When the skirmishing round Fort Henry was over, La Corne, with a body
of Indians, occupied the road that led to Fort Edward; and Levis
encamped close by, to support him, and check any sortie the English
might make from their intrenched camp. Montcalm reconnoitred the
position. He had, at first, intended to attack and carry the intrenched
camp, but he found that it was too strong to be taken by a rush. He
therefore determined to attack the fort, itself, by regular approaches
from the western side, while the force of Levis would intercept any
succour which might come from Fort Edward, and cut off the retreat of
the garrison in that direction. He gave orders that the cannon were to
be disembarked at a small cove, about half a mile from the fort, and
near this he placed his main camp. He now sent one of his aides-de-camp
with a letter to Monro.
"I owe it to humanity," he said, "to summon you to surrender. At
present I can restrain the savages, and make them observe the terms of
a capitulation, but I might not have the power to do so under other
circumstances, and an obstinate defence on your part could only retard
the capture of the place a few days, and endanger the unfortunate
garrison, which cannot be relieved, in consequence of the dispositions
I have made. I demand a decisive answer within an hour."
Monro replied simply that he and his soldiers would defend themselves
till the last.
The trenches were opened on the night of the 4th. The work was
extremely difficult, the ground being covered with hard stumps of trees
and fallen trunks. All night long 800 men toiled at the work, while the
guns of the fort kept up a constant fire of round shot and grape; but
by daybreak the first parallel was made. The battery on the left was
nearly finished, and one on the right begun. The men were now working
under shelter, and the guns of the fort could do them little harm.
While the French soldiers worked, the Indians crept up through the
fallen trees, close to the fort, and fired at any of the garrison who
might, for a moment, expose themselves. Sharpshooters in the fort
replied to their fire, and all day the fort was fringed with light
puffs of smoke, whilst the cannon thundered unceasingly. The next
morning, the French battery on the left opened with eight heavy cannon
and a mortar, and on the following morning the battery on the right
joined in with eleven other pieces.
The fort only mounted, in all, seventeen cannon, for the most part
small, and, as some of them were upon the other faces, the English
fire, although kept up with spirit, could reply but weakly to that of
the French. The fort was composed of embankments of gravel, surmounted
by a rampart of heavy logs, laid in tiers, crossing each other, the
interstices filled with earth; and this could ill support the heavy
cannonade to which it was exposed. The roar of the distant artillery
continuing day after day was plainly audible at Fort Edward; but
although Monro had, at the commencement of the attack, sent off several
messengers asking for reinforcements, Webb did not move.
On the third day of the siege he had received 2000 men from New York,
and, by stripping all the forts below, he could have advanced with 4500
men, but some deserters from the French told him that Montcalm had
12,000 men, and Webb considered the task of advancing, through the
intervening forests and defiles between him and Fort Henry, far too
dangerous an operation to be attempted. Undoubtedly it would have been
a dangerous one, for the Indians pervaded the woods as far as Fort
Edward. No messenger could have got through to inform Monro of his
coming, and Montcalm could therefore have attacked him, on the march,
with the greater part of his force. Still, a brave and determined
general would have made the attempt. Webb did not do so, but left Monro
to his fate.
He even added to its certainty by sending off a letter to him, telling
him that he could do nothing to assist him, and advising him to
surrender at once. The messenger was killed by the Indians in the
forest, and the note taken to Montcalm, who, learning that Webb did not
intend to advance, was able to devote his whole attention to the fort.
Montcalm kept the letter for several days, till the English rampart was
half battered down, and then sent it in by an officer to Monro, hoping
that it would induce the latter to surrender. The old soldier, however,
remained firm in his determination to hold out, even though his
position was now absolutely hopeless. The trenches had been pushed
forward until within 250 yards of the fort, and the Indians crept up
almost to the wall on this side.
Two sorties were made--one from the fort, the other from the intrenched
camp; but both were repulsed with loss. More than 300 of the defenders
had been killed and wounded. Smallpox was raging, and the casemates
were crowded with sick. All their large cannon had been burst or
disabled, and only seven small pieces were fit for service. The French
battery in the foremost trench was almost completed, and, when this was
done, the whole of Montcalm's thirty-one cannon and fifteen mortars
would open fire, and, as a breach had already been effected in the
wall, further resistance would have been madness.
