Then a man fights for his native soil; for his family and friends; for his possessions, which would be plundered; for his home, which would be ransacked and destroyed. He considers his foes in the light of house-breakers, and every man slain one enemy less, and very justly. This system too succeeded admirably in a military point of view, by harassing and discouraging the English. The repulses they had met with, the incessant labor and constant excitement in which they were kept by the ever-recurring attacks, had disheartened the troops, and made them heartily sick of the expedition.

On the night of the 31st of December, Packenham's men were employed in erecting batteries for thirty heavy guns. The work was accomplished before dawn. The sun rose behind clouds, and for some time the mist was so thick that the American lines could not be distinguished. At eight o'clock the white tents of the camp became visible, and the cannonade commenced. The fire was principally directed against McCarty's château, which was occupied by JACKSON as his head-quarters. Although the house was pierced through and through repeatedly, the staff escaped without a wound. The American batteries responded feebly at first, but gradually grew brisker, and at length surpassed the British both in rapidity and precision. The enemy had rolled hogsheads of sugar into the parapet of his battery, under the impression that it would be as effectual as sand in deadening the force of balls; but it proved otherwise, for the shot crashed through the casks as if they had been empty, dismounting the guns and killing the gunners. Cotton bales, on the contrary, proved a much better defence; and although some of them were rather rudely knocked about by the twenty-four pound shot, but little execution was done among the Louisianians. At three o'clock the fire of the English had slackened very much; and while the Americans, reserving a few guns to return their feeble salutes, directed the remainder against the infantry, who consequently retired in precipitation, leaving many dead on the field. Soon after, the enemy ceased firing altogether, and abandoned his guns. JACKSON's loss did not exceed fifty, in killed and wounded.

The Americans had good reason to be elated by their success. That thirty pieces of cannon should be silenced by fifteen, only five of which were of equal calibre, was far more encouraging to the invaded than any advantage they had yet obtained. Satisfied with the result of the affair, they made no attempt to carry off the guns, which were accordingly removed by the English, with much labor, on the ensuing night. Five however were ultimately left behind.

Once more frustrated in his hopes, Sir Edward Packenham changed his plan of attack. It was now determined that a body of troops should cross the river, and that an advance should be made on both banks at once. A canal two miles in length by six feet in breadth was commenced, in order to convey the boats from the Bayou to the river. It would seem never to have occurred to the general that ships' boats could be pushed on rollers over land in half the time it would take to dig such a canal. Meantime the work was continued, and completed on the evening of the seventh.

JACKSON had not been idle during these five days. The Rodriguez

breast-work was now raised to the ordinary altitude, covered by a ditch, and fifteen guns placed at proper distances along the line; and moreover a battery mounting eighteen guns had been erected on the other side of the river, so as completely to enfilade the English biyouac. No precaution was omitted nor labor spared to strengthen the position and to harass the enemy. Major General Lambert's arrival with two regiments had increased the British army to nine thousand effective men. The Americans, although rated at twenty-five thousand by the British Officer,' mustered but four thousand men on the lines. Fascines and scaling-ladders had been prepared by the invaders for the troops on the left bank, who were to advance at the sound of Thornton's guns on the opposite side. The Louisianians were fully apprized of the approaching attack by the activity and turmoil they had remarked in the enemy's camp, and were ready at all points to encounter it. Affairs stood thus on the evening of the seventh.

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY: REDUCED FROM MAJOR LATOUR'S CHART.

Levee

Head Quarters

32

Langville's

Maccarty's

d N

Gen. Carrol

VM S

Gen. Coffee

Main Attack
9,000 strong.

fell here.

CYPRESS

On the 8th of January took place the last desperate effort of the British to obtain possession of the prize they had been taught to deem so easy. A reference to the plan will show the respective positions of the combatants.

General Keane with twelve hundred men was to make a sham attack on the river bank, while General Gibbs, with the main body, was to storm the works on the right, in the direction of batteries six and

seven.

Fascines and scaling-ladders were entrusted to the FortyFourth regiment, and success was considered certain. JACKSON, on the other hand, lay snugly entrenched behind his embankment of mud ani cotton baies, his left appuyé on the swamp, his right on the Mississippi. General Coffee and the Tennesseeans occupied the extreme left of the line, and the batteries were served by the United States' artillerists and militiamen, except No. 2, which was entrusted to the crew of the late Carolina, and No. 3, commanded by privateer captains, and served by Lafitte's men.

