Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  Lord George Howe

  Rogers sent scouts forward to reconnoiter the French position near the sawmill. Danger, however, lurked on his flanks. Earlier in the morning, when Trepezac realized that the British had gotten by him on the lake, he roused his men and led them on a hurried march to rejoin Montcalm and the main body near the sawmill. Abercromby's landing, however, had cut the direct route, and they were forced to swing west to avoid the enemy. As the French made their way through the heavy forest, the men on the point heard movement in the nearby brush. Within seconds firing broke out. Lord Howe rushed to the sound of the guns. The general's brigade major, Captain Alexander Monypenny, described the action.

  When the firing began on the left part of the column, Lord Howe thinking it would be of the greatest consequence to beat the enemy with the light troops, so as not to stop the march of the main body, went up with them, and had just gained the top of a hill, where the firing was, when he was killed. Never ball had more deadly direction. It entered his breast on the left side, and (as the surgeons say)pierced his lungs, and heart, and shattered his backbone. I was six yards from him, he fell on his back and never moved, only his hands quivered an instant.48

  Howe had trained his troops well, preventing a repeat of the battle of the Monongahela, where soldiers either froze or fell into disarray. Instead of falling back, the light infantry and rangers maneuvered forward and fanned out to the flanks, their quick response catching the French by surprise. Within minutes the British had nearly surrounded Trepezac's men and were delivering withering fire into their ranks, killing, wounding, or capturing nearly half of them. Fewer than one hundred men managed to escape.

  Plan of Fort Ticonderoga

  Howe's light infantry set an example that the rest of the army found difficult to follow. News of the brave general's death, and fear of the enemy, "threw our Regulars in to some kind of Consternation," recorded William Eyre.49 Indeed "Consternation" and confusion were the rules of the afternoon. Abercromby and his officers needed more than three hours to regain control of the army. Even so, as night fell the men heard screams and firing from the woods. With reckless disregard for the safety of their comrades, and their own standing orders, frightened troops fired blindly into the dark. A number of British soldiers were hit by "friendly fire." By morning the entire army was back where it had begun the day before—on the shore of the lake.

  The action at Bernetz Brook bought time for Montcalm, and he used it wisely. To avoid envelopment, he withdrew his force closer to Ticonderoga. "At every fifty steps the covering party halted and turned."50 By dusk all the French regiments were assembled on the heights of Ticonderoga between the fort and the British, and Montcalm put his defensive plan in motion through the services of two skilled military engineers: Nicholas Sarrebource de Pontleroy and Jean-Nicholas Desandrouins.

  The two engineers had been anticipating Abercromby's arrival. Work gangs were busy clearing, measuring, and staking out fields of fire around the fort. After letting the men rest for a few hours, at about two in the morning of the seventh Montcalm summoned his officers and led them on a walk along the proposed defensive line. He pointed out each regiment's assigned sector—a one-hundred-yard front. That day enlisted men and officers worked side by side in the July heat, cutting, chopping, and digging. In a single day they managed to throw up an impressive defensive work.

  Ticonderoga's newly fashioned outerworks rose on a slope about one thousand yards to the west of the fort. Work parties cut trees and laid them horizontally to provide solid cover behind which infantry could fire with safety. Pontleroy and Desandrouins recognized that the hastily erected barricade was imperfect. The log wall tracked the ground's natural contour, and in some places it slumped into hollows where defenders might be sniped at from adjacent high ground. Nor did the engineers and soldiers have time to lay out the normal zigzags in the line that would allow defenders to deliver angled fire at the approaching enemy. Yet although the line had its weaknesses, it also had an enormous advantage. In front of the formal line stretching west, the soldiers had left a primitive but formidable abatis, a barrier composed of a hodgepodge of upended tree trunks, felled trees, sharp branches, and discarded pieces of timber. The entire approach area was such a tangled mess that from a distance it was difficult to make out the exact line of the fortifications. An advancing enemy would have to make its way through this dangerous ground with little knowledge of the trap that lay ahead of them.51

  Most worrisome to Montcalm were his exposed flanks. Since there had not been enough time to extend the log barricade out to these wings, both positions were only partially protected. Two volunteer light infantry companies, drawn from Bourlamaque's command, held the extreme left. They dug in on the front face of a steep ravine that fell down to the La Chute. The British having already demonstrated their skill at amphibious operations, Montcalm rightfully worried that they might try to come down the river and stage a landing behind his left flank. On the far right a mixed force of Canadians—Troupes de la Marine and militia—stood ready.

