suffered to march for the relief of the garrison, with all the Provincials, Militia, and Putnam's Rangers: but before they had proceeded three miles, the order was countermanded, and they returned. M. de Montcalm informed Major Putnam, when a pri soner in Canada, that one of his running Indians saw and reported this movement; and, upon being questioned relatively to the num bers, answered in their figurative stile, " If you can count the leaves on the trees, you can count them." In effect, the operations of the siege were suspended, and preparations made for re-embarking, when another of the runners reported that the detachment had gone back. The Marquis de Montcalm, provided with a good train of artillery, meeting with no annoyance from the British army, and but inconsiderable interruption from the garrison, accelerated his approaches so rapidly, as to obtain possession of the fort in a short time after completing the investiture. An intercepted letter from General Webb, advising the surrender, was sent into the fort to Colonel Monro by the French General.

The garrison engaged not to serve for eighteen months, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war. But the savages regarded not the capitulation, nor could they be restrained, by the utmost exertion of the commanding officer, from committing the most outrageous acts of cruelty. They stripped and plundered all the prisoners, and murdered great numbers in cold blood. Those who escaped by flight, or the protection of the French, arrived in a forlorn condition at Fort Edward: among these was the commandant of the garrison.

The day succeeding this deplorable scene of carnage and barbarity, Major Putnam having been dispatched with his Rangers to watch the motions of the enemy, came to the shore, when their rear was scarcely beyond the reach of musket-shot. They had carried off all the cannon, stores and water-craft. The fort was demolished. The barracks, the out-houses and suttlers' booths were heaps of ruins. The fires, not yet extinct, and the smoke, offensive from the mucilaginous nature of the fuel, but illy concealed innumerable fragments of human skulls and bones, and, in some instances, carcases half consumed. Dead bodies, weltering in blood, were every where to be seen, violated with all the wanton mutilations of savage ingenuity. More than one hundred women, some with their brains still oozing from the battered heads, others with their whole hair wrenched collectively with the skin from the bloody skulls, and many (with their throats cut) most inhumanly stabbed and butchered, lay stripped entirely

naked, with their bowels torn out, and afforded a spectacle too horrible for description.

Not long after this misfortune, General Lyman succeeded to the command of Fort Edward. He resolved to strengthen it. For this purpose one hundred and fifty men were employed in cutting timber. To cover them, Captain Little was posted (with fifty British Regulars) at the head of a thick swamp, about one hundred rods eastward of the fort to which his communication lay over a tongue of land, formed on the one side by the swamp, and by a creek on the other.

One morning at day-break, a centinel saw indistinctly several birds, as he conceived, come from the swamp and fly over him with incredible swiftness. While he was ruminating on these wonderful birds, and endeavouring to form some idea of their colour, shape and size, an arrow buried itself in the limb of a tree just above his head. He now discovered the quality and design of these winged messengers of fate, and gave the alarm. Instantly the working party began to retreat along the defile. A large body of savages had concealed themselves in the morass before the guard was posted, and were attempting in this way to kill the centinel without noise, with design to surprise the whole party. Finding the alarm given, they rushed from the covert, shot and tomahawked those who were nearest at hand, and pressed hard on the remainder of the unarmed fugitives. Captain Little flew to their relief, and, by pouring on the Indians a well-timed fire, checked the pursuit, and enabled such of the fatigue-men as did not fall in the first onset, to retire to the fort. Thither he sent for assistance, his little party being almost overpowered by numbers. But the commandant, imagining that the main body of the enemy were approaching for a general assault, called in his outposts and shut the gates.

Major Putnam lay with his Rangers on an island adjacent to the fort. Having heard the musketry, and learned that his friend Captain Little was in the utmost peril, he plunged into the river at the head of his corps, and waded through the water towards the place of engagement. This brought him so near to the fort, that General Lyman, apprized of his design, and unwilling that the lives of a few more brave men should be exposed to what he deemed inevitable destruction, mounted the parapet and ordered him to proceed no further. The Major only took time to make the best short apology he could, and marched on. This is the only instance in the whole course of his military service wherein he did not pay the strictest obedience to orders; and in this in

stance his motive was highly commendable. But when such conduct, even if sanctified by success, is passed over with impunity, it demonstrates that all is not right in the military system. In a disciplined army, such as that of the United States became under General Washington, an officer guilty of a slighter violation of orders, however elevated in rank or meritorious in service, would have been brought before the bar of a court-martial. Were it not for the seductive tendency of a brave man's example, I might have been spared the mortification of making these remarks on the conduct of an officer, whose distinguishing characteristics were promptitude for duty and love of subordination, as well as cheerfulness to encounter every species of difficulty and danger.

The Rangers of Putnam soon opened their way for a junction with the little handful of Regulars, who still obstinately maintained their ground. By his advice, the whole rushed impetuously with shouts and huzzas into the swamp. The savages fled on every side, and were chased, with no inconsiderable loss on their part, as long as the day-light lasted. On our's only one man was killed in the pursuit. His death was immediately revenged by that of the Indian who shot him. This Indian was one of the runners-a chosen body of active young men, who are made use of, not only to procure intelligence and convey tidings, but also to guard the rear on a retreat.

