The Great Republic by the Master Historians The Battle at Lake George byBancroft, Hubert H.
[Of the three principal operations laid out for the year 1755, that against Fort
Duquesne ended, as we have seen, in a disastrous defeat for the English. The
news of this defeat put an end to the expedition against Fort Niagara, through
the discouragement which it produced. The third expedition, that against Crown
Point, was more successful, and led to an engagement of such importance as to
merit a special description. The forces selected for this purpose were militia-
men from New England and New York, under the command of a prominent New-Yorker
named William Johnson, a man of great influence with the Five Nations. All his
influence and endeavors, however, only induced about three hundred of them to
enlist for the expected battle. From Parkman's spirited history, entitled
"Montcalm and Wolfe," we select an account of the events of this campaign.]
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. "Make all haste," Vaudreuil wrote to him; " for when you return we shall
send you to Oswego to execute our first design."
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."
[Though promptness was of great importance, there was much delay in bringing the
troops together. The army, though crude in its makeup, had in it much good
material. Among the men were two who were destined to make their names well
known in American history,-I srael Putnam, a private in a Connecticut regiment,
and John Stark, a New Hampshire lieutenant, the future hero 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. They had no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of
substitute. 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.
[Mohawk scouts who had been sent to Canada returned with the report that eight
thousand men were marching to defend Crown Point. Indecision followed, but it
was finally resolved to march to Lake George.]
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 broke 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..
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. 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. 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.
The Indian 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."
[Dieskau, being falsely informed by a prisoner that Fort Lyman was indefensible,
resolved on a rapid movement to seize it. He passed down Lake Champlain to the
site of Whitehall, by canoe, and then took up the line of march through the
forest. Word came in now that there was a large force encamped on Lake George,
and the Indians decided that they would not attack the fort, but were ready to
proceed against the camp. This movement was determined on.]
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. 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 forces 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." 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 bestorde, 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..
It was soon after eight o'clock when Ephraim Williams left the camp with his
regiment, marched a little distance, and then waited for the rest of the
detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Whiting. Thus Dieskau had full time to lay
his ambush. When Whiting came up, the whole moved on together, so little
conscious of danger that no scouts were thrown out in front or flank; and, in
full security, they entered the fatal snare. Before they were completely
involved in it, the sharp eye of old Hendrick detected some sign of an enemy. At
that instant, whether by accident or design, a gun was fired from the bushes. It
is said that Dieskau's Iroquois, seeing Mohawks, their relatives, in the van,
wished to warn them of danger. If so, the warning came too late. The thickets on
the left blazed out a deadly fire, and the men fell by scores. In the words of
Dieskau, the head of the column "was doubled up like a pack of cards."
Hendrick's horse was shot down, and the chief was killed with a bayonet as he
tried to rise. Williams, seeing a rising ground on his right, made for it,
calling on his men to follow; but as he climbed the slope, guns flashed from the
bushes, and a shot through the brain laid him dead. The men in the rear pressed
forward to support their comrades, when a hot fire was suddenly opened on them
from the forest along their right flank. Then there was a panic; some fled
outright, and the whole column recoiled. The van now became the rear, and all
the force of the enemy rushed upon it, shouting and screeching. There was a
moment of total confusion; but a part of Williams's regiment rallied under
command of Whiting, and covered the retreat, fighting behind trees like Indians,
and firing and falling back by turns, bravely aided by some of the Mohawks and
by a detachment which Johnson sent to their aid. "And a very handsome retreat
they made," writes Pomeroy; "and so continued till they came within about three-
quarters of a mile of our camp. This was the last fire our men gave our enemies,
which killed great numbers of them; they were seen to drop as pigeons." So ended
the fray long known in New England fireside story as the "bloody morning scout."
Dieskau now ordered a halt, and sounded his trumpets to collect his scattered
men. His Indians, however, were sullen and unmanageale, and the Canadians also
showed signs of wavering. The veteran who commanded them all, Legardeur de
Saint-Pierre, had been killed. At length they were persuaded to move again, the
regulars leading the way.
About an hour after Williams and his men had begun their march, a distant rattle
of musketry was heard at the camp; and as it grew nearer and louder, the
listeners knew that their comrades were on the retreat. Then, at the eleventh
hour, preparations were begun for defence. A sort of barricade was made along
the front of the camp, partly of wagons, and partly of inverted bateaux, but
chiefly of the trunks of trees hastily hewn down in the neighboring forest and
laid end to end in a single row. The line extended from the southern slopes of
the hill on the left across a tract of rough ground to the marshes on the right.
The forest, choked with bushes and clumps of rank ferns, was within a few yards
of the barricade, and there was scarcely time to hack away the intervening
thickets. Three cannon were planted to sweep the road that descended through the
pines, and another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill. The defeated party
began to come in: first, scared fugitives, both white and red; then, gangs of
men bringing the wounded; and at last, an hour and a half after the first fire
was heard, the main detachment was seen marching in compact bodies down the
road.
