1812: The Rivers of War tog-1

by Eric Flint

  "Let me propose a compromise," said Pakenham. "The one weakness in the American position is that they are lightly guarding the opposite bank of the river. Plenty of artillery, but little in the way of infantry to support them." He chuckled harshly. "Of course, they don't need to, since as long as they've got the only warships on the river we can't cross it anyway. But I believe that situation can be remedied."

  Cochrane winced, and Ross actually felt a moment's sympathy for him. He knew the admiral wasn't at all happy at the showing the navy had made in the campaign thus far. True, they'd defeated Jackson's flotilla on Lake Bourgne, but given the absence of flat-bottomed boats, the victory had been meaningless. So, once again, what should have been a naval matter was being handed over to the army to solve.

  "How do you propose to do that, Edward?" Cochrane asked.

  Pakenham looked to Gibbs.

  "By the simplest of all methods, Admiral," said Gibbs. "We propose to haul the big guns out of our naval vessels and transport them to the Mississippi. The eighteen-pounders, at least. Our artillery officer, Colonel Alexander Dickson, tells us that he thinks he can destroy at least one of the American ships tonight just with hot shot from the twelve-pounders we already have in place. Give Dickson a battery of eighteen-pounders, and we believe he can clear a way across the river for us."

  Cochrane was starting to look intrigued. "You do realize you're proposing to haul enormous cannons across tens of miles of bayous and swamps. Your men won't thank you for it."

  "I imagine they'll curse me for days." Pakenham shrugged. "And so what? Cursing officers is a soldier's favorite pastime anyway. They'll still do it."

  Where the admiral had raised a military objection, Ross raised a naval one. "And how do you propose to cross the river itself, assuming we can clear away the ships and the defending battery? There's no point sending a few men across. I'd estimate we'd need at least a regiment to do the job properly. Do we have boats to transport that many men?"

  "In fact, I propose to send over a thousand men. Between now and then, Jackson may well send some reinforcements across. The Eighty-fifth-Thornton's our best regimental commander, I believe-with the Fifth West India in support. Plus a party of marines and sailors to handle the guns once they're captured. And to answer your question, I think we can round up enough boats to ferry the men across. Mind you, they'll be a lot of little boats, not the few big ones I'd prefer. That'll introduce an element of disorganization, obviously, but I don't believe the problem will prove to be critical."

  Ross was becoming intrigued himself. A thousand men-and, yes, Thornton and the Eighty-fifth would be the best. With the gunners to properly use the captured American cannon…

  "I see," he mused. "Then you'd have Jackson's right flank under enfilade fire across the river, instead of him having our left." He sat up straight, completely forgetting to exaggerate his condition. "Yes, it just might work. If Jackson has an outstanding weakness, it's the other side of his strength. He tends to focus on a problem too narrowly, for all the energy he brings to solving the problem itself. Consider how he delayed so long at Mobile. He must have been convinced that we intended that as our invasion route. Right now he seems focused entirely on his front, along with keeping enough forces in the north to guard against a thrust we might make up the Chef Menteur Road. He may well be oblivious to the danger from across the river."

  Pakenham nodded. "I think he is, in fact. The battery over there is solid, yes. But without good infantry to protect it, even the best battery can be overrun."

  Admiral Cochrane, sensing the growing eagerness of the three army generals, looked back and forth from one to the other. "I'm still a bit puzzled. The fact is that a force on the west bank of the Mississippi can't take the city. So what good does it really do us, even if we capture that side? We still have to break through Jackson on the east bank."

  Pakenham and Ross stared at him, then glanced at each other. Gibbs, more diplomatic, simply gazed off into space. Admiral Cochrane would have understood instantly the significance of a warship crossing the T on another. But it didn't seem to occur to him that the same principle applied to land warfare.

  Ross cleared his throat. "Admiral, if Thornton can seize the American battery across the river, they've got eighteen-pounders and at least one twenty-four pounder over there. With enough men to shift them upstream, he can bring Jackson's entire line on the Rodriguez Canal under enfilade fire. The American right wing at least. It's one thing to defend breastworks against fire from the front. It's another thing entirely to do so when round shot is ripping your lines from an unprotected flank."

