By Comer Plummer

The Battle of Carillon Never was a victory more due to the finger of Providence .—Montcalm[1]

Lake Champlain, North America, 1758

It was midday on June 30, when a group of bateaux, the sturdy, flat-bottomed workhorse of the river, oared up to the landing docks at Fort Carillon. Aboard, under the flapping, gold and white flag of the fleur de lis, was Major General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, commander-in-chief of French forces in North America, along with members of his staff. The general’s second-in-command, Brigadier Gaston de Lévis, should have been with him, but the governor-general had decided to employ him and continent of troops for a diversionary attack east of Lake Champlain. As he drifted down the 130 miles of mostly placid waters from Sorel, Montcalm had had a good deal of time to mull over the impact of such a decision upon his dispositions at Fort Carillon. The English had him outmanned and out gunned. He would need every man.

The contest shaping up on the west bank of Lake Champlain was the latest in a seven-decades long struggle between France and England for control over this critical corridor. In densely forested western New York (and in many other regions), lakes and rivers were the easiest and most secure way of moving men, matériel, and goods from one point to another. This corridor, with its three waterways, from north to south, the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and Lake George, provided an avenue of approach to the capital of New France at Montreal, and the English capital of New York at Albany. This was one of several hotly contested areas between France and England that emerged in the late 17th century as both countries tried to secure contested territory between their North American colonies.

As the conflict developed, it appeared that the French were in a very disadvantageous position. Versailles’s immigration policy gave the English an enormous advantage in population. By 1756, the English Atlantic colonies had some 1.5 million white settlers and their slaves, against about 60,000 French settlers in Canada. The reasons for this disparity were many, namely Versailles decision to limit settlement to French Catholics and the dissuasive climate. Few could be enticed to make the journey, even with substantial incentives. The growing season was short, and if the harvest was poor, starvation haunted the land during the long winter months. Finally, the French Navy had been seriously weakened in the previous two wars. By 1756, the French had 60 ships of the line and 31 frigates. While racing to catch up—they were laying down or purchasing 15 capital ships at the time, the Royal Navy far outclassed them, with approximately 160 capital ships, including 100 ships of the line, armed with between 50 and 100 cannon, and 60 frigates, equipped with between 32 and 40 cannon.[2] Furthermore, the English were superior in seamanship and gunnery. In any new war, the Royal Navy would almost certainly command the seas.

France, however, did have her advantages. It was better organized politically, with an authoritarian structure by which the king’s viceroy, the governor-general, assisted by the intendant, were able to mobilize their limited resources to meet periodic challenges. The viceroy did not need to negotiate with the various administrative areas of New France. He gave orders. Furthermore, the governor-general commanded the militia, which included all men from 15 to 60 years of age, as well as the troupe de la marine, or navy troops, who guarded naval facilities and served as marines aboard ships. France also enjoyed a considerable advantage in its relationships with the indigenous tribes. Jesuit missionaries cultivated converts among them, with some success. The natives viewed the French as preferable allies, since, while they built a few forts and trading posts, they did not settle the land, unlike the English, who had forced several tribes from their ancestral lands. The French took full advantage of this relationship, forming a Faustian bargain: terror against English frontier settlements in exchange for scalps, booty, and captives. The indigenous tribes were, however, more than a terror weapon, they were the best scouts, auxiliaries, and intelligence gatherers in the service of New France. The captives they rounded up – sentinels, messengers, stragglers, and deserters – provided the French with invaluable information about English plans and dispositions.

In contrast, in addition to population and naval resources, the English Atlantic colonies enjoyed a temperate climate and bounteous harvests. No worries here about food during the winter. One serious disadvantage, however, was in Britian’s colonial administration. Over the years, London had diffused political power in a series of charters to the provincial level. There was no overall man in charge. The king ruled this land through colonial governors and assembles; English generals and governors could not compel provincial governments to do anything. They had to negotiate with local elites and assemblies, each with their own interests, to act for the security of all.

