Sir Edward Michael Pakenham

brevet Lt. General, Commander-in-Chief of the New Orleans Expedition

Future British Royal Governor of Louisiana

Brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington

December 25, 1814, Christmas

Villére Plantation – British Commander-in-Chief Sir Edward Pakenham arrives at this plantation, eight miles below New Orleans, to find his army on the verge of collapse, men cold, hungry and dispirited. Worse, he discovers his Wellington’s Heroes have suffered a strategic defeat by a rag-tag American army. His command has little artillery and faces a fortified enemy position which he must attack head-on across open, flat land along a narrow corridor between an almost impenetrable swamp and the Mississippi River, which (unbelievably) the Americans also command with two ships.

from BATTLE KISS, Part 2, “The British Invade” www.oneildenoux.net