Aged 32.]
HISTORIC HANDBOOK
OF THE
NORTHERN TOUR.
LAKES GEORGE AND CHAMPLAIN; NIAGARA; MONTREAL; QUEBEC.
BY
FRANCIS PARKMAN.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1899.
_Copyright, 1885_,
By Francis Parkman.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
This book is a group of narratives of the most striking events of our
colonial history connected with the principal points of interest to the
tourist visiting Canada and the northern borders of the United States.
The narratives are drawn, with the addition of explanatory passages,
from "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," "Pioneers of France in the New World,"
"The Jesuits in North America," "Count Frontenac," and "Montcalm and
Wolfe."
Boston, 1 April, 1885.
CONTENTS.
LAKE GEORGE AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
PAGE
Discovery of Lake Champlain 3
Discovery of Lake George 9
Battle of Lake George 16
A Winter Raid 40
Siege and Massacre of Fort William Henry 45
Battle of Ticonderoga 65
A Legend of Ticonderoga 86
NIAGARA.
Siege of Fort Niagara 93
Massacre of the Devil's Hole 98
MONTREAL.
The Birth of Montreal 105
QUEBEC.
Infancy of Quebec 123
A Military Mission 128
Massachusetts Attacks Quebec 134
The Heights of Abraham 154
LAKE GEORGE AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
This beautiful lake owes its name to Samuel de Champlain, the founder of
Quebec. In 1609, long before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, he
joined a band of Huron and Algonquin warriors on an expedition against
their enemies, the Iroquois, since known as the Five Nations of New
York. While gratifying his own love of adventure, he expected to make
important geographical discoveries.
After a grand war dance at the infant settlement of Quebec, the allies
set out together. Champlain was in a boat, carrying, besides himself,
eleven men, chief among whom were one Marais and a pilot named La
Routte, all armed with the arquebuse, a species of firearm shorter than
the musket, and therefore better fitted for the woods.
They ascended the St. Lawrence and entered the Richelieu, which forms
the outlet of Lake Champlain. Here, to Champlain's great disappointment,
he found his farther progress barred by the rapids at Chambly, though
the Indians had assured him that his boat could pass all the way
unobstructed. He told them that though they had deceived him, he would
not abandon them, sent Marais with the boat and most of the men back to
Quebec, and, with two who offered to follow him, prepared to go on in
the Indian canoes.
The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and in long procession
through the forest, under the flickering sun and shade, bore them on
their shoulders around the rapids to the smooth stream above. Here the
chiefs made a muster of their forces, counting twenty-four canoes and
sixty warriors. All embarked again, and advanced once more, by marsh,
meadow, forest, and scattered islands, then full of game, for it was an
uninhabited land, the war-path and battle-ground of hostile tribes. The
warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some were in front
as a vanguard; others formed the main body; while an equal number were
in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of
the whole; for, though they had a provision of parched maize pounded
into meal, they kept it for use when, from the vicinity of the enemy,
hunting should become impossible.
Still the canoes advanced, the river widening as they went. Great
islands appeared, leagues in extent: Isle a la Motte, Long Island,
Grande Isle. Channels where ships might float and broad reaches of
expanding water stretched between them, and Champlain entered the lake
which preserves his name to posterity. Cumberland Head was passed, and
from the opening of the great channel between Grande Isle and the main,
he could look forth on the wilderness sea. Edged with woods, the
tranquil flood spread southward beyond the sight. Far on the left, the
forest ridges of the Green Mountains were heaved against the sun,
patches of snow still glistening on their tops; and on the right rose
the Adirondacks, haunts in these later years of amateur sportsmen from
counting-rooms or college halls, nay, of adventurous beauty, with
sketch-book and pencil. Then the Iroquois made them their
hunting-ground; and beyond, in the valleys of the Mohawk, the Onondaga,
and the Genesee, stretched the long line of their five cantons and
palisaded towns.
The progress of the party was becoming dangerous. They changed their
mode of advance, and moved only in the night. All day, they lay close in
the depth of the forest, sleeping, lounging, smoking tobacco of their
own raising, and beguiling the hours, no doubt, with the shallow banter
and obscene jesting with which knots of Indians are wont to amuse their
leisure. At twilight they embarked again, paddling their cautious way
till the eastern sky began to redden. Their goal was the rocky
promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterward built. Thence, they
would pass the outlet of Lake George, and launch their canoes again on
that Como of the wilderness, whose waters, limpid as a fountain-head,
stretched far southward between their flanking mountains. Landing at the
future site of Fort William Henry, they would carry their canoes through
the forest to the River Hudson, and descending it, attack, perhaps, some
outlying town of the Mohawks. In the next century this chain of lakes
and rivers became the grand highway of savage and civilized war, a
bloody debatable ground linked to memories of momentous conflicts.
