Drake Samuel Adams
The Taking of Louisburg 1745
Garrison summoned.
On the 7th a flag was sent into the city with a summons to surrender. Firing was suspended until its return, with Duchambon’s defiant message, that inasmuch “as the King had confided to him the defence of the fortress, he had no other reply but by the mouths of his cannon.”
Scouting Party defeated.
This check prompted a disposition to attack the city by storm at once, but upon reflection more moderate counsels prevailed, and the attempt was put off. Pepperell went on with his approaches toward the West Gate, under a constant fire from all the enemy’s batteries. And as every collection of men drew the enemy’s fire to the spot, this work could only be done at night, under great disadvantages. The balls they sent him were picked up and returned from his own cannon with true New England thrift, in order to husband his own ammunition. While thus engaged with the enemy in his front, he had also to keep an eye upon the outlying parties of French and Indians in his rear, who had been scraped together from scattered settlements, and were lurking about his camp with the view of raiding it unawares. On May 10, a scouting party of twenty-five men from Waldo’s regiment was sent out to find and drive off these marauders. While they were engaged in plundering some dwelling-houses at one of the out-settlements, they themselves were unexpectedly attacked by a superior force, and all but three killed, the Indians murdering the prisoners in cold blood. On the following day our men returned to the scene of disaster, and after burying their fallen comrades, they burned the place to the ground.
With these events the campaign settled down into the slow and laborious operations of a regular siege; and here began those inevitable bickerings between the chiefs of the land and naval forces, which, in a man of different temper than Pepperell was, might have led to serious results.
Disagreements.
In Shirley, his lawful captain-general, Pepperell had always a superior whose orders he felt bound to obey to the best of his ability, cost what it might. Fortunately, Shirley’s power of annoyance was limited by distance, though he kept up an animated fire of suggestions. In Warren, however, the brusque and impulsive sailor, Pepperell now found a tutor and a critic, whose irritation at the subordinate part he was playing showed itself in unreasonable demands upon his slow but sure coadjutor, and now and then even in a hardly concealed sneer. As time wore on, Warren grew more and more restive and importunate, while Pepperell continued patient, calm, and methodical to the last. Warren would call his fleet-captains together, hold a council, discuss the situation from his point of view, and send off to Pepperell the result of their deliberations, with the final exhortation attached, “For God’s sake let us do something!” – that “something” being that Pepperell should practically finish the siege without him, as we have already shown. Warren was a man standing at a door to keep out intruders, while the two actual adversaries were fighting it out inside. He might occasionally halloo to them to be quick about it, but he was hardly in the fight himself.
Pepperell would then get his council together in his turn, and, smarting under the sense of injustice, would submit the lecture that Warren had read him, with its thinly veiled irony, and unconcealed hauteur, to which the imputation of ignorance was not lacking. The situation would then be again discussed in all its bearings, from the army’s standpoint, which might be stated as follows: The fortress cannot be stormed until we have made a practicable breach in the walls. We must finish our batteries before this can be done. Or let the commodore bring in his ships and assist in silencing the enemy’s fire. The army is losing strength every day by sickness, while the fleet is gaining by the arrival of fresh ships. We cannot, if we would, pull the commodore’s chestnuts out of the fire and our own too.
IX
THE SIEGE CONTINUED
Camp Routine.
The routine of camp life is not without interest as tending to show what was the temper of the men under circumstances of unusual trial and hardship. They were housed in tents, most of which proved rotten and unserviceable, or in booths, which they built for themselves out of poles and green boughs cut in the neighboring woods. The relief parties, told off each day for work in the trenches, were marched to their stations after dark, as the enemy’s fire swept the ground over which they must pass. For a like reason, the fatigue parties could only bring up the daily supplies of provisions and ammunition to the trenches from Gabarus Bay, after darkness had set in. By great good-fortune, the weather continued dry and pleasant; otherwise the bad housing and severe toil must have told on the health of the army even more severely than it did, while work in the trenches would have been suspended during the intervals of wet weather.
Spirit of the Army.
A force like this, composed of men who were the equals of their officers at home, not bound together by habits of passive obedience formed under the severe penalties of martial law, could not be expected to observe the exact discipline of regular soldiers. It was not attempted to enforce it. Not one case of punishment for infraction of orders is reported during the siege. But officers and men had in them the making of far better soldiers than the ordinary rank and file of armies. There were men in the ranks who rose to be colonels and brigadiers in the revolutionary contest.22 The hardest duty was performed without grumbling; the most dangerous service found plenty of volunteers; and Pepperell himself has borne witness that nothing pleased the men better than to be ordered off on some scouting expedition that promised to bring on a brush with the enemy.
