THE WILDERNESS DURING THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
By the easiest path, in summer and winter, of the larger streams, the
English settlements were pushed into the wilderness, and where the
alluvial land gave most promise of fertility the sunlight fell upon the
virgin soil of new clearings, the log-houses of the pioneers arose, and
families were gathered about new hearthstones. They were soon confronted
by the old danger, for the Indians, jealous of their encroachments and
covertly incited by the governor of Canada, presently began hostilities,
and the gun again was as necessary an equipment of the husbandman afield
as his axe or hoe or scythe, and his wife and children lived in a
besetting fear of death, or a captivity almost as dreadful. Though
England and France were at peace during the time for the five years
beginning with 1720, a savage war was waged between the eastern Canadian
Indians and the provinces of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
It was in these troublous times that the first permanent occupation was
made in the unnamed region which is now Vermont. In 1723 it was voted
by the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, that "it will
be of great service to all the western frontiers, both in this and in
the neighboring governments of Connecticut, to build a block-house above
Northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands called the
'equivalent lands,'[7] and to post in it forty able men, English and
western Indians, to be employed in scouting at a good distance up the
Connecticut River, West River, Otter Creek, and sometime eastwardly
above great Monadnock, for the discovery of the enemy coming toward any
of the frontier towns, and so much of the said equivalent lands as shall
be necessary for a block-house be taken up with the consent of the
owners of the said land, together with five or six acres of their
interval land to be broken up or ploughed for the present use of the
western Indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring their
families hither."
Accordingly a site was chosen in the southeastern part of the present
town of Brattleboro, and in February, 1724, the work was begun under
the superintendence of Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton, by
Lieutenant Timothy Dwight, with a force of "four carpenters, twelve
soldiers with narrow axes, and two teams." At the beginning of summer
the fort was ready for occupancy, and was named Fort Dummer, in honor of
the lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts. The fort was built of hewn
logs laid horizontally in a square, whose sides were one hundred and
eighty feet in length, and outside this was a stockade of square timbers
twelve feet in length set upright in the ground. Within the inner
inclosure, built against the walls, were the "province houses," the
habitation of the garrison and other inmates, and themselves capable of
stout defense, should its assailants gain entrance to the interior of
the fort. In addition to the small-arms of the garrison, Fort Dummer was
furnished with four patereros.[8] There was also a "Great Gun," used
only as a signal, when its sudden thunder rolled through leagues of
forest to summon aid or announce good tidings. On the 11th of October
following its completion, the fort was attacked by seventy hostile
Indians, and four or five of its occupants were killed or wounded.
Scouting parties frequently went out to watch for the enemy, sometimes
up the Connecticut to the Great Falls, sometimes up West River, and
thence across the Wilderness to the same point. Sometimes they were
sent to the mountains at West River and the Great Falls, "to lodge on ye
top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen eyes of the rangers
scanned the mapped expanse of forest, when it was green with summer
leafage, or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autumnal hues, or
veiled in the soft haze of Indian summer, or gray with the snows of
winter and the ramage of naked branches, "viewing for smoaks" of hostile
camp-fires. In July, 1725, Captain Wright, with a volunteer force of
sixty men, scouted up the Connecticut to Wells River, and some distance
up that stream, thence to the Winooski, which they followed till they
came within sight of Lake Champlain, when, having penetrated the heart
of the Wilderness farther than any English force had previously done,
the scantiness of their provisions compelled a return.
By the authority of the General Court of Massachusetts, a "truck house,"
or trading house, was established at Fort Dummer in 1728, and the
Indians finding that they could make better bargains here than at the
French trading-posts, flocked hither with their peltry, moose-skins, and
tallow.
When, seventeen years after the erection of Fort Dummer, the boundary
line was run between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the fort fell
within the limits of the latter State, whose government was appealed to
by Massachusetts to maintain it, but declined to do so, on the ground
that its own frontier was better protected by a stronger fort at Number
Four; also that it was more to the interest of Massachusetts than of New
Hampshire to continue its support. Governor Wentworth urged upon a new
assembly the safer and more generous policy, but to no purpose, and such
a maintenance as Fort Dummer continued to receive was given by
Massachusetts.
