Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1756 to 1763, part 2

{250} Twenty miles southeastward is another English fort,--Fort Edward,--where General Webb with sixteen hundred men is keeping the road barred against advance to Albany.

Soon as scouts bring word to Fort William Henry of the advancing French, Lieutenant Monro sends frantic appeal to Webb for more men; but Webb has already sent all the men he can spare.

If he leaves Fort Edward, the French by a flank movement through the woods can march on Albany, so Monro unplugs his seventeen cannon, locks his gates, and bides his fate.

Montcalm follows the same tactics as at Oswego,--brings heavy artillery against slab walls.

For the first week of August, eight hundred of his men are digging trenches by night to avoid giving target for the fiery bombs whizzing through the dark from Monro's cannon.

By day they lie hidden in the woods with a cordon of sharpshooters encircling the fort, Montcalm encamped on the west to prevent help from Sir William Johnson up the Mohawk, Lévis on the southeast to cut off aid from Webb.

Monro sends yet one last appeal for help: two thousand men against eight thousand,--the odds are eloquent of his need!

Montcalm's scouts let the messenger pass through the lines as if unseen, but they make a point of catching the return messenger and holding Webb's answer that he cannot come, till their cannon have torn great wounds in the fort walls.

Then Bougainville blindfold carries Webb's answer to Monro and demands the surrender of the fort.

Monro still has a little ammunition, still hopes against hope that Johnson or Webb or Loudon will come to the rescue, and he keeps his big guns singing over the heads of the French in their trenches till all the cannon have burst but seven, and there are not ten rounds of shells left.

Then Colonel Young, with a foot shot off, rides out on horseback waving a white flag.

Three hundred English have been killed, as many again are wounded or ill of smallpox, and to the remaining garrison of sixteen hundred Montcalm promises safe conduct to General Webb at Fort Edward.

Then the English march out.

That night--August 9--the vanquished English camp with Montcalm's forces.

The Indians, meanwhile, ramping through the fort for plunder, {251} have maddened themselves with traders' rum!

Before daybreak they have butchered all the wounded lying in the hospital and cut to pieces the men ill of smallpox,--a crime that brought its own punishment in contagion.

Next morning, when the French guard tried to conduct the disarmed English along the trail to Fort Edward, the Indians snatched at the clothing, the haversacks, the tent kit of the marchers.

With their swords the French beat back the drunken horde.

In answer, the war hatchets were waved over the heads of the cowering women.

The march became a panic; the panic, a massacre; and for twenty-four hours such bedlam raged as might have put fiends to shame.

The frenzied Indians would listen to no argument but blows; and when the English prisoners appealed to the French for protection, the French dared not offend their savage allies by fighting to protect the English victims.

"Take to the woods," they warned the men, and the women were quickly huddled back to shelter of the fort.

Of the men, sixty were butchered on the spot and some seven hundred captured to be held for ransom.

The remnant of the English soldiers, along with the women, were held till the Indian frenzy had spent itself, then sent to Fort Edward.

August 16 a torch was put to the combustibles of the fort ruins, and as the French boats glided out on Lake George for the St. Lawrence, explosion after explosion, flame leaping above flame, proclaimed that of Fort William Henry there would remain naught but ashes and charred ruins and the skeletons of the dead.

So closed the campaign of 1857 [Transcriber's note: 1757?

].

For three years hand running England had suffered defeat.

The spring of 1758 witnessed a change.

The change was the rise to power of a man who mastered circumstances instead of allowing them to master him.

Such men are the milestones of human progress, whether heroes, or quiet toilers unknown to the world.

The man was Pitt, the English statesman.

Instead of a weak ministry fighting the machinations of France, it was now Pitt versus Pompadour, the English patriot against the light woman who ruled the councils of France.

{252} From fighting weakly on the defensive, England sprang into the position of aggressor all along the line.

The French were to be attacked at all points simultaneously, at Louisburg on the east, at Ticonderoga or Carillon on Lake Champlain, at Duquesne on the Ohio, at Frontenac on Lake Ontario, and finally at Quebec itself.

London is recalled as commander in chief.

Abercrombie succeeds to the position, with the brilliant young soldier, Lord Howe, as right-hand man; but Pitt takes good care that there shall be good chiefs and good right-hand men at _all_ points.

The one mistake is Abercrombie,--"Mrs. Nabby Crombie" the soldiers called him.

He was an indifferent, negative sort of man; and indifferent, negative sorts of people, by their dishwater goodness, can sometimes do more harm in critical positions than the branded criminal.

Red tape had forced him on Pitt, but Pitt trusted to the excellence of the subordinate officers, especially Lord Howe.

Louisburg first!

No more dillydallying and delay "to plant cabbages!"

The thing is to reach Louisburg before the French have entered the harbor.

Men-of-war are stationed to intercept the French vessels coming from the Mediterranean, and before winter has passed Admiral Boscawen has sailed for America with one hundred and fifty vessels, including forty men-of-war, frigates, and transports carrying twelve thousand men.

