IX

CROWN POINT, FORT WILLIAM HENRY, AND TICONDEROGA

While General Braddock was at Williamsburg in the spring of 1755, discussing plans for the summer, he was visited by Governor Shirley, and a very extensive scheme of campaigning was laid out. While Braddock was to advance against Fort Duquesne, Shirley was to conduct a force, consisting largely of New England troops, to the Niagara River by way of the Mohawk valley and Oswego. At the same time a force commanded by William Johnson was to wrest from the French the control of Lake Champlain, and yet another force under Colonel Monckton was to proceed against the French on the Acadian frontier. The expedition against Niagara was to be commanded by Shirley himself, and he also undertook to provide a leader for the operations against Crown Point. Few royal governors had so much success in dealing with their legislatures as Shirley, who was conspicuous for moderation and tact. He knew how to make his demands seem reasonable

in amount, and he knew how to urge them so gracefully as to make it hard to refuse them. In the present instance he had to deal with the four New England colonies and New York; and he understood very well that he could not appoint a commander from anyone of the New England commonwealths without offending the other three. But against the appointment of William Johnson nothing could very well be said, since the aid of the Iroquois seemed important and Johnson’s influence over them was well known. Besides, the expedition was to be directed toward points in the Mohawk country. For these reasons Shirley selected Johnson to command the movement against Crown Point, and it proved a good selection. It greatly pleased New York and the Long House, and no serious objection was made in New England except that Connecticut insisted that one of her own officers, Phineas Lyman, should be second in command, and this, too, was a good selection. There was much delay, owing to the necessity for communicating with five different legislatures, and the larger part of the summer had passed away before anything was accomplished. The sad news of Braddock’s defeat came like an augury of disaster to Johnson and his men as they were approaching the upper waters of the Hudson in August. Along with this news

came a report from the north that the French were coming with eight thousand men to defend Lake Champlain.

Johnson’s little army consisted almost entirely of New England yeomanry, many of whom were now for the first time in training for the tasks that awaited them in 1775 and the ensuing years. Among them were names afterward so important as those of Seth Pomeroy, Israel Putnam, and John Stark. The training now gained by these men and their comrades made veterans of them for the opening scene of the later war.

The movements were slow and the delays incessant, partly because the business of moving an army was so ill understood. Cannon, ammunition, and camp kettles would be forgotten and left on the way; wagons would not arrive at the right time, either because distances had been miscalculated, or because the wagoners were disappointed of their pay and spiteful; the stock of bullets delivered to a regiment would not fit their muskets; stores of food were delayed until men were oppressed with hunger; and so on through the usual list of mishaps attendant upon bad logistics. By the third week in August this New England army had arrived at a point on the Hudson River where a fortress then partly built was called Fort Lyman, a place which afterward acquired celebrity as Fort Edward. There

they were joined by three hundred Mohawks. From Fort Lyman to Crown Point two routes were available: one by way of Lake George, the other by way of Wood Creek, which emptied into the long, narrow head of Lake Champlain. These two routes united at Ticonderoga, about twenty-five miles south of Crown Point. After some discussion it was decided to follow the route by Lake George, which was then known by its French name of Lake Sacrement, but Johnson gave it the name of the British king, partly by way of asserting his dominion over it. Leaving five hundred men to complete Fort Lyman, Johnson moved with the other two thousand to the head of Lake George, and encamped there.

Meanwhile, the French commander, Baron Dieskau, had arrived at Crown Point with a force of more than thirty-five hundred men, and decided to push forward and find the enemy. At Ticonderoga he received information from an English prisoner which was intended to draw him into a trap. The prisoner informed him that five hundred of the New England army were at Fort Lyman, but the remainder had for some unknown reason turned back and retreated upon Albany. This story seemed to offer to Dieskau an easy conquest of Fort Lyman, and he pursued his way with all haste southward by Lake Champlain

