Although the heavy masonry forts at Louisburg mounted 42-pounders, the heaviest guns the fleet carried were 22-pounders; but 42-pounder shot were cast for the expedition, and taken along, because every man in the fleet was entirely confident that 42-pounders would soon be captured from the enemy.
Having landed about two miles from the main fortification (April 30, 1745), one William Vaughan, "a youth of restless and impetuous activity," led 400 men "to the hills near the town and saluted it with three cheers." On May 2 this same impetuous youth, while wandering around with a squad of twelve men and boys, reached a number of unguarded storehouses belonging to the enemy. They were so far from the main scene of activity of the colonists that the French, apparently, had not thought it worth while to guard them. Vaughan set them on fire, and the conflagration frightened the soldiers in a large detached fort so much that they fled. A little later Vaughan and his gang took possession of the abandoned fort, and while a boy of eighteen years climbed the flagstaff and spread a red coat to the breeze in place of a flag, another one ran to the colonial general (Pepperrell) with this message from Vaughan:—
"May it please your Honour to be informed that by the grace of God and the courage of thirteen men, I entered the Royal Battery about 9 o'clock, and am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag."
The 42-pounders for which shot had been cast in Boston were secured—twenty-eight of them, besides two 18-pounders.
When the siege guns were landed from the transports, and an effort was made to take them forward across a wide swamp, in order to mount them where they would reach the town, they sank out of sight in the mud. Thereupon the men made a broad-runner sled for each gun, harnessed themselves to the sleds, and waded across the swamp, dragging the guns after them. That feat has excited the admiration of all historians who have written about it. But these men had built ships a mile from the water—back in the woods—and, when each was ready for the sea had dragged it to the beach with many yoke of oxen; dragging cannon across the swamp was a small matter in their estimation.
A trained engineer wanted them to advance upon the big fort of the enemy in the usual scientific manner—by digging parallels, one after another, and covering every step of the advance with earthworks. The proposal made them laugh. Taking advantage of a foggy night, they went forward, rolling sugar hogsheads, brought for the purpose, before them, until they arrived at the most advanced point desirable, and there they up-ended the hogsheads, filled them with dirt, mounted their siege guns (including 42-pounders taken from the royal fort), and opened fire.
Meanwhile they were without tents; their clothing and shoes wore out under the excessive abrading of their work; they were soaked by cold rains, but shelters of evergreen boughs were erected, and "while the cannon bellowed in front ... the men raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, fired at marks," and "ran after the French cannon balls that sometimes fell in the camp" where "frolic and confusion reigned" perpetually.
The capture of Louisburg had small effect upon the country, but the work of the besiegers, rightly seen, was of the most important ever done in the colonies. Throughout the siege they were inspired by the idea that "the All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To Do"; they took hold of each task with hearty good-will, and were irrepressible; their rude disregard for convention gave opportunity to their resourcefulness, and contributed to the evolution of military science. And lessons learned before Louisburg were applied at Bunker Hill, and elsewhere, during the Revolution.
Among the heroes of the privateer ships of the Revolution we may well recall Captain Jonathan Haraden, as a type. In 1780 he sailed from Salem in the 180-ton ship Pickering, armed with fourteen 6-pounders, manned by about fifty men, all told, bound to Bilboa with a cargo of sugar. At this period of the war the British, taught by experience, had sent out fleets of frigates and sloops of war, besides many brigs, cutters, and privateers of large size in order to suppress the armed ships of the "rebels." On the way across, Haraden met a heavy cutter and beat her off. While reaching across the Bay of Biscay, one night, he overhauled a ship the lookouts of which appeared to be asleep; for there was no stir upon her deck until Haraden hailed and ordered her to surrender, saying that his ship was an American frigate and he intended firing a broadside immediately. The sleepy captain obeyed the order. It was then learned that she was a privateer much superior to the Pickering in the number of guns and of men. On arriving off Bilboa a big armed ship was seen coming out, and the captured captain told Haraden she was the privateer Achilles, mounting forty-two guns and manned by 140 men.
"I shan't run from her," said Haraden, quietly.