The War of 1812 saw America threatened on every side. Encouraged by the British, Indian tribes attacked settlers in the West, while the Royal Navy terrorized the coasts. In August 1814, British troops set the White House ablaze, and a feeling of hopelessness spread across the country.
Into this dire situation stepped Major General Andrew Jackson. A native of Tennessee who had witnessed the horrors of the Revolutionary War and Indian attacks, he was glad America had finally decided to confront repeated British aggression. But he feared that President Madison’s men were overlooking the most important target of all: New Orleans.
If the British could conquer New Orleans, they would control the mouth of the Mississippi River, cutting Americans off from that essential trade route and threatening the previous decade’s Louisiana Purchase. The new nation’s dreams of western expansion would be crushed before they really got off the ground. So Jackson faced three enormous challenges at the same time:
He had to convince President Madison and his War Department to take him seriously, despite his reputation as a man of the people – not one of the well-educated, polished Virginians or New Englanders who dominated the government.
He had to assemble a diverse coalition of frontier militiamen, French-speaking natives, Cherokee and Chocktaw Indians (tribes not aligned with Britain), freed slaves, and even some pirates.
And he had to defeat a much larger enemy force that was considered unbeatable – the most powerful in the world – in the confusing terrain of the Louisiana bayous.
In short, Jackson needed a miracle, and the local Ursuline nuns, whose convent was said to have miraculously warded off danger in the past, set to work praying for his outnumbered troops. And so, the Americans, driven by patriotism and protected by prayer, began the battle that would shape our young nation’s destiny.