HISTORY

Missed Opportunity

Some critics have charged that Jackson's victory at the battle of New Orleans was incomplete, claiming that a move of some of Jackson's forces to his left could have cut off the British from the British fleet and their supplies. The result could have been a victory on the scale of Yorktown with the entire British command forced to surrender.

Jackson knew, better than most, that untrained infantry perform differently in the open then they do behind defenses. In addition, the British attack against Ft. St. Philip led Jackson to believe that the British attack on New Orleans was far from over.

But with the peace treaty already signed such an improbable victory would not have had any effect on the course of the war.