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Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman

F >> Francis Parkman >> Montcalm and Wolfe




[Footnote 289: It may not be remembered that the predecessor of Louis
XV., without the slightest provocation or the pretence of any, gave
orders that the whole Protestant population of the colony of New York,
amounting to about eighteen thousand, should be seized, despoiled of
their property, placed on board his ships and dispersed among the other
British colonies in such a way that they could not reunite. Want of
power alone prevented the execution of the order.]




Chapter 9

1755

Dieskau


The next stroke of the campaign was to be the capture of Crown Point,
that dangerous neighbor which, for a quarter of a century, had
threatened the northern colonies. Shirley, in January, 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.[290]
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.[291] It remained to name a commander for the Crown Point
enterprise. Nobody had power to do so, for Braddock 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.

[Footnote 290: _Governor Shirley's Message to his Assembly, 13 Feb.
1755. Resolutions of the Assembly of Massachusetts, 18 Feb. 1755_.
Shirley's original idea was to build a fort on a rising ground near
Crown Point, in order to command it. This was soon abandoned for the
more honest and more practical plan of direct attack.]

[Footnote 291: _Correspondence of Shirley, Feb. 1755_. The number was
much increased later in the season.]

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,
as 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.[292] 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.

[Footnote 292: _Report of Conference between Major-General Johnson and
the Indians, June, 1755_.]

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 the letters of Braddock, found on the
battle-field, 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.[293] "Make all
haste," Vaudreuil wrote to him; "for when you return we shall send you
to Oswego to execute our first design."[294]

[Footnote 293: _Bigot au Ministre, 27 Aout, 1755. Ibid., 5 Sept. 1755_.]

[Footnote 294: _Memoire pour servir d'Instruction a M. le Baron de
Dieskau, Marechal des Camps et Armees du Roy, 15 Aout, 1755_.]

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.[295]
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.[296]

[Footnote 295: _The Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated_
(London, 1758).]

[Footnote 296: _Blanchard to Wentworth, 28 Aug. 1755_, in _Provincial
Papers of New Hampshire_, VI. 429.]

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.[297] They had
no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of
substitute.[298] 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.

[Footnote 297: _Proclamation of Governor Shirley, 1755_.]

[Footnote 298: _Second Letter to a Friend on the Battle of Lake
George_.]

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."[299] 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.[300] "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 going to war, I am Your Ever Dutiful son."[301]

[Footnote 299: _Papers of Colonel Israel Williams_.]

[Footnote 300: _Massachusetts Archives_.]

[Footnote 301: _Jonathan Caswell to John Caswell, 6 July, 1755_.]

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.[302] 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.

[Footnote 302: _Minutes of Council of War, 22 Aug. 1755. Ephraim
Williams to Benjamin Dwight, 22 Aug. 1755_.]

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.[303] 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.[304] 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.

[Footnote 303: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 25 Sept. 1755_.]

[Footnote 304: _Livre d'Ordres, Aout, Sept. 1755_.]

The Indians allies were commanded by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the
officer who had received Washington on his embassy to Fort Le Boeuf.
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."[305]

[Footnote 305: _Dieskau a Vaudreuil, 1 Sept. 1755_.]

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.[306]
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 above
six hundred Indians.[307] 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.

[Footnote 306: I passed this way three weeks ago. There are some points
where the scene is not much changed since Dieskau saw it.]

[Footnote 307: _Memoire sur l'Affaire du 8 Septembre_.]

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.[308] 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."[309] 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.

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