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T HE HMS T ONNANT weighed anchor on October 13 with a fair wind behind her. 1 The ship’s cabins and tween decks were a confusion of midshipmen, surgeons, and clerks, while artillery, horses, and munitions filled her holds, promising action ahead. Yet, as she plowed through Atlantic waves on a southward heading, Admiral Cochrane kept their destination to himself. Even Tonnant ’s captain, Rear Admiral Edward Codrington, was in the dark, writing to his wife, Jane, that until Cochrane chose to reveal their destination, he was on “a cruise of curiosity.” Speculation belowdecks said that they were bound for the Indies and New Orleans, and only after eight days at sea did Cochrane finally reveal Guadeloupe as his aim, but nothing more. 2 Aware of his commander’s financial straits, Codrington suspected that the Guadeloupe stop was to collect prize money still due from his earlier tenure there as governor. 3
In fact, Cochrane expected to find the fleet from Cork there awaiting him. 4 When he arrived on November 2, there was no fleet, but he remained over a week arranging water and provisions for the coming vessels, then once more breached his own security by telling the acting governor that Malcolm’s flotilla was heading for Negril and thence to attack New Orleans. 5
Then news came that Admiral Brown had died of yellow fever before receiving Cochrane’s orders to have shallow-draft boats ready. 6 The next senior officer was then at sea and in his absence Captain Frederic Langford commanded at Jamaica. He was a well-regarded officer, and until Cochrane reached Jamaica himself, he could only hope that he was also energetic and discreet. 7 By November 11 the admiral could wait no longer for the Cork fleet and departed for Port Royal, Jamaica, to check on progress in gathering landing boats. 8 He could not know that Wellington had just advised Robert Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool, that Britain’s commissioners at Ghent should insist upon the handover of Louisiana as a separate article to any treaty, regardless of any other terms. 9
Cochrane anchored in Port Royal off Kingston a week later to find Malcolm there ahead of him, but that almost no progress had been made in acquiring the shallow-draft boats. 10 Worse, when his orders to the deceased Brown had arrived around October 8, Langford was absent, and they were delivered instead to Captain William Fothergill. Despite “Most Secret” being clearly marked on the packet, Fothergill showed the contents to others, and even to non-naval eyes the sum of their import was a major operation aimed at either Mobile or New Orleans; the giveaway came in a reference to needing boats suited to operate in Lake Pontchartrain. 11 Fothergill made it worse by ordering the station’s transportation officer to gather light-draft boats for the shallow waters “in the neighborhood of New Orleans.” 12
Within hours of the secret packet’s arrival, the expedition to New Orleans was a common topic in Kingston’s taverns and in the local press. 13 Cochrane also learned that the evening after the packet arrived, John Thomas Hudson, an Englishman running a ship chandlery on Levee Street in New Orleans, had cleared Port Royal in his schooner and made sail for the Gulf Coast to get the news to Jackson. Port officials made no attempt to stop him. 14
Everyone knowing the source of the leak did not lessen the embarrassment. Cochrane and other officers roundly condemned Fothergill. 15 Nearly three months of leaks made further pretense of secrecy pointless, especially since weeks of preparations—fitting out transports, loading victualing boats, and more—told of something big in the offing. 16 An artilleryman attached to the expedition, Ensign Benson Hill, almost laughed at what he called “the farce of mystery” now. 17 Sensing that his best hope of surprise rested in reaching New Orleans before reports of his plans reached Jackson, Cochrane put Gordon to hiring or buying flat-bottomed boats and made $80,000 available for the expense. 18
After four days taking on provisions, water, and troops, including printer William Tremayne and a printing press for printing proclamations, Cochrane detailed a ship to remain at Jamaica to receive any “treasure” he might send from New Orleans, and left Kingston on November 24 bound for Negril, missing by just hours a visitor who might have made up for the collapse of security. 19 Jasper McCalden Graham, a Scot claiming descent from royal Stewarts, had lived some years in the American South before settling on Jamaica’s north coast. 20 He claimed to have vital intelligence on New Orleans’s defenses and defenders, gained by bribes paid to friends in the United States. “The Golden Key, unlocks the door to many a secret,” he hinted, making it clear that he would pass along what he knew, and much more to come, if the admiral put a Golden Key in his door.
