University of Virginia Library

19. XIX.

I HAVE just returned from a visit to the scene of
American resolution and individual renown—the
battle-ground of New-Orleans. The Aceldama,
where one warrior-chief drove his triumphal car
over the grave of another—the field of “fame and
of glory” from which the “hero of two wars” plucked
the chaplet which encircles his brow, and the
éclat which has elevated him to a throne!—

The field of battle lies between five and six miles
below the city, on the left bank, on the New-Orleans
side of the river. The road conducting us to it,
wound pleasantly along the Levée; its unvarying
level relieved by delightful gardens, and pleasant
country seats—(one of which, constructed like a
Chinese villa, struck me as eminently tasteful and
picturesque)—skirting it upon one side, and by the
noble, lake-like Mississippi on the other, which,
bearing upon its waveless bosom a hundred white
sails, and a solitary tow-boat leading, like a conqueror,
a fleet in her train—rolled silently and majestically

past to the ocean. When, in our own
estimation, and, no doubt, in that of our horses, we
had accomplished the prescribed two leagues, we
reined up at a steam saw-mill, erected and in full
operation on the road-side, and inquired for some
directions to the spot—not discerning in the peaceful
plantations before us, any indications of the
scene of so fierce a struggle as that which took
place, when England and America met in proud
array, and the military standards of each gallantly
waved to the “battle and the breeze.” Although,
on ascending the river in the ship, I obtained a
moonlight glance of the spot, I received no impression
of its locale> sufficiently accurate to enable me
to recognise it under different circumstances. An
extensive, level field was spread out before us, apparently
the peaceful domain of some planter, who
probably resided in a little piazza-girted cottage
which stood on the banks of the river. But this
field, we at once decided, could not be the battle-field—so
quiet and farm-like it reposed. “There,”
was our reflection, “armies can never have met!
there, warriors can never have stalked in the pride
of victory with
Yet peaceful as it slumbered there, that domain had
once rung with the clangor of war. It was the battle-field!
But silence now reigned

In reply to our inquiries, made of one apparently
superintending the steam-works, we received simply
the tacit “Follow me gentlemen!” We gladly accommodated
the paces of our spirited horses to
those of our obliging and very practical informant,
who alertly preceded us, blessing the stars which
had given us so unexpectedly a cicerone, who, from
his vicinity to the spot must be au fait in all the
interesting minutiæ of so celebrated a place. Following
our guide a few hundred yards farther down
the river-road, we passed on the left hand a one
story wooden dwelling-house situated at a short distance
back from the road, having a gallery, or portico
in front, and elevated upon a basement story of
brick, like most other houses built immediately on
the river. This, our guide informed us, was “the
house occupied by General Jackson as head-quarters:
and there,” he continued, pointing to a planter's
residence two or three miles farther down the
river, “is the mansion-house of General, (late
governor, Villeré) which was occupied by Sir Edward
Packenham as the head-quarters of the British
army.”

“But the battle-ground—where is that sir?” we
inquired, as he silently continued his rapid walk in
advance of us.

“There it is,” he replied after walking on a minute
or two longer in silence, and turning the corner
of a narrow, fenced lane which extended from the
river to the forest-covered marshes—“there it is,
gentlemen,”—and at the same time extended his
arm in the direction of the peaceful plain, which we

had before observed,—spread out like a carpet, it
was so very level—till it terminated in the distant
forests, by which and the river it was nearly enclosed.
Riding a quarter of a mile down the lane
we dismounted, and leaving our horses in the road,
sprang over a fence, and in a few seconds stood
upon the American breast-works!

“When,” said a mercurial friend lately, in describing
his feelings on first standing upon the same
spot—“when I leaped upon the embankment, my
first impulse was to give vent to my excited feelings
by a shout that might have awakened the
mailed sleepers from their sleep of death.” Our
emotions—for strong and strange emotions will be
irresistibly excited in the breast of every one, “to
war's dark scenes unused,” on first beholding the
scene of a sanguinary conflict, between man and
man, whether it be grisly with carnage, pleasantly
waving with the yellow harvest, or carpeted with
green—our emotions, though perhaps equally deep,
exhibited themselves very differently. For some
moments, after gaining our position, we stood wrapped
in silence. The wild and terrible scenes of
which the ground we trod had been the theatre,
passed vividly before my mind with almost the distinctness
of reality, impressing it with reflections of
a deep and solemn character. I stood upon the
graves of the fallen! Every footfall disturbed human
ashes! Human dust gathered upon our shoes
as the dust of the plain! My thoughts were too full
for utterance. “On the very spot where I stand”—
thought I, “some gallant fellow poured out the best

blood of his heart! Here, past me, and around me,
flowed the sanguinary tide of death!—The fierce
battle-cry—the bray of trumpets—the ringing of
steel on steel—the roar of artillery hurling leaden
and iron hail against human breasts—the rattling of
musketry—the shouts of the victor, and the groans
of the wounded, were here mingled—a whirlwind
of noise and death!”