This spirit is plainly manifest in the letters which have been preserved. In one of them Major Pomeroy tells his wife that “it looks as if our campaign would last long; but I am willing to stay till God’s time comes to deliver the city into our hands.” The reply is worthy of a woman of Sparta: “Suffer no anxious thoughts to rest in your mind about me. The whole town is much engaged with concern for the expedition, how Providence will order the affair, for which religious meetings every week are maintained. I leave you in the hand of God.”
There is not a despatch or a letter of Pepperell’s extant, in which this dependence upon the Over-ruling Hand is not acknowledged. The barbaric utterance that Providence is always on the side of the strongest battalions would have shocked the men of Louisburg as deeply as it would the men of Preston, Edgehill, and Marston Moor. The conviction that their cause was a righteous one, and must therefore prevail, was a power still active among Puritan soldiers: nor did they fail to give the honor and praise of achieved victory to Him whom they so steadfastly owned as the Leader of Armies and the God of Battles.
There were not wanting incidents which the soldiers treasured up as direct manifestations of Divine favor. Moses Coffin, of Newbury, who officiated in the double capacity of chaplain and drummer, and who had been nicknamed in consequence the “drum ecclesiastic,” carried a small pocket-Bible about with him wherever he went. On returning to camp, after an engagement with the enemy, he found that a bullet had passed nearly through the sacred book, thus, undoubtedly, saving his life.
Frolics in Camp.
The relaxation from discipline has been more or less commented upon by several writers, as if it implied a grave delinquency in the head of the army. We are of the opinion, however, that it was the safety-valve of this army, under the extraordinary pressure laid upon it. So while we may smile at the comparison made by Douglass, who says that the siege resembled a “Cambridge Commencement,” or at the antics described by Belknap,23 we need not feel ourselves bound to accept their conclusions. This author says: “Those who were on the spot, have frequently in my hearing laughed at the recital of their own irregularities, and expressed their admiration when they reflected on the almost miraculous preservation of the army from destruction. They indeed presented a formidable front to the enemy, but the rear was a scene of confusion and frolic. While some were on duty at the trenches, others were racing, wrestling, pitching quoits, firing at marks or birds, or running after shot from the enemy’s guns for which they received a bounty.”
Our Fascine Batteries.
In his unscientific way, Pepperell was daily tightening his grasp upon Louisburg. Gridley,24 who acted in the capacity of chief engineer, had picked up from books all the knowledge he possessed, but he soon showed a natural aptitude for that branch of the service. Dwight, the chief of artillery, is not known ever to have pointed a shotted gun in his life. Instead of gradual approaches, of zigzags and épaulements, the ground was simply staked out where the batteries were to be placed. After dark the working parties started for the spot, carrying bundles of fascines on their backs, laid them on the lines, and then began digging the trenches and throwing up the embankment by the light of their lanterns. All the batteries at Louisburg were constructed in this simple fashion. The work of making the platforms, getting up the cannon, and mounting them, was attended with far greater labor and risk.
The Advanced Battery opens Fire May 18.
In this manner a fascine battery covered by a trench in front, on which the provincials had been working like beavers for two days and nights, was raised within two hundred and fifty yards of the West Gate, against which it began sending its shot on the 18th. This was by much the most dangerous effort that the besiegers had yet made, and the enemy at once trained every gun upon it that would bear, in the hope of either demolishing or silencing the work. It was so near that the men in the trenches, and those on the walls, kept up a continual fire of musketry at each other, interspersed with sallies of wit, whenever there was a lull in the firing. The French gunners, who were kept well supplied with wine, would drink to the besiegers, and invite them over to breakfast or to take a glass of wine.
Cannon discovered.
In two days the fire of our guns had beaten down the drawbridges, part of the West Gate, and some of the adjoining wall. Pepperell complains at this time of his want of good gunners, also of a sufficient supply of powder to make good the daily consumption, of which he had no previous conception, but is cheered by finding thirty cannon sunk at low-water mark on the opposite side of the harbor, which he designed mounting at the lighthouse forthwith, for attacking the Island Battery. Gorham’s regiment was posted there with this object. Thus again were the enemy furnishing means for their own destruction. Foreseeing that this fortification would shut the port to ships coming to his relief, Duchambon sent a hundred men across the harbor to drive off the provincials. A sharp fight ensued, in which the enemy were defeated.
Titcomb’s Battery at Work.
By this time another fascine battery situated by the shore, at a point nine hundred yards from the walls, began raking the Circular Battery of the enemy, in conjunction with the direct fire from our Advanced Battery. It was called Titcomb’s, from the officer in charge, Major Moses Titcomb of Hale’s regiment. These two fortifications were now knocking to pieces the northwest corner of the enemy’s ponderous works, known as the Dauphin Bastion. We were now playing on Louisburg from three batteries on the shore of the harbor, three in the rear of these, and had another in process of construction at the lighthouse, all of which, except the last, had been completed under fire within twenty days, without recourse to any scientific rules whatever.