Cochrane had just sailed when Graham arrived in Kingston, so he met with an army officer to whom he passed some useful information in good faith, including a copy of Barthélémy Lafon’s superb 1806 map of the Orleans Territory, Carte Général du Territoire d’Orléans , which revealed enough detail to show all of the water approaches to the city. 21 In addition, he passed on a lengthy and rambling set of observations laden with details of Mississippi River depths, width, and current, and portraits of the defenses surrounding New Orleans, whose artillery he exaggerated by more than double. 22 He also claimed that he had seen Jackson’s early October dispatches detailing what troops were coming from Kentucky, Tennessee, and elsewhere, although he could have inferred that from American newspapers received in Jamaica. 23 In sum, he was nearly right about much, and quite wrong about more, but it raised the possibility that someone close to Jackson’s headquarters had copied or intercepted his correspondence. 24 Graham’s letters eventually reached Cochrane, but the admiral regarded them as curiosities, not hard intelligence, and the War Ministry later concluded that Graham had furnished nothing of value. He never got a farthing. 25
Cochrane had more urgent matters before him and reached Negril on November 25 to find Malcolm waiting. 26
Rear Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm was a forty-six-year-old Scot who had seen wide service in the Mediterranean and Indies. He had sailed from the Chesapeake on October 14 with a fleet of ten warships counting among them 388 guns, and ten transports with some 2,900 redcoats aboard, a mixed bag of experience behind them. 27 Commanding was Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Brooke, whose own 4th King’s Own numbered six hundred veterans, as did the 85th Light Infantry, and the 44th East Essex. The 4th had a fine record, although Ensign Arthur Gerard jauntily called their recent experience on Chesapeake shores a “Buccaneering expedition.” 28 The largest regiment was also perhaps the toughest, the eight hundred men of Lieutenant Colonel William Paterson’s 21st Fusiliers.
Yet another Irishman, William Thornton from Londonderry, was colonel of the 85th, still suffering from a Bladensburg wound that enhanced his dubious reputation as the most wounded officer in the army. Nevertheless, many regarded him as the best regimental commander of the lot, although his had been a troubled regiment whose officers virtually mutinied under a previous colonel. Re-officered and sent first to Wellington, the 85th got to America in time to participate in burning the United States Capitol. 29 The 44th answered to fifty-two-year-old Major Thomas Mullins, the son of a baron, recently brevetted to lieutenant colonel during the Chesapeake campaign when he assumed command of the regiment from Brooke. He won mention in dispatches from Ross for his performance at Bladensburg in temporary command of a brigade, and when Brooke succeeded the fallen Ross, he commended Mullins again for his conduct. 30
Meanwhile the 21st Fusiliers prided itself for counting among its company commanders perhaps the most highly regarded younger officer in the army. Scottish-born Captain Robert Rennie was approaching his thirtieth birthday and had already won brevets to major and lieutenant colonel the past summer for gallantry in action. 31 He dwelled under good stars and bad. When generals wanted daring and indifference to danger, they turned to him, but bullets found him in every engagement. Mistakenly reported killed in action at Bladensburg, he was still recovering from a painful wound taken there and another received three weeks later at Godly Wood. 32 Being the soldier’s soldier did not spare him frustration, however. No one got his name right. Renny, Reaney, Reddy, Rinnie, and a dozen more were the misspellings, and more to come. 33
