rs. But Jackson counted on the arrival
of the hard-bitted, Indian-fighting regiments of Tennessee who were
toiling through the swamps with their brigadiers, Coffee and Carroll.
The foremost of them reached New Orleans on the very day that the
British were landing on the river bank. Gaunt, unshorn, untamed were
these rough-and-tumble warriors who feared neither God nor man but were
glad to fight and die with Andrew Jackson. In coonskin caps, buckskin
shirts, fringed leggings, they swaggered into New Orleans, defiant of
discipline and impatient of restraint, hunting knives in their belts,
long rifles upon their shoulders. There they drank with seamen as wild
as themselves who served in the ships of Jackson's small naval force or
had offered to lend a hand behind the stockades, and with lean,
long-legged Yankees from down East, swarthy outlaws who sailed for
Pierre Lafitte, Portuguese and Norwegian wanderers who had deserted
their merchant vessels, and even Spanish adventurers from the West
Indies.

The British fleet disembarked its army late in December after the most
laborious difficulties because of the many miles of shallow bayou and
toilsome marsh which delayed the advance. A week was required to carry
seven thousand men in small boats from the ships to the Isle aux Poix
on Lake Borgne chosen as a landing base. Thence a brigade passed in
boats up the bayou and on the 23d of December disembarked at a point
some three miles from the Mississippi and then by land and canal pushed
on to the river's edge. Here they were attacked at night by Jackson with
about two thousand troops, while a war schooner shelled the British left
from the river. It was a weird fight. Squads of Grenadiers, Highlanders,
Creoles, and Tennessee backwoodsmen blindly fought each other in the fog
with knives, fists, bayonets, and musket butts. Jackson then fell back
while the British brigade waited for more troops and artillery.

On Christmas Day Pakenham took command of the forces at the front now
augmented to about six thousand, but hesitated to attack. And well he
might hesitate, in spite of his superior numbers, for Jackson had
employed his time well and now lay entrenched behind a parapet,
protected by a canal or ditch ten feet wide. With infinite exertion more
guns were dragged and floated to the front until eight heavy batteries
were in position. On the morning of the 1st of January the British
gunners opened fire and felt serenely certain of d