head of the principal column, which was a little in advance of the three
others. Suddenly the challenge, _Qui vive!_ rang sharply from the
thickets in front. _Francais!_ was the reply. Langy's men were not
deceived; they fired out of the bushes. The shots were returned; a hot
skirmish followed; and Lord Howe dropped dead, shot through the breast.
All was confusion. The dull, vicious reports of musketry in thick
woods, at first few and scattering, then in fierce and rapid volleys,
reached the troops behind. They could hear, but see nothing. Already
harassed and perplexed, they became perturbed. For all they knew,
Montcalm's whole army was upon them. Nothing prevented a panic but the
steadiness of the rangers, who maintained the fight alone till the rest
came back to their senses. Rogers, with his reconnoitring party, and the
regiments of Fitch and Lyman, were at no great distance in front. They
all turned on hearing the musketry, and thus the French were caught
between two fires. They fought with desperation. About fifty of them at
length escaped; a hundred and forty-eight were captured, and the rest
killed or drowned in trying to cross the rapids. The loss of the English
was small in numbers, but immeasurable in the death of Howe. "The fall
of this noble and brave officer," says Rogers, "seemed to produce an
almost general languor and consternation through the whole army." "In
Lord Howe," writes another contemporary, Major Thomas Mante, "the soul
of General Abercromby's army seemed to expire. From the unhappy moment
the General was deprived of his advice, neither order nor discipline was
observed, and a strange kind of infatuation usurped the place of
resolution." The death of one man was the ruin of fifteen thousand.
The evil news was despatched to Albany, and in two or three days the
messenger who bore it passed the house of Mrs. Schuyler on the meadows
above the town. "In the afternoon," says her biographer, "a man was seen
coming from the north galloping violently without his hat. Pedrom, as he
was familiarly called, Colonel Schuyler's only surviving brother, was
with her, and ran instantly to inquire, well knowing that he rode
express. The man galloped on, crying out that Lord Howe was killed. The
mind of our good aunt had been so engrossed by her anxiety and fears for
the event impending, and so impressed with the merit and magnanimity of
her favorite hero, that her wonted firmness sank under the stroke, and
she broke out into bitter lamentations. This had such an effect on her
friends and domestics that shrieks and sobs of anguish echoed through
every part of the house."
The effect of the loss was seen at once. The army was needlessly kept
under arms all night in the forest, and in the morning was ordered back
to the landing whence it came. Towards noon, however, Bradstreet was
sent with a detachment of regulars and provincials to take possession of
the saw-mill at the Falls, which Montcalm had abandoned the evening
before. Bradstreet rebuilt the bridges destroyed by the retiring enemy,
and sent word to his commander that the way was open; on which
Abercromby again put his army in motion, reached the Falls late in the
afternoon, and occupied the deserted encampment of the French.
Montcalm with his main force had held this position at the Falls through
most of the preceding day, doubtful, it seems, to the last whether he
should not make his final stand there. Bourlamaque was for doing so; but
two old officers, Bernes and Montguy, pointed out the danger that the
English would occupy the neighboring heights; whereupon Montcalm at
length resolved to fall back. The camp was broken up at five o'clock.
Some of the troops embarked in bateaux, while others marched a mile and
a half along the forest road, passed the place where the battalion of
Berry was still at work on the breastwork begun in the morning, and made
their bivouac a little farther on, upon the cleared ground that
surrounded the fort.
The peninsula of Ticonderoga consists of a rocky plateau, with low
grounds on each side, bordering Lake Champlain on the one hand, and the
outlet of Lake George on the other. The fort stood near the end of the
peninsula, which points towards the southeast. Thence, as one goes
westward, the ground declines a little, and then slowly rises, till,
about half a mile from the fort, it reaches its greatest elevation, and
begins still more gradually to decline again. Thus a ridge is formed
across the plateau between the steep declivities that sink to the low
grounds on right and left. Some weeks before, a French officer named
Hugues had suggested the defence of this ridge by means of an abatis.
