The Magnolia Duchess

by Beth White

  “Whose idea was it,” Pakenham demanded, “to haul men and boats and artillery over the lake and across these infernal swamps? Could we not have found a way to come across dry land, instead of wedging an entire army in an elbow between a river and a cypress bog?”

  And on it went until Fiona feared Keane might let loose and hurl a ham bone at his new commander-in-chief.

  The next day was little better. Pakenham expected the artillery and ammunition he had ordered to be delivered first thing in the morning. It arrived after dark, just when the troops were bedding down for the night.

  By dawn of the twenty-seventh, the British had set up nine cannons of various sizes in batteries scooped out of the top of the levee and aimed them across the river. The second salvo hit the Carolina at point-blank range, setting off a massive explosion that Fiona was sure could be heard in Mobile. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could have gotten out alive, but Ishmael later told her that most of the Baratarian crew escaped with two of the cannons before she caught fire and sank. Meanwhile, the USS Louisiana had rowed upriver out of range. Perhaps they’d somehow been warned of British plans.

  On the twenty-eighth, a beautiful, balmy morning sparkling under sunshine and blue skies, Fiona hovered outside the library, listening to a loud and vehement altercation between Pakenham and an officer named Gibbs. Interspersed with some colorful language that made Fiona blink, Colonel Gibbs gave his superior to understand that “those cursed Choctaws and dirty-shirts in the woods and swamps are picking off our men one and two at a time, but if we send a reconnaissance in force, we can determine their strength and at the same time scare them out of their wits. Rennie says he can take them with reinforcements.”

  “We’re not committing ourselves to certain annihilation,” Pakenham replied. “I’ve a report that the American position can’t be turned. The only option is a gradual, orderly retreat while we wait for General Lambert’s reinforcements and more big guns brought up from the fleet. It may take a few days, but we’ll move up for a siege after we’re fully prepared. We outnumber and outgun them, and they’ll eventually have to give way.”

  “But, sir, a siege requires ladders and fascines to be moved up to the battle site overnight—and batteries for bigger guns must be dug in stable ground. Two feet down in this confounded bog, and you’re under water!”

  “Those are my orders, and it is your job and Keane’s to implement them, Gibbs.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gibbs growled. “As you say, sir.”

  Fiona jumped back as the colonel slammed out of the library and stomped past her. Halfway down the hall, he turned.

  “Miss . . . Lanier, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.” She curtseyed, trying to look innocent and stupid.

  “Please have the servants strip the house of every fabric length available. Curtains, sheets, bed hangings. Everything.”

  She gaped at him. “But why?”

  “We’re going to tear them up for ammunition cartridges.”

  Oh dear. Madame was not going to like that.

  “And have the field slaves bring up every sugar cask on the plantation. We’re going to use them to build the batteries for this—” he spit out another foul word—“siege.” The colonel disappeared, presumably in search of a stiff drink.

  Fiona slowly made her way to the big sitting room—now the hospital, where some thirty soldiers lay, still recovering from the night attack of the twenty-third. She possessed information that would be useful to the Americans, if she could only get it to them. She wasn’t watched closely, the officers in headquarters busy with far more important matters than keeping track of the barely tolerated sister of a pirate.

  What would her mother do in her place? What would Aunt Lyse do?

  She couldn’t go wandering off into the woods or through the swamp without getting lost or bitten by a snake or something equally horrible. On the other side of the plantation, troops were stationed along the levee, preventing unauthorized movement. If she had a uniform and a horse, she might pass as a messenger and get through the lines, but then how would she get safely into the American camp? She would be shot on sight.

  This was going to require deep thinking, alertness, and prayer. And the latter seemed the best place to start.

  18

  JANUARY 3, 1815

  BAYOU BIENVENUE OUTSIDE NEW ORLEANS

  Moving up Bayou Bienvenue aboard the Alceste, under the command of Captain James Laurence, Charlie reflected that his career of late had been a regular carousel of boats, ships, and captains. The present assignment was reconnaissance as to American strength on the west bank of the Mississippi. Admiral Cochrane, ever butting heads with General Pakenham as to strategy, seemed to think a weakness might be found there and exploited.

