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THE HARTFORD CONVENTION AND THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

Now, with the chaos of war, there came the harsh bite

Of an eternal debate: to separate or unite?

(‘Tis a question you’ll hear wherever you visit:

To press on in one Fate or else act to split it.)

Indeed, folks in the East had grown increasingly sore

With an affair they nicknamed “Mister Madison’s War”.

Which seemed fought for new states to add to their claims,

But had little to do with a New Englander’s aims.

So restless men met with a dire intention,

To speak of secession at the Hartford Convention.

Which means they did ponder an act of divorce,

For New England to bow out and seek her own course!

-- Yet, without a true win, and yet still not a loss,

Both sides began weighing their mounting high costs.

As the war saddled both with such hardship and pain,

And seemed to drag on with very little to gain.

And before those in Hartford could vote to secede,

The word came from Europe: there was no longer need!

As tidings from Belgium on the high seas were sent:

Peace had been made with the Treaty of Ghent.

Now, in those days of old, people couldn’t just call:

-- It was two weeks at sea to get info at all!

And so Andrew Jackson with his troops right behind

Had no way of knowing a truce had been signed.

And with masses of men from the rugged frontier,

At New Orleans they stood for the Brits to appear.

With their trenches dug deep in the hilly terrain,

They sat poised to attack and to fight to the man!

And when orders to fire Mister Jackson there gave,

Their foes they mowed down in wave after wave.

-- And two-thousand Brits fell, in a battle uneven,

As Americans who died numbered only eleven!