BULLETS AND BAYONETS
By the wagoners who had managed to escape the fate which befell their
companions Johnson had been warned of the proximity of the French war
party, but he somehow formed a very wrong conception of its strength.
Instead of preparing to meet them with his full force his first plan
was to send out two detachments of five hundred men each, one going
toward Fort Lyman, and the other toward South Bay, with the object of
catching the enemy in their retreat.
But Hendrick, the brave and sagacious chief of the Mohawks, expressed
his dissent after the dramatic fashion of his race. Picking up a single
stick he broke it easily with his hands. Then picking up several, he
put them together and showed that they could not be broken thus.
Johnson was shrewd enough to take the hint, and directed that the two
detachments be joined in one. Still the old savage shook his head.
"If they are to be killed," said he, "they are too many. If they are to
fight, they are too few."
But the commander would make no further change, and the Indian not only
ceased his objections, but mounted on a gun carriage and harangued his
warriors, exhorting them to fight bravely for their friends, and to
show no mercy to their enemies.
The morning was still young when the thousand men, under the command
of Ephraim Williams and Colonel Whiting, marched off from the camp in
quest of the French, their orders being to intercept their supposed
retreat, and if possible find and destroy their canoes.
Seth Allen was with the vanguard, his pulse beating rapidly, and every
nerve a-quiver, for he felt it in his bones that there would be plenty
of fighting before the day ended.
"I hope the French will wait for us," he said to Elisha Halley, by whom
he was walking. "Maybe if they get warning of our advance they will go
back to their canoes and we have nothing to follow them with on the
water."
Elisha smiled contemptuously as he replied:
"It all depends upon how many they are and what they know about our
strength. If they think they outnumber us they will not fail to wait
for us, but if we outnumber them they will retreat fast enough.
Nevertheless I think we ought to go forward carefully. They might be
lying in ambush somewhere ahead."
The Colonials certainly showed a lack of common sense and utter
ignorance of strategy in their advance against the enemy, for no scouts
were thrown out in front or flank. They pushed on in full security
until the sharp eye of old Hendrick detected a sign of danger.
He at once gave warning, but it was too late. The dense thickets on the
left suddenly blazed out a deadly fire, and the English fell by scores.
The head of the column, as Dieskau afterward boasted, "was doubled
up like a pack of cards." The old Mohawk chief's horse, on which he
rode because he was so old and fat, was shot under him, and he himself
killed with a bayonet as he tried to gain his feet.
Seth had a wonderful escape. The bullets whistled past him on either
side, but left him untouched, and he returned the fire with his own gun
as best he could in the midst of the fearful confusion.
Although it was his first experience of battle he felt no qualm of
fear. On the contrary, all his nervousness vanished, and thinking
only how he might fight to the best advantage, he loaded and fired as
rapidly as possible.
Presently the voice of Ephraim Williams was heard calling upon his men
to follow him to a piece of rising ground on the right, and Seth obeyed
the command.
"We must rally, men, or we will all be destroyed." Williams cried as
he led them up the slope.
But he had not reached half-way when there came a volley from the
bushes that laid him dead. And it was followed close by a hot fire
poured in on the right flank.
Then there was a panic. Many fled outright. The whole column recoiled
and began to retreat. Its van became the rear, and all the force of the
enemy rushed upon it, shouting and screeching.
Seth found himself entangled in a mob of terrified men who had no
other thought than to get out of reach of the deadly fire of their
assailants; and, although his spirit rebelled against this ignominious
flight, he had no alternative than to take part in it.
Happily after a brief interval of confusion Colonel Whiting succeeded
in rallying a part of Williams' regiment; and they, adopting Indian
tactics, fighting behind trees, and firing and falling back by turns,
were able with the aid of the Mohawks to cover the retreat.
"A very handsome retreat they made," was the testimony of Colonel
Pomeroy, "and so continued until they came within about three-quarters
of a mile of our camp. This was the last fire our men gave our enemies
which killed great numbers of them; and they were seen to drop as
pigeons."
In the alternate fighting and falling back Seth took his full share,
using the tree trunks for cover as cleverly as any of the Indians, and
firing and reloading his musket with all possible speed, yet aiming
carefully so that his bullets might not be wasted.
The lust of battle had full possession of him. He utterly forgot
himself in the deadly business of the moment, and without a quiver of
nerve saw white men and red falling beside him and in front of him
mortally smitten.
Again and again the leaden messengers of death passed perilously close
to him, but he remained unscathed. As the fierce conflict began to
slacken somewhat he observed a Colonial, who had not been quick enough
in retreat, stumble and fall headlong, and the next instant a stalwart
Indian, hideous with war paint, sprang out from the enemy's line and
dashed toward the man tomahawk in hand.
Seth had just fired and there was no time to reload. If he would save
his helpless countryman it must be by exposing himself to a like fate.
Yet he did not hesitate.
Holding his heavy gun in readiness to use as a club, he sprang from
behind the tree-trunk which had sheltered him and rushed into the zone
of fire.
His action was redeemed from utter recklessness by the heroic impulse
which inspired it, and to the credit of the French be it said that
they forebore to fire upon him, leaving it to the Indian to deal with
him first, and then accomplish what he had set out to do.
