Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  After capturing Fort William Henry, Montcalm returned to Quebec with a feeling of unease rather than jubilation. Despite the ferocity of the battle for the fort, all he had accomplished was to snip off a British salient that would soon grow back; in a few months the British advance would continue north again. Furthermore, victory had its cost in terms of human casualties, and Montcalm could ill afford to lose a single soldier. Louix XV, focused on Europe, was not inclined to send more soldiers to defend what Voltaire called a "few acres of snow."26 Nor could the general look to Canada for succor. The harvests of 1756 and 1757 had been woeful, grain prices were skyrocketing, bread was rationed at a quarter pound per day, and shoes were scarce. An Ursuline at the Quebec convent lamented, "Three plagues have descended on our country, pestilence, famine, and war; but famine is the worst of all."27 The bread, according to the convent's Mother la Grange, was "as black as [our] robes."28 Manpower too was in short supply. Montcalm's entire regular force was smaller than the British garrison at Fort Edward, and although the Troupes de la Marine had shown themselves to be able soldiers, there weren't enough of them. As for the militia, they had the same unhappy traits as their counterparts to the south: They were unreliable and undisciplined. Indians were also a concern. After their treatment at William Henry, both the domiciled tribes and those from more distant places returned home angry that Montcalm had denied them their just rewards. Their unhappiness over the division of spoils, however, was about to be eclipsed by an even greater catastrophe.

  Smallpox was a frequent visitor to Canada. In most instances the dread virus arrived by ship at Quebec and then spread along the settled parts of the St. Lawrence River valley. Occasionally, fur traders and missionaries carried the plague to the villages far in the interior, but rarely did it reach epidemic proportions among those tribes. In the fall of 1755 the "pox" struck Quebec, undoubtedly brought in by the soldiers newly arrived from France. It swept through the valley, infecting, disfiguring, and killing hundreds of Canadians and domiciled Indians. (Those who were infected and survived—about 80 percent of the sick—developed an immunity.) The disease erupted again in the summer of 1756, and as the weather warmed in 1757, people in Quebec feared a third epidemic. Thankfully, none appeared. Only a few scattered cases were reported, most of them among soldiers. The menace, however, hovered elsewhere.

  For several days after the fall of William Henry, the area around the fort was packed with thousands of soldiers—British and French—and as many Indians and civilians. During these hot August days, William Henry was one of the most populous and crowded places in North America. It was also a pest hole and a haven for smallpox. For the time being, however, only a few cases appeared, not enough to cause undue alarm.29 Once contracted, smallpox takes anywhere from ten to fourteen days to make its deadly presence apparent. That was sufficient time for the Indians at William Henry to become exposed and make their way home before showing serious signs of illness. These infected warriors may not have carried spoils home to their families, but they did bring the pox. Through the fall and winter of 1757—58 smallpox ravaged the western tribes. Jean-Nicholas Desandrouins, an engineering officer with Montcalm, noted that the disease "made astonishing ravages," and whole villages were "laid waste. "30 The French blamed the British for the disease. The Indians blamed the nation that invited them east; the French had given them "bad medicine."31 First cheated of their rightful spoils, then infected by the French, the western tribes simmered as they sickened.

  Representations of smallpox among Native Americans

  Montcalm ignored the sufferings of both the Indians and Canadians. Early in February 1758 the tone-deaf marquis wrote to his superiors in Paris: "The Canadians, the simple farmer respects and loves me. As to the Indian I believe I have seized their genius and manners." When the marquis addressed the people whose "genius and manners he had seized," to ask them to join him in the coming campaign, they ignored his message.32 As spring approached, the western Indians, remembering William Henry and smallpox, remained at home. Montcalm's strategic choice was to play for time. He believed that if his forces could hold the enemy at bay until reinforcements arrived from home (an unlikely event), or until French victories elsewhere in the world forced the British to seek a negotiated peace (much likelier), then France might save Canada by swapping other conquests for its losses in North America. To that end, the general decided to concentrate his forces at Ticonderoga, anticipating that they would eventually fall back to Quebec and Montreal. In this plan the stranded forts in the Ohio and Great Lakes regions, as well as at Louisbourg, could expect no major reinforcements. Their orders were to hold their posts as long as possible in order to block the British drive into the heart of New France.33

  Vaudreuil, and many other Canadians, accused the general of being a defeatist. For more than one hundred years, with very little direct assistance from regular troops, Canadians had resisted the British. Indeed, the Troupes de la Marine, militia, and Indians had often carried out raids deep into enemy territory. Caught off guard by such sudden violent attacks, the English rarely retaliated. Citing Canada's history, Vaudreuil argued that small units moving aggressively against the British would force them to disperse their army. Montcalm's strategy to pull back and rely on a strong defense was, in the opinion of the governor, badly suited to the Canadian environment. Vaudreuil made his position clear when he wrote to the minister of war reflecting on Montcalm's strategy: "It is in the true and fundamental interest of the colony that I devote my main efforts to defending the soil of our frontiers foot by foot against the enemy, whereas M. de Montcalm and the land troops seek only to preserve their reputation and would like to return to France without having suffered a single defeat."34

  Montcalm the aristocratic general and Vaudreuil the proud Creole governor grew to despise each other, but on one point they agreed: They both bewailed the lack of support from home. British commanders had a problem of a different sort. They may have been well supported, but they had to operate under the gimlet eye of William Pitt.

  Pitt distrusted army officers. He held a whiggish view that the army was by its nature an enemy to liberty, and that soldiers must always be held in check by civilian authority. Yet senior officers achieved and held rank at the pleasure of the king. Political differences notwithstanding, Pitt therefore angered His Majesty by questioning the competence of his commanders, especially those in North America. Pitt's friend Sir Charles Hardy, the governor of New York, shared his views with the minister, noting sarcastically that Loudoun's pampered soldiers "can't stir without their curling irons and brown paper; the French make winter expeditions, why can't we?"35

  Major General James Abercromby

  Loudoun's liabilities went beyond his military shortcomings. Although he was distressed at what the general had not done to attack the enemy, Pitt was equally concerned about the highhanded methods by which he had managed to antagonize nearly every governor and assembly in America. His incessant and frequently blunt demands for men, materiel, and money threw colonial officials into an uproar that reverberated in London. In December 1757, after covering his political flanks at home, Pitt engineered Loudoun's recall and the appointment of a new chief, Loudoun's second in command, Major General James Abercromby.36 AScotlike Loudoun, Aber­cromby was a seasoned soldier, but he had never before held a major independent command. As his friend Loudoun put it delicately, "M.G. Abercromby is a good officer, and a very good second Man anywhere, whatever he is employed in."37 The logic of his selection probably rests in the fact that he was already in place and could, at least theoretically, get under way immediately. It may have also been the case that the general was politically safe; that is, his appointment, while not cheered by all, was not likely to raise much opposition.

  Pitt's secretaries scrambled to keep up with him. On December 30, 1757, he sent no fewer than nine separate dispatches to America. These included Loudoun's recall, Abercromby's appointment, instructions to governors, and, most important, detailed plans for
the campaign of 1758.38 Unlike Montcalm's superiors in Paris, who gave their commander only the most general instructions, Pitt was detailed and precise. In several densely packed letters he laid out to Abercromby and the governors what he expected to happen in North America during the coming year. The general himself was to concentrate on Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Pitt directed Jeffrey Amherst to take Louisbourg and John Forbes to march against Duquesne. His orders were quite specific, even to the point of insisting that Amherst hire a Mr. Meserve from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to command eighty carpenters on the Louisbourg expedition. Like Braddock and Loudoun, Abercromby bore the title "Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Forces in North America," but unlike Loudoun, thanks to Pitt's distrust of military commanders and his desire to micro manage, Abercromby really only commanded the forces with him in person, moving against Ticon­deroga and Crown Point. For all intents and purposes, Amherst and Forbes answered directly to Pitt. Abercromby's army had a large number of provincial soldiers. To avoid the legacy left by Loudoun of snarling between colonials and regulars, Pitt reiterated his promise to provincial authorities that the king would assume the costs of the war. Pitt's largesse delighted the colonial authorities, but even money could not speed up the process of recruiting, and as usual the militia arrived late. Slowly, regiments from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey assembled at Fort Edward. By early summer nearly twenty thousand men, regulars and provincials, were encamped.

  Not only were the provincials late, but as usual they were ill disciplined and ill trained. Captain Hugh Arnot of the Eightieth Regiment spat out his opinion: "The greater their Numbers, the greater the Evil; for of any sett of people in the Universe they are the worst cut out for war. The most stupid and most chicken-hearted sett of Mankind."39 Unfortunately, the campaign season was already under way, and there was not enough time to train the "chicken-hearted" men. Most of the provincials drilled only a few days at Fort Edward before they were sent off to the assembly point at Lake George.

  Abercromby aimed to advance up Lake George, secure a landing site near Ticonderoga, and march against the fort. Over the course of the winter, rangers had gathered intelligence on the French—a good deal of it wrong.40 Nor could he depend upon Indians. Facing the threat of a French attack from Oswego, and having witnessed the British disasters of the previous season, the Iroquois were wary of their English "brothers" and stayed apart. Not even William Johnson could entice them to join. The only native auxiliaries with Abercromby were from the Stockbridge companies of western Massachusetts and Mohegan of Connecticut.41 Coralling provincials and gathering intelligence were not Abercromby's only problems. Experienced engineers were in short supply. The ranking engineering officer in the northern theater was the able Colonel James Montresor, but he was ill and unavailable.42 Next in line was William Eyre. Unfortunately for Aber­cromby, Eyre was also the senior field officer of the Forty-fourth Regiment. Eyre chose the regiment.43 By a process of elimination, the engineering duty finally fell on a more junior officer, Lieutenant Matthew Clerk.

  Yet whatever skills Abercromby's army might have lacked, it was not short on size. Fifteen thousand men, regulars and provincials, were drawn up on a two-mile front along the southern edge of Lake George. It was the largest and best-equipped army yet to assemble in America. On June 26, 1758, the general rode into the lakeside encampment, where he found his second in command, Lord George Howe, "the very Spirit and Life of the Army," working furiously to prepare the expedition.44 Captain Joshua Lor-ing of the Royal Navy was in charge of the vast armada of more than one thousand small boats.

  George Howe was unusual among officers. He was the third Viscount Howe, the eldest son in a family that produced three distinguished officers. His two younger brothers, Richard and William, would earn fame in the American Revolution. Howe was a gallant soldier-aristocrat. Throwing aside formality and tailored uniforms, he dressed down to a style closer to the look of enlisted troops than his fellow officers, and he often messed and tented with his men in the field, winning their admiration and affection.

  With the support of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, the officer who had commanded Braddock's advance guard and who, as a result, had experienced wilderness fighting firsthand, Howe persuaded Abercromby to order the men to travel light and to shed a good deal of their cumbersome woolen uniforms. By reducing the weight of clothing, the soldiers could better endure July's humidity and heat, and had less to snag them in the undergrowth. Soldiers cut their long coats to jackets and trimmed their wide-brimmed tricornered hats to the size of caps. At the same time, Howe and Gage taught the men new techniques for fire and movement, including shooting and reloading from covered positions. On July 5, as the morning glow became visible over the hills to the east, British drummers beat "The General," the call to fall in, and the regiments marched toward the boats assembled along the shore. First off were Bradstreet's weathered bateauxmen, who formed a skirmish line ahead of the light infantry on the right and rangers on the left. The main body came next, with artillery barges, commissary stores, and hospital boats closing up the rear.45

  Abercromby made remarkably good time. By late afternoon they were twenty miles down the lake near Sabbath Day Point, the scene of Parker's disaster. Deep in enemy territory the general signaled for the boats to pull toward the western shore. With great display Howe's light infantry scrambled ashore, pitched tents, lit fires, and made as if they were bivouacking for the night, hoping to deceive the French into thinking they would not resume their advance until the morning.

  The day before the British set off, Montcalm had dispatched two detachments with orders to set up advance posts on either side of the lake. On the west side 350 men under the command of Captain de Trepezec took an observation post south of Mont Pelee (Rogers Rock) less than ten miles above Sabbath Day Point.46 On the opposite shore Captain Bernard waited for the British with three hundred men. Well aware that a vastly superior enemy force was coming toward him, Montcalm weighed his options.47 Ticon­deroga was a small fort with serious disadvantages. Within its walls there was barely room to accommodate a single battalion, while outside the fort the terrain to the west was high enough so that if an advancing enemy took those elevated spots it could range artillery on the fort. In addition, Ticon­deroga was built on a peninsula from which there was only a single route of escape. Ticonderoga had to be defended by holding the western ground beyond the walls. The general remained at Ticonderoga and awaited news from Trepezec and Bernard. In the meantime he moved some of his regiments toward the lake to cover the landing site and portage road.

  At about ten o'clock Abercromby ordered his men back into their boats, and they rowed north on a dark and moonless night. Lead boats with light infantry and rangers displayed shuttered lanterns at their sterns so that those trailing behind could follow and hold their proper position. The boats glided undetected past the French sentries. Just before first light Howe pulled ahead with the rangers and light infantry with orders to secure the landing site. Caught unaware, the main French force was camped too far away to interfere. The few French pickets fled at the approach of the rangers, leaving behind their tents and baggage. By noon the entire British army was ashore.

  About a mile to the north of the landing place Bourlamaque guarded a key bridge across the La Chute River. Reluctantly, Bourlamaque ordered the bridge destroyed and withdrew his regiments to join Montcalm at a post a bit farther north. Here Bourlamaque and Montcalm paused long enough to realize their danger. If the British moved quickly enough, they could sweep around the French right, take the ground, and stand between them and the fort. To avoid the trap, Montcalm ordered a late morning withdrawal toward the fort to a place where other troops had already taken up positions.

  As the French dug in, Abercromby and Howe debated their options. The most direct route to Ticonderoga was the short portage road, but two river crossings promised to make movement in that direction very costly. They opted for a longer route, sw
inging around the French right, thereby avoiding the road and river crossings in a maneuver designed to envelop Mont­calm. Ahead of the main column Abercromby ordered Rogers and his rangers to sweep west in an arc to dislodge enemy pickets and to secure the fords across Bernetz Brook. Yet heavy rains had filled this otherwise languid brook to the brim, making it a much greater obstacle than anticipated. The unseasonable wetness had also caused the ground cover to grow wild and dense. The rangers had to hack their way through the heavy growth.

  Two hours after the rangers left camp, the main force of seven thousand regulars and provincials advanced. On the far right Howe marched closest to the river, playing the role of the pivot element around which the left would eventually swing toward the enemy. Despite the heat and bothersome brush, the army made good time. By midafternoon the main column's advance guard had met up with the rangers, who had paused at a ford.