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Lord Loudon, commander of British forces in North America, wanted to launch a feint against Fort Carillon and a major attack against Quebec in order to cut off the enemy’s head but William Pitt, Secretary of State in the British government, ordered him to take the powerful French fortress Louisbourg at Nova Scotia first. Preoccupied with planning the campaign, Loudon sent his least reliable regulars to garrison Fort William Henry, on the south side of Lake George, in the hope that Montcalm would focus his energy there instead of Louisbourg. Given that Fort William Henry was the key to the defense of the northern frontier, this may seem rash but there had been so many reports of a French offensive against the fort that the threat was not taken seriously. The garrison of fifteen hundred men was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Munro but the fort had been built to hold five hundred men, and was intended only to resist a serious attack long enough for reinforcements from Fort Edward to arrive. The fort’s primary purpose was to serve as a steppingstone for an attack on Fort Carillon, on the north side of the lake.

Although the French government knew that the British had dispatched eight thousand men to North America, Canada had only received eighteen hundred men, most of whom were assigned to Louisbourg. The army's small size forced Major-General Montcalm, commander of French forces in Canada, to rely on Indians, and although traditional French allies like the Nipissing, Algonkin, and Abenaki contributed a thousand warriors, it was not enough. Determined to capture both Fort William Henry and Fort Edward, Governor Vaudreuil also recruited a thousand warriors from tribes around the upper Great Lakes but the huge variety of tribes meant that there were not enough interpreters, as well as potentially dangerous rivalries to be smoothed over. Dealing with Indians was never an easy matter, but these Indians did not see themselves as subjects of New France, just temporary allies in search of loot. However, even traditional French allies had scalped wounded English when the garrison at Oswego surrendered and then forced the French to buy back a number of English prisoners.

While Montcalm and Vaudreuil were raising an army, American rangers proved to be too few to stop Indians from raiding the area around Fort William Henry to their hearts’ content. In late July, a powerful Indian raiding party discovered that the road between the two forts was basically unguarded. The French had a clear picture of the strategic situation, but six separate scouting parties in July were unable to penetrate the Indian screen to learn anything more detailed than there was a large force at Fort Carillon.

Frustrated by operating in the dark, 350 recently arrived militia under Colonel John Parker were sent on July 21 to cross the lake and observe the French. Unknown to Munro, earlier that day a Mohawk raiding party had killed a couple of French soldiers near Fort Carillon and escaped. Parties sent in pursuit noticed Parker’s boats crossing the lake and three boats sent ahead as scouts were captured. Since he had neglected to set up a system of signals, the French were able to use the three captured boats as decoys for an ambush. The little fleet was easily overwhelmed by six hundred Indians in canoes, and only a hundred escaped death or capture. At that point, all that Munro knew was that the enemy was not weak and not stupid, which seemed a poor exchange for 260 men.

The experience of the prisoners gave an introduction to what could be expected if the garrison surrendered and illustrated the problem of working with Indians. Since Parker’s men had been captured by the Indians, Montcalm accepted that the men were Indian slaves, not French prisoners-of-war. Many of the Indians wanted to go home so they could sell their slaves and Montcalm was only able to persuade them to remain by giving them receipts for their slaves, which they could exchange for their prisoners later if they wanted. However, Montcalm was pleased to learn from the prisoners that the garrison was unprepared and unaware that the French had an army at Carillon.

When both Loudon and Abercromby sailed from New York with the invasion force of 6,000 men in June, command of the New York frontier fell to Major General Daniel Webb. He inspected the fort on July 26 and agreed to send another thousand militia as reinforcements, so Munro had a total of 2,300 men against Montcalm’s 7,500 men (2,600 regulars, roughly as many Troupes de la Marine, a smaller number of militia and 2,000 Indians). Parker’s experience had made it clear that the English lacked enough boats to oppose French control of the lake, especially since only four of his twenty-two whaleboats had escaped. It seems odd that more boats had not been constructed since they would be needed to cross the lake and attack Fort Carillon, which was Fort William Henry’s raison d’etre. Parker’s survivors reached the fort during Webb’s inspection and the panic that spread through the fort most likely influenced him as well, since he decided that his place in the coming conflict was safely behind Fort Edward’s walls, fourteen miles to the south.

Since Fort William Henry could only hold five hundred men, the regulars were placed inside the fort and the militia in a fortified camp that was on higher ground. However, no effort was made to build a defensive line at the shore to oppose a French landing. It seems odd that while Webb had another 3,500 men at Fort Edward, he allowed Fort William Henry to remain a weak outpost when he knew that the fort was under threat. It was too strong to be a warning post and too weak to stand on its own. If it was meant as bait then it succeeded, except that he failed to reel in Montcalm.

