The early events of the year, like the capture of Fort Bull,[1398] find illustrations in various papers in the Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. i. 509, and N. Y. Col. Docs. x. 403, with some local associations in Benton’s Herkimer County.
The centre of preparation for the campaign during the winter was in Boston, and Parkman[1399] shows the methods of military organization which the New England colonies, with some detriment to efficiency employed. He finds his material for the sketch in the manuscripts of the Mass. Archives (“Military”), vols. lxxv. and lxxvi., and in equivalent printed papers in R. I. Colonial Records, v., and N. H. Provincial Papers, vi. The latter colony issued bills this year, as they had the previous season, called Crown Point currency, in aid of the expedition, a fac-simile of one of which is annexed.[1400]
Another main source for these preliminaries, as well as for the routine of the campaign later in Albany and at Lake George is the Journal of General John Winslow, who, after some coquetting with Pepperrell on Shirley’s part, was finally selected for the command of the expedition against Crown Point.[1401] The second volume of this journal, which is in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society, covers Feb.-Aug., and the third, Aug.-Dec., 1756. They consist of transcripts of letters, orders, etc., chronologically arranged.
The volumes labelled “Letters” in the Massachusetts Archives (MSS.) contain various letters, which depict the condition of the camps and the progress of the campaign. Parkman[1402] refers to them, as well as to a report of Lieut.-Col. Burton to Loudon on the condition of the camps,[1403] and to the journal of John Graham, a chaplain in Lyman’s Connecticut regiment.[1404]
Shirley rightfully understood the value of Oswego to the colonies. As Parkman[1405] says, “No English settlement on the continent was of such ill omen to the French. It not only robbed them of the fur-trade, but threatened them with military and political, no less than commercial ruin.” The previous French governor, Jonquière, had been particularly instructed to compass its destruction, above all by inciting the Iroquois to do it, if possible, for the post was a menace in the eyes of the Indians. Shirley hoped to redeem the failure of last year, and he had the satisfaction of hearing of Bradstreet’s success in the midst of the personal detraction which assailed him.[1406] The military interest of the year, however, centres in the siege and fall of Oswego (Aug. 14), introducing Montcalm on the scene.[1407] Capt. John Vicars, a British officer who was with Bradstreet, gives an account of the fortifications, which Parkman[1408] uses. The correspondence of Loudon and Shirley in the English archives marks the progress of events.[1409] Respecting the siege itself there is a letter, from an officer present, in the Boston Evening Post, May 16, 1757. Stone[1410] uses MS. depositions of two of the English prisoners who escaped from the French.[1411] A declaration by soldiers of Shirley’s regiment is printed in the N. Y. Col. Docs., vii. 126.
Of the contemporary printed sources, note must be made of the “State of facts” in the Lond. Mag., 1757, p. 14; of the Conduct of General Shirley, etc., p. 110; of Livingston’s Review; of The military history of Great Britain for 1756-57. Containing a letter from an English officer at Canada, taken prisoner at Oswego, exhibiting the cruelty of the French. Also a journal of the Siege of Oswego, London, 1757.[1412]
Of somewhat less authority is a popular book, French and Indian cruelty exemplified in the life of Peter Wilkinson, with “accurate detail of the operations of the French and English forces at the siege of Oswego.”[1413] Of a more general character are the accounts in Mante,[1414] Smith,[1415] and Hutchinson.[1416]
Parkman, who sketches the early career of Montcalm,[1417] surveys the chief French authorities on the siege, as gathered mainly from the Archives of the Marine and those of War, at Paris;[1418] the Livre des Ordres; Vaudreuil’s instructions to Montcalm, July 21; the journal of Bougainville; the letters of Vaudreuil, Bigot, and Montcalm. The N. Y. Col. Docs. (vol. x.) contain various translations of these,[1419] including (p. 440) a journal of the siege transmitted by Montcalm; other versions are in the Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. i.