The New Year was only ten days old when word reached them of the disastrous battle at New Orleans, where more than two thousand British troops, many of them seasoned veterans of long years in the Peninsular campaign, had been felled by a relative handful of Americans. And the shocking defeat had occurred, perhaps most tragically, just as Britain had at last believed itself at peace. News of December’s peace agreements, celebrated by the European allies over the holidays, simply had not traveled across the Atlantic in time to prevent the continuation of hostilities and the carnage on American soil. Even the Duke of Wellington’s brother-in-law, Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham, had been lost at New Orleans. Lord David’s regiment of House Guards, the Coldstream regiment, had not been in America or Louisiana, but as he’d previously served with many of the other officers on the Peninsula, he must have felt the loss keenly. With receipt of the news, he apparently had not waited to be summoned.
