Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans Read online

  Back in Mobile, Jackson continued his writing campaign. One of his correspondents was Governor William Claiborne. Jackson was looking beyond Fort Bowyer and Pensacola, worrying about New Orleans.

  Though born and educated in Virginia, the ambitious young Claiborne had, by the age of twenty-five, already earned a law degree, moved west, and served as a congressman (he won Andrew Jackson’s vacated seat in 1797). After a decade as governor of New Orleans, he carried himself with what some saw as a haughty confidence; he relished his power and influence in Louisiana. The governor was respected for his administrative abilities but not loved by those he governed, with whom he, as a Virginian, had little in common.

  Jackson’s letter to him was a warning: “The present intention of Britain,” he told his former Washington colleague “is to make an attack on [Mobile], and New Orleans. Part of the British force for this purpose, has landed at Pensacola, and the balance, hourly expected.”

  The letter was also an urgent call to arms: “You must summon up all your energy, your quota of militia must be in the field without delay. . . . The country must and shall be defended.”7 From Mobile, the best Jackson could do was to urge Claiborne to raise the alarm. Somehow, Jackson hoped, the governor would begin pulling Creoles and Anglos, Indians and freemen, and the rest to fight together.

  The British clearly expected to win Mobile and to move on to New Orleans. The odds that Jackson’s small army could repel them seemed slim. But the pugnacious General Jackson, channeling his long-simmering anger, was as always ready to fight. Writing home to Tennessee, he reported on the prospect of the British taking Mobile, resolving solemnly, “Th[ere] will be bloody noses before this happens.”8

  The Burning of Washington

  When Jackson wrote to the secretary of war in Washington, he did not know that, days earlier, partly due to John Armstrong’s incompetence, the nation’s capital had sustained a terrible attack.

  Back on August 16, a British fleet of some fifty warships had been sighted in Chesapeake Bay. Though its presence was clearly a sign of nothing good, the Americans were unsure what to expect. In an eerie parallel to Jackson’s situation near New Orleans, Madison and his men in Washington received only fractured reports concerning the enemy force; British strategy and even their ultimate objective were uncertain. One option was to attack Annapolis, Maryland’s capital. General Armstrong didn’t think that likely; he was certain the enemy would attack Baltimore, a busy commercial city. Armstrong assured Madison that Washington was safe—he thought it had little strategic value—but others worried that if the armada veered into the nearby Patuxent River, the British could land troops and move on the capital.

  On August 20, Secretary of State James Monroe took it upon himself to find out and rode to a nearby hilltop from which he could see the enemy fleet. And there, before him on the shore of Benedict, Maryland, he saw the British had established a base camp and soldiers were coming ashore. Their exact target still wasn’t certain, but there was no doubt an invasion had begun.

  On August 24, the British played their hand: At the little town of Bladensburg, eight miles from Washington, the British attacked. The town’s American defenders—a mix of militiamen from Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, almost none of whom were in uniform—were no match for the men in bright red coats. Dragoons on horseback led the charge across the bridge that defined the sleepy village on the East Branch of the Potomac River. A flood of British infantryman followed, bearing polished bayonets that glinted in the sun. To the intimidating sound of exploding rockets overhead, the king’s veteran troops drove into the American line. General Armstrong had expected his troops to hold off the outnumbered British—there were some four thousand British troops facing perhaps seven thousand American defenders—but he was wrong. Led by the British general Robert Ross and Sir George Cockburn, a hot-tempered admiral in the Royal Navy, the enemy sliced through the line of intimidated militiamen, captured Bladensburg, and headed straight for Washington.

  Madison and the other government officials had been watching the battle from an overlook and had to rush back to Washington, making it there just in time to join a larger retreat. Before fleeing, the First Lady and others had sought to save a few precious relics—a portrait of Washington, a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the Library of Congress—but a few hours later, after stopping for an afternoon dinner, the British marched into a nearly empty Washington. Then shots rang out, as hidden snipers fired into the ranks of the 150-man British force. The angry British commander regarded the snipers’ behavior as “dastardly and provoking.” He promptly ordered the house from which the muskets fired set afire.

  That would be the first of a series of conflagrations. Next it was off to the president’s house. When the British arrived there, they found Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s dinner table still set, the aroma of cooking food still wafting up from the recently abandoned kitchen. They drank the president’s wine and ate a generous meal before building bonfires in the rooms and retreating to the street to watch the mansion burn. By nine o’clock, great billows of flame reached into the sky; the Capitol had also become an inferno and by morning it was a roofless, smoking ruin, and the light gray stone of the president’s house had been burned black.

  The British made a point of sacking the offices of the Washington newspaper the National Intelligencer, building a bonfire to burn its type and presses. The Intelligencer was known for printing stories critical of Cockburn, and he was determined to teach its editor and readers a lesson. “Be sure all the c’s are destroyed,” he is said to have told his men, “so that they can’t abuse my name anymore.”

