Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  Rogers commanded the first company of the New Hampshire regiment, which had marched with William Johnson in 1755.20 In September of that year, after the battles at Lake George, Johnson's Indian scouts abandoned him to return home. Desperate for intelligence, he turned to Rogers to lead a reconnaissance. Over the next several weeks Rogers and his New Hampshire men performed admirably. During the winter of 1755—56 Rogers carried out a series of raids against the French and brought back important information. A tireless self-promoter, he lobbied hard for an independent command. In May 1756 Shirley appointed him "Captain of an Independent Company of Rangers."

  Loudoun inherited the company, and while he appreciated ranger techniques and tactics, he was less enamored of the men themselves. He described them to Cumberland as "loose-made and indolent [and lacking] Faith or honesty." He also doubted their courage.21 His faith in them was further shaken in January when Rogers led one hundred of his men into a French ambush while scouting between Ticonderoga and Crown Point.22 He lost nearly half his force. Harkening back to his determination to go it alone insofar as possible, Loudoun ordered his own officers to patrol with rangers and learn their skills but shun their company.

  Robert Rogers

  Wliile the British tucked themselves in for the winter, depending upon the rangers for early warning of any French moves, Vaudreuil planned another daring winter attack. This time his target was Fort William Henry. Named for a grandson of George II, the fort stood near the spot at the south end of Lake George where Johnson had repelled Dieskau.23 Captain William Eyre of the Royal Engineers had laid out the fort, which was in the rough form of a square with diamond-shaped bastions at each corner. The connecting ramparts were mounded earth fifteen feet across faced with pine logs about ten feet high. A five-foot-high log parapet running along the top offered protected firing positions. Both the bastions and ramparts mounted cannon. On the east, west, and south sides a dry ditch thirty feet wide and eight feet deep extended out from the exterior wall. On the north side facing the lake, a steep rise made any frontal approach difficult. From the rise sentries could scan the lake looking north toward the narrows.

  By the standards of military construction in North America, William Henry was a formidable presence. It did, however, have two serious flaws. It lacked outer works or defensive barriers distant from the walls that might prevent an enemy from entrenching close enough to launch an artillery bombardment. And it was too small.24 Barely five hundred men could be accommodated within the walls. In such cramped quarters camp hygiene became a nightmare.25 Rather than enlarge the fort, troops fortified an auxiliary camp on high ground to the east.

  Had Montcalm been in complete charge, Loudoun's lack of concern about a winter attack would have been justified. Montcalm viewed Vaudreuil's plan to launch a surprise assault on William Henry over snow and ice as a waste of supplies, money, men, and time. Indeed, in January the commissaries were warning of grain shortages. Unlike Loudoun, who floated in a sea of supplies, Montcalm's depots were always on the margin. The general feared that Vaudreuil's reckless plan would gobble up his reserves, which were administered by intendant François Bigot and his bureaucracy. "François Bigot would be as likely a candidate as James Wolfe or William Pitt" to blame for the fall of Canada, wrote one historian.26 Bigot was corrupt, but his rapaciousness was no worse than that of his peers in Canada and France. However, the effects of his corruption were compounded by scarcity. Canada always lived on the economic edge. During ordinary times there was a sufficient surplus to accommodate a certain amount of cupidity and graft. War reduced the margin.27

  While Montcalm grumbled over Canadian incompetence and the harsh winter, Vaudreuil and his brother planned the attack. Early in February 1757 the governor dispatched an officer of the Troupes de la Marine to St. Francis "to sing the war song with the Abenakis."28 Another snowshoed emissary went to recruit the Iroquois at nearby Kahnawake.

