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march of 135 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, a feat which the latter accomplished in three days. Coffee encamped at Avart?s Plantation, five miles upriver from the city, on December 20. Further upriver, Carroll received a similar command to hasten his best trained and equipped troops and additional arms to supply Coffee?s men, whose arms and ammunition had been damaged by the heavy rain.18
After the defeat and capture of the five little American gunboats on Lake Borgne on December
14,	the road to New Orleans was open for the invaders. The British secretly disembarked their troops between December 16 and 20 on Pea Island. Then on the 22nd, they boarded open boats and cautiously crossed Lake Borgne, about 60 miles across. Under cover of darkness the trip was made even more somber by the biting, penetrating cold weather. Jackson, seemingly, lost sight of the British army?s movements following its arrival at Ship and Cat islands. Arriving the following morning at Fisherman?s Village (an extreme point on Villere?s Canal) on the Bayou Bienvenue, the invaders with their movements still unnoticed marched stealthily across Villere?s plantation toward the Mississippi River. About 9 a.m., they surprised and captured Major Gabriel Villere, and a detachment of troops. Major Villere managed to escape into a nearby cypress swamp, and make his way to New Orleans where he notified Jackson at his headquarters on Royal Street that the British were below the city.19
Faced now with a sudden crisis, Jackson was equal to the occasion. It was noon when Jackson learned that the Redcoats were at the Mississippi, seven miles below New Orleans. About 2 p.m. he
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learned from Major Arsene Lacarriere Latour, his chief engineer, that the British numbered between 1,600 and 1,800. Jackson, meanwhile had called in his troops from various points on the outskirts of New Orleans. Coffee marched down from Avart?s plantation in mid-afternoon to rendezvous at Fort St. Charles. Carroll was sent to the upper branch of the Bayou Bienvenu to command Jackson?s center. The conference between Jackson and Coffee was brief. Jackson thought of awaiting the British attack, but acceded to Coffee?s strategy of carrying the fight to the enemy by a night attack. Thereupon, Coffee and his mounted infantry proceeded southward through the city, where one observer remembered them as follows:
Their appearance, however, was not very military.
In their woolen hunting shirts and coperas dyed pantaloons; with slouched hat or cap made from the skins of raccoons or foxes; with belts or untanned deer-skin and in which were stuck their hunting-knives?but were admirable soldiers, remarkable for endurance and possessing that admirable quality in soldiers, of being able to take care of themselves. At their head rode their gallant leader, a man of noble respect, tall and herculean in appearance, mounted upon a fine Tennessee thoroughbred, was stately and
impressive. 20
The main body of the British army, lighthearted and confident that their movements were undetected, bivouacked the night of the 23rd on the upper part of Villere?s plantation. To a man they were frilly confident of an overwhelming victory. A short distance away, however, the frontiersmen crept and crawled into position under the brilliant moonlight which enveloped the area. Drifting silently down river at the same moment was the small American
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