The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-01-09
JACKsON's DAY.

Orleans, was fttinglY celebrated by the
good danes of the Ladies' Democratic
club of Provo. For two months before
the day on which the eyer memorable
battle was fought, it was known that
the English government had deter
mined to send large force of its
choicest troops available after the
general peace, which was before
Waterloo, to the southern coast of the
United States to endeavor to win in
the land of the Palmetto and the Mag
nolia the victories which fed from
their flag on the Canadian frontier and
on the Patomac. The troops that had
been trained to war and death by
Wellington himself, and his heroic
lieutenants in the Peninsula, in Ger
many and the bloody battles of the
low country, which eliminated in the
utter defeat OF his giant foe, on the
blood torn plains of La Haye Sainte
and Hugomont. One of his very
choicest captains, Gen. Sir Edward
Packenham, was chUsen to lead them.
To meet this formidable and highly
armed host, poor Jackson called upon
the trusty frontiersmen of the then in
fantiIe west-the hunters and trappers
in their buckskin hunting shirts with
the old-time muZzle loading rifles
which were the only available arms
with which to meet the glorious arma-
ment of Sir Edward, they ral-
lied to his side. They came
FROM mountain, plain and yale. They
threw aside their traps, abandoned the
chase and sought nobler game on the
banks of the lower Mississippi, in the
suburbs of the fair commercial metrop-
oils of the south. Never did nobler
army, led by Drawer man assemble TO
repel foreign invader.
Every child has wondered at the
temerity of both Jackson and his
hunters and trappers, in fronting the
veterans who had successfully en-
countered Napoleon and his peerless
warriors on the plains of Europe.
This ready and resourceful commander
improYised an invincible breast-work
out of cotton bales. These bales were
impervious to both rifle and artillery.
The soft, yielding cotton caught the
balls of the enemy and they fell harm
less at the feet of Jackson's hunters.
In the great battle which added
needless lustre to the arms of the free
men of the United States and won for
her heroic soldier undying fame, there
were killed seven, and wounded eight
men only, while the British loss was,
all told, nearly five hundred killed and
wounded. Jsckson's ssgscity in choos.
Ing the cotton bales out of which to
construct his breast-works is to be
credited with the disparity in loss.
General Sir Edward Packenham was
killed early in the action and General
Gibbs, the second in command bit the
dust soon after, and before the action
closed the brave General Keene, upon
whom the command develyed, was NOR
tally wounded at about the close of the
bloody action.
1t is melancholy to remember or to
recall the fact that this bloody battle
in which so many brave men had
died was all unnecessary. as peace had
been signed few days before it oc.
CURED, but the news had not yet pene-
trated to the swamps and morasses of
Louisiana. Tue day which commem-
CRATES this splendid heroism has ever
been one exceedingly dear to demu-
Gratis, because the heroic commander
of that heroic band of frontiersmen
was, next to Jefferson, the greatest
democrat that the country had pro-
duced up to that day. Jackson could
not brook foreign foes on our soil any,
more than he could domestic treason.
It was these things that made him the
idol of the whole people, together with
his inyincible honesty and patriotism.
In any age of the world or in any ma
ton he would have been a great man,
a man among men. leader, guide
and panoply for its citizenship.
Leonidas gilded Tbermopyl@ but we
doubt if he was braYer than Jackson or
that the Spartan Legions contained
heroes superior TO the glorious hunters
and trappers who stood by Jackson's
side behind the cotton bales of New
Orleans. To all this it needs only to
be aided that Jackson fashioned his
democracy upon Jeffersonian models.
and they only are true democrats who
follow the great founder of the party
and the heroic leader whose glorious
achievements the blessed ladies Of
Provo celebrated so fttingly last night.