Happy Independence Day, folks! This is a Special July Fourth Edition of That Should Be A Movie.
Hi there, I’m C. W. Johnson, Jr., and today’s story I would like to pitch is one that would be the ultimate 4th of July Weekend release! It’s the greatest American action flick never made! We’re talking a Jerry Bruckheimer produced, Michael Bay directed, Randal Wallace written, Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood starring, pop country music singers in the soundtrack, over the top popcorn blockbuster with plenty of fireworks! We’re talking about the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, baby!
This epic story is told in some great books like The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America’s First Military Victory by Robert V. Remini, from Penguin Books, The Battle of New Orleans: A Bicentennial Tribute, edited by Gary Joiner, from Pelican Publishing, and, for you Forrest Gump fans out there, Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans by Winston Groom, from Knopf.
First a little back story on The War of 1812. The British were harassing American ships at sea, forcing sailors, some of whom were American citizens, buddy, into their navy. They also had not removed their forts from the border like they said they would in a treaty from fifteen years before and were even encouraging some Native Americans to murder American settlers. For the first two years, the war went badly for the US, the army losing several campaigns in disgrace on the Canadian border. The British were raping and pillaging coastal towns like Hampton, Virginia, and even burned down the White House. And Gerard Butler couldn’t do anything to stop them!
Bummer!
Meanwhile, out in Tennessee we have Andrew Jackson, who bears scars from a British sword when an officer struck him during the American Revolution for refusing to polish his boots. He also carries a grudge against the Brits because they pretty much killed his whole family either in battle or from harsh prison conditions. Even his mother died after contracting an illness while attending to family members being held captive by the redcoats. Now he’s in Nashville recovering from a gunfight when he hears that a band of Creeks called the Red Sticks have massacred several hundred men, women, and children, including peaceful Indians, at a place down in Alabama called Fort Mims.
Well, he gets up off his blood-soaked mattress, and his wife Rachel is like, “Honey, that’s the third mattress you have bled through.” But Andy is like, “Woman, I don’t have time to bleed.” Then he marches his Tennessee volunteers down to Alabama, and with folks like Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, John Coffee, Richard Montgomery, and Native American allies fight the Red Sticks at places like Tallushatchee, Talladega and Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creeks. The decisive action occurs at Horseshoe Bend, March 27th, 1814. There’s musket balls, arrows, and war cries flying through the air. Sam Houston is seriously wounded, and Montgomery loses his life.
Pause for Trigger Warning: Now some of ya’ll snowflakes are probably saying “Oh, my Bernie Sanders, but Andrew Jackson was a genocidal maniac!” Yes, The Indian Removal Act was a wicked thing to do…15 years later. But guess what, after defeating the Red Sticks, Jackson saved them from starvation by opening up government storehouses so they could eat. He also adopted an orphaned Creek boy from one of the villages when he heard that the tribe was just going to let him die.
Back to regularly scheduled broadcast.
Then Old Hickory, for that is what Andy Jackson’s men call him, finds out that the British have allied with the Spanish down in Pensacola, Florida and are harboring some of the Red Sticks who have tried to lift American scalps. So, he goes down and occupies Mobile, denying the English the overland route to the Big Easy. Then the British attack the American position at Fort Bowyer on both land and sea. The armada has a total of 96 cannons, but the Americans repulse them, and the British are forced to blow up the HMS Hermes.
BOOM!
Jackson is like, “Get off my fort.” Well, actually, it’s Major William Lawrence who says, “Don’t give up the fort!” The American suffer 10 casualties while the British losses are 34 killed and 35 wounded.
Then Old Hickory attacks Pensacola and storms the place. The Americans meet with fierce resistance, but after they capture the Spanish cannons during a bayonet charge, the governor, Mateo González Manrique, surrenders so the town can be spared. Jackson prepares to attack the British. However, they abandon the place after blowing up Fort Barrancas.
Boom!
Meanwhile, down in Louisiana, many, many miles from Texarkana, we have the private Laffite brothers, Jean, Pierre, and Alexandre Dominique You, who run a pirate kingdom in Barataria Bay, smuggling goods into New Orleans through the backwater bayous. Jean has a beef with the Spanish because they killed his Jewish grandfather during The Inquisition. It’s like something from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Only cooler.
Because it’s real.
