The account of the fight (Sept. 8), which Johnson addressed to the governors of the assisting colonies, was printed in the Lond. Mag., 1755, p. 544.[1360]
The sixth volume of the New York Col. Docs. (London documents, 1734-1755) contains the great mass of papers preserved in the archives of the State;[1361] but reference may also be made to vols. ii. 402, and x. 355. The Mass. Archives supplement them, and show many letters of Shirley and Johnson about the campaign.[1362] In the Provincial Papers of New Hampshire, vol. vi., there are various papers indicating the progress of the campaign, particularly (p. 439) a descriptive letter by Secretary Atkinson, dated Portsmouth, December 9, 1755, and addressed to the colony’s agent in London. It embodies the current reports, and is copied from a draft in the Belknap papers.[1363]
The jealousy between Massachusetts and New York is explained in part by Hutchinson.[1364] The Massachusetts assembly complained that Johnson’s chief communication was with New York, and, as was most convenient, he sent his chief prisoners to the seaport of that province, while they should have been sent, as the assembly said, to Boston, since Massachusetts bore the chief burden of the expedition.[1365] It was also complained that the £5,000 given by Parliament to Johnson was simply deducted from the appropriation for the colonies.[1366]
The jealousy of the two provinces was largely intensified in their chief men. Shirley did not hide his official eminence, and had a feeling that by naming Johnson to the command of the Crown Point expedition he had been the making of him. Johnson was not very grateful, and gained over the sympathy of De Lancey, the lieutenant-governor of New York.[1367]
DIESKAU’S CAMPAIGN.
Fac-simile of the map in the Gentleman’s Mag., xxv. 525 (Nov., 1755), which is thus explained: “The French imagined the English army would have crossed the carrying place from Fort Nicholson at G [B in southeast corner?] to Fort Anne at F, and accordingly had staked Wood Creek at C to prevent their navigation; but Gen. Johnson, being informed of it, continued his route on Hudson’s River to H. The French marched from C to attack his advanced detachments near the lake. The dotted lines show their march. A, Lake George, or Sacrament. B, Hudson’s River. C, Wood Creek. D, Otter Creek. E, Lake Champlain. F, Fort Anne. G, Fort Nicholson. H, the place where Gen. Johnson beat the French. H C, the route of the French.”
A copy of the map used by Dieskau on his advance, and found among his baggage, as well as plans of the fort at Crown Point, are among the Peter Force maps in the Library of Congress. A MS. “Draught of Lake George and part of Hudson’s river taken Sept. 1756 by Joshua Loring” is also among the Faden maps (no. 19); as is also Samuel Langdon’s MS. Map of New Hampshire and the Adjacent Country (MS.), with a corner map of the St. Lawrence above Montreal, including observations of Lieut. John Stark.
Parkman received copies of the journal of Seth Pomeroy from a descendant, and Bancroft had also made use of it. A letter of Pomeroy, written to headquarters in Boston, is preserved in the Massachusetts Archives, “Letters,” iv. 109. He supposed himself at that time the only field-officer of his regiment left alive. The papers of Col. Israel Williams are in the Mass. Hist. Soc. library,[1368] and give considerable help. The campaign letters of Surgeon Thomas Williams, of Deerfield, addressed chiefly to his wife (1755 and 1756), are in the possession of William L. Stone, and are printed in the Historical Magazine, xvii. 209, etc. (Apr., 1870).[1369] The French found in the pocket of a captured English officer a diary of the campaign, of which Parkman discovered a French version in the Archives of the Marine.