Many Tennessee Militia called to duty
Note: Among the 13 Americans killed at the Battle of New
Orleans, 2 were
brothers of my gg-grandfather, Edward FEATHERSTONE.
Edward himself was
among the 39 wounded. His older brother, DR. Henry
FEATHERSTON [Henry dropped
the E in his name], was a surgeon and a First Sargeant
in the Tennessee
Militia. Dr. Henry FEATHERSTON is on War of 1812 Muster
Rolls in 1 Reg't
(Metcalfe's) West Tennessee Militia as a Sargeant.
Edward's younger brother,
Daniel FEATHERSTONE, is on the War of 1812 Muster Rolls
in 3 Reg't (Roulston's)
West Tennessee Militia as a private. Edward appears on
Muster Rolls of
2 Reg't (Col Thomas Williamson) Mounted Gunmen TN
Volunteers Sept. 1814
- April 1815 .... MaryCarol
Battle of New Orleans, 23 December 1814 - 8 January 1815. "On 20 December 1814 a force of about 10,000 British troops, assembled in Jamaica, landed unopposed at the west end of Lake Borgne, some 15 miles from New Orleans, preparatory to an attempt to seize the city and secure control of the lower Mississippi Valley. Advanced elements pushed quickly toward the river, reaching Villere's Plantation on the left bank, 10 miles below New Orleans, on 23 December. In a swift counter-action, Maj. Gen. Andrew JACKSON, American commander in the South, who had only arrived in the city on 1 December, made a night attack on the British (23-24 December) with some 2,000 men supported by fire from the gunboat Carolina. The British advance was checked, giving JACKSON time to fall back to a dry canal about five miles south of New Orleans, where he built a breastworks about a mile long, with the right flank on the river and the left in a cypress swamp. A composite force of about 3,500 militia, regulars, sailors, and others manned the American main line, with another 1,000 in reserve. A smaller force, perhaps 1,000 militia, under Brig. Gen. David MORGAN defended the right bank of the river. Maj. Gen. Sir Edward PAKENHAM, brother-in-law of the
Duke of Wellington,
arrived on 25 December to command the British operation.
He entrenched
his troops and on 1 January 1815 fought an artillery
duel in with the Americans
outgunned the British artillerists. Finally, at dawn on
8 January, PAKENHAM
attempted a frontal assault on JACKSON'S
breastworks with 5,300 men,
simultaneously sending a smaller force across the river
to attack MORGAN'S
defenses. The massed fires of JACKSON'S troops,
protected by earthworks
reinforced with cotton bales, wrought havoc among
PAKENHAMS'S regulars
as they advanced across the open ground in front of the
American lines.
In less than a half hour the attack was repulsed. The British
lost 291 killed, including Pakenham, 1,262 wounded,
and 48 prisoners;
American
losses on both sides of the river were only 13 killed,
39 wounded, and
19 prisoners. The surviving British troops
withdrew to Lake Borgne
and reembarked on 27 January for Mobile, where on 14
February they learned
that the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war, had been
signed on 24 December
1814." - from Army Military website.
After the Battle Even though the Treaty of Ghent was signed to end the War before the Battle of New Orleans, most Americans, communication being slow, heard about the victorius Battle of New Orleans first. It was a much needed boost for American Morale and was one of the major reasons that Andrew Jackson was voted in as President of the United States some 14 years later....MC
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