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Photo Diary: Fort William Henry, Lake George NY [1]

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Date: 2022-07-14

The siege of Fort William Henry may be the most famous battle of the French and Indian War, because of its prominent place in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 classic historical novel The Last of the Mohicans.

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.

By 1757, the North American French and Indian War was going well for France. Fort Duquesne had successfully established dominance in the Ohio River Valley, and Forts Saint-Frédéric and Carillon were expanding the French presence in New York. The wins at Fort Bull and Oswego had crippled British control over the Mohawk River Valley. The next logical target was Fort William Henry, on the southern shore of Lake George, which would push the English back from their recent gains there.

The British had thrown up the Fort in a hurry. General William Johnson intended to use it as a base from which to attack Fort Saint-Frédéric, and also as a defensive position if the French should advance upon him. Johnson’s new garrison, named Fort William Henry after the two grandchildren of King George II, was a typical 18thcentury gun fort, consisting of a four-sided rectangle with towers and a pointed bastion at each corner for cannons. The walls were made from a palisade of logs with an earthen bank in front, but since Johnson knew that his French opponents and their Native American allies did not have heavy artillery, he skimped a bit on the walls. One of the walls was built right up against the shore of Lake George, and the other three were protected by a wide dry moat. The Fort was manned by several hundred men from the 44th Regiment, and also served as a home base for members of Rogers Rangers.

When the new British commander-in-chief, John Campbell Loudon, assumed control, however, he decided to take a defensive posture in the Lake George-Lake Champlain area, and to try to win the war with one bold stroke by landing troops in Quebec and marching on Montreal. Accordingly, in the spring of 1757, Lieutenant Colonel George Monro along with the 35th Regiment and the 60th Regiment (made up of Americans from New York) were assigned to Fort William Henry, with the task of tying down French forces so they could not interfere with the planned Quebec operation.

But during this time, dissatisfaction with the progress of the Seven Years War in Europe led to the assumption of war powers by British Minister of State William Pitt, who sent orders to Loudon for an attack on the French supply base at Louisbourg instead of Montreal. Meanwhile, the French commander, General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, was making plans of his own to attack Fort William Henry.

The British caught wind of the impending attack and reinforced Monro with around 1,000 local American militia. In all, Monro had about 2300 men to defend the Fort.

Montcalm arrived on the scene on August 3 with about 8,000 men, including 3,000 French Army Regulars, 3,000 Canadian militia, and 2,000 Native Americans, mostly Huron, Ojibwa, Ottawa and Shawnee. To Monro’s chagrin, Montcalm also had a detachment of artillerymen and heavy cannon, and they quickly set up a European-style siege operation. Surrounding the entire area with defensive ditches and trenches, the French began bombarding the Fort with long-range heavy guns, while constructing a new ring of trenches closer to the walls. When these were completed, the guns were moved closer and another trench circle was dug near enough for effective musket fire. Once this was finished, the French cannons would concentrate to breach the Fort’s walls, and an infantry assault would follow.

Monro, barricaded inside the Fort and with no way to break the French siege, desperately sent messages to the nearest British outpost, Fort Edward, for reinforcements. “If they are repulsed in their attempt upon Fort William Henry, the affair will be over,” Monro pointed out, “but if they take it, I won’t say the taking of Fort Edward will be the consequence, but I think it will be a great step toward it.” The English, however, were already stretched thin, and General Daniel Webb, by nature a cautious commander, knew that if he sent a relief force and it too was captured, the road to Albany would be open for the French. Webb therefore dispatched a messenger informing Monro that no additional relief troops could be sent and advising him to “make the best terms” from the French.

Unfortunately for the British, Webb’s messenger was captured and his letter fell into French hands. On August 7, Montcalm sent an officer to parley with the British under a flag of truce, who presented Webb’s intercepted orders to surrender. Monro, with his walls battered by cannons and the French infantry already readying for an assault, had no choice but to comply, and he sent a response to Montcalm seeking to negotiate terms the next day.

