The Battle of Fort Ticonderoga 1758.

By Richard F.C. Seidemann Jr.

 Copyright 2007

In the spring preparations began for the push up the lakes George and Champlain.  Lord Howe was put second-in-command and appointed Brigadier-General in America.  Evidently in the little time he was in America, he had learned much and made quite an impression on both the regulars and provincials.  One provincial wrote;

“Lord How was the Idol of the Army, in him they placed the utmost confidence, from the few days I had to observe his maner of conducting, it was not extravagant to Supose that every Soldier in the army had a personel attachment to him, he frequently came among the Carpenters, and his maner So easy and fermiller, that you loost all that constraint or diffidence we feele when addressed by our Superiours, whese manners are forbidding.”[i]

In April, he once again met with Robert Rogers, who he had gone out on scouts with in the previous fall, to confer about wilderness warfare.[ii]  Howe then went about transforming Abercromby’s army into a ranger-like force, using his own regiment as the example.  He had the coats cut so that they were “shorter than the Highlanders” and the lace taken off.  The men’s cocked hats were made into round hats with brims 2 ½ inches wide.[iii]  They were provided with woolen leggings to replace canvas gaiters.  The men were to “put their provisions in their haversacks and roll them up in their blankets like the rangers.”[iv]  Muskets were shortened and “blackened.” The officers were not immune to his changes either, they were ordered to cut down on their camp equipage, forbade of “all displays of gold and scarlet…[Lord Howe] himself wearing an ammunition coat, that is to say , one of the surplus soldiers coats cut short,” and ordered not to wear sashes.[v]  The men were trained in bush fighting, “so that it is said, [Lord Howe] has made them as dexterous as it almost as the rangers.”[vi]

            Abercromby’s host made the bottom of Lake George or the site of Fort William Henry their jumping off point for an attack on Fort Ticonderoga.  The force had accumulated somewhere around 17,000 men, of provincials and redcoats.  It included the 27^th, 42^nd, 44^th, 46^th, 55^th, 4^th battalion of the 60^th, and part of the 1^st battalion, 60^th regiments of foot.  Included as well were two companies of Royal Artillery.  Among the troops furnished by the colonial governments consisted of five Massachusetts regiments (not including Partridge’s Light Infantry), five Connecticut regiments (not including Putnam’s Rangers), a New York regiment consisting of three battalions, two New Hampshire regiments, one New Jersey regiment, and one Rhode Island regiment. Abercromby and Howe also, had a number of light troops available for their use, which included the newly raised 80^th Regiment of Light Armed Foot, six companies of Rogers’ Rangers, including two of Stockbridge Indians, Colonel Oliver Partridge’s Massachusetts Light Infantry, Israel Putnam’s Connecticut Rangers, Native Americans auxiliaries under Sir William Johnson, and Colonel John Bradstreet’s battoemen.  Abercromby had also, ordered the grenadier companies of the redcoat battalion to join together in a battalion, as was the custom of the day, he did this with the piquet companies as well.  This was quite a formidable command, one that had never been seen in America before.[vii]

            By July, they were ready to move against the French.  The redcoats were divided into three brigades, the 55^th was placed into the Third Brigade under the command of the regiment’s Lieutenant-Colonel, John Donaldson.  Their brigade was comprised of themselves and the 44^th Regiment.[viii]  On July 5, “the army embarked in the morning aboard the battoes, and halted at 7 evening within 16 miles of the landing place….”[ix]  This was Sabbath Day Point, here the army boiled their pots and began to set up camp; however this was all part of a ruse.  The British commanders were hoping that the French would believe that the army was stopping, but later in the evening around ten or eleven o’clock the army embarked again and sailed right past the French observation posts that night.[x]  With Lord Howe in the van of the army, he scouted the landing place with Major Rogers and Col. Bradstreet.  Lord Howe with a detachment of light troops consisting of the rangers and the 80^th Regiment were the first to land, followed closely by the grenadiers of the army.[xi]   According to one of the light infantry captains, upon landing they secured the landing place and “form’d in the Skirt of the wood in a scatter’d Rank & file.”[xii] 

