The action lasted but twenty-five minutes. Seven hundred of the British were killed, fourteen hundred wounded, and five hundred prisoners. The Americans lost four killed and thirteen wounded; in the entire campaign, three hundred and thirty-three. The force under Thornton, on the western bank of the river, carried the American works, where but brief resistance was made, and were pursuing the retreating militia, when news of the disaster on the other bank was brought to Thornton, together with an order to return. He had lost a hundred men, killed or wounded, and inflicted a loss of but six. The 9th was spent, under an armistice, in burying the dead and caring for the wounded. General Lambert then determined to withdraw to the shipping and abandon the enterprise, but was ten days about it, during which time his troops were annoyed by incessant cannonading by day and "hunting parties" by night. The British fleet had entered the Mississippi at its mouth, and from the 10th to the 17th bombarded Fort St. Philip, seventy-five miles below New Orleans, but effected nothing, and on the 18th withdrew. {346} CHAPTER XXI. PEACE. {346} _The Treaty of Ghent--Treatment of Prisoners--Losses and Gains by the War--Conclusion._ |Had there been an Atlantic cable, or even a transatlantic steamer, with land telegraphs, in those days, the slaughter before New Orleans might have been prevented; for a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent on the 24th of December, 1814. It made the usual stipulations for the exchange of prisoners and the return of property, guaranteed peace to the Indians, and provided for a settlement by commissioners of questions as to boundary and the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay,--and it provided for little else. The negotiations had been going on for five months, and more than once were in danger of being broken off on account of the insolent and supercilious bearing of the English Commissioners. So says Adams in his diary. At the outset, the British Commissioners had insisted that the Indians should have a territory set off to them, as neutral ground between the British and the American possessions, and that the United States should have no armament on the great lakes {347}and no fortifications on their shores, while Canada was not to be restricted. On the other hand, the American Commissioners had insisted on formal abrogation of the right of search and impressment. But all these points were ultimately given up. As early as June the American Commissioners had been instructed by the President that they might omit any stipulation on the subject of impressment, if it was found indispensably necessary to do so in order to terminate the war; and acting under this instruction they yielded to the argument that, as Europe was now at peace, there was no longer any occasion for exercising the right, and therefore no practical necessity for mentioning it.