Chapter VIII (2)

At Montreal the French general was gathering his Indian allies from points as distant as Acadia and Lake Superior. He pushed forward his commingled forces, and they rallied at Fort St. John on the Sorel. On again they swept in a fleet of bateaux and canoes to Ticonderoga. They were prepared for quick work, and Montcalm set an example by discarding the luxuries of personal equipments.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. A plan of this fort is in the _Brit. Mus. MSS._, no. 15,355, and various plans of 1756 and 1757 are noted in the _King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 475. Plans are also given in Martin’s _Montcalm et les dernières années de la colonie Française au Canada_, and in Hough’s ed. of Pouchot, p. 48.

A sketch of the fort preserved on a powderhorn is engraved in Stone’s _Life of Johnson_, i. p. 553, and in Holden’s _Queensbury_, 306.]

At the portage, and before launching his flotilla on Lake George, Montcalm held a grand council, and bound his Indian allies by a mighty belt of wampum. Up the smaller lake the main body now went by boat, but some Iroquois allies led De Lévis, with 2,500 men, along its westerly bank. The force on the lake disembarked under cover of a point of land, which hid them from the English.

From a sketch made in 1851. The fort was on the bluff at the left, now the position of the Fort William Henry hotel. Montcalm’s trenches were where the modern village of Caldwell is built, seen beyond the water. The way to the entrenched camp started along the gravelly beach in the foreground, towards the spectator.]

The extent of the demonstration was first made known to Munro when the savages spread out across the lake in their bark canoes. Montcalm soon pushed forward La Corne and De Lévis till they cut the communications of the English with Fort Edward, and then the French general began his approaches from his own encampment. When he advanced his lines to within gun-shot of the ramparts, he summoned the fort. Munro declined to surrender, hoping for relief from Webb; but the timid commander at Fort Edward only despatched a note of advice to make terms. This letter was intercepted by Montcalm, who sent it into the fort, and it induced Munro to agree to a capitulation.

On the 9th of August the English retired to the entrenched camp, and the French entered the fort. Munro’s men were to be escorted to Fort Edward, being allowed their private effects, and were not to serve against the French for eighteen months. Montcalm took the precaution to explain the terms to his Indian allies, and received their seeming assent; but the savages got at the English rum, and, with passions roused, they fell the next day upon the prisoners. Despite all exertions of Montcalm and the more honorable of his officers, many were massacred or carried off, so that the line of march became a disorderly rout, beyond all control of the escort, and lost itself in the woods. Not more than six hundred in a body reached Fort Edward, but many others later straggled in. Another portion, which Montcalm rescued from the clutch of the Indians, was subsequently sent in under a strong escort.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London.

KEY.—A, dock. B, garden. C, Fort William Henry. D, morass. E, French first battery of nine guns and two mortars. F, French second battery of ten guns and three mortars. G, French approaches. H, two intended batteries. I, landing-place of French artillery. K, Montcalm’s camp, with main body. L, De Lévis’ camp, with regulars and Canadians. M, De la Corne, with Canadians and Indians. N, where the English first encamped. O, bridge over morass. P, English entrenchments, where Fort George later stood.

Cf. the plans in Parkman’s _Montcalm and Wolfe_, i. 494, and in Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, p. 73, based on this, and the reproduction of it in Bancroft’s _United States_, orig. ed., iv. p. 263. There is a rough contemporary sketch given in J. A. Stoughton’s _Windsor Farms_, 1884, showing the lines of the attacking force, and endorsed, “Taken Oct. 22, 1757, by John Stoughton.” There is another large plan of the attack preserved in the New York State Library, and this is given in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 602. Martin, _De Montcalm en Canada_, p. 81, gives a “Plan du siège de Fort George [William Henry was often so called by the French] dressé par Fernesic de Vesour le 12 Septembre, 1757,” preserved in the Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies, no. 516, at Paris.]

The French destroyed the fort, throwing the bodies of the slain on the fire which was made of its timber, and, lading their boats with the munitions and plunder, they followed the savages, who had already started on their way to Montreal.

After a plan in the _Doc. Hist. New York_, ii. 732. In Benton’s _Herkimer County_, p. 53, is also a “plan and profile of the entrenched works round Harkemer’s house at y^e German Flats, 1756.” Cf. _Set of Plans_, etc., no. 13.]

Loudon reached New York on the last of August,[1153] but he had already heard of the Lake George disaster from a despatch-boat which met him on the way. On landing he learned from Albany that Montcalm had retired. Webb, who was much perplexed with the hordes of militia which all too late began to pour in upon him, was now bold enough to think there was no use of retreating to the passes of the Hudson. The necessity of allowing the Canadians to gather their crops, as well as Montcalm’s inability to transport his cannon, had influenced that general to retreat. At Montreal he learned the stories of the fiendish cruelty practised upon their prisoners by the Indians who had preceded him, and who had not been restrained by Vaudreuil,—so Bougainville said; for the governor’s policy of buying some of the captives with brandy led to the infuriation which wreaked itself on the rest.

The campaign closed in November with an attack on the post at German Flats, a settlement of Palatine Germans, by a scouting body of French and Indians under one of Vaudreuil’s Canadians, Belêtre. Everything disappeared in the havoc, which a detachment sent by Colonel Townshend from Fort Herkimer, not far off, was powerless to check. Before Lord Howe, with a larger force from Schenectady,[1154] could reach the scene, the French had departed.

