The Battle of New Orleans Part 7

Since the landing of the British army on the twenty-third, there were afloat in nebulous form some rumors of disaffection toward the American military occupation of Louisiana, among an element of the population unfriendly to the sovereignty of the United States over the territory since its purchase from Napoleon. Up to the time of the military occupation under Jackson, this hostile feeling seemed to display its temper and policies mainly in matters of civil procedure. There was very naturally a jealous opposition on the part of many leading citizens, of French and Spanish descent, of whom the population west of the Mississippi was almost entirely made up, against the annexation of the territory east of that river as part of Louisiana, on equal terms of citizens.h.i.+p and co-sovereignty. This east territory, they felt, had been rudely seized and possessed by the United States, against the claim and protest of Spain. It was being settled by American people, who in time would help to Americanize the country, and to lessen the power and control of the former creole domination. The virtues of a patriotic love of their native countries yet lingered in the bosoms of these citizens--a patriotic love which, when finally transferred to the new government they were under, burned as brightly for the new sovereignty as for the old.

Captain Abner L. Duncan, aid to Jackson, testified before the committee as follows:

On the 28th, Colonel Declouet (of General Morgan's command) coming in haste from the city, joined this respondent and begged him to inform General Jackson that a plan was on foot among several members of the Legislature for the surrender of the country to the enemy. Colonel Declouet named in confidence to myself, to Generals Jackson and Morgan, and to Major Robinson, several members as persons determined on making the attempt. He added, that he heard one or more members say, that Jackson was carrying on a Russian war (alluding to the burning of Moscow), and that it was best to save private property by a timely surrender; that he, Colonel Declouet, had been invited to join in the measure. On this respondent making the communication to General Jackson, the order he received was: "Tell Governor Claiborne to prevent this, and to blow them up if they attempt it!"

Colonel Declouet told me the plan had been first disclosed to him by the Speaker of the House, Mr. Guichard. He said in presence of General Jackson and Mr. Daresac, that many other influential men were concerned in it, and that they had held several night or secret meetings on the subject. He gave the names of Mr. John Blanque and Mr. Marigny, and generally all those voting with Mr. Blanque in the House. He stated that, as an inducement offered to unite in the plan, he was informed by Mr. Guichard that General Jackson would burn and destroy everything before him sooner than surrender the country, and that the English would respect private property. I understood also, from some members of the House, Mr. Harper and Mr. Fickland among them, and in the Senate from General Morgan and Mr. Hireart, that an attempt would be made to dismember the State. I also understood from other members that they would consider it an act of violence; and would resist it by violence.

Colonel Declouet was the chief informant at headquarters; but rumors had been rife for several days of disloyal utterances and of mysterious proceedings, which caused uneasiness to the civil and military authorities, and especially to Governor Claiborne, who had made known his apprehensions of trouble from the disaffected element, warning General Jackson of the dangers possible from this quarter. The Legislature was to convene on the twenty-eighth; and it was intimated that the overture for a surrender might be resolved upon that day. Such a possible action, in the very crisis of battle, could be but an attempt to marplot the military plans of the commander-in-chief, and to marshal an enemy in the rear. The information brought in so abruptly on that morning by Colonel Declouet made a profound impression on the mind of General Jackson. The enemy had already opened the battle of the twenty-eighth of December, with the forward movement of his columns and under the heavy fire of his batteries.

In the excitement of the moment, Jackson gave the verbal order to his aid, Captain Duncan, to be delivered at once to Governor Claiborne for immediate execution. This order, as rendered by Captain Duncan, directed the Governor to summarily close the halls of the Legislature, and to place a guard at the doors to prevent a meeting of the body until further orders. Duncan testified that the General put in emphasis the words: "Tell Governor Claiborne to prevent this, and to blow them up if they attempt it!"

The order was executed. The Governor commissioned General J.B. Labitat, of the Louisiana troops, to enforce it; he placed a guard of soldiers at the doors of the building, and forbade entrance to the members on that day. Captain Duncan had put spurs to his horse and started on a lope to the city with the order. On the way he met Colonel Fortier, an aid to the Governor, who consented to promptly deliver the order, permitting Duncan to return. In the proceedings of the committee, Honorable Levi Wells, member of the House of Representatives from Rapides Parish, testified that on the twenty-eighth, under an order of General Jackson, an armed guard was placed at the doors of the legislative halls in the city of New Orleans, which was to hinder the members from a.s.sembling; "and even to fire on them, should they dare to persist in their design; and that the life of a representative of the people, and a member of the Body, was exposed to the greatest danger; that a sentinel, to hinder him from repairing to his post, presented his bayonet and threatened to run him through with it, unless he retired, adding to this outrage the most insulting tone."