On the night of the 8th, it was known in the fort that a council of war
would be held in the morning, and that, undoubtedly, the fort would
surrender.
James, with his company, had, after escorting the cattle to the fort,
crossed the marsh to the intrenched camp, as the fort was already
crowded with troops. The company therefore avoided the horrors of the
siege. When the report circulated that a surrender would probably be
made the next morning, Nat went to James.
"What are you going to do, captain?"
"Do, Nat? Why, I have nothing to do. If Monro and his council decide to
surrender, there is an end of it. You don't propose that our company is
to fight Montcalm's army alone, do you?"
"No, I don't," Nat said, testily; "there has been a deal too much
fighting already. I understand holding out till the last, when there's
a hope of somebody coming to relieve you; but what's the use of
fighting, and getting a lot of your men killed, and raising the blood
of those redskin devils to boiling point? If the colonel had given up
the place at once, we should have saved a loss of 300 men, and Montcalm
would have been glad enough to let us march off to Fort Edward."
"But probably he will agree to let us do that now," James said.
"He may agree," Nat said, contemptuously; "but how about the redskins?
Do you think that, after losing a lot of their braves, they are going
to see us march quietly away, and go home without a scalp? I tell you,
captain, I know redskin nature, and, as sure as the sun rises tomorrow,
there will be a massacre; and I, for one, ain't going to lay down my
rifle, and let the first redskin, as takes a fancy to my scalp,
tomahawk me."
"Well, but what do you propose, Nat?"
"Well, captain, I have heard you say yours is an independent command,
and that you can act with the company wherever you like. While you are
here, I know you are under the orders of the colonel; but if you had
chosen to march away on any expedition of your own, you could have done
it."
"That is so, Nat; but now the siege is once begun, I don't know that I
should be justified in marching away, even if I could."
"But they are going to surrender, I tell you," Nat insisted. "I don't
see as how it can be your duty to hand over your company to the French,
if you can get them clear away, so as to fight for the king again."
"What do you say, Edwards?" James asked his lieutenant.
"I don't see why we shouldn't march away, if we could," Edwards said.
"Now that the game is quite lost here, I don't think anyone could blame
you for saving the company, if possible, and I agree with Nat that
Montcalm will find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep his Indians
in hand. The French have never troubled much on that score."
"Well, Nat, what is your plan?" James asked, after a pause.
"The plan is simple enough," Nat said. "There ain't no plan at all. All
we have got to do is to march quietly down to the lake, to take some of
the canoes that are hauled up at the mouth of the swamp, and to paddle
quietly off, keeping under the trees on the right-hand side. There
ain't many redskins in the woods that way, and the night is as dark as
pitch. We can land eight or ten miles down the lake, and then march
away to the right, so as to get clean round the redskins altogether."
"Very well, Nat, I will do it," James said. "It's a chance, but I think
it's a better chance than staying here, and if I should get into a row
about it, I can't help it. I am doing it for the best."
The corps were quietly mustered, and marched out through the gate of
the intrenchments, on the side of the lake. No questions were asked,
for the corps had several times gone out on its own account, and driven
back the Indians and French pickets. The men had, from their first
arrival at the fort, laid aside their heavy boots, and taken to
moccasins as being better fitted for silent movement in the forest.
Therefore not a sound was heard as, under Nat's guidance, they made
their way down the slope into the swamp.
Here they were halted, for the moment, and told to move with the
greatest care and silence, and to avoid snapping a bough or twig. This,
however, was the less important, as the cannon on both sides were still
firing, and a constant rattle of musketry was going on round the fort.
Presently, they reached the point where the canoes were hauled up, and
were told off, three to a canoe.
"Follow my canoe in single file," James said. "Not a word is to be
spoken, and remember that a single splash of a paddle will bring the
redskins down upon us. Likely enough there may be canoes out upon the
lake--there are sure to be Indians in the wood."
