StanleyWheeler

Fun Fact:

Following Abercromby's defeat at Carillon/Ticonderoga, he granted permission to Colonel John Bradstreet to undertake a bold mission that would have greater consequences than the taking of Ticonderoga. Bradstreet had mastered the use of flat-bottomed boats. Each boat could haul 25 men and supplies along the waterways. General Shirley had discovered Bradstreet and put him in charge of the bateau supply service on the Mohawk River, which served as the vital link between Albany and the western outposts, including Oswego.

Bradstreet's plan was to lead an attack on Fort Frontenac--the hub of the French supply line in the west. In July 1758, Bradstreet was ordered to go up the Mohawk to help General Stanwix complete Fort Stanwix at the carrying place between the Mohawk River and Lake Oneida. From there, Bradstreet would take the fight up to Lake Ontario and to Frontenac at the vital location where the Lake Ontario jointed the St. Lawrence River. All the supplies for France's western outposts, including Fort Duquesne, came through Fort Frontenac.

August 25, 1758, Bradstreet landed about a mile west of Fort Frontenac. The French were completely unprepared. The French commander, Major Pierre-Jacques Payen de Noyan had a few days before received word of Bradstreet's advance and sent to Governor Vaudreuil for help The governor had called for the militia to go to Frontenac. Bradstreet started his bombardment on August 26. The French didn't even have enough troops to man all their cannons. On the second morning, two of Bradstreet's guns fired from a hill only 150 yards from the fort's northwest corner. 

The 85 year-old fort was in no state to withstand the destructive attack, and Noyan surrendered. The garrison consisted of only 110 men, but there were civilians, including women and children in the fort. Bradstreet gathered the plunder, burning everything he couldn't haul away, including 2000 barrels of provisions as well as the boats at the wharf for transporting goods. Even in additional provisions should arrive, there would be no way to haul them to Fort Duquesne and the other outposts. Bradstreet allowed Noyan and his men to leave for Montreal on the promise to release an equal number of British prisoners, and he left the ashes of the fort to return to the lake. Bradstreet had lost one man killed and a dozen wounded.

--I've consulted my highlights from The French and Indian Wars: Deciding the Fate of North America by Walter R. Borneman, Chapter 9 for this fun fact episode. 

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The editing of Book 6, Crisis in Fire and Snow, is nearing completion. It's still on course to be available before Christmas.