After pushing their fortified posts up the Richelieu and to Isle la
Motte, where they built Fort St. Anne in 1665, the French made a long
stride toward the head of the lake, where in 1730 they built a small
fort and began a settlement on Chimney Point, called by them Point a la
Chevalure, and the next year began the erection of a more considerable
work on the opposite headland of Crown Point, a position of much greater
natural strength. In the building of this fortress of St. Frederic,
which was for many years to remain a close and constant menace to the
English colonies, they were opposed only by feeble protest of the
government of New York, though that of Massachusetts urged more active
opposition. The fort was completed, and the French held the key to the
"Gate of the Country," as the Iroquois had so fitly named Lake
Champlain. Seigniories were granted on both sides of the lake, and in
that of Sieur Hocquart, which extended three leagues along the lake and
five leagues back therefrom, was this settlement on Point a la
Chevalure. Northward from the fort the habitants built their cabins of
logs in close neighborhood along the street, and sowed wheat, planted
corn and fruit-trees on their narrow holdings. Flowers new to the
wilderness bloomed beside doorways, and the fragrance of foreign herbs
was mingled with the balsamic odors of the woods. Where only the glare
of camp-fires had briefly illumined the bivouac of armed men, the blaze
of the hearth was kindled to shine on happy households; where had been
heard no sound of human voice but the sentinel's challenge, the stern,
sharp call of military command, or the devilish yell of the savage, now
arose the voice of the mother crooning to her babe, the prattle of
children at play, the gabble of gossiping dames, and the laughter of the
gay habitant; while from the protecting fort flaunted the lilies of
France, an assurance to these simple people of the permanency of their
newly founded homes. Here the Canadians tilled their little fields, and
shared of the lake's abundance with the fish-hawks and the otter, hunted
the deer and moose, and trapped the fur-bearing animals in the broad
forest, and at the bidding of their masters went forth with their
painted allies, the Waubanakees, on bloody forays against the English.
When in 1744 war was again declared between England and France, the
English frontier settlements soon began to suffer from the advantage
their enemies possessed in a stronghold from which they were so easily
reached. During the next year they were frequently harassed by small
parties, and in August, 1746, Vaudreuil set forth from Fort St. Frederic
with an army of seven hundred French and Indians to attack Fort
Massachusetts, then the most advanced post in the province, whose name
had been given it.[9] There were but thirty-three persons in the
garrison, including women and children, but Colonel Hawkes bravely
defended the place with his insignificant force for twenty-eight hours,
when the supply of ammunition was exhausted and he surrendered, with the
stipulation that none of his people should be delivered to the Indians.
Yet in spite of this, soon after the capitulation, Vaudreuil gave up one
half of them to the savages, who thereupon at once killed a prisoner who
was unable to travel.
After the capture of Louisburg by the force of New England troops which
he had organized, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts proposed a plan for
the conquest of Canada, in which a fleet and army promised by the mother
country were to attack Quebec, while the colonial troops were to march
against Fort St. Frederic.
While active preparations for this enterprise were being made, the
colonies were alarmed by news of the arrival at Nova Scotia of a French
fleet and army so formidable as to threaten the conquest of all their
seaboard, and all their efforts were turned toward defense. When storm
and shipwreck had scattered and destroyed the fleet and frustrated its
objects, Shirley proposed a winter campaign in which the New Hampshire
troops were to go up the Connecticut and destroy the Waubanakee village
of St. Francis, and the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York
troops, advancing by the way of Lake George, were to attack Fort St.
Frederic; but Connecticut declining to take part in it, the project was
abandoned.
The English had continued to extend their settlements upon the
Connecticut, and had built several small forts on the west side of the
river. These so-called forts were block-houses, built of hewn logs, with
a projecting upper story and pierced with loopholes for muskets. Such
was Bridgman's fort in what is now Vernon, and which was twice attacked
by Indians, and in the second attack was destroyed. Some years
afterward, in July, 1755, a party of Indians, who were lurking near the
fort, now rebuilt, waylaid three settlers as they were returning from
their work, and killed one Caleb Howe. Another was drowned in attempting
to cross the river, and one escaped. The Indians gained entrance to the
fort, whose only inmates were the wives and children of the three men,
by making the customary signal, which they had learned by observation.
After plundering the fort, and taking the helpless inmates captive, they
proceeded through the wilderness to Crown Point, and from thence to
Canada. Their prisoners suffered there a long captivity, but were at
length mostly redeemed.[10]
The most northerly settlement now on the river was at Number Four, on
the east side of the Connecticut. Three years after its settlement, in
1743, a fort was built under the direction of Colonel Stoddard, the
builder of Fort Dummer. It was similar to that fortification in size and
construction, but was stockaded only on the north side. It inclosed, as
"province houses," the dwellings previously built by five of the
settlers, and one built at the same time with the fort. The settlers
continued here for three years thereafter, during which they suffered
frequent assaults from marauding bands of Indians, in which eight of the
soldiers and inhabitants were killed and three taken prisoners. When the
Massachusetts troops which for a while had garrisoned the place were
withdrawn, the helpless people abandoned their newly made homes, and for
months the divested fort remained as silent and desolate as the wintry
wastes of forests that surrounded it. In response to representations
made to him of the expediency of such a measure, Governor Shirley
ordered Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to march to and occupy
the fort at Number Four. Arriving there on the 27th of March, 1747,
Captain Stevens found the place in good condition, and was heartily
welcomed to it by an old dog and cat which had been left behind in the
hurry of the autumnal departure. The garrison had been in possession but
a few days when they were attacked by French and Indians commanded by M.
