31 The Eighth of January, 1815

I looked out upon a plain covered with rolling clouds of fog and saw nothing living. A stream of fire shot up, curved, fell, and was lost in the mist.

“A signal rocket,” said Courtenay, who stood beside me.

“That was the first, and this is the second,” said Mercer, as another rocket whizzed aloft, curved widely, and fell, to be lost like the other in the fog.

Then silence.

“Put your ear to the earthwork, Phil,” said Courtenay.

I obeyed, and heard a faint, far rumble—the tramp of marching thousands.

“Before night the British will be in New Orleans or in hell,” said a wild Tennesseean.

Some soldiers seized the brands of our camp fire and threw them together. They blazed up and flickered along our line, showing the faces of the men, fierce and wild in the fog and the quivering light, the Creoles, the Baratarians, the regulars and the marines at the cannon, free negroes, San Domingans, a dozen of Napoleon’s old soldiers in charge of a brass cannon, the Tennesseeans and the Kentuckians, in brown homespun, lining the breastwork in fours rows, long rifle in hand; then Coffee’s Indian fighters, standing knee-deep in the black mud and water of a swamp—only four thousand of us altogether, but filled with the indomitable spirit of Jackson. All were intent, eager, listening. I put my ear to the earthwork and the rumble grew louder. Through the mists came the music of many bands, rising above the tramp of marching feet. It was dance music, a merry note, and my wilful foot moved to the tune. Suddenly, above the melody, rose a wild, wailing strain.

“That’s the bagpipe of the Highlanders, always the bravest soldiers of the British army,” said Mercer.

Our lines stood unmoved, and but few sounds came from them—the clank of a sword, a command, an oath, a laugh, and the murmur of an army which never ceases.

“Where is the sun?” asked Courtenay.

There it was, above the horizon, but a pale, yellow blur in the fog, and still we could see nothing living, though the rumble grew louder and the music of the bands and the wailing of the bagpipes came clearly through the fog. The man on the rampart of mud had spoken truly; the British army, the whole of it, was advancing. Pakenham, goaded by Cochrane, the admiral who had given the command to burn and destroy every American town that could be reached, had ordered the attack. It was this ferocious old man who had told Pakenham that if the army could not take the mud banks of the Americans he would do it with the marines. What a pity that the two could not have exchanged places that day, and the better would have been spared!

“How are we to fire through all this fog!” grumbled Cyrus Pendleton as he knocked against my elbow.

But the answer was ready for him, the drifting fog was lifting, drawing slowly away from the plain as if reluctant to go. The music came louder, and through the fog appeared a faint red glimmer, the vanguard of the British army. The sudden deep-mouthed note of a cannon, thirty yards to my left, boomed over the plain, the first gun of the battle. Then there was silence again, save the far note and rumble of the bands and the bagpipes, for after the single cannon shot the fog settled back again, heavy, impenetrable, and the red gleam was gone.

Tramp! tramp! tramp! we could hear them advancing, and the music grew loud and triumphant.

“The nearer they come, the better for our marksmen,” Cyrus Pendleton muttered.

As far to left and right as I could see our men were motionless, the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans bent over until they stooped, their rifles grasped in their hands, each a perfect type of the forest fighter who awaits his enemy and listens for his coming.

The music of the bands, played in perfect tune, swelled over the plain and filled our ears. The fog swung away from the earth again and rose slowly; then, caught by some stray wind, it whirled up in clouds, and the plain lay before us, covered with the British army, a multitude gleaming in red, yellow, and green, English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, the sunshine flashing on swords and bayonets, their deep columns flanked by artillery. On they came in perfect order, the bands still playing, but their music lost now in the tremendous cheering of many thousand men who advanced in even lines to what they thought was not much more than a dress parade.

“What a magnificent sight!” said Mercer.

“Magnificent, truly,” replied Courtenay, “but much more magnificent than it will be a half hour from now!”

Again they opened fire with their whistling rockets, some of which shrieked far over our heads, and the artillery on their flanks began to add a deeper note. The mud in our embankment was spattered high, and some drops striking me in the face burnt like powder. A battery, the nearest of ours to me, replied to them, and two more followed with their fiery salute. The smoke drove the fog upward and took its place. The British, their cheers thundering above the artillery, came on with firmness and precision; the cannon balls were smashing into their front lines and men were falling, but others took their places, and still they came in solid ranks, drums beating, bands playing, bagpipes wailing, and bayonets shining. The smoke was not yet dense enough to hide the sun, and it gleamed over that multitude on the plain, intensifying the colours of arms, banners, and uniforms as if they were the legions decked for a Roman triumph. They came so steadily and so firmly that for a moment I felt a pride in them, because I too had Anglo-Saxon blood in me, and now I knew why the soldiers of the European Continent, man for man, could seldom stand before them. Yet the British line was dripping blood, and all the front of it was spattered. The first rank was burnt away by the cannon fire, but the second took its place. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones cracking under the shower of lead from our artillery, and a body would shoot up under the impact of a cannon ball, and then fall back to the earth. But the British regiments, scorched and bleeding, were cheering each other, closing up their shot-torn ranks, and coming on at the same steady pace. The music of the bands and the roar of the artillery mingled with the shouting of men and whistling of projectiles, and became an unbroken tumult.

