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Episode 12 - The Battle of Fort Oswego
179 Plays17 days ago
French General Montcalm has arrived on the scene, and his first order of business is finally destroying that thorn in the side of New France - Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. Join us as we discuss the largest battle thus far, and learn a bit about military logistics and siege warfare in the 18th century along the way.
Intro & outro music - "Drums and Guns" by Village Volunteers Fife & Drum Corps
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Transcript
Winter Weather's Impact on Troop Movements
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to Tales from the French and Indian War. I am your host, Jackson, and alongside me, I guess, as always, is Matt. How are you doing, Matt? Good, Jackson. How are you on this fine evening?
00:00:24
Speaker
I am doing pretty well. Pretty well. haven't left the house much this week because of the big snowstorm, but ah we have heat, we have light, so all is well.
00:00:36
Speaker
Yes, yeah. um Yeah, this is a you know great north or northern Ohio, i guess, western Pennsylvania weather we're experiencing, which you know gives a little bit of a detail to us as to why not a lot of these battles happened in the winter.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, when you get a foot or two of snow, it's hard to mass move troops. And, you know, I have greater respect for those who took part in the Battle of Fort Bull, because that was in the dead of winter with the snow and and seeing a foot of snow outside my house right now. I would not want to trudge like 200 miles on snowshoes or however long it it actually was for them to get there.
00:01:18
Speaker
So props to them.
Battle of Fort Oswego
00:01:20
Speaker
All right, today we are talking about the Battle of Fort Oswego. think we've mentioned that for the last episode or two, so we're finally here.
00:01:30
Speaker
And this episode is this episode's going to come not long after our episode that we just released about video games and board games covering the French and Indian we are picking up in the main action of the war now. We've done ah a couple smaller engagements like Catanning, some Indian raids in Pennsylvania, and then Fort Bull. We did an episode on that a little bit ago. Fort Bull will be a useful one if you haven't listened to that episode because it does tie in a little bit to this. But now we're back to some of the large engagements of the war.
00:02:04
Speaker
If you have a brief or passing knowledge of the war, you may have heard the name Oswego or the Battle of Fort Oswego. So we're going to get a little bit more into detail here and tell you exactly how that played out, what led up to it, and what the aftermath was. matt are you ready?
00:02:21
Speaker
I am so ready. you know I feel like I don't want to say this is the first major engagement we've talked about, because we talked about a few, you know like Braddock's defeat and some larger battles like that. But this is really one of the the first of you know an official war being declared on the continent.
00:02:40
Speaker
And it's ah you know it's a larger battle of a series of battles that we'll get into. And I think this sets the stage for things to come. and Yeah, this actually feels like ah a real war podcast now. time Battles and sieges and yeah, so I'm excited.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, every year of the war so far and pre-war has been ramping up and up and it's going to keep ramping up. ah So the more you follow this podcast, the more interesting and bombastic things will get.
Leadership Changes: Shirley to Loudoun
00:03:10
Speaker
All right, Matt, ah first thing I wanted to share with our listeners was some of the leadership changes for both the British colonies and the French colonies at this time. And these these two commanders who will play a big role in 1756 and for the French side for several more years after that. So would you like to talk about the change from Shirley to Loudon a little bit? and then I will talk about the the French leadership changes.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yes, I would love to. So as our listeners might know, William Shirley was the governor of Massachusetts. This have been in earlier 1756, I believe.
00:03:52
Speaker
And so, yeah, spring or I guess late winter, early spring, Shirley was the governor of Virginia. or Yeah, no, sorry, Massachusetts. And he was also commander in chief of the Royal Forces on on the North American continent. And that was since the death of bra Braddock, correct? Because Braddock was the commander of all the forces, and then he died, of course, as we covered, and that command passed to Shirley, right?
00:04:18
Speaker
That is correct, yes. And specifically with the Fort Oswego area, Shirley is responsible for building most of the British fortifications there. And we can talk about this more when we get into the battle itself, but there are, we we say the Battle of Fort Oswego, there's actually three forts we'll we'll discuss.
00:04:39
Speaker
Fort George and Fort Ontario were also in the vicinity. William Shirley was responsible for building Fort Ontario and Fort George. Fort Oswego was already present. It's actually called like the old fort. Even in some of the primary sources at this time, it was called the old fort because it had existed for a while. But um surely was i would say you could call him more aggressive on the on the frontier than what we'll see from loudon yeah i think uh if i may jump in we had talked briefly how in 1755 he had planned an attack on fort niagara but it just didn't end up materializing uh so i can definitely see some of that more aggressive nature in his planning and i believe he wanted to do some more aggressive attacks in 1756
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So he he was actually gearing up the garrison at Fort Oswego to launch on attacks around the Great Lakes. Around this time, the forts that the British and the French had around ah around the lakes, specifically around lake on Lake Ontario, it was kind of a a cold war so to speak where each side knew that you know if we advance on fort oswego and take it then the british could advance on one of our forts and take it and it the other way around too but uh and that lasted since you know 1754 when the war started so that's why we hadn't seen a whole lot of action around the great lakes until this time um and sure like i said surely wanted to break down he wanted to launch expedition against uh i think it might have been fort niagara or one of the other french forts around lake ontario at the time i think it might have even been both like the previous year he wanted to hit niagara and then maybe this year i i might have read that he wanted to hit frontenac or and or niagara but yeah he wanted to get out there and and give it to the french
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah. um Then we, as we also talked about too, Shirley was more of a provincial guy. He wasn't a, ah he was much more North American and less crown influence. And that I think is kind of what eventually led to his replacement. I think the British crown wanted one of their own in power in North America, especially with the the war heating up and some, you know, frontier raids that we had talked about before that went against the British led to that decision and as well.
