USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume II > Part 2
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Colonel Joseph Blanchard, agent and surveyor for the Masonian proprietors, commanded the New Hampshire troops. A second regiment, sent as a reinforcement, was under com- mand of Colonel Peter Gilman. Governor Benning Wentworth had the conceit that he could tell the old wood-rangers of a shorter route to Albany and so ordered the troops to go to Canterbury and Stevens Town, whence they were to proceed to the Coos intervale, and thence across the mountains of Vermont to Albany. They got as far as Stevens Town, when by the urgent request of Governor Shirley they went down the Connecticut river to Fort Dummer and thence to Albany, having used up or left at Stevens Town most of their provisions. About four hundred men of Colonel Blanchard's command arrived at Albany the twelfth of August, 1755. Some sick had been left at Canterbury. The New Hampshire regiment was
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posted at Fort Edward, to complete and defend it, while Gen- eral Johnson pushed on, axemen hewing the way, to the foot of lake George, where he built fort William Henry. Theodore Atkinson wrote to John Thomlinson an account of the part New Hampshire men took in this expedition. On the eighth of September General Johnson was attacked in camp by Baron Dieskau, commanding French regulars, Canadians and savages. "In the engagement with General Diescau about eighty of our men with about 40 Yorkers,-many of which last was of little service,-though others of them behaved well, I say this small party under the command of Captain Foulsom [Nathaniel Folsom of Exeter] of New Hampshire, not of McGinnis as was at first mentioned, 'tis tho't kill'd more of the Canadians and Indians than was kill'd at General Johnson's camp; they continued an obstinate engagement with more than one thou- sand,-indeed all that retired from before General Johnson's camp-kill'd great numbers of the enemy, recovered about 1200 packs, beat off the enemy, carried their own wounded men to the camp. This engagement lasted about three hours, when night came on and the French and Indians went off & left all. After this our regiment were ordered to the Camp at Lake George & were never put upon duty but in the scouting way, which they performed in so acceptable a way that no duty but that was required of them. Some of our men had been several times down to the gates of Crown Point fort-once they kill'd and striped a soldier within a few rods of the gates & bro't off his scalp & General Johnson could or would have had no Intelligence had it not been for our men."#
Probably this is but a repetition of Captain Folsom's account of the exploits of his company. Captain McGinnis, perhaps, might have contributed a few more facts to history. Mr. Atkinson goes on to say that if the five hundred New Hampshire men had had four guns and marched directly from the Connecticut river to Crown Point, without going to Albany, they could have captured that fort without any other assistance, which might or might not have been. The saddest of all is that they did not do it. Dieskau was defeated, mortally wounded and captured in one engagement, yet General Johnson did not fol-
4 N. H. Prov. Papers, VI. 440.
ROBERT ROGERS
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A HISTORY
low up his advantage. Time was frittered away. Crown Point was not taken. Late in the autumn the forces were disbanded and sent home. General Johnson was made a baronet for his distinguished services in persuading and controlling the Six Nations more than for any results in this campaign, and Par- liament made him a grant of five thousand pounds.5
In this expedition a personage came into view who gained then and thereafter great notoriety. This was Major Robert Rogers, commander of the eight companies of rangers. He was son of James and Mary Rogers and was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, November 17, 1731. When he was eight years old his father moved his family to a tract of four hundred acres, known as Lovell's farm, nine miles west of the Merri- mack, in what is now the town of Dunbarton. Here he cleared land and built a house, raised cattle and became a prosperous farmer. The Indians burned his buildings and killed his cattle, and he was shot and killed for a bear by a friendly neighbor. At the age of fifteen Robert Rogers was impressed as a soldier, at the time when Rumford was attacked. He spent much of his time, during winters, in hunting and trading, thus obtaining extended knowledge of the woods of New Hampshire and be- yond. It was he who led the scouting party to Coos and there built a garrison, which he called fort Wentworth. More than any other person he recruited the men who went to Albany in 1755, and he was appointed captain of the first company, afterward being made major and in command of all the rangers sent out by General Johnson. He was tireless and fearless, aggressive and resourceful, the Robin Hood of the forests. It was believed that he had been led into a crooked scheme of circulating counterfeit money, and the evidence points that way. All this was forgotten in the display of his energy as a scout and of his ability as a leader of men in Indian methods of warfare. No danger was too great, no hardship too severe for his rangers. Most of them were rough men, not averse to drinking and private immoralities, but they were resolute and efficient on the march and in battle. Throughout the seven years of the French and Indian war Rogers and his rangers
5 Thwaites' France in America, p. 183.
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won applause wherever the deeds of the northern army were made known. We shall cross his trail again.
