A Half Century of Conflict Volume Ii Part 10

There is a French paper, called a record of "military movements," which gives a list of war-parties sent from Montreal against the English border between the 29th of March, 1746, and the 21st of June in the same year.

They number thirty-five distinct bands, nearly all composed of mission Indians living in or near the settled parts of Canada,--Abenakis, Iroquois of the Lake of Two Mountains and of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga), Algonkins of the Ottawa, and others, in parties rarely of more than thirty, and often of no more than six, yet enough for waylaying travellers or killing women in kitchens or cow-sheds, and solitary laborers in the fields. This record is accompanied by a list of wild Western Indians who came down to Montreal in the summer of 1746 to share in these "military movements." [Footnote: _Extrait sur les differents Mouvements Militaires qui se sont faits a Montreal a l'occasion de la Guerre, 1745, 1746._ There is a translation in _N. Y. Col. Docs._]

No part of the country suffered more than the western borders of Ma.s.sachusetts and New Hamps.h.i.+re, and here were seen too plainly the evils of the prevailing want of concert among the British colonies. Ma.s.sachusetts claimed extensive tracts north of her present northern boundary, and in the belief that her claim would hold good, had built a small wooden fort, called Fort Dummer, on the Connecticut, for the protection of settlers.

New Hamps.h.i.+re disputed the t.i.tle, and the question, being referred to the Crown, was decided in her favor. On this, Ma.s.sachusetts withdrew the garrison of Fort Dummer and left New Hamps.h.i.+re to defend her own. This the a.s.sembly of that province refused to do, on the ground that the fort was fifty miles from any settlement made by New Hamps.h.i.+re people, and was therefore useless to them, though of great value to Ma.s.sachusetts as a cover to Northfield and other of her settlements lower down the Connecticut, to protect which was no business of New Hamps.h.i.+re. [Footnote: _Journal of the a.s.sembly of New Hamps.h.i.+re,_ quoted in Saunderson, _History of Charlestown, N. H.,_ 20.] But some years before, in 1740, three brothers, Samuel, David, and Stephen Farnsworth, natives of Groton, Ma.s.sachusetts, had begun a new settlement on the Connecticut about forty-five miles north of the Ma.s.sachusetts line and on ground which was soon to be a.s.signed to New Hamps.h.i.+re. They were followed by five or six others. They acted on the belief that their settlement was within the jurisdiction of Ma.s.sachusetts, and that she could and would protect them.

The place was one of extreme exposure, not only from its isolation, far from help, but because it was on the banks of a wild and lonely river, the customary highway of war-parties on their descent from Canada. Number Four--for so the new settlement was called, because it was the fourth in a range of towns.h.i.+ps recently marked out along the Connecticut, but, with one or two exceptions, wholly unoccupied as yet--was a rude little outpost of civilization, buried in forests that spread unbroken to the banks of the St. Lawrence, while its nearest English neighbor was nearly thirty miles away. As may be supposed, it grew slowly, and in 1744 it had but nine or ten families. In the preceding year, when war seemed imminent, and it was clear that neither Ma.s.sachusetts nor New Hamps.h.i.+re would lend a helping hand, the settlers of Number Four, seeing that their only resource was in themselves, called a meeting to consider the situation and determine what should be done. The meeting was held at the house, or log-cabin, of John Spafford, Jr., and being duly called to order, the following resolutions were adopted: that a fort be built at the charge of the proprietors of the said towns.h.i.+p of Number Four; that John Hastings, John Spafford, and John Avery be a committee to direct the building; that each carpenter be allowed nine s.h.i.+llings, old tenor, a day, each laborer seven s.h.i.+llings, and each pair of oxen three s.h.i.+llings and sixpence; that the proprietors of the towns.h.i.+p be taxed in the sum of three hundred pounds, old tenor, for building the fort; that John Spafford, Phineas Stevens, and John Hastings be a.s.sessors to a.s.sess the same, and Samuel Farnsworth collector to collect it. [Footnote: Extracts from the Town Record, in Saunderson, _History of Charlestown, N.H. (Number Four)_, 17,18.] And to the end that their fort should be a good and creditable one, they are said to have engaged the services of John Stoddard, accounted the foremost man of western Ma.s.sachusetts, Superintendent of Defence, Colonel of Militia, Judge of Probate, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, a reputed authority in the construction of backwoods fortifications, and the admired owner of the only gold watch in Northampton.

Timber was abundant and could be had for the asking; for the frontiersman usually regarded a tree less as a valuable possession than as a natural enemy, to be got rid of by fair means or foul. The only cost was the labor.

