THE STRUGGLE FOR THE GREAT VALLEYS OF NORTH AMERICA.
BY JUSTIN WINSOR,
_The Editor_.
THE death of Frontenac[1097] and the peace of Ryswick (September,
1697) found France in possession of the two great valleys of North
America,—that of the St. Lawrence, with the lakes, and that of the
Mississippi, with its affluents.[1098] In 1697 the Iroquois were
steadfast in their adherence to Corlear, as they termed the English
governor, while they refused to receive French missionaries. In
negotiations which Bellomont was conducting (1698) with the Canadian
governor, he tried ineffectually to induce a recognition of the Five
Nations as subjects of the English king.[1099] Meanwhile, the French
were omitting no opportunity to force conferences with these Indians,
and Longueil was trying to brighten the chain of amity with them as
far west as Detroit, where in July, 1701, La Motte Cadillac began a
French post. Within a month the French ratified at Montreal (August
4, 1701) a treaty with the Iroquois just in time to secure their
neutrality in the war which England declared against France and Spain
the next year (1702). So when the outbreak came it was the New England
frontiers which suffered (1703-4),[1100] for the Canadians were careful
not to stir the blood of the Iroquois. The French jealously regarded
the English glances at Niagara, and proposed (1706) to anticipate
their rivals by occupying it. When, in 1709, it was determined to
retaliate for the ravages of the New England borders, the Iroquois,
at a conference in Albany[1101] (1709), were found ready to aid in
the expedition which Francis Nicholson tried to organize, but which
proved abortive. Already Spotswood, of Virginia, was urging the home
government to push settlers across the Alleghanies into the valley of
the Ohio.[1102] But attention was rather drawn to the petty successes
in Acadia,[1103] and the spirit of conquest seethed again, when Sir
Hovenden Walker appeared at Boston,[1104] and a naval expedition in
the summer of 1711 was well under way to capture the great valley of
the St. Lawrence. Stupidity and the elements sent the fleet of the
English admiral reeling back to Boston, leaving Quebec and Canada
once more safe. The next year (1712) the distant Foxes tried to wrest
Detroit from the French; but its garrison was too enduring. France had
maintained herself all along her Canadian lines, and she was in fair
hopes of gaining the active sympathy of the Iroquois, when the treaty
of Utrecht (1713) brought the war to a close.
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER (1700).
After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected
in France_, v. p. 271. The coat is red, faced with brown.]
The language of this treaty declared that the “Five Nations[1105] were
subject to the dominion of England.” The interpretation of this clause
was the occasion of diplomatic fence at once. The French claimed a
distinction between the subjectivity of the Indians and domination
over their lands. The English insisted that the allegiance of the Five
Nations carried not only their own hereditary territory, but also
the regions of Iroquois conquests, namely, all west of the Ottawa
River and the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River.[1106]
The peace of Utrecht was but the prelude to a struggle for occupying
the Ohio Valley, on the part of both French and English. Spotswood
had opened a road over the Blue Ridge from Virginia in 1716, and he
continued to urge the Board of Trade to establish a post on Lake Erie.
Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania, reported to the board (1718) upon
the advances of the French across the Ohio Valley, and the English
moved effectually when, in 1721, they began to plant colonists on the
Oswego River. By 1726 they had completed their fort on the lake, and
Montreal found its Indian trade with the west intercepted. Meanwhile,
New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia strengthened their alliance with
the Iroquois by a conference at Albany in September, 1722, and in 1726
the Indians confirmed the cession of their lands west and north of Lake
Erie.
When Vaudreuil, in 1725, not long before his death (April 10) suggested
to the ministry in Paris that Niagara should be fortified, since, with
the Iroquois backing the English, he did not find himself in a position
openly to attack them, the minister replied that the governor could at
least craze the Indians by dosing them with brandy. Shortly afterwards
the commission of his successor, Beauharnois, impressed on that
governor the necessity of always having in view the forcible expulsion
of the Oswego garrison. In 1727 the French governor tried the effect of
a summons of the English post, with an expressed intention “to proceed
against it, as may seem good to him,” in case of refusal; but it was
mere gasconade, and the minister at home cautioned the governor to let
things remain as they were.
[Illustration: BRITISH INFANTRY SOLDIER (1725).
Fac-simile of a cut in Grant’s _British Battles_, i. p. 564.]
NOTE TO ANNEXED MAP.—In the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 1021, is a
fac-simile of a map in the Archives of the Marine and Colonies, called
_Carte du lac Champlain avec les rivières depuis le fort de Chambly
jusques à Orangeville_ [Albany] _de la Nouvelle Angleterre, dressé sur
divers mémoires_. It is held to have been made about 1731. There is
in the _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, vol. i. p. 557, a _Carte du lac Champlain
depuis le fort Chambly jusqu’au fort St. Frederic, levée par le Sr.
Anger, arpenteur du Roy en 1732, fait à Quebec le 10 Oct., 1748,—Signé
de Lery_.
Nicolas Bellin made his _Carte de la rivière de Richelieu et du lac
Champlain_ in 1744, and it appeared in Charlevoix’s _Nouvelle France_,
i. 144, reproduced in Shea’s ed., ii. 15. There is also a map of Lake
Champlain in Bellin’s _Petit Atlas Maritime_, 1764.
There were surveys made of Lake Champlain, in 1762, by William
Brassier, and of Lake George by Captain Jackson, in 1756. These were
published by order of Amherst in 1762, and reproduced in 1776. (Cf.
_American Atlas_, 1776.) The original drawings are noted in the _Catal.
of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), i. 223. The Brassier map is also
given in Dr. Hough’s edition of Rogers’s _Journals_. The same British
Museum _Catalogue_ (i. 489) gives a drawn _Map of New Hampshire_
(1756), which shows the route from Albany by lakes George and Champlain
to Quebec. Cf. the _Map of New Hampshire_, by Col. Joseph Blanchard and
Rev. Samuel Langdon, engraved by Jefferys, and dated 21 Oct., 1761,
which shows the road to Ticonderoga in 1759.
[Illustration: FROM POPPLE’S BRITISH EMPIRE IN AMERICA, 1732.]
A few years later a sort of flank movement was made on Oswego, as
well as on New England, by the French pushing up Lake Champlain, and
establishing themselves in the neighborhood of Crown Point (1731),
where they shortly after built Fort St. Frederick. The movement alarmed
New England more than it did New York.
The French persisted in seeking conferences with the Six Nations,—as
they had been called since the Tuscaroras joined them about 1713,—and
in 1734 succeeded in obtaining a meeting with the Onondagas. They
ventured in 1737 to ask the Senecas to let them establish a post at
Irondequot, farther west on Lake Ontario than Oswego. The Iroquois
would not permit, however, either side to possess that harbor. For some
years Oswego was the burden of the French despatches, and the English
seemed to take every possible occasion for new conferences with the
fickle Indians.
The most important of these treaties was made at Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, in 1744, when an indefinite extent of territory beyond
the mountains was ceded to the English in the form of a confirmation
of earlier implied grants. A fresh war followed. The New Englanders
took Louisbourg,[1107] but New York seemed supine, and let French
marauding parties from Crown Point fall upon and destroy the fort
at Saratoga without being aroused.[1108] Oswego was in danger, but
still the New York assembly preferred to quarrel with the governor;
and tardily at best it undertook to restore the post at Saratoga,
while the Albanians were suspected of trading clandestinely through
the Caughnawagas with the French in Canada. Both sides continued in
their efforts to propitiate the Iroquois, while a parade of arming was
made for an intended advance on Crown Point and Montreal. Governor
Shirley, from Boston, had urged it, since a demonstration which had
been intended by way of the St. Lawrence had to be given up, because
the promised fleet did not arrive from England. To keep the land levies
in spirits, Shirley had written to Albany that he would send them to
join in an expedition by the Lakes, and had even despatched a 13-inch
mortar by water to New York.[1109] Before the time came, however, the
rumors of D’Anville’s fleet frightened the New Englanders, and they
thought they had need of their troops at home.[1110] It was some time
before Governor Clinton knew of this at Albany, and preparations went
on. Efforts to enlist the Iroquois in the enterprise halted, for the
inaction of the past year had had its effect upon them, and it needed
all the influence of William Johnson, who now first appears as Indian
commissioner, to induce them to send a sufficient delegation to a
conference at Albany.
[Illustration: VIEW OF QUEBEC, 1732.
From Popple’s _British Empire in America_. It is repeated in fac-simile
in Cassell’s _United States_, p. 372; and in Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U.
S._, iii. 307. Cf. The view from La Potherie in Vol. IV. p. 320; also
reproduced in Shea’s _Charlevoix_, vol. v. Kalm described the town in
1749 (_Travels_, London, 1771, ii. p. 258). See views under date of
1760 and 1761, noted in the _Cat. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii.
220. Cf. De Lery’s report on the fortifications of Quebec in 1716, in
_N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. 872.]
The business still further dragged; the withdrawal of New England
became in the end known, and by September 16 Clinton had determined to
abandon the project, and the French governor had good occasion to twit
old Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, when he ventured with more purpose than
prudence to Montreal in November.[1111]
[Illustration: BRITISH FOOTGUARD, 1745.
This sketch of a footguard, with grenade and match, is taken from
Grant’s _British Battles_, ii. 60. Cf. _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, i.
462; and the uniform of the forty-third regiment of foot (raised in
America), represented from a drawing in the British Museum, in _The
Century_, xxix. 891.]
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER, 1745. After a water-color sketch in the
_Mass. Archives: Documents collected in France_, viii. p. 129. The coat
is red, faced with blue; the breeches are blue.]
Early the next summer (June, 1747) the French had some experience of
a foray upon their own borders, when a party of English and Indians
raided upon the island of Montreal,—a little burst of activity
conspicuous amid the paralysis that the quarrels of Clinton and De
Lancey had engendered. Shirley had formed the plan of a winter attack
upon Crown Point, intending to send forces up the Connecticut, and from
Oswego towards Frontenac, by way of distracting the enemy’s councils;
but the New York assembly refused to respond.
The next year (1748) the French, acting through Father Picquet, made
renewed efforts to enlist Iroquois converts, while Galissonière was
urging the home government to send over colonists to occupy the Ohio
Valley. A number of Virginians, on the other hand, formed themselves
into the Ohio Company, and began to send explorers into the disputed
valley. In order to anticipate the English, the French governor had
already despatched Céloron de Bienville to take formal possession
by burying lead plates, with inscriptions, at the mouths of the
streams.[1112]
For the present, there was truce. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
entered upon in May, and signed in October (1748), had given each side
time to manœuvre for an advantage. Picquet established a new barrier
against the English at La Presentation, where Ogdensburg now is;[1113]
and in 1749 Fort Rouillé was built at the present Toronto.[1114]
The Virginians, meanwhile, began to push their traders farther and
farther beyond the mountains. The Pennsylvanians also sent thither
a shrewd barterer and wily agent in George Croghan, and the French
emissaries whom he encountered found themselves outwitted.[1115] The
Ohio Company kept out Christopher Gist on his explorations. Thus it
was that the poor Ohio Indians were distracted. The ominous plates of
Céloron meant to them the loss of their territory; and they appealed
to the Iroquois, who in turn looked to the government of New York.
That province, however, was apathetic, while Picquet and Jean Cœur,
another Romish priest, who believed in rousing the Indian blood, urged
the tribes to maraud across the disputed territory and to attack the
Catawbas. William Johnson, on the one side, and Joncaire, on the other,
were busy with their conferences, each trying to checkmate the other
(1750); while the English legislative assemblies haggled about the
money it cost and the expense of the forts. The Iroquois did not fail
to observe this; nor did it escape them that the French were building
vessels on Ontario and strengthening the Niagara fort (1751).
While Charles Townshend was urging the English home government (1752)
to seize the Ohio region forcibly, the French were attacking the
English traders and overcoming the allied Indians, on the Miamis.
Virginia, by a treaty with the Indians at Logstown, June 13, 1752,
got permission to erect a fort at the forks of the Ohio; but the
undertaking was delayed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In the spring of 1753 Duquesne, the governor of Canada, sent an
expedition[1116] to possess by occupation the Ohio Valley, and the
party approached it by a new route.[1117] They landed at Presquisle,
built a log fort,[1118] carried their munitions across to the
present French Creek, and built there another defence called Fort Le
Bœuf.[1119] This put them during high water in easy communication by
boat with the Alleghany River. French tact conciliated the Indians, and
where that failed arrogance was sufficient, and the expedition would
have pushed on to found new forts, but sickness weakened the men, and
Marin, the commander now dying, saw it was all he could do to hold
the two forts, while he sent the rest of his force back to Montreal
to recuperate. Late in the autumn Legardeur de Saint-Pierre arrived
at Le Bœuf, as the successor of Marin. He had not been long there,
when on the 11th of December a messenger from Governor Dinwiddie, of
Virginia, with a small escort, presented himself at the fort. The
guide of the party was Christopher Gist; the messenger was George
Washington, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia.[1120] Their
business was to inform the French commander that he was building forts
on English territory, and that he would do well to depart peaceably.
Washington had been made conscious of the aggressive character of the
French occupation, as he passed through the Indian town of Venango,
at the confluence of French Creek and the Alleghany River, for he
there had seen the French flag floating over the house of an English
trader, Fraser, which the French had seized for an outpost of Le
Bœuf, and there he had found Joncaire in command.[1121] Washington
had been received by Joncaire hospitably, and over his wine the
Frenchman had disclosed the unmistakable purpose of his government.
At Le Bœuf Washington tarried three days, during which Saint-Pierre
framed his reply, which was in effect that he must hold his post, while
Dinwiddie’s letter was sent to the French commander at Quebec. It was
the middle of January, 1754, when Washington reached Williamsburg on
his return, and made his report to Dinwiddie.
The result was that Dinwiddie drafted two hundred men from the Virginia
militia, and despatched them under Washington to build a fort at the
forks of the Ohio. The Virginia assembly, forgetting for the moment its
quarrel with the governor, voted £10,000 to be expended, but only under
the direction of a committee of its own. Dinwiddie found difficulty
in getting the other colonies to assist, and the Quaker element in
Pennsylvania prevented that colony from being the immediate helper,
which it might from its position have become.
Meanwhile, some backwoodsmen had been pushed over the mountains and
had set to work on a fort at the forks. A much larger French force
under Contrecœur soon summoned them,[1122] and the English retired. The
French immediately began the erection of Fort Duquesne.
[Illustration]
While this was doing, Dinwiddie was toiling with tardy assemblies and
their agents to organize a regiment to support the backwoodsmen. Joshua
Fry was to be its colonel, with Washington as second in command. The
latter, with a portion of the men, had already pushed forward to Will’s
Creek, the present Cumberland. Later he advanced with 150 men to Great
Meadows, where he learned that the French, who had been reinforced, had
sent out a party from their new fort, marching towards him. Again he
got word from an Indian—who, from his tributary character towards the
Iroquois, was called Half-King, and who had been Washington’s companion
on his trip to Le Bœuf—that this chieftain with some followers had
tracked two men to a dark glen, where he believed the French party were
lurking. Washington started with forty men to join Half-King, and under
his guidance they approached the glen and found the French. Shots were
exchanged. The French leader, Jumonville, was killed, and all but one
of his followers were taken or slain.
[Illustration]
The mission of Jumonville was to scour for English, by order of
Contrecœur, now in command of Duquesne, and to bear a summons to any
he could find, warning them to retire from French territory. The
precipitancy of Washington’s attack gave the French the chance to
impute to Washington the crime of assassination; but it seems to have
been a pretence on the part of the French to cover a purpose which
Jumonville had of summoning aid from Duquesne, while his concealment
was intended to shield him till its arrival. Rash or otherwise, this
onset of the youthful Washington began the war.
The English returned to Great Meadows, and while waiting for
reinforcements from Fry, Washington threw up some entrenchments, which
he called Fort Necessity. The men from Fry came without their leader,
who had sickened and died, and Washington, succeeding to the command of
the regiment, found himself at the head of three hundred men, increased
soon by an independent company from South Carolina.
Washington again advanced toward Gist’s settlement, when, fearing an
attack, he sent back for Mackay, whom he had left with a company of
regulars at Fort Necessity. Rumors thickening of an advance of the
French, the English leader again fell back to Great Meadows, resolved
to fight there. It was now the first of July, 1754. Coulon de Villiers,
a brother of Jumonville, was now advancing from Duquesne. The attack
was made on a rainy day, and for much of the time a thick mist hung
between the combatants. After dark a parley resulted in Washington’s
accepting terms offered by the French, and the English marched out with
the honors of war.[1123]
[Illustration]
The young Virginian now led his weary followers back to Will’s Creek.
It was a dismal march. The Indian allies of the French, who were only
with difficulty prevented from massacring the wounded English, had
been allowed to kill the cattle and horses of the little army; and
Washington’s men had to struggle along under the burdens of their
own disabled companions. Thus they turned their backs upon the great
valley, in which not an English flag now waved.
* * * * *
Appearances were not grateful to Dinwiddie. His house of burgesses
preferred to fight him on some domestic differences rather than to
listen to his appeals to resist the French. He got little sympathy
from the other colonies. The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania cared
little for boundaries. New York and Maryland seemed slothful.[1124]
Only Shirley, far away in Massachusetts, was alive, but he was busy
at home.[1125] The Lords of Trade in London looked to William Johnson
to appease and attach the Indians; but lest he could not accomplish
everything, they directed a congress of the colonial representatives
to be assembled at Albany, which talked, but to the liking neither of
their constituents nor of the government in England.[1126]
Dinwiddie, despairing of any organized onset, appealed to the home
government. The French king was diligently watching for the English
ministry’s response. So when Major-General Braddock and his two
regiments sailed from England for Virginia, and the Baron Dieskau and
an army, with the Marquis of Vaudreuil[1127] to succeed Duquesne as
governor, sailed for Quebec, the diplomates of the two crowns bowed
across the Channel, and protested to each other it all meant nothing.
