Mind Blown at Niagara

 Fun Fact:

After arriving with several regiments in Boston in September 1758, Major General Amherst marched to Abercromby's camp at Fort Edward to find the force there in no condition to mount a winter strike against Ticonderoga. The Major General heard New York, New York calling his name, and retired to that city for the winter. There's no report on what Broadway shows were playing.

In March 1759, Amherst dispatched Robert Rogers with 90 rangers, 200 regulars, and 50 Mohawk allies to reconnoiter the defenses of Ticonderoga. The garrison Forbes left at Fort Pitt had retained the fort, but the supply line was subject to attack from enemy regulars, militia, and their Indian allies. Commandant Lignery had retreated from Duquesne a hundred miles away to Venango to gather forces for a planned lightning attack down the Allegheny to retake Fort Pitt. 

To take pressure off Fort Pitt, Amherst dispatched a force to attack Fort Niagara under newly appointed General John Prideaux. He took 3000 regulars, a battalion of Royal Americans, and a company of Royal Artillery up the Mohawk to rendezvous with 1,000 Iroquois warriors at the ruins of Oswego on June 27, 1759. Prideaux left part of his force to rebuild that fort and advanced with 2,000 troops and 1,000 warriors in bateaux to land three miles east of Fort Niagara.  

The formidable defenses at Fort Niagara suffered from a lack of troops to man them, many having been sent to Lignery for his attack on Fort Pitt, and the fact that the undefended promontory on the opposite side of the river offered an excellent position for artillery to bombard the fort. Prideaux proceeded to mount artillery on the promontory on July 7. 

Commandant Pouchot in command of Fort Niagara sent to Lignery for aid while Prideaux's men advanced siege trenches against the fort. The 50 Senecas at Niagara lost interest in defending and left--only to attack the outposts where Pouchot had sent his cattle to keep them from British hands; adding salt to the wound, the Seneca butchered the cattle and took the meat to the English camp. Additionally, the Iroquois with Prideaux were in communication with the Indian allies in Lignery's relief force, with each native force promising to sit out the contest if the other would. 

July 20, after helping remove the body of Colonel Johnstone, who was killed by a French sniper, Prideaux watched a newly placed howitzer fire on the French fort. The howitzer exploded, blowing Prideaux's mind as a shard from the barrel removed part of his skull. With the grim reaper now managing Prideaux's retirement plan, Colonel Sir William Johnson and Lt. Colonel Eyre Massey contended for command. Johnson was a provincial; Massey claimed that he outranked him as a regular officer. News of the appearance of the French relief force provoked a compromise. Massey led the attack against Lignery while Johnson managed the siege.

Despite Pouchot's instructions to approach on the west side of the portage and attack the promontory from which the British artillery shelled the fort, Lignery came down the east side on July 24. As the French advanced along the narrow road, Massey's men waited. The Indians with Lignery turned back to depart in their canoes, leaving the French on their own. The French advanced, firing as they went. The British waited behind an abatis blocking the road. 

Lignery had led his men into an ambush. When they approached within 30 yards, Massey sprung the trap, opening fire from both flanks. The fire devastated the French. When the British finally mounted a bayonet charge and the French fled, the Iroquois joined the slaughter. Only a hundred French survived to be taken prisoner. 

Pouchot surrendered the next day to Johnson. Pouchot and his men were sent to Albany as prisoners.

The above was taken from my notes from Chapter 12 of The French and Indian War by Walter R. Borneman.

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I finished a short story on Saturday immediately before the crew sharing my last name arrived. I say "finished," but that's the first draft. I'll run over it a time or two and then see if my skirmish team would like to give me some feedback on the space cowboy story -- which remains sans titre for the moment. I wrote a good hunk of the story during the evenings in the hotel room after the professional conference I attended during the days for most of last week. It went better than I had expected as I sat in the chair beside the bed with the laptop on my knees, tapping out the story that didn't quite go in the direction I had anticipated, but which drew me along as it grew. I hope to submit it before the end of the month.