Chalmette Battlefield

The site of America's greatest victory in the War of 1812, where General Andrew Jackson's outnumbered forces defeated the British on January 8, 1815. Part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, named for the pirate who aided the American cause.

On the morning of January 8, 1815, heavy fog blanketed the Chalmette Plantation as 8,392 British soldiers advanced on American fortifications five miles southeast of New Orleans. Behind earthworks built from mud and cotton bales, Major General Andrew Jackson's force of 5,359 men — a patchwork army of regulars, militia, free men of color, Choctaw warriors, and Jean Lafitte's pirates — opened fire with devastating accuracy. In approximately thirty-seven minutes, the battle was over. British casualties numbered more than 2,000, including the deaths of both the commanding officer, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham, and his second-in-command, Major General Samuel Gibbs. American losses totaled just sixty-two. It remains the greatest land victory of the War of 1812 and one of the most lopsided battles in American military history.

With that much death concentrated in so small a space and so short a time, it is perhaps unsurprising that the battlefield has never been quiet. The Southern Area Paranormal Society has documented apparitions of soldiers on the field, figures in early nineteenth-century military uniforms who appear in the fog and vanish when approached. Visitors have reported disembodied voices calling out commands and names, and the sounds of gunshots and cannon fire echoing across the open ground when no reenactments are taking place. Author Jeff Dwyer, in his Ghost Hunter's Guide to New Orleans, describes visitors experiencing intense cold spots and what he calls a 'pulling sensation as if gravity has increased many times' — as though the earth itself is trying to reclaim those who walk above the mass graves.

The Beauregard House, a porticoed French-Louisiana mansion built around 1830 on the battlefield grounds, carries its own haunted reputation. Security staff and visitors have reported the sound of heavy footsteps pacing through empty rooms on the upper floors, and dark human-shaped shadow figures that move through the historic structure before dissolving into walls. The house served as the home of several families over the decades, and its position directly on the killing field may explain the concentration of activity within its walls.

Adding another layer of spiritual weight is the Chalmette National Cemetery, established in May 1864 as a burial ground for Union soldiers who died in Louisiana during the Civil War. The cemetery holds approximately 15,000 headstones, with roughly 7,000 marking the graves of unknown soldiers — mostly men who perished in Civil War engagements far from their homes. Veterans of the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War also rest here, creating centuries of accumulated loss on this single stretch of ground.

The combination of the 1815 battle, the Civil War dead, and the plantation's own history has made Chalmette one of the most spiritually active sites in the greater New Orleans area. Park rangers have fielded consistent reports from visitors over the years — figures glimpsed at the tree line, the sensation of being watched while walking the field alone, and an unmistakable heaviness that many describe as stepping through an invisible curtain when entering the battlefield grounds. Whether these experiences are echoes of the past or the imagination stirred by sacred ground, the dead at Chalmette have made their presence felt for over two centuries.