Through the mediation of friendly counsel the views of both the civil and military chiefs were modified. The order was revoked within twenty-four hours, and the guards withdrawn; on the twenty-ninth, the Legislature was permitted to convene. In the conclusion, the committee exonerated Speaker Guichard and other members of the Legislature referred to as under suspicion, and severely censured Colonel Declouet and Captain Duncan as the indiscreet authors of all the trouble. The measures taken by General Jackson and Governor Claiborne were effectual; while the report of the committee was evidently drawn to modify and explain the imputed indiscretions of some of their fellow-members who had been compromised. The procedure did not include all the legislators; for some of these had volunteered their services, shouldered their muskets, and gone to the front of battle.

A feeling of keen resentment toward General Jackson and some officers involved in this affair was nursed long after by these legislators.

After peace was a.s.sured and hostilities at an end, the Legislature voted a resolution of thanks for valiant services in defense of Louisiana to the officers and soldiers from the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, with the request to the Governor that he should convey the sense of this resolution in appropriate terms in a letter each to the officers in command of these troops, respectively. The resolution was as follows:

_Resolved_, That the thanks of the General a.s.sembly be presented, in the name of the State, to our brave brother soldiers from Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Mississippi Territory, and their gallant leaders, Generals Coffee, Carroll, Thomas, Adair, and Colonel Hinds, for the brilliant share they have had in the defense of this country and the happy harmony they have maintained with the inhabitants and militia of the State.

MAGLOIRE GUICHARD, _Speaker of the House of Representatives_.

FULWAR SKIPWORTH, _President of Senate_.

Approved, February 2d, 1815.

WM. C. CLAIBORNE, _Governor of State_.

The great chieftain could well afford to pa.s.s the slight in silence, hailed as he was by the acclamations of the mult.i.tude--the deliverer of the country, and the hero of the nation!

A similar resolution of thanks was voted to the officers and troops of Louisiana, who had so patriotically sprung to arms on the invasion of the enemy, and who had so gallantly fought in the several battles of the campaign. In this resolution separate mention was made of each of the officers of the State troops and their several commands, reciting the meritorious services they had rendered, in terms of special praise, making exceptions of certain officers who had incurred the displeasure of some of the honorable legislators.

Under the first resolution, letters were addressed each to Generals Coffee and Carroll, of Tennessee, to Major Hinds, of Mississippi, and to Generals Thomas and Adair, of Kentucky. As these letters are of similar tenor, we quote only the correspondence with General Adair:

NEW ORLEANS, February 25th, 1815.

_Sir_: To a soldier who has done his duty in all the conflicts in which his country has been involved, from the War of Independence to the present moment, it must be matter of great exultation to notice the valor and firmness of the children of his old friends; to be convinced that they are the true descendants of the old stock. That the young men of your brigade should have looked up to you in the hour of battle, as their guide and their s.h.i.+eld, is only a continuation of that confidence which their fathers had in a chief whose arm had so often, and so successfully, been raised against the foe. The enclosed Resolution of the General a.s.sembly of Louisiana will show you the high sense which is entertained in this State of your services and of those of your brothers in arms. Be towards them the vehicle of our sentiments, and receive for yourself the a.s.surances of my respect and best wishes.

WM. C.C. CLAIBORNE, _Governor of Louisiana_.

To General John Adair.

The response of General Adair:

GOV. WM. C.C. CLAIBORNE.

_Sir_: I have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of Your Excellency's note, inclosing a Resolution of the Legislature of Louisiana, generously awarding the thanks of the State to the militia from her sister States, who aided in the late successful struggle to expel a powerful invading enemy from her sh.o.r.es.

To a proud American, citizen or soldier, the consciousness of having faithfully discharged his duty to his country must ever be his highest and most lasting consolation. But when to this is added the approbation, the grat.i.tude of the wisest, the most respectable part of the community, with whom and under whose eye it has been his fortune to act, it will ever be esteemed, not only the highest reward for his services, but the most powerful incentive to his future good conduct.

Accept, sir, for the Legislature, my warmest acknowledgments for the honorable mention they have made of the corps to which I belong, and for yourself the esteem and respect so justly due from me, for your polite and highly interesting note of communication; and my best wishes for your health and happiness.

JOHN ADAIR.

