1812: The Rivers of War

CHAPTER 40

The banks of the Mississippi near New Orleans

Robert Ross listened to men discussing his fate.

"Is it yellow fever?" asked one. Pakenham, he thought.

A voice he recognized as the doctor assigned to handle his illness replied: "I don't believe… no jaundice evident…"

Ross could sense the doctor shrugging, if not see it. His eyes were closed, and the effort of opening them seemed too much at the moment. The fever made it hard to think, especially with the sound of cannon and musket fire drowning half the sentences.

"Who knows… is, General?" continued the doctor, his tone one of helpless exasperation. "This whole land… festering ground.. . diseases of all sorts."

A cannon salvo obliterated the next sentence or two. Then: "… never have remained here… should have… back to the ships."

Ross heard a chuckle. That came from yet another man. Gibbs, he thought.

"Fine for you to say so, Doctor." Yes, that was Gibbs. His voice penetrated clearly. "Have you ever tried to get Robert Ross to do anything against his will?"

Pakenham spoke again. His voice carried well also, much better than the doctor's.

That was the habit of officers who needed to call commands across the cacophony of a battlefield-of which it sounded like a small one was raging. Mostly a cannon duel, Ross judged, from the sound.

"Robert's a general who cares about his men," Pakenham said. "He refused to leave until this business was over, and I wasn't about to deny him the privilege. He knew the risk."

Ross felt a powerful hand close on his shoulder, and give it a gentle squeeze. "Besides," Pakenham's voice continued softly, "I found his presence a comfort. And his advice, invariably helpful. He's a soldier, and a splendid one."

The hand withdrew. "What are his chances, Doctor?"

"… here?" There came a snort of disgust, which seemed to blend with the distant musket fire. "… may as well haul out… rum. You'll be shipping him home in a cask… two days. At most. He should… to the ships."

That was madness. The advice of an overworked doctor just trying to remove a hopeless case from his docket. The festering conditions aboard the ships anchored in Lake Bourgne would be even more deadly for Ross than the conditions in the army camp.

It was time to open his eyes, difficult as the task was.

"No," he croaked. "I can't do anything further here, anyway. Send me across to the Americans."

He could see Pakenham now. The young general was staring down at him.

"The Americans?"

Ross tried to nod, but found the gesture impossible. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open and speak.

"They'll give me better care in New Orleans than you can possibly do here-or Cochrane on his ships."

"Perhaps-"

For some reason, shaking his head was within Ross's capacity, where nodding had not been.

"No, Edward. Admiral Cochrane is in no position to detach one of his vessels simply to carry a stubborn general back to England. I would refuse the offer anyway, even if he made it. You need every ship you have."

Pakenham looked away, his attention momentarily distracted by a particularly loud salvo. The artillery exchange that had gone on alongside the Mississippi for days had settled into the routine of siegework, but it still had its occasional peaks.

"You're certain of this, Robert?"

"Oh, yes. It's not as if I haven't been in American captivity before, you know. I can assure you that it is not a fate worse than death." He managed a half smile. "I rather like Cousin Jonathan, as a matter of fact. Quite a bit, in the case of some of those obstreperous fellows."

Five minutes after Driscol arrived at the fieldworks on the Rodriguez Canal, he was shaking his head. Not so much in disbelief as in pure wonder. Whatever God there was, He was clearly a whimsical one.

"Ross? Here? " Driscol raised his head and peered over the fortifications at the British lines hundreds of yards away. He did so cautiously, with the habit of a veteran, even though a cease-fire was in place.

There was nothing to see, really. The ground between the American and British positions had once been the fields of a plantation. But the first thing Jackson had done was cut down all the crops, to remove any cover for the oncoming enemy. All that was left between the cypress swamps and the river was barren soil and stubble.

The only reason Driscol had looked at all was simply because he'd been so surprised by the news.

He crouched back down. "What in the world is Ross doing here? I thought he'd be back in England by now."

General Jackson shook his head. "I've got no idea, Major. But I sent Colonel Houston across in response to their request for a parlay, and he assured me that it is, indeed, General Ross."

Driscol glanced around.

"Houston's not here now, Major," said Jackson. "I sent him back across to arrange the transfer."

"You're agreeing to the British request, sir?"

"Of course I am!" Jackson scowled. "I despise the bastards. But for that very reason, I'll not have them claiming after their defeat that I was ungallant."

Driscol kept a straight face, although he felt like grinning. That was… a very Jacksonian response. Odd, how a man who could be so practical and ruthless one moment could be moved to quixotic acts the next, if he thought the matter touched on his personal honor or his sense of chivalry.

"Yes, sir. And what do you want me to do? Forgive my presumption, but I assume that you summoned me for some purpose."

Now, Jackson grinned.

"Ha! You're to be the good British general's nursemaid, it seems. Ross put in a specific request to be handed over into your custody-assuming that wouldn't interfere with your military duties."

Driscol stared at him.

The general's grin widened.

"It would, of course. But Houston tells me that Ross added the qualification that if your-I believe he used the word 'intended'-was present on the scene, that she would do even better."

Driscol transferred the stare back to the distant British lines. "That stinking rotten bastard."

"Oh, I shouldn't worry about it, Major. From Houston's description of his condition, I doubt very much if General Ross is in any shape to be competing with you for the lady's affections. By the way, when will I be introduced to this mysterious fiancee of yours?"

Realizing his mouth was open, Driscol snapped it shut.

"She's not my 'fiancee,' " he growled. "It doesn't work like that, with Cherokees. And that's not what I meant."

Belatedly, he added, "Sir."

"A Cherokee lass, is it? You and that blasted Injun-lover Houston!" Jackson cocked his head. "In that case, I shall have to insist on an introduction. I won't have one of my officers consorting with common squaws."

But he was still grinning when he said it.

Driscol had come to know Jackson well enough by now to realize that he was a much more complicated man than most people assumed. In this, as in all things, Andrew Jackson was a living contradiction. At one moment, he could speak of Indians and black people as if they were beasts-and, often enough, treat them the same way. The next moment, speak of them-and treat them-far better than most white men would.

The same Jackson who thought nothing of referring to black freedmen as "niggers" had also championed their right to bear arms, overriding the vehement protests of slave owners. He'd furthermore insisted that the men of the black battalions would receive the same pay as white soldiers.

A bully, a bigot-sometimes a brute-but still one who could suspend all that at times because he could see the men beneath their skins. In short, Driscol had concluded, exactly the sort of man the very contradictory American republic would hoist up as a leader. Sooner or later, the United States would have to resolve its own contradictions. But, for the moment, Andrew Jackson was the best they had.

"I should be honored to introduce you, General. Her name is Tiana Rogers, by the way. She's the daughter of Captain John Rogers."

"Hell-Fire Jack's girl? You're a bold man, Major!" The grin faded a bit. "Sometimes I don't think I approve of half-breeds. Then again, other times…" He shook his head, an unusually pensive expression coming to his harsh, gaunt face. "Ah, who's to say? Maybe, in the end, that's what God has in mind for this great republican experiment of ours. I'm told that's what Colonel Richard Johnson thinks, anyway."

Pensiveness wasn't a mood Andrew Jackson would remain in for more than a moment. Now, he was scowling. "Of course, Johnson's a race-mixing, amalgamating rascal. Hero of the battle of the Thames or not."

Driscol's nod was a noncommittal thing. He'd never met the famous-and notorious-Colonel Johnson, so he reserved his own judgment. One moment the colonel was hailed as the killer of Tecumseh, a hero for all frontiersmen-then denounced in the next for his openly conducted affair with a black woman named Julia Chinn. No acceptably discreet master-slave affair, either. Johnson considered the relationship a marriage, even though such a marriage was prohibited under Kentucky law.

If rumors were true, people who visited Johnson on his Kentucky plantation either had to accept the presence of a black woman sitting at the dining table as the mistress of the house-or Johnson would make clear to them that they were not invited at all. He'd even been reported to have said that he was only doing openly and honestly what Thomas Jefferson hadn't had the courage to do.

Yet… that same Johnson was a plantation owner. If a black woman sat at his dinner table in the place reserved for a wife, other black people labored as slaves in his fields.

"Yes, sir," however, was all he said. "I'll send one of my men back to the city, and inform Tiana and her people that they'll be entertaining a new lodger."

"Do they have the room?"

"They'll manage. Cherokees are very good at that, I've learned."

Sam Houston had taken advantage of the time he spent in the British camp to discover what he could about the enemy's dispositions. He was somewhat disturbed by what he saw.

"They're up to something, General," he reported to Jackson, after he returned.

Jackson shot him a sharp look. "What, do you think? An advance up the Chef Menteur Road?"

Privately, Sam thought Jackson had become somewhat obsessed with his fears regarding the Chef Menteur Road-an obsession that prevented him from considering other possible dangers. To be sure, a British advance up that road would-in theory, at least-provide them with a way to outflank the Jackson Line, and reach the much drier ground north of the city. But in practice, it would be a roundabout slog through cypress swamps, with Governor Claiborne's troops in position to slow the British down long enough for Jackson to shift the American defenses. That done, it would be just as easy to turn Marigny's Canal into the same sort of fieldworks that he'd contructed on the Rodriguez Canal, with the added advantage of having Fort St. John directly threatening the British flank.

But Sam was careful to keep his skepticism from showing on his face. Jackson would listen to arguments, but he was thin-skinned. He'd simply get stubborn if he thought someone was being derisive.

"That's possible, sir, but I don't think so. They kept me as far north as they could, so I couldn't see very much. But I saw enough to get the feeling they're working their men like dogs to widen the canals south of their lines. Why would they do that, if their intentions were to advance up the Chef Menteur?"

Jackson gazed toward the British lines, frowning. "Why would they do it at all? They can't possibly widen those canals enough to bring warships through from the lake. Small gunboats, maybe, but those would be no match for the Louisiana. "

The general swiveled his head, gazing across the river.

"Are you sure about what you saw, Colonel? The only purpose I can see would be to bring through enough small boats to land an offensive force across the river. But what's the point of that? They can only attack the city from this side of the Mississippi."

"No, sir, I'm not sure about it. But if we were gambling, I'd give it five-to-one odds."

A bit exasperated, Jackson took off his fancy hat and ran fingers through his hair. "But why? Even if they did land soldiers on the other side, General Morgan…"

Jackson's words trailed off into silence, a sour look coming to his face. The American commander wouldn't criticize another general in front of junior officers. Not openly, at least. But Sam was quite certain that Jackson's opinion of General Daniel Morgan wasn't too different from his own.

When the British made their landing from Lake Bourgne, and Jackson launched his counterattack on the night of the twenty-third, Morgan and his three hundred and fifty Louisiana militiamen had been stationed downriver of the British position, guarding the English Turn. When the battle began, Morgan refused to march north on the grounds that he hadn't received any explicit instructions from Jackson. He'd finally moved, long after the fighting started, because his men threatened to go without him.

Even then, he'd led his men only as far as the Jumonville plantation. As soon as he came under fire from British skirmishers, he'd halted, kept his men idle in a muddy field until three o'clock in the morning, and then retreated to his initial position at the English Turn.

Morgan's wretched leadership on the night of the twenty-third, in fact, was probably why Jackson had decided to move him across the Mississippi. Jackson didn't expect any British threat to that side of the river, so it was a convenient place to dump a useless officer who was too well connected politically just to dismiss outright.

"Morgan…" Jackson muttered. He clamped the hat back on his head. "Morgan."

"Yes, sir. That's really all we've got over there, other than the artillery. General Morgan and his Louisiana and Kentucky militiamen."

Jackson clasped bony hands behind his back and rocked forward a little on his toes. There he stood, for perhaps a minute, silent. Then he turned to Houston and said quietly:

"I'm not very confident in Morgan, Sam, to be honest-although I'll ask you to keep that in confidence. I still don't think there'll be a problem, but it can't hurt to be ready. Make quiet preparations that would enable you to ferry your forces across the river in a hurry, if need be."

Sam nodded. "Does that include Major Driscol's new unit, sir?"

Jackson thought about it for a moment. "Yes-but let's move them over right away. With their inexperience and with guns to haul, they'd probably get underfoot if we had to move them quickly. Whereas if we add them now to the battery over there, they'll have the advantage of getting some live training."

"Yes, sir. I'll let him know."

"Well, it's about time," Driscol grumbled.

"You're always such a ray of sunshine, Patrick. Have I ever told you that?" Sam smiled as brightly as he could-which was very brightly indeed. "I knew you'd be happy to be able to give your recruits some live training."

"It's not that. I meant it's about time the general realized that he's got a potential disaster waiting for him across the river."

Sam frowned. "That seems a little excessive. I admit the British could make a foray in force over there, but so what? They can't reach the city from that side."

Driscol shook his head. "Why does it take a low-minded sergeant to see the obvious? Colonel Houston, if the British brush Morgan aside-which is about as hard to do as brushing aside cobwebs, if you ask me-then they could quite possibly seize the battery. And if they do that, what's to stop them from shifting the guns upriver and bringing them to bear on our lines? Twenty-four pounders firing enfilade down the whole length of the Jackson Line could very possibly weaken our defenses enough to make an otherwise suicidal frontal assault from their main forces over there carry the day."

Houston's eyes widened. "But surely Morgan-"

"Surely Morgan what?" demanded Driscol. In a low, rasping voice: "Hold off a British assault long enough to allow the battery to extract the guns from danger? Sam, the man is a coward. He's craven, not just incompetent. He'll break the instant the British come at him. And while I don't question the courage of his men, they're just a poorly trained militia. I've never seen a militia yet that would stand its ground against disciplined regulars, unless it had officers like Jackson or Coffee in command. Neither have you."

They were standing in the corridor of the Tremoulet House just outside the door that led to the suite of rooms occupied by the Rogers family-and, now, General Ross. Sam's eyes ranged down the corridor, noting but not really paying any attention to the richness of the trappings.

He was seeing something else in his mind. The vivid image of the carnage twenty-four pounders could wreak on the American soldiers behind the Jackson Line-all of whose fieldworks were designed and built to protect the men from fire coming from the front. Not from across the river.

To be sure, the river was so wide that it would take the British artillerymen a bit of time to find the range. But those were the same veteran gunners who'd found the range to the Carolina in less than a minute.

"We could fall back to the Line Dupre," he protested. "Or the Line Montreuil."

Jackson-very wisely, in Driscol's opinion-had prepared two lines of fallback defense in the event the Jackson Line was overrun. But the major wasn't assuaged.

"So? The British-if they command the opposite bank-could shift the battery more quickly than we could shift an entire army. They'd just do the same to the Lines Dupre and Montreuil that they did to the Jackson."

He gave Houston a little shove. "Best you get about the general's orders then, eh? I have a feeling the day will come-and soon-when my life and those of my men will depend on how quickly you can get across the river."

Houston stared at him. "You won't break, I know. But will your men?"

"They'll stand until you arrive," Driscol rasped. "They won't dare do otherwise."

Even in daylight, the plush corridor was a rather gloomy place, despite all the fancy decorations. With such lighting and with that expression on his face, Driscol looked more like a troll than ever.

"A ray of sunshine," Sam muttered.

"The world has enough sunshine. I provide it with the needed thunderclouds.

"Go, lad." Again, Driscol gave Sam a shove, not so little this time. "I'll stand. You get there in a hurry. 'Tis really no more complicated than that."

TheRiversofWar