[Footnote 393: The above particulars are gathered from the voluminous papers in the State House at Boston, _Archives, Military_, Vols. LXXV., LXXVI. These contain the military acts of the General Court, proclamations, reports of committees, and other papers relating to military affairs in 1755 and 1756. The _Letter and Order Books of Winslow_, in the Library of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, have supplied much concurrent matter. See also _Colonial Records of R.I._, V., and _Provincial Papers of N.H._, VI.]

From Winslow's headquarters at Half-Moon a road led along the banks of the Hudson to Stillwater, whence there was water carriage to Saratoga.

Here stores were again placed in wagons and carried several miles to Upper Falls; thence by boat to Fort Edward; and thence, fourteen miles across country, to Fort William Henry at Lake George, where the army was to embark for Ticonderoga. Each of the points of transit below Fort Edward was guarded by a stockade and two or more companies of provincials. They were much pestered by Indians, who now and then scalped a straggler, and escaped with their usual nimbleness. From time to time strong bands of Canadians and Indians approached by way of South Bay or Wood Creek, and threatened more serious mischief. It is surprising that some of the trains were not cut off, for the escorts were often reckless and disorderly to the last degree. Sometimes the invaders showed great audacity. Early in June Colonel Fitch at Albany scrawls a hasty note to Winslow: "Friday, 11 o'clock: Sir, about half an hour since, a party of near fifty French and Indians had the impudence to come down to the river opposite to this city and captivate two men;"

and Winslow replies with equal quaintness: "We daily discover the Indians about us; but not yet have been so happy as to obtain any of them."[394]

[Footnote 394: Vaudreuil, in his despatch of 12 August, gives particulars of these raids, with an account of the scalps taken on each occasion. He thought the results disappointing.]

Colonel Jonathan Bagley commanded at Fort William Henry, where gangs of men were busied under his eye in building three sloops and making several hundred whaleboats to carry the army of Ticonderoga. The season was advancing fast, and Winslow urged him to hasten on the work; to which the humorous Bagley answered; "Shall leave no stone unturned; every wheel shall go that rum and human flesh can move."[395] A fortnight after he reports: "I must really confess I have almost wore the men out, poor dogs. Pray where are the committee, or what are they about?" He sent scouts to watch the enemy, with results not quite satisfactory. "There is a vast deal of news here; every party brings abundance, but all different." Again, a little later: "I constantly keep out small scouting parties to the eastward and westward of the lake, and make no discovery but the tracks of small parties who are plaguing us constantly; but what vexes me most, we can't catch one of the sons of----. I have sent out skulking parties some distance from the sentries in the night, to lie still in the bushes to intercept them; but the flies are so plenty, our people can't bear them."[396] Colonel David Wooster, at Fort Edward, was no more fortunate in his attempts to take satisfaction on his midnight visitors; and reports that he has not thus far been able "to give those villains a dressing."[397] The English, however, were fast learning the art of forest war, and the partisan chief, Captain Robert Rogers, began already to be famous. On the seventeenth of June he and his band lay hidden in the bushes within the outposts of Ticonderoga, and made a close survey of the fort and surrounding camps.[398] His report was not cheering. Winslow's so-called army had now grown to nearly seven thousand men; and these, it was plain, were not too many to drive the French from their stronghold.

[Footnote 395: _Bagley to Winslow, 2 July, 1756._]

[Footnote 396: _Ibid., 15 July, 1756._]

[Footnote 397: _Wooster to Winslow, 2 June, 1756._]

[Footnote 398: _Report of Rogers, 19 June, 1756._ Much abridged in his published _Journals_.]

