“Ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country”

Yesterday we left Capt. Nathaniel Folsom of New Hampshire and Capt. William Maginnis of New York leading their provincial companies north from Fort Lyman (soon renamed Fort Edward) on the afternoon of 8 Sept 1755. They were headed to Gen. William Johnson’s camp at Lake George, a distance of at least fifteen miles.

That morning, French forces had successfully ambushed a British column that had tried to come the other way. The column’s commanders were killed, leaving Lt. Col. Nathan Whiting of Connecticut and Lt. Col. Seth Pomeroy of Massachusetts in charge.

Pomeroy’s diary, published by the Society of Colonial Wars in New York in 1926, offers a vivid description of what happened:

we this Morning Sent out about 1200 men near 200 of them our Indians went Down ye Rhode toward ye Carrying pla[ce] got about 3 miles they ware ambush’d & Fir’d upon By ye Franch and Indians a number of ours yt war Forward Return’d ye Fre & fought bravely but many of our men toward hind Part Fled

ye others being over match’t ware oblig’d to fight upon a Retreet & a very hansom retreet they made by Continuing there fire & then retreeting a little & then rise and give them a brisk Fire So Continued till they Came within about 3/4 of a mile of our Camp

there was ye Last Fire our men gave our Enenies which kill’d grate numbers of them Sean to Drop as Pigons yt put ye Ennemy to a Little Stop

they very Soon Drove on with udanted Corage Doun to our Camp

ye Regulars Came rank & File about 6 abrest So reach’d near 20 rods In Length Close order the Canadans & Indians Took ye Left wing Hilter Scilter down along Toward the Camp

they had ye advantage of the ground Passing over a hollow & rising a note within gun Shot then took Trees & Logs & Places to hide them Selves-we made ye best Shift we Could for battrys to get behind but had but a few minuts to do It in

Soon they all Came within Shot ye regulars rank & file they Came towards yt Part of ye Camp whare we had Drew 3 or 4 Field Peaces ye others towards the west Part of ye Camp there I Placed my Self Part of Coll. [Timothy] Ruggles & of our Rigement a long togater

the Fire begun between 11 & 12 of ye Clock and Continued till near 5 afternoon ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country In any Battle then we beat ’em of ye ground

we Took ye French General wounded

That general was Jean-Ardman, Baron Dieskau. He’d been shot four times and declared that the last wound was mortal. But in fact he survived as a prisoner of war in Britain until 1763 and then at home another four years.

Meanwhile, Folsom and Maginnis were moving north. According to Folsom’s March 1756 letter to the Rev. Samuel Langdon, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1904, Capt. Maginnis neglected to send out “advance guards” to prevent an ambush and moved too slow besides.

(Maginnis might have countered that for all of Folsom’s claim that he and his officers were hungry to enter the fight, they’d managed to beat the Yorkers back to Fort Lyman and then lagged them in returning to face the enemy.)

Toward the late afternoon:

Captain McGennes and company started nine Indians, who run up the wagon road from us, upon which Captain McGennes stopt. I, seeing them halt (being on a plain) ordered our men to move forward and pass by them. As soon as I came up with McGennes, I asked the reason of his stopping, which he told me was the starting of the Indians.

I then moved forward and we ran about 80 rods and discovered a Frenchman running from us on the left. Some of us chased him about a gunshot, fired at him, but, fearing ambushments, we turned into the wagon road again and traveled a few rods, when we discovered a number of French and Indians about two or three gunshots from us.

Then we made a loud huzza and followed them up a rising ground and then met a large body of French and Indians, on whom we discharged our guns briskly, till we had exchanged shots about four or five times.

When I was called upon to bring up the Yorkers, who I thought had been up with us before but finding them two or three gunshots back, I ordered them up to our assistance. And though but a small number of them came up, we still continued the engagement and soon caught a French lieutenant and an Indian, who informed us that we had engaged upward of 800.

Folsom said his force consisted of “but 143 men”—leaving out the 90 Yorkers, of course.

TOMORROW: Endgame.

“Your Country will do ample Justice to your Merits”

Gen. George Washington was displeased that Gen. Joseph Spencer stormed home to Connecticut in July 1775 in a snit over rank, but he probably didn’t worry too much about losing the man. The real threat was that Gen. John Thomas of Plymouth, Massachusetts (shown here, courtesy of Find a Grave), might do the same.

Since April, Thomas had been second-in-command of the provincial troops, leading the forces massed in Roxbury against a British advance down Boston Neck. There are some signs that Thomas operated almost independently of Gen. Artemas Ward in Cambridge. Observers such as James Warren of the Massachusetts government thought Thomas was the better commander. Yet the Continental Congress ranked him low on its list of brigadiers—below Gen. William Heath, who had actually been reporting to him.

Fortunately, Warren saw a solution on that same list. On 4 July he and Joseph Hawley of Northampton wrote to Washington:

As [first-ranked brigadier Seth] Pomroy is now Absent, and at the distance of an hundred miles from the Army, if it can be consistent with your Excellencys Trust and the Service to retain his Commission untill you shall receive Advice from the Continental Congress, and we shall be able to prevail with Heath to make a concession Honourable to himself, and advantageous to the publick, We humbly conceive the way would be open to do Justice to Thomas.

In sum, if we slip Thomas into Pomeroy’s top slot, then he’ll once again outrank all the other Massachusetts generals but Ward. The only man moved ahead of Thomas would then be Israel Putnam. Washington didn’t have the authority to make that change, but the suggestion made its way to Philadelphia.

For weeks Thomas stewed in Roxbury, making noises about resigning and going home. On 23 July, both Washington and the celebrated Gen. Charles Lee wrote to him about the matter. Washington said:

For the Sake of your bleeding Country, your devoted Province, your Charter rights, & by the Memory of those brave Men who have already fell in this great Cause, I conjure you to banish from your Mind every Suggestion of Anger and Disappointment: your Country will do ample Justice to your Merits—they already do it, by the Sorrow & Regret expressed on the Occasion and the Sacrifice you are called to make, will in the Judgment of every good Man, & lover of his Country, do you more real Honour than the most distinguished Victory.

Characteristically, Lee was both more expansive and more egocentric:

You think yourself not justly dealt with in the appointments of the Continental Congress. I am quite of the same opinion, but is this a time Sir, when the liberties of your country, the fate of posterity, the rights of mankind are at stake, to indulge our resentments for any ill treatment we may have received as individuals? I have myself, Sir, full as great, perhaps greater reason to complain than yourself. I have passed through the highest ranks, in some of the most respectable services in Europe. According then to modern etiquette notions of a soldier’s honor and delicacy, I ought to consider at least the preferment given to General Ward over me as the highest indignity, but I thought it my duty as a citizen and asserter of liberty, to waive every consideration.

On this principle, although a Major General of five years standing [a largely honorary rank from the king of Poland], and not a native of America, I consented to serve under General Ward, because I was taught to think that the concession would be grateful to his countrymen, and flatter myself that the concession has done me credit in the eye of the world; and can you, Sir, born in this very country, which a banditti of ministerial assassins are now attempting utterly to destroy with sword, fire and famine, abandon the defence of her, because you have been personally ill used?

Four days before, the Congress had voted to make Thomas the senior brigadier general. A backdated commission was rushed up to Massachusetts, and on 4 August the commander-in-chief was able to report, “General Thomas has accepted his Commission and I have heard nothing of his retirement since, so that I hope he is satisfied.”

TOMORROW: Dealing the generals into three piles.