Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (30 page)

1
Pichon to Captain Scott,
14
Oct
. 1754, in
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
229.

2
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
223, 224, 226, 227, 238.

3
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
239.

1
Shirley to Robinson,
20
June,
1755.

2
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760. An English document,
State of the English and French Forts in Nova Scotia,
says 1,200 to 1,400.

3
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760.

1
Winslow,
Journal and Letter Book
.
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760. Letters from officers on the spot in
Boston Evening Post
and
Boston News Letter
.
Journal of Surgeon John Thomas
.

2
“11 June. Capt. Adams went with a Company of Raingers, and Returned at 11 Clock with a Coach and Sum other Plunder.”
Journal of John Thomas
.

3
Journal of Pichon,
cited by Beamish Murdoch.

1
On the capture of Beauséjour,
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760; Pichon,
Cape Breton,
318;
Journal of Pichon,
cited by Murdoch; and the English accounts already mentioned.

2
Knox,
Campaigns in North America,
I. 114,
note
. Knox, who was stationed in Nova Scotia, says that Le Loutre left behind him “a most remarkable character for inhumanity.”

1
Winslow,
Journal
.
Villeray áu Ministre,
20
Sept
. 1755.

2
Drucour au Ministre,
1
Déc
. 1755.

3
Mémoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie,
1759.
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760.

1
L’Évéque de Québec à Le Loutre, Nov
. 1754, in
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
240.

2
Ibid
., 242.

1
Lords of Trade to Lawrence,
4
March,
1754.

2
Lawrence to Lords of Trade,
1
Aug
. 1754.

3
Histoire philosophique et politique,
VI. 242 (ed. 1772).

1
Beauharnois et Hocquart au Comte de Maurepas,
12
Sept
. 1745.

2
Dieréville (
Relation du Voyage du Port-Royal
), in a whimsical mixture of prose and verse, gives a faithful picture of the Acadians as he knew them early in the century. Scattered notices of them occur in many documents, chiefly French, from 1700 to 1755.

3
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
228.

1
Minutes of Council at Halifax,
3
July,
1755, in
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
247-255.

1
Lawrence to Lords of Trade,
18
July,
1755.

2
Minutes of Council,
4
July
-28
July,
in
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
255-267. Copies of these and other parts of the record were sent at the time to England, and are now in the Public Record Office, along with the letters of Lawrence.

1
On the oath and its history, compare a long note by Mr. Akin in
Public Documents of Nova Scotia,
263-267. Winslow in his Journal gives an abstract of a memorial sent him by the Acadians, in which they say that they had refused the oath, and so forfeited their lands, from motives of religion. I have shown in a former chapter that the priests had been the chief instruments in preventing them from accepting the English government. Add the following:—
“Les malheurs des Accadiens sont beaucoup moins leur ouvrage que le fruit des sollicitations et des démarches des missionnaires.”
Vaudreuil au Ministre,
6
Mai,
1760.
“Si nous avons la guerre, et si les Accadiens sont misérables, souvenez-vous que ce sont les prêtres qui en sont la cause.”
Boishébert à Manach,
21
Fév
. 1760. Both these writers had encouraged the priests in their intrigues so long as these were likely to profit the French Government, and only blamed them after they failed to accomplish what was expected of them.
“Nous avons six missionnaires dont l’occupation perpetuelle est de porter les esprits au fanatisme et à la vengeance. . . . Je ne puis supporter dans nos prêtres ces odieuses déclamations qu’ils font tous les jours aux sauvages: ‘Les Anglois sont les ennemis de Dieu, les compagnons du Diable.’ ” Pichon,
Lettres et Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire du Cap-Breton,
160, 161. (La Haye, 1760.)

1
See his portrait, at the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

1
Also
Boishébert à Drucourt,
10
Oct
. 1755, an exaggerated account.
Vaudreuil au Ministre,
18
Oct.
1755, sets Boishébert’s force at one hundred and twenty-five men.

1
Haliburton, who knew Winslow’s Journal only by imperfect extracts, erroneously states that the men put on board the vessels were sent away immediately. They remained at Grand Pré several weeks, and were then sent off at intervals with their families.

