1759
Amherst. Niagara
Pitt had directed that, while Quebec was attacked, an attempt should be
made to penetrate into Canada by way of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
Thus the two armies might unite in the heart of the colony, or, at
least, a powerful diversion might be effected in behalf of Wolfe. At the
same time Oswego was to be re-established, and the possession of Fort
Duquesne, or Pittsburg, secured by reinforcements and supplies; while
Amherst, the commander-in-chief, was further directed to pursue any
other enterprise which in his opinion would weaken the enemy, without
detriment to the main objects of the campaign.[722] He accordingly
resolved to attempt the capture of Niagara. Brigadier Prideaux was
charged with this stroke; Brigadier Stanwix was sent to conduct the
operations for the relief of Pittsburg; and Amherst himself prepared to
lead the grand central advance against Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and
Montreal.[723]
[Footnote 722: _Pitt to Amherst, 23 Jan., 10 March, 1759_.]
[Footnote 723: _Amherst to Pitt, 19 June, 1759. Amherst to Stanwix, 6
May, 1759_.]
Towards the end of June he reached that valley by the head of Lake
George which for five years past had been the annual mustering-place of
armies. Here were now gathered about eleven thousand men, half regulars
and half provincials,[724] drilling every day, firing by platoons,
firing at marks, practising manoeuvres in the woods; going out on
scouting parties, bathing parties, fishing parties; gathering wild herbs
to serve for greens, cutting brushwood and meadow hay to make hospital
beds. The sick were ordered on certain mornings to repair to the
surgeon's tent, there, in prompt succession, to swallow such doses as he
thought appropriate to their several ailments; and it was further
ordered that "every fair day they that can walk be paraded together and
marched down to the lake to wash their hands and faces." Courts-martial
were numerous; culprits were flogged at the head of each regiment in
turn, and occasionally one was shot. A frequent employment was the
cutting of spruce tops to make spruce beer. This innocent beverage was
reputed sovereign against scurvy; and such was the fame of its virtues
that a copious supply of the West Indian molasses used in concocting it
was thought indispensable to every army or garrison in the wilderness.
Throughout this campaign it is repeatedly mentioned in general orders,
and the soldiers are promised that they shall have as much of it as they
want at a halfpenny a quart.[725]
[Footnote 724: Mante, 210.]
[Footnote 725: _Orderly Book of Commissary Wilson in the Expedition
against Ticonderoga, 1759. Journal of Samuel Warner, a Massachusetts
Soldier, 1759. General and Regimental Orders, Army of Major-General
Amherst, 1759. Diary of Sergeant Merriman, of Ruggles's Regiment, 1759._
I owe to William L. Stone, Esq., the use of the last two curious
documents.]
The rear of the-army was well protected from insult. Fortified posts
were built at intervals of three or four miles along the road to Fort
Edward, and especially at the station called Half-way Brook; while, for
the whole distance, a broad belt of wood on both sides was cut down and
burned, to deprive a skulking enemy of cover. Amherst was never long in
one place without building a fort there. He now began one, which proved
wholly needless, on that flat rocky hill where the English made their
intrenched camp during the siege of Fort William Henry. Only one bastion
of it was ever finished, and this is still shown to tourists under the
name of Fort George.
The army embarked on Saturday, the twenty-first of July. The Reverend
Benjamin Pomeroy watched their departure in some concern, and wrote on
Monday to Abigail, his wife: "I could wish for more appearance of
dependence on God than was observable among them; yet I hope God will
grant deliverance unto Israel by them." There was another military
pageant, another long procession of boats and banners, among the
mountains and islands of Lake George. Night found them near the outlet;
and here they lay till morning, tossed unpleasantly on waves ruffled by
a summer gale. At daylight they landed, beat back a French detachment,
and marched by the portage road to the saw-mill at the waterfall. There
was little resistance. They occupied the heights, and then advanced to
the famous line of intrenchment against which the army of Abercromby had
hurled itself in vain. These works had been completely reconstructed,
partly of earth, and partly of logs. Amherst's followers were less
numerous than those of his predecessor, while the French commander,
Bourlamaque, had a force nearly equal to that of Montcalm in the summer
before; yet he made no attempt to defend the intrenchment, and the
English, encamping along its front, found it an excellent shelter from
the cannon of the fort beyond.