Here it will not be unseasonable to mention some of the customs in war peculiar to the aborigines, which, on the present as well as other occasions, they put in practice. Whenever a retreating, especially a flying party had gained the summit of a rising ground, they secreted one or two runners behind trees, copses, or bushes to fire at the enemy upon their ascending the hill. This commonly occasioned the enemy to halt and form for battle. In the interim, the runners used such dexterity as to be rarely discovered, or if discovered, they vanished behind the height and rejoined their brother-warriors, who having thus stolen a distance, were oftentimes seen by their pursuers no more. Or if the pursuers were too eager, they seldom failed to atone for their rashness by falling into an ambuscade. The Mohawks, who were afterwards much employed in scouts under the orders of Major Putnam, and who were perfectly versed in all the wiles and stratagems of their countrymen, showed him the mode of avoiding the evils of either alternative. In suspicious thickets, and at the borders of every considerable eminence, a momentary pause was made, while they, in different parts, penetrated or ascended with a cautiousness that cannot be easily described. They seemed

all eye and ear. When they found no lurking mischief, they would beckon with the hand, and pronounce the word “ OwISH,” with a long labial hissing, the O being almost quiescent. This was ever the watch-word for the main body to advance.

Indians who went to war together, and who, for any reason found it necessary to separate into different routes, always left two or three runners at the place of separation, to give timely notice to either party in case of pursuit.

If a warrior chanced to straggle and lose himself in the woods, or be retarded by accident or wound, the party missing him would frequently, on their march, break down a bush or a shrub, and leave the top pointing in the direction they had gone, that the straggler, when he should behold it, might shape his course accordingly.

We come to the campaign when General Abercrombie took the command at Fort Edward. That General ordered Major Putnam, with sixty men, to proceed by land to South-Bay, on Lake George, for the purpose of making discoveries, and intercepting the enemy's parties. The latter, in compliance with these orders, posted himself at Wood-Creek, near its entrance into SouthBay. On this bank, which forms a jutting precipice ten or twelve feet above the water, he erected a stone parapet thirty feet in length, and masked it with young pine-trees, cut at a distance, and so artfully planted as to imitate the natural growth. From hence he sent back fifteen of his men, who had fallen sick. Distress for want of provisions, occasioned by the length of march, and time spent on this temporary fortification, compelled him to deviate from a rule he had established, never to permit a gun to be fired but at an enemy while on a scout. He was now obliged himself to shoot a buck, which had jumped into the Creek, in order to eke out their scanty subsistence until the fourth day after the completion of the works. About ten o'clock that evening, one of the men on duty at the margin of the bay, informed him that a fleet of bark canoes, filled with men, was steering towards the mouth of the Creek. He immediately called in all his centinels, and ordered every man to his post. A profound stillness reigned in the atmosphere, and the full moon shone with uncommon brightness. The creek, which the enemy entered, is about six rods wide, and the bank opposite to the parapet above twenty feet high. It was intended to permit the canoes in front to pass-they had accordingly just passed, when a soldier accidentally struck his firelock against a stone. The commanding officer in the van canoe heard the noise, and repeated several times the savage watch-word,OWISH! Instantly the canoes huddled together, with their centre

precisely in front of the works, covering the creek for a considerable distance above and below. The officers appeared to be in deep consultation, and the fleet on the point of returning, when Major Putnam, who had ordered his men in the most peremptory manner, not to fire until he should set the example, gave the signal, by discharging his piece. They fired. Nothing could exceed the inextricable confusion and apparent consternation occasioned by this well-concerted attack. But, at last, the enemy finding, from the unfrequency (though there was no absolute intermission) in the firing, that the number of our men must be small, resolved to land below, and surround them. Putnam, apprehensive of this from the movement, sent Lieutenant Robert Durkee,* with twelve men, about thirty rods down the creek, who arrived in time to repulse the party which attempted to land. Another small detachment, under Lieutenant Parsons, was ordered up the creek to prevent any similar attempt. In the mean time Major Putnam kept up, through the whole night, an incessant and deadly fire on the main body of the enemy, without receiving any thing in return but shot void of effect, accompanied with dolorous groans, miserable shrieks, and dismal savage yells. After day-break he was advised that one part of the enemy had effected a landing considerably below, and were rapidly advancing to cut off his retreat. Apprised of the great superiority still opposed to him, as well as of the situation of his own soldiers, some of whom were entirely destitute of ammunition, and the rest reduced to one or two rounds per man, he commanded them to swing their packs. By hastening the retreat, in good order, they had just time to retire far enough up the creek to prevent being enclosed. During this long-continued action, in which the Americans had slain at least five times their own number, only one Provincial and one Indian were wounded on their side. These unfortunate men had been sent off for camp in the night, with two men to assist them, and directions to proceed by Wood-Creek as the safest, though not the shortest route. But having taken a nearer way, they were pursued and overtaken by the Indians, who, from the blood on the leaves and bushes, believed that they

* As the name of the brave Durkee will occur no more in these sheets, I may be indulged in mentioning his melancholy fate. He survived this war, and was appointed a Captain in that war which terminated in the acknowledgment of our Independence. In 1778 he was wounded and taken prisoner by the savages at the battle of Wioming, on the Susquehannah. Having been condemned to be burnt, the Indians kept him in the flames with pitch-forks, until he expired in the most excruciating tor ments.