Montcalm approved his plan; and now, at the eleventh hour, he resolved
to make his stand here. The two engineers, Pontleroy and Desandrouin,
had already traced the outline of the works, and the soldiers of the
battalion of Berry had made some progress in constructing them. At dawn
of the seventh, while Abercromby, fortunately for his enemy, was drawing
his troops back to the landing-place, the whole French army fell to
their task. The regimental colors were planted along the line, and the
officers, stripped to the shirt, took axe in hand and labored with their
men. The trees that covered the ground were hewn down by thousands, the
tops lopped off, and the trunks piled one upon another to form a massive
breastwork. The line followed the top of the ridge, along which it
zigzagged in such a manner that the whole front could be swept by flank
fires of musketry and grape. Abercromby describes the wall of logs as
between eight and nine feet high; in which case there must have been a
rude _banquette_, or platform to fire from, on the inner side. It was
certainly so high that nothing could be seen over it but the crowns of
the soldiers' hats. The upper tier was formed of single logs, in which
notches were cut to serve as loopholes; and in some places sods and bags
of sand were piled along the top, with narrow spaces to fire through.
From the central part of the line the ground sloped away like a natural
glacis; while at the sides, and especially on the left, it was
undulating and broken. Over this whole space, to the distance of a
musket-shot from the works, the forest was cut down, and the trees left
lying where they fell among the stumps, with tops turned outwards,
forming one vast abatis, which, as a Massachusetts officer says, looked
like a forest laid flat by a hurricane. But the most formidable
obstruction was immediately along the front of the breastwork, where the
ground was covered with heavy boughs, overlapping and interlaced, with
sharpened points bristling into the face of the assailant like the
quills of a porcupine. As these works were all of wood, no vestige of
them remains. The earthworks now shown to tourists as the lines of
Montcalm are of later construction; and though on the same ground, are
not on the same plan.
Here, then, was a position which, if attacked in front with musketry
alone, might be called impregnable. But would Abercromby so attack it?
He had several alternatives. He might attempt the flank and rear of his
enemy by way of the low grounds on the right and left of the plateau, a
movement which the precautions of Montcalm had made difficult, but not
impossible. Or, instead of leaving his artillery idle on the strand of
Lake George, he might bring it to the front and batter the breastwork,
which, though impervious to musketry, was worthless against heavy
cannon. Or he might do what Burgoyne did with success a score of years
later, and plant a battery on the heights of Rattlesnake Hill, now
called Mount Defiance, which commanded the position of the French, and
whence the inside of their breastwork could be scoured with round-shot
from end to end. Or, while threatening the French front with a part of
his army, he could march the rest a short distance through the woods on
his left to the road which led from Ticonderoga to Crown Point, and
which would soon have brought him to the place called Five-Mile Point,
where Lake Champlain narrows to the width of an easy rifle-shot, and
where a battery of field-pieces would have cut off all Montcalm's
supplies and closed his only way of retreat. As the French were
provisioned for but eight days, their position would thus have been
desperate. They plainly saw the danger; and Doreil declares that had the
movement been made, their whole army must have surrendered. Montcalm had
done what he could; but the danger of his position was inevitable and
extreme. His hope lay in Abercromby; and it was a hope well founded. The
action of the English general answered the utmost wishes of his enemy.
Abercromby had been told by his prisoners that Montcalm had six thousand
men, and that three thousand more were expected every hour. Therefore he
was in haste to attack before these succors could arrive. As was the
general, so was the army. "I believe," writes an officer, "we were one
and all infatuated by a notion of carrying every obstacle by a mere
_coup de mousqueterie_." Leadership perished with Lord Howe, and nothing
was left but blind, headlong valor.
Clerk, chief engineer, was sent to reconnoitre the French works from
Mount Defiance; and came back with the report that, to judge from what
he could see, they might be carried by assault. Then, without waiting
to bring up his cannon, Abercromby prepared to storm the lines.