* * * * *

The winter of 1757-58 at Montreal and Quebec passed with the usual official gayety and bureaucratic peculation. The passions of war were only aroused as occasional stories of rapine and scalps came in from the borders. Good hearty rejoicing took place, however, in March, over the report that a scouting party from Ticonderoga had encountered Rogers, and that the dreaded partisan had been killed and his followers annihilated. The last part of the story was too true, but Rogers had escaped, leaving behind his coat, which he had thrown off in the fray, and in its pocket was his commission, the capture of which had given rise to the belief in his death. Meanwhile, on the English side a new spirit of control was preparing to give unaccustomed vigor to the coming campaign. In England’s darkest hour William Pitt had come to power, thrown up by circumstances. He was trusted in the country’s desperation, and proved himself capable of imparting a momentum that all British movements had lacked since the war began. He developed his plans for America, and made his soldiers and sailors spring to their work. Loudon was recalled. The provincial officer was made the equal of the regular, by conferring upon him the same right of seniority by commission. The whole colonial service felt that they were thereby made equal sharers of the honors as well as of the burdens of the times. Pitt put his finger upon the three vulnerable gaps in the French panoply. He would reach Quebec by taking Louisbourg; and singling out a stubborn colonel who had shown his mettle in Germany, he made him Major-General Amherst, and sent him with a fleet to take Louisbourg, as we may see in another chapter.[1155] Circumstances, or a mischance in judgment, made him retain Abercrombie for the Crown Point campaign, but a better decision named Brigadier John Forbes to attack Fort Duquesne. It belongs to this place to tell the story of these last two campaigns.

In June, Abercrombie had assembled at the head of Lake George a force of 15,000 men, of whom 6,000 were regulars. Montcalm was at Ticonderoga with scarce a quarter as many; but Vaudreuil was tardily sending forward some scant reinforcements under De Lévis. The French general got tidings early in July of the embarkation in England, but had done nothing up to that time to protect his army, which was lying on the peninsula of Ticonderoga, mainly outside the fort. In fact, he was at a loss what to do; no help had reached him, and the approaching army was too numerous to hope for success. He thought of retreating to Crown Point, but some of his principal officers opposed it. He now began a breastwork of logs on the high ground before the fort, and, felling the trees within musket range, he covered the ground with a dense barrier.

All the while, the English were in a heydey of assurance. Pitt was waiting anxiously in London for the first tidings. Abercrombie, now a man of fifty-two years, did not altogether inspire confidence. His heavy build and lethargic temperament made lookers-on call him “aged.” There was, however, a proud expectation of success from the vigorous, companionable Earl Howe, the brigadier next in command, whom Pitt hoped to prove the real commander, because of the trust which Abercrombie put in him. On the 5th of July the immense flotilla, which bore the English army and its train, started down Lake George. To a spectator it completely deadened the glare of the water for miles away. The next morning at daybreak the army was passing Rogers’ Slide, whence a French party under Langy watched them. By noon it had disembarked at the extreme north end of Lake George, and near the river conducting to Ticonderoga they built an entrenchment, to protect their bateaux. Rogers, with his rangers, was sent into the woods to lead the way, while the army followed; but the denseness of the forest soon brought the column into confusion. Meanwhile, the French party under Langy, finding the English had got between them and their main body, endeavored to pass around the head of the English column, and, in doing so, got equally confused in the thickness of the wood, and suddenly encountered that part of the English force where Lord Howe and Major Putnam were. A skirmish ensued, Howe fell,[1156] and the army was practically without a head. Rogers, who was in advance, turned back upon Langy, and few of the Frenchmen escaped.

From an engraving in Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, 3d ed., 1765, vol. iii. p. 209. For the impression made by Howe’s character on the colonists, see Mrs. Grant’s _American Lady_, Wilson’s ed., p. 222.]

In the morning Abercrombie withdrew the army to the landing. Bradstreet, with his watermen, having rebuilt the bridges destroyed by the French, the original intention of skirting the river on the west was abandoned, and the army now started to follow the ordinary portage across the loop of the river, which held the rapids. The French had already deserted their positions at either end of this portage. At the northerly end, near a saw-mill, the English general halted his army. He was at one base-corner of the triangular peninsula of which Ticonderoga was the apex. He had now to encounter, not far from the fort, the entrenchment which Montcalm was busily constructing out of the forest-trees which had been laid along its front as by a hurricane. Scorning all measures which might have spared his army great losses, and thoughtless of movements which could have intercepted Montcalm’s reinforcements,[1157] the English general undertook, from the distant mill, to direct repeated assaults in front. His soldiers made a deadly push through the entanglements of the levelled trees and against the barricade, behind which the defenders were almost wholly protected. He could have done nothing to help Montcalm so much. The stores of the French were sufficient for eight days only, and the chief dread of the French general was that Abercrombie would cut his communications with Crown Point.

After a sketch made in 1851. The ruins of Ticonderoga and the landing-wharf are seen on the right. The high hill on the left is Mount Defiance, on whose side Johnson and his Indians were posted during Abercrombie’s attack. At its base is the outlet leading to Lake George. The ruins in the foreground are a part of Fort Independence.]