While Winslow pursued his preparations, tried to settle disputes of rank among the colonels of the several colonies, and strove to bring order out of the little chaos of his command, Sir William Johnson was engaged in a work for which he was admirably fitted. This was the attaching of the Five Nations to the English interest. Along with his patent of baronetcy, which reached him about this time, he received, direct from the Crown, the commission of "Colonel, Agent, and Sole Superintendent of the Six Nations and other Northern Tribes."[399] Henceforth he was independent of governors and generals, and responsible to the Court alone. His task was a difficult one. The Five Nations would fain have remained neutral, and let the European rivals fight it out; but, on account of their local position, they could not. The exactions and lies of the Albany traders, the frauds of land-speculators, the contradictory action of the different provincial governments, joined to English weakness and mismanagement in the last war, all conspired to alienate them and to aid the efforts of the French agents, who cajoled and threatened them by turns. But for Johnson these intrigues would have prevailed. He had held a series of councils with them at Fort Johnson during the winter, and not only drew from them a promise to stand by the English, but persuaded all the confederated tribes, except the Cayugas, to consent that the English should build forts near their chief towns, under the pretext of protecting them from the French.[400]

[Footnote 399: _Fox to Johnson, 13 March, 1756. Papers of Sir William Johnson._]

[Footnote 400: _Conferences between Sir William Johnson and the Indians, Dec. 1755, to Feb. 1756_, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VII. 44-74. _Account of Conferences held and Treaties made between Sir William Johnson, Bart., and the Indian Nations of North America_ (London, 1756).]

In June he went to Onondaga, well escorted, for the way was dangerous.

This capital of the Confederacy was under a cloud. It had just lost one Red Head, its chief sachem; and first of all it behooved the baronet to condole their affliction. The ceremony was long, with compliments, lugubrious speeches, wampum-belts, the scalp of an enemy to replace the departed, and a final gla.s.s of rum for each of the a.s.sembled mourners.

The conferences lasted a fortnight; and when Johnson took his leave, the tribes stood pledged to lift the hatchet for the English.[401]

[Footnote 401: _Minutes of Councils of Onondaga, 19 June to 3 July, 1756_, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VII. 134-150.]

When he returned to Fort Johnson a fever seized him, and he lay helpless for a time; then rose from his sick bed to meet another congregation of Indians. These were deputies of the Five Nations, with Mohegans from the Hudson, and Delawares and Shawanoes from the Susquehanna, whom he had persuaded to visit him in hope that he might induce them to cease from murdering the border settlers. All their tribesmen were in arms against the English; but he prevailed at last, and they accepted the war-belt at his hands. The Delawares complained that their old conquerors, the Five Nations, had forced them "to wear the petticoat," that is, to be counted not as warriors but as women. Johnson, in presence of all the a.s.sembly, now took off the figurative garment, and p.r.o.nounced them henceforth men.

A grand war-dance followed. A hundred and fifty Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Delawares, Shawanoes, and Mohegans stamped, whooped, and yelled all night.[402] In spite of Piquet, the two Joncaires, and the rest of the French agents, Johnson had achieved a success. But would the Indians keep their word? It was more than doubtful. While some of them treated with him on the Mohawk, others treated with Vaudreuil at Montreal.[403] A display of military vigor on the English side, crowned by some signal victory, would alone make their alliance sure.

[Footnote 402: _Minutes of Councils at Fort Johnson, 9 July to 12 July_, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, VII. 152-160.]

[Footnote 403: _Conferences between M. de Vaudreuil and the Five Nations, 28 July to 20 Aug._, in _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X. 445-453.]

It was not the French only who thwarted the efforts of Johnson; for while he strove to make friends of the Delawares and Shawanoes, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania declared war against them, and Governor Belcher of New Jersey followed his example; though persuaded at last to hold his hand till the baronet had tried the virtue of pacific measures.[404]

[Footnote 404: _Johnson to Lords of Trade, 28 May, 1756. Ibid., 17 July, 1756. Johnson to Shirley, 24 April, 1756. Colonial Records of Pa._, VII.

75, 88, 194.]

What Shirley longed for was the collecting of a body of Five Nation warriors at Oswego to aid him in his cherished enterprise against Niagara and Frontenac. The warriors had promised him to come; but there was small hope that they would do so. Meanwhile he was at Albany pursuing his preparations, posting his scanty force in the forts newly built on the Mohawk and the Great Carrying Place, and sending forward stores and provisions. Having no troops to spare for escorts, he invented a plan which, like everything he did, was bitterly criticised.

He took into pay two thousand boatmen, gathered from all parts of the country, including many whale-men from the eastern coasts of New England, divided them into companies of fifty, armed each with a gun and a hatchet, and placed them under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Bradstreet.[405] Thus organized, they would, he hoped, require no escort. Bradstreet was a New England officer who had been a captain in the last war, somewhat dogged and self-opinioned, but brave, energetic, and well fitted for this kind of service.