The French finished their breastwork and abatis on the evening of the
seventh, encamped behind them, slung their kettles, and rested after
their heavy toil. Levis had not yet appeared; but at twilight one of his
officers, Captain Pouchot, arrived with three hundred regulars, and
announced that his commander would come before morning with a hundred
more. The reinforcement, though small, was welcome, and Levis was a host
in himself. Pouchot was told that the army was half a mile off. Thither
he repaired, made his report to Montcalm, and looked with amazement at
the prodigious amount of work accomplished in one day. Levis himself
arrived in the course of the night, and approved the arrangement of the
troops. They lay behind their lines till daybreak; then the drums beat,
and they formed in order of battle. The battalions of La Sarre and
Languedoc were posted on the left, under Bourlamaque, the first
battalion of Berry with that of Royal Roussillon in the centre, under
Montcalm, and those of La Reine, Bearn, and Guienne on the right, under
Levis. A detachment of volunteers occupied the low grounds between the
breastwork and the outlet of Lake George; while, at the foot of the
declivity on the side towards Lake Champlain, were stationed four
hundred and fifty colony regulars and Canadians, behind an abatis which
they had made for themselves; and as they were covered by the cannon of
the fort, there was some hope that they would check any flank movement
which the English might attempt on that side. Their posts being thus
assigned, the men fell to work again to strengthen their defences.
Including those who came with Levis, the total force of effective
soldiers was now thirty-six hundred.
Soon after nine o'clock a distant and harmless fire of small-arms began
on the slopes of Mount Defiance. It came from a party of Indians who had
just arrived with Sir William Johnson, and who, after amusing themselves
in this manner for a time, remained for the rest of the day safe
spectators of the fight. The soldiers worked undisturbed till noon, when
volleys of musketry were heard from the forest in front. It was the
English light troops driving in the French pickets. A cannon was fired
as a signal to drop tools and form for battle. The white uniforms lined
the breastwork in a triple row, with the grenadiers behind them as a
reserve, and the second battalion of Berry watching the flanks and rear.
Meanwhile the English army had moved forward from its camp by the
saw-mill. First came the rangers, the light infantry, and Bradstreet's
armed boatmen, who, emerging into the open space, began a spattering
fire. Some of the provincial troops followed, extending from left to
right, and opening fire in turn; then the regulars, who had formed in
columns of attack under cover of the forest, advanced their solid red
masses into the sunlight, and passing through the intervals between the
provincial regiments, pushed forward to the assault. Across the rough
ground, with its maze of fallen trees whose leaves hung withering in the
July sun, they could see the top of the breastwork, but not the men
behind it; when, in an instant, all the line was obscured by a gush of
smoke, a crash of exploding firearms tore the air, and grapeshot and
musket-balls swept the whole space like a tempest; "a damnable fire,"
says an officer who heard them screaming about his ears. The English had
been ordered to carry the works with the bayonet; but their ranks were
broken by the obstructions through which they struggled in vain to force
their way, and they soon began to fire in turn. The storm raged in full
fury for an hour. The assailants pushed close to the breastwork; but
there they were stopped by the bristling mass of sharpened branches,
which they could not pass under the murderous crossfires that swept them
from front and flank. At length they fell back, exclaiming that the
works were impregnable. Abercromby, who was at the saw-mill, a mile and
a half in the rear, sent orders to attack again, and again they came on
as before.
The scene was frightful: masses of infuriated men who could not go
forward and would not go back; straining for an enemy they could not
reach, and firing on an enemy they could not see; caught in the
entanglement of fallen trees; tripped by briers, stumbling over logs,
tearing through boughs; shouting, yelling, cursing, and pelted all the
while with bullets that killed them by scores, stretched them on the
ground, or hung them on jagged branches in strange attitudes of death.
The provincials supported the regulars with spirit, and some of them
forced their way to the foot of the wooden wall.
The French fought with the intrepid gayety of their nation, and shouts
of _Vive le Roi!_ and _Vive notre General!_ mingled with the din of
musketry. Montcalm, with his coat off, for the day was hot, directed the
defence of the centre, and repaired to any part of the line where the
danger for the time seemed greatest. He is warm in praise of his enemy,
and declares that between one and seven o'clock they attacked him six
successive times. Early in the action Abercromby tried to turn the
French left by sending twenty bateaux, filled with troops, down the
outlet of Lake George. They were met by the fire of the volunteers
stationed to defend the low grounds on that side, and, still advancing,
came within range of the cannon of the fort, which sank two of them and
drove back the rest.