The English thought that with their superiority on the sea they could
intercept the French armament, and Admiral Boscawen was sent to hover
about the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He got only three ships of them,—the
rest eluding him.
The two armies were to enter the great valleys, one of the St.
Lawrence, the other of the Ohio, but not in direct opposition. Dieskau
was hurled back at Lake George; Braddock on the Monongahela. We must
follow their fortunes.
In February, 1755, Braddock landed at Hampton, Virginia, and presently
he and Dinwiddie were living “in great harmony.” A son of Shirley of
Massachusetts was serving Braddock as secretary, and he was telling
a correspondent how “disqualified his general was for the service he
was employed in, in almost every respect.” This was after the young
man had seen his father, for Braddock had gone up to Alexandria[1128]
in April, and had there summoned for a conference all the governors
of the colonies, Shirley among the rest, the most active of them all,
ambitious of military renown, and full of plans to drive the French
from the continent. The council readily agreed to the main points of an
aggressive campaign. Braddock was to reduce Fort Duquesne; Shirley was
to capture Niagara. An army of provincials under William Johnson was
to seize Crown Point. These three movements we are now to consider; a
fourth, an attack by New Englanders upon the Acadian peninsula, and the
only one which succeeded, is chronicled in another chapter.[1129]
Braddock’s first mistake was in moving by the Potomac, instead of
across Pennsylvania, where a settled country would have helped him;
but this error is said to have been due to the Quaker merchant John
Hanbury. He cajoled the Duke of Newcastle into ordering this way,
because Hanbury, as a proprietor in the Ohio Company, would profit by
the trade which the Virginia route would bring to that corporation.
Dinwiddie’s desire to develop the Virginia route to the Ohio had
doubtless quite as much to do with the choice. While plagued with
impeded supplies and the want of conveyance as he proceeded, Braddock
chafed at the Pennsylvanian indifference which looked on, and helped
him not. He wished New England was nearer. The way Pennsylvania finally
aided the doomed general was through Benjamin Franklin, whom she had
borrowed of New England. He urged the Pennsylvania farmers to supply
wagons, and they did, and Braddock began his march. On the 10th of
May he was at Will’s Creek,[1130] with 2,200 men, and as his aids
he had about him Captains Robert Orme and Roger Morris, and Colonel
George Washington. Braddock invested the camp with an atmosphere little
seductive to Indian allies. There were fifty of them present at one
time, but they dwindled to eight in the end.[1131] Braddock’s disregard
had also driven off a notorious ranger, Captain Jack, who would have
been serviceable if he had been wanted.
On the 10th of June the march was resumed,—a long, thin line,
struggling with every kind of difficulty in the way, and making perhaps
three or four miles a day. By Washington’s advice, Braddock took his
lighter troops and pushed ahead, leaving Colonel Dunbar to follow more
deliberately. On the 7th of July this advance body was at Turtle
Creek, about eight miles from Fort Duquesne.
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER, 1755.
After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected
in France_, vol. ix. p. 425. The coat is blue, faced with red.
Parkman (vol. i. 368), speaking of the troops which came with Dieskau
and Montcalm, says that their uniform was white, faced with blue, red,
yellow, or violet, and refers to the plates of the regimental uniforms
accompanying Susane’s _Ancienne Infanterie Française_. Parkman (i. p.
370) also says that the _troupes de la marine_, the permanent military
establishment of Canada, wore a white uniform faced with black. He
gives (p. 370, _note_) various references.]
[Illustration: FORT DUQUESNE AND VICINITY.
From _Father Abraham’s Almanac_, 1761. Key: 1, Monongahela River; 2,
Fort Du Quesne, or Pittsburgh; 3, the small fort; 4, Alleghany River;
5, Alleghany Indian town; 6, Shanapins; 7, Yauyaugany River; 8, Ohio,
or Alleghany, River; 9, Logs Town; 10, Beaver Creek; 11, Kuskaskies,
the chief town of the Six Nations; 12, Shingoes Town; 13, Alleguippes;
14, Sennakaas; 15, Tuttle Creek; 16, Pine Creek. The arrows show the
course of the river.
A “Plan of Fort le Quesne, built by the French at the fork of the Ohio
and Monongahela in 1754,” was published by Jefferys, and is included in
his _General Topography of North America and the West Indies_, London,
1768. I suppose this to be based upon the MS. plan noted in the _Catal.
of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 184. Cf. the plan (1754) in the
_Memoirs_ of Robert Stobo, Pittsburgh, 1854, which is repeated in
Sargent’s _Braddock’s Exped._, p. 182, who refers to a plan published
in London in 1755, mentioned in the _Gentleman’s Mag._, xxv. P. 383.
Stobo’s plan is also engraved in _Penna. Archives_, ii. 147, and the
letters of Stobo and Croghan respecting it are in _Penna. Col. Rec._,
vi. 141, 161. Parkman refers (i. 208) to a plan in the Public Record
Office, London, and (p. 207) describes the fort as does Sargent (p.
182). See the plan in Bancroft, orig. ed., iv. 189, and Gay’s _Pop.
Hist. U. S._, iii. 260.
Duquesne was finished in May, 1755. Cf. Duquesne’s Memoir on the Ohio
and its dependencies, addressed to Vaudreuil, dated Quebec, July 6,
1755, and given in English in _Penna. Archives_, 2d ser., vi. 253.
M’Kinney’s Description of Fort Duquesne (1756) is in Hazard’s _Penna.
Reg._, viii. 318; and letters of Robert Stobo, who was a hostage there
after the surrender of Fort Necessity, are in _Col. Rec. of Penna._,
vi. 141, 161. Cf. notice of Stobo by L. C. Draper in _Olden Time_, i.
369. Parkman also refers to a letter of Captain Hazlet in _Olden Time_,
i. 184.
Sargent says (p. 184) that in 1854 the magazine was unearthed, which at
that time was all remaining visible of the old fort. (Hazard’s _Penna.
Register_, v. 191; viii. 192.) There is a view of the magazine in John
Frost’s _Book of the Colonies, N. Y._, 1846.]
The enemy occupying the fort consisted of a few companies of French
regulars, a force of Canadians, and about 800 Indians,—all under
Contrecœur, with Beaujeu, Dumas, and Ligneres as lieutenants. They knew
from scouts that Braddock was approaching, and Beaujeu was sent out
with over 600 Indians and 300 French, to ambush the adventurous Briton.
As Braddock reached the ford, which was to put him on the land-side of
the fort, Colonel Thomas Gage, some years later known in the opening
scenes of the American Revolution,[1132] crossed in advance, without
the opposition that was anticipated. Beaujeu had intended to contest
the passage, but his Indians, being refractory, delayed him in his
march.
Gage, with the advance, was pushing on, when his engineer, laying out
the road ahead, saw a man, apparently an officer, wave his cap to his
followers, who were unseen in the woods. From every vantage ground of
knoll and bole, and on three sides of the column, the concealed muskets
were levelled upon the English, who returned the fire. Beaujeu soon
fell.[1133] Dumas, who succeeded in command, thought the steady front
of the redcoats was going to carry the day, when he saw his Canadians
fly, followed by the Indians, after Gage had wheeled his cannon upon
the woods. A little time, however, changed all. The Indians rallied and
poured their bullets into the massed, and very soon confused, British
troops.
[Illustration: A Sketch of the field of battle.]
Braddock, when he spurred up, found everybody demoralized except the
Virginians, who were firing from the tree-trunks, as the enemy did. The
British general was shocked at such an unmilitary habit, and ordered
them back into line. No one under such orders could find cover, and
every puff from a concealed Indian was followed by a soldier’s fall. No
exertion of Braddock, or of Washington, or of anybody, prevailed.[1134]
The general had four horses shot under him; Washington had two. Still
the hillsides and the depths of the wood were spotted with puffs of
smoke, and the slaughter-pen was in a turmoil. Young Shirley fell,
with a bullet in his brain.[1135] Horatio Gates and Thomas Gage were
both wounded. Scarce one Englishman in three escaped the bullets. The
general had given the sign to retreat, and was wildly endeavoring to
restore order, when a ball struck him from his horse. The flight of
the survivors became precipitous, and when the last who succeeded in
fording the river stopped to breathe on the other side, there were
thirty Indians and twenty Frenchmen almost upon them. The French,
however, pursued no farther. They had enough to do to gather their
plunder, while the Indians unchecked their murderous instincts as
they searched for the wounded and dying Britons. The next morning a
large number of the Indians left Contrecœur for their distant homes,
laden with their booty. The French general feared for a while that
Braddock, reinforced by Dunbar, would return to the attack. He little
knew the condition of his enemy. The British army had become bewildered
fugitives. Scarce a guard could be kept for the wounded general, as he
was borne along on a horse or in a litter. When they met Dunbar the
fright increased. Wagons and munitions were destroyed, for no good
reason, and the mass surged eastward. The sinking Braddock at last
died, and they buried him in the road, that the tramp of the men might
obliterate his grave.[1136] Nobody stopped till they reached Fort
Cumberland, which was speedily turned into a disordered hospital. The
campaign ended with gloomy forebodings. Dunbar, the surviving regular
colonel, instead of staying at Cumberland and guarding the frontier,
retreated to Philadelphia, leaving the Virginians to hold Cumberland
and its hospitals as best they could.
* * * * *
By the death of Braddock Shirley became the ranking officer on
the continent, and we must turn to see how the tidings of his new
responsibilities found him.
The Massachusetts governor was at Albany when the bad news reached him,
and Johnson being taken into the secret, the two leaders tried to keep
it from the army. Shirley immediately pushed on the force destined
for Fort Niagara, at the other end of Lake Ontario; while Johnson as
speedily turned the faces of his men towards Lake George. Shirley’s
army found the path to Oswego, much of the way through swamp and
forest; and the young provincials sorrowfully begrimed their regulation
bedizenments, assumed under the king’s orders, as with the Jersey Blues
they struggled along the trail and tugged through the watercourses.
It was easier to get the men to their destination than to transport
the supplies, and many stores that were on the way were abandoned at
the portages when the wagoners heard the fearful details from the
Monongahela. Short rations and discouragements harried the men sorely.
The axe and spade were put in requisition, and additional forts were
planned and constructed as the army pursued its way. Across the lake at
Fort Frontenac the enemy held a force ready to be sent against Oswego
if Shirley went on, for the capture of Braddock’s papers had revealed
all the English plans. Shirley put on a brave face, with all his
bereavement, for the death of his son, with Braddock, was a heavy blow.
A council of war, on the 18th of September, determined him to take to
the lake with his bateaux as soon as provisions arrived. He had now got
word of Dieskau’s defeat,[1137] and he tried to use it to inspirit the
braves at his camp. It seemed to another council, on the 27th, that the
attempt to trust their river bateaux on the lake was foolhardy, and
so the purpose of the campaign was abandoned. At the end of October he
left the garrison to strengthen the forts, and returned to Albany. He
did not get much comfort there. Johnson showed no signs of following
up the victory of Lake George, and as late as November Shirley was
still at Albany, where he had received his new commission, advising a
movement on Crown Point for the winter;[1138] and in December he was
exciting the indignant jealousy of Johnson[1139] by daring to instruct
him about his Indian management, for Johnson had now been made Indian
superintendent.[1140] Shirley had despatched these orders from New
York, where he was laying before a congress of governors his schemes
for a new campaign.
* * * * *
We need now to see how Dieskau’s defeat had been the result of the
third of the expeditions of the campaign just brought to a close.
[Illustration]
Before the arrival of Braddock, Shirley had begun (January, 1755)
arrangements for an attack on Crown Point,—a project confirmed, as we
have seen, by the council at Alexandria, where William Johnson, whom
Shirley had already named, was approved as the commander. Johnson, as
a young Irishman of no military experience, had been sent over twenty
years before by his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, the admiral, to look after
some lands of his in the Mohawk Valley. Settling here and building a
house, about ten years earlier than this, he had called it first Mount
Johnson, though when it was fortified, at a later day, it was usually
called Fort Johnson.[1141] It was the seat of numerous conferences
with the Indians, over whom Johnson gained an ascendency, which he
constantly turned to the advantage of the English.
The provincials who assembled, first at Albany and then at the
carrying place between the Hudson and Lake George, were mostly New
Englanders, and a Connecticut man, General Phineas Lyman, was placed
second in command. The French were not without intelligence of their
enemy’s purpose, derived, as already said, from the captured papers
of Braddock. So Dieskau, who had come over, as we have seen, with
reinforcements, was ordered to Lake Champlain instead of Oswego, as had
been the original intention.
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.
From a plate in the _London Mag._, Sept., 1756; which is also the
original of prints in the _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, ii. 545, and in Hough’s
_Pouchot_, i. 181. Cf. also Stone’s _Life of Johnson_; Simms’s
_Trappers of N. Y._; Perry’s _Amer. Episc. Church_, i. 331; Entick’s
_General Hist. of the Late War_ (London, 1765); J. C. Smith’s _Brit.
Mezzotint Portraits_, iii. 1342 (by Adams, engraved by Spooner).]
Johnson found among those who joined his camp some who knew much
better what war was than he did: such were Colonel Moses Titcomb and
Lieutenant-Colonel Seth Pomeroy, of Massachusetts; and Colonel Ephraim
Williams, who had just made his will, by which the school was founded
which became Williams College. He also was a Massachusetts man, as was
Israel Putnam by birth, though now a Connecticut private. The later
famous John Stark was a lieutenant of the New Hampshire forces. There
were also others in command who knew scarce more of war than Johnson
himself, and such was Colonel Timothy Ruggles, of a Massachusetts
regiment, who was a college-bred lawyer and an innkeeper, destined to
be president of the Stamp Act congress.
At the carrying place Lyman began a fort, which was named after him,
but all preparations for the campaign proceeded very leisurely, the
fault rather of the loosely banded union and hesitating purpose that
existed among the colonies which had undertaken the movement; and
matters were not mended by a certain incompatibility of temper existing
between Johnson and Shirley, now commander-in-chief.
Leaving a garrison at Fort Lyman, the main body marched to the lake,
to which Johnson had, out of compliment to the king, given the name
of George. Meanwhile Dieskau had pushed up in his canoes to the very
head of Lake Champlain, and had started through the wilderness to
attack Fort Lyman. An Indian brought the news to Johnson, and Ephraim
Williams and Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, were sent out to intercept
the enemy. Dieskau, gaining information by capturing a messenger bound
to Fort Lyman, and finding his Indians indisposed to assail a fort
armed with cannon, turned towards the lake. Scouts informed him of
the approach of the party under Williams, and an ambush was quickly
planned. The English scout was badly managed, and fell into the trap.
The commander and Hendrick were both killed. Nathan Whiting, of
Connecticut, extricated the force skilfully, and a reinforcement from
Johnson rendered it possible to hold the French somewhat in check.
Could Dieskau have controlled his savages, however, he might have
followed close enough to enter the English camp with the fugitives.
As he did not, Johnson was given time to form a defence of his wagons
and bateaux, mixed with tree-trunks, and when the French came on the
English fought vigorously behind their barricade. Johnson was wounded
and was borne to his tent. Lyman brought the day to a successful issue,
and at its end his men leaped over the breastworks and converted the
defeat of the French into a rout.
Meanwhile, a part of Dieskau’s Canadians and Indians had broken away
from him, and had returned to the field where Williams had been killed,
in order to strip the slain. There, near a pond, known still as Bloody
Pond,[1142] a scouting party from Fort Lyman attacked them and put them
to flight.[1143]
The French, routed by Lyman, were not followed far, and in gathering
the wounded on the field Dieskau was discovered. He was borne to
Johnson’s tent, and the English commander found it no easy task to
protect him from the vengeance of the Mohawks. He was, however, in the
end taken to New York, whence he sailed for England, and eventually
reached France, but so shattered from his wounds that he died, though
not till several years afterwards.
The defeat of the French had taken place on the 8th of September,
and an active general would have despatched a force to intercept
the fugitives before they reached their canoes, at the head of Lake
Champlain; but timidity, the fear of a fresh onset, or a dread of a
further tension of the weakening power of the army induced Johnson to
tarry where he was, and to erect a fort, which in compliment to the
royal family he named Fort William Henry, while in a similar spirit he
changed the name of the post at the carrying place from Fort Lyman to
Fort Edward. Of Lyman he seems to have been jealous, and in writing his
report on the fight he makes no mention of the man to whose leadership
the success was largely due. In this way Lyman’s name failed to obtain
recognition in England, while the commander received a gift of £5,000
from Parliament and became Sir William Johnson, Baronet.
If Lyman’s advice had been followed, Ticonderoga might have been
seized; but the French who reached it had so strongly entrenched
themselves in a fortnight that attack was out of the question, and
though Shirley, writing from Oswego, urged an advance, nothing was
done. A council of war finally declared it inexpedient to proceed,
and on the 27th of November Johnson marched the main part of his army
southerly to their winter quarters.
[Illustration]
British and French diplomates finally ceased bowing to each other,
while their ships and armies fought together, and in May and June
(1756), respectively, the two governments declared a war which was
now nearly two years old.[1144] The French at once sent the Marquis
de Montcalm, now about forty-four years of age, to succeed Dieskau.
With him went the Chevalier de Lévis and the Chevalier de Bourlamaque
as the second and third in command, and Bougainville as his principal
aide-de-camp. By the middle of May the French general was in Quebec,
and soon proceeded to Montreal to meet Vaudreuil, who was not at
all pleased to share the responsibility of the coming campaign with
another. The French troops were now divided, being mainly placed at
Carillon (Ticonderoga), Fort Frontenac, and Niagara, and these posts
had been during the winter severally strengthened,—Lotbinière[1145]
superintending at Ticonderoga, Pouchot at Niagara, and two French
engineers at Frontenac.