  In Charlie’s private assessment, Cochrane’s concern was justified. During the last two days of December, he and sixty-some-odd long-suffering sailors had all but broken their backs, lugging guns from the fleet by boat across Lake Borgne and as far as possible up the bayous, then on foot through the swamps and over the canefields—only to be greeted by Pakenham with the news that they must add the two big guns already at Villeré and haul the entire arsenal another three muddy miles to the batteries being erected across from the American position at the Rodriguez canal. Overnight.

  It had been an exhausting and pointless endeavor. Pakenham had planned to attack at sunup, but inevitably dense fog obscured the American line. In a maddening twist, while cooling their heels, impatient to go on the offensive, His Majesty’s finest had to listen to a couple of American bands serenade them out of the fog with tunes such as “La Marseillaise,” “Yankee Doodle,” and “Chant du Départ.” Finally, midmorning, the fog lifted like a penny opera curtain to reveal the American forces lined up on parade—flags flying, bands playing, and ladies in carriages watching from a distance.

  The British gunners recovered from their stunned disbelief and attacked. The first shots blew holes in the McCarty plantation house, where Andrew Jackson and his staff had made their headquarters. But British exultation turned to grim concentration as the enemy sorted themselves out and flew to their guns to return fire.

  Pakenham had accomplished his goal of taking the American army by surprise.

  But to Charlie’s disgust, the artillery exchange fizzled by noon. The Americans discovered early on that the impressive new British Congreave rockets provided more flash and noise than actual damage—and thereupon coolly ignored them as they whirled and sizzled and streaked past. The gun platforms Charlie’s men had worked so hard to put together overnight wobbled on the soft ground, and the batteries themselves—rib-high stacks of sugar hogsheads filled with dirt—provided little protection from American sniper fire and cannon shot. Then, out of ammunition and humiliated, they had to withdraw, leaving the American militiamen and pirates hooting and jeering in their wake.

  Following this setback, with no way to get past Jackson and too much invested in the invasion to go back, Pakenham decided to send a force across the Mississippi to take out the American artillery on the west bank that had harassed them from the beginning. Once more, the general and the admiral almost came to blows. Cochrane wanted to widen and deepen the Villeré canal in order to float the boats over—necessitating a day and night of nonstop digging, then cutting the levee and building a dam to fill it with water—while Pakenham mistrusted the stability of a muddy handmade dam. In a nasty series of tit-for-tat moves, Cochrane won that battle, but when he wanted to send Charlie along with Colonel Thornton on the mission, Pakenham balked.

  Which was how Charlie wound up sailing up Bayou Bienvenue aboard the Alceste.

  He just wanted it to be over. If he had all the information available and could make decisions for himself, he wouldn’t feel so rudderless. He wanted his life, the sacrifices he made, to lead to some greater purpose than winning prize money and promotion for his commanding officers. He wanted a wife (one specific wife, please God) and children, so that his grandfather’s legacy of
serving God and family and his fellow man would go on.

  With a sigh, he took out his spyglass to scan the forward horizon—and jerked it to a halt when a small boat came into focus. Collapsing the glass, he clattered down three ladders to get to the helm.

  “Captain! There’s a boat up ahead, about a quarter mile away, hidden in the grass at the juncture of the bayou and the next canal. It’s not ours, so—”

  “—it must be American.” Laurence took out his own glass and squinted. A slow grin curled his mouth. “They’re in for a surprise.”

  Without a sound, the Alceste slipped up on the American boat with guns aimed point-blank. Four of the startled guards dove into the canal and got away, but one apparently couldn’t swim. He simply sat where he was, hands up, and allowed Charlie’s crew to board, take command of the boat, and haul it back to Villeré—after Laurence set fire to the prairie grass to destroy the Americans’ hiding place.

