Surrender at New Orleans

by David Rooney

  Washington, at the time a straggling village of some 8,000 inhabitants, was almost deserted. When a shot was fired from one of the first main houses which the British reached, killing Ross’s horse, this was instantly revenged by setting the house on fire. After three or four volleys at the Capitol, the two detached wings were set on fire. The massive walls defied the flames, but all the interior was destroyed, with many valuable papers, including the Library of Congress – a piece of vandalism alleged to be in revenge for the burning of the Parliament House at York (now Toronto). The British went firm on Capitol Hill, but a detachment marched along Pennsylvania Avenue to the President’s house in which the great hall had been converted into a military magazine. They set fire to the house and the offices of the Treasury and State Departments nearby; the next morning they destroyed the War Office and ransacked the office of National Intelligence. They burned the Arsenal, several private houses and some warehouses, but, in general, private property was respected. The only public building that escaped was the General Post Office and the Patent Office, both under the same roof, the burning of which was delayed by the entreaties of the superintendent. Its destruction was finally prevented by a tremendous tornado which passed over the city and for a while dispersed the British soldiers who sought refuge where they could, although several were buried in the ruins of falling buildings. The fiery Admiral Cochrane said, ‘I am sorry you left a house standing in Washington – depend on it, it is a mistaken mercy.’

  Flushed with success and urged on by the admirals, Ross decided to re-embark his men and do the same to Baltimore as he had done to Washington. Harry was appalled by the suggestion. The men, despite the effective walkover at Washington, were still in a pretty poor physical shape due to their long transatlantic voyage. Harry could see this, and urged Ross to rest them, allow time to replenish the force properly and get them fit. He also had severe doubts as to the advisability of attacking Baltimore for a number of strategic and tactical reasons. In order to reduce the enemy strength in Washington, Ross had indicated that his prime objective was Baltimore, thus a considerable force of American troops had been transferred there and were well positioned to defend the town. Secondly, Harry emphasized that coup de main operations, with a considerable element of surprise, work well once but the enemy would anticipate something of the sort a second time round, and so success was not likely to be so easy. The approach to Baltimore Harbour was bound to be effectively obstructed, although the Admirals confidently said they could clear any such obstruction in an hour. Harry doubted this and in the event was proved correct. Finally, Harry told Ross that his attack on Washington was a great success, but suggested that he should build on that, rather than taking the risk of losing at Baltimore and restoring the American confidence. Ross agreed but Harry, nevertheless, had a presentiment of looming disaster.

  However, the dice were to roll again in his favour and, due to the sickness of Ross’s ADC, Harry was ordered to take dispatches back to England. This was no ordinary mission. A bearer of such dispatches had to be a man of courage, resolve and integrity to meet every difficulty on the way with initiative and ingenuity. It was absolutely vital that the dispatches arrived safely and speedily and, not only that, the messenger had to be ‘in his Commander’s mind’ so that he could answer the inevitable questions from the recipients of the dispatches, who, doubtless, would want to know more than just what they contained. They would wish to know what morale was like, how events were unfolding, what future intentions were and what demands were going to be made upon them. For Harry, of course, this was heaven. He was going to be reunited with his beloved Juana and return to England for the first time in seven years. So, aboard a fast frigate, Harry anchored off Spithead twenty-one days after leaving the United States.

  During September 1814, although the weather was cooler, many of the summer smells still haunted the London streets. Juana continued her custom of rising early and taking a walk in the fresher morning air with Vitty, who had been her solace during her lonely vigil. On 22 September, she stepped out into Panton Square, walked a short distance and suddenly noticed a cab pull up. She gave a shriek of joy, ‘Oh, Dios la mano de mi Enrique.’ Harry described the moment:

  Never shall I forget that shriek; never shall I forget the effusion of our gratitude to God, as we held each other in an embrace of love few can ever have known, cemented by every peculiarity of our union and the eventful scenes of our lives. Oh! You who enter into holy wedlock for the sake of connections – tame, cool, amiable, good, I admit – you cannot feel what we did. That moment of our lives was worth the whole of your apathetic ones for years. We were unbounded in love for each other, and in gratitude to God for his mercies.

  Harry had landed at Portsmouth where, after a very brief stay at the George Inn while he arranged transport, he booked a chaise and four, and badgered his naval colleague to accompany him on a desperate rush to reach London. As the cab hurtled along, bumping and jarring over stretches of appalling roads, Harry explained that he was frantic to see his wife. He had left her four months before in Bordeaux and he did not know where she was, or if she was well, or even if she was still alive. His urgent pleas finally convinced his companion and the chaise hurried on. They reached Liphook and another argument took place, but after a hurried meal of bread, butter, cream and tea, they rushed on towards London. Harry wrote: ‘The happy feeling of being in my native land once more, in health and in possession of every limb, excited a maddening sensation of doubt, anxiety and hope, all summed up in this – “Does your young wife live? Is she well?” Oh! The pain, the fear and the faith in Almighty God, who had so wonderfully protected me.’

