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118
Louisiana?s Loss, Mississippi?s Gain
The British fleet left Negril Bay in Jamaica on November 26th, just four days after Jackson left Mobile for New Orleans. Intelligence reports were received that the British fleet of about 80 vessels was seen off Pensacola on December 5th, awaiting a rendezvous with more than twice that number of vessels from Europe (Rowland, E. 0., 1926).
The expanded British expedition reached Ship Island on December 10th (Adams, H., 1918). The larger vessels could not proceed into the shallow waters of the Mississippi Sound. They anchored in Ship Island?s harbor and on the outside of the barrier islands.
British warships had driven American shipping from the Gulf of Mexico. People living on the coast were greatly afraid that a British army would land on the coast itself and that the British would again take over this area. There was also a chance that the British meant to land their troops on the coast and march on New Orleans from there. To guard against this possibility, Governor Holmes had about 1000 territorial militiamen staged at Pass Christian (Herald ?84; p. 16) (Carter and Ragusin, 1951). (Claiborne said there were 2000.) These troops were commanded by Colonel George H. Nixon, who later received a commission as Briga-dier-General at the Battle of New Orleans (Thigpen, 1965B).
The British had 45 major warships at Ship Island (Roosevelt, 1889). In addition, there were perhaps 60 or 70 accompanying transports, tenders, landing craft, and so forth. The names, numbers of guns, and commanders of these warships are shown in the list on the following page (Claiborne, 1978).
The English used Ship Island as a staging area to land approximately 8000 seasoned veterans from European wars. Jean Baptiste Ladnier was the only permanent resident on Ship Island at that time. When he saw the huge British fleet approaching, he feared capture and decided to flee the island. Ladnier was helped by his Indian friend, Lapoucha, to load his wife, who was desperately ill, and her mattress into his cypress pirogue. They set out for Biloxi, where they brought the news of the British approach (Carter and Ragusin, 1951).
Juan de Cuevas lived on neighboring Cat Island when the British landed on Ship Island (Herald, 1958, 20a; Echo, 1978, 9D, Carter & Ragusin, 1951). The Cuevas family owned Cat Island, on which they raised beef catde for the market. The British, with 20,000 troops, sailors, and others to feed, soon discovered the existence, nearby, of Cuevas? cattle. The day after they arrived, they sent ashore a party to commandeer them. In the ensuing skirmish, Juan shot two of the raiding party, but was himself shot in the leg and was taken prisoner by the British.
War of 1812
119
VESSEL	GIJNS	r.OMMANDER(Sl
Tonnant	80	Vice Admiral Sir A. Cochrance, K.B. Rear AdmiralCodrington, Captain Kerr
Royal Oak	74	Rear Admiral Malcom, Captain Wroot.
Norge	74	Dalkford
Bedford	74	Walker
Raminies	74	Sir T. Hardy
Asia	74	Skeene
Dictator	64	Crofton
Diomede	50	Kippon
Gordon (fs)	44	R. B. Bowden
Armide	38	Sir T. Trowbridge
Belle Poule	38	Baker
Traave	38	Money
Weser	38	Sullivan
Alceste	38	Lawrence
Hydra	38	Digey
Fox	36	Willock
Cadmus	36	Langford
Thames	32	Hon. G.L. Irby
Dover	32	Rogers
Bucephalus	32	D?Aith
Calliope	16	Codd
Anaconda	16	Westhall
Borer	14	Rawlins
Manley	14	Locke
Meteor (bm)	6	Roberts
Volcano (bm)	6	Price
Etna (bm)	16	Gardner
Pigmy (fch)	6	Lt. Crossman
Jane (cutter)	-	Johnson
Speedwell (fch)	-