The attack was to have taken place before sunrise, but owing to the caving-in of the canal, the army did not arrive within musket range until dawn. They were received by a well-directed volley, which threw them into disorder; but they soon rallied, and were advancing steadily to the assault, when Packenham discovered that the Forty-Fourth regiment had come into the field without the fascines and ladders. Colonel Mullens was ordered to return for them, but losing all command of himself, forsook his men. Packenham immediately despatched an aid to bring them up. This officer found them in the greatest confusion. The General, upon hearing this, placed himself at their head, and ordered the column to press on at double quick time. Twice they charged, exposed to a murderous fire of musketry and cannon, which mowed them down by ranks. The deeds of the thirty-two pounders are especially commemorated: 'One single discharge,' says the Subaltern, served to sweep the centre of the attacking force into eternity.' The officers exerted themselves to the utmost to rally their men, but all efforts were useless. Two or three hundred gained the ditch, and endeavored to climb the parapet, but the soft earth gave way beneath their feet, and only seventy succeeded in the attempt, all of whom were captured. The death of Sir Edward Packenham, who fell like a brave man at the head of the Forty-Fourth, and the mortal wound received by General Gibbs, completed the universal dismay. The column turned and fled. On the river the advance of General Keane's detachment stormed an unfinished battery occupied by a rifle corps: instead of supporting his men, and entering the lines at that point, General Keane marched with his column across the plain to the aid of the main body. Such a movement only served to increase the confusion. His troops caught the general panic, and Keane himself was borne, desperately wounded, from the field. Meantime the brave band that had taken the battery, unsupported by their friends, and unable to retreat, perished to a man by the rifles of the Louisianians. On the right bank, Colonel Thornton carried all before him; drove the Americans from two entrenched positions; and was in full pursuit, when a messenger brought the news of the disaster of the main army, and the order for an immediate retreat, which he effected without opposition. It appears evident, from all statements of this affair, and from JACKSON's address, that the conduct of the militia on the right bank formed a striking contrast to the bravery of the troops on Rodriguez Canal.

Here the carnage had been awful. A space of ground extending from the ditch of the American lines to that on which the enemy drew up his troops, two hundred and fifty yards in length by about two

hundred in breadth, was literally covered with men, either dead or severely wounded.' At least three thousand brave fellows lay stretched upon the plain, and all wearing the British uniform; for the American loss did not exceed twenty-five men in killed and wounded.

General Lambert, on whom the command had devolved, abandoned all hopes of taking New-Orleans. A quick and safe retreat was the only object aimed at. During his preparations, he was harassed as before by the Americans, but nothing serious was attempted. The British were still too powerful to be driven to despair. Matters remained thus until the 17th, when the prisoners were exchanged on both sides: on the 19th, every Englishman had vanished.

The war was now virtually ended. The details of Lambert's skilful retreat; the nine days' bombardment of the fort at Plâquemines; the taking of Fort Bowyer; the disputes concerning negro slaves; the triumphal entry of General JACKSON, and the usual addresses and illuminations; and finally, the ratification of peace, followed hard upon each other, and have little bearing on the great feat of arms we wished to commemorate. On the 23d of December, nine thousand English soldiers, who had served with success in Europe, landed on the territory of the Union. One month after, the survivors, worn out, baffled, disheartened, their two commanders slain, were reëmbarking at the same place, leaving three thousand gallant comrades to moulder beneath the cypresses of Louisiana. There is scarcely an instance in modern history, perhaps none, in which men, unaided by contagion, have repelled an attack with so little injury to themselves, and such fearful slaughter to their opponents.

TO JACKSON belongs the honor of the victory. The promptitude with which he planned the attack of the 23d, the skill displayed in his dispositions, and the energy with which they were carried out on that eventful night, saved New-Orleans from destruction. The next morning the British would have blown his force to the winds, and have seized the city as easily as they had anticipated. But awed by the boldness of a foe they had hitherto despised, and held in check by the guns of the Carolina, they gave the Americans time to complete the famous breast-work, before which, as before an altar of Liberty, England's bravest and best were sacrificed.

We owe ANDREW JACKSON a long debt of gratitude, not only for having repelled an invasion the results of which might have been most disastrous, but also for having proved to Great Britain, (what hitherto she had maintained to be problematical,) that the American militia could and would fight, if skilfully commanded.

Years after, the General finds himself at the head of the nation he defended, and makes more enemies by a word than he had ever beaten off with his sword. Perhaps he possessed too little of the pliability of his emblematic tree for a statesman, and would better have left the China closet of politics to one who had less of the headstrong and headlong bull in his nature. But posterity will decide on this also. Our business with him was as commanding officer at New-Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815; a day on which he earned his title to a seat at WASHINGTON's right hand.

FR. FLANEUR.

AMONG my early recollections of the primitive days of Stokeville, the Village School is the most vivid. It was buried in a walnut grove that skirted the western border of the town, and was an old brown building, carved and slashed from end to end. In the spring of the year the whole grove was sweet with bursting buds, and vocal with the songs of birds. In midsummer we used to find shelter in it from the rays of heat that steeped its canopy. In autumn, its long shadows pointed far eastward into the village, while its western border was kindled into a living flame. I see the old school-house now, as it was when I trudged to it a boy. But it is swept away!

Such was our school-house the only one within three miles. It was to this spot that all Stokeville was driven for knowledge and power- for knowledge is power.' We hired our school-masters then; nine dollars a month, and boarded; and such specimens of intellectual humanity as fell upon us were never before nor since paralleled.

Mr. EPHRAIM MILLS, from Connecticut 'strait,' was the first gentleman who took the urchins of Stokeville in hand, for better or for worse.' I am not about to inflict upon the reader a minute account of Mr. Mills' inauguration, nor of the 'gang' over which he had been