The third and main branch was the land troops or regulars, specially sent from France. We have seen this method pursued before in former emergencies. At present the troops in Canada were the second battalions of the regular infantry belonging to the regiments, called after the names of the provinces or regions, from which they were raised, of La Reine, Guyenne, Béarn and Languedoc. These made a contingent of 2,100 men, being composed of forty-eight companies of fusiliers of forty men each, and four companies of grenadiers of forty-five men each. Disasters on the voyage out, sickness, and the battle at Lake George had reduced their numbers, at the arrival of Montcalm, to an effective force of 1,652 men. Add to these the 1,050 men belonging to the second battalions of the La Sarre and Royal-Roussillon Regiments. In the month of June, of this year 1756, the Chevalier de Montreuil, major general of the troops, made the following recapitulation: La Reine, 327 men; Languedoc, 326; Guyenne, 492; Béarn, 498; La Sarre, 515; Royal-Roussillon, 520; to which it is necessary to add 150 volunteers and 918 recruits, giving a total of 3,752 men, not counting the officers.
Such were the three forces to be directed from the military capital of Montreal.
Montcalm, settled in Montreal, had a busy time keeping his staff in constant activity, only hoping, however, for peace for that winter, which was not to be. Among those whom he met constantly were M. Doreil of the commissary department, the boastful and somewhat inefficient Chevalier de Montreuil, adjutant major general of the troops, and the notorious Intendant Bigot, who came from Quebec to organize the provisions of the regiments and whose activity, at first, very favourably impressed Montcalm.
He soon became acquainted with his red allies. On June 3d, according to his journal, he received a complimentary visit from the Iroquois of Sault St. Louis, who came with their "ladies" to compliment him on his arrival and to felicitate Onontio, the governor. They gave Montcalm a necklace and he assured them that he would visit them in return. Writing on June 16th to his wife, he describes this occasion: "They are a dirty gentry, even when fresh from their toilet, at which they pass all their time; you would hardly believe it, but the men always carry to war, along with their tomahawks and guns, a mirror, by which they daub their faces with various colours, and arrange feathers on their heads, and rings in their ears and noses. They think it a great beauty to mutilate the lobes of their ears at an early age, so as to stretch them till they fall on the shoulders. Often they wear no shirt at all, but only a laced jacket; you would take them for devils or masqueraders. They would exercise the patience of an angel. Moreover, these gentry wage war with astonishing cruelty, slaying women and children alike: They scalp you most skilfully, an operation from which one ordinarily dies.... In general all that Père Charlevoix [198] says is true—with the exception of their burning their prisoners; that has almost gone out of fashion."
Meanwhile the military plans were being completed. As news came that the English were mostly menacing the frontier of Lake St. Sacrement (Lake George), it was decided to send the Royal-Roussillon Regiment to Carillon (called by the savages Ticonderoga), where the forces were concentrating. Thither also, at the command of the governor, went Montcalm, on June 27th, accompanied by the Chevaliers de Lévis and Montreuil. There he worked hard for twelve days with indefatigable zeal, preparing the forts to be able to resist English attacks and organizing the military and commissariat departments. Leaving Lévis in command, he returned to Montreal on July 16th at the call of the governor. He had had his first experience of the home infantry and the differences between Canadian conditions in campaigning and those of France. He had learned that the Canadian soldier was very independent, and that the savages needed special treatment. Yet he wrote to his family at this time that he had succeeded at present with the Canadians, and with the Indians, whose bearings he had also taken.
Montcalm was recalled to undertake the siege and capture of Chouaguen (Oswego), a stronghold of the English and the key of the situation. This project, being meditated by Vaudreuil from the first days of his governorship, was undoubtedly hazardous and problematical, and Montcalm and Lévis and the others from France had always feared failure, unless a combination of lucky conditions should favour them. Vaudreuil, in spite of a certain hesitancy, still believed it was possible, as indeed did Bigot, and Montcalm set out from Lachine on July 21st with his aide-de-camp Bougainville. They made their portages successfully around the rapids of the Sault, so that they reached the post of La Présentation on the 27th, arriving at Frontenac on the 29th, where he hoped to find the battalions of La Sarre, Guyenne and Béarn already there, with de Bourlamaque, M. Rigaud de Vaudreuil, brother of the governor general, and a body of colonial troops, Canadians and Indians, to the number of 1,500 men, and engineers and artillery, and then he would attempt to make a landing, hard by Oswego, in preparation for the siege. We cannot follow the story of the fall of Oswego. Suffice it to say that within ten days after embarking from Frontenac on August 4th, Fort Chouaguen or Oswego, hitherto thought impregnable, had capitulated on August 14th to Montcalm.
That same night he sent an officer to Vaudreuil at Montreal to bear to him the five flags of the regiments of Shirley, Pepperell and Schuyler. The story of the riotous sacking of the post is sad reading but Montcalm cannot be justly accused of countenancing it. "The Canadians and Indians," says Parkman (Wolfe and Montcalm, I, p. 413), "broke through all restraint and fell to plundering. There was an opening of rum barrels and a scene of drunkenness in which some of the prisoners had their share; while others tried to escape in the confusion and were tomahawked by the excited savages. Many more would have been butchered but for the efforts of Montcalm, who by unstinted promises succeeded in appeasing his ferocious allies, whom he dared not offend. 'It will cost the king,' he says, 'eight or ten thousand livres in presents.'"
From the 16th to the 20th of August the work of demolition was continued. By the 21st at the place where five days before the powerful English fort of Oswego stood nothing but burning ruins remained, on which Montcalm caused a cross and a stake with the arms of France to be placed, bearing these inscriptions:
In hoc signo vincunt," and
Manibus date lilia plenis."
After the fall of Oswego, Montcalm having embarked on August 23d, arrived at Montreal on the 26th, wearied out but buoyed up by his triumph after a month's absence, during which he had traversed over six hundred and fifty miles, taken three forts, captured a war flotilla, made prisoner an army and seized from the enemy an immense store of provisions, and secured for France the undisputed rule over the majestic Ontario. Chouaguen had been the apple of discord and its fall was a decisive success for the colony.