General Amherst is to command the land forces, and with Amherst is Brigadier James Wolfe, age thirty-one, a tall, slim, fragile man, whose delicate frame is tenanted by a lion spirit; or, to change the comparison, by a motive power too strong for the weak body that held it.

By May the fleet is in Halifax.

By June Amherst has joined Boscawen, and the ships beat out for Louisburg through heavy fog, with a sea that boils over the reefs in angry surf.

Louisburg was in worse condition than during the siege of 1745. The broken walls have been repaired, but the filling is false,--sand grit.

Its population is some four thousand, of whom three thousand eight hundred are the garrison.

On the ships lying in the harbor are three thousand marines, a defensive force, in all, {253} of six thousand eight hundred.

On walls and in bastions are some four hundred and fifty heavy guns, cannon, and mortars.

Imagine a triangle with the base to the west, the two sides running out to sea on the east.

The fort is at the apex.

The wall of the base line is protected by a marsh.

On the northeast side is the harbor protected by reefs and three batteries.

Along the south side, Drucourt, the French commander, has stationed two thousand men at three different points where landing is possible, to construct batteries behind barricades of logs.

[Illustration: BOSCAWEN] Fog had concealed the approach of the English, but such a ground swell was raging over the reefs as threatened any ship with instant destruction.

For a week Amherst and Wolfe and Lawrence row up and down through the roiling mist and raging surf and singing winds to take stock of the situation.

With those batteries at the landing places there is only one thing to do,--cannonade them, hold their attention in a life-and-death fight while the English soldiers scramble through the surf for the shore.

From sunrise to sundown of the 8th furious cannonading set the green seas churning and tore up the French barricades as by hurricane.

At sunset the firing ceased, and three detachments of troops launched out in whaleboats at three in the morning, two of the detachments to make a feint of landing, while Wolfe with the other division was to run through the surf for the shore at Freshwater Cove.

The French were not deceived.

They let Wolfe approach within range, when the log barricade flashed to flame with a thousand sharpshooters.

Wolfe had foreseen the snare and had waved his {254} troops off when he noticed that two boat loads were rowing ashore through a tremendous surf under shelter of a rocky point.

Quickly he signaled the other boats to follow.

In a trice the boats had smashed to kindling on the reefs, but the men were wading ashore, muskets held high over head, powder pouches in teeth, and rushed with bayonets leveled against the French, who had dashed from cover to prevent the landing.

This unexpected landing had cut the French off from Louisburg.

Retreating in panic, they abandoned their batteries and fifty dead.

The English had lost one hundred and nine in the surf.

It is said that Wolfe scrambled from the water like a drowned rat and led the rush with no other weapon in hand but his cane.

[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG (From a contemporary print)] To land the guns through the jostling sea was the next task.

It was done, as in 1745, by a pontoon bridge of small boats, but the work took till the 29th of June.

Wolfe, meanwhile, has marched with twelve hundred men round to the rear of the marsh and comes so suddenly on the Grand and Lighthouse Batteries, which defend the harbor, that the French abandon them to retreat within the walls.

This gives the English such control of the harbor entrance that Drucourt, the French commander, sinks six of his ships across the channel to bar out Boscawen's fleet, the masts of the sunken, vessels sticking above the water.

Amherst's men are working like demons, building a road for the cannon across the marsh and trenching up to the back wall; but they work only at night and are undiscovered by the French till the 9th of July.

Then the French rush out with a whoop to drive them off, but the English already have their guns mounted, and Drucourt's men are glad to dash for shelter behind the cracking walls.

It now became a game of cannon play pure and simple.

Boscawen from harbor front hurls his whistling bombs overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls.

Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet.

At last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out above {255} the rocking hulls.

Only two ships are left to the French, and the deep bomb-proof casemates inside the fort between outer and inner walls, where the families and the wounded have been sheltered, are now in flame.

Amherst loads his shells with combustibles and pours one continuous rain of fiery death on the doomed fort.

The houses, which are of logs, flame like kindling wood, and now the timber work of the stone bastions is burning from bombs hurtling through the roofs.

The walls crash down in masses.

The scared surgeons, all bloody from amputating shattered limbs, no longer stand in safety above their operating tables.

It is said that Madame Drucourt, the Governor's wife, actually stayed on the walls to encourage the soldiers, with her own hands fired some of the great guns, and, when the overworked surgeons flagged from terror and lack of sleep, it was Madame Drucourt who attended to the wounded.

Drucourt is for holding out to the death, until one dark night the English row into the harbor and capture his two last ships.

Then Drucourt asks for terms, July 26; but the terms are stern,--utter surrender,--and Drucourt would have fought till every man fell from the walls, had not one of the civil officers rushed after the commander's messenger carrying {256} the refusal, and shouted across the ditches to the English: "We accept!

We surrender!

We accept your terms!"

Counting soldiers, marines, and townspeople, in all five thousand French pass over to Amherst, to be carried prisoners on Boscawen's fleet to England.

Wolfe was for proceeding at once to Quebec, but Amherst considered the season too late and determined to complete the work where he was.