The rest of the complement included five hundred artillerymen and engineers for constructing field fortifications, suggesting at least a chance of laying siege rather than fighting an open field battle for New Orleans. Malcolm flew his flag as Admiral of the Blue aboard the seventy-four-gun Royal Oak . Two other “seventy-fours” accompanied her, including Ramillies , noted not least for its commander Captain Sir Thomas M. Hardy, in whose arms Lord Nelson died at Trafalgar. 34 Malcolm had spent twenty days at sea without incident, an interesting complement of officers finding much to pass their time. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel De Lacy Evans of the 5th West India led one hundred men who had stormed and taken the Capitol building in Washington. 35 Captain Charles Grey of the 85th was called “Old Grey” because years before he had lost much of his hair to a fever, though but thirty. He and his best friend, Ensign George R. Gleig, took up keeping diaries aboard Volcano during the voyage. 36 Eighteen-year-old Gleig was a Scot, son of the bishop of Brechin. Bound originally for divinity school, he enlisted instead in the 85th and saw service and a slight wound at Bladensburg. 37 He often stayed on deck in the moonlight, finding that “the ocean is so smooth, that scarcely a ripple is seen to break the moon-beams as they fall.” 38 Some officers brought wives, and occasionally they danced with their husbands and others, Mullins’s wife, Parnell, being a special favorite. 39 As usually happened on long voyages, tragedy also struck when the wife of Captain S. H. Douglas of the 21st took fever and died. 40
Malcolm had dropped anchor off Port Royal on November 3 and remained for a fortnight, giving his soldiers and sailors something of a holiday in Kingston while awaiting Cochrane and the Cork contingent. They drank and whored and after dark marveled at the fireflies dancing like sparks from a smith’s anvil. 41 Some lodged ashore to be entertained at balls and dinners as residents feted the conquerors of Washington, and Gleig for one almost dreaded having to leave such friendly climes to “return again to a country where every man is an enemy.” 42 Over cool glasses of sangaree they indulged in the inevitable speculations, all assuming they were bound for Louisiana, only to learn that news of their arrival and numbers had sped to New Orleans. 43
When the order to board ship came on November 16, it arrived so fast that some almost missed the departure. 44 Three days later they anchored in Negril Bay, the first to arrive. 45 A week later, at nine a.m. on November 26, they sighted Tonnant sailing into the bay and dropping anchor. 46 To make a suitable impression as Tonnant drew close, Cochrane donned full dress, including the star and ribbon of a Knight of the Bath, and stood on his quarterdeck to be seen. “I scarcely ever saw a finer old man than Sir Alexander,” recalled Ensign Hill. Still, darker impressions momentarily overshadowed the reunion. A few days earlier Private Hugh Lister of the 21st received a tongue-lashing from his sergeant, and later attacked him from behind and killed him. As Cochrane stood in his finery aboard Tonnant , Lister’s lifeless body swayed from a yardarm in Malcolm’s fleet. 47
Then, with almost incredible timing, the other half of the army arrived. The war machine in London, coordinated largely by Brigadier General Sir Henry Bunbury, undersecretary of state for war and the colonies, had been wonderfully efficient. He sent Lieutenant Colonel John Burgoyne to London to arrange the artillery, ordnance, and engineering supplies for the expedition. 48 They included the new Congreve rockets developed by William Congreve, which carried exploding anti-personnel projectiles 1,500 yards or more at a much faster rate of fire than conventional artillery, and requiring far fewer men and horses. They were erratic and inaccurate in flight, and their psychological impact probably outdid any damage they actually inflicted. The people of Baltimore still had fresh in their memory the frightening sight of “the rockets’ red glare” during the September bombardment of Fort McHenry. Captain Henry Lane’s 1st Rocket Troop had five hundred twelve-pounder rockets and forty “rocketeers” to accompany the expedition. Since mixing rockets with other cargo could be dangerous, Bunbury ordered a vessel to carry them separately. 49
