Daddy dropped us off at the entrance of the Chalmette Battlefield, one of the Jean Lafitte National Parks. We walked down the road and saw tents along the side. Right about now I heard a cannon fire off in the distance. I wondered where that came from, but for now I was exploring the village.
In the village there were tons of different things to look at. The people looked like Indians, civilians and militia from the olden days. There were also British soldiers there they had bright red and white on their uniform but the American military and militia wore blue, white and a lot of other colors.
The year was 1815 and everyone was busy setting up for the Battle of New Orleans. This was a very important battle of the War of 1812, because the British soldiers were trying to take New Orleans. Why was New Orleans so special? Because it was the mouth of the Mississippi River, which was the basic highway of the country. If they took over that they could control the Mississippi.
Great Britain signed a peace treaty on December 24, 1814, but it wasn’t official yet (it became official Feb 18, 1815). In New Orleans they had no idea this was happening, so the battle was still being fought. Meanwhile the treaty was sailing across the Atlantic somewhere.
In the village I saw a lot of Indian toys and puzzles, dyes made out of different things, gunpowder horns, and muskets. I also saw a person who taught me how to make fire with flint and steel. Going father down, we saw a 100-foot memorial to Andrew Jackson. He was a very important man in the War of 1812.
We all got to go inside the monolith. As you would imagine, going up there by stairs was very tiring, as you had to walk up 100 feet! But at the top, it was an amazing view. You could see all over the battlefield and farther even.
After that I read up a bit about the history of it. I found out that in 1852 they started building the memorial, but had to stop because it was too expensive. Then in 1908 they finished it!
Then I found out where the big boom that I’d heard earlier from at the village. I saw three cannons and one in the distance. Two of the cannons next to me were sky blue, a most interesting color. One I recognized was a navy cannon. It was black and red. Then when I looked over at the other cannon, there were people holding muskets. And then one by one they were firing off their muskets!
Later that evening we took our seats at a reenactment. It was somewhere behind a Walmart nearby. You might wonder why they wouldn’t do it at the actual place. It was because of an incident where people were hurt years ago. So the national parks stopped allowing people to do reenactments at the parks.
We all waited at the reenactment for it to start. On the bleacher next to me were a bunch of ladies dressed in costume. It was a little chilly and very foggy. I thought it was perfect weather for a reenactment. When it started I got to see one of skirmishes of the Battle of New Orleans, which took place on December 23, 1814. The day of the reenactment was January 8, 2016, which was the anniversary of when the battle ended.
The reenactment was very cool because it was as if it were real! The people had muskets and fired them off at each other (but there weren’t bullets in them). It helped me learn how they would create formations and that a person would yell “fire” and everyone would fire, instead of everyone firing at random times. And I learned that the drums weren’t just for decoration. They were the radio of the group. Certain beats would tell the group what to do.
It was an awesome opportunity to learn about the War of 1812. Before this I didn’t know much about this war. I’d learned a little bit before at another museum, but I didn’t remember a lot of it. This made it different, because I could actually see it and there were people I could actually talk to about it.
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