Scottish officer, with the 1st Scots Royals, the Black Watch, the
55th, or Westmoreland Regiment, the 62nd, or Royal North Americans,
and other troops, to the number of seven thousand regulars and ten
thousand provincials, landed from nine hundred batteaux, and one
hundred and thirty-five whale-boats, with all their cannon,
provisions, and ammunition, on the 6th of July, at the foot of Lake
George, a clear and beautiful sheet of water thirty-three miles long,
and surrounded by high and verdant mountains. That district, now so
busy and populous, was then silent and savage. No sound broke the
stillness of the romantic scenery, or the depths of the American
forest, but the British drum or Scottish pipe, as the troops formed
in four columns of attack, and advanced against the Fort of
Ticonderoga.
Our regiment, then styled "Lord John Murray's Highlanders," was
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Grant; his second was Major
Duncan Campbell of Inveraw, and never did two better or braver
officers wear the tartan of the old 42nd. Viscount Howe, a brilliant
officer of the old school of puffs, pigtails, knee-breeches, and
Ramilie wigs, led the 55th.
Ticonderoga is situated on a tongue of land extending between Lake
George and the narrow fall of water that pours with the roar of
thunder into Lake Champlain, a hundred feet below. Its ramparts were
thirty feet high, faced with stone, surrounded on three sides by
water, and on the fourth by a dangerous morass that was swept by the
range of its cannon and mortars. The approach to this morass--the
_only avenue_ to the fort--was covered by a dense abattis of felled
trees of enormous size, secured by stakes to the ground, and having
all their branches pointed outward.
The garrison, which consisted of eight battalions, was five thousand
six hundred strong; and as the assailants advanced, it was the good
fortune of our hero, Adam White, to learn from an Indian scout that
three thousand French, from the banks of the Mohawk river, were
advancing to reinforce Ticonderoga. These tidings he at once
communicated to General Abercrombie, and orders were given to push on
without delay. The praise he obtained for his diligence made the
breast of our poor "sub" expand with hope; and with a last glance at
his relic of Lucy Fleming, he shouldered his spontoon, and hurried
with his company into the matted jungle.
The officer who commanded in Ticonderoga was brave, resolute, and
determined. Twenty-four years before he had been a grenadier of the
Regiment de Normandie, and served with the army of the Rhine under
the famous Maréchal the Duke of Berwick. At the siege of Philipsburg
in 1734, the Prince of Conti was so pleased by his intrepid bearing,
that he placed a purse in hu hand, apologizing for the smallness of
the sum it contained; "but we soldiers, mon camarade," continued the
prince, "have the privilege to plead that we are poor."
Next morning the young grenadier appeared at the tent of Conti, with
two diamond rings and a jewel of great value.
"Monseigneur le Prince," said he, "the louis in your purse I presume
you intended for me, and I have sent them to my mother, poor old
woman! at Lillebonne; but _these_ I bring back to you, as having no
claim to them."
"My noble comrade," replied the prince, placing an epaulette on his
left shoulder, "you have doubly deserved them by your integrity,
which equals your bravery; they are yours, with this commission in
the Regiment de Conti, which, in the name of King Louis, I have the
power to bestow."
"Bravo, prince, this is noble!"
"Bravo! it equals anything in Scuderi!" exclaimed two officers, who
were at breakfast with the prince.
The first of these was Maurice Count Saxe, general of the cavalry;
the second was the famous Victor Marquis de Mirabeau, the future
political economist, who was then a captain in the French line.
In twenty-four years this grenadier became a general officer and peer
of France by the title of Comte de Montmorin; and in 1758, he
commanded the French garrison in Ticonderoga, where he left nothing
undone to render that post impregnable. Thus a desperate encounter
was expected.
Formed with the grenadiers in the reserve, the 42nd marched with
muskets slung, and their thirteen pipers, led by Deors MacCrimmon
their pipe-major, made the deep dark forests ring to that harsh but
wild music, which speaks a language Scotsmen only feel; and the air
they played was that old march, now so well known in Scotland as the
"Black Watch;" and loudly it rang, rousing vast flocks of wild birds
from the lakes and tarns, and scaring the Red men from their wigwams
and camps in the dense forests of pine that covered all the then
unbroken wilderness.