  They reached London at midnight, Harry delivered his crucial dispatches to Downing Street and then searched for rooms for the night for West and himself. They eventually found a hostelry open in Parliament Street but it only had one room. To the astonishment of the waiter and the chambermaid, Harry accepted it, hauled half the bedclothes onto the floor, ‘according to our custom of seven years’, and he and West settled down for a few hours sleep. Harry rose before dawn and hurried to the barracks to search for any colleague from the Rifles. To his delight, he found that Colonel Ross was there. To the horror of the orderly, Harry shouted, ‘Stand to your arms,’ Ross awoke and quickly embraced his old friend. He reassured Harry that Juana was indeed alive and well – he had seen her the previous afternoon. Harry wondered whether an excess of joy or grief was the most difficult to bear and burst into a flood of tears. He grabbed a hackney cab and in moments was in Panton Square.

  After their ecstatic reunion – watched with some amusement by passers-by in the Square – Harry, all too soon, had to hurry off to see Lord Bathurst, the War Minister, who told him that the dispatches were so important that the Prince Regent wished to see him, and they rushed to Carlton House, the Prince’s home. Here Harry was shown in to the most opulent room he had ever seen. Being unfamiliar with court etiquette, he became slightly nervous, but then remembered, ‘I never quailed before the dear Duke of Wellington, with his piercing eye, nor will I now.’ Bathurst, too, reassured him and told him to address the Prince as ‘Sir’, and not to turn his back on him. Harry quipped, ‘Indeed, my profession is to show a good front.’ He smiled to himself that here he was, Captain Smith from Whittlesey, sitting with the Prince Regent, while guns were firing from Parliament and the Tower to celebrate the news he had brought. He had taken with him a map of Washington, showing the buildings, including the White House, which had been destroyed. He sensed that the Prince disapproved of such a barbaric act. After a most affable interview, in which Harry had been amazed at the Prince’s grasp of the detail of the war situation, they were shown out, and the Prince reminded Bathurst not to forget Harry’s promotion.

  After the interview, Bathurst invited Harry to dinner that night at his home in Putney – an invitation he could not refuse. Though he and Juana wanted to spend every moment together, she never demurred, and had already prepared his mess kit f
or any occasion. Having just returned from the war, Harry was the lion of the evening, and he was delighted to meet Lord Fitzroy Somerset with whom he had served from Badajoz to Toulouse. Harry was in high spirits and did not hesitate to give his opinion to the guests. He spoke enthusiastically of the Duke of Wellington as someone ‘elevated above any human being’, whereupon the elderly gentleman sitting next to him said, ‘I am glad you approve of my brother.’ Later, in conversation, Lord Fitzroy, who after Toulouse had travelled across Spain with the Duke, confirmed the Duke’s opinion that the Light Division was the elite of the Army, and it sustained only half the losses of other divisions

  The wife of General Ross, the commander who had sent Harry home with the dispatches, lived in Bath. Harry had promised to go and visit her as soon as possible, so he and Juana set off the following day. Their journey to Bath brought them complete and absolute joy. Stuck in London, Juana had seen almost nothing of the country, and she delighted in the beauty of the countryside and the rolling West Country hills. Mrs Ross welcomed them warmly in her home in Bath – little knowing that her husband had already been killed in America.

  Before they had left for Bath, Harry had invited his father to come up to London to meet Juana, and when they returned to Panton Square, he had already arrived. They played a little trick on him, pretending that in her Spanish costume she was proud and stately, but she could not keep up the pretence for long and just flung herself into his arms, full of joy and delight. Harry was overjoyed at the instant warm friendship between his affectionate and kind-hearted father and Juana, who seemed to captivate everyone she met.

  Soon afterwards they all left for Whittlesey, and Juana was warmly welcomed into a large and happy family. The father repeated his surprise that Juana had ridden Tiny because he had proved to be a very difficult horse to handle, but when she arrived at their home she went confidently to Tiny who obediently followed her into the house. She then mounted him and illustrated her relaxed and complete control. For nearly three weeks there was an outpouring of love and affection among the family – at having Harry back among them after so many years, and now with his sparkling young wife. The only brief shadow over their joy came when Harry and Juana went to see the tomb of his mother, the news of whose death had affected him so deeply during the last part of the Peninsula campaign. The tomb is still preserved in Whittlesey Church.

  For three weeks – Harry’s first home leave in seven years – he and Juana, on a wave of joy and emotion, spent every happy day visiting the numerous friends and relations of the Smith family; indeed, the whole of the small town of Whittlesey seemed to join in the celebrations. Juana captivated all the family with her charm, her sparkling personality and her quaint pronunciation of English. Her brothers and sisters-in-law delighted in this, and occasionally when their teasing went too far, she showed her fiery side and rounded on them with a torrent of Spanish, to the delight of her admiring husband.