GENERAL JACKSON--CLASH WITH THE COURT.

A member of the Legislature, Mr. Loillier, severely censured the commander-in-chief for continuing New Orleans and vicinity under martial law after the defeat and embarkation of the British army, and for his arbitrary course in sending a body of creole troops to a remote camp near Baton Rouge, in response to their pet.i.tion for a discharge. Jackson ordered his arrest. Loillier applied to Judge Hall, of the United States District Court, for a writ of habeas corpus, which was promptly granted by the court. General Jackson summarily ordered the arrest of Judge Hall also; and that he and the a.s.semblyman both be deported beyond the military lines, as persons liable to incite insubordination and mutiny within the martial jurisdiction. Intelligence of the treaty of peace at Ghent soon followed, and martial law once again yielded to civil authority.

Judge Hall, resenting what he deemed a great indignity upon the court, issued an order, summoning Jackson to appear before him to answer a grave charge of contempt. Jackson's attorney attempted to plead in his defense, but the judge silenced him, and set the hearing a week after.

On the thirty-first of March, Jackson appeared in court in person, but refused to be interrogated. As his defense had been denied, he announced that he was there only to receive the sentence of the court. Judge Hall then imposed a fine of one thousand dollars, which sum the veteran offender drew from his pocket and handed in to the court.

These proceedings were attended with profound excitement throughout the city and community. The hero of the day had a determined following present in crowds at and near the court-room; and among these were the Baratarian contingent, with their leaders, and others as desperate as these. But the great commander had set the example of implicit obedience to the law, and no disrespect to the court was shown. But as the General sought to retire from the scene, the enthusiasm of the crowds overleaped all bounds of propriety. With shouts and roars of applause the devoted people lifted him in their arms and upon their shoulders, and bore him in triumph through the streets of the city to his headquarters, despite the chagrin and helpless protestations of the victim of their admiration. Tall and gaunt, and angular in person, with his long, spare limbs dangling helplessly about him, and rocked and swayed by the movement of the ma.s.ses under him, the great warrior was never in all his life before in a position more awkward and undignified. The master of men and emergencies was unthroned for one time in life.

The money to pay the fine was proffered over and over again to reimburse him by ardent friends, but Jackson would listen to no terms of payment of the fine, except out of his own purse. He alone had committed the offense--if there was an offense--and he alone would a.s.sume to pay the penalty. It was not until 1844, one year before his death, that Congress pa.s.sed an act to refund the princ.i.p.al and interest, which amounted then to twenty-seven hundred dollars. In advocacy of this bill Stephen A.

Douglas, then Senator from Illinois, made his maiden speech upon the floor of the Senate of the United States.

ENGLAND'S PURPOSE TO CONQUER AND HOLD POSSESSION OF THE TERRITORY CEDED BY NAPOLEON, AND TO ESTABLISH HER DOMINION IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

There are evidences that the English Government had revived an old dream of conquest and expansion, by which she might once again establish dominion west of the Alleghany Mountains, by the capture of New Orleans, the key to the lower Mississippi Valley. It is a well-known fact in history that that government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the sale and transfer of the Territory of Louisiana by Napoleon to the United States. She had looked upon the transaction with a covetous and jealous eye, for she had nursed the hope some day of adding to her own vast possessions, by conquest or purchase, not only the domain of Louisiana, but that of Florida also. Had it not been that she was engrossed with her military and naval forces in the turbulent wars in Europe, during the ascendant period of Napoleon, the British Government would most probably have employed her armies and navies mainly in the accomplishment of these aims of territorial aggrandizement. Her invasion of the Northwest territory from Canada, at the opening of the War of 1812-15, which so disastrously ended with the destruction of the British fleet by Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, and the annihilation of the British army by General Harrison at the battle of the Thames, was but an entering wedge to her deep designs. After the fall of Napoleon and the pacification of Europe relieved her armies and navies of further service on that side of the ocean, she, in her pride and insolence, believed that she would be invincible in America. Her cherished dream might now at last be realized by the conquest and permanent possession of Louisiana. We have mentioned the significant fact that overtures for peaceful negotiations had been mutually arranged as early as January, 1814, and commissioners soon after appointed to meet at Ghent. When the capitulation at Paris and the exile of Napoleon to Elba occurred within a few brief months, repeated excuses for the delay of negotiations by the British envoys were made. The United States wanted peace on equitable terms, for she had nothing to gain by continuing the war.

