Today, our Nation remembers one of the greatest American tales of might and one of the grandest displays of American resolve in the history of our country\u2014the legendary Battle of New Orleans.<\/p>\n
As our last major engagement in the War of 1812 and our epic final struggle against the tyranny of the British empire, the Battle of New Orleans ensured the hard-fought flame of American liberty would never extinguish.\u00a0 Following a series of skirmishes throughout December of 1814, in which the British sought to break the defenses of the revered Major General Andrew Jackson, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham committed 8,000 seasoned British regulars to overwhelm the smaller American force of just 5,700 outside the city.\u00a0 The British objective:\u00a0 Steal the vital commercial and defensive strongpoint situated at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River\u2014the city of New Orleans\u2014for the crown.<\/p>\n
The morning of January 8, 1815, dawned damp and foggy as British soldiers formed long, neat rows of crimson along the swampy marshes of southern Louisiana.\u00a0 As the British began their attack, tradition holds that General Jackson\u2014bracing behind a small canal and several hundred yards of defensive works\u2014bellowed to his men: \u00a0\u201cGive it to them, my boys!\u00a0 Let us finish the business today!\u201d<\/p>\n
His men did just that.\u00a0 In less than an hour, American fighters\u2014with nothing but courage, confidence, and faith\u2014killed, wounded, or captured more than 2,000 hardened British veterans.\u00a0 The fog Sir Edward Pakenham hoped would conceal his attack lifted at the last moment, and his artillery bombardment from across the river materialized too late.\u00a0 Sir Edward himself fell during the battle, and soon after, General Jackson\u2019s force reigned triumphant with only 71 American casualties as the British made their retreat.\u00a0 By the time the smoke cleared, New Orleans was safe.\u00a0 The British were forever expelled from American soil.\u00a0 And General Jackson was immortalized as an American hero and would later ascend to the Presidency.<\/p>\n
To this day, January 8, 1815, remains one of the most significant days in our great national story.\u00a0 More than 200 years later, as we celebrate our 250th year of American independence, we pay tribute to the heroes who defied every odd to secure our birthright of liberty.\u00a0 We honor their immortal legacy of courage and resilience.\u00a0 Above all, we vow that the triumphant spirit of the Battle of New Orleans\u2014and our victory over foreign influence in the War of 1812\u2014will forever live on in every American heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, our Nation remembers one of the greatest American tales of might and one of the grandest displays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-396864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}