The fort rose rapidly. It was a square enclosing about three quarters of an acre, each side measuring a hundred and eighty feet. The wall was not of palisades, as was more usual, but of squared logs laid one upon another, and interlocked at the corners after the fas.h.i.+on of a log-cabin. Within were several houses, which had been built close together, for mutual protection, before the fort was begun, and which belonged to Stevens, Spafford, and other settlers. Apparently they were small log-cabins; for they were valued at only from eight to thirty-five pounds each, in old tenor currency wofully attenuated by depreciation; and these sums being paid to the owners out of the three hundred pounds collected for building the fort, the cabins became public property. Either they were built in a straight line, or they were moved to form one, for when the fort was finished, they all backed against the outer wall, so that their low roofs served to fire from. The usual flankers completed the work, and the settlers of Number Four were so well pleased with it that they proudly declared their fort a better one than Fort Dummer, its nearest neighbor, which had been built by public authority at the charge of the province.

But a fort must have a garrison, and the ten or twelve men of Number Four would hardly be a sufficient one. Sooner or later an attack was certain; for the place was a backwoods Castle Dangerous, lying in the path of war-parties from Canada, whether coming down the Connecticut from Lake Memphremagog, or up Otter Creek from Lake Champlain, then over the mountains to Black River, and so down that stream, which would bring them directly to Number Four. New Hamps.h.i.+re would do nothing for them, and their only hope was in Ma.s.sachusetts, of which most of them were natives, and which had good reasons for helping them to hold their ground, as a cover to its own settlements below. The Governor and a.s.sembly of Ma.s.sachusetts did, in fact, send small parties of armed men from time to time to defend the endangered outpost, and the succor was timely; for though, during the first year of the war, Number Four was left in peace, yet from the 19th of April to the 19th of June, 1746, it was attacked by Indians five times, with some loss of scalps, and more of cattle, horses, and hogs. On the last occasion there was a hot fight in the woods, ending in the retreat of the Indians, said to have numbered a hundred and fifty, into a swamp, leaving behind them guns, blankets, hatchets, spears, and other things, valued at forty pounds, old tenor,--which, says the chronicle, "was reckoned a great booty for such beggarly enemies." [Footnote: Saunderson, _History of Charlestown, N. H._, 29. Doolittle, _Narrative of Mischief done by the Indian Enemy_,--a contempory chronicle.]

But Ma.s.sachusetts grew tired of defending lands that had been adjudged to New Hamps.h.i.+re, and as the season drew towards an end, Number Four was left again to its own keeping. The settlers saw no choice but to abandon a place which they were too few to defend, and accordingly withdrew to the older settlements, after burying such of their effects as would bear it, and leaving others to their fate. Six men, a dog, and a cat remained to keep the fort. Towards midwinter the human part of the garrison also withdrew, and the two uncongenial quadrupeds were left alone.

When the authorities of Ma.s.sachusetts saw that a place so useful to bear the brunt of attack was left to certain destruction, they repented of their late withdrawal, and sent Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to re-occupy it. Stevens, a native of Sudbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, one of the earliest settlers of Number Four, and one of its chief proprietors, was a bold, intelligent, and determined man, well fitted for the work before him.

He and his band reached the fort on the 27th of March, 1747, and their arrival gave peculiar pleasure to its tenants, the dog and cat, the former of whom met them with lively demonstrations of joy. The pair had apparently lived in harmony, and found means of subsistence, as they are reported to have been in tolerable condition.

Stevens had brought with him a number of other dogs,--animals found useful for detecting the presence of Indians and tracking them to their lurking-places. A week or more after the arrival of the party, these canine allies showed great uneasiness and barked without ceasing; on which Stevens ordered a strict watch to be kept, and great precaution to be used in opening the gate of the fort. It was time, for the surrounding forest concealed what the New England chroniclers call an "army," commanded by General Debeline. It scarcely need be said that Canada had no General Debeline, and that no such name is to be found in Canadian annals. The "army" was a large war-party of both French and Indians, and a French record shows that its commander was Boucher de Niverville, ensign in the colony troops. [Footnote: _Extrait en forme de Journal de ce qui s'est pa.s.se d'interessant dans la Colonie a l'occasion des Mouvements de Guerre, etc., 1746, 1747_.]

The behavior of the dogs was as yet the only sign of danger, when, about nine o'clock on the morning of the 7th of April, one of Stevens's men took it upon him to go out and find what was amiss. Accompanied by two or three of the dogs, he advanced, gun in hand, into the clearing, peering at every stump, lest an Indian should lurk behind it. When about twenty rods from the gate, he saw a large log, or trunk of a fallen tree, not far before him, and approached it cautiously, setting on the dogs, or, as Stevens whimsically phrases it, "saying _Choboy!_" to them. They ran forward barking, on which several heads appeared above the log, and several guns were fired at him. He was slightly wounded, but escaped to the fort. Then, all around, the air rang with war-whoops, and a storm of bullets flew from the tangle of bushes that edged the clearing, and rapped spitefully, but harmlessly, against the wooden wall. At a little distance on the windward side was a log-house, to which, with adjacent fences, the a.s.sailants presently set fire, in the hope that, as the wind was strong, the flames would catch the fort. When Stevens saw what they were doing, he set himself to thwart them; and while some of his men kept them at bay with their guns, the rest fell to work digging a number of short trenches under the wall, on the side towards the fire. As each trench was six or seven feet deep, a man could stand in it outside the wall, sheltered from bullets, and dash buckets of water, pa.s.sed to him from within, against the scorching timbers.