  In mid-February sixteen hundred attackers gathered at St. Jean on the Richelieu River near Montreal. To avoid detection, Rigaud divided the expedition into four divisions. The first contingent, led by Canadians, got off on February 21. The remaining ones followed over the next few days, with Abenaki and Iroquois closing up the rear.29 Winter deceived them. Instead of solid ice, the Richelieu and the northern tip of Lake Champlain down to Point a Fer* were open. Rigaud had to send back the sleds and order boats, and the delay cost precious time. After spending two days at Crown Point, Rigaud and his men advanced to Ticonderoga, where he made his final preparations. On the fifteenth they marched from Ticonderoga along the short portage road to the head of Lake George, which was still frozen. Staying close to the western shore, Rigaud's party moved at night in three columns. A few hundred feet ahead of each column one man moved cautiously, carrying a shielded lantern and a pick. At intervals he stopped and poked through the ice, testing its thickness. In the meantime the men behind stared ahead to follow the light.

  Rigaud planned to take the fort by surprise, but the sound of the picks and the crunching noise of men walking on ice and snow alerted the garrison. Eyre ordered his men into the fort while the French sacked and burned the outbuildings, including a nearby sawmill, and torched three hundred bateaux and several small-armed vessels beached on the shore. Rigaud and his men made several attempts against the fort itself, but without artillery they found it impossible to breech the walls. On the night of March 21 a blinding snowstorm dropped nearly three feet of snow. The siege had lasted four days when Rigaud ordered his men back to Ticonderoga.

  Reactions to the siege were mixed: Montcalm decried the operation. Despite the smoldering ruins outside the fort, the English viewed the French withdrawal as a victory. Vaudreuil crowed that his brother had saved the colony. The Iroquois and Abenaki went home disappointed and resentful, having received nothing for their efforts except frostbite. All in all, Rigaud's venture was another "petty victor[y]" that meant a great deal to Canadians, but much less to the overall strategy of the war since the victors, lacking sufficient logistical support, were unable to follow up their successes and sustain an offensive.30

  * * *

  During the winter Loudoun developed his plan for 1757. He would leave two regular battalions supported by four thousand provincials in northern New York to monitor and threaten the French at Ticonderoga, while with a much larger force, naval and military, he would advance directly against Quebec via the St. Lawrence River.31 Properly executed, Loudoun's plan would compel Montcalm to defend two major fronts: northern New York and the St. Lawrence. Naval superiority was critical. Halifax was the assembly point where men and supplies from both sides of the Atlantic needed to gather and convoy to Quebec. Loudoun's greatest challenge was the short campaigning season open to him. Arctic breezes began to bite in October, and ice often lingered on the St. Lawrence well into April.32 At most the general had a twelve- to sixteen-week window of opportunity to assemble and transport a major force to lay siege and conquer the most formidable place in North America.

  On May 1 Loudoun received instructions from Pitt upending his plans: "Your Lordship is directed to begin with an Attack upon Louisbough, and to proceed, in the next Place, to Quebeck."33 Having plotted one course, Loudoun now had to lay out in another direction. Instead of reducing one fortress in a short season, he had to conquer two. Almost nothing went right. Pitt, a naturally secretive politician, knew that Loudoun was in Cumberland's camp, and so he purposely told the commander little that he did not want the duke to know, leaving Loudoun often in the dark about what he might expect in the way of supplies and men for the reshaped campaign.

  While Loudoun dangled in uncertainty, Pitt's own political position became increasingly precarious. The bad news from America and the Continent emboldened his domestic rivals, and they hurried to the king's chambers to whisper that Pitt had to go. On April 6, 1757, after much intrigue, the king asked Pitt to resign. His departure came three days before the duke of Cumberland left for Germany to undertake the defense of Hanover. London was
in confusion, government offices were left "unfilled," and the "country entered into a period of interministerium. "34

