Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  While Amherst celebrated his victory at Montreal and negotiated with the French Canadians and Indians, disturbing news arrived from the south: The Cherokee were in full rebellion in the Carolinas. The uprising had little to do with the English struggle against the French. The Cherokee had their own list of grievances against the settlers of the Carolinas and Virginia. Henry Timberlake, a young Virginia militia officer who had lived with them, described what he saw as the English invaded Cherokee lands: "The English are now so nigh, and encroached daily so far upon them, that they not only felt the bad effects of it in their hunting grounds, which were spoiled, but had all the reason in the world to apprehend being swallowed up, by so potent neighbors, or driven from the country inhabited by their fathers, in which they were born, and brought up, in fine, for their native soil, for which all men have a particular tenderness and affection."7

  The Cherokee understood the threat from the English traders as well as the danger of their dependence upon them. When a band of young men at Keowee, the principal village of the lower Cherokee, argued for an attack on the English, Round 0, one of the headmen of the Stecoe Cherokee, rushed to the village. In an open council he asked his young kinsmen pointedly how they planned to get along without the British traders. "Had they found a mountain of powder? Had their women learned to make clothes and their men to make knives? Hatchets? . . . where was their store?"8 Round O's sarcasm hit the mark. While the French governor at New Orleans, Louis Bil-louart, Sieur de Kerlerc, was adept at stirring the pot among the Indians of Georgia and the Carolinas, he could not provide the Cherokee with what they and their brothers needed most: trade goods. For that they turned to the English.

  Other tribes in the region faced a similar dilemma as they struggled to maintain their lands against English and French encroachment. Traditionally, the Chickasaw and Choctaw allied with the French, whereas their neighbors the Creek exhibited caution. Fort Toulouse was in their homeland, which made them vulnerable to French retaliation should they sidle too close to the English. A fourth tribe, the Catawba, who lived in the northeastern part of South Carolina, had once been a powerful force, but the ravages of smallpox and Iroquois raids had weakened them considerably.9

  In an attempt to further secure his colony's position among the Cherokee and forestall any French incursions, in the fall of 1753 South Carolina's governor, James Glen, marched two hundred miles west along the Charleston Path with a small force of colony militia. He stopped at the Keowee River, and with the help of Indian labor built Fort Prince George across from the village of Keowee on the opposite bank.10 Following this policy of armed intrusion into the Cherokee country to a risky extreme, Glen's successor, Governor William Henry Lyttleton, advanced 150 miles west beyond Fort Prince George into the remote "Overhill" country, where on the banks of the Little Tennessee River he erected Fort Loudoun in 1756. The new fort was at the end of a very thin logistical line that snaked nearly four hundred miles from Charleston.

  Virginia and South Carolina in 1762

  These repeated incursions into Cherokee lands raised tensions to the breaking point. Sensational reports of "murders" of both whites and Indians circulated in the colony. Finally, in the fall of 1759 the frontier erupted when a band of Virginia militia stumbled upon a group of Cherokee making their way home from Pennsylvania, where they had traveled to assist General Forbes. Like most colonies, Virginia offered a bounty for Indian scalps, and these militiamen were anxious to turn a profit. "Mistaking" the Cherokee for horse thieves, the Virginians attacked the unsuspecting warriors, killed several, and took their scalps in order to collect the bounty. One of the victims managed to escape, and soon news of the murders swept through the country.11

  Years of pent-up resentment at their treatment by greedy traders burst out, particularly among the younger Cherokee warriors, and soon war parties were raiding border settlements. In an attempt to quiet the uprising Governor Lyttleton invited a group of headmen to Charleston. As soon as the chiefs arrived, officials seized them. With the hostages in tow, Lyttleton marched west with a force of sixteen hundred men. He camped at Fort Prince George and from there sent messengers to the Cherokee villages, demanding that they turn over the warriors responsible for the deaths of settlers.12

  Thanks to the efforts of Attakullakulla (the Little Carpenter), the Cherokee's most able orator and diplomat, some of the hostages were freed, including a leading headman, Oconostota (Great Warrior of the Chote).13 Releasing only some of the hostages, however, did not end the crisis. By the end of December the situation had deteriorated badly.14 Lyttleton returned to Charleston, leaving Lieutenant Richard Coytmore in command of the fort and the remaining hostages. On the morning of February 16, 1760, Oconostota appeared at the gates to the fort and invited Coytmore to parley. The lieutenant agreed. Cotymore exited the fort under a flag of truce. He had only gone a few paces beyond the gate when a "Warrior gave a Signal [and] off went about 25 or 30 Guns from the Indians that had concealed themselves under the Banks of the River." Cotymore stumbled back with a ball "through the left breast." While the rest of the garrison laid down covering fire, Cotymore's men rushed outside the stockade and carried the lieutenant back to the fort, where he died a few hours later. Enraged at the betrayal, Cotymore's "men swore bitterly that they would kill every Indian in the fort." When one of the hostages, in fear of his life, stabbed a militiaman, the Carolinians took this as their excuse and they let loose "and fell to work [and] laid them lifeless."15 The affair at Fort Prince George gave both sides ample reason to hate each other.

  Lyttleton sent to Amherst for help. Although he was in the midst of preparing his push against Montreal, the general, accusing the Cherokee of "an infamous breach of the peace," dispatched eleven hundred men, under the command of Colonel Archibald Montgomery, to "chastise" the Cherokee.16 After landing at Charleston in early April, Montgomery marched his men inland. Through the spring Montgomery's tough Highlanders burned numerous Cherokee towns, killed more than one hundred warriors, and tracked hundreds of miles chasing down the enemy.17 Montgomery, however, had too few men to leave any detachments to garrison the countryside, and as soon as he left, the Cherokee returned. By late June Montgomery's ranks were thinning. Disease, heat, and the Cherokee had taken a considerable toll. Deep in Cherokee territory, far from his base, Montgomery was learning that the interior of South Carolina was a place where "a handful of men may ruin an army."18 Believing that he had punished the Cherokee as much as he was able, Montgomery withdrew his exhausted men to Fort Prince George. He allowed only a short rest before he and his Highlanders made a quick march to Charleston, where they boarded transports for the voyage back to New York. The Cherokee nation had been damaged but not defeated.

  Montgomery's "success" had accomplished very little. On August 7, barely one month after Montgomery departed, Oconostota captured Fort Loudoun. As a condition for an honorable surrender, the headman demanded that the South Carolinians leave the fort's magazine and cannon intact. They did not. Angered at the deception, Oconostota's men waited until the militia marched from the fort and then ambushed the retreating column, killing at least twenty-nine and taking the rest captive. By late summer 1760, as Amherst advanced on Montreal, the Cherokee had come close to their goal of driving the English from their homeland.

  Despite this remarkable success, shortages of food made the winter of 1760—61 a difficult time for the Cherokee. In January 1761 Colonel James Grant, who had formerly served with Forbes on the Duquesne expedition, arrived at Charleston with eleven hundred regulars. Given the alarming reports from Fort Prince George and Fort Loudoun, William Bull, Governor Lyttleton's successor, had no difficulty rousing South Carolina to launch a counterattack against the Cherokee. By spring Grant was ready to "reduce them to the absolute necessity of suing for pardon."19 Grant marched into the interior, burning every home, tearing up cornfields, chopping down orchards, destroying livestock, and laying waste to everything his soldiers could find. For thirty-three days his force ravaged Cherok
ee country in a campaign with little mercy. In one instance Captain Christopher French was ordered to put the Indian town of Tasse to the torch and "put every soul to Death."20

  Pressed by the British, the Cherokee fled deeper into the mountains. Resistance crumbled as their supplies of food and ammunition ran out. In the midst of the disarray Attakullakulla, who had earlier been thrust aside by the hard-line headmen, reemerged as the voice of moderation. After meeting with the other headmen, he journeyed to Charleston to seek an end to the war. Some embittered South Carolinians urged harsh punishment, but others argued that peace was cheaper than war. Both sides were exhausted, and for weeks they discussed terms for ending the killing. In the ultimate agreement, reached on September 23, 1761, all prisoners were returned, but the Cherokee were also required to surrender considerable territory and forced to permit the English to build forts in their country. Although the Cherokee nation survived, like the other tribes of the region, as of 1761 it became a vassal of the English.

  Almost at the same moment that Grant landed at Charleston, January 1761, Amherst received orders from Pitt to open a campaign against Martinique. Timing was critical. Nothing could be done "till after the Hurricane Months, that is to say, about the end of September, or the first days of October." Amherst, a masterful logistician, was to prepare the campaign, but he would not command it. The king, according to Pitt, wanted Amherst, whose "Abilities, Prudence and Application" were so valuable, to remain in North America.21 In an unusual demonstration of faith in a commander, the king vested in Amherst the authority to choose his own field commander. Amherst picked Robert Monckton.22

  Even as he recognized the need to properly plan for Martinique, to maintain support in his cabinet, Pitt needed a triumph sooner than the one Martinique could provide. To secure his "Influence . . . both at Home and Abroad," a "Success" before late fall was essential, and so in the same January dispatch he ordered Amherst to make an immediate descent upon the small French Caribbean islands of St. Lucia and Dominica.23 Amherst had barely three months to prepare, with the added complexity of Pitt's insistence that aside from naval support he would have to draw all the men and materiel necessary for the Caribbean expeditions out of his own resources.

  To lead the Dominica-St. Lucia attack, Amherst selected Colonel Andrew Rollo, an officer who had served with him at Louisbourg, and who after the capture of the fortress had been charged with pacifying Prince Edward Island.24 Amherst assigned him a modest force of less than two thousand men. Rollo sailed from New York in early May and rendezvoused at Guadeloupe with additional forces, including a small naval squadron under Commodore Sir James Douglas. They were off Roseau, Dominica's chief town, on June 6. Immediately, he demanded surrender. After the French refused, Rollo landed without firing a shot, and by evening had swept the small French forces aside "with very little loss." In the morning the island surrendered.25

  The Caribbean in 1757

  Although Dominica had been an easy victory, Rollo's "little army" was suffering the usual medley of tropical diseases. Those men who remained well enough for duty were policing the interior, where a few French diehards were still holding out. Rather than strip his garrison and risk losing the island, the colonel decided to pass on St. Lucia and keep his men in place while he awaited the arrival of reinforcements for the expected assault against Martinique in the fall.

