Patriotic Fire (32 page)

The situation languished that way for nearly twenty years, until a Louisiana college history professor mentioned to a colleague who taught languages that there was this manuscript in French in Texas and would he be interested in translating it and seeing if it were genuine? He did, and thus a new edition of
The Memoirs of Jean Laffite
was published in 1999, including forty-two pages of scholarly discussion of its provenance. It is a fair argument on all sides, and just as inconclusive.

Laffite’s writings have been used by any number of historians of the New Orleans battle, including the redoutable Andrew Jackson scholar Dr. Robert Remini, although his
Memoirs
is rarely cited in their notes. Because I chose not to annotate this story, I can hide behind that tree. In the various histories I have written I have both annotated and not annotated, or have used footnotes only to illuminate the story but not included the remorseless endnotes to prove somebody else’s scholarship; if text is in quotations, that means somebody else wrote or said it. As pointed out previously, many of the issues in this book are so contradictory that it would serve nobody’s interests, except those of confusion, to try and document them here in such a way.

The most recent Laffite biographer, William C. Davis, discounts the
Memoirs,
noting correctly that they are “disputed,” and has done hard scholarly work to prove that Jean and Pierre were born in Bordeaux—which may be so, but even his fine book offers no absolute proof of this. Likewise, Davis concludes that Jean died after being wounded in a battle with Spanish ships in 1823 and was buried at sea near Honduras, and that Pierre had died of yellow fever in Mexico the previous year. But he also points out that there are varying accounts of the lives of the Laffites following the war, though he does not consider the one given in the
Memoirs.
Record keeping was poor and hard facts are dimmed through time; there are no absolutely reliable birth or death certificates or tombstones.

The reason I have used John A. Lafflin’s, or Laffite’s, so-called inherited journals (and I used them quite sparingly—mostly in trying to reconstruct Jean’s early life and then his later years after leaving Galveston, but not in connection with the Battle of New Orleans) is one of simple deductive logic: as of right now they cannot be proved or disproved. The price estimated by the Sam Houston Research Center to have them authenticated by modern methods (FBI or other super-scientific time-dating and handwriting laboratories) is probably upward of $25,000, and the center simply doesn’t have the money at this time when so many other pressing human issues are awaiting attention in the Texas state budget.

Here is my opinion. If Laffite’s
Memoirs
is a fake or forgery, then who on earth would have done it, and why, way back then, and then hidden it in a trunk not to be opened for nearly a hundred years? If, as the Library of Congress apparently stated, the paper and ink date back to the nineteenth century, then why would anybody have taken such time to scrawl by hand several hundred pages of this—and in French? There are certainly entries that make one’s flesh crawl, because they do not square with the known facts of Laffite’s participation in the battle; actually, they appear to be the work of a boasting, angry personality, which goes against the popular notion of him as a smooth and suave gentleman privateer. But might they not be the outpouring of an embittered old man, looking back at his past through rose-colored glasses and seeing it in terms of a government that he indisputably helped in its time of need, and which he then believed had betrayed him by confiscating his years of privateering fortune? Also, from comparing the few proven writings of Laffite, the
Memoirs
seem to have his “voice” and, in addition, contain some of his familiar themes.*
 
⁷⁶

History leads to many dead ends, and though I believe my interpretation is likely true, I’m willing to eat crow if I’m proven wrong. (Reminder: “If you have to eat crow, eat it while it’s hot.”) If one has to lean on odds, I would guess the odds at just better than even that Laffite’s
Memoirs
is authentic; but until someone other than a handwriting fortune-teller from New Orleans proves conclusively that the thing is a fake, I’ll stick by my guns.

There is also the matter of Edward A. Parsons, a New Orleans lawyer, Tulane professor, and antiquarian collector who kept a private reference library in a room of his home, which he entitled Bibliothèque Parsoniana, devoted mostly to original documents from the War of 1812 and, most especially, those pertaining to Jean Laffite. In the 1950s Parsons donated this valuable collection to the University of Texas, and it had long been my notion that it must contain priceless historical information on the life and times of the alleged pirate. Although there is certainly solid, valuable information in the collection, it is mostly primary documentation of previously known facts and interpretations, and gives little fresh insight into the man himself.

I
would especially like to thank Wren Murphy for her dogged location of research materials and for organizing them all in large categorized ring binders, which only she knew would make the work so much easier. As usual my wife, Anne-Clinton Groom, was, and remains, tireless in her efforts and support. A profound and grateful thanks for that. My literary agent, Theron Raines, gave invaluable support both to the project and to the manuscript, and Ash Green, my editor at Knopf, astonishes in his eagle eye for error and misuse of language.

A Note About the Author

Winston Groom is the author of fourteen books, including the acclaimed Vietnam War novel
Better Times Than These
and the prizewinning
As Summers Die,
and coauthored
Conversations with the Enemy,
which was nominated for a 1984 Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of the
New York Times
No. 1 best seller
Forrest Gump.
Mr. Groom’s
Shrouds of Glory,
an account of Confederate general John Bell Hood’s decisive actions in the last great campaign of the U.S. Civil War, was published in 1995. He lives with his wife and daughter in Point Clear, Alabama.

Also by Winston Groom

Better Times Than These

As Summers Die

Only

Conversations with the Enemy
(with Duncan Spencer)

Forrest Gump

Shrouds of Glory

Gone the Sun

Gumpisms

Gump & Co.

Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl

The Crimson Tide

A Storm in Flanders

1942

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright © 2006 by Winston Groom

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Groom, Winston, [date]

Patriotic fire : Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans / Winston Groom.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. New Orleans, Battle of, New Orleans, La., 1815. 2. Jackson, Andrew, 1767–1845. 3. Generals—United States—Biography. 4. Laffite, Jean. 5. Pirates—Louisiana—Biography. 6. New Orleans (La.)—History—19th century. I. Title.

e356.
N
5
G
79 2006

973.5'239—dc22                                                                                                                                                                                    2005051001

eISBN: 978-0-307-26531-9

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