. By ten o'clock the
British had fallen back to their camp in discomfiture, where they were
permitted to lay in comparative quiet until morning, except their
harassment from the artillery fire of the schooner Carolina. In the
darkness and confusion of combat at dead of night lines were broken and
order lost at times, until it was difficult to distinguish friends from
foes. General Jackson led his troops back to the opening point of the
attack and rested them there until morning, when he fell back over one
mile to Rodrique's Canal, the position selected for the defense of the
city.

Three hundred and fifty of the Louisiana militia, under command of
General David Morgan, were stationed at English Turn, seven miles below
Villere's, and nearly fourteen miles from New Orleans. Intelligence of
the arrival of the British at Villere's, on the twenty-third, reached
General Morgan's camp at one o'clock in the afternoon of the day.
Officers and men expressed an eagerness to be led against the enemy; but
General Morgan, not having then received orders from Jackson to that
effect, deemed it prudent to hold them waiting in camp. At half-past
seven o'clock, when the guns from the Carolina were heard bringing on
the battle, it was found difficult to restrain them longer. Morgan
finally, at the urgent request of his officers, gave orders to go
forward, which the troops received with ardor. They reached a point near
Jumonville's plantation, just below Villere's, when a picket guard in
advance met a picket force of the enemy and fired on it; the fire was
returned. A reconnoiter failing to discover the numbers and position of
the enemy in his front, Morgan took a position in a field until three
o'clock in the morning, when he marched his men back to camp. The
failure of this command to join issue in this battle, in concert with
the other commands of Jackson's army, was apparently most unfortunate.
The records do not show what orders, if any, were sent from headquarters
by Jackson to General Morgan in summoning his forces in the afternoon of
the day for the attack at night. It is barely possible that the General
neglected to dispatch an order to, or to communicate with, the commander
of so important a body of troops, in numbers nearly one fifth of the
entire American forces engaged, in a critical hour when every available
soldier was needed on the field of combat. A swift messenger sent by
Jackson from headquarters at two o'clock, as to oth