Three hundred and fifty of the Louisiana militia, under command of General David Morgan, were stationed at English Turn, seven miles below Villere's, and nearly fourteen miles from New Orleans. Intelligence of the arrival of the British at Villere's, on the twenty-third, reached General Morgan's camp at one o'clock in the afternoon of the day. Officers and men expressed an eagerness to be led against the enemy; but General Morgan, not having then received orders from Jackson to that effect, deemed it prudent to hold them waiting in camp. At half-past seven o'clock, when the guns from the Carolina were heard bringing on the battle, it was found difficult to restrain them longer. Morgan finally, at the urgent request of his officers, gave orders to go forward, which the troops received with ardor. They reached a point near Jumonville's plantation, just below Villere's, when a picket guard in advance met a picket force of the enemy and fired on it; the fire was returned. A reconnoiter failing to discover the numbers and position of the enemy in his front, Morgan took a position in a field until three o'clock in the morning, when he marched his men back to camp. The failure of this command to join issue in this battle, in concert with the other commands of Jackson's army, was apparently most unfortunate. The records do not show what orders, if any, were sent from headquarters by Jackson to General Morgan in summoning his forces in the afternoon of the day for the attack at night. It is barely possible that the General neglected to dispatch an order to, or to communicate with, the commander of so important a body of troops, in numbers nearly one fifth of the entire American forces engaged, in a critical hour when every available soldier was needed on the field of combat. A swift messenger sent by Jackson from headquarters at two o'clock, as to other outpost commands, could easily have reached English Turn at five o'clock. General Morgan knew that the invading army were in bivouac seven miles above. By eight o'clock he could have had his troops in attacking distance of the enemy, and in their rear. When Jackson and Coffee assaulted the British lines at eight o'clock, and drove them back in confusion upon their camp, a spirited surprise attack by Morgan's command in the rear, any moment before nine o'clock, would probably have routed the entire British division engaged and forced them to lay down their arms or retreat to their boats. He did move his command forward, and halt them at some distance from the enemy, but it was probably too late. The battle was over and the opportunity gone. An after-incident throws a ray of light upon the criticism of the day upon the above affair. Honorable Magloire Guichard, President of the House of Representatives, in his testimony before the Committee of Inquiry on the military measures employed by Jackson against the Legislature, said: