1812: The Rivers of War (67 page)

“Sir. Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Yes, I know. You seemed quite lost in your thoughts. I’d appreciate knowing what they are.”

Thornton hesitated. He wasn’t familiar enough yet with Pakenham to know how much his new commander would welcome in the way of frankness. Robert Ross had always encouraged his subordinates to speak their mind, although he’d never shuffled the responsibility for making a decision onto them. But many British generals regarded a contrarian view from subordinate officers as just a hair short of treason—or cowardice in the face of the enemy—both of which were capital crimes.

Pakenham was personally intimidating, too, in a way that the relatively lowborn, plain-faced and easygoing Ross had not been. He was tall, handsome, vigorous, poised—the spitting image of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. Add to that his own reputation, and the fact that his sister had married Wellington …

Pakenham smiled, slightly. “I am quite aware of your splendid reputation as a commander in battle, Colonel Thornton. I really would appreciate hearing what you think.”

“Yes, sir.” Thornton nodded across the river. “They’ve added a new artillery unit over there, sir. They’ve got a twelve-pounder and at least one six-pounder. Somewhere around three hundred men, as near as I can determine. Most of them seem to be black soldiers. That probably means U.S. Navy regulars.”

Pakenham gazed across the Mississippi. There was nothing to be seen over there now but darkness, with only the last moments of sunset to illuminate the area.

“Possibly. But I think not. Just this morning, two more runaway slaves arrived in our lines. From the city itself, these, not one of the nearby plantations. They tell us that Jackson had a new battalion of freedmen formed up, less than three weeks ago. That’s probably them, in which case they’ll be even more inexperienced than the usual militia force.”

Thornton started to speak; then, still hesitant despite Pakenham’s tacit reassurance, closed his mouth.

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Something still doesn’t make sense here, sir. A new black battalion wouldn’t be given
guns
. Muskets, at the most, and probably the poorest ones available. But twelve-pounders? There has to be more involved.”

Pakenham nodded. “Oh, surely. From what we can glean from the runaways, the unit indeed has a core of U.S. Navy sailors. But nine-tenths of them are completely new. Former slaves, mostly, who were employed in various crafts throughout the city.”

“I see. Do we know the name of the commanding officer?”

Pakenham shook his head. “The slaves—as usual—knew precious little in the way of details.”

The tall British commander paused. He was looking down at Thornton in a peculiarly stiff-necked way that made the colonel uneasy, until he remembered that Pakenham had suffered two neck wounds in his career. The first, according to rumor, had given his head a peculiar cock to the side. The second, fortunately, had done the same on the
other
side. So now Pakenham’s head sat unerringly straight, but to the natural stiffness of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat was added the immobility of matching
wounds. Under other circumstances, it might all have been quite amusing.

U.S. Navy regulars … black sailors … an unknown commander
. Thornton had an uneasy feeling he knew who they were. Might be, at least.

His own Eighty-fifth, blessedly, had not suffered badly at the Capitol because Ross had chosen to give them a rest after Bladensburg. So he’d used the Fourth as the lead regiment in the assault there.

Used them up
, it might be better to say. The Fourth had suffered terrible casualties in that assault, even during the brief time it had lasted. The American battery positioned between the two wings of the American legislative house had been murderous.

“Sir, have you considered the possibility—”

“Yes, Colonel, I know. It
might be
the same men who were at the Capitol. And with the same commander. Driscol, if I recall the name properly. Ross told me about him. Still…”

Pakenham studied the darkness across the river. “War is always a murky business. It might not be them, too. And even if it is, there aren’t more than a dozen or so veterans in the lot. Most of that unit will be greener than an Irish spring. We have no choice other than to press forward as we planned, and I’m confident we can handle the worst.”

He paused, for a moment. “Still, let’s not be foolhardy. I was trying to decide anyway, and now I have. I’ll add one of the two new regiments to your assaulting force, Colonel, along with some of the West Indian troops. That’ll give you about two thousand men. Even if that new unit is in fact Driscol’s, you’ll outnumber them heavily.”

That would be a help. A
tremendous
help.

All the more so, because of the quality of the reinforcements. Major General John Lambert had just arrived with the Seventh Fusiliers and the Forty-third Light Infantry: seventeen hundred men, in all. Both were veteran units, fresh from the campaigns in Spain and southern France and covered with laurels from them. Like Pakenham himself, Lambert had served under Wellington and was one of his young protégés.

The colonel’s spirits were rising quickly. Thornton was a very experienced combat commander, and he knew full well that the
single most important factor when it came to winning battles was usually the crudest and simplest.
Numbers
. With two thousand men instead of a thousand, he’d have an overwhelming force, once he got across the river.

That assumed, of course, that he’d be able to send the militia forces scampering. But Thornton was quite confident on that matter. It was the American artillery units over there that worried him. With two thousand men, though, he should be able to simply overrun them. And he’d have enough men to be able to afford heavy casualties, if that was what it took to do the job.

“The Forty-third, I think,” Pakenham mused. “They’re light infantry and will move faster. I’d planned to keep them in reserve, but if your assault fails, they’d probably prove useless to me anyway.”

“Yes, sir. I’d much appreciate that, sir. And …”

Pakenham’s smile, this time, was not thin at all. “Oh, you needn’t be concerned about that, Colonel. I shall make it clear to the Forty-third’s commander—that’s Colonel Rennie, by the way—that you are in command.”

Thornton nodded. The one problem with adding a new unit on the eve of an operation was that quarrels might arise between the commanders. All the worse when, as in this instance, Thornton hadn’t even known the name of the Forty-third’s commander, so recently had the regiment come into camp. But Rennie would be familiar with Pakenham—and Thornton, to his considerable relief, was discovering that Pakenham had the same sureness as a commander that Robert Ross had possessed. He’d make clear enough to the fellow that Thornton was his superior officer in the coming assault.

“You’d best get ready now, Colonel Thornton,” Pakenham stated. “I want your men starting into the barges as soon as the sunrise fades.”

The British assault started falling behind schedule almost immediately. Admiral Cochrane had insisted from the beginning on having his sailors widen the canals, where the British soldiers would have preferred simply to haul the barges across land using rollers and brute force. Unfortunately, Pakenham had chosen not to dispute the issue with the admiral—and now Colonel Thornton was paying the price.

The British engineers and sailors had labored round the clock. They’d erected a dam across the canal a short distance from the river, and left a levee standing between the end of the canal and the Mississippi. The plan was to load all the soldiers in the barges, and cut the levee. The canal was lower than the Mississippi, so the water rushing in would reach the dam, be blocked, and quickly fill the lower portion of the waterway, enough to enable all the barges to sortie as one.

After his men had clambered into the barges, the levee was cut and the waters rushed in. To his horror, Thornton watched the dam collapse. In their hurry to make the deadline, the engineers had been sloppy in their work. The thing was just too flimsily made to withstand the sudden pressure.

To make things worse, the banks of the canal also caved in at several points. Looking up and down the line of the canal, Thornton saw that most of the barges were hopelessly stuck in the mud.

“God damn all admirals and their schemes,” he hissed.

“What was that, sir?” asked one of his aides.

Thornton shook his head. “Never mind. Nothing for it, now. We’ve got no choice but to offload the barges and haul them down to the river by brute force.”

He didn’t add what he could have, which was that the army could have done that from the very beginning. In fact, that
had
been the army’s proposal, but Cochrane had overruled them.

So the soldiers would wind up doing it their way anyhow—except now they had to do it waist-deep in mud. Cocksure naval officers had cost Thornton hours of precious time. And by the time he got his men onto the river, they’d be exhausted from the labor.

It was as bad a way to start a battle as he could think of.

“We’ve only got thirty barges ready so far, sir,” protested the same aide, several hours later.

“I know,” Thornton growled. “That’ll just have to do. It’s already three o’clock of the morning. We can’t afford to wait any longer. We’ll start the attack with the men we can fit into those thirty barges. My own Eighty-fifth, of course. The Royal Marines, also.”

He turned to Colonel Rennie. “You’ll have to follow us with your Forty-third Light Infantry and the West Indian troops, when you can. As soon as I reach the opposite shore, I’ll start my march to the north.”

“You’ll have less than a thousand men, sir.”

It was all Thornton could do not to snarl:
I know that, you idiot! D’you think I can’t do simple arithmetic?

But he restrained himself to a simple nod. In truth, Rennie had proven to be a most competent and helpful subordinate, showing none of the resentment that Thornton had feared he might. The man was just doing his job, pointing out problems to his superior.

“Just join me as soon as you can, once you get across the river.”

Once you get across the river
.

Such a simple and innocuous phrase. But no sooner had Thornton gotten his force fifty yards into the river than he encountered yet another unexpected problem. The British navy had never been able—never really tried, actually—to force its way up the Mississippi past Fort St. Philip. So the British had little experience with it. So Thornton and his men were discovering what he suspected any competent American riverboat captain could have told them: that the slow-moving, muddy Mississippi had currents far more powerful than it seemed.

Thornton watched helplessly as his flotilla of barges was swept downstream. They’d cross the river, sure enough—but they’d finally make landing almost a mile farther south than they’d intended.

The British had planned to land their force about three miles from Morgan’s main line of defense. Just far enough away that Morgan couldn’t get a solid force to the bank soon enough to drive off the barges, but close enough that the British could undertake a forced march on his position as soon as they arrived. Instead, they’d land so far away that if Thornton tried a forced march in full gear, his men would be too tired to fight once they reached the American lines. Especially since they’d be starting off already tired from the labor of getting the barges to the river.

In that respect, at least, this new unexpected delay yielded an advantage. Whether Thornton wanted it that way or not, the current was giving his soldiers a longer period of rest than they would have had if things had gone as scheduled.

Trying to eke what little solace he could from that thought, the colonel adjusted his plans. He had no choice now but to give the Americans more time to prepare their defenses. He wouldn’t be able to get his men in place until well after daybreak.

No choice, no choice. If the assault on the west bank was delayed
too
long, the Americans would have the time to extract the precious guns, or destroy them. Moreover, Pakenham would have to delay his own assault on the east bank. No commanding general wanted to start a major attack with that much of the day already gone, if it could be avoided. Certainly not Pakenham on January the 8th of the year 1815, on the field of Chalmette. Even if Pakenham broke the enemy line, Jackson had created two fallback lines of defense. If Pakenham was forced to halt the advance because of nightfall, the enemy would have the time to regroup—if not at the Line Dupre, then at the Line Montreuil. Thornton knew that Pakenham wanted to break the Americans where they were, and then pursue them relentlessly all the way to New Orleans. But to do that would require a full day, not half of one.

So be it. Thornton was still leading some of the best soldiers in the world, against some of the worst.

Some
of the worst. Thornton wished he knew for sure how true that would prove to be. The black water of the Mississippi at night reminded him that he still didn’t know the nature of that new artillery unit.