…remind them of this.
I was recently reading “Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans” by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager. The War of 1812 was going badly for the Americans. The British had burned the White House, and a huge contingent of British troops was in Louisiana planning to march north in conquest.
Against them stood future President and then Major General Andrew Jackson, and a ragtag assembly comprised largely of citizen militia. Jackson would later be called a racist, but he had assembled a motley crew of whites, African-Americans, Native Americans and Creoles, all of which he made sure were paid the same.
They mixed regular battlefield strategies with the guerrilla warfare tactics that had so well served the Colonials in the Revolutionary War. The Brits still marched forward in orderly lines…but the Americans used tactical cover, skilled marksmanship, and their own rifles.
At one point in the pivotal battle of New Orleans, the authors gave an example of deadly American marksmanship: “Just minutes into the battle, according to one Kentucky rifleman, ‘the smoke was so thick that everything seemed to be covered up in it.’ But the woodsmen, armed with .38 caliber long rifles (the barrels were forty-two inches long) kept firing with deadly accuracy. Half-hidden in the dense cypress vegetation, their loaded their guns with balls and buckshot. Their fire was nearly constant and, according to one Louisiana merchant watching down the line ‘the whole right of the British column was mowed down by these invisible riflemen.’”
And, “Back at the Rodriguez Canal, said one soldier, the scene was ‘a sea of blood.’ The illusion resulted from hundreds of red uniforms obscuring the stubble of last year’s sugarcane crop. The letting of blood had indeed been great leaving an unfathomable number of dead and dying soldiers prostrate on the Chalmette Plain. In some places the bodies were so numerous that it seemed possible to walk without ever touching the ground for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards.”
The authors concluded, “General Jackson and his multiethnic, multigenerational army made up of people from every American social class and occupation had come together to do what Napoleon had failed to do: destroy the finest fighting force in the world.” The American victory at the Battle of New Orleans, the turning point that saved the United States from defeat, was owed in great part to armed citizens and their skillfully-wielded personal weapons.
In point of fact, the Battle of New Orleans did not contribute to ending the War of 1812. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, was signed on December 24, 1814 (Christmas Eve – “Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men…”). This was 15 days before the Battle of New Orleans was fought (January 8, 1815).
So, the War was already over when this battle was fought. Due to slow communications, the military forces in New Orleans did not know that a battle was unnecessary. The Treaty of Ghent was formally ratified, by the Senate, on February 16, 2015 which (officially) brought matters to a close. See this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans
While the Battle of New Orleans did not contribute to ending the war, it allowed the war to end on a “high note” for America. No doubt it was a big boost to American morale especially given the numerous defeats early in the war.
In the long term, it could be viewed as a negative event for America. This battle made Andrew Jackson famous and helped him to (a) become President and (b) help found the Democrat Party. Given the train of negatives flowing from Jackson’s administration (Trail of Tears, War with Mexico, etc.) and given the constant negative influence of the Democrat Party in American History (support for slavery, civil war, KKK, Jim Crow, Corrupt big city governments and unions, the centralization of power in Washington, the Welfare State, the Rise of the Deep State, etc.), I can’t help but think it would have been better (in the long run) for the British to have defeated Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.
Thanks for that bit of history. I have always said that at least for myself, I prefer to be correct instead of being “right”. I hope that I always show that when commenting online. My ego is as big as anyone else’s, but not so big that I cannot learn and change, if shown the facts.
That being said, I will do the right thing and check the information for myself, via first hand facts. We always owe it to ourselves to try and be right. No doubt Mas feels the same way, and will check the facts for himself. Like you said though, it did do much for the pride of American’s to know that they did have the “right stuff” to hang with the nation that they had already fought a war to escape their heavy hand.
Be well and have a safe and prosperous autumn season.
Good on the history, but you missed the entire point of the article as stated in the title. It was about the effectiveness of a citizen militia against an established army.
That point did not escape me. However, I am not sure that the events of the War of 1812 provide the best examples of militia effectiveness. In point of fact, the American militia units performed rather poorly during the War of 1812. Most historians tend to blame the militia, and the militia system in-place at the time, for the numerous losses incurred by America during that war. See this link:
https://our.oakland.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5bf8db60-5e13-4680-8a0e-1b81dce47300/content
With respect to militia effectiveness, the Battle of New Orleans was the “exception” rather than the “rule” during the War of 1812.
Improvise. Overcome. Adapt. Oorah!