In the following weeks, more detailed preparations assembled the materiel to go to Negril. 50 Six ships were to carry thousands of arms and tons of munitions, including almost 2 million rifle and musket cartridges, some of them what the Americans called “buck and ball,” a single bullet and three or four buckshot, which increased every shot’s chances of hitting a mark even if the main projectile missed. 51 Then the redcoats themselves began to arrive, the premier 93rd Sutherland Highlanders being first on the scene. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Dale, and nearly one thousand strong, it won note for a morality hardly the norm in the army. 52 They built their own church at the Cape of Good Hope, maintained a missionary fund to educate regimental children, and maintained another fund for its widows. 53
Five companies of the 95th Rifles wore their unusual green uniforms and carried rifles rather than muskets. Originally called the “Experimental Corps of Riflemen,” now they were known as “the Prince Consort’s Own.” A squadron of 160 blue-clad troopers from the 14th Dragoons, only just returned in July from France, were aboard, led by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Charles M. Baker. They were expected to capture or purchase mounts on reaching the Gulf Coast. The fleet also carried a company of 120 artillerymen and Lane’s 1st Rocket Troop. Added to the nearly 3,000 from the Chesapeake being brought by Malcolm, they should total 5,300 in round numbers. 54
On September 12, command went to Major General Sir John Keane, a tall, bearded Anglo-Irishman, formerly of the 44th Foot. 55 He had served in Egypt and Sicily, and won his knighthood under Wellington on the Peninsula, being promoted to major general just the previous summer. His rise came in part due to a daring that approached recklessness, a quality Wellington valued as highly as judgment, and which many of his younger officers emulated. Keane was to be Robert Ross’s executive officer when they joined forces, but if Ross could not be there, Keane was to lead the army subject to Cochrane’s command. 56 Of course, no one could know that Ross would be killed two days after Keane got his orders.
Escorted by the seventy-fours Bedford and Norge , and ten other ships, the transports weighed anchor and spent seven weeks at sea, sailing a longer-than-usual route for secrecy, but conjecture on the decks already predicted New Orleans as their destination. 57 They anchored off Barbados on November 4, the same day that Cochrane reached Kingston, nine hundred miles to the west. 58 Keane sailed on to meet Cochrane, leaving his command to spend a week getting their land legs and talking too much. Within seventy-two hours of their arrival, it was open knowledge on Barbados that they were headed for New Orleans. 59 Within three days the word spread up the Antilles to the Leewards and Saint-Barthélemy. 60 Cochrane’s efforts at security dissolved in every port. 61
Two weeks later they met Malcolm and Cochrane at Point Negril with the news that Ross had been shot and killed in skirmishing near Baltimore, whereupon Keane assumed overall command of the army and organized it into two brigades. 62 The first included the 93rd, and the 1st and 5th West India, totaling 1,550, while the Second Brigade held the 4th, 44th, and 21st regiments, totaling 2,535. The 14th Dragoons and the artillery remained unbrigaded for the moment, and Colonel Thornton was assigned his 85th, the 95th, and the rocket troop as an “advance” force of 984. 63 All told, including artillery and engineers, Keane commanded just over 5,500. 64 The sight of Cochrane in his finery and Lister swinging on his rope reminded all that they stood on the verge of glory and death. “I think we shall have some promotion before our return to England,” the 85th’s Captain John Knox wrote a friend, “for if bullets do not give it the climate will.” 65
Now Cochrane’s logistical plans began to break down. No flatboats met him at Negril, and those brought from Kingston were hardly adequate. He had scant news of Jackson’s whereabouts, thought New Orleans was yet undefended and that he could salvage a surprise if he moved quickly. Without the flatboats he would have to make an unopposed coastal landing somewhere west of Mobile and march overland on New Orleans, or else approach via a navigable bayou close to the city. He did not yet have a reconnaissance report from Captain Gordon, but when he did the picture would be clearer. Until then, the admiral adjusted to the situation and determined to leave for Pensacola, where he might learn more. 66