  Loudoun's first problem—tardiness—proved to be his most persistent. The provincial levies were late reporting for duty in New York. The late arrival created a domino effect by delaying the departure of the regulars for Halifax, where they were expected to assemble for the assault on Louisbourg. In the meantime Loudoun declared an embargo on coastal shipping to prevent news of his movements from reaching the enemy at Louisbourg. He intended the embargo to last only a few weeks, until Admiral Francis Holbourne arrived with his fleet from England. Alas, westerly winds held Holbourne at anchor in England for nearly two months, and he did not sail for Halifax until May 8. Loudoun sailed from New York on June 19 and arrived on the thirtieth. Even more delay piled up when Holbourne, after a slow passage across the Atlantic, was forced to heave to in heavy fog off the Nova Scotia coast. Holbourne's unlucky fleet did not come to anchor inside Halifax Harbor until July 9. The delayed arrival forced Loudoun to prolong the embargo, which was paralyzing American trade at the height of the sailing season, and Americans screamed in protest. The Virginia House of Burgesses refused to vote supplies unless the embargo was lifted. In May Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie, in open defiance of Loudoun's orders, lifted the embargo in Virginia, and early in June Governor Sharpe of Maryland did the same, undermining Loudoun's authority and endangering his campaign.35

  While contrary winds and politics delayed the Halifax rendezvous, the French reinforced Louisbourg. Admiral Joseph de Beauffremont arrived on May 31 with four ships of the line. Three weeks later Admiral Du Revest from Toulon eluded British patrols and made port with four more ships, and the next day, Admiral du Bois de la Motte tacked into Louisbourg with nine ships of the line and two frigates. With skill and a good deal of luck, the French admirals had managed to outwit the Royal Navy and assemble a fleet larger than the one gathered at Halifax.

  Loudoun's information about Louisbourg was sketchy, so he dispatched fast sloops to reconnoiter Cape Breton. From the reports that came back, Loudoun and his staff slowly put the unhappy picture together. The delays had cost them dearly, and the French were now superior. While Loudoun and his officers debated what to do, the largest combined force ever assembled in America spent its time holystoning decks, conducting mock battles, and "planting... cabbages."36

  Loudoun called a council of war and put the question to his officers: "Was it advisable to proceed against Louisbourg at the late season of the year?" For nine days eight senior officers, four from the navy, four from the army, wrestled with the question. They summoned twenty witnesses to give testimony.37 As time ticked away, the council proceedings took a bizarre twist. According to Loudoun, during one session Major General Lord Charles Hay left the table abruptly, went to a nearby window, and "laid his legs in it and looked out, then he Asked odd Questions, grinning and Laughing, and using all the Gestures of a Man out of His Senses." Hay, who enjoyed a reputation in the service for extraordinary personal courage, damned his colleagues for their indecision and accused the commander in chief of "keeping the courage of his majesty's troops at bay, and expending the nation's wealth in making sham sieges when he ought to have been fighting." Hay shocked his colleagues by resurrecting the memory of Byng, and he declared that Louisbourg "was another Mediterranean Affair; And that although we did not Fight, there should be blood."38

  Loudoun portrayed Hay as a madman, but even the insane can stumble upon the truth. The truth was that Loudoun the masterful planner could not make up his mind. Of one thing he was certain: If he attacked Louis­bourg and failed, the government would throw him to the wolves. Barely six months before, Admiral Byng had suffered the extreme penalty for failure. Loudoun looked to his council to provide political cover should affairs go awry, and Hay's outbursts were a threat. Loudoun did everything he could to keep the general isolated and silent, even to the point of scheduling secret council meetings and not informing Hay, but Hay continued to speak out. Finally, Loudoun ordered him arrested, confined, and shipped home, where he was summoned before a court-martial. For three weeks the officers heard testimony, much of it from Hay himself. The court made its finding, but then in keeping with this bizarre train of events, the members voted to keep their verdict secret and refer judgment to the king. George II pondered, and for nearly two years the matter remained undecided, while Hay, a broken and sick man, fell seriously ill. To the relief of nearly everyone, the general died on May 1, 1760, sparing the king the necessity of making a decision.39

  With more than half of the campaigning season over, on the last day of July the council advised proceeding with the attack. On August 4, with a fair tide and a favoring wind, Admiral Holbourne signaled the fleet to get under way. As men scampered aloft to shake out the sails, the schooner Surprise hurried into the harbor, bringing new and "exact" information concerning enemy strength: Eighteen ships of the line and five frigates were lying at Louisbourg. Holbourne advised Loudoun that against such a force he saw little probability of success.40 Loudoun reconvened his council.

