Tag: British
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The Letter That Tried to Scuttle the Baratarians’ Pardon
If George Poindexter had been Sec. of War or President during the end of the War of 1812, the Laffites and Baratarians would never have been pardoned for their past smuggling offenses even though they had given service and assistance to General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. Poindexter, who served as a volunteer aide…
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The Spy Who Led the British to the Back Door of New Orleans in 1814
Because he was multilingual and adept at spying, the 23-year-old Capt. Robert Cavendish Spencer, an ancestor of the current British royal family, was one of the most valuable assets the British forces had during their 1814-1815 campaign to take New Orleans during the War of 1812. “Captain Spencer (of the HMS Carron) was very usefully…
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The Poison Pen Duels of William Duane and Peter Porcupine
Some eight thousand times a day, six days a week, pressmen cranked the heavy wooden press of the Weekly Aurora newspaper of Philadelphia. They were printing platens of tiny type on the Aurora’s eight linen paper pages, much of it poison pen invective written by pro-Jeffersonian editor William Duane against mortal enemy Peter…
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The Aurora Editor Snipes at Britain, Post War of 1812
With one of those quill pens he so often had wielded to acidulously attack targets in his Weekly Aurora newspaper at Philadelphia, Editor William Duane reflected at length in March 1815 about the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain, in an exposition that flowed like a river of tiny type and…
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Commemoration of a Hero: Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans
Almost 200 years ago, privateer-smuggler Jean Laffite became a hero because he did something most people wouldn’t have done: in the face of extreme adversity, he had helped save New Orleans for the Americans, even though United States officers had destroyed his home base and seized his property a few months earlier. Sometimes incorrectly regarded…