Eleven such trenches were dug, and eleven men were stationed in them, so that the whole exposed front of the wall was kept wet. [Footnote: "Those who were not employed in firing at the enemy were employed in digging trenches under the bottom of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man could go and stand upright on the outside and not endanger himself; so that when these trenches were finished, we could wet all the outside of the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We drew some hundreds of barrels of water; and to undergo all this hard service there were but thirty men." _Stevens to Colonel W.

Williams,--April, 1747._] Thus, though clouds of smoke drifted over the fort, and burning cinders showered upon it, no harm was done, and the enemy was forced to other devices. They found a wagon, which they protected from water and bullets by a s.h.i.+eld of planks,--for there was a saw-mill hard by,--and loaded it with dry f.a.gots, thinking to set them on fire and push the blazing machine against a dry part of the fort wall; but the task proved too dangerous, "for," says Stevens, "instead of performing what they threatened and seemed to be immediately going to undertake, they called to us and desired a cessation of arms till sunrise the next morning, which was granted, at which time they said they would come to a parley." In fact, the French commander, with about sixty of his men, came in the morning with a flag of truce, which he stuck in the ground at a musket-shot from the fort, and, in the words of Stevens, "said, if we would send three men to him, he would send as many to us." Stevens agreed to this, on which two Frenchmen and an Indian came to the fort, and three soldiers went out in return. The two Frenchmen demanded, on the part of their commander, that the garrison should surrender, under a promise of life, and be carried prisoners to Quebec; and they farther required that Stevens should give his answer to the French officer in person.

Wisely or unwisely, Stevens went out at the gate, and was at once joined by Niverville, attended, no doubt, by an interpreter. "Upon meeting the Monsieur," says the English captain, "he did not wait for me to give him an answer," but said, in a manner sufficiently peremptory, that he had seven hundred men with him, and that if his terms were refused, he would storm the fort, "run over it," burn it to the ground, and if resistance were offered, put all in it to the sword; adding that he would have it or die, and that Stevens might fight or not as he pleased, for it was all one to him. His terms being refused, he said, as Stevens reports, "Well, go back to your fort and see if your men dare fight any more, and give me an answer quickly; for my men want to be fighting." Stevens now acted as if he had been the moderator of a town-meeting. "I went into the fort and called the men together, and informed them what the General said, and then put it to vote whether they would fight or resign; and they voted to a man to stand it out, and also declared that they would fight as long as they had life."

[Footnote: _Stevens to Colonel William Williams,--April, 1747._]

Answer was made accordingly, but Niverville's promise to storm the fort and "run over it" was not kept. Stevens says that his enemies had not the courage to do this, or even to bring up their "fortification," meaning their fire-wagon with its s.h.i.+eld of planks. In fact, an open a.s.sault upon a fortified place was a thing unknown in this border warfare, whether waged by Indians alone, or by French and Indians together. The a.s.sailants only raised the war-whoop again, and fired, as before, from behind stumps, logs, and bushes. This amus.e.m.e.nt they kept up from two o'clock till night, when they grew bolder, approached nearer, and shot flights of fire-arrows into the fort, which, water being abundant, were harmless as their bullets. At daylight they gave over this exercise, called out "Good morning!" to the garrison, and asked for a suspension of arms for two hours. This being agreed to, another flag of truce presently appeared, carried by two Indians, who planted it in the ground within a stone's throw of the fort, and asked that two men should be sent out to confer with them. This was done, and the men soon came back with a proposal that Stevens should sell provisions to his besiegers, under a promise on their part that they would give him no farther trouble. He answered that he would not sell them provisions for money, but would exchange them for prisoners, and give five bushels of Indian corn for every hostage placed in his hands as security for the release of an English captive in Canada. To this their only answer was firing a few shots against the fort, after which they all disappeared, and were seen no more. The garrison had scarcely eaten or slept for three days. "I believe men were never known to hold out with better resolution,"

writes Stevens; and "though there were some thousands of guns shot at us, we had but two men slightly wounded, John Brown and Joseph Ely." [Footnote: _Stevens to Colonel W. Williams,--April, 1747._]

Niverville and his party, disappointed and hungry, now made a tour among the scattered farms and hamlets of the country below, which, incapable of resisting such an inroad, were abandoned at their approach. Thus they took an easy revenge for their rebuff at Number Four, and in a march of thirty or forty leagues, burned five small deserted forts or stockaded houses, "three meeting-houses, several fine barns, about one hundred dwellings, mostly of two stories, furnished even to chests of drawers, and killed five to six hundred sheep and hogs, and about thirty horned cattle. This devastation is well worth a few prisoners or scalps." [Footnote: _N. Y.