“Under those two oaks, which you see about
half a mile over the field, Sir Edward was borne,
by his retreating soldiers, to die”—said our guide,
suddenly interrupting my momentary reverie. I
looked in the direction indicated by his finger, and
my eyes rested upon a venerable oak, towering in
solitary grandeur over the field, and overshadowing
the graves of the slain, who, in great numbers, had
been sepultured beneath its shadow. How many
eyes were fixed, with the fond recollection of their
village homes amid clustering oaks in distant England,
upon this noble tree—which, in a few moments,
amid the howl of war, were closed for ever
in the sleep of the dead! Of how many last looks
were its branches the repositories! How many
manly sighs were wafted toward its waving summit
from the breast of many a brave man, who was
never more to behold the wave of a green tree upon
the pleasant earth!

It has been stated that Sir Edward Packenham
fell, and was buried under this oak, or these oaks,
(for I believe there are two,) but I have been informed,
since my return from the field, by a gentleman
who was commander of a troop of horse in the

action, that when the British retreated, he saw from
the parapet the body of General Packenham lying
alone upon the ground, surrounded by the dead and
wounded, readily distinguishable by its uniform;
and, that during the armistice for the burial of the
dead, he saw his body borne from the field by the
British soldiers, who afterward conveyed it with
them in their retreat to their fleet.

The rampart of earth upon which we stood, presented
very little the appearance of having ever
been a defence for three thousand breasts; resembling
rather one of the numerous dikes constructed
on the plantations near the river, to drain the very
marshy soil which abounds in this region, than the
military defences of a field of battle. It was a
grassy embankment, extending, with the exception
of an angle near the forest—about a mile in a
straight line from the river to the cypress swamps
in the rear; four feet high, and five or six feet
broad. At the time of the battle it was the height
of a man, and somewhat broader than at present,
and along the whole front ran a fossé, containing
five feet of water, and of the same breadth as the
parapet. This was now nearly filled with earth,
and could easily be leaped over at any point. The
embankment throughout the whole extent is much
worn, indented and, occasionally, levelled with the
surface of the plain. Upon the top of it, before the
battle, eight batteries were erected, with embrasures
of cotton bales, piled transversely. Under cover of
this friendly embankment, the Americans lay perdus,

but not idle, during the greater portion of the
battle.

A daring Tennessean, with a blanket tied round
him, and a hat with a brim of enormous breadth,
who seemed to be fighting “on his own hook,” disdaining
to raise his rifle over the bank of earth and
fire, in safety to his person, like his more wary fellow
soldiers, chose to spring, every time he fired,
upon the breastwork, where, balancing himself, he
would bring his rifle to his cheek, throw back his
broad brim, take sight and fire, while the enemy
were advancing to the attack, as deliberately as
though shooting at a herd of deer; then leaping
down on the inner side, he would reload, mount the
works, cock his beaver, take aim, and crack again.
“This he did,” said an English officer, who was
taken prisoner by him, and who laughingly related
it as a good anecdote to Captain D *****, my informant
above alluded to—“five times in rapid succession,
as I advanced at the head of my company,
and though the grape whistled through the air over
our heads, for the life of me I could not help smiling
at his grotesque demi-savage, demi-quaker figure,
as he threw back the broad flap of his castor to obtain
a fair sight—deliberately raised his rifle—shut
his left eye, and blazed away at us. I verily believe
he brought down one of my men at every
shot.”

As the British resolutely advanced, though columns
fell like the tall grain before the sickle at the
fire of the Americans, this same officer approached

at the head of his brave grenadiers amid the rolling
fire of musketry from the lines of his unseen foes,
undaunted and untouched. “Advance, my men!”
he shouted as he reached the edge of the fossé—
“follow me!” and sword in hand he leaped the
ditch, and turning amidst the roar and flame of a
hundred muskets to encourage his men, beheld to
his surprise but a single man of his company upon
his feet—more than fifty brave fellows, whom he
had so gallantly led on to the attack, had been shot
down. As he was about to leap back from his dangerous
situation, his sword was shivered in his grasp
by a rifle ball, and at the same instant the daring
Tennessean sprang upon the parapet and levelled
his deadly weapon at his breast, calmly observing,
“Surrender, strannger—or, I may perforate ye!”
“Chagrined,” said the officer, at the close of his
recital, “I was compelled to deliver to the bold fellow
my mutilated sword, and pass over into the
American lines.”