A curious incident happened during one of the attacks. De Bassignac, a
captain in the battalion of Royal Roussillon, tied his handkerchief to
the end of a musket and waved it over the breastwork in defiance. The
English mistook it for a sign of surrender, and came forward with all
possible speed, holding their muskets crossed over their heads in both
hands, and crying _Quarter_. The French made the same mistake; and
thinking that their enemies were giving themselves up as prisoners,
ceased firing, and mounted on the top of the breastwork to receive them.
Captain Pouchot, astonished, as he says, to see them perched there,
looked out to learn the cause, and saw that the enemy meant anything but
surrender. Whereupon he shouted with all his might: "_Tirez! Tirez! Ne
voyez-vous pas que ces gens-la vont vous enlever?_" The soldiers, still
standing on the breastwork, instantly gave the English a volley, which
killed some of them, and sent back the rest discomfited.
This was set to the account of Gallic treachery. "Another deceit the
enemy put upon us," says a military letter-writer: "they raised their
hats above the breastwork, which our people fired at; they having
loopholes to fire through, and being covered by the sods, we did them
little damage, except shooting their hats to pieces." In one of the last
assaults a soldier of the Rhode Island regiment, William Smith, managed
to get through all obstructions and ensconce himself close under the
breastwork, where in the confusion he remained for a time unnoticed,
improving his advantages meanwhile by shooting several Frenchmen. Being
at length observed, a soldier fired vertically down upon him and
wounded him severely, but not enough to prevent his springing up,
striking at one of his enemies over the top of the wall, and braining
him with his hatchet. A British officer who saw the feat, and was struck
by the reckless daring of the man, ordered two regulars to bring him
off; which, covered by a brisk fire of musketry, they succeeded in
doing. A letter from the camp two or three weeks later reports him as in
a fair way to recover, being, says the writer, much braced and
invigorated by his anger against the French, on whom he was swearing to
have his revenge.
Toward five o'clock two English columns joined in a most determined
assault on the extreme right of the French, defended by the battalions
of Guienne and Bearn. The danger for a time was imminent. Montcalm
hastened to the spot with the reserves. The assailants hewed their way
to the foot of the breastwork; and though again and again repulsed, they
again and again renewed the attack. The Highlanders fought with stubborn
and unconquerable fury. "Even those who were mortally wounded," writes
one of their lieutenants, "cried to their companions not to lose a
thought upon them, but to follow their officers and mind the honor of
their country. Their ardor was such that it was difficult to bring them
off." Their major, Campbell of Inverawe, found his foreboding true. He
received a mortal shot, and his clansmen bore him from the field.
Twenty-five of their officers were killed or wounded, and half the men
fell under the deadly fire that poured from the loopholes. Captain John
Campbell and a few followers tore their way through the abatis, climbed
the breastwork, leaped down among the French, and were bayoneted there.
As the colony troops and Canadians on the low ground were left
undisturbed, Levis sent them an order to make a sortie and attack the
left flank of the charging columns. They accordingly posted themselves
among the trees along the declivity, and fired upwards at the enemy, who
presently shifted their position to the right, out of the line of shot.
The assault still continued, but in vain; and at six there was another
effort, equally fruitless. From this time till half-past seven a
lingering fight was kept up by the rangers and other provincials, firing
from the edge of the woods and from behind the stumps, bushes, and
fallen trees in front of the lines. Its only objects were to cover their
comrades, who were collecting and bringing off the wounded, and to
protect the retreat of the regulars, who fell back in disorder to the
Falls. As twilight came on, the last combatant withdrew, and none were
left but the dead. Abercromby had lost in killed, wounded, and missing,
nineteen hundred and forty-four officers and men. The loss of the
French, not counting that of Langy's detachment, was three hundred and
seventy-seven. Bourlamaque was dangerously wounded; Bougainville
slightly; and the hat of Levis was twice shot through.
