Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 15, Part 1

Fort William Henry "I am going on the ninth to sing the war-song at the Lake of Two Mountains, and on the next day at Saut St. Louis,--a long, tiresome, ceremony.

On the twelfth I am off; and I count on having news to tell you by the end of this month or the beginning of next."

Thus Montcalm wrote to his wife from Montreal early in July.

All doubts had been solved.

Prisoners taken on the Hudson and despatches from Versailles had made it certain that Loudon was bound to Louisbourg, carrying with him the best of the troops that had guarded the New York frontier.

The time was come, not only to strike the English on Lake George, but perhaps to seize Fort Edward and carry terror to Albany itself.

Only one difficulty remained, the want of provisions.

Agents were sent to collect corn and bacon among the inhabitants; the curés and militia captains were ordered to aid in the work; and enough was presently found to feed twelve thousand men for a month.

[493] [Footnote 493: Vaudreuil, _Lettres circulates aux Curés et aux Capitaines de Milice des Paroisses du Gouvernement de Montreal, 16 Juin, 1757. _] The emissaries of the Governor had been busy all winter among the tribes of the West and North; and more than a thousand savages, lured by prospect of gifts, scalps, and plunder, were now encamped at Montreal.

Many of them had never visited a French settlement before.

All were eager to see Montcalm, whose exploit in taking Oswego had inflamed their imagination; and one day, on a visit of ceremony, an orator from Michillimackinac addressed the General thus: "We wanted to see this famous man who tramples the English under his feet.

We thought we should find him so tall that his head would be lost in the clouds.

But you are a little man, my Father.

It is when we look into your eyes that we see the greatness of the pine-tree and the fire of the eagle."

[494] [Footnote 494: Bougainville, _Journal_.

] It remained to muster the Mission Indians settled in or near the limits of the colony; and it was to this end that Montcalm went to sing the war-song with the converts of the Two Mountains.

Rigaud, Bougainville, young Longueuil, and others were of the party; and when they landed, the Indians came down to the shore, their priests at their head, and greeted the General with a volley of musketry; then received him after dark in their grand council-lodge, where the circle of wild and savage visages, half seen in the dim light of a few candles, suggested to Bougainville a midnight conclave of wizards.

He acted vicariously the chief part in the ceremony.

"I sang the war-song in the name of M. de Montcalm, and was much applauded.

It was nothing but these words: 'Let us trample the English under our feet,' chanted over and over again, in cadence with the movements of the savages."

Then came the war-feast, against which occasion Montcalm had caused three oxen to be roasted.

[495] On the next day the party went to Caughnawaga, or Saut St. Louis, where the ceremony was repeated; and Bougainville, who again sang the war-song in the name of his commander, was requited by adoption into the clan of the Turtle.

Three more oxen were solemnly devoured, and with one voice the warriors took up the hatchet.

[Footnote 495: Bougainville describes a ceremony in the Mission Church of the Two Mountains in which warriors and squaws sang in the choir.

Ninety-nine years after, in 1856, I was present at a similar ceremony on the same spot, and heard the descendants of the same warriors and squaws sing like their ancestors.

Great changes have since taken place at this old mission.

] Meanwhile troops, Canadians and Indians, were moving by detachments up Lake Champlain.

Fleets of bateaux and canoes followed each other day by day along the capricious lake, in calm or storm, sunshine or rain, till, towards the end of July, the whole force was gathered at Ticonderoga, the base of the intended movement.

Bourlamaque had been there since May with the battalions of Béarn and Royal Roussillon, finishing the fort, sending out war-parties, and trying to discover the force and designs of the English at Fort William Henry.

Ticonderoga is a high rocky promontory between Lake Champlain on the north and the mouth of the outlet of Lake George on the south.

Near its extremity and close to the fort were still encamped the two battalions under Bourlamaque, while bateaux and canoes were passing incessantly up the river of the outlet.

There were scarcely two miles of navigable water, at the end of which the stream fell foaming over a high ledge of rock that barred the way.

Here the French were building a saw-mill; and a wide space had been cleared to form an encampment defended on all sides by an abattis, within which stood the tents of the battalions of La Reine, La Sarre, Languedoc, and Guienne, all commanded by Lévis.