A formal declaration of war was made July 3, 1755, and proclaimed upon the Parade at Portsmouth. A bounty of two hundred and fifty pounds was offered for an Indian scalp and three hundred pounds for a live Indian brought to Portsmouth by a person not in the pay of the government. Nobody claimed such a bounty. The fighting was left to the soldiers. Indian depredations continued wherever the frontiers could be most easily reached, either from Crown Point or the village of the St. Francis tribe. During the last of June an attack was made on the fort at Keene, then commanded by Captain William Symes. The savages were beaten off, but they killed many cattle and captured Benjamin Twitchell and took him to Quebec. Later he was ransomed but died before he could reach Boston. At Walpole Daniel Twitchell and a man named Flint were killed, while they were cutting timber for oars. One was scalped and the heart of the other was cut out and laid on his breast. At the same place Colonel Bellows and twenty men were returning from mill, each with a bag of meal on his back. Dogs warned them of the nearness of the enemy in ambush. The colonel ordered his men to throw down their meal, advance to a hill, give a loud whoop and drop into the sweet fern. The Indians were surprised and arose from their hiding. They were greeted with a volley that put them to flight, and Colonel Bellows' men returned to the fort without loss. A few days later a large force of Indians attacked the house of John Kil- burn, in which were himself, John Peak, two boys and the wife and daughter of Kilburn. The leader of the Indians, named Philip, was well acquainted with Kilburn and called to him by name, offering quarter, "Quarter," he shouted in reply, "you black rascals, begone, or we'll quarter you." The Indians kept firing at the house for the whole afternoon, and the men in the garrison replied with deadly effect. The women gathered up the bullets that came through the roof and remoulded them, to be sent back. Peak received a ball in the hip, which for lack of surgical care caused his death a few days later. Kil- burn was the first settler of Walpole and lived till his eighty- fifth year. Thus a large force of Indians was beaten off by
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A HISTORY
four men and two women. The Indian never rushed into danger. His strategem was to hide in ambush and kill without danger of being killed. He thought it foolish to throw away lives in charging upon a garrison house, or in meeting in open combat a force equal to his own, yet when forced to it by circumstances he could fight.
At Hinsdale a party at work in the woods was attacked, and John Hardiclay and John Alexander were killed, while Jonathan Colby was taken captive. Within a few days the Indians ambushed Caleb Howe, Hilkiah Grout and Benjamin Gaffield, as they were returning from the field. Howe was killed, Gaffield was drowned in attempting to make his escape, and Grout got away. The Indians went at once to Bridgman's garrison, and the inmates hearing the sound of their feet and supposing that their friends were returning from the field, opened the door and admitted the savage horde. Three families, consisting of fourteen persons, were carried into captivity. One of them was Jemima, wife of Caleb Howe, of whose captivity much has been written.6 Eunice, the wife of Benjamin Gaffield, was sold to the French in Canada, was sent to France, thence to England and Boston. She married and lived to the age of ninety- seven.
The year 1756 found Governor Shirley planning another of his military feats, an expedition against Crown Point. A regiment of three hundred and fifty men was raised in New Hampshire, commanded by Colonel Nathaniel Meserve. Peter Gilman and Thomas Westbrooke Waldron were appointed com- missioners, to reside at Albany and look after the stores for the regiment. Nothing was accomplished. Shirley was superceded in command by the Earl of Loudoun. The French, under Gen- eral Montcalm, in three days besieged and captured the fort at Oswego, and the regiments of Shirley and Pepperrell sta- tioned there were sent as prisoners to France. A petition was sent from Charlestown, asking for defenders of their homes. This implies that the fifteen men, voted the year before, had not gone, or had been withdrawn. The petitioners were Josiah Willard, Benjamin Bellows and Isaac Parker. They stated that
