Johnson found among those who joined his camp some who knew much better what war was than he did: such were Colonel Moses Titcomb and Lieutenant-Colonel Seth Pomeroy, of Massachusetts; and Colonel Ephraim Williams, who had just made his will, by which the school was founded which became Williams College. He also was a Massachusetts man, as was Israel Putnam by birth, though now a Connecticut private. The later famous John Stark was a lieutenant of the New Hampshire forces. There were also others in command who knew scarce more of war than Johnson himself, and such was Colonel Timothy Ruggles, of a Massachusetts regiment, who was a college-bred lawyer and an innkeeper, destined to be president of the Stamp Act congress.
At the carrying place Lyman began a fort, which was named after him, but all preparations for the campaign proceeded very leisurely, the fault rather of the loosely banded union and hesitating purpose that existed among the colonies which had undertaken the movement; and matters were not mended by a certain incompatibility of temper existing between Johnson and Shirley, now commander-in-chief.
Leaving a garrison at Fort Lyman, the main body marched to the lake, to which Johnson had, out of compliment to the king, given the name of George. Meanwhile Dieskau had pushed up in his canoes to the very head of Lake Champlain, and had started through the wilderness to attack Fort Lyman. An Indian brought the news to Johnson, and Ephraim Williams and Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, were sent out to intercept the enemy. Dieskau, gaining information by capturing a messenger bound to Fort Lyman, and finding his Indians indisposed to assail a fort armed with cannon, turned towards the lake. Scouts informed him of the approach of the party under Williams, and an ambush was quickly planned. The English scout was badly managed, and fell into the trap. The commander and Hendrick were both killed. Nathan Whiting, of Connecticut, extricated the force skilfully, and a reinforcement from Johnson rendered it possible to hold the French somewhat in check. Could Dieskau have controlled his savages, however, he might have followed close enough to enter the English camp with the fugitives. As he did not, Johnson was given time to form a defence of his wagons and bateaux, mixed with tree-trunks, and when the French came on the English fought vigorously behind their barricade. Johnson was wounded and was borne to his tent. Lyman brought the day to a successful issue, and at its end his men leaped over the breastworks and converted the defeat of the French into a rout.
Meanwhile, a part of Dieskau’s Canadians and Indians had broken away from him, and had returned to the field where Williams had been killed, in order to strip the slain. There, near a pond, known still as Bloody Pond,[1142] a scouting party from Fort Lyman attacked them and put them to flight.[1143]
The French, routed by Lyman, were not followed far, and in gathering the wounded on the field Dieskau was discovered. He was borne to Johnson’s tent, and the English commander found it no easy task to protect him from the vengeance of the Mohawks. He was, however, in the end taken to New York, whence he sailed for England, and eventually reached France, but so shattered from his wounds that he died, though not till several years afterwards.
The defeat of the French had taken place on the 8th of September, and an active general would have despatched a force to intercept the fugitives before they reached their canoes, at the head of Lake Champlain; but timidity, the fear of a fresh onset, or a dread of a further tension of the weakening power of the army induced Johnson to tarry where he was, and to erect a fort, which in compliment to the royal family he named Fort William Henry, while in a similar spirit he changed the name of the post at the carrying place from Fort Lyman to Fort Edward. Of Lyman he seems to have been jealous, and in writing his report on the fight he makes no mention of the man to whose leadership the success was largely due. In this way Lyman’s name failed to obtain recognition in England, while the commander received a gift of £5,000 from Parliament and became Sir William Johnson, Baronet.
If Lyman’s advice had been followed, Ticonderoga might have been seized; but the French who reached it had so strongly entrenched themselves in a fortnight that attack was out of the question, and though Shirley, writing from Oswego, urged an advance, nothing was done. A council of war finally declared it inexpedient to proceed, and on the 27th of November Johnson marched the main part of his army southerly to their winter quarters.
British and French diplomates finally ceased bowing to each other, while their ships and armies fought together, and in May and June (1756), respectively, the two governments declared a war which was now nearly two years old.[1144] The French at once sent the Marquis de Montcalm, now about forty-four years of age, to succeed Dieskau. With him went the Chevalier de Lévis and the Chevalier de Bourlamaque as the second and third in command, and Bougainville as his principal aide-de-camp. By the middle of May the French general was in Quebec, and soon proceeded to Montreal to meet Vaudreuil, who was not at all pleased to share the responsibility of the coming campaign with another. The French troops were now divided, being mainly placed at Carillon (Ticonderoga), Fort Frontenac, and Niagara, and these posts had been during the winter severally strengthened,—Lotbinière[1145] superintending at Ticonderoga, Pouchot at Niagara, and two French engineers at Frontenac.
Already in February the French, by sending a scouting party, had captured and destroyed Fort Bull, a station of supplies at the carrying place on the way from Albany to Oswego; but the intervening time till June was spent in preparation. Word now coming of an English advance on Ticonderoga, Montcalm proceeded thither, and found the fort of Carillon, as the French termed it, which was now completed, much as he would wish it.