to what was called the South Bay, the head of which was about halfway between Wood Creek and Lake George. Thence he marched directly toward Fort Lyman, and had arrived within four miles of it when he captured a letter which disclosed the truth, that the principal body of New Englanders were encamped at the head of Lake George. Dieskau had with him six hundred Indians under Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, and these allies suggested that they would greatly prefer to attack the open camp rather than the fort. Indians, indeed, had no love for encountering cannon. When it was objected that there seemed to be more English in the open camp than in the fort, it was replied that the English were wretched fighters, and would think of nothing but running away. The victory over Braddock was cited with exultation, and several painted chieftains yelped with delight as they assured Dieskau that the more English there were in the camp the more scalps there would be to bring away. Thus persuaded, if not convinced, Dieskau gave orders to march directly upon Lake George.

Meanwhile in Johnson’s camp, when scouts announced the approach of a large French force, its size was underestimated, and at first two parties, each of five hundred men, were ordered out by different trails to attack it. Then the

veteran Mohawk chief Hendrick picked up a couple of stout sticks and tried in vain to break them, but immediately thereafter took them separately and broke them with ease. “Very well,” quoth Johnson, “let them take the same trail.” But even now the old red skin was not quite satisfied. “If their aim is victory,” he said, “there are not enough of them; but if they are going to be defeated, there are too many to lose.” The upshot was that Dieskau, receiving intelligence of this advancing party, laid an ambush and inflicted upon it a severe defeat, in which the veteran Hendrick and many well-known New England officers were killed.

Emboldened by this success, and half believing the slanders against English courage, Dieskau pressed on to attack Johnson’s camp, but the latter was strongly fortified with earthworks and with trunks of fallen trees. The most desperate efforts of the French to carry the place by storm were fruitless, and after they had fought until their strength was nearly exhausted, the New Englanders came leaping over the works in a deadly charge, and the Frenchmen were driven from the field with heavy slaughter. Among the killed was the Chevalier de Saint-Pierre, whose interview with George Washington at Fort Le Bœuf had been the opening scene of this great drama.

Dieskau was wounded and taken prisoner, and Johnson’s Mohawks were furiously eager to burn him, but the Irishman treated him with great kindness and courtesy, and assured him, “They will not burn you until they burn me with you.”

There is not time to go into the disputed questions which cluster about this as about most battles. New England men have claimed the chief credit for Lyman,¹ to whom they allege that Johnson never did justice; and I am inclined to think this judgment is, on the whole, well supported. The chief credit at the time accrued to Johnson, and the promptness of his reward is an index to the chagrin which was felt in England over the defeat of Braddock. Johnson was at once made a baronet. As for the victory, it would have been a very important one if Johnson had followed it up and destroyed the enemy’s force. Much fault was found with him for not doing this, but, as has often happened in such cases, the reasons for his inaction are not easy to explain. With the victory, such as it was, the English were obliged to rest content for some time to come. For Shirley’s expedition against Niagara was a complete failure. Shirley penetrated the New York wilderness as far as Oswego, from which it was possible to reach the Niagara

River in boats in the course of five or six days. But there was a French force of fourteen hundred men at Fort Frontenac. This was about equal to Shirley’s full force. If he were to leave men enough at Oswego to defend the works, he would not be able to go on with force enough to accomplish his object; but if he were to proceed westward with his full force, the French from Fort Frontenac would at once capture Oswego and expose him to starvation. There was no escape from the dilemma, and it became necessary to abandon the campaign.

The winter which followed was one of such misery on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania as had never been witnessed before. Firebrand and tomahawk were perpetually busy, and it proved impossible to concentrate forces in such way as to deal with the horror. It was a winter of bitter contention in legislatures, and of gloom and fault-finding everywhere.

At last, in May, 1756, nearly two years after Washington’s little campaign at Great Meadows, England declared war against France, and the most memorable war of modern times was begun. Frederick of Prussia, in beginning to build up a modern Germany out of the soundest elements that had survived the general devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, had contrived to enlist against himself a powerful coalition.

