Battle of New Orleans

Background

By the autumn of 1814 the War of 1812 had dragged on for more than two years. New Orleans was the prize of the Gulf: about a third of American produce passed through it, and whoever held it controlled the Mississippi. The British first set up a base at Pensacola in Spanish Florida, but Andrew Jackson held Mobile in September and briefly seized Pensacola, so Vice Admiral Cochrane's expedition came by sea instead.

On 14 December British boats destroyed the American gunboats on Lake Borgne, and on the morning of 23 December the army landed and reached the Mississippi below the city. Jackson attacked their camp that night with about 2,100 men in a confused action, then fell back two miles to the Rodriguez Canal, an old millrace on the boundary of the Chalmette and Macarty plantations, about six miles from the city. There his men began a rampart of earth piled against fence rails.

Pakenham arrived on Christmas Day and took command. On 27 December heated shot destroyed the schooner USS Carolina; on 28 December a reconnaissance in force was beaten back; and on 1 January a three-hour artillery duel ended with the British guns silenced. Pakenham waited for reinforcements: General Lambert arrived on 6 January with the 7th and 43rd Foot, and the same day a canal across Villeré's plantation was finished to bring boats to the river so that he could attack both banks at once. About 2,250 Kentucky militia reached Jackson on 4 January, but only some 550 had weapons.

The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on 24 December, but it was to take effect only once both governments ratified it, and neither army knew of it.

The armies

Pakenham commanded a force of about 8,000: the 4th, 7th, 21st, 43rd, 44th, 85th and 93rd Foot, companies of the 95th Rifles, dismounted men of the 14th Light Dragoons, the 1st and 5th West India Regiments, artillery and rocket troops, and sailors and Royal Marines. The two West India regiments were Black regiments from the Caribbean.

Jackson's army was famously mixed. Its core was the 7th and 44th US Infantry and a company of Marines. Beside them stood the Orleans Battalion of New Orleans volunteers, two battalions of free men of colour (Lacoste's Louisiana battalion and Daquin's battalion of men from Saint-Domingue, led in the field by Joseph Savary), Carroll's and Coffee's Tennesseans, Adair's Kentuckians, Louisiana militia, Mississippi dragoons and other cavalry. About 50 Baratarians, Jean Lafitte's smugglers, served the guns on the ships and in the batteries in return for a pardon. Some 50–60 Choctaw under Pierre Juzan held the far left, in the swamp.

The line was about three-quarters of a mile long, from the river to a cypress swamp, behind a canal 10–20 feet wide. Eight batteries mounted guns from 4- to 32-pounders, crewed by regulars, militia, seamen, Baratarians and former Napoleonic gunners. Across the river Commodore Patterson's naval battery could fire into the flank of any attack on the east bank.

The battle

CDB90 records the main assault as a single engagement, number 149 (NEW ORLEANS), from 06:00 to 06:45. Times below are approximate; the sources differ by a quarter of an hour or more.

The plan (night of 7–8 January). Pakenham split his army. Gibbs, with the main column, would attack next to the swamp against Batteries 7 and 8; Keane, with a smaller force, would advance along the river road; Lambert would wait in reserve with the 7th and 43rd. Colonel Thornton was to cross to the west bank with the 85th and a naval detachment, overrun Patterson's guns and turn them on Jackson's line. The canal banks collapsed before all the boats were through, and the current carried the rest downstream; only about 560–600 men crossed, hours late.

The ladders (before dawn). The 44th, leading Gibbs's column, was to carry the fascines and ladders for crossing the ditch and scaling the rampart, but marched past the redoubt where they were stored. Lieutenant Colonel Mullins sent about 300 of his 427 men back for them, and the column was thrown into confusion as the attack began.

