Montcalm and Wolfe Part 35

The regimental colors were planted along the line, and the officers, stripped to the s.h.i.+rt, took axe in hand and labored with their men. The trees that covered the ground were hewn down by thousands, the tops lopped off, and the trunks piled one upon another to form a ma.s.sive breastwork. The line followed the top of the ridge, along which it zig-zagged in such a manner that the whole front could be swept by flank-fires of musketry and grape. Abercromby describes the wall of logs as between eight and nine feet high;[621] in which case there must have been a rude _banquette_, or platform to fire from, on the inner side. It was certainly so high that nothing could be seen over it but the crowns of the soldiers' hats. The upper tier was formed of single logs, in which notches were cut to serve as loopholes; and in some places sods and bags of sand were piled along the top, with narrow s.p.a.ces to fire through.[622] From the central part of the line the ground sloped away like a natural glacis; while at the sides, and especially on the left, it was undulating and broken. Over this whole s.p.a.ce, to the distance of a musket-shot from the works, the forest was cut down, and the trees left lying where they fell among the stumps, with tops turned outwards, forming one vast abattis, which, as a Ma.s.sachusetts officer says, looked like a forest laid flat by a hurricane.[623] But the most formidable obstruction was immediately along the front of the breastwork, where the ground was covered with heavy boughs, overlapping and interlaced, with sharpened points bristling into the face of the a.s.sailant like the quills of a porcupine. As these works were all of wood, no vestige of them remains. The earthworks now shown to tourists as the lines of Montcalm are of later construction; and though on the same ground, are not on the same plan.[624]

[Footnote 621: _Abercromby to Harrington, 12 July, 1758._ "At least eight feet high." Rogers, _Journals_, 116.]

[Footnote 622: A Swiss officer of the Royal Americans, writing on the 14th, says that there were two, and in some parts three, rows of loopholes. See the letter in _Pennsylvania Archives_, III. 472.]

[Footnote 623: _Colonel Oliver Partridge to his Wife, 12 July, 1758._]

[Footnote 624: A new line of works was begun four days after the battle, to replace the log breastwork. Malartic, _Journal. Travaux faits a Carillon, 1758_.]

Here, then, was a position which, if attacked in front with musketry alone, might be called impregnable. But would Abercromby so attack it?

He had several alternatives. He might attempt the flank and rear of his enemy by way of the low grounds on the right and left of the plateau, a movement which the precautions of Montcalm had made difficult, but not impossible. Or, instead of leaving his artillery idle on the strand of Lake George, he might bring it to the front and batter the breastwork, which, though impervious to musketry, was worthless against heavy cannon. Or he might do what Burgoyne did with success a score of years later, and plant a battery on the heights of Rattlesnake Hill, now called Mount Defiance, which commanded the position of the French, and whence the inside of their breastwork could be scoured with round-shot from end to end. Or, while threatening the French front with a part of his army, he could march the rest a short distance through the woods on his left to the road which led from Ticonderoga to Crown Point, and which would soon have brought him to the place called Five-Mile Point, where Lake Champlain narrows to the width of an easy rifle-shot, and where a battery of field-pieces would have cut off all Montcalm's supplies and closed his only way of retreat. As the French were provisioned for but eight days, their position would thus have been desperate. They plainly saw the danger; and Doreil declares that had the movement been made, their whole army must have surrendered.[625]

Montcalm had done what he could; but the danger of his position was inevitable and extreme. His hope lay in Abercromby; and it was a hope well founded. The action of the English general answered the utmost wishes of his enemy.

[Footnote 625: _Doreil au Ministre, 28 Juillet, 1758._ The Chevalier Johnstone thought that Montcalm was saved by Abercromby's ignorance of the ground. A _Dialogue in Hades_ (Quebec Historical Society).]

Abercromby had been told by his prisoners that Montcalm had six thousand men, and that three thousand more were expected every hour. Therefore he was in haste to attack before these succors could arrive. As was the general, so was the army. "I believe," writes an officer, "we were one and all infatuated by a notion of carrying every obstacle by a mere _coup de mousqueterie_."[626] Leaders.h.i.+p perished with Lord Howe, and nothing was left but blind, headlong valor.

[Footnote 626: See the letter in Knox, I. 148.]

Clerk, chief engineer, was sent to reconnoitre the French works from Mount Defiance; and came back with the report that, to judge from what he could see, they might be carried by a.s.sault. Then, without waiting to bring up his cannon, Abercromby prepared to storm the lines.

