ntrusted the arduous and therefore
honourable duty of carrying the fascines and ladders. The orders
were given in good time over night; and Colonel Mullens received
them as if they had conveyed a sentence of death. He stated, in
the hearing of the private soldiers, that his corps was devoted
to destruction; and conducted himself, in every respect, like a
condemned criminal on the night previous to his execution. When
the troops got under arms, instead of bringing his battalion to
the redoubt, where he had been instructed to find the ladders, he
marched directly past it, and led them into the field without a
single ladder or fascine. When the day dawned, and he was sent
back for these instruments, he headed his corps in its retrograde
movement, but left it to return as it could to the front; and
when sought for to guide the attack, he was nowhere to be found.
That a regiment thus abused and deserted by its commanding
officer should fall into confusion, cannot occasion any surprise;
it would have been surprising indeed, had a different result
ensued. But the melancholy effect of such confusion was, that
other regiments were likewise broken; and before order could be
restored, all the Generals were borne dead or wounded from the
field. A large share, therefore, of the blame attachable to this
failure must rest where fidelity of narration has obliged me to
place it.

Again, the recall of the victorious detachment from the left to
the right bank of the Mississippi, and the consequent abandonment
of that complete command of the river which this partial success
had obtained, was a military error of the gravest kind. Great as
our numerical loss had been in the principal action of the 8th,
the advantages of position were at the close of the day so
decidedly with us, that for General Jackson to maintain himself
any longer in front of New Orleans was physically impossible.
His own dispatch, indeed, addressed to the Secretary-at-War,
shows that he felt the truth so forcibly, that he had actually
issued orders for a retreat, when the removal of the English from
his menaced flank was reported to him; and his battalions, which
had begun to get under arms, were directed to resume their
places. It is, however, but just to state, that such was the
miserable condition of our commissariat, that the fleet contained
not provisions enough to feed the people on half rations during a
quick passage to Cuba; and General Lambert did not