AR = AMERICA’S RIFLE
Correct about the timing but wrong about much else. The Democrat Party in that era was the conservative party. The progressives were the Whigs with their focus on “internal improvements” and national banking The northern and southern branches split over slavery with the northern faction becoming the Republicans while the southern faction eventually drifted toward the Democrats. Toward the end of the Grant administration, the Republicans gradually became conservative. The Democrats pushed toward populism in this era with William Jennings Bryan but did not become leftist until Wilson. Wilson was a stone racist, however, and was comfortable with the Jim Crow regime in the South. The Democrats invented themselves again during the LBJ years. Meanwhile, the Republicans became wishy-washy which persisted until the coming of Reagan and resumed under Bush until Trump came down the escalator.
@ Richard – Perhaps it is best not the think of Democrats in terms of Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Populism, etc.
The true ideology of the Democrat Party is POWER and CONTROL. The democrats are a “chameleon” party. They will become whatever will give them POWER and CONTROL at the time. If it serves their thirst for POWER and CONTROL, they be spout a conservative platform. If populism gives them POWER and CONTROL, they will spout populism. If Marxism/Socialism serves their purpose, then they will go HARD LEFT (as recent history shows).
The Modus Operandi (M.O.) of the Democrat Party has always been to see what social movements are on the rise at any given moment in time. Once the democrats identify an ascending social moment, that is gaining power, then they infiltrate the movement and co-opt it for purposes of their own control. There are numerous examples of this M.O. in American history.
The anti-alcohol movement of the 19th Century started out as a “Temperance Movement”. It was a conservative movement based upon self-control. As it gained power, the democrats recognized it as an ascending social force. They infiltrated it, took it over, and then turned it into a “Prohibition Movement”. They used it as a vehicle to gain power and used it for their own agenda. For example, they used Prohibition as a vehicle to pass the 16th Amendment (income taxes). The long term effect was to centralize and gain more power for their base in Washington D.C. Once the Prohibition Movement lost steam, it was no longer useful to the democrats and they turned against Prohibition. They recognized that the Anti-Prohibition Movement was ascending and jumped on board it instead.
The same thing happened with the Labor Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. The democrats recognized them as ascending social forces, infiltrated them, and then turned them into tools for their own POWER and CONTROL.
The ONLY ideology of the Democrat Party is POWER and CONTROL. This has been consistent for their entire history in America. Whenever you think of them as something else (conservative, liberal, etc.), you are merely viewing their current mask.
So many people are fooled by their camouflage. For example, the democrats were the Party of Slavery, the KKK, and Jim Crow. They infiltrated, co-opted, and ruined the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, very many African-Americans are fooled by their camouflage and will vote, time after time, for the democrat ticket in the mistaken belief that the democrats are their friends.
Certainly, the democrats will pretend to be your friend in the hope that you will vote to hand them more POWER and CONTROL. However, there has never existed a more false political party than the democrats.
Temperance was one leg of the feminist tripod-the others being suffrage and abolition. The first and third were pretty clearly Republican things. Not sure about suffrage but the 19A was passed by a Republican majority Congress.
As for the KKK, KKK 1.0 was the resistance movement after CW1 and thus Democrat. KKK 2.0 in the early 20th Century had as many Republicans as Democrats and its center of gravity was in the Midwest, not the South. KKK 3.0 from the 1950s to now is just the FBI in drag. Other than the name, there was no continuity between the three versions.
Temperance and Prohibition are two separate things. Temperance is based upon self-control. It is based upon the individual voluntarily deciding to not consume alcohol. As an idea based upon individual liberty and choice, it is conservative.
Prohibition is based upon the Government forcing people to abstain whether they want to or not. It is direct Government control of the individual. Thus, it is based upon a Statist mentality and directly aligns with the ideas of the Democrat Party.
The Temperance movement was morphed into a Prohibition movement. Note that many prominent Confederate Women, such as Varina Davis (Wife of Jefferson Davis) and Sallie Chapin (Confederate sympathizer) were part of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and involved with founding the Prohibition Party. One can see the democrat hand involved in turning Temperance into Prohibition. The change into a Government control mindset, rather than self-control, is surely of democrat origin.
As I said, Prohibition was used to pass the 16th Amendment. Much of Government revenue was gathered from taxes on alcohol prior to passage of the 16th Amendment. Thus, one argument against Prohibition was that the U.S. could not take the hit on government revenue that Prohibition would bring. The 16th Amendment switched the revenue source from alcohol taxes to income taxes. It linked the Government to an unlimited source of revenue which allowed the Federal Government to bloat into the monster it is today. It greatly served the purposes of the Statist democrats.
As for the KKK, my reference was clearly to what you call KKK 1.0. Democrat party members founded and created the KKK. Even today, the democrats use the KKK as a “bogeyman” to tarnish their political opponents and to label them as “racist”. Really ironic since the democrat founded the KKK in the first place!
Abolition was clearly non-democrat since the Democrat Party was Pro-Slavery. The other area you mention, Suffrage, has ultimately benefited the democrats since women are another group that gets regularly fooled by the democrat camouflage. Like African-Americans, the majority of the women’s vote goes to the democrats in the mistaken belief that the democrats actually care about woman and women’s issues.
As stated before, the democrats only care about POWER and CONTROL. Other people are mere tools to used to gain POWER. Once their tools have served their purposes, the democrats don’t hesitate to drop them.
Reagan talked a good game but started America marching off of the cliff.
He got both parties comfortable with huge deficit spending leading to massive devaluing of the US dollar and gave the game away with his horrible immigration amnesty deal.
Thanks to Reagan and the rest of the right’s refusal to do anything about illegals because big business liked the cheap labor the democrats have been able to elect a new people that support their big government, anti freedom policies.
The 2A will not survive long in “majority minority” America.
Dr. Duke,
I vote Republican, and I love Reagan and Trump, but you are right to a high degree. Reagan’s tax cuts were great, but he was unable to get Congress to stop spending too much. Same thing with Trump. He spent too much.
Democrats do evil. Republicans do nothing.
In this day and age, one would use guerilla tactics in aquiring larger weapons; belt fed machine guns to aquire vehicle mounted weapons, HMGs, TOW missiles, and larger 20, 30 or even 40mm cannons to use to capture APC/Vs used to capture artillery used to capture tanks and on and on.
Just look how Afghanistan used captured British armaments to defeat the Brits, they used captured Soviet wespons to defeat them and more recently, US inventorys/ weapons that were actually left behind for the ANA,( NOT the Taliban contrary to popular belief) which virtually evaporated upon U.S. exit, much like the South Viets did.
So in conclusion, WE wont be engaging tanks and planes with small arms.
Desert Warrior,
Good points. America is totally unable (and unwilling) to win a guerrilla war. In the Second Boer War, the British defeated the Boers (Dutch guerrillas called “commandos”) by forcing the population into concentration camps. Very inhumane.
I think some militia defended Baltimore during the War of 1812. The Alamo defenders lost, but they put up a good fight. Other fights where the irregulars beat the regulars would be the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, all wars against Viet Nam (neither Japan, nor France, nor America, nor China could defeat Viet Nam) our recent war in Iraq (which was won by Iran) and our 19-year war in Afghanistan. Add to that our troubles in Somalia, and irregular warfare looks very hard to defeat.
If I was fighting a war, I would target my enemy’s supplies. I would try to restrict their intake of food, ammunition and gasoline. If I could restrict their supplies enough, my enemy could not fight effectively, even if he still wanted to. This strategy would also save my men’s lives. Avoid strength, strike at weakness, said Sun Tzu. I object to the way we fought in Fallujah. We attacked strength.
However, the point being made is that a “mish-mash of civilians” was able to completely CRUSH a “superior force.”
A determined flexible organic group on it’s own territory has huge advantages over sophisticated invaders ~ and is the grounding of the 2A to protect against tyranny.
Leaders are vulnerable. No one is untouchable. Look what happened to Russian Czar Nicholas and his family in 1917. Look what happened to President Kennedy in 1963, and to the Romanian leader Cearcescu and his wife in the 1990s.
Rabbi – The old Colonel said “a handgun is to defend your life, a shotgun is to defend your home, a rifle is to defend your freedom.”
No wonder which gun Obama and friends want to ban.
Mid 1980’s I happened to be driving across the US east to west and decided o take the southern roue.Spent a week with a long time frined I’d met out west.Sunday after Meeting we piled into his rattly old Ford staionwagon and turned south,malong the east bank of the Mississippi. After about an hour we turned into a slightly developed area in the middle of a vast spread of flat ground with few trees. Signs informed us when we parked that this was Chalmette Park, the scene of this battle. I was familiar with it from the old fun pop song on the subject, and had since studied the deeper history of it. . We spent a few hours, walking the grounds and reading some of the “interpretive” signs. Many huge bronze cannon were scattered about, most of their carriages long since devoured by bugs. I seem always to be situationally aware, and quickly figure out direction wherever I am. It was evident that nearly all the cannon were pointed north… which made them British. Since our troops were lightly armed, they were mobile and fast moving, which gave them tremendous advantage over the multi-tonne slow-to-move cannon.
