Category: general history
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Patterson’s Mistake: the Battle of Lake Borgne Revisited
American Commodore Daniel T. Patterson made the single biggest mistake of the Louisiana portion of the War of 1812 when he deployed almost all of his naval force to patrol and spy along the coastal area of Lake Borgne in December 1814 while he remained in New Orleans. His tactical error not only gave the…
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Eyewitness Report of Jean Laffite at Chalmette Battlefield
Much has been made this past year over just exactly where Jean Laffite was during the battles against the British in December, 1814, and Jan. 1815, particularly regarding Jackson’s line at Chalmette. Here is what an eyewitness stated in 1852, in an article in the National Intelligencer newspaper, reprinted in DeBow’s Review, Vol. XII, New…
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Cobbett the Body-Snatcher, or What Happened to Thomas Paine’s Corpse
Even before Thomas Paine had died, at least one of his “friends” had designs on acquiring his skull. John Wesley Jarvis, an artist who was a close associate of the author of “Common Sense,” asked Paine once, in a rather morbid but friendly mood, if he would permit him to have his skull to study…
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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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Laffite Talk at Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium Jan. 10, 2015
Get your travel plans ready now for the Third Annual Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium slated Jan. 9 and 10, 2015, at Nunez Community College Auditorium at Chalmette, La., near the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park. Among featured speakers will be William C. Davis, who will deliver the keynote address about “The Pirates Laffite”…
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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…