Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (39 page)

2
Montcalm au Ministre,
1
Sept
. 1758.

1
Bigot au Ministre,
12
Avril,
1756.
Vaudreuil au Ministre,
1
Juin,
1756.
Ibid.,
8
Juin,
1756.
Journal de ce qui s’est passé en Canada depuis le Mois d’Octobre,
1755,
jusqu’au Mois de Juin,
1756.
Shirley to Fox,
7
May,
1756.
Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated
.
Information of Captain John Vicars, of the Fiftieth
(
Shirley’s
)
Regiment
. Eastburn,
Faithful Narrative
. Entick, I. 471. The French accounts place the number of English at sixty or eighty.

2
Correspondance de Montcalm, Vaudreuil, et Lévis
.

3
Montreuil au Ministre,
12
Juin,
1756. The original is in cipher.

4
Montcalm au Ministre,
12
Juin,
1756.

1
Montcalm au Ministre,
19
Juin,
1756. “Je suis bien avec luy, sans sa confiance, qu’il ne donne jamais à personne de la France.” Erroneously rendered in
N.Y. Col. Docs
., X. 421.

2
Montcalm au Ministre,
26
Juin,
1756.
Détail de ce qui s’est passé, Oct
. 1755-
Juin,
1756.

3
Lotbinière au Ministre,
31
Oct
. 1756.
Montcalm au Ministre,
20
Juillet,
1756.

4
Montcalm au Ministre,
20
Juillet,
1756.

5
Lévis au Ministre,
17
Juillet,
1756.

1
Relation de M. Duchat, Capitaine au Régiment de Languedoc, écrite au Camp de Carillon,
15
Juillet,
1756.

XII

1756

O
SWEGO

The new Campaign · Untimely Change of Commanders · Eclipse of Shirley · Earl of Loudon · Muster of Provincials · New England Levies · Winslow at Lake George · Johnson and the Five Nations · Bradstreet and his Boatmen · Fight on the Onondaga · Pestilence at Oswego · Loudon and the Provincials · New England Camps · Army Chaplains · A sudden Blow · Montcalm attacks Oswego · Its Fall

When, at the end of the last year, Shirley returned from his bootless Oswego campaign, he called a council of war at New York and laid before it his scheme for the next summer’s operations. It was a comprehensive one: to master Lake Ontario by an overpowering naval force and seize the French forts upon it, Niagara, Frontenac, and Toronto; attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the one hand, and Fort Duquesne on the other, and at the same time perplex and divide the enemy by an inroad down the Chaudière upon the settlements about Quebec.
¹
The council approved the scheme; but to execute it the provinces must raise at least sixteen thousand men. This they refused to do. Pennsylvania and Virginia would take no active part, and were content with defending themselves. The attack on Fort Duquesne was therefore abandoned, as was also the diversion towards Quebec. The New England colonies were discouraged by Johnson’s failure to take Crown Point, doubtful of the military abilities of Shirley, and embarrassed by the debts of the last campaign; but when they learned that Parliament would grant a sum of money in partial compensation for their former sacrifices,
²
they plunged into new debts without hesitation, and raised more men than the General had asked; though, with their usual jealousy, they provided that their soldiers should be employed for no other purpose than the attack on Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Shirley chose John Winslow to command them, and gave him a commission to that effect; while he, to clinch his authority, asked and obtained supplementary commissions from every government that gave men to the expedition.
¹
For the movement against the forts of Lake Ontario, which Shirley meant to command in person, he had the remains of his own and Pepperell’s regiments, the two shattered battalions brought over by Braddock, the “Jersey Blues,” four provincial companies from North Carolina, and the four King’s companies of New York. His first care was to recruit their ranks and raise them to their full complement; which, when effected, would bring them up to the insufficient strength of about forty-four hundred men.

While he was struggling with contradictions and cross purposes, a withering blow fell upon him; he learned that he was superseded in the command. The cabal formed against him, with Delancey at its head, had won over Sir Charles Hardy, the new governor of New York, and had painted Shirley’s conduct in such colors that the Ministry removed him. It was essential for the campaign that a successor should be sent at once, to form plans on the spot and make preparations accordingly. The Ministry were in no such haste. It was presently announced that Colonel Daniel Webb would be sent to America, followed by General James Abercromby; who was to be followed in turn by the Earl of Loudon, the destined commander-in-chief. Shirley was to resign his command to Webb, Webb to Abercromby, and Abercromby to Loudon.
²
It chanced that the two former arrived in June at about the same time, while the Earl came in July; and meanwhile it devolved on Shirley to make ready for them. Unable to divine what their plans would be, he prepared the campaign in accordance with his own.

