When Lévis cut the road to Fort Edward, he had posted Indians to guard the route, so dozens of small native campsites dotted the roadside down which the prisoners had to march. At dawn the prisoners—unarmed regulars, militia, civilians, even women and children—left the encampment and made their way toward the road. Montcalm was not at the scene, but several officers of the Troupes de la Marine were on hand. Luc La Corne, a soldier who had spent his entire career with the Indians, Jean Daniel Dumas, the victor over Braddock, and Charles-Michel Mouet de Langlade, the commander who had permitted the massacre at Pickawillany, were all present. These soldiers understood Indians in war better than any of their colleagues. They felt the tension, and they knew what was likely to happen—and in fact did happen. First, the Indians invaded the camp and killed and scalped the wounded who had been left behind. Then they turned to the long column inching its way toward the road. Prisoners were yanked from the line and carried off. The "hell whoop" alarmed Montcalm, and from his tent nearly a mile away he hurried to the scene with his officers. Lévis was already there, desperately trying to regain control. By the time the marquis arrived, most of the harm had been done. For several hours French officers and interpreters scurried about, trying to persuade warriors to surrender their captives. Most refused, and by afternoon hundreds of Indians had disappeared from the scene, taking with them captives and booty.
Webb learned of the formal surrender on the night of August 9. Believing that the standard protocols had been followed, he ordered a five-hundred-man detachment down the road to meet the expected column of prisoners coming under French guard. Instead of an orderly procession, the officer in command of the escort reported that he saw "about 30 of our People coming running down the Hill out of the woods along the Road that comes from William Henry, mostly stripped to their shirts and Breeches, and many without shirts."59 How many prisoners were "massacred" at Fort William Henry is difficult to determine. Of the 2,308 who surrendered, at least 69 were killed in the aftermath of chaos at the encampment and along the road, and more than 100 were counted as missing, many of whom were probably captives carried off by the Indians. Although the casualty rate at William Henry pales against the figures for contemporary European battles, what shocked those who heard of the "massacre" was not the toll of death but rather the way people died. The tragedy at William Henry provided emotional fodder for the American and British press, and judging by the number of accounts published, each more lurid than the one before, survivors were eager to share their memories.
Although he was the victor, Montcalm refused to push on to Fort Edward. Having lost his Indian allies, and unsure whether the Canadians would stay with him through the coming harvest season, he opted to level William Henry and return to Ticonderoga. At the same time, he had to explain how the "massacre" had occurred under his command. Naturally, he blamed the sad affair on the Indians and the British. According to the marquis, no harm would have happened if, he alleged, the British soldiers had not given rum to the Indians, and if everyone had followed the orders of the French escort to remain together rather than panicking and running away. In the case of the Indians, Montcalm's explanation rings true. He claimed that he simply could not restrain "3000 Indians of 33 different Nations."60
Historians have often painted Montcalm as the villain in this drama, and they have done the same for Webb, whom they often condemn for not marching to the rescue. James Fenimore Cooper's romantic tale The Last of the Mohicans (1826) enshrined the view of the brave Monro, a hapless Webb, and a French commander unable to control his allies. Sadly, there was little Webb could have done. He had barely enough troops to defend Fort Edward. They and Monro's beleaguered garrison were the only forces standing between the French and Albany. If Webb had risked a march to William Henry and was defeated, it would have been a disaster. Its sacrifice was a sound and necessary strategic decision.
*Three miles south of present-day Rouses Point.
(7)
Ticonderoga
We must Attack Any Way, and not be losing time in
talking or consulting how.
—William Eyre, quoting General Abercromby,
Robert Napier, July 10, 1758
On June 29, 1757, less than two weeks before the fall of William Henry, William Pitt returned to office in a coalition government led by Newcastle. He faced a deluge of disturbing news not only from America but from Europe as well. It was, he said, "a gloomy scene for this distressed, disgraced country."1
Meanwhile, Frederick the Great was in crisis. On June 18 the Austrians had defeated his army at Kolin, thirty-five miles east of Prague. According to Prussian dispatches, the king had lost nearly one-third of his force. Nor was that the total of Frederick's troubles. In the southwest one hundred thousand French were massing to invade Hanover, while on the eastern border an equally large Russian army was advancing through East Prussia.