6 See Humphrey's Life of General Putnam and Green's Pioneer Mothers of America, pp. 435-442.
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the inhabitants were always kept in fear of being ambushed and their lives continually hung in suspense and doubt, from those who lie in wait to destroy; that they feared being sud- denly dispatched or captivated by a barbarous enemy; that the very water they use is purchased with the hazard of their blood and their bread at the peril of their lives; and that such a life was most pitiable. They must have help or quit their homes. That meant a nearer frontier to be defended. No help could be sent. All available forces were elsewhere. Even six of the citizens of Charlestown were with the army at Crown Point. It was planned to build a strong fort on the highlands, between the sources of Black River and Otto Creek, in Vermont, so as to check the incursions of savages from that direction, their usual route. A surveying party was sent out, who went as far as the height of land, but no fort was built, nor was a road made at this time. On the eighteenth of June Lieutenant Moses Willard was killed while he was trying to extinguish a fire in his fence, and his son, Moses, wounded by a spear in the hip, fled to the fort, dragging the spear in the wound. Josiah Foster with his wife and two children was captured at Winchester and taken to Canada. The Indians also appeared at Hinsdale and wounded Zebulon Stebbins, who, with his companion, Reuben Wright, reached a place of safety and gave timely warning to others.
Lord Loudoun recognized the ability of the New Hampshire men as scouts and formed them into three companies of rangers, commanded by Robert Rogers, John Stark and William Stark. These companies were kept during the war, in the pay of the Crown, and after the war their officers were allowed half pay, as we are told by Belknap.
In the year 1757 another regiment was raised in New Hampshire, commanded by Colonel Nathaniel Meserve, with John Goffe as lieutenant colonel. Meserve took a part of this regiment to Halifax, one hundred of them being carpenters and the rest rangers. Goffe's command were ordered to rendezvous at Charlestown, on the Connecticut river, whence he marched to Albany and was posted at fort William Henry. Before his arrival at Charlestown, a party of seventy French and Indians made an attack upon the mills and captured Deacon Thomas
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A HISTORY
Adams, David Farnsworth and Samson Colfax. The enemy burned the mills and on their retreat next day captured also Thomas Robbins and Asa Spofford, as they were returning from hunting. Farnsworth, after some time spent in captivity, found a way of escape, roaming the forest many days with little food. Robbins was exchanged, and the rest died of small box at Quebec.7
Goffe's men with others amounting to twenty-two hundred were besieged in fort William Henry by General Montcalm, who had under his command eight thousand men, including nearly two thousand Indians, painted in vermilion, white, green, yellow and black, on their faces. After three days of bombard- ment Colonel Munroe, having lost three hundred men and more being sick of the small pox, surrendered. It was stipulated that his troops should march out of the fort with the honors of war, on parole of not serving again for eighteen months, and that liberty should be restored to all Canadian captives taken in the war. Montcalm had forbidden fire-water to be served to the Indians and did all in his power to restrain them from outrages. The Indians were thieving and aggressive; the Eng- lish gave them all they had to satisfy them, among the gifts being some fire-water. This was passed around, and the Indians became uncontrollable. As the troops marched out, the Indians fell upon them, killed about fifty and made captives of four or five hundred more, stripping them of most of their clothing. Montcalm and other French officers rushed into the meleé at the risk of their lives and by prayers, menaces, promises and force put an end to the massacre. "One-third part of Colonel Meserve's regiment that were posted at Fort William Henry were either killed or captivated." So wrote Governor Went- worth to the Earl of Loudoun.8 Out of two hundred eighty were killed or taken. The captives were ransomed by Mont- calm at great expense and sent to Quebec, whence they took shipping for Boston. Many of them afterwards petitioned suc- cessfully for reimbursement for losses of property and injuries in this massacre and captivity.
The news of the massacre awakened wide-spread indigna-
7 N. H. Prov. Papers, VI. p. 609.
8 N. H. Prov. Papers, VI., p. 609.
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tion, and New Hampshire was ready to vote supplies and recruit more troops to reinforce fort Edward. Major Thomas Tash of Durham led two hundred and fifty to Charlestown. The French, however, did not follow up their victory and attack fort Edward, but retired to Canada, perhaps because of having lost confidence in their two thousand Indian allies. The year contained nothing but discouraging lack of success for the Eng- lish forces, Fort William Henry was burned, and the bodies of French, British and savages slain were thrown into the con- suming flames.
