The stories recounted in this book have been told multiple times; the accounts often vary in their particulars, with higher or lower troop numbers, discrepancies of dates, and many variant details. To tell this story in the most accurate way possible, we have proceeded with great care, working from the earliest sources where possible, quoting and citing the individuals who were actually on the scene. Prominent among them, of course, was Andrew Jackson. You will see him quoted often, in quotations drawn from the two main editions of his papers unless otherwise specified.
Throughout the text, you will find the narrative enhanced by the voices of many historical figures. Although the quotations have been precisely rendered from original sources, odd spellings, capitalization, and punctuation—none of which were standardized circa 1815—have been modernized for the twenty-first-century reader.
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_______. The War of 1812. Edited by Major H. A. DeWeerd. Washington, DC: Infantry Journal, 1944.
Adams, John Quincy. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848. Vol. 3. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1874.
Aitchison, Robert. A British Eyewitness at the Battle of New Orleans: The Memoir of Royal Navy Admiral Robert Aitchison, 1808–1827. Edited by Gene A. Smith. New Orleans: Historic New Orleans Collections, 2004.
Ambrose, Stephen. “The Battle of New Orleans.” In To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Arthur, Stanley Clisby. The Story of the Battle of New Orleans. New Orleans: Louisiana Historical Society, 1915.
Bassett, John Spencer. The Life of Andrew Jackson. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1911.
Benton, Thomas Hart. Thirty Years’ View. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton, 1854.
Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
Brooks, Charles B. The Siege of New Orleans. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961.
Brown, Wilburt S. The Amphibious Campaign for West Florida and Louisiana, 1814–1815. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1969.
Buell, Augustus C. History of Andrew Jackson: Pioneer, Patriot, Soldier, Politician, President. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904.
Carpenter, Edwin H., Jr. “Arsène Lacarrière Latour.” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 18, no. 2 (May 1938), pp. 221–27.
Carter, Samuel, III. Blaze of Glory: The Fight for New Orleans, 1814–1815. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971.
Channing, Edward A. The Jeffersonian System. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906.
Claiborne, John F. H. Life and Times of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860.
Clay, Henry. The Papers of Henry Clay. Vol. 1. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1959.
Clement, William Edwards. Plantation Life on the Mississippi. New Orleans: Pelican, 1952.
Cooke, John Henry. A Narrative of Events in the South of France, and of the Attack on New Orleans, in 1814 and 1815. London: T. & W. Boone, 1835.
Cooper, John Spencer. Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France and America During the Years 1809-10-11-12-13-14-15. Carlisle, UK: G. & T. Coward, 1914.
Crawford, Michael J., ed. The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History. Vol. 3. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 2002.
Crété, Liliane. Daily Life in Louisiana: 1815–1830. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.
Crockett, David [Davy]. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1834.
Davis, William. The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005.
Dickson, Alexander. “Artillery Services in North America in 1814 and 1815.” Journal for the Society of Army Historical Research, vol. 8, no. 32 (April 1919), pp. 79–112.
Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928–58.
Drez, Ronald J. The War of 1812, Conflict and Deception: The British Attempt to Seize New Orleans and Nullify the Louisiana Purchase. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014.
Eaton, John Henry. Memoirs of Andrew Jackson, Late Major-General and Commander in Chief of the Southern Division of the Army of the United States. Boston: C. Ewer, 1828.
Fernandez, Mark. “Edward Livingston, America, and France: Making Law.” In Empires of the Imagination: Transatlantic Histories of the Louisiana Purchase, edited by Peter J. Kastor and François Weil. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009.
Gallatin, Albert. The Writings of Henry Gallatin. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1879.
Gayarré, Charles. Historical Sketch of Pierre and Jean Lafitte: The Famous Smugglers of Louisiana. Austin, TX: Pemberton Press, 1964.
_______. The Story of Jean and Pierre Lafitte. New Orleans: Press of T. J. Moran’s Sons, 1938.
[Gleig, George Robert]. A Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans. London: John Murray, 1821.
_______. A Subaltern in America; Comprising His Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army, at Baltimore, Washington, &c. &c., During the Late War. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & A. Hart, 1833.
Griffith, Benjamin W., Jr. McIntosh and Weatherford, Creek Indian Leaders. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988.
Groom, Winston. Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Hatcher, William B. Edward Livingston: Jeffersonian Republican and Jacksonian Democrat. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1940.
Heaney, Jane Frances. A Century of Pioneering: A History of the Ursuline Nuns in New Orleans, 1727–1827. Edited by Mary Ethel Booker Siefken. New Orleans: Ursuline Sisters of New Orleans, Louisiana, 1993.
Hickey, Donald. Glorious Victory: Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.
_______. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
_______, ed. The War of 1812: Writing from America’s Second War of Independence. New York: Library of America, 2013.
Historical and Archaeological Investigations at the Chalmette Battlefield. New Orleans: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2009.
Hume, Edgar Erskine, ed. “Letters Written During the War of 1812 by the British Naval Commander in American Waters.” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 4 (October 1930), pp. 279–301.
Hunt, Charles Havens. Life of Edward Livingston. New York: D. Appleton, 1864.