  * * *

  Following the capitulation of Canada, Amherst moved his headquarters to New York City. From there he supervised the consolidation of British authority in North America, dispatching emissaries to accept the surrender of distant French frontier posts and to bring news of the English victory to Indians beyond the lakes. These day-to-day activities were interrupted on October 25 when in the presence of his officers by order of the king, Amherst was invested with the gold collar and red ribbon of the Order of the Bath. The ceremony offered a brief break from the business of preparing Monckton's force for Martinique.

  At the very moment that his friend General Monckton presented Amherst with the symbols of his honor, the king who ordered them was dead. George II was a man of routine. On the morning of October 25, 1760, he rose as usual at six and drank his chocolate. A quarter after seven he went into his "closet." Shortly afterward his German valet heard a thump, "and running in, found the king dead on the floor. "26

  Few people mourned the death of the old monarch. He was vulgar, cantankerous, and German. His disdain for popular opinion and clumsy political maneuvering had seriously diminished the influence of the monarchy in English politics. In contrast, the new king, George III, was English born, politically savvy, and a monarch determined to use all the tools he had at hand (mainly patronage) to reverse the political decline of the throne. In that regard George III viewed Pitt as a political rival and did not necessarily share his war aims.

  The arrival of George III did not affect the plans for Martinique, however. Admiral George Rodney was already under way from Spithead with a squadron bound for Barbados, where he rendezvoused with transports carrying two thousand men under Colonal William Rufane. On Christmas Eve the largest piece of this elaborate force fell into place when Monckton's transports arrived from New York with the main army of seven thousand men, followed shortly by Colonel Rollo from Dominica, with the few hundred soldiers he could spare.

  On January 5, 1762, sixteen ships of the line, thirteen frigates, and several other smaller vessels of the Royal Navy hoisted sail, came onto a port tack, and formed a protective circle around a flotilla of troop transports, store ships, hospital ships, and baggage ships bound for Martinique. Monckton's force numbered nearly fifteen thousand men, including fifteen hundred blacks impressed for service from the islands of Antigua, Barbados, St. Christopher's, and Montserrat. By the morning of the eighth the armada lay to off the island and "fell down gently by the current" toward Fort Royal.27

  King George II of England

  From the quarterdeck of HMS Marlborough Monckton and Rodney cast a careful eye toward Martinique's forbidding coast. The sharp shoreline taught them a quick lesson. In a calm sea Raisonable, with sixty-four guns, ran aground on a hidden reef. Its keel struck so hard that its masts shuddered violently and within minutes they toppled over the side. A massive tangle of rigging, spars, and sails collapsed onto its deck, while down below, its hold filled fast with water. In surreal silence Raisonable settled slowly to the bottom. Rodney turned cautious. He signaled his deep-draft warships to lay offshore and keep to deep water. Lighter-draft vessels crept closer to the breakers but kept a careful watch.

  Notwithstanding the perils of navigation, mobility on the water was Monckton's greatest tactical asset. To confound the enemy, Rodney dispatched fast frigates to bombard various villages around the island shore, hoping to draw defenders off on wild chases. In the meantime the commanders planned their attack. Neither Monckton nor Rodney needed lessons on the intricacies of combined operations. Monckton had been an understudy to Wolfe and Saunders. Rodney had commanded the amphibious assault against the French at the port of Le Havre in 1759. "Both fleet and army [were] at home with the work, and schooled for it, hand in hand, by constant and well-ordered practice."28

  On the morning of the sixteenth the main attack got under way. Several ships of the line and frigates moved carefully to within range of Fort Royal and laid down a barrage of fire that lasted for nearly the entire day. While naval gunfire pinned the enemy down in the town, seven thousand men landed safely at a small bay, Cas de Naviere, six miles to the west. After securing the landing site, Monckton scattered patrols to reconnoiter the ground between him and the town. It was rough, hard terrain sliced by deep gullies, tangled with heavy undergrowth, and covered by "militia and mulattoes [who] were numerous, well armed and well skilled in the only kinds of war which could be carried out in a country like this."29 On the twenty-fourth Monckton ordered the main force to advance. Two columns of troops moved toward Fort Royal. One hugged the beach line, while the other held the inland flank. As the troops inched forwa
rd, stumbling over the dark volcanic rock and cutting through dense brush, one thousand seamen paralleled them, rowing small boats a few hundred feet off shore that carried supplies and cannon. By evening the British had seized Mount Tortonson, a small hill overlooking the town. The march, however, had been extremely difficult. Although they had managed to get past the ravine that had thwarted Hopson, the vicious terrain and heat took a heavy toll on the weary soldiers, and the French still held the town and Mount Gamier, another nearby hill.

  On the twenty-seventh the French defenders turned the tables on Monckton and launched a furious counterattack. They were beaten back; by evening the British had taken Mount Gamier.