The Pivotal Role of Lake George in Colonial Warfare
We believe “history breathes here” because it is everywhere in Lake George. This is not only a historic place made famous by long-ago battles, it is ground made sacred by the lives and deaths of the people who bore witness to the tragedies and triumphs that defined a fledgling nation. Silent connections to our past, they make themselves known to this very day, as new colonial-era graves are excavated within sight and sound of bustling Lake George Village. History is part of the fabric of Lake George and the reminders lie all around us.
Christened “Lac Du Saint Sacrement” by French Jesuit missionary Father Isaac Jogues in the 1640s, our Lake George would become essentially Ground Zero in the European powers’ fight for dominance in North America. The players? Colonial Superpowers France and Great Britain. The stakes? Whether a future American people would speak English or French.
Early in the 17th century, the British were busy experimenting with colonies on the eastern seaboard of the New World while the French were establishing settlements in what is now Canada. But French possessions and interests really extended much farther to the south, and with the English asserting claims ever farther north and west, dispute was inevitable. Add to this mixture the original occupants of the land struggling to hold onto their diminishing ancestral territories, indeed their own existence, and you have a cauldron ready to boil over in conflict.
The French and British would each curry favor with the native tribes, befriending their chiefs and enlisting Indian warriors to bolster their military ranks. In protecting these early claims, there would be incursions and skirmishes, advances and retreats, treaties signed and treaties broken. This ebb and flow of power would continue until the mid-18th century, when the lines would finally be drawn for an epic wilderness battle at the southern basin of our beloved Lake George. More and more European treasure and troops would pour into the region; more and more blood would pour out.
Domestic Life in Frontier Warfare
But there is a decidedly human factor for us to consider, too. It wasn’t only soldiers occupying the wilderness fortress and surrounding encampments at the southern tip of Lake George. It was a community of men, women and children of all ages, living a daily existence on a rugged, unforgiving frontier. They foraged for food, toiled over sparse crops, slaughtered their livestock, prepared their meager meals, raised their children, tended their sick, made due with stark provisions, buried their dead … and struggled constantly. Most, of course, would meet tragic fates as victims of disease and malnutrition during relative peace, victims of horrendous massacre in wartime. They were just like you and me, and they died right here on this small patch of hallowed ground in the Lake George Area.
Rumblings of war
In the years leading up to the French and Indian War, Crown Point would become the pivotal stronghold of the French in their forays south. Located in the strategically significant southern extreme of Lake Champlain, near the entrance to Lake George, this was for the French a “line in the sand” … for the British, a menace to be reckoned with. In 1755, the first of three significant engagements, collectively called the Battle of Lake George, came by way of British Commander Gen. William Johnson’s march from Albany via Fort Edward with an army of Colonial militia and volunteers in a planned assault on Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Upon arrival at Lac Du Saint Sacrement, Johnson renames it Lake George for his sovereign, King George II, and later commences construction of a fortress he names for the king’s grandson, William Henry. The body of water and the bastion that overlooks it have retained those names ever since.
The Battles of Lake George
While the British-backed Colonial forces are readying themselves for the campaign against Crown Point, another familiar historical figure, French general Baron de Dieskau, has learned of the attack plans and has marched south from Canada with a French army of 3,500 regular, militia and Indians. He fortifies Crown Point and heads to Fort Edward with diminished numbers in an attempt to cut off supply lines and crush Johnson’s campaign before it can begin. Hesitant Indian allies and a full garrison at Edward, however, force a Dieskau withdrawal back to the north for a direct assault Johnson’s encampment where today’s Battlefield Park sits.
Above: Image courtesy of the Library of Congress depicts the first two engagements in the Battles of Lake George. At left Gen. William Johnson's contingent under the command of Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk chief King Hendrick advances into the ambush set by French Gen. Dieskau.
At right is the illustration depicting the defenses set for the second engagement of the day. Retreating British and Colonial forces who survived the ambush draw the remaining French regulars from the Bloody Morning Scout grounds to the fortified defenses at today's Battlefield Park.
Shown above is the Col. Ephraim Williams Monument, marking the location where the commander
of the "Bloody Morning Scout" expedition was killed while rallying his scattering troops during an
ambush by French and Indian forces. This monument is located less than a mile north of the
junction of Routes 9 and 149 in Lake George.