Col. Docs._, X. 97.] It is curious to find such exploits mentioned with complacency, as evidence of prowess.

The successful defence of the most exposed place on the frontier was welcome news throughout New England, and Commodore Charles Knowles, who was then at Boston, sent Stevens a silver-hilted sword in recognition of his conduct. The settlers of Number Four, who soon returned to their backwoods home, were so well pleased with this compliment to one of their fellows that they gave to the settlement the baptismal name of the Commodore, and the town that has succeeded the hamlet of Number Four is Charlestown to this day. [Footnote: Just after the withdrawal of the French and Indians, Stevens wrote two letters giving an account of the affair, one to Governor s.h.i.+rley, and the other to Colonel William Williams, who seems to have been his immediate military superior. At most points they are substantially the same; but that to Williams contains some pa.s.sages not found in the other.

The letter to s.h.i.+rley is printed in Saunderson, _History of Charlestown, N. H._, 34-37, and that to Williams in _Collections of the New Hamps.h.i.+re Historical Society_, IV. 109-113. Stevens also kept a diary, which was long in possession of his descendants. One of these, Mr. B. F.

Stevens, kindly made a search for it, at my request, and learned that it had been unfortunately destroyed by fire, in 1856. Doolittle, in his _Narrative of Mischief_, and Hoyt, in his _Antiquarian Researches_, give other accounts. The French notices of the affair are few and short, as usual in cases of failure. For the princ.i.p.al one, see _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ X. 97. It is here said that Stevens asked for a parley, in order to capitulate; but all the English accounts say that the French made the first advances.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

1745-1748.

FORT Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

FRONTIER DEFENCE.--NORTHFIELD AND ITS MINISTER.--MILITARY CRITICISMS OF REV. BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.--RIGAUD DE VAUDREUIL.--HIS GREAT WAR-PARTY.--HE ATTACKS FORT Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.--SERGEANT HAWKS AND HIS GARRISON.--A GALLANT DEFENCE.--CAPITULATION.--HUMANITY OF THE FRENCH.--RAVAGES.--RETURN TO CROWN POINT.--PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

Since the last war, the settlements of Ma.s.sachusetts had pushed westward and begun to invade the beautiful region of mountains and valleys that now forms Berks.h.i.+re. Villages, or rudiments of villages, had grown up on the Housatonic, and an establishment had been attempted at Pontoosuc, now Pittsfield, on the extreme western limits of the province. The position of these new settlements was critical, for the enemy could reach them with little difficulty by way of Lake Champlain and Wood Creek. The Ma.s.sachusetts Government was not unmindful of them, and when war again broke out, three wooden forts were built for their protection, forming a line of defence westward from Northfield on the northern frontier of the province. One of these forts was in the present town of Heath, and was called Fort s.h.i.+rley; another, named Fort Pelham, was in the present town of Rowe; while the third, Fort Ma.s.sachusetts, was farther westward, in what is now the town of Adams, then known as East Hoosac. Two hundred men from the militia were taken into pay to hold these posts and patrol the intervening forests. Other defensive works were made here and there, sometimes by the votes of town meetings, and sometimes by individuals, at their own cost.

These works consisted of a fence of palisades enclosing a farm-house, or sometimes of a blockhouse of timber or heavy planks. Thus, at Northfield, Deacon Ebenezer Alexander, a veteran of sixty who had served at Louisbourg, built a "mount," or blockhouse, on the knoll behind his house, and carried a stockade from it to enclose the dwelling, shed, and barn, the whole at the cost of thirty-six pounds, one s.h.i.+lling, and sixpence, in Ma.s.sachusetts currency, which the town repaid him, his fortifications being of public utility as a place of refuge for families in case of attack. [Footnote: Temple and Sheldon, _History of Northfield_, 237, give the items from the original account. This is one of the best of the innumerable town-histories of New England.] Northfield was a place notoriously dangerous, and military methods were in vogue there in season and out of season. Thus, by a vote of the town, the people were called to the Sunday sermon by beat of drum, and Eleazer Holton was elected to sound the call in consideration of one pound and ten s.h.i.+llings a year, the drum being hired of Ensign Field, its fortunate possessor, for the farther sum of three s.h.i.+llings. This was in the earlier days of Northfield. In 1734 the Sunday drum-beat was stopped, and the wors.h.i.+ppers were summoned by the less obstreperous method of "hanging out a flagg," for the faithful discharge of which function Daniel Wright received in 1744 one pound and five s.h.i.+llings.

[Footnote: Temple and Sheldon, _History of Northfield_, 218.]

