“The spectacle was superb; the brightness of the summer day; the romantic beauty of the scenery; the sheen and sparkle of those crystal waters; the countless islets, tufted with pine, birch, and fir; the bordering mountains, with their green summits and sunny crags; the flash of oars and glitter of weapons; the banners, the varied uniforms, and the notes of bugle, trumpet, bag-pipe, and drum, answered and prolonged by a hundred woodland echoes. ‘I never beheld so delightful a prospect,’ wrote a wounded officer at Albany a fortnight after.
“Rogers with the Rangers, and Gage with the light infantry, led the way in whaleboats, followed by Bradstreet with his corps of boatman, armed and drilled as soldiers. Then came the main body. The central column of regulars was commanded by Lord Howe, his own regiment, the fifty-fifth, in the van, followed by the Royal Americans, the twenty-seventh, forty-fourth, forty-sixth, and eightieth infantry, and the Highlanders of the forty-second, with their major, Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, silent and gloomy amid the general cheer, for his soul was dark with foreshadowings of death. With this central column came what are described as two floating castles, which were no doubt batteries to cover the landing of the troops. On the right hand and the left were the provincials, uniformed in blue, regiment after regiment, from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Behind them all came the batteaux, loaded with stores and baggage, and the heavy flatboats that carried the artillery, while a rear-guard of provincials and regulars closed the long procession.”
It will be unnecessary to go into the details of this disastrous campaign as it is not only well known to most of you but three papers bearing on the subject will be read at this meeting.[19] Briefly the army landed at the foot of Lake George the morning of the 6th and the afternoon of the same day Lord Howe at the head of a Ticonderoga party was killed at the outlet of Trout Brook. This is the beginning of the end as Lord Howe was the real head of the army. Abercrombie took until the eighth to make up his mind what to do and this interim gave the French time to build the fatal breastworks across the ridge about one-half mile west of the Fort and enabled Lévis to arrive with reinforcements.
As the breastworks play a most important part in the Battle it will perhaps be well to again quote from Parkman who gives a most comprehensive description.
“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 massive breastwork. The line followed the top of the ridge, along which it zigzagged in such a manner that the whole front could be swept by flank-fires of musketry and grape. It was 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 spaces to fire through. 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 space, 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 Massachusetts officer says, looked like a forest laid flat by a hurricane. But the most formidable obstruction was immediately along the front of the breastworks, where the ground was covered with heavy boughs, overlapping and interlaced, with sharpened points bristling into the face of the assailant like the quills of a porcupine. As these works were all of wood, no vestige of them remains. The earth-works now shown to tourists as the lines of Montcalm were begun four days after the battle to replace the log breastwork; and though on the same ground are not on the same plan.”
Behind these breastworks the battalions of LaSarre and Languedoc were posted on the left under Bourlamaque, the first battalion of Berry with that of Royal Roussillon in the center under Montcalm and those of LaReine, Béarn and Guienne on the right under Lévis. A detachment of volunteers occupied the low grounds between the breastworks and the outlet of Lake George and on the side toward Lake Champlain were stationed 450 regulars and Canadians, about 3,600 in all.
It is always easy to criticise an event after it has occurred, but the result certainly shows that Abercrombie could not have planned his campaign more to the advantage of the French. He first gave them time to build those formidable breastworks and then instead of choosing any one of half a dozen plans which would have brought victory, he decided to throw his army unsupported by artillery, which was still at Lake George, at the strongest part of the French position, he himself staying in safety at the saw mill (about which we heard this afternoon in the able paper read by Mr. Delano at the unveiling of the tablet) a mile and a half in the rear of his army.[20]
The sad result is too well known to dwell on and we pass at once to the part played by the Black Watch. They, with the 55th were to have formed the reserve but impatient at being left in the rear the Highlanders could not be restrained and were soon in the front endeavoring to cut their way through the fallen trees with their broadswords. Captain John Campbell, who was one of the two soldiers presented to George II in 1743, with a few men, were the only ones to force their way over the breastworks and they were instantly dispatched with the bayonet.
Lieut. William Grant of the Regiment writes as follows: