Sunday, January 8, 2006

[1815 - Battle of New Orleans - General Andrew Jackson decimates superior British force]

[1862 - Frank Nelson Doubleday, publisher, founder Doubleday & Co, born in Brooklyn, New York]

[1912 - Jose Ferrer, actor & director, born Santurce, Puerto Rico]

[1942 - Stephen Hawking, physicist, born in Oxford, England]

On the Bayou

What if Andrew Jackson and a few thousand frontiersmen from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana (who could shoot the eye out of a gnat at one hundred yards), together with some regular US Army troops, pirates, Choctaw warriors, and free black soldiers had not turned back the British at New Orleans? Would tea and crumpets instead of jambalaya be on the menu in the bayou? Would there be ballroom dancing instead of Zydeco, and maybe a very different kind of jazz?

Additionally, it seems unlikely that the Prime Minister of Great Britain would have stood by impotently for a week before providing effective relief to the inhabitants of New Wellington as President Bush did when he watched the City of New Orleans drown before his eyes.

William's Whimsical Words:

In the old days, generals who screwed up often died on the battlefield trying to rally their troops, as did Major General Sir Edward Pakenham in the Battle of New Orleans. One mourns the passing of this useful tradition.

BACK to Winter 2005 - 2006

to Almanack Main Page