England dallied and delayed; meanwhile marshaling her military and naval forces for a final crus.h.i.+ng blow on her American foe. When articles of peace were signed on the twenty-fourth of December, the British Government knew that information of the event would not reach the belligerents in the Gulf of Mexico until some time in February. But His Majesty, the King of England, and his councilors, confidently believed, as did the officers in command of the English army and navy in this expedition, that the victorious invaders would eat their Christmas dinner in the subjugated city of New Orleans, and there to stay.

Gleig, an educated officer with the army of invasion, who became the chief English historian of the campaign, in his "Narrative," has to say:

The primary cause of our defeat may be traced to a source more distant than I have mentioned; I mean to the disclosure of our designs to the enemy. How this occurred, I shall not take upon me to declare; though several rumors bearing at least the guise of probability have been circulated. The attack on New Orleans was professedly a secret expedition, so secret indeed that it was not communicated to the inferior officers and soldiers in the armament until immediately previous to our quitting Jamaica. To the Americans, however, it appears to have been long known before. And hence it was that, instead of taking them unawares, we found them fully prepared for our reception. _That our failure is to be lamented no one will deny, since the conquest of New Orleans would have been, beyond all comparison, the most valuable acquisition that could be made to the British dominion throughout the whole Western hemisphere. In possession of that post, we should have kept the entire Southern trade of the United States in check, and furnished means of commerce to our own merchants, of incalculable value._

On the 29th of August, 1814, Colonel Edward Nichols, in command of the land forces quartered in the Spanish capital of Pensacola, issued a proclamation, from which we quote:

Natives of Louisiana! On you the first call is made to a.s.sist in liberating from a faithless, imbecile government, your paternal soil.

Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, and British; whether settled, or residing for a time in Louisiana, on you also, I call to aid me in this just cause. The American usurpation in this country must be abolished, and the lawful owners of the soil put in possession. I am at the head of a large body of Indians, well armed, disciplined, and commanded by British officers, a good train of artillery with every requisite, seconded by the powerful aid of a numerous squadron of s.h.i.+ps. Be a.s.sured, your property, your laws, the tranquility and peace of your country, will be guaranteed to you. Rest a.s.sured that these brave Indians only burn with an ardent desire of satisfaction for the wrongs they have suffered from the Americans, to join you in liberating the southern province from their yoke, and drive them into the limits formerly prescribed by my sovereign. The Indians have pledged themselves not to injure the persons or properties of any but enemies to their Spanish or English fathers. A flag, Spanish, French, or British, over any door, will be a certain protection.

Inhabitants of Kentucky! You have too long borne with grievous impositions. The whole brunt of the war has fallen on your brave sons; be imposed on no longer; but either range yourselves under the standard of your forefathers, or observe a strict neutrality. If you comply, whatever provisions you send down will be paid for in dollars, and the safety of the persons bringing it, as well as the free navigation of the Mississippi, will be guaranteed to you.

Men of Kentucky! Let me call to your minds the conduct of those factions which hurried you into this civil, unjust, and unnatural war, at a time when Great Britain was straining every nerve in defense of her own, and the liberties of the world. Europe is now happy and free, and now hastens justly to avenge an unprovoked insult. Accept of my offers; everything I have promised, I guarantee to you, on the sacred honor of a British officer.

We might repeat such evidences of the purposes and plans of the expedition to Louisiana. But we will close the subject with the impressions of General Jackson himself.

In a contribution to the Philadelphia Times, of the 1st of November, 1898, Colonel A.C. Buell is authority for the following:

"It was related to me," says Colonel Buell, "by the late Governor William Allen, of Ohio, when, as correspondent of the Missouri Republican, I visited the venerable statesman at his home near Chillicothe, in 1875. After an interview on the current political situation, Governor Allen became reminiscent. A sc.r.a.p-book beats the best of memories in the world; so I will quote from my sc.r.a.p-book the exact text of this reminiscence. The Governor said:

"'Shortly after Arkansas was admitted into the Union, in 1836, I, being a member of Congress, then called at the White House. General Jackson--he always preferred to be called General, rather than Mr.

President--invited me to lunch with him. No sooner were we seated, than he said: Mr. Allen, let us take a little drink to the new star in the flag;--Arkansas! This ceremony being duly observed, the General continued: Allen, if there had been disaster, instead of victory, at New Orleans, there would never have been a State of Arkansas.

"'This, of course, interested me; and I asked: Why do you say that, General?

"'Then he answered that: If Pakenham had taken New Orleans, the British would have claimed and held the whole of Louisiana Purchase.