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The offer was refused, and instead, the chief men of the pirate colony went straightway to New Orleans to put Jackson on his guard, and when the opposing forces met on the plains of Chalmette, the very center of the American line was held by Dominique Yon, with a band of his swarthy Baratarians, with howitzers which they themselves had dragged from their pirate stronghold to train upon the British.
It was admitted that mules and horses had been and were then being loaded at Port Chalmette for the British Government either directly or indirectly; that the operation was being carried out by local men all of whom were citizens of the United States; that the work was being supervised by Englishmen who might or might not be officers of the British army, although none of them wore the uniform of Great Britain.
No attempt, however, was made to pursue him, the British commander contenting himself with the destruction of the privateer. For nearly a week the British ships were delayed in the harbor, burying their dead and making repairs. When they reached New Orleans, the army which they had been sent to reenforce, had met Jackson on the plains of Chalmette, and had been defeated.
It proved to be the Chalmette regiment, and, surrendering, the officers and men were paroled and the former allowed to retain their side-arms, "except," said Perkins, "one captain, whom I discovered was from New Hampshire. I took his sword away from him and have kept it!" Now Farragut came up in the Hartford and signalled the fleet to anchor.
So I wrote, inclosing my photograph by Crespon, Place De Marché, in which I am represented with a clean-shaven chin, a bright eye under my heavy white eyebrows, wearing my steel chain around my neck, my insignia as an academic official, "with the air of a conscript father on his curule chair!" as our dean, M. Chalmette, used to say.
Michael Chalmette, an officer detailed by the U.S. Marshal in New Orleans to arrest Leon Sangrado, at the request of the Republic of Chili, on the charge of repeatedly committing murder and highway robbery in that country, was entirely sure that the missing person was sitting beside him, handcuffed to his left wrist, and that both were speeding toward New Orleans as fast as a railway-car could take them.
But the plucky little gunboat was getting ahead too fast, for arriving close abreast the Chalmette battery, which seemed to be deserted, she suddenly received a fire that compelled a halt.
The dun river slipped along among the shipping with an oily gurgle. Far down toward Chalmette he could see the great bend in the stream, outlined by the row of electric lights. Across the river Algiers lay, a long, irregular blot, made darker by the dawn which lightened the sky beyond.
The river was overflowing the top of the levee. A rain-storm began to threaten. 'Are the Yankee ships in sight? I asked of an idler. He pointed out the tops of their naked masts as they showed up across the huge bend of the river. They were engaging the batteries at Camp Chalmette, the old field of Jackson's renown. Presently that was over. Ah, me!
The interior lines at English Turn, known as the Chalmette and McGehee batteries, were, however, intended only to check an approach of troops from down the river.
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