In coonskin caps, buckskin shirts, fringed leggings, they swaggered into New Orleans, defiant of discipline and impatient of restraint, hunting knives in their belts, long rifles upon their shoulders.

There they drank with seamen as wild as themselves who served in the ships of Jackson's small naval force or had offered to lend a hand behind the stockades, and with lean, long-legged Yankees from down East, swarthy outlaws who sailed for Pierre Lafitte, Portuguese and Norwegian wanderers who had deserted their merchant vessels, and even Spanish adventurers from the West Indies.
The British fleet disembarked its army late in December after the most laborious difficulties because of the many miles of shallow bayou and toilsome marsh which delayed the advance.

A week was required to carry seven thousand men in small boats from the ships to the Isle aux Poix on Lake Borgne chosen as a landing base.

Thence a brigade passed in boats up the bayou and on the 23d of December disembarked at a point some three miles from the Mississippi and then by land and canal pushed on to the river's edge.

Here they were attacked at night by Jackson with about two thousand troops, while a war schooner shelled the British left from the river.