Amherst brought up his artillery and began approaches in form, when, on
the night of the twenty-third, it was found that Bourlamaque had retired
down Lake Champlain, leaving four hundred men under Hebecourt to defend
the place as long as possible. This was in obedience to an order from
Vaudreuil, requiring him on the approach of the English to abandon both
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, retreat to the outlet of Lake Champlain,
take post at Isle-aux-Noix, and there defend himself to the last
extremity;[726] a course unquestionably the best that could have been
taken, since obstinacy in holding Ticonderoga might have involved the
surrender of Bourlamaque's whole force, while Isle-aux-Noix offered rare
advantages for defence.
[Footnote 726: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Nov. 1759. Instructions pour M.
de Bourlamaque, 20 Mai, 1759, signé Vaudreuil. Montcalm à Bourlamaque, 4
Juin, 1759_.]
The fort fired briskly; a cannon-shot killed Colonel Townshend, and a
few soldiers were killed and wounded by grape and bursting shells; when,
at dusk on the evening of the twenty-sixth, an unusual movement was seen
among the garrison, and, about ten o'clock, three deserters came in
great excitement to the English camp. They reported that Hebecourt and
his soldiers were escaping in their boats, and that a match was burning
in the magazine to blow Ticonderoga to atoms. Amherst offered a hundred
guineas to any one of them who would point out the match, that it might
be cut; but they shrank from the perilous venture. All was silent till
eleven o'clock, when a broad, fierce glare burst on the night, and a
roaring explosion shook the promontory; then came a few breathless
moments, and then the fragments of Fort Ticonderoga fell with clatter
and splash on the water and the land. It was but one bastion, however,
that had been thus hurled skyward. The rest of the fort was little
hurt, though the barracks and other combustible parts were set on fire,
and by the light the French flag was seen still waving on the
rampart.[727] A sergeant of the light infantry, braving the risk of
other explosions, went and brought it off. Thus did this redoubted
stronghold of France fall at last into English hands, as in all
likelihood it would have done a year sooner, if Amherst had commanded in
Abercromby's place; for, with the deliberation that marked all his
proceedings, he would have sat down before Montcalm's wooden wall and
knocked it to splinters with his cannon.
[Footnote 727: _Journal of Colonel Amherst_ (brother of General
Amherst). _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 8 Nov. 1759. Amherst to Prideaux, 28
July, 1759. Amherst to Pitt, 27 July, 1759_. Mante, 213. Knox, I.,
397-403. _Vaudreuil à Bourlamaque, 19 Juin, 1759_.]
He now set about repairing the damaged works and making ready to advance
on Crown Point; when on the first of August his scouts told him that the
enemy had abandoned this place also, and retreated northward down the
lake.[728] Well pleased, he took possession of the deserted fort, and,
in the animation of success, thought for a moment of keeping the promise
he had given to Pitt "to make an irruption into Canada with the utmost
vigor and despatch."[729] Wolfe, his brother in arms and his friend, was
battling with the impossible under the rocks of Quebec, and every
motive, public and private, impelled Amherst to push to his relief, not
counting costs, or balancing risks too nicely. He was ready enough to
spur on others, for he wrote to Gage: "We must all be alert and active
day and night; if we all do our parts the French must fall;"[730] but,
far from doing his, he set the army to building a new fort at Crown
Point, telling them that it would "give plenty, peace, and quiet to His
Majesty's subjects for ages to come."[731] Then he began three small
additional forts, as outworks to the first, sent two parties to explore
the sources of the Hudson; one party to explore Otter Creek; another to
explore South Bay, which was already well known; another to make a road
across what is now the State of Vermont, from Crown Point to
Charlestown, or "Number Four," on the Connecticut; and another to widen
and improve the old French road between Crown Point and Ticonderoga. His
industry was untiring; a great deal of useful work was done: but the
essential task of making a diversion to aid the army of Wolfe was
needlessly postponed.
[Footnote 728: _Amherst to Pitt, 5 Aug. 1759_.]
[Footnote 729: _Ibid., 19 June, 1759_.]
[Footnote 730: _Amherst to Gage, 1 Aug. 1759_.]
[Footnote 731: _General Orders, 13 Aug. 1759_.]