Our riflemen were not yet allowed to fire, and I turned my eyes again from the terrible, yet magnificent spectacle in front of us to our lines. Looking upon them I saw that this was a new race of men, different from the old races of Europe, tall, lean, big boned, alert, masters of themselves, upon all the stamp of the American West. They were bent farther over now, each man clasping his rifle in nervous fingers, intent eyes on the advancing enemy, something of the North American Indian in every face. I saw with the suddenness of inspiration the fate that awaited the British army when it came within the range of those rifles, and I shuddered for brave men.

“Good God, what a mark to shoot at!” said the wild Tennesseean near me.

He raised his rifle, I heard its short whiplike crack in my ear even though the artillery was roaring around me, and I saw an officer directly in front of me fall from his horse. But no other rifle was fired, and an officer rebuked him sharply for his shot. The cannon were doing the work, and the rifles were reserved for shorter range. Along our whole line they were loading and firing the great guns now, and the discharges crashed out all at once sometimes, then ran from right to left or from left to right in a rolling fire, like the crash of incessant thunder. I watched the flame as it blazed along our embankment like sheet lightning, or gushed out like the explosion of a magazine.

Over our heads the smoke cloud thickened and blackened, but as yet it hung high, and the advancing enemy could be seen plainly; their front lines were burnt or beaten away; some of the banners had fallen with those who held them, and only the broken notes of the music came now through the roaring that filled our ears.

“They can crush Frenchmen this way, but they can not crush us!” shouted Cyrus Pendleton in my ear.

It was a boast, but it was a true one.

Behind me and around me I heard the gunlocks clicking. The frontiersmen, the boys among them, were growing impatient, but the sharp orders of the commanders kept their fingers from the triggers. I glanced again down the quadruple line of Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, tanned by the sun and winter winds to the hue of Indians, the largest men in the world except the Scandinavians, and the strongest. Then I turned my eyes back upon the advancing army, which looked now like a many-coloured sea, sweeping on in a strong tide and shimmering in the sun. Furrows were smashed in the ranks by the cannon balls, but they closed up again and still presented solid columns.

The thunder of the cannon deepened and became a steady roll, for all our great guns were firing now upon the advancing columns, and the British batteries replied with their whole strength. They discharged showers of balls and rockets, but they fell short or passed over us. The sheets of flame from our lines seemed to reach out at times and touch the fire from theirs, and the puffing smoke met, mingled, and floated upward to join the huge bank of it which was steadily thickening and darkening. Despite the tumult I could see that our balls were striking true, they sped neither too high nor too low, but were driven straight at their target, and those of the British were flying everywhere except where they were aimed. But the brigades continued to come, their ranks preserved, still cheering, though we could hear it only in broken shouts, their bands playing the martial airs which were soundless now. They advanced, columns deep, presenting a long line of glittering bayonets, and officers on foot and on horseback led them. One, a tall man, drawn sword in hand, with which he gesticulated and pointed to us, I recognised as my kinsman, Major Northcote. He was the nearest man to us, and I felt no surprise at seeing him there.

“They are within two hundred and fifty yards of us,” shouted Cyrus Pendleton in my ear. “Fifty yards more, and the rifles will begin to talk.”

Foot by foot they came, and by the flash of the cannon I saw their faces distinctly, and could even mark their features. Here were the English, ruddy, heavy-jawed; there the Irish, darker eyed, darker haired; yonder the Highlanders, tall, red-bearded, the set faces of them all showing through the battle flare, the blood of many of them soaking into the moist earth of the delta.

The fifty yards had been crossed, and then came the command to the riflemen to fire. Those who have heard the crack of the long-barrelled Western rifle like the lashing of a whip do not forget it, and when so many were fired at once the shriller, piercing, and, to me, more terrible crash rose clearly above the roar of the cannon. Nor were they aimed merely at the red blur of the advancing army, for each of the riflemen was a sharpshooter and he picked his man, looking down the sights until the bead was drawn true. I may need to ask forgiveness some day for the cry of joy I uttered when I saw the result; the red line of the English reeled back for the first time; the front rank was gone, annihilated, swept down by the breath of the rifles, and the others, thrown into confusion, staggered and hesitated, while the officers rushed about trying to restore order. The second line of our riflemen stepped forward into the place of the first, poured in their fire, gave way to the third line, which fired and yielded to the fourth, which was followed by the first, guns now reloaded, and over again, one after another in perfect rotation, in a fire that was unceasing, that filled the air with whistling bullets, and went straight to the mark. It was a terrible machine that was working now, one line forward, rifles up and the hail of bullets, and then another and the bullets again, and so on without ceasing, the riflemen shouting but little, and their fire, as all who were there will tell you, rolling in waves like that of the artillery as volley followed volley. The steady clicking of the gunlocks could be heard in the roar of the battle, and the men’s faces remained eager, intent eyes on their rifles, and then on the advancing squares.

