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  1. The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815 between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the French Quarter of New Orleans, in the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana. The battle was the climax of the five month Gulf Campaign (September 1814 to February 1815) by Britain to try to take New Orleans, West Florida, and possibly Louisiana Territory which ...

    • Jean Lafitte

      Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 – c. 1823) was a French pirate and...

    • Edward Pakenham

      Major General Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, GCB (19 March...

    • Background
    • Treaty of Ghent
    • Prelude to The Battle
    • Lake Borgne
    • Villere Plantation
    • Fort St. Philip
    • Aftermath

    After the 1793 Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the American Revolutionary War, the British were still present on the American continent. They were trading with the Indians and at times were inciting them against the Americans. The British were blockading American ships, capturing American seamen and forcing them into the Royal Navy to fight against Napoleon. On June 18, 1812, President Madison signed the formal declaration of war against Britain. The fighting began in Canada in an attempt to cut off the British supply lines. At that same time, the British were fighting Napoleon but when that war ended these skilled troops were sent to Canada. The Americans did not have a standing army as such and was still composed of individual militias, men who signed up for short periods of time. By 1813, the British had won nearly every major battle in the war. In August 24, 1814 The British entered Washington D.C., and burned the Capitol to the ground.

    On December 24, 1814 the Treaty of Ghent was signed ending the War of 1812. The treatycalled for returning all borders and lands as they were before the war. Because of the distances involved and the delay in communications, at the time of the battles neither side knew a peace treaty had been signed. As the Ghent negotiations suggested, the real causes of the war of 1812, were not merely commerce and neutral rights. They were also the issues of US western expansion, relations with American Indians, and control of theterritory of North America.

    The British fleet of some 30 warships sailed out of Negril Bay, Jamaica on 26 November, 1814. The fleet under command of Admiral Cochrane moved into the Gulf of Mexico ready to attack New Orleans. Cochrane's fleet was transporting 14,450 British troops who had recently been fighting in the Napoleonic wars in France and Spain. The first the Americans learned of this was through the leader of the Baratarian pirates, Jean Lafitte. The British had offered him several thousand dollars if he would join them. They wanted him to guide them through the swamps in and around New Orleans. Asking for time to consider, Lafitte contacted the American governor of Louisiana, Claiborne and told him of their plans. Claiborne contacted General Andrew Jackson. At first the Americans were wary but they accepted his help. Lafitte offered much needed gunpowder, fuses, cannonballs and the artilleryexpertise of his men. The pirates knew the swamps around New Orleans and helped guide the Americans to outmaneu...

    On December 22 the British moved in barges toward the narrow opening at Lake Borgne. They soon found their way blocked by five American gunboats under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Jones. The British, guided by Spanish and Portuguese fisherman from the area, had an assault force of forty-five boats under the command of Captain Nicholas Lockyer. In the engagement that followed, the British prevailed but suffered about 100 casualties. Lieutenant Thomas Jones lost about 40 killed and wounded. The rest of his men were captured. One man escaped and warned the Americans. The British moved in barges from Lake Borgne to land seven miles below New Orleans on the Mississippi river. Their fishermen guides landed them at Villere Plantation.

    When Jackson learned of the landing at Villere Plantation he immediately planned an attack that night. The British general Keene had about 1,900 men when he landed at Villere. More British soldiers landed and by evening there were about 2,300 at the plantation. Under cover of darkness the Americans surprised the British in their camp. Over 2,100 Americans began firing on the British, many of whom were still being landed in boats. The American schooner, Carolina, had anchored in the Mississippi near the plantation and opened a murderous fire on the British camp. Even after the Americans withdrew the Carolina kept up the bombardment until it was blown up by Heated shot and sunk on December 27th. The battle had no clear winner, but the British were delayed in their attempt to capture New Orleans.The Americans lost about 200 men while the British losses were fixed at about 300. After the battle Jackson began building his defenses at the Rodriguez Canal. This was an abandoned millrace ap...

    Fort St. Philip was located on the east bank of the Mississippi river. It protected New Orleans from any river approach to the city. The Americans took over the fort, originally built by the Spanish, in 1808. It was rebuilt with bricks and had two bastions facing the river. The bastions were where most of the fort's twenty guns were mounted. The fort was attacked at the same time General Pakenham led his infantry attack on Jackson's earthworks. The fort was bombardedby five British warships for over a week. Finally, on 18 January 1815 the British fleet withdrew. They were damaged but had been unable to do much damage to the fort.