It is true that some delay was inevitable. The French had four armed
vessels on the lake, and this made it necessary to provide an equal or
superior force to protect the troops on their way to Isle-aux-Noix.
Captain Loring, the English naval commander, was therefore ordered to
build a brigantine; and, this being thought insufficient, he was
directed to add a kind of floating battery, moved by sweeps. Three weeks
later, in consequence of farther information concerning the force of the
French vessels, Amherst ordered an armed sloop to be put on the stocks;
and this involved a long delay. The saw-mill at Ticonderoga was to
furnish planks for the intended navy; but, being overtasked in sawing
timber for the new works at Crown Point, it was continually breaking
down. Hence much time was lost, and autumn was well advanced before
Loring could launch his vessels.[732]
[Footnote 732: _Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759_. This letter, which is in
the form of a journal, covers twenty-one folio pages.]
Meanwhile news had come from Prideaux and the Niagara expedition. That
officer had been ordered to ascend the Mohawk with five thousand
regulars and provincials, leave a strong garrison at Fort Stanwix, on
the Great Carrying Place, establish posts at both ends of Lake Oneida,
descend the Onondaga to Oswego, leave nearly half his force there under
Colonel Haldimand, and proceed with the rest to attack Niagara.[733]
These orders he accomplished. Haldimand remained to reoccupy the spot
that Montcalm had made desolate three years before; and, while preparing
to build a fort, he barricaded his camp with pork and flour barrels,
lest the enemy should make a dash upon him from their station at the
head of the St. Lawrence Rapids. Such an attack was probable; for if the
French could seize Oswego, the return of Prideaux from Niagara would be
cut off, and when his small stock of provisions had failed, he would be
reduced to extremity. Saint-Luc de la Corne left the head of the Rapids
early in July with a thousand French and Canadians and a body of
Indians, who soon made their appearance among the stumps and bushes that
surrounded the camp at Oswego. The priest Piquet was of the party; and
five deserters declared that he solemnly blessed them, and told them to
give the English no quarter.[734] Some valuable time was lost in
bestowing the benediction; yet Haldimand's men were taken by surprise.
Many of them were dispersed in the woods, cutting timber for the
intended fort; and it might have gone hard with them had not some of La
Corne's Canadians become alarmed and rushed back to their boats,
oversetting Father Piquet on the way.[735] These being rallied, the
whole party ensconced itself in a tract of felled trees so far from the
English that their fire did little harm. They continued it about two
hours, and resumed it the next morning; when, three cannon being brought
to bear on them, they took to their boats and disappeared, having lost
about thirty killed and wounded, including two officers and La Corne
himself, who was shot in the thigh. The English loss was slight.
[Footnote 733: _Instructions of Amherst to Prideaux, 17 May, 1759.
Prideaux to Haldimand, 30 June, 1759_.]
[Footnote 734: _Journal of Colonel Amherst_.]
[Footnote 735: Pouchot, II. 130. _Compare Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760_; _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VII. 395; and _Letter from Oswego_, in
_Boston Evening Post_, No. 1,248.]
Prideaux safely reached Niagara, and laid siege to it. It was a strong
fort, lately rebuilt in regular form by an excellent officer, Captain
Pouchot, of the battalion of Béarn, who commanded it. It stood where the
present fort stands, in the angle formed by the junction of the River
Niagara with Lake Ontario, and was held by about six hundred men, well
supplied with provisions and munitions of war.[736] Higher up the river,
a mile and a half above the cataract, there was another fort, called
Little Niagara, built of wood, and commanded by the half-breed officer,
Joncaire-Chabert, who with his brother, Joncaire-Clauzonne, and a
numerous clan of Indian relatives, had so long thwarted the efforts of
Johnson to engage the Five Nations in the English cause. But recent
English successes had had their effect. Joncaire's influence was waning,
and Johnson was now in Prideaux's camp with nine hundred Five Nation
warriors pledged to fight the French. Joncaire, finding his fort
untenable, burned it, and came with his garrison and his Indian friends
to reinforce Niagara.[737]
[Footnote 736: Pouchot says 515, besides 60 men from Little Niagara;
Vaudreuil gives a total of 589.]
