No less than 1607
British merchantmen were captured, in addition to sixteen British
war-ships. The Americans in turn lost heavily, a total of probably
1400 vessels of all kinds, but their financial loss was small compared
with that of the enemy. As in many later instances, the genius of the
American for individual initiative proved his salvation.
That an outburst of national pride should follow so many disasters by
land is explicable only through the battle of New Orleans, whose
crowning victory changed the aspect of prior engagements in the public
memory, while it placed a new value on the marksmanship of the American
soldiery. Charges made by veterans of Wellington and of Nelson were
resisted by unorganised American forces, dependent upon individual
initiative and upon skill in shooting. Jackson's motley army was
symbolic of the race composition of America and suggestive of the
recent acquisition of the land in which they were fighting. There were
free negroes, San Domingans, Louisiana Creoles, regular troops, old
French soldiers, and swarthy pirates, backed by the hunters of Tennessee
in their homespun hunting-shirts, and the Kentuckians with their long
knives.
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