Tuesday, February 25, 2014–Chalmette Battlefield–Yet Another Jean Lafitte National Park

Today, Pearl escorts us to the Chalmette battlefield, about five miles downriver, to the southeast of New Orleans.  Bear begins to worry about directions.  “Calm down, Bear,” Pearl says a bit huffily. Keith relinquishes control, giving Pearl the helm and placing our fate into her hands.  “I’m well aware that Louisiana has six Jean Lafitte National Parks. I’m also smart enough and quite capable of taking you to correct one.”  After a harrowing drive along the silty riverside road, she triumphantly delivers us to the Chalmette battlefield, the site of Andrew Jackson’s stunning victory over British forces on January 8, 1815.  “Hmmph! Told you so!” Pearl mutters, settling down to sleep while we visit the park.

Turning our eyes to the sky, we warily scan the damp gray clouds, harbingers of rather iffy weather.  Entering the National Park Visitor Center, we turn back the clock.  We travel to the last engagement of the war of 1812, (beginning December 1814.) The British Empire, the most powerful political force the world has yet seen, has defeated Napoleon just this past spring.  (The Napoleonic wars sputter on for another year, but the European Theatre no longer requires much British attention.)  Ironically, the wars push Great Britain to develop the most feared army in the world, while with her navy, Britannia rules the waves.

Before Napoleon’s defeat, many in the U.S. had thought declaring a new war on Britain an excellent idea—maybe we could swipe some of Canada while the French distracted the Brits! Many former war hawks, though, can’t shake a nervous feeling by 1814.  We’ve gained nothing in Canada, and with Napoleon’s defeat imminent, the Brits have now turned their attention to their upstart former colonies—miserable ingrates who dare to reject their rule and monarchy, then challenge them from behind Napoleon’s skirts. Dusting herself off from her European campaigns, Britain sends thousands of battle-tested troops to the US.

Intent upon re-conquering the rebels, the British plan a three-pronged campaign. The first leg, a full-scale invasion from Montréal, fizzles with the loss of the battle of Lake Champlain. In the second attack, the Brits manage to capture and burn Washington DC, but Fort McHenry in Baltimore stands firm, preventing the British navy from landing.  Finally, smarting from multiple defeats, the Empire turns its focus to New Orleans, a brilliant strategic move.  As most US commerce uses the Mississippi river, taking New Orleans will cripple the US economically and halt westward expansion, basically nullifying the Louisiana Purchase.

On December 23^rd, British ships land 10,000 battle-hardened troops nine miles downriver from New Orleans. Gloating over his immense army and navy, the imperious, aristocratic General Parkenham writes glowing letters home, predicting a battle easily won and the American impudence quashed by Christmas.

Andrew Jackson stands between the British and America’s most valuable city. Jackson musters 5,000 troops, including his army regulars, French Louisianans, Cajuns, free blacks, creoles, Choctaw and Jean Lafitte’s Baratarian pirates. To motivate his impromptu polyglot militia, his motley band of misfits and the underprivileged, Jackson pardons the pirates of numerous federal crimes, pays everybody handsomely, and crafts a rallying cry guaranteed to appeal to every American, regardless of race or wealth: Wouldn’t we be better off under our own rule than subject to the whims of some distant European power?  In this hour, as the fate of the Republic trembles in the wind, the past is known; the future open. 

Jackson was a competent and forbidding general as well as a good leader. At our current location, he quickly built shoulder-high mud ramparts behind his makeshift moat, the Rodriguez Canal—ramparts thick enough to absorb cannon balls and enemy fire.  He positioned his people sparingly, safely and carefully where they could do the most damage.  Then he sat down to wait. 

The Brits soon arrived. Hemmed in between a cypress swamp to the north and the Mississippi to the south, Jackson funneled the Brits toward the Rodriquez Canal.  Under General Parkenham, the Brits charged the well-fortified U.S. earthworks in waves. Firing cannons from behind the canal, the Americans tore the British troops to shreds.  The battle ended in thirty minutes, with 2,000 British dead (including Parkenham), wounded or taken prisoner and fewer than twenty US casualties.  The British fleet sailed away at the end of the month, losing many more troops to festering wounds and disease on the way home.

Of course, Jackson’s vague promises to the American Indians and African Americans would prove false.  Unfortunately, the utopian multiracial government never materialized. Jackson, America’s conquering hero, failed as President, now remembered for his role in the genocidal Trail of Tears, as well as his decimation of the economy.  Until this tour, I had always considered Jackson our worst president.  Now I’m bestowing that honor on Bush II.

Why does every battle I know about (granted, that’s only a few) involve some highly-placed idiot attacking fortified artillery positions? Pickett obeying Lee at Gettysburg, Parkenham at New Orleans, and Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden—all attacked fortified lines.  Grapeshot, the original antipersonnel weapon, comprised of small lead balls packed tightly into a canvas bag then shot out of cannon, decimated their charging infantries with shrapnel.   It killed Parkenham and demolished Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobites; Pickett’s men succumbed to canister shot, grapeshot’s successor.  Parkenham at least had the decency to die in the charge; the others survived after spilling the blood of so many of their followers.

The boys claim that Alexander the Great invariably used frontal assaults against a center line, sowing terror and overrunning enemy lines.  Alexander conquered before the invention of cannons and shrapnel. Has Alexander’s tactic been successful since the invention of modern weapons? The boys aren’t sure but agree that when a frontal assault fails, it fails spectacularly.

I wonder if this could have been our last just war against a foreign aggressor. And as guerrilla underdogs, we won. How odd that we’ve never learned the lessons of 1815 and continue to rely upon technology, arrogance, and very long supply lines to help us lose wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  We don’t bother winning the locals’ hearts and minds; we’ve become the British.

We take Sven for a spin around the battlefield and check out the remains of the Rodriguez Canal, finding the mud ramparts have long ago returned to the earth.  Under today’s calm but cloudy skies, we find it difficult to picture the battle or its carnage. The mighty Mississippi lies just to the south of the battlefield.  We climb the levee to view the river; a fence prevents our summiting.  Looking out, we see huge tankers and container ships, each easily the length of several football fields, but we never find the river.  Perhaps the ships float along on an invisible jet stream.

After touring the battlefield, we return to the visitor center. At each park we visit, we ask the same question, “What will be the fate of New Orleans?” The personnel here opine, “We have ten years to put the wetlands back. After that it will be too late to save New Orleans.”  I query, “Is the problem caused by habitat destruction or climate change?” “Both problems contribute to our dilemma,” the ranger replies.  “Wetlands protect us from rising seas.  They absorb floodwaters, sparing the cities near the shore.” No one we’ve met has expressed optimism about continuing the status quo in Louisiana. Unfortunately, given the monetary and emotional cost of change and the lack of political will to undertake it, Louisiana seems poised to cling to yesterday until it’s far past too late.

Rain begins to fall as we climb back into Pearl.  We start our 10-hour CD, an audiobook about the life of Huey Long. Driving back into New Orleans under a warm Southern drizzle, we hear about Long’s impeachment, absolutely amazing political theater.  Politicians brawl in the Statehouse; one of Long’s brothers bites off an opponent’s ear.  Long finally dodges the bullet by rigging the House voting machines and then, while the House fixes them, buying off the Senate.