12. The Chalmette battlefield, site of the Battle of New Orleans, is preserved within a site named for a pirate and smuggler
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is named for the notorious smuggler and pirate who operated a base manned by like-minded outlaws from Baritaria during the years before and including the War of 1812. Offered a pardon by the British in exchange for his services guiding the British Army and fleet through the bayous and swamps which comprise most of the park and preserve, Lafitte instead offered his support to the Americans under Andrew Jackson. The actual amount of support provided is disputed by historians, with much of it romanticized over the years, and following the war Lafitte returned to smuggling and piracy, operating out of Galveston in what was then Spanish Mexico. How and where he met his end is open to speculation. Most historians believe he died from wounds sustained in battle with the Spanish near Honduras.
The battlefield at Chalmette, which was where the Battle of New Orleans took place in January 1815, after the treaty which ended the War of 1812 had been signed, is included within the park and preserve. It was there that the United States defeated the British veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Among the dead was British Major General Edward Pakenham, himself a veteran of the Peninsular War in Spain and the brother in law of the Duke of Wellington. As had Lord Nelson a more than a decade earlier, Pakenham was returned to England in a cask of rum. Wellington blamed his death on the naval leader of the expedition, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, whom the Iron Duke believed was lax in the execution of his duties.