On Christmas Day Pakenham took command of the forces at the front now augmented to about six thousand, but hesitated to attack. And well he might hesitate, in spite of his superior numbers, for Jackson had employed his time well and now lay entrenched behind a parapet, protected by a canal or ditch ten feet wide. With infinite exertion more guns were dragged and floated to the front until eight heavy batteries were in position. On the morning of the 1st of January the British gunners opened fire and felt serenely certain of destroying the rude defenses of cotton bales and cypress logs. To their amazement the American artillery was served with far greater precision and effect by the sailors and regulars who had been trained under Jackson's direction. By noon most of the British guns had been silenced or dismounted and the men killed or driven away. "Never was any failure more remarkable or unlooked for than this," said one of the British artillery officers. General Pakenham, in dismay, held a council of war. It is stated that his own judgment was swayed by the autocratic Vice-Admiral Cochrane who tauntingly remarked that "if the army could not take those mud-banks, defended by ragged militia, he would undertake to do it with two thousand sailors armed only with cutlases and pistols." Made cautious by this overwhelming artillery reverse, the British army remained a week in camp, a respite of which every hour was priceless to Andrew Jackson, for his mud-stained, haggard men were toiling with pick and shovel to complete the ditches and log barricades. They could hear the British drums and bugles echo in the gloomy cypress woods while the cannon grumbled incessantly. The red-coated sentries were stalked and the pickets were ambushed by the Indian fighters who spread alarm and uneasiness. Meanwhile Pakenham was making ready with every resource known to picked troops, who had charged unshaken through the slaughter of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian, and who were about to justify once more the tribute to the British soldier: "Give him a plain, unconditional order--go and do _that_--and he will do it with a cool, self-forgetting pertinacity that can scarcely be too much admired." It was Pakenham's plan to hurl a flank attack against the right bank of the Mississippi while he directed the grand assault on the east side of the river where Jackson's strength was massed. To protect the flank, Commodore Patterson of the American naval force had built a water battery of nine guns and was supported by eight hundred militia. Early in the morning of the 8th of January twelve hundred men in boats, under the British Colonel Thornton, set out to take this west bank as the opening maneuver of the battle. Their errand was delayed, although later in the day they succeeded in defeating the militia and capturing the naval guns. This minor victory, however, was too late to save Pakenham's army which had been cut to pieces in the frontal assault.