The various fortifications, public and private, were garrisoned, sometimes by the owner and his neighbors, sometimes by men in pay of the provincial a.s.sembly. As was to be expected from a legislative body undertaking warlike operations, the work of defence was but indifferently conducted. John Stoddard, the village magnate of Northampton, was charged, among the rest of his multifarious employments, with the locating and construction of forts; Captain Ephraim Williams was a.s.signed to the general command on the western frontier, with headquarters at Fort s.h.i.+rley and afterwards at Fort Ma.s.sachusetts; and Major Israel Williams, of Hatfield, was made commissary.

At Northfield dwelt the Reverend Benjamin Doolittle, minister, apothecary, physician, and surgeon of the village; for he had studied medicine no less than theology. His paris.h.i.+oners thought that his cure of bodies encroached on his cure of souls, and requested him to confine his attention to his spiritual charge; to which he replied that he could not afford it, his salary as minister being seventy-five pounds in irredeemable Ma.s.sachusetts paper, while his medical and surgical practice brought him full four hundred a year. He offered to comply with the wishes of his flock if they would add that amount to his salary,--which they were not prepared to do, and the minister continued his heterogeneous labors as before.

As the position of his house on the village street seems to have been regarded as strategic, the town voted to fortify it with a blockhouse and a stockade, for the benefit both of the occupant and of all the villagers.

This was accordingly done, at the cost of eighteen pounds, seven s.h.i.+llings, and sixpence for the blockhouse, and a farther charge for the stockade; and thenceforth Mr. Doolittle could write his sermons and mix his doses in peace. To his other callings he added that of historiographer. When, after a ministry of thirty-six years, the thrifty pastor was busied one day with hammer and nails in mending the fence of his yard, he suddenly dropped dead from a stroke of heart-disease,--to the grief of all Northfield; and his papers being searched, a record was found in his handwriting of the inroads of the enemy that had happened in his time on or near the Ma.s.sachusetts border. Being rightly thought worthy of publication, it was printed at Boston in a dingy pamphlet, now extremely rare, and much prized by antiquarians. [Footnote: _A short Narrative of Mischief done by the French and Indian Enemy on the Western Frontiers of the Province of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay; from the Beginning of the French War, proclaimed by the King of France, March 15th, 1743-4; and by the King of Great Britain, March 29th, 1744, to August 2nd, 1748. Drawn up by the Rev. Mr. Doolittle, of Northfield, in the County of Hamps.h.i.+re; and found among his Ma.n.u.scripts after his Death. And at the Desire of some is now Published, with some small Additions to render it more perfect. Boston; Printed and sold by S.

Kneeland, in Queen Street. MDCCL._ The facts above given concerning Mr.

Doolittle are drawn from the excellent _History of Northfield_ by Temple and Sheldon, and the introduction to the _Particular History of the Five Years' French and Indian War,_ by S. G. Drake.]

Appended to it are the remarks of the author on the conduct of the war. He complains that plans are changed so often that none of them take effect; that terms of enlistment are so short that the commissary can hardly serve out provisions to the men before their time is expired; that neither bread, meat, shoes, nor blankets are kept on hand for an emergency, so that the enemy escape while the soldiers are getting ready to pursue them; that the pay of a drafted man is so small that twice as much would not hire a laborer to take care of his farm in his absence; and that untried and unfit persons are commissioned as officers: in all of which strictures there is no doubt much truth.

Mr. Doolittle's rueful narrative treats mainly of miscellaneous murders and scalpings, interesting only to the sufferers and their friends; but he also chronicles briefly a formidable inroad that still holds a place in New England history.

It may be remembered that s.h.i.+rley had devised a plan for capturing Fort Frederic, or Crown Point, built by the French at the narrows of Lake Champlain, and commanding ready access for warparties to New York and New England.

The approach of D'Anville's fleet had defeated the plan; but rumors of it had reached Canada, and excited great alarm. Large bodies of men were ordered to Lake Champlain to protect the threatened fort. The two brothers De Muy were already on the lake with a numerous party of Canadians and Indians, both Christian and heathen, and Rigaud de Vaudreuil, town-major of Three Rivers, was ordered to follow with a still larger force, repel any English attack, or, if none should be made, take the offensive and strike a blow at the English frontier. [Footnote: French writers always call him Rigaud, to distinguish him from his brother, Pierre Rigaud de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, afterwards governor of Canada, who is usually mentioned as Vaudreuil.] On the 3d of August, Rigaud left Montreal with a fleet of canoes carrying what he calls his army, and on the 12th he encamped on the east side of the lake, at the mouth of Otter Creek. There was rain, thunder, and a violent wind all night; but the storm ceased at daybreak, and, embarking again, they soon saw the octagonal stone tower of Fort Frederic.