Cochrane and Tonnant set sail again on November 26 in company with Ramillies and the brigs Anaconda , Dover , and Calliope , carrying Keane’s contingent. 67 Malcolm raised anchor the following morning with orders to rejoin Cochrane off Mobile, which would be their staging area for the expedition. 68 Fifty ships lifted anchor at the same moment and with all canvas set they left the anchorage, caught a fresh breeze off the headland, and left Jamaica astern before dark, everyone’s spirits high. 69 Two days later Malcolm passed Grand Cayman with a good wind behind him and headed for the Yucatán Channel and the Gulf of Mexico. 70
Just nine days after Keane sailed from Cork, news of Washington’s fall reached London. Lord Bathurst, the secretary of state for war, quickly decided to send additional men and Major General John Lambert for what all orders referred to as “a particular service.” 71 The frigate HMS Vengeur lay at anchor, ready for him and his staff, with a fleet of transports to convoy his men and stores. 72 Lambert would have 877 men of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, 991 in the 43rd Monmouthshire Light Infantry, and 159 in another unmounted squadron of the 14th Dragoons. With assorted trumpeters, drummers, and other ranks, there were 2,094 men in all. 73 Tragically, there were casualties even before they sailed. On October 10, when lighters took the 43rd Regiment to its transports, one drifted onto the rocks in Cork Sound and went to the bottom, drowning several soldiers. Captain John Henry Cooke of the 43rd took it as an ill omen.
Major Sir John Maxwell Tylden took over as chief of staff for Lambert, and soon thereafter as adjutant general. He found the forty-four-year-old general easy and “open of manner,” and the two would work well together. 74 Just days later came the shocking news of Ross’s death, meaning another overall commander for the expedition’s army was needed. Lambert outranked Keane by date of commission, but an army soon to approach or exceed 10,000 required someone more senior. The new grand commander, whoever that might be, would have to follow Lambert.
The squadron got under way early on October 26 under a veil of secrecy that made Tylden uneasy, wondering how many in the convoy would never go home again. He could not concentrate, even to write to family. England was exhausted by war. The commissioners at Ghent might make a peace with the Americans that rendered this expedition pointless. One day out of Cork he confessed that “I never left England with so much regret.” 75 Meanwhile the men made the best of the long voyage. Sailors danced and played games, while Captain Cooke and the surgeon of the 43rd played at least two chess matches every day. 76
By November 1 everyone assumed New Orleans was their ultimate target. 77 Just over three weeks brought them to the Tropic of Cancer, when, in an old tradition, a seaman dressed as Neptune demanded grog from those who had it, while those who did not were shaved and baptized with seawater. 78 They made Port Royal on December 11, to learn that Cochrane had left weeks earlier. Tylden feared that “we shall come a day too late for the fair,” but two days later they reached Negril Bay and soon saw the frigate Statira enter the anchorage, hailing them with the news that the new commanding general was aboard.
Speculation about Ross’s successor had immediately turned to Major General Sir Edward Michael Pakenham. 79 Like so many others now, he was an Irishman, and actually six years younger than Lambert. Educated first at a grammar school, and then at the Royal Classic School, he entered the army at sixteen, his father, Lord Longford, buying him a commission. Two more purchased promotions made him a major of dragoons; then in 1803 he rose to the colonelcy of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, which he led to Ireland in 1806. There he saw his sister married to a dynamic officer of growing reputation, fellow Irishman Arthur Wellesley.
