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and silenced nearly all of their guns. Under cover of the night, they again. withdrew from the unprofitable contest. Our loss on this day was eleven killed and twenty-three wounded; while that of the enemy, from their very exposed situation, must have been severely great.

The opposite side of the river, or the right bank, now became an object of attention with both armies. Commodore Patterson had landed some of the guns of the Louisiana, and erected a battery on the bank, opposite the main works on the left side, for the purpose of co-operating with the right of our lines, and flanking the enemy in his advance up the river to attack them. After the affair on the 1st of January, the battery was enlarged by landing and mounting more guns, and a furnace was prepared to heat shot, with a view to fire the houses between the two armies, which were occupied by the British. The Louisiana militia and New Orleans contingent were also stationed at that place under General D. B. Morgan, for the purpose of repelling any attack on the battery, or any attempt to move up on that side and annoy the city across the river, which the enemy might make. On the 4th, General Morgan began to throw up a breastwork, and mounted three twelve-pounders for the defense of his troops. On the 4th, also, the Kentucky detachment under General Thomas arrived at the city. They were nearly destitute of arms, for they had brought but a few with them from home, and those which had been shipped in trading-boats at Pittsburgh had not yet arrived. They were ordered to encamp at the canal of Madame Piernass, one mile above the American lines, until they could be equipped for service. The city was now ransacked for arms to supply the Kentuckians. By the 7th, a sufficient number was collected and repaired, together with a loan obtained by General Adair from a corps of exempts, to arm the regiment commanded by Colonel Slaughter, and the battalion under Major Harrison. These corps, one thousand strong, were then marched down to the lines, under the command of General Adair, Major-General Thomas being unwell, and were posted immediately in the rear of General Carroll's division, to support the center of our works.

The enemy in the meantime were engaged, on the suggestion of Admiral Cochrane, in enlarging a canal which connected the Mississippi with bayou Bienvenue, to enable them to draw their boats through it into the river, and make an attack on our establishment under Patterson and Morgan. On the 7th, their operations were reconnoitered across the river by the commodore, who ascertained in the evening that they had nearly completed the undertaking. He immediately communicated this information to Jackson, with a request that re-enforcements might be sent over, to assist in the defense of his position. The general accordingly ordered four hundred of the unarmed Kentuckians, to go up to the city where they would be supplied with arms, and then come down on the opposite side to Morgan. It was in the night when they marched; and a supply of indifferent arms could be procured for no more than two hundred, who proceeded to their place of destination,

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while the balance returned to camp. About one o'clock in the morning of the 8th, the commodore discovered that the enemy had gotten their barges into the river, and that an uncommon stir was prevailing in their camp, of which the commanding general was duly notified.

No doubt now existed in the American camp, that another formidable attack was on the point of being carried into execution on both sides of the river. As the enemy had already been twice repulsed, it was reasonable to expect that his third attempt would be desperate and bloody. Our main army, however, was well prepared to receive him, and anxious for an assault to be made. The whole extent of our works, about eighteen hundred yards from the river to the swamp, was well finished, well manned with brave soldiers, and well defended with artillery. The regulars, with part of the militia from Louisiana, occupied six hundred yards on the right, next to the river; General Carroll's division occupied eight hundred yards in the center, and General Coffee defended the balance of the works on the left. The Kentuckians, formed in two lines, occupied four hundred yards in the center, close in the rear of General Carroll's command.

As soon as the dawn of day enabled us to see some distance in front of our lines, the enemy were discovered advancing in great force, formed in two powerful columns on the right and left, and prepared with fascines and scaling-ladders to storm our works. Their left column, which was the least, was led up the bank of the river by General Keane, while their main column was conducted against the center of our works by General Gibbs. A third column was held in reserve, under the command of General Lambert. The ground over which they had to march to the assault was a perfect level, beautifully overgrown with clover, and without any intervening obstruction whatever. The signal for the onset was the discharge of a rocket from the head of their column next the river, when their whole force rent the air with a shout, and advanced briskly to the charge. A tremendous cannonade was at the same time opened on our works from their mortars and field artillery, and from a battery of six eighteen-pounders, which they had erected within five hundred yards of our lines.