2
Murray to Winslow,
26
Sept
. 1755.

1
In spite of Winslow’s care, some cases of separation of families occurred; but they were not numerous.

2
Winslow to Monckton,
3
Nov
. 1755.

3
Ibid
.

4
Captain Adams to Winslow,
29
Nov
. 1755; see also Knox, I. 85, who exactly confirms Adams’s figures.

5
Monckton to Winslow,
7
Oct
. 1755.

6
Le Guerne à Prévost,
10
Mars,
1756.

1
Lettre commune de Drucour et Prévost au Ministre,
6
Avril,
1756.
Vaudreuil au Ministre,
1
Juin,
1756.

2
Hutchinson,
Hist
.
Mass
., III. 42,
note
.

3
Bougainville,
Journal,
1756-1758. His statements are sustained by
Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760.

1
It may not be remembered that the predecessor of Louis XV., without the slightest provocation or the pretence of any, gave orders that the whole Protestant population of the colony of New York, amounting to about eighteen thousand, should be seized, despoiled of their property, placed on board his ships, and dispersed among the other British colonies in such a way that they could not reunite. Want of power alone prevented the execution of the order. See
Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV
., 189, 190.

IX

1755

D
IESKAU

Expedition against Crown Point · William Johnson · Vaudreuil · Dieskau · Johnson and the Indians · The Provincial Army · Doubts and Delays · March to Lake George · Sunday in Camp · Advance of Dieskau · He changes Plan · Marches against Johnson · Ambush · Rout of Provincials · Battle of Lake George · Rout of the French · Rage of the Mohawks · Peril of Dieskau · Inaction of Johnson · The Homeward March · Laurels of Victory

The next stroke of the campaign was to be the capture of Crown Point, that dangerous neighbor which, for a quarter of a century, had threatened the northern colonies. Shirley, in January, had proposed an attack on it to the Ministry; and in February, without waiting their reply, he laid the plan before his Assembly. They accepted it, and voted money for the pay and maintenance of twelve hundred men, provided the adjacent colonies would contribute in due proportion.
¹
Massachusetts showed a military activity worthy of the reputation she had won. Forty-five hundred of her men, or one in eight of her adult males, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted for the various expeditions, some in the pay of the province, and some in that of the King.
²
It remained to name a commander for the Crown Point enterprise. Nobody had power to do so, for Braddock was not yet come; but that time might not be lost, Shirley, at the request of his Assembly, took the responsibility on himself. If he had named a Massachusetts officer, it would have roused the jealousy of the other New England colonies; and he therefore appointed William Johnson of New York, thus gratifying that important province and pleasing the Five Nations, who at this time looked on Johnson with even more than usual favor. Hereupon, in reply to his request, Connecticut voted twelve hundred men, New Hampshire five hundred, and Rhode Island four hundred, all at their own charge; while New York, a little later, promised eight hundred more. When, in April, Braddock and the Council at Alexandria approved the plan and the commander, Shirley gave Johnson the commission of major-general of the levies of Massachusetts; and the governors of the other provinces contributing to the expedition gave him similar commissions for their respective contingents. Never did general take the field with authority so heterogeneous.

He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war. By birth he was Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who, owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in charge of them nearly twenty years before. Johnson was born to prosper. He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough, jovial temper, and a quick adaptation to his surroundings. He could drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors. He liked the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means; but compared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model of uprightness. He lived by the Mohawk in a fortified house which was a stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both white and red. Here—for his tastes were not fastidious—presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place. Over his neighbors, the Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he had to deal, he acquired a remarkable influence. He liked them, adopted their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but always with a justice and honesty in strong contrast with the rascalities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called them “not men, but devils.” Hence, when Johnson was made Indian superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy. When, in addition, he was made a general, he assembled the warriors in council to engage them to aid the expedition.

This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson; and as more than eleven hundred Indians appeared at his call, his larder was sorely taxed to entertain them. The speeches were interminable. Johnson, a master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest with them the palm of insufferable prolixity. The climax was reached on the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt. An Oneida chief took it up; Stevens, the interpreter, began the wardance, and the assembled warriors howled in chorus. Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they all drank the King’s health.
¹
They showed less alacrity, however, to fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the war-path. Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the French.