By his seizure of Silesia he had made a permanent enemy of Austria. Maria Theresa, having failed to recover Silesia in the recent war, was ready to try again; and she found a formidable ally in Elizabeth of Russia, who was ready to attack Prussia for various reasons, all of them sharpened and embittered by the deadliest of insults when Frederick had called her by an epithet that was strictly true. To these two powers was added that of France, which was coming to forebode more danger from Prussia than from Austria. In such a combination the alliance of England with Prussia was marked out by all sound policy. From the narrowest point of view, George II. would find his principality of Hanover thus better protected, while from the widest point of view, the contest for colonial empire could best be carried on while the military strength of France was largely absorbed in warfare on the continent of Europe. The English treasury was thus the mainstay of Frederick the Great, who put every penny of the money thus received to the best possible use by sustaining single-handed a victorious contest against Russia, Austria, and France

While Frederick was winning some of the most astonishing victories the world has seen, and keeping his three antagonists at bay, the fight for control of the colonial world was carried on by England with great advantage against France in North America and in Hindostan.

It was not in a moment, however, that the English world reaped the advantages of this new combination of forces, for it happened that the choice made by the French minister for a commander-in-chief in America proved to be exceptionally fortunate. The appointment of Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, was an appointment for long-tried merit. He was forty-four years of age, having been born in the neighbourhood of Nîmes in 1712. He had an excellent education, especially in Greek and Latin classics and philology, and his literary tastes were such that one of the great objects of his ambition was to become a member of the Academy. In his leisure moments he was always engaged in reading and study. During the war of the Austrian Succession he had served with great distinction, and he was recognized by competent judges as one of the ablest officers in the French service. When he came to America he left behind him in his charming country home at Candiac, near Nîmes, a wife and six children, besides his mother. Montcalm was a man of strong family

affections and intense love of home, as we see from many charming allusions in his journal and letters while campaigning in the New World.

His voyage of nearly six weeks was a rough one, and sometimes dangerous. In a letter to his wife he says: “The forecastle was always under water, and the waves broke twice over the quarter-deck. From the 22d of April to the evening of the 4th of May we had fogs, great cold, and an amazing quantity of icebergs. On the 30th, when luckily the fog lifted for a time, we counted sixteen of them. The day before, one drifted under the bowsprit, grazed it, and might have crushed us if the deck-officer had not called out quickly, Luff. After speaking of our troubles and sufferings, I must tell you of our pleasures, which were fishing for cod and eating it. The taste is exquisite. The head, tongue, and liver are morsels worthy of an epicure. Still, I would not advise anybody to make the voyage for their sake. My health is as good as it has been for a long time. I found it a good plan to eat little and take no supper; a little tea now and then, and plenty of lemonade. Nevertheless I have taken very little liking for the sea, and think that when I shall be so happy as to rejoin you I shall end my voyages there. I don’t know when this letter

will go. I shall send it by the first ship that returns to France, and keep on writing till then. It is pleasant, I know, to hear particulars about the people one loves, and I thought that my mother and you, my dearest and most beloved, would be glad to read all these dull details. We heard mass on Easter Day. All the week before, it was impossible, because the ship rolled so that I could hardly keep my legs. If I had dared, I think I should have had myself lashed fast. I shall not soon forget that Holy Week.”¹

When Montcalm arrived in Montreal, his reception by Governor Vaudreuil was far from cordial. Vaudreuil aspired to military fame, and thought himself competent to direct military operations on a large scale as well as to command either Canadian militia or French regulars. He liked, moreover, to have everything his own way, and knew very well that he was not likely always to prevail over a strong-willed and energetic general-in-chief. Besides, Vaudreuil was a native of Canada, having been born there during his father’s administration, and between Canadians and Frenchmen from the old country there was somewhat the same kind of jealousy that existed between Americans and British. The coldness between Montcalm and the governor

sometimes had an ill effect upon the French operations.

