“Between 6 and 8 o’clock in the evening the piquets of our troops, detached by order of the Chevalier de Lévis, arrived at the camp and the Chevalier de Lévis himself went there at night.
“All day our volunteers fired against the Rangers of the enemy. General Abercromby with the main part of the militia and the balance made up of regular troops advanced up to the falls. He had sent there several barges and pontoons mounted with two guns each. These troops built also on the same day several trenches, one in front of the other, of which the nearest one to our abatis was hardly a cannon range away. We spent the night in bivouac along side the trenches.
“The 8th. At dawn we beat the drums so as to let all the troops know their posts for the defense of the entrenchment, following the above arrangement, which was about that in which they worked. The army was composed at the right of battalions of La Reine, La Sarre, Royal Roussillon, Languedoc and Guyenne Regiments and two Berry and the one battalion of the Bearn Regiment and also of 450 Canadians or Marines which brought the total to 3,000 fighting men.
“At the left of the line they posted the Sarre and the Languedoc battalions and the two piquets that had arrived the day before. The volunteers of Bernard and Duprat were guarding the gap on the Chute River.
“The center was occupied by the first Berry Battalion, by one Royal Roussillon and by the rest of the piquets of the Chevalier de Lévis.
“Battalions of La Reine, the Bearn and the Guyenne defended the right and in the plain between the embankment of this right [flank] and the Saint Frederic River they had posted the colonial troops and the Canadians, defended also by abatis. On the whole front of the line each battalion had back of itself a company of grenadiers and a piquet in reserve to support their battalion and also to be able to move where they might be needed. The Chevalier de Lévis took charge of the right, the Sieur de Bourlamaque of the left, the Marquis de Montcalm kept the center for himself.
“This arrangement, fixed and known, the troops at once fell back to work, some of them busy improving the abatis, the rest erecting the two batteries mentioned above and a redoubt to protect the right.
“That day in the morning, Colonel [Sir William] Johnson joined the English army with 300 savages of the Five Nations with ‘Tchactas,’ the Wolf, and Captain Jacob with 140 more. Soon after we saw them, as well as some Rangers, standing on a mountain opposite Carillon on the other side of the Chute River. They even discharged much musketry which interrupted the work. We did not bother answering them.
“At half past twelve, the English army debouched upon us. The company of grenadiers, the volunteers and the advanced guards retreated in good order and joined the line again. At the same movement and at a given signal all the troops took their posts.
“The left was attacked first by two columns, one of which was trying to turn the trenches and found itself under the fire of La Sarre Regiment, the other directed its efforts on a salient between the Languedoc and the Berry battalions. The center, where the Royal Roussillon was, was attacked almost at the same time by a third column; a fourth attacked the right between the Bearn and La Reine battalions. All these columns were intermingled with their Rangers and their best riflemen, covered by the trees, kept up a murderous fire.