practicable; there were not boats enough, and it was not safe to divide the army. A road was therefore opened, along the bank of the bayou, across the prairie to the lake, a severe and difficult task that occupied nine days. All the wounded, except those who could not be removed, the field artillery and stores, were placed in barges and conveyed to the fleet, the ship guns were spiked, and on the night of the eighteenth the army was stealthily and quietly formed into column. The camp-fires were lighted as usual, the sentinels posted, each one provided with a stuffed dummy to put in his stead when the time came for him to join the march in the rear of the column. They marched all night, reaching the shores of Lake Borgne at break of day.
Early in the morning of the nineteenth, rumours of the retreat of the English began to circulate in the American camp. Officers and men collected in groups on the parapet to survey the British camp. It presented pretty much the same appearance as usual, with its huts, flags, and sentinels. General Jackson, looking through his telescope from Macarty's window, could not convince himself that the enemy had gone. At last General Humbert, one of Napoleon's veterans, was called upon for his opinion. He took a look through the telescope, and immediately exclaimed: "They are gone!" When asked the reason for his belief, he pointed to a crow flying very near one of the sentinels.
While a reconnoitering party was being formed, a flag of truce approached. It brought a courteous letter from General Lambert, announcing the departure of the British army, and soliciting the kind attentions of General Jackson to the sick and wounded, whom he was compelled to leave behind. The circumstances of these
