The Role of Andrew Johnson in the Battle of New Orleans

The Role of Andrew Johnson in the Battle of New Orleans

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Introduction

The battle that occurred in 1812 can be said not to form part of the most familiar America’s conflicts but it is better known for such events as the burning of washington, D.C by the British, the composition of the national anthem of the United States in the dawn’s light of Baltimore and the battle at New Orleans that eventually proved the legitimacy of America as a nation[1]. In that battle which threatened the strategic lifeline of the nation and that of New Orleans, the elite Great Britain troops who apparently were victors over the dreaded armies of the Napoleon, confronted a makeshift American Army of defenders brought together from regular troops, militias, the French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, free blacks, Indians, the Kentucky mountaineers, miscellaneous volunteers and the pirates of Barataria.

Role of Andrew Johnson in the battle of New Orleans

Every year in most states in the United States, most Democrats flock to their annual Jefferson-Jackson dinners with more emphasis on celebrating the life of Jefferson who was the father of Democratic Party. Among the most forgotten heroes of the United States include that of the military record and legacy of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States and perhaps the greatest military hero before the American Civil War[2]. During this war, more than anyone else, it was Jackson through a combination of military leadership, inspired vision and a strong personality who literally ensured that America retained her independence, drove out the European rivals. Under his leadership, America’s influence grew to eventually span the entire continent. He was a classic American success story: a young man born into poverty, orphaned, struggling against extreme tribulations and effectively rising to the highest levels of success.

As a youngster during the revolutionary War, he lost his mother and two brothers. His father had died shortly before he was born and like other young boys his age, he worked as a messenger around the America troops, eventually being captured by the Britons and punished for refusal to polish boots. He moved to Nasmhville, Tennessee and took on the mantle of leadership as a young civic leader, lawyer and a militiaman[3]. A rising star in the political arena and frontier he parlayed his connections into an appointment as the leader in the Tennessee militia and people followed him. Given that he had experience of war as a child, he practiced the Indian fighting style which was more common in the frontiers. He had learned the tricks of moving through the woods, of before dawn and morning trainings. He had unique qualities of judgment of strategies and intent and a real thirst to be in charge, his principal aspiration was more of military leadership. Under him the United States defeated the Great Britain at the battle of New Orleans and it was this victory that propelled him into a household name in the United States.

Over a period of more than one year preceding the battle he raised a force of several thousand men, marched them overland and moved by river from Nashville to Natchez, returned his force to Tennessee, reformed and refitted a new force, marched south into Alabama, wiped out an Indian force aided and abetted by the British forces and drove them off to Florida panhandle and around Mobile Bay where they countermarched up to New Orleans and took control of the whole city (under martial law) and bent the city’s resources to its own defense, including even the local band of pirates under the Lafitte brothers[4]. In the course of his maneuvers he dealt with sever shortage of supplies, an absence of effective strategic direction from higher authority and a repeated disobedience and rebellion and desertion from within his command. At one point he faced down mutinous troops with a musket and his steely gaze, and at another he actually trained his cannon on a mutinous brigade, stood in the line of fire and invited the men to decide their fate, acknowledging that they broke he would open fire and be among the very first casualties.

The battle of New Orleans changed the course of America history and thoroughly convinced the Americans that they had earned the right to be independent and that their sovereignty would be respected around the globe permanently. The battle propelled a once-poor and wretchedly educated orphan, Andrew Johnson into the powers of the state, White House. This battle took place between the Great Britain and the United states on the plains of Chalmette, approximately ten miles south of New Orleans on the east bank of the Mississippi River[5]. The attacking forces consisted of about disciplined regulars of the British army that included the Royal Fusiliers, Highlanders, Light Infantry, and Light Dragoons, a West Indian regiment, and sailors from the fleet anchored in the Gulf of Mexico. The attacking forces had the push to punch their way straight north into New Orleans and head straight to the Mississippi valley to join the British troops coming from Canada, succeeding in dividing the United States into two.

The defending army consisted of roughly four thousand frontiersmen, militiamen, and regular soldiers, free men of color, Indians, pirates and townspeople who were strung along a line from the Mississippi River to a cypress swamp and crouched behind a millrace ditch that had bales of cotton placed atop its northern edge[6]. The war of 1812, the so called the forgotten war, began when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Henry Clay of Kentucky, his principal assistant, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and other Southern and western representatives, also known as the Warhawks, pressured President James Madison into asking Congress to declare war against Great Britain. Madison’s message listed several provocations[7]. The British were pressing American seamen to help fight the war against Napoleon and seizing American ships. They were inciting Indians to attack the frontier and had not evacuated forts held on American soil along the northern frontier as had been stipulated in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which had ended the American Revolution. But a more important reason other than the one given by Madison was the need that the country felt to prove to itself and the rest of the world that this new experiment in republican government was a permanent fixture in the family of nations and the contempt shown by Britain in persistently violating American rights would not go unchallenged or unpunished.

Jackson was a man with steel will. He persevered in command despite illness and personal suffering. He demanded the same level of hardiness from his troops, eve as he took care of those who were ill and injured and ultimately they came to love and appreciate him for that. From today’s perspective, the battle looks tactical and almost feeble; a few American troops defending a barricade behind a ditch along the Mississippi River south of New Orleans with a weak and under protected guards across the river. The outcome almost seemed to turn on luck since it was characterized by fogs, clumsy ill-timed British attacks, some ponderous movements and a very poorly executed final assault which led to the slaughter of the British troops attempting to breach the ditch and storm the barricade[8]. It may be easier to mistake the battle as more of a British defeat rather than an American victory. But that would be to underestimate the incredible strength and resourcefulness which Jackson brought to the campaign, and to disregard the months of maneuver and conflict which culminated in the battle. Jackson was not only a strong tactician but also a master strategist operating at the highest levels of the military art.

Bibliography

Bergeron, Paul H. & Johnson Andrew. The papers of Andrew Johnson: May 1869-July 1875

(University of Tennessee Press, 2000). 38-98.

Burgan Michael. Andrew Johnson (Twenty-First Century Books, 2003). 1-56.

Hall, Rumery Clifton. Andrew Johnson Military Governor of Tennessee ( BiblioBazzar, 2009).

150-160.

Havelin, Kate. Andrew Johnson (Twenty-First Century Books, 2004). 8-28.

Hogue, Keith James. Uncivil war: five New Orleans street battles and the rise and fall of radical

Reconstruction ( LSU Press, 2006). 1-60

Remini, V. Robert. Andrew Jackson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 1-67

Remini, Vincent Roberts. The Battle of New Orleans: Andtew Jackson and America’s First

Military Victory (Penguin, 1999). 1-56.