Above the cascade the stream circled through the forest in a series of beautiful rapids, and from the camp of Lévis a road a mile and a half long had been cut to the navigable water above.

At the end of this road there was another fortified camp, formed of colony regulars, Canadians, and Indians, under Rigaud.

It was scarcely a mile farther to Lake George, where on the western side there was an outpost, chiefly of Canadians and Indians; while advanced parties were stationed at Bald Mountain, now called Rogers Rock, and elsewhere on the lake, to watch the movements of the English.

The various encampments just mentioned were ranged along a valley extending four miles from Lake Champlain to Lake George, and bordered by mountains wooded to the top.

Here was gathered a martial population of eight thousand men, including the brightest civilization and the darkest barbarism: from the scholar-soldier Montcalm and his no less accomplished aide-de-camp; from Lévis, conspicuous for graces of person; from a throng of courtly young officers, who would have seemed out of place in that wilderness had they not done their work so well in it; from these to the foulest man eating savage of the uttermost northwest.

Of Indian allies there were nearly two thousand.

One of their tribes, the Iowas, spoke a language which no interpreter understood; and they all bivouacked where they saw fit: for no man could control them.

"I see no difference," says Bougainville, "in the dress, ornaments, dances, and songs of the various western nations.

They go naked, excepting a strip of cloth passed through a belt, and paint themselves black, red, blue, and other colors.

Their heads are shaved and adorned with bunches of feathers, and they wear rings of brass wire in their ears.

They wear beaver-skin blankets, and carry lances, bows and arrows, and quivers made of the skins of beasts.

For the rest they are straight, well made, and generally very tall.

Their religion is brute paganism.

I will say it once for all, one must be the slave of these savages, listen to them day and night, in council and in private, whenever the fancy takes them, or whenever a dream, a fit of the vapors, or their perpetual craving for brandy, gets possession of them; besides which they are always wanting something for their equipment, arms, or toilet, and the general of the army must give written orders for the smallest trifle,--an eternal, wearisome detail, of which one has no idea in Europe."

It was not easy to keep them fed.

Rations would be served to them for a week; they would consume them in three days, and come for more.

On one occasion they took the matter into their own hands, and butchered and devoured eighteen head of cattle intended for the troops; nor did any officer dare oppose this "St. Bartholomew of the oxen," as Bougainville calls it.

"Their paradise is to be drunk," says the young officer.

Their paradise was rather a hell; for sometimes, when mad with brandy, they grappled and tore each other with their teeth like wolves.

They were continually "making medicine," that is, consulting the Manitou, to whom they hung up offerings, sometimes a dead dog, and sometimes the belt-cloth which formed their only garment.

The Mission Indians were better allies than these heathen of the west;

and their priests, who followed them to the war, had great influence over them.

They were armed with guns, which they well knew how to use.

Their dress, though savage, was generally decent, and they were not cannibals; though in other respects they retained all their traditional ferocity and most of their traditional habits.

They held frequent war-feasts, one of which is described by Roubaud, Jesuit missionary of the Abenakis of St. Francis, whose flock formed a part of the company present.

"Imagine," says the father, "a great assembly of savages adorned with every ornament most suited to disfigure them in European eyes, painted with vermilion, white, green, yellow, and black made of soot and the scrapings of pots.

A single savage face combines all these different colors, methodically laid on with the help of a little tallow, which serves for pomatum.

The head is shaved except at the top, where there is a small tuft, to which are fastened feathers, a few beads of wampum, or some such trinket.

Every part of the head has its ornament.

Pendants hang from the nose and also from the ears, which are split in infancy and drawn down by weights till they flap at last against the shoulders.

The rest of the equipment answers to this fantastic decoration: a shirt bedaubed with vermilion, wampum collars, silver bracelets, a large knife hanging on the breast, moose-skin moccasons, and a belt of various colors always absurdly combined.

The sachems and war-chiefs are distinguished from the rest: the latter by a gorget, and the former by a medal, with the King's portrait on one side, and on the other Mars and Bellona joining hands, with the device, _Virtues et Honor_."

Thus attired, the company sat in two lines facing each other, with kettles in the middle filled with meat chopped for distribution.

To a dignified silence succeeded songs, sung by several chiefs in succession, and compared by the narrator to the howling of wolves.