Montcalm, with a mighty load lifted from his soul, passed along the
lines, and gave the tired soldiers the thanks they nobly deserved. Beer,
wine, and food were served out to them, and they bivouacked for the
night on the level ground between the breastwork and the fort. The enemy
had met a terrible rebuff; yet the danger was not over. Abercromby still
had more than thirteen thousand men, and he might renew the attack with
cannon. But, on the morning of the ninth, a band of volunteers who had
gone out to watch him brought back the report that he was in full
retreat. The saw-mill at the Falls was on fire, and the last English
soldier was gone. On the morning of the tenth, Levis, with a strong
detachment, followed the road to the landing-place, and found signs that
a panic had overtaken the defeated troops. They had left behind several
hundred barrels of provisions and a large quantity of baggage; while in
a marshy place that they had crossed was found a considerable number of
their shoes, which had stuck in the mud, and which they had not stopped
to recover. They had embarked on the morning after the battle, and
retreated to the head of the lake in a disorder and dejection wofully
contrasted with the pomp of their advance. A gallant army was sacrificed
by the blunders of its chief.
Montcalm announced his victory to his wife in a strain of exaggeration
that marks the exaltation of his mind. "Without Indians, almost without
Canadians or colony troops,--I had only four hundred,--alone with Levis
and Bourlamaque and the troops of the line, thirty-one hundred fighting
men, I have beaten an army of twenty-five thousand. They repassed the
lake precipitately, with a loss of at least five thousand. This glorious
day does infinite honor to the valor of our battalions. I have no time
to write more. I am well, my dearest, and I embrace you." And he wrote
to his friend Doreil: "The army, the too-small army of the King, has
beaten the enemy. What a day for France! If I had had two hundred
Indians to send out at the head of a thousand picked men under the
Chevalier de Levis, not many would have escaped. Ah, my dear Doreil,
what soldiers are ours! I never saw the like. Why were they not at
Louisbourg?"
On the morrow of his victory he caused a great cross to be planted on
the battle-field, inscribed with these lines, composed by the
soldier-scholar himself,--
"Quid dux? quid miles? quid strata ingentia ligna?
En Signum! en victor! Deus hic, Deus ipse triumphat."
"Soldier and chief and rampart's strength are nought;
Behold the conquering Cross! 'Tis God the triumph wrought."
[Footnote 4: Between the old and new steamboat-landings, and parts
adjacent.]
A LEGEND OF TICONDEROGA.
Mention has been made of the death of Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe.
The following family tradition relating to it was told me in 1878 by the
late Dean Stanley, to whom I am also indebted for various papers on the
subject, including a letter from James Campbell, Esq., the present laird
of Inverawe, and great-nephew of the hero of the tale. The same story is
told, in an amplified form and with some variations, in the _Legendary
Tales of the Highlands_ of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. As related by Dean
Stanley and approved by Mr. Campbell, it is this:--
The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of the Awe,
in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery of the western
Highlands. Late one evening, before the middle of the last
century, as the laird, Duncan Campbell, sat alone in the old
hall, there was a loud knocking at the gate; and, opening it, he
saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with
blood, who in a breathless voice begged for asylum. He went on
to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers
were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. "Swear on
your dirk!" said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led
him to a secret recess in the depths of the castle. Scarcely was
he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and
two armed men appeared. "Your cousin Donald has been murdered,
and we are looking for the murderer!" Campbell, remembering his
oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the
men went on their way. The laird, in great agitation, lay down
to rest in a large dark room, where at length he fell asleep.
Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of
the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow
voice pronounce the words: "_Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been
shed. Shield not the murderer!_" In the morning Campbell went to
the hiding-place of the guilty man and told him that he could
harbor him no longer. "You have sworn on your dirk!" he replied;
and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made
a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray
his guest, led him to the neighboring mountain, and hid him in a
cave.
In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the
same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood
again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling
words: "_Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the
murderer!_" At break of day he hastened, in strange agitation,
to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night,
as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more,
ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before. "_Farewell,
Inverawe!_" it said; "_Farewell, till we meet at TICONDEROGA!_"
The strange name dwelt in Campbell's memory. He had joined the
Black Watch, or Forty-second Regiment, then employed in keeping
order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major;
and, a year or two after the war broke out, he went with it to
America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to
the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his
brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his
fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the
eve of the battle, "This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there
yet; this is Fort George." But in the morning he came to them
with haggard looks. "I have seen him! You have deceived me! He
came to my tent last night! This is Ticonderoga! I shall die
to-day!" and his prediction was fulfilled.