Debeline, who opened a musketry fire upon the fort on all sides. Failing
to take it in this way, the enemy attempted to burn it by setting fire
to the fences and houses near it, by discharging flaming arrows upon
the roof, and then by pushing a cart loaded with burning brush[11]
against the walls.
Stevens thus describes the ingenious device by which he prevented the
firing of the wooden walls by the enemy: "Those who were not employed in
firing at the enemy were employed in digging trenches under the bottom
of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man
could go and stand upright on the outside and not endanger himself; so
that when these trenches were finished we could wet all the outside of
the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We drew some hundreds
of barrels of water, and to undergo all this hard service there were but
thirty men."[12] All the attempts of the enemy were baffled, fair
promises and dire threats alike set at naught by the brave defenders of
the fort.
On the third day of the siege Debeline offered to withdraw if Stevens
would sell them provisions. Stevens refused, but offered to give them
five bushels of corn for every hostage that should be given him to be
held till an English captive could be brought from Canada, whereupon,
after firing a few more shots, the besiegers withdrew to Fort St.
Frederic.[13]
No other expeditions were afterward undertaken by the French while the
war lasted, but the Indians in small parties continued to harry the
settlements till after its close in 1748. To guard against these
incursions, scouting parties, led by brave and experienced partisans,
frequently went out from the frontier forts to watch the motions of the
enemy, when oftentimes their perilous adventures and heroic deeds were
such that the story of them is more like a tale from an old romance than
like a page of history. One memorable incident of this service took
place on Vermont soil in the summer of the next year after the gallant
defense of Number Four, when Captain Humphrey Hobbs, Stevens's second in
command at that post, being on a scout toward Fort Shirley in
Massachusetts, with forty men, for four hours held at bay and finally
beat off an Indian force more than four times outnumbering his own. It
was a brush fight, wherein the scouts had no shelter but such forest
cover as their assailants also took advantage of. But three of the
scouts were killed; the loss of the Indians, though great, was never
known, as when one fell his nearest comrade crept to the body and
attached a line to it, by which it was withdrawn to cover. During the
fight, the scouts frequently beheld the ghastly sight of a dead Indian
gliding away and fading from view in the haze of undergrowth, as if
drawn thither by some superhuman power.[14]
Until the beginning of another French and English war in 1754, and while
the colonies were endeavoring to form a union for their better defense,
while elsewhere were occurring such events as Braddock's Defeat and
Monckton's and Winslow's Conquest of Acadia, there is little of
consequence to record of affairs in this quarter till Colonel William
Johnson, with an army of 4,000 or more, began an advance against Fort
St. Frederic. The French had occupied Ticonderoga, and begun to fortify
the point, which soon became far more important than the older fortress
of St. Frederic; and their army of 2,000 regulars, Canadians and
Indians, under Baron Dieskau, taking the offensive, moved against
Johnson and attacked his fortified camp at Lake George in September,
1755. The French were defeated with severe loss;[15] but Johnson did not
follow up his success, and the enemy retreated to Ticonderoga unmolested
but by the impetuous attack of Captain McGinnis of New Hampshire, with a
force of 200 men. Yet in England his barren victory seemed of such
importance that he was honored with a baronetcy.
Now, while an army of more than two thousand regulars, under Lord
Loudon, was lying at Albany, and Winslow was at Lake George with 7,000
provincial troops, Montcalm besieged Oswego, which presently surrendered
with all its garrison, arms, stores, and munitions of war. Montcalm
continued actively on the offensive, and in March, 1757, undertook the
capture of Fort William Henry, which was held by Colonel Monroe with a
garrison of 2,500 men. His surrender was at once demanded, but he
refused, and defended the fort with great bravery, being confident
General Webb would presently send him relief from Fort Edward. But
though frequently entreated, no help came from Webb, only a letter
protesting his inability to aid him, and advising him to surrender on
the best terms obtainable. This fell into the hands of Montcalm, and
with renewed demands of surrender was sent by him to Monroe. Thus
abandoned, after holding out for more than a week, he signed the
articles of capitulation, by the terms of which his paroled army was to
be escorted to Fort Edward, his sick and wounded to be cared for by
Montcalm, and given up when sufficiently recovered. The story of the
perfidious violation of these terms, and the horrors of the carnage when
the defenseless prisoners, of whatever age or sex, or sick or wounded,
were butchered by the savage allies of the Frenchmen, some of whom stood
passive witnesses of the massacre, raising neither hand nor voice to
stay it, is a dark and blood-stained page of American history, and an
ineffaceable blot on the name of Montcalm. Webb, with increased alarm
for his own safety, sent swift messengers to the provinces for
reinforcements, which were at once raised and forwarded to him; but
Montcalm did not return from Ticonderoga to attack him, and the recruits
were not long kept in service.