A year later Pakenham was off to fight Napoleon, then to Canada and the Caribbean and home again in 1809, where Wellesley was knighted for defeating the French at Talavera and later created Lord Wellington. After five years on Wellington’s staff, Pakenham got his own infantry brigade in 1811. His rise continued until January 1812 when, aged just thirty-three, he was promoted to major general. He engineered British victory in the Battle of Salamanca and thereafter served as adjutant general, winning his own knighthood in September 1813. Having no interest in fighting the Yankees, when the war against Bonaparte ended in April 1814 he actually congratulated himself that “I have escaped America.” 80
Pakenham enjoyed wide respect and admiration as one of England’s best and bravest soldiers. Being Wellington’s brother-in-law also afforded him considerable protection, for none dared to impose on him. 81 Wellington himself believed that Pakenham might not be brilliant, but certainly he was “one of the best we have.” 82 It is no wonder that Bathurst called him to London on learning of Ross’s death. What was needed was an experienced officer who had served with Wellington and learned from his example. 83 Sir Edward was not best pleased, however, grumbling to his mother that “I confess to you there is Nothing that makes this employment desirable.” 84
He was to leave immediately to assume command of the forces where he found them, his instructions virtually the same as Cochrane’s regarding the inhabitants of Louisiana, their property, and their slaves, though with the addition that if they wanted Britain to occupy and govern them while the war lasted, he could encourage them, and even act himself as an interim governor. 85 Bathurst made it clear that plunder was not the purpose of this campaign, although that did not extend to property of the United States government or of any who sought to obstruct his operations. But such seized property must be properly condemned before an admiralty court, and he and Cochrane were to determine on distribution of the proceeds. 86
There was one more point. Pakenham might hear that a treaty had been agreed on at Ghent and sent to President Madison for ratification. Unless and until Pakenham received definitive news of that ratification, he was to continue hostilities. At the moment Bathurst thought Madison might not sign and the war would continue. He should not risk serious losses for a minor gain, but if the opportunity for a significant success like taking New Orleans presented itself, he should seize the moment. He should be cautious but not too cautious, and to that end half a dozen more regiments would be on their way to him in time. Whitehall intended to guarantee victory. 87
Unfortunately, caution was not what was needed to take New Orleans.
On October 31 Pakenham reached Portsmouth to find the Statira waiting to take him to the Gulf. 88 Also waiting was Major General Sir Samuel Gibbs, a thirty-year veteran of service in Canada, Gibraltar, the Low Countries, the Mediterranean, India, and more, promoted to major general in June 1812. Another mountain of clothing, shoes, dragoon equipment, and rifles waited nearby on transports. 89 While their ship made final preparations for the voyage, Pakenham passed the time with Majors George Napier and Harry Smith and others who would travel with him. Smith found him unaccustomedly solemn and confessing private doubts of the wisdom of the expedition and the accuracy of Cochrane’s information on Louisiana. Napier told the general not to expose himself in action as had been his wont. Many of Wellington’s younger generals did so, and it got several of them killed or seriously injured, and Pakenham twice wounded. He promised to be careful but added that sometimes a commander had to put himself at the forefront of his troops under fire and that “I must not flinch, though certain death be my lot!” 90
Pakenham carefully kept their destination to himself, speaking ashore about Charleston for the benefit of any unfriendly ears overhearing. Early on November 1, Pakenham, Gibbs, Burgoyne, artilleryman Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Dickson, their staffs, and some thirty other passengers, including some officers’ wives and possibly a few civilian administrators, boarded Statira , and at 8:15 raised anchor. 91 The general remained quiet as to their destination, but Burgoyne took it for granted that they were going to Louisiana. 92 Six weeks’ sailing brought them to Negril on the morning of December 13 to see Vengeur and Lambert’s transports at anchor. 93 In a wonderful feat of seamanship, two separate flotillas leaving six days apart, from ports separated by 150 miles, had crossed more than 4,000 nautical miles at four knots an hour to reach the same destination within ninety minutes of each other.