The previous April King George had sent his son the duke of Cumberland to command the defense of Hanover. Since the monarch was far more concerned with defending his own electorate than with any strategic alliance with Frederick, the duke's orders were not instructions from a king to a commander but rather from a father to a son responsible for protecting the family patrimony. To the duke the king wrote: "The Position and Operations of Our Army must . . . be directed to Our Chief Aim. This is: not to act offensively, neither against the Empress Queen [Austria], nor any other Power, but merely protect our own Dominions, those of the King of Prussia in Westphalia, and those of the Landgrave of Hesse."2
Commanding barely forty thousand troops, mostly Germans, Cumberland had to face a French army more than twice the size of his own. Whatever help he might have expected from the Prussians evaporated at Kolin. Cumberland was on his own.
Bridling at his restrictive orders, and desperately in need of additional troops, Cumberland asked London for assistance. Pitt refused to send additional forces, and when asked to dispatch a fleet to hold the Baltic, he refused that request as well. Instead he committed forces to Loudoun and agreed to a diversionary attack on the French naval base at Rochefort. Rudely rebuffed and resigned to his fate, Cumberland wrote to his friend Henry Fox that the men in London "neither heed . . . nor understand."3 Against overwhelming odds Cumberland retreated before the French. Trapped between the River Elbe and the North Sea, the duke took up a position near the village of Hastenbeck. After three days of battle, on July 26 Cumberland's army withdrew. He told Fox, "We had as brave a handfull of men as ever fought but we had a most numerous enemy."4
On August 21 Cumberland wrote to the French commander, the due de Richelieu, and proposed a "suspense of arms." More than anything else, the duke wanted to preserve his army and prevent it from falling into the hands of the French. This, he assumed, was what his father wanted as well. Richelieu, eager to devote his full attention to Frederick, and fearful that if he did not end the campaign soon winter would sweep in and end any chance for victory, was willing to talk. On September 8 Cumberland and Richelieu signed an agreement at Klosterseven. Cumberland's army would disband and the troops return to their homes. The Hanoverian troops would retire across the River Elbe. Contrary to what Cumberland had assumed, his father was not pleased. The enraged king summoned the duke home and forced him to resign all his offices.5
Cumberland's disgrace and ignominious recall served Pitt's domestic political ambitions. The failure in Germany weakened the political influence of the king's friends in Parliament and gave Pitt additional targets at which to hurl his poisoned barbs. Newcastle ostensibly held the reins of government as chancellor of the exchequer, but everyone, including the duke, relied on Pitt, who rose to take charge of foreign affairs and the conduct of the war. The chatty gossips the Earl of Chesterfield and Horace Walpole described the political symbiosis nicely. According to the former, "The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt jog on like man and wife; that is, seldom agreeing, often quarreling; but by mutual interest upon the whole, not parting." Walpole's views were similar: "Pitt does e
verything, the Duke of Newcastle gives everything. As long as they can agree in this partition they may do what they will."6 Newcastle's money and patronage, combined with Pitt's oratory in Commons and astute political sense, forged a potent partnership. Nonetheless, neither leader had any special talents for waging war. Newcastle viewed the conflict as a painful bill of costs, and though Pitt envisioned an end to the struggle and the reduction of the French colonial empire, he was less certain of the means. For advice on the conduct of war, he turned to General John Ligonier and Admiral George Anson, two of the nation's heroes.