Loudon at New York was engaged in a controversy with the government of
Massachusetts concerning the quartering of British troops, and
threatening to send an army to that province if his demands were not
speedily complied with, and so the campaign ended without honor or
advantage to the English. Its poor results were chiefly due to the
inefficiency of the British ministry, and the incapacity of the British
commanders to carry on this unaccustomed warfare of the wilderness, and
their unwillingness to avail themselves of the experience of the
colonial officers, whom they despised, thus leaving to their alert and
active enemy all the advantage of familiarity with its methods. So
universal was the complaint in England and her American colonies caused
by this and the preceding campaigns that the formation of a new ministry
became necessary, and William Pitt was appointed secretary of state.
In his plan of the American campaign, which was soon to be vigorously
undertaken, one army of 12,000 men was to attempt the conquest of
Louisburg; another, still larger, that of the French forts on Lake
Champlain; and a third, that of Fort Du Quesne, at the head of the Ohio
River. The expedition against Louisburg was commanded by General
Amherst, under whom were Generals Wolfe, Whitmore, and Lawrence. The
naval force, commanded by Admiral Boscawen, sailed for America early in
the spring, and in May, 1758, the whole armament of 157 sail was
gathered at Halifax. Sailing thence on the 28th, a part of the
transports arrived near Louisburg, and on the 8th of June the troops,
under General Wolfe, disembarked and invested the city. Louisburg was
garrisoned by 2,500 regulars, 300 militia, and later by a reinforcement
of 350 Canadians and Indians, and the harbor was defended by 11 French
ships of war. After a siege of several weeks, during which the French
warships were destroyed, the place surrendered to General Amherst on the
26th of July. In the beginning of the same month General Forbes set
forth from Philadelphia on his difficult march to Fort Du Quesne.
Obstacles which delayed and reverses which checked his progress did not
discourage him, although he was so debilitated by a mortal sickness that
for much of the distance he was carried on a litter; and in November he
took possession of the fort, which had been dismantled and abandoned by
the French, and gave it the name of Fort Pitt.
While these undertakings of Amherst and Forbes were progressing, General
Abercrombie began his movement upon Ticonderoga with a well-appointed
army of more than six thousand regular and nearly ten thousand
provincial troops. The army embarked on Lake George in more than a
thousand batteaux and whaleboats; and as the flotilla moved down the
lake, with glittering arms and gaudy uniforms and flaunting banners
shining in the July sunshine, their splendor repeated in innumerable
broken reflections on the ruffled waters, this wilderness had never seen
such pomp and circumstance of war; nor had its solitudes been stirred
by such martial strains as now burst from trumpet, fife, drum, and
Highland pipe, and echoed from shore and crag in multitudinous
reverberations. Having landed next day without opposition at the lower
end of the lake, the troops began their advance in four columns. An
advanced guard of one battalion of the enemy, after firing their tents,
retreated from their fortified camp on the approach of the English, but
afterward engaged in a skirmish with the left column, when the troops
had fallen into some disorder in their march through the dense woods. It
was in this engagement that the English suffered its first severe loss
in the death of Lord Howe, a gallant young general, who had especially
endeared himself to the provincials by his kindly manners, by sharing
their hardships and perils, and by easily accommodating himself to the
exigencies of this new service. Israel Putnam, then a major of the
rangers, in which branch of the service he had distinguished himself by
his coolness and daring, was a conspicuous actor in this affair. After
the death of Howe, Putnam and the troops with him attacked the French
with such fury that more than four hundred of them were killed and taken
prisoners. But the army having fallen into great disorder in its passage
through the woods, it was deemed advisable to withdraw it to the place
where it had disembarked. Next day, the sawmill on the outlet of Lake
George was taken possession of by a detachment under Colonel Bradstreet,
the bridge there which the enemy had destroyed was rebuilt, and the
army again began its advance on Ticonderoga.
Montcalm had strengthened his position by throwing up a breastwork
across the neck of the peninsula on which the fort stood, and by hedging
this with an almost impenetrable abatis. Yet the engineer whom
Abercrombie had sent to examine the enemy's position was of the opinion
that it might be successfully stormed; and as the prisoners taken
reported that large reinforcements were likely to arrive soon, it was
determined to assault the works at once. The attacking columns were met
by a scathing fire of artillery and musketry, but rushed on to the
abatis, through which they vainly endeavored to make their way, Murray's
regiment of Highlanders hewing at the bristling barrier of pointed
branches with their claymores, while a murderous fire from the
breastworks thinned the ranks of the brave clansmen. Again and again the
assailants were swept back by the pelting storm of bullets, and again
they returned to the assault; the few who struggled through the abatis
were slain before they reached the intrenchments, or only reached them
to be made prisoners, and of the Highland regiment twenty-five of the
officers and half the privates fell. With persistent but unavailing
valor, the attack was continued for more than four hours, and then a
retreat was ordered, and the defeated army sullenly fell back to the
camp which it had occupied the night before. Early next morning it was
reembarked, and the torn and decimated regiments continued their
retreat up the lake.
