Book Report On The Battle Of New Orleans By Robert Remini

The Battle of New Orleans is a highly informative book written by historian Robert V. Remini. It was published in 2001 by Penguin Books in New York. This book serves to inform readers of an overlooked, yet highly important battle that took place during the War of 1812. It is about bravery and leadership as well as people uniting to work towards a similar goal. Although many today do not know it, the morale, equality, and freedom of America today has its roots in this war. To understand the reasons for the Battle of New Orleans, one must first look at the context of the battle. This battle took place in the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was between America and England, although other countries were brought in as allies. Remini explains that

After all, they had more troops and they were better trained. There were many factors, though, that led to their defeat. Just like in the Revolutionary War, the British underestimated the Americans, and that was their main issue. Arrogance was a factor in this. Admiral Cochrane, for example, would not accept his men’s plan of how to move the barges from the bayou and instead wasted days executing his plan of how to do it (128). General Pakenham was also guilty of this. In one particular fight, Pakenham led his soldiers to their deaths because he refused to wait to attack. Remini says, “Arrogant and overconfident, he undoubtedly assumed that he was facing an inferior force of undisciplined frontiersmen who would run as soon as charging infantrymen with fixed bayonets came barreling at them” (140). If this was the attitude of the leader of the British soldiers, there is no question that the other soldiers must have thought the same. In reality, though, the Americans were “expert marksmen” and “disciplined soldiers” who would defend the city with all their might (71). There were other issues as well: the British did not know the land as well, they were disorganized, they were not used to the weather, they thought the Americans would surrender to them and not fight and they had longer supply lines. These issues led to the eventual defeat of the

Remini and published in 2001 by Penguin Books in New York, gives interesting insight about how America managed to defeat one of the greatest military powers of all time. There were major themes of leadership and coming together as one throughout this book. Two of the big reasons America won is because of the disorganization of the British and because everyone did their part to help in New Orleans. African Americans, Native Americans, Frenchmen and women all helped either in fighting with or helping the other soldiers. I knew little to nothing about the Battle of New Orleans before reading this book. Andrew Jackson transformed from the man on the twenty dollar bill to a great commander and leader, and I learned how important this battle really was to modern America. I liked how fast paced the book managed to be, while still fully explaining the details of the war. A lot of nonfiction books tend to lose me with all of the different names and dates, but I feel that I was able to keep up with this one fairly well. I wanted to praise this book for showing that America was not a perfect place at this time, as it feels like a like of people actually believe that. For example, the depiction of the slave who had a “collar of spikes around his neck” put on him for trying to escape by an American was necessary for this purpose (88). However, toward the end of the book, there was a quote that did not really line up with this: “They had