As it was, De Lévis, with a considerable force, arrived in the night. Sir William Johnson and some Indians opened fire in the morning across the river from the sides of Mount Defiance; but accomplished nothing, and took no further part in the day’s work. About noon the attack began in front, and all day long—now here, now there—the French repelled assaults which showed prodigies of valor and brought no reward. Some rafts, with cannon sent by Abercrombie to enfilade the French line, were driven back by the guns of the fort. At twilight the cruel work ceased. Abercrombie had lost nearly 2,000 men, and Montcalm short of 400.

From Almon’s _Remembrancer_, London, 1778, where it is called “Sketch of Cheonderoga or Ticonderoga, taken on the spot by an English officer, in 1759.”

A plan of the approaches and attack by Lieut. Meyer, of the 60th regt., is given in Parkman, ii. p. 94. Cf. other plans in Bancroft, orig. ed. iv.; Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, p. 79, etc.]

Montcalm was still anxious. He knew that Abercrombie had cannon, and had not used them. The most natural thing in the world for the English general would be to occupy the night in bringing the cannon up. In the morning Montcalm sent out to reconnoitre, and it was found that the English, still 13,000 strong, had reëmbarked, and all the signs showed the great precipitancy of their flight.

The French general could well rejoice, but he exaggerated his enemy’s strength to 25,000 and their losses to 5,000, which last was considerably more than the victor’s whole force.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. The fort was at the modern Kingston, Canada. There is a view or plan of it in _Mémoires sur les affaires du Canada_, 1749-60, p. 115.]

Holden (_Hist. Queensbury_, 302, 303) mentions several MS. maps of Lake George of this period, preserved in the State Library at Albany. A map of the military roads (1759) from the Hudson to Lake George is given in _Ibid._, p. 341.

There is in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 721, a sketch map copied from an original in the Archives de la Guerre at Paris, called _Frontiers du lac St. Sacrement, 1758, 8 Juillet_. It shows Lake Champlain from below Crown Point, together with Lake George and the country towards Albany, marking the routes, forts, etc.

Cf. the section giving Lake George in Jefferys’ _Map of the most inhabited part of New England_, published November 29, 1755, and contained in his _General Topography of North America and the West Indies_, Lond., 1768, no. 37; and the separate map of Lake George, 1756, in Sayer and Bennet’s _American Military Pocket Atlas_, 1776. This I suppose to be the survey made in 1756 by Captain Jackson, of which a tracing is given in F. B. Hough’s ed. of _Rogers’s journals_, Albany, 1883. The map in Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 284, is a modern one.

Views of historic interest on Lake George, by T. A. Richards, are given in _Harper’s Mag._, vii. 161.]

Abercrombie apparently magnified beyond belief an enemy whom he had not seen, and went up the lake in trepidation, lest he should be pursued. Safe on his old camping-ground at the head of the lake, he made haste to entrench himself, while Montcalm, lucky to escape as he did, prepared for a new campaign by rebuilding his lines. So the two armies still watched each other at a safe distance.[1158]

Montcalm for a while tried to harass the English communications with Fort Edward, by sending out his leading partisan, Marin; but Rogers was more than his match, and gave the English general some grains of comfort by his successes. Putnam, however, was captured and carried to Canada. Meanwhile, much greater relief came to the army’s spirits in September when the news of Bradstreet’s success at Fort Frontenac reached them.

A council of war had forced Abercrombie to give Bradstreet 3,000 men, and with these he made his way to Oswego, whence, towards the end of August, his whale-boats and bateaux pushed out upon the lake, and in three days he was before Frontenac. The fort quickly surrendered. Bradstreet levelled it, ruined seven armed vessels, put as much of the plunder as he could carry on two others, and returned to Oswego unmolested. Here he landed his booty, destroyed the vessels, and the French naval power on Ontario was at an end. He began his march for Albany, and, passing the great carrying place where Brigadier Stanwix was building a fort for the protection of the valley, left there a thousand men for its garrison. In October Amherst came overland from Boston, with some of his victorious regiments from Louisbourg. It was too late for further campaigning; and each side left garrisons at their camps, and retired to winter quarters.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. The _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 354-55, shows drawn plans (1758, 1759, 1764) of Fort Stanwix, built by I. Williams, engineer.

A large map of the neighborhood of Fort Stanwix is in the _Doc. Hist. New York_ (iv. p. 324), with a plan of the fort itself (p. 327), accompanied by a paper on the history of the fort. A map of the siege of the fort, presented to Col. Gansevoort by L. Flury, is given with a plan of the modern city of Rome superposed, in Dr. Hough’s ed. of _Pouchot_, i. 207. Cf. the chapter on Fort Schuyler (Stanwix) in Bogg’s _Pioneers of Utica_, 1877. The fort was originally called Fort Williams. It was begun on July 23, 1758, by Brig.-Gen. John Stanwix. Cf. note on Stanwix in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, vii. 280.

There is in Harvard College library a copy of a MS. journal of Ensign Moses Dorr, from May 25 to Oct. 28, 1758, including an account of the building of Fort Stanwix. The original MS. was in 1848 in the possession of Lyman Watkins, of Walpole, N. H.]