Nevertheless the arrival of Montcalm was soon signalized by a heavy blow to the English. In a certain sense the blow was prepared by the English themselves. We have seen how Shirley’s expedition had been turned back at Oswego by French demonstrations from Fort Frontenac. Such a failure was of course inevitable for any expedition directed against Niagara, unless Fort Frontenac were first captured. After Shirley’s return to New York the general discontent assumed the form of a quarrel between him and Johnson, and several persons of influence in New York wrote to the minister requesting that another commander-in-chief be appointed in his stead. The ministry replied by appointing John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, to the chief command in America; but as this particular Campbell was slow in coming, they sent General James Abercrombie in advance of him, and as Abercrombie was not quite ready, they sent Colonel Daniel Webb; insomuch that Shirley, who was just preparing a new campaign against Oswego, had to turn over the command to Webb, who turned it over to Abercrombie, who turned it over to Loudoun,—and so much swapping of horses in mid-stream, as President Lincoln would have said, was not conducive to promptness and

unity of operation. As for the new commander-in-chief, he was as poor a choice as could have been made. Shirley was a mere amateur soldier, but he had courage, quickness, and discretion. Loudoun, on the other hand, was dull, sleepy, and irresolute,—the kind of man who would be likely to stop halfway in any important undertaking. Dr. Franklin summed him up very well when he compared him to Saint George on the tavern signboards, always on horseback, but never getting ahead.

The effect of the arrivals of Webb and Abercrombie was to delay an expedition which Shirley would have sent to Oswego in the hope of moving from that point against Fort Frontenac. When Loudoun arrived, late in July, he determined to concentrate his efforts against Ticonderoga, where the French had erected a new fortress, and to content himself on Lake Ontario by merely holding Oswego. Having thus decided, he allowed time to slip away without reinforcing Oswego. This was bad generalship, since if the French were to take Oswego, they would not only cut off the English from Niagara but would have their hands free to concentrate against them at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. After Loudoun’s arrival at Albany, all operations were brought to a standstill by a silly

order of the king in council that all generals and colonels holding commissions from the colonial governments should rank only on the level of senior captains. Such an arrangement might have put the entire provincial army under the command of a British major. While hot disputes were raging over this matter, Loudoun suddenly remembered the need of Oswego and sent Webb in all haste with reinforcements, but this hurry at the eleventh hour was unavailing. When Webb arrived at the great portage between the Mohawk valley and Lake Ontario, about where Fort Stanwix was afterwards built, and near the site of the present city of Rome, he learned with dismay that Montcalm had captured Oswego. It was even so. While Loudoun had been dawdling, Montcalm had been acting. He had crossed from Fort Frontenac, invested Oswego, and pressed the siege so vigorously that the garrison of fourteen hundred men with two or three hundred non-combatants surrendered, prisoners of war. Among the spoils were more than a hundred light cannon. Here something occurred which was ominous of future horror. A few of Montcalm’s Indians began murdering prisoners, and it was only with great difficulty and by making lavish promises that he succeeded in restraining those painted demons. He reckoned that the presents to be given them

as a ransom for the prisoners would amount to ten or twelve thousand livres.

The following winter witnessed many scenes of partisan warfare which we need not here stop to describe. The summer of 1757 found things looking ill for the English cause. The French had destroyed Oswego, which was for them an outpost dangerously near the strongholds of the Six Nations, but while they held Fort Frontenac they could prevent the English from reaching the Niagara River, and this fact, together with their possession of Fort Duquesne, seemed to have given them the victory so far as the whole interior of the continent was concerned. The effect of the capture of Oswego upon the Indians was very great. One day a party from Lake Superior came to see Montcalm, and their spokesman thus addressed him: “We wanted to see this famous man who tramples the English under his feet. We thought we should find him so tall that his head would be lost in the clouds. But you are a little man, my father. It is when we look into your eyes that we see the greatness of the pine-tree and the fire of the eagle.”¹

It remained to see what could be done in the direction of Lake Champlain or in that

of Cape Breton Island. The Earl of Loudoun decided that the most important thing to be done was to capture Louisburg, and to that end he started with more than ten thousand men and seventeen ships-of-the-line, and after wasting the whole summer retired to the mainland because he heard that a French fleet was approaching which outnumbered him by one ship. He was an apt scholar of that worthy king of France who marched his forty thousand men up a hill and down again.