The scale began to turn in favor of England and the col- onies in 1758. William Pitt was now at the head of affairs in the British government. He wrote to the governors of the colonies, asking them to furnish all the men they could and promising arms, tents, provisions and boats. The colonies were required to clothe and pay their men, with the hope that Par- liament would compensate them. The Earl of Loudoun was recalled from his command in America, and General Abercrom- bie, not much better, took command of the forces operating in the vicinity of Crown Point. Major General Jeffrey Amherst began again the siege of Louisburg, assisted by General Wolfe, the soul of the army, wherever he was.
New Hampshire this year raised eight hundred men and they were commanded by Colonel John Hart, except a body of one hundred and eight carpenters, who went to Louisburg, commanded by Colonel Nathaniel Meserve. The small pox at- tacked all but sixteen of his men, and he and his eldest son died of this disease. But Louisburg fell to the British the second time, and to remain in the possession of England to the present day, after the complete destruction of this powerful fortress. In the west fort Duquesne was captured on the twenty-fifth of November and in honor of William Pitt the place was afterwards called Pittsburg. Lieutenant-Colonel John Bradstreet was allowed by General Abercrombie to cross lake Ontario with twenty-five hundred men, and they captured and destroyed fort Frontenac and shipping defended by only one hundred men. Abercrombie had for lieutenant Lord Howe, a military officer of great renown, who made up for the defi- ciencies of his superior in office. In the battle near Ticonderoga
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a much smaller army under General Montcalm, with no Indian allies, defeated the army of General Abercrombie, with loss of nearly two thousand men on the part of the British. The sad- dest loss was the death of Lord Howe, whom William Pitt called "a complete model of military virtue," and General James Wolfe, in the generosity of his heart, declared to be "the noblest Englishman that has appeared in my time, and the best soldier in the British army." But these words were uttered in eulogy of the dead ; men do not speak thus of the living. Massachusetts caused a monument to be erected to Howe in Westminster Abbey. The rangers, under Robert Rogers, John Stark and other captains rendered valiant service in this fight. Stark supped and conversed with Howe the evening before his death. Thus ended this year's campaign against Crown Point, with the fort still in the possession of the French. During this year the Indians were kept too busy at Crown Point to effect much mischief on the frontier of New Hampshire. Nevertheless, a roving band killed Captain Moore and his son at Hinsdale, burned his house and carried away his family. At Charlestown they killed Asahel Stebbins and captured his wife, Isaac Parker and a soldier. The following winter Charlestown was gar- risoned with one hundred regular troops of the army, under command of Captain Cruikshanks, and all was quiet in the valley of the Connecticut.
General Amherst took command of the forces in the cam- paign against Crown Point in 1759, and New Hampshire con- tributed a regiment of one thousand men, under command of Colonel Zaccheus Lovewell, brother of the Captain John Love- well who lost his life at Pequawket. Effort was made to get transportation to Albany by water, but this seems to have failed.
The regiment marched from Dunstable to Albany via Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts. The Crown granted eight thousand pounds to the province for military expenses, and the provincial government voted men and supplies with alacrity, By the end of June General Amherst had assembled five thou- sand provincials and six thousand five hundred regulars at the head of Lake George, and five thousand troops had been dis- patched, under Brigadier Prideaux, to take fort Niagara. The French blew up the fort at Ticonderoga and soon after aban-
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doned Crown Point, retiring to Isle aux Noix, at the outlet of Lake Champlain. The sole purpose was to check the march of Amherst and prevent his reaching Montreal and Quebec. Amherst had no vessels for the transportation of his troops, and so the campaign ended in the vicinity of Lake Champlain. Meanwhile Prideaux had been slain, and Sir William Johnson succeeded him in command, who defeated the French and Indian forces sent against him and captured Niagara, the French retiring to Detroit. Thus the French possessions in the west were completely cut off from those in upper Canada. General Wolfe, who saw no value in block houses and a defensive war- fare, captured Quebec after great difficulties and losses, and at the end the noblest man in each army, Wolfe and Montcalm, laid down their lives with equal patriotism and devotion.