British, Colonial Forces Eke Out a Victory
Somewhere in the vicinity of today’s Battlefield Park, the exhausted retreating British Colonials regroup to make a final stand against their pursuers. They put up a furious fight against a further-diminished French contingent before being forced to flee toward the safety of the encampment. Hearing all the gunfire from these engagements gives Gen. Johnson the time he needs to put his garrison on alert and to field his cannon. During this, the second engagement in the Battle of Lake George, a brutal barrage falls upon the advancing French and succeeds in stopping them in their tracks, leaving Dieskau himself severely wounded and abandoned by his fleeing forces.
Shown above is the painting "Battle of Lake George 1755" by American Artist Frederick Coffay Yohn. Depicted is Gen. William Johnson rallying his troops at today's Battlefield Park to fend off the attack by French Gen. Jean-Armand Dieskau and his diminished forces following the Bloody Morning Scout. Shown at left is a photo of Battlefield Park in Lake George as it appears today.
A Bloody Legacy
The third and final phase of the hostilities would come later that day as a party of French and Indian deserters from the second engagement makes its way along Rocky Brook toward the site of the Bloody Morning Scout. It was their intention to collect scalps and plunder from the dead before making their way back to Canada, but this was not to be their fate. Colonial reinforcements, including a young Robert Rogers, en route to Lake George from Fort Edward come upon them and proceed to massacre them to the last man. Legend holds that the butchered corpses were all tossed into a nearby pool of water, turning the surface red and leaving it the gruesome name “Bloody Pond.” A commemorative site has been established where a New York State historical marker and plaque can be viewed just south of Lake George Expedition Park, across from Riley’s on Route 9.
Thus, when the day closed on September 8, 1755, multiple engagements had left a staggering number of dead and dying men on the shores or within view of beautiful Lake George. And though they barely eked out a desperate defense of hearth and home, William Johnson’s ragged, exhausted forces could claim a hard-fought victory that summer in their campaign against the French in the bloody Battle of Lake George.
William Johnson saving the life of Baron Dieskau at the Battle of Lake George, 1755. (Benjamin West c. 1764.)
A Short-lived Quiet on the Lake
But the guns would not be silent for long with so much at stake between French Canadians, British Colonials and their Indian allies. The British had shown they could ultimately fend off an attack by superior numbers, but with no batteries or cannon deployed by Dieskau in 1755, had the French thrown all their weight into the Battle of Lake George? Two years would pass, hostilities would once again reach a boiling point, and in July 1757, with lessons learned, a massive force of roughly 8,000 men marched south under renowned French General Marquis de Montcalm. Consisting of 3,000 French troops, 3,000 Canadian militia, 200 pieces of artillery and 2,000 Indians motivated by promises of great plunder, a truly formidable force was now descending on Fort William Henry.
In the time following the Battle of Lake George, the British Colonials had reinforced Fort William Henry and maintained a substantial presence in the southern basin. British General Daniel Webb had quartered an adequate number of troops to fight off Indian attacks, but the garrison was in no way outfitted to defend against the massive force making its way south. General Webb escaped to the protection of Fort Edward and left 2,500 soldiers under the command of Col. George Munro to hold the fort. With only enough room inside the walls for a quarter of that number, a majority of defenders would camp and fight beyond protection of the ramparts.
Montcalm's Revenge
In August, Montcalm arrived in Lake George and situated his forces just northwest of the fort, on the elevated ground behind where the Lake George High School sits today. The siege of Fort William Henry began with a methodical barrage from French artillery into the reinforced log and earthen walls of the garrison. Montcalm’s forces slowly inched southward, launching sortie after sortie to weaken the defenses and to get their heavy firepower into position for the coup de gras. Most of the British defenders fought furiously while encamped outside William Henry’s protective walls. Exposed to the relentless cannon fire, they were eventually slaughtered and buried in the shadows of the very bastion they defended.
A French victory was within grasp, but not quite a forgone conclusion. With supplies and ammunition running short, Montcalm may have been forced to abandon the siege and withdraw ... were it not for a stroke of good fortune. That came in the form of an intercepted communique from Gen. Webb in Fort Edward to Col. Munro. The message conveyed that reinforcements would not be dispatched to Fort William Henry and that the commander should prepare to surrender his post. That intelligence was quickly passed from Montcalm to Munro under a flag of truce, and the British commander proceeded to draw up terms of surrender. Among the conditions agreed to by Montcalm was the safe passage of Munro’s people back to Fort Edward.
