The Assault on Ticonderoga

A soldier of the Rhode Island regiment, William Smith, managed to get through all obstructions and ensconce himself close under the breastwork.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in Montcalm and Wolfe, Volume 7 of the French in Canada series. Continuing Chapter 20.

Soon after nine o’clock a distant and harmless fire of small arms began on the slopes of Mount Defiance. It came from a party of Indians who had just arrived with Sir William Johnson and who, after amusing themselves in this manner for a time, remained for the rest of the day safe spectators of the fight. The soldiers worked undisturbed till noon, when volleys of musketry were heard from the forest in front. It was the English light troops driving in the French pickets. A cannon was fired as a signal to drop tools and form for battle. The white uniforms lined the breastwork in a triple row, with the grenadiers behind them as a reserve and the second battalion of Berry watching the flanks and rear.

Meanwhile the English army had moved forward from its camp by the sawmill. First came the rangers, the light infantry and Bradstreet’s armed boatmen, who, emerging into the open space, began a spattering fire. Some of the provincial troops followed, extending from left to right and opening fire in turn; then the regulars, who had formed in columns of attack under cover of the forest, advanced their solid red masses into the sunlight and passing through the intervals between the provincial regiments, pushed forward to the assault. Across the rough ground, with its maze of fallen trees whose leaves hung withering in the July sun, they could see the top of the breastwork but not the men behind it; when, in an instant, all the line was obscured by a gush of smoke, a crash of exploding firearms tore the air and grapeshot and musket-balls swept the whole space like a tempest; “a damnable fire,” says an officer who heard them screaming about his ears. The English had been ordered to carry the works with the bayonet; but their ranks were broken by the obstructions through which they struggled in vain to force their way and they soon began to fire in turn. The storm raged in full fury for an hour. The assailants pushed close to the breastwork; but there they were stopped by the bristling mass of sharpened branches, which they could not pass under the murderous crossfires that swept them from front and flank. At length they fell back, exclaiming that the works were impregnable. Abercromby, who was at the sawmill, a mile and a half in the rear, sent order to attack again and again they came on as before.

The scene was frightful: masses of infuriated men who could not go forward and would not go back; straining for an enemy they could not reach and firing on an enemy they could not see; caught in the entanglement of fallen trees; tripped by briers, stumbling over logs, tearing through boughs; shouting, yelling, cursing and pelted all the while with bullets that killed them by scores, stretched them on the ground, or hung them on jagged branches in strange attitudes of death. The provincials supported the regulars with spirit and some of them forced their way to the foot of the wooden wall.

The French fought with the intrepid gayety of their nation and shouts of Vive le Roi! and Vive notre General! mingled with the din of musketry. Montcalm, with his coat off, for the day was hot, directed the defense of the center and repaired to any part of the line where the danger for the time seemed greatest. He is warm in praise of his enemy and declares that between one and seven o’clock they attacked him six successive times. Early in the action Abercromby tried to turn the French left by sending twenty bateaux, filled with troops, down the outlet of Lake George. They were met by the fire of the volunteers stationed to defend the low grounds on that side and, still advancing, came within range of the cannon of the fort, which sank two of them and drove back the rest.

A curious incident happened during one of the attacks. De Bassignac, a captain in the battalion of Royal Roussillon, tied his handkerchief to the end of a musket and waved it over the breastwork in defiance. The English mistook it for a sign of surrender and came forward with all possible speed, holding their muskets crossed over their heads in both hands and crying Quarter. The French made the same mistake; and thinking that their enemies were giving themselves up as prisoners, ceased firing and mounted on the top of the breastwork to receive them. Captain Pouchot, astonished, as he says, to see them perched there, looked out to learn the cause and saw that the enemy meant anything but surrender. Whereupon he shouted with all his might: “Tirez! Tirez! Ne voyez-vous pas que ces gens-là vont vous enlever?” The soldiers, still standing on the breastwork, instantly gave the English a volley, which killed some of them and sent back the rest discomfited.

[Pouchot, I. 153. Both Niles and Entick mention the incident.]