Lord Loudoun's Leadership and Colonial Administration
00:07:00
Speaker
Which then gets us to Lord Loudon. His name was actually John Campbell, which is interesting. So his name is John Campbell. I'm guessing Loudon was probably his property or his estate or his title or something.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yes, he was the fourth Earl of Loudoun. Okay. So that's why we call him Lord Loudoun. So his real name is John Campbell. It's a lot less cool than Loudoun.
00:07:24
Speaker
So anyway, in, well believe, a later 1756, around August 1756, he was appointed by the British government to replace William Shirley, as I had alluded to before.
00:07:36
Speaker
laudan was definitely a man of the crown he had served in the war of austrian succession um in the the british royal army and he had also led highlanders against the the scottish in the i think it was jacobi rebellion Jacobite, yeah. know very Very few details about that. but I think it was like a Scottish rebellion or trying to like put a new dynasty on the British throne or an old dynasty. One of those things. You know you know Europe and their dynasty conflicts.
00:08:11
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. And he had a distinguished military career, you know, leading pretty esteemed units. And the crown saw him as a good fit for the North American frontier as someone to instill British royal governance style and power and into the continent. So in August, he was replaced. or He replaced ah Shirley.
00:08:32
Speaker
So Loudoun was very similar to, if our listeners are familiar with any Civil War history, General McClellan. If you know enough about the Civil War, you'll know that McClellan was very passive in his approach and possibly you a lot of historians argue could have ended the war a lot earlier than it did if he would have taken more aggressive approach.
00:08:54
Speaker
loudon shared a lot of the same character at six of mcclellan despite his you know military upbringing and career when he came to ah north america he was more focused on the colonial administration side than he was on the war effort so he was responsible for um he he was responsible for trying to make the North American continent and the North American colonies function more like the British government. So he did things like he started ordering the quartering of troops, which is, you know, if, you know,
00:09:28
Speaker
I will come back to ah haunt the bit will come back to the hauntson British later. he he instituted a lot of ah good changes to the British colonies. he you know i mean I guess maybe that's depending on how you look at it, but he increased the bureaucracy. The administration of the colonies improved under him. However, he pulled a lot of troops away from the frontier and you know we'll see he diminished the ah garrison at frontier forts like Fort Oswego pretty heavily to a point where there was only around 600 or so men there under his administration.
00:10:06
Speaker
So he's, he's an interesting guy. He it's funny. So I don't want to spoil the episode too much. We'll get to the outcome of the battle and everything, but ah suffice it to say, he tries to point the finger at Shirley a bit after, after the battle tries to put all the blame on him. But I mean, history is kind of ah kind of rectified that and surely has been absolved of any blame for what happens at Fort Svigo. But yeah,
00:10:34
Speaker
loud and eventually does get recalled to england after a few more issues that occur that jackson and i will talk about uh after fort oswego and uh he gets sent back to london he has a decent career uh moving forward in the british government but um yeah if this uh doesn't work out so it looks like great ah ah yeah It looks like we're seeing another clash between European upbringing and customs and then the rough and tumble colonies, especially the British colonies in America where they have a long history of, you know, it's not quite a democracy yet, but there's much more like rights and freedoms enshrined in some of these colonial like charters and government systems for decades or even over a hundred years by this point. So lots of clashing there. And I'm sure that, uh,
00:11:24
Speaker
that loud and like braddock probably brought a dismissive attitude towards ah some of these colonies that he was forced to work with and uh yeah and another thing i'll add to uh he was generally hated by the colonists so for obvious reasons obviously the quartering of soldiers but he also tried to place uh the militia units under british royal command so he would appoint his officers to lead militia units which there was a lack of understanding between the two and that did not work out which is i mean this whole thing's hilarious because there's a lot of um areas in the u.s now that are named after loud and like there's a loud in county i believe in massachusetts and i think there might be one in virginia as well so Yeah, he he still has his namesake continues on, but practically everybody here. Although I guess I wonder Loudon is just the title he has, maybe those are named after a different Loudon. The fourth Earl of Loudon, not the third. Yes, i don't know.
00:12:26
Speaker
Okay, great. ah Thank you for that, Matt. I'll dump in jump into the French
Introduction to Montcalm
00:12:31
Speaker
leadership change. So this isn't so much a leader getting replaced like it is on the British side. So up to this point, we've had Dyskow, if you remember him. He was sent over. He was a German, but in the French army for a long time. He was the one captured and wounded in the Battle of Lake George.
00:12:49
Speaker
So since that time, it has been Vaudray, the governor general of New France, who's been managing everything. Now he already was like that, basically the head of the military planning and like ah overall campaign strategy.
00:13:05
Speaker
And then D. Scal was just like in charge of the army and the maneuvers and like the execution of those plans. But now the main, the main general's gone. So eventually France 1756 in May,
00:13:18
Speaker
they'll send over a new general to take Discau's place. He arrives in May, and that is Montcalm. So Montcalm, he is, and that's also a, I believe, a title name rather than his oh really his actual name, Louis Joseph. So here, his full name, as per Wikipedia, which I just pulled up right here, Lieutenant General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gazon, Marquis de Montcalm-de-Saint-Varain.
00:13:47
Speaker
So Louis-Joseph must be the first name. Montcalm-Gozon might actually be his last name. And he was the Marquis of Montcalm-de-Savar. So it was both his last name and his his title, his his land, his nobility name. So Montcalm is going to arrive with a few other officers that we will see time and again throughout the rest of this war, including Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.
00:14:13
Speaker
A copy of his journal throughout the war I got to borrow from the library. It's translated into English. But I also found Montcalm's journal throughout the war in French online. You know, it's a great time to be researching history with all these resources so available.
00:14:29
Speaker
But Bougainville arrives and he will come around after the war. He has a really interesting career where he goes and explores the Pacific and he's like he's got a very scientific mind.
00:14:42
Speaker
um And then also there's the Chevalier de Lévis. I also don't have his full name, but Lévis would be his nobility name. He is the second in command of the French forces, while Montcalm is the first in command. And then Bourg-le-Marc is another officer.
