Platoon-firing was then the orthodox method of war. The long, thin lines of battle which now obtain in the field, and which the Americans taught to Europe, were not then known to men accustomed to the cleared land and level fields of the Low Countries, and of Europe generally. Soon moving forward into the clearing, and deploying to double width, the regulars fired by platoons of three lines,—the first file of men kneeling down, and the rear, or third file, delivering their volleys over the shoulders of those of the second line in front. Aiming too high and being too far off for the effective range of flint-lock smooth-bores, the result of their general miss was to arouse the spirits of the Americans, even to gayety. After the first hour their nerves became more steady, and they aimed with deadly effect, while the irritated and excited veterans fired too high to do much execution. When the cannon served by the sailors under Major Eyre began to tear their ranks with round shot and canister, the great gaps made among the white coats cheered the provincials still more. Gallantly dressing up, they endeavoured for many minutes to present an orderly front; but, finally, Dieskau had to break from the road, and moving to the right in the face of a murderous fire, began the attack on the three regiments of Colonels Williams, Ruggles, and Whitcomb. Here for another hour they stood their ground manfully, in the face of a fire whose rapidity and accuracy were the astonishment of Dieskau, who bravely led his troops until struck down.
The commanders on either side in this battle were wounded, and had to retire in favour of others. Johnson, shortly after the first volley of the French regulars, was struck by a ball in the thigh which made a painful flesh wound. The ball broke no bones, but was never extracted, and the lacerated nerves troubled him more or less all his life thereafter. He retired to his tent, and Gen. Phineas Lyman took command, cheering his men, and exposing himself with reckless bravery both behind and outside the barricade. In fact, this battle of Lake George was Lyman’s battle, and was largely Lyman’s victory.
Dieskau had bravely led his men during several hours, but while giving an order to his Indians to move farther to the left, he approached so near the intrenchments that he received, from an American standing behind a tree, his first wound. Ordering the Chevalier de Montreuil to take command, and to order retreat if necessary, then to do his best, and to send men to remove him, Dieskau crawled near a tree and sat with his back against it. One Canadian sent to remove him was picked off by an American, and fell across the baron’s wounded knee. The other went off for assistance; but soon after his disappearance the retreat was sounded. A renegade Frenchman, on the American side, then approached within twelve paces of the German baron, and deliberately shot him, the bullet traversing his hips. Dieskau had received, in all, five wounds.
Blodget, a sutler in Johnson’s army, stood like a war-correspondent on the hill near by, watching the fighting. He was thus enabled to make a sketch of the battle, which he published as a cheap print, “with a full though short history,” some weeks afterward, in Boston. Even the wagoners, in the intervals between carrying to Surgeon Williams the wounded who lay on the ground behind the log-house, took their part in fighting; each probably doing as much execution as the average farmer’s boy. For, despite the hot fire so long maintained, the number of killed and wounded on the enemy’s side, except among the French regulars whose white uniform made them easy targets, was not very great. It was not easy to hit men ensconced behind trees or stumps, or occasionally rising in the smoke above the underbrush, while the enemy could, during most of the time, see only here and there a head. The Mohawks in the camp were mostly useless, except to keep up yelling while their white brothers fought beyond the breastworks; and they enjoyed seeing how the pale faces fought. Nevertheless, about forty of their number lost their lives during the day in ambuscade and battle.
While this attack of the regulars on the right was progressing, the French Canadians and the Abenaki Indians boldly attempted to flank the left of the camp, many of them even going away round toward the lake, and clustering in a morass where the musketry fire could not well reach them. Fortunately, however, Johnson had posted a field-piece advantageously on the extreme left of his front, which now harassed the squatting Indians, while on those in the marsh the mortars and howitzers were trained. Although the howitzers split and became useless, the mortars did well; and some shells skilfully dropped drove the lurking enemy away, and completely relieved this flank of danger.
Brave as were the Americans behind the rude barricade, they did not excel the French regulars, who fought until they were nearly annihilated. It was well into the afternoon when they were deserted by hundreds of French forest-rangers and Canadian Indians, who, seeing no hope of winning the day, skulked away to the scene of the morning’s ambuscade,—the one set to plunder, and the other to scalp the slain. About four o’clock so many of the white-coated regulars were prone on the ground and so few in action, all their officers being disabled, while the fire of the others had slackened, that the Americans began to get out of their breastworks, and to fight in the woods. This made the French give way so visibly that the whole of Lyman’s force rushed out on the enemy with their hatchets and clubbed muskets, pushing them out of ambush into full retreat. This onset took place between four and five o’clock p. m., and resulted in completely driving the enemy off the field.
The fighting was not yet over, for the third battle on this eventful day was yet to take place. Hearing the distant firing, Colonel Blanchard, of Fort Lyman, sent out a party of two hundred and fifty men under command of the brave Captain McGinnis, who, with his Schenectady men, led the van. Warily approaching the place of the morning’s ambuscade, with scouts ahead, they succeeded in getting between the piled-up baggage of the French army and a vidette of five or six men who were keeping a lookout on a hill. Moving farther up the road, they found a party of three hundred French and Indians, consisting of those who had plundered the slain, and of other remnants of the beaten army, who were eating cold rations out of their packs. They sat along Rocky Brook and the marshy pond. McGinnis and his men approached stealthily until within firing distance, and then, after a volley, charged like tigers upon their prey.
In the fight which ensued the Americans contested against heavy odds; but although their brave captain was mortally wounded, he directed their movements till the firing ceased, and the third battle of this eventful day resulted in victory. Not till the next evening did the scattered band of Dieskau’s army meet, exhausted and famished, at the place where they had left their canoes.
The next day the marshy pool, in places reddened with the blood of the slain, thrown into it to save burial, was given the name—which it ever afterward kept—of “Bloody Pond.” When the writer saw it, in 1877, the sunbeams danced merrily on its dimpled face, as the snow-white and golden pond-lilies were swayed by the morning’s breeze, rippling the water’s surface, while yet held at anchor beneath. In this threefold battle the Americans lost most heavily in the “bloody morning scout” at the ambuscade,—their total being two hundred and twenty killed, and ninety wounded. The well-plied tomahawks, after the surprise in the woods, and the poisoned bullets of the French Canadians accounted for the disproportionate number of the dead over the wounded. Among the officers were Colonel Williams, Major Ashley, Captains Keys, Porter, Ingersoll, and twelve others. Captain McGinnis died in the camp two days afterward. Of the Indians, beside Hendrick, thirty-eight were slain. On the French side the loss must have been fully four hundred, or probably one third of those actually engaged.
In this battle farmers and traders prevailed over European troops, trained woodcraftsmen, and fierce savages. The honours of the command belong equally to three men. The credit of the defences, and the excellent disposition of marksmen, artillery, and reserves, belongs to Johnson, who, unfortunately, was wounded in the hips in the first part of the battle, and had to leave the field for shelter. The command then devolved upon Gen. Phineas Lyman, who deserves equal honour with Johnson. The Connecticut general, cool and alert, displayed the greatest courage, and was largely influential in securing the final result. To McGinnis belongs the credit of winning a victory,—the second of the day, in what may be called the third battle of this eventful 8th of September. Nevertheless, such are the peculiarities of the military mind, that Johnson never mentioned Lyman’s name in his official despatch. For this reason, and because they unjustly suspected cowardice in Johnson during the battle, and because they saw comparatively little of him before and after it, withal being sectional and clannish in their opinions, Johnson was extremely unpopular with the New England soldiers. Their judgments have mightily influenced the accounts of the threefold battle of Lake George as found in the writings of New England annalists and historians.