Historic Highways of America/Volume 5/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1758
"BETWEEN the French and the earthquakes," wrote Horace Walpole in 1758 to Mr. Conway, "you have no notion how good we have grown; nobody makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth turned up with ashes." The years 1756 and 1757 were crowded with disappointments. With the miscarriage of the three campaigns of 1755, Governor Shirley became the successor of the forgotten Braddock and assembled a council of war at New York composed of Governors Shirley, Hardy, Sharpe, Morris, and Fitch, Colonels Dunbar and Schuyler, Majors Craven and Rutherford, and Sir John St. Clair. As though in very mockery, the king's instructions to the betrayed and sacrificed Braddock were read to the council, after which General Shirley announced a scheme for campaigns to be conducted during the new year. The new "generalissimo" proposed four campaigns: one army of five thousand men was to assemble at Oswego, four thousand of whom were to be sent to destroy, first, Fort Frontenac, then Forts Niagara, Presque Isle, La Bœuf, and Detroit; a second army of three thousand provincials was to march over Braddock's Road against Fort Duquesne; an army of one thousand men was to advance to Crown Point on Lake Champlain and erect a fort there; a fourth army of two thousand men was to "carry fire and sword" up the Kennebec River, across the portage, and down Rivière Chaudière to its mouth near Quebec. The Council agreed, as councils will, to all this Quixotic program; insisting, however, that ten thousand men should be sent to Crown Point and six thousand to Oswego.
In spite of Shirley's earnestness things moved very slowly, and the bickering between governors and assemblies and the jealousy of men out of power of those in power retarded every movement. The deadlock in Pennsylvania resulted in the abandonment of that province and Virginia so far as offensive measures were concerned, and the two governors busied themselves in fortifying their smoking frontiers, as described above. And finally the northern campaigns toward the lakes came to a sudden stand when General Shirley was superseded in his command by Lord Loudoun who, lacking the sense to forward Shirley's plans, officiously altered them completely at a time when everything depended on quick and concerted action. As a result, Loudoun moved northward at a snail's pace.
It seemed as though affairs in America were momentarily paralyzed by the shock of the tremendous conflict now opened on the continent. On the eighteenth of May England had declared war on France and twenty-two days later France responded, and the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century opened, in which the great Frederick eventually humbled, with England's help, the three empresses whose hatred he had drawn upon himself. But while Louis sent an army of one hundred thousand against Frederick, he had yet twelve thousand to hurry over to New France to make good the successes of 1755. These sailed under that best and bravest of Frenchmen since the days of Champlain, Montcalm, on the third of April. In three months Montcalm had swept down Lake Champlain to Fort Ticonderoga. Then, as if to make sport of his antagonist—Loudoun, who had abandoned Shirley's Oswego scheme—Montcalm returned to Montreal, hurried with three thousand soldiers down the St. Lawrence and across to Oswego, which surrendered at once with its twelve hundred defenders. The outwitted Loudoun crawled slowly up to Lake George; the winter of 1756–57 came on, and the two commanders glared at each other across the narrow space of snow and ice that separated them. The two important campaigns planned by Shirley were utter failures, and the westward campaign against Fort Duquesne was not even attempted. The French were strengthening everywhere. "Whoever is in or whoever is out," exclaimed Chesterfield, "I am sure we are undone both at home and abroad. . . We are no longer a nation." But one of Shirley's coups had succeeded; Winslow captured Beauséjour. In the west Armstrong had razed the Indian town of Kittanning on the Allegheny. On the other hand these minor successes were far overbalanced by the destruction of Oswego and Fort Bull, between the Mohawk and Lake Oneida, and the menacing position Montcalm had assumed with the strengthening of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Frontenac.
Pitt, a fine example of a man too powerful to hold office with peace, was forced into the premiership again near the end of this black year of 1756. Parliament refused to support him, the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the army, opposed him, and the king hated him; early in April 1757 he was dismissed. England had found her man but the pigmies in power shrank from acknowledging him. With that sublime confidence which once or twice in a century betokens latent genius, Pitt exclaimed: "I am sure I can save this country, and that nobody else can." Meantime Chesterfield was sighing: "I never saw so dreadful a time." The year of 1757 dragged on as gloomily as its predecessor. Montcalm, master of the situation, pushed southward upon Fort William Henry on Lake George, and General Webb at Fort Edward. Loudoun abandoned the scene and went gallantly sailing with the fleet against Louisbourg. Fort William Henry surrendered and Montcalm spread terror to Albany and New York. Had he pressed his advantage it is questionable if he could not have occupied the whole Hudson Valley. Why he did not could have been explained better in Quebec than in New York. It was ever the foe behind Montcalm that was his worst enemy, and which eventually compassed his ruin.