Their attack was received by our troops with the utmost firmness and bravery, and their fire immediately returned by the artillery on our works, under the direction of deliberate and skillful officers, who tore their columns, as they approached, with a frightful carnage. As soon as the heads of their columns had arrived within the range of our small arms, they were assailed in a manner still more destructive, by the steady, deliberate, well-aimed fire of our rifles and musketry. Though they advanced under this havoc with firmness and intrepidity, yet, ere they could reach our works, they were thrown into confusion and repulsed. But the brave officers who led them soon rallied their flying troops, reformed their shattered columns, and led them the second time to the charge, with renovated vigor and fury. In vain was their bravery, in vain the utmost exertion of their powers; they only

renewed the charge to suffer a new repulse, with redoubled carnage. Their principal column advancing against the center of our works was opposed by the strongest part of our lines, consisting of Tennessee and Kentucky marksmen, at least six men deep. These poured forth a sheet of fire, which cut down the ranks of the enemy like grass by the scythe of a mower. Yet their heavy columns pressed on with such force and desperation, that many of their men at last entered the ditch in front of our breastworks, where they were shot down in heaps at the very muzzles of our guns.

Slaughtered, shattered, and disordered, they were again forced to retire. Their leaders, however, apparently resolved on victory or total destruction, again rallied and brought them up a third time to the charge. But their principal officers being now slain and disabled, and their strength greatly broken and spent, this last effort was less successful than the former. They were soon forced to fall back in disorder on their column of reserve, with which they pursued a precipitate and disorderly retreat to their camp, under a galling fire from our batteries, leaving the field covered with the dying. and the dead. General Packenham was killed, and Generals Keane and Gibbs were both severely wounded, the latter of whom died a few days. afterward. Colonel Rannie was also killed, a brave and intrepid officer, who, in the second charge, entered the bastion on our right, at the head of his men, but was immediately slain and his followers repulsed by our brave regulars and Beale's company of city riflemen. The action lasted about an hour, and terminated in a decisive and total defeat of the enemy.

On the other side of the river our armies experienced a reverse. The battery erected by Commodore Patterson was constructed for annoying the enemy across the river, and raking the front of our works on the left side. During the attack this morning it was employed in that way with considerable effect. But before the action ceased on the left, an attack was also made on the right bank. The eighty-fifth regiment, with some seamen and marines, having crossed the river opposite the British camp, and led by Colonel Thornton, advanced under cover of some field pieces, and put to flight some troops commanded by Major Arno, who had been sent down to oppose their landing. Continuing their march up the river, they next attacked the two hundred Kentuckians under Colonel Davis, who had been sent half a mile in front of our works to oppose them. After a sharp skirmish, Colonel Davis retreated by order of General Morgan, with the loss of about thirty men, in killed, wounded, and missing. Having reached the entrenchment, he was ordered to post his men on the right of the Louisiana militia. The guns in the battle could not be employed against Colonel Thornton until they were turned in their embrasures, which was not undertaken until it was too late to accomplish it before the charge was made. General Morgan had five hundred Louisiana militia safely posted behind a finished breastwork, which extended two hundred yards from the battery, at right angles to the river, and was defended by three pieces of artillery. The one hundred

KENTUCKIANS WRONGFULLY BLAMED.

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and seventy remaining Kentuckians on his right were scattered along a ditch three hundred yards in extent, and still further on the right there were several hundred yards of open ground entirely undefended. In this situation of things, the enemy, with steady pace, continued advancing to the charge in two columns, under the cover of a shower of rockets. Their right column, advancing next the river, was thrown into disorder and driven back by Morgan's artillery; the other, advancing against the Kentuckians, was resisted by their small arms till a party of the assailants had turned their right flank and commenced a fire on their rear. Overpowered by numbers in front, assailed in their rear, and unsupported by their companions in arms, they were at last compelled to retreat from their untenable position. The Louisiana militia then retreated also from their breastwork and artillery before they had felt the pressure of the enemy. Commodore Patterson, perceiving how the contest would issue, spiked his cannon, and was ready to join in the retreat with his marines. The enemy pursued them some distance up the river, and then returned to destroy the battery and other works.

