Neither man knew that Lieutenant Jones and his men, on that very morning, awakened to the sight of a flotilla of enemy vessels at anchor and, with the chiming of every hour, even more ships were sailing into view. All Jones could do was watch and wait from a safe distance.
Gunning for the Gunboats
As the fog lifted on the morning of December 10, British sailors and officers alike looked curiously at the tall grasses that lined an unfamiliar shoreline. As one artilleryman noted, the landscape resembled “trembling prairies,” with no beaches in sight, and only matted reeds and soggy ground where the water and land merged.5 One thing was obvious: moving troops and hauling big guns on this terrain would not be easy.
But Admiral Cochrane had a strategy.
Though the new army commander, General Pakenham, would arrive any day from England—replacing the previous expedition leader, Robert Ross, who had been killed in September in the Battle of Baltimore—Cochrane couldn’t wait for Pakenham to arrive to begin getting the troops off the ships and into fighting position. He favored ferrying the troops across Lake Borgne to a landing site. On the advice of two former Spanish residents of New Orleans, Cochrane thought the beachhead on the far side might be Bayou Bienvenue, a waterway said to be navigable by good-size barges.6 From there a short march of a few miles would take the invading army to the outskirts of New Orleans.
Before any of this could happen, however, Lake Borgne would have to be cleared of enemy ships. Though there were only five small American gunboats in the lake, their cannons were a grave danger to the open boats the British would use to ferry soldiers ashore. Cochrane would not expose his men to that kind of danger and gave an order: “[No] movement of the troops could take place till this formidable flotilla was either captured or destroyed.”7
From his anchorage outside the waters of Lake Borgne, Cochrane gave the reliable Nicholas Lockyer, captain of the Sophie, command of the venture to exterminate the gunboats. Having visited the pirate Lafitte in Barataria Bay, patrolled the Gulf, and commanded the attack on Lake Bowyer, he was the Briton most experienced in the ways and waters of the Gulf Coast.
On the night of Monday, December 12, a mix of seamen in blue coats and marines in red jackets boarded forty-two barges. Three unarmed ship’s boats accompanied the barges and, taken together, the vessels carried 1,200 men.
Lockyer’s assignment: Dispose of the gunboats. Capture them, if possible, Cochrane ordered; the shallow-draft boats might well be useful in the operation to come. But, most of all, the admiral wanted them out of the path of his amphibious assault.
On Guard
Aboard one of the American gunboats in Lake Borgne, Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones watched and waited for the British attack. For the past three days, the twenty-four-year-old commander had played a cautious game of cat and mouse with the enemy. He had ventured near to the channel near Ship Island where many of the Royal Navy ships rocked with the tides, close enough to confirm how many ships were there, and had then retreated, dispatching one of his boats with a report to Patterson. As the number of British ships increased, Jones had decided it was “no longer safe or prudent for me to continue on that part of the lakes.”8 He retreated to the mouth of Lake Borgne just north of Malheureux Island.
From there, on December 13, he spotted the British barges at 10:00 a.m. As he watched the flotilla proceed westward, he knew that the assault on New Orleans had begun. Cochrane would be taking the route Jackson had thought most likely, crossing the lakes to land his men and march on the city.
Seeing how much larger the British force was than his own, Jones quickly took action. Reasoning that the British were likely to reach vital supplies waiting on the nearby shore, he dispatched the schooner Sea Horse to blow up the goods, wanting to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. There was little else he could do; though he might be able to inflict some damage on the barges, his little fleet of gunboats was much too small to stop the enemy completely.
Lieutenant Jones watched as the British convoy made steady though laborious progress across the lake. The front of the imposing flotilla was half a mile wide and moved relentlessly westward despite strong headwinds. As noon came and went, Jones waited for the enemy force to make a move south toward shore—and to New Orleans—to unload the troops. But the flotilla did not change course.