  He moved his gaze to Pakenham and Gibbs. "If it can be done -if, I say-then a well-planned and determined frontal assault on Jackson's lines could indeed carry the day. But it would all depend on our success across the river."

  Ross was tacitly offering Pakenham and Gibbs a bargain. If Pakenham agreed not to launch a frontal assault without a prior success on the west bank, Ross would support him fully-not only here in the gulf but back at home if need be, once they returned to England-in the event the campaign failed. Understandably enough, Pakenham and Gibbs were concerned for their reputations. But if Ross, whose injuries and illness made him no longer liable for whatever failure might occur, gave them his full public support, then the two generals had much less to worry about. Ross and their patron Wellington could shield them from any public criticism or censure.

  Pakenham understood the nature of the bargain, clearly enough. He nodded, a bit stiffly, and said: "You may rest assured that I will not subject your men to needless casualties, Robert. If the assault on the west bank fails, I won't send the rest of the army forward."

  He gave the admiral a look that wasn't quite steely, but bordered on it. "In that event-damn the treaty and its awkward timing-we'll have no choice but to withdraw, and begin preparing an approach from Lake Pontchartrain. Flat-bottom boats can be built, after all."

  He didn't bother to add the corollary: that doing so would require weeks, quite possibly months. Which, of course, would in all likelihood make the whole thing a moot point. By then, presumably, the war would be over.

  Cochrane wasn't a stupid man. He studied Pakenham for a moment, then Gibbs, then Ross, and clearly realized that he'd pushed them as far as they could be pushed.

  Again, he slapped hands on the arms of his chair. "There it is, then! We're all agreed."

  Pakenham launched the first stage of the new plan at two o'clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh. Having moved their guns into position under cover of darkness, Dickson's artillerymen began heating their shot in hidden fires. Shortly after daybreak, they opened fire on the Carolina.

  Incautiously, because they assumed the British still had no heavy artillery, the Americans had kept the 230-ton schooner moored well within range of the guns.

  "They were safe against the three-pounders we had before," Dickson said to his commanding officer. He was practically chortling. "They aren't safe from this battery."

  Pakenham followed his artillery officer's admiring gaze. The British forces on the river now had a battery consisting of two nine-pounders, four six-pounders, two 5.5-inch howitzers, and a 5.5-inch mortar. They'd be using heated shot, to boot.

  Dickson's veteran gunners found the range quickly. The nine-pounders fired the heated shot while the six-pounders raked the schooner with antipersonnel munitions. The howitzers and mortar added solid shot and shell. Long before the startled Americans could get the ship under way, the British gunners brought down the Carolina 's rigging.

  The schooner was helpless, trapped with no means of escape. Then a round of heated shot fired in the second volley from the nine-pounders struck squarely.

  Soon enough, the Carolina began to burn.

  Cochrane was watching the action with them. "I think the round lodged in the hold under her cables, where it couldn't be quickly removed," he guessed. "If so, they'll have to abandon the ship-and they'd best do it quickly."

  He proved
to be right. Not more than half an hour after the bombardment began, they saw the Americans start leaving the ship. Their captain, obviously enough, had no choice. He and his sailors clambered into boats and made their escape to the western bank of the river, shielded from British fire by the bulk of the burning schooner.

  At nine thirty in the morning, the Carolina blew up. Andrew Jackson had only one ship left to defend the waterway-and Dickson's gunners turned their attention to it. The sixteen-gun sloop of war Louisiana was moored more than a mile farther up the river. Still within range of the British guns, but far enough away that the quick destruction they'd made of the Carolina would be unlikely.

  Still, the wind and the current both kept the Louisiana from moving upstream. With persistence…

  But if Jackson had been caught napping, he must have awakened quickly. From his headquarters on the Macarty plantation house, he must have sent orders immediately to get the ship out of danger, whatever it took.

  Soon enough, Pakenham could see a small fleet of boats setting out from the shore and attaching cables to the sloop. Within a few minutes, rowing like mad, the Americans had the Louisiana well out of range. From what Pakenham had been able to discern at the distance, Dickson's battery had struck the sloop with only a single shot, which hadn't done much damage.

  "Well, that's it for the moment," Pakenham announced to Cochrane, lowering his eyeglass. "We'll have to wait until you can get the eighteen-pounders to us."

  "That'll take a week, I estimate," the admiral said confidently. "Not more than ten days."

  Pakenham brought the glass back up and began studying the American battery across the great river. "Good. Then we'll take those guns, and New Orleans with them."

  That same morning, in Ghent, John Quincy Adams stood on the docks staring out over an expanse of water that dwarfed even the mighty Mississippi. The North Sea, which was but an extension of the great Atlantic.

  The ship carrying the peace treaty had left those docks two days earlier. Two days-and it would require weeks for it to cross the ocean, even if the ship encountered decent weather. Fortunately, it wasn't hurricane season. But the Atlantic in winter was still no sailor's paradise.

  The American ambassador had come down to those docks the morning it sailed, and both mornings since, moved by an impulse that he fully recognized was pure superstition but could not resist. A ship was driven by winds and currents created by the will of God, not the heartfelt desires and wishes of a mortal human diplomat.

  "Weeks," he sighed. "Six weeks at best, before the news can reach the Gulf of Mexico. If Jackson can hold New Orleans and the Mississippi until then…"

  Pure superstition. So, as he had for three mornings, Adams scolded himself for his lapse into savagery, turned away from the ocean, and began walking toward his lodgings. He decided he'd spend the rest of the day-as he had the three previous ones-reading the Bible.

  TheRiversofWar

  CHAPTER 40

  JANUARY 1, 1815

  The banks of the Mississippi near New Orleans

  Robert Ross listened to men discussing his fate.

  "Is it yellow fever?" asked one. Pakenham, he thought.

  A voice he recognized as the doctor assigned to handle his illness replied: "I don't believe… no jaundice evident…"

  Ross could sense the doctor shrugging, if not see it. His eyes were closed, and the effort of opening them seemed too much at the moment. The fever made it hard to think, especially with the sound of cannon and musket fire drowning half the sentences.

  "Who knows… is, General?" continued the doctor, his tone one of helpless exasperation. "This whole land… festering ground.. . diseases of all sorts."

  A cannon salvo obliterated the next sentence or two. Then: "… never have remained here… should have… back to the ships."

  Ross heard a chuckle. That came from yet another man. Gibbs, he thought.

  "Fine for you to say so, Doctor." Yes, that was Gibbs. His voice penetrated clearly. "Have you ever tried to get Robert Ross to do anything against his will?"

  Pakenham spoke again. His voice carried well also, much better than the doctor's.

  That was the habit of officers who needed to call commands across the cacophony of a battlefield-of which it sounded like a small one was raging. Mostly a cannon duel, Ross judged, from the sound.

  "Robert's a general who cares about his men," Pakenham said. "He refused to leave until this business was over, and I wasn't about to deny him the privilege. He knew the risk."

  Ross felt a powerful hand close on his shoulder, and give it a gentle squeeze. "Besides," Pakenham's voice continued softly, "I found his presence a comfort. And his advice, invariably helpful. He's a soldier, and a splendid one."

  The hand withdrew. "What are his chances, Doctor?"

  "… here?" There came a snort of disgust, which seemed to blend with the distant musket fire. "… may as well haul out… rum. You'll be shipping him home in a cask… two days. At most. He should… to the ships."

  That was madness. The advice of an overworked doctor just trying to remove a hopeless case from his docket. The festering conditions aboard the ships anchored in Lake Bourgne would be even more deadly for Ross than the conditions in the army camp.

  It was time to open his eyes, difficult as the task was.

  "No," he croaked. "I can't do anything further here, anyway. Send me across to the Americans."

  He could see Pakenham now. The young general was staring down at him.

