[Illustration: SOLDIERS’ MONUMENT, DEERFIELD
_This monument stands on the common in Deerfield, on the site of the
church of 1704._]
All this fighting was not according to the nice, formal,
observe-the-laws-of-war methods, such as are now followed between
civilized nations: it was more like a campaign in the Balkans, or the
amenities of the Zulus in Africa. Europeans were not particularly
gentle in their warfare. The early colonies were planted when the
Thirty Years’ War was raging in Germany, a war in which the unoffending
peasants expected both sides to rob them of their little property, and
then to torture them because they had no more to give. The Indians were
not the only race that found pleasure in inflicting awful suffering on
other human beings. The cultivated English colonists and the French
trappers and hunters were not above taking scalps on occasion; and,
though they did not torture their prisoners, allowed their Indian
allies to indulge themselves in that amusement.
[Illustration: DEERFIELD MEMORIAL
_This stone marks the grave of the victims of the Deerfield massacre on
February 29, 1704._]
[Illustration: GENERAL MONTCALM’S HEADQUARTERS AT QUEBEC]
The French were better wood fighters than the English, and throughout
these struggles had a disagreeable habit of raiding English
settlements. Twice they captured villages within a day’s march of
sacred Boston. Their most spectacular achievement was the raid upon
Deerfield in 1704, upon which an epic poem might be written. Depict
the French and Indians stealing two hundred miles through the frozen
wilderness; the Puritans in Deerfield trusting to their stockade; the
sudden dash at dawn; the shots, cries, screams; the Indians chopping
away with their hatchets at Parson Williams’ front door, till they made
a loophole through which to fire at the family; the file of captives
quickly marshaled for the terrible northward trail; the valiant little
band from Hatfield pursuing the Indians, many times their number, and
getting a bad licking; the wrath and fear of all New England at this
appearance of the fearful enemy!
[Illustration: QUEBEC IN COLONIAL DAYS
_From an old print._]
The people of Haverhill, Massachusetts, have put up a statue to a
militant woman named Hannah Dustin, who, when carried away a captive,
had the sweet thought to brain half a dozen of her captors, and so get
home again with her children. Had there been more Hannah Dustins, there
would have been fewer French raids!
In all these wars the English colonists excelled as fighting seamen. We
may still be proud of William Phipps and his levy of colonial forces,
who took Port Royal in 1690. Who shall envy him his well earned title
of Sir William, and his fair brick house on Green Lane, Boston? Think
of the New England men, aided by a small British fleet, sallying out
in 1745 to attack Louisburg, the proudest fortress in the western
world,--laying siege to it, digging trenches before it, complimenting
it with bombshells, and compelling it to surrender! That was worth a
score of Deerfields!
[Illustration: WOLFE’S MONUMENT, QUEBEC
_This memorial commemorates the capture of Quebec from the French by
the English._]
The world has agreed to give the palm of picturesqueness in warfare
to the capture of Quebec in 1759 by Wolfe’s English fleet and army.
Modern critics tell you that nothing could be easier; that anybody can
make his way up the steep footpath in Wolfe’s Cove. But Montcalm, the
French commander, as brave a man and as skilled a warrior as you could
find, did not think it likely that a British army would find its way to
the Plains of Abraham at the top. Still, he realized, when his little
army came out of the strongly fortified town, and offered battle, that
the French empire in America was at stake. The battle of Quebec was a
stage battle,--soldiers arriving in alarms and incursions, and both
commanders fighting like heroes till they fell covered with wounds.
Quebec was a battle that makes a man glad of being what he is, whether
French or English.
[Illustration: DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE
_When Quebec was captured from the French by the English under General
Wolfe, the commanders on both sides were killed. General Montcalm was
in command of the French forces. From the painting by Benjamin West._]
Four years earlier the French took their chance to defeat an army and
kill a British general. Somebody has said that it was a hard fate for
a brave military officer to go down to history known only through
“Braddock’s Defeat.” The trouble with Braddock was that he was an
Englishman, bigoted, obstinate, know-it-all, but brave to his heart’s
core; and his march up through the wild country was managed with
great skill. Braddock was a good officer; for on that fateful day he
recognized and gave responsibility to a better officer, young George
Washington. The French had been on the point of fleeing from Fort
Duquesne, and as a last desperate chance came out, faced the invader,
and defeated him.
[Illustration: BRADDOCK’S MARCH
_General Braddock marched his army through the wilderness as though he
were on a parade ground in Europe. To this lack of caution was due in
great measure his defeat._]