Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-01-08
SATURDAY, ID JANUARY 8, 1853.

picquet guards were posted at intervals be-
tween their right flank and the swamp,
which is here about a mile and half from
the Mississippi. Although the usual routine
of military duties was observed in the gene
raj disposition of the troops and in the ar
rangement of the guard, there was still an
evident impression among the British troops
that they had little to apprehend from an
enemy. The men were apparently enjoying
themselves by a full indulgence in the good
| things which fortune had given them-such,
says OF them, as shams, fowls, and wines
of various descriptions "-and the light of
their fires rendered distinctly visible their
whole arrangement and operations.
General Jackson's plan was instantly
formed and communicated to his officers.
His right flank rested on the river, and his
line extended into the plain, with General
Coffee and his command upon the extreme
left. That officer was directed to endeavor
to turn the right flank Of the British, and
to attack them in the rear. The rest of
the line, under Gen. Jackson's immediate
command, was to advance in front; and as
orders had previously been sent to Colonel
Morgan, who was stationed below with a
detachment of about three hundred and
fifty men, to cooperate in the attack, it
was hoped he would be able to attain their
rear, and thus succeed in intercepting their
communication with the Bayou Bienvenue.
Gen. Coffee was to commence the attack,
but this intention was frustrated by the in
tervention of a large double ditch, which
his horses could not cross, and where he
was compelled to leave them. In the mean
time the armed brig Caroline had been or
dered by Gen. Jackson to drop slowly down
the river and to anchor opposite the Brit
ish camp. When the land attack commenced
she was to open her broadside upon the en-
| emy.
Captain Cooke has portrayed with much
| feeling his impressions upon this eventful
night; and whether his thought took their
| hue from the circumstances around him, or
| the latter from the former, certain it is,
| from his description, that sinister augury
| was as natural in itself as it proved in the
end to be but too true. He states that he
wandered through the camp, contemplating
| the scenes around, and comparing the con-
fusion at the headquarters, and the noise
and revelry and fires at the lines, with the
silence and order which appeared to pre-
vail in the American army on both sides of
the river.
''The whole scene, with it's associations,
must have been singularly impressive to an
Englishman-to native Of the older world,
who had never seen the works of Nature
spread out in that magnificent which marks
her operation upon this continent. Before
him is that mighty river, of which he had
heard from his infancy, rolling its endless
floods to the ocean, and seeking it's supply
on the fountains of the North; traversing
regions of boundless forests and perpetual
solitude, and overtopping the rich but mar
row plain which man had gained from its
dominion. High upon its trunk and tribu-
taries those nomades wander, whose origin
is a mystery-whose condition, habits, insti-
tutions, and history, have arrested the at
tention of Christendom, since the veil which
insulated them and their world has been
withdrawn-whose fierce passions have al
ways been gratifed in the blood of friend
and foe-who have been stationary, not in
position, but in improvement, while every
thing around them has been changing, and
whose destiny we have no pleasure in anti
cipating.
"Around him is the primeval forest, bid
ding defiance to the slow progress of human
industry, shown, and scarcely shown, in the
little fertile tract it has taken a century of
labor to reclaim. The promised city, the
object of his hopes and tolls, is within his
sphere of vision, though shrouded from his
view by the obscurity of the night, and
guarded against his approach by an enemy
he comes tn cononer without an effort but