The French finished their breastwork and abattis on the evening of the seventh, encamped behind them, slung their kettles, and rested after their heavy toil. Levis had not yet appeared; but at twilight one of his officers, Captain Pouchot, arrived with three hundred regulars, and announced that his commander would come before morning with a hundred more. The reinforcement, though small, was welcome, and Levis was a host in himself. Pouchot was told that the army was half a mile off. Thither he repaired, made his report to Montcalm, and looked with amazement at the prodigious amount of work accomplished in one day.[627] Levis himself arrived in the course of the night, and approved the arrangement of the troops. They lay behind their lines till daybreak; then the drums beat, and they formed in order of battle.[628] The battalions of La Sarre and Languedoc were posted on the left, under Bourlamaque, the first battalion of Berry with that of Royal Roussillon in the centre, under Montcalm, and those of La Reine, Bearn, and Guienne on the right, under Levis. A detachment of volunteers occupied the low grounds between the breastwork and the outlet of Lake George; while, at the foot of the declivity on the side towards Lake Champlain, were stationed four hundred and fifty colony regulars and Canadians, behind an abattis which they had made for themselves; and as they were covered by the cannon of the fort, there was some hope that they would check any flank movement which the English might attempt on that side. Their posts being thus a.s.signed, the men fell to work again to strengthen their defences.

Including those who came with Levis, the total force of effective soldiers was now thirty-six hundred.[629]

[Footnote 627: Pouchot, I. 137.]

[Footnote 628: _Livre d'Ordres, Disposition de Defense des Retranchements, 8 Juillet, 1758_.]

[Footnote 629: Montcalm, _Relation de la Victoire remportee a Carillon, 8 Juillet, 1758_. Vaudreuil puts the number at 4,760, besides officers, which includes the garrison and laborers at the fort. _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 28 Juillet, 1758_.]

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 saw-mill. First came the rangers, the light infantry, and Bradstreet's armed boatmen, who, emerging into the open s.p.a.ce, 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 ma.s.ses into the sunlight, and pa.s.sing through the intervals between the provincial regiments, pushed forward to the a.s.sault. 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-b.a.l.l.s swept the whole s.p.a.ce like a tempest; "a d.a.m.nable 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 a.s.sailants pushed close to the breastwork; but there they were stopped by the bristling ma.s.s of sharpened branches, which they could not pa.s.s under the murderous cross-fires that swept them from front and flank. At length they fell back, exclaiming that the works were impregnable. Abercromby, who was at the saw-mill, a mile and a half in the rear, sent order to attack again, and again they came on as before.

The scene was frightful: ma.s.ses 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 att.i.tudes 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 defence of the centre, 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 Ba.s.signac, 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-la 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.[630]

[Footnote 630: 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."[631] In one of the last a.s.saults 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.[632]

[Footnote 631: _Letter from Saratoga, 12 July, 1758_, in _New Hamps.h.i.+re Gazette_. Compare _Pennsylvania Archives_, III. 474.]

[Footnote 632: _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 a.s.sault on the extreme right of the French, defended by the battalions of Guienne and Bearn. The danger for a time was imminent. Montcalm hastened to the spot with the reserves. The a.s.sailants 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."[633] 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.[634]

[Footnote 633: _Letter of Lieutenant William Grant_, in _Maclachlan's Highlands_, II. 340 (ed. 1875).]

[Footnote 634: _Ibid._, II. 339.]

As the colony troops and Canadians on the low ground were left undisturbed, Levis 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 s.h.i.+fted their position to the right, out of the line of shot.

The a.s.sault 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.[635] 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 Levis was twice shot through.[636]

[Footnote 635: See Appendix G.]

[Footnote 636: _Levis au Ministre, 13 Juillet, 1758_.]

Montcalm, with a mighty load lifted from his soul, pa.s.sed along the lines, and gave the tired soldiers the thanks they n.o.bly 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 saw-mill at the Falls was on fire, and the last English soldier was gone. On the morning of the tenth, Levis, 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 quant.i.ty 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 wofully 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 Levis and Bourlamaque and the troops of the line, thirty-one hundred fighting men, I have beaten an army of twenty-five thousand. They repa.s.sed 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 Levis, 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 battle-field, inscribed with these lines, composed by the soldier-scholar himself,--

"Quid dux? quid miles? quid strata ingentia ligna?

En Signum! en victor! Deus hic, Deus ipse triumphat."

"Soldier and chief and rampart's strength are nought; Behold the conquering Cross! 'T is G.o.d the triumph wrought."[637]

[Footnote 637: Along with the above paraphrase I may give that of Montcalm himself, which was also inscribed on the cross:--

"Chretien! ce ne fut point Montcalm et la prudence, Ces arbres renverses, ces heros, leurs exploits, Qui des Anglais confus ont brise l'esperance; 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 Francois La valeur et la gloire, Qui toujours sur l'Anglois Remportent la victoire.

Ce sont des heros, Tous nos generaux, Et Montcalm et Levis, 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, Ou l'on voit les Francois 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'aumonier fit l'exhortation, Puis il donnit l'absolution; Ais.e.m.e.nt cela se peut croire.

Enfants, dit-il, animez-vous!

L'bon Dieu, sa mere, tout est pour vous.

_S--e! j'sommes catholiques. Les Anglois sont des heretiques._

"Ce sont des chiens; a coups d'pieds, a coups d'poings faut leur ca.s.ser la gueule et la machoire."

"Soldats, officiers, generaux, Chacun en ce jour fut heros.