00:15:00
Speaker
He's third in command. So some some expertise arriving here in ah in New France. A little bit about Montcalm, since he'll be the head military guy for for New France, their military executions.
00:15:13
Speaker
they The campaign like actually maneuvers. He was born in 1712 in France, and he had joined the French army at just nine years old.
00:15:25
Speaker
i guess they had some form of like military enrollment. I'm sure it was not in action. i hope. He was involved in the French army since he was nine. So by this time, off and on, i think he yeah he had like a break in service after...
00:15:43
Speaker
like lots of battles, but he had 30 years of active military of military service and 20 of those years were in pretty active warfare. He had been in the war of Austrian succession, you know, that previous war, and then also the war of Polish succession, which I had never heard of until doing a little bit of research on Montcalm. But it's like every time a monarch in Europe dies, there's a succession war about it. You know, that's just how it was at this time.
00:16:10
Speaker
ah So by the time French and Indian War starts, he is living on a pension on his estate, enjoying life with his family. But he is appointed. He's called to service to lead the French forces in North America, which he isn't really thrilled about.
00:16:25
Speaker
I guess you can imagine if you were retired on your estate and just like riding horses and hanging out with your family, ah you would probably be a little ticked to be sent off to the godforsaken woods to fight ah with with against the British and again and with the Indians and with those ah backwards Canadians and all that. Yeah. so He is ah he's an intelligent guy, certainly brave, and also a good administrator.
00:16:52
Speaker
But some of his flaws include being a little quick-tempered, can be argumentative, and he definitely, like a lot of these European figures, is liable to look down on the French Canadians that he has been sent to protect. And he he ends up getting into a lot of squabbles with Vaudray and the French Canadian government, which will cause a lot of issues later on down the line. But...
00:17:16
Speaker
A couple notes here. When he arrived in his journal, which I was reading through like up to the Battle of Fort Oswego, he makes a couple interesting remarks, which like immediately show him to be like a member of the nobility in France and his and his military background.
00:17:33
Speaker
So one, when he like one of the first thing he writes when he gets to Quebec City is he sees the horses, he notices them in the in the town and he's automatically like comparing them with similar horses of the Ardenne forest back in France and like, you know, you know really noting like their their size and their speed and all that.
00:17:52
Speaker
And then he is looking at some of the villages around Quebec city. And he's looking at them from a a defense angle where he's like, these villages are going to be a lot harder to defend than French villages because these Quebecois villages are much more spread out with the the way the territory was kind of parceled off at that time. You see lots of long, thin strips of territory where each like household was farming or, you know, that's that's a little simplifying, but yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
You know, it's, it's that more American North American style where like each person has their own lot and like land. Whereas in France, it was much more like all of the houses and buildings are clustered.
00:18:31
Speaker
And then on the outside of that is all the fields. So European villages are usually a lot more easier to defend because you have just a small central area. But here in the New World, the settlements are much more spread out. So he notices the horses and their qualities, and then he notices how the Canadian villages will be tougher to ah defend.
00:18:52
Speaker
He also notices an issue that is going to be more prevalent as the war goes on. i have the quote here in French, so I will translate. And it's like, and as every Canadian is member of the militia, and that we are pulling a lot of them to go off to war, the few that remain do not suffice to cultivate the lands, to raise cattle, and to go hunting, which will cause a great rarity and expensiveness for life.
00:19:22
Speaker
ah So we'll see that ah a lot in the next years of this podcast, but he's noticing like knows how the manpower shortage is going to be an issue. Yes, because if you're using like half of your manpower to go off to war, who's bringing in the harvest?
00:19:37
Speaker
And that will be an issue. That's crazy that it was. So moo it's crazy that it was that obvious. um You know, I think like, well yeah, he immediately notices that we're like, oh, there's a manpower difference. But he him just arriving, he's like, ah all these people are in the military.
00:19:54
Speaker
It's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So ah when he arrives, he and his officers are going to start touring the
French Strategy Against Fort Oswego
00:20:01
Speaker
colony. They'll be in Quebec City. they look around the villages. They're going to go down to the Lake Champlain area and check out Fort Carillon.
00:20:09
Speaker
And he's going to like inspect its defenses. This also has the double effect of, since there's this increased French activity there, more like regulars arriving in Fort Carillon,
00:20:21
Speaker
The British colonies pick up on that and they start sending and diverting more troops towards Lake George, Lake Champlain, and that area, because they're like, oh, the French are massing. They're going to attack by by Lake George.
00:20:32
Speaker
But... Then Vaudreuil makes up his mind. he's you know He's still the head of the ah of the like campaigning, of the of the planning of of where they're going to attack. So he sends Montcalm instead to attack Fort Oswego.
00:20:48
Speaker
So it's kind of like ah a military, like a feint, faking out the enemy. They think they're attacking by Lake George, but instead... MoCom goes up to Fort Frontenac where the troops are gathered. Lots of regulars, lots of militiamen, lots of natives.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then from Fort Frontenac, they are then going to make their way south along Lake Ontario and towards Fort Oswego. Now, Jackson, was it a easy journey from Fort Frontenac to Fort Oswego?
00:21:21
Speaker
Well, really, we got to start the journey from Montreal ah because just past Montreal and the St. Lawrence there, I think especially at this time, and there might still be, i think there are still some rapids here, but it's a very tricky area to navigate. And I think I was reading Bougainville's journal and he was noting specifically, ah you know, how tricky the navigation was navigating the the tough currents, having to do portages at certain points.
00:21:47
Speaker
He was noting all the different islands they passed and everything in the in the middle of the river. So going westward from Montreal, very tough. Then they get to Fort Frontenac, which is now the the town of Kingston, Ontario, which is at the the opening, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence.