"I don't think there's much fear, captain," Nat whispered. "There's no
tiring a redskin when he's out on the scout on his own account, but
when he's acting with the whites he's just as lazy as a hog, and, as
they must be sure the fort can't hold out many hours longer, they will
be too busy feasting, and counting the scalps they mean to take, to
think much about scouting tonight."
"We shall go very slowly. Let every man stop paddling the instant the
canoe ahead of him stops," were James's last instructions, as he
stepped into the stern of a canoe, while Nat and Jonathan took the
paddles. Edwards was to take his place in the last canoe in the line.
Without the slightest sound, the canoes paddled out into the lake, and
then made for the east shore. They were soon close to the trees, and,
slowly and noiselessly, they kept their way just outside the screen
afforded by the boughs drooping down, almost into the water. Only now
and then the slightest splash was to be heard along the line, and this
might well have been taken for the spring of a tiny fish feeding.
Several times, when he thought he heard a slight sound in the forest on
his right, Nat ceased paddling, and lay for some minutes motionless,
the canoes behind doing the same. So dark was it, that they could
scarce see the trees close beside them, while the bright flashes from
the guns from fort and batteries only seemed to make the darkness more
intense. It was upwards of an hour before James felt, from the greater
speed with which the canoe was travelling, that Nat believed that he
had got beyond the spot where any Indians were likely to be watching in
the forest.
Faster and faster the boat glided along, but the scouts were still far
from rowing their hardest. For, although the whole of the men were
accustomed to the use of the paddle, the other boats would be unable to
keep up with that driven by the practised arms of the leaders of the
file. After paddling for another hour and a half, the scout stopped.
"We are far enough away now," Nat said. "There ain't no chance in the
world of any redskins being in the woods, so far out as this. The hope
of scalps will have taken them all down close to the fort. We can land
safely, now."
The word was passed down the line of canoes, the boats glided through
the screen of foliage, and the men landed.
"Better pull the canoes ashore, captain. If we left them in the water,
one might break adrift and float out beyond the trees. Some redskin or
other would make it out, and we should have a troop of them on our
trail, before an hour had passed."
"There's no marching through the forest now, Nat," James said. "I can't
see my own hand close to my face."
"That's so, captain, and we'd best halt till daylight. I could make my
way along, easy enough, but some of these fellows would be pitching
over stumps, or catching their feet in a creeper, and, like enough,
letting off their pieces as they went down. We may just as well stay
where we are. They ain't likely to miss us, even in the camp, and
sartin the redskins can't have known we have gone. So there's no chance
whatever of pursuit, and there ain't nothing to be gained by making
haste."
James gave the order. The men felt about, till each found a space of
ground, sufficiently large to lie down upon, and soon all were asleep
except the two scouts, who said, at once, that they would watch by
turns till daylight.
As soon as it was sufficiently light to see in the forest, the band
were again in motion. They made due east, until they crossed the trail
leading from the head of Lake Champlain to Fort Edward; kept on for
another hour, and then, turning to the south, made in the direction of
Albany, for it would have been dangerous to approach Fort Edward, round
which the Indians were sure to be scattered thickly.
For the first two hours after starting, the distant roar of the guns
had gone on unceasingly, then it suddenly stopped.
"They have hoisted the white flag," Edwards said. "It is all over.
Thank God, we are well out of it! I don't mind fighting, Walsham, but
to be massacred by those Indians is a hideous idea."
"I am glad we are out of it too," James agreed; "but I cannot think
that Montcalm, with so large a force of French regulars at his command,
will allow those fiendish Indians to massacre the prisoners."
"I hope not," Edwards said. "It will be a disgrace indeed to him and
his officers if he does; but you know what the Indians are, better than
I do, and you have heard Nat's opinion. You see, if Montcalm were to
use force against the Indians, the whole of them would go off, and then
there would be an end to any hope of the French beating the colonists
in the long run. Montcalm daren't break with them. It's a horrible
position for an officer and a gentleman to be placed in. Montcalm did
manage to prevent the redskins from massacring the garrison of Oswego,
but it was as much as he could do, and it will be ten times as
difficult, now that their blood is up with this week of hard fighting,
and the loss of many of their warriors. Anyhow, I am glad I am out of
it, even if the bigwigs consider we had no right to leave the fort, and
break us for it. I would rather lose my commission than run the risk of
being massacred in cold blood."