Hunt, Louise Livingston. Memoir of Mrs. Edward Livingston: With Letters Hitherto Unpublished. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886.
Inskeep, Steve. Jacksonland. New York: Penguin, 2015.
Jackson, Andrew. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson. Edited by John Spencer Bassett. 7 vols. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1926–35.
_______. The Papers of Andrew Jackson. Edited by Sam B. Smth and Harriet Chappell Owsley. 13 vols. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980–2009.
James, Marquis. The Life of Andrew Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1933.
_______. “Napoleon, Junior.” American Legion Monthly, vol. 3, no. 4 (October 1927), pp. 14–17.
James, William. A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of the Late War Between Great Britain and the United States of America. Vol. 2. London, 1818.
Kanon, Tom. Tennesseans at War, 1812–1815. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014.
Kouwenhoven, John Atlee, and Lawton M. Patten. “New Light on ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’” Musical Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 2 (April 1937), pp. 198–300.
Lafitte, Jean. The Journal of Jean Lafitte. New York: Vantage Press, 1958.
Landry, Stuart Omer. Side Lights on the Battle of New Orleans. New Orleans: Pelican, 1965.
Langguth, A. J. Union 1812: The American Who Fought the Second War of Independence. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Latimer, Jon. 1812: War with America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
Latour, Arsène Lacarrière. Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–15: With an Atlas. 1816. Reprint edited by Gene A. Smith. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.
_______. Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–15: With an Atlas. 1816. Reprint, with an introduction by Jane Lucas de Grummond. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1964.
Lossing, Benson J. Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868.
McClellan, Edwin N. “The Navy at the Battle of New Orleans.” Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, vol. 50 (December 1924), pp. 2041–60.
Mahon, John K. “British Command Decisions Relative to the Battle of New Orleans.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 1 (winter 1965), pp. 53–76.
_______. The War of 1812. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972.
Martin, François-Xavier. The History of Louisiana from the Earliest Period. 2 vols. New Orleans: Lyman & Beardslee, 1827–29.
Morazan, Ronald R. Biographical Sketches of the Veterans of the Battalion of Orleans, 1814–1815. Baton Rouge, LA: Legacy Publishing Company, 1979.
Morriss, Roger. Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772–1853. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1997.
Nolte, Vincent. Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres; or, Reminiscences of the Life of a Former Merchant. New York: Redfield, 1854.
Owsley, Frank Lawrence, Jr. “Jackson’s Capture of Pensacola.” Alabama Review, vol. 19, July 1966, pp. 175–85.
_______. “The Role of the South in the British Grand Strategy in the War of 1812.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 1 (spring 1972), pp. 22–38.
_______. Struggle for the Gulf Borderland: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, 1812–1815. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1981.
Pack, James. The Man Who Burned the White House: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772–1853. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987.
Parton, James. Life of Andrew Jackson. 3 vols. New York: Mason Brothers, 1861.
Patterson, Benton Rain. The Generals: Andrew Jackson, Sir Edward Pakenham, and the Road to the Battle of New Orleans. New York: New York University Press, 2005.
Pickett, Albert James. History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period. 2 vols. Charleston, SC: Walker and James, 1851.
Powell, Lawrence N. The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
Prentice, George D. The Biography of Henry Clay. New York: J. J. Philips, 1831.
Reid, John, and John Henry Eaton. The Life of Andrew Jackson, Major-General in the Service of the United States. Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817.
Reilly, Robin. The British at the Gates. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974.
Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars. New York: Viking, 2001.
_______. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
_______. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
_______. The Battle of New Orleans. New York: Viking, 1999.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Naval War of 1812. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889.
Royall, Anne. Letters from Alabama on Various Subjects. Washington, 1830.
Smith, Gene A. “Arsène Lacarrière Latour: Immigrant, Patiot-Historian, and Foreign Agent.” In The Human Tradition in Antebellum America, edited by Michael A. Morrison. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000.
Smith, Harry. The Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith. Vol 1. London: John Murray, 1902.
Smith, Z. F. The Battle of New Orleans. Louisville, KY: K. P. Morton, 1904.
Stagg, J. C. A. Mr. Madison’s War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Surtees, William. Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1833.
Tatum, Howell. “Major H. Tatum’s Journal While Acting Topographical Engineer (1814) to General Jackson, Commanding 7th Military District.” In Smith College Studies in History, vol. 7, edited by John Spencer Bassett and Sidney Bradshaw Fay. Northampton, MA: Department of History of Smith College, 1922.
Thomson, John Lewis. Historical Sketches of the Late War, Between the United States and Great Britain. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Thomas Desilver, 1817.
Updyke, Frank A. The Diplomacy of the War of 1812. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1915.
Vogel, Steve. Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation. New York: Random House, 2013.
Walker, Alexander. Jackson and New Orleans. New York: J. C. Derby, 1856.
Wellington, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of. Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda. Vol. 10. London: John Murray, 1863.
Windship, John Cravath May. “Letters from Louisiana, 1813–1814.” Edited by Everett S. Brown. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 11, no. 4 (March 1925), pp. 570–79.
Woodward, Thomas S. Woodward’s Reminiscences of the Creek, or Muscogee Indians. 1859. Reprint, Tuscaloosa: Alabama Book Store, 1939.