But while Loudoun seems to have been incapable of achieving anything, he was able to spoil much. These mighty preparations for Louisburg went far towards stripping the Hudson River of its defenders, so that Montcalm was able to entertain thoughts of advancing southward and capturing Albany. For this purpose there were assembled at Ticonderoga in July a force of seventy-six hundred Frenchmen and Canadians with eighteen hundred Indians, a force unusually large and unwieldy. The story of Braddock’s defeat and the fall of Oswego had penetrated far and wide throughout the wilderness, and among the bedizened chiefs who were gathered between Lake Champlain and Lake George were some from distant Iowa, whose language none of the white

men, not even those most familiar with the forest, could understand. They made no secret of the fact that they had come for feasting and pelf. Such gormandizers the Frenchmen said they had never seen. Long rows of oxen roasted whole disappeared with amazing celerity, and wild fowl vanished as if they had taken to wing and flown down the red men’s throats. When, however, it came to eating human flesh, our Frenchmen winced at the sight. As for brandy and rum, it was necessary to guard the casks with great care to prevent these thirsty allies from breaking them open; and when the Indians were thoroughly drunk their ferocity became uncontrollable; they quarrelled incessantly, and bit and tore each other with their teeth like wild beasts. It was not easy for the French to restrain these creatures, for if they had been prevented from eating prisoners and drinking rum, they would have taken offence and gone trooping off on other business, and in that wilderness they were as necessary to the French as cavalry are necessary in civilized warfare. It has been said that the eyes of an army are its cavalry; it might be truly said that the eyes of the French force in the wilderness were its Indian scouts.

The only English force opposed to Montcalm consisted of twenty-six hundred men at

Fort Edward, under the immediate command of General Webb, and twelve hundred at the head of Lake George, where Johnson had formerly defeated Dieskau. It was shameful mis management on the part of Loudoun to leave this important point so weakly guarded. When Webb learned that the French were likely to make an attack, he intended to move his men from Fort Edward to Lake George, but he presently desisted from this lest the French should seize the occasion to come down by way of South Bay,¹ slip around his right flank, and move upon Albany. The expedient of withdrawing his weak advance force to the meeting of routes at Fort Edward does not seem to have occurred to him. So he sent forward a thousand men, thus raising the numbers at Lake George to twenty-two hundred. This force was protected by strong lines of works which Johnson had called Fort William Henry, and also by huge trunks of felled trees scattered in various directions.

Against this fortress Montcalm started on the 1st of August with a force of seven thousand Frenchmen and sixteen hundred Indians, leaving a garrison of four hundred men at Ticonderoga. On arriving at Fort William Henry he sent a summons to the commander, Colonel

Monro, to surrender, but Monro refused, and presently the French general found himself obliged to proceed by regular methods of siege, opening parallels, planting batteries, and pounding the works. While this was going on, a letter from General Webb was captured by the French. It was written to inform Colonel Monro that General Webb would be unable to come to his assistance until further reinforcements should arrive, for which he had sent repeated requests down the river. After reading this welcome information, Montcalm kept it in his pocket two or three days until some bad breaches had been made in the English works, and then he sent it in to Colonel Monro with a flag of truce and many compliments upon his bravery. Monro politely dismissed the flag and continued to earn the compliments by holding out until the close of the eighth day; by that time his heavy guns were all silenced, three hundred of his men were killed, and a considerable portion of the garrison were disabled with smallpox. Under these circumstances Monro capitulated. His force was to march out with the honours of war and to retain one cannon as a present in token of their gallantry. Before the articles were signed Montcalm called a meeting of the Indian chiefs, and received from them a solemn promise confirmed in every manner

known to the Indian mind that there should be no molestation of the prisoners. The chiefs were unanimous in making this promise, and asseverated with much earnestness that they would restrain their young warriors from any acts of cruelty or plunder. No sooner, however, had the garrison left the fort, than a rabble of Indians swarmed in and instantly tomahawked all the men who were confined to their beds by sickness.