Massacre of the Innocent
Only two days after the Marquis de Montcalm arrived at the gates of Fort William Henry, he took possession of it. The British Colonial forces, consisting of soldiers and civilians, gathered up the few belongings and light armaments they could carry, and prepared for the next morning’s early start down the Fort Edward road to safety. After all, warfare in the 17th century was a civilized affair, and the ragged assembly could count on Montcalm to keep his word.
In the meantime, the French-allied Indians were fuming over being deprived of plunder that had been promised them. As the defeated forces began their slow march south, Indian anger and thirst for vengeance became too much to bear or control. And so, despite French attempts to stop it, the pillaging began in earnest. Men, women and children were stripped of their possessions and for those who resisted, a gruesome fate would befall them with the swing of a tomahawk. The few who survived the carnage with their scalps intact were eventually escorted to Fort Edward under the protection of French troops and in the days following, scores more half-starved remnants of the party trickled into the fortress on the Hudson. Although the exact number of slain is a subject of debate, there is no doubt that a massacre was carried out within view of today’s Battlefield Park.
As the Marquis de Montcalm inspected his battered prize, Fort William Henry was prepared for destruction. The general had executed a textbook assault on his enemy, winning the day and delivering retribution to the English Colonials for the French loss in the 1755 Battle of Lake George. This one had been a bloody affair and an appalling conclusion to an otherwise noble fight, but control of North America was still yet to be decided. And as the remaining war-weary French contingent set sail north from the southern basin of Lake George, the majestic Fort William Henry burned to the ground.
Shifting Balance of Power
But history does not exist in a vacuum and events across the globe in 1758 began to shift the strategic dynamic in North America of the competing European interests. England had learned the lessons of wilderness warfare and began to implement those tactics. Priorities in London had changed with the leadership and more resources and deference was directed toward the colonies. At the same time, France’s colonial assets were being stretched thin due to effective blockading by the Royal Navy and Versailles’ restored focus on continental priorities. The Iroquois Confederacy, stalwart ally of the French for the most part, had been denied their plunder following too many battles. They had become alienated from their French Fathers and were no longer a reliable partner on the battlefield. In essence, French Canada was resting on its military laurels as England and her colonies were mobilizing for an all-out assault on the heart of their North American nemesis.
As in the past, England’s high command had crafted an ambitious multifaceted military strategy for the campaign year of 1758. It would soon discover, however, it had settled on an unfit commander to lead the Ticonderoga expedition. Fort William Henry was still smoldering when Major General James Abercrombie assembled on its grounds an army of 15,000 British regulars and provincials.
Above: Frederick Coffay Yohn's painting of Major General James Abercrombie
assembling his troops for the British/Colonial attack on Fort Ticonderoga.
By the time the force set sail from the southern shore of Lake George, the victor of William Henry, the Marquis de Montcalm, had deployed the majority of his regular forces, eight battalions, to Fort Ticonderoga. He ordered the construction of an outer breastwork and trench to hinder the progress of an assault on the main fortification. It would prove to be a pivotal decision on his part, as Abercrombie’s army came ashore July 6 at the northern tip of Lake George.
Initial skirmishes en-route to the fort showed a dominant British-Colonial army brushing aside French-Canadian efforts to engage it. The wooded terrain itself was more effective at delaying Abercrombie’s forces than the French, but the invaders eventually stumbled upon the makeshift breastworks on July 8. Montcalm, in a roll of the dice, deployed all but one battalion to the outer entrenchment to face the enemy head-on from a decidedly advantageous defensive position. But the British had an impressive array of artillery at hand, one that could mow down the defensive works in one sortie and assault the fort itself in another.
And then it happened … At a fateful moment in military history, General James Abercrombie, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory by ordering a frontal assault without artillery support. In wave after wave of attacks that followed, British regulars and provincials threw themselves into the fray and died on the breastworks so hastily assembled at the last minute by General Montcalm. And without so much as a single breach of the battlements, more than 2,000 of Abercrombie’s men were killed or wounded while the French looked on from relative security. As Montcalm’s men cheered his stunning victory over superior numbers, the demoralized British expedition was forced to retreat to Fort William Henry and then on to Fort Edward.
Above: The Victory of Montcalm's Troops at Carillon. Early 20th century painting by Henry Alexander Ogden (1854 1936).
