Three Years of Warfare: Montcalm and Louisburg

Fort Granby, on the confines of Pennsylvania, was surprised by a party of French and Indians, who made the garrison prisoners. Instead of scalping the captives, they loaded them with flour, and drove them into captivity. The Indians on the Ohio, having killed above a thousand of the inhabitants of the western frontiers, were soon chastised with military vengeance. Colonel Armstrong, with a party of two hundred and eighty provincials,marched from Fort Shirley, which had been built on the Juniata River, about one hundred and fifty miles west of Philadelphia, to Kittanning, an Indian town, the rendezvous of those murdering Indians, and destroyed it. Captain Jacobs, the Indian chief, defended himself through loop-holes of his log-house. The Indians refusing the quarter which was offered them, Colonel Armstrong ordered their houses to be set on fire; and many of the Indians were suffocated and burnt; others were shot in attempting to reach the river. The Indian captain, his squaw, and a boy called the King's Son were shot as they were getting out of the window, and were all scalped. It was computed that between thirty and forty Indians were destroyed. Eleven English prisoners were released.

The plan of proceedings for the year 1757 was less complex than that for the preceding year, but was no more successful. Leaving the frontier posts strongly garrisoned. Lord Loudoun determined on the siege of the highly-important fortress of Louisburg, on Cape Breton, with all his disposable force. But after reaching Halifax with his fleet and army he learned that Louisburg was garrisoned with six thousand French regulars, in addition to the provincials, and that seventeen line-of-battle ships were in the harbor. This destroyed all hope of success, and the expedition was abandoned. In September, the British fleet, cruising off Louisburg, narrowly escaped destruction from a violent gale, which drove one frigate ashore and seriously injured most of the others. The only military advantage of the year was gained by the French under Montcalm, in an expedition against Fort William Henry, which had been erected by Johnson at the scene of his victory two years before.

The Marquis de Montcalm, availing himself of the absence of the principal part of the British force, advanced with an army of nine thousand men and laid siege to Fort William Henry. The garrison at this fort consisted of between two thousand and three thousand regulars, and its fortifications were strong and in very good order. For the further security of this important post, General Webb was stationed at Fort Edward with an army of four thousand men. The French commander, however, urged his approaches with such vigor that, within six days after the investment of the fort, Coloned Monroe, the commandant, after a spirited resistance, surrendered by capitulation. The garrison was to be allowed the honors of war, and to be protected against the Indians until within the reach of Fort Edward; but no sooner had the soldiers left the place than the Indians in the French army, disregarding the stipulation, fell upon them and committed the most cruel outrages.

The British officers complained that the troops were pillaged, and that the men were dragged out of the ranks and tomahawked, before the exertions of the Marquis de Montcalm to restrain the savages were effectual. Carver says the captured troops were, by the capitulation, to be allowed covered wagons to transport their baggage to Fort Edward, and a guard to protect them; that the promised guard was not furnished; and that fifteen hundred persons were either killed or made prisoners by the Indians. . . Minot says, "The breach of this capitulation, whether voluntary or unavoidable on the part of the French, was a most interesting subject of reproach at the time, and long continued to fill the British colonists with indignation and horror." A great part of the prisoners, he observes, were pillaged and stripped, and many of them murdered, by the savages; some reached Fort Edward in a scattering manner, and others returned again to the French.

This disastrous event has seriously tarnished the fair fame of the Marquis de Montcalm. To what extent he and his officers intervened to stop the butchery is uncertain, but there is good reason to believe that the French in general permitted the massacre to go on with scarce an effort to stop it. General Webb is also severely blamed by historians for not reinforcing Monroe, and is accused of cowardice, for which accusation his behavior gave abundant warrant. The massacre was the more terrible in that there were many women and children in the retreating column, who were killed indiscriminately with the men. The Indians present with the English were taken prisoners by their foes and reserved for the more horrible fate of death by torture.