DEFEAT OF THE BRITISH ARMY, 12,000 STRONG, UNDER THE COMMAND OF SIR EDWARD PACKENHAM IN THE ATTACK OF THE AMERICAN LINES DEFENDED BY 3600 MILITIA COMMANDED BY MAJOR GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON JANUARY 8th, 1815, ON CHALMETTE PLAIN FIVE MILES BELOW NEW ORLEANS ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Drawn on the Field of Battle and painted by Hthe Laclotte archt and assist Engineer in the Louisiana Army the Year 1815 [caption title, repeated in French]

[Paris: Philibert-Louis Debucourt, 1817].. Monochrome aquatint, 21 x 27 inches (54 x 68 cm). Light soiling, closed tears in margins, most repaired, including two extending into upper portion of image. Lower right corner reattached and reinforced on verso. Very good overall. One of the earliest and best representations of the Battle of New Orleans, the final engagement of the War of 1812, in which American forces under Andrew Jackson decisively routed the numerically superior British forces invading Louisiana. The battle took place on January 8, 1815, and was the culmination of Britain's months-long campaign to take what was then the southwestern boundary of the United States. The artist, a topographical engineer in the First Louisiana Militia, presents a firsthand bird's-eye view of the engagement at Chalmette Plantation, with the strong American defenses under Jackson handily repulsing the British forces who advance along the riverbank with as many ladders and FASCINES as rifles. Jackson himself makes an appearance in the center of his breastworks, just beside the American flag, while British commander Packenham is likely the figure being carried off in a stretcher by retreating British troops in the upper portion of the image. The French and English titles for the engraving are printed side by side, separated by an American Eagle and the text "To the United States' Glory."

W.C. Cook calls this print "the most historically accurate and best executed of all prints [of the Battle of New Orleans,] regardless of media," and John Carbonell in his own article describes it as "in some respects the most important print of the battle." He goes on to say:

"The print itself affords a birds-eye panorama of the action on the east bank [of the Mississippi] at the height of the engagement. It is based on sketches made on the spot by Laclotte, who is identified as an architect and assistant engineer in the Louisiana army....Other veterans of the battle formally endorsed Laclotte's depiction as reliable and such authority has made it the most frequently copied view of the battle...the panorama is so ambitiously extensive that the viewer is removed a great distance and the accuracy of the scale keeps him there...it is the richness of well-drawn detail which distinguishes the Laclotte print. In the left and center foreground, for instance, a handful of British troops have penetrated to the gun battery ahead of the line. At the front of this battery a spirited sword duel shows up clearly against the smoke of the American artillery...further forward, the British officer with pistol and raised sword at the corner of the line is probably Col. Rennie, who was killed in a courageous charge. In fact, his small group succeeded in taking the gun battery...."

Besides these specific instances, the print shows the whole field, with the American camp to the left, the American lines extending across the middle of the image, and the marshaling British attack from the right.

The artist, Jean-Hyacinthe Laclotte, was a French painter, architect, and engineer. In the early 1800s he was living and working in New Orleans, where he opened an architectural drawing and painting school based on the French model. He was also responsible for designing a number of noteworthy homes in the French Quarter and for planning the Faubourg Plaisance subdivision. He volunteered as a topographical engineer with the First Louisiana Militia during the war, and his eyewitness painting of the Battle of New Orleans quickly became one of the most famous and celebrated images of the battle. While Laclotte made his original painting within days of the event, the present print engraved by Philibert-Louis Debucourt was not disseminated until two years later, as Laclotte travelled across America and then to Paris to have it produced.

A rare and important eyewitness image of Jackson's myth-making Battle of New Orleans. John Carbonell, "Prints of the Battle of New Orleans" in PRINTS OF THE AMERICAN WEST (Fort Worth, 1983), pp.2-3. W.C. Cook, "The Early Iconography of the Battle of New Orleans, 1815-1819" in TENNESSEE HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Tennessee Historical Society: Nashville, 1989), p.221.