[Footnote 737: Pouchot, II. 52, 59. _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres,
Mémoire pour Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert._]
Pouchot had another resource, on which he confidently relied. In
obedience to an order from Vaudreuil, the French population of the
Illinois, Detroit, and other distant posts, joined with troops of
Western Indians, had come down the Lakes to recover Pittsburg, undo the
work of Forbes, and restore French ascendency on the Ohio. Pittsburg had
been in imminent danger; nor was it yet safe, though General Stanwix was
sparing no effort to succor it.[738] These mixed bands of white men and
red, bushrangers and savages, were now gathered, partly at Le Boeuf and
Venango, but chiefly at Presquisle, under command of Aubry, Ligneris,
Marin, and other partisan chiefs, the best in Canada. No sooner did
Pouchot learn that the English were coming to attack him than he sent a
messenger to summon them all to his aid.[739]
[Footnote 738: _Letters of Colonel Hugh Mercer, commanding at Pittsburg,
January-June, 1759. Letters of Stanwix, May-July, 1759. Letter from
Pittsburg_, in _Boston News Letter_, No. 3,023. _Narrative of John
Ormsby._]
[Footnote 739: Pouchot, II. 46.]
The siege was begun in form, though the English engineers were so
incompetent that the trenches, as first laid out, were scoured by the
fire of the place, and had to be made anew.[740] At last the batteries
opened fire. A shell from a coehorn burst prematurely, just as it left
the mouth of the piece, and a fragment striking Prideaux on the head,
killed him instantly. Johnson took command in his place, and made up in
energy what he lacked in skill. In two or three weeks the fort was in
extremity. The rampart was breached, more than a hundred of the garrison
were killed or disabled, and the rest were exhausted with want of sleep.
Pouchot watched anxiously for the promised succors; and on the morning
of the twenty-fourth of July a distant firing told him that they were at
hand.
[Footnote 740: _Rutherford to Haldimand, 14 July, 1759._ Prideaux was
extremely disgusted. _Prideaux to Haldimand, 13 July, 1759_. Allan
Macleane, of the Highlanders, calls the engineers "fools and blockheads,
G--d d--n them." _Macleane to Haldimand, 21 July, 1759._]
Aubry and Ligneris, with their motley following, had left Presquisle a
few days before, to the number, according to Vaudreuil, of eleven
hundred French and two hundred Indians.[741] Among them was a body of
colony troops; but the Frenchmen of the party were chiefly traders and
bushrangers from the West, connecting links between civilization and
savagery; some of them indeed were mere white Indians, imbued with the
ideas and morals of the wigwam, wearing hunting-shirts of smoked
deer-skin embroidered with quills of the Canada porcupine, painting
their faces black and red, tying eagle feathers in their long hair, or
plastering it on their temples with a compound of vermilion and glue.
They were excellent woodsmen, skilful hunters, and perhaps the best
bush-fighters in all Canada.
[Footnote 741: "Il n'y avoit que 1,100 François et 200 sauvages."
_Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759._ Johnson says "1,200 men, with a
number of Indians." _Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759._ Portneuf,
commanding at Presquisle, wrote to Pouchot that there were 1,600 French
and 1,200 Indians. Pouchot, II. 94. A letter from Aubry to Pouchot put
the whole at 2,500, half of them Indians. _Historical Magazine_, V.,
Second Series, 199.]
When Pouchot heard the firing, he went with a wounded artillery officer
to the bastion next the river; and as the forest had been cut away for a
great distance, they could see more than a mile and a half along the
shore. There, by glimpses among trees and bushes, they descried bodies
of men, now advancing, and now retreating; Indians in rapid movement,
and the smoke of guns, the sound of which reached their ears in heavy
volleys, or a sharp and angry rattle. Meanwhile the English cannon had
ceased their fire, and the silent trenches seemed deserted, as if their
occupants were gone to meet the advancing foe. There was a call in the
fort for volunteers to sally and destroy the works; but no sooner did
they show themselves along the covered way than the seemingly abandoned
trenches were thronged with men and bayonets, and the attempt was given
up. The distant firing lasted half an hour, then ceased, and Pouchot
remained in suspense; till, at two in the afternoon, a friendly
Onondaga, who had passed unnoticed through the English lines, came to
him with the announcement that the French and their allies had been
routed and cut to pieces. Pouchot would not believe him.