The allies were spared so long a progress. On the morning of the
twenty-ninth of July, after paddling all night, they hid as usual in the
forest on the western shore, not far from Crown Point. The warriors
stretched themselves to their slumbers, and Champlain, after walking for
a time through the surrounding woods, returned to take his repose on a
pile of spruce-boughs. Sleeping, he dreamed a dream, wherein he beheld
the Iroquois drowning in the lake; and, essaying to rescue them, he was
told by his Algonquin friends that they were good for nothing and had
better be left to their fate. Now, he had been daily beset, on
awakening, by his superstitious allies, eager to learn about his dreams;
and, to this moment, his unbroken slumbers had failed to furnish the
desired prognostics. The announcement of this auspicious vision filled
the crowd with joy, and at nightfall they embarked, flushed with
anticipated victories.
It was ten o'clock in the evening, when they descried dark objects in
motion on the lake before them. These were a flotilla of Iroquois
canoes, heavier and slower than theirs, for they were made of oak or elm
bark. Each party saw the other, and the mingled war-cries pealed over
the darkened water. The Iroquois, who were near the shore, having no
stomach for an aquatic battle, landed, and, making night hideous with
their clamors, began to barricade themselves. Champlain could see them
in the woods, laboring like beavers, hacking down trees with iron axes
taken from the Canadian tribes in war, and with stone hatchets of their
own making. The allies remained on the lake, a bowshot from the hostile
barricade, their canoes made fast together by poles lashed across. All
night, they danced with as much vigor as the frailty of their vessels
would permit, their throats making amends for the enforced restraint of
their limbs. It was agreed on both sides that the fight should be
deferred till daybreak; but meanwhile a commerce of abuse, sarcasm,
menace, and boasting gave unceasing exercise to the lungs and fancy of
the combatants,--"much," says Champlain, "like the besiegers and
besieged in a beleaguered town."
As day approached, he and his two followers put on the light armor of
the time. Champlain wore the doublet and long hose then in vogue. Over
the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece,
while his thighs were protected by _cuisses_ of steel, and his head by a
plumed casque. Across his shoulder hung the strap of his bandoleer, or
ammunition-box; at his side was his sword, and in his hand his
arquebuse, which he had loaded with four balls. Such was the equipment
of this ancient Indian-fighter, whose exploits date eleven years before
the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth, and sixty-six years before King
Philip's War.
Each of the three Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, and, as it grew
light, they kept themselves hidden, either by lying at the bottom, or
covering themselves with an Indian robe. The canoes approached the
shore, and all landed without opposition at some distance from the
Iroquois, whom they presently could see filing out of their barricade,
tall, strong men, some two hundred in number, of the boldest and
fiercest warriors of North America. They advanced through the forest
with a steadiness which excited the admiration of Champlain. Among them
could be seen several chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes.
Some bore shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind of
armor made of tough twigs interlaced with a vegetable fibre supposed by
Champlain to be cotton.
[Illustration: CHAMPLAIN'S FIGHT WITH THE IROQUOIS.
(Drawn by himself)]
The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion,
and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and,
advancing before his red companions-in-arms, stood revealed to the
astonished gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition
in their path, stared in mute amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled;
the report startled the woods, a chief fell dead, and another by his
side rolled among the bushes. Then there rose from the allies a yell,
which, says Champlain, would have drowned a thunder-clap, and the
forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a moment, the Iroquois stood
firm and sent back their arrows lustily; but when another and another
gunshot came from the thickets on their flank, they broke and fled in
uncontrollable terror. Swifter than hounds, the allies tore through the
bushes in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed; more were taken.
Camp, canoes, provisions, all were abandoned, and many weapons flung
down in the panic flight. The arquebuse had done its work. The victory
was complete.
The victors made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. Three
or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they
separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward
route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments. At parting
they invited Champlain to visit their towns and aid them again in their
wars,--an invitation which this paladin of the woods failed not to
accept.
Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of
the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, in some measure doubtless the
cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame
to generations yet unborn. Champlain had invaded the tiger's den; and
now, in smothered fury, the patient savage would lie biding his day of
blood.
DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE.
It was thirty-three years since Champlain had first attacked the
Iroquois. They had nursed their wrath for more than a generation, and at
length their hour was come. The Dutch traders at Fort Orange, now
Albany, had supplied them with firearms. The Mohawks, the most easterly
of the Iroquois nations, had, among their seven or eight hundred
warriors, no less than three hundred armed with the arquebuse. They were
masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck
terror into their hearts.