Well, the British land on the coast of Louisiana and are like, “Hey, Jean, would you like to guide the allies of the Spanish up the bayous so they can attack New Orleans?” And Jean is like give me two weeks, but in the back of his mind he’s thinking, “Not a great plan.” So, he goes up to New Orleans and says, “Uh, guys, you’re about to be attacked.” And the officials are like, “Fake News!” and sends the Navy to wipe out the pirate kingdom. Jean is forced to burn down all his warehouses and sees his brother Pierre and several of his buddies get arrested. He stands there among the fire and throws his hands up in the air like Willem Dafoe as Sergeant Elias in Platoon and yells “NOOOOOOOOOO!” Then he goes back to the Americans in the Crescent City and says, “Look, you’re the good guys, so I will fight for you if you let my people go. Savvy?”Well, at first General Jackson, who has shown up to defend the place, is like “No way, Jose, we’re not fighting with banditry.” But then someone is like “Uh…there’s almost 15,000 British regulars about to attack this place and there’s less than 4000 of us and only a few of us are regular soldiers, so we could use all the help we can get.” So, Jackson is like, “Okay, Jean, today’s a good day to die.” It’s like that moment in The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers at Helms Deep when Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and a few hundred men are about to be overrun by 10,000 orcs and all those elves show up to reinforce them.
Only cooler.
Because it is real.
Finally, the British start showing up about December 13th, and begin landing their troops on American soil via Lake Borgne. So, there’s these navy guys, Daniel T. Patterson and Thomas ap Catesby Jones, who attack the English ships in The Battle of Lake Borgne (December 14th). They do a lot of damage, sinking two armed boats and damaging more, but are knocked out of the way because England is like the Galactic Empire of the High Seas.
The British then make their way up Bayou Bienvenu and land at Villere Plantation, where they capture Major Gabriel Villere, who should have done a better job of guarding the place. But Gabriel redeems himself by jumping out a window and escaping through the swamp. He hides in a cypress tree, having to kill his pet dog so it won’t give him away, according to family lore, and then runs to New Orleans to alert General Jackson to the invasion.
Well, now the British have a beachhead on American soil and their top gun, Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, says, “We have red shirts and you have dirty shirts, so that makes us the superiors. So, we’re going to take New Orleans and have Christmas dinner there.” And Old Hickory is like, “Go ahead, make my day.”
Then he orders a counterattack on the British encampment at Villere Plantation on the night of December 23rd. There’s musket balls and rifle butts flying everywhere, swords and knives stabbing left and right, and fists throwing and bayonets sticking all over the place. The bodies of an American soldier and a British trooper are found with their bayonets sticking into each other. Some American ships, the USS Louisiana, the USS Carolina and the steamship Enterprise (eat your heart out, Captain Kirk) manned by the Barataria pirates like Dominique You, come down the Mississippi and start firing into the British Camp. This slows down the British advance and unnerves them because the Americans play dirty and not according to the European rules of warfare.
Boom!
Jackson retreats up the river to the Rodriguez Canal Line and declares martial law, ordering all able-bodied men and weapons to the front line. Patterson and Jones are back and ready to fight the British on land.
Trigger Warning: About now some of you millennials are screaming, “For the love of HuffPost, Andrew Jackson can’t be a hero because he owned slaves!” Well, not everyone can be as perfect as you. But I digress. While New Orleans was preparing to defend itself, the city authorities said they would not pay the men of Major D’Aquin’s Battalion of Free Men of Color an amount equal to the white soldiers. However, Old Hickory insisted that they be paid equal to white soldiers or they would not be used at all, forcing the city fathers to relent. The Free Men of Color fought with exceptional bravery at Vallere Plantation and on the 8th of January, earning praise from Jackson, especially for Captain Joseph Savary. Some accounts even say that Andy hugged Captain Savary during the excitement of victory.
Back to your regularly scheduled broadcast.
One of the reasons the British tried to capture NOLA was because they thought all the Spanish and French people would revolt against the Americans. They were wrong! Americans of all stripe, color and creed came out to fight. All along the Rodriguez Canal you have Anglo-Saxon Americans, Irish Americans, Spanish-Americans, French-Americans, Portuguese pirates, backwoodsmen, Creole gentlemen, members of the legislature, free men of color, and Native Americans ready to fight for America. At the churches in town you have Ursuline Nuns and prostitutes sitting side by side praying for a miracle and getting ready to take care of the wounded. It’s like Sesame Street went to war.
Meanwhile, the Carolina is bombing the redcoats, so a battle ensues on December 27th and the British fire heated shot at her, setting her on fire. The crew abandons ship just before the fire reaches the powder magazine, blowing her up.
BOOM!
It turns the tables like Optimus Prime being killed in the Transformer movies. Now the British can move up the east bank with more ease.
The next day Pakenham advances toward the city on a reconnaissance mission, but Old Hickory is like, “Get away from her, harlot.” On New Year’s Day, an artillery duel erupts and several American cannons are silenced. Pakenham sends another reconnaissance patrol, which was almost successful at turning the American flank before he called it off. So, for the next week there are artillery duels and Special Op like raids on each other. Pierre Jugat leads a band of Choctaws through the swamps, leaping like alligators from log to log, to get behind British lines. Coffee’s Tennesseans and Hind’s Mississippians, with years of experience from earning their dinner with their long rifles, are expert marksmen and carry out sniper missions against the Brits. The Americans fill abandoned houses with explosives and then blow them up as the British start to occupy them.