Nevertheless his tale was true. Johnson, besides his Indians, had with
him about twenty-three hundred men, whom he was forced to divide into
three separate bodies,--one to guard the bateaux, one to guard the
trenches, and one to fight Aubry and his band. This last body consisted
of the provincial light infantry and the pickets, two companies of
grenadiers, and a hundred and fifty men of the forty-sixth regiment, all
under command of Colonel Massey.[742] They took post behind an abattis
at a place called La Belle Famille, and the Five Nation warriors placed
themselves on their flanks. These savages had shown signs of
disaffection; and when the enemy approached, they opened a parley with
the French Indians, which, however, soon ended, and both sides raised
the war-whoop. The fight was brisk for a while; but at last Aubry's men
broke away in a panic. The French officers seem to have made desperate
efforts to retrieve the day, for nearly all of them were killed or
captured; while their followers, after heavy loss, fled to their canoes
and boats above the cataract, hastened back to Lake Erie, burned
Presquisle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, and, joined by the garrisons of those
forts, retreated to Detroit, leaving the whole region of the upper Ohio
in undisputed possession of the English.
[Footnote 742: _Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759._ Knox, II. 135.
_Captain Delancey to----, 25 July, 1759._ This writer commanded the
light infantry in the fight.]
At four o'clock on the day of the battle, after a furious cannonade on
both sides, a trumpet sounded from the trenches, and an officer
approached the fort with a summons to surrender. He brought also a paper
containing the names of the captive French officers, though some of them
were spelled in a way that defied recognition. Pouchot, feigning
incredulity, sent an officer of his own to the English camp, who soon
saw unanswerable proof of the disaster; for here, under a shelter of
leaves and boughs near the tent of Johnson, sat Ligneris, severely
wounded, with Aubry, Villiers, Montigny, Marin, and their companions in
misfortune,--in all, sixteen officers, four cadets, and a surgeon.[743]
[Footnote 743: Johnson gives the names in his private _Diary_, printed
in Stone, _Life of Johnson_, II. 394. Compare Pouchot, II. 105, 106.
_Letter from Niagara_, in _Boston Evening Post_, No. 1,250. _Vaudreuil
au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759._]
Pouchot had now no choice but surrender. By the terms of the
capitulation, the garrison were to be sent prisoners to New York, though
honors of war were granted them in acknowledgment of their courageous
conduct. There was a special stipulation that they should be protected
from the Indians, of whom they stood in the greatest terror, lest the
massacre of Fort William Henry should be avenged upon them. Johnson
restrained his dangerous allies, and, though the fort was pillaged, no
blood was shed.
The capture of Niagara was an important stroke. Thenceforth Detroit,
Michillimackinac, the Illinois, and all the other French interior posts,
were severed from Canada, and left in helpless isolation; but Amherst
was not yet satisfied. On hearing of Prideaux's death he sent Brigadier
Gage to supersede Johnson and take command on Lake Ontario, directing
him to descend the St. Lawrence, attack the French posts at the head of
the rapids, and hold them if possible for the winter. The attempt was
difficult; for the French force on the St. Lawrence was now greater than
that which Gage could bring against it, after providing for the safety
of Oswego and Niagara. Nor was he by nature prone to dashing and
doubtful enterprise. He reported that the movement was impossible, much
to the disappointment of Amherst, who seemed to expect from subordinates
an activity greater than his own.[744]
[Footnote 744: _Amherst to Gage, 28 July, 1 Aug., 14 Aug., 11 Sept.
1759. Diary of Sir William Johnson_, in Stone, _Life of Johnson_, II.
394-429.]
He, meanwhile, was working at his fort at Crown Point, while the season
crept away, and Bourlamaque lay ready to receive him at Isle-aux-Noix.
"I wait his coming with impatience," writes the French commander,
"though I doubt if he will venture to attack a post where we are
intrenched to the teeth, and armed with a hundred pieces of
cannon."[745] Bourlamaque now had with him thirty-five hundred men, in a
position of great strength. Isle-aux-Noix, planted in mid-channel of the
Richelieu soon after it issues from Lake Champlain, had been diligently
fortified since the spring. On each side of it was an arm of the river,
closed against an enemy with _chevaux-de-frise_. To attack it in front
in the face of its formidable artillery would be a hazardous attempt,
and the task of reducing it was likely to be a long one. The French
force in these parts had lately received accessions. After the fall of
Niagara the danger seemed so great, both in the direction of Lake
Ontario and that of Lake Champlain, that Lévis had been sent up from
Quebec with eight hundred men to command the whole department of
Montreal.[746] A body of troops and militia was encamped opposite that
town, ready to march towards either quarter, as need might be, while
the abundant crops of the neighboring parishes were harvested by armed
bands, ready at a word to drop the sickle for the gun.