The smoke clouds half hid the field, but we could see the British re-enforcements coming to the relief of the shattered vanguard. But they too were swept down by a fire as well aimed and deadly as any that was ever given in battle.

“Good Lord, this is slaughter, and all on one side!” cried Courtenay.

I knew what he meant, for as far as I could see not a single man on our side had fallen, and the plain in front of us was thickly sown with the English dead. Their columns were heaving and struggling like a wrecked ship on the topmost wave, and a few groups, ten, a dozen, or fifteen in each, still advanced, to be picked off by the sharpshooters.

Our men began to shout and cheer, though they did it in a mechanical way, their eyes on their rifles or the enemy. Never for a moment was the precision of their fire or the regular change of the ranks disturbed; one line stepped forward in the mud, now trodden into a horrible mire, up went their rifles, then the long sheet of light and storm of bullets, and they yielded their place to another rank, to come forward again with reloaded pieces in their turn.

The British army was still reeling about and seemed to be struck with paralysis; unable to advance, unwilling to retreat, it staggered from side to side, and the squares were losing cohesion. A fringe of men dropped off, and at last began to run away. The officers were swept down by the bullets, and the plain, where we could see it, was an ooze of bloody mud. I wondered how much longer they could stand it. While they wavered there I saw an officer on horseback spur his horse through the distracted ranks to the very front. It was the gallant Pakenham, their commander in chief, and many of us guessed it by his dress. A regiment was about to run, and I saw him snatch off his hat and point toward the wall of fire in their front, as if he would tell them that was the way to go. The arm fell, broken by a rifle ball, his horse was killed under him, but he sprang upon the black pony of an aide, and I could plainly see him encouraging the regiment, which broke, however, and fled. Then he galloped toward the massive regiment of the Highlanders—ever among the bravest of men—which was still advancing steadily. We looked with admiration at their solid column, over which the sunlight fell clearly at that moment, the smoke drifting aside. Their ranks were as yet unbroken, their bagpipes playing, General Pakenham at the right of their columns, and General Gibbs, the second in command of the army, at their left. They advanced, and a thirty-two-pound cannon, loaded to the muzzle with musket balls, was fired directly into the square, sweeping down nearly a fourth of the men, and then the rifles poured their hail upon the doomed regiment. It faltered and stopped, and the men looked about as if they knew not which way to go. Pakenham snatched off his hat again, and waving it, now in his left hand, shouted to them. His officers clustered around and helped him to encourage the men. A mass of grapeshot whistled through the air and struck in the very centre of the group. Nearly all went down, and Pakenham was dragged from the bodies, to be struck again before they could take him from the field, and to die five minutes later in the shade of an old live oak in the rear. A brave man who should have been sent on a better mission! Gibbs, too, fell and was carried off the field to die on the morrow, and then Keane, the third in command, went down, wounded in the neck and thigh, and was carried away. Their colonel was killed, but, led by the the major, these heroic Highlanders summoned up their courage and again advanced in the face of our rifles and cannon, though they came slowly. Within one hundred yards of us they stopped, and the great square stood there, kilts and tartans glittering, but again they were struck with that deadly paralysis, while the fire converged upon them and line after line crumbled away until, of the nine hundred men who had come on, less than one hundred and fifty were left, and these, recoiling as if they realized suddenly the deadly furnace into which they had advanced, fled shouting in horror and did not stop until they were hid in the ditches and black mud of the swamp.

Vast clouds of smoke floated between us and covered the fleeing Highlanders and most of the slain, but the fire of the cannon and the rifles was undiminished, sweeping the field from every point, and though we could not see through the smoke we knew that balls and bullets still found their mark. I hoped that the next lifting of the smoke would show them in retreat, not alone for our victory but for their own sake too.

The waves of smoke rolled apart for an instant, split by the cannon fire, and disclosed the wreck that strewed the plain. Far to the right and left it was covered with red-clothed bodies; some regiments were running, others wavered upon the field, and several officers, waving their swords and followed by a few soldiers, were still rushing toward us; then the smoke clouds closed up again and we saw nothing, while the din of arms went on as ever.

Some soldiers dashed out of the fog-bank which hung to the very edge of our parapet of mud and rushed at us; one, a major, reached the top of the parapet and fell dying upon it; another, a tall figure, his face flaming with passion, stood at full height an instant upon the earthwork, then leaped into our ranks and slashed at us with his sword as he cried to us to yield.