This was set to the account of Gallic treachery. “Another deceit the enemy put upon us,” says a military letter-writer: “they raised their hats above the breastwork, which our people fired at; they, having loopholes to fire through and being covered by the sods, we did them little damage, except shooting their hats to pieces.”[1] In one of the last assaults a soldier of the Rhode Island regiment, William Smith, managed to get through all obstructions and ensconce himself close under the breastwork, where in the confusion he remained for a time unnoticed, improving his advantages meanwhile by shooting several Frenchmen. Being at length observed, a soldier fired vertically down upon him and wounded him severely but not enough to prevent his springing up, striking at one of his enemies over the top of the wall and braining him with his hatchet. A British officer who saw the feat and was struck by the reckless daring of the man, ordered two regulars to bring him off; which, covered by a brisk fire of musketry, they succeeded in doing. A letter from the camp two or three weeks later reports him as in a fair way to recover, being, says the writer, much braced and invigorated by his anger against the French, on whom he was swearing to have his revenge.[2]

[1: Letter from Saratoga, 12 July, 1758, in New Hampshire Gazette. Compare Pennsylvania Archives, III. 474.]

[2: Letter from Lake George, 26 July, 1758, in Boston Gazette. The story is given, without much variation, in several other letters.]

Toward five o’clock two English columns joined in a most determined assault on the extreme right of the French, defended by the battalions of Guienne and Béarn. The danger for a time was imminent. Montcalm hastened to the spot with the reserves. The assailants hewed their way to the foot of the breastwork; and though again and again repulsed, they again and again renewed the attack. The Highlanders fought with stubborn and unconquerable fury. “Even those who were mortally wounded,” writes one of their lieutenants, “cried to their companions not to lose a thought upon them but to follow their officers and mind the honor of their country. Their ardor was such that it was difficult to bring them off.”[3] Their major, Campbell of Inverawe, found his foreboding true. He received a mortal shot and his clansmen bore him from the field. Twenty-five of their officers were killed or wounded and half the men fell under the deadly fire that poured from the loopholes. Captain John Campbell and a few followers tore their way through the abattis, climbed the breastwork, leaped down among the French and were bayoneted there.[4]

[3: Letter of Lieutenant William Grant, in Maclachlan’s Highlands, II. 340 (ed. 1875).]

[4: Ibid., II. 339.]

As the colony troops and Canadians on the low ground were left undisturbed, Lévis sent them an order to make a sortie and attack the left flank of the charging columns. They accordingly posted themselves among the trees along the declivity and fired upwards at the enemy, who presently shifted their position to the right, out of the line of shot. The assault still continued but in vain; and at six there was another effort, equally fruitless. From this time till half-past seven a lingering fight was kept up by the rangers and other provincials, firing from the edge of the woods and from behind the stumps, bushes and fallen trees in front of the lines. Its only objects were to cover their comrades, who were collecting and bringing off the wounded and to protect the retreat of the regulars, who fell back in disorder to the Falls. As twilight came on, the last combatant withdrew and none were left but the dead. Abercromby had lost in killed, wounded and missing, nineteen hundred and forty-four officers and men. The loss of the French, not counting that of Langy’s detachment, was three hundred and seventy-seven. Bourlamaque was dangerously wounded; Bougainville slightly; and the hat of Lévis was twice shot through.

[Lévis au Ministre, 13 Juillet, 1758.]

Montcalm, with a mighty load lifted from his soul, passed along the lines and gave the tired soldiers the thanks they nobly deserved. Beer, wine and food were served out to them and they bivouacked for the night on the level ground between the breastwork and the fort. The enemy had met a terrible rebuff; yet the danger was not over. Abercromby still had more than thirteen thousand men and he might renew the attack with cannon. But, on the morning of the ninth, a band of volunteers who had gone out to watch him brought back the report that he was in full retreat. The sawmill at the Falls was on fire and the last English soldier was gone. On the morning of the tenth, Lévis, with a strong detachment, followed the road to the landing-place and found signs that a panic had overtaken the defeated troops. They had left behind several hundred barrels of provisions and a large quantity of baggage; while in a marshy place that they had crossed was found a considerable number of their shoes, which had stuck in the mud and which they had not stopped to recover. They had embarked on the morning after the battle and retreated to the head of the lake in a disorder and dejection woefully contrasted with the pomp of their advance. A gallant army was sacrificed by the blunders of its chief.

Montcalm announced his victory to his wife in a strain of exaggeration that marks the exaltation of his mind.

Without Indians, almost without Canadians or colony troops, — I had only four hundred, — alone with Lévis and Bourlamaque and the troops of the line, thirty-one hundred fighting men, I have beaten an army of twenty-five thousand. They repassed the lake precipitately, with a loss of at least five thousand. This glorious day does infinite honor to the valor of our battalions. I have no time to write more. I am well, my dearest and I embrace you.”

And he wrote to his friend Doreil:

The army, the too-small army of the King, has beaten the enemy. What a day for France! If I had had two hundred Indians to send out at the head of a thousand picked men under the Chevalier de Lévis, not many would have escaped. Ah, my dear Doreil, what soldiers are ours! I never saw the like. Why were they not at Louisbourg?”

