rful carnage that befell
the troops of the British army. We have mentioned how thickly strewn was
the ground along the levee and the road, on the right next to the river,
with the dead and the wounded of the enemy. The fatality among the
officers here was fearful. General Keene, in command of this second
attacking column, was borne from the field badly wounded. Colonel Rence,
next in command with Keene, was killed while leading the assault in the
redoubt. Near by fell Major King, mortally wounded, and others of rank,
leaving the command with but few leaders to conduct the broken ranks in
precipitate retreat. On our left, in the front of the Tennesseans and
Kentuckians, the greatest execution had been done. The slaughter here
was appalling. Within a space three hundred yards wide, and extending
out two hundred yards from our breastwork on the battlefield, an area of
about ten acres, the ground was literally covered with the dead and
desperately wounded. A British officer, who became also historian, says
that under the temporary truce he rode forward to view this scene. Such
a one he never witnessed elsewhere. There lay before him in this small
compass not less than one thousand men, dead or disabled by wounds, all
in the uniform of the British soldier; not one American among the
number. The fatality to the English officers had been even greater on
our left than on our right. Lord Pakenham, commander-in-chief, after the
first repulse of the main column, with a courage as reckless as it was
vain rode forward to rally his troops and lead them to a second attack
in person, and in the midst of a hail of missiles from cannon and
small-arms fell mortally hurt with several wounds, and died within an
hour. Major-general Gibbs, next in command, was stricken down a few
minutes after, dying within a few hours. Others in high rank were
carried down in the holocaust of casualties, until the British army
became unnerved for the want of leadership in the hour of disaster and
peril.

Adjutant-general Robert Butler, in his official report to General
Jackson a few days after the battle of the eighth, placed the losses of
the British at seven hundred killed, fourteen hundred wounded, and five
hundred prisoners; twenty-six hundred men, or almost one third the
entire number the enemy admitted to have taken part in the contest of
the day. The loss of the Americans was six killed and seven wounded,
thirteen in all. Instead of comment upon this