BOOM!
Well, then on January 8th comes the big attack. Pakenham believes that the Americans are undisciplined civilian soldiers who will run away in the face of his strong, well-disciplined veterans. But Jackson and Laffite see the redcoats marching out of the morning fog and, are like, “Fill your hand, you S.O.Bs.” They mow the redcoats down in a killing spree that would make Rambo jealous. Only a few of the redcoats make it to the top of the American ramparts, where they are quickly killed or captured. There’s cannon balls and bullets wheezing through the dissipating fog. There’s drums and the screams of the wounded filling the air. It takes about three bullets and pieces of grapeshot to bring General Pakenham down. One of the bullets was fired by a free man of color. So many British officers are killed that none of the soldiers know what to do since they always follow orders like drones, so they stand out in the open where they fall like flies.
Then on the west bank of the Mississippi, a detachment of British soldiers drives the Americans from the field and point their cannons at Jackson’s flank. “Too bad,” they say. “You will die.” Old Hickory is just like, “Not hardly.” Because so many British officers have been killed, the last remaining general, John Lambert (no relation to Miranda), declares the battle over. Less than half an hour had passed since the attack began. The British have sustained thousands of casualties while the Americans only have a few hundred wounded and a few dozen dead.
The British navy attacks Fort St. Philip down the river, besieging it from January 9th to the 18th. But thanks in part to Henry Miller Shreve, for whom the city of Shreveport is named, using a steamboat for the first time in a war to transport ammunition, the fort held off against the rain of shells and bombs the British throw at the stone walls. One sailor braves the bombardment to secure the American flag after the mast had been damaged by English shot. With their navy unable to get past the fort, the British finally retreat and the Americans are like, “Asta avista, baby.”
There’s a huge celebration in New Orleans and for years to come the whole of America observes January 8th like Independence Day since the War of 1812 is often called the Second War of Independence for it proved once and for all that America could govern itself and hold its own against European powers and had a place in the world. It was a triumph of the common man over the hierarchy of the British Army. Then the Civil War happened, and northerners started downplaying anything from Southern history because they thought they had beaten us or something. Yankee historians like Charles Adams started criticizing Jackson and saying the Battle of New Orleans was unnecessary.
But here’s the thing. If England have captured New Orleans it would have meant America was hemmed in on four sides by European powers. The wealth of the Midwest that was only possible due to free traffic on the Mississippi River to port in the Crescent City would not exist. The British might have ignored the Treaty of Ghent to fight to keep their gains. Plus, the patriotic fever that resulted after news of Old Hickory’s stunning victory spreading throughout the nation persuaded the New England Yankees discussing secession at the Hartford Convention to remain in the union. The euphoria from the American victory helped unite and drive the nation forward for many years to come.
That is why the battle of New Orleans deserves to be a summer blockbuster release. Cecil B. DeMille made a couple of versions of The Buccaneer, which focused on Laffite, but those movies haven’t stood the test of time and are kind of lackluster compared to the actual events. It deserves a Hans Zimmer score with the budget of a Transformer movie. It should also be filmed in Louisiana. I could see Gore Verbinski, Joss Whedon, Mel Gibson, Kari Skogland, Joe Johnston, Rob Marshall, Stephen Sommers, Roland Emmerich, Jon Favreau, Michael Bay, Patty Jenkins, Jonathan Liebesman, Peter Berg, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo or, heck, Stephen Spielberg, in the director’s chair.
The movie’s opening scene would take place during the American Revolution, showing Jackson being struck by the English officer’s sword as he mourns his mother’s death. Then there could be a montage of the events leading up to The War of 1812 during the year 1814. The first forty-five minutes of the film could switch between the stories of Jackson as he fights the Red Sticks and Laffite as he deals with the authorities in New Orleans. A subplot could be D’Aquin’s Battalion of Free Men of Color convincing Louisiana Governor William Charles Cole Claiborne to let them be part of the militia. After that, it could be nonstop action as the British land in Louisiana and Jackson and Laffite team up to fight them off. The only major inaccuracy that would have to be committed for cinematic reasons would be condensing the siege of Fort St. Philips into one day and moving it to the 8th of January so it could be shown occurring simultaneously with the major events of that day. And of course, Johnny Horton should be playing during the credits.
Because it is an epic of American exceptionalism holding its own against the world’s most powerful empire due to the American values of individual responsibility and courage no matter creed nor color, I believe that the events surrounding the January 8th, 1815 Battle of New Orleans Should Be An Overblown, Epic Summer Blockbuster! God Bless America!
