The Battle of New Orleans was an engagement fought between January 8 and January 18, 1815, constituting the final major and most one-sided battle of the War of 1812. American combatants, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, prevented the British Army, Royal Marines and a large Royal Navy fleet, commanded by Admiral Alexander Cochrane and General Edward Pakenham, from seizing New Orleans as a strategic tool to end the war by using it as a starting point for an occupation of the vast territory the United States had acquired from the Louisiana Purchase. The British at the time were occupying the Florida Panhandle and attempting a westward expansion through the territory which is the present day Gulfport–Biloxi Mississippi metropolitan area. Strategically, New Orleans would have anchored these conquests. Conditions were harsh for the British who were used to Northern European conditions.