The following officers belonging to the FORTY-SIXTH regiment were killed on this occasion: Lieut.-Colonel Samuel Beaver, Captains George Needham and Edward Wynne; Lieutenants Jacob Laulhé and Arthur Lloyd; Ensign George Crofton, and Quarter-Master Thomas Carbonell.
In the year 1759, it was proposed to attack the French in all their strong posts in Canada at once, so as to fall as nearly as possible at the same time upon Crown Point, Niagara, and the forts to the south of Lake Erie, while a great naval armament, and a considerable body of land forces under Major-General James Wolfe, should attempt Quebec by the river St. Lawrence.
Lieut.-General Amherst, who commanded the British forces in America, was to attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point, by Lake George; the reduction of these forts would command the Lake Champlain, where having established a sufficient naval force, he was by the river Sorel, which forms the communication between this lake and the river St. Lawrence, to proceed to Quebec, and effect a junction with Major-General Wolfe.
The third of the grand operations was against Fort Niagara, near the celebrated falls of that name, a place of great consequence. The reduction of this place was committed to Brigadier-General John Prideaux (fifty-fifth regiment), under whom Sir William Johnson commanded the provincials of New York, and several Indians of the Five Nations, who were engaged in the British service, by the credit that gentleman had obtained among their tribes. It was to this portion of the army that the FORTY-SIXTH regiment was attached.
The troops which had been appointed to proceed to Niagara, arrived at the fort in July. This was a very important post, and was situated at the entrance of a strait by which Lake Ontario is joined to Lake Erie. A little above the fort is the cataract of Niagara, the most remarkable in the world, for the quantity of water, and the greatness of the fall. The siege of the place had not been long formed, before Brigadier-General Prideaux was killed in the trenches, by the bursting of a cohorn. This occurred on the 20th of July, and the accident threatened to throw a damp on the operations; but Sir William Johnson, upon whom the command devolved, omitted nothing to continue the vigorous measures of his predecessor, and added to them everything his own genius could suggest.
The French were alarmed for the safety of the fort, and collected all the troops they could draw from their posts about the lakes, and to these were joined a large body of Indians; the whole advanced to raise the siege, and they amounted in all, to seventeen hundred men.
It was on the 23rd of July, that Sir William Johnson received intelligence of the approach of the enemy to relieve the fort, and instantly made a disposition to defeat their designs. The guard of the trenches was commanded by Major John Beckwith, of the forty-fourth regiment, and, lest the garrison should sally out, and either attempt to surprise or overpower that guard, by which the British would have been hemmed in between two fires, the forty-fourth regiment, under Lieut.-Colonel William Farquhar, was posted in such manner as to be able to sustain Major Beckwith.
The road on the left of the line, which led from the cataract to the fort, was occupied by the light infantry, and piquets of the army, on the evening of the 23rd of July; early next morning these were reinforced by the grenadiers and part of the FORTY-SIXTH regiment, the whole commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Eyre Massey, of the FORTY-SIXTH, to whose good conduct in the distribution of the troops, and the steadiness with which he received the enemy in front, while the Indians in British pay, attacked them on the flanks, the honor of the day was in a great degree attributable. The French were completely defeated, and all their officers were made prisoners, among whom were Monsieur Aubry, De Lignery, Marin, and Repentini.
This action sealed the fate of Fort Niagara, which surrendered on the following day (25th of July), and Sir William Johnson, Bart., in his despatch to Lieut.-General Amherst, of that date, thus alluded to the conduct of the troops:—
"Permit me to assure you, in the whole progress of the siege, which was severe and painful, the officers and men behaved with the utmost cheerfulness and bravery."