  This idyll could not last for ever and one day, when they returned from visiting his mother’s grave, they found a letter from Horse Guards, which demanded instant action. The letter brought news of the death of General Ross and his replacement by Sir Edward Pakenham, who was to lead a new expedition to America, with Harry as Assistant Adjutant General – but still in the rank of major. To Harry, ever the professional soldier, this news brought the chance of action and promotion, but at the same time ‘it once more raised that blighted word “separation” to be imparted to my faithful and adoring wife’. This time Juana would have the support of a large and loving family, and there was little time to mope. Within twenty-four hours, Harry, Juana and his father left for London with heavy hearts. Harry reported to Sir Edward Pakenham who told him that they were leaving from Portsmouth in a few days on the frigate Statira. ‘Ned’ Pakenham, Wellington’s brother-in-law, was a man of great charm and much loved by his soldiers. His finest Peninsula hour had come at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812 when he had temporary command of the Third Division: responding swiftly to Wellington’s order, ‘Now’s your time, Ned,’ he manoeuvred his Division forward and broke the French centre, thus being instrumental in winning the battle, in an action that Wellington described as ‘the most decisive and brilliant manoeuvre of the battle’. Wellington recorded his gratitude to Pakenham and his approval of him in a dispatch home, while at the same time alluding gently to one of his failings: ‘Pakenham may not be the brightest genius.’

  Harry met up with several Peninsula veterans and arranged to travel to Portsmouth with his old friend John Robb, now Inspector of Hospitals. They sent their baggage ahead with the ever faithful West. Then, with Juana in a state bordering on despair, and Harry, his heart fit to break, they parted and he hurried off to Portsmouth. They reached the George Inn at midnight and Harry – suffering an essentially modern problem – found that one of his portmanteaux had gone to Dover, and he had the dirty linen of some French officer. To his surprise, his errant luggage was eventually returned to him. When he left for Portsmouth, his father tenderly escorted Juana back to Whittlesey and to the warm embrace of a united and caring family, who did their best to comfort her during Harry’s absence.

  In America, after the sacking of Washington, Ross had given way to the fiery Admiral Cochrane and led an attack on Baltimore, despite Harry’s earlier advice. This disastrous incident, which cost the British 300 casualties including Ross himself, virtually ended the campaign in that area, but further action took place in Alabama and around New Orleans, where the American defences were commanded by an able soldier, General Andrew Jackson.

  General Pakenham, with Harry close at hand, landed in Louisiana on 25 December and moved close to New Orleans, having met up with Major General Keane, who had already had the worst of a preliminary skirmish with Jackson’s men. Harry was with Pakenham on a reconnaissance very close to the enemy’s lines when he saw some riflemen crouching down not more than a hundred yards away, and so he shouted, ‘Ride away, Sir Edward, behind this bank, or you will be shot in a second. By your action you will be recognised as the Commander-in-Chief, and some riflemen are now going to fire.’ Luckily, although good shots, the American riflemen were slow and the General was able to get away. Later that evening, Pakenham called for Harry and said, ‘You gentlemen of the Craufurd school’ (he was very fond of the Light Division) ‘are very abrupt and peremptory in your manner to your Generals. Would you have spoken to Craufurd as you did to me to-day?’ Harry said, ‘Most certainly, for if I had not, and one of us had been killed or wounded, and he became aware I observed what I did when I spoke to you, he would have blown me up as I deserved. He taught us to do so.’ Pakenham roared with laughter.

  Jackson had prepared a good defensive position facing south-east, with the Mississippi River on his right and a cypress swamp on his left. Pakenham’s plan to take him on was, in theory, a sound one. His men were to extend the Villere Canal by breaking through the levee along the riverbank so that it met the Mississippi. This would enable them to move by water all the way from the Bayou Bienvenu to the river. Under the cover of darkness, he anticipated a force of 1,500, under Colonel Thornton, could land on the west bank of the river and seize the American guns. This done, the guns could then be turned on the Americans from the flank and used to support the main assaulting force which would have moved forward, under cover of the morning fog.

  However Thornton was frustrated by the slow process of loading equipment onto his shallow boats. After days of back-breaking labour, he had nevertheless assembled some forty of them in the new portion of the canal. Most of his men had had no sleep in the past few days and the cold and damp were starting to sap morale. Time was against them.

  Only a short distance away, the Americans had been frantically working to fortify their positions along the north side of the Rodriguez Canal. Jackson had commandeered some 900 black slaves from local plantations to construct the massive earthen breastwork that ran 1,000 yards from the dense swampy forest to the banks of the Mississippi. A second line of d
efence was constructed a mile and a half back in case they needed to withdraw.

  Anchored in the river to Jackson’s right were the Carolina and the Louisiana, recently outfitted as ships of war. Both had been useful in keeping the British unsettled with sporadic fire over the previous few days. Cleverly anticipating a British attack on the batteries on the river’s west bank, Jackson transferred cannon from the Louisiana, and an additional 400 militia under General David Morgan, to strengthen that position.

  At 5.00am on 8 January, Pakenham moved up to the east bank of the Mississippi. Colonel Thornton’s troops should have been across the river by now and closing on the American guns. Instead, most of his men were still waist-deep in mud, clearing away sections of the levee that had caved in on the canal passage and made it too shallow for the boats to cross. Only a few of the units were aboard and ready to move.