“Here,” said our guide and cicerone, advancing a
few paces up the embankment, and placing his foot
emphatically upon the ground, “here fell Renie.”

This gallant man, with the calf of his leg shot
away by a cannon-ball, leaped upon the breastworks
with a shout of exultation, and was immediately
shot through the heart, by an American private.
Packenham, the favourite elêve of Wellington,
and the “beau ideal” of a British soldier, after
receiving a second wound, while attempting to rally
his broken columns, fell directly in front of our position,

not far from where Renie received his death-wound.
In the disorder and panic of the first retreat
of the British, he was left bleeding and forsaken
among the dead and dying. Not far from this
melancholy spot, Gibbes received his mortal wound;
and near the place where this gallant officer fell,
one of the staff of the English general was also shot
down. The whole field was fruitful with scenes of
thrilling interest. I should weary you by individualizing
them. There was scarcely a spot on
which I could cast my eyes, where a soldier had
not poured out his life-blood. “As I stood upon
the breast-works,” said Captain Dunbar, “after the
action, the field of battle before me was so thickly
strewn with dead bodies, that I could have walked
fifty yards over them without placing my foot upon
the ground.” How revolting the sight of a field
thus sown must be to human nature! Man must
indeed be humbled at such a spectacle.

We walked slowly over the ground, which annually
waves with undulating harvests of the rich
cane. Our guide was intelligent and sufficiently
communicative without being garrulous. He was
familiar with every interesting fact associated with
the spot, and by his correct information rendered
our visit both more satisfactory and agreeable than
it otherwise would have been.

“Here gentilhommes, j'ai findé some bullet for
you to buy,” shouted a little French mulatto at the
top of his voice, who, among other boys of various
hues, had followed us to the field, “me, j'ai trop—

too much;” and on reaching us, this double-tongued
urchin turned his pockets inside out and discharged
upon the ground a load of rusty grape shot, bullets,
and fragments of lead—his little stock in trade,
some, if not all of which, I surmised, had been manufactured
for the occasion.

“Did you find them on the battle-ground, gar
çon?”

“Iss—oui, Messieurs, me did, de long-temps.”

I was about to charge him with having prepared
his pockets before leaving home, when Mr. C. exhibited
a grape shot that he had picked from the
dark soil in which it was half buried. I bought for
a piccaiune,[8] the smallest currency of the country,
the “load of grape,” and we pursued our walk over
the field, listening with much interest to the communications
of our guide, conjuring up the past
scenes of strife and searching for balls; which by
and by began to thicken upon us so fast, that we
were disposed to attribute a generative principle to
grape-shot. We were told by our cicerone that they
were found in great numbers by the ploughmen, and
disposed of to curious visiters. On inquiring of him
if false ones were not imposed upon the unsuspecting,
he replied “No—there is no need of that—
there is an abundance of those which are genuine.”

“I'm got half a peck on um to hum, mysef, I'se
found,” exclaimed a little negro in a voice that
sounded like the creaking of a shoe, bolting off at

the same time for the treasure, like one of his own
cannon-balls. What appalling evidence is this
abundance of leaden and iron hail strewed over the
field, of the terrible character of that war-storm
which swept so fearfully over it. Flattened and
round balls, grape of various sizes, and non-descript
bits of iron were the principal objects picked up in
our stroll over the ground.

The night was rapidly approching—for we had
lingered long on this interesting spot—and precluded
our visit to the oaks, to which it had been our
intention to extend our walk; and as we turned to
retrace our steps with our pockets heavy with
metal, something rang to the touch of my foot,
which, on lifting and cleansing it from the loam, we
discovered to be the butt-piece of a musket. As
this was the most valuable relic which the field afforded,
C. was invested with it, for the purpose of
placing it in the museum of Codman's amateur collection,
for the benefit of the curious, when he returns
to that land of curious bipeds, where such
kind of mementos are duly estimated. Twilight
had already commenced, as, advancing over the
same ground across which the gallant Packenham
led his veteran army, we fearlessly leaped the fossé
and, unresisted, ascended the parapet. Hastening
to free our impatient horses from their thraldom, we
mounted them, and—not forgetting a suitable douceur,
by way of “a consideration” to our obliging
cicerone—spurred for the city. As we arrived at
the head of the lane and emerged again upon the
high-way, I paused for an instant upon the summit
of the Levée to take a last view of the battle-ground

which lay in calm repose under the gathering twilight—challenging
the strongest exercise of the imagination
to believe it ever to have borne other than
its present rural character, or echoed to other sounds
than the whistle of the careless slave as he cut the
luxuriant cane, the gun of the sportsman, or the
melancholy song of the plough-boy.