At last, as the hour struck two, a terrible intuition struck Lieutenant Jones: The British intended to attack his gunboats. They weren’t yet looking to land an army. He and his men were their objective. Jones’s reaction was immediate. If the British wanted to destroy his little fleet—and they clearly had the manpower to do it—the time had come to retreat deeper into Lake Borgne. Per Patterson’s orders, Jones prepared to sail his badly outnumbered force to the narrow strait, the Rigolets, where he might make a stand. If that failed, he could retreat into Lake Pontchartrain.
Ordered to weigh anchor and set sail, his men soon discovered that days of sustained winds and low tide had made the marshy waters off Malheureux Island uncommonly shallow: three of the gunboats ran aground on the sandy bottom. In a frantic effort to lighten the craft, Jones’s men threw all dispensable heavy items overboard, but the boats still refused to budge. They sat helplessly, watching the British approach, until 3:30 when, finally, the rising tide floated the boats free.
Just a few minutes later, Jones noticed that, while most of the British boats were still heading for him and his recently freed flotilla, three of the British barges were veering northward toward shore. Their unmistakable target was the schooner Sea Horse, still visible on its mission to keep the supplies on land from falling into British hands. With darkness falling, the Sea Horse attempted to fight off its attackers, firing a deadly discharge of grapeshot at the British boats. The rain of iron balls brought the British attack to a temporary halt and gave the Sea Horse time to make for the shore, but the reprieve was short-lived. As Jones watched, four more launches broke from the flotilla’s ranks to join the attack on the Sea Horse.
By the time the combined British force of seven boats closed in on the schooner, the Sea Horse was moored at the shoreline, and some of its crewmen were on dry land, readying their cannons, two six-pounders, to fire on their attackers. The sun was setting, and from a distance Jones could only watch and wonder in the growing darkness as gunfire echoed across the lake. Would the outnumbered Americans be able to hold out?
Jones didn’t have long to wonder. Within half an hour, the British discovered that the single American ship put up a better fight than they’d expected. Despite their advantage in numbers, the British lost one boat and sustained many casualties before pulling back.
But the British retreat was no victory for Jones’s men. Although the Americans on the Sea Horse had fought off this first attack, they remained trapped—and they understood they would not be able to hold off a second assault. Unwilling to let the ship fall into enemy hands, they made a painful decision. At 7:30 p.m., a tremendous explosion rent the air, sending flames high into the sky. The Americans had blown up the Sea Horse and the supplies. Neither would be of any use to the British.
As the Sea Horse burned, Jones and the men aboard the five gunboats continued north, attempting to avoid a fight with the many barges. For a few hours, they made progress but, as midnight approached, the wind failed them. They were well short of the shallow passage north of Malheureux Island that would lead them to safety when it became clear their sails would carry them no farther. But the British boats, powered by oarsmen, would be unaffected by the stillness. Though the enemy had stopped for the night nearly ten miles back, they would easily catch Jones and his men when they resumed their pursuit at daybreak. At one o’clock in the morning, Jones decided he and his becalmed force had only one option: they must turn and fight.
Summoning the commanders of the five gunboats, he laid out the plan. They would form a line across the mile-wide strip of shallow water where they were becalmed, anc
horing the boats at the stern. The tide retreating from Lake Borgne would keep their bows—and thus their cannons—pointing at the oncoming British. His intent, Jones explained, was to put them “in the most advantageous position, to give the enemy as warm a reception as possible.”9
Laboriously moving their craft into place, the gunboat commanders did as ordered before dropping anchor and attempting to get some much-needed rest. In the morning, they would face the fight of their lives.
Morning, December 14
The day started early. British sailors had begun rowing at 4:00 a.m. With the first light of day, Captain Nicholas Lockyer spied the American flotilla. Less than ten miles ahead, the gunboats, five abreast, were obviously looking to hold the line against the British onslaught.