With their advantages in political organization and native alliances, for years, the French had held their own against the English, even though the many wars in Europe that spilled over into North America, such as Queen Anne’s War (in Europe, the War of Spanish Succession, 1701-1714) and King George’s War (the War of Austrian Succession, 1744-1748). As tensions built in the 1750’s for another round of conflict, Versailles stepped-up its investment in fortifications in New France; in 1754, in answer to the British sending regular army regiments with Major General Edward Braddock to New England, the French court took the exceptional step of sending regular army troops to the colony, under the command of Jean-Armand de Dieskau. That year, an undeclared war erupted in North America, which the provincials would call the French and Indian War. The initial round of fighting was a stalemate, as both theater commanders came to grief. Braddock and 450 of his men were killed in along the banks of the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania, and Dieskau was defeated, wounded and captured at the Battle of Lake George. Suddenly, both nations needed new commanders in North America.

For the French, that honor would fall to the 44-year-old Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, a marquis from the southern city of Nîmes, Montcalm was far from the first choice. He was a regimental commander of cavalry and had served in the War of Polish Succession (1733-1735) and the War of Austrian Succession. While a brave man who had been wounded five times at the Battle of Piacenza, he was a man with limited experience in siege works and none in directing complex land and naval operations; moreover, he had no familiarity with this strange and challenging North American environment. None of the more experienced officers sought the assignment; many found excuses to decline the honor. Glory, promotion, and riches were to be had in Europe; Canada offered only the prospect of freezing to death or starvation under the blockade of the Royal Navy. Montcalm overcame his hesitancy and his wife’s urging him to pass on the assignment. Another source of concern was the evident hostility of his future boss, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, the governor-general, to another French officer to command a force of mainly Canadians. (Vaudreuil, a Canadian-born aristocrat, had a dim view of set-piece European-style fighting in the forests of North America.) Fortunately, the minister of war sweetened the deal with another two regiments, and three subordinate commanders who were to excel, the second-in-command, Brigadier Gaston de Lévis, Colonel Charles-François de Bourlamaque, and Pierre-Antoine de Bougainville.

Since Montcalm’s arrival in New France in May of 1756, he had conducted two highly successful campaigns. In August 1756, he had evicted the British from their foothold of Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario; a year later he did the same at Fort William Henry on the southern end of Lake George, the site of Dieskau’s defeat. Both operations were outstanding examples of what the U.S. Army recognized as the Nine Principles of War, including offensive, mass, economy of force and surprise. These victories had been sullied, however, by the conduct of Montcalm’s native allies, who had resisted, if not openly defied his orders to avoid depredations against captured soldiers, the wounded, and civilians. The natives massacred dozens at Owego; at William Henry, they had killed perhaps as many as 200, an episode captured (and highly exaggerated) by James Fenimore Cooper in his 1826 historical romance novel, The Last of the Mohicans. At the end of the day, try as they might, the French had to accept that they could never control and only influence their allies; the natives were a headache that had to be borne. As Bougainville would observe: “One is a slave to the Indians in this country, [however] in this sort of warfare, it is necessary to adjust to their ways.”[4[ Montcalm agreed, writing, “We can no more do without them than a pack dog hunting or cavalry on the plain.”[5]

By the summer of 1757 the stakes were never higher. Months earlier, war ̶ to be known as the Seven Years’ War ̶ had broken out in Europe. The British had reinforced their army in North America and were preparing several thrusts, in the west, against Fort Duquesne (present Pittsburg), in the south, toward Lake Champlain and Fort Carillon, and against Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. The Royal Navy had tightened the embargo of shipping from France to the point where very few military stores and foodstuffs were arriving in Quebec. For a colony that depended on support from the mother country, the effect was measured in bread rationing and near starvation the previous winter. By the end of summer, Montcalm would lament in his journal, “Only peace today can save the colony”.[6]

With their limited resources, Vaudreuil and Montcalm decided to concentrate against Major General James Abercromby’s advance from Lake George toward Montreal. Throughout the late spring and early summer, they concentrated the bulk of the army at Fort Carillon, as they awaited the British advance from the ruins of nearby Fort William Henry.