This incident was like the tiger’s foretaste of blood. The Indians were too numerous to be kept in control by their French allies. They understood their power, and were to the last degree indignant at the prospect of being baulked in their bloodthirsty fury. The next morning, according to agreement, the English column started for Fort Edward with an escort of Canadian militia. At the moment of starting, a large party of Indians tomahawked and scalped seventeen wounded men in the presence of an inadequate French force that had been sent to guard them. Not long after the march had begun another party rushed up from under cover of the trees and seized some seventy or eighty New Hampshire soldiers, and dragging them off under cover, massacred them at leisure. The short journey to Fort Edward was an evil one, for such acts of murder kept recurring in spite of

Montcalm’s persistent and furious efforts to prevent them. It is said that in the course of the march the Indians succeeded in dragging six or seven hundred persons from the column; but Montcalm was able to rescue from four to five hundred of these. The exact number of the victims has never been satisfactorily estimated, but it was enough to make Fort William Henry a name of horror to Americans for many a long year. To Montcalm it was an abiding grief; but while we must acquit the general of any share of this atrocity, it can hardly be denied that some of the French officers showed culpable weakness, acting as if they were more than half afraid of the red men themselves, so that they were over-cautious about drawing the wrath of the murderers upon themselves. Take it for all in all, it is one of the blackest incidents in the history of our country.

Before the next season of campaigning a great change had been made in England. By a happy stroke of fortune the conduct of military operations throughout the empire had been put into the hands of William Pitt, the greatest war minister and organizer of victory that the world has seen. It boded no good to France when the genius of Pitt was called upon to cooperate with that of Frederick of Prussia. Pitt had a supreme capacity for

administration and an infallible eye for the selection of men to carry out his plans. He was never confused by petty details, but saw through them to the great underlying principles. He delighted in large ideas, as is shown by the fact that the maritime supremacy of England, the winning of the Mississippi valley for English-speaking America, and the creation of a renovated Protestant empire in Germany were in his mind the closely allied phases of one stupendous scheme. Along with these high intellectual qualifications, there was in Pitt a magnetic glow of lofty emotion which seemed at once under his leadership to inspire the whole English people. It was said of him that no man ever entered his presence without going away a better, citizen and a braver man. In an age when most statesmen looked with tolerance upon corruption, and when domestic morals were not upon a high plane, Pitt was absolutely spotless in public and in private life, and the popular faith in his disinterestedness was never disappointed. He was a democrat, too, after the fashion of the eighteenth century, and for the first time since the death of Cromwell the English people felt that they had a leader who represented the whole nation, from the highest to the lowest. In America the feeling toward him was nearly as strong as in England, so that when

he began by informing the New England colonies that he should have to ask them for twenty thousand men, they replied with greater willingness than when formerly they had been asked for one fourth of that number.

One of Pitt’s first acts was to recall the incompetent Loudoun and to replace him by a general of tried ability, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and among his subordinate generals was the youthful James Wolfe, of whom we shall presently hear more. Pitt would have been glad to remove Abercrombie, but influences were brought to bear in behalf of that general of such a nature that it did not seem altogether wise to disregard them. He was accordingly retained in command of the forces on the Hudson River, while Pitt sent over to be his second in command Lord Howe, whom Wolfe called the best soldier in the English army, and who was unquestionably an officer of rare personality and extraordinary powers. This George Augustus, Viscount Howe was the elder brother of the famous admiral, Richard, Viscount Howe, and of Sir William Howe, who commanded the British army in America a few years later. These three brothers were grandsons of George I., whose daughter by the Baroness Kielmannsegge married Emanuel, Viscount Howe. They were half-cousins to the reigning king, George II.