  While the French dug, cut, and covered, Abercromby summoned his officers to council. Howe's death had taken the breath out of the army. The strongest voice in council came from the blunt Nova Scotian colonel John Bradstreet, who urged the general to allow him to move ahead on the direct route and seize the river crossing and the high ground behind it. Aber­cromby hesitated, fearing that if he divided his force the enemy might fall upon him piecemeal, but eventually he agreed, and Bradstreet set out shortly before noon with a strong force of five thousand men. By half past one he had secured the crossing and was asking permission to move rapidly against Ticonderoga. Abercromby wisely held him back.

  As Bradstreet waited for the rest of the army to catch up with him, two officers, engineer Matthew Clerk and James Abercromby (no relation to the general), climbed 850 feet to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain* to reconnoiter the French position. Although they could make out the fort and the activity to the front, from more than a mile away the tangle of trees, brush, and cut logs would have looked more like the remnants of a wild windstorm than a well-planned defensive position. By the time the officers returned to the main encampment, the army had settled in for the night. Precisely what they reported is not clear, although given what emerged as the plan of attack, it is highly unlikely that General Aber­cromby had an accurate picture of the French position. Clerk did see an opportunity for a flanking movement. He advised moving an artillery battery down the La Chute to a place on the south side of the river slightly behind the French lines and within range of the fort. It was, he believed, the perfect spot from which to deliver enfilading fire, and the general agreed.

  As Clerk left the general's tent, there was a commotion in the camp. For days Abercromby had been waiting for Johnson and his Mohawk to arrive. According to messages from Johnson, the Mohawk were reluctant to leave their homes, fearing that the French might descend on their villages from Oswego. The indefatigable Johnson invited his brothers to his home, and after days of persuasion, lubricated by enormous quantities of liquor, he finally got the warriors to come east. What Clerk heard were the whoops and hollers from nearly four hundred Mohawk coming into camp, led by Johnson himself, dressed in the garb of a Mohawk chief.

  On the morning of the eighth Abercromby made final preparations for the attack. He intended to drive through what he believed to be weak outer defenses and then assault the fort. While his men checked their weapons, he sent Clerk forward for a last-minute look. According to Abercromby, Clerk's report convinced him that there was "no Doubt of the practicality of carrying those works, if attacked before they were finished: it was agreed to storm them that very Day: Accordingly, the Rangers, Light Infantry, and the Right Wing of the Provincials were ordered immediately to march, and post themselves in a Line, out of Cannon Shot of the Intrenchments, their right extending to Lake George [La Chute River], and their left to Lake Champlain, in order that the Regular Troops, destined for the Attack of the Intrenchment
s might form in their Rear."52 Officers present, however, remembered less clarity in their instructions. They also mentioned that the meeting was hurried. According to Eyre, the meeting ended abruptly with Abercromby telling his staff, "We must Attack Any Way, and not be losing time in talking or consulting how. "53

  As the provincials and regulars formed up, two Connecticut regiments marched back to the lake encampment to bring up the artillery. Aside from the riverbank battery, Abercromby had made no plan for artillery support, believing that it would take too long to bring up the heavy cannon. As redcoats and provincials prepared for battle, Johnson and the Indians climbed to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain, where they made an ineffectual display of firing off their weapons at an enemy far out of range. At the same time ten whaleboats set off from upriver, towing two rafts with four cannon. This too became a farce. As the whaleboats drew near the landing spot identified by Clerk, they got lost in high reeds and could not find solid ground. French gunners sighted and ranged on them, sinking two boats and forcing the others to beat a hasty retreat.

