[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Alexander Clark ] [ Archibald Darroch ] [ Archibald McInnes ] [ Archibald McKechnie ] [ Alexander McNeill ] [ Buie ] [ Campbell ] [ Clarke ] [ Darroch ] [ Fergusson ] [ Finlay McKechnie ] [ George Morrison ] [ James McGregor ] [ James McLean ] [ Jess ] [ John Darroch ] [ Keith ] [ John McArthur ] [ John Morrison ] [ Lockie ] [ McDougall ] [ McKechnie ] [ McKellar ] [ McKenzie ] [ McLean ] [ Neil McNeill ] [ Purdon ] [ Rumble ] [ Shaw ] [ Shrubsall ] [ Stevenson ] [ Graveyard Inscriptions ] [ Photographs of Jura ]

"Alexander Morrison"

A soldier in 

The 93rd Highlanders.

The 93rd, set sail for New Orleans, September 18, 1814, their total strength was 964. They embarked on three ships H.M.S. Alceste, Bedford and Belle Poule from Plymouth, to take part in the British government's latest folly: an attempt to capture New Orleans. They landed in Barbados on November 4, remaining there until the 12th, sailing then to Jamaica, anchoring in Nigral Bay on the 23rd. Many of the soldier's wives and children traveled with them who acted as laundresses.

The entire British Force came together at Jamaica and the combined fleet of 50 ships sailed from there on November 26. They arrived off Ship Island on December 8. Ship Island is a narrow sand island 12 miles off the coast of the State of Mississippi.

The troops embarked from Ship Island on December 22, in small boats. The men were in the boats from 140 hours to 190 hours before reaching land. The distance from Ship Island to the spot where they landed is about 75 miles. A winter front passed while they were crossing the water, they encountered rain, sleet, frost and a strong north wind. It would have been very choppy and extremely cold. In fact some of the troops who came directly from the West Indies, did not have warm uniforms and many died of exposure.

The aerial photograph shows the swampy area off the nose of the plane, where the 93rd landed. They moved along the canal on the Villere plantation. The plantations used the canals to drain the swampy fields. The canals ran from the Mississippi River levee across the flat ground. The planters mostly raised sugar cane and the cane would have been cut in November, so the furrowed fields had a stubble of cane stalks and would have been very muddy.

The British came through a maze of swampy water ways to get below New Orleans without being detected. From the air  it doesn't look like much but it was quite a feat to navigate in long boats and barges across the open water from Ship Island where the British fleet anchored; then to push through the bayous and canals until they came to somewhat solid land. The elevation here is about 3 meters above sea level to 5 meters below sea level. With the freezing temperatures, rain, fog, mud and more mud the British Army had there hands full just fighting mother nature.

For this expedition and the only time in their history, the 93rd were deprived of their kilts and feathered bonnets and sent into action in tartan trews and a particularly unbecoming form of cocked Kilmarnock bonnet. But they were well led, and their morale was by now indestructible.

The 93rd landed on the evening of the 23rd December, having spent, like the rest of the brigade, six days and nights packed in open boats, with inadequate rations. The boats returning to Ship Island for supplies, cannons etc. It was necessary to deepen and widen the canal so the boats could move further inland with the heavy cannons they brought off the ships. 

The distance from the swamp to the river is about 1 mile.

They moved up through the swamp to be involved piecemeal in a chaotic dog fight which lasted all night. The advance guard had been surprised by a night attack by 1,200 hastily assembled militiamen; by dawn superior discipline and training prevailed, and the Americans withdrew, leaving behind 74 prisoners; and there the brigade stayed, nine miles from New Orleans, while the whole army of 6,600 men, came up into position on the north bank of the Mississippi, where it was continuously galled by gunfire from two armed schooners out in the river. The Commander-in-Chief Edward Pakenham came up on Christmas Day and took decisive action, destroying one schooner with red-hot shot and chasing the other up mid stream.

General Andrew Jackson made his stand behind a canal some five miles forward of New Orleans. His right flank rested on the river; his left on a swamp. Across his mile long front he built out of cotton bales and sugar casks filled with earth, a parapet twenty feet deep with a short glacis sloping down to the canal bank; and on it he mounted four well protected heavy guns. Along the parapet, invisible and almost invulnerable, he had about 3,500 men. Packenham's general advance on 28 December was brought to a halt some 750 yards in front of this position; and there, under bombardment, rain and sleet lay the troops.