[Footnote 405: _Shirley to Fox, 7 May, 1756. Shirley to Abercromby, 27 June, 1756. London to Fox, 19 Aug. 1756._]

In May Vaudreuil sent Coulon de Villiers with eleven hundred soldiers, Canadians, and Indians, to hara.s.s Oswego and cut its communications with Albany.[406] Nevertheless Bradstreet safely conducted a convoy of provisions and military stores to the garrison; and on the third of July set out on his return with the empty boats. The party were pushing their way up the river in three divisions. The first of these, consisting of a hundred boats and three hundred men, with Bradstreet at their head, were about nine miles from Oswego, when, at three in the afternoon, they received a heavy volley from the forest on the east bank. It was fired by a part of Villiers' command, consisting, by English accounts, of about seven hundred men. A considerable number of the boatmen were killed or disabled, and the others made for the shelter of the western sh.o.r.e. Some prisoners were taken in the confusion; and if the French had been content to stop here, they might fairly have claimed a kind of victory; but, eager to push their advantage, they tried to cross under cover of an island just above. Bradstreet saw the movement, and landed on the island with six or eight followers, among whom was young Captain Schuyler, afterwards General Schuyler of the Revolution. Their fire kept the enemy in check till others joined them, to the number of about twenty. These a second and a third time beat back the French, who now gave over the attempt, and made for another ford at some distance above.

Bradstreet saw their intention; and collecting two hundred and fifty men, was about to advance up the west bank to oppose them, when Dr.

Kirkland, a surgeon, came to tell him that the second division of boats had come up, and that the men had landed. Bradstreet ordered them to stay where they were, and defend the lower crossing: then hastened forward; but when he reached the upper ford, the French had pa.s.sed the river, and were ensconced in a pine-swamp near the sh.o.r.e. Here he attacked them; and both parties fired at each other from behind trees for an hour, with little effect. Bradstreet at length encouraged his men to make a rush at the enemy, who were put to flight and driven into the river, where many were shot or drowned as they tried to cross. Another party of the French had meanwhile pa.s.sed by a ford still higher up to support their comrades; but the fight was over before they reached the spot, and they in their turn were set upon and driven back across the stream. Half an hour after, Captain Patten arrived from Onondaga with the grenadiers of Shirley's regiment; and late in the evening two hundred men came from Oswego to reinforce the victors. In the morning Bradstreet prepared to follow the French to their camp, twelve miles distant; but was prevented by a heavy rain which lasted all day. On the Monday following, he and his men reached Albany, bringing two prisoners, eighty French muskets, and many knapsacks picked up in the woods. He had lost between sixty and seventy killed, wounded, and taken.[407]

[Footnote 406: _Detail de ce qui s'est pa.s.se en Canada, Oct. 1755 Juin, 1756_.]

[Footnote 407: _Letter of J. Choate, Albany, 12 July, 1756_, in Ma.s.sachusetts Archives, LV. _Three Letters from Albany, July, Aug.

1756_, in _Doc. Hist, of N.Y._, I. 482. _Review of Military Operations.

Shirley to Fox, 26 July, 1756. Abercromby to Sir Charles Hardy, 11 July, 1756_. Niles, in _Ma.s.s. His. Coll., Fourth Series_, V. 417. Lossing, _Life of Schuyler_, I. 121 (1860). Mante, 60. Bradstreet's conduct on this occasion afterwards gained for him the warm praises of Wolfe.]

This affair was trumpeted through Canada as a victory of the French.

Their notices of it are discordant, though very brief. One of them says that Villiers had four hundred men. Another gives him five hundred, and a third eight hundred, against fifteen hundred English, of whom they killed eight hundred, or an Englishman apiece. A fourth writer boasts that six hundred Frenchmen killed nine hundred English. A fifth contents himself with four hundred; but thinks that forty more would have been slain if the Indians had not fired too soon. He says further that there were three hundred boats; and presently forgetting himself, adds that five hundred were taken or destroyed. A sixth announces a great capture of stores and provisions, though all the boats were empty. A seventh reports that the Canadians killed about three hundred, and would have killed more but for the bad quality of their tomahawks. An eighth, with rare modesty, puts the English loss at fifty or sixty. That of Villiers is given in every proportion of killed or wounded, from one up to ten.

