It is March 24th. Welcome to Episode 83 of History in a Year. Today, the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812 is fought after the war is already over. While the Treaty of Ghent is slowly sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, a massive British invasion fleet drops anchor off the coast of Louisiana. Their target is the wealthy port city of New Orleans. Standing in their way is Major General Andrew Jackson and the most bizarre, ragtag army ever assembled on American soil. We explore the legendary earthworks of “Line Jackson,” the unlikely alliance with a notorious pirate cartel, and the devastating, foggy morning that turned a British veteran army into a slaughterhouse.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 24th. Welcome to Episode 83. Yesterday, we watched American and British diplomats sign a peace treaty in Belgium on Christmas Eve, 1814.
LEAH:
But it’s going to take weeks for that piece of paper to cross the Atlantic Ocean. And while the politicians in Europe are shaking hands, a massive British armada is sailing directly for the Gulf Coast of the United States.
STEPHEN:
The British had a brand-new target: New Orleans. If they could capture the port city at the mouth of the Mississippi River, they could completely choke off the entire American economy in the West.
LEAH:
The British invasion force was terrifying. It was an armada of 50 ships carrying roughly 8,000 highly trained, battle-hardened veterans who had just defeated Napoleon in Europe. They were commanded by Major General Sir Edward Pakenham.
STEPHEN:
To defend the city, the United States government sent Major General Andrew Jackson.
LEAH:
Andrew Jackson was a fiercely aggressive, completely uncompromising frontier commander from Tennessee. He hated the British with a burning passion, largely because a British officer had slashed him across the face with a sword when Jackson was just a boy during the Revolution.
STEPHEN:
When Jackson arrived in New Orleans in late 1814, he realized he was massively outnumbered, and he was out of time. So, he declared martial law and started recruiting literally anyone who could hold a musket.
LEAH:
The army he assembled is arguably the most diverse and bizarre military force in American history.
STEPHEN:
He had his core group of rugged Tennessee and Kentucky frontiersmen, dressed in hunting shirts and carrying long rifles. He had regular US Army troops. He had two battalions of free Black men from New Orleans. He had a contingent of Choctaw warriors.
LEAH:
But his most controversial recruits were pirates.
STEPHEN:
Jackson struck a deal with Jean Lafitte, a notorious French pirate who ran a massive smuggling cartel in the swamps of Louisiana. Lafitte had men, ships, and most importantly, gunpowder and artillery. Jackson actually pardoned the pirates in exchange for their cannons and their elite gunners.
LEAH:
Jackson marched this wild, 4,000-man army about five miles south of the city to a place called the Chalmette Plantation.
STEPHEN:
It was a massive sugar cane field. On the right side was the Mississippi River. On the left side was an impenetrable, muddy cypress swamp. The British would be forced to march straight up the middle.
LEAH:
Jackson ordered his men to dig a massive trench across the entire field and pile the thick Louisiana mud into a fortified wall. They reinforced it with timber and cotton bales. It became known as “Line Jackson.”
STEPHEN:
On the morning of January 8, 1815, the British Army made their move.
LEAH:
The battlefield was completely covered in a thick, freezing fog. General Pakenham ordered his 8,000 veterans to form up in perfect, disciplined columns and march straight toward the American mud wall.
STEPHEN:
Pakenham’s plan relied on speed and precision. But almost immediately, things went catastrophically wrong for the British.
LEAH:
The British soldiers who were supposed to carry the heavy wooden ladders and bundles of sugarcane to bridge the American trench simply forgot them. They marched right up to the mud wall and realized they had no way to climb over it.
STEPHEN:
And right at that moment, the morning sun started to burn off the fog.
LEAH:
The Americans looked over their mud wall and saw a sea of red coats standing completely exposed in the open field, less than 100 yards away.
STEPHEN:
Jackson’s artillery—manned by Jean Lafitte’s pirates and regular army gunners—opened fire. They unleashed a devastating storm of grapeshot and cannonballs directly into the British columns.
LEAH:
Then, the Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen stepped up to the wall. Because their long rifles were so accurate, they didn’t just fire blind volleys. They specifically targeted the British officers on horseback.
STEPHEN:
The British columns were absolutely shredded. The soldiers were trapped. They couldn’t move forward without ladders, and their strict military discipline stopped them from breaking formation and running away. They just stood there and died.
LEAH:
General Pakenham rode to the front of the line to try and rally his terrified men. His horse was shot out from under him. He mounted a second horse, and he was immediately hit by grapeshot in the spine and killed.
STEPHEN:
Within thirty minutes, the entire British command structure was wiped out. The surviving officers finally ordered a retreat, leaving the bloody sugar cane field completely covered in red coats.
LEAH:
The casualty numbers are staggering. In less than an hour, the British suffered over 2,000 casualties—dead, wounded, or captured.
STEPHEN:
The American casualties? Roughly 70.
LEAH:
It was one of the most lopsided military victories in world history. Andrew Jackson had completely humiliated the greatest army on Earth.
STEPHEN:
Weeks later, the news of the victory at New Orleans finally reached Washington D.C.—almost at the exact same time that the peace treaty arrived from Europe.
LEAH:
Even though the battle didn’t actually change the terms of the treaty, the timing was perfect. To the American public, it felt like they had decisively won the war.
STEPHEN:
The War of 1812 launched the United States into a massive era of intense patriotism and national pride. And it turned a frontier general from Tennessee into the biggest celebrity in America.
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 84. The Rise of Andrew Jackson. We look at the immediate aftermath of New Orleans. The “Hero of the West” parlayed his military glory into massive political power, completely reshaping American democracy, destroying his enemies, and setting the stage for a populist takeover of the White House.
STEPHEN:
I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.