James agreed with him.
For two days, they continued their march through the forest, using
every precaution against surprise. They saw, however, nothing of the
enemy, and emerged from the forest, on the evening of the second day's
march, at a distance of a few miles from Albany.
They had not reached that town many hours, when they learned that Nat's
sombre predictions had been fulfilled. The council of war in the fort
agreed that further resistance was impossible, and Lieutenant Colonel
Young went out, with a white flag, to arrange the terms of surrender
with Montcalm. It was agreed that the English troops should march out,
with the honours of war, and be escorted to Fort Edward by a detachment
of French troops; that they should not serve for eighteen months; and
that all French prisoners captured in America, since the war began,
should be given up within three months. The stores, ammunition, and
artillery were to be handed over to the French, except one field piece,
which the garrison were to be allowed to retain, in recognition of
their brave defence.
Before signing the capitulation, Montcalm summoned the Indian chiefs
before him, and asked them to consent to the conditions, and to
restrain their young braves from any disorder. They gave their
approval, and promised to maintain order.
The garrison then evacuated the fort, and marched to join their
comrades in the intrenched camp. No sooner had they moved out, than a
crowd of Indians rushed into the fort through the breach and
embrasures, and butchered all the wounded who had been left behind to
be cared for by the French. Having committed this atrocity the Indians,
and many of the Canadians, rushed up to the intrenched camp, where the
English were now collected. The French guards, who had been stationed
there, did nothing to keep them out; and they wandered about,
threatening and insulting the terrified women, telling the men that
everyone should be massacred, and plundering the baggage.
Montcalm did his best, by entreaty, to restrain the Indians, but he
took no steps whatever to give effectual protection to the prisoners,
and that he did not do so will remain an ineffaceable blot upon his
fame. Seeing the disposition of the redskins, he should have ordered up
all the regular French troops, and marched the English garrison under
their protection to Fort Edward, in accordance with the terms of
surrender; and he should have allowed the English troops to again fill
their pouches with cartridge, by which means they would have been able
to fight in their own defence.
The next morning, the English marched at daybreak. Seventeen wounded
men were left behind in the huts, having been, in accordance with the
agreement, handed over to the charge of a French surgeon; but as he was
not there in the morning, the regimental surgeon, Miles Whitworth,
remained with them attending to their wants. The French surgeon had
caused special sentinels to be placed for their protection, but these
were now removed, when they were needed most.
At five in the morning the Indians entered the huts, dragged out the
inmates, tomahawked and scalped them before the eyes of Whitworth, and
in the presence of La Corne and other Canadian officers, as well as of
a French guard stationed within forty feet of the spot--none of whom,
as Whitworth declared on oath, did anything to protect the wounded men.
The Indians, in the meantime, had begun to plunder the baggage of the
column. Monro complained, to the officers of the French escort, that
the terms of the capitulation were broken; but the only answer was that
he had better give up all the baggage to the Indians, to appease them.
But it had no effect in restraining the passion of the Indians. They
rushed upon the column, snatching caps, coats, and weapons from men and
officers, tomahawking all who resisted, and, seizing upon shrieking
women and children, carried them away or murdered them on the spot. A
rush was made upon the New Hampshire men, at the rear of the column,
and eighty of them were killed or carried away.
The Canadian officers did nothing at all to try to assuage the fury of
the Indians, and the officers of the Canadian detachment, which formed
the advance guard of the French escort, refused any protection to the
men, telling them they had better take to the woods and shift for
themselves. Montcalm, and the principal French officers, did everything
short of the only effectual step, namely, the ordering up of the French
regular troops to save the English. They ran about among the yelling
Indians, imploring them to desist, but in vain.
Some seven or eight hundred of the English were seized and carried off
by the savages, while some seventy or eighty were massacred on the
spot. The column attempted no resistance. None had ammunition, and, of
the colonial troops, very few were armed with bayonets. Had any
resistance been offered, there can be no doubt all would have been
massacred by the Indians.