Already in February the French, by sending a scouting party, had
captured and destroyed Fort Bull, a station of supplies at the carrying
place on the way from Albany to Oswego; but the intervening time till
June was spent in preparation. Word now coming of an English advance
on Ticonderoga, Montcalm proceeded thither, and found the fort of
Carillon, as the French termed it, which was now completed, much as he
would wish it.
[Illustration: LOUDON.
This follows a painting by Ramsay, engraved by Spooner, which is
reproduced in J. C. Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, p. 1343.]
Shirley, on his part, was preparing to carry out such of the lordly
plans which he had suggested at New York as proved practicable. He
would repeat the Niagara movement himself, with a hope of better
success. For the command in the campaign on Lake Champlain he named
Gen. John Winslow, and the New England colonies eagerly furnished the
troops.
[Illustration: LORD LOUDON.
From a print in the _London Magazine_, Oct., 1757. Cf. the full-length
portrait in Shannon’s _N.Y. City Manual_, 1869, p. 767, given as a
fac-simile of an old print.]
The eastern colonies and the Massachusetts governor were not fully
aware how the cabal of Johnson and De Lancey, the lieutenant-governor
of New York, against Shirley was making head with the home government,
and so were not well prepared for the tidings which came in June,
while Shirley was in New York, that Colonel Webb, Major-General
Abercrombie, and the Earl of Loudon were to be sent over successively
to relieve Shirley of the chief command.[1146]
[Illustration: ALBANY.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. (Copy in Harvard College
library,—5325.67.) A map of the region about Albany and Schenectady,
from Sauthier’s map (1779), is given in Pearson’s _Schenectady Patent_
(1883), p. 290. Cf. _Mag. of Amer. Hist._ Feb., 1886.]
While Winslow was employed in pushing forward from Albany his men
and supplies, French scouting parties constantly harassed him. Col.
Jonathan Bagley was making ready sloops and whale-boats at Lake George;
and the English were soon as active as the French in their scouting
forays, Capt. Robert Rogers particularly distinguishing himself.
[Illustration: FORT FREDERICK AT ALBANY.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. An old view of the fort is given
in Holden’s _Queensbury_, p. 313. There is an early plan of Albany
and its fort (1695) in Miller’s _Description of the Province and City
of New York_, of which a fac-simile is given in Weise’s _Albany_, pp.
257-8. The _Catal. of the King’s Maps_, i. 13 (Brit. Mus.), shows a MS.
plan of Albany of the 18th century. There is a plan dated 1765 in the
_Annals of Albany_, vol. iv. 2d ed.
Mrs. Grant’s _Memoirs of an American Lady_ gives a picture of Albany
and its life at this time, which may be compared with the description
in Kalm’s _Travels_. (London, 1771, vol. ii. p. 98; also in _Annals
of Albany_, vol. i. 2d ed., 1869.) Parkman (i. p. 319), who sketches
the community from these sources, speaks of Mrs. Grant’s book as “a
charming book, though far from being historically trustworthy;” while
it affords a “genuine picture of colonial life.” Grahame (_United
States_, ii. 256) considers the picture of manners “entirely fanciful
and erroneous.”
Mrs. Grant herself says “I certainly have no intention to relate
anything that is not true;” yet it must be remembered that she wrote in
1808, forty years after she, a girl of thirteen, had left the country.
The book was published at Edinburgh in 1808; again in 1809, also in
New York and in Boston the same year; in London in 1817, and again in
New York in 1836 and 1846. The last edition is one printed at Albany
in 1876, with notes by Joel Munsell and a memoir by Gen. J. G. Wilson.
Cf. Munsell’s _Bibliog. of Albany_; Lossing’s _Schuyler_ (1872), i. 34;
Tuckerman’s _America and her Commentators_, p. 171.
The most extensive repository of historical data respecting Albany is
in Joel Munsell’s _Annals of Albany_ (1850-59), 10 vols. Vol. i. to iv.
were issued in a second edition, 1869-71. (See Vol. IV. p. 435.)]
Johnson, who had now got his commission as sole Indian superintendent,
was busily engaged in conferences with the Six Nations, whom he secured
somewhat against their will to the side of the English. He extended his
persuasions even to the Delawares and Shawanoes. Some of these tribes
were coquetting, however, with Vaudreuil at Montreal, and it was too
apparent that nothing but an English success would confirm any Indian
alliance.
Shirley also carried out a plan of his own in organizing a body of
New England whalemen and boatmen for the transportation service,
who, being armed, could dispense with an escort. These were placed
under the command of Lieut.-Col. John Bradstreet. In May, before
Montcalm’s arrival, a party had been sent by Vaudreuil to cut off the
communications of Oswego, and Bradstreet encountered and beat them.
This was the state of affairs in June, 1756, when Abercrombie and Webb
arrived with reinforcements, and Pitt was writing in England, “I dread
to hear from America.”[1147] Shirley went to New York and received them
as well as Loudon, who followed the others on the 23d of July. The new
governor proceeded to Albany, and countermanded the orders for the
Niagara expedition, and stirred up the New Englanders by promulgating
a royal direction which in effect made a provincial major-general
subordinate to a regular major.[1148]
[Illustration]
Affairs were stagnating in the confusion consequent upon the change
of command, and Albany was telling other towns what it was to have
foreign officers billeted upon its people. Not till August did some
fresh troops set off for Oswego, when apprehension began to be felt for
the safety of that post. It was too late. The reinforcement had only
reached the carrying place when they heard of the capture of the forts.
Montcalm had suddenly returned from Ticonderoga to Montreal, and had
hastened to Niaouré Bay (Sackett’s Harbor), where Villiers was with the
force which had escaped Bradstreet’s attack. Here Montcalm gathered
about three thousand men, and then appeared without warning before
the entrenchments at Oswego. Fort Ontario was soon abandoned by its
defenders, and gave Montcalm a place to plant his cannon against the
other fort, while he sent a strong force by a ford for an attack on
the other bank. Colonel Mercer, the commander, was soon killed by a
cannon-shot from Ontario. The enemy’s approach in the rear discouraged
the garrison, and they surrendered. Montcalm did what he could to
prevent a slaughter of the prisoners, which was threatened when his
Indian allies became infuriated by the rum among the plunder.[1149]
While the French were destroying what they could not remove, and were
later retiring to Montreal, Webb, who commanded the relief which never
came, fell back to German Flats, and orders were sent to Fort William
Henry to suspend preparations for a movement down the lake.[1150]
[Illustration: THE FORTS AT OSWEGO.
After a plan in the contemporary _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1763,
as published in 1838 by the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec, and
(réimpression) 1873, p. 77. It is also reproduced in Dr. Hough’s
transl. of Pouchot, i. 65, and in _Doc. Hist. of N. York_, i. 482.
There was a contemporary English draft of the forts “Ontario and
Oswego,” published in the _Gentleman’s Mag._, 1757, which is reproduced
in Dr. Hough’s _Pouchot_, i. 64, and in the _Doc. Hist. N. York_, i.
447, 483, where will be found various papers relating to the first
settlement and capture of Oswego, 1727-1756.
The _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 118, shows a plan
made in 1756 for Gov. Pownall, and others of dates 1759, 1760, 1762,
1763, with a view in 1761.
In the _New York Col. Docs._, ix. p. 996, is what is called a plan of
the mouth of the Chouaguen, showing the English redoubt,—an outline
sketch found by Brodhead in the Archives de la Marine at Paris. Martin,
_De Montcalm en Canada_, p. 35, gives a plan, “_D’après un MS. du dépôt
des Colonies_”, in Paris.
Parkman speaks (_Montcalm and Wolfe_, i. 416) of the published plans
and drawings of Oswego at this time as very inexact. There is a French
description of the country between Oswego and Albany, 1757, in _Doc.
Hist. N. Y._, vol. i.; cf. also _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 674. Another map
showing the communication between Albany and Oswego is given in Mante’s
_Hist. of the Late War_, London, 1772, p. 60.
A view of Oswego, looking towards the lake between the high banks,
appeared in the _London Magazine_ (1760), p. 232. It has been
reproduced on different scales in Smith’s _Hist. of N. York_,
4^o, Lond. 1767; _Doc. Hist. New York_, i. 495; Hough’s transl.
of _Pouchot_, i. 68, Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 49; Clark’s
_Onondaga_, P. 353; _The Century_, xxviii. 240.]
[Illustration: FORT EDWARD.
From Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_, London, 1772. The _Catalogue of
the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Museum), i. 336, shows various drawn plans of
the fort, dated 1755; and another of the same date, marked no. 15,535,
is among the _Brit. Mus. MSS._ John Montresor’s Journal at Fort Edward,
in 1757, is in _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll._, 1881, p. 148. He gives a
profile of the work (_Ibid._, p. 36).]
Montcalm was soon back at Carillon, watching Winslow’s force at Fort
William Henry, while the rest of Loudon’s army was divided between Fort
Edward and Albany. Neither opponent moved, and, leaving garrisons at
their respective advanced posts, they retired to winter quarters. The
regulars were withdrawn to Boston, Philadelphia, and New York; and not
a little bad blood was produced by Loudon’s demand for free quarters
for the officers.[1151]
The French had the advantage in Indian allies; and during the autumn
and winter the forays of the prowling savage and the adventurous scout
over the territory neighboring to Lake George and Lake Champlain
were checked by the English as best they could. Foremost among their
partisans was the New Hampshire ranger, Robert Rogers, whose exploits
and those of the Connecticut captain, Israel Putnam, fill a large space
in the records of this savage warfare.
[Illustration: FORT EDWARD.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. Cf. the plan in Lossing’s
_Field-Book of the Revolution_, i. p. 95.]
The campaign of the next year (1757) opened in March with an attempt
to surprise Fort William Henry. The French under Rigaud came up on the
ice, 1,600 strong, by night. The surprise failed. They burned, however,
two sloops and some bateaux. The next day they summoned Major Eyre, the
English commander, but he felt that his four hundred men were enough
to hold the fort, and declined to surrender. Rigaud now made a feint
of storming the work, but it was only to approach the storehouses,
saw-mill, and other buildings outside the entrenchments, which he
succeeded in firing, and then withdrew.
Montcalm, when he heard the details, was not over-pleased; and if he
had had his way, De Lévis or Bougainville would have led the attack.
As it was, Rigaud was a brother of the governor, and Vaudreuil was
tenacious of his superiority. The news broke in upon a round of
festivities at Montreal, stayed only by Lent. At this season Montcalm
prayed, as he had before feasted, with no full recognition of the
feelings which Vaudreuil entertained for him. But the minister in
France knew it, and he was not, perhaps, so ready to doubt the numbers
of the English, exaggerated in Vaudreuil’s report, as he was the
prowess of the Canadians in comparison with the timidity of Montcalm
and his regulars, which was also reported to him. In Montreal, however,
the mutual distrust and dislike of the governor and the general were
cloaked with a politeness that was not always successful, when they
were apart, in keeping their feelings from their neighbors.
[Illustration: ENVIRONS OF FORT EDWARD.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London.]
Loudon had resolved on attacking Louisbourg, with the aid of a
fleet from England.[1152] Withdrawing a large part of the force on
the northern frontier, he departed for Halifax, where everything
miscarried. But before he returned to New York, crestfallen, the French
had profited by his absence.
The English general had left the line of the approach by the lakes
from Canada to be watched by Webb, who was at Fort Edward, while Col.
Munro, with a small force, held Fort William Henry, at the head of
Lake George. This was the most advanced post of the English, and the
opportunity for Montcalm had come.
[Illustration: FORT ST. JEAN.
After a plan in the contemporary _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760,
as published by the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec (réimpression), 1873,
p. 95. Kalm describes the fort in 1749. _Travels_, London, 1771, ii.
216.]
At Montreal the French general was gathering his Indian allies from
points as distant as Acadia and Lake Superior. He pushed forward his
commingled forces, and they rallied at Fort St. John on the Sorel. On
again they swept in a fleet of bateaux and canoes to Ticonderoga. They
were prepared for quick work, and Montcalm set an example by discarding
the luxuries of personal equipments.
[Illustration: FORT WILLIAM HENRY.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. A plan of this fort is in the
_Brit. Mus. MSS._, no. 15,355, and various plans of 1756 and 1757 are
noted in the _King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 475. Plans are also given
in Martin’s _Montcalm et les dernières années de la colonie Française
au Canada_, and in Hough’s ed. of Pouchot, p. 48.
A sketch of the fort preserved on a powderhorn is engraved in Stone’s
_Life of Johnson_, i. p. 553, and in Holden’s _Queensbury_, 306.]
At the portage, and before launching his flotilla on Lake George,
Montcalm held a grand council, and bound his Indian allies by a mighty
belt of wampum. Up the smaller lake the main body now went by boat, but
some Iroquois allies led De Lévis, with 2,500 men, along its westerly
bank. The force on the lake disembarked under cover of a point of
land, which hid them from the English.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY, 1851.
From a sketch made in 1851. The fort was on the bluff at the left, now
the position of the Fort William Henry hotel. Montcalm’s trenches were
where the modern village of Caldwell is built, seen beyond the water.
The way to the entrenched camp started along the gravelly beach in the
foreground, towards the spectator.]
The extent of the demonstration was first made known to Munro when the
savages spread out across the lake in their bark canoes. Montcalm soon
pushed forward La Corne and De Lévis till they cut the communications
of the English with Fort Edward, and then the French general began
his approaches from his own encampment. When he advanced his lines to
within gun-shot of the ramparts, he summoned the fort. Munro declined
to surrender, hoping for relief from Webb; but the timid commander at
Fort Edward only despatched a note of advice to make terms. This letter
was intercepted by Montcalm, who sent it into the fort, and it induced
Munro to agree to a capitulation.
On the 9th of August the English retired to the entrenched camp, and
the French entered the fort. Munro’s men were to be escorted to Fort
Edward, being allowed their private effects, and were not to serve
against the French for eighteen months. Montcalm took the precaution
to explain the terms to his Indian allies, and received their seeming
assent; but the savages got at the English rum, and, with passions
roused, they fell the next day upon the prisoners. Despite all
exertions of Montcalm and the more honorable of his officers, many
were massacred or carried off, so that the line of march became a
disorderly rout, beyond all control of the escort, and lost itself in
the woods. Not more than six hundred in a body reached Fort Edward, but
many others later straggled in. Another portion, which Montcalm rescued
from the clutch of the Indians, was subsequently sent in under a strong
escort.
[Illustration: ATTACK ON FORT WILLIAM HENRY.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London.
KEY.—A, dock. B, garden. C, Fort William Henry. D, morass. E, French
first battery of nine guns and two mortars. F, French second battery
of ten guns and three mortars. G, French approaches. H, two intended
batteries. I, landing-place of French artillery. K, Montcalm’s camp,
with main body. L, De Lévis’ camp, with regulars and Canadians. M,
De la Corne, with Canadians and Indians. N, where the English first
encamped. O, bridge over morass. P, English entrenchments, where Fort
George later stood.
Cf. the plans in Parkman’s _Montcalm and Wolfe_, i. 494, and in
Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, p. 73, based on this, and the reproduction
of it in Bancroft’s _United States_, orig. ed., iv. p. 263. There is a
rough contemporary sketch given in J. A. Stoughton’s _Windsor Farms_,
1884, showing the lines of the attacking force, and endorsed, “Taken
Oct. 22, 1757, by John Stoughton.” There is another large plan of the
attack preserved in the New York State Library, and this is given in
the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 602. Martin, _De Montcalm en Canada_, p.
81, gives a “Plan du siège de Fort George [William Henry was often so
called by the French] dressé par Fernesic de Vesour le 12 Septembre,
1757,” preserved in the Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies, no. 516,
at Paris.]
The French destroyed the fort, throwing the bodies of the slain on the
fire which was made of its timber, and, lading their boats with the
munitions and plunder, they followed the savages, who had already
started on their way to Montreal.
[Illustration: FORT AT GERMAN FLATS.
After a plan in the _Doc. Hist. New York_, ii. 732. In Benton’s
_Herkimer County_, p. 53, is also a “plan and profile of the entrenched
works round Harkemer’s house at y^e German Flats, 1756.” Cf. _Set of
Plans_, etc., no. 13.]
Loudon reached New York on the last of August,[1153] but he had already
heard of the Lake George disaster from a despatch-boat which met him on
the way. On landing he learned from Albany that Montcalm had retired.
Webb, who was much perplexed with the hordes of militia which all too
late began to pour in upon him, was now bold enough to think there was
no use of retreating to the passes of the Hudson. The necessity of
allowing the Canadians to gather their crops, as well as Montcalm’s
inability to transport his cannon, had influenced that general to
retreat. At Montreal he learned the stories of the fiendish cruelty
practised upon their prisoners by the Indians who had preceded him, and
who had not been restrained by Vaudreuil,—so Bougainville said; for
the governor’s policy of buying some of the captives with brandy led to
the infuriation which wreaked itself on the rest.
The campaign closed in November with an attack on the post at German
Flats, a settlement of Palatine Germans, by a scouting body of French
and Indians under one of Vaudreuil’s Canadians, Belêtre. Everything
disappeared in the havoc, which a detachment sent by Colonel Townshend
from Fort Herkimer, not far off, was powerless to check. Before Lord
Howe, with a larger force from Schenectady,[1154] could reach the
scene, the French had departed.
