Tag: Battle of Lake Borgne
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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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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…