The day was hot--the sun being 96° in the shade; the shrubs were all
in blossom, and the wild plum and cherries grew in masses and
clusters in the jungle, through which the heavily-laden columns of
attack forced a passage towards Ticonderoga, leaving their artillery
in the rear, as the officer commanding the engineers had reported,
that without employing that arm, the works might be carried by storm.
While the reflection of all Lucy might suffer, should he fall, cost
poor White a severe pang, he was the first man who sent his name to
the brigade-major, as a volunteer to lead the escalade.
"But," thought he, "if successful, my promotion is insured; and if I
miss death, I shall, at least, be one step nearer Lucy."
Jack Oswald, who volunteered next, consoled himself by some trite
quotation from Bossuet (he was always quoting French writers), that
he had not a relation to regret in the world.
The country was thickly wooded, and the guide having lost the track
through those hitherto almost untrodden wastes, the greatest
confusion ensued. Brigadier-General Viscount Howe, who was at the
head of the right centre column, suddenly came upon a French
battalion led by the Marquis de Launay, who was in full retreat, and
a severe conflict ensued. The viscount, a young and gallant officer,
whom Abercrombie styles "the Idol of the Soldiers," fell at the head
of his own regiment, the 55th, as he was calling upon the French to
surrender. A chevalier of St. Louis rushed forward and shot him by a
pistol ball, which pierced his left breast. The chevalier was shot
by Captain Monipennie, and received three musket balls as he fell.
The French were routed; many were slain, and five officers with one
hundred and forty-eight privates were taken.
Meanwhile, the column of which the Black Watch formed a part, had
been brought to a complete halt in a dense forest, where the rays of
the sun were intercepted by the lofty trees; the guides had deserted,
and the officer in command was at a loss whether to advance or
retreat, when Adam White, who had been famous for beating the jungle
and tigerhunting in India, found a war-path, and boldly taking upon
him the arduous and responsible office of guide, conducted the troops
through the wilderness; and thus, on the morning of the 8th July, the
waters of Lake Champlain, long, deep, and narrow, appeared before
them, shining in the clear sunrise, between the stems of the opening
forest. Beyond rose the solid ramparts of that Ticonderoga which had
proved so fatal to the British arms in the last campaign, faced with
polished stones, grim with shady embrasures and pointed cannon,
peering over trench and palisade; and over all waved slowly in the
morning wind the white banner, with the three fleurs de lis of old
France.
Fire flashed from the massive bastion, and then the alarm-gun pealed
across the water, waking a thousand echoes in the lonely woods; and
the drum beat hoarsely and rapidly the call to arms, as the heads of
the four British columns in scarlet, with colours waving and bayonets
fixed, debouched in succession upon the margin of that beautiful
lake; and there a second time Captain White of Ours was warmly
complimented by General Abercrombie for his skill in conducting his
comrades through a country of which he was totally ignorant.
"And if I live to escape the dangers of the assault, believe me,
sir," continued the general, "this second service shall be recorded
to your advantage and honour."
But poor White thought only of his betrothed wife, and far away from
the shores of that lone American lake, from its guarded fortress and
woods, where the stealthy Red man glided with his poisoned shafts,
and from the columns of bronzed infantry, wearied by toil and stained
by travel, his memory wandered to that sweet sequestered valley,
where the pastoral Tweed was brawling past the windows of the old
manse; and to the honeysuckle bower, where, at that moment, perhaps,
Lucy Fleming, with pretty foot and rapid hand, urged round her
ivory-mounted spinning-wheel; for, in those days of old simplicity,
every Scottish lady spun, like the stately Duchess of Lauderdale, so
famous for her diamonds and her imperious beauty.
But now the snapping of flints, the springing of iron ramrods that
rang in the polished barrels, the opening of pouches and careful
inspection of ammunition by companies at open order, gave token of
the terrors about to ensue; and old friends as they passed to and fro
with swords drawn to take their places in the ranks, shook each other
warmly by the hand, or exchanged a kindly smile, for the hour had
come when many were to part, and many to take their last repose
before the ramparts of Ticonderoga.