Gibbs's assault (from about 06:00). Rockets signalled the advance around daylight, and the American guns answered almost at once. The British went forward in fog, which lifted as they neared the line and left the red-coated columns in the open. Batteries 6, 7 and 8 fired round shot and grape into Gibbs's column, and about 1,500 muskets of the Tennesseans, Kentuckians and Marines followed. A few men reached the rampart and died there. After about 25 minutes the column broke; officers rallied it, and it broke again. Gibbs was mortally wounded, and Pakenham, riding forward, was hit a second time and killed.

The 93rd (about the same time). Keane led the 93rd Highlanders obliquely across the field towards Gibbs's sector, in front of the American guns. Their colonel, Robert Dale, was killed and Keane badly wounded. A handful of Highlanders reached the rampart and were killed or captured.

The river redoubt. By the river, where the fog lasted longer, Colonel Rennie's column stormed the unfinished advanced redoubt in front of the American right, but Rennie was shot down and his men were driven out. Of the 3,000 or so men in Gibbs's and Keane's columns, about 2,000 became casualties in less than half an hour.

The west bank (to about 10:00). Thornton landed late but met little resistance. Tired, poorly armed militia, including Kentuckians, fell back to Morgan's unfinished line, and Thornton broke it near the swamp. Patterson spiked his guns before they could be turned on Jackson's rear. Thornton was badly wounded, and at about 10:00 his men signalled success by rocket. This fighting lies outside CDB90's engagement.

Lambert breaks off. Lambert, now in command, chose to withdraw rather than commit his reserve, and recalled Thornton. The infantry fighting lasted no more than two hours; the British guns stopped at about 09:00, the American batteries in the early afternoon.

Aftermath

The British lost about 2,000 killed, wounded and captured, among them Pakenham and Gibbs; the American official estimate was 2,600. American losses on both banks were 71. A squadron bombarded Fort St Philip downriver for over a week and gave up on 18 January. The army left its camp by 19 January, abandoning 80 men too badly wounded to move. It then took Fort Bowyer on Mobile Bay, which surrendered on 11 February, just before news of the peace arrived.

The treaty reached Washington on 14 February, more than a week after news of the victory; the Senate ratified it unanimously on 16 February, and the exchange of ratifications ended the war. So the battle was fought after the peace was signed, but before the war ended. At home it discredited the Federalists of the Hartford Convention and carried Jackson to the presidency in 1828. The Eighth of January became a national holiday.

Legends followed. Samuel Woodworth's 1821 song "The Hunters of Kentucky", Jackson's campaign song, credited Kentucky riflemen with the victory. In fact many Kentuckians were unarmed; most rifles were privately owned and most men carried muskets, and modern historians credit the artillery and the earthworks with most of the British casualties. The rampart was not a wall of cotton: it was earth on timber, though bales lined some embrasures and caught fire in the artillery duel of 1 January. The field is now the Chalmette Battlefield, part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park.

Wargaming it

New Orleans is a small, tightly framed battle: one flat field, a river on one flank, a swamp on the other and a ditch and rampart across the middle. The main assault works well at battalion level, with turns of five to ten minutes and the fog and the ladders handled as special rules. A brigade-level game can add the west bank and Thornton's race against the clock.

Played straight, it is a massacre, so the interest lies in the British decisions and the friction. What if the 44th had brought the fascines and ladders, the fog had held another quarter of an hour, or Thornton had crossed on time and turned Patterson's guns on the rear of the line? Variable boat delays, fog and ladder parties keep replays different. Lambert's choice to keep the 7th and 43rd out of the fight is another lever. The British victory condition should be modest: a lodgement on the rampart, or Patterson's battery taken by a given turn.

The American side rewards the gunners. Artillery, not rifles, did most of the killing, so the batteries should dominate and the militia's fire should be strong behind the rampart and brittle in the open. The order of battle is a painter's gift: regulars, Marines, Tennessee and Kentucky militia, two battalions of free men of colour, Baratarian gun crews, Choctaw skirmishers in the swamp and dragoons in reserve. The December night attack of 23 December makes a good companion game, fought in darkness and confusion.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.