Born in 1680, Jean Louis (more commonly called John) Ligonier was a Huguenot refugee who arrived in England and entered military service under Marlborough in 170?. By the time Pitt came to office Ligonier was a living legend. He had fought in twenty-three battles, often at the front with his regiment, and participated in nineteen sieges. Several horses had been shot out from underneath him, and once he had been taken prisoner, but, miraculously, in his entire career he had never been wounded. Cynics like Walpole dismissed him for his "aged brows and approaching coffin," but the people and the king loved him. In October 1757 His Majesty appointed him commander in chief to replace his disgraced son.7
George Anson, first lord of the Admiralty, entered the service at age fifteen, was a lieutenant by twenty-one, and had his own command by twenty-seven. Anson's greatest claim to fame was his command of the squadron that had sailed around the world (1740-44), attacking into the far reaches of the Spanish Empire. He left England with five ships and returned with only one: Centurion. Nonetheless, during the voyage among other prizes he took Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, one of the famed Manila galleons, bound for the Philippines laden with gold and silver. His share of that capture (half a million pounds) had made him a very rich and famous officer. Anson rose quickly in the navy's ranks and in London society, where he enjoyed an evening's entertainment and the company of beautiful women. In 1747 Anson commanded the British fleet off Cape Finisterre, where he managed to defeat the French and further enhance his popular reputation. For that, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Anson. When his patron, Lord Sandwich, left the Admiralty in 1751, Anson remained, and in June 1757 the king appointed him first lord.8 Anson was tireless in preparing the navy for a war that he was certain would come and ensuring that the keystone of English naval strategy—controlling the English Channel to prevent any chance of an invasion—was not weakened.9
Ligonier and Anson chimed in on strategy, but Pitt dominated the war councils. As usual, he was volatile, abrupt, irascible. As Walpole put it, Pitt "wanted friends for places more than places for friends."10 Perhaps it was because of his lack of close associates, and his uneasy relationship with a king who made no secret of his distaste for him, that Pitt relied more on talent than friendship for his support. As Pitt drew men to him, what emerged was a crude forerunner of the modern imperial war staff, that is, joint chiefs (Ligonier and Anson) operating within the parameters of a grand strategy laid out by a dynamic priine minister.11 Pitt's strategy was sound and direct. He was orchestrating a war of conquest. Within the overarching goal of reducing the French overseas empire around the world, priority went to North America. Ligonier's task was to marshal the regiments necessary to accomplish the land mission, while Anson's assignment was to provide transport and protection for the military and at the same time maintain a tight blockade of France to prevent it from moving reinforcements overseas.
Neither chief, however, could permit overseas commitments to imperil the home islands. Ligonier was always careful to keep ready sufficient troops and militia to repel a French landing, and Anson saw to it that the Channel fleet kept a close rendezvous along the southeast coast of England so that Ligonier's regiments would never have to leave their camps. Anson's strategy of protecting home waters provided the double advantage of protecting the island while keeping the fleet within a few days' sail of the enemy's chief ports.
Despite Cumberland's disaster, Pitt made no change in England's German strategy. He would continue to send chests of cash and as few troops as possible to support Frederick. A force composed of British, Hanoverian, and German troops, all in British pay and under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolf enbuttel (Frederick's brother-in-law), stood against the French in the west, leaving Frederick to focus on the Austrians and Russians in the east.12 Pitt never committed large numbers of British soldiers to Germany. At the height of the war, he committed far more troops to North America than to the Continent.13 As one London wag put it:
Our troops they now can plainly see May Britain guard in Germany; Hanoverians, Hessians, Prussians, Are paid i'oppose the French and Russians, Nor scruple they with truth to say They're fighting for America. 14
British gold (six hundred thousand pounds per year) was a fair substitute for British troops, but Frederick wanted even more. He continued to urge Pitt to deploy a naval squadron in the Baltic to support his army and harass the Russians. Anson advised against the venture. Operating in the Baltic was risky. The only entrance/exit was via narrow straits controlled by Denmark. Although the Danes, as well as the Swedes on the other side of the passage, were neutral, they were not well disposed toward the British. For at least a year they and several other "neutrals" complained that English privateers and warships were illegally seizing their ships.15 In retaliation for these abuses, the Danes might block passage. Nor would the troubles be over once the squadron made it into the Baltic, a shallow and treacherous sea that posed hazardous navigation for deep-draft men-of-war. Pitt refused to take the risk.
In order to protect the homeland and be ready to sortie against a possible French breakout, Anson had to keep his fleet on a short tether. But both Frederick's needs, and the requirements for defending the home island, fell into line with a proposal to launch a raid on the port of Rochefort, which tantalized with the dual attraction of being not only a plump naval target but also "within the scope and range of the British forces available." 16 A descent on Rochefort would, it was hoped, force the French to divert forces from Germany to protect the city and defend the coast. In the joint expedition, Admiral Sir Edward Hawke commanded the sea forces, while General Sir John Mordaunt led the army. Among Mordaunt's subordinates was the youthful Lieutenant Colonel James Wolfe, acting as quartermaster general. Hawke and Mordaunt were "to attempt as far as should be found practicable a descent on the coast of France at or near Rochefort, in order to attack and by vigorous impression force that place, and to burn and destroy to the utmost of their power all such docks, magazines, arsenals, and shipping as shall be found there."17
Mordaunt was a poor choice to command. He was, according to Walpole, an old and tired soldier "broken in spirit and constitution" and in a state of "nervous disorder."18 The general's disorder compounded the problem of finding ships to convoy the force to France. Transports were slow to arrive, delayed by cranky shipowners and bad weather. Not until mid-September 1757, while the ministry was still digesting the news of the fall of William Henry, did the expedition get under way from Portsmouth.19
After a few days at sea, Wolfe wrote to his mother complaining about seasickness. "I am," he declared, "the worst mariner in the whole ship."20 A few days later, on the seventeenth, Wolfe's ship was off the Isle d'Aix, where the young officer reported joyfully to his mother that "the grapes upon the Isle d'Aix are exceedingly delicious—especially to a sea-sick stomach."21
For a week the generals and admirals "sat from morning till late at night" debating their course of action. Poor intelligence, faulty charts, and a host of other problems filled them with doubt. Finally, in a stunning decision, the officers decided unanimously "not to attack the place they were ordered to attack," and early in October the force returned to Portsmouth. Wolfe, convinced that if they had attacked immediately, instead of waiting, they could have captured the port in forty-eight hours, took the lesson. In combined operations cooperation between land and sea commanders was essential. During the voyage home Wolfe, ever the ro
mantic and gallant soldier, wrote presciently to his friend William Ricksom:
Nothing is to be reckoned an obstacle to your undertaking which is not found really so upon trial; that in war something must be allowed to chance and fortune, seeing it is in its nature hazardous, and an option of difficulties; that the greatness of an object should come under consideration opposed to the impediments that lie in the way-, that the honour of one s country is to have some weight; and that in particular circumstances and times, the loss of a thousand men is rather an advantage to a nation than otherwise, seeing that gallant attempts raise its reputation and make it respectable; whereas the contrary appearances sink the credit of a country, ruin the troops, and create infinite uneasiness and discontent at home.22
Pitt reeled from reports of the Rochefort follies. In Commons he burst out that he "believed there was a determined resolution, both in the naval and military commanders, against any vigorous exertion of the national power."23 The phlegmatic minister, preferring to ignore his own culpability for the mess, roared against his pusillanimous admirals and generals. Others put the blame on Pitt. The whole expedition, according to the opposition, was "rash and childish." When poor Mordaunt, by then truly a broken man, was summoned to stand court-martial, tongues wagged that he would likely "suffer a little Bynging." Neither Pitt nor the army, however, had any desire to repeat the public scandal of Admiral Byng, and Mordaunt was acquitted of any wrongdoing.24
Sifting through the ruins of 1757, that "last inactive, and unhappy Campaign," Pitt laid plans for the coming year.25 Frederick would get more money to rebuild his army and regain the offensive; India would be left in the hands of the East India Company with some modest naval support; royal naval squadrons in the West Indies would concentrate on trade protection; and along the West African coast amphibious raids against the French would continue. There could be no doubt, however, that all these theaters were peripheral to the core campaign in North America. There Pitt planned three major operations: against Ticonderoga, Louisbourg, and Duquesne. To achieve his goals in North America, Pitt understood that he needed more support from the colonials. In true Whig parliamentary fashion he came upon a solution: to purchase it. Pitt let the colonial authorities know that henceforth London would pay the war bills. No one in America objected.
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