Fog had concealed the approach of the English, but such a ground swell was raging over the reefs as threatened any ship with instant destruction. For a week Amherst and Wolfe and Lawrence row up and down through the roiling mist and raging surf and singing winds to take stock of the situation. With those batteries at the landing places there is only one thing to do,—cannonade them, hold their attention in a life-and-death fight while the English soldiers scramble through the surf for the shore. From sunrise to sundown of the 8th furious cannonading set the green seas churning and tore up the French barricades as by hurricane. At sunset the firing ceased, and three detachments of troops launched out in whaleboats at three in the morning, two of the detachments to make a feint of landing, while Wolfe with the other division was to run through the surf for the shore at Freshwater Cove. The French were not deceived. They let Wolfe approach within range, when the log barricade flashed to flame with a thousand sharpshooters. Wolfe had foreseen the snare and had waved his troops off when he noticed that two boat loads were rowing ashore through a tremendous surf under shelter of a rocky point. Quickly he signaled the other boats to follow. In a trice the boats had smashed to kindling on the reefs, but the men were wading ashore, muskets held high over head, powder pouches in teeth, and rushed with bayonets leveled against the French, who had dashed from cover to prevent the landing. This unexpected landing had cut the French off from Louisburg. Retreating in panic, they abandoned their batteries and fifty dead. The English had lost one hundred and nine in the surf. It is said that Wolfe scrambled from the water like a drowned rat and led the rush with no other weapon in hand but his cane.
THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG (From a contemporary print)
To land the guns through the jostling sea was the next task. It was done, as in 1745, by a pontoon bridge of small boats, but the work took till the 29th of June. Wolfe, meanwhile, has marched with twelve hundred men round to the rear of the marsh and comes so suddenly on the Grand and Lighthouse Batteries, which defend the harbor, that the French abandon them to retreat within the walls. This gives the English such control of the harbor entrance that Drucourt, the French commander, sinks six of his ships across the channel to bar out Boscawen's fleet, the masts of the sunken, vessels sticking above the water. Amherst's men are working like demons, building a road for the cannon across the marsh and trenching up to the back wall; but they work only at night and are undiscovered by the French till the 9th of July. Then the French rush out with a whoop to drive them off, but the English already have their guns mounted, and Drucourt's men are glad to dash for shelter behind the cracking walls. It now became a game of cannon play pure and simple. Boscawen from harbor front hurls his whistling bombs overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls. Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet. At last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out above the rocking hulls. Only two ships are left to the French, and the deep bomb-proof casemates inside the fort between outer and inner walls, where the families and the wounded have been sheltered, are now in flame. Amherst loads his shells with combustibles and pours one continuous rain of fiery death on the doomed fort. The houses, which are of logs, flame like kindling wood, and now the timber work of the stone bastions is burning from bombs hurtling through the roofs. The walls crash down in masses. The scared surgeons, all bloody from amputating shattered limbs, no longer stand in safety above their operating tables. It is said that Madame Drucourt, the Governor's wife, actually stayed on the walls to encourage the soldiers, with her own hands fired some of the great guns, and, when the overworked surgeons flagged from terror and lack of sleep, it was Madame Drucourt who attended to the wounded. Drucourt is for holding out to the death, until one dark night the English row into the harbor and capture his two last ships. Then Drucourt asks for terms, July 26; but the terms are stern,—utter surrender,—and Drucourt would have fought till every man fell from the walls, had not one of the civil officers rushed after the commander's messenger carrying the refusal, and shouted across the ditches to the English: "We accept! We surrender! We accept your terms!"
Counting soldiers, marines, and townspeople, in all five thousand French pass over to Amherst, to be carried prisoners on Boscawen's fleet to England. Wolfe was for proceeding at once to Quebec, but Amherst considered the season too late and determined to complete the work where he was. One detachment goes to receive the surrender of Isle St. John, henceforth known as Prince Edward Island. Another division proceeds up St. John River, New Brunswick, burning all settlements that refuse unconditional surrender. Wolfe's grenadiers are sent to reduce Gaspé and Miramichi and northern New Brunswick. And now, lest blundering statecraft for a second time return the captured fort to France, Amherst and Boscawen order the complete disarmament and destruction of Louisburg. What cannon cannot be removed are tumbled into the marsh or upset into the sea. The stones from the walls are carried away to Halifax. By 1760, of Louisburg, the glory of New France, the pride of America, there remains not a vestige but grassed slopes overgrown by nettles, ditches with rank growth of weeds, stone piles where the wild vines grow, and an inner yard where the cows of the fisher folk pasture.
Not a poor beginning for the campaign of 1758, though bad enough news has come from Major General Abercrombie, which was the real explanation of Amherst's refusal to push on to Quebec.
Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand men, the pick of the regulars and provincials, had launched out on Lake George on the 5th of July with over one thousand boats, to descend the lake northward to the French fort of Carillon or Ticonderoga. Again, it would require artist's brush to paint the scene. Rogers' Rangers, dressed in buckskin, led the way in birch canoes. Lord Howe was there, dressed like a bushfighter; and with bagpipes setting the echoes ringing amid the lonely mountains, were the Highland regiments in their tartan plaids. Flags floated from the prow of every boat. Each battalion had its own regimental band. Scarcely a breath dimpled the waters of the lake, and the sun shone without a cloud. Little wonder those who passed through the fiery Aceldama that was to come, afterwards looked back on this scene as the fairest in their lives.
