On the
21st of November, Jackson set out for the menaced city. Five days
later a fleet of fifty vessels, carrying ten thousand veteran British
troops under command of Generals Pakenham and Gibbs, started from
Jamaica for what was expected to be an easy conquest. On the 10th of
December the hostile armada cast anchor off the Louisiana coast. Two
weeks later some two thousand redcoats emerged from Lake Borgne,
within six or seven miles of New Orleans, when the approach to the
city on that side was as yet unguarded by a gun or a man or an
entrenchment.
That the "impossible" was now accomplished was due mainly to Jackson,
although credit must not be withheld from a dozen energetic
subordinate officers nor from the thousands of patriots who made up
the rank and file of the hastily gathered forces of defense. Men from
Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee--all
contributed to one of the most remarkable military achievements in our
history; although when the fight was over it was found that hundreds
were still as unarmed as when they arrived upon the scene.
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