Letter to the Editor, Times Literary Supplement under the heading “The Battle of New Orleans”

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Published in The Times Literary Supplement (print edition), June 24, 2016, under the heading “The Battle of New Orleans” – Letters to the Editor (TLS http://www.the-tls.co.uk/).

Sir, – Clare Pettitt writes in her review of Stephanie Barczewski’s Heroic Failure and the British (June 10) of the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815: “The British soldiers had crossed a mile of open marshy ground, only to realize that nobody had brought the ladders necessary to scale the ramparts of the  city”. Really? The January 8, 1815 engagement that took the life of Maj Gen Sir Edward Pakenham and Maj Gen Samuel Gibbs was fought approximately 4 miles south of the city of New Orleans, along the Rodriguez Canal. The British failed to bring forward scaling ladders and fascines to facilitate crossing the dry canal. The British never saw, much less tried “to scale the ramparts of the city”.

Col. John C. McKay, USMC (Ret.)

You can read the original article on the The Times Literary Supplement website: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/