Siege of Fort William Henry

Battle of Fort William Henry
Part of the French and Indian War
Date August 3 – August 9, 1757 Location Lake George, New York Result French victory
Belligerents
France	Britain
Commanders and leaders
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm	George Monro
John Winslow
Strength
1,600 natives 6,000 regulars and militia	2,500 regulars and militia
Casualties and losses
Unknown	297 dead or wounded 2,308 captured

The Battle of Fort William Henry in August 1757 resulted in Britain's loss of Fort William Henry to a French army under Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. In the aftermath of the siege, some of Montcalm's Native American allies violated his surrender terms and killed a column of British survivors (women and children as well as men), making it one of the notorious battles in the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.

Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro's British and militia troops resisted a long siege and bombardment by the French, but surrendered after parlaying with the Montcalm. Though stubborn and reluctant to surrender, Monro eventually gave in after being shown an intercepted message from General Daniel Webb, the commander of British forces in the New York colony, which said that he would be unable to send reinforcements to relieve the beleaguered garrison. Thus, with little hope of relief, Monro agreed to Montcalm's terms, which allowed the British to leave with their weapons and be allowed to retreat without being attacked. After the British withdrawal, French-aligned Native Americans attacked and killed a few hundred of the 3,000 troops and civilians in the column leaving the fort. Historians note that it is likely that Montcalm tried to prevent the attack, but probably didn't have the means to stop it by force.

General Webb did in fact send reinforcements to Fort William Henry, which arrived one day too late, and Webb was recalled to England for his failures. In addition, the loss of Fort William Henry was a severe blow to British war strategy and would preclude any attempt towards Montreal for the remainder of the year. Thus, by 1758, three years of bitter campaigning by the British had granted them almost no territorial gain against New France.

The events of the battle and subsequent killings were depicted in the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and in its various film adaptations.

A note on the "massacre"

Montcalm attempted to negotiate an honourable surrender for the British troops. From a Native American perspective, the only way to surrender honorably was, when in captivity, to die quietly without a fight. The Chiefs of the multiple Native tribes got a rough understanding of the very European military peace terms but did not successfully translate the terms to their more than 1000 men of multiple languages. Knowing there was anger and confusion over their peace terms, Montcalm and his men elected to quietly march the unarmed British to Fort Edward, the closest British Fort early one morning. When some Natives saw the troops marching out they let out a war cry, alerting all the Natives. A few Natives ran in to the men looking for a war prize.

Many of the Natives were expected to bring home captives to work as slaves, replace dead family members, or sell to the French as servants. Scalping was also a popular way of acquiring war prize. Scalping took time and was most often done on the dead, but because of the panic for prize during this event, some scalped men alive. Of the 2308 soldiers, 2000 ran, escaped or were returned. Many of them were returned through negotiations with the French. In some cases the government in New France freed Americans and British by purchasing them from the Natives.

Reconstruction of Fort William Henry

The British did not try to build over the site of Fort Willam Henry. The fort lay in ruins for many years. In the 1950s, excavation of the site eventually led to the reconstruction of Fort William Henry as a tourist destination for the Town of Lake George.

External links

• An Account of the Two Attacks on Fort William Henry

Further reading

Steele, Ian K. (1990) Betrayals: Fort William Henry & the 'Massacre'. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505893-3

Bellico, Russel P. (1995) Chronicles of Lake George: Journeys in War and Peace. Purple Mountain Press. ISBN 0-935796-62-2