General Abercrombie's defeat did not discourage him from making further
efforts against the enemy. He sent General Stanwix to build a fort at
Oneida and dispatched Colonel Bradstreet with 3,000 men against Fort
Frontenac on the St. Lawrence, and both successfully performed their
allotted duties.
General Amherst returned from Louisburg, assumed command, and in the
summer of 1757 began a movement for the reduction of Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, which was a part of this year's campaign. Moving forward by
the same route that Abercrombie had taken, he reached the neighborhood
of Ticonderoga without encountering any opposition from the enemy, and
made preparations to besiege this fortress; but the French made only a
brief defense, in which, however, Colonel Townshend and a few soldiers
were killed, and then, leaving the French flag flying and a match
burning in the magazine to blow up the fort, evacuated it and retired to
Crown Point the night of the 27th of July. An hour after their departure
came the thunder of the explosion, which destroyed one bastion and set
the barracks on fire. They presently abandoned Crown Point and retired
to the Isle aux Noix, while Amherst was repairing and strengthening the
fortifications of Ticonderoga.
So at last, with but slight resistance to the tide of conquest that was
now overwhelming their northern possessions in America, the French
abandoned the strongholds that guarded the "Gate of the Country."
For more than a quarter of a century Fort St. Frederic had been the
point from which marauding bands of Indians and their scarcely less
ferocious white associates had set forth on errands of rapine and
murder, which had made as dangerous and insecure as a crater's brink
every frontier settlement of a wide region. Here had been plotted their
forays; here they had returned from them with captives, scalps, and
plunder; here found safety from pursuit. The two forts had held
civilization at bay on the border of this land of "beautiful valleys and
fields fertile in corn," and to all the inhabitants of the New England
frontier their fall was a deliverance from an ever-threatening danger.
The French held the Isle aux Noix, their last remaining post on Lake
Champlain, with a force of 3,500 regular troops and Canadian militia,
and had also on the lake four large armed vessels, commanded by
experienced officers of the French navy. The presence of this naval
force made it necessary for Amherst to build vessels that might
successfully oppose it, and while this work was in progress the British
general dispatched a body of rangers against the Indians of St. Francis,
who for fifty years had been active and relentless foes of the New
England colonies.
Early in the century many members of the different tribes of
Waubanakees in the eastern part of New England had been induced by the
governor of Canada to remove to that province, and since then had lived
on the St. Francis River, and were commonly known as the St. Francis
tribe, though they gave themselves the name of "Zooquagese," the people
who withdrew from the others, or literally "the Little People."[16]
Their intimate knowledge of the region, which had been the home of many
generations of their people, and their familiarity with every waterway
and mountain pass that gave easiest access to the English frontiers,
made them as valuable instruments, as their hatred of the English made
them willing ones for the hostile purposes of the French. From none of
their enemies had the frontier settlements suffered more, and toward
none did they bear greater enmity.
The wrongs which these tribes had suffered from the English, since their
earliest contact with them, gave cause for vengeful retaliation, and its
atrocities were such as might be expected of savages accustomed by usage
and tradition to inflict on their enemies and receive from them the
cruelest tortures that could be devised, and whose religion taught no
precept of mercy; but for those Christians, boasting the highest
civilization of the world, the French, who encouraged the barbarous
warfare and seldom attempted to check its horrors, there can be no
excuse.
Amherst chose Major Robert Rogers to lead the expedition against St.
Francis, and he could not have chosen one better fitted to carry out the
scheme of vengeance than this wary, intrepid, and unscrupulous ranger.
To him it was a light achievement to creep within the lines of a French
camp, and he could slay and scalp an enemy with as little compunction as
would an Indian,[17] while the men whom he led had seen or suffered
enough of Indian barbarity to make them as unrelenting as he in the
infliction of any measure of punishment on these scourges of the border.
Rogers left Crown Point on the night of the 12th of September with a
detachment of 200, embarked in batteaux, and went cautiously down the
lake. His force was reduced by one fourth on the fifth day out by the
explosion of a keg of powder, which wounded several of his men and made
it necessary to send them with an escort back to Crown Point.
Arrived at the head of Missisco Bay, the boats and sufficient provisions
for the return voyage were concealed, and left in charge of two trusty
Indians, when the little army began its march across the country through
the wilderness toward the Indian town. Two days later it was overtaken
by the boat guard, bringing to Rogers the alarming news of the discovery
of the boats by a force of French and Indians, four hundred strong,
fifty of whom had been sent away with the batteaux, while the others,
still doubly outnumbering his force, were following him in hot pursuit.
Rogers kept his own counsel, and alone formed the plans that he at once
acted upon. He dispatched a lieutenant with eight men to Crown Point to
acquaint General Amherst with the turn of affairs, and ask him to send
provisions to Coos, on the Connecticut, to which place it now seemed
that soon or late he must make his way. The only question was, whether
he should do so now, or attempt to strike the contemplated blow before
his pursuers could overtake him. It was characteristic of the man to
decide upon the bolder course, and he marched his men, as enduring as
the enemy and as accustomed to such difficult marching, with such
celerity that the pursuing force was left well behind when, on the
evening of the 4th of October, the neighborhood of the town was reached.
