Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Jan. 4, 2006

Here's how to enjoy a "Happy New Year"

From late November to the first day of January, most of us are involved in the hustle and bustle necessary to prepare for three holidays and we are happy to take a sigh of relief as the new year begins. In this first week of 2006, I found a little verse in a poem called A Way to a Happy New Year that gives some wise advice.

To leave the old with a burst of song,
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the thing that binds you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that's past.
- Robert Brewster Beattie

Because of an outstanding event on Jan. 8, 1815 way down in New Orleans, Tennesseans added another big celebration in following years to remember that Jan. 8 and the part Andrew Jackson played in changing United States history. The Eighth was celebrated in Tennessee for many years, and when Jackson became president in 1828, that date became a national event.
There were parades, fancy dress balls, speeches held in the country's largest cities on Jan. 8. Tony Guzzi, curator of The Hermitage, said, "This was a national holiday that rivaled everything but July 4. It was bigger than Christmas."

Today the importance of Jan. 8, 1815 has faded and been largely erased from the nation's memory. It was during the War of 1812, which has often been called the Second American Revolution, that the British in 1814 invaded Washington, DC and torched the White House. After that national humiliation, the Brits turned their eyes to the port of New Orleans.

Andrew Jackson was chosen to save the colorful city. He was aware, as were the British, of the many water accesses to the mighty Mississippi River and he worked to fortify them against entrance, but the British found one unguarded waterway about nine miles downstream from New Orleans

They slipped through unnoticed and took over plantations belonging to two American officers who immediately alerted Jackson and he began building fortifications on a narrow strip of land at the Chalmette Plantation.

He was fortunate that there was a time lag because the British officers chose to wait for reinforcements.

Once they began their attack on Jan. 8, 1815, Jackson's troops were dug in and an American ship, The Louisiana, was in place to help repulse the advance. The attackers had to march across a quarter mile stretch of open ground while under fire by the Americans, a ragtag group of fighting men made up of Tennessee and Kentucky frontiersmen armed with their long rifles, black Haitians, former slaves and now freemen, and even some of Jean Lafitte's outlaws. They numbered about 4000 in all as they battled the well-armed British troops. Led by Major General Andrew Jackson, a man they respected and called "Old Hickory," they killed or wounded more than 2000 British troops and captured hundreds more.

New Orleans had been saved and that night a group of battle weary but jubilant soldiers brought out their fiddles and played an old Irish tune about a battle in Ireland but they changed the words to the "Eighth of January." Unknown to them as they fought the Battle of New Orleans was that the War of 1812 had officially ended weeks before with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

After serving two terms as president, Jackson retired to the Hermitage in 1837, and after his death in 1845 there were fewer Jan. 8 celebrations. In 1959, an innovative history teacher brought the Battle of New Orleans to life again through a catchy song that began, "Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip along with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississp, and we caught the bloody Brits near the town of New Orleans." Teacher/musician Jimmy Driftwood was presented a Grammy Award for the Song of the Year.

Special remembrances of the Eighth are held at The Hermitage and at Chalmette National Battlefield annually.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday. She may be reached at ebrush@frontiernet.net