A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 25

[Sidenote: _Troops sent from England and from France._]

[Sidenote: _The 'Alcide' and the 'Lys' intercepted by Admiral Boscawen._]

The appeal was not made in vain; two regiments of infantry, the 44th and 48th, now the Ess.e.x and Northampton regiments, were ordered to embark for Virginia, and sailed from Cork in January, 1755, with Major-General Braddock in command. The French Government, taking alarm, ordered out 3,000 men under Baron Dieskau, a German serving in the French army; and at the beginning of May, 1755, eighteen French ships sailed from Brest carrying to Canada the troops and their commander, and taking out at the same time a new Governor-General, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Most of the vessels reached their destination in safety; but two, the _Alcide_ and _Lys_, were intercepted by the English Admiral Boscawen, off the coast of Newfoundland, were fired into, and compelled to surrender.[6] There was still supposed to be peace between Great Britain and France, but the backwoods of America and the waters of the Atlantic echoed to the sounds of war.

[Footnote 6: The _Alcide_ was overpowered by the _Dunkirk_, commanded by the afterwards famous Admiral Lord Howe.]

[Sidenote: _Scheme of the English campaign against Canada._]

At four points, according to the English plan of campaign Canada was to be threatened and the French advance was to be checked. Braddock, with his two English regiments, was to march on Fort Duquesne. From Albany the second and {235} the third expeditions were to start. One, marching due north, was to master Crown Point on Lake Champlain; the other, taking the route of the Five Nation cantons, and having for its advanced base Oswego on Lake Ontario, was to reduce the French fort at Niagara. The fourth effort was to be made in Acadia. This last enterprise proved successful, as has already been seen, Shirley having previously prepared the way by building a fort on the mainland behind the peninsula, at the portage between the Kennebec and the Chaudiere rivers. What fate befell the other expeditions must now be told.

[Sidenote: _General Braddock._]

History has been unkind to General Braddock. His name is a.s.sociated for ever with a great disaster in North America, as the name of Wolfe is linked to a crowning victory. Like Wolfe, Braddock was mortally wounded on the field of battle; he was defeated, and obloquy was heaped on his name. Wolfe triumphed, and all men spoke well of him.

The accounts of Braddock are largely derived from the spiteful gossip collected by Horace Walpole, and from the writings of Franklin--never a lover of the mother country, and, after the War of Independence, glad, like others of his countrymen, to throw the blame of an English defeat upon a commander sent out from England. We have a portrait given us of a brutal, bl.u.s.tering, and incompetent soldier, a man of coa.r.s.e habits and broken fortunes, with little to recommend him but personal honesty and courage. 'Braddock is a very Iroquois in disposition,'[7] writes Horace Walpole. Before the fatal battle the same writer tells us in the same letter, 'the duke (of c.u.mberland) is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped.' After the disaster he writes, 'Braddock's defeat still remains in the situation of the longest battle that ever was fought with n.o.body.'[8] The {236} Braddocks of England, with all their failings, have deserved better of their country than the Horace Walpoles.

[Footnote 7: _Letters of Horace Walpole_ (Bohn's ed., 1861), vol. ii, p. 459 (Letter of Aug. 25, 1755).]

[Footnote 8: Ibid. p. 473 (Letter of Sept. 30, 1755).]

Born in 1695, the son of an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and an officer of the Guards himself, he was sixty years old when sent out to America by the Duke of c.u.mberland. He had the reputation of being a very severe disciplinarian, and yet we have Walpole's own admission that while serving at Gibraltar, 'he made himself adored.'[9] He was criticized by Franklin as being too self-confident, and as having too high an opinion of European as compared with colonial troops; but, on the other hand, the scanty colonial levies which reached him had not shown high fighting qualities, and his care for transport and supplies, together with his anxiety to conciliate and use the Indians on the line of march, were evidence of prudence and military forethought. Burke wrote of him as 'abounding too much in his own sense for the degree of military knowledge he possessed';[10] but probably Wolfe's judgement upon him was sound, that 'though not a master of the difficult art of war, he was yet a man of sense and courage,'[11] and we may reasonably infer that the shortcomings of the colonists were unjustly visited on his head.