In the early morning of the second of August, 1642, twelve Huron canoes
were moving slowly along the northern shore of the expansion of the St.
Lawrence known as the Lake of St. Peter. There were on board about forty
persons, including four Frenchmen, one of them being the Jesuit, Isaac
Jogues. During the last autumn he, with Father Charles Raymbault, had
passed along the shore of Lake Huron northward, entered the strait
through which Lake Superior discharges itself, pushed on as far as the
Sault Sainte Marie, and preached the Faith to two thousand Ojibwas, and
other Algonquins there assembled. He was now on his return from a far
more perilous errand. The Huron mission was in a state of destitution.
There was need of clothing for the priests, of vessels for the altars,
of bread and wine for the eucharist, of writing materials,--in short, of
everything; and, early in the summer of the present year, Jogues had
descended to Three Rivers and Quebec with the Huron traders, to procure
the necessary supplies. He had accomplished his task, and was on his way
back to the mission. With him were a few Huron converts, and among them
a noted Christian chief, Eustache Ahatsistari. Others of the party were
in course of instruction for baptism; but the greater part were heathen,
whose canoes were deeply laden with the proceeds of their bargains with
the French fur-traders.
Jogues sat in one of the leading canoes. He was born at Orleans in 1607,
and was thirty-five years of age. His oval face and the delicate mould
of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful, and refined nature. He
was constitutionally timid, with a sensitive conscience and great
religious susceptibilities. He was a finished scholar, and might have
gained a literary reputation; but he had chosen another career, and one
for which he seemed but ill fitted. Physically, however, he was well
matched with his work; for, though his frame was slight, he was so
active, that none of the Indians could surpass him in running.
With him were two young men, Rene Goupil and Guillaume Couture, _donnes_
of the mission,--that is to say, laymen who, from a religious motive and
without pay, had attached themselves to the service of the Jesuits.
Goupil had formerly entered upon the Jesuit novitiate at Paris, but
failing health had obliged him to leave it. As soon as he was able, he
came to Canada, offered his services to the Superior of the mission, was
employed for a time in the humblest offices, and afterwards became an
attendant at the hospital. At length, to his delight, he received
permission to go up to the Hurons, where the surgical skill which he had
acquired was greatly needed; and he was now on his way thither. His
companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a
character equally disinterested. Both were, like Jogues, in the foremost
canoes; while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted Hurons, in
the rear.
The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter,
where it is filled with innumerable islands. The forest was close on
their right, they kept near the shore to avoid the current, and the
shallow water before them was covered with a dense growth of tall
bulrushes. Suddenly the silence was frightfully broken. The war-whoop
rose from among the rushes, mingled with the reports of guns and the
whistling of bullets; and several Iroquois canoes, filled with warriors,
pushed out from their concealment, and bore down upon Jogues and his
companions. The Hurons in the rear were seized with a shameful panic.
They leaped ashore; left canoes, baggage, and weapons; and fled into the
woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight for a time; but
when they saw another fleet of canoes approaching from the opposite
shores or islands, they lost heart, and those escaped who could. Goupil
was seized amid triumphant yells, as were also several of the Huron
converts. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes, and might have escaped; but
when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the Iroquois, he
had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his hiding-place, and
gave himself up to the astonished victors. A few of them had remained to
guard the prisoners; the rest were chasing the fugitives. Jogues
mastered his agony, and began to baptize those of the captive converts
who needed baptism.
Couture had eluded pursuit; but when he thought of Jogues and of what
perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, and, turning,
retraced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois ran forward to meet
him; and one of them snapped his gun at his breast, but it missed fire.
In his confusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid
the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all
his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his
fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one
of his hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend,
threw his arms about his neck. The Iroquois dragged him away, beat him
with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, when he
revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they had done those
of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and treated him with the same
ferocity. The Huron prisoners were left for the present unharmed. More
of them were brought in every moment, till at length the number of
captives amounted in all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been
killed in the fight and pursuit. The Iroquois, about seventy in number,
now embarked with their prey; but not until they had knocked on the head
an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had just baptized,
and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a burning sun, they
crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel now stands, at the mouth
of the River Richelieu, where they encamped.
Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain;
thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk towns. The pain and fever
of their wounds, and the clouds of mosquitoes, which they could not
drive off, left the prisoners no peace by day nor sleep by night. On the
eighth day, they learned that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way
to Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a
small island near the southern end of Lake Champlain. The warriors, two
hundred in number, saluted their victorious countrymen with volleys from
their guns; then, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, ranged themselves
in two lines, between which the captives were compelled to pass up the
side of a rocky hill. On the way, they were beaten with such fury, that
Jogues, who was last in the line, fell powerless, drenched in blood and
half dead. As the chief man among the French captives, he fared the
worst. His hands were again mangled, and fire applied to his body; while
the Huron chief, Eustache, was subjected to tortures even more
atrocious. When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest, the
young warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair and
beards.
In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to
the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them was a woody mountain,
close on their right a rocky promontory, and between these flowed a
stream, the outlet of Lake George. On those rocks, more than a hundred
years after, rose the ramparts of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered
their canoes and baggage, took their way through the woods, passed the
spot where the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England
breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the shore
where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. First of white men, Jogues
and his companions gazed on the romantic lake that bears the name, not
of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull Hanoverian king. Like a fair
Naiad of the wilderness, it slumbered between the guardian mountains
that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then
was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the
deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry
echoes.[1]
Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its
way,--now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now
among the devious channels of the narrows, beset with woody islets,
where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the
cedar,--till they neared that tragic shore, where, in the following
century, New England rustics baffled the soldiers of Dieskau, where
Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red cross waved so long amid
the smoke, and where at length the summer morning was hideous with
carnage, and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood.
The Iroquois landed at or near the future site of Fort William Henry,
left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the
nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues,
though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body
covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a
heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party,
were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the
upper Hudson, and, in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence,
neared the wretched goal of their pilgrimage, a palisaded town, standing
on a hill by the banks of the River Mohawk.
Such was the first recorded visit of white men to Lake George. In the
Iroquois villages Jogues was subjected to the most frightful sufferings.
His friend Goupil was murdered at his side, and he himself was saved as
by miracle. At length, with the help of the Dutch of Albany, he made his
escape and sailed for France; whence, impelled by religious enthusiasm,
he returned to Canada and voluntarily set out again for the Iroquois
towns, bent on saving the souls of those who had been the authors of his
woes. Reaching the head of Lake George on Corpus Christi Day, 1646, he
gave it the name of Lac St. Sacrement, by which it was ever after known
to the French. Soon after his arrival the Iroquois killed him by the
blow of a hatchet.
[Footnote 1: Lake George, according to Jogues, was called by the Mohawks
"Andiatarocte," or _Place where the Lake closes_. "Andiataraque" is
found on a map of Sanson. Spofford, _Gazetteer of New York_, article
"Lake George," says that it was called "Canideri-oit," or _Tail of the
Lake_. Father Martin, in his notes on Bressani, prefixes to this name
that of "Horicon," but gives no original authority.
I have seen an old Latin map on which the name "Horiconi" is set down as
belonging to a neighboring tribe. This seems to be only a misprint for
"Horicoui," that is, "Irocoui," or "Iroquois." In an old English map,
prefixed to the rare tract, _A Treatise of New England_, the "Lake of
Hierocoyes" is laid down. The name "Horicon," as used by Cooper in his
_Last of the Mohicans_, has no sufficient historical foundation. In
1646, the lake, as we shall see, was named "Lac St. Sacrement."]
BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE.
For more than a century after the death of Jogues, Lakes George and
Champlain were the great route of war parties between Canada and the
British Colonies. Courcelles came this way in 1666 to lay waste the
Mohawk towns; and Mantet and Sainte-Helene, in 1690, to destroy
Schenectady in the dead of winter; while, in the next year, Major
Schuyler took the same course as he advanced into Canada to retort the
blow. Whenever there was war between France and England, these two lakes
became the scene of partisan conflicts, in which the red men took part
with the white, some as allies of the English, and some as allies of the
French. When at length the final contest took place for the possession
of the continent, the rival nations fiercely disputed the mastery of
this great wilderness thoroughfare, and the borders of Lake George
became the scene of noteworthy conflicts. The first of these was in
1755, the year of Braddock's defeat, when Shirley, governor of
Massachusetts, set on foot an expedition for the capture of Crown Point,
a fort which the French had built on Lake Champlain more than twenty
years before.
[Illustration: THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE from surveys made in 1762]
In January, Shirley had proposed an attack on it to the Ministry; and in
February, without waiting their reply, he laid the plan before his
Assembly. They accepted it, and voted money for the pay and maintenance
of twelve hundred men, provided the adjacent colonies would contribute
in due proportion. Massachusetts showed a military activity worthy of
the reputation she had won. Forty-five hundred of her men, or one in
eight of her adult males, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted
for the various expeditions, some in the pay of the province, and some
in that of the King. It remained to name a commander for the Crown Point
enterprise. Nobody had power to do so, for Braddock, the
commander-in-chief, was not yet come; but that time might not be lost,
Shirley, at the request of his Assembly, took the responsibility on
himself. If he had named a Massachusetts officer, it would have roused
the jealousy of the other New England colonies; and he therefore
appointed William Johnson, of New York, thus gratifying that important
province and pleasing the Five Nations, who at this time looked on
Johnson with even more than usual favor. Hereupon, in reply to his
request, Connecticut voted twelve hundred men, New Hampshire five
hundred, and Rhode Island four hundred, all at their own charge; while
New York, a little later, promised eight hundred more. When, in April,
Braddock and the Council at Alexandria approved the plan and the
commander, Shirley gave Johnson the commission of major-general of the
levies of Massachusetts; and the governors of the other provinces
contributing to the expedition gave him similar commissions for their
respective contingents. Never did general take the field with authority
so heterogeneous.
He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war. By birth he was
Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who,
owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in
charge of them nearly twenty years before. Johnson was born to prosper.
He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough,
jovial temper, and a quick adaptation to his surroundings. He could
drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors. He liked
the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end
to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means; but
compared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model
of uprightness. He lived by the Mohawk in a fortified house which was a
stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both
white and red. Here--for his tastes were not fastidious--presided for
many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after
her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place. Over his neighbors, the
Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he
had to deal, he acquired a remarkable influence. He liked them, adopted
their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but
always with a justice and honesty in strong contrast with the
rascalities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed
their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called
them "not men, but devils." Hence, when Johnson was made Indian
superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy. When,
in addition, he was made a general, he assembled the warriors in council
to engage them to aid the expedition.
This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson; and as
more than eleven hundred Indians appeared at his call, his larder was
sorely taxed to entertain them. The speeches were interminable. Johnson,
a master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest
with them the palm of insufferable prolixity. The climax was reached on
the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt. An Oneida chief took it
up; Stevens, the interpreter, began the war-dance, and the assembled
warriors howled in chorus. Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they
all drank the King's health. They showed less alacrity, however, to
fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the
war-path. Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the
French.
While the British colonists were preparing to attack Crown Point, the
French of Canada were preparing to defend it. Duquesne, recalled from
his post, had resigned the government to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who
had at his disposal the battalions of regulars that had sailed in the
spring from Brest under Baron Dieskau. His first thought was to use them
for the capture of Oswego; but letters of Braddock, found on the
battle-field of the Monongahela, warned him of the design against Crown
Point; while a reconnoitring party which had gone as far as the Hudson
brought back news that Johnson's forces were already in the field.
Therefore the plan was changed, and Dieskau was ordered to lead the main
body of his troops, not to Lake Ontario, but to Lake Champlain. He
passed up the Richelieu, and embarked in boats and canoes for Crown
Point. The veteran knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were but
a mob of countrymen. He doubted not of putting them to rout, and meant
never to hold his hand till he had chased them back to Albany. "Make all
haste," Vaudreuil wrote to him; "for when you return we shall send you
to Oswego to execute our first design."
Johnson on his part was preparing to advance. In July about three
thousand provincials were encamped near Albany, some on the "Flats"
above the town, and some on the meadows below. Hither, too, came a swarm
of Johnson's Mohawks,--warriors, squaws, and children. They adorned the
General's face with war-paint, and he danced the war-dance; then with
his sword he cut the first slice from the ox that had been roasted whole
for their entertainment. "I shall be glad," wrote the surgeon of a New
England regiment, "if they fight as eagerly as they ate their ox and
drank their wine."
Above all things the expedition needed promptness; yet everything moved
slowly. Five popular legislatures controlled the troops and the
supplies. Connecticut had refused to send her men till Shirley promised
that her commanding officer should rank next to Johnson. The whole
movement was for some time at a deadlock because the five governments
could not agree about their contributions of artillery and stores. The
New Hampshire regiment had taken a short cut for Crown Point across the
wilderness of Vermont; but had been recalled in time to save them from
probable destruction. They were now with the rest in the camp at Albany,
in such distress for provisions that a private subscription was proposed
for their relief.
Johnson's army, crude as it was, had in it good material. Here was
Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, second in command, once a tutor at Yale
College, and more recently a lawyer,--a raw soldier, but a vigorous and
brave one; Colonel Moses Titcomb, of Massachusetts, who had fought with
credit at Louisbourg; and Ephraim Williams, also colonel of a
Massachusetts regiment, a tall and portly man, who had been a captain in
the last war, member of the General Court, and deputy-sheriff. He made
his will in the camp at Albany, and left a legacy to found the school
which has since become Williams College. His relative, Stephen Williams,
was chaplain of his regiment, and his brother Thomas was its surgeon.
Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, who, like Titcomb, had seen
service at Louisbourg, was its lieutenant-colonel. He had left a wife at
home, an excellent matron, to whom he was continually writing
affectionate letters, mingling household cares with news of the camp,
and charging her to see that their eldest boy, Seth, then in college at
New Haven, did not run off to the army. Pomeroy had with him his brother
Daniel; and this he thought was enough. Here, too, was a man whose name
is still a household word in New England,--the sturdy Israel Putnam,
private in a Connecticut regiment; and another as bold as he, John
Stark, lieutenant in the New Hampshire levies, and the future victor of
Bennington.
The soldiers were no soldiers, but farmers and farmers' sons who had
volunteered for the summer campaign. One of the corps had a blue uniform
faced with red. The rest wore their daily clothing. Blankets had been
served out to them by the several provinces, but the greater part
brought their own guns; some under the penalty of a fine if they came
without them, and some under the inducement of a reward. They had no
bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of substitute.
At their sides were slung powder-horns, on which, in the leisure of the
camp, they carved quaint devices with the points of their jack-knives.
They came chiefly from plain New England homesteads,--rustic abodes,
unpainted and dingy, with long well-sweeps, capacious barns, rough
fields of pumpkins and corn, and vast kitchen chimneys, above which in
winter hung squashes to keep them from frost, and guns to keep them from
rust.
As to the manners and morals of the army there is conflict of evidence.
In some respects nothing could be more exemplary. "Not a chicken has
been stolen," says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other
hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then
commanding on the Massachusetts frontier: "We are a wicked, profane
army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be
heard among a great part of them but the language of Hell. If Crown
Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people
left behind." There was edifying regularity in respect to form. Sermons
twice a week, daily prayers, and frequent psalm-singing alternated with
the much-needed military drill. "Prayers among us night and morning,"
writes Private Jonathan Caswell, of Massachusetts, to his father. "Here
we lie, knowing not when we shall march for Crown Point; but I hope not
long to tarry. Desiring your prayers to God for me as I am agoing to
war, I am Your Ever Dutiful Son."
To Pomeroy and some of his brothers in arms it seemed that they were
engaged in a kind of crusade against the myrmidons of Rome. "As you have
at heart the Protestant cause," he wrote to his friend Israel Williams,
"so I ask an interest in your prayers that the Lord of Hosts would go
forth with us and give us victory over our unreasonable, encroaching,
barbarous, murdering enemies."
Both Williams the surgeon and Williams the colonel chafed at the
incessant delays. "The expedition goes on very much as a snail runs,"
writes the former to his wife; "it seems we may possibly see Crown Point
this time twelve months." The Colonel was vexed because everything was
out of joint in the department of transportation: wagoners mutinous for
want of pay; ordnance stores, camp-kettles, and provisions left behind.
"As to rum," he complains, "it won't hold out nine weeks. Things appear
most melancholy to me." Even as he was writing, a report came of the
defeat of Braddock; and, shocked at the blow, his pen traced the words:
"The Lord have mercy on poor New England!"
Johnson had sent four Mohawk scouts to Canada. They returned on the
twenty-first of August with the report that the French were all astir
with preparation, and that eight thousand men were coming to defend
Crown Point. On this a council of war was called; and it was resolved to
send to the several colonies for reinforcements. Meanwhile the main body
had moved up the river to the spot called the Great Carrying Place,
where Lyman had begun a fortified storehouse, which his men called Fort
Lyman, but which was afterwards named Fort Edward. Two Indian trails led
from this point to the waters of Lake Champlain, one by way of Lake
George, and the other by way of Wood Creek. There was doubt which course
the army should take. A road was begun to Wood Creek; then it was
countermanded, and a party was sent to explore the path to Lake George.
"With submission to the general officers," Surgeon Williams again
writes, "I think it a very grand mistake that the business of
reconnoitring was not done months agone." It was resolved at last to
march for Lake George; gangs of axemen were sent to hew out the way; and
on the twenty-sixth two thousand men were ordered to the lake, while
Colonel Blanchard, of New Hampshire, remained with five hundred to
finish and defend Fort Lyman.