[Footnote 745: _Bourlamaque à_ (_Bernetz?_), _22 Sept. 1759._]
[Footnote 746: _Montcalm à Bourlamaque, 9 Août, 1759. Rigaud à
Bourlamaque, 14 Août, 1759. Lévis à Bourlamaque, 25 Août, 1759._]
Thus the promised advance of Amherst into Canada would be not without
its difficulties, even when his navy, too tardily begun, should be ready
to act its part. But if he showed no haste in succoring Wolfe, he at
least made some attempts to communicate with him. Early in August he
wrote him a letter, which Ensign Hutchins, of the rangers, carried to
him in about a month by the long and circuitous route of the Kennebec,
and which, after telling the news of the campaign, ended thus: "You may
depend on my doing all I can for effectually reducing Canada. Now is the
time!"[747] Amherst soon after tried another expedient, and sent
Captains Kennedy and Hamilton with a flag of truce and a message of
peace to the Abenakis of St. Francis, who, he thought, won over by these
advances, might permit the two officers to pass unmolested to Quebec.
But the Abenakis seized them and carried them prisoners to Montreal; on
which Amherst sent Major Robert Rogers and a band of rangers to destroy
their town.[748]
[Footnote 747: _Amherst to Wolfe, 7 Aug. 1759._]
[Footnote 748: _Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759._ Rogers, _Journals_,
144.]
It was the eleventh of October before the miniature navy of Captain
Loring--the floating battery, the brig, and the sloop that had been
begun three weeks too late--was ready for service. They sailed at once
to look for the enemy. The four French vessels made no resistance. One
of them succeeded in reaching Isle-aux-Noix; one was run aground; and
two were sunk by their crews, who escaped to the shore. Amherst,
meanwhile, leaving the provincials to work at the fort, embarked with
the regulars in bateaux, and proceeded on his northern way till, on the
evening of the twelfth, a head-wind began to blow, and, rising to a
storm, drove him for shelter into Ligonier Bay, on the west side of the
lake.[749] On the thirteenth, it blew a gale. The lake raged like an
angry sea, and the frail bateaux, fit only for smooth water, could not
have lived a moment. Through all the next night the gale continued, with
floods of driving rain. "I hope it will soon change," wrote Amherst on
the fifteenth, "for I have no time to lose." He was right. He had waited
till the season of autumnal storms, when nature was more dangerous than
man. On the sixteenth there was frost, and the wind did not abate. On
the next morning it shifted to the south, but soon turned back with
violence to the north, and the ruffled lake put on a look of winter,
"which determined me," says the General, "not to lose time by striving
to get to the Isle-aux-Noix, where I should arrive too late to force the
enemy from their post, but to return to Crown Point and complete the
works there." This he did, and spent the remnant of the season in the
congenial task of finishing the fort, of which the massive remains still
bear witness to his industry.
[Footnote 749: _Orderly Book of Commissary Wilson_.]
When Lévis heard that the English army had fallen back, he wrote, well
pleased, to Bourlamaque: "I don't know how General Amherst will excuse
himself to his Court, but I am very glad he let us alone, because the
Canadians are so backward that you could count on nobody but the
regulars."[750]
[Footnote 750: _Lévis à Bourlamaque, 1 Nov. 1759._]
Concerning this year's operations on the Lakes, it may be observed that
the result was not what the French feared, or what the British colonists
had cause to hope. If, at the end of winter, Amherst had begun, as he
might have done, the building of armed vessels at the head of the
navigable waters of Lake Champlain, where Whitehall now stands, he would
have had a navy ready to his hand before August, and would have been
able to follow the retreating French without delay, and attack them at
Isle-aux-Noix before they had finished their fortifications. And if, at
the same time, he had directed Prideaux, instead of attacking Niagara,
to co-operate with him by descending the St. Lawrence towards Montreal,
the prospect was good that the two armies would have united at the
place, and ended the campaign by the reduction of all Canada. In this
case Niagara and all the western posts would have fallen without a blow.