Then followed a speech from the chief orator, highly commended by Roubaud, who could not help admiring this effort of savage eloquence.

"After the harangue," he continues, "they proceeded to nominate the chiefs who were to take command.

As soon as one was named he rose and took the head of some animal that had been butchered for the feast.

He raised it aloft so that all the company could see it, and cried: 'Behold the head of the enemy!'

Applause and cries of joy rose from all parts of the assembly.

The chief, with the head in his hand, passed down between the lines, singing his war-song, bragging of his exploits, taunting and defying the enemy, and glorifying himself beyond all measure.

To hear his self-laudation in these moments of martial transport one would think him a conquering hero ready to sweep everything before him.

As he passed in front of the other savages, they would respond by dull broken cries jerked up from the depths of their stomachs, and accompanied by movements of their bodies so odd that one must be well used to them to keep countenance.

In the course of his song the chief would utter from time to time some grotesque witticism; then he would stop, as if pleased with himself, or rather to listen to the thousand confused cries of applause that greeted his ears.

He kept up his martial promenade as long as he liked the sport; and when he had had enough, ended by flinging down the head of the animal with an air of contempt, to show that his warlike appetite craved meat of another sort."

[496] Others followed with similar songs and pantomime, and the festival was closed at last by ladling out the meat from the kettles, and devouring it.

[Footnote 496: _Lettre du Père_ ...

(Roubaud), _Missionnaire chez les Abnakis, 21 Oct_.

1757, in _Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses_, VI.

189 (1810).

] Roubaud was one day near the fort, when he saw the shore lined with a thousand Indians, watching four or five English prisoners, who, with the war-party that had captured them, were approaching in a boat from the farther side of the water.

Suddenly the whole savage crew broke away together and ran into the neighboring woods, whence they soon emerged, yelling diabolically, each armed with a club.

The wretched prisoners were to be forced to "run the gauntlet" which would probably have killed them.

They were saved by the chief who commanded the war-party, and who, on the persuasion of a French officer, claimed them as his own and forbade the game; upon which, according to rule in such cases, the rest abandoned it.

On this same day the missionary met troops of Indians conducting several bands of English prisoners along the road that led through the forest from the camp of Lévis.

Each of the captives was held by a cord made fast about the neck; and the sweat was starting from their brows in the extremity of their horror and distress.

Roubaud's tent was at this time in the camp of the Ottawas.

He presently saw a large number of them squatted about a fire, before which meat was roasting on sticks stuck in the ground; and, approaching, he saw that it was the flesh of an Englishman, other parts of which were boiling in a kettle, while near by sat eight or ten of the prisoners, forced to see their comrade devoured.

The horror-stricken priest began to remonstrate;

on which a young savage fiercely replied in broken French: "You have French taste; I have Indian.

This is good meat for me;" and the feasters pressed him to share it.

Bougainville says that this abomination could not be prevented; which only means that if force had been used to stop it, the Ottawas would have gone home in a rage.

They were therefore left to finish their meal undisturbed.

Having eaten one of their prisoners, they began to treat the rest with the utmost kindness, bringing them white bread, and attending to all their wants--a seeming change of heart due to the fact that they were a valuable commodity, for which the owners hoped to get a good price at Montreal.

Montcalm wished to send them thither at once, to which after long debate the Indians consented, demanding, however, a receipt in full, and bargaining that the captives should be supplied with shoes and blankets.

[497] [Footnote 497: _Journal de l'Expédition contre le Fort George_ [William Henry] _du 12 Juillet au 16 Août_, 1757. Bougainville, _Journal.

Lettre du P. Roubaud_.

] These unfortunates belonged to a detachment of three hundred provincials, chiefly New Jersey men, sent from Fort William Henry under command of Colonel Parker to reconnoitre the French outposts.

Montcalm's scouts discovered them; on which a band of Indians, considerably more numerous, went to meet them under a French partisan named Corbière, and ambushed themselves not far from Sabbath Day Point.

Parker had rashly divided his force; and at daybreak of the twenty-sixth of July three of his boats fell into the snare, and were captured without a shot.

Three others followed, in ignorance of what had happened, and shared the fate of the first.

When the rest drew near, they were greeted by a deadly volley from the thickets, and a swarm of canoes darted out upon them.

