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
Pakenham died the death of the brave soldier, the heroic Briton, and the
beloved commander. His wounds were mortal, and he was at once borne back
to headquarters unconscious and dying. No last words came down to us
through the grief-stricken aids who ministered to him in his last hour.
The British accounts of his wounding and death-scenes are conflicting
and unsatisfactory. Judge Walker, in his work, "Jackson and New
Orleans," after much research, says that Pakenham was wounded first
while attempting to rally the Forty-fourth Regiment, whose chief
officer, Colonel Mullins, had failed to lead it to a second attack,
after the first repulse by the Tennessee and Kentucky infantry. A
musket-ball broke his right arm, and another killed his horse. His aid,
Captain McDougall, assisted him to mount his own horse, a creole pony,
and led him forward by the bridle-rein, the General's wounded arm
hanging helpless at his side. Pakenham continued in front, and to
encourage his men. As the Ninety-third Highlanders came up, he raised
his hat in his left hand, waved it in the air with enthusiasm, and
shouted:
"Hurrah! Hurrah! brave Highlanders!"
A discharge of grape-shot almost annihilated the group. One shot passed
through the General's thigh, and at the same time through the body of
the pony, and both went down, never to rise again. As the aid raised him
once again in his arms, the chief received a third and fatal wound in
the groin. He was borne back then, near to his headquarters, and placed
under a large oak tree, where, beyond the surgeon's skill, he shortly
breathed his last.
BRITISH SOLDIERS WON LAURELS IN EUROPEAN WARS.
From English authorities we learn that there were in the English army,
under Pakenham, regiments that had won laurels at Martinique, Badajoz,
Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse. The English chronicler,
Cooke, says of some of these veterans, who touched, on their way to
America from the coasts of France, the shore of Old England for a few
days, that "scraps from our colors, or other little souvenirs, were
craved for with outstretched hands, to find a resting place in the fair
bosoms of the ladies of Devonshire."
Others again were but recently transported from the fiery ordeals of
Corunna, Busaco, and Ciudad Rodrigo, says the same author. England never
sent forth from her borders a braver or better-disciplined body of
soldiers, as was proven in every trial of campaign and battle of the
invasion of Louisiana. No other troops in the world could have behaved
with more sturdy gallantry or fought with superior courage. Their defeat
was destiny. Providence and General Jackson did it!
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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