00:22:03
Speaker
Then they'll take boats down to close very close to Oswego and they'll end up i skipping ahead a little bit, but... They'll end up getting very close before they land and are finally spotted.
00:22:15
Speaker
but But before we get to that point, they've sent out some troops ahead of the main force. So Louis Colon de Villiers, he was the same de Villiers that forced George Washington to surrender, the brother of Trumanville.
00:22:30
Speaker
He is setting up a flying camp kind of close to Oswego. I think it's... might be nearby modern Sackets Harbor, New York, a little bit near like Watertown. But they're setting up a camp. He's got about a thousand men there and they are just constantly sending out harassing missions, you know interrupting supply, you know attacking small patrols, things like that.
00:22:53
Speaker
ah While at Fort Frontenac, they've got about 3,000 soldiers total between regulars, Marines, and Canadian militia, including about 250 Indians of various tribes.
00:23:04
Speaker
So, oh, and a little bit into logistics and how to, like, supply a force of this size. In one of their journals, it might have been Bougainville's, he mentioned some of the, like, quantities of supplies that were being gathered at Fort Frontenac for this attack. And he mentions he mentions things like...
00:23:24
Speaker
One of the issues was like they really needed to construct a number of ovens or like they needed like a certain certain personnel to construct these ovens because they were running all day to bake bread and rations for the soldiers.
00:23:37
Speaker
ah Soldiers at this point were eating things like salt pork, peas and bread for the most part. the The journal mentions there was 14,400 cannon shot, there, musket shot. And that was just for but that was just for the French soldiers. There's musket shot for the militia and Indians.
00:24:00
Speaker
And then Bougainville mentions that when they finally depart Fort Frontenac, the soldiers are getting full cartridge boxes and then the militia and colony troops are to have half a pound of powder and a pound of balls each.
00:24:12
Speaker
And they're leaving the fort on 100 bateaux, which are those like large, they're larger and flatter than canoes, or at least they're wider and flatter than canoes, often used for carrying maybe up to 20 troops at a time and supplies and things like that. um So this big little flotilla is now heading south almost directly south from Frontenac down towards Oswego.
00:24:35
Speaker
So on August 7th, Indians are specifically sent out to disrupt communications between Oswego and Albany. if you remember, Albany is like the British main civil hub in New York, but that's still a long way from Oswego. Yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
So yeah they're sending out troops to cut off messages, you know, and isolate this already isolated outpost. And if you remember from just a few months before this, that was the Battle of Fort Bull, which also interrupted supplies heading to Oswego and made it more vulnerable. so it's ah It's a ripe time to attack Fort Oswego. Vaudreuil made a good decision when he picked that as the target. I i believe the French also knew that there was a reduced garrison there from when William Shirley had it built up as well. i think there's I remember reading their scouts had revealed that when Loudon came over and he had reduced that garrison, that was tipped off by, by i think, native scouting parties.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think I had heard the same thing as well. So that's good that you brought that up. ah So yeah, everything's kind of falling in favor for the French here. They, they fainted the British in Lake Champlain. And then as they're moving to attack Oswego, they've got good intelligence that is, you know, putting the green light for them.
00:25:54
Speaker
So on August 9th and 10th, the French are moving. They've got some troops moving along the shore towards Oswego and then everybody else in the bateau. They're able to get very close before they end up getting spotted by a British patrol boat, which they chase off.
00:26:12
Speaker
And by August 10th, the troops and artillery have all disembarked and they're only like a few miles away from Fort Oswego at this point. So think before we get into the action of the battle, we should talk about the geography and layout of these the Fort Oswego, or technically the three forts that were there. Jack, before you get into that really quick, I want to talk about geography just a little bit before this with the the voyage of the French troops between Frontenac and Fort Oswego. So sure yeah we'll see this comes into play, but the the French bring artillery to this battle. Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
And the British commanders at the time, of John Mercer, and those stationed at Oswego, and also in the provincial government, didn't think the French could do that. They thought the the terrain between Oswego and the French Renac was too difficult to to navigate.
00:27:07
Speaker
And the French, like you said, you know, they avoided a lot of that by taking boats. But i I believe the French still had a pretty difficult journey between the two. i i I did read, i think one of these European officers, either Montcalm or Bougainville, did mention how these Great Lakes could be very difficult to navigate and have large waves, which could make traversing them difficult yeah i did hear i think didn't some of the troops take ground passage as well because i i was reading one of the primary sources on this subject i can't remember if this was montcalm's journal um i do remember a quote of one of the i don't know if was a french soldier french commander saying that like the only Like this ground had never been tracked in the only only roads in this area were rivers and they were ah they were bounded with rapids and waterfalls.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, that would definitely, like from Montreal to Frontenac, there would be rapids and some waterfalls for sure. From king or from Frontenac South, there could just be choppy water. but Okay, so maybe I'm thinking of rapid the journey between Montreal to Frontenac and then from Frontenac to Las Vegas.
00:28:17
Speaker
but trip Okay, yeah, that makes more sense. But yeah, though I mean, I think it's 3,000, the largest army we've seen yet. I believe so. I think that beats out Lake George. That definitely beats out the French on Lake George. And I think it beats out the British provincials at Lake George as well. So yes, I think we're getting to the largest numbers amassed at this point. All right.
00:28:42
Speaker
Yeah, so Oswego, Fort Oswego is on the Oswego River, you know, very niftily named. This river is going from south to north. I believe it starts in the Onondaga Lake.
00:28:55
Speaker
I think so, if I'm tracing this accurately on Google Maps here. Oh, it starts at the Onondaga. Yeah, you're right. or no or maybe onene i think it's a native lake um one of those two lakes but uh so it's going south to north up into lake ontario this is the british main like fur trade hub where they'd get they'd compete with the french for the great lakes fur trade and then send these down to albany through that portage trail we mentioned in the battle of football episode
00:29:26
Speaker
And there are a couple, three different British forts here on the east side of the river. There's a kind of heightened plateau and there is, that's where Fort, let me see Fort Ontario is.