[Footnote 9: _Letters of Horace Walpole_, p. 461 (Letter of Aug. 28, 1755).]

[Footnote 10: _Annual Register_, 1758, p. 4.]

[Footnote 11: Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 324.]

[Sidenote: _Braddock's march on Fort Duquesne._]

Late in February, 1755, the English troops and their commander reached Hampton in Virginia, at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. In due course they were sent up the Potomac to Alexandria, where in April Braddock met the Governors of the various colonies, including Shirley, and settled with them the plan of campaign. He himself prepared to march on Fort Duquesne by the route which Washington had taken, but found endless difficulty in obtaining horses, wagons, and supplies. Virginia and Pennsylvania were still half-hearted, and inclined to think that the danger {237} of French invasion was a scare created in the interests of the Ohio Company. It was not the first time, and not the last, that a real crisis has been interpreted as the work of a designing few. However, a base was established, as before, at Fort c.u.mberland on Wills Creek, and early in June the march began.

The force consisted of about 2,000 men, 1,350 of whom belonged to the two regiments of the line. There were some 250 Virginia rangers, and the rest were detachments from New York, Maryland, and the Carolinas.

The troops were formed in two brigades, under Sir Peter Halkett and Colonel Dunbar. Washington, ill with fever, was attached to Braddock's staff, by the General's own request. Steadily and well the advance on Fort Duquesne was made; a road was cleared through forests and over mountains; and every precaution was taken against surprise.

But progress was inevitably slow; and, at a distance of forty miles from Fort c.u.mberland, Braddock, on Washington's advice, resolved to push forward with the larger half of his troops, leaving the remainder with the heavy baggage to follow under charge of Colonel Dunbar. The object was to reach Fort Duquesne before reinforcements could arrive from Canada.

[Sidenote: _The fight on the Monongahela._]

At the end of the first week in July, Braddock was eight miles distant from the French fort, at a point where a little stream, called Turtle Creek, flows into the Monongahela. He was on the same side of the latter river as the fort, which stood on the right bank of the Monongahela, in the angle which it forms with the Alleghany; but the direct route pa.s.sed through country suitable for ambuscade; and he therefore resolved to make a short detour, crossing the Monongahela, and recrossing it lower down the stream. On July 9, the movement was successfully carried out; no opposition at either ford being offered by the enemy. The troops moved on; and, early in the afternoon, at a little distance from the river, as the line of march crossed a shallow {238} forest-clad ravine, there was a sudden check; a French officer sprang out in front of the advancing column, and forthwith, in a moment, at his signal, the thickets were alive with foes.

[Sidenote: _Rout of the English._]

The scene which followed was one not uncommon in the story of colonial warfare. The first attack was answered by artillery fire; the French commander, De Beaujeu, was killed, and many of the Canadians fled. But the majority of the enemy, with whom the English had to deal, were Indians, who dispersed on this side and on that, hiding behind trees, and attacking either flank of the column, active and noisy out of all proportion to their numbers. The English vanguard fell back, the supports crowded up, the redcoated soldiers stood in close formation, an easy mark for the invisible foe. They fired at nothing, for nothing could be seen; all around was a hideous din, from every side came bullets dealing death. The men were bewildered, the ammunition began to fail, confusion turned into panic, and, when at length the order for retreat was given, there was a headlong flight.

[Sidenote: _Braddock mortally wounded._]

The survivors rushed across the river, taking with them the General mortally wounded; no stand was made at the first crossing or at the second; and when, in about two days' time, the fugitives reached Dunbar's camp, many miles distant, they found panic prevailing there also. The retreat was continued to Fort c.u.mberland, stores, guns, and wagons being abandoned; and not many days after Fort c.u.mberland had been reached, Dunbar marched off with the remains of the regular troops to Philadelphia.

