Montcalm and Wolfe Part 55

FRYE TO THOMAS HUBBARD, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS, ALBANY, 16 AUG. 1757.

_Public Record Office._ (_Extract._)

"We did not march till ye 10th at which time the Savages were let loose upon us, Strips, Kills, & Scalps our people drove them into Disorder Rendered it impossible to Rally, the French Gaurds we were promised shou'd Escort us to Fort Edward Could or would not protect us so that there Opened the most horrid Scene of Barbarity immaginable, I was strip'd myself of my Arms & Cloathing that I had nothing left but Briches Stockings Shoes & s.h.i.+rt, the Indians round me with their Tomehawks Spears &c threatening Death I flew to the Officers of the French Gaurds for Protection but they would afford me none, therefore was Oblig'd to fly and was in the woods till the 12th in the Morning of which I arriv'd at Fort Edward almost Famished ... with what of Fatigue Starving &c I am obliged to break off but as soon as I can Recollect myself shall write to you more fully."

FRYE, JOURNAL OF THE ATTACK OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY.

_Public Record Office. (Extract.)_

"_Wednesday, August 10th_.--Early this morning we were ordered to prepare for our march, but found the Indians in a worse temper (if possible) than last night, every one having a tomahawk, hatchett or some other instrument of death, and Constantly plundering from the officers their arms &ca this Col'o.

Monro Complained of, as a breach of the Articles of Capitulation but to no effect, the french officers however told us that if we would give up the baggage of the officers and men, to the Indians, they thought it would make them easy, which at last Col'o. Monro Consented to but this was no sooner done, then they began to take the Officers Hatts, Swords, guns & Cloaths, stripping them all to their s.h.i.+rts, and on some officers, left no s.h.i.+rt at all, while this was doing they killed and scalp'd all the sick and wounded before our faces and then took out from our troops, all the Indians and negroes, and Carried them off, one of the former they burnt alive afterwards."

"At last with great difficulty the troops gott from the Retrenchment, but they were no sooner out, then the savages fell upon the rear, killing & scalping, which Occasioned an order for a halt, which at last was done in great Confusion but as soon as those in the front knew what was doing in the rear they again pressed forward, and thus the Confusion continued & encreased till we came to the Advanc'd guard of the French, the savages still carrying away Officers, privates, Women and Children, some of which latter they kill'd & scalpt in the road. This horrid scene of blood and slaughter obliged our officers to apply to the Officers of the French Guard for protection, which they refus'd & told them they must take to the woods and s.h.i.+ft for themselves which many did, and in all probability many perish't in the woods, many got into Fort Edward that day and others daily Continued coming in, but vastly fatigued with their former hards.h.i.+ps added to this last, which threw several of them into Deliriums."

AFFIDAVIT OF MILES WHITWORTH, SURGEON OF THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS REGIMENT, TAKEN BEFORE GOVERNOR POWNALL 17 OCT.1757.

_Public Record Office. (Extract.)_

"Being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists doth declare ... that there were also seventeen Men of the Ma.s.sachusetts Regiment wounded unable to March under his immediate Care in the Intrenched Camp, that according to the Capitulation he did deliver them over to the French Surgeon on the ninth of August at two in the Afternoon ... that the French Surgeon received them into his Custody and placed Centinals of the French Troops upon the said seventeen wounded. That the French Surgeon going away to the French Camp, the said Miles Whitworth continued with the said wounded Men till five o'clock on the Morn of the tenth of August, That the Centinals were taken off and that he the said Whitworth saw the French Indians about 5 O'clock in the Morn of the 10th of August dragg the said seventeen wounded men out of their Hutts, Murder them with their Tomohawks and scalp them, That the French Troops posted round the lines were not further than forty feet from the Hutts where the said wounded Men lay, that several Canadian Officers particularly one Lacorne were present and that none, either Officer or Soldier, protected the said wounded Men."

MILES WHITWORTH.

"_Sworn before me_ T. POWNALL."

Appendix G

Chapter 20. Ticonderoga

The French accounts of the battle at Ticonderoga are very numerous, and consist of letters and despatches of Montcalm, Levis, Bougainville, Doreil, and other officers, besides several anonymous narratives, one of which was printed in pamphlet form at the time. Translations of many of them may be found in _N.Y. Colonial Doc.u.ments,_ X. There are, however, various others preserved in the archives of the War and Marine Departments at Paris which have not seen the light. I have carefully examined and collated them all. The English accounts are by no means so numerous or so minute. Among those not already cited, may be mentioned a letter of Colonel Woolsey of the New York provincials, and two letters from British officers written just after the battle and enclosed in a letter from Alexander Colden to Major Halkett, 17 July. (_Bouquet and Haldimand Papers._)

The French greatly exaggerated the force of the English and their losses in the battle. They place the former at from twenty thousand to thirty-one thousand, and the latter at from four thousand to six thousand. Prisoners taken at the end of the battle told them that the English had lost four thousand,--a statement which they readily accepted, though the prisoners could have known little more about the matter than they themselves. And these figures were easily magnified. The number of dead lying before the lines is variously given at from eight hundred to three thousand. Montcalm himself, who was somewhat elated by his victory, gives this last number in one of his letters, though he elsewhere says two thousand; while Levis, in his _Journal de la Guerre,_ says "about eight hundred." The truth is that no pains were taken to ascertain the exact number, which, by the English returns, was a little above five hundred, the total of killed, wounded, and missing being nineteen hundred and forty-four. A friend of Knox, writing to him from Fort Edward three weeks after the battle, gives a tabular statement which shows nineteen hundred and fifty in all, or six more than the official report. As the name of every officer killed or wounded, with the corps to which he belonged, was published at the time (_London Magazine_, 1758), it is extremely unlikely that the official return was falsified. Abercromby's letter to Pitt, of July 12, says that he retreated "with the loss of four hundred and sixty-four regulars killed, twenty-nine missing eleven hundred and seventeen wounded; and eighty-seven provincials killed, eight missing, and two hundred and thirty-nine wounded, officers of both included." In a letter to Viscount Barrington, of the same date (Public Record Office), Abercromby encloses a full detail of losses, regiment by regiment and company by company, being a total of nineteen hundred and forty-five. Several of the French writers state correctly that about fourteen thousand men (including reserves) were engaged in the attacks; but they add erroneously that there were thirteen thousand more at the Falls. In fact there was only a small provincial regiment left there, and a battalion of the New York regiment, under Colonel Woolsey, at the landing.

A LEGEND OF TICONDEROGA.--Mention has been made of the death of Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe. The following family tradition relating to it was told me in 1878 by the late Dean Stanley, to whom I am also indebted for various papers on the subject, including a letter from James Campbell, Esq., the present laird of Inverawe, and great-nephew of the hero of the tale. The same story is told, in an amplified form and with some variations, in the _Legendary Tales of the Highlands_ of Sir Thomas d.i.c.k Lauder. As related by Dean Stanley and approved by Mr.

Campbell, it is this:--

The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of the Awe, in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery of the western Highlands. Late one evening, before the middle of the last century, as the laird, Duncan Campbell, sat alone in the old hall, there was a loud knocking at the gate; and, opening it, he saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who in a breathless voice begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. "Swear on your dirk!"

said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths of the castle. Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. "Your cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for the murderer!" Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way. The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a large dark room, where at length he feel asleep. Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow voice p.r.o.nounce the words: _"Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed.

s.h.i.+eld not the murderer!"_ In the morning Campbell went to the hiding-place of the guilty man and told him that he could harbor him no longer. "You have sworn on your dirk!" he replied; and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray his guest, led him to the neighboring mountain, and hid him in a cave.

In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling words: _"Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. s.h.i.+eld not the murderer!"_ At break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night, as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before. _"Farewell, Inverawe!"_ it said; _"Farewell, till we meet at TICONDEROGA!"_

The strange name dwelt in Campbell's memory. He had joined the Black Watch, or Forty-second Regiment, then employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major; and, a year or two after the war broke out, he went with it to America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the eve of the battle, "This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there yet; this is Fort George." But in the morning he came to them with haggard looks. "I have seen him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night! This is Ticonderoga! I shall die to-day!" and his prediction was fulfilled.