    As the gunships retreated on January 18th, the British soldiers were recalled to their transport ships. They were required to leave eighteen badly wounded men, two of whom were officers. In their haste they left fourteen artillery pieces and a large quantity of cannon shot. One of the two medical personnel left to take care of the British wounded gave General Jackson a letter from General Lambert. In his letter Lambert stated he had given up all further operations against New Orleans. He asked too that his men be protected and cared for. Jackson had given thought to pursuing the retreating British. But he decided not to risk any of his men's lives needlessly.He thought the lives of ten British soldiers were not worth the loss of one of his own men. As General Jackson stated in his letter to the Secretary of War, he was not convinced the British had given up on trying to take the Louisiana territory by force. By Jackson's estimations the British had lost over four thousand men either...

  2. The Battle of New Orleans was fought in January 1815, part of the War of 1812. Battle of New Orleans may also refer to: Capture of New Orleans, 1862 operation of the American Civil War; Battle of Liberty Place, 1874 battle between Democratic Conservatives and Republican Reconstructionists "The Battle of New Orleans", song by Jimmie Driftwood; See also. Battle of Orléans (disambiguation)

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    Who won the Battle of New Orleans against the British?

    • Background
    • Prelude
    • Commencement of Battle
    • Battle
    • Aftermath
    • Legacy
    • in Popular Culture
    • See Also

    In Au­gust 1814, Britain and the United States began ne­go­ti­a­tions to end the War of 1812. How­ever, British Sec­re­tary of State for War and the Colonies Henry Bathurstis­sued Pak­en­ham se­cret or­ders on Oc­to­ber 24, 1814, com­mand­ing him to con­tinue the war even if he heard ru­mors of peace. Bathurst ex­pressed con­cern that the United States might not rat­ify a treaty and did not want Pak­en­ham ei­ther to en­dan­ger his forces or miss an op­por­tu­nity for victory.

    Lake Borgne

    Sixty British ships had an­chored in the Gulf of Mex­ico to the east of Lake Pontchar­train and Lake Borgne by De­cem­ber 14, 1814, with 14,450 sol­diers and sailors aboard under the com­mand of Ad­mi­ral Sir Alexan­der Cochrane. An Amer­i­can flotilla of five gun­boats pre­vented British ac­cess to the lakes, com­manded by Lieu­tenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones. On De­cem­ber 14, around 1,200 British sailors and Royal Marines under Cap­tain Nicholas Lockyer set out to at­tack Jones's force. Loc...

    Villeré Plantation

    On the morn­ing of De­cem­ber 23, Keane and a van­guard of 1,800 British sol­diers reached the east bank of the Mis­sis­sippi River, 9 miles (14 km) south of New Orleans. They could have at­tacked the city by ad­vanc­ing a few hours up the un­de­fended river road, but Keane de­cided to en­camp at La­coste's Plantation and wait for the ar­rival of reinforcements. The British in­vaded the home of Major Gabriel Villeré, but he es­caped through a windowand has­tened to warn Gen­eral Jack­son of t...

    Fol­low­ing Villeré's in­tel­li­gence re­port, on the evening of De­cem­ber 23, Jack­son led 2,131 men in a brief three-pronged as­sault from the north on the un­sus­pect­ing British troops, who were rest­ing in their camp. He then pulled his forces back to the Ro­driguez Canal, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the city. The Amer­i­cans suf­fered 24 killed, 115 wounded, and 74 missing,while the British re­ported their losses as 46 killed, 167 wounded, and 64 missing. His­to­rian Robert Quimby states that the British won a "tac­ti­cal vic­tory, which en­abled them to main­tain their position", but they "were dis­abused of their ex­pec­ta­tion of an easy conquest". As a con­se­quence, the Amer­i­cans gained time to trans­form the canal into a heav­ily for­ti­fied earthwork. On Christ­mas Day, Gen­eral Ed­ward Pak­en­ham ar­rived on the bat­tle­field. He or­dered a re­con­nais­sance-in-force on De­cem­ber 28 against the earth­works, and he met with Gen­eral Keane and Ad­mi­ral Cochrane...