“Surrender, cousin! Major Northcote!” I cried; “do you not see that you are alone?”

He looked around him like one dazed, like one who could not believe. Then he slashed savagely at a rifleman, and as the blow was parried on a gun barrel he fell, for he was pierced already with many wounds, and died at my feet. On that very spot, within our lines, where he had come alone, he was buried, by permission of General Jackson, and as a mark of respect for his bravery, many cannon were driven over his grave.

The whole field was now covered by the smoke, and it was so thick that the flare of the cannon and rifles did not cut a way through it, and no sound came to us but the steady roar of the great guns and the crack of the rifles. Mr. Pendleton suddenly put his ear to the earthwork, and, seeing him, I did the same.

“What do you hear?” he asked.

“Nothing but the cannonade.”

“No rumble, no tread of advancing footsteps?”

“No.”

“Neither do I; the British army has fled.”

The smoke-bank still hung before us, dense, impervious, but no human form, nothing came from it. It enveloped alike the dead, who lay where they fell, and the living, who came no farther.

Slowly our fire died, and a breeze rising from the river began to move the heavy banks of smoke and drive them away. As they lifted the first sight disclosed to us was the rows and heaps of dead, and the wounded who crawled about on the plain.

“Twenty-five minutes,” said Courtenay, shutting his watch with a snap.

“What do you mean by twenty-five minutes?” I asked.

“Only twenty-five minutes since the first gun was fired, and we’ve won the greatest victory in our history.”

But from the front came the defiant note of a bugle. Clear and shrill it swelled above our waning fire, and many of the men raised their rifles.

Ta-ra-ra! ta-ra-ra! rang the bugle note, gay, saucy, and defiant.

“Can they have returned to the attack?” I asked in amazement.

“Impossible,” said Cyrus Pendleton; “wait!”

The roof of smoke lifted higher and higher, and still the defiant bugle note, never ceasing, rang out. A laugh and a cheer alike rose from our lines when we saw the cause; a little English boy, a bugler charging with his company, had climbed a tree in the plain in front of us and there he remained throughout the battle, blowing his bugle for the charge, and there he was now, perched astride the one bough that the cannon balls had left on the tree, his bugle at his lips, while he blew the notes which called upon his comrades to charge once more over the field which he held alone. Some riflemen went out, took down the little soldier, and adopted him.

Up went the clouds and the whole field now lay before us, covered with bodies and soaked with blood. The wounded crawled to us for help, and many unhurt, who had lain flat upon the ground to escape the bullets, came in and surrendered.

The smoke receded farther, and showed us the faint red gleam of the retreating British columns, some of them columns no longer, just huddles of fleeing men, but as far as we could see the field was thickly sown with the dead and wounded. Some of the heaps moved, and an unhurt man who had been stricken down by fear would come forth to surrender. The groans of the wounded made an unceasing lament, a sickening odour of blood arose, and little whiffs of smoke, like the haze of fever swamps, floated about.

I felt, first, that we had paid them back for all we had suffered from them, and then pity.

The red blur of the retreating enemy disappeared under the horizon, and our general passed along the lines praising the courage and markmanship of all. Then we went out to help the wounded and to bring them in, and in all that astonishing battle only seven men of ours were killed.

Thus we held New Orleans, and the beaten enemy fleeing to his ships soon left our shores, the last foe that has ever been seen upon them. In a short time the news of the peace came—a peace honourable and glorious to us, for in war with the strongest nation of Europe we had shown that we feared no one, either by sea or land, and were prepared to hold our own at any price. We had shown, moreover, that we would protect our rights wherever they existed, that the seas were free to all, and that one country could not rob another of its people merely because it needed them. All the principles for which we fought against immense odds have become the acknowledged laws of civilization and humanity, just as those for which we fought in the Revolution are now the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon race, and none to-day would question them.

Since then no European power has dared to molest us, and I do not think that any one will fight us with arms, though they continue the old campaign of falsehood and abuse. And if Europe should feel aggrieved sometimes because we do not like her, she should remember that she was the cause of it, and thus we leave her to her mass of intrigue and lying which she calls diplomacy and to her standard of manners instead of morals.

But I know the old powers will never forgive us for not standing in awe of them, the last insult to boastful nations.

Nevertheless, I have this to say of the English: I think them the best people in Europe, the only steadfast friends that freedom and the right have there, and though we have quarrelled with them and fought with them and scolded them and been scolded by them, yet we pay them the highest compliment of boasting of no victories, save those we have won over them, and we are glad that we were their colonies and those of no other country. And as I see the better England conquering the worse and leading the nation in the path of justice, I have a little wish, and perhaps an equal hope, that we shall stand together again, and always for the right.

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