Lockyer’s orders were to capture or destroy any American ship he saw, whatever the cost. The previous evening the Sea Horse, trapped and alone, had been the first victim. Now Lockyer spotted a second quarry. The Alligator, sailing back toward the gunboats after delivering Jones’s letters for Commodore Patterson, attempted to make a run past the British barges despite the light winds. Lockyer ordered the small boat’s capture, and his barges moved on the Alligator too quickly for her to escape. Though the Americans attempted to ward off the British with their cannons, the shot splashed harmlessly into the lake. Recognizing they would soon be overpowered by a force that numbered in the hundreds, the eight-man crew of the American vessel surrendered. Lockyer could now note in his log that the Alligator no longer flew the Stars and Stripes but henceforth would sail with Cochrane’s convoy.
With the Alligator captured, Lockyer’s barges resumed their progress toward Jones’s gunboats, now anchored in place. The outgoing tide meant that Lockyer’s tired oarsmen worked against the current. But the veteran captain knew the ripples coming his way meant something else, too. His opponent would not be retreating this morning. With the push of the tide and no wind to fill his sails, Jones had no choice but to wait and fight.
The more than forty British boats continued to close in on the Americans. As they neared the five gunboats, they saw unmistakable signs of the American determination to fight: Jones’s men had hung their boarding nets on the sides of the vessels. These webs of thick rope, like coarse spiderwebs, would hamper British marines seeking to board once the close fighting began.
Now nearly within striking distance, Lockyer ordered a pause just outside the range of American guns. It was 10:00 a.m., and his men had been rowing for six hours. As the Americans watched and waited anxiously, the British commander gave his men thirty minutes to breakfast and rest. Confident of victory, the British were in no rush, and they would defeat their unhappy prey much more easily if they were refreshed.
The Fight
The American boats waited in an uneven row, despite the best efforts of Jones’s men. In the night strong currents from Lake Borgne had carried two gunboats a hundred yards forward of the planned line of defense. One of them, at the center, was Jones’s, and his position meant he would be the first target of the cannons in the prows of the British barges.
When the British had finished their meal and began their progress toward Jones’s men, the U.S. Navy guns sounded first. The Americans’ long-barreled cannons possessed greater range than the shorter British guns, but at a distance of more than a mile, the barges made small targets. Undamaged and undeterred, the British flotilla drew closer with every stroke of the oars.
Soon, with the American boats within the range of his guns, Lockyer issued the order for his gunners to fire. With an ear-shattering roar, the British carronades boomed as one. Jones’s men returned fire and, as the British boats grew nearer and nearer, the British marines aimed their muskets at the little flotilla.
The maneuverable British boats held an advantage over Jones’s gunboats, which remained fixed at anchor. Three British barges led by Lockyer’s closed rapidly on Jones’s boat, their first target. This would be a battle of commanders.
Jones’s gunners landed shot in two of the attacking barges, and with water rising through holes in their hulls, the British boats began to sink. But the undamaged third barge soon pulled alongside Jones’s boat, and Royal Marines attempted to board the American ship. Fighting with pistols and swords, the U.S. Navy crew of forty-one men repulsed the attack, wounding or killing most of the British officers. Lockyer himself sustained a wound, but he continued to rally his men as four more barges from his column joined the fight.
The Americans fought valiantly, but just as it appeared they might again repulse a wave of attackers, a musket ball smashed into Lieutenant Jones’s left shoulder, and he fell to the deck. As his men carried their commander below, he ordered, “Keep up the fight! Keep up the fight!”10 His second in command took charge of the defense, but the attackers had shot away the gunboat’s defensive netting and British marines soon managed to clamber over the gunwales of the American ship. After a few minutes of bloody hand-to-hand action, the British gained possession of the gunboat’s deck.
Lockyer himself sustained another wound in the fight, but, lying on the deck, he ordered the cannons aboard Jones’s gunboat turned on the other American craft. Because Jones’s boat had drifted well in front of the others, they were easily within its line of fire. Jones’s vessel sent shot cascading at the other U.S. Navy ships even before its flag came down.