Thus was Canada roused to martial ardor, and taught to look for future triumphs cheaply bought.[408]

[Footnote 408: _Nouvelles du Camp etabli au Portage de Chouaguen, premiere Relation. Ibid., Seconde Relation, 10 Juillet, 1756_.

Bougainville, _Journal_, who gives the report as he heard it _Lettre du R.P. Cocquard, S.J., 1756. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 10 Juillet, 1756.

Ursulines de Quebec_, II. 292. _N.Y. Col. Docs._, X. 434, 467, 477, 483.

Some prisoners taken in the first attack were brought to Montreal, where their presence gave countenance to these fabrications.]

The success of Bradstreet silenced for a time the enemies of Shirley.

His cares, however, redoubled. He was anxious for Oswego, as the two prisoners declared that the French meant to attack it, instead of waiting to be attacked from it. Nor was the news from that quarter rea.s.suring. The engineer, Mackellar, wrote that the works were incapable of defence; and Colonel Mercer, the commandant, reported general discontent in the garrison.[409] Captain John Vicars, an invalid officer of Shirley's regiment, arrived at Albany with yet more deplorable accounts. He had pa.s.sed the winter at Oswego, where he declared the dearth of food to have been such that several councils of war had been held on the question of abandoning the place from sheer starvation. More than half his regiment died of hunger or disease; and, in his own words, "had the poor fellows lived they must have eaten one another." Some of the men were lodged in barracks, though without beds, while many lay all winter in huts on the bare ground. Scurvy and dysentery made frightful havoc. "In January," says Vicars, "we were informed by the Indians that we were to be attacked. The garrison was then so weak that the strongest guard we proposed to mount was a subaltern and twenty men; but we were seldom able to mount more than sixteen or eighteen, and half of those were obliged to have sticks in their hands to support them. The men were so weak that the sentries often fell down on their posts, and lay there till the relief came and lifted them up." His own company of fifty was reduced to ten. The other regiment of the garrison, Pepperell's, or the fifty-first, was quartered at Fort Ontario, on the other side of the river; and being better sheltered, suffered less.

[Footnote 409: _Mackellar to Shirley, June, 1756. Mercer to Shirley, 2 July, 1756._]

The account given by Vicars of the state of the defences was scarcely more flattering. He reported that the princ.i.p.al fort had no cannon on the side most exposed to attack. Two pieces had been mounted on the trading-house in the centre; but as the concussion shook down the stones from the wall whenever they were fired, they had since been removed. The second work, called Fort Ontario, he had not seen since it was finished, having been too ill to cross the river. Of the third, called New Oswego, or "Fort Rascal," he testifies thus: "It never was finished, and there were no loopholes in the stockades; so that they could not fire out of the fort but by opening the gate and firing out of that."[410]

[Footnote 410: _Information of Captain John Vicars, of the Fiftieth (Shirley's) Regiment,_ enclosed with a despatch of Lord Loudon. Vicars was a veteran British officer who left Oswego with Bradstreet on the third of July. _Shirley to Loudon, 5 Sept. 1756._]

Through the spring and early summer Shirley was gathering recruits, often of the meanest quality, and sending them to Oswego to fill out the two emaciated regiments. The place must be defended at any cost. Its fall would ruin not only the enterprise against Niagara and Frontenac, but also that against Ticonderoga and Crown Point; since, having nothing more to fear on Lake Ontario, the French could unite their whole force on Lake Champlain, whether for defence or attack.