All three studied military affairs from their earliest years; all three were warm friends to the American colonists; but this was especially true of the eldest brother, George Augustus. In sending him to America Pitt had reason to believe that he would prove the real guiding spirit of Abercrombie’s army. We have now to see how an adverse fate exacted yet one more costly sacrifice before all the benefits of the new change in administration were realized.

At the end of June, 1758, Abercrombie’s army was encamped at the head of Lake George where Johnson had defeated Dieskau three years before, and where scarcely ten months had elapsed since the horrors of Fort William Henry. Abercrombie had collected at that spot more than six thousand British regulars and nine thousand provincial troops; in all, more than fifteen thousand, the largest army that had ever been collected in North America. The task before him was to do what Johnson had failed to do, to move upon Montcalm at Ticonderoga and defeat him. By the 4th of July all the arrangements were completed, and next morning the whole army embarked in bateaux and canoes on Lake George. It was an imposing sight, eloquently described by more than one contemporary pen. It soon appeared that Pitt had not been wrong in supposing that Lord Howe would prove to

be the life of the army. His popularity was unbounded with all ranks, from the commander down to the private soldiers. On his first arrival in America he had seized an opportunity for learning something about the conditions of warfare in the wilderness, for he sought with the true insight of genius to adapt himself to new conditions. He would lay aside all cumbersome baggage and trim away all useless apparel, cutting down long coats into jackets, making the men wear leather leggings for protection in the brush, and carry meal in their knapsacks, which they could at any time cook for themselves. In all such things he himself set the example.

At noon of July 6 the flotilla had reached the northern end of Lake George, where it narrows into a crooked river or strait communicating with Lake Champlain at the mouth of Wood Creek. The whole force was speedily landed, and began its march on the west side of the river. Robert Rogers led the way with a couple of New England regiments,but presently became entangled in woods so dense that the rays of the sun could hardly find their way in. Here, after a while, they became confused, and were at a loss in which direction to move. A party of three hundred and fifty French under Langy had been watching the landing from an eminence between the river

and Trout Brook. Before they could retreat from that spot the whole English army had advanced so far as to cut them asunder from their main army at Ticonderoga, but Langy was an old hand at bushranging, and he thought that by crossing to the north of Trout Brook he could describe a semicircle and reach Ticonderoga. Thus the three hundred and fifty Frenchmen under Langy and the two New England regiments under Rogers were wandering in a forest which at midday was nearly as dark as night. And here the Frenchmen, too, soon lost their bearings. At the very head of the English column was Lord Howe with Major Israel Putnam, when all at once a rustling was heard among the branches, and a sharp cry of “Qui vive?” The answer, “Français,” was prompt enough, but some of Langy’s men had sharp eyes, and even in that pitch darkness could tell the British scarlet from the French white. Langy’s reply was a volley which slew Lord Howe and wrecked the fortunes of an army. The further result of this chance collision was the defeat of Langy’s party, most of which was captured, but when this densest piece of woods had been traversed, and the news of what had happened flew from rank to rank, it is said the spirit of the whole army was dashed, and high hopes gave place to consternation. So greatly had this young officer

endeared himself to people in the short time since his arrival in America, that at the news of his death there was weeping throughout the northern colonies. The commonwealth of Massachusetts afterward erected a monument to Howe in Westminster Abbey.

Nobody felt the loss more keenly than Abercrombie, who had been depending upon Howe’s advice. He had need of such advice after coming within touch of the French position. Across the plateau northwest of the fortress of Ticonderoga there runs a ridge which Montcalm had fortified by felling trees in such wise as to make a zigzag parapet, so that an approaching foe could be torn between flank fires of grapeshot and musketry. On the inner side was a platform from which to fire, and the parapet was so high that nothing could be seen of the French soldiers standing upon the platform except the crowns of their hats. Along the entire front of the parapet the ground was covered with intertwisted boughs presenting a myriad sharp points to any approaching foe. Now this position was obviously one which could hardly be carried by infantry armed with muskets, but to a general who possessed the slightest inventiveness of mind it was very far from being an impregnable position. Indeed, Montcalm had been slow in making up his mind whether to try to hold Ticonderoga or to