The end of the battle neared. According to Jones’s report, “The action continued with unabating severity until 40 minutes past 12 o’clock, when it terminated.”11 By then, all the gunboats belonged to the British.
In a fight that lasted just less than two hours, the British prevailed. But the Americans had fought hard, despite being outnumbered almost seven to one. The British casualties numbered at least 17 killed, 77 wounded. On the American side, 10 men died and 35 were reported wounded.
British surgeons set about treating the injured, including Captain Lockyer and the American commander, Lieutenant Jones, now held captive by the British. Neither officer would see further action in the battle for New Orleans. But Captain Lockyer had handed his admiral the signal advantage of clear sailing on the lakes.
Despite his losses—his men, his gunboats, he himself a prisoner—the American lieutenant had, in turn, done Andrew Jackson a significant service: the brave action of Jones and his men bought the general vital time. The first British warship had been sighted off the Gulf Coast almost a week earlier; at the moment of their victory at Lake Borgne, not so much as a platoon of the British army had stepped ashore. True, the handful of American gunboats had been captured (Jones’s was promptly renamed the HMS Destruction). But Jones and many of his men, despite being held prisoner, continued to serve their country, telling their interrogators tall tales about the size of Jackson’s army. Now Admiral Cochrane might have unfettered access to land his army for the march to New Orleans, but he did not know with any accuracy what the troops aboard his ships were about to march into.
CHAPTER 9
The Armies Assemble
Our lakes are open to the approach of the enemy, and I am with my feeble force prepared to meet him and die in the last ditch before he shall reach the city.
—Andrew Jackson, December 16, 1814
When, hours later, the news of Lieutenant Jones’s defeat reached New Orleans, its citizens were terrified. But General Jackson was not in the city to hear the news. A full day would pass before Jackson learned that the American defense on the lakes had been shredded like the sails on the U.S. Navy gunboats.
While Jones was being taken captive, Jackson had been north of town, scouting the terrain, believing the lake waters were well protected. If the British did attack from the north—and even without knowing about Jones’s loss, the location of Cochrane’s armada in Mississippi Sound suggested to Jackson that they would come from that quarter—then the general must have a clear picture in his mind of the lay of the land.
Despite a recurrence of his dysen
tery, which made riding a horse intensely painful, Jackson ventured to the head of Lake Borgne. There he inspected the end of the large lake opposite from where Jones confronted Lockyer. Next Jackson went west to look at the expanse of Lake Pontchartrain, then traveled along the Chef Menteur Road, which seemed to him the best and most likely route for a British attack on the city. He issued many orders. Streams he saw were to be blocked, defenses enhanced, guards stationed, and a chain of sentinels organized to bring him word of any British appearance.
Then, on December 15, he received the bad news of Jones’s defeat. Having assured now secretary of war James Monroe just days before that the lakes were still secure, he learned that, quite to the contrary, they were not. Jones’s flotilla now belonged to the British and the American lieutenant was their prisoner.
Jackson galloped back to his headquarters in New Orleans, knowing that, almost overnight, he had to pull together his army to protect the city. His journey had taken a toll on his worn body and, too ill to stand, he lay upon a sofa, dictating orders to his aides and reinforcing himself with sips of brandy.
With barely a thousand regular troops in his command, he wrote to General Coffee, the man he called his “right arm.”1 His order sounded like a plea: “You must not sleep until you reach me, or arrive within striking distance.”2 He sent a letter to Natchez, where he hoped it would reach William Carroll, another Tennessee militia general. Carroll was on his way downriver with some 1,400 men with arms and ammunition.
Jackson also anticipated the arrival of General John Thomas’s Kentucky militia, an estimated 2,500 troops. And he worried about a shipment of guns and munitions, en route from Pittsburgh since November 3.3 Would it arrive on time?
Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans Page 10