THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY.

377

yon long line of glittering scarlet and steel-anon, smoke, and cries, and consternation."*

The front ranks of the British were mowed down, and their advance arrested. In the American musketry there was not a moment's intermission: as one company discharged their pieces another succeeded; alternately loading and appearing, no pause could be perceived-it was one continued volley, one continuous stream of fire. Batteries Nos. 6, 7, and 8, immediately in front of the advancing column, were ably served, and galled them with an incessant and destructive fire. Notwithstanding the severity of this fire, which few troops could for a moment have withstood, some of those brave men pressed on, and succeeded in gaining the ditch in front of the works, where they remained during the action, and were afterwards made prisoners. The horror before them was too great to be withstood; and already were the British troops seen wavering in their determination, and receding from the conflict. "In that wild revelry, Jackson's men seemed not living men of flesh and blood, but the spirits of some departed generation, playing with the cannon and the musketry; none fell, none faltered. That is not Jackson gliding like a shadow in the flame and smoke-it is the spirit of his father-his murdered brother-it is the spirit of his mother coming from her long-lost grave, and waving the death-torch in frantic joy over the heads of her dying murderers. Ah! Packenham, your boots are muddy now, who will clean them? Go, Lambert, to the prison-boy of

*Garland's Eulogy.

Camden, he will tell you how to minister to the wants of the sick, the wounded and the prisoner! Gibbs can tell how a magnanimous soul can act towards a fallen foe!""*

But the British were wavering, and thinking of flight. At this instant, Sir Edward Packenham, hastening to the front, endeavoured to encourage and inspire them with renewed zeal. His example was of short continuance: he soon fell mortally wounded in the arms of an aid-de-camp, not far from the ditch. Generals Gibbs and Keane also fell, and were borne from the field dangerously wounded. At this moment

Garland's Eulogy.

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY.

379

General Lambert, who was advancing with the reserve at a small distance in the rear, met the columns precipitately retreating, and in great confusion. His efforts to stop them were unavailing. They continued retreating until they reached a ditch, at the distance of four hundred yards, where a momentary safety being found, they were rallied and halted.

The field before them, over which they had advanced, was strewed with the dead and dying. Danger still hovered around; yet urged and encouraged by their officers, who feared their own disgrace involved in the failure, they again moved to the charge. They were already near enough to deploy, and were endeavouring to do so; but the same constant and unremitted resistance that caused their first retreat, continued yet unabated. The batteries had never ceased their fire; their constant discharges of grape and canister, and the fatal aim of the musketry, mowed down the front of the columns as fast as they could be formed. Satisfied that nothing could be done, and that certain destruction awaited all further attempts, they forsook the contest and the field in disorder, leaving it almost entirely covered with the dead and wounded. It was in vain their officers endeavoured to animate them to further resistance, and equally vain to attempt coercion. The panic produced from the dreadful repulse they had experienced, the plain on which they had acted being covered with innumerable bodies of their countrymen, while with their most zealous exertions they had been unable to obtain the slightest advantage, were circumstances well calculated

to make even the most submissive soldier oppose the authority that would have controlled him.

In the meantime the left of General Keane's division, under the command of Colonel Rennie, proceeded against the redoubt on the right of the American line. They marched under cover of some chimneys standing in the field, until they cleared them, when they obliqued to the river, and, protected by the levee, advanced until they arrived at the ditch. Their advance was greatly annoyed by Commodore Patterson's battery on the right bank, and the cannon mounted on the redoubt; but, reaching the works and passing the ditch, Rennie, sword in hand, leaped on the wall, and calling to his troops, bade them follow. He had scarcely spoken, when he fell by the fatal aim of a rifleman. Pressed by the impetuosity of superior numbers, who were mounting the wall and entering at the embrasures, the Americans retired to the line, in the rear of the redoubt. A momentary pause ensued, but only to be interrupted with increased horrors. Captain Beal, with the city riflemen, cool and selfpossessed, perceiving the enemy in his front, opened upon them, and at every discharge brought the object to the ground. To advance or maintain the point gained was equally impracticable for the enemy. To retreat or surrender was the only alternative; for they already saw the division on the right thrown into confusion, and hastily leaving the field.

As soon as the enemy retired on the left, General Jackson pressed forward reinforcements to the right of his line, with orders to regain the redoubt. Previously to their arrival, the enemy had abandoned the