retreat upon Crown Point, and when at last he decided to fortify this position, his resolution was somewhat hastily taken. It is probable that Montcalm made a mistake in trying to defend the point of land upon which the fortress of Ticonderoga stood, for there were several ways in which Abercrombie might have defeated him. He might have sent back to the landing place and brought up all his cannon and used them to batter down these wooden obstructions before charging them with his infantry. That, one would suppose, would have been a mere ordinary precaution. And then, there was a hill in the immediate neighbourhood where Abercrombie might have planted a few batteries that could have torn the French army to pieces, and must have obliged them to change their position at once. Precisely such a use of that hill was made in 1777 by General Burgoyne, with the desired result of taking Ticonderoga, and since that occasion it has been known as Mount Defiance. Yet again, if Abercrombie had made a feint with part of his army upon Montcalm’s position, while with his main force he had marched about five miles on the road to Crown Point, he would have found the lake there so narrow that he might have commanded the whole of it with batteries, and thus cut off Montcalm’s retreat and left it for starvation

to do the rest. It would seem, therefore, that Montcalm was rescued from a perilous situation by the stupidity of his enemy, and it is among the possibilities that he may have counted upon that very circumstance. There is a curious analogy between this battle of Ticonderoga and those of Bunker Hill and New Orleans. At Bunker Hill the American force was completely at the mercy of the British, and might have been forced to surrender without the loss of a life. This would have been done if the British had simply gone by water and occupied Charlestown Neck, but the brother of the young general slain at Ticonderoga preferred to assault intrenchments and suffered accordingly.¹ So, too, at New Orleans. It was not necessary for Sir Edward Pakenham to assault Andrew Jackson’s intrenchments, for he might have advanced up the further bank of the Mississippi River and turned the whole position, but he preferred the bulldog method, and very probably Jackson should have the credit of having known his man.

With regard to Abercrombie, he seems to have been influenced by undue haste. A rumour reached him that reinforcements were on the way to Montcalm, and therefore he was anxious to adopt the quickest method. Besides, he seems to have harboured that fallacious notion that one

Englishman can under any circumstances beat three Frenchmen. At all events, on the forenoon of July 8 the assault was ordered. The instructions to the English infantry were to carry the works by a solid bayonet charge, an order which seems almost incredible, for as might have been expected, the compactness needed for a bayonet charge was almost instantly broken up by the tangle of pointed boughs and the trunks lying in all directions upon the ground, and presently the assailants, caught in a hailstorm of grape and musket shot on either flank, could only answer by firing in turn. Again and again, with astounding gallantry, the men from New England and Old England returned to the charge. Between noon and nightfall they made six assaults of the most desperate character, sometimes almost winning their way over the parapet, but of course the situation was utterly hopeless. The greater the bravery, the sadder the loss of life. At twilight, when the firing ceased, Abercrombie had lost in killed and wounded two thousand men.¹

Even after all this useless waste of life, there was no reason why the English should have retreated. Montcalm was in no condition to take the offensive, and it would still have been

in Abercrombie’s power to march down the Crown Point road and cut off all supplies from the French army; but our accounts agree in representing the general’s conduct as disgraceful. He seems to have lost his head, and thought only of escaping, as if from a superior foe. By the time he had returned to the head of Lake George, Abercrombie found himself a laughingstock. People called him a poltroon, an old woman, Mrs. Nabbycrombie, and such other nicknames and epithets as served to relieve their feelings.

It was indeed a dark day for New England when the death of Lord Howe deprived the army of its brains. Of all the disasters of the war, perhaps none struck so near home as Ticonderoga. But the tide of misfortune had reached its height, and was already turning. We have now to take up the story of Louisburg, of Fort Frontenac and Niagara, of Fort Duquesne and Quebec,—a story fraught with good cheer for English-speaking America.