Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/24

 JACKSON

JACKSON

army, to fill the vacancy caused by the resigna- tion of William Henry Harrison, and he was assigned to the command of the Army of the South. The legislature of Mississiijpi Territory voted him a sword. On July 10, 1814, he assumed command at Fort Jackson, met the Creek In- dians, and after much diplomacy negotiated terms of peace known as the treaty of Fort Jack- son. He was detained at Fort Jackson an entire month, when he went to Mobile, arriving at the place, then a village of one hundred fifty houses, late in August, 1814. He immediately took possession of Fort Bowyer, on Mobile Point, where Major Laurence, with one hundred sixty men of the 2d U.S. infantry, garrisoned the fort, which was armed with two 24-pounders, six 12- pound ers and twelve small pieces. On Sept. 12, 1814, the fort was invested by a land force of marines and Indians numbering about two hun- dred, commanded by Colonel Nichols, supported by a British ileet of four vessels with eighty guns, commanded by Captain Percy. On the 13th fire was opened by the investing land force with a howitzer, and on the 15th the battle was fought, resulting in a loss to the British of thirty-two killed and forty wounded and the Hermes wrecked on the shore, while the garrison lost four killed and ten wounded. Then followed the invasion of Florida, at that time Spanish territory. On No- vember 3, with 8000 men and rations for eight days, he left Mobile ; reached Pensacola on the 6th ; took possession of the town on the 7th ; the British fled on the 8th, and on the 11th Jackson with his army was back in Mobile. It was not till Nov. 25, 1814, that General Coffee reached Mobile with an army of 2800 men, and on the 26th Jackson took command of the reinforced army of 4000 men, of which 1000 were regulars and the balance raw militia and Indians. On November 22 he left Mobile with his staff, and arrived in New Orleans Dec. 3, 1814, where he was met by Gen. W. C. C. Claiborne, Commodore Patterson, U.S.N., Nicholas Girod, mayor of New Orleans, and Edward Livingston and John R. Gregnes, representing the New Orleans bar. When the formalities of his reception were over, heat once reviewed the uniformed militia, which had been hastily made up of merchants, lawyers, clerks and planters' sons. He made Edward Livingston his aide-de-camp and interpreter, the language spoken in the city being French. The approach to the city by Lake Borgne was defended by a fleet of six gunboats, carrying twenty-three guns and manned by one hundred eighty-two men under Lieut. Thomas ap Catesby Jones. The land force was made up of two half-filled regiments of regulars lately recruited ; a battalion of uni- formed volunteers ; two regiments of state militia

insufficiently armed and equipped and without training or discipline, and a battalion of free colored men, in all less than 2000 men. In the river were the schooner Carolina and the ship Louisiana, neither of them in cominission. The army left at Mobile was en route, commanded by General Coffee, and General Carroll was floating swiftly down the Mississippi with a volunteer force of Tennesseeans whom he was drilling daily on the roofs of the decks of his fleet of trans- ports, and Generals Thomas and Adair were on their way down the Mississippi with 2000 Ken- tuckians, unarmed and with insufficient clothing, blankets and camp equipage. The British force included a fleet of fifty armed vessels of the best class in the British navy, while more on the way from Bordeaux, Pensacola and England, were expected at any moment ; and on these ships were four regiments who had fought at Bladensburg and burned the capitol at Washington ; four regiments from England, direct from the Penin- sular battle fields ; two regiments of negro troops from the West Indies, and 1500 marines : 8900 men in all, fully armed and equipped, besides nearly 10,000 sailors who could be landed in an emergency. On December 14 the English flotilla advanced on the little crafts of Lieutenant Jones in Lake Borgne drawn up across the channel anchored by the stern with springs to the cables, and the unequal flght was soon over, the current running out and the absence of wind preventing any escape. The Americans were taken on board by the British and their wounded cared for. Martial law was declared in New Orleans, Decem- ber 16, which restored ox'der and confidence, and on Sunday, the 18th, Jackson removed the troops then in the city, and Edward Livingston read his addresses "To tlie Embodied Militia," "To the Battalion of Uniform Companies,'" and " To tlie Men of Color." On the 19th General Coffee arrived with eight hundred men, and the same day Colonel Hinds, with a regiment of Missis- sippi dragoons who had marched two hundred thirty miles in four days. On December 22 Gen- eral Carroll arrived with his regiment of Tennes- seeans and a supply of muskets, and on the same day 1600 British troops landed at the mouth of the Bayou Bienvenue, only eight miles from New Orleans. General Jackson lost no time in going out to meet the enemy, and the same afternoon 2131 American troops advanced to the Rodriguez canal, six miles below the city and two miles from the landing place of the British troops. Commodore Patterson was ordered to drop down the river with the Carolina, and Captain Henly and Captain Butler of Jackson's staff alone re- mained in command of the city. On December 23, at 7.30 P.M., the Carolina opened a broadside over the plain and other broadsides followed in