While the British colonists were preparing to attack Crown Point, the French of Canada were preparing to defend it. Duquesne, recalled from his post, had resigned the government to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who had at his disposal the battalions of regulars that had sailed in the spring from Brest under Baron Dieskau. His first thought was to use them for the capture of Oswego; but the letters of Braddock, found on the battle-field, warned him of the design against Crown Point; while a reconnoitring party which had gone as far as the Hudson brought back news that Johnson’s forces were already in the field. Therefore the plan was changed, and Dieskau was ordered to lead the main body of his troops, not to Lake Ontario, but to Lake Champlain. He passed up the Richelieu, and embarked in boats and canoes for Crown Point. The veteran knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were but a mob of countrymen. He doubted not of putting them to rout, and meant never to hold his hand till he had chased them back to Albany.
¹
“Make all haste,” Vaudreuil wrote to him; “for when you return we shall send you to Oswego to execute our first design.”
²

Johnson on his part was preparing to advance. In July about three thousand provincials were encamped near Albany, some on the “Flats” above the town, and some on the meadows below. Hither, too, came a swarm of Johnson’s Mohawks,—warriors, squaws, and children. They adorned the General’s face with war-paint, and he danced the wardance; then with his sword he cut the first slice from the ox that had been roasted whole for their entertainment. “I shall be glad,” wrote the surgeon of a New England regiment, “if they fight as eagerly as they ate their ox and drank their wine.”

Above all things the expedition needed promptness; yet everything moved slowly. Five popular legislatures controlled the troops and the supplies. Connecticut had refused to send her men till Shirley promised that her commanding officer should rank next to Johnson. The whole movement was for some time at a deadlock because the five governments could not agree about their contributions of artillery and stores.
³
The New Hampshire regiment had taken a short cut for Crown Point across the wilderness of Vermont; but had been recalled in time to save them from probable destruction. They were now with the rest in the camp at Albany, in such distress for provisions that a private subscription was proposed for their relief.
⁴

Johnson’s army, crude as it was, had in it good material. Here was Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, second in command, once a tutor at Yale College, and more recently a lawyer,—a raw soldier, but a vigorous and brave one; Colonel Moses Titcomb, of Massachusetts, who had fought with credit at Louisbourg; and Ephraim Williams, also colonel of a Massachusetts regiment, a tall and portly man, who had been a captain in the last war, member of the General Court, and deputy-sheriff. He made his will in the camp at Albany, and left a legacy to found the school which has since become Williams College. His relative, Stephen Williams, was chaplain of his regiment, and his brother Thomas was its surgeon. Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, who, like Titcomb, had seen service at Louisbourg, was its lieutenant-colonel. He had left a wife at home, an excellent matron, to whom he was continually writing affectionate letters, mingling household cares with news of the camp, and charging her to see that their eldest boy, Seth, then in college at New Haven, did not run off to the army. Pomeroy had with him his brother Daniel; and this he thought was enough. Here, too, was a man whose name is still a household word in New England,—the sturdy Israel Putnam, private in a Connecticut regiment; and another as bold as he, John Stark, lieutenant in the New Hampshire levies, and the future victor of Bennington.

The soldiers were no soldiers, but farmers and farmers’ sons who had volunteered for the summer campaign. One of the corps had a blue uniform faced with red. The rest wore their daily clothing. Blankets had been served out to them by the several provinces, but the greater part brought their own guns; some under the penalty of a fine if they came without them, and some under the inducement of a reward.
¹
They had no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of substitute.
²
At their sides were slung powder-horns, on which, in the leisure of the camp, they carved quaint devices with the points of their jack-knives. They came chiefly from plain New England homesteads,—rustic abodes, unpainted and dingy, with long well-sweeps, capacious barns, rough fields of pumpkins and corn, and vast kitchen chimneys, above which in winter hung squashes to keep them from frost, and guns to keep them from rust.

As to the manners and morals of the army there is conflict of evidence. In some respects nothing could be more exemplary. “Not a chicken has been stolen,” says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then commanding on the Massachusetts frontier: “We are a wicked, profane army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of Hell. If Crown Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people left behind.”
³
There was edifying regularity in respect to form. Sermons twice a week, daily prayers, and frequent psalm-singing alternated with the much-needed military drill.
⁴
“Prayers among us night and morning,” writes Private Jonathan Caswell, of Massachusetts, to his father. “Here we lie, knowing not when we shall march for Crown Point; but I hope not long to tarry. Desiring your prayers to God for me as I am agoing to war, I am Your Ever Dutiful Son.”
⁵

To Pomeroy and some of his brothers in arms it seemed that they were engaged in a kind of crusade against the myrmidons of Rome. “As you have at heart the Protestant cause,” he wrote to his friend Israel Williams, “so I ask an interest in your prayers that the Lord of Hosts would go forth with us and give us victory over our unreasonable, encroaching, barbarous, murdering enemies.”