As Cooke and the surgeon of the 43rd played the last of their ninety-five games of chess, Lambert informed Pakenham that they were sixteen days behind Cochrane, who left no orders for them at the rendezvous. At least they ended any remaining suspense among their officers by telling them their goal. Tylden, for one, thought they would take the city without resistance and that the internal dissent and disaffection from the United States was such that its people would surrender as soon as they heard of the British approach. 94
Cochrane had entertained the same hope. About noon on December 3, people in Apalachicola saw Tonnant anchor just outside the bar covering the harbor mouth, and by the next morning she was joined by dozens of vessels of all description. That evening a gig dropped a man ashore, then rowed back to the fleet. He was a Yankee civilian, arrested back in July on suspicion of being a spy and finally released now when Cochrane believed he could learn nothing from him. The next day the man went to a doctor known to be acquainted with Old Hickory and told him what he had seen of Cochrane’s fleet and the soldiers aboard, and the prevailing opinion that they were headed for New Orleans. The doctor immediately sent the news to General Winchester at Mobile, adding that he had heard officers boasting that they would eat their Christmas dinners in New Orleans. He warned Jackson to be on the alert, for “by the Gods I think you will have warm work.” 95
Cochrane had known for a few days of the loss of Pensacola but was not dismayed. He certainly did not fear Jackson’s army, which Codrington believed would be ineffectual in the face of experienced redcoats. 96 Aboard Tonnant , Colonel Frederick Stovin, Keane’s adjutant general, expected to attack New Orleans in less than a week, and with no doubt of success. They should outnumber Jackson and could pit discipline against inexperience. He thought Cochrane both amiable and talented, and paid rapt attention when some in the admiral’s cabin declared that, if they succeeded, there would be “a good deal of Prize Money.” 97
The fall of Mobile did upset the admiral, for it lost his preferred staging area for an overland march on New Orleans. Now he sent Gordon and Seahorse ahead to look for likely landing places near Lake Pontchartrain. 98 First, Gordon stole into Pensacola by night in disguise to kidnap a coastal pilot in Pensacola familiar with the Mississippi and the lakes, and some of the Spanish fishermen inhabiting the shores of both. Gordon brought him back to Seahorse , where interrogation gleaned the names and whereabouts of men who could guide landing boats through the bayous to dry ground below New Orleans. 99
Cochrane meanwhile moved on to the coast off Pensacola. On December 5, Tremayne’s printing press birthed a proclamation written by Codrington and addressed “To the Great and Illustrious Chiefs of the Creek and Other Indian Nations.” Cochrane came with irresistible power, it declared. The Americans were “The People of the Bad Spirit” who had robbed Indians of their lands. He came with fleets and armies to defeat their oppressors and called on them to rally to him. He would give them weapons and all they need do was help him to regain their lands. 100 Nicolls was to collect the Creeks and any runaway slaves enlisted thus far and be prepared to join the expedition west of Mobile.
Cochrane and Nicolls both departed the Pensacola area on the afternoon of December 7, leaving orders for arriving vessels to meet him at anchor 120 miles westward between Ship Island and the Chandeleur Islands off the Mississippi coast, just forty miles from the entrance to Lake Borgne. The next day the admiral left the ship with a small squadron of armed boats to reconnoiter the coast personally. 101 Behind him, Nicolls arrived with two Creek chieftains and some of their warriors, to spend the next three days dining and drinking. 102 Despite Nicolls’s sunny expectations, this handful were the only Indians the British would see. 103 Disappointingly few blacks came with him, either. Most slaves wanted their freedom, of course, but many regarded the British with no more trust than they did their masters.
Cochrane was due for a stroke of good luck. All hope of surprise was gone, for he now believed—erroneously—that Jackson had left for New Orleans in mid-November. 104 He had already decided not to contend with shifting winds and the serpentine bends of the Mississippi to approach New Orleans. Mobile and Pensacola were lost to him as bases for an overland campaign. The manner of approaching the city had always been left to him, and his willingness to adapt his plans this far into the expedition revealed commendable flexibility. 105 Armed with a report from Gordon, he determined to land somewhere on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain if he could and find a direct route to strike the city itself. 106 Then he somehow came in possession of Lafon’s 1806 Carte Général du Territoire d’Orléans , perhaps the copy sent by the accommodating Jasper Graham, and the very same map carried by Jackson. 107
Two lakes dominated the map north and east of the city, but the big men-o’-war drew too much water to get nearer to them than the Chandeleur Islands more than forty miles eastward, although there was good, deep water for his lighter frigates near Malheureux Island thirty miles closer to the entrance to Lake Borgne. Four miles north of the city sat Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary of the Gulf forty miles long and twenty-four wide, but not much more than a dozen feet in depth. At its eastern extremity a navigable channel ten miles long and 350 yards wide called the Rigolets ran to Lake Borgne, sometimes called “Blind Lake.” An earthwork named Fort Petites Coquilles—“Little Shells”—guarded the shallow channel’s entrance. Seven miles southwest of the Rigolets flowed another pass locally known as Chef Menteur.
