USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 18
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The Marquis de Montcalm, a field-marshal of France, had succeeded the Baron Dieskan in command of the French troops in America. Profiting by the delays of the English at Albany, and aware of the weak- ness of the British commanders, Montcalm proceeded to attack the post at Oswego. He gathered five thousand Frenchmen, Canadians, and Indians at Fort Frontenac (Kingston), crossed Lake Ontario, and on Angust 11th appeared before Fort Ontario, on the east side of the river at Oswego, and demanded the surrender of the garrison. That fort had been built recently. Colonel Mercer, in command, refused compliance, when the French began a regular siege. An attack at midnight was bravely resisted, when Colonel Mercer spiked his guns and withdrew the garrison to an older fort (built by Governor Burnet) on the west side of the river. Montcalm brought his cannon to bear upon this fort.
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AN INEFFICIENT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
Colonel Mercer was killed, and on the 14th the garrison, sixteen hundred strong, surrendered. The forts were demolished, Oswego was made desolate, and the country of the Six Nations was laid open to easy incur- sions by the enemy.
The sluggish Lord Loudoun had just arrived, and was temporarily alarmed. After loitering at Albany a few weeks longer, recalling troops which had been sent toward Ticonderoga, and making wicked, unjust, and ungenerous complaints against the provincials, expecting thereby to conceal his own imbecility, he dismissed them and ordered the regulars into winter quarters. He took a thousand of the latter to New York City and haughtily demanded the billeting of their officers upon the inhab- itants free of charge. The mayor, in behalf of the people, questioned the righteousness of the demand, when Loudoun, uttering a coarse oath, said :
" If you do not billet my officers upon free quarters this day I'll order all the troops in North America under my command, and billet them myself upon the city."
Londoun's demand was sustained by an Order in Council # passed a few months before, that troops might be kept in the colonies and quar- tered on the people without the consent of colonial legislatures. The authorities at New York yielded to Loudoun's demand under a silent but most solemn protest. This was the earl's only victory in America. That order, virtually authorizing a standing army in the colonies to be maintained, in a great measure, by the people, was the magnetic touch that gave vitality to the sentiment of resistance which soon sounded the tocsin of revolution.
Military operations under Loudoun's command were quite as ineffi- cient elsewhere as in the province of New York. Colonel Washington was at the head of fifteen hundred volunteers and drafted inilitia, and was anxious to act against Fort Duquesne ; but he was made powerless by official interference and incapacity.
Loudoun called a military council at Boston in January, 1757. He proposed to confine the operations of that year to an expedition against Louisburg (which had been restored to the French by the treaty of Aix- la-Chapelle), and to a defence of the northern frontiers. The colonists of New York and New England desired to expel the French from the
* The British Privy Council is an assembly of advisers in matters of State appointed by the sovereign. It was first established by King Alfred in 895, and consisted of only twelve members, and was a permanent committee. Now it is composed of the chief magnates of the nation, including the ministry. A Privy Councillor must be a native of Great Britain. The authority of Parliament is delegated to this body in the regulation of public affairs. "Orders in council " have the force of constitutional commands.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
region south of the St. Lawrence and to recover Oswego. They were grievously disappointed by Loudoun's perverseness ; yet their ardor and patriotism were not much abated, for at the opening of summer six thousand provincials were under arms. Members of the military council had mildly remonstrated, but in vain. Loudoun was imperious, and had very little respect for the opinions of provincials ; and wiser and better men than he were compelled to acquiesce.
Loudoun determined to go to Louisburg himself. After impressing into the British service four hundred men at New York, he sailed for Halifax in June, where he found himself at the head of a well-appointed army of ten thousand men and a fleet of sixteen ships of the line and several frigates. Instead of going to Cape Breton at once and attacking the strong fortress there, Loudoun employed his men in laying out a parade, planting a vegetable garden for their use, and exercising them in sham battles. So he wasted the precious summer-time. At last when, in August, he prepared to sail for Louisburg, he was informed that the garrison there had been re-enforced, and that the French had one more ship than he. Alarmed, this absurd leader, who was always in a hurry but always unready-" like St. George on a tavern sign, always on horseback but never going forward "-abandoned the enter- prise and sailed for New York to hear of military disasters in that prov- ince. These will be noticed presently.