The train of Dutch wagons, guarded by the homely soldiery, jolted slowly
over the stumps and roots of the newly made road, and the regiments
followed at their leisure. The hardships of the way were not without
their consolations. The jovial Irishman who held the chief command made
himself very agreeable to the New England officers. "We went on about
four or five miles," says Pomeroy in his Journal, "then stopped, ate
pieces of broken bread and cheese, and drank some fresh lemon-punch and
the best of wine with General Johnson and some of the field-officers."
It was the same on the next day. "Stopped about noon and dined with
General Johnson by a small brook under a tree; ate a good dinner of cold
boiled and roast venison; drank good fresh lemon-punch and wine."
That afternoon they reached their destination, fourteen miles from Fort
Lyman. The most beautiful lake in America lay before them; then more
beautiful than now, in the wild charm of untrodden mountains and virgin
forests. "I have given it the name of Lake George," wrote Johnson to the
Lords of Trade, "not only in honor of His Majesty, but to ascertain his
undoubted dominion here." His men made their camp on a piece of rough
ground by the edge of the water, pitching their tents among the stumps
of the newly felled trees. In their front was a forest of pitch-pine; on
their right, a marsh, choked with alders and swamp-maples; on their
left, the low hill where Fort George was afterwards built; and at their
rear, the lake. Little was done to clear the forest in front, though it
would give excellent cover to an enemy. Nor did Johnson take much pains
to learn the movements of the French in the direction of Crown Point,
though he sent scouts towards South Bay and Wood Creek. Every day stores
and bateaux, or flat boats, came on wagons from Fort Lyman; and
preparation moved on with the leisure that had marked it from the first.
About three hundred Mohawks came to the camp, and were regarded by the
New England men as nuisances. On Sunday the gray-haired Stephen
Williams preached to these savage allies a long Calvinistic sermon,
which must have sorely perplexed the interpreter whose business it was
to turn it into Mohawk; and in the afternoon young Chaplain Newell, of
Rhode Island, expounded to the New England men the somewhat untimely
text, "Love your enemies." On the next Sunday, September seventh,
Williams preached again, this time to the whites from a text in Isaiah.
It was a peaceful day, fair and warm, with a few light showers; yet not
wholly a day of rest, for two hundred wagons came up from Fort Lyman,
loaded with bateaux. After the sermon there was an alarm. An Indian
scout came in about sunset, and reported that he had found the trail of
a body of men moving from South Bay towards Fort Lyman. Johnson called
for a volunteer to carry a letter of warning to Colonel Blanchard, the
commander. A wagoner named Adams offered himself for the perilous
service, mounted, and galloped along the road with the letter. Sentries
were posted, and the camp fell asleep.
While Johnson lay at Lake George, Dieskau prepared a surprise for him.
The German Baron had reached Crown Point at the head of three thousand
five hundred and seventy-three men, regulars, Canadians, and Indians. He
had no thought of waiting there to be attacked. The troops were told to
hold themselves ready to move at a moment's notice. Officers--so ran the
order--will take nothing with them but one spare shirt, one spare pair
of shoes, a blanket, a bearskin, and provisions for twelve days; Indians
are not to amuse themselves by taking scalps till the enemy is entirely
defeated, since they can kill ten men in the time required to scalp one.
Then Dieskau moved on, with nearly all his force, to Carillon, or
Ticonderoga, a promontory commanding both the routes by which alone
Johnson could advance, that of Wood Creek and that of Lake George.
The Indian allies were commanded by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre. These
unmanageable warriors were a constant annoyance to Dieskau, being a
species of humanity quite new to him. "They drive us crazy," he says,
"from morning till night. There is no end to their demands. They have
already eaten five oxen and as many hogs, without counting the kegs of
brandy they have drunk. In short, one needs the patience of an angel to
get on with these devils; and yet one must always force himself to seem
pleased with them."
They would scarcely even go out as scouts. At last, however, on the
fourth of September, a reconnoitring party came in with a scalp and an
English prisoner caught near Fort Lyman. He was questioned under the
threat of being given to the Indians for torture if he did not tell the
truth; but, nothing daunted, he invented a patriotic falsehood; and
thinking to lure his captors into a trap, told them that the English
army had fallen back to Albany, leaving five hundred men at Fort Lyman,
which he represented as indefensible. Dieskau resolved on a rapid
movement to seize the place. At noon of the same day, leaving a part of
his force at Ticonderoga, he embarked the rest in canoes and advanced
along the narrow prolongation of Lake Champlain that stretched southward
through the wilderness to where the town of Whitehall now stands. He
soon came to a point where the lake dwindled to a mere canal, while two
mighty rocks, capped with stunted forests, faced each other from the
opposing banks. Here he left an officer named Roquemaure with a
detachment of troops, and again advanced along a belt of quiet water
traced through the midst of a deep marsh, green at that season with
sedge and water-weeds, and known to the English as the Drowned Lands.