* * * * *
The winter of 1757-58 at Montreal and Quebec passed with the usual
official gayety and bureaucratic peculation. The passions of war were
only aroused as occasional stories of rapine and scalps came in from
the borders. Good hearty rejoicing took place, however, in March, over
the report that a scouting party from Ticonderoga had encountered
Rogers, and that the dreaded partisan had been killed and his followers
annihilated. The last part of the story was too true, but Rogers had
escaped, leaving behind his coat, which he had thrown off in the fray,
and in its pocket was his commission, the capture of which had given
rise to the belief in his death. Meanwhile, on the English side a new
spirit of control was preparing to give unaccustomed vigor to the
coming campaign. In England’s darkest hour William Pitt had come to
power, thrown up by circumstances. He was trusted in the country’s
desperation, and proved himself capable of imparting a momentum that
all British movements had lacked since the war began. He developed his
plans for America, and made his soldiers and sailors spring to their
work. Loudon was recalled. The provincial officer was made the equal
of the regular, by conferring upon him the same right of seniority by
commission. The whole colonial service felt that they were thereby
made equal sharers of the honors as well as of the burdens of the
times. Pitt put his finger upon the three vulnerable gaps in the French
panoply. He would reach Quebec by taking Louisbourg; and singling out
a stubborn colonel who had shown his mettle in Germany, he made him
Major-General Amherst, and sent him with a fleet to take Louisbourg, as
we may see in another chapter.[1155] Circumstances, or a mischance in
judgment, made him retain Abercrombie for the Crown Point campaign, but
a better decision named Brigadier John Forbes to attack Fort Duquesne.
It belongs to this place to tell the story of these last two campaigns.
In June, Abercrombie had assembled at the head of Lake George a force
of 15,000 men, of whom 6,000 were regulars. Montcalm was at Ticonderoga
with scarce a quarter as many; but Vaudreuil was tardily sending
forward some scant reinforcements under De Lévis. The French general
got tidings early in July of the embarkation in England, but had done
nothing up to that time to protect his army, which was lying on the
peninsula of Ticonderoga, mainly outside the fort. In fact, he was at
a loss what to do; no help had reached him, and the approaching army
was too numerous to hope for success. He thought of retreating to Crown
Point, but some of his principal officers opposed it. He now began a
breastwork of logs on the high ground before the fort, and, felling the
trees within musket range, he covered the ground with a dense barrier.
[Illustration]
All the while, the English were in a heydey of assurance. Pitt was
waiting anxiously in London for the first tidings. Abercrombie, now
a man of fifty-two years, did not altogether inspire confidence.
His heavy build and lethargic temperament made lookers-on call him
“aged.” There was, however, a proud expectation of success from the
vigorous, companionable Earl Howe, the brigadier next in command,
whom Pitt hoped to prove the real commander, because of the trust
which Abercrombie put in him. On the 5th of July the immense flotilla,
which bore the English army and its train, started down Lake George.
To a spectator it completely deadened the glare of the water for
miles away. The next morning at daybreak the army was passing Rogers’
Slide, whence a French party under Langy watched them. By noon it had
disembarked at the extreme north end of Lake George, and near the
river conducting to Ticonderoga they built an entrenchment, to protect
their bateaux. Rogers, with his rangers, was sent into the woods to
lead the way, while the army followed; but the denseness of the forest
soon brought the column into confusion. Meanwhile, the French party
under Langy, finding the English had got between them and their main
body, endeavored to pass around the head of the English column, and,
in doing so, got equally confused in the thickness of the wood, and
suddenly encountered that part of the English force where Lord Howe and
Major Putnam were. A skirmish ensued, Howe fell,[1156] and the army was
practically without a head. Rogers, who was in advance, turned back
upon Langy, and few of the Frenchmen escaped.
[Illustration: LORD HOWE.
From an engraving in Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, 3d ed., 1765,
vol. iii. p. 209. For the impression made by Howe’s character on the
colonists, see Mrs. Grant’s _American Lady_, Wilson’s ed., p. 222.]
In the morning Abercrombie withdrew the army to the landing.
Bradstreet, with his watermen, having rebuilt the bridges destroyed by
the French, the original intention of skirting the river on the west
was abandoned, and the army now started to follow the ordinary portage
across the loop of the river, which held the rapids. The French had
already deserted their positions at either end of this portage. At
the northerly end, near a saw-mill, the English general halted his
army. He was at one base-corner of the triangular peninsula of which
Ticonderoga was the apex. He had now to encounter, not far from the
fort, the entrenchment which Montcalm was busily constructing out of
the forest-trees which had been laid along its front as by a hurricane.
Scorning all measures which might have spared his army great losses,
and thoughtless of movements which could have intercepted Montcalm’s
reinforcements,[1157] the English general undertook, from the distant
mill, to direct repeated assaults in front. His soldiers made a deadly
push through the entanglements of the levelled trees and against the
barricade, behind which the defenders were almost wholly protected. He
could have done nothing to help Montcalm so much. The stores of the
French were sufficient for eight days only, and the chief dread of the
French general was that Abercrombie would cut his communications with
Crown Point.
[Illustration: TICONDEROGA, 1851.
After a sketch made in 1851. The ruins of Ticonderoga and the
landing-wharf are seen on the right. The high hill on the left is Mount
Defiance, on whose side Johnson and his Indians were posted during
Abercrombie’s attack. At its base is the outlet leading to Lake George.
The ruins in the foreground are a part of Fort Independence.]
As it was, De Lévis, with a considerable force, arrived in the night.
Sir William Johnson and some Indians opened fire in the morning across
the river from the sides of Mount Defiance; but accomplished nothing,
and took no further part in the day’s work. About noon the attack began
in front, and all day long—now here, now there—the French repelled
assaults which showed prodigies of valor and brought no reward. Some
rafts, with cannon sent by Abercrombie to enfilade the French line,
were driven back by the guns of the fort. At twilight the cruel work
ceased. Abercrombie had lost nearly 2,000 men, and Montcalm short of
400.
[Illustration: ABERCROMBIE’S ATTACK ON TICONDEROGA, 1758.
From Almon’s _Remembrancer_, London, 1778, where it is called “Sketch
of Cheonderoga or Ticonderoga, taken on the spot by an English officer,
in 1759.”
A plan of the approaches and attack by Lieut. Meyer, of the 60th regt.,
is given in Parkman, ii. p. 94. Cf. other plans in Bancroft, orig. ed.
iv.; Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, p. 79, etc.]
Montcalm was still anxious. He knew that Abercrombie had cannon, and
had not used them. The most natural thing in the world for the English
general would be to occupy the night in bringing the cannon up. In the
morning Montcalm sent out to reconnoitre, and it was found that the
English, still 13,000 strong, had reëmbarked, and all the signs showed
the great precipitancy of their flight.
The French general could well rejoice, but he exaggerated his
enemy’s strength to 25,000 and their losses to 5,000, which last was
considerably more than the victor’s whole force.
[Illustration: FORT FRONTENAC.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. The fort was at the modern
Kingston, Canada. There is a view or plan of it in _Mémoires sur les
affaires du Canada_, 1749-60, p. 115.]
[Illustration: NOTE.—The annexed map is from Mante’s _Hist. of the
Late War_, Lond., 1772. A map of the lake, from surveys made in 1762, is
given in Parkman, i. 285. It is also reproduced in De Peyster’s
_Wilson’s Orderly Book_.
Holden (_Hist. Queensbury_, 302, 303) mentions several MS. maps of Lake
George of this period, preserved in the State Library at Albany. A map
of the military roads (1759) from the Hudson to Lake George is given in
_Ibid._, p. 341.
There is in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 721, a sketch map copied from an
original in the Archives de la Guerre at Paris, called _Frontiers du
lac St. Sacrement, 1758, 8 Juillet_. It shows Lake Champlain from below
Crown Point, together with Lake George and the country towards Albany,
marking the routes, forts, etc.
Cf. the section giving Lake George in Jefferys’ _Map of the most
inhabited part of New England_, published November 29, 1755, and
contained in his _General Topography of North America and the West
Indies_, Lond., 1768, no. 37; and the separate map of Lake George,
1756, in Sayer and Bennet’s _American Military Pocket Atlas_, 1776.
This I suppose to be the survey made in 1756 by Captain Jackson, of
which a tracing is given in F. B. Hough’s ed. of _Rogers’s journals_,
Albany, 1883. The map in Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 284, is a
modern one.
Views of historic interest on Lake George, by T. A. Richards, are given
in _Harper’s Mag._, vii. 161.]
Abercrombie apparently magnified beyond belief an enemy whom he had not
seen, and went up the lake in trepidation, lest he should be pursued.
Safe on his old camping-ground at the head of the lake, he made haste
to entrench himself, while Montcalm, lucky to escape as he did,
prepared for a new campaign by rebuilding his lines. So the two armies
still watched each other at a safe distance.[1158]
Montcalm for a while tried to harass the English communications with
Fort Edward, by sending out his leading partisan, Marin; but Rogers
was more than his match, and gave the English general some grains of
comfort by his successes. Putnam, however, was captured and carried
to Canada. Meanwhile, much greater relief came to the army’s spirits
in September when the news of Bradstreet’s success at Fort Frontenac
reached them.
[Illustration]
A council of war had forced Abercrombie to give Bradstreet 3,000 men,
and with these he made his way to Oswego, whence, towards the end of
August, his whale-boats and bateaux pushed out upon the lake, and in
three days he was before Frontenac. The fort quickly surrendered.
Bradstreet levelled it, ruined seven armed vessels, put as much of
the plunder as he could carry on two others, and returned to Oswego
unmolested. Here he landed his booty, destroyed the vessels, and the
French naval power on Ontario was at an end. He began his march for
Albany, and, passing the great carrying place where Brigadier Stanwix
was building a fort for the protection of the valley, left there a
thousand men for its garrison. In October Amherst came overland from
Boston, with some of his victorious regiments from Louisbourg. It was
too late for further campaigning; and each side left garrisons at their
camps, and retired to winter quarters.
[Illustration: FORT STANWIX.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. The _Catal. of the King’s Maps_
(Brit. Mus.), ii. 354-55, shows drawn plans (1758, 1759, 1764) of Fort
Stanwix, built by I. Williams, engineer.
A large map of the neighborhood of Fort Stanwix is in the _Doc. Hist.
New York_ (iv. p. 324), with a plan of the fort itself (p. 327),
accompanied by a paper on the history of the fort. A map of the siege
of the fort, presented to Col. Gansevoort by L. Flury, is given with
a plan of the modern city of Rome superposed, in Dr. Hough’s ed. of
_Pouchot_, i. 207. Cf. the chapter on Fort Schuyler (Stanwix) in
Bogg’s _Pioneers of Utica_, 1877. The fort was originally called Fort
Williams. It was begun on July 23, 1758, by Brig.-Gen. John Stanwix.
Cf. note on Stanwix in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, vii. 280.
There is in Harvard College library a copy of a MS. journal of Ensign
Moses Dorr, from May 25 to Oct. 28, 1758, including an account of
the building of Fort Stanwix. The original MS. was in 1848 in the
possession of Lyman Watkins, of Walpole, N. H.]
The destruction of Frontenac and the French fleet on Ontario had cut
off Fort Duquesne from its sources of supply, and to the substantial,
if not brilliant, success of Brigadier John Forbes[1159] we must now
turn. It is a story of a stubborn Scotch purpose. Forbes had no dash,
and purposely dallied with the forming and marching of his army to
weary the Indian allies of the French, and to secure time to gain over
all of the savages that he could. The English general got upon his
route by June, but soon fell sick, and was carried through the marches
in a litter; but he breasted every discomfort and harassing complexity
of the details, which he had to manage almost in every particular, with
a courage that might have done credit to a man in vigor. He had made
up his mind to open a new road over the mountains more direct than
Braddock’s. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer of the
Royal Americans, sustained him in this purpose; but Washington argued
for the older route,—not without inciting some distrust, for Forbes
was not blind to the rival interests of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and
suspected that Washington was influenced by a greater loyalty for his
colony than for the common cause.
Forbes did not fail, however, to recognize the young Virginian’s merit
in the kind of warfare which was before them; and there exists in
Washington’s hand a plan of a line of march for forces in a forest,
with diagrams for throwing the line into order of battle, which Forbes
had requested him to make.[1160] Braddock’s defeat was not lost on
Forbes, and in his marches and preparations he availed himself of
all the arts of woodcraft and partisanship which Washington could
teach him. He did not, nevertheless, have a very high opinion of the
provincials in his train, and, with the exception of some of their
higher officers, they were, no doubt, a sorry set. As he pushed on he
established fortified posts for supplies; but all the help he ought to
have got from his quartermaster-general, Sir John Sinclair, stood him
in poor stead, for that officer was “a very odd man,” and only added
to his general’s perplexities. The advice of Washington about taking
the other route had so far unsettled Forbes’s faith in him, that,
though he told his subordinates among the advance to consult with the
Virginia colonel, it might not be best, he suggested, to follow his
advice. While the march went on he had little success in attaching some
Cherokees and Catawbas, for they stayed no longer than the gifts held
out. An occasional scout brought him intelligence of the enemy, and
he felt that their numbers were not great, and that the weariness of
delays would drive the Indian allies of the French into desertion,—as
it did.
At Raystown he built Fort Bedford, to protect his supplies, and pushed
on to Loyalhannon[1161] Creek, and there founded his last depot, fifty
miles away from Duquesne.
In August Forbes was planning for a general convention with the Indians
at Easton. The treaty of the previous year had secured the Delawares
and Shawanoes, and a further conference had been held with them in
April.[1162] Sir William Johnson was bullied, as Forbes says, into
bringing into the compact the eastern tribes of the Six Nations, while
other influences induced the Senecas and the western tribes also to
join, despite the labors of Joncaire to retain them in the French
interests. The chief difficulty was to inspire the Ohio Indians with a
distrust of the French; while the failure of French presents, thanks
to British cruisers on the ocean, was beginning to dispose them for
a change. A Moravian brother, Christian Frederick Post, was sent to
the tribes on a hazardous mission, and his confidence and fearlessness
carried him through it alive; for he had to confront French officers
at the conferences, one of which was held close by Fort Duquesne. As
a result of his mission, the convention of the allied tribes which
met the English at Easton in October decided confidently to send a
wampum belt, in the name of both the whites and the red men, to the
Ohio Indians, and Post, with an escort, was commissioned to bear it,
the party setting out from Loyalhannon. It became a struggle for
persuasion between the English messenger and a French officer, who
again confronted Post and offered the Indians a belt of wampum of his
own. The French won the young warriors; but Post impressed the sages of
the Indian councils, and the old men carried the day. The overtures of
peace from the English were accepted, and this happened notwithstanding
that the garrison of Duquesne had but just badly used a reconnoitring
party of the English under Major Grant, of the Scotch Highlanders.
It was a success of forest diplomacy that encouraged and rendered
despondent the respective sides. The French scouting parties were
hanging about Loyalhannon, while the little army at Duquesne kept
dwindling under the prospect of famine, now that Bradstreet’s raid on
Frontenac had checked their supplies. A rough and weltering October
made the bringing up of provisions very difficult for the English, and
their weakening general found his time, on his litter, disagreeably
spent, as he says, “between business and medicine;” but in early
November he himself reached Loyalhannon. He would have stopped here
for winter quarters, but scouts brought in word that the French were
defenceless; so a force was hurriedly pushed forward in light order,
which, when it reached Turkey Creek, heard a heavy boom to the west. It
was the explosion of the French mines, as the garrison of Duquesne blew
up the fort and fled.
[Illustration]
Forbes hutted a portion of his troops within a stockade, which he
called Pittsburg, and early in December began his march eastward.
The debilitated general reached Philadelphia, but died in March. Few
campaigns were ever conducted so successfully from a litter of pain.
[Illustration]
The winter of 1758-59 was an unquiet one in Canada. Vaudreuil and
Montcalm disputed over the results of the last campaign, and the
governor was doing all he could to make the home government believe
that Montcalm neither deserved, nor could profit by, success. All his
intrigue to induce the general’s recall only resulted in the ministry
sending him orders to defer to Montcalm in all matters affecting the
war.
[Illustration: GENERAL AMHERST.
From an engraving in John Knox’s _Historical Journal of the Campaigns
in North America (1757-60)_. London, 1769. There is also an engraving
in Entick’s _Hist. of the Late War_, iv. 129. Reynolds painted three
likenesses of Amherst, and sketched a fourth one, begun May, 1765, and
finished February, 1768, which gave his army in the background, passing
the rapids of the St. Lawrence. This was engraved in mezzotint by James
Watson. (Hamilton’s _Engraved Works of Reynolds_, pp. 1, 163; J. C.
Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, London, 1878-83, iii. 1008, and
iv. 1488; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, vii. 101; _Catal. Cab. M. H. Soc._,
p. 45.) Amherst was born in 1717, and died in 1797.]
There was never more need of strong counsel in Canada. The gasconade of
Vaudreuil had reached the limit of its purpose. The plunder
by officials, both of the people and of the king, was an enormity
that could not last much longer. It seemed to the wisest that food
and reinforcements, and those in no small amounts, could alone save
Canada, unless, indeed, some kind of a peace could be settled upon
in Europe. To claim help and to learn, Bougainville and Doreil were
sent to France. Nothing they said could gain much but what was easily
given,—promotion in rank to Montcalm and the rest. They represented
that the single purpose which now animated the English colonies was
quite a different thing from the old dissensions among them, the
existence of which had favored the French in the past. The demand in
Europe was, however, inexorable; and all that France could promise was
a few hundred men and a campaign’s supplies of munitions.
[Illustration: FORT PITT OR PITTSBOURG.
From Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_, London, 1772, p. 158. Cf. also
the plan in Egle’s _Pennsylvania_, p. 98; and the corner sketch of the
plate in Bancroft, _United States_ (orig. ed.), iv. 189.]
