Total Defeat at Ticonderoga—General Lee—Humanity of Madame.
THE next day they heard the particulars of the skirmish, for it could
scarcely be called a regular engagement, which had proved fatal to the
young warrior, whose loss was so deeply felt. The army had crossed lake
George in safety, on the 5th of July, and landed without opposition.
They proceeded in four columns to Ticonderoga, and displayed a spectacle
unprecedented in the New World. An army of sixteen thousand men,
regulars and provincials, with a train of artillery, with all the
necessary provisions for an active campaign or regular siege, followed
by a little fleet of bateaux, pontons, &c. They set out wrong however,
by not having Indian guides, who are alone to be depended on in such a
place. In a short time the columns fell in upon each other, and
occasioned much confusion. While they marched on in this bewildered
manner, the advanced guard of the French, which had retired before them,
were equally bewildered, and falling in with them in this confusion, a
skirmish ensued, in which the French lost above three hundred men, and
we, though successful, lost as much as it was possible to lose, in one;
for here it was that Lord Howe fell.
The fort is a situation of peculiarly natural strength; it lies on a
little peninsula, with lake George on one side, and a narrow opening,
communicating with lake Champlain, on the other. It is surrounded by
water on three sides; and in front there is a swamp, very easily
defended: and where it ceased the French had made a breast-work above
eight feet high; not content with this, they had felled immense trees on
the spot, and laid them heaped on each other, with their branches
outward, before their works. In fine, there was no place on earth where
aggression was so difficult, and defence so easy, as in these woods;
especially when, as in this case, the party to be attacked had great
leisure to prepare their defence. On this impenetrable front they had
also a line of cannon mounted; while the difficulty of bringing
artillery through this swampy ground, near enough to bear upon the
place, was very great. This garrison, almost impregnable from situation,
was defended by between four and five thousand men. An engineer, sent to
reconnoitre, was of opinion that it might be attacked without waiting
for the artillery. The fatal resolution was taken without consulting
those best qualified to judge. An Indian or native American were here
better skilled in the nature of the ground, and probabilities of
success. They knew better, in short, what the spade, hatchet, or musket,
could or could not do, in such situations, than the most skilful veteran
from Europe, however replete with military science. Indeed when system
usurps the province of plain sound sense in unknown exigencies, the
result is seldom favourable; and this truth was never more fatally
demonstrated than in the course of the American war, where an obstinate
adherence to regular tactics, which do not bend to time or place,
occasioned, from first to last, an incalculable waste of blood, of
treasure, and of personal courage. The resolution then was to attack the
enemy without loss of time, and even without waiting for artillery.
Alas! “what have not Britons dared?”
I cannot enter into the dreadful detail of what followed; certainly
never was infatuation equal to this. The forty-second regiment was then
in the height of deserved reputation; in which there was not a private
man that did not consider himself as rather above the lower class of
people, and peculiarly bound to support the honour of the very singular
corps to which he belonged. This brave hard-fated regiment was then
commanded by a veteran of great experience and military skill, Colonel
Gordon Graham, who had the first point of attack assigned to him; he was
wounded at the first onset. How many this regiment, in particular, lost
of men and officers, I cannot now exactly say; but there were very many.
What I distinctly remember, having often heard of it since, is, that, of
the survivors, every officer retired wounded off the field. Of the
fifty-fifth regiment, to which my father had newly been attached, ten
officers were killed, including all the field officers. No human beings
could show more determined courage than this brave army did. Standing
four hours under a constant discharge of cannon and musketry from
barricades, on which it was impossible for them to make the least
impression, General Abercrombie saw the fruitless waste of blood that
was every hour increasing, and ordered a retreat, which was very
precipitate, so much so, that they crossed the lake, and regained their
camp on the other side, the same night. Two thousand men were killed,
wounded, or taken, on this disastrous day. On the next, those most
dangerously wounded were sent forward in boats, and reached the Flats
before evening; they in a manner brought (at least confirmed) the news
of the defeat. Madame had her barn instantly fitted up into a temporary
hospital, and a room in her house allotted for the surgeon who attended
the patients: among these was Lee, the same insolent and rapacious Lee,
who had insulted this general benefactress, and deprived her of one of
her greatest pleasures, that of giving a share of every thing she had to
advance the service. She treated him with compassion, without adverting,
by the least hint, to the past. She tore up her sheets and table linen
for bandages; and she and her nieces were constantly employed in
attending and cheering the wounded, while all her domestics were busied
in preparing food and every thing necessary for those unhappy sufferers.
Even Lee felt and acknowledged the resistless force of such generous
humanity. He swore, in his vehement manner, that he was sure there would
be a place reserved for madame in heaven, though no other woman should
be there, and that he should wish for nothing better than to share her
final destiny. The active, industrious beneficence she exercised at this
time, not only towards the wounded, but the wretched widows and orphans
who had remained here, and had lost their all in their husbands and
parents, was beyond praise. Could I clearly recollect and arrange the
anecdotes of this period, as I have often heard them, they would of
themselves fill a volume; suffice it, that such was the veneration in
which she was held in the army after this period, that I recollect,
among the earliest impressions received in my mind, that of a profound
reverence for madame, as these people were wont to call her. Before I
ever saw her, I used to think of her as a most august personage, of a
majestic presence; sitting on an elevated seat, and scattering bounty to
wounded soldiers, and poor women and children.
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