Montcalm was greeted on arrival by an anxious-looking Bourlamaque, commander of Fort Carillon. The news from his scouts was troubling. A large British army of some 20,000 to 25,000 men was well into its advance to the headwaters of Lake Champlain. The French army had but nine days’ rations and an emergency store of hardtack.[7] The fort was not built to repel a land attack, which was surely coming. “Our situation is critical,” Montcalm wrote to Bougainville. “Action and audacity are our sole resource.”[8] Dashing off a situation report to Vaudreuil, he requested more support and the return of Lévis. The governor-general came through, with rations, 400 navy troops and militia, and the promise of more to come; he cancelled his orders to Lévis, who immediately sailed from Montreal.[9]

Of course, Montcalm had no way of knowing that his destruction of Fort William Henry, and the atrocities that followed, had no small impact on the size of the army heading his way. In response to the pleas of the English commander at Albany, General Webb, for help as the French were descending upon William Henry, the New England assemblies responded with unprecedented alacrity. Massachusetts and Connecticut alone answered with 13,000 militiamen. While these troops arrived too late to impact the outcome, the response demonstrated the willingness of colonial governments to respond to an emergency.[10] And, the horrible massacre, embellished by the press with each telling, was galvanizing. In the spring of 1758, when a new call went out to the assemblies for troops for the coming campaign, their response was equally impressive.

Determined to slow the enemy and develop the situation, Montcalm sent Bourlamaque and the regiments of the Royal Roussillon, Sarre, Languedoc, and a battalion of the Berry to guard a key bridge across the La Chute River, joining the Carillon peninsula with the Portage Road. Here was the Falls, the last of the rapids of the La Chute, and a sawmill. About two miles farther ahead, he placed the Reine, Guyenne, and Béarn regiments in a blocking position down the La Chute River. Finally, he sent another two detachments to establish advanced posts on either side of the lake: on the western shore at Mont Pelée (now called “Rogers Rock”), Captain de Trépenzes with 350 men, and on the eastern shore, Captain Bernard with 300 men.[11] These militiamen would fan out to cover the web of forest trails, a task usually left to indigenous scouts, but such were unavailable. In fact, Montcalm had only 15 natives at his disposal.

If his intelligence was lacking, Montcalm’s estimate of British numbers was not far off. The enemy advancing on him numbered about 17,600 effectives, including 5,825 regulars, 11,375 provincials, and 400 Mohawk warriors under William Johnson. Commanding this host was a 52-year-old Scotsman, Major General James Abercromby. A former minister of parliament, and a man with some experience in the War of Austrian Succession, he was sent to serve as Lord Loudoun’s deputy. Once his chief was recalled, Abercromby was elevated to command His Majesty’s forces in North America. Better known as an organizer than a field commander, he was out of his depth, as events would manifestly show.

William Pitt, secretary of state of the Southern Department and the man responsible for senior military appointments, suspected as much. He dispatched Brigadier General George Howe to serve as second-in-command to Abercromby; Pitt really expected him to lead the army. The 34-year-old Howe was already something of a legend in the British Army. Pitt lauded him as “a character of ancient times; a complete model of military virtue.” Even his peers were impressed. Major General James Wolfe described him as[12] “the noblest Englishman who has appeared in my time, and the best soldier in the British army.” Unlike other senior English officers, Howe spent time learning the ways of war in this unique environment. Over the previous year, he went on patrols with Rogers’s Rangers, and he imported what he learned into the army. In order to minimize the snagging of thorny underbrush, he had officers and men shear their coats to the waist and wear leggings; he banished impedimenta, with men permitted only a blanket and a bearskin; he had the men carry rations sufficient for the mission, so that no wagon train was needed. There were no women to wash the clothes; Howe washed his own.

