Old Ursuline Convent Museum

This guide to the Old Ursuline Convent Museum in New Orleans opens on the night of January 7th, 1815, as cannon fire rolled in from Chalmette and the city's nuns and terrified residents knelt before a small statue of the Virgin, refusing to stop praying. You'll hear about the badly outnumbered force under General Jackson gathering nearby, and the vow the convent's mother superior made that night if the city was spared. The trail leads to a statue later crowned uptown in the country's first Marian coronation. Stand in the courtyard, where the promise made that night was kept for two centuries after.