were represented on that little watery plain. The soldiers trained to
serve the strongest will in the Old World were face to face with the
rough and ready yeomanry embattled for defense by the one man of the
new world whose soul had most iron in it. It was Salamanca against
Tohopeka, discipline against individual alertness, the Briton of the
little Isle against the Briton of the wastes and wilds. But there was
one great difference. Wellington, "the Iron Duke," was not there; "Old
Hickory" was everywhere along the American lines.[2]

Behind their battery-studded parapets the Americans waited for the
British to make an assault. This the invaders did, five thousand
strong, on January 8, 1815. The fighting was hard, but the main attack
failed at every point. Three British major generals, including
Pakenham, were killed early in the action, and the total British loss
exceeded two thousand. The American loss was but seventy-one. The
shattered foe fell back, lay inactive for ten days, and then quietly
withdrew as they had come. Though Jackson was not noted for piety, he
always believed that his success on this occasion was the work of
Providence. "Heaven, to be sure," he wrote to Monroe, "has interposed
most wonderfully in our behalf, and I am filled with gratitude when I
look back to what we have escaped."

By curious irony, the victory had no bearing upon the formal results
of the war. A treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent two weeks
before, and the news of the pacification and of the exploit at New
Orleans reached the distracted President at almost the same time. But
who shall say that the battle was not one of the most momentous in
American history? It compensated for a score of humiliations suffered
by the country in the preceding years. It revived the people's
drooping pride and put new energy into the nation's dealings with its