Three Years of Warfare

The succeeding events of the war between the colonies we shall describe with more brevity, lest the reader grow wearied with the details of battle and bloodshed which constitute all there is to offer. The year 1755 had ended with a balance of advantages between the two contestants. In the two years succeeding all the advantage lay with the French, and it was not until 1758 that the English began to make head against their opponents, in preparation for the decisive operations of the following year. The events of the years 1756, 1757, and 1758 are briefly but clearly described in Holmes's "Annals of America," a useful old work from which we make our present selection.

Although the war had continued for two years in America, and been actively aided by the home powers, no declaration of war was made until 1756, the English king declaring war against France on May 17, and the French king replying with a like declaration in the following month. Both powers now took more active measures to support the war. The Earl of Loudoun was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, while the Marquis de Montcalm took command of the French forces in Canada. General Abercrombie was sent over in advance of Lord Loudoun, to take immediate command. Three expeditions were planned for the year's campaign, one of ten thousand men against Crown Point, one of six thousand against Niagara, and one of three thousand against Fort Duquesne. In addition, two thousand men were to advance up the Kennebec River and keep Canada in alarm. These forces were considerably greater than had hitherto been employed in America.]

THE command of the expedition against Crown Point was given to Major-General Winslow, who, on reviewing the provincial troops destined for that service, found them not much to exceed seven thousand men,--a number which, after deducting from it the necessary garrisons, was declared inadequate to the enterprise. The arrival of British troops with General Abercrombie, while it relieved this difficulty, created a new one, which occasioned a temporary suspension of the projected expedition. The regulations of the crown respecting military rank had excited great disgust in America; and Winslow, when consulted on this delicate subject by Abercrombie, expressed his apprehensions that, if the result of a junction of British and provincial troops should be the placing of provincials under British officers, it would produce very general discontent, and perhaps desertion. To avoid so serious an evil, it was finally agreed that British troops should succeed the provincials in the posts then occupied by them, so as to enable the whole colonial force to proceed under Winslow against Crown Point. . . . Scarcely was this point of honor satisfactorily adjusted, when the attention of both British and provincial soldiers was arrested to a more serious subject.

M. Montcalm, who succeeded the baron Dieskau in the chief command of the French forces in Canada, approached Fort Ontario at Oswego on the 10th of August with more than five thousand regulars, Canadians, and Indians. Having made the necessary dispositions, he opened the trenches on the 12th at midnight, with thirty-two pieces of cannon, besides several brass mortars and howitzers. The garrison having fired away all their shells and ammunition, Colonel Mercer, the commanding officer, ordered the cannon to be spiked up, and crossed the river to Little Oswego Fort, without the loss of a single man. The enemy, taking immediate possession of the deserted fort, began a fire from it which was kept up without intermission. About four miles and a half up the river was Fort George, the defence of which was committed to Colonel Schuyler. On the abandonment of the first fort by Colonel Mercer, about three hundred and seventy of his men had joined Colonel Schuyler, in the intention of having an intercourse between his fort and that to which their own commander retreated; but a body of twenty-five hundred Canadians and Indians boldly swam across the river in the night between the 13th and 14th and cut off that communication. On the 13th, Colonel Mercer was killed by a cannon-ball. The garrison, deprived of their commander, who was an officer of courage and experience, frustrated in their hope of aid, and destitute of a cover to their fort, demanded a capitulation on the following day, and surrendered as prisoners of war. They were the regiments of Shirley and Pepperell, and amounted to fourteen hundred men. The conditions required, and acceded to, were that they should be exempted from plunder, conducted to Montreal, and treated with humanity. No sooner was Montcalm in possession of the two forts at Oswego than, with admirable policy, he demolished them in presence of the Indians of the Six Nations, in whose country they had been erected, and whose jealousy they had excited.

On this disastrous event, every plan of offensive operation was immediately relinquished.

All the forces which had been raised remained on the defensive, in anticipation of possible advances by the French. The only active operation was against the Indians of western Pennsylvania, who, since the event of Braddock's defeat, had severely raided the outlying settlements.