Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition). James Fenimore Cooper
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we were expected but proceeded rather to the right of their position. At the signal, the advanced brigade pushed for the shore, led by our gallant commander, and we were all soon on terra firma, without sustaining any loss worth naming. We four, that is, Guert, Dirck, myself and Jaap, kept as near as was proper to the noble brigadier, who instantly ordered an advance, to press the retreating foe. The skirmishing was not sharp, however, and we gained ground fast, the enemy retiring in the direction of Ticonderoga, and we pressing on their rear, quite as fast as prudence and our preparations would allow. I could see that a cloud of Indians was in our front, and will own, that I felt afraid of an ambush; for the artful warfare practised by those beings of the wood, could not but be familiar, by tradition at least, to one born and educated in the colonies. We had landed in a cove, not literally at the foot of the lake, but rather on its western side; and room was no sooner obtained, than Gen. Abercrombie got most of his force on shore, and formed it, as speedily as possible, in columns. Of these columns we had four, the two in the centre being composed entirely of King’s troops, six regiments in all, numbering more than as many thousand men; while five thousand provincials were on the flanks, leaving quite four thousand of the latter with the boats, of which this vast flotilla actually contained the large number of one thousand and twenty five! All our boats, however, had not yet reached the point of debarkation; those with the stores, artillery, &c., &c., being still some distance in the rear.
Our party was now placed with the right centre column, at the head of which marched our noble acquaintance. The enemy had posted a single battalion in a log encampment, near the ordinary landing; but finding the character of the force with which he was about to be assailed, its commandant set fire to his huts and retreated. The skirmishing was now even of less moment than it had been on landing, and we all moved forward in high spirits, though the want of guides, the density of the woods, and the difficulties of the ground, soon produced a certain degree of confusion in our march. The columns got entangled with each other, and no one seemed to possess the means of promptly extricating them from this awkward embarrassment. Want of guides was the great evil under which we laboured; but it was an evil that it was now too late to remedy.
Our column, notwithstanding, or its head rather, continued to advance, with its gallant leader keeping even pace with its foremost platoon. We four volunteers acted as look-outs, a little on its flank; and I trust there will be no boasting, if I say, we kept rather in advance of the leading files, than otherwise. In this state of things, French uniforms were seen in front, and a pretty strong party of the enemy was encountered, wandering, like ourselves, a little uncertain of the route they ought to take, in order to reach their entrenchments in the shortest time. As a matter of course, this party could not pass the head of our column, without bringing on a collision, though it were one that was only momentary. Which party gave the first fire, I cannot say, though I thought it was the French. The discharge was not heavy, however, and was almost immediately mutual. I know that all four of us let off our rifles, and that we halted, under a cover, to reload. I had just driven the ball down, when my eye caught the signs of some confusion in the head of the column, and I saw the body of an officer borne to the rear. It was that of Lord Howe! He had fallen at the first serious discharge made by the enemy in that campaign! The fall of its leader, so immediately in its presence, seemed to rouse the column into a sense of the necessity of doing something effective, and it assaulted the party in its front with the rage of so many tigers, dispersing the enemy like chaff; making a considerable number of prisoners, besides killing and wounding not a few.
I never saw a man more thoroughly aroused than was Guert Ten Eyck, in this little affair. He had been much noticed by Lord Howe, during the residence of that unfortunate nobleman at Albany; and the loss of the last appeared to awaken all that there was of the ferocious in the nature of my usually kind-hearted Albany friend. He acted as our immediate commander; and he led us forward on the heels of the retreating French, until we actually came in sight of their entrenchments. Then, indeed, we all saw it was necessary to retreat in our turn; and Guert consented to fall back, though it was done surlily, and like a lion at bay. A party of Indians pressed us hard, in this retreat, and we ran an imminent risk of our scalps; all of which, I have ever believed, would have been lost, were it not for the resolution and Herculean strength of Jaap. It happened, as we were dodging from tree to tree, that all four of our rifles were discharged at the same time; a circumstance of which our assailants availed themselves to make a rush at us. Luckily the weight of the onset fell on Jaap, who clubbed his rifle, and literally knocked down in succession the three Indians that first reached him. This intrepidity and success gave us time to reload; and Dirck, ever a cool and capital shot, laid the fourth Huron on his face, with a ball through his heart. Guert then held his fire, and called on Jaap to retreat. Fie was obeyed; and under cover of our two rifles, the whole party got off; the red-skins being too thoroughly rebuked to press us very closely, after the specimen they had just received of the stuff of which we were made.
We owed our escape, however, as much to another circumstance, as to this resolution of Jaap, and the expedient of Guert. Among the provincials was a partisan of great repute, of the name of Rogers. This officer led a party of riflemen on our left flank, and he drove in the enemy’s skirmishers, along his own front, with rapidity, causing them to suffer a considerable loss. By this means, the Indians before us were held in check; as there was the danger that Major Rogers’s party might fall in upon their rear, should they attempt to pursue us, and thus cut them off from their allies. It was well it was so; inasmuch as we had to fall back more than a mile, ere we reached the spot where Abercrombie brought his columns to a halt, and encamped far the night. This position was distant about two miles from the works before Ticonderoga; and consequently at no great distance from the outlet of Lake George. Here the army was brought into good order, and took up its station for some little time.
It was necessary to await the arrival of the stores, ammunition and artillery. As the bringing up these materials, through a country that was little else than a virgin forest, was no easy task, it occupied us quite two days. Melancholy days they were, too; the death of Lord Howe acting on the whole army much as if it had been a defeat. He was the idol of the King’s troops, and he had rendered himself as popular with us Americans, as with his own countrymen. A sort of ominous sadness prevailed among us each common man appearing to feel his loss as he might have felt that of a brother.
We looked up the ——th, and joined Bulstrode, as soon as we reached the ground chosen for the new encampment. Our reception was friendly, and even kind; and it became warmer still, as soon as it was understood that we composed the little party that had skirmished so freely on the flank of the right centre column, and which was known to have gone farther in advance than any one else, in that part of the field. Thus we joined our corps with some éclat, at the very outset, everybody welcoming us cordially, and with seeming sincerity.
Nevertheless, the general sadness existed in the ——th, as well as in all the other corps. Lord Howe was as much beloved in that regiment, as in any other; and our meeting and subsequent intercourse could not be called joyful. Bulstrode had an extensive and important command, for his rank and years, and he certainly was proud of his position; but I could see that even his elastic and usually gay temperament was much affected by what had occurred. That night we walked together, apart from our companions, when he spoke on the subject of our loss.
“It may appear strange to you, Corny,” he said, “to find so much depression in camp, after a debarkation that has certainly been successful, and a little affair that has given us, as they assure me, a couple of hundred prisoners. I tell you, however, my friend, it were better for this army to have seen its best corps annihilated, than to have lost the man it has. Howe was literally the soul of this entire force. He was a soldier by nature, and made all around him soldiers. As for the Commander-In-Chief, he does not understand you Americans, and will not use you as he ought; then he does not understand the nature of the warfare of this continent, and will be very likely to make a blunder. I’ll tell you how it is, Corny; Howe had as much influence with Abercrombie, as he had with every one else; and an attempt will be made to introduce his mode of fighting; but such a man as Lord Howe requires another Lord Howe to carry out his own conceptions. That is the point on which, I fear, we shall fail.”
All this sounded very sensible to me, though it sounded discouragingly; I found, however, that Bulstrode did not entertain these feelings