When the French fleet of 250 bateaux was seen making its way across the lake on August 3, Munro ordered the two 32-pounders to be fired, which was the agreed-upon alarm for Fort Edward. Montcalm landed unopposed with the main force only half a mile from the fort while the Indians were sent to cut the road between the two forts.

Although Montcalm possessed an obviously powerful army Munro did not worry because he knew that reinforcements were only a few miles away at Fort Edward. However, Webb was all too aware that a force of militia had been slaughtered on that same road two years earlier. Montcalm tried to win an easy victory by saying that he would not be able to control the Indians if there was an assault but Munro felt that he could hold out for the few days before he was relieved. He would have been much less relaxed if he knew that Webb believed that the French army greatly outnumbered his own so he was gathering reinforcements before advancing. It should be remembered that Webb’s tardiness in sending reinforcements had enabled Montcalm to capture Oswego the previous summer. Montcalm must have been grateful to have such a cautious opponent. The key question is why did Webb wait so long before calling up militia. He even sent a message to Munro saying he was on his own, but the message was captured.

Webb was so convinced that he was heavily outnumbered that he did not bother to send patrols to determine Montcalm’s exact strength. More important, at least from his point of view, Fort William Henry was not a key element of Loudon’s plans but Fort Edward was vital to the defense of Albany. Apparently, he did not consider that Montcalm might come for him after he had digested Fort William Henry. To be fair, most of his men were inexperienced militia and if they were ambushed on the road, the way to Albany would be open, which is why he should have moved up more of his force earlier to reinforce Munro and dig in on the edge of the lake. However, Webb had more than his fair share of the caution that had typified the British commanders and had allowed the French to maintain the initiative during the war.

Montcalm had siege lines dug on the west side of the fort, although the English cannon made it hard, dangerous work. The French bombardment started on August 4 and within three days several of the British cannon had either been knocked out or had blown-up because they were being fired too often. A verbal message from Webb was delivered by two rangers on August 6 but it was either incomplete or Munro was in a state of denial. The fort was already badly out-gunned by August 7, when Montcalm sent a parley with the captured message. No new message arrived from Webb the next day but the siege line was growing closer, so Munro surrendered early on August 9. The defenders were to be allowed to march out with full honors, and soldiers and officers could keep their weapons in exchange for promising to not fight the French for 18 months.

Fearing a repeat of the trouble at Oswego, Montcalm asked the Indian chiefs not to let their warriors take prisoners and informed them that the military stores were to be considered French property, which greatly confused the chiefs since prisoners and loot were why they had joined in the first place. They had served without pay and if they returned home without trophies or loot, they would have nothing to show for their time and would most likely lose status. Why anybody thought that young warriors would paddle canoes over a thousand miles, take part in a great victory and then paddle another thousand miles to return home with nothing to prove that they had become men is a very good question. Montcalm’s efforts were made more difficult by the need to rely on eight interpreters, four missionaries and a dozen Canadian irregular officers to explain his position to the chiefs of thirty-three tribes.

French guards proved unable or unwilling to prevent Indians from looting the prisoners, and when Montcalm was caught sneaking the prisoners out at night he had to agree to let them march out the next day, August 10. Instead of trying to restrain the Indians, which was viewed as a hopeless task, the more experienced French and Canadien officers urged the English officers to give up part of their personal baggage. Many did as advised but found that once they started, the Indians would simply take everything, including their weapons. Worse, since the Indian camps were near the road to Fort Edward, it was easy for the first few Indians who looted to run back and show off their trophies, which naturally encouraged the rest. Indians would simply walk up to the British column and drag off prisoners. Most of the English and provincials had already had their weapons taken away from them, so they were essentially defenceless, and cries for help were ignored by their French escorts, who told them to take to the woods.

It is unknown how many prisoners were massacred but estimates range between one to two hundred. The accounts of survivors generally agree that the attack on the column did not last for long and it clearly did not involve all of the sixteen hundred Indians because if it had many more would have been killed. Several hundred prisoners were recovered, some through negotiation and some by force, but roughly two hundred were kept by the Indians. Seeing that the French were trying to deprive them of what they saw as their due, the majority of Montcalm’s Indian allies simply left for home, loaded down with prisoners and loot. When darkness fell, only the Abenaki and Nipissing remained.

On August 15, five hundred soldiers and civilians, including Colonel Munro, were escorted to Fort Edward. Montcalm then promised Webb that the remaining prisoners would be freed when their Indian captors reached Montreal, although Vaudreuil would not have shared his optimism. In the end, the prisoners’ freedom was purchased at a cost of thirty bottles of brandy and 130 pounds of trade goods per prisoner. Worse, the Indians did not go home happy, feeling that the French had been more concerned about the enemy than their allies. The French officers regretted having so many Indian allies since it had taken an incredible amount of trade goods to get them in the first place, it cost a fortune to feed them and then they disappeared after ruining a glorious victory.