  In the end, it wasn’t the brave efforts of the American people that put out the fires or stopped the destruction. Only the arrival, with miraculous timing, of a powerful storm prevented more of the city from being damaged by the flames. Rain poured down and strong winds blew, lifting British cannons off the ground, according to some reports. Others claimed that the storm formed a tornado, a rare phenomenon in Washington. Whatever the case, the British were discouraged and the fires quenched thanks not to the work of men, but to an act of God.

  Although the British returned to their ships several days later, President James Madison and the U.S. Congress were left homeless. The attack tore the fabric of the nation, too, with hopes of a peace deal growing dim. Many of the northern states had refused to go to war; the Eastern Seaboard was ill equipped to fight off its attackers, and when it came to protecting the new nation’s capital, no one had fought. Perhaps more than ever before America needed something—or someone—to knit the country back together.

  The events of August 24 also meant that when Jackson’s dispatch arrived in Washington, it didn’t land on John Armstrong’s desk. That desk was gone—the building the War and Treasury Departments shared had also been torched—and John Armstrong had been dismissed. At Madison’s request, James Monroe took on a second job in the cabinet, becoming secretary of war as well as secretary of state. Yet even Monroe, despite his good intentions, would not be able to provide much help to his Tennessee general, given that the national government was struggling to survive and reestablish itself.

  Meanwhile, one of the first British ships to arrive in the Gulf of Mexico was about to make its presence felt. But the British success did something they never expected. It galvanized more ambivalent Americans, who now found themselves motivated to support the war as they realized that America was facing not only the possibility of defeat, but of complete destruction.

  A Message from the British

  On the morning of September 2, 1814, the British Sophie sailed into view, sailing directly for the shallow channel that led to Barataria Bay, south of the city of New Orleans. The two-masted warship, armed with eighteen guns, dropped anchor several miles from shore. British gunners fired a cannon, but the men on shore recognized that it was a greeting, not an act of war.

  Since 1805, the island of Grand
Terre had been home to the men who thought of themselves as coastal privateers. They had fled the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo following the slave rebellion that led to the founding of the independent nation of Haiti. Their adopted home in Barataria Bay offered access to New Orleans via the muddy waters of shallow streams, bayous, and channels camouflaged by reeds and grasses. In turn, the city provided a ready market for captured goods. Led by a pair of brothers, Jean and Pierre Lafitte, the pirates had constructed dozens of warehouses deep in the bayous on Grand Terre Island, all the while maintaining businesses in the city, including a store on Royal Street (where Jean could often be found) and a blacksmith shop, operated by Pierre, on St. Philip Street. The store offered a wide range of hard-to-find goods to the well-to-do of New Orleans, and the shop doubled as an in-town warehouse.

  The British had arrived in Barataria Bay to seek a parley. Like Jackson, the British understood that they would need local knowledge of the New Orleans landscape in order to take the city. They expected to conquer Mobile first but were confident enough of their success that they were looking ahead, and the HMS Sophie approached Grand Terre hoping to find the guidance they needed.

  Who better to provide it? With their fleet of perhaps thirty vessels, the pirates routinely attacked shipping in the Gulf, taking as prizes passing merchant ships flying the British and especially the Spanish flag. After capturing their prey—their artillery was considerable, their daring greater—the pirates would disappear into the sanctuary of the bayous, beneath the canopy of live oaks laden with Spanish moss. These backwater buccaneers knew the terrain around New Orleans as no one else did.

  From the deck of the Sophie, British sailors lowered a longboat, flying a flag of truce, into the waters. Two uniformed officers were aboard—one was the Sophie’s commander, Captain Nicholas Lockyer—along with a handful of sailors who rowed for shore.

  Soon a second boat launched from the beach, rowing toward the small British vessel. One Baratarian stood in its bow, and four pirates manned the oars.

  When the two bobbing vessels were within hailing distance, a British voice called out, in French, “We are looking for Jean Lafitte.”9

  “Follow me,” called the tall, thin man with the long mustache standing in the bow.

  With the two boats now headed for the beach, more and more Baratarians assembled on the shore to greet them. Some in boots, some barefoot, the pirates in their brightly colored pantaloons and blouses stood in contrast to the uniformed men of the Royal Navy. Knives, cutlasses, and pistols hung from their belts, and bandannas covered their heads. These men deserved the name that Andrew Jackson soon coined for them: they were “piratical banditti.”

  When the boats were drawn onto the sand, the pirates crowded toward the handful of British visitors. With no more than a movement of his head, the tall man stepping from the pirate boat made it plain that the men on the shore should keep their distance. He then turned to the leader of the English, Captain Lockyer.

  To the visitor’s surprise, the elegant man identified himself, speaking in his native French.

  “Monsieur,” he said, “I am Lafitte.”

  He beckoned them to follow.

  The British Proposition

  Jean Lafitte’s comfortable house had a broad covered gallery, a deep porch in the Caribbean style, which looked out on the Gulf. There Lafitte served his British guests fish and game, Spanish wine, and the fruits of the Indies. He offered Cuban cigars.10 Only then did he examine a packet of letters handed him by the visitors. They contained the terms of a British proposal.

  “I call on you, with your brave followers, to enter into the service of Great Britain, in which you shall have the rank of a captain,” Lafitte read. “Your ships and vessels [will] be placed under the orders of the commanding officer on this station.”11 Lafitte and his were men were being invited—or were they being forced?—into British service.