Lake Borgne was no lake at all but a 280-square-mile lagoon off the Gulf that controlled access to those channels to Pontchartrain. Its generally ten-foot depth further limited vessels reaching its larger neighbor. Any boat passing through the Rigolets or Chef Menteur could cross Lake Pontchartrain straight to the mouth of Bayou St. John on its southern shore, and up that four-foot stream almost to the Gentilly road for a short walk to the city. The road also ran to Chef Menteur, thus offering another avenue to New Orleans from Lake Borgne’s shore. 108
A cypress swamp stretched from Lake Borgne’s southern shore toward the Mississippi, in some places to within a mile of the river. The dry plain between swamp and stream was the only firm ground on that side between New Orleans and the Gulf. Several sluggish bayous flowed from the swamp into the lake, the largest known to the French years before as the St. Francis River or Bayou des Pêcheurs—the Bayou of the Fishermen—but now most called it Bayou Bienvenue or Catalan. 109 Several tributaries fed it—Bayous Jumonville, Mazant, Laurier, among others—and the first two actually touched that plain of dry level land skirting the Mississippi. Anyone getting up those bayous had a mile or less to travel overland to the wagon and coach road running along the river levee nine miles northwest to New Orleans.
Cochrane also learned of sufficient dry ground beside the bayou’s mouth on the lake to use it as a staging area for troops. 110 From such a point he could neutralize the enemy fort guarding Chef Menteur and send small boats to the west side of the big lake to land close to the river and the road above New Orleans, cutting it off. Cochrane preferred that option, but the bayou might be worth considering if he could reconnoiter it first. 111 Either way, Keane’s soldiers would have to travel at least sixty miles in their light-draft boats from the Ship Island anchorage to reach the bayou or Chef Menteur. They would be vulnerable to larger vessels, and Gordon and Seahorse now reported seeing Yankee gunboats on Lake Borgne. They must be neutralized.
Soon the rest of the expedition began arriving. Malcolm’s squadron hit rough seas out of Negril, but by the morning of December 11 they spied Cochrane’s fleet at anchor and came into the anchorage throughout the day and into the evening. 112 By noon the next day they were all there, Midshipman Robert Aitchison musing that the fleet had “gathered size like a snow ball.” 113 By that time the British had also spied the Americans, and been seen by them. Seahorse , Armide , and Sophie sailed west in advance of the main fleet, and three days earlier off Dauphin Island they sighted two armed sloops in the distance. Patterson was keeping two gunboats on lookout well to the east of Lake Borgne. The two small vessels boldly fired on the thirty-six-gun fast frigate Armide before withdrawing to the other three gunboats, and thereafter watched the enemy buildup off Ship Island until they saw an armada of warships, barges, and transports.
At the same time, standing in the rigging at their mastheads, Cochrane’s captains watched the five Yankee gunboats in the distance. 114 He thought of sending a squadron of smaller boats to confront it, but the weather remained rough and the chance of failure too great. Codrington was convinced the gunboats could be taken, but kept his view to himself, as he did increasingly now. The two admirals agreed on one thing, however. Having been sighted where they were, all remaining hope of surprise evaporated. A British fleet on this scale sailing southwestward along the coast could only be bound for Lake Borgne. That told the Yankees the direction of Cochrane’s attack. 115 Still, he might salvage some surprise, for he began considering Bayou Bienvenue as his objective. His plans were still evolving, of course.
But first he must do something about those gunboats. 116