[Sidenote: _Death of Braddock._]

Braddock had shown conspicuous bravery, if not conspicuous judgment, on the battlefield. He was shot through the lungs as the retreat began, and bade his men leave him where he fell. They carried him, however, from the fight; and for four days he lingered, reaching Dunbar's camp, and dying at Great Meadows on July 13. Of 1,460 {239} British and colonial officers and men who took part in the battle, nearly 900 were killed or wounded. Those who escaped, escaped with their lives alone. On the French side the numbers engaged appear not to have exceeded 900, three-fourths of whom were Indians. The English force included over 1,200 regulars; the battle therefore resulted in a crushing defeat of troops of the line by a smaller number of Indians, with a sprinkling of Frenchmen and Canadians, led by French officers.

[Sidenote: _Blame for the disaster._]

The disaster was attributed to the incompetence of the General, and the bad quality of the regular troops; it was said that the few Virginians who were present fought well, in contrast to their English comrades; that, knowing bush fighting, and taking cover, they were driven into the open by Braddock, only to be shot down like the rest.

These accounts must be taken with reserve; the testimony of Washington and others was prejudiced in favour of the colonial and against the British soldier; Braddock did not live to give his own version of the matter; and the two regular regiments, having been brought up to strength since their arrival in America, included many colonists in their ranks. Yet it must be supposed that, as the column neared its destination unopposed, there was some slackening of precaution, for which the General must be held to blame; while Wolfe set down the defeat to the bad conduct of the infantry, writing in strong terms of the want of military training in the English army, as compared with the armies of the continent.[12]

[Footnote 12: Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 324.]

[Sidenote: _Bad conduct of the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania._]

But, even if the defeat and rout on the Monongahela was due to the shortcomings of the English troops and their commander, we may well ask why troops from the mother country were needed to protect the frontiers of the two strong colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The whole story shows these colonies in the worst possible light.

They {240} had ample warning of the importance of securing Fort Duquesne; they allowed it to fall into the hands of the French; they threw on the mother country the onus of recovering it: they hindered Braddock rather than helped him; and, when he failed, they debited him and his men with the whole blame of failure. It was not wonderful that soldiers fresh from England should be stampeded at their first venture in forest warfare, but it was wonderful that the men on the spot should be so utterly indifferent to the calls, both of patriotism and of self-interest, as to contribute to the disaster.

[Sidenote: _They suffer in consequence._]

Bad as was the failure, it was a blessing in disguise. The colonies concerned were for a time left to bear their own burdens; French and Indians harried their frontiers; homesteads and villages were burnt; women and children were butchered or carried into captivity. While sleek Quakers and garrulous a.s.sembly men prated of peace and local liberties, the outlying settlements were given over to fire and sword; until the southern colonists began to learn the lesson, which New England had long since learnt, that the first duty of any community is self-defence.

[Sidenote: _William Johnson._]

[Sidenote: _His influence with the Five Nation Indians._]

On the Mohawk river, about thirty miles to the north-west of Albany, there lived a nephew of Sir Peter Warren, named William Johnson. He had come out to America in 1738, when he was twenty-three years old, to manage estates which his uncle had bought on the confines of the Five Nation Indians. He lived a semi-savage life, in a house constructed as a fort and named Fort Johnson or Mount Johnson, taking to wife first a German woman, and then an Iroquois. His position among the Indians was not unlike that which the Baron de Castin had held in bygone years on the Pen.o.bscot. He knew and understood the natives and their ways, he spoke their language, and his honest dealings contrasted favourably with the rascalities of the border traders. He was a type of man, more common on the French side than on the English, {241} who lived within, not outside, the circle of native life; and, having these versatile attributes, it is almost superfluous to add that he was an Irishman. For the rest, Johnson was a man of force and energy, whose tact and talents were by no means confined to the backwoods. He did good service to his King and country, and was not at all inclined to hide his light under a bushel. His value to the English cause in North America cannot be overestimated. His personal influence among the Mohawks counterbalanced the influence of the Frenchman Joncaire among the Senecas at the other end of the confederacy; and, being appointed Superintendent of, or Commissioner for, Indian affairs, he, and he alone, kept alive the old covenant of friendship between the English and the Five Nation Indians.