  At about ten, skirmishers emerged from the wood line and advanced. Behind them the provincials and regulars formed up. But within a few steps the fallen trees and branches broke the advancing rhythm. Men burdened with heavy packs and weapons stumbled, fell, and struggled to get up. In the center Colonel William Haviland's regulars were following close behind advancing provincials. Hearing firing on his left, Haviland, who "could not see what was a doing," mistakenly concluded that the general assault had begun.54 He ordered the provincials to make way and "fall down" so that his brigade might march through and storm the French breastwork by frontal assault. It was a tragic error; Haviland's men advanced without support and "fell like pigeons."55

  All along the front, command and control on the British side collapsed. Some soldiers stood and advanced, while others cowered behind stumps and fallen trees. Montcalm had detailed his best marksmen to the front and assigned the less skilled to reload and pass muskets forward. The French poured a blizzard of shot at the regulars, firing at a rate three to five times that of the British and with much greater accuracy. In this carnage "no regiment . . . suffered so much as the Highlanders."56 Recruited out of the rugged north country of Scotland, the Highlanders were both feared and admired for their legendary prowess as warriors. With Abercromby was the senior Highland regiment, the Forty-second "Black Watch." Loudoun had once remarked that the Black Watch were particularly fearsome; even his own native allies viewed them, he said, as "a kind of Indians."57 Abercromby posted the Forty-second to the left to face the French right, in the sector held by the regiments of Guyenne and Béarn. Having come into the confused battle late, the Highlanders rushed to take up their position. "We marched up and attacked the trenches, and got within twenty paces of them and had as hot a fire for about three hours as possible could be, we all the time seeing but their hats and the end of their muskets," reported Captain John Murray.

  The French defenders were hard-pressed as the "Highlanders returned unceasingly to the attack." Some of the Black Watch leaped onto the top of the French works, where "they appeared like roaring lions breaking from their chains."58 It was a courageous but sad day for the regiment. Like the rest of Abercromby's army, the Scots were driven back but not before they had taken devastating losses. By seven in the evening nearly all of the regulars who could still walk had retreated behind a line held by the provincials. The French too had suffered heavy casualties but had, nonetheless, won a glorious victory. Within a few days Montcalm dispatched Bougainville to Paris with the news. Yet even in jubilation the marquis remained ungenerous toward the Canadians. He disparaged their role in his triumph and condemned them for allegedly cowardly behavior. Weeks later, as he mused over the situation in Canada, he plunged deeper into gloom. According to the marquis, the "Grand Society" in which Intendant Bigot was a central figure "absorbe tout le commerce." The country was in dire straits; I'agriculture languit, la population diminue, la guerre survient."59 His close friend Bougainville summed it up well when he wrote to his wife, "Can we hope for another miracle to save us? I trust in God; he fought for us on the 8th of July."60

  Vaudreuil offered a different view. When he received the victorious marquis in Montreal, instead of congratulating him on his victory, the governor criticized him for not pursuing and destroying Abercromby's army. Taken aback, Montcalm replied pointedly, "When I went to war I did the best I could; and . . . when one is not pleased with one's lieutenants, one had better take the field in person.'" The exchange did not end there. Madame Vau­dreuil joined the conversation in support of her husband. This Montcalm could not abide. "Madame," he told her, "saving due respect, permit me to have the honour to say that ladies ought not to talk war. . . . if Madame de Montcalm were here, and heard me talking war with Monsieur le Marquis de Vaudreuil, she would remain silent."61

  Although Abercromby's army still outnumbered the French, it was, in the words of a Rhode Island militia officer, "a confused rabble." As dispirited and demoralized as his troops, Abercromby was scorned by his own men. New Englanders called him "Mrs. Nabbycromby," while Johnson's Iroquois taunted him as "an old Squahthathe should wear a petticoat."62 Abercromby ordered a general retreat. The day after the debacle the once proud army returned to their boats and rowed dispiritedly back to William Henry.

  * Present-day Mount Defiance.

  (8)

  Duquesne and

  Louisbourg

  I took possession with my little Army.