The whole of the army had landed safely by ten in the morning on July 7^th, they started their march in four columns towards the saw mills and the fort, the 55^th was in the center column.   Lord Howe took command of the forth column made up of mostly provincial units, they followed a trail that ran parallel to the Trout Brook.  It was at this time that they came upon a small reconnoitering party of the French.[xiii]  A “warm little Skirmish” ensued.[xiv]  Lord Howe rushed up to the action with the light infantry so that the march would not be slowed, and in the opening moments of the fire-fight he was shot in the lung.  Captain Alexander Moneypenny of the 55^th, was near Howe when it happened wrote;

“[Lord Howe] had just gained the top of a hill, where the firing was, when he was killed.  Never ball had more deadly direction.  It entered his breast on the left side, and (as the surgeons say) pierced his lungs, and heart, and shattered his backbone.  I was about six yards from him, he fell on his back and never moved, only his hand quivered an instant.”[xv]

The engagement ended with British victory, the French were routed and many made prisoner, but the loss of Lord Howe would prove to be graver, for the British.  Robert Rogers wrote of Howe’s death, that “This noble and brave officer being universally beloved by both officers and soldiers of the army, his fall was not only most sincerely lamented, but seemed to produce an almost general consternation and languor through the whole.”[xvi]  Thomas Mante, soldier and historian of the war, wrote, “In Lord Howe, the soul of General Abercromby’s army seemed to expire.”  “From the unhappy moment the General was deprived of his advice, neither order nor discipline was observed in the army….”[xvii]  Disorder and confusion took hold of the army, it was recorded that much of the 55^th and other regiments went back to the landing place in wake of the engagement and the redcoats previous struggle to find their way through the dense woods.[xviii]

            The next day the army was able to regroup and recover themselves from the previous day’s skirmish and disorder.  General Abercromby sent Colonel Bradstreet to take the saw mills, which was done effectually.  There the army gathered once again.  On the 8^th of July, Abercromby ordered a full scale infantry attack on the fort.   Unbeknownst to the British was that the French had built a stout breastwork of logs and an abatis to hinder the British advance.  Again the 55^th made up the center column with the 44^th Regiment.  The grenadier company was still detached to the grenadier battalion under the command of Colonel Frederick Haldimand and the piquet company was amalgamated together with the other piquets of the regiments under the command of Major Thomas Proby of the 55^th.  Once again confusion and disorder abounded among the British troops.  The attack went wrong from the beginning, and the hidden abatis proved more formidable than anticipated.    General Abercromby had called for a simultaneous attack from all the brigades at specific spots of the French lines.[xix]  Major Rogers with his rangers providing a skirmish screen for the brigades;

“I was ordered forward to endeavour to beat the enemy within the breast-work, and then to fall down, that the pickets and grenadiers might march through.  The enemy soon retired within their works; Major Proby marched through with his pickets within a few yards of the breast-work, where he unhappily fell….”[xx] 

Apparently, Major Proby shares some blame for the British defeat at Ticonderoga.  In a letter to Col. Henry Bouquet, Major John Tullinkens wrote; “Major Proby of the 55^th regiment marched at the head of all the picquets and of the supporting Grenadiers.  He was followed by all the regular regiments and some of the Provincials, but instead of making a simultaneous attack as he ought to have done in pursuance of his orders, they attacked in single file.”[xxi]  William Eyre wrote in a letter;

“the Attack was made, I am Sorry to Say not in the most Regular Manner, some of the Regt beginning before the Others were formed, particularly the Brigade--- I think to the Rt which consisted of the 27^th Regt & two battalions of Royal Americans….The pickets and the grenadiers with the Regt to the Right began the Attack before the Center Brigade had formed.”[xxii] 

Most historians have pointed the blame for the early attack at William Haviland, who commanded the grenadier battalion.  In any case the attack was begun prematurely and proved costly to the British force.  The troops then marched up and proceeded to endeavor to make their way through the abatis.  Unable to break the French breastwork Abercromby called off the attack and the army retreated back down Lake George.[xxiii]  William Hervey of the 44^th Regiment wrote; “This morning [July 9th] the whole army moved off in great confusion, and Regulars, Provincials, Artillery and sick, sailed mixed together, not stopping till they came to the end of the lake, the General among the first.”[xxiv]  In the end, the 55^th lost four officers (Colonel Howe and Major Proby included), one sergeant, and thirty-five rank and file.  They had five officers (including their quarter-master), four sergeants, and one hundred sixteen rank and file wounded.[xxv]