One detachment goes to receive the surrender of Isle St. John, henceforth known as Prince Edward Island.

Another division proceeds up St. John River, New Brunswick, burning all settlements that refuse unconditional surrender.

Wolfe's grenadiers are sent to reduce Gaspé and Miramichi and northern New Brunswick.

And now, lest blundering statecraft for a second time return the captured fort to France, Amherst and Boscawen order the complete disarmament and destruction of Louisburg.

What cannon cannot be removed are tumbled into the marsh or upset into the sea.

The stones from the walls are carried away to Halifax.

By 1760, of Louisburg, the glory of New France, the pride of America, there remains not a vestige but grassed slopes overgrown by nettles, ditches with rank growth of weeds, stone piles where the wild vines grow, and an inner yard where the cows of the fisher folk pasture.

Not a poor beginning for the campaign of 1758, though bad enough news has come from Major General Abercrombie, which was the real explanation of Amherst's refusal to push on to Quebec.

Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand men, the pick of the regulars and provincials, had launched out on Lake George on the 5th of July with over one thousand boats, to descend the lake northward to the French fort of Carillon or Ticonderoga.

Again, it would require artist's brush to paint the scene.

Rogers' Rangers, dressed in buckskin, led the way in birch canoes.

Lord Howe was there, dressed like a bushfighter; and with bagpipes setting the echoes ringing amid the lonely mountains, were the Highland regiments in their tartan plaids.

Flags floated from the prow of every boat.

Each battalion had its own regimental {257} band.

Scarcely a breath dimpled the waters of the lake, and the sun shone without a cloud.

Little wonder those who passed through the fiery Aceldama that was to come, afterwards looked back on this scene as the fairest in their lives.

[Illustration: AMHERST] Montcalm had only arrived at Ticonderoga on June 30th.

There was no doubting the news.

His bushrovers brought in word that the English were advancing in such multitudes their boats literally covered the lake.

It looked as if the fate of Fort William Henry were to be reversed.

Montcalm never dreamed of Abercrombie attacking without artillery.

To stay cooped up in the fort would invite destruction.

Therefore Montcalm ordered his men out to construct a circular breastwork from the River of the Chutes on the southeast, which empties Lake George, round towards Lake Champlain on the northwest.

Huge trees were felled, pile on pile, top-most branches spiked and pointed outwards.

Behind these Montcalm intrenched his four thousand men, lying in lines three deep, with grenadiers in reserve behind to step up as the foremost lines fell.

At a cannon signal from the fort the men were to rise to their places, but not to fire till the English were entangled in the brushwood.

It was blisteringly hot weather.

It is said that the troops took off their heavy three-cornered hats and lay in their shirt sleeves, hand on musket, speaking no word, but waiting.

{258} On came the English in martial array, pausing in the Narrows at five o'clock for the troops' evening meal, moving on before daylight of July 6 to the landing place.

The Rangers had brought in word that Lévis was coming posthaste to Montcalm's aid.

Abercrombie thought to defeat Montcalm before reënforcements could come; and now he committed his cardinal error.

He advanced across the portage without his heavy artillery.

Halfway over, the voice of the French scouts rang out, "Who goes there?"

"French," answer the English soldiers; but the French were not tricked.

The ambushed scouts fired.

Lord Howe, the very spirit of the English army, dropped dead, shot through the breast, though the English avenged his loss by cutting the French scouts to pieces.

On the night of the 7th the English army bivouacked in sight of the French barricade.

Promptly at twelve o'clock next day a cannon shot from Ticonderoga brought every Frenchman behind the tree line to his place at a leap.

Abercrombie had ordered his men to rush the barricade.

There was fearful silence till the English were within twenty paces of the trees.

There they broke from quick march to a run with a wild halloo!

Death unerring blazed from the French barricade,--not bullets only, but broken glass and ragged metal that tore hideous wounds in the ranks of the English.

Caught in the brushwood, unable even to see their foes, the maddened troops wavered and fell back.

Again Abercrombie roared the order to charge.

Six times they hurled themselves against the impassable wall, and six times the sharpshooters behind the lines met the advance with a rain of fire.

The Highland troops to the right went almost mad.

Lord John Murray, their commander, had fallen, and not a tenth of their number remained unwounded; but the broadswords wrought small havoc against the spiked branches of the log barricade.

Obstinate as he was stupid, Abercrombie kept his men at the bloody but futile attempt till the sun had set behind the mountains, etching the sad scene with the long painted shadows.

Already almost two thousand English had fallen,--seven hundred killed, the rest wounded.

The French behind the barricade, where Montcalm marched up and down in his shirt {259} sleeves, grimed with smoke, encouraging the men, had lost less than four hundred.

In a spirit of hilarious bravado a young Frenchman sprang to the top of the barricade and waved a coat on the end of his bayonet.

Mistaking it for a flag of surrender, the English ceased firing and dashed up with muskets held on the horizontal above heads.

They were actually scaling the wall when a French officer, realizing the blunder, roared: "Shoot!

shoot!

you fools!

Don't you see those men will seize you?"