Part 16 (1/2)
[Footnote 290: _Governor s.h.i.+rley's Message to his a.s.sembly, 13 Feb.
1755. Resolutions of the a.s.sembly of Ma.s.sachusetts, 18 Feb. 1755_.
s.h.i.+rley's original idea was to build a fort on a rising ground near Crown Point, in order to command it. This was soon abandoned for the more honest and more practical plan of direct attack.]
[Footnote 291: _Correspondence of s.h.i.+rley, Feb. 1755_. The number was much increased later in the season.]
He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war. By birth he was Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who, owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in charge of them nearly twenty years before. Johnson was born to prosper.
He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough, jovial temper, and a quick adaptation to his surroundings. He could drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors. He liked the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means; but compared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model of uprightness. He lived by the Mohawk in a fortified house which was a stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both white and red. Here--for his tastes were not fastidious--presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place. Over his neighbors, the Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he had to deal, he acquired a remarkable influence. He liked them, adopted their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but always with a justice and honesty in strong contrast with the rascalities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called them ”not men, but devils.” Hence, when Johnson was made Indian superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy. When, in addition, he was made a general, he a.s.sembled the warriors in council to engage them to aid the expedition.
This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson; and as more than eleven hundred Indians appeared at his call, his larder was sorely taxed to entertain them. The speeches were interminable. Johnson, as master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest with them the palm of insufferable prolixity. The climax was reached on the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt. An Oneida chief took it up; Stevens, the interpreter, began the war-dance, and the a.s.sembled warriors howled in chorus. Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they all drank the King's health.[292] They showed less alacrity, however, to fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the war-path. Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the French.
[Footnote 292: _Report of Conference between Major-General Johnson and the Indians, June, 1755_.]
While the British colonists were preparing to attack Crown Point, the French of Canada were preparing to defend it. Duquesne, recalled from his post, had resigned the government to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who had at his disposal the battalions of regulars that had sailed in the spring from Brest under Baron Dieskau. His first thought was to use them for the capture of Oswego; but the letters of Braddock, found on the battle-field, warned him of the design against Crown Point; while a reconnoitring party which had gone as far as the Hudson brought back news that Johnson's forces were already in the field. Therefore the plan was changed, and Dieskau was ordered to lead the main body of his troops, not to Lake Ontario, but to Lake Champlain. He pa.s.sed up the Richelieu, and embarked in boats and canoes for Crown Point. The veteran knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were but a mob of countrymen. He doubted not of putting them to rout, and meant never to hold his hand till he had chased them back to Albany.[293] ”Make all haste,” Vaudreuil wrote to him; ”for when you return we shall send you to Oswego to execute our first design.”[294]
[Footnote 293: _Bigot au Ministre, 27 Aout, 1755. Ibid., 5 Sept. 1755_.]
[Footnote 294: _Memoire pour servir d'Instruction a M. le Baron de Dieskau, Marechal des Camps et Armees du Roy, 15 Aout, 1755_.]
Johnson on his part was preparing to advance. In July about three thousand provincials were encamped near Albany, some on the ”Flats”
above the town, and some on the meadows below. Hither, too, came a swarm of Johnson's Mohawks,--warriors, squaws, and children. They adorned the General's face with war-paint, and he danced the war-dance; then with his sword he cut the first slice from the ox that had been roasted whole for their entertainment. ”I shall be glad,” wrote the surgeon of a New England regiment, ”if they fight as eagerly as they ate their ox and drank their wine.”
Above all things the expedition needed promptness; yet everything moved slowly. Five popular legislatures controlled the troops and the supplies. Connecticut had refused to send her men till s.h.i.+rley promised that her commanding officer should rank next to Johnson. The whole movement was for some time at a deadlock because the five governments could not agree about their contributions of artillery and stores.[295]
The New Hamps.h.i.+re regiment had taken a short cut for Crown Point across the wilderness of Vermont; but had been recalled in time to save them from probable destruction. They were now with the rest in the camp at Albany, in such distress for provisions that a private subscription was proposed for their relief.[296]
[Footnote 295: _The Conduct of Major-General s.h.i.+rley briefly stated_ (London, 1758).]