While his men halted for rest and refreshment, he, disguised as an
Indian and accompanied by two of his officers, went forward and entered
the village. The Indians, unsuspicious of danger, were celebrating some
rite with a grand dance, which quite engrossed their attention while
Rogers and his companions thoroughly reconnoitred the place. Returning
to his troops some hours before daylight, he marched them within a few
hundred yards of the town, and at daybreak, the dance being over and the
Indians asleep, the onslaught was made.
Amherst's orders to Rogers, after reminding him of the "barbarities
committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels," and bidding him to "take
his revenge," had enjoined that "no women or children shall be killed or
hurt;" but if this command was heeded at first, it was presently
disregarded. If there was any touch of mercy in the hearts of the
rangers when the assault began, the last vestige of it was swept away
when daylight revealed hundreds of scalps of their own people displayed
on poles, silvered locks of age, tresses of women's hair, golden
ringlets of childhood, all ghastly trophies of New England raids.
Old and young, warrior, squaw, and pappoose, alike suffered their
vengeance, till of the three hundred inhabitants two thirds were killed
and twenty taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were soon "let go their
way." The church, adorned with plate and an image of silver, and the
well-furnished dwellings, were plundered and burned, and the morning sun
shone upon a scene of desolation as complete as these savages themselves
had ever wrought.
When the work of destruction was finished, Rogers assembled his men, of
whom only one had been killed and six slightly wounded, and after an
hour's rest began the return march with the prisoners, five recaptured
English captives, and what provisions and booty could be carried.
The route taken was up the St. Francis and to the eastward of Lake
Memphremagog, the objective point being the Coos Meadows, where it was
expected that the relief party with provisions would be met. They were
followed by the enemy, and had lost seven men by their attacks, when
Rogers formed an ambuscade upon his own track, into which they fell and
suffered so severely that they desisted from further pursuit.
When ten days had elapsed, and Rogers and his men had come some distance
within the bounds of what is now Vermont, they began to suffer much from
lack of food, and it was thought best to divide the force into small
parties, each to make its way as best it could to the expected succor at
Coos, or to the English settlements farther down the Connecticut.
While its autumnal glories faded and the primeval forest grew bare and
bleak, the little bands struggled bravely on over rugged mountains,
through tangled windfalls, and swamps whose miry pools were
treacherously hidden beneath the fallen leaves, fighting hour after hour
and day after day against fatigue and famine, foes more persistent,
insidious, and unrelenting than Awahnock[18] and Waubanakee. Such small
game as they could kill, and the few edible roots that they found, were
their only subsistence; and they would gladly have bartered the silver
image and the golden candlesticks brought from the church, and all their
booty, for one day's supply of the coarsest food. They buried the
treasure, with scant hope that they might ever unearth it, and cast away
unheeded the useless burdens of less valuable plunder.
At night they cowered around their camp-fires and shivered out the
miserable hours of darkness, then arose unrefreshed, and staggered on
the way that each day stretched more wearily and hopelessly before them.
Some could go no farther, but fell down and died, and were left unburied
by comrades too weak to give them the rudest sepulchre, and some in the
delirium of famine wandered away from their companions to become
hopelessly lost in the pathless wilderness and die alone.
The officer whom Rogers had dispatched to Crown Point performed the
difficult journey in nine days, and General Amherst at once sent a
lieutenant with three men to Number Four, to proceed thence up the
Connecticut with provisions to the appointed place. The relief party
embarked in two canoes laden with provisions, which they safely landed
on an island near the mouth of the Passumpsic; but though ordered to
remain there as long as there was any hope of the coming of those whom
they were sent to succor, when only two days had passed they became
impatient of waiting, or were seized by a panic, and hastily departed
with all the supplies.
Rogers and those who remained with him, following the Passumpsic down to
the Connecticut, came at last to the place where they hoped to find
relief, but only to find it abandoned, and that so recently that the
camp-fire of the relief party was still freshly burning. These men were
yet so near that they heard the guns which Rogers fired to recall them,
but which, supposed by them to be fired by the enemy, only served to
hasten their retreat.
Rogers says: "It is hardly possible to describe the grief and
consternation of those of us who came to the Cohasse Intervales."[19]
Sorely distressed by this shameful desertion but not discouraged, the
brave commander left his worn out and starving men at the Passumpsic in
charge of a lieutenant, whom he instructed in the method of preparing
ground nuts and lily roots for food, and set forth down the river on a
raft with Captain Ogden, one ranger, and a captive Indian boy, in a
final endeavor to reach Number Four and obtain relief. At White River
Falls the raft was wrecked, and Rogers, too weak to cut trees for
another, burned them down and into proper lengths, while Ogden and the
ranger hunted red squirrels for food. A second raft was then built, and,
after a voyage that would have been perilous to men in the fullness of
strength, they at last reached Number Four. Rogers at once dispatched a
canoe with supplies to his starving men, which reached them on the tenth
day after he had left them, as he had promised. Two days later he
himself went up the river with canoes, manned by some of the inhabitants
whom he had hired, and laden with provisions for those who might come in
by the same route, and he sent expresses to towns on the Merrimac that
relief parties might be sent up that river.