Such is the tradition. The indisputable facts are that Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, his arm shattered by a bullet, was carried to Fort Edward, where, after amputation, he died and was buried. (_Abercromby to Pitt_,19 _August_, 1758.) The stone that marks his grave may still be seen, with this inscription: _"Here lyes the Body of Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, Esq, Major to the old Highland Regiment, aged 55 Years, who died on the 17th July, 1758, of the Wounds he received in the Attack of the Retrenchment of Ticonderoga or Carrillon, on the 8th July, 1758."_

His son, Lieutenant Alexander Campbell, was severely wounded at the same time, but reached Scotland alive, and died in Glasgow.

Mr. Campbell, the present Inverawe, in the letter mentioned above, says that forty-five years ago he knew an old man whose grandfather was foster-brother to the slain major of the forty-second, and who told him the following story while carrying a salmon for him to an inn near Inverawe. The old man's grandfather was sleeping with his son, then a lad, in the same room, but in another bed. This son, father of the narrator, "was awakened," to borrow the words of Mr. Campbell, "by some unaccustomed sound, and behold there was a bright light in the room, and he saw a figure, in full Highland regimentals, cross over the room and stoop down over his father's bed and give him a kiss. He was too frightened to speak, but put his head under his coverlet and went to sleep. Once more he was roused in like manner, and saw the same sight. In the morning he spoke to his father about it, who told him that it was Macdonnochie _[the Gaelic patronymic of the laird of Inverawe]_ whom he had seen, and who came to tell him that he had been killed in a great battle in America.

Sure enough, said my informant, it was on the very day that the battle of Ticonderoga was fought and the laird was killed."

It is also said that two ladies of the family of Inverawe saw a battle in the clouds, in which the shadowy forms of Highland warriors were plainly to be described; and that when the fatal news came from America, it was found that the time of the vision answered exactly to that of the battle in which the head of the family fell.

The legend of Inverawe has within a few years found its way into an English magazine, and it has also been excellently told in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of September of this year, 1884, by Miss C.F. Gordon c.u.mming. Her version differs a little from that given above from the recital of Dean Stanley and the present laird of Inverawe, but the essential points are the same. Miss Gordon c.u.mming, however, is in error when she says that Duncan Campbell was wounded in the breast, and that he was first buried at Ticonderoga. His burial-place was near Fort Edward, where he died, and where his remains still lie, though not at the same spot, as they were long after removed by a family named Gilchrist, who claimed kins.h.i.+p with the Campbells of Inverawe.

Appendix H

Chapter 25. Wolfe at Quebec

FORCE OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH AT THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC.

"Les retranchemens que j'avois fait tracer depuis la riviere St.

Charles jusqu'au saut Montmorency furent occupes par plus de 14,000 hommes, 200 cavaliers dont je formai un corps aux ordres de M. de la Rochebeaucour, environ 1,000 sauvages Abenakis et des differentes nations du nord des pays d'en haut. M. de Boishebert arriva ensuite avec les Acadiens et sauvages qu'il avoit ra.s.sembles.

Je reglai la garnison de Quebec a 2,000 hommes." _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759._

The commissary Berniers says that the whole force was about fifteen thousand men, besides Indians, which is less than the number given by Vaudreuil.

Bigot says: "Nous avions 13,000 hommes et mille a 1,200 sauvages, sans compter 2,000 hommes de garnison dans la ville." _Bigot au Ministre, 25 Oct. 1759._

The Hartwell _Journal du Siege_ says: "II fut decide qu'on ne laisseroit dans la place que 1,200 hommes, et que tout le reste marcheroit au camp, ou l'on comptoit se trouver plus de 15,000 hommes, y compris les sauvages."

Rigaud, Vaudreuil's brother, writing from Montreal to Bourlamaque on the 23d of June, says: "Je compte que l'armee campee sous Quebec sera de 17,000 hommes bien effectifs, sans les sauvages."

He then gives a list of Indians who have joined the army, or are on the way, amounting to thirteen hundred.

