Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1859 — INCIDENT OF THE RATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. [ARTICLE]

INCIDENT OF THE RATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS.

[A British officer, who was in the battle of New Orleans, mentions an incident of thrilling strangeness, and very descriptive of ! the Western hunter, many of whom marched to the defense of New Orlean as volunteers in the army under the renowned An-, drew Jackson.] We marched, said the officer, in a solid column of twelve thousand men, in direct line upon the American defenses. I belonged to the staff, and as we advanced, watched through our glasses the position and arrangements of our enemy with that intensity an officer only feels when marching into the jaws of death, with the assurance that while he thus offers himself a sacrifice to the demands of his country, every action, be it successful or otherwise, will be judged with the most heartless scrutiny. It was a strange sight, that long range of cotton bales—a new material for breastworks; with the crowd of human beings behind, their heads only visible above the line of/lefense. We could distinctly sec their long rilles lying over the bales, and the battery of General Coffee directly in front,with its great mouth gaping towards us, and the position of General Jackson, with his staff around him. But what attracted our attention most, was the figure of a tall man standing on the breastworks, dressed in linseywoolsey, with buckskin leggins, and abroad felt hat that fell around his face, almost concealing his features. He was standing in one o! those picturesque and graceful attitudes peculiar to those natural men-dwellers in the forests. The body rested on the left leg, and swayed with a curved line upward; the right arm was extended the hand grasping the rifle near the muzzle the but of which rested near the toe of his right foot, while with his hand he raised the rim of his hat from his eyes, and seemed gazing from beneath intensely upon our advancing column. The cannon of Coffee had opened upon us, and tore through our ranks with dreadful slaughter; but we continued to advance, unwavering and cool, as if nothing threatened our progress. The roar of cannon seemed to have no effect upon the figure standing on the cotton bales, but he seemed fixed and motionless as a statue. At last he moved, threw back the hat-rim over the crown with his left hand, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and took aim at our group. Our eyes were rivited on him. At whom had he leveled his piece? But the distance was so great that we looked at each other and smiled. We saw the rifle flash, and my right hand companion, as noble a looking fellow as ever rode at the head of his regiment, fell from his saddle. The hunter paused for a few moments, without moving his gun from his shoulder, then re-loaded and resumed his former attitude. Throwing the hat-rim over his eyes, and again holding it up with the left hand, he fixed his piercing gaze upon us, as if hunting out another victim. Once more the hat-rim was thrown back, and the gun raised to the shoulder. This time we did not smile, but cast short glances at each other, to see which of us must die; and when the rifle again flashed, another of us dropped to the earth. There was something awful in thus marching on to certain death. Gen. Coffee’s battery and thousands of musket balls played upon our ranks, we cared not for them—there was a chance of escaping unscathed. Most of us had walked upon batteries a hundred times more destructive without quailing; but to know that every time that rifle was leveled toward us, and its bullet sprang from the barrel, one of us must as surely fall! To see the gleaming sun flash as the deadly iron came down, and see it rest motionless, as if poised upon a rock, and know, when the hammer struck and the sparks flew to the full-primed pan, that the message of death drove unerringly to its goal—to know this ,and still march on, was awful. I could see nothing but the tall figure standing on the breastwork. He seemed to grow, phantoin-like, taller and taller, assuming through the smoke the supernatural appearance of some great spirit. Again did he reload and discharge his rifle with the same unfailing aim; and it was with indescribable pleasure that I beheld, as we neared the American lines, the sulphurous smoke gather around us and shut that spectral hunter from my gaze. \vc lost the battle; and to my mind the Kentucky rifleman contributed more to our defeat than anything else; for while he remained to our sight our attention was drawn from our duties; and when at last we became enshrouded in the smoke the work was complete; we were in utter confusion and unable in the extremity to restore order sufficient to make any successful attack. So long as thousands and thousands of

rifles remain in the hands of the people, so long as men come up from their childhood, able, ere t’fife down is on the chin, to hit the center mark, or strike the deer at one hundred and fifty yards in the most vitdl part; so long as there is a great proportion of the Republic who live as free as the wild Indian, knowing no leader but their own choosing, knowing no law but that of right, and the honorable observance of friendly intercourse, America is unconquerable; and all the armies of the combined world, though they might drive them from the sea coast and across the Allegheny mountains, would net be able to subdue the free-souled hunter among the mountains, and great and mighty prairies of the West. (LZ’The Black Republicans are stirred up wonderfully. The President has made a historical statement of the Kansas controversy, truthful in. every particular. That they regard as a great outrage. What right has a President to tell the truth or defend his administration? And what right has he to make use of the annual message to Congress for that purpose.— Cin. Enquirer. The Democratic organ at Cincinnati, edited by the Democratic postmaster, evidently views the message in the light of a brief from the chief lawyer of the administration instead of a state paper. Herein the deputy postmaster at Cincinnati allows his zeal, which all know is paid for, a tolerably good figure to outrun discretion. The Presidant has no right to defend his administration in a message to Congress; he has warrant only for “giving the Congress from time to time information of the state of the Union, and to recommend to their consideration such measures as he-shall judge necessary and expedient.” It did not occurr probably to the framers of the Constitution that there would ever be a Buchanan President, who could find no one to defend his administration; if they had, it would have been easy to have added, “and to defend the policy of his administration after that policy had been repudiated by the people.” Mr. Buchanan is proverbi lly weak— weak in the knees, vide Senator Bigler. He has neither bones or sinews in his policy. His message, viewed as a defense of this policy, is the weakest of all. He speaks of Kansas after the manner George 111. used to of “the town of Boston” and “the Province of Massachusetts Bay’,” after the sturdy patriots of the Revolution spoiled his tea and imprisoned his army in Boston. Mr. Buchanan forgot to tell (he began® lawyer, defending his admini^tratio'nT - it was not his province to tell that) howthe settlers of Kansas were oppressed by the Missourians, driven from the polls; how their houses were burned, their horses and cattle stolen, and to cap the column of iniquity how he (the President of the United States) did all he could to fasten upon that much abused people a constitution denounced as infamous now by such of his zealous co-workers as Senator Hammond, of South Carolina. The Democrats have a constitutional habit of lying about Kansas affairs. It is to be regretted that the President cannot overcome the evil practice. The entire chapter of the message on Kansas is a tissue of falsehood and misrepresentation. Lying, like the vice of drunkenness, takes possession of individuals and ruins them. Some men lie far gain, others from the love of exageration, others from habit. In the future, when laws are under consideration to prohibit drunkenness, a section ought to be introduced to prohibit official lying- — Mad. Cour. O^7”A tale of tight bots is told in a Madrid paper. Mr. Morphy, a Sjanish lawyer of celebrity, a few weeks ago went to dine with Mr. Buchanan, the English minister. He had put on a pair of boots tight beyond the usual powers of endurance, and set chatting with his host, who little dreampt of the voluntary martyrdom to which his guest had subjected him»elf. Violent inflammation supervented, followed by gangrene, which, only a few days after the dinner, carried the unfortunate gentleman to his grave. papers say there is a great demand for women in Oregon. Isn't there a demand for women everywhere! There are plenty of ladies— dainty creatures with soft hands, puffed with hoops in the lower story, and nonsense in the upper—-but genuine, sensible women are in demand all over ere? ation. They are scarcer than diamonds anil far more valuable—better than gold, and safer to tie to than the best State stock. (L7“A way to dress, In the mode, I guess, Picks a husband’s bones quite clean; And poor Mr. Spratt Must cry “No fat!” As his wife will cri-na-kne-