If official jealousies were now the bane of New France, incapacity until now had handicapped her enemies. When Pitt was forced out of office in April, England was "left without a government." "England has been long in labor," said the Prussian Frederick, "and at last she has brought forth a man." Her hour was long delayed, but early in 1758 Pitt was again made Secretary of State with old Newcastle First Lord of the Treasury. "It was a partnership of magpie and eagle. The dirty work of government, intrigue, bribery, and all the patronage that did not affect the war, fell to the share of the old politician. If Pitt could appoint generals, admirals, and ambassadors, Newcastle was welcome to the rest. 'I will borrow the Duke's majorities to carry on the government,' said the new secretary."[1]
Seldom indeed has the elevation of one man to power produced such almost instantaneous results as did the elevation of Pitt. The desperateness of England's condition undoubtedly intensified, by contrast, the successes which came when he assumed full power. England had been fighting, not France and her allies, but the stars; all the bravery and sturdiness of her soldiers and sailors could not counteract the ignorance and incapacity of those who had heretofore commanded them. Now, capacity and ability were in league; like an electric shock the realization of this significant union passed from man to man. The people felt it, and the army and navy; the political pigmies about the throne felt it, as well as the king. Pitt, vain as any genius, asked for the latter's confidence; the reply was "deserve it and you shall have it"—and a Hanoverian king of England kept his word. "I shall now have no more peace," he had sighed when Pelham died; and had not the reins of power soon passed into the hands of Pitt it is doubtful if he ever could have had peace with honor. It was the skilful surgeon's knife that England needed, and no time for men who feared the sight of blood; the "Great Commoner" proved the skilful surgeon and at once gave England a motto Pelham never knew: "Neither fleet nor army should eat the bread of the nation in idleness."
Pitt at once displayed a prime qualification for his post of honor by choosing with unfailing discernment men who should lead both fleets and armies from idleness into action. His American campaign of 1758 embraced three decisive movements, an attack on Louisbourg—stepping-stone to Quebec—an invasion upon Montcalm on Lake Champlain, and an expedition to Fort Duquesne. For these three movements he chose two of the three leaders. The two he chose completed their assignments with utmost courage and success. The third, Abercrombie, whom Pitt could not prevent succeeding the incompetent Loudoun—met with defeat. As if to reaffirm his sagacity, Ferdinand of Brunswick, whom Pitt sent to Frederick the Great in the place of the disgraced Duke of Cumberland, was also signally victorious over the foes who had compelled the king's brother, the year before, to sign a convention in which he promised to disband his army.
Admiral Boscawen set Amherst down before Louisbourg with fourteen thousand men at the beginning of June, young Wolfe leading the army up from the boats over crags which the French had left unguarded because they were, seemingly, inaccessible. At the same time Abercrombie was gathering his army, of equal strength, at the head of Lake George, preparatory to proceeding northward upon Fort Ticonderoga.
The command of the Fort Duquesne campaign was given by Pitt to Brigadier John Forbes, a Scot, ten years younger than his century. Of Forbes little seems to be known save that he began life as a medical student; abandoning his profession for that of arms he made a brave and good officer. That Pitt chose him to retrieve the dead Braddock's mistakes speaks loudly of his commanding abilities; the numerous quotations from his correspondence given elsewhere in this monograph will present a clearer picture of this almost unknown hero than has ever yet been drawn. "Though a well-bred man of the world," writes Parkman, "his tastes were simple; he detested ceremony, and dealt frankly and plainly with the colonists, who both respected and liked him."[2] The correspondence between Forbes and his chief assistant, Lieutenant-colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss, commanding the regiment of Royal Americans, is convincing proof of the democratic plainness and whole-hearted earnestness of Braddock's successor.
The condition of the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania during the years succeeding Braddock's defeat has been previously reviewed, and the greatness of the task now thrown upon General Forbes's shoulders can be readily conceived. Yet there was much in his favor; the colonies were quite aroused to the danger. Pennsylvania and Virginia were at last ready to put shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to drive the French from the Ohio. Pennsylvania promised Forbes twenty-seven hundred men; sixteen hundred were to come from Virginia and other of the southern provinces. Twelve hundred Highlanders from Montgomery's regiment were given Forbes, also the Royal American regiment, made up largely of Pennsylvania Germans and officered by men brought for the purpose from Europe. The force, when at last gathered together, amounted to between six and seven thousand men. The very proportions of this army were its principal menace. No one believed that Fort Duquesne, far away in the forests beyond the mountains, could hold out against this formidable array. That the French, now being attacked simultaneously in the east and in the north, could send reinforcements to the Ohio was no more likely. But there still lay the Alleghenies, their crags and gorges. Could this large body of troops cross them and take provisions sufficient to support men and horses? As with Braddock, so now with Forbes, it was the mere physical feat of throwing an army three hundred miles into the forests that was the crucial problem. Fort Duquesne could have been captured with half of Forbes's army; Wolfe had hardly more than that at Quebec in the year succeeding. If Forbes could move this army, or any considerable fraction of it, across the mountains, there was no reasonable doubt of his success.