In the spring of 1759 Bougainville came back with the little which was
precious to those who had nothing, as Montcalm said. But the returning
soldier brought word of the great fleet which England was fitting out
to attack Quebec, and that fifty thousand men would constitute the
army with which Canada was to be invaded. Vaudreuil could hardly count
twenty thousand men to meet it, and to do this he had to reckon the
militia, _coureurs de bois_, and Indians. If the worst came, Montcalm
thought he could concentrate what force he had, and retreat by way of
the Ohio to the Mississippi, and hold out in Louisiana.[1163]
[Illustration: NEW FORT AT PITTSBURGH.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London.]
On the English side matters looked encouraging. Amherst, a sure and
safe soldier, without any dash, was made commander-in-chief, and was to
direct in person the advance over the old route from Lake George,[1164]
while at the same time he took measures to reëstablish Oswego and
reinforce Duquesne. To the latter point General Stanwix was sent, where
in the course of the summer he laid out and strengthened a new fort,
called after the prime minister. Fort Pitt was not, however, wholly
secure till success had followed Brigadier Prideaux’s expedition to
Niagara, the reduction of which was also a part of Amherst’s plans.
Prideaux seated Haldimand at Oswego, and made good its communications
with the Mohawk Valley. It was an open challenge to the French, and
after Prideaux had proceeded to Niagara, Saint-Lac de la Corne came
down with a force from the head of the St. Lawrence rapids to attack
Haldimand, but the English cannon sent the French scampering to their
boats, and the danger was over.
[Illustration: FORT NIAGARA.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. This same plan is given in _Doc.
Hist. N. Y._, ii, p. 868, and in Hough’s edition of Pouchot’s _History
of the Late War_, ii. p. 153. There is another plan on a large scale,
showing less of the neighboring ground, in the latter book, i. p. 161,
and in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. p. 976.
A plan of Fort Niagara, 1759, is noted among the _Brit. Mus. MSS._, no.
15,535; and in the _King’s Maps_, ii. 92, are plans of the fort dated
1766, 1768, 1769, 1773, and a view of the falls in 1765.
O’Callaghan, in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_, ii. 793, gives a map of
the Niagara River, 1759, showing the landing place of Prideaux and the
path around the cataract. For the track of the Niagara portage, see O.
H. Marshall’s “Niagara Frontier,” in _Buffalo Hist. Soc. Publ._, ii.
412-13.]
At Niagara, in the angle formed by the lake and the Niagara
River, stood the strong fort which Pouchot had rebuilt. It had a
dependency[1165] some distance above the cataract, commanded by
Joncaire; but that officer withdrew from this outwork on the approach
of Prideaux, and reinforced the main work. It was the same Joncaire who
had formerly resisted successfully, but of late less so, the efforts
of Johnson to secure the alliance to the English of the Senecas and
the more westerly tribes of the Six Nations; and now Johnson with a
body of braves was in Prideaux’s camp. The English general advanced his
siege lines, and had begun to make breaches in the walls of the fort,
when new succor for the French approached. Their partisan leaders at
the west had gathered such bushrangers and Indians as they could from
Detroit and the Illinois country, and were assembling at Presquisle and
along the route to the Monongahela for a raid on the English there,
in the hopes of recapturing the post. They got word from Pouchot of
his danger, and immediately marched to his assistance, under Aubry and
Ligneris.
[Illustration: FORT GEORGE.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. This plan is reproduced in De
Costa’s _Hist. of Fort George_. For the ruins of the fort and the view
from them, see the cuts in Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 112;
and _Scribnner’s Monthly_, Mar., 1879, p. 620.]
[Illustration: LAKE GEORGE.]
Early in the siege, Prideaux had been killed by the bursting of one of
his own shells, and the command fell on Johnson, who now went with a
part of his force to meet the new-comers, already showing themselves up
the river. He beat them, and captured some of their principal officers,
while those who survived led the panic-stricken remainder to their
boats above the cataract. Thence they fled to Presquisle, which they
burned. Here the garrisons of LeBœuf and Venango joined them, and the
fugitives continued on to Detroit, leaving the Upper Ohio without a
fighting Frenchman to confront the English.
On the same day of the defeat, negotiations for a surrender of Fort
Niagara began, and Pouchot, being convinced of the reverses which his
intending succorers had experienced, finally capitulated. Johnson
succeeded in preventing any revengeful onset of his Indians, who had
not forgotten the massacre of William Henry.
The extreme west of Canada was now cut off from the central region,
which was threatened, as we shall see, by Amherst and Wolfe, and
Vaudreuil could have little hope of preserving it. To press this
centre on another side, Amherst now sent General Thomas Gage to
succeed Johnson in the command of the Ontario region, and, gathering
such troops as could be spared from the garrisons, to descend the St.
Lawrence and capture the French post at the head of the rapids. Gage
had little enterprise, and was not inclined to undertake a movement in
which dash must make up for the lack of men, and he reported back to
Amherst that the movement was impossible.
When this disappointment came to the commander-in-chief he was at Crown
Point,—but we must track his progress from the beginning.
At the end of June, Amherst had at Lake George about 11,000 men, one
half regulars. He set about the campaign cautiously. He had fortified
new posts in his rear, and began the erection of Fort George at the
head of the lake, of which only one bastion was ever finished. On the
21st of July he embarked his army on the lake, and, landing at the
outlet, he followed the route of Abercrombie’s approach to Ticonderoga
during the previous year. The disparity of the opposing armies was
much like that when Montcalm so successfully defended that post; but
Bourlamaque, who now commanded, had orders to retire, and was making
his arrangements. Amherst brought up his cannon, and protected his
men behind the outer line of entrenchments, which Bourlamaque had
abandoned. On the night of the 23d, Bourlamaque escaped down the lake,
but a small force under Hebecourt still held the fort, which kept up
a show of resistance till the evening of the 26th, when the remaining
French, leaving a match in the magazine, also fled. In the night one
bastion was hurled to the sky, and the barracks were set on fire.
[Illustration: TICONDEROGA.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. Various plans and views are noted
in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 395. Cf. plans in
Palmer’s _Lake Champlain_, 85; Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i.
118, and views and descriptions of the ruins in Lossing, i. 127, 131;
Watson’s _County of Essex_, 112. Lieut. Brehm’s description of the fort
after its capture is in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1883, p.
21.]
[Illustration: CROWN POINT.
From a small vignette on a map by Kitchin of the Province of New York,
in the _London Magazine_, Sept., 1756. There is a similar map in the
_Gentleman’s Mag._, vol. xxv. p. 525.
Various MS. plans and views of Crown Point are noted in the _Catal. of
the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), i. 277, under date of 1759. The _Brinley
Catal._, ii. 2,939, shows a MS. “Plan of Crown Point Fort, March,
1763,” on a scale of 90 feet to the inch.
There was published in Boston in 1762 a _Plan of a part of Lake
Champlain and the large new fort at Crown Point, mounting 108 cannon,
built by Gen. Amherst_. (Haven’s _Bibliog._, in Thomas, ii. p. 560.)
Cf. the plans, nos. 24, 25, in _Set of plans_, etc. (London, 1763).
For the ruins of Crown Point, see Lossing, _Field-Book of the
Revolution_, i. 150-152; Watson’s _County of Essex_, pp. 104, 112.
These are a part, however, of the fort built by Amherst. Kalm describes
the previous fort (_Travels_, London, 1771, ii. 207), and it is
delineated in _Mémoires sur les affaires du Canada_, p. 53.]
Amherst began to repair the works, with his army now succumbing
somewhat to the weather,[1166] and was about advancing down the lake,
when scouts brought in word that Bourlamaque had also abandoned Crown
Point. So Amherst again advanced. He knew nothing of the progress Wolfe
was making in his attack on Quebec by water, but he did know that it
was a part of Pitt’s plan that success on Lake Champlain should inure
to Wolfe’s advantage, and this could only be brought about by an active
pursuit of the enemy down the lake. Amherst was, however, not a general
of the impetuous kind, and believed beyond all else in securing his
rear. So he began to build at Crown Point the new fort, whose massive
ruins are still to be seen, and sent out parties to open communication
with the Upper Hudson on the west and with the Connecticut River on the
east.
The French, as he knew, were strongly posted at Isle-aux-Noix, in the
river below the lake, and they had four armed vessels, which would
render dangerous any advance on his part by boat. So Captain Loring,
the English naval commander, was ordered to put an equal armament
afloat for an escort to his flotilla.
Bourlamaque, meanwhile, was confident in his position, for he knew
that, in addition to his own strength, Lévis had been sent up to
Montreal with 800 men to succor him, if necessary, and all the militia
about Montreal was alert.
Amherst, on his part, was anxious to know how the campaign was going
with Wolfe. In August he sent a messenger with a letter by the
circuitous route of the Kennebec, which Wolfe received in about a
month, but it helped that general little to know of the building going
on at Crown Point. Amherst then tried to pass messengers through the
Abenaki region, but they were seized. Upon this, Major Rogers was
sent with his rangers to destroy the Indian village of St. Francis,
which he did, and then, to elude parties endeavoring to cut him off,
he retreated by Lake Memphremagog to Charlestown, on the Connecticut,
enduring as he went the excruciating horrors of famine and exhaustion.
[Illustration: CROWN POINT, 1851.
From a sketch made in 1851, showing in the foreground a slope of the
embankment, with part of the ruins of the barracks, the lake beyond,
looking to the north.]
[Illustration: ISLE-AUX-NOIX.
After a plan in the contemporary _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760,
as published by the Lit. and Hist. Soc. of Quebec (réimpression), 1873,
p. 154. See the view in Lossing’s _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 167.]
It was near the middle of October when Loring pronounced the armed
vessels ready, and Amherst embarked; but the autumn gales soon
convinced him that the risks of the elements were too great to be
added to those of the enemy, and after his demonstration had caused
the destruction of three of the enemy’s vessels, and one had reached
their post on the Richelieu River, the English general, still ignorant
of Wolfe’s luck, withdrew to Crown Point, and gave himself to the
completion of its fortress.
* * * * *
We must now turn to the most brilliant part of the year’s work. This
was the task assigned to General Wolfe, who had already shown his
quality in the attack on Louisbourg the previous year.[1167] Late
in May he was at Louisbourg, with his army under three brigadiers,
Monckton, Townshend, and Murray, and the fleet of Saunders, who had
come direct from England, combined with that of Holmes, who had been
first at New York to take troops on board. A third fleet under Durell
was cruising in the gulf to intercept supplies for Quebec, but that
officer largely failed in his mission, for all but three of the French
supply ships eluded him, and by the 6th of June, when the last of
Wolfe’s fleet sailed out of Louisbourg, Quebec had received all the
succor that was expected.
The French had done their best to be prepared for the blow. Their
entire force at Quebec was congregated in the town defences and in a
fortified camp, which had been constructed along the St. Lawrence,
beginning at the St. Charles, opposite Quebec, and extending to the
Montmorenci, and on this line about 14,000 men, beside Indians, manned
the entrenchments. A bridge connected the camp with Quebec, and a boom
across the St. Charles at its mouth was intended to stop any approaches
to the bridge by boats; while earthworks along the St. Charles formed
a camp to fall back upon in case the more advanced one was forced.
Beside the 106 cannon mounted on the defences of the city, there were
gun-boats and fire-ships prepared for the moment of need. In the town
the Chevalier de Ramezay commanded a garrison of one or two thousand
men. Montcalm had his headquarters[1168] in the rear of the centre of
the entrenched line along the St. Lawrence, and Vaudreuil’s flag was
flying nearer the St. Charles.
On the 21st of June the masts of the advanced ships of the English
were first seen, and one of the fire-ships was ineffectually sent
against them. There was a difficult passage between the north shore of
the river and the lower end of the Island of Orleans; but the English
fleet managed to pass it without loss, much to the disappointment
of the French, who had failed to plant a battery on the side of Cape
Tourmente, whence they could have plunged shot into the passing
vessels. Past the dangers of the stream, the English landed their
army on the island,[1169] less than 9,000 in all, for Wolfe could
count little on the sailors who were needed for the management of the
fleet.[1170]
[Illustration: GENERAL JAMES WOLFE.
From an engraving in John Knox’s _Hist. Journal of the Campaigns in
North America_ (1757-1760), London, 1769. An engraving from Entick is
given in the preceding chapter. There is a head of Wolfe in _London
Mag._ (1759), p. 584.
J. C. Smith, in his _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, notes four different
prints (vol. ii. 783; iii. 1027, 1345, the last by H. Smith, engraved
by Spooner; and iv. 1750), but he does not reproduce either.
Parkman (_Montcalm and Wolfe_, ii.) gives a picture of Wolfe in early
youth—weak enough in aspect—which follows a photograph from an
original portrait owned by Admiral Warde.
Wright, in his _Life of Wolfe_, gives a photograph of the same. See
_Ibid._, p. 604, for an account of various portraits and memorials.
The common picture representing him standing and in profile is engraved
in Parkman’s _Historical Handbook of the Northern Tour_; in the Eng.
ed. of Warburton’s _Conquest of Canada_, etc.]
[Illustration: SIEGE OF QUEBEC, 1759.
Reproduced from the map in Miles’s _Canada_, called “Plan of the St.
Lawrence River from Sillery to the Fall of Montmorency, with the
operations of the siege of Quebec, 1759,” which has a corner “View of
the action gained by the English, Sept. 13, 1759, near Quebec.” This
map is a reduction of one engraved by Jefferys, and dedicated to Pitt,
entitled “Authentic plan of the River St. Lawrence from Sillery to
the Fall of Montmorenci, with the operations of the siege of Quebec,
under the command of Vice-Admiral Saunders and Major-General Wolfe,
down to the fifth of September, 1759, drawn by a captain in his
Majesty’s navy.” The sideplan is called “View of the action gained by
the English Sept. 13, 1759, near Quebec, brought from thence by an
officer of distinction.” This was also inserted by Jefferys in his
_History of the French Dominion in America_, London, 1760, p. 131.
The same map is given in Entick’s _General Hist. of the Late War_,
London, 1770 (3d ed.), iv. 107; and a similar one is in the _American
Atlas_. Jefferys repeats this map in his _General Topography of North
America and the West Indies_, London, 1768 (no. 18), and adds another
(no. 21), called “A correct plan of the environs of Quebec and the
battle fought 13 Sept., 1759,” which is accompanied by a superposed
“second plate,” showing the disposition of the forces on the Plains of
Abraham. This plan had already appeared separately in _Journal of the
siege of Quebec, to which is annexed a correct plan of the environs of
Quebec, and of the battle fought on the 13th September, 1759, together
with a particular detail of the French lines and batteries, and also
of the encampments, batteries, and attacks of the British army, etc.
Engraved from original survey by Thomas Jefferys_ [London, 1760], 16
pp. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,276.)
The maps given in James Grant’s _British Battles_, ii. 91, and in
Cassell’s _United States_, are seemingly based on Jefferys’.
The _London Magazine_ for 1759 has a plan of Quebec (Apr.) and of the
siege (Nov.), with a map of the river (Sept.); and for 1760, a view of
the taking of Quebec (p. 280), and a view of the town from the basin
(p. 392).
There is a large folding plan, showing the fleet and the landing of
the boats, in Mante’s _Hist. of the Late War_, 1772, p. 233. Alfred
Hawkins published at London, in 1842, _A Plan of the Naval and Military
Operations before Quebec_, accompanied by an engraving of West’s “Death
of Wolfe.” (H. J. Morgan, _Bibliotheca Canadensis_, no. 179.)
In the _Atlantic Neptune_ (Additional Plates, no. 1) is a plan of three
sheets, called “A plan of Quebec and environs, with its defences and
the occasional entrenched camps of the French, commanded by the Marquis
of Montcalm, showing likewise the principal works and operations of the
British forces under the command of Maj.-Gen. Wolfe, during the siege
of that place, 1759.” It is accompanied by a key. In the same, Part ii.
no. 16, there is a map of the St. Lawrence from Quebec to the gulf,
which shows the region of Quebec on a large scale.
Among existing MS. plans of Wolfe’s attack may be noted one in the
Faden Collection of maps in the library of Congress (E. E. Hale’s
_Catal. of the Faden Maps_); others in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_
(Brit. Mus.), ii. 220, under date of 1755, 1759, 1760; also _Brit.
Mus. MSS._, no. 15,535; and _Additional MSS._, no. 31,357; this last
is a large plan in four sheets. Parkman (ii. 440) refers to a large
MS. plan, 800 feet to an inch, belonging to the Royal Engineers, which
was made by three engineers of Wolfe’s army, and of which he says that
he possesses a fac-simile. In his _Montcalm and Wolfe_ (ii. 200) he
gives an eclectic plan; and other plans are in Lemoine’s _Picturesque
Quebec_, p. 301 (being Jefferys’ on a small scale); Bancroft’s _United
States_, orig. ed., iv. 315, etc., repeated in vol. i. of his _Hist. of
the Amer. Revolution_ (English edition).
A plan was published at Amsterdam in 1766.
Dussieux, in _Le Canada sous la domination Française_, gives a map of
the siege, “D’après un manuscrit Anglais du Dépôt de la Guerre.”]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE CITY OF QUEBEC.
From _Father Abraham’s Almanac_ (by Abraham Weatherwise, Gent.), 1761.
Key: A, the west part of the Island of Orleans, on which General
Wolfe landed. B, Point Leveé, on which one grand battery was erected.
C, Wolfe’s camp to the east of Montmorency Falls. D, the river St.
Charles. E E E, the river St. Lawrence, with some of the English ships
going up. F, the lower town, to the right of which is a cross (in the
middle of the passage to the upper town), and a man kneeling before it,
saying his Ave Maria. G, the upper town and passage to the castle. H,
Montcalm’s camp and entrenchments, to the west of Montmorency Falls,
from whence he marched when Wolfe recrossed the river to Point Leveé,
in order to get above the city, where they luckily met, and fought it
out bravely. I, Montmorency Falls and Saunders’ ships playing upon the
town.