The surrender terms were generous. The British were granted what were known at the time as “The Honours of War”, a ritual that had the aim of symbolically saluting the courage and valor of the surrendering side and allowed them to leave with honor. Instead of being held as prisoners of war, the British forces were to be “paroled”, or allowed to go home in exchange for a pledge not to fight again for 18 months. They would be allowed to assemble in column and march to the nearest British post at Fort Edward, with their regimental colors unfurled and carrying their muskets and one symbolic cannon (though they would have no ammunition). And they would be allowed to keep all of their personal belongings and baggage.

For Montcalm, who was a stickler for the European customs of chivalry and military decorum, this was not a privilege he had always granted: when his forces captured Oswego, he pointedly refused to allow the surrendering British the Honours of War because he felt they had given up too easily and had not held out honorably.

But now Montcalm faced a problem. His Native American allies had no tradition of or respect for the European notions of honorable warfare. In the accepted practices of Native warfare, defeated enemies were to be either enslaved and forcibly adopted into the tribe, or ritually killed (so one would not have to fight them again later). The Native warriors had joined the French for the express purpose of gathering the plunder and captives that had always been considered the just rewards of any successful war party.

And so when Montcalm agreed to let the British go free with all their possessions, he now faced the wrath of his Native allies. Montcalm already viewed his presumed allies as dishonorable “savages”, and was never very happy at needing to use them in the first place, and now he sent pointed messages to each of his Native war party leaders informing them of the surrender terms and emphasizing that there was to be no further aggression directed at the surrendering British. Many of the Native war parties left in disgust. But some vowed to ignore Montcalm’s orders.

And so when the British column set out for Fort Edward the next morning, hundreds of French-allied Natives swarmed around them. When the British officers, fearing a massacre, ordered their men to “offer no resistance” and to give the Natives whatever they wanted, the looting began. British soldiers were stripped of their muskets and clothing. Many women and children were seized and led off into captivity to be adopted into the tribe. Those who resisted were tomahawked on the spot; some French officers, including Montcalm, tried to intervene to stop the killings, while others stood by helplessly. In all, some 200 surrendering English were killed and another 1,000 or so taken captive (Montcalm subsequently paid bribes to the war party leaders to have around 500 captives released.) It became known as “The Massacre of Fort William Henry”.

In the aftermath, the Crown government blamed General Webb for not sending reinforcements to break the siege, and recalled him to England. Lt Col Monro died of a stroke a few months after surrendering.

Montcalm stripped Fort William Henry of anything useful and burned it before returning to Fort Carillon. The British accused him of intentionally allowing the massacre, and they abrogated the surrender agreement and refused to offer “Honours of War” to any French commander for the rest of the conflict. And in retaliation for the massacre, the English began killing any wounded Natives they were able to capture.

The site of Fort William Henry lay abandoned for 200 years until the 1950s, when archaeological excavations were carried out and the area was purchased by a group of local businessmen and turned into a museum in the town of Lake George NY, with a full-scale replica that was built onto the original Fort’s footprint. The museum offers guided tours of the site. Additional archaeological work was done in the 1990s and in 2011.

The excavations uncovered a huge amount of artifacts from the siege, including artillery shells, musket balls, pottery, plates, tools, pipes, buttons, buckles, and cookware. Many skeletons were also uncovered. Some had died of disease, and some had died from wounds. Analysis of one skeleton established that he was a Native American from the Great Plains, who had apparently traveled east to join the French war party in hopes of being rewarded with booty and plunder. The find confirmed contemporary accounts describing Native participants from as far away as the Lakota territory.

Some photos from a visit.

Lake George was a vital transport route

Fort William Henry

The Fort’s outer walls

The outer ditch

Inside the fort

French 18-pounder cannon

One of the four barracks

Inside the barracks

One of four cannon bastions

The cannons covered the land and lake approaches

Munro’s office

Inside the powder magazine

Re-enactors give guided tours

Musket demonstration

Cannon demonstration

The museum

Artifacts recovered from the site

An American musket

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/14/2109693/-Photo-Diary-Fort-William-Henry-Lake-George-NY

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