On the morrow of his victory he caused a great cross to be planted on the battlefield, inscribed with these lines, composed by the soldier-scholar himself:

Quid dux? quid miles? quid strata ingentia ligna? En Signum! en victor! Deus hîc, Deus ipse triumphat.”
Soldier and chief and rampart’s strength are nought; Behold the conquering Cross! ‘T is God the triumph wrought.”

[Along with the above paraphrase I may give that of Montcalm himself, which was also inscribed on the cross:

Chrétien! ce ne fut point Montcalm et la prudence, Ces arbres renversés, ces héros, leurs exploits, Qui des Anglais confus ont brisé l’espérance; C’est le bras de ton Dieu, vainqueur sur cette croix.”

In the same letter in which Montcalm sent these lines to his mother he says: “Je vous envoie, pour vous amuser, deux chansons sur le combat du 8 Juillet, dont l’une est en style des poissardes de Paris.” One of these songs, which were written by soldiers after the battle, begins,

“Je chante des François La valeur et la gloire, Qui toujours sur l’Anglois Remportent la victoire. Ce sont des héros, Tous nos généraux, Et Montcalm et Lévis, Et Bourlamaque aussi.
Mars, qui les engendra Pour l’honneur de la France, D’abord les anima De sa haute vaillance, Et les transporta Dans le Canada, Où l’on voit les François Culbuter les Anglois.”

The other effusion of the military muse is in a different strain, “en style des poissardes de Paris.” The following a specimen, given literatim: —

L’aumônier fit l’exhortation, Puis il donnit l’absolution; Aisément cela se peut croire. Enfants, dit-il, animez-vous! L’bon Dieu, sa mère, tout est pour vous. S — é! j’sommes catholiques. Les Anglois sont des hérétiques.
Ce sont des chiens; à coups d’pieds, a coups d’poings faut leur casser la gueule et la mâchoire.”
Soldats, officiers, généraux, Chacun en ce jour fut héros. Aisément cela se peut croire. Montcalm, comme défunt Annibal, S’montroit soldat et général. S — é! sil y avoit quelqu’un qui ne l’aimit point!”
Je veux être un chien; à coups d’pieds, a coups d’poings, j’lui cass’rai la gueule et la mâchoire.”?

This is an allusion to Vaudreuil.]

From Montcalm and Wolfe, Chapter 20 by Francis Parkman

To be continued.

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Preface to this book.

A very large amount of unpublished material has been used in its preparation, consisting for the most part of documents copied from the archives and libraries of France and England, especially from the Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, the Archives de la Guerre, and the Archives Nationales at Paris, and the Public Record Office and the British Museum at London. The papers copied for the present work in France alone exceed six thousand folio pages of manuscript, additional and supplementary to the “Paris Documents” procured for the State of New York under the agency of Mr. Brodhead. The copies made in England form ten volumes, besides many English documents consulted in the original manuscript. Great numbers of autograph letters, diaries, and other writings of persons engaged in the war have also been examined on this side of the Atlantic.

I owe to the kindness of the present Marquis de Montcalm the permission to copy all the letters written by his ancestor, General Montcalm, when in America, to members of his family in France. General Montcalm, from his first arrival in Canada to a few days before his death, also carried on an active correspondence with one of his chief officers, Bourlamaque, with whom he was on terms of intimacy. These autograph letters are now preserved in a private collection. I have examined them and obtained copies of the whole. They form an interesting complement to the official correspondence of the writer, and throw the most curious side-lights on the persons and events of the time.

Besides manuscripts, the printed matter in the form of books, pamphlets, contemporary newspapers, and other publications relating to the American part of the Seven Years’ War, is varied and abundant; and I believe I may safely say that nothing in it of much consequence has escaped me. The liberality of some of the older States of the Union, especially New York and Pennsylvania, in printing the voluminous records of their colonial history, has saved me a deal of tedious labor.

The whole of this published and unpublished mass of evidence has been read and collated with extreme care, and more than common pains have been taken to secure accuracy of statement. The study of books and papers, however, could not alone answer the purpose. The plan of the work was formed in early youth; and though various causes have long delayed its execution, it has always been kept in view. Meanwhile, I have visited and examined every spot where events of any importance in connection with the contest took place, and have observed with attention such scenes and persons as might help to illustrate those I meant to describe. In short, the subject has been studied as much from life and in the open air as at the library table.

BOSTON, Sept. 16, 1884.

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