This cut has interest as a contemporary sketch for popular instruction.]
He knew also that he must place little reliance on the cannon of the
ships, for the high rocks and bluffs of the defences were above the
elevation which could be given to the guns, and a broad stretch of
mud-flats kept the vessels from a near approach to that portion of
the French camp which was low and lay nearest the St. Charles. Cape
Diamond, the promontory of Quebec, so jutted out that Wolfe could not
inspect at present the banks of the river above the town.
Montcalm had determined on a policy of wearing out his assailants,—and
he came very near doing it,—and when a gale sprang up he hoped that
its power of devastation would be his best ally. When he saw that fail,
he tried his fire-ships; but the British sailors grappled them and
towed them aground, where they were harmless.
Wolfe’s next movement was to occupy Point Levi, opposite the
city,[1171] whence he showered shot and shell into the town, and drove
the non-combatants out. The French tried to dislodge him, but failed.
The English army was now divided by the river, and ran some risk of
attack in detail. Montcalm, however, was not tempted; nor was he later,
when Wolfe next landed a force below him, beyond the Montmorenci, and
began to entrench himself, though the English general was interrupted
in the beginning of this movement by an attack of Canadians, who had
crossed the Montmorenci by an upper ford. The attack was not persisted
in, however, and Wolfe was soon well entrenched. The cannonading was
incessant. Night after night the sky was streaked with the shells from
the vessels, and from each of Wolfe’s three camps.
The dilatory policy of Montcalm soon began to tell on his force, and
then weariness and ominous news from Bourlamaque and Pouchot hastened
the desertion of his Canadians. Wolfe tried to affect the neighboring
peasantry by proclamations more and more threatening, and felt himself
obliged at last to enforce his authority by the destruction of crops
and villages.
On the 18th of July, in the night, the “Sutherland” and some smaller
vessels pushed up the river beyond the town, while a fleet of boats was
dragged overland back of Point Levi and launched above, out of gun-shot
from the town. A force was sent by a détour to operate with them. Thus
Wolfe, in defiance of the French general, had made a fourth division of
his troops, each liable to separate attack. The English vessels above
the town made descents along the north shore, and took some prisoners,
but did little else. The French made their final attempt with a huge
fire-raft, but it was as unsuccessful as the earlier ones.
Wolfe now determined to provoke Montcalm to fight, and under cover
of a cannonade from Point Levi and from some of his ships[1172] he
landed a force from boats beneath the precipice at the lower end of
the French camp. An additional body at the same time crossed by a
ford, in front of the falls of Montmorenci, which was traversable at
low tide. The impetuosity of the grenadiers, who were in advance, not
waiting for support, and a tempest which at the moment broke over them,
convinced the quick eye of Wolfe that the attempt was to fail, and he
recalled his men. The French let them retire in good order, and began
to think their Fabian policy was to be crowned with success. Wolfe was
correspondingly shaken and rebuked the grenadiers. He began to think,
even, that the season might wear away with no better results, and that
he should have to abandon the campaign.
There was one plan yet, which might succeed, and he sought to push
more ships and march more troops above the town. Murray, who now
took command at that point, began to raid upon the shore, but with
poor success. Montcalm sent Bougainville with 1,500 men to patrol
the shore, and incessant marching they had, as the English by water
flitted up and down the river with the tides, threatening to land.
The English restlessness was too oppressive, however, for the French
camp at Beaufort, which felt that its supplies from Three Rivers
and Montreal might be cut off at any moment by an English descent.
Desertions increased, and rapidly increased when in August the French
got decisive and unfavorable news from Lake Champlain and Ontario. The
French fearing an approach of Amherst down the St. Lawrence, Quebec was
further weakened by the despatch of Lévis to confront the English in
that direction. By the end of August there were no signs of immediate
danger at Montreal, and the French took heart.
Wolfe was now ill,—not so prostrate, however, but he could propose
various new plans to a council of his brigadiers, but his suggestions
were all rejected as too hazardous. They recommended, in the end,
an attempt to gain the heights somewhere above the town, and force
Montcalm to fight for his communications. Wolfe was ready to try it;
but it was the first of September before he was able to undertake
it.[1173] He saw no other hope, slight as this one was. The letter
which Amherst had sent to him by the Kennebec route had just reached
him, and he felt there was to be no assistance from that quarter. On
the 3d of September he evacuated the camp at Montmorenci, Montcalm
being prevented from molesting him by a feint which was made by boats
in front of his Beaufort lines. Other troops were now marched above
Quebec, and when Wolfe himself joined Admiral Holmes, who commanded
that portion of the fleet which was above the town, he found he had
almost 3,600 men, beside what he might draw from Point Levi, for his
adventurous exploit. The French were deceived, and thought that the
English were to go down the river, as indeed, if the scheme to scale
the banks failed on the first attempt, they were. Bougainville’s corps
of observation was increased, and it was its duty to patrol a long
stretch of the river shore.
[Illustration: BOUGAINVILLE.
After a cut in Bonnechose’s _Montcalm_, 5th ed., 1882, p. 138.]
Wolfe with a glass had discovered a ravine,[1174] up which it seemed
possible for a forlorn hope to mount, and the number of tents at
its top did not indicate that there was a numerous guard there to
be overcome. Robert Stobo, who had been a prisoner in Quebec after
the fall of Fort Necessity, had recently joined the camp, and his
biographer says that his testimony confirmed Wolfe in the choice, or
rather directed him to it.[1175] While the preparations were going on,
the English ships perplexed Bougainville by threatening to land troops
some distance up the river, near his headquarters; and by floating up
and down with the tide, the English admiral kept the French on the
constant march to be abreast of them.
The plan was now ripe. Wolfe was to drop down the river in boats
with the turn of the tide, having with him his 3,600 men, and 1,200
were to join him by boat from Point Levi. As night came on, Admiral
Saunders, who commanded the fleet in the basin below Quebec, made every
disposition as if to attack the Beauport lines, and Montcalm thought
the main force of the British was still before him.
As the ships opposite Bougainville began to swing downward with the
tide, the French general took pity on his weary men, and failed to
follow the moving vessels. This kept the main part of his troops well
up the river. This French general had, as it happened, informed the
shore guards and batteries towards the town that he should send down by
water a convoy with provisions, that night, which was to creep along to
Montcalm’s camp under the shadow of the precipice. Wolfe heard of this
through some deserters, and he seized the opportunity to cast off his
boats and get ahead of the convoy, in order that he might answer for
it if hailed. He was hailed, and answered in the necessary deceitful
French. This quieted the suspicion of the sentries as he rowed gently
along in the gloom.
[Illustration: BRITISH SOLDIERS.
Reduced fac-simile of a cut in J. Luard’s _Hist. of the Dress of the
British Soldier_, London, 1852, p. 95. This shows a heavy and light
dragoon and two guardsmen of about the time of Wolfe’s attack, 1759.
The cap of the guardsmen is of German origin, and was in general use
by the English grenadiers of this period. The heavy dragoon is on the
right. The one on the left is a light dragoon of the 15th regiment. The
breeches are of leather; the coat is of scarlet.]
As it happened, the Canadian officer, Colonel de Vergor, who commanded
the guard at the top of the ravine, where Wolfe’s advanced party
clambered up, was asleep in his tent, and many of his men had gone
home, by his permission, to hoe their gardens. The English forlorn hope
made, therefore, quick work, when they reached the top, as they rushed
on the tents. Their shots and huzzas told Wolfe, waiting below, that
a foothold was gained, and he led his army up the steeps with as much
haste as possible. While the line of battle was forming, detachments
were sent to attack the batteries up the river, which, alarmed by the
noise, were beginning to fire on the last of the procession of boats.
The celerity of the movement accomplished its end, and the French were
driven off and the batteries taken.
Sheer good luck, quite as much as skill and courage, had at last placed
Wolfe in an open field, where Montcalm must fight him, if he would save
his communications and prevent the guns of Quebec, in the event of its
capture,[1176] being turned upon his camp.
Not a mile from Quebec, and fronting its walls, Wolfe had formed his
final line, but he had turned its direction on the left, and there the
line faced the St. Charles. In the early morning he saw the French form
on a ridge in front of him, when some skirmishing ensued, as also in
his rear, where a detachment sent by Bougainville began to harass him.
With a foe before and behind, quick and decisive work was necessary.
[Illustration: MONTCALM.
After a portrait, “une gravure du temps,” in Charles de Bonnechose’s
_Montcalm et le Canada Français_, 5th ed., Paris, 1882. Cf. the
likeness in Daniel, _Nos Gloires_, ii. 273, and in Martin, _De Montcalm
en Canada_.
The portrait given in Parkman (_Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. i.) is after
a photograph from an original picture, representing him at 29, now in
the possession of the present Marquis de Montcalm. Cf. the likeness in
Higginson’s _Larger Hist. of the United States_, p. 190.]
Montcalm, whom Admiral Saunders had been deceiving all night, hurried
over to Vaudreuil’s headquarters in the morning to learn what the
firing above the town meant. From this position he saw the seriousness
of the situation at once. The red coats of the British line were in
full view beyond the St. Charles. He hastened across the bridge, and
was soon on the ground, bringing the regiments into line as they came
up. But all the help he had a right to expect did not come. Ramezay
made excuses for not sending cannon. Vaudreuil kept back the left wing
at Beaufort, for fear that Saunders meant something, after all.
Montcalm’s impetuosity, now that it was unshackled, could not brook
delay. It would take time to concert with Bougainville an attack on the
front and rear of the British simultaneously, and that time would give
Wolfe the chance to entrench and bring up reinforcements, if he had
any. So the decision in Montcalm’s council was for an instant onset.
It was ten o’clock when Wolfe saw it coming. He advanced his line to
meet it, and when the French were close upon them the fire burst from
the English ranks. Another volley followed; and as the smoke passed
away, Wolfe saw the opportunity and gave the word to charge. As he
led the Louisbourg grenadiers he was hit twice before a shot in the
breast bore him to the ground. He was carried to the rear, and as he
was sinking he heard those around him cry that the enemy was flying. He
turned, praised God, and died.[1177]
[Illustration: QUEBEC AS IT SURRENDERED, 1759.
After a plan in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 363, which is mainly the
same as the large folding map by Jefferys, published Jan. 15, 1760,
which also makes part of the _Hist. of the French Dominion in America_,
London, 1760, and of his _General Topog. of North America and the West
Indies_, London, 1768, no. 19. There is another plan in the _Nouvelle
Carte de la Province de Québec selon l’edit du Roi d’Angleterre du
8 Sep^{bre}, 1763, par le Capitaine Carver et autres, traduites de
l’Anglois, à Paris_, 1777. One is annexed to Joseph Hazard’s _Conquest
of Quebec_, a poem, London, 1769; and another to Lemoine’s _Picturesque
Quebec_, 1882. Cf. _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Apr., 1884, p. 280.
Richard Short made some drawings of the condition of Quebec after the
bombardment, which were engraved and published in 1761.
The French plans of Quebec of this period, to be noted, are those
of Bellin in Charlevoix, viz.: _Plan du bassin de Québec et de les
environs_, 1744 (vol. iii. p. 70); _Plan de la ville de Québec_, 1744
(_Ibid._, p. 72); and _Carte de l’isle d’Orléans, et du passage de la
traverse dans le Fleuve St. Laurent_, 1744 (_Ibid._, p. 65); beside the
plan of Quebec in Bellin’s _Petit Atlas Maritime_, vol. i., 1764.
In vol. lxiv. of the _Shelburne MSS._ there are various plans of the
fortifications and citadel, made after the surrender. Edw. Fitzmaurice
reported on these in the _Hist. MSS. Commission’s Fifth Report_, p. 231.
Such books as Hawkins’s _Picturesque Quebec_ and Lossing’s paper in
_Harper’s Magazine_, xviii. 176, give pictures of most of the points of
historical interest in and about the town. Cf. J. M. Lemoine’s “Rues de
Québec,” in the _Revue Canadienne_, xii. 269.
Various views connected with the siege of Quebec are given in
_Picturesque Canada_, Toronto, 1884, showing the present condition of
Wolfe’s Cove and the ascent from it (pp. 25, 47), the martello towers
(p. 27), as well as the monuments to commemorate Wolfe and Montcalm
(pp. 27, 46).]
Montcalm, mounted, borne on by the panic, was shot through the breast
just before he entered the town, and was taken within to die.
Part of the fugitives got into Quebec with their wounded general;
part fled down the declivity towards the St. Charles, and, under
cover of a stand which some Canadian bushrangers made in a thicket,
succeeded in getting across the river to the camp, where everything
was in the confusion which so easily befalls an army without a head.
It was necessary for the English to cease from the pursuit, for
Townshend,[1178] who had come to the command (Monckton being wounded),
feared Bougainville was upon his rear, as indeed he was. When that
general, however, found that the English commander had recalled his
troops, and was forming to receive him, he withdrew, for he had
only 2,000 men,—probably all he could collect from their scattered
posts,—and seeing the English were twice as many, he did not dare
attack. So Townshend turned to entrenching, and working briskly he soon
formed a line of protection, and had a battery in position confronting
the horn-work beyond the St. Charles, which commanded the bridge.
Vaudreuil was trying to get some decision, meanwhile, out of a council
of war at Beaufort. They sent to Quebec for Montcalm’s advice, and the
dying man told them to fight, retreat, or surrender. The counsel was
broad enough, and the choice was promptly made. It was retreat. That
night it began. Guns, ammunition, provisions,—everything was left. The
troops by a circuitous route flocked along like a rabble, and on the
15th they went into camp on the hill of Jacques Cartier, thirty miles
up the St. Lawrence.
The morning after the fight, the tents still standing along the
Beaufort lines were a mockery; for Ramezay knew that Vaudreuil had
gone, since he had received word from him to surrender the town when
his provisions failed.
Bougainville was still at Cap Rouge, and undertook to send provisions
into Quebec. Lévis had joined Vaudreuil at Jacques Cartier,[1179] and
inspired the governor with hope enough to order a return to his old
camp. On the evening of the 18th the returning army had reached St.
Augustine, when they learned that Ramezay had surrendered and the
British flag waved over Quebec.
Preparations for the departure of the fleet were soon made, and
munitions and provisions for the winter were landed for the garrison,
which under Murray was to hold the town during the winter. The middle
of October had passed, when Admiral Saunders, one of his ships bearing
the embalmed body of Wolfe, sailed down the river. Montcalm lay in a
grave, which, before the altar of the Ursulines, had been completed out
of a cavity made by an English shell.[1180]
The winter passed with as much comfort as the severe climate and a
shattered town would permit. There were sick and wounded to comfort,
and the sisters of the hospitals devoted themselves to French and
English alike. A certain rugged honesty in Murray won the citizens who
remained, and the hours were beguiled in part by the spirits of the
French ladies. There was an excitement in November, when a fleet of
French ships from up the river tried to run the batteries, and seven
or eight of them which did so carried the first despatches to France
which Vaudreuil had succeeded in transmitting. There was rough work in
December, in getting their winter’s wood from the forest of Sainte-Foy,
for they had no horses, and the merriment of companionship, checkered
with the danger of the skulking enemy, was the only lightening of
the severities of the task. Deserters occasionally brought in word
that Lévis was gathering and exercising his forces for an attack, so
vigilance was incessant. Both sides preserved the wariness of war in
onsets and repulses at the outposts, and the English usually got the
better of their enemies. Captain Hazen and some New England rangers
merited the applause which the regular officers gave them when they
buffeted and outwitted the enemy in a series of skirmishes.
By April it became apparent that Lévis was only waiting for the ice
in the river to break up, when he could get water carriage for his
advance. Murray knew that the enemy could bring much greater numbers
against him, for his 7,000 men of the autumn, by sickness and death,
had been reduced to about 3,000 effectives, and the spies of Lévis
kept the French general well informed of the constant weakening of the
English forces.
[Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF LÉVIS AND MURRAY.
This follows a map in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 427; also in
Lemoine’s _Picturesque Quebec_, p. 419.]
The French placed their cannon and stores on the frigates and smaller
vessels which had escaped up the river in the autumn, and with their
army in bateaux they started on the 21st April for the descent from
Montreal. With the accessions gained on the way, by picking up the
scattered garrisons, Lévis landed between eight and nine thousand men
at Cap Rouge, and advanced on Sainte-Foy. The English at the outposts
fell back, and the delay on the part of the French was sufficient for
Murray to learn of their approach. He resolved to meet them outside
the walls. It must be an open-field fight for Murray, since the frozen
soil still rendered entrenching impossible in the time which he had. He
led out about three thousand men, and at first posted himself on the
ridge, where Montcalm had drawn up his lines the year before. He pushed
forward till he occupied Wolfe’s ground of the same morning, when,
with his great superiority of cannon, he found a position that gave
him additional advantage, which he ought to have kept. The fire of the
English guns, however, induced Lévis to withdraw his men to the cover
of a wood, a movement which Murray took for a retreat, and, emulous of
Wolfe’s success in seizing an opportune moment, he ordered a general
advance. His cannon were soon stuck in some low ground, and no longer
helped him. The fight was fierce and stubborn; but after a two hours’
struggle, the greater length of the enemy’s line began to envelop
the English, and Murray ordered a retreat. It was rapid, but not so
disordered that Lévis dared long to follow.
[Illustration: QUEBEC, 1763.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London.]
The English had lost a third of their force; the French loss was
probably less. Murray got safely again within the walls, and could
muster about 2,400 men for their defence.[1181] There was sharp work,
and little time left further to strengthen the walls and gates. Officer
and man worked like cattle. A hundred and fifty cannon were soon
belching upon the increasing trenches of Lévis, who finally dragged
some artillery up the defile where Wolfe had mounted, and was thus
enabled to return the fire.
