Okla-homey
1/8/2009, 07:37 AM
January 8, 1815: Battle of New Orleans
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/1011/pomeroylandscape8yk.jpg
Battle of New Orleans. The bad guys wore red. The good guys fired from behind hastily dug earthworks augmented with cotton bales which make pretty good fortifications
194 years ago today, Andy Jackson leading US regulars, militiamen and some pretty unsavory cats gathered up from the jails, bars, whorehouses and bayous in and around NOLA (including pirate leader Jean Lafitte,) crushed an invading British force outside New Orleans.
The war with Britain had already ended when the Treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve 1814. This battle occured a full two weeks after the war had officially ended...because word of peace had not yet made it to New Orleans(....or the postman was drunk -- which is entirely possible in "The Big Easy.")
The British marched against New Orleans, hoping that by capturing the city they could separate Louisiana from the rest of the United States. Pirate Jean Lafitte, however, had warned the Americans of the attack, and the arriving British found militiamen under General Andrew Jackson strongly entrenched at the Rodriquez Canal.
Jackson had ordered a breach in the levee allowing the river to flood the field in front of his hastily built fortifications turning it into a muddy quagmire which slowed and complicated the British assaults.
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/797/newmap1815df4.gif
In two failed assaults, the 7,500 British soldiers under Sir Edward Pakenham were unable to penetrate the U.S. defenses, and Jackson's 4,500 troops, many of them expert marksmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, decimated the British lines. In half an hour, the British had retreated, General Pakenham was dead, and nearly 2,000 of his men were killed, wounded, or missing. U.S. forces suffered only eight killed and 13 wounded.
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6928/newbonoqv1.jpg
Although the battle had no bearing on the outcome of the war, Jackson's overwhelming victory elevated national pride, which had suffered a number of setbacks during the War of 1812. The Battle of New Orleans was also the last armed engagement between the United States and Britain.
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/1011/pomeroylandscape8yk.jpg
Battle of New Orleans. The bad guys wore red. The good guys fired from behind hastily dug earthworks augmented with cotton bales which make pretty good fortifications
194 years ago today, Andy Jackson leading US regulars, militiamen and some pretty unsavory cats gathered up from the jails, bars, whorehouses and bayous in and around NOLA (including pirate leader Jean Lafitte,) crushed an invading British force outside New Orleans.
The war with Britain had already ended when the Treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve 1814. This battle occured a full two weeks after the war had officially ended...because word of peace had not yet made it to New Orleans(....or the postman was drunk -- which is entirely possible in "The Big Easy.")
The British marched against New Orleans, hoping that by capturing the city they could separate Louisiana from the rest of the United States. Pirate Jean Lafitte, however, had warned the Americans of the attack, and the arriving British found militiamen under General Andrew Jackson strongly entrenched at the Rodriquez Canal.
Jackson had ordered a breach in the levee allowing the river to flood the field in front of his hastily built fortifications turning it into a muddy quagmire which slowed and complicated the British assaults.
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/797/newmap1815df4.gif
In two failed assaults, the 7,500 British soldiers under Sir Edward Pakenham were unable to penetrate the U.S. defenses, and Jackson's 4,500 troops, many of them expert marksmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, decimated the British lines. In half an hour, the British had retreated, General Pakenham was dead, and nearly 2,000 of his men were killed, wounded, or missing. U.S. forces suffered only eight killed and 13 wounded.
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6928/newbonoqv1.jpg
Although the battle had no bearing on the outcome of the war, Jackson's overwhelming victory elevated national pride, which had suffered a number of setbacks during the War of 1812. The Battle of New Orleans was also the last armed engagement between the United States and Britain.
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/637/insane7zoao4.jpg