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 order was executed. The Governor commissioned General J.B. Labitat,
of the Louisiana troops, to enforce it; he placed a guard of soldiers at
the doors of the building, and forbade entrance to the members on that
day. Captain Duncan had put spurs to his horse and started on a lope to
the city with the order. On the way he met Colonel Fortier, an aid to
the Governor, who consented to promptly deliver the order, permitting
Duncan to return. In the proceedings of the committee, Honorable Levi
Wells, member of the House of Representatives from Rapides Parish,
testified that on the twenty-eighth, under an order of General Jackson,
an armed guard was placed at the doors of the legislative halls in the
city of New Orleans, which was to hinder the members from assembling;
"and even to fire on them, should they dare to persist in their design;
and that the life of a representative of the people, and a member of the
Body, was exposed to the greatest danger; that a sentinel, to hinder him
from repairing to his post, presented his bayonet and threatened to run
him through with it, unless he retired, adding to this outrage the most
insulting tone."
Through the mediation of friendly counsel the views of both the civil
and military chiefs were modified. The order was revoked within
twenty-four hours, and the guards withdrawn; on the twenty-ninth, the
Legislature was permitted to convene. In the conclusion, the committee
exonerated Speaker Guichard and other members of the Legislature
referred to as under suspicion, and severely censured Colonel Declouet
and Captain Duncan as the indiscreet authors of all the trouble. The
measures taken by General Jackson and Governor Claiborne were effectual;
while the report of the committee was evidently drawn to modify and
explain the imputed indiscretions of some of their fellow-members who
had been compromised. The procedure did not include all the legislators;
for some of these had volunteered their services, shouldered their
muskets, and gone to the front of battle.
A feeling of keen resentment toward General Jackson and some officers
involved in this affair was nursed long after by these legislators.
After peace was assured and hostilities at an end, the Legislature voted
a resolution of thanks for valiant services in defense of Louisiana to
the officers and soldiers from the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Mississippi, with the request to the Governor that he should convey the
sense of this resolution in appropriate terms in a letter each to the
officers in command of these troops, respectively. The resolution was as
follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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