For more than a year the English in America had acted so much " like women" that the Indians were disgusted, while the activity of the French won their admiration and alliance. At the beginning of the summer of 1757 warriors from "more than thirty nations" were at Montreal. Governor Vaudreuil told them of glory and plunder surely to be obtained by alliance with the French. Montcalm danced their wild war-dances with them and sung their fierce war-songs with them until their affection for him and enthusiasm for the French cause became intense. They went in a wild, tumultuous march for St. John's, on the Sorel (the outlet of Lake Champlain), accompanied by priests who chanted hymns and anthems in almost every Indian dialect. In canoes and bateaux the French and their dusky allies went up Lake Champlain and landed at Ticonderoga in hot July. Thence Montcalm sent maraud- ing parties almost to Fort Edward under Marin, who had destroyed the hamlet of Saratoga more than a dozen years before.
Very soon Montcalm* appeared on Lake George with eight thousand
* The Marquis de Montcalm was born in France in 1712, and was of noble descent. He entered the army while he was yet a lad, and soon distinguished himself. In 1756 he
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THE FRENCH CAPTURE FORT WILLIAM HENRY.
men (two thousand of them Indians) and a train of artillery, and laid siege (August 2d) to Fort William Henry,* then garrisoned by less than five hundred men under Colonel Munro, supported by almost ten thou- sand provincials in an entrenched camp upon a gentle rocky eminence, where may now be seen the dim ruins of the citadel of Fort George. A little more than a dozen miles distant was Fort Edward, where lay the timid General Webb with about four thousand troops.
Munro was surprised. General Webb had learned from scouts of the approach of the foe, but more willing to have them fall upon Fort William Henry than upon Fort Edward, he concealed the fact from Munro. When Montcalm appeared the latter sent an express to Webb imploring succor. Not doubting it would be sent, he promptly refused compliance with Montcalm's summons to surrender the fort, and bravely sustained a siege for several days, continually expecting aid from Fort Edward in response to several expresses sent to Webb. But no succor came. Webb would not spare a man. He finally sent a letter to Munro filled with exaggerations, and advising him to surrender. The letter fell into the hands of Montcalm at a moment when he was about to abandon the siege and retire. The French leader immediately made a peremptory demand for a surrender. Despairing of succor, Munro yielded, and on the morning of August 9th (1757) the garrison marched out to the intrenched camp under a promise of protection and other honorable con- ditions. They were promised that they should proceed in safety to Fort Edward on parole.
Montcalm had kept intoxicating liquors from his Indians, but the Eng- lish settlers supplied them with rum. After a night's carousal the bar- barians, inflamed with intoxication and a desire for plunder, were ready for any mischief, and when the prisoners left the camp for Fort Edward
was sent to Canada, with the rank of major-general, to take the chief military command there. After serving with skill and bravery in America for about three years, he was killed in battle at Quebec in September, 1759.
* During the previous winter fifteen hundred French regulars and Canadian militia went down from the St. Lawrence to Lake George, travelling much of the way with snow-shoes, and attempted to take Fort William Henry by surprise. Their provisions were carried ou small sledges drawn by dogs, and their beds were bear-skins spread on the snow. Stealthily they went over the frozen lake and appeared before the fort at midnight (March 16th, 1757). The garrison were on the alert. The invaders set fire to three vessels frozen in the ice there, a storehouse, and some huts, and escaped by the light of the conflagration. Rogers's Rangers were at the fort, and were noted for their aggressive movements that winter. One of their bravest men was Lieutenant Stark (afterward the hero of Bennington), who commanded the Rangers in the absence of Rogers. Under Stark they were often found attacking parties of the foe in the vicinity of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
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the crazed Indians, defying Montcalm's efforts to restrain them, fell upon the defenceless captives, when a fearful scene of slaughter, plunder, and devastation ensued. The fort and its appendages were laid in ruins, and for nearly one hundred years nothing marked its site but some half- concealed mounds. Now a large summer hotel stands upon its site. This sad event was the closing one of the campaign of 1757, and, happily, ended the leadership of the Earl of Loudoun on this side of the Atlantic.
Montcalm did not attempt further conquests at that time, but returned to Ticonderoga, strengthened the works there, and sent out scouting parties to annoy the British and capture their foragers. These enter- prises were fruitful of exciting scenes."
