The Massacre at Fort William Henry

Our next stop was Baie Comeau, like all the towns along the St Lawrence, essentially French but developed by Colonel Robert R McCormick in 1936. McCormick owned the Chicago Tribune and needed a regular source of paper. Baie Comeau with its forests and lumberjacks, its proximity to the St Laurence proved ideal. 

The open air lumberjack museum was interesting but perhaps over pretty, on the outside at least. Inside, the various buildings allowed glimpses of how hard life was for the lumberjack. 

Another stop was the viewing spot allowing us views of vast tracts of forest and St Pancrace Bay

It was here I had visions of Magua. It was easy to imagine Iroquois and Huron lurking in the trees surrounding us. For that blame Fenimore Cooper. I was ploughing my way through The Last of the Mohicans and now I was immersed in its landscape. 

 Cooper is orotund but a remarkable chronicler of his time, recording near-contemporary events passed down to him from a previous generation. One event was described in vivid detail, and if I go on to quote long passages, it is to give you a flavour of writing fueled by outrage and moral fervour. The event in question is the ‘Massacre of Fort William Henry.’ And his judgement of the French General, Montcalm is damning. 

Montcalm

Montcalm arrived in Canada in 1756 and immediately went on the attack. His first target was Fort Oswego, an isolated British post on Lake Ontario. There he won an almost bloodless surrender. The aftermath though was both vicious and bloody. Despite the surrender, Montcalm’s Indian allies broke in and slaughtered everyone there. Montcalm was embarrassed, using the excuse that as a newcomer to the Americas, he was unused to Indian customs and had been taken by surprise. 

Unfortunately for the honourable Montcalm, the same thing happened a year later. 

Trois Rivieres at the very top is the farthest we travelled down before turning back. Fort William Henry is farther down.

Montcalm’s next target was Fort William Henry, defended by Lieutenant Colonel George Monro. Encouraged by the French victory and the booty that followed, the tribes flocked to enlist in Montcalm’s force—between 1500 and 2000 in all—their appetite whetted.

Greatly outnumbered, Monro appealed for help from the nearby Fort Edward, held by Major General Daniel Webb. The appeal proved worse than useless. Webb’s letter explaining why help was impossible was intercepted, and Montcalm deduced from it that Fort William Henry was on the verge of defeat.

Montcalm urged the garrison to surrender and, impressed by Monro’s gallantry, he offered generous terms, Monro was forced to accept the inevitable. Running out of ammunition, cannons breaking from metal fatigue, and the fort now an open target for the French artillery, George Monro surrendered, once again assured of honourable terms. The garrison would not be taken prisoner. They would be allowed to retreat to Fort Edward with full battle honours on the promise that they would not fight the French for another 18 months. 

As the weary redcoats trooped out, Indian warriors rushed through the gates of the fort murdering the sick and the wounded, digging up graves for scalps and slaughtering all who fell into their hands. 

Montcalm had again failed to control his Indian allies but was not short of excuses. He blamed the victims, arguing that the incident would not have happened if the British had not given rum to the Indians, in the context a strange and unlikely event. He also argued the British would have been safe if they had followed orders and not panicked and run. 

His final and perhaps stronger excuse was that his 8000 well-armed men were unable to restrain ‘3000 Indians of 33 different nations.’ Note the inflated number of Indians.

Early accounts perhaps exaggerate the massacre citing 1500 casualties. Later accounts downplay the bloodshed, suggesting that only 200 were killed. Tough for the ‘only 200’ but perhaps making Montcalm’s failings more acceptable—not though for  Fenimore Cooper: 

“More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest….and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded. Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects. Resistance only served to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their furious blows long after their victims were beyond the power of their movement. The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a torrent; and as the natives became heated and maddened by the sight many among them even kneeled to the earth, and drank freely, exultantly, hellishly, of the crimson tide…."

 

“On every side the captured were flying before their relentless persecutors, while the armed columns of the Christian king stood fast in an apathy which has never been explained, and which has left an immovable blot on the otherwise fair escutcheon of their leader. Nor was the sword of death stayed until cupidity got the mastery of revenge. Then indeed the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of their murderers grew less frequent until, finally, the cries of horror were…. drowned in the loud, long and piercing whoops of the triumphant savages…"

 

“Montcalm lingered long and melancholy on the strand where he had been left by his companions, brooding deeply on the temper which his ungovernable ally had just discovered.  Already had his fair fame been tarnished by one horrid scene, and in circumstances fearfully resembling those under which he now found himself. As he mused, he became keenly sensible of the deep responsibility they assume who disregard the means to attain the end, and of the danger of setting in motion an engine which exceeds human power to control. Then shaking off a train of reflections that he accounted a weakness in such a moment of triumph, he retraced his steps to his tent.”

 

In Cooper’s view ‘the massacre' at William Henry “…. deepened the stain which a previous and very similar event had left upon the reputation of the French commander that was not entirely erased by his early and glorious death. It is now becoming obscured by time, and thousands who know Montcalm died like a hero on the plains of Abraham, have yet to learn how much more deficient in that moral courage without which no man can be truly great….

It is probable that (Montcalm) will be viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender of his country, while his cruel apathy on the shores of the Oswego and of the Horican will be forgotten.”

Those words were in mind as we sailed for Quebec. 

Leaving Baie Comeau

And a hypnotic sunset that had me entranced