Both sides were anxiously waiting expected reinforcements from the
mother country. On the 9th of May a frigate beat up the basin, and
to the red flag which was run up at Cape Diamond she responded with
similar colors. It was ominous to Lévis, for he felt she was the
advanced ship of a British squadron, as she proved to be. It was a week
before others arrived, when some of the heavier vessels passed up the
river and destroyed the French fleet. As soon as the naval result was
certain, Lévis deserted his trenches, left his guns and much else, with
his wounded, and hastily fled. This was in the night; in the morning
the French were beyond Murray’s reach.
[Illustration: VIEW OF MONTREAL.
A sample of the popular graphic aids of the day, which is taken from
_Father Abraham’s Almanac_, 1761 (Philadelphia). “Key: A, river St.
Lawrence; B, the governor’s house and parade; C, arsenal and yard
for canoes and battoes; D, Jesuits’ Church and Convent; E, the fort,
a cavalier, without a parapet; F, the Parish Church; G, the nunnery
hospital and gardens; H, Sisters of the Congregation, and gardens; I,
Recollects’ convents and gardens; K, the Seminary; L, the wharf.”
Cf. view and plan published in _London Mag._, Oct., 1760. Parkman (ii.
371) refers, as among the king’s maps in the Brit. Mus., to an east
view of Montreal, drawn on the spot by Thomas Patten. Cf. Lossing’s
_Field-Book of the Revolution_, i. 179.]
Their loss of cannon and munitions was a serious one, and the stores
from France which might have replaced them were already intercepted
by the English cruisers. Vaudreuil and Lévis made their dispositions
to defend Montreal, their last hope; yet it was not a place in itself
capable of successful defence, for its lines were too weak. It soon
became evident that it was to be attacked on three sides; and the
French had hopes that so dangerous a combination of armies, converging
without intercommunication, would enable them to crush the enemy in
detail.
Amherst was directing the general advance on the English side. He kept
the largest force with him, and passed from Oswego, across Ontario, and
down the St. Lawrence. If Lévis sought to escape westward and hold out
at Detroit, Amherst intended to be sure to intercept him. He had about
11,000 men, including a body of Indians under Johnson. Near the head
of the rapids he stopped long enough to capture Fort Lévis, now under
Pouchot, and because they could not kill the prisoners, three fourths
of Johnson’s Indians mutinied and went home. Amherst now shot the
rapids with his flotilla, not without some loss, and on September 6th
he reached Lachine, nine miles above Montreal.
[Illustration: MONTREAL.
From _A set of plans and forts in America, reduced from actual
surveys_, 1763, published in London. There is a plan of Montreal,
and of Isle Montreal in a _Carte de la Province de Quebec ... par le
Capitaine Carver, etc., traduites de l’Anglois, à Paris_, 1777. The
isle of Montreal as surveyed by the French engineers is mapped in the
_London Mag._, Jan., 1761.]
Meanwhile, the other commanders had already approached the city so near
as to open communication with each other. Murray had sailed up the
river with about 2,500 men, but was soon reinforced by Lord Rollo with
1,300 others from Louisbourg. The English had some skirmishes along
the banks, but Bourlamaque, who was opposing them, fell back with a
constantly diminishing force, as the Canadians, despite all threats and
blandishments, deserted him. Murray was ahead of the others, when he
stopped just before reaching Montreal, and encamped on an island in
the river. He was not without apprehension that he might have to bear
the brunt of an attack alone.
Bougainville, meanwhile, was trying to resist Haviland’s advance at
the Isle-aux-Noix, for this English general now commanded on the
Champlain route. The two sides were not ill-matched as to numbers;
but the English advance was skilfully conducted, and the French
found themselves obliged to retreat down the river and unite with
Bourlamaque. It was now that Haviland, pushing on, opened communication
by his right with Murray, and both stood on the defensive, waiting to
hear of Amherst’s approach above the town.
[Illustration: MONTREAL, 1758.
Follows a plan in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 297. It is mainly the
same as the large folding map by Thomas Jefferys, published Jan. 30,
1758, and making part of the _Hist. of the French Dominion in America_,
London, 1760, p. 12. This last is in the F. North Collection in Harvard
College Library, vol. iii. no. 22; and was again used by Jefferys in
his _General Topog. of No. America and the West Indies_, London, 1768,
no. 22.
These other plans belonging to the 18th century may be noted:—
MS. plans of 1717 and 1721 recorded in the _Catalogue of the Library of
Parliament_, Toronto, 1858, p. 1618, nos. 58 and 59.
Map of 1729, made by Chaussegros de Léry, in the Paris Archives.
_Carte de l’isle de Montreal et de ses environs, par N. Bellin_, 1744,
in Charlevoix, i. p. 227, and reproduced in Dr. Shea’s edition of
Charlevoix; as well as the plan of the town, in Charlevoix, ii. 170.
A MS. plan of 1752, giving details not elsewhere found, is noted in the
_Library of Parliament Catal._, p. 1620, no. 81.
A plan of 1756, and one of 1762 by Patten, engraved by Canot, are
marked in the _Catal. of the King’s Maps_ (Brit. Mus.), ii. 54.
A plan of Montreal and its neighborhood by Bellin, in his _Petit Atlas
Maritime_, 1764.]
The delay was brief. Amherst, advancing from Lachine, encamped before
Montreal, above it, while Murray ferried his men from the island
and encamped below. What there was left of the force which opposed
Haviland withdrew across the river into the town, and Haviland’s tents
dotted the shore which the French had left. The combined French army
now numbered scarce 2,500; Amherst held them easily with a force of
17,000.
[Illustration: ROUTES TO CANADA, 1755-1763.
Follows map in Miles’s _Hist. of Canada_, p. 293.
Other contemporary maps showing the country, brought within the
campaigns about Lakes Champlain and Ontario, are the following:—
_A chorographical map of the country between Albany, Oswego, Fort
Frontenac, and Les Trois Rivières, exhibiting all the grants by the
French on Lake Champlain_, which was included by Jefferys in his
_General Topog. of North America and the West Indies_, London, 1768. It
is, in fact, the northerly sheet of Jefferys’ _Provinces of New York
and New Jersey, with part of Pensilvania, drawn by Capt. Holland_. The
same _General Topography_, no. 32, etc., contains also in Blanchard
and Langdon’s _Map of New Hampshire_ (Oct. 21, 1761) a corner map,
showing “The River St. Lawrence above Montreal to Lake Ontario, with
the adjacent country on the west from Albany and Lake Champlain.”]
Vaudreuil saw there was no time for delays, and at once submitted a
plan of capitulation. A few notes were exchanged to induce less onerous
conditions; but Amherst was not to be moved. On September 8th the
paper was signed, and all Canada passed to the English king; the whole
garrison to be sent as prisoners to France in British ships.
[Illustration: ROBERT ROGERS.
From the _Geschichte der Kriege in und ausser Europa, Elfter Theil_,
Nürnberg, 1777. This follows a print published in London, Oct. 1, 1776,
described in Smith’s _Brit. Mezzotint Portraits_, and in Parkman’s
_Pontiac_, i. p. 164.]
This stipulation was adhered to, and during the autumn the principal
French officers were on their way to France. The season for good
weather on the ocean was passed, and the transportation was not
accomplished without some wrecks, accompanied by suffering and death.
Vaudreuil, Bigot, Cadet, and others found a dubious welcome in France
after they had weathered the November storms. The government was not
disposed that the loss of Canada should be laid wholly to its account,
and the ministry had heard stories enough of the peculations of its
agents in the colony to give a chance of shifting a large part of the
responsibility upon those whose bureaucratic thefts had sapped the
vitals of the colony. Trials ensued, the records of which yield much to
enable us to depict the rotten life of the time; and though Vaudreuil
escaped, the hand of the law fell crushingly on Bigot and Cadet, and
banishment, restitution, and confiscation showed them the shades of a
stern retribution. They were not alone to suffer, but they were the
chief ones.
The war was over, and a new life began in Canada. The surrender of
the western posts was necessary to perfect the English occupancy, and
to receive these Major Rogers was despatched by Amherst on the 13th
of September. On the way, somewhere on the southern shore of Lake
Erie,[1182] he met (November 7) Pontiac, and, informing him of the
capitulation at Montreal, the politic chief was ready to smoke the
calumet with him. Rogers pushed on towards Detroit.[1183] There was
some apprehension that Belêtre, who commanded there, would rouse his
Indians to resist, but the French leader only blustered, and when
(November 29) the white flag came down and the red went up, his 700
Indians hailed the change of masters with a yell; and it was with
open-eyed wonder that the savages saw so many succumb to so few, and
submit to be taken down the lake as prisoners. An officer was sent
along the route from Lake Erie to the Ohio to take possession of the
forts at Miami and Ouatanon; but it was not till the next season
that a detachment of the Royal Americans pushed still farther on to
Michillimachinac and the extreme posts.[1184]
English power was now confirmed throughout all the region embraced in
the surrender of Vaudreuil.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE ninth volume of the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ richly illustrates the
French movements near the beginning of the century to secure Indian
alliances.[1185]
A number of papers from the archives of the Marine, respecting the
founding of Detroit (1701), is given by Margry (_Découvertes_, etc.) in
his fifth volume (pp. 135-250), as well as records of the conferences
held by La Motte Cadillac with the neighboring Indians (p. 253, etc.).
These papers come down to 1706.[1186]
The contracts made at Quebec in 1701 and later, respecting the right
to trade at the straits, are given in Mrs. Sheldon’s _Early Hist. of
Michigan_ (N. Y., 1856, pp. 93, 138). In Shea’s _Relation des affaires
du Canada, 1696-1702_ (N. Y., 1865), there is a “Relation du Destroit,”
and other papers touching these Western parts.[1187]
Mrs. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan_ contains various documents
on the condition of the colony at Detroit and Michilimackinac.[1188]
On the attack on Detroit in 1712, made by the Foxes, in which, as
confederates of the Iroquois, they acted in the English interest, we
find documents in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._, ix. pp. 857, 866; and the
Report of Du Buisson, the French commander, is in W. R. Smith’s _Hist.
of Wisconsin_, iii. 316.[1189]
The report of Tonti, on affairs at Detroit in 1717, is given by Mrs.
Sheldon (p. 316).
In Margry’s _Découvertes et Établissements des Français dans l’Amérique
Septentrionale_ (vol. v. p. 73) is a “Relation du Sieur de Lamothe
Cadillac, capitaine en pied, ci-devant commandant de Missilimakinak et
autres postes dans les pays élorgnés, où il a été pendant trois années”
(dated July 31, 1718).
In the third volume of the _Wisconsin Historical Collections_ there are
other documents among the Cass papers.[1190]
* * * * *
There is in another chapter some account of preparations at Boston
for the fatal expedition of 1711, under Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker,
with its contingent of Marlborough’s veterans.[1191] An enumeration
of the forces employed was printed in the _Boston Newsletter_, no.
379 (July 16-23, 1711), and is reprinted in what is the authoritative
narrative, the _Journal or full account of the late expedition to
Canada_, which Walker printed in London in 1720,[1192] partly in
vindication of himself against charges of peculation and incompetency.
The failure of the expedition was charged by constant reports in
England to the dilatoriness of Massachusetts in preparing the outfit.
Walker does not wholly share this conviction, it is just to him to
say; but Jeremiah Dummer, then the agent of the province in London,
thought it worth while to defend the provincial government by printing
in London, 1712 (reprinted, Boston, 1746), a _Letter to a noble lord
concerning the late expedition to Canada_,[1193] in which he contended
that this expedition was wisely planned, and that its failure was
not the fault of New England. There is another tract of Dummer’s to
a similar purpose: _A letter to a friend in the country, on the late
expedition to Canada_, London, 1712.[1194] Palfrey[1195] says that he
found various letters and documents among the British Colonial Papers,
including a “Journal of the expedition, by Col. Richard King.”[1196]
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER, 1710.
After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected
in France_, vi. p. 1. The coat is red, faced with blue.]
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIER, 1710.
After a water-color sketch in the _Mass. Archives: Documents collected
in France_, viii. p. 1. The coat is blue, faced with red. Cf. sketches
in Gay’s Pop. _Hist. United States_, ii. 545.]
We have the French side in Charlevoix (Shea’s),[1197] with annotations
and references by that editor. Walker, in his _Journal_, gives a rough
draft in English of a manifesto intended to be distributed in Canada.
Charlevoix gives the French into which it was translated for that
use.[1198]
The recurrent interest taken, during Alexander Spotswood’s term of
office (1710-1722) as governor of Virginia, in schemes for occupying
the region beyond the mountains is traceable through his _Official
Letters_, published by the Virginia Historical Society in 1882-5.[1199]
The journey of Spotswood over the mountains in 1716 is sometimes called
the “Tramontane Expedition;” it was accomplished between Aug. 20 and
Sept. 17.[1200]
At the time when Spotswood was urging, in 1718, that steps should be
taken to seize upon the Ohio Valley,[1201] James Logan was furnishing
to Gov. Keith, to be used as material for a memorial to the Board of
Trade, a report on the French settlements in the valley (dated Dec.,
1718).[1202]
Previous to 1700 the Iroquois had scoured bare of their enemies a
portion, at least, of the Ohio country; but during the first half of
the last century, the old hunting grounds were reoccupied in part by
the Wyandots, while the Delawares centred upon the Muskingum River, and
the Shawanoes, or Shawnees, coming from the south, scattered along the
Scioto and Miami valleys,[1203] and allied themselves with the French.
The Ottawas were grouped about the Sandusky and Maumee rivers in the
north.[1204]
Respecting the Indians of the Ohio Valley we have records of the
eighteenth century, in a _Mémoire_ on those between Lake Erie and the
Mississippi, made in 1718.[1205]
Among the Cass MSS. is a paper on the life and customs of the
Indians of Canada[1206] in 1723, which has been translated by Col.
Whittlesey.[1207]
A report (1736) supposed to be by Joncaire, dated at Missilimakinac, is
called, as translated, “Enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with
the government of Canada.”[1208]
Conrad Weiser’s notes on the Iroquois and the Delawares (Dec., 1746)
have been also translated.[1209]
An account of the Miami confederacy makes part of a book published
at Cincinnati in 1871, _Journal of Capt. William Trent from Logstown
to Pickawillany in 1752_, edited by Alfred T. Goodman, secretary of
the Western Reserve Hist. Soc. It includes papers from the English
archives, secured by John Lothrop Motley.[1210] In 1759 Capt. George
Croghan made “a list of the Indian nations, their places of abode and
chief hunting.”[1211]
The subject of the dispersion and migrations of the Indians of the
Ohio Valley has engaged the attention of several of the Western
antiquaries.[1212] The most exhaustive collation of the older
statements regarding these tribal movements is in Manning F. Force’s
lecture before the Historical and Philosophical Soc. of Ohio, which was
printed at Cincinnati in 1879 as _Some Early Notices of the Indians
of Ohio_. “In the latter half of the seventeenth century, after the
destruction of the Eries in 1656 by the Five Nations,” he says, “the
great basin, bounded north by Lake Erie, the Miamis, and the Illinois,
west by the Mississippi, east by the Alleghanies, and south by the
headwaters of the streams that flow into the Gulf of Mexico, seems to
have been uninhabited except by bands of Shawnees, and scarcely visited
except by war parties of the Five Nations.” He then confines himself
to tracing the history of the Eries and Shawnees. He tells the story
of the destruction of the Eries, or “Nation du Chat,” in 1656; and
examines various theories about remnants of the tribe surviving under
other names. The Chaouanons of the French, or Shawanoes of the English
(Shawnees), did not appear in Ohio till after 1750. Parkman[1213]
says: “Their eccentric wanderings, their sudden appearances and
disappearances, perplex the antiquary and defy research.” Mr. Force
adds to the investigations of their history, but still leaves, as he
says, the problem unsolved. The earliest certain knowledge places them
in the second half of the seventeenth century on the upper waters of
the Cumberland, whence they migrated northwest and northeast, as he
points out in tracking different bands.
The claim of the English to the Ohio Valley and the “Illinois
country,” as for a long series of years the region east of the upper
Mississippi and north of the Ohio was called,[1214] was based on a
supposed conquest of the tribes of that territory by the Iroquois
in 1672 or thereabouts. No treaty exists by which the Iroquois
transferred this conquered country to the English, but the transaction
was claimed to have some sort of a registry,[1215] as expressed, for
instance, in a legend on Evans’ map[1216] (1755), which reads: “The
Confederates [Five Nations], July 19, 1701, at Albany surrendered
their beaver-hunting country to the English, to be defended by them
for the said Confederates, their heirs and successors forever, and the
same was confirmed, Sept. 14, 1728 [1726], when the Senecas, Cayugaes,
and Onondagoes surrendered their habitations from Cayahoga to Oswego
and six miles inland to the same for the same use.” The same claim is
made on Mitchell’s map[1217] of the same year (1755), referring to the
treaty with the Iroquois at Albany, Sept., 1726, by which the region
west of Lake Erie and north of Erie and Ontario, as well as the belt of
land from Oswego westward, was confirmed to the English.[1218]
Not much is known of the Indian occupation of the Ohio Valley before
1750,[1219] and any right by conquest which the Iroquois might have
obtained, though supported at the time of the struggle by Colden,[1220]
Pownall,[1221] and others,[1222] was first seriously questioned, when
Gen. W. H. Harrison delivered his address on the _Aborigines of the
Ohio Valley_.[1223] He does not allow that the Iroquois pushed their
conquests beyond the Scioto.