The destruction of Frontenac and the French fleet on Ontario had cut off Fort Duquesne from its sources of supply, and to the substantial, if not brilliant, success of Brigadier John Forbes[1159] we must now turn. It is a story of a stubborn Scotch purpose. Forbes had no dash, and purposely dallied with the forming and marching of his army to weary the Indian allies of the French, and to secure time to gain over all of the savages that he could. The English general got upon his route by June, but soon fell sick, and was carried through the marches in a litter; but he breasted every discomfort and harassing complexity of the details, which he had to manage almost in every particular, with a courage that might have done credit to a man in vigor. He had made up his mind to open a new road over the mountains more direct than Braddock’s. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer of the Royal Americans, sustained him in this purpose; but Washington argued for the older route,—not without inciting some distrust, for Forbes was not blind to the rival interests of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and suspected that Washington was influenced by a greater loyalty for his colony than for the common cause.

Forbes did not fail, however, to recognize the young Virginian’s merit in the kind of warfare which was before them; and there exists in Washington’s hand a plan of a line of march for forces in a forest, with diagrams for throwing the line into order of battle, which Forbes had requested him to make.[1160] Braddock’s defeat was not lost on Forbes, and in his marches and preparations he availed himself of all the arts of woodcraft and partisanship which Washington could teach him. He did not, nevertheless, have a very high opinion of the provincials in his train, and, with the exception of some of their higher officers, they were, no doubt, a sorry set. As he pushed on he established fortified posts for supplies; but all the help he ought to have got from his quartermaster-general, Sir John Sinclair, stood him in poor stead, for that officer was “a very odd man,” and only added to his general’s perplexities. The advice of Washington about taking the other route had so far unsettled Forbes’s faith in him, that, though he told his subordinates among the advance to consult with the Virginia colonel, it might not be best, he suggested, to follow his advice. While the march went on he had little success in attaching some Cherokees and Catawbas, for they stayed no longer than the gifts held out. An occasional scout brought him intelligence of the enemy, and he felt that their numbers were not great, and that the weariness of delays would drive the Indian allies of the French into desertion,—as it did.

At Raystown he built Fort Bedford, to protect his supplies, and pushed on to Loyalhannon[1161] Creek, and there founded his last depot, fifty miles away from Duquesne.

In August Forbes was planning for a general convention with the Indians at Easton. The treaty of the previous year had secured the Delawares and Shawanoes, and a further conference had been held with them in April.[1162] Sir William Johnson was bullied, as Forbes says, into bringing into the compact the eastern tribes of the Six Nations, while other influences induced the Senecas and the western tribes also to join, despite the labors of Joncaire to retain them in the French interests. The chief difficulty was to inspire the Ohio Indians with a distrust of the French; while the failure of French presents, thanks to British cruisers on the ocean, was beginning to dispose them for a change. A Moravian brother, Christian Frederick Post, was sent to the tribes on a hazardous mission, and his confidence and fearlessness carried him through it alive; for he had to confront French officers at the conferences, one of which was held close by Fort Duquesne. As a result of his mission, the convention of the allied tribes which met the English at Easton in October decided confidently to send a wampum belt, in the name of both the whites and the red men, to the Ohio Indians, and Post, with an escort, was commissioned to bear it, the party setting out from Loyalhannon. It became a struggle for persuasion between the English messenger and a French officer, who again confronted Post and offered the Indians a belt of wampum of his own. The French won the young warriors; but Post impressed the sages of the Indian councils, and the old men carried the day. The overtures of peace from the English were accepted, and this happened notwithstanding that the garrison of Duquesne had but just badly used a reconnoitring party of the English under Major Grant, of the Scotch Highlanders.

It was a success of forest diplomacy that encouraged and rendered despondent the respective sides. The French scouting parties were hanging about Loyalhannon, while the little army at Duquesne kept dwindling under the prospect of famine, now that Bradstreet’s raid on Frontenac had checked their supplies. A rough and weltering October made the bringing up of provisions very difficult for the English, and their weakening general found his time, on his litter, disagreeably spent, as he says, “between business and medicine;” but in early November he himself reached Loyalhannon. He would have stopped here for winter quarters, but scouts brought in word that the French were defenceless; so a force was hurriedly pushed forward in light order, which, when it reached Turkey Creek, heard a heavy boom to the west. It was the explosion of the French mines, as the garrison of Duquesne blew up the fort and fled.

Forbes hutted a portion of his troops within a stockade, which he called Pittsburg, and early in December began his march eastward. The debilitated general reached Philadelphia, but died in March. Few campaigns were ever conducted so successfully from a litter of pain.

The winter of 1758-59 was an unquiet one in Canada. Vaudreuil and Montcalm disputed over the results of the last campaign, and the governor was doing all he could to make the home government believe that Montcalm neither deserved, nor could profit by, success. All his intrigue to induce the general’s recall only resulted in the ministry sending him orders to defer to Montcalm in all matters affecting the war.

From an engraving in John Knox’s _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America (1757-60)_. London, 1769. There is also an engraving in Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, iv. 129. Reynolds painted three likenesses of Amherst, and sketched a fourth one, begun May, 1765, and finished February, 1768, which gave his army in the background, passing the rapids of the St. Lawrence. This was engraved in mezzotint by James Watson. (Hamilton’s _Engraved Works of Reynolds_, pp. 1, 163; J. C. Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, London, 1878-83, iii. 1008, and iv. 1488; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, vii. 101; _Catal. Cab. M. H. Soc._, p. 45.) Amherst was born in 1717, and died in 1797.]

