"In 1814 we took a little trip, with Colonel Jackson down the Mighty Mississip."
If you're old enough, you may remember a snappy tune with those words, which was a sensational version of the events of the Battle of New Orleans. I remember hearing it as a child, but it was still a bit before my time.
"We fired our guns and the British kept a comin' - wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago."
And while the song (The Battle of New Orleans, a 1959 hit by Johnny Horton) seemed to make light of an actual battle, it did capture the spirit of the event and the years that followed.
On Thursday this week, on Jan. 8, it will be exactly 200 years since the famed Battle of New Orleans.
At the end of the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson put together a rag-tag army to go down to New Orleans to keep the British from taking the port. (The song referred to him as Colonel Jackson but he was a general by then).
The army was made up of some misfits - cutthroats, riverboatmen, backwoodsmen, scoundrels, and expert marksmen from Kentucky and Tennessee - who went to New Orleans because they wanted action. They heard there was to be a big fight and they wanted in on it.
And get in on it they did.
But they had help.
A pirate by the name of Jean Lafitte warned Americans of the attack and also provided cannon from his ships to help turn away the invaders.
Within 30 minutes on the morning of Jan. 8, 1815, the British had to fall back, with 2,000 casualities. The Americans lost only eight.
By any measure, it was an overwhelming American victory.
The Treaty of Ghent had been signed to end the war two weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve. It was the official end to the war but because news traveled slowly in those days, word had not reached New Orleans in time to stop the combatants.
The War of 1812 was one in which the United States only managed to hold its own with the powerful British military.
But the conflict at the Battle of New Orleans was far from being a draw. In fact, it was such a convincing American victory that the countries of Europe viewed it as if the whole war had gone that way.
In Europe, they viewed Americans with great respect in the years that followed. The mindset was: Trade with the Americans if you want. Make money off of them if you can. But don't make them mad. You don't want to fight with them.
In America itself the years from 1815-1819 became the most nationalistic time of that century.
Now, 200 years later, we could enter in to another era of great American pride.
It often happens when the country faces threats from the outside, but we shouldn't need another war or the threat of war to cause us to pull together. We should simply come together because there are many more things that unite us than things that divide us.
It was 200 years ago that the United States celebrated the end of a war. Today we could choose to celebrate the liberties and the blessings that have endured throughout our history.
It's a new year. And for the country, it can be a new day.
David Wilson, EdD, is the associate principal at Jefferson City High School. You may e-mail him at [email protected].