On the 1st of December he returned to Crown Point with what remained of
his force, having lost, since beginning the retreat from St. Francis,
three lieutenants and forty-six non-commissioned officers and privates.
Notwithstanding its losses and dire hardships, the expedition was
successful in the infliction of a chastisement that the Indians of St.
Francis never recovered from and never forgot, and which relieved the
New England frontier from the continual dread of the bloody incursions
that it had so long suffered. Throughout the whole of it, in leading it
to victory and in retreat, in sharing their hardships and in heroic
efforts to succor and save his men, Rogers's conduct was such as should
make his name honorably remembered in spite of the suspicions which
tarnished it in after years.
While Rogers's expedition was in progress, a sloop of sixteen guns and a
raft carrying six guns were built at Ticonderoga. With these and a
brigantine, Captain Loring sailed down the lake and engaged the French
vessels, sinking two of them and capturing a third, which was repaired
and brought away after being run aground and deserted by its crew,
leaving to the enemy but one schooner on these waters.
Amherst at the same time embarked his whole army in batteaux, and began
his advance against Isle aux Noix, but, being delayed by storms and
adverse winds, deemed it best to abandon for this season the attempt,
and returned to Crown Point, arriving there on the 27th of October. He
now began the erection of a new and larger fortress and three new
outworks there; completed the road between Crown Point and Ticonderoga,
and began another from the latter fort to Number Four.
Meanwhile events of great moment had occurred elsewhere. In July, after
the death of General Prideaux, who commanded the army besieging Niagara,
Sir William Johnson had defeated the French army sent to its relief, and
the fort had surrendered to him. On the 13th of September Wolfe, on the
Heights of Abraham, had given his life for imperishable renown; and six
days later Quebec, the most impregnable stronghold of the French in
America, was surrendered to the enemy, whose attempts to reduce it had
for seventy years been unsuccessful.
All the English colonies in America rejoiced in its fall, for the
conquest of Canada was now assured, and the day of their deliverance
from French and Indian invasion had dawned.
Levis's attempt to recapture Quebec had failed, though sickness and
death had sorely weakened Murray's garrison, and now at Montreal the
French were to make the last stand against English conquest. Amherst was
to advance upon it down the St. Lawrence, Murray from Quebec, and
Haviland from the south, to break the last bar of the "Gate of the
Country," held by Bougainville at Isle aux Noix.
On the 15th of July Murray embarked with nearly 2,500 men. He met no
great opposition from the superior forces of Bourlamaque and Dumas,
which on either shore of the river withdrew slowly toward Montreal as
the fleet advanced. He issued a proclamation promising safety of person
and property to all the inhabitants who remained peaceably at home, and
threatening to burn the houses of all who were in arms. He kept his word
to the letter in the protection and in the punishment, and the result
was the rapid dwindling away of Bourlamaque's army.
Toward the end of August he encamped below the town on the island of
Ste. Therese, and awaited the arrival of the other English armies. A
regiment of New Hampshire men commanded by Colonel Goffe opened the road
which Amherst had ordered to be made from Number Four to Crown Point,
and performed the labor in such good time that on the 31st of July they
arrived, and, turned drovers as well as pioneers, brought with them a
herd of cattle for the supply of the army there.[20] This road ran from
Wentworth's Ferry, near Charlestown, up the right bank of Black River to
the present township of Ludlow, thence across the mountains to Otter
Creek, and down that stream to a station opposite Crown Point, to which
it ran across the country. That part of the road across and on the west
side of the mountains was begun and nearly completed in the previous
year, under the supervision of Colonel Zadok Hawks and Captain John
Stark; Stark and 200 rangers being employed on the western portion.[21]
Haviland embarked at Crown Point on the 12th of August with 3,400
regulars, provincials, and Indians in whaleboats and batteaux, which,
under sunny skies and on quiet waters, came in four days to Isle aux
Noix. Cannon were planted in front and rear of Bougainville's position.
The largest vessel of his naval force was cut adrift by a cannon-shot
and drifted into the hands of the English; and the others, endeavoring
to escape to St. John's, ran aground and were taken by the rangers, who
swam out and boarded one, tomahawk in hand, when the others presently
surrendered.[22]
Bougainville, abandoning the island, made a difficult night retreat to
St. John's, and from thence fell back with Roquemaure to the St.
