Jim Bradshaw: On Jan. 8, they took a little trip

We hardly take note of it these days, but Jan. 8, the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, was once a day of widespread celebration in Louisiana, rivaling even the Fourth of July.
The Battle of New Orleans, fought Jan. 8, 1815, was the last major fight in the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson led a ragtag band of Americans that included Acadians, Attakapas Indians, members of Jean Lafitte’s pirate gang, riflemen from Tennessee and Kentucky, and a handful of regular soldiers that took on — and defeated — some of the best trained and equipped British soldiers who were trying to take control of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The 8th was a federal holiday in the United States from 1828, the year that Jackson became president, until the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, and was widely celebrated in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans, where the festivities seem to have been a cross between Mardi Gras and the Fourth of July. That cross may have come about because the Glorious Eighth falls just two days after the Feast of the Epiphany, which is the opening day of the Carnival season.
The Opelousas Courier’s call for celebration in 1853 was full of patriotic fervor: “Once more we come to celebrate the ever memorable day, when the she-wolf of the Old World was driven out of our land by the hunters of the South-West. This day, 38 years ago, England was taught that Orleans, with her broad glistening belt of sand, and bales of cotton was more terrible than rock-built cities.”
  A few years earlier, according to the St. Landry Whig, the Opelousas celebration of the victory, included “a grand ball; indigenous poetry; [a] patriotic choir; courtships, flirtations, and contemplated marriages; Creole beauties and gay cavaliers,” all of which were “no unusual thing” for the community.”
Of course, the biggest celebrations were in New Orleans.
On the 25th anniversary of the battle, the Picayune recalled it as “an event which shall sparkle upon the page of history in all future time. … [a story] which, to all Americans must present the mingled interest of the romantic, the chivalric, the terrible and the brave.”
A decade later, the New Orleans Crescent reported that the celebration seemed to be not quite what it once was: “In times gone by, it was a great day among us; and eve yet the annual return, though not marked by all the splendor of display that greeted it a few years ago, stirs up proud, patriotic, and glorious remembrances to the minds of true-hearted Americans.”
That battle for the Mississippi is the one that made the history books and became cause for celebration, but people across south Louisiana worried during the War of 1812 that the British might make a feint toward New Orleans and try a back door into Louisiana.
The Courier in an obituary for Isaac Griffith of Bayou Chicot, printed on March 5, 1853, notes that “he served under Col. John Thompson, when the militia of [St. Landry] Parish were ordered to Berwick’s Bay, to oppose the disembarking of the British at the mouth of the Teche.”
Small contingents of south Louisiana militiamen were also sent to the mouths of the Vermilion, Mermentau, and Calcasieu, but that is all ancient history.
If you ask anyone today why Jan. 8 should be celebrated, they will either have no clue, or recall that it is important because it’s Elvis Presley’s birthday. He was born Jan. 8, 1935.
Maybe if we adopted an Elvis song as the battle’s anthem, we can lump them together and start a whole new celebration. Oh Happy Day? Don’t Be Cruel? Or how about King Creole?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589