On January 8, 1815, General Andrew Jackson and a ragtag group of Americans decimated a professional army of British Redcoats at the Battle of New Orleans, a critical American port. The victory made Jackson a nationally known war hero and reaffirmed America’s independence from Great Britain.

For the United States, the win marked a step in the nation’s eventual rise as a significant power. For Great Britain, it constituted the loss of 13 North American colonies and foreshadowed the decline of its worldwide empire.

Military historian Harry S. Laver recounts this battle in the first installment of the Library’s Rise and Fall of Empires series in partnership with the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Laver, a professor in the college’s Department of Military History, holds a doctorate in history from the University of Kentucky. He is the author of two books, The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant: A General Who Will Fight and Citizens More than Soldiers: The Kentucky Militia and Society in the Early Republic.