estroying the rude
defenses of cotton bales and cypress logs. To their amazement the
American artillery was served with far greater precision and effect by
the sailors and regulars who had been trained under Jackson's direction.
By noon most of the British guns had been silenced or dismounted and the
men killed or driven away. "Never was any failure more remarkable or
unlooked for than this," said one of the British artillery officers.
General Pakenham, in dismay, held a council of war. It is stated that
his own judgment was swayed by the autocratic Vice-Admiral Cochrane who
tauntingly remarked that "if the army could not take those mud-banks,
defended by ragged militia, he would undertake to do it with two
thousand sailors armed only with cutlases and pistols."

Made cautious by this overwhelming artillery reverse, the British army
remained a week in camp, a respite of which every hour was priceless to
Andrew Jackson, for his mud-stained, haggard men were toiling with pick
and shovel to complete the ditches and log barricades. They could hear
the British drums and bugles echo in the gloomy cypress woods while the
cannon grumbled incessantly. The red-coated sentries were stalked and
the pickets were ambushed by the Indian fighters who spread alarm and
uneasiness. Meanwhile Pakenham was making ready with every resource
known to picked troops, who had charged unshaken through the slaughter
of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian, and who were about to
justify once more the tribute to the British soldier: "Give him a plain,
unconditional order--go and do _that_--and he will do it with a cool,
self-forgetting pertinacity that can scarcely be too much admired."

It was Pakenham's plan to hurl a flank attack against the right bank of
the Mississippi while he directed the grand assault on the east side of
the river where Jackson's strength was massed. To protect the flank,
Commodore Patterson of the American naval force had built a water
battery of nine guns and was supported by eight hundred militia. Early
in the morning of the 8th of January twelve hundred men in boats, under
the British Colonel Thornton, set out to take this west bank as the
opening maneuver of the battle. Their errand was delayed, although later
in the day they succeeded in defeating the militia and capturing the
naval guns. This minor victory, however, was too late to save Pakenham's
army which had been cut to pieces in the frontal assault.

Jacks