The party set up their tents and wigwams near the fort, and on the morning of the 16th the elder De Muy arrived with a reinforcement of sixty Frenchmen and a band of Indians. They had just returned from an incursion towards Albany, and reported that all was quiet in those parts, and that Fort Frederic was in no danger. Now, to their great satisfaction, Rigaud and his band saw themselves free to take the offensive. The question was, where to strike. The Indians held council after council, made speech after speech, and agreed on nothing. Rigaud gave them a wampum-belt, and told them that he meant to attack Corlaer,--that is, Schenectady; at which they seemed well pleased, and sang war-songs all night. In the morning they changed their minds, and begged him to call the whole army to a council for debating the question. It appeared that some of them, especially the Iroquois converts of Caughnawaga, disapproved of attacking Schenectady, because some of their Mohawk relatives were always making visits there, and might be inadvertently killed by the wild Western Indians of Rigaud's party. Now all was doubt again, for as Indians are unstable as water, it was no easy task to hold them to any plan of action.

The Abenakis proposed a solution of the difficulty. They knew the New England border well, for many of them had lived upon it before the war, on terms of friendly intercourse with the settlers. They now drew upon the floor of the council-room a rough map of the country, on which was seen a certain river, and on its upper waters a fort which they recommended as a proper object of attack. The river was that eastern tributary of the Hudson which the French called the Kaske-kouke, the Dutch the Schaticook, and the English the Hoosac. The fort was Fort Ma.s.sachusetts, the most westerly of the three posts lately built to guard the frontier. "My Father," said the Abenaki spokesman to Rigaud, "it will be easy to take this fort, and make great havoc on the lands of the English. Deign to listen to your children and follow our advice." [Footnote: _Journal de la Campagne de Rigaud de Vaudreuil en 1746...presente a Monseigneur le Comte de Maurepas, Ministre et Secretaire d'Etat_ (written by Rigaud).] One Cadenaret, an Abenaki chief, had been killed near Fort Ma.s.sachusetts in the last spring, and his tribesmen were keen to revenge him. Seeing his Indians pleased with the proposal to march for the Hoosac, Rigaud gladly accepted it; on which whoops, yelps, and war-songs filled the air. Hardly, however, was the party on its way when the Indians changed their minds again, and wanted to attack Saratoga; but Rigaud told them that they had made their choice and must abide by it, to which they a.s.sented, and gave him no farther trouble.

On the 20th of August they all embarked and paddled southward, pa.s.sed the lonely promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was afterwards built, and held their course till the lake dwindled to a mere ca.n.a.l creeping through the weedy marsh then called the Drowned Lands. Here, nine summers later, pa.s.sed the flotilla of Baron Dieskau, bound to defeat and ruin by the sh.o.r.es of Lake George. Rigaud stopped at a place known as East Bay, at the mouth of a stream that joins Wood Creek, just north of the present town of Whitehall. Here he left the younger De Muy, with thirty men, to guard the canoes. The rest of the party, guided by a brother of the slain Cadenaret, filed southward on foot along the base of Skene Mountain, that overlooks Whitehall. They counted about seven hundred men, of whom five hundred were French, and a little above two hundred were Indians. [Footnote: "Le 19, ayant fait pa.s.ser l'armee en Revue qui se trouva de 700 hommes, scavoir 500 francois environ et 200 quelques sauvages." _Journal de Rigaud_.] Some other French reports put the whole number at eleven hundred, or even twelve hundred, [Footnote: See _N. Y. Col. Docs._, X. 103, 132.] while several English accounts make it eight hundred or nine hundred. The Frenchmen of the party included both regulars and Canadians, with six regular officers and ten cadets, eighteen militia officers, two chaplains,--one for the whites and one for the Indians,--and a surgeon.

[Footnote: _Ibid._, X. 35.]

After a march of four days, they encamped on the 26th by a stream which ran into the Hudson, and was no doubt the Batten Kill, known to the French as _la riviere de Saratogue_. Being nearly opposite Saratoga, where there was then a garrison, they changed their course, on the 27th, from south to southeast, the better to avoid scouting-parties, which might discover their trail and defeat their plan of surprise. Early on the next day they reached the Hoosac, far above its mouth; and now their march was easier, "for,"

says Rigaud, "we got out of the woods and followed a large road that led up the river." In fact, there seem to have been two roads, one on each side of the Hoosac; for the French were formed into two brigades, one of which, under the Sieur de la Valterie, filed along the right bank of the stream, and the other, under the Sieur de Sabrevois, along the left; while the Indians marched on the front, flanks, and rear. They pa.s.sed deserted houses and farms belonging to Dutch settlers from the Hudson; for the Hoosac, in this part of its course, was in the province of New York. [Footnote: These Dutch settlements on the Hoosac were made under what was called the "Hoosac Patent," granted by Governor Dongan of New York in 1688. The settlements were not begun till nearly forty years after the grant was made. For evidence on this point I am indebted to Professor A. L. Perry, of Williams College.] They did not stop to burn barns and houses, but they killed poultry, hogs, a cow, and a horse, to supply themselves with meat. Before night they had pa.s.sed the New York line, and they made their camp in or near the valley where Williamstown and Williams College now stand. Here they were joined by the Sieurs Beauba.s.sin and La Force, who had gone forward, with eight Indians, to reconnoitre. Beauba.s.sin had watched Fort Ma.s.sachusetts from a distance, and had seen a man go up into the watch-tower, but could discover no other sign of alarm. Apparently, the fugitive Dutch farmers had not taken pains to warn the English garrison of the coming danger, for there was a coolness between the neighbors.

Before breaking up camp in the morning, Rigaud called the Indian chiefs together and said to them: "My children, the time is near when we must get other meat than fresh pork, and we will all eat it together." "Meat," in Indian parlance, meant prisoners; and as these were valuable by reason of the ransoms paid for them, and as the Indians had suspected that the French meant to keep them all, they were well pleased with this figurative a.s.surance of Rigaud that they should have their share. [Footnote: "Mes enfans, leur dis-je, le temps approche ou il faut faire d'autre viande que le pore frais; au reste, nous la mangerons tous eusemble; ce mot les flatta dans la crainte qu'ils avoient qu'apres la prise du fort nous ne nous reservames tous les prisonniers" _Journal de Rigaud_.]

The chaplain said ma.s.s, and the party marched in a brisk rain up the Williamstown valley, till after advancing about ten miles they encamped again. Fort Ma.s.sachusetts was only three or four miles distant. Rigaud held a talk with the Abenaki chiefs who had acted as guides, and it was agreed that the party should stop in the woods near the fort, make scaling-ladders, battering-rams to burst the gates, and other things needful for a grand a.s.sault, to take place before daylight; but their plan came to nought through the impetuosity of the young Indians and Canadians, who were so excited at the first glimpse of the watch-tower of the fort that they dashed forward, as Rigaud says, "like lions." Hence one might fairly expect to see the fort a.s.saulted at once; but by the maxims of forest war this would have been reprehensible rashness, and nothing of the kind was attempted. The a.s.sailants spread to right and left, squatted behind stumps, and opened a distant and harmless fire, accompanied with unearthly yells and howlings.

Fort Ma.s.sachusetts was a wooden enclosure formed, like the fort at Number Four, of beams laid one upon another, and interlocked at the angles. This wooden wall seems to have rested, not immediately upon the ground, but upon a foundation of stone, designated by Mr. Norton, the chaplain, as the "underpinning,"--a name usually given in New England to foundations of the kind. At the northwest corner was a blockhouse, crowned with the watch-tower, the sight of which had prematurely kindled the martial fire of the Canadians and Indians. [Footnote: The term "blockhouse" was loosely used, and was even sometimes applied to an entire fort when constructed of hewn logs, and not of palisades. The true blockhouse of the New England frontier was a solid wooden structure about twenty feet high, with a projecting upper story and loopholes above and below.] This wooden structure, at the apex of the blockhouse, served as a lookout, and also supplied means of throwing water to extinguish fire-arrows shot upon the roof. There were other buildings in the enclosure, especially a large log-house on the south side, which seems to have overlooked the outer wall, and was no doubt loopholed for musketry. On the east side there was a well, furnished probably with one of those long well-sweeps universal in primitive New England. The garrison, when complete, consisted of fifty-one men under Captain Ephraim Williams, who has left his name to Williamstown and Williams College, of the latter of which he was the founder. He was born at Newton, near Boston; was a man vigorous in body and mind; better acquainted with the world than most of his countrymen, having followed the seas in his youth, and visited England, Spain, and Holland; frank and agreeable in manners, well fitted for such a command, and respected and loved by his men. [Footnote: See the notice of Williams in _Ma.s.s. Hist.

Coll._, VIII. 47. He was killed in the b.l.o.o.d.y skirmish that preceded the Battle of Lake George in 1755. _Montcalm and Wolfe_, chap. ix.] When the proposed invasion of Canada was preparing, he and some of his men went to take part in it, and had not yet returned. The fort was left in charge of a sergeant, John Hawks, of Deerfield, with men too few for the extent of the works, and a supply of ammunition nearly exhausted. Canada being then put on the defensive, the frontier forts were thought safe for a time. On the Sat.u.r.day before Rigaud's arrival, Hawks had sent Thomas Williams, the surgeon, brother of the absent captain, to Deerfield, with a detachment of fourteen men, to get a supply of powder and lead. This detachment reduced the entire force, including Hawks himself and Norton, the chaplain, to twenty-two men, half of whom were disabled with dysentery, from which few of the rest were wholly free. [Footnote: "Lord's Day and Monday...the sickness was very distressing.... Eleven of our men were sick, and scarcely one of us in perfect health; almost every man was troubled with the griping and flux." Norton, _The Redeemed Captive_.] There were also in the fort three women and five children. [Footnote: Rigaud erroneously makes the garrison a little larger. "La garnison se trouva de 24 hommes, entre lesquels il y avoit un ministre, 3 femmes, et 5 enfans." The names and residence of all the men in the fort when the attack began are preserved.