The men were seized with such a panic that some of them jumped into the water to escape, while the Indians leaped after them and speared them with their lances like fish.

"Terrified," says Bougainville, "by the sight of these monsters, their agility, their firing, and their yells, they surrendered almost without resistance."

About a hundred, however, made their escape.

The rest were killed or captured, and three of the bodies were eaten on the spot.

The journalist adds that the victory so elated the Indians that they became insupportable; "but here in the forests of America we can no more do without them than without cavalry on the plain."

[498] [Footnote 498: Bougainville, _Journal_.

Malartic, _Journal.

Montcalm à Vaudreuil, 27 Juillet, 1757. Webb to Loudon, 1 Aug.

1757. Webb to Delancey, 30 July, 1757. Journal de l'Expédition contre le Fort George.

London Magazine_, 1757, 457. Miles, _French and Indian Wars.

Boston Gazette, 15 Aug.

1757. _] Another success at about the same time did not tend to improve their manners.

A hundred and fifty of them, along with a few Canadians under Marin, made a dash at Fort Edward, killed or drove in the pickets, and returned with thirty-two scalps and a prisoner.

It was found, however, that the scalps were far from representing an equal number of heads, the Indians having learned the art of making two or three out of one by judicious division.

[499] [Footnote 499: This affair was much exaggerated at the time.

I follow Bougainville, who had the facts from Marin.

According to him, the thirty-two scalps represented eleven killed; which exactly answers to the English loss as stated by Colonel Frye in a letter from Fort Edward.

] Preparations were urged on with the utmost energy.

Provisions, camp equipage, ammunition, cannon, and bateaux were dragged by gangs of men up the road from the camp of Lévis to the head of the rapids.

The work went on through heat and rain, by day and night, till, at the end of July, all was done.

Now, on the eve of departure, Montcalm, anxious for harmony among his red allies, called them to a grand council near the camp of Rigaud.

Forty-one tribes and sub-tribes, Christian and heathen, from the east and from the west, were represented in it.

Here were the mission savages,--Iroquois of Caughnawaga, Two Mountains, and La Présentation; Hurons of Lorette and Detroit; Nipissings of Lake Nipissing; Abenakis of St. Francis, Becancour, Missisqui, and the Penobscot; Algonkins of Three Rivers and Two Mountains; Micmacs and Malecites from Acadia: in all eight hundred chiefs and warriors.

With these came the heathen of the west,--Ottawas of seven distinct bands;

Ojibwas from Lake Superior, and Mississagas from the region of Lakes Erie and Huron; Pottawattamies and Menomonies from Lake Michigan; Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagoes from Wisconsin; Miamis from the prairies of Illinois, and Iowas from the banks of the Des Moines: nine hundred and seventy-nine chiefs and warriors, men of the forests and men of the plains, hunters of the moose and hunters of the buffalo, bearers of steel hatchets and stone war-clubs, of French guns and of flint-headed arrows.

All sat in silence, decked with ceremonial paint, scalp-locks, eagle plumes, or horns of buffalo; and the dark and wild assemblage was edged with white uniforms of officers from France, who came in numbers to the spectacle.

Other officers were also here, all belonging to the colony.

They had been appointed to the command of the Indian allies, over whom, however, they had little or no real authority.

First among them was the bold and hardy Saint-Luc de la Corne, who was called general of the Indians; and under him were others, each assigned to some tribe or group of tribes,--the intrepid Marin; Charles Langlade, who had left his squaw wife at Michillimackinac to join the war; Niverville, Langis, La Plante, Hertel, Longueuil, Herbin, Lorimier, Sabrevois, and Fleurimont; men familiar from childhood with forests and savages.

Each tribe had its interpreter, often as lawless as those with whom he had spent his life; and for the converted tribes there were three missionaries,--Piquet for the Iroquois, Mathevet for the Nipissings, who were half heathen, and Roubaud for the Abenakis.

[500] [Footnote 500: The above is chiefly from _Tableau des Sauvages qui se trouvent à l'Armée du Marquis de Montcalm, le 28 Juillet, 1757_.

Forty-one tribes and sub-tribes are here named, some, however, represented by only three or four warriors.

Besides those set down under the head of Christians, it is stated that a few of the Ottawas of Detroit and Michillimackinac still retained the faith.

]