George Howe was simplicity incarnate, at least as far as English generals went, and he shared the lot of his men. He was also wickedly clever, as this widely circulated story demonstrates. One evening, the general invited his principal officers to his tent for supper. Normally, a noble-turned-warrior on campaign was expected to maintain his station, certainly a viscount like Howe. China, silver settings, and crystal stemware would have been expected on such an occasion. Instead, under the glow of a lantern, they found a bearskin rug and a circle of log chairs. A servant appeared and set a large platter of pork and peas down on the rug. His lordship produced a leather sheath and pulled forth a knife and fork, and he began to portion the meat. An awkward moment passed, eyes darting to and fro, before Howe looked up and asked, in his schoolmaster’s voice, “Is it possible, gentlemen, that you have come on this campaign without providing yourselves with what is necessary?” He then produced a sheath and a set of cutlery like his own for each man.[13] Confusion gave way to laughter. He was that kind of man.

Abercromby’s creeping pace was a gift to Montcalm, who inexplicably wasted nearly a week before getting down to the business of fortifications. While he ordered his engineers to begin mapping the heights about a mile west of the fort on July 2, the labor to realize the project was deployed to protect the Portage Road. Only one battalion of the Berry was assigned the herculean task of fortifying the place.

On July 5, scouts reported the movement Abercromby’s army in “an innumerable number of barges.” Specifically, it was 900 bateaux and 135 whale boats. Montcalm ordered the regiments at the head of the Portage Road to join the others near the wood bridge. The English were closing in, and he was exposed. Time was running out.

Two things saved the French, buying them two precious days to prepare their defenses. The first was a skirmish at Berentz Brook (called “Trout Brook” by the provincials) on July 6. As the British marched north along the La Chute River, Trépenzes and his men climbed down from their mountain perch and attempted to retreat. They were too late: the British army had passed them by. The French took to the forest, hoping to bypass the lumbering English columns; instead, they placed themselves squarely in its path. Howe, somewhat rashly, was part of an advanced column of 200 rangers. Sensing a strange presence, one of them signaled for a halt. Suddenly from the brush came the challenge, “Qui vive?” (“Who goes there?”); “Français” came the reply. Trépenzes and his men were not fooled. They blasted away, and a brisk firefight ensued. Howe was struck in the chest almost immediately, and he died on the spot. The trailing column closed in, and the French found themselves badly outgunned. They tried to disengage, but only 50 or so managed to return to their own lines; the rest were killed or captured, including Trépenzes, who was mortally wounded.

Howe’s death cast a pall over the entire army. Major Robert Rogers, leader of the famed “Rodgers’s Rangers”, wrote, “The fall of this noble and brave officer seemed to produce an almost general languor and consternation through the whole army.”[14] Perhaps it was a bit of postmortem hyperbole, but there can be no doubt that Howe would have had a marked impact on the battle that was to come.

The immediate consequence of this action was more dithering by the English commander. Unclear as to whether he had encountered the advanced elements of the French army, Abercromby called a halt. The troops spent the night at arms in the forest. The following day, he marched his army back to their landing place, while a detachment of colonials under Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet reconnoitered the Portage Road all the way to the wood bridge, which was by then in ruins. The French were nowhere to be seen, though camp litter made it clear they had been there in number. Bradstreet repaired the bridge and sent word to Abercromby that the way was open. By late afternoon, the British army had concentrated at the Falls.

Abercromby’s plodding advance was the second factor in Montcalm’s favor. He took a week to load his bateaux at the ruins of William Henry; he wasted more time in his encampments as the army moved north. By July 6, he was within four miles of Carillon, but it was two days later that he would finally dispatch an engineer to assess the enemy defenses.