Forbes was much more delayed in getting his expedition off than was either of his two colleagues, Abercrombie and Amherst. Little dreaming that it would not be until the middle of June that his stores would arrive from England, Forbes had in March settled upon Conococheague (Williamsport, Maryland) as a convenient point of rendezvous for his army.[3] In this he acted upon the advice of his quartermaster-general, Sir John St. Clair, who was sent forward to examine routes and provide forage, but for whom, however, Forbes had little respect. Some time later St. Clair urged Forbes to alter this plan and make the new outpost on Burd's Road toward the Youghiogheny, Raystown, the point of rendezvous. The difficulty of the route from Conococheague to Fort Cumberland undoubtedly induced St. Clair to advise this change of base; later Governor Sharpe had a road cut from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland, but that was not until late in June. Following St. Clair's advice, Forbes changed his original plan and Raystown (Bedford, Pennsylvania) became the base of supplies and point of rendezvous. On the twenty-third of April Colonel Bouquet, commanding the Royal Americans, wrote Forbes of his arrival at New York and in less than a month this exceedingly efficient officer was on his way over the old road westward through Shippensburg and Carlisle. He was at Lancaster May 20, and wrote Forbes: "I arrived here this morning, and found Mr Young waiting for money to clear Armstrong's Path the Commissioners having disappointed him."[4] On the twenty-second he wrote again outlining the route and stages on the road to Raystown:
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General Forbes reached Philadelphia by the middle of April but found himself as yet without an army. The raising of the provincials progressed slowly; his Highlanders were not yet arrived from South Carolina; his stores and ammunition had not come from England. However, on May 20, he wrote Bouquet giving orders concerning the formation of magazines and ordered him to contract for one hundred and twenty wagons to transport provisions "backwards to Rays town," and to select at that point a site for a fort. He added: "By all means have the road reconnoitred from Rays town to the Yohageny"—the road Burd had completed to the summit of Allegheny Mountain in 1755. It is plain that Forbes intended, at this time, to march to Fort Cumberland by way of Carlisle and Bedford, and go on to Fort Duquesne over Braddock's Road. In this case he much needed Burd's road to the Youghiogheny—for the same reasons that Braddock did. There is no evidence that Forbes conceived the plan of using a new road westward from Raystown until he and Bouquet came to realize that, with that point as a rendezvous, the Fort Cumberland route would necessitate a long detour from a direct line toward Fort Duquesne.
Bouquet pushed on westward. He left Fort Lowther, at Carlisle, June 8, and was writing Forbes from Fort Loudoun on the eleventh. On the twenty-second he reached the Juniata and wrote Forbes on the twenty-eighth from his "Camp near Raes Town," which now became the rendezvous of the summer's campaign. Here Fort Bedford was built, making the most westernly fort in the chain of fortresses built through central Pennsylvania. It was one of the leading features of General Forbes's plan to extend this chain of forts all the way to the Ohio. "It was absolutely necessary," he wrote to Pitt, explaining this feature of his campaign, "that I should take precautions by having posts along my route, which I have done from a project that I took from Turpin's Essay, Sur la Guerre. Last chapter 4th Book, Intitled Principe sur lequel on peut établir un projet de Campagne, if you take the trouble of Looking into this Book, you will see the General principles upon which I have proceeded."[6]
The Highlanders did not arrive from South Carolina until the seventh of June, and the army stores and artillery did not arrive from England until the fourteenth. The work of raising the provincial troops was not forwarded with any greater despatch. In general terms Forbes did not get fairly started from the seaboard until three weeks later than Braddock had left Fort Cumberland. Thus, though personally blameless, Forbes began his campaign under an almost fatal handicap. And, with this army converging from many points upon Fort Bedford, arose the vital question of routes to be pursued.
- ↑ Parkman: Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. ii, p. 41.
- ↑ Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. ii, p. 132.
- ↑ See note 60.
- ↑ This, as with all succeeding quotations from the correspondence of Bouquet, Forbes, and St. Clair, was copied by the writer from the originals in the Bouquet Papers in the British Museum.
- ↑ The main route westward was, the year before, in poor condition between Philadelphia and Bedford. Loudon to Denny, Pennsylvania Archives, iii, pp. 278–279.
- ↑ Forbes to Pitt, October 20, 1758.