Beyond, on either hand, crags feathered with birch and fir, or hills
mantled with woods, looked down on the long procession of canoes. As
they neared the site of Whitehall, a passage opened on the right, the
entrance to a sheet of lonely water slumbering in the shadow of woody
mountains, and forming the lake then, as now, called South Bay. They
advanced to its head, landed where a small stream enters it, left the
canoes under a guard, and began their march through the forest. They
counted in all two hundred and sixteen regulars of the battalions of
Languedoc and La Reine, six hundred and eighty-four Canadians, and about
six hundred Indians. Every officer and man carried provisions for eight
days in his knapsack. They encamped at night by a brook, and in the
morning, after hearing Mass, marched again. The evening of the next day
brought them near the road that led to Lake George. Fort Lyman was but
three miles distant. A man on horseback galloped by; it was Adams,
Johnson's unfortunate messenger. The Indians shot him, and found the
letter in his pocket. Soon after, ten or twelve wagons appeared in
charge of mutinous drivers, who had left the English camp without
orders. Several of them were shot, two were taken, and the rest ran off.
The two captives declared that, contrary to the assertion of the
prisoner at Ticonderoga, a large force lay encamped at the lake. The
Indians now held a council, and presently gave out that they would not
attack the fort, which they thought well supplied with cannon, but that
they were willing to attack the camp at Lake George. Remonstrance was
lost upon them. Dieskau was not young, but he was daring to rashness,
and inflamed to emulation by the victory over Braddock. The enemy were
reported greatly to outnumber him; but his Canadian advisers had assured
him that the English colony militia were the worst troops on the face of
the earth. "The more there are," he said to the Canadians and Indians,
"the more we shall kill;" and in the morning the order was given to
march for the lake.
They moved rapidly on through the waste of pines, and soon entered the
rugged valley that led to Johnson's camp. On their right was a gorge
where, shadowed in bushes, gurgled a gloomy brook; and beyond rose the
cliffs that buttressed the rocky heights of French Mountain, seen by
glimpses between the boughs. On their left rose gradually the lower
slopes of West Mountain. All was rock, thicket, and forest; there was no
open space but the road along which the regulars marched, while the
Canadians and Indians pushed their way through the woods in such order
as the broken ground would permit.
They were three miles from the lake, when their scouts brought in a
prisoner who told them that a column of English troops was approaching.
Dieskau's preparations were quickly made. While the regulars halted on
the road, the Canadians and Indians moved to the front, where most of
them hid in the forest along the slopes of West Mountain, and the rest
lay close among the thickets on the other side. Thus, when the English
advanced to attack the regulars in front, they would find themselves
caught in a double ambush. No sight or sound betrayed the snare; but
behind every bush crouched a Canadian or a savage, with gun cocked and
ears intent, listening for the tramp of the approaching column.
The wagoners who escaped the evening before had reached the camp about
midnight, and reported that there was a war-party on the road near Fort
Lyman. Johnson had at this time twenty-two hundred effective men,
besides his three hundred Indians. He called a council of war in the
morning, and a resolution was taken which can only be explained by a
complete misconception as to the force of the French. It was determined
to send out two detachments of five hundred men each, one towards Fort
Lyman, and the other towards South Bay, the object being, according to
Johnson, "to catch the enemy in their retreat." Hendrick, chief of the
Mohawks, a brave and sagacious warrior, expressed his dissent after a
fashion of his own. He picked up a stick and broke it; then he picked up
several sticks, and showed that together they could not be broken. The
hint was taken, and the two detachments were joined in one. Still the
old savage shook his head. "If they are to be killed," he said, "they
are too many; if they are to fight, they are too few." Nevertheless, he
resolved to share their fortunes; and mounting on a gun-carriage, he
harangued his warriors with a voice so animated, and gestures so
expressive, that the New England officers listened in admiration, though
they understood not a word. One difficulty remained. He was too old and
fat to go afoot; but Johnson lent him a horse, which he bestrode, and
trotted to the head of the column, followed by two hundred of his
warriors as fast as they could grease, paint, and befeather themselves.
Captain Elisha Hawley was in his tent, finishing a letter which he had
just written to his brother Joseph; and these were the last words: "I am
this minute agoing out in company with five hundred men to see if we can
intercept 'em in their retreat, or find their canoes in the Drowned
Lands; and therefore must conclude this letter." He closed and directed
it; and in an hour received his death-wound.