The Iroquois, when he saw the youth coming at him, gave a grunt of
contempt and raised his tomahawk menacingly. But Seth kept right on
until he had got within striking distance, when whirling his gun around
his head he aimed a terrible blow at his opponent.
The latter sprang aside to evade it, and as he did so his foot caught
in a hidden root and he fell forward on his knees. Ere he could recover
himself the butt of Seth's musket took him in the back of the head, and
over he went like a log, the tomahawk flying from his nerveless grasp.
While this was happening, the fallen colonial had got to his feet again
and was looking about in a bewildered way, having lost his bearings and
not knowing in which direction to continue the flight interrupted by
his fall.
"Here, come with me," cried Seth, grasping his arm. "Bend as low as you
can and run for your life."
The fellow obeyed instantly and the two of them made all haste back to
their own lines, followed by a volley from the enemy which happily,
however, did neither of them any harm.
Seth's gallant feat won the admiration of all who beheld it, and the
profound gratitude of the man to whom he had rendered such timely
succor, and who proved to be from his own province.
When Dieskau saw that the English had really rallied, and were
returning the fire of his men with deadly effect, he ordered a halt
and had the trumpet sounded to collect his scattered men, with the
purpose of pressing forward in good order so as to make the most of the
advantage already gained.
Had he been able to do so he could hardly have failed to gain a
complete victory over Johnson, but fortunately for the latter, the
Iroquois, who had lost many of their braves, became sullen and
unmanageable, and the French Canadians, whose veteran leader, Legardeur
de St. Pierre, had been killed, showed signs of wavering, and it was
not until after considerable delay that the advance was made with the
regulars leading the way.
Meantime in Johnson's camp there had been great anxiety and no little
confusion. About an hour after Williams had marched out with his
thousand men the sound of heavy firing was heard in the distance, and
as it grew nearer and louder those in the camp realized that their
comrades, instead of pursuing a flying foe, were themselves in retreat.
Johnson at once set about preparations for defence which should have
been made long before. A barricade constructed of wagons, inverted
bateaux, and tree trunks was hurriedly made along the front of the
camp, and three cannons were planted so as to sweep the road, while a
fourth was dragged up to the ridge of the hill.
In the midst of this confusion the defeated party began to come in.
First, scared fugitives, both white and red; then gangs of men bringing
the wounded, and finally the main body marching in good order down the
road. Among these was Seth, very much out of humor at having to turn
his back on the enemy, and hoping in his heart that they would have the
courage to attack the camp.
"If we hadn't been such fools as to walk right into the trap they laid
for us," he said to the man he had rescued as they marched together,
"we'd not be running from them now, but they'd be running from us, and
thinking only how far it was to Crown Point."
"You're just right," emphatically responded the other, whose name was
John Wilcox. "There ought to have been scouts ahead of us to give us
warning. I don't know what our colonel was thinking about when he let
us go on like that, as if there were no French within twenty miles of
us."
But of course it is always easy to be wise after the event, and
now that the blunder had been committed, and had cost so dearly, it
only remained to make the best of what was certainly a very serious
situation.
Accordingly five hundred men were detailed to guard the flanks of the
camp, while the remainder took up their position behind the wagons, or
lay flat behind the logs and upturned bateaux, the Massachusetts men
being on the right and the Connecticut men on the left. Not counting
the Indians the actual fighting force numbered about seventeen hundred,
the majority of them being rustics, who had never been under fire until
that morning.
They were hardly settled at their posts when Seth's keen eyes caught
the flash of bayonets through the boughs, and a minute later the
white-coated regulars of France came into view, marching steadily
down the road in serried array. At the same time a terrific burst of
war-whoops rose on either side of them, and in the words of Pomeroy to
his wife, "the Canadians and Indians helter-skelter, the woods full of
them, came running with undaunted courage right clown the hill upon us,
expecting to make us flee."
But in this they were greatly mistaken, for although some of the
Colonials grew uneasy, their officers, sword in hand, threatened
instant death to any who should attempt to leave their posts, and not
one of them made a move.
Seth could not help admiring the steadiness shown by the regulars in
their advance. Dieskau certainly had them well in hand, but the rest of
his force, both red and white, scattered through the woods shouting,
whooping, and firing from behind trees.
Well was it indeed for the English that their opponents as a whole did
not display the same good discipline as the French, for had they done
so the result would have been disastrous; but when only the regulars
obeyed orders their attack lost much of its force and gave Captain
Eyre, who commanded the artillery, a chance to open upon them with
grape, which he did so effectually as to break up their orderly array
and compel them to take to cover.
The firing on both sides now became general, and soon waxed so furious
that to quote again Pomeroy's graphic words, "The hail stones from
heaven were never much thicker than the bullets," yet, as he proudly
added, "Blessed be God, that did not in the least daunt or disturb us."
Seth's position was on the right flank, and as Dieskau first directed
his attack against the left and centre, he was for a time simply a
spectator of the struggle.
But when the commander of the French found he was being so stoutly
withstood, he turned his attention to the right and tried to force it.
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Seth in a tone of satisfaction, "it is our turn
now. We will give them all they want."