00:29:41
Speaker
It is a stockaded fort, pretty small, About 500 yards away from fort ah old Fort Oswego on the other side of the river. There's about 300 men garrisoning it.
00:29:53
Speaker
And they've got, I have recorded here, eight cannons and a mortar. The old Fort Oswego is basically the fortified trading post on the west side of the river.
00:30:04
Speaker
They've got about, I have here a thousand fit men garrisoning at at the time the attack starts, but there's hundreds of them that are hundreds additional that are out of commission, sick, otherwise incapacitated and not able to fight.
00:30:19
Speaker
The old Fort Oswego had some earthworks and strong defenses to the west and south, but crucially it was weak to the east looking across the river towards Fort Ontario because Well, I'm assuming they figured, well, we have Fort Ontario over there, so we don't need to spend as much time strengthening the defenses the river. no one will ever attack us that way.
00:30:42
Speaker
No, no, no, no. ah And then there's a third so very so very small ramshackle kind of fort ah also in the area called Fort George.
00:30:52
Speaker
And before I have one last comment Fort Oswego, you have anything additional to add on those three forts? I just have the the pretty basic details on those. I do know that no one really, even today to this day, no one really knows where Fort George was because it wasn't well documented by... um by shirley who built it um i think they just mentioned that both forts were like 490 something yards away from fort oswego and we we know where fort ontario was um it was on the opposite side the river on those heights and we know that fort george was on the same side of the river as for us we go on the west side but from there we don't know whether it was 400 yards like northwest or 400 yard or yeah 490 yards southwest so that location today is still unknown um and we'll see why okay that makes me uh that makes me feel better because i love was looking at my notes i'm like oh i don't actually know where this other this third fort was that's because it uh is not it's no longer existing by the end we'll see yes spoiler um yeah so another reason for oswego was very important and
00:32:04
Speaker
Thank you for being patient. We'll get right into the battle after this comment here. Another reason it was critical was that it had a small shipyard at the fort. And this was, yes remember, this is the one place the British are contending the French on Lake Ontario. So they're also trying to build up a small fleet of lake ships,
00:32:24
Speaker
that you know we have cannon and they can attack the French by lake as well. And the French know this and they know the threat that it could pose if Fort Oswego remains untouched for another year or two.
00:32:38
Speaker
Bougainville, he writes, the English have three armed craft on the lake. Three others, more powerful than these, are about to be launched. If nothing happens before then, they will have control of the lake.
00:32:51
Speaker
So the the French do have some boats, some combat craft for the the Great Lakes, but um I think perhaps they might have gotten too used to being the only main power on the lake. And I'm guessing if these six total British craft were out and operational, that could probably outgun them, I'm assuming from his comment there.
00:33:14
Speaker
So very important for the French to disable, destroy, neutralize this Oswego threat. All right. So by August 11th, this is the start of
Siege Tactics at Fort Ontario
00:33:25
Speaker
the battle.
00:33:25
Speaker
The French approach Fort Ontario on the eastern side of the river, and they begin besieging it. So ah I'll go over a little bit about how siege warfare worked as a standard level, at least the standard practice in Europe, which, of course, Montcalm and his officers and his regulars brought over with them.
00:33:47
Speaker
So in general, siege craft was kind of a standardized by a French engineer, military engineer called Vauban. And the basic tactics were you first surround the enemy fort with a trent with two lines of trenches.
00:34:03
Speaker
So the first trench line is looking in at the fort. The second trench line is looking away just in case enemy reinforcements come. You know, you're not caught with your everyone focused in on the the place you're besieging, like you have protection on from both sides.
00:34:18
Speaker
from that outer trench, which might be, um it might be about 200 yards away, something like that, or maybe a little further. the ah The besieging army will begin making some zigzag trenches toward the wall.
00:34:35
Speaker
And the zigzag is very important because if they were just digging straight towards the wall, then the enemy cannons could line themselves up to shoot straight down the ter trench and do devastating damage to the attacking force.
00:34:48
Speaker
So they dig in zigzags and then they'll stop before they get there and start making another parallel trench. It was called like another trench ringing. It's kind of like a staging trench in a way, right? Yes. They're inching their way forward and then they're preparing new positions where they are in pretty good cover, but they can then perhaps bring in artillery batteries into this closer trench. So you can like, kind guaranteed to hit the enemy walls and yet your artillery is pretty protected because it's in these trenches.
00:35:19
Speaker
There are the cannons will usually be set up at different angles so they're not just hitting the walls dead on but they can also be fired along the walls. So if you could aim the cannon well you could get it to like get hit on top of the ramparts and kind of like go along the wall or go into the place that you're besieging. And then they'll, the engineers will start doing more zigzag trenches closer towards the walls. They might do another line of trenches, but the idea is start getting closer and closer, keep setting up those artillery battle batteries to, you know, hammer the fort from different angles.
00:35:52
Speaker
And then eventually you, you get earthworks up towards the wall where your, your own infantry are now protected and buffered and can fire right into or over the top of the edge of the enemy, ah the outer entrenchments that the enemy has. So it's a very methodical, it's almost guaranteed to succeed. I think Vauban claimed that like any fortress will fall in like 45 days or something.
00:36:20
Speaker
If you follow these procedures. Which sense. I mean, that's pretty much, pretty much the case. Completely mitigating the effectiveness of the cannon of the fort. I mean, once you get in close enough here with the, you're, I guess um in a way you're kind of outside of cannon effective range if you're that close because it can't unless they have like canister shot or something like that but I don't think that was widely used in this situation but regardless if you're in ah a zigzag trench or a parallel trench all you have to do is duck and these cannons aren't are going to do very minimal damage to the attacking force as they keep getting closer and closer exactly
00:36:58
Speaker
So yeah, this is definitely the science in military science. um So Fort Ontario with their eight cannons and mortar, they're trying to inflict what damage they as they can, but this is turning out to be a very efficient siege by the French.
