Today marks one of the most important dates in American history: the defeat of a British amphibious task force attempting to conquer New Orleans. It’s one of a handful of battles that entered American folklore; the anniversary of the battle was celebrated for many years and as late as 1959 Johnny Horton’s version of “The Battle of New Orleans” was the number one song in the United States. People my age can usually hum the tune and sometimes remember the words; the rest of you can watch this creepy music video featuring Johnny Horton in what looks like a coonskin cap from an albino raccoon.
The words go like this:
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.
[Chorus:]
We fired our guns and the British kept a’comin.
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin’ on Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
We looked down the river and we see’d the British come.
And there must have been a hundred of’em beatin’ on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring.
We stood by our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing.
[Chorus]
Old Hickory said we could take ’em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets ’til we looked ’em in the eye
We held our fire ’til we see’d their faces well.
Then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave ’em … well
[Chorus]
Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
We fired our cannon ’til the barrel melted down. So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.
[Chorus]
Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
It has long been historically fashionable to discount the importance of the battle. Popular memory had so enshrined it as a decisive and glorious event that historians felt the need to debunk what had turned into a patriotic legend like the famous story about George Washington and the cherry tree.
That one was made up out of whole cloth by Parson Weems in his infamously hagiographic Washington biography and first published in 1806; historians have been trying to kill the story ever since but with little success. Even today I suspect that more Americans could tell you about the cherry tree today than could name any battle Washington won or bill he signed.
The Battle of New Orleans, unlike the cherry tree incident, actually happened, although contrary to the song lyrics the Americans did not shoot at the retreating British forces with improvised cannons made of alligators. But as virtually every historian who ever discusses the subject notes, the treaty ending the War of 1812 had actually been signed two weeks before the battle took place and so had no bearing on the settlement of the war.
It was still a great turning point in American and world history. The British had not actually recognized the transfer of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States and were under no obligation, even after a peace treaty, to accept U.S. authority there. It would have been very easy and perhaps even legally correct to say that Napoleon had no right to transfer the territory without Spain’s consent. Had Britain occupied Louisiana and insisted on returning it to Spain there was virtually nothing the United States could have done.
Beyond this, the victory of untrained American militia fighters over professional British forces solidified the emerging conventional wisdom in Britain that the United States was here to stay and that while British forces could win victories here and there in the United States, it was pointless to try to subjugate the whole country.
That new attitude in Britain is what allowed James Monroe and John Quincy Adams to formulate the grand strategy that would guide American foreign policy for the next century. British sea power and commercial success would no longer threaten American independence and while the United States and Britain would continue to clash over various issues, their common interest in keeping the other European powers out of the western hemisphere laid the foundation of a special relationship that is still around today.
As I blogged earlier today, that special relationship with Britain was the basis of a golden age of Jeffersonian foreign policy. America’s security needs could be dealt with at a remarkably low cost and the country could devote its resources and energy to the task of settling its continental empire.
It is, however, worth remembering that the ‘Colonel Jackson’ mentioned in Johnny Horton’s song was Andrew Jackson. There’s a lesson here: elegant Jeffersonian strategies of peace depend on Jacksonian war-fighting.
Hamiltonians, Jeffersonians and Wilsonians don’t usually like Jacksonians very much. They are crude, boorish, aggressive and deeply disrespectful of the enlightened elites who know what’s best. Jacksonians tend to want presidents to stand up to foreign enemies — but they quickly get tired of long wars. (For a longer essay on the Jacksonian tradition in American foreign policy, go here.) They like horrible country songs like “Okie from Muskogee” that celebrate all the ‘wrong’ values. They hate foreign aid and they don’t believe in global warming. They go to the wrong kind of tea parties and they don’t think that Joe Biden is more qualified to be vice president than Sarah Palin.
This is all too true but on January 8, of all days, it’s worth remembering that without those Jacksonians the rest of us wouldn’t be as free or as safe as we are. On a day when we’ve got men and women fighting two wars, and when our intelligence services are fighting a deadly twilight war against people who believe that God blesses those who murder American civilians by any means however foul, let’s be grateful for the patriotic and sacrificial spirit that continues to inspire millions of Americans to defend our country at any cost.