The Battle of New Orleans

Battle of New Orleans

The battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815 between soldiers of the 7^th U.S. Infantry Regiment, to which members of the Kentucky and Tennessee militias were attached, under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson, against British regulars under the command of Maj. Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington.  Victory in this battle set the American commander, Jackson on the road to the White House as the nation’s 7^th president.

In 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.[1]

The battle, contemporary with the British defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, was the southern front of a three-front British offensive against the Americans.  The northern front was repulsed on the waterways of New York state by American naval forces.  The eastern front, however, bore some success.  The Brits sacked and burned the nation’s capitol.  Cognizant of that episode in U.S.-British relations, Prime Minister Tony Blair in his 2003 address to a joint session of Congress said that “on our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me the fireplace where, in 1814, the British had burnt the Congress Library. I know this is kind of late, but … sorry.”

We looked down the river and we see'd the British come. And there must have been a hundred of'em beatin' on the drum. They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring.
We stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

If this had been a recent battle, and McManus were writing the after action review, he might have begun his report thusly, in bottom-line-up-front fashion, “The Battle of New Orleans was a slaughter. British casualties that day numbered more than 2,000, while the Americans lost just 70 men, 13 of who were killed.”  The battle was actually the fourth skirmish between the two forces over several weeks and it actually came after a peace treaty had been signed—“in Ghent, Belgium, on Christmas Eve 1814.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eye We held our fire 'til we see'd their faces well. Then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave 'em ... well

Three things stand out about the American’s victory. First, was its unlikeliness.  Great Britain, at the time, was the world’s strongest nation.  On the fields of Europe, Britain and her allies were grinding down the forces of France, under Napoleon’s command.  Her navy rules the high seas.  And she expected revenge from having lost the American colonies in 1776.  Her soldiers were well trained, well equipped, and well fed.  The Americans, by contrast, were a hastily formed fighting force.  Jackson and his chief lieutenants had recruited much of them only the previous summer.  Moreover, only a single U.S. regiment, the U.S. 7^th Infantry, was in the fight—alongside a motley contingent of “irregulars.”  The Brits looked every bit the professional army, their crisp, bright red uniforms and weaponry marking them so.  The appearance of the “dirty shirt” Americans was every bit the opposite.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin. There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago. We fired once more and they began to runnin' on Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

The second was the British commander’s assumption that Jackson’s forces simply would not stand and fight.  “At heart,” as McManus puts it, “the British officers apparently did not believe that a ragtag army comprised primarily of militia and backwoodsmen would stand and fight against the scarlet might of well-trained British soldiers.” 

We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down. So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round. We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

The third thing that stands out about the Battle of New Orleans is that some of the American forces “know-how,” despite their inexperience, survives today in our joint military doctrine.  Says McManus, “They … proved the lethal efficacy of applied and concentrated firepower, a blend of technology, policy and tactics that would eventually prove the cornerstone of the American way of war.  One can read in Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations about how today’s American forces still apply these same principles

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Notes.

1.  Johnny Horton, “Battle of New Orleans,” Cowboy Lyrics, http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/classic-country/battle-of-new-orleans---johnny-horton-14929.html (accessed November 27, 2011).  All stanzas.

2.  John C. McManus, “Spirit of New Orleans,” Historynet, (April 29, 2008), http://www.historynet.com/
spirit-of-new-orleans.htm (accessed November 30, 2011).

3.  Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, Joint Electronic Library, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/
new_pubs/jp3_0.pdf (accessed November 30, 2011).  The principles of war are explained in the first chapter.

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