00:37:12
Speaker
um they're It's looking very grim for the Fort Ontario garrison. there' it's not look It's looking like the French are about to just bombard it to shreds.
00:37:23
Speaker
Eventually on August 13th, the British official in command, I think he was a provincial, maybe of more detail on Hugh Mercer, Matt, but he ends up ordering the troops in Fort Ontario to flee across the river and join them at Oswego because he's like, you know, no use losing 300 men in a bloody siege there. Let's just consolidate our forces in the old Fort Oswego. Matt, do you have any extra info on Mercer? I do not. um I mean, i will we'll get to what happens to him pretty soon. I didn't look up too much. I didn't know if there's any background or anything. I don't know if much is known about him. Some of these like minor officers, there's really not much about him. Especially if, like Mercer, they have they share the same untimely Yes, I will say, though, that not about Mercer, but about Loudon just at this time. so
00:38:17
Speaker
Are we to the 12th yet, or are we still on the 11th of August? I was on August 13th at 5 p.m. is when Mercer orders the Fort Ontario garrison to retreat across river. so around this time on August 12th, Loudon received dispatch of the siege occurring and just then authorized reinforcements to go to the fort from, I believe it would be from probably around... If it's not Albany, and it would have to be like...
00:38:47
Speaker
well so Do you know where the reinforcements were coming from? don't for sure, but I do know that they got to the Great Carrying Place that we've talked about before. they got When they arrived there, they learned of what happens at Fort Oswego, and they decided not to.
00:39:02
Speaker
uh they didn't say not yeah i was gonna say by the time for like a letter or a message to get to wherever loudon was like set up and then for him to order reinforcements and that message to go and then for the reinforcements to get i would imagine that would take like weeks uh yeah so however that makes sense there's really no time yeah to react it took them two days to get to oneida carry and then they they turned around so yeah Okay, yeah. So this these garrisons at the Forts of Oswego are on their own.
00:39:35
Speaker
So the French now take control of what remains Fort Ontario. I don't don't have specifically noted how long they had bombarded it or even if they had like started to bombard it yet, but there's at least some things remaining of Fort Ontario. I know that because the French ah move their own cannons into it.
00:39:57
Speaker
because of course the British provincials had spiked their guns, you know rendered them useless so that the French couldn't use them against them. But French have plenty of their own artillery.
Capture of Fort Oswego
00:40:05
Speaker
So they bring in their cannons, they set them up, they start aiming across the river at old Fort Oswego. And because they're on this raised plateau, they've got like a perfect sight line at the fort.
00:40:16
Speaker
And that is the fort's weak side where the defenses are not strong enough. So once this French barrage starts, it is going to be devastating. And as we see in August 14th, the next day, the bombardment, it does, works as perfect as can be. We'll it's decapitating.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yes. So at around 9 a.m., the French bombardment from across the river ends up killing Colonel Mercer, i guess decapitating him, which I didn't know the details. I guess I wouldn't say stray cannonball, but a cannonball is shot into Fort Oswego from Fort Ontario and beheads him. And at the sight of that, the British defenders immediately raise the white flag. oh not Not quite yet.
00:41:05
Speaker
so Oh, i thought it was immediate. so That's what i read. Within an hour. so but there's something else happens so within that hour that I wanted to mention. So I couldn't let us jump right to that. So, yeah, bombardment like immediately kills the commander. It's damaging the walls heavily. But another French-Canadian officer, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavaignan, so he's the brother of Governor Vaudreuil,
00:41:32
Speaker
He is leading a force of Canadian militia and Indians across the Oswego River further upstream. And right about at the time that this bombardment is happening and Mercer gets killed, they suddenly appear in the tree line south of Fort Oswego, hooting and hollering and firing their muskets. There's ah at least a few hundred of them, I believe.
00:41:53
Speaker
Sorry for the coughing. So with their commander dead and then a suddenly unexpected new French force across the river, that is what compels the second in command lieutenant colonel john little hails to surrender at 10 a.m that morning well think i guess that that would make sense i when i was reading um i think it was one of the british sources were like oh you know mercer gets beheaded and i mean it's the immediate it's basically immediately yeah it's within an that makes sense though that this other force shows up and they're like oh my god like we can't defend against that yeah I know too that there is the French who deployed natives to, to kind of patrol the area between Fort Oswego and Fort George to prevent any reinforcements or anything coming from Fort George. And so they were attacking anybody that was was trying to move between the forts as well. So they really did isolate Fort Oswego. Although I think Fort George had a very small garrison anyways, but. Yeah, I believe so. I think I had read somewhere it was also called like Fort Rascal because that's how like shoddy it was and how miserable and crammed it was.
00:43:04
Speaker
I don't even think it had like firing holes. I think it was like a stockade with some troops inside, but I, I feel like I read that somewhere. I don't know, but yeah. So battle's now over August 14th. So all in all, the siege itself just lasted. Sorry. About three days, August 11th to the 14th. So I guess four days, including the 11th, the garrison,
00:43:27
Speaker
of about 1,500 men, is going to be taken as prisoners. um Bournemouth is left in charge of Oswego with about 300 men. They're going to destroy the forts and take what goods that they may from there.
