Black Fight to Liberate New Orleans: War of 1812

From: Black Saga: The African American Exprience

On January 8, two battalions of five hundred free Black fought with Andrew Jackson to liberate New Orleans from the British n the last battle of the War of 1812. Identified as the "Free Men of Color," this was the largest single force of Black men ever assembled to fight for the United States up to that time. 

The use of Black troops was the idea of the Louisiana Governor William C. C. Clairborne. 

Jackson accepted the battalion of Free Men of Color plus a battalion of soldiers from Santo Domingo because of the shortage  of effective troops. They held their line on the Chalmette Plains and then counter attacked. It was the worse defeat suffered by the British Army in years. The British lost more than twenty-six hundred soldiers, whereas American forces only lost twenty-one men. Jackson wrote later the he believed that the British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, was killed by a shot fired by a Black man. Black actually fought on bothe sides of the battle, the First and Second West Indian Infantry regiments fought with the British. Hopes of freedom were dashed when the Treaty of Ghent (which ended the war) was negotiated.

Ironically, Black soldiers who had fought with Jackson were not permitted to march in the annual parades that celebrated the victory.