The position of affairs in America now alarmed the English people. The Americans were brave and high-spirited, and recent events had manifested strength and their ability to support themselves. With a sense of their independence of Great Britain there was danger of their alienation. Some of the royal governors were rapacious ; others were incompetent ; all were, as a rule, haughty in their demeanor. The arrogant assumption of superiority by the British military officers dis- gusted the provincial troops and often cooled the ardor of whole regi- ments.
Perceiving the incompetency of the government of the aristocracy, the people of Great Britain yearned for a change in the administration of public affairs. The popular will prevailed. William Pitt was called to the premiership in June, 1757. " Give me your confidence," said the great commoner to the king, " and I will deserve it." "Deserve my confidence," the king replied, " and you shall have it."
Pitt would not listen to the pernicious twaddle about enforcing royal authority in America that fell from the lips of the Lords of Trade. " We want the co-operation of the Americans," he said, " and to have it we must be just and allow them freedom." These words ran like an
* These scouting parties were watched by Major Rogers and his Rangers of New Hampshire. The afterward famous Israel Putnam was his lieutenant. On one occasion a party of French and Indians led by Captain Molang captured a convoy of English wagoners. Rogers and Putnam attempted to intercept the French on their return, but fell into an ambush, and Putnam and a few followers, separated from the rest, were captured. His comrades were killed and scalped, but he was reserved for torture. He passed the night bound to a tree, where his clothes were riddled with bullets by the cross firing of the combatants. He was taken deeper into the forest, fast bound to a tree, and a fire was built around him, when a sudden thunder-shower nearly extinguished the flames. They soon began to blaze fiercely again, when Molang, who had heard of these proceedings, rushed through the band of Indians, released Putnam, and carried him to Ticonderoga.
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PLAN OF CAMPAIGN FOR 1758.
electric thrill through the hearts of the colonists, and men and money were freely offered for the cause. The French in Canada were growing weaker, for they received scanty aid from France. " The king relies on your zeal and obstinacy of courage," wrote the French Minister to Montcalm in 1758. " Without unexpected good fortune or blunders on the part of the English," the candid general replied, " Canada must be lost this campaign, or certainly the next."
Pitt soon diffused his own energy and wisdom into every department of the government. He did not demand anything of the colonies, but asked them to raise and clothe twenty thousand men, promising them, in the name of Parliament, to furnish arms, tents, and provisions for such levies, and also to reimburse the several colonies all the money they should expend in raising and clothing these troops. A large naval arma- ment for American waters was placed under the command of Admiral Boscawen, and twelve thousand British troops were allotted for service in America. This liberal policy had a magical effect. New England alone raised fifteen thousand of the required levies ; New York furnished about three thousand ; New Jersey, one thousand ; Pennsylvania, three thousand, and Virginia two thousand.
The scheme for the campaign of 1758 was extensive in its intended operations. Shirley's plan of 1756 was revived and its general outlines were adopted. The chief points of assault were designated-Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Duquesne. Twelve thousand men under General Amherst were to attack Louisburg, and possibly Quebec. Another army was to be led from Albany by Abercrombie and young Lord Howe to attack Ticonderoga, and General Joseph Forbes was ap- pointed to lead another army over the Alleghany Mountains to attack Fort Duquesne.
Louisburg received the first blow. Boscawen with forty armed vessels, bearing Amherst with a land force of twelve thousand men, and having General Wolfe as his lieutenant, left Halifax at near the close of May, and on June 8th the troops landed near Louisburg. The French, after a vigorous resistance of about fifty days, surrendered the fort and city and the islands of Cape Breton and Prince Edward to the British. When Louisburg fell the French dominion in America began to wane, and from that time its decline was rapid.
While Amherst and Wolfe were conquering in the east, Abercrombie and young Lord Howe were leading seven thousand regulars, nine thou- sand provincials, and a large train of artillery against Ticonderoga, then occupied by Montcalm with about four thousand soldiers. Howe was "the soul of the expedition." He was a " Lycurgus of the camp,"
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
introducing stern rules and radical reforms, and adapting everything to the absolute needs of the service.