Both Williams the surgeon and Williams the colonel chafed at the incessant delays. “The expedition goes on very much as a snail runs,” writes the former to his wife; “it seems we may possibly see Crown Point this time twelve months.” The Colonel was vexed because everything was out of joint in the department of transportation: wagoners mutinous for want of pay; ordnance stores, camp-kettles, and provisions left behind. “As to rum,” he complains, “it won’t hold out nine weeks. Things appear most melancholy to me.” Even as he was writing, a report came of the defeat of Braddock; and, shocked at the blow, his pen traced the words: “The Lord have mercy on poor New England!”

Johnson had sent four Mohawk scouts to Canada. They returned on the twenty-first of August with the report that the French were all astir with preparation, and that eight thousand men were coming to defend Crown Point. On this a council of war was called; and it was resolved to send to the several colonies for reinforcements.
¹
Meanwhile the main body had moved up the river to the spot called the Great Carrying Place, where Lyman had begun a fortified storehouse, which his men called Fort Lyman, but which was afterwards named Fort Edward. Two Indian trails led from this point to the waters of Lake Champlain, one by way of Lake George, and the other by way of Wood Creek. There was doubt which course the army should take. A road was begun to Wood Creek; then it was countermanded, and a party was sent to explore the path to Lake George. “With submission to the general officers,” Surgeon Williams again writes, “I think it a very grand mistake that the business of reconnoitring was not done months agone.” It was resolved at last to march for Lake George; gangs of axemen were sent to hew out the way; and on the twenty-sixth two thousand men were ordered to the lake, while Colonel Blanchard, of New Hampshire, remained with five hundred to finish and defend Fort Lyman.

The train of Dutch wagons, guarded by the homely soldiery, jolted slowly over the stumps and roots of the newly made road, and the regiments followed at their leisure. The hardships of the way were not without their consolations. The jovial Irishman who held the chief command made himself very agreeable to the New England officers. “We went on about four or five miles,” says Pomeroy in his Journal, “then stopped, ate pieces of broken bread and cheese, and drank some fresh lemon-punch and the best of wine with General Johnson and some of the field-officers.” It was the same on the next day. “Stopped about noon and dined with General Johnson by a small brook under a tree; ate a good dinner of cold boiled and roast venison; drank good fresh lemon-punch and wine.”

That afternoon they reached their destination, fourteen miles from Fort Lyman. The most beautiful lake in America lay before them; then more beautiful than now, in the wild charm of untrodden mountains and virgin forests. “I have given it the name of Lake George,” wrote Johnson to the Lords of Trade, “not only in honor of His Majesty, but to ascertain his undoubted dominion here.” His men made their camp on a piece of rough ground by the edge of the water, pitching their tents among the stumps of the newly felled trees. In their front was a forest of pitch-pine; on their right, a marsh, choked with alders and swamp-maples; on their left, the low hill where Fort George was afterwards built; and at their rear, the lake. Little was done to clear the forest in front, though it would give excellent cover to an enemy. Nor did Johnson take much pains to learn the movements of the French in the direction of Crown Point, though he sent scouts towards South Bay and Wood Creek. Every day stores and bateaux, or flat boats, came on wagons from Fort Lyman; and preparation moved on with the leisure that had marked it from the first. About three hundred Mohawks came to the camp, and were regarded by the New England men as nuisances. On Sunday the gray-haired Stephen Williams preached to these savage allies a long Calvinistic sermon, which must have sorely perplexed the interpreter whose business it was to turn it into Mohawk; and in the afternoon young Chaplain Newell, of Rhode Island, expounded to the New England men the somewhat untimely text, “Love your enemies.” On the next Sunday, September seventh, Williams preached again, this time to the whites from a text in Isaiah. It was a peaceful day, fair and warm, with a few light showers; yet not wholly a day of rest, for two hundred wagons came up from Fort Lyman, loaded with bateaux. After the sermon there was an alarm. An Indian scout came in about sunset, and reported that he had found the trail of a body of men moving from South Bay towards Fort Lyman. Johnson called for a volunteer to carry a letter of warning to Colonel Blanchard, the commander. A wagoner named Adams offered himself for the perilous service, mounted, and galloped along the road with the letter. Sentries were posted, and the camp fell asleep.