[Sidenote: _He commands the expedition against Crown Point._]

[Sidenote: _Building of Fort Edward._]

When it was decided to send an expedition against Crown Point, Shirley gave him the command, and Braddock confirmed the appointment.

He had no military experience, though he was a colonel of militia; but the whole force under him consisted of colonists, preferring to be led by a man who knew the country and its people than by a trained soldier. Preparations were made for raising 6,000 to 7,000 men.

Ma.s.sachusetts, as usual, contributed the largest levy; the other New England colonies and New York sent or promised smaller forces, and some 300 Mohawk Indians joined the expedition, finding that it was commanded by the white man, whom of all others they trusted and loved. The actual numbers engaged, however, did not much exceed 3,000 fighting men. In July they met at Albany and moved up the Hudson, for about forty-five miles, to the 'Carrying Place,' the spot where the portage begins to the waters which run to the St. Lawrence. Here, on the eastern side of the Hudson, a beginning was made of a fort, called for the time Fort Lyman, after Phineas Lyman, second in command of the expedition, but a little later rechristened Fort Edward.

[Sidenote: _Course of the Hudson._]

The Hudson river rises in the Adirondack mountains, to {242} the west of Lake George, and flows in a south-easterly direction, until it reaches a point south-west by south of the southern end of the lake.

Here for some miles it takes a due easterly course, at right angles to the line of the lake, until, at Sandy Hill, near where Fort Edward was founded, it turns due south, and flows due south into the Atlantic. It appears to prolong to southward the line of Lake George and Lake Champlain; but the watersheds are distinct, the two lakes in question drain to the north, and eventually discharge through the Richelieu river into the St. Lawrence.

[Sidenote: _Lakes George and Champlain._]

They form a long narrow basin running north and south between the Adirondacks on the west and the Green mountains of Vermont on the east. No stream of any size feeds Lake George; it stretches for between thirty and forty miles from south-west to north-east, overshadowed by the Adirondacks; and, narrowing at the northern end, finds an outlet into Lake Champlain by a semicircular channel, which enters the larger lake from west to east. This channel is broken by rapids, and in the angle which it forms with Lake Champlain stands Ticonderoga.

Lake Champlain is here a broad river rather than a lake, having narrowed into the similitude of a river from where, fifteen miles further north, the isthmus of Crown Point juts out on the western side of the lake. But it does not end at Ticonderoga, where it meets the waters of Lake George. It continues southwards in a direct line, very roughly parallel to Lake George, still narrowing in its upward course, through the marshes known as the Drowned Lands, past a little subsidiary lake on the western side known as South Bay, over against which now stands the small town of Whitehall, and ending in a stream known as Wood Creek. The sources of Wood Creek are but a few miles distant from the point, already noted, where the Hudson turns south to form the central valley of New York State, and where Johnson, in the summer of 1755, was busy constructing Fort Lyman.

{243} [Sidenote: _Johnson encamps at the end of Lake George._]

Johnson's objective was Crown Point; and to reach it he had a choice of two parallel routes, either of which involved a portage from the Hudson watershed to that of Lake Champlain. He could take either the western line by Lake George, or the eastern line by Wood Creek. He chose the former, and making a road for fourteen miles from Fort Lyman to the head--the southern end--of Lake George, encamped there at the end of August with over 2,000 men, leaving 500 men behind to garrison Fort Lyman.