American lines on that side of the river eight were killed and thirteen
wounded. Such a victory, so cheaply bought, is not paralleled in the
warfare of civilized men. Lambert, succeeding Pakenham, recalled
Thornton and gave up the important advantage the British won on the
western bank. For ten days the armies lay as they were, and then the
enemy withdrew as he had come. A few days later, Fort Bowyer, on Mobile
Point, was taken, and then the fighting ceased.

During the closing weeks of January, by the slow methods of travel
prevalent in those days, three messengers were hastening to Washington
with tidings which the wearied President awaited with eagerness or fear
according to the quarter from which they came. From Hartford, Conn.,
where the convention of New England malcontents had sat, he was to learn
what demands were made by Americans who chose a time of war to change
and weaken, if not indeed to destroy, the constitution of their country.
From the American commissioners at Ghent he hoped against hope for news
of a peace. To the Southwest he looked with dread, for few had dared to
believe that New Orleans could be defended. The three messages arrived
almost together, and all three were to stick in men's minds for years to
come, and to mould men's thoughts about their country. From Ghent came
tidings of a peace, not, indeed, glorious, or such as we had gone to war
to win, but better than we had a right to expect. From New Orleans,
tidings of a victory so splendid that it stirred the blood and
brightened the eyes of every true American, and made it hard to
remember that the war had not been altogether glorious. The threatening
message from Hartford lost its terrors. In the great balance of the
sections, the Northeast sank, the Southwest rose. When men recalled the
war with shame, it was because of Hartford; when they spoke of it with
pride, as in time they came to do, it was because they saw, on the
parapet of New Orleans, looking out over heaps of British dead, the
thin, tall figure of the horseman in Lafayette Square. True, the victory
might seem worthless, for the peace was made before the battle was
fought; but the victor had won for his countrymen something dearer than
anything set forth in treaties. He had won them back their good opinion
of themselves. In the prosperous years that were to follow, Andrew
Jackson, the man of the Southwest, was to stand as no other man could
for the American's faith in his countr