There was never more need of strong counsel in Canada. The gasconade of Vaudreuil had reached the limit of its purpose. The plunder by officials, both of the people and of the king, was an enormity that could not last much longer. It seemed to the wisest that food and reinforcements, and those in no small amounts, could alone save Canada, unless, indeed, some kind of a peace could be settled upon in Europe. To claim help and to learn, Bougainville and Doreil were sent to France. Nothing they said could gain much but what was easily given,—promotion in rank to Montcalm and the rest. They represented that the single purpose which now animated the English colonies was quite a different thing from the old dissensions among them, the existence of which had favored the French in the past. The demand in Europe was, however, inexorable; and all that France could promise was a few hundred men and a campaign’s supplies of munitions.

From Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_, London, 1772, p. 158. Cf. also the plan in Egle’s _Pennsylvania_, p. 98; and the corner sketch of the plate in Bancroft, _United States_ (orig. ed.), iv. 189.]

In the spring of 1759 Bougainville came back with the little which was precious to those who had nothing, as Montcalm said. But the returning soldier brought word of the great fleet which England was fitting out to attack Quebec, and that fifty thousand men would constitute the army with which Canada was to be invaded. Vaudreuil could hardly count twenty thousand men to meet it, and to do this he had to reckon the militia, _coureurs de bois_, and Indians. If the worst came, Montcalm thought he could concentrate what force he had, and retreat by way of the Ohio to the Mississippi, and hold out in Louisiana.[1163]

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London.]

On the English side matters looked encouraging. Amherst, a sure and safe soldier, without any dash, was made commander-in-chief, and was to direct in person the advance over the old route from Lake George,[1164] while at the same time he took measures to reëstablish Oswego and reinforce Duquesne. To the latter point General Stanwix was sent, where in the course of the summer he laid out and strengthened a new fort, called after the prime minister. Fort Pitt was not, however, wholly secure till success had followed Brigadier Prideaux’s expedition to Niagara, the reduction of which was also a part of Amherst’s plans. Prideaux seated Haldimand at Oswego, and made good its communications with the Mohawk Valley. It was an open challenge to the French, and after Prideaux had proceeded to Niagara, Saint-Lac de la Corne came down with a force from the head of the St. Lawrence rapids to attack Haldimand, but the English cannon sent the French scampering to their boats, and the danger was over.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. This same plan is given in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, ii, p. 868, and in Hough’s edition of Pouchot’s _History of the Late War_, ii. p. 153. There is another plan on a large scale, showing less of the neighboring ground, in the latter book, i. p. 161, and in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. p. 976.

A plan of Fort Niagara, 1759, is noted among the _Brit. Mus. MSS._, no. 15,535; and in the _King’s Maps_, ii. 92, are plans of the fort dated 1766, 1768, 1769, 1773, and a view of the falls in 1765.

O’Callaghan, in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. 793, gives a map of the Niagara River, 1759, showing the landing place of Prideaux and the path around the cataract. For the track of the Niagara portage, see O. H. Marshall’s “Niagara Frontier,” in _Buffalo Hist. Soc. Publ._, ii. 412-13.]

At Niagara, in the angle formed by the lake and the Niagara River, stood the strong fort which Pouchot had rebuilt. It had a dependency[1165] some distance above the cataract, commanded by Joncaire; but that officer withdrew from this outwork on the approach of Prideaux, and reinforced the main work. It was the same Joncaire who had formerly resisted successfully, but of late less so, the efforts of Johnson to secure the alliance to the English of the Senecas and the more westerly tribes of the Six Nations; and now Johnson with a body of braves was in Prideaux’s camp. The English general advanced his siege lines, and had begun to make breaches in the walls of the fort, when new succor for the French approached. Their partisan leaders at the west had gathered such bushrangers and Indians as they could from Detroit and the Illinois country, and were assembling at Presquisle and along the route to the Monongahela for a raid on the English there, in the hopes of recapturing the post. They got word from Pouchot of his danger, and immediately marched to his assistance, under Aubry and Ligneris.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. This plan is reproduced in De Costa’s _Hist. of Fort George_. For the ruins of the fort and the view from them, see the cuts in Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 112; and _Scribnner’s Monthly_, Mar., 1879, p. 620.]

Early in the siege, Prideaux had been killed by the bursting of one of his own shells, and the command fell on Johnson, who now went with a part of his force to meet the new-comers, already showing themselves up the river. He beat them, and captured some of their principal officers, while those who survived led the panic-stricken remainder to their boats above the cataract. Thence they fled to Presquisle, which they burned. Here the garrisons of LeBœuf and Venango joined them, and the fugitives continued on to Detroit, leaving the Upper Ohio without a fighting Frenchman to confront the English.

On the same day of the defeat, negotiations for a surrender of Fort Niagara began, and Pouchot, being convinced of the reverses which his intending succorers had experienced, finally capitulated. Johnson succeeded in preventing any revengeful onset of his Indians, who had not forgotten the massacre of William Henry.

The extreme west of Canada was now cut off from the central region, which was threatened, as we shall see, by Amherst and Wolfe, and Vaudreuil could have little hope of preserving it. To press this centre on another side, Amherst now sent General Thomas Gage to succeed Johnson in the command of the Ontario region, and, gathering such troops as could be spared from the garrisons, to descend the St. Lawrence and capture the French post at the head of the rapids. Gage had little enterprise, and was not inclined to undertake a movement in which dash must make up for the lack of men, and he reported back to Amherst that the movement was impossible.

When this disappointment came to the commander-in-chief he was at Crown Point,—but we must track his progress from the beginning.

At the end of June, Amherst had at Lake George about 11,000 men, one half regulars. He set about the campaign cautiously. He had fortified new posts in his rear, and began the erection of Fort George at the head of the lake, of which only one bastion was ever finished. On the 21st of July he embarked his army on the lake, and, landing at the outlet, he followed the route of Abercrombie’s approach to Ticonderoga during the previous year. The disparity of the opposing armies was much like that when Montcalm so successfully defended that post; but Bourlamaque, who now commanded, had orders to retire, and was making his arrangements. Amherst brought up his cannon, and protected his men behind the outer line of entrenchments, which Bourlamaque had abandoned. On the night of the 23d, Bourlamaque escaped down the lake, but a small force under Hebecourt still held the fort, which kept up a show of resistance till the evening of the 26th, when the remaining French, leaving a match in the magazine, also fled. In the night one bastion was hurled to the sky, and the barracks were set on fire.

From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual surveys_, 1763, published in London. Various plans and views are noted in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 395. Cf. plans in Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, 85; Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 118, and views and descriptions of the ruins in Lossing, i. 127, 131; Watson’s _County of Essex_, 112. Lieut. Brehm’s description of the fort after its capture is in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1883, p. 21.]

From a small vignette on a map by Kitchin of the Province of New York, in the _London Magazine_, Sept., 1756. There is a similar map in the _Gentleman’s Mag._, vol. xxv. p. 525.

Various MS. plans and views of Crown Point are noted in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), i. 277, under date of 1759. The _Brinley Catal._, ii. 2,939, shows a MS. “Plan of Crown Point Fort, March, 1763,” on a scale of 90 feet to the inch.

There was published in Boston in 1762 a _Plan of a part of Lake Champlain and the large new fort at Crown Point, mounting 108 cannon, built by Gen. Amherst_. (Haven’s _Bibliog._, in Thomas, ii. p. 560.) Cf. the plans, nos. 24, 25, in _Set of plans_, etc. (London, 1763).

For the ruins of Crown Point, see Lossing, _Field-Book of the Revolution_, i. 150-152; Watson’s _County of Essex_, pp. 104, 112. These are a part, however, of the fort built by Amherst. Kalm describes the previous fort (_Travels_, London, 1771, ii. 207), and it is delineated in _Mémoires sur les affaires du Canada_, p. 53.]

Amherst began to repair the works, with his army now succumbing somewhat to the weather,[1166] and was about advancing down the lake, when scouts brought in word that Bourlamaque had also abandoned Crown Point. So Amherst again advanced. He knew nothing of the progress Wolfe was making in his attack on Quebec by water, but he did know that it was a part of Pitt’s plan that success on Lake Champlain should inure to Wolfe’s advantage, and this could only be brought about by an active pursuit of the enemy down the lake. Amherst was, however, not a general of the impetuous kind, and believed beyond all else in securing his rear. So he began to build at Crown Point the new fort, whose massive ruins are still to be seen, and sent out parties to open communication with the Upper Hudson on the west and with the Connecticut River on the east.

The French, as he knew, were strongly posted at Isle-aux-Noix, in the river below the lake, and they had four armed vessels, which would render dangerous any advance on his part by boat. So Captain Loring, the English naval commander, was ordered to put an equal armament afloat for an escort to his flotilla.

Bourlamaque, meanwhile, was confident in his position, for he knew that, in addition to his own strength, Lévis had been sent up to Montreal with 800 men to succor him, if necessary, and all the militia about Montreal was alert.

Amherst, on his part, was anxious to know how the campaign was going with Wolfe. In August he sent a messenger with a letter by the circuitous route of the Kennebec, which Wolfe received in about a month, but it helped that general little to know of the building going on at Crown Point. Amherst then tried to pass messengers through the Abenaki region, but they were seized. Upon this, Major Rogers was sent with his rangers to destroy the Indian village of St. Francis, which he did, and then, to elude parties endeavoring to cut him off, he retreated by Lake Memphremagog to Charlestown, on the Connecticut, enduring as he went the excruciating horrors of famine and exhaustion.

From a sketch made in 1851, showing in the foreground a slope of the embankment, with part of the ruins of the barracks, the lake beyond, looking to the north.]

After a plan in the contemporary _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760, as published by the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec (réimpression), 1873, p. 154. See the view in Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 167.]

It was near the middle of October when Loring pronounced the armed vessels ready, and Amherst embarked; but the autumn gales soon convinced him that the risks of the elements were too great to be added to those of the enemy, and after his demonstration had caused the destruction of three of the enemy’s vessels, and one had reached their post on the Richelieu River, the English general, still ignorant of Wolfe’s luck, withdrew to Crown Point, and gave himself to the completion of its fortress.

* * * * *

We must now turn to the most brilliant part of the year’s work. This was the task assigned to General Wolfe, who had already shown his quality in the attack on Louisbourg the previous year.[1167] Late in May he was at Louisbourg, with his army under three brigadiers, Monckton, Townshend, and Murray, and the fleet of Saunders, who had come direct from England, combined with that of Holmes, who had been first at New York to take troops on board. A third fleet under Durell was cruising in the gulf to intercept supplies for Quebec, but that officer largely failed in his mission, for all but three of the French supply ships eluded him, and by the 6th of June, when the last of Wolfe’s fleet sailed out of Louisbourg, Quebec had received all the succor that was expected.

The French had done their best to be prepared for the blow. Their entire force at Quebec was congregated in the town defences and in a fortified camp, which had been constructed along the St. Lawrence, beginning at the St. Charles, opposite Quebec, and extending to the Montmorenci, and on this line about 14,000 men, beside Indians, manned the entrenchments. A bridge connected the camp with Quebec, and a boom across the St. Charles at its mouth was intended to stop any approaches to the bridge by boats; while earthworks along the St. Charles formed a camp to fall back upon in case the more advanced one was forced. Beside the 106 cannon mounted on the defences of the city, there were gun-boats and fire-ships prepared for the moment of need. In the town the Chevalier de Ramezay commanded a garrison of one or two thousand men. Montcalm had his headquarters[1168] in the rear of the centre of the entrenched line along the St. Lawrence, and Vaudreuil’s flag was flying nearer the St. Charles.

On the 21st of June the masts of the advanced ships of the English were first seen, and one of the fire-ships was ineffectually sent against them. There was a difficult passage between the north shore of the river and the lower end of the Island of Orleans; but the English fleet managed to pass it without loss, much to the disappointment of the French, who had failed to plant a battery on the side of Cape Tourmente, whence they could have plunged shot into the passing vessels. Past the dangers of the stream, the English landed their army on the island,[1169] less than 9,000 in all, for Wolfe could count little on the sailors who were needed for the management of the fleet.[1170]

From an engraving in John Knox’s _Hist. Journal of the Campaigns in North America_ (1757-1760), London, 1769. An engraving from Entick is given in the preceding chapter. There is a head of Wolfe in _London Mag._ (1759), p. 584.

J. C. Smith, in his _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, notes four different prints (vol. ii. 783; iii. 1027, 1345, the last by H. Smith, engraved by Spooner; and iv. 1750), but he does not reproduce either.

Parkman (_Montcalm and Wolfe_, ii.) gives a picture of Wolfe in early youth—weak enough in aspect—which follows a photograph from an original portrait owned by Admiral Warde.

Wright, in his _Life of Wolfe_, gives a photograph of the same. See _Ibid._, p. 604, for an account of various portraits and memorials.

The common picture representing him standing and in profile is engraved in Parkman’s _Historical Handbook of the Northern Tour_; in the Eng. ed. of Warburton’s _Conquest of Canada_, etc.]

Reproduced from the map in Miles’s _Canada_, called “Plan of the St. Lawrence River from Sillery to the Fall of Montmorency, with the operations of the siege of Quebec, 1759,” which has a corner “View of the action gained by the English, Sept. 13, 1759, near Quebec.” This map is a reduction of one engraved by Jefferys, and dedicated to Pitt, entitled “Authentic plan of the River St. Lawrence from Sillery to the Fall of Montmorenci, with the operations of the siege of Quebec, under the command of Vice-Admiral Saunders and Major-General Wolfe, down to the fifth of September, 1759, drawn by a captain in his Majesty’s navy.” The sideplan is called “View of the action gained by the English Sept. 13, 1759, near Quebec, brought from thence by an officer of distinction.” This was also inserted by Jefferys in his _History of the French Dominion in America_, London, 1760, p. 131. The same map is given in Entick’s _General Hist. of the Late War_, London, 1770 (3d ed.), iv. 107; and a similar one is in the _American Atlas_. Jefferys repeats this map in his _General Topography of North America and the West Indies_, London, 1768 (no. 18), and adds another (no. 21), called “A correct plan of the environs of Quebec and the battle fought 13 Sept., 1759,” which is accompanied by a superposed “second plate,” showing the disposition of the forces on the Plains of Abraham. This plan had already appeared separately in _Journal of the siege of Quebec, to which is annexed a correct plan of the environs of Quebec, and of the battle fought on the 13th September, 1759, together with a particular detail of the French lines and batteries, and also of the encampments, batteries, and attacks of the British army, etc. Engraved from original survey by Thomas Jefferys_ [London, 1760], 16 pp. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,276.)

The maps given in James Grant’s _British Battles_, ii. 91, and in Cassell’s _United States_, are seemingly based on Jefferys’.

The _London Magazine_ for 1759 has a plan of Quebec (Apr.) and of the siege (Nov.), with a map of the river (Sept.); and for 1760, a view of the taking of Quebec (p. 280), and a view of the town from the basin (p. 392).

There is a large folding plan, showing the fleet and the landing of the boats, in Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_, 1772, p. 233. Alfred Hawkins published at London, in 1842, _A Plan of the Naval and Military Operations before Quebec_, accompanied by an engraving of West’s “Death of Wolfe.” (H. J. Morgan, _Bibliotheca Canadensis_, no. 179.)

In the _Atlantic Neptune_ (Additional Plates, no. 1) is a plan of three sheets, called “A plan of Quebec and environs, with its defences and the occasional entrenched camps of the French, commanded by the Marquis of Montcalm, showing likewise the principal works and operations of the British forces under the command of Maj.-Gen. Wolfe, during the siege of that place, 1759.” It is accompanied by a key. In the same, Part ii. no. 16, there is a map of the St. Lawrence from Quebec to the gulf, which shows the region of Quebec on a large scale.

Among existing MS. plans of Wolfe’s attack may be noted one in the Faden Collection of maps in the library of Congress (E. E. Hale’s _Catal. of the Faden Maps_); others in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 220, under date of 1755, 1759, 1760; also _Brit. Mus. MSS._, no. 15,535; and _Additional MSS._, no. 31,357; this last is a large plan in four sheets. Parkman (ii. 440) refers to a large MS. plan, 800 feet to an inch, belonging to the Royal Engineers, which was made by three engineers of Wolfe’s army, and of which he says that he possesses a fac-simile. In his _Montcalm and Wolfe_ (ii. 200) he gives an eclectic plan; and other plans are in Lemoine’s _Picturesque Quebec_, p. 301 (being Jefferys’ on a small scale); Bancroft’s _United States_, orig. ed., iv. 315, etc., repeated in vol. i. of his _Hist. of the Amer. Revolution_ (English edition).

A plan was published at Amsterdam in 1766.

Dussieux, in _Le Canada sous la domination Française_, gives a map of the siege, “D’après un manuscrit Anglais du Dépôt de la Guerre.”]

From _Father Abraham’s Almanac_ (by Abraham Weatherwise, Gent.), 1761. Key: A, the west part of the Island of Orleans, on which General Wolfe landed. B, Point Leveé, on which one grand battery was erected. C, Wolfe’s camp to the east of Montmorency Falls. D, the river St. Charles. E E E, the river St. Lawrence, with some of the English ships going up. F, the lower town, to the right of which is a cross (in the middle of the passage to the upper town), and a man kneeling before it, saying his Ave Maria. G, the upper town and passage to the castle. H, Montcalm’s camp and entrenchments, to the west of Montmorency Falls, from whence he marched when Wolfe recrossed the river to Point Leveé, in order to get above the city, where they luckily met, and fought it out bravely. I, Montmorency Falls and Saunders’ ships playing upon the town.

This cut has interest as a contemporary sketch for popular instruction.]

He knew also that he must place little reliance on the cannon of the ships, for the high rocks and bluffs of the defences were above the elevation which could be given to the guns, and a broad stretch of mud-flats kept the vessels from a near approach to that portion of the French camp which was low and lay nearest the St. Charles. Cape Diamond, the promontory of Quebec, so jutted out that Wolfe could not inspect at present the banks of the river above the town.

Montcalm had determined on a policy of wearing out his assailants,—and he came very near doing it,—and when a gale sprang up he hoped that its power of devastation would be his best ally. When he saw that fail, he tried his fire-ships; but the British sailors grappled them and towed them aground, where they were harmless.

Wolfe’s next movement was to occupy Point Levi, opposite the city,[1171] whence he showered shot and shell into the town, and drove the non-combatants out. The French tried to dislodge him, but failed. The English army was now divided by the river, and ran some risk of attack in detail. Montcalm, however, was not tempted; nor was he later, when Wolfe next landed a force below him, beyond the Montmorenci, and began to entrench himself, though the English general was interrupted in the beginning of this movement by an attack of Canadians, who had crossed the Montmorenci by an upper ford. The attack was not persisted in, however, and Wolfe was soon well entrenched. The cannonading was incessant. Night after night the sky was streaked with the shells from the vessels, and from each of Wolfe’s three camps.

The dilatory policy of Montcalm soon began to tell on his force, and then weariness and ominous news from Bourlamaque and Pouchot hastened the desertion of his Canadians. Wolfe tried to affect the neighboring peasantry by proclamations more and more threatening, and felt himself obliged at last to enforce his authority by the destruction of crops and villages.

On the 18th of July, in the night, the “Sutherland” and some smaller vessels pushed up the river beyond the town, while a fleet of boats was dragged overland back of Point Levi and launched above, out of gun-shot from the town. A force was sent by a détour to operate with them. Thus Wolfe, in defiance of the French general, had made a fourth division of his troops, each liable to separate attack. The English vessels above the town made descents along the north shore, and took some prisoners, but did little else. The French made their final attempt with a huge fire-raft, but it was as unsuccessful as the earlier ones.

Wolfe now determined to provoke Montcalm to fight, and under cover of a cannonade from Point Levi and from some of his ships[1172] he landed a force from boats beneath the precipice at the lower end of the French camp. An additional body at the same time crossed by a ford, in front of the falls of Montmorenci, which was traversable at low tide. The impetuosity of the grenadiers, who were in advance, not waiting for support, and a tempest which at the moment broke over them, convinced the quick eye of Wolfe that the attempt was to fail, and he recalled his men. The French let them retire in good order, and began to think their Fabian policy was to be crowned with success. Wolfe was correspondingly shaken and rebuked the grenadiers. He began to think, even, that the season might wear away with no better results, and that he should have to abandon the campaign.

There was one plan yet, which might succeed, and he sought to push more ships and march more troops above the town. Murray, who now took command at that point, began to raid upon the shore, but with poor success. Montcalm sent Bougainville with 1,500 men to patrol the shore, and incessant marching they had, as the English by water flitted up and down the river with the tides, threatening to land. The English restlessness was too oppressive, however, for the French camp at Beaufort, which felt that its supplies from Three Rivers and Montreal might be cut off at any moment by an English descent. Desertions increased, and rapidly increased when in August the French got decisive and unfavorable news from Lake Champlain and Ontario. The French fearing an approach of Amherst down the St. Lawrence, Quebec was further weakened by the despatch of Lévis to confront the English in that direction. By the end of August there were no signs of immediate danger at Montreal, and the French took heart.