Only One Soldier Left in the Final Assault

“Now conceive my indignation, on looking round, to find that the two leading regiments had vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up!”

Continuing The Battle of New Orleans,
our selection from Life of Andrew Jackson by James Parton published in 1860. The selection is presented in seven easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Battle of New Orleans.

Time: January 8, 1815
Place: A few miles south of New Orleans

At that moment a mass of grape-shot, with a terrible crash, struck the group of which he was the central figure. One of the shots tore open the General’s thigh, killed his horse, and brought horse and rider to the ground. Captain McDougal caught the General in his arms, removed him from the fallen horse, and was supporting him upon the field when a second shot struck the wounded man in the groin, depriving him instantly of consciousness. He was borne to the rear and placed in the shade of an old live-oak, which still stands; and there, after gasping a few minutes, yielded up his life without a word, happily ignorant of the sad issue of all his plans and toils.

A more painful fate was that of General Gibbs. A few moments after Pakenham fell Gibbs received his death wound and was carried off the field writhing in agony and uttering fierce imprecations. He lingered all that day and the succeeding night, dying in torment on the morrow. Nearly at the same moment General Keane was painfully wounded in the neck and thigh, and was also borne to the rear. Colonel Dale, of the Highlanders, fulfilled his prophecy, and fell at the head of his regiment. The Highlanders, under Major Creagh, wavered not, but advanced steadily, and too slowly, into the very tempest of General Carroll’s fire, until they were within one hundred yards of the lines. There, for cause unknown, they halted and stood, a huge and glittering target, until five hundred forty-four of their number had fallen, then broke and fled in horror and amazement to the rear. The column of General Gibbs did not advance after the fall of their leader. Leaving heaps of slain behind them, they, too, forsook the bloody field, rushed in utter confusion out of the fire, and took refuge at the bottom of wet ditches and behind trees and bushes on the borders of the swamp.

But not all of them! Major Wilkinson, followed by Lieutenant Lavack and twenty men, pressed on to the ditch, floundered across it, climbed the breastwork, and raised his head and shoulders above its summit, upon which he fell riddled with balls. The Tennesseeans and Kentuckians defending that part of the lines, struck with admiration at such heroic conduct, lifted his still breathing body and conveyed it tenderly behind the works. “Bear up, my dear fellow,” said Major Smiley, of the Kentucky reserve; “you are too brave a man to die.”

“I thank you from my heart,” whispered the dying man. “It is all over with me. You can render me a favor; it is to communicate to my commander that I fell on your parapet, and died like a soldier and a true Englishman.” Lavack reached the summit of the parapet unharmed, though with two shot-holes in his cap. He had heard Wilkinson, as they were crossing the ditch, cry out: “Now, why don’t the troops come on? The day is our own.”

With these last words in his ears, and not looking behind him, he had no sooner gained the breastwork than he demanded the swords of two American officers, the first he caught sight of in the lines. “Oh, no,” replied one of them, “you are alone, and therefore ought to consider yourself our prisoner.” Then Lavack looked around and saw, what is best described in his own language:

“Now conceive my indignation, on looking round, to find that the two leading regiments had vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up!”

The earth had swallowed them up, or was waiting to do so, and the brave Lavack was a prisoner. Lieutenant Lavack further declared that when he first looked down behind the American lines he saw the riflemen “flying in a disorderly mob,” which all other witnesses deny. Doubtless there was some confusion there, as every man was fighting his own battle, and there was much struggling to get to the rampart to fire, and from the ram part to load. Moreover, if the lines had been surmounted by the foe, a backward movement on the part of the defenders would have been in order and necessary. Thus, then, it fared with the attack on the weakest part of the American position. Let us see what success rewarded the enemy’s efforts against the strongest.

Colonel Rennie, when he saw the signal rocket ascend, pressed on to the attack with such rapidity that the American outposts along the river had to run for it — Rennie’s vanguard close upon their heels. Indeed, so mingled seemed pursuers and pursued that Captain Humphrey had to withhold his fire for a few minutes for fear of sweeping down friend and foe. As the last of the Americans leaped down into the isolated redoubt, British soldiers began to mount its sides. A brief hand-to-hand conflict ensued within the redoubt between the party defending it and the British advance. In a surprisingly short time the Americans, overpowered by numbers, and astounded at the suddenness of the attack, fled across the plank and climbed over into safety behind the lines. Then was poured into the redoubt a deadly and incessant fire, which cleared it of the foe in less time than it had taken them to capture it, while Humphrey, with his great guns, mowed down the still advancing column, and Patterson, from the other side of the river, added the fire of his batteries.

Brief was the unequal contest. Colonel Rennie, Captain Henry, Major King, three only of this column, reached the summit of the rampart near the river’s edge. “Hurrah, boys!” cried Rennie, already wounded, as the three officers gained the breastwork, “Hurrah, boys! the day is ours.” At that moment Beale’s New Orleans sharpshooters, withdrawing a few paces for better aim, fired a volley, and the three noble soldiers fell head long into the ditch.

That was the end of it. Flight, tumultuous flight — some running on the top of the levee, some under it, others down the road; while Patterson’s guns played upon them still with terrible effect.

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