Ben Comee Part 13

Captain Jacob ran off with his Indians, crying out to us: "Come on!

Follow me! No good stay here. Heap French! Heap Injun!"

"That's Injun all over," said Martin. "If he gets the upper hand, he'll fight like fury. But if the odds are against him, he'll run like a deer."

We got behind trees and logs, and kept the enemy back. Rogers came round through the woods; and as the attention of the enemy was given entirely to us, he and his party made a rush and joined us.

The enemy had us pretty well surrounded, but we broke through them, losing eight men. We rallied at our boats, and returned home.

[Sidenote: THE ARMY EMBARKS FOR TICONDEROGA]

By the 28th of June the whole army under General Abercrombie had arrived at Lake George. A great deal of time seemed to be wasted. But on the 5th of July the whole army of nearly sixteen thousand men embarked in boats and batteaux for Ticonderoga. The advanced guard was up and out on the lake before daylight,--the light infantry on the right, our Rangers on the left, and Colonel Bradstreet's batteaux men in the centre.

Then came the main body of the army,--the provincials, dressed in blue with red facings, on the right and left wings. In the centre were the regulars, in scarlet with white facings, and the 42d Regiment, the Black Watch, in kilts and tartans. Behind them came the rear guard of provincials.

The whole army was on the lake as the sun rose, breaking up the mist on the hillsides. The lake was calm and without a ripple.

It was a sight I shall never forget,--the beautiful lake covered by over a thousand boats, the various coloured uniforms, the gun-barrels glittering in the sun, the flags of the different regiments, the bagpipes and bands playing, the pretty islands, the green hills and mountains, the mist rising and floating away.

The army rowed till twilight, when we reached Sabbath Day Point, where we rested and ate some food; at ten we started again, and at daybreak the Rangers reached the lower part of the lake. We landed, and received orders from Captain Abercrombie, one of the general's aides-de-camp, to gain the top of a mountain a mile from the landing, and from there to march east to the river that flows into the falls, and get possession of some rising ground there. When we had done this, we were to wait for the army to come up. In an hour's time we got to the rising ground, and found quite a large body of French in front of us. We waited for further orders.

At noon some provincial troops under Colonels Fitch and Lyman came up.

And while Rogers was talking to them we heard a sharp firing in the rear of these troops.

Rogers led us round to the left, and we met a force of the enemy who were fighting our men, and had thrown them into confusion. We engaged with them, and killed many. Lord Howe, with Major Israel Putnam and his men, came up on the other side of the French, who were thus surrounded, and almost all of them were killed or captured.

[Sidenote: LORD HOWE'S DEATH]

It was a party of some four hundred Canadians, who had been sent out to watch us, and though they were good woodsmen, they had lost their way in the dense forest, and had wandered into the middle of our army.

There seemed to be a great commotion among Lord Howe's men. I ran over to them with Captain Stark; and there we saw Lord Howe stretched out on the ground--dead.

John Stark is not a man easily stirred. I remember at the battle of Bunker's Hill, when a man rushed up to him, and told him that his son was killed,--which was a mistake, for he is alive at this day,--John turned to the man and said: "Back to your post. This is no time to think of our private affairs."

But when he saw that brilliant soldier, that man whose virtues, accomplishments, and genial, lovable nature showed us what a man might be, lying there, dead, he knelt down beside him, and the tears ran down his cheeks. All of us were overcome with grief, we loved the man so much.

Stark took his hand, bent over, and kissed his forehead.

"Good-by, my dear friend. G.o.d bless you and have mercy on us." He rose, and I walked away with him.

"Comee, the life is departed out of Israel. I have no further faith in this expedition. Our sun is set."

We mourned his loss a long time, and our Province raised the money for a great monument, which was erected to him in Westminster Abbey, in memory of "the affection her officers and soldiers bore to his command."

After Lord Howe was killed, everything fell into disorder. The army became all mixed up in the thick woods, and was sent back to the landing-place.

CHAPTER XI

FORT TICONDEROGA AND THE a.s.sAULT

The following morning the Rangers were sent to the front, to the place we occupied the day before. Captain Stark with Captain Abercrombie and Mr. Clark, the engineer, went with two hundred Rangers to Rattlesnake Hill to reconnoitre the French works.

Fort Ticonderoga was at the southern end of the narrow strip of land which lies between Lake Champlain and the outlet of Lake George. A half-mile to the north of the fort, a little ridge runs across the peninsula. As we looked down from the hill, we saw the French hard at work on a strong breastwork of logs which they had nearly completed. At either end of it was low, marshy ground, difficult to pa.s.s. The breastwork zigzagged along the ridge in such a manner that if troops attacked it, the French could rake them with grapeshot, and it was too high to climb over.

"How are we going to get over that breastwork, Edmund? There's no slope to it, and we can't reach within two feet of the top."

"Oh, we'll knock it to pieces with cannon, and then we can rush over it.

Our officers will know what to do."

"There won't be any rushing through that ma.s.s of sharpened stakes that they have driven into the ground in front of the works."

"No. That's so. There's a regular thicket of them with the points sticking out toward us. They'll have to be cut off or torn up, and the French will be raking us all the time."

"See those Canadians cutting down the forest just beyond the stakes. The tops of the trees fall outward, and the branches are matted together. If Abercrombie thinks his army can march up to the breastwork, he's greatly mistaken."

"Yes; it will be a piece of work to scramble through those branches; and then comes the abattis of stakes; and then a wall eight feet high.

Montcalm knows his business, Ben. I wish he were on our side. We shall have no easy task. It looks tough to-day, and it will be worse to-morrow."

[Sidenote: THEY INSPECT TICONDEROGA]

"We shall lose a good many men. Possibly we may go through the swamp, at the ends of the breastwork."

"Where's Amos?"

We looked round and saw Amos, with his back turned toward us. He seemed deeply interested.

"What is it, Amos? What are you looking at?"

"I tell you, boys, I think this hill's about the best place for p-pigeons I ever saw. There's a good spot for a booth, and that little tree would make a fine standard for a p-pigeon p-pole."

"Hang your pigeons! You may be dead to-morrow. Look down the lake, Edmund. See the reenforcements of French regulars with their white coats rowing up Champlain. They'll be at Fort Ti in half an hour."

We were told to get ready to go back. I overheard Mr. Clark say:--

"Oh, we can take a place like that by an a.s.sault with small arms. We'll give them a taste of the bayonet. We don't need cannon."

Stark replied: "I don't think so. Bring some cannon up here, and you can rake the breastwork and drive them out; or take cannon round in front, and you can knock the breastwork to pieces in half an hour, and then you can easily take the place by a.s.sault; but otherwise you cannot."

"Oh, I a.s.sure you, my dear sir, we can carry a place like that by an a.s.sault easily. You provincials have no idea what British officers and British regulars can do."

"I know what Braddock did," said Stark.

We came down the mountain and joined the rest of the Rangers. Stark went with Clark to report to General Abercrombie. He returned and said that Abercrombie had agreed with Clark on an attack with small arms only.

"To-morrow you'll see a sad sight. You'll see the finest army there ever was in America killed off by the stupidity of its commanding officer.

Why couldn't poor Lord Howe have been spared two days longer, to win everlasting renown? We talked this over as we lay on our bearskins at Sabbath Day Point; and if he were alive, there would be no such tomfoolery and murder."