On July 30, Levis moved forward with the French vanguard, marching along the western shore of Lake George; the main body of troops under Montcalm followed in boats on August 1, the whole force amounting to between 7,000 and 8,000 men. Two detachments, one commanded by La Corne, the other by Levis, marched round the fort, and took up positions on its southern side, to cut off communication with Webb; La Corne occupied the road to Fort Edward, while Levis encamped a little further to the west. Montcalm landed his big guns at a little inlet, still called Artillery Cove, about half a mile in a direct line from the fort, and, after a summons to surrender on August 3, began his trenches on the night of the fourth.
| The fort surrenders. |
A far better defence was made than at Oswego. For four days the garrison held out bravely, hoping for relief from the south. Their guns were heard at Fort Edward; the urgency of their case was known; but Webb, though some 2,000 militia had reached him, felt himself too weak to make any advance. At length the situation became hopeless, and on August 9 Monro surrendered. The terms of capitulation were that the garrison should be escorted to Fort Edward, on condition that they would not serve again for eighteen months, and that all French prisoners taken in the war should be restored. The fort with all that it contained was handed over to the French. The surrender included the entrenched camp as well as the fort: the fort was evacuated; and the whole garrison, with the exception of a few sick and wounded, were gathered into the camp, retaining their arms, but without ammunition.
| The massacre of Fort William Henry. |
Before night fell, the French Indians plundered the fort, and butchered some of the sick. Early on the following morning, the English troops began their march to Fort Edward; the Indians broke in among them, seizing and stripping men, women, and children; and, at a signal given by the Christian Abenakis from the Penobscot—Indians who had known the teaching and training of men like Le Loutre—a wholesale massacre began. Montcalm and his officers, however, used every effort to protect the English, with the result that not more than fifty were murdered, and 600 carried off, 400 of whom were promptly recovered; and the broken band of fugitives in due course found their way to Fort Edward.
| Blame attaching to the French. |
This was the episode well known in colonial annals as the massacre of Fort William Henry, told of in history and in romance.15 The horrors have no doubt been exaggerated, if, as appears to have been the case, the death-roll did not exceed the number given above. Still it was a horrible incident, and brought righteous discredit on the French cause. Though Montcalm, when the mischief had begun, acted with promptitude and vigour, it was well within his power to have prevented the possibility of any such outrage. His Indians numbered but 1,800, and he had 3,000 regular troops from France to hold them in check. The Canadian militia, too, numbered 2,500 men; but probably the seed of the evil lay in the disinclination of the colonial French and their officers to interfere with their Indian allies. It had become the tradition in Canada to live down to the Indians in matters of war, to attach them and to hold them by humouring their savage instincts; and it may well be believed that, if Canadian soldiers or Canadian officers were concerned in seeing the terms of capitulation carried out, they would prefer injuring the English to offending the Indians. Three years later, in the advance on Montreal, we read of Sir William Johnson, under Amherst's orders, strongly repressing the Iroquois' lust for French blood, and Amherst reporting that not a peasant woman or child had been hurt, nor a house burnt, since he entered the enemy's country. Better control of the savages in their employ gave the English fewer friends among them, but in the end it was one, and not the least, of the causes of their gaining the supremacy in North America.
15 e.g. in Fennimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans.
| Webb's conduct. |