"Stormers to the front!" was now the order that passed along the
columns, as the arms were shouldered, and the companies closed up to
half-distance, while the grenadier companies of the different corps
were formed with the Highlanders, as a reserve column of attack; for
on them, more than all his other troops, did the general depend; and
a fine-looking body of men they were, those old British Grenadiers,
whom Wolfe ever considered the flower of his army, though they wore
those quaint, sugar-loaf Prussian caps, which we adopted with the
Prussian tactics, and though their heads were all floured and
pomatumed, with a smart pigtail trimmed straight to the seam of the
coat behind, their large-skirted coats buttoned back for service and
to display their white breeches and black leggings--their officers
with triple-cocked hats and sleeve-ruffles, just as we see them in
the old pictures of Oudenarde and Fontenoy.
As Colonel Grant had been wounded by a random shot, Major Duncan
Campbell of Inveraw, a veteran officer of great worth and bravery,
led the regiment, and Adam White was by his side.
The cracking roar of musketry, and the rapid boom-boom-booming of
cannon, with the whistle and explosion of mortars, shook the echoes
of the hitherto silent waste of wood and water, and pealed away with
a thousand reverberations among the beautiful mountains that overlook
Lake Champlain, as the British columns rushed to the assault; but
alas! the entrenchments of the French were soon found to be
altogether impregnable.
The first cannon-shot tore up the earth under the feet of Ensign
Oswald, and hurled him to the ground; but he rose unhurt, and rushed
forward sword in hand.
The leading files fell into the abattis before the breastwork, and on
becoming entangled among the branches, were shot down from the
glacis, which was lofty, and there perished helplessly in scores.
The Inniskillings, the East Essex, the 46th, the 55th, the 1st and
4th battalions of the Royal Americans, and the provincial corps, were
fearfully cut up. Every regiment successively fell back in disorder,
though their officers fought bravely to encourage them, waving their
swords and spontoons; but the French held the post with desperate
success. Proud of their name, their remote antiquity and ancient
spirit, the Scots Royals fought well and valiantly. At last even
they gave way; and then the Grenadiers and Highlanders were ordered
to ADVANCE.
While the drums of the former beat the "point of war," and the pipes
of the latter yelled an onset, the reserve column, led by Inveraw,
rushed with a wild cheer to the assault, over ground encumbered by
piles of dead and wounded men, writhing and shrieking in the agonies
of death and thirst.
Impetuously the Grenadiers with levelled bayonets, and the Black
Watch, claymore in hand, broke through a bank of smoke, and fell
among the branches and bloody entanglements of the fatal abattis.
"Hew!" cried White, "hew down the branches with your swords, my lads,
and we will soon be close enough."
"Shoulder to shoulder! Clann nan Gael an guillan a chiele," cried
old Duncan of Inveraw; but at that instant a ball pierced his brain,
he fell dead, and on White devolved the terrible task of conducting
the final assault. Oswald was by his side, with the King's colours
brandished aloft.
Hewing a passage through the dense branches of the abattis by their
broadswords, the Black Watch made a gallant effort to cross the wet
morass and storm the breastwork by climbing on each other's
shoulders, and by placing their feet on bayonets and dirk-blades
inserted in the joints of the masonry. These brave men were totally
unprovided with ladders.
White was the first man on the parapet, and while exposed to a storm
of whistling shot, he beat aside the muzzles of the nearest muskets
with his claymore, and with his left hand assisted MacCrimmon, the
pipe-major, Captain John Campbell, and Ensign Oswald, to reach the
summit; and there stood the resolute piper, blowing the _onset_ to
encourage his comrades, till five or six balls pierced him, and he
fell to rise no more.
A few more Highlanders reached the top of the glacis, but they were
all destroyed in a moment. White fell among the French, and was
repeatedly stabbed by bayonets. And now the Grenadiers gave way; but
still the infuriated Black Watch continued that bloody conflict for
several hours, and "the order to retire was _three times_ repeated,"
says the historical record of the regiment, "before the Highlanders
withdrew from so unequal a contest."
At last, however, they _did_ fall back, leaving, besides Adam White
and Major Campbell of Inveraw, Captain John Campbell (of the fated
house of Glenlyon, who had been promoted for his valour at Fontenoy),
Lieutenants Macpherson, Baillie, and Sutherland; Ensigns Rattray and
Stuart of Banskied, with three hundred and six soldiers killed;
Captains Graham, Gordon, Graham of Duchray, Campbell of Strachur,
Murray, and Stewart of Urrard, with twelve subalterns, ten sergeants,
and three hundred and six soldiers, wounded; making a frightful total
of _six hundred and forty-eight_ casualties in one regiment!
Oswald received a ball through his sword arm, but brought off the
colours, tradition says, in his teeth!
The last he saw of his friend White was his body, still, motionless,
and drenched in blood, under the muzzle of a French cannon, but
whether he was then alive or dead it was impossible for him to say.
Four hours the contest had continued, and then Abercrombie retired to
the south side of Lake George, leaving two thousand soldiers and many
brave officers lying dead before Ticonderoga.
The regiment deplored this terrible slaughter, but the loss of none
was so much regretted as Inveraw, Adam White, and old MacCrimmon the
pipe-major; and as the shattered band retired through the woods
towards a bivouac on the shore of Lake George, the pipers played and
many of the men sang "MacCrimmon's Lament," which he had composed on
the fall of his father, Donald Bane, who had been piper to MacLeod of
Dunvegan, and was killed in a skirmish with Lord London's troops near
Moyhall thirteen years before, in the dark epoch of Culloden; and the
effect of this mournful Highland song, as it rose up sadly from the
leafy dingles of the dense American forest, was never forgotten by
the spirit-broken men who heard it:--
"The white mountain-mist round Cuchullin is driven,
The spirit her dirge of wailing has given;
And bright blue eyes in Dunvegan are weeping,
For thou art away to the dark place of sleeping.
Return, return---alas, for ever!
MacCrimmon's away to return to us never!
In war or in joy, to feast or to fray,
To return to us never, MacCrimmon's away!
"The breath of the valley is gently blowing,
Each river and stream is sadly flowing;
The birds sit in silence on rock and on spray,
To return on no morrow, since thou art away!
Return, return, &c.
"On the ocean that chafes with a mournful wail,
The birlinn is moored without banner or sail,
And the voice of the billow is heard to complain,
Like the cry of the Tar' Uisc from wild Corriskain.
Return, return, &c.
"In Dongevan thy pibroch so thrilling, no more
Will waken the echoes of mountain and shore;
And the hearts of our people lament night and day,
To return on no morrow, since thou art away!
Return, return, &c."
For many a year after, this lament was used by the regiment as a dead
march.
"With a mixture of grief, esteem, and envy, I consider the great loss
and immortal glory acquired by the Scots Highlanders in the late
bloody affair," says a lieutenant of the 66th, in a letter dated from
Lake George, July 10. "I cannot say for them what they really merit;
but I shall ever fear the wrath, love the integrity, and admire the
bravery of these Scotsmen. There is much harmony and good regulation
amongst us; our men love and fear us, as we very justly do our
superior officers; but we are in a most d--nable country, fit only
for wolves and its native savages."--_Caledonian Mercury_, Sept 9,
1768.
For many a year after, Ticonderoga found a terrible echo in the
hearts of the Highlanders; a cry for vengeance, as if it had been a
great national affront, went throughout the glens, and in an
incredibly short space of time more than a thousand clansmen
volunteered to join the regiment. So the King's warrant came to form
them into a second battalion; and it was further enacted that "from
henceforth our said regiment be called and distinguished by the title
and name of our 42nd, or _Royal Highland Regiment of Foot_, in all
commissions, orders, and writings. Given at our Court of Kensington,
this 22nd day of July, 1758, in the thirty-second year of our reign."
Blue facings now replaced the buff hitherto worn by the corps.
This warrant was issued while the survivors of Ticonderoga were
encamped on the southern shore of Lake George.
In due time the tidings of this second repulse of the British troops
before that fatal fortress reached the secluded manse on Tweedside;
and from the cold and conventional detail of operations, as given in
the official despatch of General Abercrombie, poor Lucy turned, with
a pale cheek and anxious and haggard eyes, to the list of killed and
wounded; and the appalling catalogue that appeared under the head of
"Lord John Murray's Highlanders" struck terror to her soul. Her
heart beat wildly, and her eyes grew dim; but mastering her emotion,
the poor girl took in the fatal roll at a glance, and in a moment her
eye caught the doubly distressing announcement--
"_Wounded severely, and since missing, Captain Adam White._"
"God help me now, father!" she exclaimed, and threw herself on the
old man's breast; "he is gone for ever!"
"Missing!"
