New Orleans was the largest prize which had been contended for in this war. It was a city of twenty thousand inhabitants; and a hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton, worth two shillings a pound, were stored there. But it was not so much its immediate pecuniary value that tempted the enemy, as the commercial and strategical importance of its position, for they expected not only to capture but to hold it permanently. Lieutenant Gleig, author of "The Subaltern," who was connected with the expedition, after describing the Mississippi and its tributaries, wrote: "Whatever nation, therefore, chances to possess this place, possesses in reality the command of a greater extent of country than is included within the boundary line of the whole United States," and the London _Times_, an{337}nouncing that all the disposable shipping had been sent from Bermuda, to the Mississippi, added that, "most active measures are pursuing for detaching from the dominion of the enemy an important part of his territory." Wellington's veterans, fresh from their victories in the Spanish peninsula, were now before the city, and the inhabitants, knowing how hasty had been the preparations for defence, trembled for its safety. The expectation was, that, if captured, it would at once be sacked. It was late in the day when Jackson moved to the attack. He sent Coffee and his Tennesseeans to gain the right flank and rear of the enemy, while the rest of his forces were to deploy across the narrow strip of land between the river and a morass, and attack in front. The schooner _Carolina_ was ordered to move down to a point opposite the British left, and enfilade the position; her first discharge to be the signal for the land attack. It was half-past seven o'clock when she opened the battle with a broadside that tore through the British camp and swept down a large number of men. The moon was young and obscured by clouds, so that there was almost absolute darkness, except when the flashes of the guns momentarily lighted up one or another part of the field. {338}The two armies soon became intermingled, and, as one of the participants wrote, "no man could tell what was going forward in any quarter, except where he himself chanced immediately to stand; no one part of the line could bring assistance to another, because in truth no line existed." The fighting was mostly hand-to-hand; few of the Americans had bayonets, but many carried long knives, and the most ghastly wounds were given and received. Officers on either side would gather little companies of men and go out into the darkness to find the enemy; but when they had come in contact with an armed party like themselves, it was often impossible to say whether they were friends or foes.