The uncertainty of the English pretensions is shown by their efforts
for further confirmation, which was brought about as regards westerly
and northwesterly indefinite extensions of Virginia and Pennsylvania
by the treaty of Lancaster in 1744 (June 22-July 4).[1224]
In 1748 Bollan in a petition to the Duke of Bedford on the French
encroachments, complains that recent English maps had prejudiced the
claims of Great Britain.[1225] Since Popple’s map in 1732, of which
there had been a later edition, maps defining the frontiers had
appeared in Keith’s _Virginia_ (1738), in Oldmixon’s _British Empire_
(1741) by Moll, and in Bowen’s _Geography_ (1747).
There is in the _Penna. Archives_ (2d series, vi. 93) a paper dated
Dec., 1750, on the English pretensions from the French point of view.
On the English side the claims of the French are examined in the
_State of the British and French Colonies in North America_, London,
1755.[1226]
J. H. Perkins, in the _North American Review_, July, 1839, gave an
excellent sketch of the English effort at occupation in the Ohio Valley
from 1744 to 1774, which later appeared in his _Memoir and Writings_
(Boston, 1852, vol. ii.) as “English discoveries in the Ohio Valley.”
His sketch is of course deficient in points, where the publication of
original material since made would have helped him.
* * * * *
The rivalry in the possession of Oswego and Niagara, beginning in 1725,
is traced in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ (ix. 949, 954, 958, 974), and in
a convenient form an abstract of the French despatches for 1725-27
is found in _Ibid._, ix. 976, with a French view (p. 982) of the
respective rights of the rivals.[1227]
There had been a stockade at Niagara under De Nonville’s rule, and the
fort bore his name; but it was soon abandoned.[1228] The place was
reoccupied in 1725-26, and the fort rebuilt of stone.[1229]
* * * * *
In 1731 the French first occupied permanently the valley of Lake
Champlain,[1230] but not till 1737 did they begin to control its water
with an armed sloop, and to build Fort St. Frederick.[1231]
Beauharnois’ activity in seeking the Indian favor is shown in his
conference with the Onondagas in 1734 and in his communications with
the Western tribes in 1741.[1232] The condition of the French power at
this time is set forth in a _Mémoire sur le Canada_, ascribed to the
Intendant Gilles Hocquart (1736).[1233]
In 1737 Conrad Weiser was sent to the Six Nations to get them to agree
to a truce with the Cherokees and Catawbas, and to arrange for a
conference between them and these tribes.[1234]
The expedition to the northwest, which resulted in Vérendrye’s
discovery of the Rocky Mountains in Jan., 1743, is followed with more
or less detail in several papers by recent writers.[1235]
The first settlement in Wisconsin took place in 1744-46 under Charles
de Langlade.[1236]
The Five Years’ War (1744-48) so far as it affected the respective
positions of the combatants in the two great valleys was without
result. The declaration of war was in March, 1744, on both sides.[1237]
In 1744 the Governor of Canada sent an embassy to the Six Nations,
assuring them that the French would soon beat the English.[1238]
In 1744 Clinton proposed the erection of a fort near Crown Point, and
of another near Irondequot “to secure the fidelity of the Senecas, the
strongest and most wavering of all the six confederated tribes.”[1239]
The scalping parties of the French are tracked in the _N. Y. Col.
Docs._, x. 32, etc., with the expedition against Fort Clinton in 1747
(p. 78) and a retaliating incursion upon Montreal Island by the English
(p. 81).
In 1745 both sides tried by conferences to secure the Six Nations. In
July, August, and September. Beauharnois met them.[1240] Delegates from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania convened under the New
York jurisdiction at Albany, in October, 1745, and did what they could
by treaty to disabuse the Indian mind of an apprehension which the
French are charged with having raised, that the English had proposed to
them to dispossess the Iroquois of their lands.[1241]
Upon the abortive Crown Point expedition of 1746,[1242] as well as the
other military events of the war, we have _Memoirs of the Principal
Transactions of the last War between the English and French in North
America_, London, 1757 (102 pp.).[1243] It is attributed sometimes to
Shirley, who had a chief hand in instigating the preparations of the
expedition. This will be seen in the letters of Shirley and Warren,
in the _R. I. Col. Rec._, v. 183, etc.; and in _Penna. Archives_, i.
689, 711, as in an _Account of the French settlements in North America
... and the two last unsuccessful expeditions against Canada and the
present on foot_. _By a gentleman._ Boston, 1746.[1244]
A letter of Col. John Stoddard, May 13, 1747, to Governor Shirley,
showing how the Six Nations had been enlisted in the proposed
expedition to Canada, and deprecating its abandonment, is in _Penna.
Archives_, i. 740; as well as a letter of Shirley, June 1, 1747 (p.
746).
A letter of Governor Shirley (June 29, 1747) respecting a congress
of the colonies to be held in New York in September is in _Penna.
Archives_, i. 754; and a letter of Conrad Weiser, doubting any success
in enlisting the Six Nations in the English favor, is in _Ibid._, p.
161.
Clinton (November 6, 1747) complains to the Duke of Bedford of De
Lancey’s efforts to thwart the government’s aims to secure the
assistance of the Six Nations for the invasion of Canada.[1245]
[Illustration: BONNECAMP’S MAP, AFTER THE KOHL COPY.]
In February, 1749-50, a long report was made to the Lords Commissioners
of the Treasury on the expenses incurred by the colonies during the war
for the attempts to invade Canada. It is printed in the _New Jersey
Archives_, 1st ser., vii. 383-400. The annual summaries on the French
side, 1745-48, are in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, x. 38, 89, 137.
A stubborn fight in 1748 with some marauding Indians near Schenectady
is chronicled in Pearson’s _Schenectady Patent_, p. 298.
In 1749 came Céloron’s expedition to forestall the English by burying
his plates at the mouths of the streams flowing into the Ohio. A
fac-simile of the inscription on one of these plates has been given
already (_ante_, p. 9).[1246]
While Céloron was burying his plates, and La Galissonière was urging
the home government to settle 10,000 French peasants on the Ohio,
the kinsmen of Washington and others were forming in 1748 the Ohio
Company, which received a royal grant of half a million acres between
the Monongahela and the Kenawha rivers, on condition of settling
the territory;[1247] “which lands,” wrote Dinwiddie,[1248] “are his
Majesty’s undoubted right by the treaty of Lancaster and subsequent
treaties at Logstown[1249] on the Ohio.” Colonel Thomas Cresap was
employed to survey the road over the mountains,—the same later
followed by Braddock.
Of the subsequent exploration by Christopher Gist, in behalf of the
Ohio Company, and of George Croghan and Montour for the governor of
Pennsylvania, note has been taken on an earlier page.[1250] A paper
on Croghan’s transactions with the Indians previous to the outbreak
of hostilities has been printed.[1251] Referring to the Ohio region
in 1749, Croghan wrote: “No people carry on the Indian trade in so
regular a manner as the French.”[1252]
Reference has already been made (_ante_, pp. 3, 4) to the movement in
1749 of Father Piquet to influence the Iroquois through a missionary
station near the head of the rapids of the St. Lawrence, on the New
York side, at the site of the present Ogdensburg. The author of the
_Mémoires sur le Canada_, whence the plan of La Présentation (_ante_,
p. 3)[1253] is taken, gives an unfavorable account of Piquet.[1254]
The new French governor, Jonquière, had arrived in Quebec in August,
1749. Kalm[1255] describes his reception, and it was not long before he
was having a conference with the Cayugas,[1256] followed the next year
(1751) by another meeting with the whole body of the Iroquois.[1257]
His predecessor, La Galissonière,[1258] was busying himself on a
memoir, dated December, 1750,[1259] in which he shows the great
importance of endeavoring to sustain the posts connecting Canada with
Louisiana, and the danger of English interference in case of a war.
William Johnson, meanwhile, was counteracting the French negotiation
with the Indians as best he could;[1260] and both French and English
were filing their remonstrances about reciprocal encroachments on the
Ohio.[1261] Cadwallader Colden was telling Governor Clinton how to
secure (1751) the Indian trade and fidelity,[1262] the Privy Council
was reporting (April 2, 1751) on the condition of affairs in New York
province,[1263] and the French government was registering ministerial
minutes on the English encroachments on the Ohio.[1264]
What instructions Duquesne had for his treatment of the Indians on the
Ohio and for driving out the English may be seen in the _N. Y. Col.
Docs._, x. 242.
Edward Livingston, in 1754, writing of the French intrigues with the
Indians, says, “They persuade these people that the Virgin Mary was
born in Paris, and that our Saviour was crucified at London by the
English.”[1265]
The English trading-post of Picktown, or Pickawillany, at the junction
of the Great Miami River and Loramie’s Creek, was destroyed by the
French in 1752.[1266] This English post and the condition of the
country are described in the “Journal of Christopher Gist’s journey
... down the Ohio, 1750, ... thence to the Roanoke, 1751, undertaken
on account of the Ohio Company,” which was published in Pownall’s
_Topographical Description of North America_, app. (London, 1776). Gist
explored the Great Miami River.[1267]
Parkman[1268] tells graphically the story of the incidents, in which
Washington was a central figure, down to the retreat from Fort
Necessity.[1269] The journal of Gist, who accompanied Washington to Le
Bœuf,[1270] is printed in the _Mass. Hist. Coll._, xxv. 101.[1271]
The _Dinwiddie Papers_ (vol. i. pp. 40-250) throw full light on the
political purposes and other views during this interval. Parkman had
copies of them, and partial use had been made of them by Chalmers.
Sparks copied some of them in 1829, when they were in the possession of
J. Hamilton, Cumberland Place, London, and these extracts appear among
the Sparks MSS. in Harvard College library as “Operations in Virginia,
1754-57,” accompanied by other copies from the office of the Board of
Trade, “Operations on the Frontier of Virginia, 1754-55.”[1272]
The Dinwiddie papers later passed into the hands of Henry Stevens, and
are described at length in his _Hist. Collections_, i. no. 1,055; and
when they were sold, in 1881, they were bought by Mr. W. W. Corcoran,
of Washington, and were given by him to the Virginia Historical
Society, under whose auspices they were printed in 1883-4, in two
volumes, edited, with an introduction and notes, by R. A. Brock.[1273]
Very soon after Washington’s return to Williamsburgh from Le Bœuf,
his journal of that mission was put to press under the following
title: _The Journal of Major George Washington, sent by the Hon.
Robert Dinwiddie, Esq., his Majesty’s Lieutenant-Governor and
Commander-in-Chief of Virginia, to the Commandant of the French forces
in Ohio; to which are added the Governor’s letter and a translation
of the French Officer’s answer_, Williamsburgh, 1754. This original
edition is so rare that I have noted but two copies.[1274] It has been
used by all the historians,—Sparks, Irving, Parkman, and the rest.
Sparks[1275] says he found the original sworn statement of Ensign
Ward, who surrendered to Contrecœur, in the Plantation Office in
London, which had been sent to the government by Dinwiddie. The French
officer’s summons is in De Hass’s _West. Virginia_, p. 60, etc.
There is another journal of Washington, of use in this study of what
a contemporary synopsis of events, 1752-54, calls the “weak and small
efforts” of the English.[1276] It no longer exists as Washington wrote
it. It fell into the hands of the French at Braddock’s defeat the next
year (1755), and, translated into French, it was included in a _Mémoire
contenant le précis des faits, avec leurs pièces justificatives
pour servir de réponse aux Observations envoyées par les ministres
d’Angleterre dans les cours de l’Europe_.[1277] There were quarto and
duodecimo editions of this book published at Paris in 1756;[1278]
and the next year (1757) appeared a re-impression of the duodecimo
edition[1279] and an English translation, which was called _The Conduct
of the late ministry, or memorial containing a summary of facts, with
their vouchers, in answer to the observations sent by the English
ministry to the Courts of Europe_, London, 1757.[1280] Sparks says that
the edition appearing with two different New York imprints (Gaine;
Parker & Weyman), as _Memorial, containing a summary of the facts, with
their authorities, in answer to the observations sent by the English
ministry to the Courts of Europe_, was translated from a copy of the
original French brought by a prize ship into New York. He calls the
version “worthy of little credit, being equally uncouth in its style
and faulty in its attempts to convey the sense of the original.”[1281]
Two years later (1759) the English version again appeared in London,
under the title of _The Mystery revealed, or Truth brought to Light,
being a discovery of some facts, in relation to the conduct of the late
ministry.... By a patriot_.[1282]
This missing journal of Washington, and other of these papers, are
given in their re-Englished form in the second Dublin edition (1757)
of a tract ascribed to William Livingston: _Review of the military
operations in North America from the commencement of the French
hostilities on the frontiers of Virginia in 1753 to the surrender of
Oswego, 1756 ... to which are added Col. Washington’s journal of his
expedition to the Ohio in 1754, and several letters and other papers
of consequence found in the cabinet of General Braddock after his
defeat_.[1283]
There is also in this same volume, _Précis des Faits_, a “Journal de
compagne de M. de Villiers (en 1754),” which Parkman[1284] says is
not complete, and that historian used a perfected copy taken from
the original MS. in the Archives of the Marine.[1285] The summons
which Jumonville was to use, together with his instructions, are
in this same _Précis des Faits_. The French view of the skirmish,
of the responsibility for it, and of the sequel, was industriously
circulated.[1286] On the English side, the _London Magazine_ (1754) has
the current reports, and the contemporary chronicles of the war, like
Dobson’s _Chronological Annals of the War_ (1763) and Mante’s _Hist.
of the Late War_ (1772), give the common impressions then prevailing.
Sparks, in his _Washington_ (i. p. 46; ii. pp. 25-48, 447), was the
first to work up the authorities. Irving, _Life of Washington_, follows
the most available sources.[1287]
The Indian side of the story was given at a council held at
Philadelphia in December, 1754.[1288] The transaction, in its
international bearings, is considered as Case xxiv. by J. F. Maurice,
in his _Hostilities without Declaration of War_, 1700-1870, London,
1883.
* * * * *
For the battle of Great Meadows and surrender at Fort Necessity,[1289]
the same authorities suffice us in part, particularly Sparks;[1290]
and Parkman points out the dependence he puts upon a letter of
Colonel Innes in the _Colonial Records of Pennsylvania_, vi. 50, and
a letter of Adam Stephen in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ (no. 1,339),
1754, part of which he prints in his Appendix C.[1291] The provincial
interpreter,[1292] Conrad Weiser, kept a journal, which is printed in
the _Col. Rec. of Penna._, vi. 150; and Parkman found in the Public
Record Office in London a _Journal_ of Thomas Forbes, lately a private
soldier in the French service, who was with Villiers.[1293] That the
French acted like cowards and the English like fools is given as the
Half-King’s opinion, by Charles Thomson, then an usher in a Quaker
grammar-school in Philadelphia, and later the secretary of Congress,
in his _Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and
Shawanese Indians_, London, 1759,—a volume of greater rarity than of
value, in Sargent’s opinion.[1294]
_A map of the most inhabited part of Virginia, drawn by Joshua Fry and
Peter Jefferson in 1751_, as published later by Jefferys, and included
by him in his _General Topography of North America and the West
Indies_, 1768 (no. 53), shows the route of Washington in this campaign
of 1754.
In Pittsburgh, 1854, was published _Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo of
the Virginia Regiment_,[1295] with an introduction by Neville B. Craig,
following a copy of a MS., procured by James McHenry from the British
Museum. The publication also included, from the Pennsylvania Archives,
copies of letters (July 28, 1754), with a plan of Duquesne which Stobo
sent to Washington while himself confined in that fort as a hostage,
after the capitulation at Fort Necessity, as well as a copy of the
articles of surrender.[1296] These letters of Stobo were published by
the French government in their _Précis des Faits_, where his plan of
the fort is called “exact.”
* * * * *
The most extensive account of the battle of Monongahela and of the
events which led to it is contained in a volume published in 1855,
by the Pennsylvania Historical Society, as no. 5 of their _Memoirs_,
though some copies appeared independently. It is ordinarily quoted as
Winthrop Sargent’s _Braddock’s Expedition_.[1297] The introductory
memoir goes over the ground of the rival territorial claims of France
and England, and the whole narrative, including that of the battle
itself (p. 112, etc.), is given with care and judgment. Then follow
some papers procured in England for the Penna. Historical Society by
Mr. J. R. Ingersoll. The first of these is a journal of Robert Orme,
one of Braddock’s aids, which is no. 212 of the King’s MSS., in the
British Museum.[1298] It begins at Hampton on Braddock’s arrival, and
ends with his death, July 13. It was not unknown before, for Bancroft
quotes it. Parkman later uses it, and calls it “copious and excellent.”
It is accompanied by plans, mentioned elsewhere. There is also a letter
of Orme, which Parkman quotes from the Public Record Office, London,
in a volume marked _America and West Indies_, lxxiv.[1299]
It will be remembered that Admiral Keppel,[1300] who commanded the
fleet which brought Braddock over, had furnished four cannon and a
party of sailors to drag them. An officer of this party seems to have
been left at Fort Cumberland during the advance, and to have kept a
journal, which begins April 10, 1755, when he was first under marching
orders. What he says of the fight is given as “related by some of the
principal officers that day in the field.” The diary ends August 18,
when the writer reëmbarked at Hampton. It is this journal which is
the second of the papers given by Sargent. The third is Braddock’s
instructions.[1301]
The Duke of Cumberland, as commander-in-chief, directed through Colonel
Napier a letter (November 25, 1754) to Braddock, of which we have
fragments in the _Gent. Mag._, xxvi. 269, but the whole of it is to be
found only in the French version, as published by the French government
in the _Précis des Faits_. Sargent also gives a translation of this,
collated with the fragments referred to.
[Illustration: FORT CUMBERLAND AND VICINITY.
Reduced—but not in fac-simile—from a sketch among the Sparks maps
in the library of Cornell University, kindly submitted to the editor
by the librarian. The original is on a sheet 14 × 12 inches, and is
endorsed on the back in Washington’s handwriting, apparently at a later
date, “Sketch of the situation of Fort Cumberland.”]