Montcalm also prevaricated, unsure of where to make his stand. The Falls, or the heights? On the evening of July 6, he settled on the latter. The plan elaborated with his chief engineers, Nicolas Sarrebourse de Pontleroy and Desandrouins, involved defenses on the crown of the heights, facing west against an enemy attacking uphill from the woods. The flanks were problematic. Though protected by the La Chute on the south and Lake Champlain on the northeast, the sloping, undulating ground offered dead space for an attack, as did the finger of woodland running along Lake Champlain toward the fort. Montcalm would have liked to extend his defenses across the entire peninsula, but he knew he lacked the time to do so. And then there was Rattlesnake Mountain. Should the English manage to mount guns there, the game was probably up. However, Montcalm did not have the resources to spare in occupying the place. He would accept the risk.

The following day, battalion colors appeared along the heights to mark work assignments. Hundreds of men, officers included, with Montcalm in shirtsleeves, laid into the forest with axes, dragging logs and stacking them into a parapet eight to nine feet tall. In places, they cleaved loopholes into the top rung; in others, they stacked sandbags, leaving a space in between as firing ports. Logs were placed at the inside foot of the parapet to provide a firing platform; only the crowns of tricorn hats of the firing line could be seen by the enemy. The entire line was constructed in a zigzag fashion, against which the attackers would be subject to flanking fires of musketry. Other teams dug a shallow trench before the log wall, while still others assembled and interlaced heavy tree branches into a kind of barbed wire, with many branches hewed to a fine point, which they placed between the trench and the breastworks. Before the wall, for a hundred yards, lay the scattered remnant of the woodland, the stumps, tops of trees, and branches left to form a natural abatis to snare and slow the enemy.[15]

Montcalm observed with satisfaction, “The officers, axe in hand, set the example… The army worked with such an incredible ardor that the line was in a defensible state that same evening.”[16] As the sun settled behind the trees, field kitchens distributed food, beer, and wine. Pickets were sent out, and the exhausted troops slumbered on the battle line. During the evening, Lévis and his men arrived, further boosting Montcalm’s spirits. He now had 3,506 effectives.[17] Too few, he knew, against a foe at least six times his number, and he could not spare a unit in reserve.

On July 8, as Abercromby was finally sending a party to reconnoiter the French defenses, Montcalm was again at work, directing improvements to the previous day’s labors. As the troops went about their tasks, he walked the terrain with his principal commanders, assigning units and sectors to each. Bourlamaque had the left third of the line, with battalions of the Reine, Sarre, and Languedoc; Montcalm occupied the center position with the Royal Roussillon and the 2nd Berry; Lévis commanded the right end of the line with battalions of the Reine, Béarn, and Guyenne. Protecting the flanks from being infiltrated were, on the left, two volunteer companies under Duprat and Bernard, and, on the right, the militia and the navy troops. The 3rd Berry, one of the least experienced units, was assigned defense of the fort, along with the cannoneers.[18]

Montcalm directed that the grenadier company and pikemen of each battalion would act as a reserve, standing behind the firing line, bayonets fixed and pikes at the ready, to repel any penetration. It was decided that the best shots would man the parapet, while others below would load muskets and pass them forward.[19] Of all the decisions the French command made that day, this would prove the most consequential.

The plodding Abercromby, “Mrs. Nabbercromby,” as the provincials called him, was about to step out of character, becoming impetuous in the extreme.[20] The general’s urgency appears to have been informed from prisoner reports that Montcalm had 6,000 men, with 3,000 reinforcements from Montreal expected any day.[21] Furthermore, his two reconnaissance parties were unimpressed with the French defensive works. (There is some question as to whether they saw the palisade through the detritus of the abatis.) At a brief war council that morning, the general determined to carry the French position by a frontal attack. Artillery would not be needed, and the heavy guns remained at the sawmill headquarters. The day would be won by the bayonet.