  The Alceste reached headquarters as storm clouds over the river suddenly burst wide. At about the same time, General John Lambert arrived ahead of his reinforcement troops. They would begin the arduous journey across the lake and swamps in the morning.

  Pakenham, visibly buoyed by the knowledge that he could begin the siege of Jackson’s lines, bellowed orders for the servants to see to Lambert’s comfort and make sure he had a suitable bedchamber prepared—which meant someone else would be evicted. Charlie hoped that would not be Fiona. He looked for her as he escorted the prisoner into the house and down the hall to the commander-in-chief’s quarters in the library.

  While he waited for Pakenham to arrive and conduct the interrogation, Charlie gestured with ironic courtesy for the sulky American prisoner to seat himself on a sofa under the window. He stood before the man, feet braced apart, remembering Fiona’s proud words to him on Christmas Eve.

  Americans do not concede.

  In his experience it was true. They fought to protect their rights as they saw them, or they died trying.

  Pakenham would treat this man with contempt and was likely to get little out of him.

  Thinking of Desi Palomo’s handling of a prisoner named Charlie Kincaid, he decided to try his hand at diplomacy. “Would you like something to drink, sir?” He walked over to the credenza behind General Villeré’s desk, found a couple of snifters, and splashed some brandy into each.

  The prisoner nodded stiffly and took one. “Thank you.”

  Charlie smiled and held the remaining glass, swirling the liquor as he sat on the corner of the desk. “I am Lieutenant Charlie Kincaid. I am in love with an American shipbuilder’s daughter, Fiona Lanier. Do you know her brother Judah?”

  The American’s mouth fell open. “Judah Lanier has been commanding one of the guns right across the river from here. He’s one of Dominique You’s right-hand men.”

  Charlie grinned. “His sister says he’s not a pirate. May I ask your name and designation?”

  “I’m Michel Daquin, a French interpreter.” The man sipped his drink. “This is fine stuff.”

  “I don’t suppose you could enlighten me as to what you were doing hiding in that canal? My commander will return in a moment, and I doubt he will be as courteous as I.”

  The Frenchman hesitated. “I cannot say, but you redcoat interlopers will not run us off our land. So you should go home before you get hurt.”

  “How kind to be so concerned for my well-being.” Charlie spread his hands. “But as you can see, my coat is not red at all. I am just a sailor trying to get this cursed war over and done with so I can marry my girl and sail off into the sunset.”

  The Frenchman shook his curly head. “You’re going to have to find another way to win your lady. We have just received word of the imminent arrival of more than two thousand Kentucky sharpshooters. In fact, they are likely already in New Orleans as we speak. Your commander can beat me black and blue, Lieutenant, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.” He drained his glass. “And I thank you for the brandy.”

  JANUARY 7, 1815

  VILLERÉ PLANTATION

  Huddled inside Sullivan’s old coat, Fiona leaned against the verandah rail outside the drawing room hospital ward. After General Lambert’s arrival, she had been assigned to sleep in a curtained-off corner of the room. Midnight was less than a half hour away, but she couldn’t sleep. Periodically doors slammed and torches and lamps flared as the officers came and went, but, used to her presence, they either gave her a polite passing nod or ignored her.

  Charlie, she supposed, would be out with the fleet on the Sophie. She hadn’t seen him since he left before Christmas. A few days ago she’d encountered Colonel Thornton and asked about him, but the colonel had nothing to tell her. Or pretended not to, which amounted to the same thing. After the New Year’s Day engagement, General Pakenham had dithered in inactivity—except for the labor-intensive project of extending the canal—but now that Lambert’s reinforcements were here, activity churned all over the plantation. The high-ranking officers were too busy for casual conversation.

