A Bloodless Victory: The Battle of New Orleans in History and Memory by Joseph F. Stoltz

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Bloodless Victory: The Battle of New Orleans in History and Memoryby Joseph F. Stoltz Thomas A. Chambers A Bloodless Victory: The Battle of New Orleans in History and Memory. By Joseph F. Stoltz III. Johns Hopkins Books on the War of 1812. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. Pp. xvi, 176. $39.95, ISBN 978-1-4214-2302-9.) The War of 1812 bicentennial recently passed with little notice from the American public and paltry official nationwide commemoration. Even the battle of New Orleans, which Joseph F. Stoltz III identifies as the most recognizable War of 1812 event, garnered relatively little attention in 2015 beyond a battle reenactment, academic symposiums, and a museum exhibit. This book seeks to recover past commemorations of the event with the overall thesis that "Each generation of Americans made the history of the Battle of New Orleans their own" (p. xiii). Print sources, institutional records, site histories, and popular culture demonstrate the changing meaning of the battle and its star, Andrew Jackson. Stoltz effectively traces the evolving memory of the battle. The chapters generally begin with a gracefully written vignette of a historical moment relevant to that chapter's time period. A synopsis of the chapter's content follows, and a concluding few paragraphs recap the chapter's content before a few transition sentences introduce the next chapter's theme. After a crisp recounting of the 1814–1815 Gulf of Mexico campaign and the January 8, 1815, battle, Stoltz delves into how various historical eras remembered the battle of New Orleans. In the immediate postwar period a flurry of print sources celebrated the battle as evidence of republican virtue and the ability of agrarian citizen-soldiers to repel a foreign invader. This ideology became personified in the commanding general, Andrew Jackson, and January 8 commemorations evolved into celebrations of Jackson and the Democratic Party. As the Civil War approached, the battle of New Orleans gained new relevance and was depicted as a distinctly southern victory, although many Democrats still invoked the battle and Jackson as symbols of national and party unity. When Union general Benjamin Butler added the inscription "The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved" to the pedestal of the equestrian Andrew Jackson statue in New Orleans, he literally rewrote the battle's history. In the decades that followed, fewer and fewer January 8 events were held, and the monument fell into disrepair. As the battle's centennial approached, women's heritage associations revived interest in a moment of national purpose and unity. The Daughters of 1812 helped preserve the Chalmette battlefield and erect a monument there, while the Ladies Hermitage Association cared for Andrew Jackson's plantation in Nashville, Tennessee. The varied successes of these two groups led the War Department to take over management of the battlefield site, while the Hermitage deemphasized the battle in favor of commemorating Jackson. The most innovative and intriguing chapters focus on twentieth-century remembrances, especially in popular culture, such as Cecil B. DeMille's film [End Page 979] The Buccaneer(1938, 1958) and Johnny Horton's 1959 song "The Battle of New Orleans." Here Stoltz keenly reveals the changing cultural uses of the battle and the nation's increased comfort with a more complex history of the battle. Also excellent are sections on the lack of African American participation in commemorations and the removal of the African American Fazendeville neighborhood to preserve the battlefield. By 2015 the battle served as a local economic development vehicle to boost heritage tourism. The book's writing and organization are consistent and effective. The subtitle of chapter 3, "The Battle of New Orleans in the Age of Jefferson," seems oddly mismatched in this chapter that discusses historical memory during the 1820s and 1830s. "The Age of Jackson" might have been more accurate. Greater attention to theoretical works on memory might have strengthened the argument, and manuscript sources of visitor responses to the battlefield are lacking. These are quibbles, though. Stoltz's book is a comprehensive study of the battle of New Orleans's presence in the American historical imagination and will serve as the definitive book on the topic. Thomas A. Chambers Niagara University Copyright © 2018...