That morning, the French heard gunfire from Mount Rattlesnake. This was William Johnson and his 400 natives. They were much too far out of range to pose any menace, and, Montcalm recorded in his journal, “They made a great fusillade that failed to interrupt the work, and we amused ourselves not to reply.”[22] Later in the day, the British launched 20 bateaux to bring cannon to the mountain, but the lead boat got misoriented and bypassed the landing site, and the little flotilla drifted by the fort, drawing a cannonade. The boats frantically reversed course, but two were hit and sunk.[23] This potentially decisive terrain would see no more activity. Its potential would be demonstrated 19 years later, during the American Revolution, when the British besieged rebel defenders at a new fort built at the Carillon site, Fort Ticonderoga. The English hauled guns onto the mountain, renamed Mount Defiance, and the defenders surrendered without firing a shot.[24]

Montcalm had little time to worry about his rear, for by 10 o’clock, the British army had formed to his front. There were four lines of troops: first, rangers and skirmishers, followed by brigades of provincials from New York and Massachusetts, then the three English brigades of infantry and one of grenadiers, with the New Jersey and Connecticut militia regiments in reserve. From the center of the breastworks, the marquis could make out the distinct uniforms of the Scottish Highlanders, with their plumed berets and tartan kilts. This was the famous 42nd Regiment, the Black Watch, and their place in the battle line was squarely in his path.

Bizarrely, the British stood there for the next three hours, their colors limp on this languid summer day. What were they waiting for, the artillery? None appeared.

Finally, around 1 o’clock, the British formations began moving forward. They were doing so on their own initiative, for neither Abercromby nor his acting duty, Brigadier General Thomas Gage, were on the scene. Montcalm could not believe his luck: the English were doing precisely what he had wanted. Over the next five hours, the British made six charges into the hornet’s nest; six times they were turned back. Regiments came forth piecemeal, fell back, then charged again or lingered in support to those units engaged within the abatis. There was a brief pause, at about 2:30 p.m., when Abercromby, who had finally appeared on the scene, ordered his regiments to re-form.

When the action began anew, it was just as disjointed as before. The abatis, and the exceptional rate of fire from the palisade, with soldiers firing up to six rounds per minute—three to five times the rate of the British, and with much greater accuracy—was devastating. “Trees were fell down in Such Manner that it broke our Battalions before we got near the Breastwork,” wrote one English officer. The men were supposed to march at a quickstep, but that was impossible in the thicket. The lurching columns made easy targets. “Cut. . . . Down Like Grass,” one provincial onlooker stated. Another survivor vividly recalled, “Our orders were to run to the breast work and get in if we could.”

But their lines were full, and they killed our men so fast, that we could not gain it [the palisade]. We got behind trees, logs, and stumps, and covered ourselves from the enemy’s fire. The ground was strewed with dead and dying. It happened that I got behind a white-oak stump, which was so small that I had to lay on my side, and stretch myself; the balls striking the ground within a hand’s breath of me every moment, and I could hear the men screaming, and see them dying all around me. Once in a while the enemy would cease firing a minute or two, to have the smoke clear away, so they might take better aim. In one of those intervals I sprang from my perilous situation and gained a stand which I thought would be more secure, behind a large pine log, where several of my comrades had already taken shelter, but the balls came here thick as ever. One of the men raised his head a little above the log, and a ball struck him in the center of the forehead. We lay there till near sunset and, not receiving orders from any officer, the men crept off, leaving all the dead, and most of the wounded.[26]

Montcalm, in his waistcoat, the heavy overcoat being cast aside in the heat, moved up and down the line, exhorting his men. The palisade echoed with shouts of “Vive le Roi! Vive notre général!” Spirits did not flag. Runners kept the men at the parapet supplied from each battalion’s depot of power and shot; they ferried buckets of drinking water down the line. Here and there, men went down, mostly with head wounds. At the end of the day, Lévis would find two bullet holes in his cap. Bougainville suffered a grazing wound to the head. Bourlamaque was not so lucky. Late in the afternoon, he was wounded in the shoulder and carried from the field.[27]