  Lafitte looked upon his guests and they, in turn, studied this unusual man. At thirty-four, he was something of a mystery. Some said he was born in Bordeaux. Or was his birthplace Haiti? He was dark-haired and sunburned. Rumor had it he had served in both the British and the French navies and had been incarcerated for a time in a Spanish prison, but no one seemed certain. Clearly he was not a man to be easily intimidated, and he had a shrewd and adventuresome look. Renowned for his skills both as a fencer in battle and as a dancer in society, he carried himself with a gentleman’s grace.

  Through his translator, Lockyer assured Lafitte the offer was a generous one. For his cooperation in fighting the United States, Lafitte would be paid $30,000 in cash. There would be grants of land for him and his men, pardons for former British subjects, and other guarantees.

  Next Lafitte gained confirmation of the rumor he had already heard: yes, New Orleans was to be attacked by the British.

  But along with the carrot came the stick: Should Lafitte and the Baratarians choose not to side with the British, a great armada of ships would make Grand Terre their target. The refusal of the offer to join forces would result in the obliteration of the village at Barataria, along with every pirate sailing vessel.

  The message was clear: Join us or we will destroy you.

  When Lafitte spoke, his words to the British officers were measured and diplomatic.

  He needed to consider the proposal before him, he said. His habit of closing one eye when he spoke suited his words; he could not, he explained, give an immediate answer. They were his guests, but as they had seen on the beach, he reminded them, they were among violent men, many of whom were hostile to the British. He needed to discuss any proposed alliance with his fellow privateers. But he promised his English visitors safe passage back to their ship in the morning. With their little boat now under pirate guard, the men of the Royal Navy had no choice but to agree.

  Good to his word, Jean Lafitte saw his visitors off the following morning and, after their departure, he drafted a formal response.

  He opened his letter with an apology for being unable to give an immediate answer, but the pirate leader stood firm: He needed time to decide. After taking two weeks to put his affairs in order, he would meet the British again with an answer. When he finished writing, he ordered his letter be delivered to the HMS Sophie and, later in the day, he watched the warship as her unfurled sails caught the breeze. The Sophie headed out to sea, making for the deep Gulf waters and a return to Pensacola.

  The Baratarians and the British would indeed meet again—but on terms yet to be determined.

  Lafitte wrote a second letter, this one addressed to a trusted friend in New Orleans. Writing as a “true American,” Lafitte confided that he wished to be of service to his adopted country. “I make you the depository of the secret on which perhaps depends the tranquillity of our country,”12 he wrote, before recounting the story of the arrival of the British ship at Grand Terre.

  Lafitte had decided to play the double agent, offering the Americans fair warning of the British plan.

  His third letter of the morning was addressed to Governor William Claiborne. “I tender my services to defend [Louisiana],” he told Claiborne. “I am the stray sheep, wishing to return to the sheepfold.”13

  Whether General Jackson wanted the help of the piratical banditti or not, Lafitte had just declared himself at his service in the fight to save New Orleans.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jackson Unleashed

  I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me.

  —Andrew Jackson

  More than a week would pass before Andrew Jackson learned of the British visit to Barataria. He was 150 miles away in Mobile—and worrying about the security of that port. For him the stakes were clear: if he didn’t hold Mobile, the British would have a clear road to New Orleans.

  Knowing Fort Bowyer was Mobile’s first line of defense, Jackson wanted to be sure he could keep the town safe and secured. On the evening of Sep
tember 13, 1814, the general, together with a small guard of infantrymen, climbed aboard a schooner. Sailing south that evening toward Fort Bowyer, the little craft was well short of its destination when, at about eleven o’clock, another schooner hailed Jackson’s vessel. She brought bad news: It was too late for Jackson to inspect Mobile’s defenses. “A number of British armed ships . . . lay off the bar, and from their maneuvering and sounding, etc., showed a design of attacking that fort, or passing it for Mobile.”1

  Jackson, with no wish to be captured by a vastly superior force, ordered the crew to reverse course and return to Mobile. There was no way for him to consult with Colonel Lawrence. At this point, all he could do was pray that the little fort withstood the attack and prepare Mobile to face the British if it didn’t.

  Unknown to Jackson, a small force of 72 Royal Marines and 130 Indian recruits had landed nine miles east of Fort Bowyer three days earlier. Armed with a cannon and a howitzer, they planned to attack the fort from behind, while four warships, mounted with seventy-eight guns, would attack from the sea. Even now, the Hermes, the Carron, and the sloops Sophie and Anaconda were sailing around Mobile Point, getting into position.

  By the afternoon of September 15, all was ready. The British announced their presence with the roar of cannons, firing their guns in unison at four o’clock in the afternoon. Fortunately for the Americans, the wind wasn’t cooperating, which meant just two of the British warships, the HMS Sophie and the flotilla’s flagship, the HMS Hermes, had managed to maneuver into firing range.

  With enemy shots and shells bombarding their fortification, Colonel Lawrence and his men returned fire. They had little time to answer that attack from the sea before the attack from the land began.