Capture of the Vigilant.
In spite of Warren’s watchfulness one vessel had slipped through his squadron into Louisburg unperceived, bringing supplies to the besieged, An event now took place which, to use Pepperell’s words, “produced a burst of joy in the army, and animated the men with fresh courage to persevere.” The annual supply ship from France, for which our fleet had been constantly on the lookout, had run close in with the harbor in a thick fog, undiscovered by our vessels, and wholly unsuspicious of danger herself. When the fog lifted she was seen and engaged by the Mermaid, a forty-gun frigate, until the rest of the squadron could come to her aid, when, after a spirited combat, the French ship was forced to strike her colors. The prize proved to be the Vigilant, a new sixty-gun ship, loaded with stores and munitions for Louisburg. She was soon put in fighting trim again, and manned by drafts made from the army and transports.
Warren proposes to attack.
By the 24th, two more heavy ships, which the ministry had sent out immediately upon receiving Shirley’s advices that the expedition had been decided upon,25 now joined Warren, who at length felt himself emboldened to ask Pepperell’s co-operation in the following plan of attack. It was proposed to distribute sixteen hundred men, to be taken from the army, among the ships of war, all of which should then go into the harbor and attack the enemy’s batteries vigorously. Under cover of this fire, the soldiers, with the marines from the ships, were to land and assault the city. Pepperell himself was to have no share in this business, except as a looker-on, but was to put his troops under the command of an officer of marines who should take his orders from Warren only.
This implied censure to the conduct of the army and its chief, followed up the next day by the tart question of “Pray how came the Island Battery not to be attacked?” seems to have goaded Pepperell into giving the order for a night attack upon that strong post. Indeed, Pepperell’s perplexities were growing every hour. On the day he received Warren’s cool proposition to take the control of the army out of his hands, he had been obliged to send off a flying column in pursuit of a force which his scouts had reported was at Mirá Bay, fifteen miles from his camp. In fact, the forces which Duchambon had recalled from Annapolis were watching their chance either to make a dash into Louisburg, or throw themselves upon the besiegers’ trenches unawares.
Island Battery stormed May 27.
Gallantry of William Tufts, Jr.
Notwithstanding the hazard, it was determined to storm the Island Battery. For this purpose, four hundred volunteers embarked in whale-boats on the night of the 27th, and rowed cautiously round the outer shore of the harbor toward the back of the island, in the expectation of finding that side unguarded. They were, however, discovered by the sentinels in season to thwart the plan of surprise. The garrison was alarmed. Still the brave provincials would not turn back. Cannon and musketry were turned on them from the island and city. Through this storm of shot, by which many of the boats were sunk before they could reach the shore, only about half the attacking force passed unscathed. In scrambling up the rocks through a drenching surf, most of their muskets were wet with salt water, and rendered useless. Not yet dismayed, the assailants fought their numerous foes hand to hand for nearly an hour. Captain Brooks, their leader, was cut down in the mêlée. One William Tufts, a brave lad of only nineteen, got into the battery, climbed the flagstaff, tore down the French colors, and fastened his own red coat to the staff, under a shower of balls, many of which went through his clothes without harming him. Sixty men were slain before the rest would surrender, but these were the flower of the army, whose loss saddened the whole camp, when the enemy’s exulting cheers told the story of the disaster, at break of day. About a hundred and eighty-nine men were either drowned, killed, or taken in this desperate encounter. It was an exploit worthy of the men, but there was not one chance in ten of its being successful. For once Pepperell had allowed feeling to get the better of judgment by taking that chance.
Pepperell could now say to Warren that his proposal would not be agreed to. His effective force had been reduced by sickness to twenty-one hundred men, six hundred of whom were at that moment absent from camp. As a compliance with Warren’s requisition for sixteen hundred men would be equivalent to exposing everything to the uncertain chances of a single bold dash, Pepperell’s council very wisely concluded that it was far better to hold fast what had been gained, than to risk all that was hoped for. They offered to lend the commodore five hundred soldiers, and six hundred sailors, if he would go and assault the Island Battery, in his turn, but Warren’s only reply was to urge the completion of the Lighthouse Battery for that work.
The siege had now continued thirty days without decisive results. So far Duchambon had showed no sign of yielding, and Pepperell found it difficult to get information as to the state of the garrison. An expedient was therefore hit upon which was calculated to test both the temper and condition of the besieged thoroughly: for although the capture of the Vigilant had been witnessed from the walls of Louisburg, it had not produced the impression that the besiegers had expected. This was the key to what now took place.
Effect of Stratagem tried.
Maisonforte, captain of the Vigilant, was still a prisoner on board the fleet. He was given to understand that the provincials were greatly exasperated over the cruel treatment of some prisoners, who had been murdered after they were taken, and he was asked to write to Duchambon informing him just how the French prisoners were treated, to the end that such barbarities as had been complained of might cease, and retaliation be avoided.
