Battle & Siege
This type of engagement, involving fights for fortified positions along the main avenues of approach to Canada, was far more common than open-field pitched battles.
What are sieges or fights for fortified positions?
Before going into action, provincial soldiers were typically described using words like "zealous," "brave and hearty," or possessing this overall positive outlook
What are high spirits or enthusiasm?
his level of account, exemplified by the writings of Chaplain John Cleaveland and Surgeon Caleb Rea, tried to take in the battle as a whole and establish a context for interpreting the experience
What is the bird's-eye view (or level)?
Army chaplains reinforced anti-Catholic sentiment by interpreting the conflict not just as a war between Britain and France, but between Protestantism and this
What is Popery (or Catholicism)?
For provincial officers to be effective, they had to maintain a high level of this with their enlisted men, a practice opposite to the prescription of rigorous separation favored by professional officers
What is solidarity?
Provincial troops, while present at most major battles, played the main combat role only in this early year of the conflict
What is 1755?
John Cleaveland attributed the widespread dysentery that afflicted the camp following the defeat at Ticonderoga to this combination of emotional states arising from disappointment
What are dejection and discouragement?
In the bird’s-eye accounts, battle wounds and deaths were described in this manner, in contrast to the gruesome details provided by the worm’s-eye writers
What is in general or abstract terms (e.g., "cut off" or "swept off")?
The capture of "a prodigious quantity of furs and European goods" valued at a rumored £80,000 at Fort Frontenac fueled this secondary motivation for combat among the provincial troops
What is plunder or greed?
Provincial soldiers expected their officers to lead by this, ensuring they showed as much courage as the men themselves
What is example?
The French saved their opponents the trouble of assaulting their works during the later sieges of the war, such as at Ticonderoga in 1759 and Ile-aux-Noix in 1760, by doing this "rather earlier than was tactically necessary"
What is withdrawing or retreating?
Following the signal victory at Lake George in 1755, Seth Pomeroy repeatedly used this word—usually associated with funerals—to describe the state of mind and the army's tasks after the engagement.
What is "melancholy"?
Joseph Nichols described the intensity of the Ticonderoga fighting, noting that the French "cut them down like grass" and that the ground was almost covered with these
What are dead bodies?
Rufus Putnam, in his Memoirs, admitted that he volunteered for hazardous duty not because he loved to fight, but because of this personal quality and "a wish to excel"
What is pride?
Viscount Howe, the only regular general who fully understood what provincial soldiers expected from their leaders, successfully won their loyalty through his "easy familiarity" and this specific quality
What is robust physical courage?
In 1758, Britain lost the disastrous assault on Fort Carillon, which provincial soldiers referred to by this other, better-known name
What is Ticonderoga?
The source notes that the responses of 18th-century provincial soldiers to battlefield stress, which included listlessness and a rise in physical complaints, were much milder and briefer than this 20th-century phenomenon
What is combat exhaustion (or psychoneurotic disorder)?
The French employed this specific ruse at Ticonderoga, leading the provincials to believe the enemy would surrender, which resulted in many hundreds of regulars being slain when the French opened fire again
What is hoisting/setting up an English flag (and ceasing fire/feigning surrender)?
In addition to pay and bounty, the potential share of plunder meant that each Massachusetts private who served under Colonel John Bradstreet in the 1758 campaign could realize nearly fifty pounds of this by participating
What is Massachusetts currency?
Captain Ebenezer Learned’s leadership style, which involved admitting his confusion and requesting voluntary reaffirmation of confidence from his men when they were lost, resulted in his leading his entire company in this major act in February 1758
What is desertion (or retreat/escape)?
In 1758, the British successfully besieged these two anchors of Canada's long water axis, Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario and Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island
What are Fort Frontenac and Louisbourg?
Provincial soldiers who were unable to write about battle frequently used this activity, which often led to the army buzzing with rumors and stories, as a means of gaining control over the chaotic events of combat
What is talk (or talking/sharing stories)?
Unlike Rea and Cleaveland, who immediately blamed General Abercromby, soldiers like Rufus Putnam and David Perry, who survived the Ticonderoga assault, generally did not reach a critical assessment of the command until this period had passed
What is after a period of reflection (or years later)?
On the eve of the Ticonderoga assault in 1758, Chaplain John Cleaveland preached a sermon from this book of the Bible, which recounts Joshua fighting Amalek while Moses held up his hands
What is Exodus (Chapter 17)?
The source concludes that effective provincial leadership was not "command" in the regulars' sense, but something closer to this, as it required officers to furnish information and explain decisions to their men and relied on their consent
What is negotiation?