CWL On The Road---Battle of New Orleans Remembered on It's 196th Anniversary

The Battle of New Orleans fought on January 8, 1815, fourteen days after the armistice was signed, was the final engagement of the War of 1812. American commander Major General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the Louisiana Purchase. The Armistice Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24, 1814, peace would not the U.S until February. If the armistice had not be signed and if New Orleans had been occupied by the British, then the economic life of all U.S. territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries would have been at the mercy of the United Kingdom.

The Battle of New Orleans is interpreted by the National Park as well as it can with a park and budget that is limited in size. Taking the six mile trip by paddle wheeled steam ship from New Orleans to the park passes the largest American sugar refinery and other industrial sites. The sugar refinery is about a mile and a half north of the Chalmette field. In Note the southeast horizon in this picture. In the foreground are the American lines, in the center is the field of the British approach, behind the British approach field is a cemetery with 5,500 Civil War era graves. Next to the cemetery is an industrial site.

The 196th anniversary remembrance will include the dedication of the new visitor center. A visitor could take a brisk 90 second walk around the exterior of the building and reach the spot where the walk had begun. That is not to say that the visitor's center is a disappointment; for it size it does an adequate job and the bookstore has enough materials in it to satisfy most visitors to the site.

A tip to visitors: Drive to the park; it is less than twenty minutes from downtown New Orleans. CWL took the Cajun Queen riverboat which docked for only 35 minutes at the park. Nice trip on the river but way too little time to take in the battlefield and no time to take the walking tour of the British assault field or a visit to the cemetery.

CWL visited on the Friday before the Saturday and Sunday anniversary weekend. Reenactors were setting up and the park ranger expected about 150 men to represent the American 7th Regular army regiment, a battalion of free blacks, Louisiana militia, and the British army. Major General Jackson was present on the day that CWL visited and was asked if he indeed would have enough rope to hang every traitor in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. Jackson and CWL traded stories about the work of recognized Jackson authority Robert Remini, of the University of Illinois [Chicago Circle]. With the aid a National Endowment of the Humanities Award, CWL was a student of Remini's during a summer in 1984.

CWL On The Road---Malvern Hill: Battle and Prophecy

The sixth and last of the Seven Days Battles of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign was prophetic. Robert E. Lee did on July 1, 1862 in Henrico County, Virginia what he would do on July 3, 1863 in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

Lee launched a series of disjointed assaults against a plateau of Federal artillery and infantry. Confederates suffered more than 5,300 casualties without gaining an inch of ground and suffered the about the same number of casualties as they would during the Grand Assualt of July 3.

June 30,the previous day, Fitz John Porter and his Fifth Corps, prepared Malvern Hill as a bastion to cover the retreat of McClellan's Army of the Potomac to Harrison's Landing. On the east side of the flat-topped hill, the gradually climbing slopes were cleared of timber. Th open pastures and grain fields to the west were already suitable for field of fire for by 250 artillery placed by Henry J. Hunt, McClellan's chief of artillery. Yes, on July 2 and 3 11863Hunt would also arrange the artillery at Gettysburg.

The terrain from which the Rebels attacked was swampy and thickly wooded. The double chimneys mark the site of the Willis Methodist Church parsonage on the Confederate center and right. The pastor's house was on a slight rise above the low, muddy depression that the Confederate would have to cross. From the crest of Malvern Hill the house was easily seen and served as a range marker for Federal artillery.

As he would do a year later at Cemetery Hill, Lee attacked Malvern Hill directly, rather than flanking the position. As he did at Gettysburg, Lee used his artillery clear the plateau for successful infantry occupation of the crest. As he would in 367 days later, Lee believed that his soldiers were better fighters than Federal soldiers.

Lee planned the battle of Malvern Hill. The divisions of Jackson, Ewell and D.H. Hill would first assaulte the Federal left then the divisions of James Longstreet and A.P. Hill, which had been the most heavily engaged on June 30 were to follow with coordinated assualts on the Federal right as the first assault crested the hill. Federal causualties were 3,200 and the Confederates' butcher's bill was 5,300.

Follow up reading: Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles by Brian K. Burton;
The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula and the Seven Days, Gary W. Gallagher, editor;
The Peninsula Campaign Of 1862: Yorktown To The Seven Days, Vol. 1 & II, William J. Miller, editor;To The Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign by Stephen W. Sears, and Sword Over Richmond: An Eyewitness History Of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign by Richard Wheeler.

Top and Middle Image Source: Civil War Librarian,

Bottom Image Source: Civil War Preservation Trust