d up a terrific fire from his three batteries in
front, mounting respectively two, eight, and eight pieces of heavy
cannon. A meteor-like shower of Congreve rockets accompanied the balls,
filling the air for fifteen minutes with these missiles of terror. The
two batteries nearest the river directed their fire against McCarty's
house, some hundreds of yards behind our front line, where Jackson and
his staff had their headquarters. In less than ten minutes more than one
hundred balls, rockets, and shells struck the house. Bricks, splinters
of wood, and broken furniture were sent flying in all directions, making
the premises dangerously untenable. General Jackson and his staff
occupied the house at the time; yet, strange to say, not a person was
even wounded. There is no account that the old hero "ingloriously fled,"
but it is in evidence that he retired with commendable dispatch to a
safer place.

Though the batteries of the enemy were in a better position, on a lower
plane, and with a narrower front than those of the Americans, the
gunners of the latter fired with more precision and effect on this day,
and on other occasions, as their own officers afterward admitted. In an
hour's time the fire from the enemy's side began to slacken, and
continued to abate until noon, when his two batteries to the right were
abandoned. Our balls dismounted several of his guns early in the day,
and in the afternoon the greater part of his artillery was dismounted or
unfit for service. The carriages of three of the guns on the American
side were broken, and two caissons, with over one hundred rounds of
ammunition, were blown up by rockets, at which the enemy loudly cheered.
The cheeks of the embrasures of our batteries were formed of cotton
bales, which the enemy's balls struck, sending the cotton flying through
the air. The impression that Jackson's breastwork line was constructed
of bales of cotton is a mistake. Bales of cotton were used only at the
bottom and sides of the embrasures, for a firmer support for the
artillery, beneath a casing of heavy plank. The British, in the absence
of cotton bales, used hogsheads of sugar, which were conveniently near,
for the same purposes. These our shot easily knocked to pieces,
saturating the damp earth around with the saccharine sweets. Our
breastworks were more substantially and easily made of the alluvial
earth.

The guns of the British batteries nearest the levee were directed in
part against