Major Robert Rogers, sent in September to punish the Abenakis of St.
Francis, had addressed himself to the task with his usual vigor. These
Indians had been settled for about three quarters of a century on the
River St. Francis, a few miles above its junction with the St. Lawrence.
They were nominal Christians, and had been under the control of their
missionaries for three generations; but though zealous and sometimes
fanatical in their devotion to the forms of Romanism, they remained
thorough savages in dress, habits, and character. They were the scourge
of the New England borders, where they surprised and burned farmhouses
and small hamlets, killed men, women, and children without distinction,
carried others prisoners to their village, subjected them to the torture
of "running the gantlet," and compelled them to witness dances of
triumph around the scalps of parents, children, and friends.
Amherst's instructions to Rogers contained the following: "Remember the
barbarities that have been committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels.
Take your revenge, but don't forget that, though those dastardly
villains have promiscuously murdered women and children of all ages, it
is my order that no women or children be killed or hurt."
Rogers and his men set out in whaleboats, and, eluding the French armed
vessels, then in full activity, came, on the tenth day, to Missisquoi
Bay, at the north end of Lake Champlain. Here he hid his boats, leaving
two friendly Indians to watch them from a distance, and inform him
should the enemy discover them. He then began his march for St. Francis,
when, on the evening of the second day, the two Indians overtook him
with the startling news that a party of about four hundred French had
found the boats, and that half of them were on his tracks in hot
pursuit. It was certain that the alarm would soon be given, and other
parties sent to cut him off. He took the bold resolution of outmarching
his pursuers, pushing straight for St. Francis, striking it before
succors could arrive, and then returning by Lake Memphremagog and the
Connecticut. Accordingly he despatched Lieutenant McMullen by a
circuitous route back to Crown Point, with a request to Amherst that
provisions should be sent up the Connecticut to meet him on the way
down. Then he set his course for the Indian town, and for nine days more
toiled through the forest with desperate energy. Much of the way was
through dense spruce swamps, with no dry resting-place at night. At
length the party reached the River St. Francis, fifteen miles above the
town, and, hooking their arms together for mutual support, forded it
with extreme difficulty. Towards evening, Rogers climbed a tree, and
descried the town three miles distant. Accidents, fatigue, and illness
had reduced his followers to a hundred and forty-two officers and men.
He left them to rest for a time, and, taking with him Lieutenant Turner
and Ensign Avery, went to reconnoitre the place; left his two
companions, entered it disguised in an Indian dress, and saw the
unconscious savages yelling and signing in the full enjoyment of a grand
dance. At two o'clock in the morning he rejoined his party, and at three
led them to the attack, formed them in a semicircle, and burst in upon
the town half an hour before sunrise. Many of the warriors were absent,
and the rest were asleep. Some were killed in their beds, and some shot
down in trying to escape. "About seven o'clock in the morning," he says,
"the affair was completely over, in which time we had killed at least
two hundred Indians and taken twenty of their women and children
prisoners, fifteen of whom I let go their own way, and five I brought
with me, namely, two Indian boys and three Indian girls. I likewise
retook five English captives."
English scalps in hundreds were dangling from poles over the doors of
the houses.[751] The town was pillaged and burned, not excepting the
church, where ornaments of some value were found. On the side of the
rangers, Captain Ogden and six men were wounded, and a Mohegan Indian
from Stockbridge was killed. Rogers was told by his prisoners that a
party of three hundred French and Indians was encamped on the river
below, and that another party of two hundred and fifteen was not far
distant. They had been sent to cut off the retreat of the invaders, but
were doubtful as to their designs till after the blow was struck. There
was no time to lose. The rangers made all haste southward, up the St.
Francis, subsisting on corn from the Indian town; till, near the eastern
borders of Lake Memphremagog, the supply failed, and they separated into
small parties, the better to sustain life by hunting. The enemy followed
close, attacked Ensign Avery's party, and captured five of them; then
fell upon a band of about twenty, under Lieutenants Dunbar and Turner,
and killed or captured nearly all. The other bands eluded their
pursuers, turned southeastward, reached the Connecticut, some here, some
there, and, giddy with fatigue and hunger, toiled wearily down the wild
and lonely stream to the appointed rendezvous at the mouth of the
Amonoosuc.