Although Webb had been steadily receiving reinforcements, his lack of Indian allies meant that the road between the two forts was still quite dangerous, so he decided not to advance on Fort William Henry. In the end, it was not a great victory for Montcalm since he had only eliminated one weak British fort and relations with the Indians had become strained. An unexpected result of the siege was that numerous Indians contracted smallpox and then spread it among their tribes when they returned home. Seeing whole villages wiped out by a white man’s disease did not improve matters.

The actual casualties are unclear since the provincial troops considered themselves discharged once Munro had surrendered, so many men who escaped into the woods simply returned home. By December 31, 217 more men had been returned, but 308 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians were still missing. An additional factor is that the number of people freed in Quebec also includes prisoners who had been captured at Oswego or had been part of the Parker expedition.

Montcalm refused to accept responsibility and his letter to Webb blamed the incident on the defeated garrison, saying they had given the Indians rum and failed to keep order as they marched out. The French were therefore unable to defend the English against so many drunken Indians. Munro dismissed the entire letter as false. The British government and press were so embarrassed by the defeat that they did not inquire too carefully into the massacre. Nine months after the expedition, Abercromby declared that the terms of the capitulation were null and void because of the massacre.

The failure to capture Louisbourg or even launch the attack makes the massacre even more tragic. Bad weather meant that the British fleet sent to escort his army and blockade Louisbourg was delayed for two months during which time the French reinforced Louisbourg. Loudon’s fleet reached Halifax on June 30 but almost all of July disappeared as the admiral in charge of the fleet tried to determine the size of the French fleet at Louisbourg. Even more time was wasted as Loudon consulted with senior officers, so the fleet did not sail to Louisbourg until August 4. A key factor in Loudon’s indecision was the example of Admiral Byng, who had been executed on his own quarterdeck six months earlier after failing to show sufficient aggression at Minorca. Before the fleet could even leave the harbor, a report arrived confirming that the British fleet was outnumbered, so Loudon agreed when the British admiral recommended calling off the attack.

The destruction of Fort William Henry should have guaranteed the safety of Fort Carillon but the British government had made North America the priority, while France had not, so another attempt would be made the following year.

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Related Movies:

The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
Directed by Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur, starring Alan Roscoe and Wallace Beery
In 1757, the daughters of British Colonel Munro are on their way to join their father at Fort William Henry on Lake George when they are ambushed by Huron warriors. Rescued by a colonial scout, Hawkeye, and his two Mohican allies, they reach the fort but soon after, Munro surrenders to General Montcalm, who proves unable to restrain his Huron allies, and the women find themselves prisoners.

The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
Directed by George Seitz, starring Randolph Scott and Henry Wilcoxon
In 1757, the daughters of British Colonel Munro are on their way to join their father at Fort William Henry on Lake George when they are ambushed by Huron warriors. Rescued by a colonial scout, Hawkeye, and his two Mohican allies, they reach the fort but soon after, Munro surrenders to General Montcalm, who proves unable to restrain his Huron allies, and the women find themselves prisoners.

The Last of the Redmen (1947)
Directed by George Sherman, starring Jon Hall and Michael O’Shea
In 1757, the daughters of British Colonel Munro are on their way to join their father at Fort William Henry on Lake George when they are ambushed by Huron warriors. Rescued by a colonial scout, Hawkeye, and his two Mohican allies, they reach the fort but soon after, Munro surrenders to General Montcalm, who proves unable to restrain his Huron allies, and the women find themselves prisoners.

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Directed by Michael Mann, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe
In 1757, the daughters of British Colonel Munro are on their way to join their father at Fort William Henry on Lake George when they are rescued from Huron warriors by a white trapper who has been adopted by the last two members of the Mohican tribe. They have no interest in the war but love forces them to become involved when the British surrender the fort and the women are captured by the Hurons.

further reading:

Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the Massacre-Ian K. Steele, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Steele uses the experience of an English colonist who was abducted along with her family by the Abenaki to show that the Indians viewed taking captives for resale as an integral part of their society and economy. In fact, it was a thriving industry since if the captives were able to raise the money then they would be freed, if not they were purchased by well-off Canadians either as laborers or to be raised as part of a new family. Oddly enough, the Abenaki were devout and deferential towards a Jesuit missionary who lived in their town but apparently made no effort to prevent the habit of taking prisoners. It is a very well researched book that excels at explaining how the principal actors saw the situation at the time and why they made their decisions. An entire chapter is devoted to determining how many prisoners were taken by the Indians following the surrender at Fort William Henry and how many were freed by the French, as well as how many escaped to finally return home. Steele concludes with a chapter that examines in detail how the massacre has been perceived, showing how Montcalm’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility was accepted for two centuries.

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