Many of the fugitives ran back to the fort, and took refuge there, and
Montcalm recovered from the Indians more than four hundred of those
they had carried off. These were all sent under a strong guard to Fort
Edward. The greater part of the survivors of the column dispersed into
the woods, and made their way in scattered parties to Fort Edward. Here
cannon had been fired at intervals, to serve as a guide to the
fugitives, but many, no doubt, perished in the woods. On the morning
after the massacre the Indians left in a body for Montreal, taking with
them two hundred prisoners, to be tortured and murdered on their return
to their villages.
Few events cast a deeper disgrace on the arms of France than this
massacre, committed in defiance of their pledged honour for the safety
of their prisoners, and in sight of four thousand French troops, not a
man of whom was set in motion to prevent it. These facts are not taken
only from English sources, but from the letters of French officers, and
from the journal of the Jesuit Roubaud, who was in charge of the
Christianized Indians, who, according to his own account, were no less
ferocious and cruel than the unconverted tribes. The number of those
who perished in the massacre is uncertain. Captain Jonathan Carver, a
colonial officer, puts the killed and captured at 1500. A French
writer, whose work was published at Montreal, says that they were all
killed, except seven hundred who were captured; but this is, of course,
a gross exaggeration. General Levis and Roubaud, who were certain to
have made the best of the matter, acknowledged that they saw some fifty
corpses scattered on the ground, but this does not include those
murdered in the fort and camp.
Probably the total number killed was about two hundred, and besides
these must be counted the two hundred prisoners carried off to be
tortured by the Indians. The greater portion of these were purchased
from the Indians, in exchange for rum, by Vaudreuil, the governor at
Montreal; but to the eternal disgrace of this man, he suffered many of
them to be carried off, and did not even interfere when, publicly, in
the sight of the whole town, the Indians murdered some of the
prisoners, and, not content with eating them themselves, forced their
comrades to partake of the flesh. Bougainville, one of the
aides-de-camp of Montcalm, was present, and testified to the fact, and
the story is confirmed by the intendant Bigot, a friend of the
governor.
The ferocity of the Indians cost them dear. They had dug up and scalped
the corpses in the graveyard of Fort William Henry. Many of these had
died of smallpox, and the savages took the infection home to their
villages, where great numbers perished of the disease.
As soon as their Indian allies had left, the French soldiers were set
to work demolishing the English fort, and the operation was completed
by the destruction, by fire, of the remains. The army then returned to
Crown Point.
In view of the gross breach of the articles of capitulation by the
French, the English government refused also to be bound by it, and the
French prisoners in their hands were accordingly retained.
Colonel Monro himself was one of those who survived. He had made his
way through the savages back to the fort, to demand that the protection
of the French troops should be given to the soldiers, and so escaped
the massacre.
Upon his arrival at Albany, James reported, to the officer in command
there, the reason which had induced him to quit the fort with his
company. These reasons were approved of, but the officer advised James
to send in a written report to General Webb, and to march at once to
Fort Edward, and place himself under that officer's directions.
When he reached the fort, the fugitives were coming in from the woods.
James at once reported himself to the general, and handed in his
written statement. At the same time he gave his reasons, in a few
words, for the course he had taken. Webb was far too much excited by
the news of the terrible events which had taken place, and for which,
as he could not but be aware, he would be to some extent held
responsible, by public opinion, for having refused to move to Monro's
assistance, to pay much attention to the young officer's statement.
"You were quite right, sir, quite right to carry off your command," he
said hastily. "Thank God there are so many the fewer of his majesty's
troops sacrificed! You will please take your company out at once into
the woods. They are accustomed to the work, which is more than any of
my troops here are. Divide them into four parties, and let them scour
the forest, and bring in such of the fugitives as they can find. Let
them take as much provisions and rum as they can carry, for many of the
fugitives will be starving."
James executed his orders, and, during the next five days, sent in a
considerable number of exhausted men, who, hopelessly lost in the
woods, must have perished unless they had been discovered by his party.
Had Montcalm marched direct upon Fort Edward, he could doubtless have
captured it, for the fall of Fort William Henry had so scared Webb,
that he would probably have retreated the moment he heard the news of
Montcalm's advance, although, within a day or two of the fall of the
fort, many thousands of colonial militia had arrived. As soon, however,
as it was known that Montcalm had retired, the militia, who were
altogether unsupplied with the means of keeping the field, returned to
their homes.