  —John Forbes to James Abercromby and Jeffrey

  Amherst, Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh),

  November 26, 1758

  In a letter he wrote to his wife soon after the battle at Ticonderoga, Montcalm told her that he had won "with no Indians and barely any Canadians." 1 Late that summer Montcalm's commissary of wars, André Doreil, sent a lengthy dispatch to the minister of war in Paris, Marshal de Belle Isle, in which he summed up the French position in Canada. Writing with Montcalm's knowledge, he told the minister that "miracles cannot be always expected." English power was overwhelming. The British were "able to furnish more than two hundred thousand men," whereas Canada, could field barely fifteen thousand, and then only if the country abandoned "all sort of work," including the harvest—which could only result in the nation "perishing by hunger." There was no hope. Driven by "frenzy," the English were determined to take Canada "at whatever cost." Awash in pessimism, the commissary advised his Parisian master to "think only of making peace."2

  Abercromby's thoughts were not about peace. For several days following the withdrawal, the general remained in his headquarters composing his report to Pitt. He gave the minister very little detail of the defeat except to say that in the end he had retreated "with the broken Remains of several Corps."3 No one wanted to stand on the deck of Abercromby's sinking ship. For officers such as Gage, Bradstreet, and Eyre, saving their own careers was paramount. Gage and James Prevost, colonel of the Sixtieth Regiment, pressured Abercromby (they did it in writing so as to leave a record) to launch a second attack.4 It was a disingenuous suggestion meant only to display their own initiative, while distancing themselves from the general whom they knew would not agree. Eyre's behavior was even less admirable. He hastened to write to his patron, Adjutant General Robert Napier, describing the disaster and pointing out all the instances where his advice had been ignored.5 Bradstreet was no less concerned than his fellow officers about the impact of defeat upon his career; however, he alone offered a practical alternative plan: an attack on Fort Frontenac, nearly two hundred miles to the west.

  Taking Frontenac was not a new idea. Early in 1758, during the waning days of his command, Loudoun had authorized Bradstreet to strike against Frontenac.6 Upon assuming command, Abercromby canceled the plan in order to husband forces for the move on Ticonderoga, agreeing that Frontenac would be dealt with as soon as his army "had made an establishment on the north side of Lake George."7 Bradstreet argued that despite his defeat, Abercromby had a
mple resources to hold against any (albeit unlikely) French advance and still move against Frontenac. It was, he said, ripe for the plucking.8

  Although it was a key link in the chain connecting the St. Lawrence with the Ohio, Frontenac was in fact weakly defended. Virtually its entire garrison had been stripped to help defend Ticonderoga. Vaudreuil and Montcalm recognized the risk, but with so few men at their disposal there was little else that they could do. Vaudreuil tried to rally his Indian allies to help fill the gap, but they showed no inclination to help. With a garrison too small to hold against a determined assault, the fort's survival rested on a squadron of nine small vessels moored in the nearby Cataraqui River. Hopefully, their cannon could prevent the British from coming across the lake.

  With Abercromby's support Bradstreet gathered 3,600 men at Schenectady on the Mohawk River twenty miles west of Albany. Only 185 were regulars; the rest, provincials from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. To secure a base of operations and his supply line, he had first to reoccupy Oswego. The long, difficult trek via the Oneida portage took a wasting toll. Aside from a few small French and Indian raiding parties, virtually no one had passed over the Great Carrying Place and down Wood Creek since the fall of Oswego in 1756. Neglect had not made travel over this route any easier. Fallen trees and branches entangled with heavy brush along the banks made navigation on the creek difficult. As Bradstreet's men cut through the mess, they discovered another problem: The creek had silted up, and their deeply laden bateaux ground into the bottom. To reduce their draft and float them over, men were "imployed in Loading and Floating the Battoas." But even reducing the load was not sufficient, and so, to raise water levels, crews built rough dams-, "whenever a sufficient quantity of water was gathered, the sluic [was] open'd which convey[ed] them to the next dam."9 By the time Bradstreet reached the site of the abandoned fort at the mouth of the Oswego River on August 21, nearly six hundred of his men had deserted. Amid the ruins, Bradstreet immediately organized for the final push across the lake, and on the twenty-second several hundred bateaux pulled away from the shore and made their way along the north side of the lake toward Frontenac. Fortune was on the side of the British. The French vessels, which might have raised havoc with Bradstreet's flotilla, failed to detect the oncoming enemy. On the evening of the twenty-fifth the expedition reached a point near the fort and landed without any opposition.10