Towards the end of June Abercromby and Webb arrived at Albany, bringing a reinforcement of nine hundred regulars, consisting of Otway's regiment, or a part of it, and a body of Highlanders. Shirley resigned his command, and Abercromby requested him to go to New York, wait there till Lord Loudon arrived, and lay before him the state of affairs.[411]

Shirley waited till the twenty-third of July, when the Earl at length appeared. He was a rough Scotch lord, hot and irascible; and the communications of his predecessor, made, no doubt, in a manner somewhat pompous and self-satisfied, did not please him. "I got from Major-General Shirley," he says, "a few papers of very little use; only he insinuated to me that I would find everything prepared, and have nothing to do but to pull laurels; which I understand was his constant conversation before my arrival."[412]

[Footnote 411: _Shirley to Fox, 4 July, 1756._]

[Footnote 412: _Loudon (to Fox?), 19 Aug. 1756._]

Loudon sailed up the Hudson in no placid mood. On reaching Albany he abandoned the attempt against Niagara and Frontenac; and had resolved to turn his whole force against Ticonderoga, when he was met by an obstacle that both perplexed and angered him. By a royal order lately issued, all general and field officers with provincial commissions were to take rank only as eldest captains when serving in conjunction with regular troops.[413] Hence the whole provincial army, as Winslow observes, might be put under the command of any British major.[414] The announcement of this regulation naturally caused great discontent. The New England officers held a meeting, and voted with one voice that in their belief its enforcement would break up the provincial army and prevent the raising of another. Loudon, hearing of this, desired Winslow to meet him at Albany for a conference on the subject. Thither Winslow went with some of his chief officers. The Earl asked them to dinner, and there was much talk, with no satisfactory result; whereupon, somewhat chafed, he required Winslow to answer in writing, yes or no, whether the provincial officers would obey the commander-in-chief and act in conjunction with the regulars. Thus forced to choose between acquiescence and flat mutiny, they declared their submission to his orders, at the same time asking as a favor that they might be allowed to act independently; to which Loudon gave for the present an unwilling a.s.sent. Shirley, who, in spite of his removal from command, had the good of the service deeply at heart, was much troubled at this affair, and wrote strong letters to Winslow in the interest of harmony.[415]

[Footnote 413: _Order concerning the Rank of Provincial General and Field Officers in North America. Given at our Court at Kensington, 12 May, 1756._]

[Footnote 414: _Winslow to Shirley, 21 Aug. 1756._]

[Footnote 415: _Correspondence of Loudon, Abercromby, and Shirley, July, Aug. 1756. Record of Meeting of Provincial Officers, July, 1756. Letter and Order Books of Winslow._]

Loudon next proceeded to examine the state of the provincial forces, and sent Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, of the regulars, to observe and report upon it. Winslow by this time had made a forward movement, and was now at Lake George with nearly half his command, while the rest were at Fort Edward under Lyman, or in detachments at Saratoga and the other small posts below. Burton found Winslow's men encamped with their right on what are now the grounds of Fort William Henry Hotel, and their left extending southward between the mountain in their front and the marsh in their rear. "There are here," he reports, "about twenty-five hundred men, five hundred of them sick, the greatest part of them what they call poorly; they bury from five to eight daily, and officers in proportion; extremely indolent, and dirty to a degree." Then, in vernacular English, he describes the infectious condition of the fort, which was full of the sick. "Their camp," he proceeds, "is nastier than anything I could conceive; their----, kitchens, graves, and places for slaughtering cattle all mixed through their encampment; a great waste of provisions, the men having just what they please; no great command kept up. Colonel Gridley governs the general; not in the least alert; only one advanced guard of a subaltern and twenty-four men. The cannon and stores in great confusion." Of the camp at Fort Edward he gives a better account. "It is much cleaner than at Fort William Henry, but not sufficiently so to keep the men healthy; a much better command kept up here. General Lyman very ready to order out to work and to a.s.sist the engineers with any number of men they require, and keeps a succession of scouting-parties out towards Wood Creek and South Bay."[416]

[Footnote 416: _Burton to Loudon, 27 Aug. 1756_.]

The prejudice of the regular officer may have colored the picture, but it is certain that the sanitary condition of the provincial camps was extremely bad. "A grievous sickness among the troops," writes a Ma.s.sachusetts surgeon at Fort Edward; "we bury five or six a day. Not more than two thirds of our army fit for duty. Long encampments are the bane of New England men."[417] Like all raw recruits, they did not know how to take care of themselves; and their officers had not the experience, knowledge, or habit of command to enforce sanitary rules.

The same evils were found among the Canadians when kept long in one place. Those in the camp of Villiers are reported at this time as nearly all sick.[418]

[Footnote 417: _Dr. Thomas Williams to Colonel Israel Williams, 28 Aug.