  Notwithstanding all the effort that had gone into preparing the expedition and the promise of several weeks of good weather still ahead, the council, upon hearing Holbourne's advice, reversed itself and recommended against an attack. Loudoun made preparations to embark seven regiments for New York while leaving five for duty in Nova Scotia and Fundy. The troop transports prepared to sail as Holbourne's warships took on stores for the voyage home. The admiral laid a course north and east to take the fleet past Cape Breton for a peek at Louisbourg, and thence easterly home to England.41 As the New York—bound transports cleared Halifax, a Boston dispatch boat hailed with stunning news: Fort William Henry had fallen, and the garrison had been massacred. Uncertain as to whether the French tide might already be advancing on Albany, Loudoun immediately recalled two of the Nova Scotia regiments and ordered them aboard the New York—bound transports. The failure to attack Louisbourg was an embarrassment, but the loss of Fort William Henry was a disaster. Loudoun bore responsibility for both.

  When Loudoun departed Albany the previous June, he had left General Daniel Webb to command the northern frontier with orders to hold the French army in place. The key post was Fort William Henry, which Webb garrisoned with several hundred provincials, five companies of regulars from the Thirty-fifth Regiment, and two ranger companies. Webb complained that he was short of men and claimed that those he had were inferior. Loudoun, he noted, had taken the best regiments to Halifax. His charge was not wide of the mark. The men of the Thirty-fifth, in Loudoun's own words, were "entirely Raw Officers and Soldiers." Cumberland, who knew the regiment, damned the same soldiers as "ignorant [and] undisciplined." George Monro, lieutenant colonel of this regiment, was in command at the fort.42 A Scot from near Stirling, he had entered the army in 1718 and had spent almost his entire career on garrison duty in Ireland.

  Although Rigaud's winter attack had not caused the walls of William Henry to fall, it certainly left life outside them precarious. Through the spring and early summer war parties of Ottawa, Pottawatomi, and Iroquois from Ticonderoga sortied south toward William Henry. Almost every day reports, some of them wildly exaggerated, arrived at the fort, recounting horrendous tales of nearby kidnappings and scalpings.43 No one dared venture far beyond the gates. Unable to send out scouts, Monro was starved for information.

  On the other hand, Bourlamaque, Ticonderoga's commander, knew a great deal about Monro's desperate situation. Bourlamaque owed his advantage to Indian allies who kept him well informed. The rising tide of French victories—Monongahela, Fort Bull, and Oswego—swept native allies toward Montreal to offer their services to Vaudreuil. Ottawa and Pottawatomi, who had been with the French in 1756, had traveled home, where around winter fires they regaled their kinsmen with stories of great battles and even greater plunder. The following spring, hundreds of warriors from these nations, along with their chiefs, journeyed east to get their share of glory and spoils.
Vaudreuil spent endless hours receiving and honoring his Indian friends. He distributed brandy, guns, ammunition, and clothing to warriors, while important chiefs were taken aside and presented with elaborate medals and gorgets as badges of their authority. Montcalm joined Vaudreuil at these elaborate ceremonies to welcome the allies, but unlike the Canadians, he was uneasy embracing these "ferocious people."44

  Montcalm and Vaudreuil agreed that William Henry was an inviting target. All that stood to oppose them was a mediocre general commanding mediocre troops. Vaudreuil was confident that even in the unlikely event Loudoun captured Louisbourg, he could not do so quickly enough to have sufficient time left in the season to move on Quebec. In any case he was too far away to be of any assistance to William Henry. Thanks to Loudoun, the French were at liberty to concentrate their forces against Webb.45