Through the activity of Colonel John Bradstreet," ably assisted by Major Philip Schuyler, bateaux for carrying troops over Lake George were ready by the time the necessary stores arrived from England, and before the end of June Howe led the first division of the troops to the head of the lake. Abercrombie arrived there with the remainder at the beginning of July. The provincial troops were chiefly from New Eng- land and New York. Among the officers were Captains Stark, of New Hampshire, and Putnam, of Connecticut.
The whole armament went down the lake on a beautiful Sabbath after- noon (July 5th, 1758), led by Lord Howe in a large boat, and landed at
SIGNATURE OF JOHN BRADSTREET.
dawn the next morning at its northern extremity between four and five miles from Fort Ticonderoga. The occupants of a French outpost there fled. The first intimation they had of the proximity of an enemy was the blaze of the scarlet uniforms of the British in the morning sun.
The country between the lake and Ticonderoga was covered with a dense forest and tangled morasses. The British immediately pressed forward, Lord Howe leading the advanced guard. Following incom- petent guides, they became bewildered, and while in that condition they suddenly encountered a French scouting party. A sharp skirmish ensued, and the French troops were defeated ; but Lord Howe was slain in the first fire. He was pierced by a bullet and expired immediately.
* John Bradstreet was born in 1711 ; died in the city of New York September 25th, 1774. He was a lieutenant-colonel of Pepperell's provincial regiment at the siege of Louisburg in 1745, and in the autumn was commissioned captain in a regular regiment. In 1746 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of St. John's, Newfoundland. He was General Shirley's adjutant at Oswego in 1755, and in 1756 conveyed supplies to that post through great perils. He was quartermaster-general of the provincial forces under General Abercrombie, and after the repulse at Ticonderoga led a successful expedition against Fort Frontenac. He was an efficient officer under Amherst in 1759, was commis- sioned colonel in 1762, major-general in 1764, and commanded an expedition against the Western Indians, and negotiated a treaty of peace.
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ATTACK AND REPULSE AT TICONDEROGA.
His followers, dismayed, retreated in wild confusion to the landing-place and bivouacked for the night .*
Abercrombie advanced about half way to Ticonderoga the next day, and sent his chief engineer, with some rangers under Captain Stark, to reconnoitre the French works. The engineer reported the works very weak. Stark, instructed by his practised eye, declared they were very strong. Abercrombie, with his usual contempt for provincials, re- jected Stark's testimony, and on the morning of the 8th, having been joined by Sir William Johnson with more than four hundred Indians, he ordered his men forward to scale the breastworks of the French lines, while he, like a coward, remained behind. LORD HOWE.
The assailants soon found that Stark was right. The breastworks were strong, and after a most sanguinary struggle for about four hours the British were repulsed with fearful loss. They fled with precipitation back to Lake George, leaving almost two thousand of their comrades dead or wounded in the forest. Abercrombie had preceded them in their flight, in " extremest fright ;"' and all hurried to their old camp at the head of the lake. Abercrombie felt safer when he had put that little sea, thirty-eight miles in length, between himself and Montcalm.
Colonel Bradstreet, burning with indignation because of the shameful defeat, urged upon a council of war held at the head of the lake the importance of capturing Fort Frontenac, and offered to lead an expe- dition against it. After much hesitation Abercrombie commissioned him to undertake the enterprise with three thousand men. Bradstreet hastened with them to Albany, where he was joined by Major Philip
* George, Lord-Viscount Howe, was the eldest son of Sir E. Scrope, second Viscount Howe of Ireland. He commanded five thousand British troops who arrived at Halifax in 1757, and the next year, as we have observed in the text, he accompanied Abercrombie on his expedition against Ticonderoga. He was the idol of his soldiers. Mante observes : " With him the soul of the army seemed to expire." He was thirty-four years of age at his death. The General Court of Massachusetts Bay appropriated $1250 for the erection of a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
Schuyler, and then " almost flew" up the valley of the Mohawk and on to Oswego. Schuyler and some men had reached that post earlier and prepared vessels wherewith to cross the lake with men, cannons, and stores. The expedition landed near Frontenac on the evening of August 25th. The French were taken completely by surprise. The fort mounted sixty cannons, but the garrison was very small. The com- mander sent to Montreal for aid, but before it could reach him he was compelled to surrender the fort and its dependencies, with immense spoil, particularly in stores destined for Fort Duquesne ; also nine armed vessels carrying from eight to eighteen guns each.