[Footnote 751: Rogers says "about six hundred." Other accounts say six
or seven hundred. The late Abbé Maurault, missionary of the St. Francis
Indians, and their historian, adopts the latter statement, though it is
probably exaggerated.]
This was the place to which Rogers had requested that provisions might
be sent; and the hope of finding them there had been the breath of life
to the famished wayfarers. To their horror, the place was a solitude.
There were fires still burning, but those who made them were gone.
Amherst had sent Lieutenant Stephen up the river from Charlestown with
an abundant supply of food; but finding nobody at the Amonoosuc, he had
waited there two days, and then returned, carrying the provisions back
with him; for which outrageous conduct he was expelled from the service.
"It is hardly possible," says Rogers, "to describe our grief and
consternation." Some gave themselves up to despair. Few but their
indomitable chief had strength to go father. There was scarcely any
game, and the barren wilderness yielded no sustenance but a few lily
bulbs and the tubers of the climbing plant called in New England the
ground-nut. Leaving his party to these miserable resources, and
promising to send then relief within ten days, Rogers made a raft of dry
pine logs, and drifted on it down the stream, with Captain Ogden, a
ranger, and one of the captive Indian boys. They were stopped on the
second day by rapids, and gained the shore with difficulty. At the foot
of the rapids, while Ogden and the ranger went in search of squirrels,
Rogers set himself to making another raft; and having no strength to use
the axe, he burned down the trees, which he then divided into logs by
the same process. Five days after leaving his party he reached the first
English settlement, Charlestown, or "Number Four," and immediately sent
a canoe with provisions to the relief of the sufferers, following
himself with other canoes two days later. Most of the men were saved,
though some died miserably of famine and exhaustion. Of the few who had
been captured, we are told by French contemporary that they "became
victims of the fury of the Indian women," from whose clutches the
Canadians tried in vain to save them.[752]
[Footnote 752: _Événements de la Guerre en Canada,_ 1759, 1760. Compare
_N.Y. Col. Docs.,_ X. 1042.]
NOTE: On the day after he reached "Number Four," Rogers wrote a report
of his expedition to Amherst. This letter is printed in his _Journals_,
in which he gives also a supplementary account, containing further
particulars. The _New Hampshire Gazette, Boston Evening Post,_ and other
newspapers of the time recount the story in detail. Hoyt (_Indian Wars,_
302) repeats it, with a few additions drawn from the recollections of
survivors, long after. There is another account, very short and
unsatisfactory, by Thompson Maxwell, who says that he was of the party,
which is doubtful. Mante (223) gives horrible details of the sufferings
of the rangers. An old chief of the St. Francis Indians, said to be one
of those who pursued Rogers after the town was burned, many years ago
told Mr. Jesse Pennoyer, a government land surveyor, that Rogers laid an
ambush for the pursuers, and defeated them with great loss. This, the
story says, took place near the present town of Sherbrooke; and minute
details are given, with high praise of the skill and conduct of the
famous partisan. If such an incident really took place, it is scarcely
possible that Rogers would not have made some mention of it. On the
other hand, it is equally incredible that the Indians would have
invented the tale of their own defeat. I am indebted for Pennoyer's
puzzling narrative to the kindness of R.A. Ramsay, Esq., of Montreal. It
was printed, in 1869, in the _History of the Eastern Townships,_ by
Mrs. C.M. Day. All things considered, it is probably groundless.
Vaudreuil describes the destruction of the village in a letter to the
Minister dated October 26, and says that Rogers had a hundred and fifty
men; that St. Francis was burned to ashes; that the head chief and
others were killed; that he (Vaudreuil), hearing of the march of the
rangers, sent the most active of the Canadians to oppose them, and that
Longueuil sent all the Canadians and Indians he could muster to pursue
them on their retreat; that forty-six rangers were killed, and ten
captured; that he thinks all the rest will starve to death; and,
finally, that the affair is very unfortunate.
I once, when a college student, followed on foot the route of Rogers
from Lake Memphremagog to the Connecticut.