00:43:43
Speaker
And around the same time as this surrender is happening, French-allied Indians end up killing about 50 to 100 British who are fleeing the battle. or are prisoners. I couldn't get the exact breakdown of like, was this an example of people surrendering, being handed over, but then some kind of misunderstanding between the natives and the French and they're killed. Or if these are people like you mentioned, Matt, that we're trying to leave the fort or flee from the fort as this was happening. And then the Indians cut them down. I couldn't, what i I guess what I understood from what I had read was that when they opened the gates of the fort, the natives entered and immediately immediately went after the sick and the wounded and killed them. And that was a big affront to the British. There were a lot of sick and wounded at that fort. Yes, exactly. They were promised terms, obviously, by the French upon their surrender to be treated peacefully. And then the natives went in. And I believe there's like a motcom, I think it was motcom's quote, ah saying that the natives, when they're intoxicated, he uses the word, are uncontrolled. and But then but the the French, obviously, were in a weird situation. Because like do you then prevent your ally from attacking your defeated enemy and your ally that you really rely on for yeah broader strategy yeah very difficult situation and probably embarrassing too for these european nobles who are so used to like gentlemanly war in europe and then they come here and see their allies are slaughtering wounded
00:45:22
Speaker
enemy especially because this would have been this would have been comp's first experience too yeah native warriors so yeah first uh first engagement for him and his officers in north america to see him like sitting there like oh my god yeah what these people do yeah ah yeah so casualties from this fair there's about 80 english i think that's from the fighting itself not the 50 to 100 uh killed at the close of the battle that we just discussed and then about 30 french so as far as an attacking force
00:45:56
Speaker
ah The French got off pretty well, casualty-wise, because typically when you attack a fortified area, you're going to take more casualties. But I think the way the geography, the calm, methodical science, used war science used by the French and a couple other, the isolation of Oswego all ended up really helping the the French have a smooth and speedily ah capture of the forts at Oswego.
00:46:24
Speaker
So some aftermath effects from this battle. So within immediately within the following days, the prisoners are shipped off to New France, supplies are taken and the forts
Aftermath and Native Alliances
00:46:35
Speaker
are burned. One thing that surprised me that when I was researching this was that Mount Column actually did not grant the British defenders the honors of war, which was...
00:46:46
Speaker
kind of uncommon. You remember like Fort fort Necessity, you know, ah the French commander gave Washington and his troops the honors war. They were allowed to march off with their like weapons and the symbolic cannon and all of that.
00:47:00
Speaker
But Montcala felt that the British defense was weak and insufficient and not enough to merit the honors of war. So they actually take the whole garrison prisoner and send them back up to New France.
00:47:16
Speaker
He's like, you we beheaded one guy and you saw some natives in the woods and you surrendered. He didn't even defend Oswego by bayonet points. What do you talking about? Why did i bake all that bread and bring all those troops?
00:47:30
Speaker
So the army with these prisoners returns to Montreal. ah There's a question of like, with all this momentum the French had, was there anywhere else they could have pushed after this big, quick victory?
00:47:44
Speaker
The answer, at least to the French, is probably not. you know, we've talked before about how isolated Oswego was just geographically. So there really wasn't anywhere they could immediately push with all these gathered men.
00:47:57
Speaker
ah You know, even if they head towards the great carrying place, you know, maybe they could hit a couple of forts there. But getting there is going to be very difficult and their native support is going to leave.
00:48:09
Speaker
It's also getting late in the season. The harvest is coming up. So the militiamen need to get back. So because this is yeah mid-August by this point. So it's a great victory for the French, but there's nowhere else they can kind of push from this. It's just ah an isolated target.
00:48:25
Speaker
um another result from this native tribes continue to flock to the french uh although pierre pusho who was an officer a french canadian officer at this battle and he will show up later in the war uh being the captain of fort niagara he notes something very important though i've got the quote here i'll translate uh regarding these native tribes he says although some of them are uh like very dear to us or very close to us or are very affectionate towards us.
00:48:58
Speaker
ah Most do not like Europeans except for what is to their interest. So even though France is the majority of native support, they're definitely, they understand that a lot of these native tribes are only helping them because it helps the natives. There's only a few tribes that are like devotedly attached to the French, like as a principle.
00:49:20
Speaker
Hmm. So that's interesting. Yeah. So that was is interesting for me to read that know that that was recognized at that time, which I mean, I guess makes sense. These people know their diplomatic military situation. But yeah, as we'll see later on in the war, a lot of that native sport will end up drying up.
00:49:38
Speaker
I wanted to add one thing. This didn't really come up earlier, but one of the reasons, well, I mean, it's probably a minor reason in the grand scheme of things, but um the French had targeted Oswego, obviously for strategic importance, but they also knew that I guess that I this i read this, I forget where I read this, but um apparently the British had been distributing alcohol to the local natives around Fort Oswego, as well some of the colonists, but mostly the natives and the French were concerned about the natives like...
00:50:18
Speaker
getting too disorderly in this region um and from this alcohol distribution they knew it was coming from fort oswego as well so that was one of the motivators for this attack which i don't i don't know ah how like how much truth there is to that um i just read that i i think it was trying to remember where i read that at now um It might have been one of the primary sources. That makes sense. I feel like I'd read elsewhere, like maybe something with the Ohio country. I can't remember exactly you know where i read it either. But there, oh, there was, who was it? It might have been Andrew Montour, like half native, half French Canadian living in the Ohio country.
00:51:03
Speaker
i think it was him. Or Chartier, Peter Chartier, one of those, but he was like half native, half colonist. But he in the Ohio country was specifically requesting like the British colonial government to like not sell alcohol to the natives for similar reason, because it would cause them to, well, there's a lot of violent things that can happen. And he was concerned yeah like we had seen in Pennsylvania, Indians getting drunk and then being taken advantage of by British officials having them like sign away their land while they're intoxicated and stuff like that. So but that is a ah ah concern that is echoed in other areas of this, this part of the world too.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. That was just interesting. Oh man. Like Fort Oswego was a bootlegger site. That's interesting. Yeah. interesting Um, last aftermath bit I have here before we wrap up the episode is that, uh, I'll just read from my notes here. Well, at a glance, this expedition is a remarkable success for the joint French and Canadian leadership of the war effort with Vaudry, him planning it, and then gathering and marshalling all of the different militia and natives together. And then you have Mount Column with the actual execution of the campaign and the siege and his leadership of the army. So it looks like it's really great on the surface.