The capture of Frontenac, the re- sult of a brilliant expedition, was one of the most important events of the war. It facilitated the fall of Duquesne, discouraged the French, gave joy to the English, and re- flected honor on the provincials. It raised a cry for peace throughout Canada, the resources of which were almost exhausted. "I am not discouraged," wrote Montcalm, in evident disappointment, " nor are my troops. We are resolved to find our graves under the ruins of the colony." *
The expedition against Fort Duquesne, led by General Forbes, was finally successful in spite of COLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON. + him. He set out with about six thousand men in July.' He was a Scotchman and a "regular" British officer ; perverse in will and judgment, and indecisive in action. Sickness and inefficiency and a persistence in constructing a new military road over the mountains pro-
* Bradstreet lost only four or five men before the capture of Frontenac. Then a fearful sickness-dysentery-broke out among his troops, and five hundred of them were swept away. With the remainder he slowly retraced his steps, and on the Mohawk River, at the site of the (present) village of Rome, his troops assisted in building Fort Stanwix under the direction of General Stanwix.
+ The pen-and-ink sketch above given was made from a photograph of the original study made by Charles Willson Peale for his three-quarter length portrait of Washington in the uniform of a Virginia colonel. It was made at Mount Vernon in 1772, when Colonel Washington was forty years of age.
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FORT DUQUESNE TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH.
duced such almost interminable delays that on November 1st the army was fifty miles from Fort Duquesne. At length the impatient Colonel Washington was sent forward with a detachment of Virginians, and very soon accomplished the object of the expedition. Indian scouts employed by the French discovered Washington's approach, and their report so greatly exaggerated the number of his men that the frightened garrison, five hundred strong, set fire to the fort in the evening (November 24th, 1758) and fled in confusion down the Ohio in boats by the light of the flames, leaving everything behind them. The Virginians took possession of the fort the next day, and the name of Fort Duquesne was changed to Fort Pitt in honor of the British Prime-Minister.
With the close of this expedition ended the campaign of 1758. It had, on the whole, resulted favorably to Great Britain, and Pitt made vast preparations for the campaign of the next year. The attachment of some of the Indian allies of the French had been much weakened, and at a great council held at Easton, in Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1758, six tribes had, with the Six Nations, made treaties of friendship and neutrality with the English.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE final struggle between the French and English for mastery in North America was now at hand. Pitt, with wonderful sagacity and with as wonderful knowledge of the theatre of conflict in America, con- ceived a magnificent plan for the conquest of Canada and the destruction, at one blow, of the French dominion beyond the Atlantic. That dominion now did not really extend beyond the region of the St. Law- rence, for the settlements or stations in the far west and south were like distant, isolated, and weak colonies cut off from the parent country. The French in America were then comparatively few in number and weak in supplies of every kind. Montcalm was then chief military com- mander ; but in all Canada he could not muster seven thousand men into active service, and very few Indians.
Pitt had the rare good fortune to possess the confidence of Parliament and the English- American colonies. The former were dazzled by his greatness, the latter were impressed with his justice. He had promptly reimbursed the expenses of the colonists in raising and clothing troops, a sum amounting to at least $1,000,000 ; and they cordially seconded his scheme of conquest, which had been communicated to their chief men under an oath of secrecy. The Parliament voted $60,000,000 for the American service, and forces by land and sea such as had never before been known in England. "This is Pitt's work," said the Earl of Chesterfield, " and it is marvellous in our eyes !"' The inefficient Aber- crombie was superseded in the chief command in America by Sir Jeffrey Amherst,* with General James Wolfe as his lieutenant.
The plan of operations was simple. General Wolfe, with a strong
* Sir Jeffrey Amherst was born in Kent, England, January 29th, 1717 ; died August 3d, 1797. He entered the royal army as ensign in 1731, and was aide to Lord Ligonier and the Duke of Cumberland. He was promoted to major-general in 1756, and was in chief command of the English forces sent against Louisburg in 1758. In September that year he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, and led the troops that drove the French from Lake Champlain in 1759. The next year he captured Montreal and completed the conquest of Canada. For these acts he was. rewarded with thanks and knighthood. In 1763 he was appointed Governor of Virginia. In 1771 he was Governor of Guernsey, and was created a baron in 1776. He was com- mander-in-chief of the British forces from 1778 until 1795, and was created a field-marshal in 1796.
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