The capture of Crown Point put an end to Indian raids from that direction. It was thought necessary to punish and break up the tribe of Indians at St. Francis, that had inflicted great sufferings upon the northern and western frontier of New Hampshire. For this purpose Major Robert Rogers was sent by General Amherst, with two hundred rangers, with special orders to spare women and children, notwithstanding former Indian barbarities, for in six years' time they had car- ried into captivity and murdered four hundred persons. Rogers sailed to the north of Lake Champlain and thence marched nine days through unbroken forest. Some sick and injured had to be sent back, so that he arrived at the village of St. Francis with one hundred and forty-two men, outmarching a pursuing enemy. From a tree-top, three miles distant, the village was discerned. The rangers crept up to within five hundred yards, left their packs, and half an hour before sunrise fell upon the unsuspecting savages, who the evening before had celebrated a wedding in high frolic. The Indians were shot down before they could arm themselves. Some fled to the river and were drowned or shot. The entire village was burned. Twenty women and children were captured, and fifteen of these were given their liberty. Two Indian boys and three girls were brought to Charlestown, where one of the boys, named Sabatis, recognized with joy Mrs. Johnson as the person who had been adopted into his father's family and greeted her as his sister.
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Five English captives were rescued. Hundreds of scalps on poles ornamented the village. Of Rogers' men one was killed and seven were wounded. To evade a large force in pursuit it was decided to return by way of the Connecticut river. The provisions of corn taken at St. Francis failed after eight days, and at Lake Memphremagog the rangers were obliged to divide into small parties and to find their way home by different routes. Some were killed and captured by the pursuing enemy. Some perished of starvation in the woods. The provisions which Rogers had ordered sent to the Coos country were not found, since the men who brought them, on hearing the sound of guns, fled with the provisions. Major Rogers, Captain Ogden, who had been wounded, and a soldier proceeded on a raft, with great hardships, to Charlestown, whence provisions were sent back to the remnant of his company. Rogers was rewarded by being designated as the officer who should receive the sur- render of the French posts along the Great Lakes, which he did, having an escort of two hundred troops.9
In the spring of 1760 General Abercrombie planned to ap- proach Montreal by three different routes. One division of his army sailed up the St. Lawrence from Quebec; another came down the river from Lake Ontario; a third proceeded north from Lake Champlain. This division was reinforced by eight hundred New Hampshire men, under command of Colonel John Goffe of Derryfield (now Manchester). They had their ren- dezvous at Litchfield, whence they marched through Monson, (now Milford), Peterborough and Keene to Charlestown, making the bridle path into a road as they advanced. They crossed
9 It is lamentable that the subsequent career of this brave and resource- ful officer was so clouded by dishonesty, dissoluteness and renunciation of allegiance to his native land. He was always in debt. As commander of the post at Mackinac he was given to drunkenness and debauchery. His wife, who was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Arthur Browne of Ports- mouth, obtained a divorce because of desertion and infidelity to marriage vow. He was suspected of being a spy at the beginning of the Revolution, and became a recruiting officer for the English army, in Canada and on the northern frontier. Finally he went to London and subsisted there on an officer's half-pay, dying May 18, 1795, with reputation little better than that of Benedict Arnold. He published an account of the deeds of his rangers and a metrical tragedy, called Ponteach, which the reviewers pounced upon unmercifully. He was a better fighter than writer. See Reminiscences of the French War, and Ponteach; or the Savages of America, by Allan Nevins. The last work is an exhaustive treatise on Rogers and his work, published by the Caxton Club, Chicago, 1914.
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the Connecticut at Wentworth's Ferry, two miles above the fort at Charlestown, whence they cut a road for twenty-six miles directly toward Crown Point, following the course of the Black River. This took them forty-four days. Then they passed over the Green Mountain range to Otter Creek and followed the road cut the year before by Stark and his rangers. Their stores were brought in carriages as far as the mountain and then transported by horses. A drove of cattle for the army went with them to Crown Point. Twelve days after their arrival at Crown Point the New Hampshire men embarked and went down the lake. Colonel Haviland commanded this expedi- tion. Little resistance was made by the French at Isle aux Noix, and forts St. John and Chambly quickly fell into their hands. The muster rolls show that about forty of Colonel Goffe's regiment deserted on the march to Crown Point, while many were left at stations on the way. Montreal soon capitulated to the united British army, knowing that their case was hopeless even if a battle were hazarded and won.
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