have turned his cannon in their embrasures, and fired on those of the
enemy who had turned our line and come in range. But the Kentucky
troops and the Louisianians masked the guns, and made it impossible
to fire without killing our own men. Seeing this, he determined to
spike his guns and retreat.

The Louisiana militia under General Morgan now fell back and took a
position on the Bois Gervais line, where a number of the fleeing
troops rallied. A small detachment of the enemy advanced as far as
Cazelards, but retired before evening. In the course of the night all
the enemy's troops recrossed the river, to join their main body. The
result of this attack of the enemy on the right bank was, the loss of
one hundred and twenty of his men, killed and wounded. The
commander-in-chief, receiving intelligence of the retreat of our
troops on the right bank, ordered General Humbert, formerly of the
French army, who had tendered his services as a volunteer, to cross
over with a reinforcement of four hundred men, assume command, and
repulse the enemy, cost what it might. The order was verbal; some
dispute having arisen over the question of military precedence, and
the enemy withdrawing, no further steps were taken.

"THE KENTUCKIANS INGLORIOUSLY FLED"--A PROFOUND SENSATION.

In this historic review, we dwell exhaustively upon the episode of this
battle on the west bank, on the 8th of January, 1815, not because of any
intrinsic importance of the subject, but rather from the sensational
incidents which attended the movements of the belligerents, and which
were consequent upon the issue. The galling words of General Jackson,
hastily and unguardedly uttered in an attempt to throw the blame of
defeat upon a small detachment of Kentucky militia, "the Kentuckians
ingloriously fled," were resented as an undeserved stigma upon the honor
and good name of all the Kentuckians in the army, and upon the State of
Kentucky herself. The epigrammatic phrase, construed to mean more than
was intended, perhaps, like Burchard's "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,"
struck a chord of sympathetic emotion that vibrated not only in the army
and the community of Louisiana, but throughout the entire country. These
burning words are of record in the archives at Washington, and
remembered in history; but the facts in full, which vindicate the truth
and render justice to whom it is due, are known to but few,