred yards wide and more than six feet deep. Not only could the army could go ashore at Bayou Bienvenue, but the advance men had done their job doubly well, returning with more than a dozen fishermen, all with intimate knowledge of Lake Borgne. They would act as pilots for the British barges.

A definite plan was in place.

Bayou Bienvenue

Cochrane gave the order to move. The first of General Keane’s force embarked on December 22. The advance guard would be a light brigade consisting of the Fourth Regiment, Eighty-Fifth Light Infantry, and the green-uniformed Ninety-Fifth Rifles. Its commander would be Colonel William Thornton, who had distinguished himself in August at the big victory in Washington.

In addition to regular troops, Thornton took rocketeers armed with rockets. A squad of artillerymen went along, too, with two portable three-pound guns, as did a company of sappers, engineers charged with repairing roads and building bridges. Two other brigades accompanied by heavier armaments would follow.

The first barges shoved off by ten o’clock: the lead expeditionary force of more than 1,600 men was on its way, and after a long row, they entered Bayou Bienvenue in the darkness.

Spotting U.S. pickets on guard a half mile ahead near Fisherman’s Village, a party of British infantrymen, stealthy under the cover of night, surprised and quickly overcame the Americans. None of them were able to run back to New Orleans to warn Jackson that the British were on the way.

In the morning, when they resumed their advance after some hours of sleep, a vanguard of troops commanded by Thornton led the string of barges upstream on Bayou Bienvenue and its extension, Bayou Mazant. When they reached the head of the waterway, they found the water shallower than expected, and the soldiers had to walk from one boat to the next, as over an unsteady bridge, to reach land. The sappers went on ahead to clear a path and, where necessary, improvised bridges over streams. The British force-marched toward their destination, camouflaged by reeds that stood seven feet tall.

At first, progress was slow, but, after almost a mile, the boggy swampland gave way to firmer ground and a cover of cypress trees. A mile beyond, open fields came into view.

Over the decades, farmers had reclaimed fertile soil along the Mississippi. Levees and canals made cultivation possible, and plantations now lined the river, where well-irrigated acreage produced valuable crops. One such property now lay directly in the British path—but little did Thornton realize that it was a station for Jackson’s sentinels.

Under orders from Colonel Thornton, a company of soldiers fanned out, surrounding the main house of the Villeré plantation. Its owner, General Jacques Villeré, guarded the coastline elsewhere with his Louisiana militia; his son Gabriel remained at home, charged by Jackson with watching Bayou Bienvenue. As the British crept closer, Villeré stood on the house’s gallery, smoking a cigar. Deep in conversation with a younger brother, Major Gabriel Villeré failed to see the first redcoats as they approached through an orange grove near the house.

When he did, it was too late. He attempted to flee, but the British quickly took possession of the house, capturing him and easily overcoming the entire company of thirty militiamen he commanded.

New Orleans was now just seven miles away, an easy two-hour march along what General Keane regarded as a “tolerably good” road.²⁰ Despite Colonel Thornton’s argument that they should take the fight immediately to the Americans, the British made camp. After long nights on the barges, they hoped for a full night’s rest. The invasion, months in the making, could wait until tomorrow. This would be their first critical mistake.

A Daring Escape

Though a captive in his own house, Major Villeré refused to resign himself to his fate. Despite being closely guarded, he saw an opportunity and made his move. Managing to get to a window, he leapt out, knocking several surprised British soldiers outside to the ground. He ran for the fence at the edge of a field; to the pop of gunfire and musket balls whistling past his head, he hurdled over the barrier. Before the riflemen could get him in their sights, he disappeared into the dense cypress wood.

The fleeing prisoner understood he was one man pursued by many, but he knew his home terrain well. He raced deeper into the woods, headed for one of the enormous trees he had known since boyhood. He would climb high, he thought, and obscure himself in its dense vegetation. But when he halted at the foot of a great live oak with its netting of Spanish moss, he heard a familiar whimper. There, at his feet, crouched his bird dog, who had dutifully followed her master.

Gabriel Villeré had only moments—he could hear the approaching voices of the British searchers calling to one another—but knew immediately that his dog would betray him. With a heavy heart, he struck the animal with a large stick, killing his friendly traitor. After concealing her body, he ascended into the canopy, and the British proceeded without finding him.

Later that morning, after concluding he had eluded them, the British returned to the plantation. Villeré made his escape. As the Scotsman George Gleig ruefully observed, “The rumour of our landing would, we knew, spread faster than we could march.”²¹

“The British Are Below”

At 1:30 p.m. on December 23, 1814, Jackson, at work in his parlor, heard hoofbeats. Three men galloped up to the stoop at 106 Rue Royale and announced that they had important intelligence for the general.

Jackson ordered them admitted.

“What news do you bring, gentlemen?” Jackson asked from his seat.

The breathless Gabriel Villeré, who just hours earlier had escaped the British, had borrowed a horse and hurried to Jackson’s headquarters along with two of his neighbors. Though Villeré spoke French, he had Jackson’s complete attention as one of the other men translated.

“The British . . . nine miles below the city . . . Villeré”—indicating Gabriel—“captured . . . escaped.”

At last Jackson had the information he needed. The long waiting game was over. The world’s most powerful army had at last invaded the shores of Louisiana, and after weeks of wondering where and when they would strike, Jackson finally had clarity. He hammered his fist on the table before him as he rose to his full height.

“By the Eternal,” he exclaimed, “they shall not sleep on our soil!”

Summoning his staff officers, Jackson ordered that wine be served and, with glass in hand, thanked Villeré for his news. Then he turned to his officers and aides-de-camp.

“Gentlemen,” he said simply, “the British are below, we must fight them tonight.”²²

His voice was even, his manner calm, but no one missed the man’s absolute determination. Orders were soon flying in every direction. Drumbeats sounded in the streets, and the firing of three cannons signaled to the city a call to arms.

General Carroll and his men were dispatched in the direction of upper Bayou Bienvenue. North of town, under the command of Governor Claiborne, Louisiana militiamen would stand guard over the wide road through the Plain of Gentilly—because Jackson fully expected a British assault on more than one front, he didn’t want to leave his back door open. Meanwhile, Edward Livingston relayed to Master Commander Patterson aboard the USS Carolina orders to weigh anchor and sail downstream.

Jackson would lead the attack force, which would include the Seventh and Forty-Fourth U.S. Infantry, the Creole battalions, the Choctaws, and a corps of freemen. Together with the marines and the artillery company, Jackson would march south with more than 1,600 men. This assembled army would proceed six miles to the Rodriguez Canal and meet up with Coffee’s mounted brigade and the Mississippi dragoons.

With the first stage of his plan prepared, General Jackson could respond to a message received from a lady of New Orleans who wrote on behalf of the women of the city. Alarmed at the rumored British approach, she asked what were they to do if the city was attacked.

“Say to the ladies,” Jackson instructed an aide, “not to be uneasy. No British soldier shall enter the city as an enemy, unless over my dead body.”²³

With that, he ate a small helping of boiled rice, then stretched his lanky frame upon the sofa and closed his eyes for an afternoon nap.²⁴ With a long and uncertain evening before him, the weary general could use a few minutes’ rest. By sunset, the city would be empty of troops—and Jackson would be at the head of his army, marching toward a nighttime fight. The British at their bivouac, just nine miles away, were going to get some unexpected visitors.