John Adair - Service in The War of 1812

Service in The War of 1812

Adair rejoined the Kentucky militia at the outset of the War of 1812. After Oliver Hazard Perry's victory in the September 10, 1813, Battle of Lake Erie, William Henry Harrison called on Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby, a popular Revolutionary War hero, to recruit troops in Kentucky and join him in his invasion of Canada. Shelby asked Adair to serve as his first aide-de-camp. Future Kentucky governor and U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden was Shelby's second aide and future U.S. Senator and Postmaster General William T. Barry was his secretary. Adair rendered commendable service in the campaign, most notably at the American victory in the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. Shelby praised Adair's service and in 1814, made him adjutant general of Kentucky and brevetted him to the rank of brigadier general.

In late 1814, Andrew Jackson requested reinforcements from Kentucky for his defense of the Gulf of Mexico. Adair quickly raised three regiments, but the federal government provided them no weapons and no means of transportation. James Taylor, Jr., then serving as quartermaster general of the state militia, took out a $6,000 mortgage on his personal land to purchase boats to transport Adair's men. The number of men with Adair was later disputed; sources variously give numbers between 700 and 1,500. Many did not have weapons, and the ones who did were primarily armed with their civilian rifles. John Thomas, to whom Adair was an adjunct, fell ill just before the battle commenced, leaving Adair responsible for all the Kentuckians present at the battle.

On January 7, 1815, Adair traveled to New Orleans and requested that the city's leaders lend him several stands of arms from the city armory to arm his militiamen. The officials agreed under the condition that the removal of the arms from the armory be kept secret from the citizenry. The weapons were placed in boxes and delivered to Adair's camp on the night of January 7. At Adair's suggestion, his men were placed in reserve and located centrally behind the Tennessee militiamen under William Carroll. From there, they could quickly move to reinforce whichever portion of the American line received the heaviest attack from the British.

Apparently unaware of Adair's request, that evening, Jackson ordered 400 unarmed Kentucky militiamen under Colonel John Davis to march to New Orleans to obtain arms, then reinforce the 450 Louisiana militiamen under David B. Morgan on the west bank of the Mississippi River. When they arrived in New Orleans, they were told that the city's arms had already been shipped to Adair. The citizens collected what weapons they had – mostly old muskets in various states of disrepair – and gave them to Davis's men. About 200 men were thus armed and reported to Morgan as ordered, just hours before the start of the Battle of New Orleans. The remainder of Davis's men returned to the main camp, still without weapons.

As the British approached on the morning of January 8, it became evident that they would try to break the American line through Carroll's Tennesseans, and Adair advanced his men to support them. The main American line held and repulsed the British attack; in total, only six Americans were killed and seven wounded. Meanwhile, Davis's Kentuckians on the west bank had, upon their arrival in Morgan's camp, been sent to meet the advance of a secondary British force. Outnumbered, poorly armed, and without the benefit of breastworks or artillery support, they were quickly outflanked and forced to retreat. Seeing the retreat of the Kentuckians, Morgan's militiamen abandoned their breastworks; Adair would later claim they had never even fired a shot. The British quickly abandoned the position they had just captured, but Jackson resented the setback in an otherwise spectacular victory.