[StBernard] Battle of Lake Borgne celebration is Dec. 14 in Chalmette

[Westley Annis]

Battle of Lake Borgne celebration is Dec. 14 in Chalmette
Print NOLA Community By NOLA Community 
on December 03, 2013 at 6:30 AM, updated December 03, 2013 at 6:47 AM

The 199th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Borgne will be celebrated Dec.
14 on a vessel provided for the occasion by Pat Pescay of Crew Boats
Incorporated in Chalmette.  The boat will leave from Crew Boats wharf off
Paris Road.

The Battle of Lake Borgne was the opening military engagement in the
campaign for control of New Orleans. The British Naval fleet had appeared in
the Gulf of Mexico during the summer of 1814, creating alarm along the Gulf
Coast of the United States. Pensacola was the capitol of West Florida, still
a Spanish colony in 1814-1815. The British had cartographically documented
the approaches to the mouth of the Mississippi River, the course of the
Mississippi River, the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the late
1760s. Spain had acquired Louisiana west of the Mississippi River and the
Isle of Orleans in the 1760s and, cognizant of British plans for control of
the the Mississippi River Valley, embarked upon a colonization program
settling thousands of colonists from the Spanish mainland and the Canary
Islands and Acadian refugees in Louisiana. The British invasion of 1814-1815
was the realization of a threat anticipated by the Spaniards almost a
half-century before the Battle of New Orleans.

Thomas Catesby Jones was in command of the American flotilla that engaged
the British Expeditionary naval force Dec. 14, 1814. Fierce hand-to-hand
fighting ensued between the Americans and the British. At the end of the
day, despite the most valiant American efforts, the British naval contingent
that consisted of more than two dozen vessels fully manned with sailors and
Royal Marines overwhelmed a vastly inferior American naval force consisting
of only six vessels and significantly fewer sailors. After leading American
military forces in defeat, Jones received great recognition for his heroic
stand against the British and went on to a distinguished career in the
American Navy. The American loss nevertheless helped to delay British
landfall in the New Orleans region, granting more time to successfully
prepare to defend Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley against the British
Expeditionary Force.

Former Parish Historian Frank Fernandez first started the observance of the
Battle of Lake Borgne anniversary in 1969 as a program of the St. Bernard
Historical Society. The St. Bernard Historical Society perpetuated the
anniversary observance over many decades. The St. Bernard Historical Society
and St. Bernard Parish Government work with Anthony Fernandez and Pat Pescay
to present this annual observance.