The Return of Napoleon (Again)

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

The Return of Napoleon (Again)

The Great Ogre had escaped again! Napoleon was on the loose. He had been spirited away from the remote island of St.Helena on a dark night in June 1816, a year after his "final" defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Europe was thrown into panic! Where had the ex-emperor of the French gone?

After several weeks, the answer came. He was given an emotional welcome by the French Creoles of New Orleans, who also staged a coup seizing control of the city. Napoleon, age 47, was proclaimed "Emperor of Louisiana" and the former French colony's connection with the Anglo-Saxon republic of the United States was severed. The U.S. Governor of Louisiana was arrested and all citizens of the former state were required to take an oath pledging allegiance to Napoleon I, Emperor of Louisiana. Those refusing faced the guns of the new militia raised in Napoleon's name. Many were imprisoned or expelled as Napoleon exerted his control over New Orleans and the surrounding area ("parishes").

President James Madison, in his last year of office, was mightily displeased. He began calling up militias, especially those in the Southern states, to put down the insurrection. The United States had just concluded peace with Great Britain less than two years before, ending a war that had had some less than glorious moments (such as the burning of Washington City by the Redcoats).

Moreover, the U.S. militias seemed to be no more prepared than they were in the last war. Madison felt that there was no alternative but to give the ambitious 49-year old Andrew Jackson command of the army and hope that he would be victorious a second time in battle at New Orleans, having defeated the British Army under Sir Edward Pakenham there on 8 January 1815. But, in that battle, he had had the support of the local citizenry and was defending the great city. This time, he, Jackson, would be the invader. And he would be up against the great Napoleon Bonaparte. Although having been vanquished and exiled twice already, the Corsican military genius was nevertheless to be regarded as a most formidable foe.

It took several months to raise and organize the American army. His Majesty King George III's government (under Tory Prime Minister Liverpool) offered to help, including dispatching a small elite force under The Iron Duke himself, Wellington, to aid Jackson's militia army. Foreign Minster Castlereagh insisted that it was of the utmost importance to insure that Bonaparte be "caged" -once and for all. And he seriously doubted that a Yankee rabble could do the job. Madison rejected the English offer of aid, stating that the Republic would settle its own internal difficulties- without any help from the former Mother Country, thank you very much. In the end, Madison did accept the offer of Royal Navy ships to ferry certain militia forces (Virginians, Marylanders, Pennsylvanians, and Delawareans) to Jackson's base at Mobile Bay, Alabama. There, Jackson organized his army of 18,000 men, including his famed Kentucky backwoods riflemen as the core of the new army.

Jackson knew he would have to move out quickly as riots erupted among men of the different states, the men, mostly Southerners, putting their state pride above their commitment to the national government. But the troops believed fervently in "Old Hickory", their "Gen'ral Jackson," and they were more than eager to punish the Papist Frenchie rebels under that Devil "Old Boney" (and then go and exterminate some Cherokees and other redskins for good measure afterwards). Meanwhile, the Devil himself had fortified his city and trained a loyal little army--and, like a spider in his web, was waiting patiently with a few tricks up his sleeve... Napoleon was determined not to suffer a Waterloo in his new empire in the alligator-infested bayous of Louisiana...
to be continued

submitted by Jim Hadac

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