    The Amer­i­cans had con­structed three lines of de­fense, with the for­ward line four miles south of the city. It was strongly en­trenched at the Ro­driguez Canal, which stretched from a swamp to the river, with a tim­ber, loop-holed breast­work and earth­works for artillery.:361 The British bat­tle plan was for an at­tack against the 20-gun west bank bat­tery, then to turn those guns on the Amer­i­can line to as­sist the frontal attack.:362 In the early morn­ing of Jan­u­ary 8, Pak­en­ham gave his final or­ders for the two-pronged as­sault. Colonel William Thorn­ton was to cross the Mis­sis­sippi dur­ing the night with his force of 780, move rapidly up­river, storm the bat­tery com­manded by Com­modore Daniel Pat­ter­son on the flank of the main Amer­i­can en­trench­ments, and then open an en­fi­lad­ing fire on Jack­son's line with the cap­tured ar­tillery, di­rectly across from the earth­works manned by the vast ma­jor­ity of Amer­i­can troops. Keane was to lead a col­umn along th...

    Fort St. Philip

    The British planned to sail up the Mis­sis­sippi River to sup­port the cam­paign. Fort St. Philip, manned by an Amer­i­can gar­ri­son and pro­tected by pri­va­teers, de­fended the river ap­proach to New Or­leans. British naval forces at­tacked the fort on Jan­u­ary 9 but were un­suc­cess­ful, with­draw­ing after ten days of bom­bard­ment.

    British withdrawal

    Three days after the bat­tle, Gen­eral Lam­bert held a coun­cil of war. De­spite news of cap­ture of the Amer­i­can bat­tery on the west bank of the Mis­sis­sippi River, British of­fi­cers con­cluded that con­tin­u­ing the Louisiana cam­paign would be too costly. De­cid­ing to with­draw, the British left camp at Villere's Plan­ta­tion by Jan­u­ary 19.The Chal­mette bat­tle­field was the plan­ta­tion home of Colonel Denis de La Ronde's half-brother Ignace Mar­tin de Lino (1755–1815). The Briti...


    For the cam­paign, British ca­su­al­ties to­taled 2,459 with 386 killed, 1,521 wounded, and 552 miss­ing, while Amer­i­can ca­su­al­ties to­taled 333 with 55 killed, 185 wounded, and 93 missing. The bat­tle be­came his­tor­i­cally im­por­tant mainly for the mean­ing Amer­i­cans gave it, par­tic­u­larly with re­spect to Jackson. News of vic­tory "came upon the coun­try like a clap of thun­der in the clear azure vault of the fir­ma­ment, and trav­eled with elec­tro­mag­netic ve­loc­ity, through...

    Miracle at New Orleans

    With the Amer­i­cans out­num­bered, it seemed that the city of New Or­leans was in dan­ger of being cap­tured, so the Ur­su­line nuns and many peo­ple of New Or­leans gath­ered in the Ur­su­line Con­vent's chapel be­fore the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Suc­cor. They spent the night be­fore the bat­tle pray­ing and cry­ing be­fore the statue, beg­ging for the Vir­gin Mary's in­ter­ces­sion. Rev­erend William Dubourg of­fered Mass at the altar on the morn­ing of Jan­u­ary 8, and Mother Ste. Ma...

    Distinguished service as mentioned in dispatches

    The an­niver­sary of the bat­tle was cel­e­brated as an Amer­i­can hol­i­day for many years called "The Eighth". Or­leans Square in Sa­van­nah, Geor­gia, is named in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the bat­tle.


    The Louisiana His­tor­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion ded­i­cated its Memo­r­ial Hall fa­cil­ity to Jack­son on Jan­u­ary 8, 1891, the 76th an­niver­sary of the Bat­tle of New Orleans. The Fed­eral gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished a na­tional his­tor­i­cal park in 1907 to pre­serve the Chal­mette Bat­tle­field. It fea­tures a mon­u­ment and is part of the Jean Lafitte Na­tional His­tor­i­cal Park and Pre­serve. A five-cent stamp in 1965 com­mem­o­rated the sesqui­cen­ten­nial of the Bat­tle of New Or­leans a...

    The Buccaneer was a 1938 American adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. De Mille based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans. It was remadein 1958.
    Jimmy Driftwood wrote the song "The Battle of New Orleans" using the melody from "The Eighth of January". It was a 1959 hit for both Johnny Horton (U.S. Number 1) and Lonnie Donegan(U.K. Number 2)....
    • January 8, 1815( 1815-01-08)
    • American victory
  4. › wiki › New_orleansNew Orleans - Wikipedia New Orleans ( / ˈɔːrl ( i) ənz, ɔːrˈliːnz /, locally / ˈɔːrlənz /; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃] ( listen)) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a tabulated population of 383,997 in 2020, it is the most ...

    • United States
    • Orleans
  5. File:The Battle of New Orleans. January 1815. Copy of engraving by H. B. Hall after W. Momberger., ca. 1900 - 1982 - NARA - 531091.tif

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