His star, so bright a twelvemonth before, was now miserably dimmed. In both his public and private life he was the butt of adversity. He had lost two promising sons; he had made a mortifying failure as a soldier; and triumphant enemies were rejoicing in his fall. It is to the credit of his firmness and his zeal in the cause that he set himself to his task with as much vigor as if he, and not others, were to gather the fruits. His chief care was for his favorite enterprise in the direction of Lake Ontario. Making Albany his headquarters, he rebuilt the fort at the Great Carrying Place destroyed in March by the French, sent troops to guard the perilous route to Oswego, and gathered provisions and stores at the posts along the way.

Meanwhile the New England men, strengthened by the levies of New York, were mustering at Albany for the attack of Crown Point. At the end of May they moved a short distance up the Hudson, and encamped at a place called Half-Moon, where the navigation was stopped by rapids. Here and at the posts above were gathered something more than five thousand men, as raw and untrained as those led by Johnson in the summer before.
¹
The four New England colonies were much alike in their way of raising and equipping men, and the example of Massachusetts may serve for them all. The Assembly or “General Court” voted the required number, and chose a committee of war authorized to impress provisions, munitions, stores, clothing, tools, and other necessaries, for which fair prices were to be paid within six months. The Governor issued a proclamation calling for volunteers. If the full number did not appear within the time named, the colonels of militia were ordered to muster their regiments, and immediately draft out of them men enough to meet the need. A bounty of six dollars was offered this year to stimulate enlistment, and the pay of a private soldier was fixed at one pound six shillings a month, Massachusetts currency. If he brought a gun, he had an additional bounty of two dollars. A powder-horn, bullet-pouch, blanket, knapsack, and “wooden bottle,” or canteen, were supplied by the province; and if he brought no gun of his own, a musket was given him, for which, as for the other articles, he was to account at the end of the campaign. In the next year it was announced that the soldier should receive, besides his pay, “a coat and soldier’s hat.” The coat was of coarse blue cloth, to which breeches of red or blue were afterwards added. Along with his rations, he was promised a gill of rum each day, a privilege of which he was extremely jealous, deeply resenting every abridgment of it. He was enlisted for the campaign, and could not be required to serve above a year at farthest.

The complement of a regiment was five hundred, divided into companies of fifty; and as the men and officers of each were drawn from the same neighborhood, they generally knew each other. The officers, though nominally appointed by the Assembly, were for the most part the virtual choice of the soldiers themselves, from whom they were often indistinguishable in character and social standing. Hence discipline was weak. The pay—or, as it was called, the wages—of a colonel was twelve pounds sixteen shillings, Massachusetts currency, a month; that of a captain, five pounds eight shillings,—an advance on the pay of the last year; and that of a chaplain, six pounds eight shillings.
²
Penalties were enacted against “irreligion, immorality, drunkenness, debauchery, and profaneness.” The ordinary punishments were the wooden horse, irons, or, in bad cases, flogging.

Much difficulty arose from the different rules adopted by the various colonies for the regulation of their soldiers. Nor was this the only source of trouble. Besides its war committee, the Assembly of each of the four New England colonies chose another committee “for clothing, arming, paying, victualling, and transporting” its troops. They were to go to the scene of operations, hire wagons, oxen, and horses, build boats and vessels, and charge themselves with the conveyance of all supplies belonging to their respective governments. They were to keep in correspondence with the committee of war at home, to whom they were responsible; and the officer commanding the contingent of their colony was required to furnish them with guards and escorts. Thus four independent committees were engaged in the work of transportation at the same time, over the same roads, for the same object. Each colony chose to keep the control of its property in its own hands. The inconveniences were obvious. “I wish to God,” wrote Lord Loudon to Winslow, “you could persuade your people to go all one way.” The committees themselves did not always find their task agreeable. One of their number, John Ashley, of Massachusetts, writes in dudgeon to Governor Phipps: “Sir, I am apt to think that things have been misrepresented to your Honor, or else I am certain I should not suffer in my character, and be styled a damned rascal, and ought to be put in irons, etc., when I am certain I have exerted myself to the utmost of my ability to expedite the business assigned me by the General Court.” At length, late in the autumn, Loudon persuaded the colonies to forgo this troublesome sort of independence, and turn over their stores to the commissary-general, receipts being duly given.
¹

