You will readily imagine that these preparations were beheld by a party of hungry soldiers with no indifferent eye. An elegant dinner, even though considerably overdressed, was a luxury to which few of them, at least for some time back, had been accustomed, and which, after the dangers and fatigues of the day, appeared peculiarly inviting. They sat down to it, therefore, not indeed in the most orderly manner, but with countenances which would not have disgraced a party of aldermen at a civic feast, and, having satisfied their appetites with fewer complaints than would have probably escaped their rival _gourmands_, and partaken pretty freely of the wines, they finished by setting fire to the house.... But, as I have just observed, this was a night of dismay to the inhabitants of Washington. They were taken completely by surprise; nor could the arrival of the flood be more unexpected to the natives of the antediluvian world than the arrival of the British army to them. The first impulse of course tempted them to fly, and the streets were in consequence crowded with soldiers and senators, men, women, and children, horses, carriages, and carts loaded with household furniture, all hastening towards a wooden bridge which crosses the Potomac. The confusion thus occasioned was terrible, and the crowd upon the bridge was such as to endanger its giving way. But Mr. Madison, having escaped among the first, was no sooner safe on the opposite bank of the river than he gave orders that the bridge should be broken down; which being obeyed, the rest were obliged to return and to trust to the clemency of the victors. In this manner was the night passed by both parties; and at daybreak next morning, the light brigade moved into the city, while the reserve fell back to a height about a half mile in the rear. Little, however, now remained to be done, because everything marked out for destruction was already consumed. Of the Senate house, the President’s palace, the barracks, the dockyard, etc., nothing could be seen except heaps of smoking ruins; and even the bridge ... was almost wholly demolished. The Battle of New Orleans Despite the general incompetence of the American leadership in the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson emerged from the campaigns as a genuine war hero. The Battle of New Orleans, which ironically was fought after the peace treaty had been signed in Europe, was a great victory. Jackson’s troops, greatly outnumbered, barricaded themselves behind cotton bales and earthworks and mowed down the British as they stormed the American positions. In the two selections that follow, we print first the account of the battle by the British officer George Gleig and then General Jackson’s terse report to the Secretary of War. OFFICER GLEIG: