Bad as this was, there was a still worse trouble. Vaudreuil now thought he saw a chance for another raid which would please the Canadians and hurt Montcalm. So he actually took away 1,600 men in June and sent them off to the Mohawk valley, farther west, under Levis, who ought to have known better than to have allowed himself to be flattered into taking command. This came near to wrecking the whole defence. But the owls did not see, and the foxes did not care.
Meanwhile, Montcalm was hurrying his little handful of regulars to the front. He was to leave on June 24. On the night of the 23rd Vaudreuil sent a long string of foolish orders, worded in such a way by some of his foxy parasites that the credit for any victory would come to himself, while the blame for any failure would rest on Montcalm. This was more than flesh and blood could endure. Once before Montcalm had tried to open Vaudreuil's eyes to the mischief that was going on. Now he spoke out again, and proved his case so plainly that, for very shame, Vaudreuil had to change the orders. Montcalm arrived at Ticonderoga with his new engineers on the 30th. Here he found 3,000 men and one bad fort. And the British were closing in with 15,000 men and good artillery.
The two armies lay only the length of Lake George apart, a little over thirty miles; in positions the same as last year, except that Montcalm was now on the defensive with less than half as many men, and the British were on the offensive with more than twice as many. Montcalm's great object was to gain time. Every minute was precious. He sent messenger after messenger, begging Vaudreuil to hurry forward the Canadians and to call back the Mohawk valley raiding party of 1,600 men. His 3,000 harassed regulars were working almost night and day. The fort was patched up until nothing more could be done without pulling it down and building a new fort; and an entrenched camp was dug in front of it. Meanwhile Montcalm's little army, though engaged in all this work, was actually making such a show of force about the valley between the lakes that it checked the British, who now gave up their plan of seizing a forward position in the valley as a cover for the advance of the main body later on. Montcalm, with 3,000 toil-worn soldiers, had out-generalled Abercromby and Howe with 15,000 fresh ones. He had also gained four priceless days.
But on July 5 the British advanced in force. It had been a great sight the year before, when Montcalm had gone south along Lake George with 5,000 men; but how much more magnificent now, when Abercromby came north with 15,00 men, all eager for this Armageddon of the West. Perhaps there never has been any other occasion on which the pride and pomp of glorious war have been set in a scene of such wonderful peace and beauty. The midsummer day was perfectly calm. Not a cloud was in the sky. The lovely lake shone like a burnished mirror. The forest-clad mountains never looked greener or cooler; nor did their few bare crags or pinnacles ever stand out more clearly against the endless blue sky than when those thousand boats rowed on to what 15,000 men thought certain victory. The procession of boats was wide enough to stretch from shore to shore; yet it was much longer than its width. On each side went the Americans, 9,000 men in blue and buff. In the centre came 6,000 British regulars in scarlet and gold, among them a thousand kilted Highlanders of the splendid 'Black Watch,' led by their major, Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, whose weird had told him a year before that he should fight and fall at a place with what was then to him an unknown name—Ticonderoga. The larger boats were in the rear, lashed together, two by two, with platforms laid across them for artillery.
And so the brave array advanced. The colours fluttered gallantly with the motion of the boats. The thousands of brilliant scarlet uniforms showed gaily between the masses of more sober blue. The drums were beating, the bugles blowing, the bagpipes screaming defiance to the foe; and every echo in the surrounding hills was roused to send its own defiance back.
The British halted for the night a few miles short of the north end of the lake. Next morning; the 6th, they set out again in time to land about noon within four miles of Ticonderoga in a straight line. There were two routes by which an army could march from Lake George to Lake Champlain. The first, the short way, was to go eastward across the four-mile valley. The second was twice as far, north and then east, all the way round through the woods. Since the valley road led to a bridge which Montcalm had blown up, Lord Howe went round through the woods with a party of rangers to see if that way would do. While he was pushing ahead the French reconnoitring party, which, from under cover, had been following the British movements the day before, was trying to find its own way back to Montcalm through the same woods. Its Indian guides had run away in the night, scared out of their wits by the size of the British army. It was soon lost and, circling round, came between Howe and Abercromby. Suddenly the rangers and the French met in the dense forest. 'Who goes there?' shouted a Frenchman. 'Friends!' answered a British soldier in perfect French. But the uniforms told another tale and both sides fired. The French were soon overpowered by numbers, and the fifty or so survivors were glad to scurry off into the bush. But they had dealt one mortal blow. Lord Howe had fallen, and, with him, the head and heart of the whole British force.
Abercromby, a helpless leader, pottered about all the next day, not knowing what to do. Meanwhile Montcalm kept his men hard at work, and by night he was ready and hopeful. He had just written to his friend Doreil, the commissary of war at Quebec: 'We have only eight days' provisions. I have no Canadians and no Indians. The British have a very strong army. But I do not despair. My soldiers are good. From the movements of the British I can see they are in doubt. If they are slow enough to let me entrench the heights of Ticonderoga, I shall beat them.' He had ended his dispatch to Vaudreuil with similar words: 'If they only let me entrench the heights I shall beat them.' And now, on the night of the 7th, he actually was holding the heights with his 3,000 French regulars against the total British force of 15,000. Could he win on the 8th?
Late in the evening 300 regulars arrived under an excellent officer, Pouchot. At five the next morning, the fateful July 8, Levis came in with 100 more. These were all, except 400 Canadians who arrived in driblets, some while the battle was actually going on. Vaudreuil had changed his mind again, and had decided to recall the Mohawk valley raiders. But too late. Levis, Pouchot, and the Canadians had managed to get through only after a terrible forced march, spurred on by the hope of reaching their beloved Montcalm in time. The other men from the raid, and five times as many more from Canada, came in afterwards. But again too late.
The odds in numbers were four to one against Montcalm. Even in the matter of position he was anything but safe. The British could have forced him out of it by taking 10,000 men through the woods towards Crown Point, to cut off his retreat to the north, while leaving 5,000 in front of him to protect their march and harass his own embarkation. And even if they had chosen to attack him where he was they could have used their cannon with great effect from Rattlesnake Hill, overlooking his left flank, only a mile away, or from the bush straight in front of him, at much less than half that distance, or from both places together. Always on the alert he was ready for anything, retreat included, though he preferred fighting where he was, especially if the British were foolish enough to attack without their guns—the very thing they seemed about to do. After Howe's death they made mistakes that worked both ways against them. They waited long enough to let Montcalm get ready to meet their infantry; but not long enough to get their guns ready to meet him.
Now, too, blundering Abercromby believed a stupid engineer who said the trenches could be rushed with the bayonet —precisely what could not be done. The peninsula of Ticonderoga was strong towards Lake Champlain, the narrows of which it entirely commanded. But, against infantry, it was even stronger towards the land, where trenches had been dug. The peninsula was almost a square. It jutted out into the lake about three-quarters of a mile, and its neck was of nearly the same width. Facing landward, the direction from which the British came, the left half of the peninsula was high, the right low. Montcalm entrenched the left half and put his French regulars there. He made a small trench in the middle of the right half for the Canadian regulars and militia, and cut down the trees everywhere, all round. The position of the Canadians was not strong in itself; but if the British rushed it they would be taken in flank by the French and in front by the fort, which was half a mile in rear of the trenches and could fire in any direction; while if they turned to rush the French right, they would have to charge uphill with the fire of the fort on their left.