The British tried to turn the French flanks, unsuccessfully. On the left, Bourlamaque blunted an assault, bringing the fires of the Sarre and Guyenne to the support of Duprat and Bernard. The most serious threat to the right came late in the day, when the English made one last, desperate attempt to turn the right flank. Here the Black Watch, which had been engaged all day, summoned itself for a climactic charge. They surged forward, with the grenadiers in support. Lévis ordered the Canadian and navy troops to sally forth and volley into their flanks, but the Scots came on unperturbed. Some of these brave fellows, brandishing their broadswords, managed to climb over the palisade, but Montcalm rushed in his reserve troops and, with Lévis’s grenadiers and pikemen, they speared the Scots. The Black Watch retreated, finally broken. They had suffered 647 casualties, well over half the regiment. Some minor skirmishing went on until night began to fall. The British fell back, covered by the light infantry.

Pursuit was out of the question. But Montcalm felt the need to justify his actions in his journal, no doubt in anticipation that Vaudreuil would once more accuse him of failing to finish off his opponent, as he had done after Fort William Henry. He wrote of the difficulty of pursuit in a forest at night, without native guides and scouts; the exhaustion of his men; the fact that his enemy, despite its defeat, still greatly outnumbered him; and the entrenchments the English had made all the way back to the sawmill.[28]

The losses of this campaign can only be estimated. Montcalm, writing in the wake of the battle, recorded 44 officers and almost 400 soldiers dead and wounded.[29] An official account published in Paris that December listed 12 officers and 92 men killed, and 25 officers and 248 men wounded. When added to Trépenzes’s unfortunate unit, this placed French casualties at between 527 and 544 for the campaign. British losses are more difficult to tabulate. The day after the battle, Abercromby reported 628 killed and missing and 1,356 wounded, though the French would claim to have buried 800 redcoats and provincials. Furthermore, Abercromby could not account for the wounded who would perish in French hospitals, nor do his figures include Howe’s engagement. René Chartrand, considering the various factors involved, assesses British losses for July 6 to 8 at around 1,000 killed and 1,600 wounded.[30]

As the night before, the French slept on their defenses. At dawn the following day, drummers roused the men with “La Généralle.” There would be no rest for the weary. That day and into the next, Montcalm had his men bury the dead and buttress the damaged defenses and the abatis. He thought that Abercromby might regroup and renew his assault, but the forest was quiet. A scouting party sent out that day returned from the La Chute with a report that the English had vanished. The next day, Montcalm sent Lévis with eight grenadier companies and militia to confirm the news. The brigadier returned to the palisade that evening to inform that the English had indeed departed, and evidently in great haste. So much haste, in fact, that Lévis brought back several enemy wounded with him. Montcalm wrote, “The chevalier Lévis advanced to the Portage; he found everywhere the traces of a precipitous flight, wounded, food, abandoned equipment, wagons left in marshy places, the debris of barges and burned pontoons.”[31]

This was a special triumph. At Oswego and William Henry, Montcalm had been the aggressor and the stronger party. This time, the tables had been turned, and he had beaten an army that seemingly had all the advantages and put it to flight.

All the advantages, that is, but one: generalship. If Howe exemplified leadership at its best, the opposite must be said of Abercromby. Convinced of faulty intelligence, haste informed his every action. To begin with, he had no need to attack at all. Abercromby had the option of fixing the French on the heights, deploying guns to Rattlesnake Mountain, while sending the rest of his army to cut the road to Fort St. Frédéric, forcing Montcalm to do battle in the open or starve where he was. Thus, the French army might have been bagged en masse, and the war in North America, for all intents and purposes, ended. Once he determined to force the issue, Abercromby had no reason to rush into an attack before a proper reconnaissance had been done. He himself did not lay eyes on the ground until the battle was well underway. At his war council the morning of the battle, during which a general-in-chief typically asked of his subordinate commanders their opinions of certain tactical options, the only input he sought was whether the attack should be made in regimental ranks of three or four.[32]

