Battle of New Orleans taught me that sometimes a military engineer’s job is simply to make the enemy’s life just a little more miserable than it already is. But I also learned at Chalmette, on the banks of the fickle and roaring Mississippi, that we frail human beings can guide water, but we can never control it.
I have not left New Orleans for any significant period of time since General Jackson saved the city and the river and all the land that the river drains—half a continent!— for the United States of America. When I have visitors from more ordinary climates, they marvel at our fair city’s talent for housing extreme beauty, unmatched graciousness, and unrivaled debauchery in a single compact and low-lying spot. I think their admiration would be better placed if they were to marvel at the work of my engineering brethren.
New Orleans must be where it is. Geography dictates it, and I watched many soldiers die for no reason other than that geographical imperative.
But it can’t be where it is. Water rolls past the city’s face in the form of a river. Lakes cradle the city’s sides and back. Water falls from the sky in torrents. Water lurks so close below that the ground is merely a floating crust.
Any port city is defined by water, but New Orleans is bathed in it. How could we expect anything else here, where the Mississippi washes the whole continent’s wealth to sea?
If we are to maintain a city in such a place, then an army of men vain enough to think that they can hold back a river—men like me—will be required to keep its buildings and the people in them above water. I turned my back on my career as a military engineer, because I would rather help a city live than help my enemies die.
Now it is time to pass the responsibility to a new generation. For those who would take on this challenge, an old soldier offers a few words of advice gleaned from seventy-nine years of hard experience:
Never underestimate your enemy.
Never play the odds. You will eventually lose, because your enemy can be lucky just as easily as you can.
Always seek to make your enemy want to do the things you need him to do.
And, most of all, remember that, in these wet climes, water is your enemy. You can guide water, but you can’t control it. Keep it in the river and out of the streets.
Chapter Nine
Tuesday
It was inconvenient that Joe had arrived for a visit on a Monday, when Faye had two more workdays looming in front of her. But only two days of his visit would go to waste. The all-or-nothing schedule of this kind of fieldwork—ten days on and four days off—gave her a long weekend to anticipate, and she and Joe had planned his visit to make the most of it. He’d just have to sight-see or hang around the battlefield while she worked for a couple of days, then they’d be free to play.
Faye was a homebody. She ordinarily preferred her constantly-under-renovation plantation house over any vacation spot, but she was pretty sure that New Orleans was the most romantic city on earth. Okay, Venice and Rio were contenders, too, but New Orleans was the most romantic city she’d ever seen . And it was hers. Or so she pretended.
Faye’s family braided together as many cultures as New Orleans. She didn’t know squat about her Longchamp ancestors, but their name hinted that they must have been French at some point in history. From the last photo of her father, taken just before he left for Vietnam, it was clear that Africans figured into the Longchamp family tree as well. From his looks, she’d say that more branches on that tree extended back to Africa than to France, but appearances only provide clues to the truth. They are not the truth. Faye was scientist enough to understand that. One day, in her copious spare time, she was going to delve into the Longchamp family’s genealogy.
On her mother’s side, she had ancestors that were undoubtedly French. Others were English and Creek and African. In other words, Faye’s
I have not left New Orleans for any significant period of time since General Jackson saved the city and the river and all the land that the river drains—half a continent!— for the United States of America. When I have visitors from more ordinary climates, they marvel at our fair city’s talent for housing extreme beauty, unmatched graciousness, and unrivaled debauchery in a single compact and low-lying spot. I think their admiration would be better placed if they were to marvel at the work of my engineering brethren.
New Orleans must be where it is. Geography dictates it, and I watched many soldiers die for no reason other than that geographical imperative.
But it can’t be where it is. Water rolls past the city’s face in the form of a river. Lakes cradle the city’s sides and back. Water falls from the sky in torrents. Water lurks so close below that the ground is merely a floating crust.
Any port city is defined by water, but New Orleans is bathed in it. How could we expect anything else here, where the Mississippi washes the whole continent’s wealth to sea?
If we are to maintain a city in such a place, then an army of men vain enough to think that they can hold back a river—men like me—will be required to keep its buildings and the people in them above water. I turned my back on my career as a military engineer, because I would rather help a city live than help my enemies die.
Now it is time to pass the responsibility to a new generation. For those who would take on this challenge, an old soldier offers a few words of advice gleaned from seventy-nine years of hard experience:
Never underestimate your enemy.
Never play the odds. You will eventually lose, because your enemy can be lucky just as easily as you can.
Always seek to make your enemy want to do the things you need him to do.
And, most of all, remember that, in these wet climes, water is your enemy. You can guide water, but you can’t control it. Keep it in the river and out of the streets.
Chapter Nine
Tuesday
It was inconvenient that Joe had arrived for a visit on a Monday, when Faye had two more workdays looming in front of her. But only two days of his visit would go to waste. The all-or-nothing schedule of this kind of fieldwork—ten days on and four days off—gave her a long weekend to anticipate, and she and Joe had planned his visit to make the most of it. He’d just have to sight-see or hang around the battlefield while she worked for a couple of days, then they’d be free to play.
Faye was a homebody. She ordinarily preferred her constantly-under-renovation plantation house over any vacation spot, but she was pretty sure that New Orleans was the most romantic city on earth. Okay, Venice and Rio were contenders, too, but New Orleans was the most romantic city she’d ever seen . And it was hers. Or so she pretended.
Faye’s family braided together as many cultures as New Orleans. She didn’t know squat about her Longchamp ancestors, but their name hinted that they must have been French at some point in history. From the last photo of her father, taken just before he left for Vietnam, it was clear that Africans figured into the Longchamp family tree as well. From his looks, she’d say that more branches on that tree extended back to Africa than to France, but appearances only provide clues to the truth. They are not the truth. Faye was scientist enough to understand that. One day, in her copious spare time, she was going to delve into the Longchamp family’s genealogy.
On her mother’s side, she had ancestors that were undoubtedly French. Others were English and Creek and African. In other words, Faye’s
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