00:52:21
Speaker
The rift between the france the french france French and then the canadian French-Canadian worlds will only continue to grow. So the European soldiers, kind of like we've mentioned a little, the officers, they were shocked by the brutality of American frontier warfare, and they disliked serving alongside the Indians whose customs and treatments of prisoners horrified them.
00:52:47
Speaker
And you can imagine like for them, it's hard to think of themselves as the good guys when your allies torture and scalp surrendered enemies. So this is going to cause, ah you know, there's already the standard European American rift on the France's side, but this is only going to start widening that the French regular soldiers are kind of like look with scorn and disdain at the Canadians and the the natives and the same thing with the officers between the two sides And montcal um Montcalm and Vaudreuil, as the war goes on, are only going to get a worse and worse working relationship, which we will explore later on in the podcast.
Impact on British Defenses
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah. And then, Jackson, if you want, I can touch base on the British side of things. Yeah, please do. you know, this the the fall Fort Oswego revealed a lot of weaknesses in the British frontier defenses. This was their main source of contesting the Great Lakes. against the French, especially Lake Ontario, which they lost. so And we'll see this just leads to kind of a domino effect of events that are going to happen throughout the rest of 1756 into 1757. And it really, I mean, as I talked about in the beginning of the episode, it highlights Loudoun's lack of understanding of frontier warfare. And he was actually known as like the master of army paperwork and not... um
00:54:12
Speaker
it wasn't really a frontiersman he didn't understand uh the defenses needed on the frontier and how like losing these forts was ceding more and more power to the french at the time which like i said it's going to be a domino effect um but yeah so i think it's just you know it's going to culminate in a lot of uh not so great things for the british uh losing this one It's funny, it's like ah it's a key stronghold for them. It was their only fort on Lake Ontario, whereas you know the the French had both Frontenac and Niagara. So you you would think they would follow something like what William Shirley wanted to do, where you would you know put a pretty large garrison there and use it as a staging ground for future attacks. But it was kind of forgotten about in 56. We see the outcome of that. So um yeah we'll see the british kind of reeling here a bit which i mean nice like they have been in the time was not a good year for the british war effort no if you're a british fan to stick around stick it out for a bit i promise it'll get better but um yeah well loudon's in charge not so much uh but yeah
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, one last tiny fun little note. Another, i guess, aftermath effect. When I was looking at Oswego and Google Maps, I noticed they had like a historical district and one of the streets in Oswego, the current town there, is called Montcalm Street. And I think there's like a little plaque on ah like a rock.
00:55:39
Speaker
I'm assuming that talks about him a little bit. So that was a fun little detail. There's a, I think there's a small little Montcalm Park as well. um It's kind of neat that the town is in touch with its history and can acknowledge or honor the important characters on both sides of the conflict. And I know they got they have several streets here named after the different Indian tribes around as well. so it's neat neat of them and that oh it looks like there's a fort ontario historic site where uh oh i think that's a different fort ontario from like the war of 1812 actually never mind yeah there's also a there's also a battle fort oswego in the war of 1812 or yeah it's like kind of more of a raid than it is a battle but yeah uh which is funny because it's now then the british i think in that one are attacking for us do very confusing time yes But yeah, um so yeah, that is the Battle Fort Oswego.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:56:37
Speaker
Hope you guys enjoyed that one. it was a lot of fun to research. You know, we've now unlocked a couple new primary sources like Moccolm's journal, Bougainville's journal. So it's it's fun to be able to use that to lean on as well.
00:56:50
Speaker
um But yeah, this is a good one. i think next up, we're going to take a brief break from North America and check in finally. with what's going on in Europe in 1756. You know, we want to definitely have a North American focus for this podcast because we're calling this the French and Indian War, not the Seven Years War. But yeah um it's still important to understand what's going on there because it's all going to be interconnected in some way.
00:57:17
Speaker
So we'll take a look at what's going on in Europe in this year at a very high level overview. um But yeah yeah, anything else to add, Matt? uh no i'm excited to talk about that i guess our friend ben always makes fun of me for this but we'll have one more thing yeah yeah you always say no i got nothing to except i do want to say i said this one little thing that i'm gonna add um The reason we're talking about the international conflict this next episode is because it took a little bit longer for the international European conflict to evolve. the
00:57:54
Speaker
you know This war really did start on the North American continent, as we've talked about. So as you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for last year, we've been fighting in North America for about two years now.
00:58:05
Speaker
um The European side is just now going to start kind of kicking off. So ah we are still technically going chronologically. We're not going to be bouncing in time too much. I mean, well, one of the problems here is so much has happened in this late summer of 1756. Catanning was in, i think, early September or August.
00:58:24
Speaker
um The Oswego is in August of 1756. And then one of the like kickstarters of the European war is also going to be in like late summer 1756. So there's just a lot going on. So it's hard to go exactly chronologically when there's all these overlapping things, but we're trying our best to mostly stick chronologically here.
00:58:46
Speaker
They all had to wait until the weather got a little bit cooler. Nice balmy. And then they could start. Yeah, they could start fighting. But yes, so. But looking forward to it. All right, yeah. I hope you all have a good rest of your day or evening or wherever you are. And we will catch you on the next one coming out probably in a couple weeks or so.
00:59:06
Speaker
I also want to say really quick, thank you for everyone who's left comments on our show on Spotify and Apple. We see them. Appreciate We've gotten a few in the last week about yeah our games episode and some of the other fun episodes we've done recently. So we we appreciate that and keep leaving us suggestions and comments. Yes.
00:59:26
Speaker
We'll plan episodes around them like we've we've done before. so Yeah. Highly interactive podcast here. Take advantage of it. All right. Take care. We'll see you in the next one.