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Photo Diary: Lake George Battlefield State Park, New York [1]

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Date: 2022-07-13

Greetings from New York.

I'll be making my way across upstate New York from Albany to Niagara Falls. Mostly I'll be stopping along the way to visit forts and battle sites from the French and Indian War and the War of 1812, so you'll see a lot of "history" from me for the next few weeks.

:)

For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. I am currently in New York.

Braddock’s Defeat in 1755 was a crushing blow to British morale. But there was still a ray of hope for the English and the American colonials in the French and Indian War: the capture of Fort Beauséjour had opened up the possibility of a campaign to the north from New York, through Lake George and Lake Champlain, which would cut off French Canada from the Ohio Valley.

The first step for this would be to eliminate Fort Saint-Frédéric, at Crown Point on the shore of Lake Champlain. The French fort was commanded by Baron Jean Erdman Dieskau, who had a force of around 1500 men made up mostly of Canadian militia but also with around 200 French regular grenadiers and some 700 “Canawaughga”— Mohawks who had been converted to Catholicism and allied with the French.

The task of taking the Fort was assigned to the newly-appointed British General Sir William Johnson. He also had around 1500 men, consisting of New York colonial militia and around 200 Haudenosaunee Mohawks who had allied with the British under the leadership of Theyanoguin. (The Iroquois League had declared its neutrality in the French and Indian War when the fighting began, not wanting to pick a side until it was sure who would win—but that did not prevent individual bands from joining one side or the other.)

By the end of August 1755, Johnson was camped at the south end of Lac du Saint Sacrament, which, in a move designed to show that this was now considered by him to be English territory, he grandly renamed Lake George (after King George II).

The French, meanwhile, had already learned of the British plans for a northern operation—partly because they had captured all of Braddock’s written orders. Dieskau, alerted to the British moves, had already been advancing towards Johnson’s supply base at Fort Edward. Along the way he captured a messenger with a British supply train and learned that Johnson was already moving to attack him.

At around the same time, the British learned from their own scouts that the French were nearby. On September 8, Johnson dispatched a force of 1200 men including 200 Mohawks, under Colonel Ephraim Williams, to reinforce a nearby British encampment.

Meanwhile, Dieskau arranged his own troops to set up an ambush along the road. And a few hours later the British, unaware of the trap, walked right into it. Williams was killed, and his men were cut to pieces. As they withdrew back towards Johnson’s camp, Dieskau pursued them and harried the British rearguard.

Once the French reached the British camp, however, Dieskau’s Canadian militia and Mohawk allies had second thoughts about attacking a fortified position, and hesitated. To try to lure them into fighting, Dieskau personally led his French Grenadiers in a charge. In the ensuing fight, both Dieskau and Johnson were wounded. Both sides had lost about 300 casualties in what the British would later call “The Bloody Morning Scout”.

The wounded Dieskau was captured by the British. In an example of the chivalry which then held sway among aristocratic officers, he was taken to Johnson’s own tent and attended to—even being billeted in the British General’s own house to recuperate. Dieskau returned to France, dying years later from the effects of the wounds he had received at Lake George.

As the Canadians and Mohawks who had chosen not to attack were withdrawing from Johnson’s camp, however, the British at Fort Edward, hearing cannon fire and seeing smoke on the horizon, sent a detachment of 120 men to investigate. At about 4pm, as they traveled along the road, they found this French force escorting a baggage train away from the earlier fighting. Hastily setting up an ambush of their own, the British now decimated the Canadian militia and Mohawk warriors, killing or wounding some 200 and capturing most of the baggage. The dead bodies were tossed into a nearby body of water, which has subsequently been known as “Bloody Pond”. With this, the Battle of Lake George came to an end.

Although both sides had lost heavy casualties at Lake George, the French forces were less able to absorb the losses, and although Johnson had failed in his objective to capture Fort Saint-Frédéric, the British now had de facto control over the area around Lake George. This, in the aftermath of Braddock’s disaster in Pennsylvania, allowed the British to claim a victory.

Johnson ordered the construction of a new fort on the south end of Lake George, which he named Fort William Henry. The French, meanwhile, began construction of a new stronghold on the shore of Lake Champlain, called Fort Carillon. They remained in Fort Saint-Frédéric on Lake Champlain until 1759, when it was destroyed and abandoned to prevent its capture by the advancing British.

The advancing British, meanwhile, began construction of another fort of their own at Lake George, which they named Fort George. Only one section of the fort had been completed when the French withdrawal from the area left it useless. The fort was hastily finished during the Revolutionary War by the British, was captured by the Americans, and then burned by the British in 1780.

The site of the French and Indian War fighting, including the initial “Bloody Morning Scout” and the location of Johnson’s camp, is now Battlefield State Park, in the town of Lake George NY. The site preserves about 35 acres of battlefield, and there are memorial statues and monuments commemorating the battle. A gravesite contains the remains of four unknown soldiers who are believed to have been killed in the fighting. There are monument stones and a small museum, and a portion of stone wall remaining from Fort George.

Some photos from a visit.

Lake George

The park

Visitors Center

The museum

Artifacts recovered at the site

Looking out across the battlefield

Looking across the battlefield towards Lake George

The location of Johnson’s British camp

The road from Fort Edward

Bloody Pond is not part of the Park, but there is a “Bloody Pond Road” nearby and this was the only pond I could find, so I think this is it

Monument to Saint Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit who named the lake in 1646. The French name was Lac du Saint Sacrament.

Monument to New York’s Native Americans, erected in 1921

Battlefield monument erected in 1903

Soldier’s Grave. The four bodies were uncovered during road construction and were re-buried here in 1935.

Ruins of stone walls from Fort George

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