Loudon, on his way back from the unsuccessful expedition against
Louisbourg, received the news of the calamity at Fort William Henry. He
returned too late to do anything to retrieve that disaster, and
determined, in the spring, to take the offensive by attacking
Ticonderoga. This had been left, on the retirement of Montcalm, with a
small garrison commanded by Captain Hepecourt, who, during the winter,
was continually harassed by the corps of Captain Rogers, and James
Walsham's scouts.
Toward the spring, receiving reinforcements, Hepecourt caught Rogers
and a hundred and eighty men in an ambush, and killed almost all of
them; Rogers himself, and some twenty or thirty men, alone escaping.
In the spring there was a fresh change of plans. The expedition against
Ticonderoga was given up, as another attempt at Louisbourg was about to
be made. The English government were determined that the disastrous
delays, which had caused the failure of the last expedition, should not
be repeated. Loudon was recalled, and to General Abercromby, the second
in command, was intrusted the charge of the forces in the colonies.
Colonel Amherst was raised to the rank of major general, and appointed
to command the expedition from England against Louisbourg, having under
him Brigadier Generals Whitmore, Lawrence, and Wolfe. Before the winter
was ended two fleets put to sea: the one, under Admiral Boscawen, was
destined for Louisbourg; while the other, under Admiral Osborne, sailed
for the Straits of Gibraltar, to intercept the French fleet of Admiral
La Clue, which was about to sail from Toulon for America.
At the same time Sir Edward Hawke, with seven ships of the line and
three frigates, sailed for Rochefort, where a French squadron with a
fleet of transports, with troops for America, were lying.
The two latter expeditions were perfectly successful. Osborne prevented
La Clue from leaving the Mediterranean. Hawke drove the enemy's vessels
ashore at Rochefort, and completely broke up the expedition. Thus
Canada, at the critical period, when the English were preparing to
strike a great blow at her, was cut off from all assistance from the
mother country, and left to her own resources.
As before, Halifax was the spot where the troops from the colonies were
to meet the fleet from England, and the troops who came out under their
convoy, and here, on the 28th of May, the whole expedition was
collected. The colonies had again been partially stripped of their
defenders, and five hundred provincial rangers accompanied the
regulars. James Walsham's corps was left for service on the frontier,
while the regiments, to which they belonged, sailed with the force
destined for the siege of Louisbourg.
This fortress stood, at the mouth of a land-locked bay, on the stormy
coast of Cape Breton. Since the peace of Aix la Chapelle, vast sums had
been spent in repairing and strengthening it, and it was, by far, the
strongest fortress in English or French America. The circuit of its
fortifications was more than a mile and a half, and the town contained
about four thousand inhabitants. The garrison consisted of the
battalions of Artois, Bourgogne, Cambis, and Volontaires Etrangers,
with two companies of artillery, and twenty-four of colonial troops; in
all, three thousand and eighty men, besides officers. In the harbour
lay five ships of the line and seven frigates, carrying five hundred
and forty-four guns, and about three thousand men, and there were two
hundred and nineteen cannons and seventeen mortars mounted on the
ramparts and outworks, and forty-four in reserve.
Of the outworks, the strongest were the grand battery at Lighthouse
Point, at the mouth of the harbour; and that on Goat Island, a rocky
islet at its entrance. The strongest front of the works was on the land
side, across the base of the triangular peninsula on which the town
stood. This front, twelve hundred yards in extent, reached from the
sea, on the left, to the harbour on the right, and consisted of four
strong bastions with connecting works.
The best defence of Louisbourg, however, was the craggy shore, which,
for leagues on either side, was accessible only at a few points, and,
even there, a landing could only be effected with the greatest
difficulty. All these points were watched, for an English squadron, of
nine ships of war, had been cruising off the place, endeavouring to
prevent supplies from arriving; but they had been so often blown off,
by gales, that the French ships had been able to enter, and, on the 2nd
of June, when the English expedition came in sight, more than a year's
supply of provisions was stored up in the town.