The Battle of New Orleans: including the Previous Engagements between the Americans; and the British, the Indians and the Spanish which led to; the Final Conflict on the 8th of January, 1815Smith, Z. F. (Zachariah Frederick)
History
The Battle of New Orleans: including the Previous Engagements between the Americans; and the British, the Indians and the Spanish which led to; the Final Conflict on the 8th of January, 1815
Smith, Z. F. (Zachariah Frederick)
New Orleans, Battle of, New Orleans, La., 1815
The correspondence of Jackson and Adair throws light upon the subject of
this controversy, and reveals to us some of the causes of the errors and
contentions of this affair. We have mentioned that Adair, in his
eagerness to arm as many as possible of the Kentucky militia and place
them in line for the main battle of the eighth, went into the city and
plead with the Committee of Safety to loan him four hundred stand of
arms, held in the city armory for the protection of New Orleans, for a
few days. This urgent request was granted, and the arms privately moved
out, hauled to the camp of the Kentuckians, and delivered there about
nightfall of the seventh. Four hundred more of the Kentuckians were thus
armed and moved up to the rear of the breastwork, ready for the battle
next morning. Adair believed that he was acting in the line of his duty,
and that Jackson would approve of his device for arming more of his idle
men in camp. Busy as he was that day in New Orleans, and in equipping
and marshaling the men of his command for battle, he was not made aware
of the urgent need of reinforcements on the opposite bank of the river,
nor did he know of the purpose of the commander-in-chief to arm these
from the city armory. While Adair's device very much strengthened
Jackson's line on the left bank, it unfortunately defeated Jackson's
plan of sending four hundred more men to reinforce General Morgan on the
right bank, and may in this way have largely contributed to the latter's
defeat.
When Jackson, late on the seventh, ordered a detail of five hundred of
the Kentucky militia to be marched at once to New Orleans, there to be
armed, to cross the river and report by daylight to General Morgan, he
expected to use the arms from the city armory. There was no other
supply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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