The Battle of New Orleans 219 



seamen from foreign merchantmen, dark-skinned 

 Spaniards from the West Indies, swarthy French 

 men who had served under the bold privateersman 

 Lafitte, all alike were taken, and all alike by un 

 flagging exertions were got into shape for battle. 8 

 There were two regiments of regulars, numbering 

 together about eight hundred men, raw and not 

 very well disciplined, but who were now drilled with 

 great care and regularity. In addition to this Jackson 

 raised somewhat over a thousand militiamen among 

 the citizens. There were some Americans among 

 them, but they were mostly French Creoles, 9 and 

 one band had in its formation something that was 

 curiously pathetic. It was composed of free men 

 of color, 10 who had gathered to defend the land 

 which kept the men of their race in slavery; who 

 were to shed their blood for the Flag that symbol 

 ized to their kind not freedom but bondage; who 

 were to die bravely as freemen, only that their 

 brethren might live on ignobly as slaves. Surely 

 there was never a stranger instance than this of the 

 irony of fate. 



But if Jackson had been forced to rely only on 

 these troops New Orleans could not have been saved. 

 His chief hope lay in the volunteers of Tennessee, 

 who, under their Generals, Coffee and Carroll, were 



8 Letter of Commodore Daniel G. Patterson, Dec. 20, 1814. 



9 Latour, no. I0 Ibid, in. 