As the army deployed, Abercromby utterly failed to coordinate its movements and to concentrate at points of obvious weakness, the flanks. But of all his errors, the failure to deploy his artillery was the fatal one. He had taken great pains to transport 16 cannon, 11 mortars, 13 howitzers, and 8,000 rounds of shot from Albany, and he did not use one of them.[33] Had he merely waited until his guns were deployed, Abercromby could have easily blasted Montcalm’s hasty fortifications to ruin. Seldom in the annals of military history has a general bungled a clear advantage so badly.

As he had done at Oswego, on the morning after the battle, Montcalm led the troops in reciting the traditional Catholic hymn, the “Te Deum” (“Thee, God, we praise”), first used on the battlefield to commemorate a victory by the Frankish king Clovis I after the Battle of Tolbiac in the fifth century.[34] He then had a cross mounted on the heights, bearing a poem that he had composed that morning:

To whom belongs the victory? Commander? Soldier? Abatis? Behold God’s sign! For only He Himself hath triumphed here.[35]

But, after the euphoria had passed came the realization of the cost. In his previous two campaigns, Montcalm had suffered 77 casualties. During the Berentz Brook skirmish on July 6, he had lost more than that. While many of the wounded would return to the ranks, the simple truth was that the French battalions were not getting any stronger. They had been overworked, underfed, and their numbers were dwindling. Experienced officers had been lost. Winter would soon be upon them; food was running low. There could be no thought of succor for other threatened quarters, not this year. The army had had its campaign, and that would have to do.

This would be Montcalm’s last victory. The months that followed brought only bad news for the French. Louisbourg fell at the end of the year, leaving the St. Lawrence River wide open to assault by the Royal Navy. In 1759, the French were finally overwhelmed by superior British resources. The French abandoned and destroyed Fort Carillon. The British drove the French from Lake Ontario. In late June, a large fleet under Vice-Admiral Charles Saunders and an army under Major General James Wolfe besieged Quebec. After a heroic defense east of the city, the British finally landed an invasion force in Montcalm’s rear. In the ensuing Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, the English routed the French, and Montcalm and Wolfe were killed. Shortly thereafter, Quebec surrendered. While the Vaudreuil and Lévis somehow resurrected their army and defeated the British at the Battle of St. Foy in spring of 1760, they were too weak in artillery to mount an effective siege of Quebec. The Royal Navy returned in the nick of time, and Lévis receded to Montreal to await his fate. By September, the British forces converged at Montreal, and on the eighth, the Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered Canada to the English.

The Battle of Carillon demonstrated generalship at its worst and at its (near) best. Of Abercromby, we need say no more. While Montcalm’s initial dithering as to where to defend blemished his performance, once he made up his mind he was decisive and hands-on. He was a commander who led from the front, and he knew how to inspire his men. And, George Howe excepted, unlike many English officers, he adapted to his surroundings. Despite severe limitations in everything, men, matériel, and food, for three years Montcalm was able to carry the war successfully to the English. This is nothing short of remarkable and a testament to his talents and to those of his key lieutenants, and to the mettle of the men—French and Canadian—that he led.

Often overlooked in a theater of war more characterized by bungling than competence, let alone excellence, the Battle of Carillon demonstrates the impact of leadership on the outcome of a military contest. For that, it still merits our attention and our appreciation.

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Show Notes

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© 2026 Comer Plummer

Written by Comer Plummer. If you have questions or comments on this article, please contact Comer Plummer at: comer_plummer@hotmail.com.

About the author:
Comer Plummer is a retired US Army Officer.  He served from 1983 to 2004 as both an armor officer and Middle East/Africa Foreign Area Officer.  He is currently employed as a DoD civilian and living in Maryland with his wife and son.

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