Americans fiercely contested every inch of their
advance, and the two parties hewed each other down with cutlasses, the
Americans being slowly beaten back by superior numbers, but still
obstinately fighting until they could fight no more.

One by one all the gun-boats were taken in this way, Lieutenant Jones's
vessel holding out longest, and the Lieutenant himself fighting till he
was stricken down with a severe wound.

Having thus cleared Lake Borgne, the British were free to begin the work
of landing. It was a terrible undertaking, however--scarcely less so
than the fight itself. The whole army had to be carried thirty miles in
open boats and landed in a swamp. The men were drenched with rain, and,
a frost coming on, their clothes were frozen on their bodies. There was
no fuel to be had on the island where they made their first landing, and
to their sufferings from cold was added severe suffering from hunger
before supplies of food could be brought to them. Some of the sailors
who were engaged in rowing the boats were kept at work for four days and
nights without relief.

The landing was secured, however, and the British cared little for the
sufferings it had cost them. They believed then that they had little
more to do except to march twelve miles and take possession of the city,
with its one hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton and its ten
thousand hogsheads of sugar. How it came about that they were
disappointed is made clear in the next story.

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK.

HOW GENERAL JACKSON RECEIVED THE BRITISH.

When the British succeeded in taking Lieutenant Jones's little gun-boats
and making a landing, after the manner described in the preceding story,
they supposed that the hardest part of their work was done. It was not
far from their landing-place to New Orleans, and there was nothing in
their way. Their army numbered nearly twenty thousand men, and the men
were the best soldiers that England had. Many of them were Wellington's
veterans.

It seemed certain that such an army could march into New Orleans with
very little trouble indeed, and everybody on both sides thought
so--everybody, that is to say, but General Jackson. He meant to fight
that question out, and as the Legislature and many of the people in the
city would do nothing to help him, he put the town under martial law,
and worked night and day to get together something like an army.

On the 23d of December, 1814, the British a