  "The Americans?"

  Ross tried to nod, but found the gesture impossible. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open and speak.

  "They'll give me better care in New Orleans than you can possibly do here-or Cochrane on his ships."

  "Perhaps-"

  For some reason, shaking his head was within Ross's capacity, where nodding had not been.

  "No, Edward. Admiral Cochrane is in no position to detach one of his vessels simply to carry a stubborn general back to England. I would refuse the offer anyway, even if he made it. You need every ship you have."

  Pakenham looked away, his attention momentarily distracted by a particularly loud salvo. The artillery exchange that had gone on alongside the Mississippi for days had settled into the routine of siegework, but it still had its occasional peaks.

  "You're certain of this, Robert?"

  "Oh, yes. It's not as if I haven't been in American captivity before, you know. I can assure you that it is not a fate worse than death." He managed a half smile. "I rather like Cousin Jonathan, as a matter of fact. Quite a bit, in the case of some of those obstreperous fellows."

  Five minutes after Driscol arrived at the fieldworks on the Rodriguez Canal, he was shaking his head. Not so much in disbelief as in pure wonder. Whatever God there was, He was clearly a whimsical one.

  "Ross? Here? " Driscol raised his head and peered over the fortifications at the British lines hundreds of yards away. He did so cautiously, with the habit of a veteran, even though a cease-fire was in place.

  There was nothing to see, really. The ground between the American and British positions had once been the fields of a plantation. But the first thing Jackson had done was cut down all the crops, to remove any cover for the oncoming enemy. All that was left between the cypress swamps and the river was barren soil and stubble.

  The only reason Driscol had looked at all was simply because he'd been so surprised by the news.

  He crouched back down. "What in the world is Ross doing here? I thought he'd be back in England by now."

  General Jackson shook his head. "I've got no idea, Major. But I sent Colonel Houston across in response to their request for a parlay, and he assured me that it is, indeed, General Ross."

  Driscol glanced around.

  "Houston's not here now, Major," said Jackson. "I sent him back across to arrange the transfer."

  "You're agreeing to the British request, sir?"

  "Of course I am!" Jackson scowled. "I despise the bastards. But
for that very reason, I'll not have them claiming after their defeat that I was ungallant."

  Driscol kept a straight face, although he felt like grinning. That was… a very Jacksonian response. Odd, how a man who could be so practical and ruthless one moment could be moved to quixotic acts the next, if he thought the matter touched on his personal honor or his sense of chivalry.

  "Yes, sir. And what do you want me to do? Forgive my presumption, but I assume that you summoned me for some purpose."

  Now, Jackson grinned.

  "Ha! You're to be the good British general's nursemaid, it seems. Ross put in a specific request to be handed over into your custody-assuming that wouldn't interfere with your military duties."

  Driscol stared at him.

  The general's grin widened.

  "It would, of course. But Houston tells me that Ross added the qualification that if your-I believe he used the word 'intended'-was present on the scene, that she would do even better."

  Driscol transferred the stare back to the distant British lines. "That stinking rotten bastard."

  "Oh, I shouldn't worry about it, Major. From Houston's description of his condition, I doubt very much if General Ross is in any shape to be competing with you for the lady's affections. By the way, when will I be introduced to this mysterious fiancee of yours?"

  Realizing his mouth was open, Driscol snapped it shut.

  "She's not my 'fiancee,' " he growled. "It doesn't work like that, with Cherokees. And that's not what I meant."

  Belatedly, he added, "Sir."

  "A Cherokee lass, is it? You and that blasted Injun-lover Houston!" Jackson cocked his head. "In that case, I shall have to insist on an introduction. I won't have one of my officers consorting with common squaws."

  But he was still grinning when he said it.

  Driscol had come to know Jackson well enough by now to realize that he was a much more complicated man than most people assumed. In this, as in all things, Andrew Jackson was a living contradiction. At one moment, he could speak of Indians and black people as if they were beasts-and, often enough, treat them the same way. The next moment, speak of them-and treat them-far better than most white men would.