That term used in military returns and field reports to express the
general absence of men dead or alive, struck a vague terror, mingled
with hope, in the heart of Lucy Fleming. But then White was also
_wounded_, and the dread grew strong in her mind that he might have
bled to death, unseen or unknown, in some solitary place, with no
kind hand near to soothe his dying agony or close his glazing eyes;
and expiring thus miserably, have been left, like thousands of
others, in that protracted war, unburied by the Red Indians--a prey
to wolves and ravens, with the autumn leaves falling, and the rank
grass sprouting among his whitened bones.
These thoughts, and others such as these, filled Lucy with a horror
over which she brooded day and night; and it was in vain that her
only surviving parent, the old minister,
"A father to the poor--a friend to all,"
sought to encourage her by rehearsing innumerable stories of those
who had returned, in those days of vague and uncertain intelligence,
after being mourned for and given up, yea, forgotten by their dearest
friends and nearest relatives; but in the first paroxysm of her grief
and terror Lacy refused to be consoled.
The name of the missing man was still borne in the Army List; and by
the slaughter of Ticonderoga he was gazetted to the rank of
brevet-major, and Oswald to a lieutenancy.
Then weeks and months slipped away, but Adam White was heard of no
more.
Every hope that inventive kindness could suggest, or the uncertainty
of war, time, and distance could supply, were advanced to soothe the
sufferer, who caught at them fondly and prayerfully for a time; but
suspense became sickening, and day by day these hopes grew fainter,
till they died away at last.
The colonel of the regiment, Lieutenant-General Lord John Murray (son
of John Duke of Athole, who, after the revolution, had been Lord High
Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament), an officer who took a vivid
interest in everything connected with his regiment, spared no
exertion or expense to discover the missing officer; but, after a
long correspondence with the Marquis de Montcalm, who commanded the
French in America, M. Bourlemarque, who commanded near Lake
Champlain, and the Comte de Montmorin, commandant of Ticonderoga, no
trace of poor White could be discovered, as all prisoners had long
since been transmitted to France.
At Chelsea, Lord John Murray appeared in the dark kilt and scarlet
uniform of the regiment to plead the cause of its noble veterans who
had been disabled at Ticonderoga; and becoming exasperated by the
parsimony, partiality, and gross injustice of the Government of
George II., a monarch who abhorred the Scots and loved the English
but little, he generously offered "the free use of a cottage and
garden to all 42nd men who chose to settle on his estates." Many
accepted this reward, and the memory of their gallant colonel--the
brother of the loyal and noble Tullybardin, who unfurled the royal
standard in Glenfinnan--was long treasured by the men of the Black
Watch.
But this tale, being a true narrative, though enrolled among our
regimental legends, will not permit of many digressions.
White's name disappeared from the lists at last; another filled his
place in the ranks, and after a time even the regiment ceased to
speak of him, in the excitement of the new campaign in the West
Indies, where, in the following year, 1759, the most of his friends
fell in the attack on Martinique or the storming of Guadaloupe; and
Jack Oswald, who was a strange and excitable character, becoming
disgusted with the slowness of promotion, after being "rowed" one
morning for absence from parade, sold out, left the service in a pet,
became an amatory poet, and then a dangerous political writer, under
the well-known _nom de plume_ of Sylvester Otway.
Long, sadly, and sorely did Lucy Fleming pine for the lost love of
her youth. The mystery that involved his fate, and the snapping
asunder of the hopes she had cherished for yearn, the shattering of
the fairy altar on which she had garnered up these hopes, and all the
secret aspirations of her girlish heart, affected her deeply. She
had all the appearance of one who was dying of a broken-heart; and
yet she did not so die. Many have perished of grief and of
broken-hearts, but our fair friend with the black ringlets and the
black eyes was not one of these.
In time she shook off her grief, as a rose shakes off the dew that
has bent it down, and like the rose she raised her head again more
beautiful and bright than ever; for her beauty was now chastened by a
certain pensive sadness which made her very charming; and thus it
was, that in the year 1761--three years after the fatal repulse of
the British troops before Ticonderoga--she attracted especial
attention at the Hague, whither her father, the amiable old minister,
had gone for a season, leaving his well-beloved flock and sequestered
manse upon the Scottish border, to benefit the health of his pale and
drooping daughter. Being furnished with introductory letters from
his friend Home, the author of "Douglas," who was then conservator of
Scottish privileges at Campvere, the best society was open to them.