a 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.

A preliminary clash, in a dense fog, on the second evening before
Christmas served to inspire each army with a wholesome respect for the
other. The British decided to postpone further action until their
entire force could be brought up, and this gave Jackson just the time
he needed to assemble his own scattered divisions, select lines, of
defense, and throw up breastworks. By the end of the first week of
January both sides were ready for the test.

The British army was a splendid body of seven thousand trained
soldiers, seamen, and marines.

There were regiments which had helped Wellington to win Talavera,
Salamanca, and Victoria, and within a few short months some of these
same regiments were to stand in that thin red line which Ney and
Napoleon's guard could never break. Their general, Pakenham,
Wellington's brother-in-law, was a distinguished pupil of his
illustrious kinsman. Could frontiersmen who had never fought together
before, who had never seen the face of a civilized foe, withstand the
conquerors of Napoleon? But two branches of the same stubborn race
were represented on that little watery plain. The soldiers trained to
serve the strongest will in the Old World were face to face with the
rough and ready yeomanry embattled for defense by the one man of the
new world whose soul had most iron in it. It was Salamanca against
Tohopeka, discipline against individual alertness, the Briton of the
little Isle against the Briton of the wastes and wilds. But there was
one great difference. Wellington, "the Iron Duke," was not there; "Old
Hickory" was everywhere along the American lines.[2]

Behind their battery-studded parapets the Americans waite