  Pakenham had retired for the night about an hour ago, but he seemed to be the only one getting any rest. The fog carried sounds of the engineers hauling boats across the canal to the river, as well as the rumble of the giant dirt-filled sugar casks being rolled down to form the general’s new batteries. Artillery companies were still moving guns into place, and regiments bivouacked in the cane fields celebrated the anticipated march into New Orleans for the promised “beauty and booty” with a last ration of rum and biscuit. Morale had drained in tandem with constant spates of rain, unceasing artillery bombardment during the day, American hunting parties sniping by night, and starvation—every edible animal on the surrounding plantations having long since been killed and eaten. The men were ready to put their misery behind them and take out their frustrations on the dirty-shirts.

  Fiona had spent the day helping the surgeon prepare cases of bandages, medicines, and other medical supplies that came up from the fleet in preparation for the coming battle. Now anxiety fed her insomnia. Eyes grainy, body weary, she dropped into a rocking chair to pray. It was all she knew to do.

  Shortly after midnight a shout went up from the direction of the canal, some two hundred yards from the house. Lurching to her feet, she grabbed a lantern and stepped off the verandah just as a horse cantered through the fog.

  “Hey, you!” The uniformed officer hauled roughly on the reins, peering at her face. “Sorry—Miss Lanier? Go wake the general. Tell him the dam broke and the canal caved in.”

  “But he’ll be furious!”

  “Yes, and I have to get back. You heard me—it’s urgent!” He rode away before she could answer.

  The canal would be a muddy slough, and there would be no more boats floating over to the river tonight. She didn’t know exactly what Pakenham’s strategy was, but she’d seen Colonel Thornton conferring with the engineers on the extension project, so presumably his brigade was involved in getting across the river for some kind of west bank action. Only four boats had gone across, and now it would be impossible to take more than a few hundred troops over before dawn.

  If Pakenham didn’t know, he couldn’t do anything about it or change his strategy.

  Because she had been willingly serving as a nurse, the officers who served as the general’s aides seemed to assume she had somehow become sympathetic to their cause. But she in no way considered herself obligated to obey the orders of an enemy officer.

  Slowly she walked back toward the verandah. If this small, quiet act of patriotism were to directly put Charlie’s life in danger, the decision would have been harder to make. But he was assigned to the fleet, and she must do what she could to improve the odds of American victory. Her brothers’ and her cousin’s lives were at stake.

  Snuffing the lantern, she went inside the hospital ward to begin another round of tending her British patients. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be busy.

  JANUARY 8, 1815

  SOUTH OF NEW ORLEANS />
  Ever afterward when he thought of the final battle of New Orleans, Charlie would remember the church bells ringing all the way from the city as the fog dissipated, leaving an overcast, heavy morning, opaque under steely clouds.

  Of course it would be on a Sunday, he thought, kneeling exhausted behind the foremost of the new batteries he’d directed the marines in constructing overnight. The casks wouldn’t be much protection for the artillerymen, but they were better than nothing.

  All eyes were on the mounted brigade major, waiting for the signal to advance. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t already happened. The 44th Regiment was to have been in place at dawn, but there seemed to be some confusion regarding the ladders and fascines—bundles of ripe sugarcane to be thrown into the moat and facilitate the British soldiers’ crossing—needed to scale the American parapet. Part of the regiment waited beside the old batteries a few hundred yards away, while three hundred more marched at the double back to the redout to retrieve the scaling equipment.

  Late, late. Everything was too—

  Suddenly a blue signal rocket fired.

  Drums rattled the advance, the bagpipes of the tartan-clad 93rd Scots squealed, and the 44th began to march, flags flying, ramrod straight, heads up in time-honored British tradition. Charlie watched helplessly as the Americans unleashed their fire from behind their rampart and hell literally broke loose before his eyes.

  The 44th had orders not to stop and fire, but with no way to get across the ditch they did it anyway—and found themselves bowled down like pins on a green. After a horrific few minutes, the surviving members of the 44th—including those carrying the ladders and fascines—turned tail and ran, dropping the equipment and trampling over it.