From Winslow’s headquarters at Half-Moon a road led along the banks of the Hudson to Stillwater, whence there was water carriage to Saratoga. Here stores were again placed in wagons and carried several miles to Upper Falls; thence by boat to Fort Edward; and thence, fourteen miles across country, to Fort William Henry at Lake George, where the army was to embark for Ticonderoga. Each of the points of transit below Fort Edward was guarded by a stockade and two or more companies of provincials. They were much pestered by Indians, who now and then scalped a straggler, and escaped with their usual nimbleness. From time to time strong bands of Canadians and Indians approached by way of South Bay or Wood Creek, and threatened more serious mischief. It is surprising that some of the trains were not cut off, for the escorts were often reckless and disorderly to the last degree. Sometimes the invaders showed great audacity. Early in June Colonel Fitch at Albany scrawls a hasty note to Winslow: “Friday, 11 o’clock: Sir, about half an hour since, a party of near fifty French and Indians had the impudence to come down to the river opposite to this city and captivate two men”; and Winslow replies with equal quaintness: “We daily discover the Indians about us; but not yet have been so happy as to obtain any of them.”
²

Colonel Jonathan Bagley commanded at Fort William Henry, where gangs of men were busied under his eye in building three sloops and making several hundred whaleboats to carry the army to Ticonderoga. The season was advancing fast, and Winslow urged him to hasten on the work; to which the humorous Bagley answered: “Shall leave no stone unturned; every wheel shall go that rum and human flesh can move.”
¹
A fortnight after he reports: “I must really confess I have almost wore the men out, poor dogs. Pray where are the committee, or what are they about?” He sent scouts to watch the enemy, with results not quite satisfactory. “There is a vast deal of news here; every party brings abundance, but all different.” Again, a little later: “I constantly keep out small scouting parties to the eastward and westward of the lake, and make no discovery but the tracks of small parties who are plaguing us constantly; but what vexes me most, we can’t catch one of the sons of ———. I have sent out skulking parties some distance from the sentries in the night, to lie still in the bushes to intercept them; but the flies are so plenty, our people can’t bear them.”
²
Colonel David Wooster, at Fort Edward, was no more fortunate in his attempts to take satisfaction on his midnight visitors; and reports that he has not thus far been able “to give those villains a dressing.”
³
The English, however, were fast learning the art of forest war, and the partisan chief, Captain Robert Rogers, began already to be famous. On the seventeenth of June he and his band lay hidden in the bushes within the outposts of Ticonderoga, and made a close survey of the fort and surrounding camps.
⁴
His report was not cheering. Winslow’s so-called army had now grown to nearly seven thousand men; and these, it was plain, were not too many to drive the French from their stronghold.

While Winslow pursued his preparations, tried to settle disputes of rank among the colonels of the several colonies, and strove to bring order out of the little chaos of his command, Sir William Johnson was engaged in a work for which he was admirably fitted. This was the attaching of the Five Nations to the English interest. Along with his patent of baronetcy, which reached him about this time, he received, direct from the Crown, the commission of “Colonel, Agent, and Sole Superintendent of the Six Nations and other Northern Tribes.”
⁵
Henceforth he was independent of governors and generals, and responsible to the Court alone. His task was a difficult one. The Five Nations would fain have remained neutral, and let the European rivals fight it out; but, on account of their local position, they could not. The exactions and lies of the Albany traders, the frauds of land-speculators, the contradictory action of the different provincial governments, joined to English weakness and mismanagement in the last war, all conspired to alienate them and to aid the efforts of the French agents, who cajoled and threatened them by turns. But for Johnson these intrigues would have prevailed. He had held a series of councils with them at Fort Johnson during the winter, and not only drew from them a promise to stand by the English, but persuaded all the confederated tribes, except the Cayugas, to consent that the English should build forts near their chief towns, under the pretext of protecting them from the French.
¹

In June he went to Onondaga, well escorted, for the way was dangerous. This capital of the Confederacy was under a cloud. It had just lost one Red Head, its chief sachem; and first of all it behooved the baronet to condole their affliction. The ceremony was long, with compliments, lugubrious speeches, wampum-belts, the scalp of an enemy to replace the departed, and a final glass of rum for each of the assembled mourners. The conferences lasted a fortnight; and when Johnson took his leave, the tribes stood pledged to lift the hatchet for the English.
²