Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/252

 244 WILLIAM BARLOW Where Pakenham had made his brags, if he and fight were lucky, He would have his gals in cotton bags, in spite of old Kentucky. But Jackson he was wide awake, and wasn't dazed at trifles, For well he knew what aim we take with our Kentucky rifles. Pakenham had at least three to our one of regular British soldiers. He came on with all the pomp and dash of a Welling- ton. Jackson said : "Hold your fire, my boys, until you can see the whites of their eyes." When the word was given all along the line to "make ready, take aim, fire," Uncle John said it seemed as though the whole British army went down at once. Jackson again commanded, "Keep cool, my boys, take your time, load your rifles well, so every ball will tell, then give them plenty of time to rally and close up the ranks. We are per- fectly safe ; no ball will go through these cotton bales." So the second charge was worse than the first. Then Pakenham made a third desperate effort at the head of his invincibles, as he called them. But the third time he went down with them with a Kentucky ball through his most vital parts. All was lost; nobody to rally them, and army de- moralized. We had lost nothing, comparatively speaking. We had killed more than our whole army numbered, Uncle John said. Jackson declined to follow them, and said : "Let them go ; we have no guns to sink their ships, but we can whip them on land as fast they come ashore." Uncle John told us that Pakenham was corked up in a cask of whiskey and shipped back to England, but when the vessel arrived in Liverpool the general was there, but the brandy was gone. On investigation, it was found that the cask had a spigot in it or gimlet hole with plug in it that could be drawn any time. The sailors evidently thought that anything that would preserve flesh would have the same effect on their stomachs. So that ended the war of 1812. In fact, this battle was fought long after peace was declared. Henry Clay, one of our peace commissioners at Ghent, won a thousand guineas from one of