Maisonforte readily fell into the trap laid for him. He unhesitatingly wrote the letter as requested, it was sent to Duchambon by a flag, and was delivered by an officer who understood French, in order to observe its effect. The letter thus conveyed to Duchambon the disagreeable news of the Vigilant’s capture, of which he had been ignorant, and it made a visible impression. He now knew that his determination to hold out in view of the expected succors from France, was of no further avail. This correspondence took place on the 7th.
Lighthouse Battery completed.
Island Battery silenced.
By the arrival of ships destined for the Newfoundland station, the fleet had been increased to eleven ships carrying five hundred and forty guns. On the 9th two deserters came into our lines, who said that the garrison could not hold out much longer unless relieved. On the 11th, which was the anniversary of the accession of George II., a general bombardment took place, in which the new Lighthouse Battery joined, for the first time. The effect of its fire upon the Island Battery was so marked, that Warren now declared himself ready to join in a general attack, whenever the wind should be fair for it. For this attempt Pepperell pushed forward his own preparations most vigorously. Boats were got ready to land troops at different parts of the town. The Circular Battery was about silenced. All the 13th, 14th, and 15th a furious bombardment was kept up. Our marksmen swept the streets of the doomed city, with musketry, from the advanced trenches, so that no one could show his head in any part of it without being instantly riddled with balls. The artillerists at the Island Battery were driven from their posts, some even taking refuge from our shells by running into the sea. Our boats now passed in and out of the harbor freely, with supplies, without molestation. It was evident that the fall of this much dreaded bulwark had brought the siege practically to a close.
On the 14th the whole fleet came to an anchor off the harbor in line of battle. It made a splendid and imposing array. At the same time the troops were mustered under arms, and exhorted to do their full duty when the order should be given them to advance upon the enemy’s works. In the midst of these final preparations for a combined and decisive assault, an ominous silence brooded over the doomed city. It was clear to all that the crisis was at hand.
Duchambon felt that he had now done all that a brave and resolute captain could for the defence of the fortress. He saw an overwhelming force about to throw itself with irresistible power upon his dismantled walls, in every assailable part at once. His every hope of help from without had failed him. Food for his men and powder for his guns were nearly exhausted. He was now confronted with the soldier’s last dread alternative of meeting an assault sword in hand, with but faint prospect of success, or of lowering the flag he had so gallantly defended. The wretched inhabitants, who had endured every privation cheerfully, so long as there was hope, earnestly entreated him to spare them the horrors of storm and pillage.
The Fortress surrenders.
On the 15th, in the afternoon, while the two chiefs of the expedition were in consultation together, Duchambon sent a flag to Pepperell proposing a suspension of hostilities until terms of capitulation should be agreed upon. This was at once granted until eight o’clock of the following morning. Duchambon’s proposals were then submitted and rejected as inadmissible, but counter proposals were sent him, to which, on the same day, he gave his assent, by sending hostages to both Pepperell and Warren, saving only that the garrison should be allowed to march out with the honors of war. For reasons to be looked for, no doubt, in his pride as a professional soldier, and in his reluctance to treat with any other, he addressed separate notes to the land and naval commanders. As neither felt disposed to stand upon a point of mere punctilio, Duchambon’s request was immediately acceded to. A striking difference, however, is to be observed between Pepperell’s and Warren’s replies to the French commander. In his own Pepperell generously, and honorably, makes the full ratification of this condition subject to Warren’s approval. In the commodore’s there is not one word found concerning the general of the land forces, or of his approbation or disapprobation, any more than if he had never existed; but in Warren’s note the extraordinary condition is annexed “that the keys of the town be delivered to such officers and troops as I shall appoint to receive them, and that all the cannon, warlike and other stores in the town, be also delivered up to the said officers.”
On the 17th Warren took formal possession of the Island Battery, and shortly after went into the city himself to confer with the governor. In the meantime, conceiving it to be his right to receive the surrender, Pepperell had informed the governor of his intention to put a detachment of his own troops in occupation of the city defences that same afternoon. This communication was immediately shown to Warren, who at once addressed Pepperell, in evident irritation, upon the “irregularity” of his proceedings, until the articles of surrender should have been formally signed and sealed. The fact that he had just proposed to receive the surrender of the fortress himself was not even referred to, nor does it appear that Pepperell ever knew of it. One cannot overlook, therefore, the presence of some unworthy manœuvring, seconded by Duchambon’s professional vanity, to claim and obtain a share of the honor of this glorious achievement, not only unwarranted by the part the navy had taken in it, since it had never fired a shot into Louisburg, or lost a man by its fire: but calculated to mislead public opinion in England.