At the end of June Wolfe had about eight thousand six hundred effective soldiers. Of these the ten battalions, commonly mentioned as regiments, supplied six thousand four hundred; detached grenadiers from Louisbourg, three hundred; artillery, three hundred; rangers, four hundred; light infantry, two hundred; marines, one thousand. The complement of the battalions was in some cases seven hundred and in others one thousand (Knox, II. 25); but their actual strength varied from five hundred to eight hundred, except the Highlanders, who mustered eleven hundred, their ranks being more than full. Fraser, in his _Journal of the Siege_, gives a tabular view of the whole. At the end of the campaign Levis reckons the remaining English troops at about six thousand (_Levis au Ministre, 10 Nov. 1759_), which answers to the report of General Murray: "The troops will amount to six thousand" (_Murray to Pitt, 12 Oct. 1759_). The precise number is given in the _Return of the State of His Majesty's Forces left in Garrison at Quebec_, dated 12 Oct. 1759, and signed, Robert Monckton (Public Record Office, _America and West Indies_, XCIX.). This shows the total of rank and file to have been 6,214, which the addition of officers, sergeants, and drummers raises to about seven thousand, besides 171 artillerymen.

Appendix I

Chapter 27. The Heights of Abraham

One of the most important unpublished doc.u.ments on Wolfe's operations against Quebec is the long and elaborate _Journal memoratif de ce qui s'est pa.s.se de plus remarquable pendant qu'a dure le Siege de la Ville de Quebec_ (Archives de la Marine). The writer, M. de Foligny, was a naval officer who during the siege commanded one of the princ.i.p.al batteries of the town. The official correspondence of Vaudreuil for 1759 (Archives Nationales) gives the events of the time from his point of view; and various ma.n.u.script letters of Bigot, Levis, Montreuil, and others (Archives de la Marine, Archives de la Guerre) give additional particulars.

The letters, generally private and confidential, written to Bourlamaque by Montcalm, Levis, Vaudreuil, Malartic, Berniers, and others during the siege contain much that is curious and interesting.

_Siege de Quebec en 1759, d'apres un Ma.n.u.scrit depose a la Bibliotheque de Hartwell en Angleterre._ A very valuable diary, by a citizen of Quebec; it was brought from England in 1834 by the Hon. D.B. Viger, and a few copies were printed at Quebec in 1836. _Journal tenu a l'Armee que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm._ A minute diary of an officer under Montcalm (printed by the Quebec Historical Society). _Memoire sur la Campagne de 1759, par M. de Joannes, Major de Quebec_ (Archives de la Guerre).

_Lettres et Depeches de Montcalm_ (Ibid.). These touch briefly the antecedents of the Siege. _Memoires sur le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu'a_ 1760 (Quebec Historical Society). _Journal du Siege de Quebec en 1759, par M. Jean Claude Panet, notaire_ (Ibid.). The writer of this diary was in Quebec at the time. Several other journals and letters of persons present at the siege have been printed by the Quebec Historical Society, under the t.i.tle _evenements de la Guerre en Canada durant les Annees 1759 et 1760. Relation de ce qui s'est pa.s.se au Siege de Quebec, par une Religieuse de l'Hopital General de Quebec_ (Quebec Historical Society). _Jugement impartial sur les Operations militaires de la Campagne, par M'gr. de Pontbriand, eveque de Quebec_ (Ibid.). _Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, from the Journal of a French Officer on board the Chezine Frigate, taken by His Majesty's s.h.i.+p Rippon, by Richard Gardiner, Esq., Captain of Marines in the Rippon,_ London, 1761.

_General Wolfe's Instructions to Young Officers,_ Philadelphia, 1778. This t.i.tle is misleading, the book being a collection of military orders. _General Orders in Wolfe's Army_ (Quebec Historical Society). This collection is much more full than the foregoing, so far as concerns the campaign of 1759. _Letters of Wolfe_ (in Wright's _Wolfe_), _Despatches of Wolfe, Saunders, Monckton, and Townshend_ (in contemporary magazines). _A Short Authentic Account of the Expedition against Quebec, by a Volunteer upon that Expedition,_ Quebec, 1872. This valuable diary is ascribed to James Thompson, a volunteer under Wolfe, who died at Quebec in 1830 at the age of ninety-eight, after holding for many years the position of overseer of works in the Engineer Department.

Another ma.n.u.script, for the most part identical with this, was found a few years ago among old papers in the office of the Royal Engineers at Quebec. _Journal of the Expedition on the River St. Lawrence_. Two entirely distinct diaries bear this name.