Another futile advance on 1 January, after a three day bombardment of the American cotton bales, ended the same way, and cost the 93rd 1 Officer and 9 men killed, and 10 men wounded. Undeterred, Pakenham ordered a third, and this time disastrous, assault on 8 January. The main body of the regiment were advancing in compact close column towards the centre of the American lines, which were pouring a tremendous fire of grape and musketery, including buckshot, upon then, flushed with the confidence of measuring bayonets with their hitherto concealed enemies, when their patience and discipline were again put to the test when within at most eighty or a hundred yards of their breastworks, by an order to halt.  So there they stood, rock-like, in close order, being slowly destroyed by the concentrated fire of the whole American line, until Lambert, the surviving General, after a careful survey, at last withdrew them. They came back with parade-ground precision, leaving three-quarters of their total strength killed or wounded, and having laid the foundations of an immortal legend: a reputation for disciplined and indomitable courage which was to last as long as the regiment. The British had nearly 2,000 casualties that day, of whom 557 were from the 93rd. The Americans behind their parapet had 6 killed and 7 wounded.

A lady, the daughter of an American gentleman, who was present with the enemy, says, writing to Lieutenant-Colonel Nightingale;

"I have often heard my father say that both officers and men gave proof of the most intrepid gallantry, and that it moved him to tears, as he saw man after man of magnificent Highlanders mowed down by the murderous artillery and rifle balls. they moved forward in perfect order, giving three cheers as they advanced, heedless of a pitiless storm of balls, and only gave way when five hundred of their number lay dying on the field. A little drummer boy climbed up into a tree and continued to cheer the poor fellows on until the end of the fight. The Americans, comparatively safe, behind a breastwork formed out of cotton bales, only lost thirteen men, and they made every one of their rifles tell. My father was not a military man, but like many of his fellow-citizens, volunteered for the defence of his country. He was a personal friend of the American General, Jackson, who commanded, and was on his staff as bearer of dispatches. After the battle, my father took a Bible from the body of one of the Highlanders; it had his name, but no address, and had been given him by his mother."

Extract. " Return of casualties in action with the enemy near New Orleans, on the 23rd and 24th of December 1814.

"93rd Foot. 1 rank and file wounded."

Between the 25th and the 31st of December 1814.

"93rd Foot. 2 rank and file killed, 5 rank and file wounded."

Between the 1st and 5th January 1815.

"93rd Foot. 1 sergeant, 8 rank and file, killed; 1 lieutenant, 10 rank and file, wounded."

Extract. "Return of casualties on the 8th January, 1815"

"93rd Foot. 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 captains, 2 sergeants, 58 rank and file, killed; 4 captains, 5 lieutenants, 17 sergeants, 3 drummers, 348 rank and file, wounded; 3 lieutenants, 2 sergeants, 1 drummer, 99 rank and file, missing."

"Alexander Morrison  born Inverness, Scotland, died in battle 8 January 1815."  

The pay/muster records from September 25 to December 26, 1814 show that Alexander was paid or due £3, 7s. 8d. There is an entry indicating he was paid for having 14+ years service, but no enlistment date.  The records then show Alexander from December 26 until January 8, 1815.

"Today"

Found at a site 35 metres from behind the American lines are several tent sites and campfire pits. Besides musket balls and buttons, these items in the photograph were found by Lawrence Packard. The Crown device would have been attached to the flap of a cartridge box. The flaming bomb was worn on either a hat or leather accouterment, possibly American or French in origin. The round item is a button and the pie shaped item is a coin, a quarter of a "reale"  which was cut by a New Orleans Bank which was sold to companies in the West Indies including Jamaica. The coin was found in the same vicinity as the other items, so probably found it's way back to New Orleans in the pocket of a British soldier.

Thomas Morrison his son.

Acknowledgement

(Many thanks to Lawrence Packard of Louisiana for his assistance with the information and photograph's included in this page.)

Also to Mr. John Jardine of Cincinnati, Ohio, for contributing the photograph of the 93rd's Colours and a copy of the

Historical Records of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders; Now The 2nd Battalion Princess Louise's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Compiled and edited by;

Roderick Hamilton Burgoyne

Late 93rd Highlanders

London:

Richard Bentley and son,

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen,

1883. 

(all rights reserved.)

TOP                                        E-MAIL

HOME