Of the three-pronged strategy planned for the defeat of New France in 1758, Ticonderoga was the only setback in an otherwise successful British campaign season. The withdrawal of the French from Fort Duquesne left the British in control of the Ohio River Valley and the fall of the enormous Louisbourg bastion in Nova Scotia at the hands of British Major General Jeffrey Amherst resulted in his elevation to Commander-in-Chief of the British army in North America. Abercrombie was out, Amherst was in at the dawn of the critical 1759 campaign season.
A Pivotal Campaign Season Opens
It was no holds barred at the British High Command when plans were drawn up for another three-pronged attack on French Canada. Amherst (shown at right) would pick up where Abercrombie had blundered, with plans first to take Fort Ticonderoga then move on to Crown Point with Montreal as his final objective. The commander dispatched a raiding party in March that was able to ascertain Ticonderoga’s defenses, destroy French supply lines and glean from prisoners the precise layout of the fort and its entrenchment network. By the time he mustered his well-trained forces in July at the southern end of Lake George, Amherst had performed his due diligence and embarked with full confidence in the capability of his army … including in no small measure his artillery.
The French had reinforced Ticonderoga in the months leading up to the British campaign, but resources were redirected from the southern portion of Lake Champlain to the north as it became clear Quebec would be the main thrust of a British full-court press. Brigadier-General Francois-Charles de Bourlamaque would not leave the southern-most position defenseless, deciding instead to assign a detachment of 400 well-trained artillerymen to repel Amherst’s advance north, which they achieved to great effect over four days of fire. Once Amherst could position his own powerful heavy artillery train, however, the garrison executed orders to set Fort Ticonderoga ablaze and escaped to join their commander at Crown Point.
The sheer size of the British Colonial force did not go unnoticed by the departing Ticonderoga garrison. And when Bourlamaque was briefed a few days later on the strength of the advancing army, it was decided to surrender Crown Point to the same fate as that of Fort Ticonderoga and make haste north to the Isle aux Noix.
Shown above is the The conquest of Quebec by British Commander Gen. George Wolfe in 1759 (artist unkown)
While Amherst and Bourlamaque were jousting in the summer of 1759, pincers from other elements of Britain’s grand scheme were starting to come together from Lake Ontario all along the St. Lawrence River, where the Royal Navy had established itself as a dominant presence. The key to victory, indeed the crown jewel of New France, Quebec City, lay within grasp of British Commander Gen. George Wolfe. But a fierce defense under master strategist Marquis de Montcalm stood defiantly in the way for the time being. The two great European powers had engaged one another on the North American frontier for almost a century and here they assembled their forces for a defining battle as dawn broke over the Plains of Abraham in September 1759.
When the dust settled on that fateful day, Quebec City had fallen and with it the generals who had fought so valiantly for it; Wolfe and Montcalm. And despite signing of the Articles of Capitulation on September 18, the war for New France would continue. The British garrison at Quebec would be left by the Royal Navy to its own defense as the waters of the St. Lawrence began to freeze up and in 1760 Montcalm’s successor, the Chevalier de Levis, would march 7,000 troops to face the 3,000 British defenders. In April, the French laid siege, but thawing of the river would bring the British navy to the garrison’s rescue. Levis retreated to Montreal and in September, that French stronghold too surrendered to the British. Within three years the Treaty of Paris would cede all of New France to Britain.
Conclusion of the French and Indian War would see one power diminished on the continent, and one slowly rising from the ashes of the conflict. When the fledgling American experiment was ready to test its wings, viability of the whole revolutionary enterprise would depend on support from this powerful former foe. And as echoes from the “Shot Heard Round the World” were reverberating, France would throw all her support behind the Colonies’ cause to once again dash the ambitions of her mortal enemy, Great Britain.
Above: Shown here is the death of General Wolf. Below: Portrayed in this illustration is the mortally wounded General Montcalm.
All around us
We want visitors to enjoy our incredible hotels, restaurants and attractions and indulge in the vast number of activities that could easily fill a whole summer. And when it’s time to rest up for the next day’s excitement, we invite them to consider a peaceful walk around the hallowed grounds of Battlefield Park or a visit to the solemn memorials placed reverently around our area. We invite them to reflect on those silent connections to our past. They lie all around us. We know this because history breathes here.