Lawrence. Haviland was soon opposite Montreal, and in communication with
Murray, and both awaited the coming of Amherst's army. This force had
assembled at Oswego in July, and numbered something more than 10,000
men, exclusive of about 700 Indians under Sir William Johnson, and had
embarked on Lake Ontario on the 10th of August, and within five days
reached Oswigatchee. After the capture by five gunboats of a French
armed brig that threatened the destruction of the batteaux and
whaleboats, the army continued its advance to Fort Levis, near the head
of the rapids. Amherst invested the fort, and opened fire upon it from
land and water; and when for three days rocky islet and wooded shore had
been shaken by the thunder of the cannon that splintered the wooden
walls, the French commandant, Pouchot, was compelled to surrender the
ruined works and his garrison. Johnson's Indians were so enraged at not
being allowed to kill the prisoners that three fourths of them went
home.[23] There was no further resistance from the French, but there was
yet a terrible enemy to be encountered in the long and dangerous rapids
that must be descended. Several were passed with but slight loss; but in
the most perilous passage of the last three, forty-seven boats were
wrecked, several damaged, some artillery, ammunition, and stores lost,
and eighty-four men drowned in the angry turmoil of wild waters. When
these perils were past, an uneventful and unopposed voyage ensued, till
on the 6th of September the army landed at Lachine, and, marching to the
city, encamped before its walls.
The defenses of Montreal were too weak to resist a siege; the troops,
abandoned by the militia, too few to give battle to the three armies
that hemmed them in; and there was nothing left for Vaudreuil but
surrender. Some of the terms of capitulation proposed by him were
rejected by Amherst, who demanded that "the whole garrison of Montreal
and all the French troops in Canada must lay down their arms, and shall
not serve again during the war." In answer to the remonstrances of
Vaudreuil and his generals he said: "I am fully resolved, for the
infamous part the troops of France have acted in exciting the savages
to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard-of barbarities in the whole
progress of the war, and for other open treacheries and flagrant
breaches of faith, to manifest to all the world, by this capitulation,
my detestation of such practices."[24]
Vaudreuil yielded, as perforce he must, and on the 8th of September
signed the capitulation by which Canada passed into the possession of
England. The French officers, civil and military, the troops and
sailors, were to be sent to France, and the inhabitants were to be
protected in their property and religion.
The Indian allies of the English, and those who had lately been the
allies of the French but were now as ready to turn against them as they
had been to serve, were held in such firm restraint that not a person
suffered any injury from them more than from the soldiers of the
victorious armies.
The long struggle was over, the conquest of Canada was accomplished, and
great was the rejoicing of the people of all the English colonies,
especially those of New England. The toilsome march through the savage
forest, the cheerless bivouac on remote and lonely shores, were no
longer to be endured; nor the deadly ambuscade dreaded by the
home-loving husbandman, who for love of home had turned soldier; nor was
his family to live in the constant fear of the horrors of nightly
attack, massacre, or captivity that had made anxious every hour of day
and night.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Massachusetts gave 107,793 acres of land to Connecticut as
_equivalent_ for as many acres she had previously granted that were
found to be south of the boundary between the two provinces, and which
she wished to retain. One section of these "Equivalent Lands" was on the
west bank of Connecticut River, within the present towns of Putney,
Dummerston, and Brattleboro'. (_Colonial Boundaries Mass_, vol. iii.)
This fell to the share of William Dummer, Anthony Stoddard, William
Brattle, and John White. "The Equivalent Lands" were sold at public
vendue at Hartford, in 1716, for a little more than a farthing per acre.
The proceeds were given to Yale College. (Hall's _History of Eastern
Vermont_.)
[8] Light pieces of ordnance mounted on swivels, and sometimes charged
with old nails and like missiles, or, upon a pinch, even with stones;
hence sometimes called "stone pieces."
[9] This fort was situated in what is now Williamstown.
[10] Dr. Dwight's _Travels_, vol. ii. p. 82.
[11] Williams's _History of Vermont_.
[12] Captain Stevens's letter to Colonel Williams.
[13] Stevens's bravery was so much admired by Sir Charles Knowles, an
officer of high rank in the British navy, that he presented him a
handsome sword, and in honor of the donor the township was named
Charlestown. For Captain Stevens's account of this siege see _History of
Charlestown_, p. 34.
[14] This fight took place on Sunday, June 26, 1748, about twelve miles
northwest of Fort Dummer, in the present township of Marlboro'.
[15] Johnson's "Account of Battle of Lake George," _Doc. Hist. N. Y._
vol. ii. p. 402.
[16] From John Wadno, an intelligent Indian of St. Francis.
[17] For some reports of his scouts, see _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ vol. iv. p.
169 _et seq._
[18] Awahnock, = Frenchman.
[19] Rogers's Journal.
[20] Belknap's _History of New Hampshire_.
[21] Sanderson's _History of Charlestown_, p. 87.
[22] Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_.
[23] Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii. p. 370.
[24] Parkman.