Hawks made his report to the provincial government under the t.i.tle _"An Account of the Company in his Majesty's Service under the command of Serg't John Hawks...at Fort Ma.s.sachusetts, Aug. 20_ [31, new style], _1746._" The roll is attested on oath "Before William Williams, _Just. Pacis._" The number of men is 22, including Hawks and Norton.

Each man brought his own gun. I am indebted to the kindness of Professor A.

L. Perry for a copy of Hawks's report, which is addressed to "the Honble.

Spencer Phipps, Esq., Lieut. Gov'r and Commander in Chief [and] the Hon'ble. his Majesty's Council and House of Representatives in General Court a.s.sembled."]

The site of Fort Ma.s.sachusetts is now a meadow by the banks of the Hoosac.

Then it was a rough clearing, enc.u.mbered with the stumps and refuse of the primeval forest, whose living hosts stood grimly around it, and spread, untouched by the axe, up the sides of the neighboring Saddleback Mountain.

The position of the fort was bad, being commanded by high ground, from which, as the chaplain tells us, "the enemy could shoot over the north side into the middle of the parade,"--for which serious defect, John Stoddard, of Northampton, legist, capitalist, colonel of militia, and "Superintendent of Defence," was probably answerable. These frontier forts were, however, often placed on low ground with a view to an abundant supply of water, fire being the most dreaded enemy in Indian warfare. [Footnote: When I visited the place as a college student, no trace of the fort was to be seen except a hollow, which may have been the remains of a cellar, and a thriving growth of horse-radish,--a relic of the garrison garden. My friend Dr. D.

D. Slade has given an interesting account of the spot in the _Magazine of American History_ for October, 1888.]

Sergeant Hawks, the provisional commander, was, according to tradition, a tall man with sun-burnt features, erect, spare, very sinewy and strong, and of a bold and resolute temper. He had need to be so, for counting every man in the fort, lay and clerical, sick and well, he was beset by more than thirty times his own number; or, counting only his effective men, by more than sixty times,--and this at the lowest report of the attacking force. As there was nothing but a log fence between him and his enemy, it was clear that they could hew or burn a way through it, or climb over it with no surprising effort of valor. Rigaud, as we have seen, had planned a general a.s.sault under cover of night, but had been thwarted by the precipitancy of the young Indians and Canadians. These now showed no inclination to depart from the cautious maxims of forest warfare. They made a terrific noise, but when they came within gunshot of the fort, it was by darting from stump to stump with a quick, zigzag movement that made them more difficult to hit than birds on the wing. The best moment for a shot was when they reached a stump, and stopped for an instant to duck and hide behind it. By seizing this fleeting opportunity, Hawks himself put a bullet into the breast of an Abenaki chief from St. Francis,--"which ended his days," says the chaplain.

In view of the nimbleness of the a.s.sailants, a charge of buckshot was found more to the purpose than a bullet. Besides the slain Abenaki, Rigaud reports sixteen Indians and Frenchmen wounded, [Footnote: "L'Ennemi me tua un abenakis et me blessa 16 hommes, tant Iroquois qu'Abenaquis, nip.i.s.sings et francois." _Journal de Rigaud_.]--which, under the circ.u.mstances, was good execution for ten farmers and a minister; for Chaplain Norton loaded and fired with the rest. Rigaud himself was one of the wounded, having been hit in the arm and sent to the rear, as he stood giving orders on the rocky hill about forty rods from the fort. Probably it was a chance shot, since, though rifles were invented long before, they were not yet in general use, and the yeoman garrison were armed with nothing but their own smooth-bore hunting-pieces, not to be trusted at long range. The supply of ammunition had sunk so low that Hawks was forced to give the discouraging order not to fire except when necessary to keep the enemy in check, or when the chance of hitting him should be unusually good. Such of the sick men as were strong enough aided the defence by casting bullets and buckshot.

The outrageous noise lasted till towards nine in the evening, when the a.s.sailants greeted the fort with a general war-whoop, and repeated it three or four times; then a line of sentinels was placed around it to prevent messengers from carrying the alarm to Albany or Deerfield. The evening was dark and cloudy. The lights of a camp could be seen by the river towards the southeast, and those of another near the swamp towards the west. There was a sound of axes, as if the enemy were making scaling-ladders for a night a.s.sault; but it was found that they were cutting f.a.gots to burn the wall. Hawks ordered every tub and bucket to be filled with water, in preparation for the crisis. Two men, John Aldrich and Jonathan Bridgman, had been wounded, thus farther reducing the strength of the defenders. The chaplain says: "Of those that were in health, some were ordered to keep the watch, and some lay down and endeavored to get some rest, lying down in our clothes with our arms by us.... We got little or no rest; the enemy frequently raised us by their hideous outcries, as though they were about to attack us. The latter part of the night I kept the watch."