Patterson and Morgan were conscious that they had acted badly, the former in not turning his guns in time, and the latter in leaving his right flank weak, uncovered, and unsupported, while his main force was uselessly concentrated behind the breastwork. They determined to throw the whole blame of the defeat on the handful of Kentuckians who had the misfortune to be present and to do all the fighting that was done, except a few discharges from the artillery. They induced General Jackson to report to the war department that "the Kentucky re-enforcement ingloriously fled, drawing after them, by their example, the remainder of the forces," and the commodore, in his report to the navy department, stigmatized them in terms still more offensive. A court of inquiry was demanded by Colonel Davis, before which the facts were proven as above detailed. The court, however, merely pronounced the Kentuckians excusable. This being deemed unsatisfactory, General Adair again pressed the subject on the commanderin-chief, and at last obtained a dry, reluctant sentence of justification. The detachment did all, at least, that could be expected from brave men, if it was not entitled to the praise of uncommon gallantry.

Our victory on the left bank of the river was very complete and decisive. The inequality of loss in the opposing armies was probably unparalleled in the annals of warfare; ours being only six killed and seven wounded in the main battle, while that of the enemy was estimated at two thousand six hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Immediately after the action an armistice for a few hours was craved and obtained by the enemy, for the purpose of burying their dead and taking care of the wounded. A line was then designated across the field of battle, to which they were allowed to come; and between that line and the breastwork, four hundred and eightytwo dead bodies were counted and carried out, while it was estimated that upward of two hundred lay upon the outside of it. The killed was, there

fore, set down at seven hundred; and supposing, as usual, that twice that number were wounded, the whole killed and wounded would be twenty-one hundred; five hundred prisoners were captured, making a total of twentysix hundred.

Lieutenant-General Packenham, who was killed, was an officer of great distinction. He was brother-in-law to the celebrated Lord Wellington, under whom he had been trained. Most of the troops he commanded had also fought and signalized themselves under that commander in Spain. Our effective force engaged at the works, according to the official returns, was a little upward of four thousand, of which two thousand were Tennesse militia, one thousand Kentucky militia, and more than one thousand regulars and Louisiana militia. The force engaged on the part of the enemy was not known, but his whole number present was believed to be between eight and ten thousand, the original force of the expedition having been much above those figures.

Though the enemy succeeded in their enterprise upon the right bank of the river, they met with considerable loss there also. Their killed and wounded in that affair being near one hundred; among the latter, Colonel Thornton, severely. Our loss was comparatively small, perhaps not half that number.

After setting fire, not only to the platform and carriages of the battery, but to all the private dwelling-houses for several miles along the river, the detachment retreated over to the main camp, carrying with them two field pieces and a brass howitzer. The object of the enterprise was to wrest the battery from Patterson before the main attack was made, with a view to employ it in raking Jackson's line, instead of flanking their own columns. From some cause, the detachment did not get over the river as soon as they intended, and in time to prevent the battery from answering the purpose for which it had been erected. Morgan and Patterson immediately reoccupied their old position, when the enemy retreated. They began to drill the cannon and repair the works, and in a few days were again ready for efficient service.

On the day after the great battle, an attack was made by the enemy on Fort St. Philip, commanded by Major Overton, with a view to bring their armed vessels up the river, to co-operate with the land forces in the capture of the city. Major Overton received intelligence of their intention as early as the 1st of January, and was well prepared. They doubtless had intended to carry the fort, and get up the river in time for the main contest, but were prevented by the difficulty of ascending.

On the 9th, two bomb-vessels, a brig, a sloop, and a schooner came to anchor about two miles below the fort, and commenced an attack with seamortars of ten and thirty inches caliber. They continued the bombardment nine days without intermission, and without molestation, for their position was beyond the range of the guns in the fort. In this period they threw

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