[Footnote 296: _Blanchard to Wentworth, 28 Aug. 1755_, in _Provincial Papers of New Hamps.h.i.+re_, VI. 429.]
Johnson's army, crude as it was, had in it good material. Here was Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, second in command, once a tutor at Yale College, and more recently a lawyer,--a raw soldier, but a vigorous and brave one; Colonel Moses t.i.tcomb, of Ma.s.sachusetts, who had fought with credit at Louisbourg; and Ephraim Williams, also colonel of a Ma.s.sachusetts regiment, a tall and portly man, who had been a captain in the last war, member of the General Court, and deputy-sheriff. He made his will in the camp at Albany, and left a legacy to found the school which has since become Williams College. His relative, Stephen Williams, was chaplain of his regiment, and his brother Thomas was its surgeon.
Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, who, like t.i.tcomb, had seen service at Louisbourg, was its lieutenant-colonel. He had left a wife at home, an excellent matron, to whom he was continually writing affectionate letters, mingling household cares with news of the camp, and charging her to see that their eldest boy, Seth, then in college at New Haven, did not run off to the army. Pomeroy had with him his brother Daniel; and this he thought was enough. Here, too, was a man whose name is still a household word in New England,--the st.u.r.dy Israel Putnam, private in a Connecticut regiment; and another as bold as he, John Stark, lieutenant in the New Hamps.h.i.+re levies, and the future victor of Bennington.
The soldiers were no soldiers, but farmers and farmers' sons who had volunteered for the summer campaign. One of the corps had a blue uniform faced with red. The rest wore their daily clothing. Blankets had been served out to them by the several provinces, but the greater part brought their own guns; some under the penalty of a fine if they came without them, and some under the inducement of a reward.[297] They had no bayonets, but carried hatchets in their belts as a sort of subst.i.tute.[298] At their sides were slung powder-horns, on which, in the leisure of the camp, they carved quaint devices with the points of their jack-knives. They came chiefly from plain New England homesteads,--rustic abodes, unpainted and dingy, with long well-sweeps, capacious barns, rough fields of pumpkins and corn, and vast kitchen chimneys, above which in winter hung squashes to keep them from frost, and guns to keep them from rust.
[Footnote 297: _Proclamation of Governor s.h.i.+rley, 1755_.]
[Footnote 298: _Second Letter to a Friend on the Battle of Lake George_.]
As to the manners and morals of the army there is conflict of evidence.
In some respects nothing could be more exemplary. ”Not a chicken has been stolen,” says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then commanding on the Ma.s.sachusetts frontier: ”We are a wicked, profane army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of h.e.l.l. If Crown Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people left behind.”[299] There was edifying regularity in respect to form.
Sermons twice a week, daily prayers, and frequent psalm-singing alternated with the much-needed military drill.[300] ”Prayers among us night and morning,” writes Private Jonathan Caswell, of Ma.s.sachusetts, to his father. ”Here we lie, knowing not when we shall march for Crown Point; but I hope not long to tarry. Desiring your prayers to G.o.d for me as I am going to war, I am Your Ever Dutiful son.”[301]
[Footnote 299: _Papers of Colonel Israel Williams_.]
[Footnote 300: _Ma.s.sachusetts Archives_.]
[Footnote 301: _Jonathan Caswell to John Caswell, 6 July, 1755_.]
To Pomeroy and some of his brothers in arms it seemed that they were engaged in a kind of crusade against the myrmidons of Rome. ”As you have at heart the Protestant cause,” he wrote to his friend Israel Williams, ”so I ask an interest in your prayers that the Lord of Hosts would go forth with us and give us victory over our unreasonable, encroaching, barbarous, murdering enemies.”
Both Williams the surgeon and Williams the colonel chafed at the incessant delays. ”The expedition goes on very much as a snail runs,”
writes the former to his wife; ”it seems we may possibly see Crown Point this time twelve months.” The Colonel was vexed because everything was out of joint in the department of transportation: wagoners mutinous for want of pay; ordnance stores, camp-kettles, and provisions left behind.
”As to rum,” he complains, ”it won't hold out nine weeks. Things appear most melancholy to me.” Even as he was writing, a report came of the defeat of Braddock; and, shocked at the blow, his pen traced the words: ”The Lord have mercy on poor New England!”