There were a number of furrows or trenches of some sort which I at first took to be irrigation ditches. Signs indicated these had been dug by the Brits to protect their men from advancing troops and to provide exposure for ours as they came up out of them to advance.
It seems their original plan was to bring the heavy artillery farther up the river and bring them to bear on the City of New Orleans to destroy it. Their advance was discovered by the Yanks so they landed the cannon figuring they would be useful in the press to get to NO. But our side was too quick, met them well south of the City and destroyed them.
There was also a largish plantation house, two story, apparently adobe block then plastered white. Both floors were loaded with an endless array of items taken up from the battlefield over the years. A few of the cannon had been restored and mounted on newly made carriages.
We the headed further south maybe another five miles and stopped at a crossing the like of which I’d never seen… an old fashion cable ferry. Cable slung across the river is lifted up underneath the boat and instead of a brace of draft horses a trusty never tiring diesel engine turned the capstan and quickly moved us directly across to the other end of the cable. Simple, efficient, and quicker than I would have guessed.
THE NEXT TIME AN ANTI-GUNNER SAYS CITIZENS’ RIFLES ARE USELESS AGAINST ARMIES…
do not attempt to change their mind. Leave them in their delusion. WE know better.
Another bit of trivia: In both wars we fought against the British, during the final battle we had a French ally.
During the Revolutionary War Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette commanded Continental Army troops in the decisive Siege of Yorktown in 1781, the Revolutionary War’s final major battle that secured American independence.
During the war of 1812 the pirate Jean Lafitte and his fleet helped General Andrew Jackson defend the city during the Battle of New Orleans.
Even their names are almost the same, and both battles took place over coastal cities.
This blog is the best history I have read yet. One thing about the old artillery is that the big guns were extremely heavy and difficult to maneuver, even the so-called Mountain Guns. The British were apparently trying to draw Jackson into a trap, which clearly backfired. Jackson was no Howdy Doody for sure, and apparently neither was Jean Lafitte. Those accurate American Kentucky rifles likely had their origins in the Schuetzen target rifles made by my ancestor “Pennsylvania Dutch” gunsmiths in what is now Lancaster County, PA. Nothing obtains like a little target shooting competition to advance improved, “well regulated” militias. Keep your practice going now, boys (and girls). Peace through strength! I am actually fond of the .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire cartridge. Legal for coyotes in Arizona, at least, doesn’t kick hard, not too loud, and you can carry a lot of ammo.
Brian Kilmeade wrote a great book, and Mas’ article plus the commenters on this blog were superb.
This is a very romanticized description of the battle.
The Kentucky militia troops brought their own rifles, but they were only part of Jackson’s army.
The American forces included two full regiments of US regulars, armed with issue muskets. There were also several battalions of Louisiana militia armed with issue muskets.
Also, there was nothing unique about the British defeat at New Orleans. British troops were defeated on many occasions during the Napoleonic wars. At Corunna in 1809, a British army was chased into the sea by French troops.
Nor about the defeat of “regulars” by “citizen militia”. In 1791, an army of half US regulars and half militia was routed and destroyed by what was really a militia of Indians (Shawnees, Miamis, and several other tribes).
“… there was nothing unique about the British defeat at New Orleans.”
Indeed, I think an even better example of the use of rifles to defeat an organized force was the Battle of Kings Mountain during the Revolutionary War. See this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kings_Mountain
Admittedly, this battle was more one of opposing militia forces rather than militia versus regular troops. However, the force under British command was (undoubtedly) the more organized unit.
Another important battle, from the Revolutionary War, was the Battle of Cowpens. See this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cowpens
In this battle, a mix of American regular troops and militia faced the British forces and soundly defeated them. The leader of the American forces, General Daniel Morgan, used his mix of regulars and militia in a very innovative way that maximized the strengths of both types of troops.
So, yes, the British were far from being invincible.
The Battle of Kings Mountain is a truly excellent example of rifles being used to defeat a more organized force. IMHO, an even better example than the Battle of New Orleans.
One word answer. Afghanistan.
Repeatedly. The last outsider to take and hold the place was Alexander the Great. His successors eventually lost it but it took a couple of hundred years. Since then it has been the graveyard of armies.
Comments are closed.