The Oxford intelligencer., 1860-06-06
From Parton's Life of jackson,
- The Battle OF New Orleans.

From Pnrton's Life of Jackson.
y The Battle OF New Orleans.
FINAL PREPARATIoN-When, soon after
dark, the noise Of preparation in the British
camp grew louder and came nearer, there
could not have been much doubt in the lines
that another most unquiet Sunday was in re-
serve for them. There was much silent and
rather grim preparation in Jackson's camp; a
cleaning of arms, a counting out of cartridges
and adjustment of fiints, and careful loading
of muskets and rifles. Beside the thirty-two
FOUNDER was heaped up bushel or two Of
musket-balls and fragment of iron, enough to
fill the piece up to the muzzlc, and which will
fill it up to the muzzle if the enemy come to
close quarters, and deal such wholesale death
among them as no thirty.two FOUNDER has ever
dealt before. Yes, grimncss certainly pre-
walls to a considerable extent We are in
earnest. Jackson walks slowly along the lines
just before dark. lie, too, Is grim, but conf
dent. He wears the look of man whose
mind is wholly made mp, and who clearly
knows what he will do in any and every case.
He stops occasionally, to see that the stacked
mnskets are all loaded, and says to Planche's
men, as he goes along their part of the lines,
"Don't fire till You can see the whites of ftheir
eyes, and if you want to sleep, sleep upon
your arms"
The Enthusiastically and fast the column
of General Gibbs marched toward batteries
numbered six, seven and eight, which played
upon it, at first with but occasional effect Of
ten missing, sometimes throwing ball right
into its midst, and causing it to reel and pause
for a moment, Promptly was the gaps filled
up; bravely the column came on. As they
neared the lines the well aimed shot made
more dreadful havoc, "cutting great lanes in
the column from front to rear" and tossing
men and parts of men aloft, or hurting them
far on one side. At length, still steady and
uubroken, they came within range of the
small-arms, the rifles of CaTolfs Tennesseans,
the muskets Of Adair's Kentuckians, four
lines of sharp-shooters, one behind the other.
Gen. Carroll, coolly waiting for the right mo-
ment, held his fire till the enemy were within
two hundred yarls,a and then gave the word
"FIREr
At first with certain deliberation, after
ward in hottest haste, always with deadly eff
feet, the rifemen piled their terrible weapon.
The summit of the embankment was a line
of squirting fire, except where the great guns
showed their liquid, belching flash. The
noise was peculiar, and altogether indescriba-
bic; rolling, bursting, echoing noise, never
to be forgotten by a man that heard it. Along
the whole line it blazed and rolled; the Brit
ish batteries showering rockets over the
scene; Patterson's batteries on the other side
of the river joining in the hellish concert
Imagine it. Ask no one to describe II. Our
words were mostly made before such scene
had become possible.
The column of Gen. Gibbs, moved by the
fire of the rifcmen, still advanced, Gibbs at
its head. As they caught sight of the ditch,
some of the officers cried out:
"Where are the Forty-fourth! If we get
to the ditch, We have no means of crossing
and scaling the lines y
~Here come the Forty-fourthl Here come
the Forty.fonrth!" |" shouted the General; add
ing, in an undertone, for his own private So
lace, "that if he lived till tomorrow he would
hang Mullens on the highest tree in the cy-
press wood" -...-
Reassured. these heroic men pressed on, in
the face of that murderous, slaughtering Rre.
But this could not last. With half its num-
Der fallen, and all its commanding officers
disabled, except the General, its pathway
strewed with dead and wounded, and the men
falling ever faster and faster, the column wa
rered and reeled (sc the American rifemen
thozghn like a red ship on a temPestuOus
sea At about hundred yards from the lines
the front ranks halted, and so thHew the col
umn into disorder, Gibbs shouting in the
madness Of vexation for them to reform and
advance. There was no reforming under such
a fire. Once checked. the column could not
but break and retreat in confusion.
DRArs OF PAcKExHAM.-The heroic Pack
enham had not far to 90 to meet bis doom
He was three hundred yards from the lines
when the real nature Of his enterprise seem
ed to fash upon him; and he turned to Sir
John Tylden and said;
aOrder mp the reserve.
Then. seeing the HighlandeTs advancing to
the suppoft Of Gen. Gibbs, he, still waving