It is pitifully interesting to observe in the letter of instruction issued by Cumberland to Braddock that the latter seemed to have held the view that his most proper course was to strike at Niagara at the outset, undoubtedly appreciating the significant fact that to capture that key position of communication was to doom the Allegheny line of forts to starvation itself. "As to your design," read those instructions, "of making yourself master of Niagara, which is of the greatest consequence, his Royal Highness recommends you to leave nothing to chance in the prosecution of that enterprise." In all that was planned for this grand campaign those words give us the only hint of Braddock's own notion.[27] Those instructions also advise that if the Ohio campaign should progress slowly Braddock was to consider whether he should not give over the command of that campaign to another officer and proceed to Niagara. Nothing could illustrate more clearly than this the importance of the position of Niagara in the old French War. But as Braddock did not deem it wise to give over the command of the Ohio campaign, Governor Shirley was left in charge of it.
The Northern campaigns, however, were of little more success than that of the ill-fated Braddock. True, Johnson won his knighthood beside the lake to which he gave his master's name, but the victory was as much of an accident as was Braddock's defeat, and was not followed up with the capture of the forts on Lake Champlain which was the object of the campaign. Shirley, on the other hand, made an utter failure of his coup, after reaching Oswego with incredible hardship; the news of Braddock's defeat demoralised whatever spirit was left in his sickly army; and Fort Niagara was not even threatened. We note here again the interdependence of the Braddock and Shirley campaigns, and the pity that the two armies could not have been combined for a strong movement against Fort Niagara. The Ohio fortress could not have existed with the line of communication once cut, and Braddock's as well as Forbes's campaigns, costing such tremendous sums, would have been unnecessary—or Prideaux's in '59 either, for that matter.
And yet the English campaigns of this year played their part in awakening the French to the situation; and Niagara was taken in hand at once, as though the presentiment was plain that the flag of the Georges would wave over the Niagara some day. Writes Mr. Porter:
The contemplated attack on Fort Niagara, in 1755, under Shirley, had told the French that that fort must be further strengthened, and Pouchot, a captain in the regiment of Bearn, and a competent engineer, was sent to reconstruct it. He reached the fort with a regiment in October, 1755. Houses for these troops were at once constructed in the Canadian manner. These houses consisted of round logs of oak, notched into each other at the corners, and were quickly built. Each had a chimney in the middle, some windows, and a plank roof. The chimneys were made by four poles, placed in the form of a truncated pyramid, open from the bottom to a height of three feet on all sides, above which was a kind of basket work, plastered with mud; rushes, marsh grass or straw rolled in diluted clay were driven in between the logs, and the whole plastered. The work of strengthening the fort was pushed on all winter, 300 men being in the garrison, and in March, 1756, the artillery taken from Braddock arrived. By July, 1756, the defences proposed were nearly completed, and Pouchot left the fort. Vaudreuil stated that he [Pouchot] "had almost entirely superintended the fortifications to their completion, and the fort, which was abandoned and beyond making the smallest resistance, is now a place of considerable importance in consequence of the regularity, solidity, and utility of its works." Pouchot was sent back to Niagara, as commandant, with his own regiment, in October, 1756, and remained there for a year. He still further strengthened the fort during this period, and when he left he reported that "Fort Niagara and its buildings were completed and its covered ways stockaded." On April 30, 1759, he again arrived at Niagara to assume command and "began to work on repairing the fort, to which nothing had been done since he left it. He found the ramparts giving way, the turfing all crumbled off, and the escarpment and counter escarpment of the fosses much filled up. He mounted two pieces to keep up appearances in case of a siege." From the general laudatory tone of his own work we are led to feel that Pouchot overpraised his own work of fortifying Niagara in 1756 and 1757, when no immediate attack was looked for, otherwise it could hardly have been in so poor a condition eighteen months afterwards (1759, as just quoted), unless, as is very likely, he foresaw defeat when attacked, as he was advised it would be, and wanted to gain special credit for a grand defence under very disadvantageous conditions. By July Pouchot had finished repairing the ramparts. He gives this description of the defence: "The batteries of the bastions which were in barbette had not yet been finished. They were built of casks and filled with earth. He had since his arrival constructed some pieces of blindage of oak, fourteen inches square and fifteen feet long, which extended behind the great house on the lake shore, the place most sheltered for a hospital. Along the faces of the powder magazine, to cover the wall and serve as casemates, he had built a large storehouse with the pieces secured at the top by a ridge. Here the guns and gunsmiths were placed. We may remark that this kind of work is excellent for field-forts in wooded countries, and they serve very well for barracks and magazines; a bullet could only fall upon an oblique surface and could do little harm, because this structure is very solid." Pouchot says that the garrison of the fort at this time consisted of 149 regulars, 183 men of colonial companies, 133 militia and 21 cannoniers. A total of 486 soldiers and 39 employees, of whom 5 were women or children. These served in the infirmary, as did also two ladies, and sewed cartridge bags and made bags for earth. There were also some Indians in the fort, and the officers may not have been included in this number. The fort was capable of accommodating 1000 men.
A Drawing of Fort Niagara and Environs Showing Plan of English Attack under Johnson.
The great campaigns of 1759 were planned by the new commander-in-chief, Sir Jeffrey Amherst. The Niagara attack was placed in the hands of General John Prideaux, who was ready to sail from Oswego to his death at Fort Niagara on the 1st of July, 1759, with twenty-two hundred regulars and provincials and seven hundred of the Six Nations, brought very quickly to their senses after the successes of British arms in the year previous when Fort Duquesne was captured, under Sir William Johnson. On the 6th of July a hunter brought word to Pouchot that the English were at the doors of Niagara, the army having landed down the shore of the lake at a distance of four miles. The commander, realising that the crucial moment had come, sent a messenger post-haste to Little Fort Niagara, at the upper end of the portage, and on to the forts in the West for aid; Niagara had assisted Fort Duquesne and the Allegheny forts in their days of trial and it was now turn for them to help her. Little Fort Niagara, or, more properly, Fort du Portage, previously mentioned, was erected probably about ten years before this to defend the portage landing. It was now commanded by the Joncaire—son of the famous French emissary among the Senecas who had given New France a foothold at Niagara—who had proved such a diplomatic guide to Celoron in his western trip; Pouchot ordered him to move the supplies at Fort du Portage across to the mouth of the Chippewa Creek and hasten to Fort Niagara. It is worth while to pause a moment to observe that we have here one of the first references to that shadowy western shore of the Niagara, where Forts Erie, George, and Mississauga were soon to appear; though the town of Newark, or Niagara-on-the-Lake, as it is known to-day, was the first settlement on this side of the river, it is clear that there was at least a storehouse at Chippewa Creek in 1759; unquestionably the portage path on the western shore of the river was a well-worn highway long before even Fort Niagara itself was proposed, for we know that it was the northern shore of Lake Erie that was the common route of the French rather than the southern from the record left by the Celoron expedition and Bonnecamp's map.