Five hundred men were detailed to guard the flanks of the camp. The rest stood
behind the wagons or lay flat behind the logs and inverted bateaux, the
Massachusetts men on the right, and the Connecticut men on the left. Besides
Indians, this actual fighting force was between sixteen and seventeen hundred
rustics, very few of whom had been udner fire before that morning. They were
hardly at their posts when they saw ranks of white-coated soldiers moving down
the road, and bayonets that to them seemed innumerable glittering between the
bougs. At the same time a terrific burst of war-whoops rose along the front;
and, in the words of Pomeroy, "the Canadians and Indians, helter-skelter, the
woods full of them, came running with undaunted courage right down the hill upon
us, expecting to make us flee." Some of the men grew uneasy; while the chief
officers, sword in hand, threatened instant death to any who should stir from
their posts. If Dieskau had made an assault at that instant, there could be
little doubt of the result.
This he well knew; but he was powerless. He had his small force of regulars well
in hand; but the rest, red and white, were beyond control, scattering through
the woods and swamps, shouting, yelling, and firing from behind trees. The
regulars advanced with intrepidity towards the camp where the trees were thin,
deployed, and fired by platoons, till Captain Eyre, who commanded the artillery,
opened on them with grape, broke their ranks, and compelled them to take to
cover. The fusillade was now general on both sides, and soon grew furious.
"Perhaps," Seth Pomeroy wrote to his wife, two days after, "the hailstones from
heaven were never much thicker than their bullets came; but, blessed be God!
that did not in the least daunt or disturb us." Johnson received a flesh-wound
in the thigh, and spent the rest of the day in his tent. Lyman took command; and
it is a marvel that he escaped alive, for he was four hours in the heat of the
fire, directing and animating the men. "It was the most awful day my eyes ever
beheld," wrote Surgeon Williams to his wife; "there seemed to be nothing but
thunder and lightning and perpetual pillars of smoke.".
Dieskau had directed his first attack against the left and centre of Johnson's
position. Making no impression here, he tried to force the right, where lay the
regiments of Titcomb, Ruggles, and Williams. The fire was hot for about an hour.
Titcomb was shot dead, a rod in front of the barricade, firing from behind a
tree like a common soldier. At length Dieskau, exposing himself within short
range of the English line, was hit in the leg. His adjutant, Montreuil, himself
wounded, came to his aid, and was washing the injured limb with brandy, when the
unfortunate commander was hit again in the knee and thigh. He seated himself
behind a tree, while the adjutant called two Canadians to carry him to the rear.
One of them was instantly shot down. Montreuil took his place; but Dieskau
refused to be moved, bitterly denounced the Canadians and Indians, and ordered
the adjutant to leave him and lead the regulars in a last effort against the
camp.
It was to late. Johnson's men, singly or in small squads, were already crossing
their row of logs; and in a few moments the whole dashed forward with a shout,
falling upon the enemy with hatchets and the butts of their guns. The French and
their allies fled. The wounded general still sat helpless by the tree, when he
saw a soldier aiming at him. He signed to the man not to fire; but he pulled
trigger, shot him across the hips, leaped upon him, and ordered him in French to
surrender. " I said," writes Dieskau, " ' You rascal, why did you fire? You see
a man lying in his blood on the ground, and you shoot him!' He answered, 'How
did I know that you had not got a pistol? I had rather kill the devil than have
the devil kill me.' 'You are a Frenchman?' I asked. 'Yes,' he replied; 'it is
more than ten years since I left Canada; ' whereupon several others fell on me
and stripped me. I told them to carry me to their general, which they did. On
learning who I was, he sent for surgeons, and, though wounded himself, refused
all assistance till my wounds were dressed."
It was near five o'clock when the final rout took place. Some time before,
several hundred of the Canadians and Indians had left the field and returned to
the scene of the morning fight, to plunder and scalp the dead. They were resting
themselves near a pool in the forest, close beside the road, when their repose
was interrupted by a volley of bullets. It was fired by a scouting party from
Fort Lyman, chiefly backwoodsmen, under Captains Folsom and McGinnis. The
assailants were greatly out-numbered; but after a hard fight the Canadians and
Indians broke and fled. McGinnis was mortally wounded. He continued to give
orders till the firing was over, then fainted, and was carried, dying, to the
camp. The bodies of the slain, according to tradition, were thrown into the
pool, which bears to this day the name of Bloody Pond.
[Johnson had great difficulty in preserving the life of Dieskau, the Mohawks,
who were furious at the death of Hendrick, making several efforts to kill him.
The wounded baron, however, survived to reach England, where he recovered
sufficiently to live for several years, though wretchedly shattered by his
wounds.
The success attained by Johnson was not improved. He failed to follow the flying
foe, on the excuse that his men were tired. Yet five hundred of them had stood
still all day, and there were boats enough to transport them to where Dieskau
had left his canoes and provisions, ten miles down the lake. Nor did he send out
scouts to Ticonderoga till a week afterwards. On the contrary, he intrenched
himself against a possible assault, and let two weeks pass away, by the end of
which time the enemy was intrenched at Ti-conderoga in force enough to defy him.
Thus the expedition against Crown Point, though attended with such an incidental
success, proved a failure. Johnson remained a month longer at the lake, when he
sent his army home. With the art of the courtier, he changed the name of Fort
Lyman to Fort Edward after one of the king's grandsons, and called his new fort
at Lake George William Henry, after another. As a result of his victory and his
policy he received five thousand pounds from Parliament and was made a baronet
by the king.]
