The French and Indian WarStuff Happened · War
Battle · 1758
The Battle of Carillon
Battle of Carillon, 1758 · from Tuttle's History of the Dominion of Canada · circa 1877 · public domain
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The army on the lake
The largest army in America
Pitt aimed three blows at New France in 1758, and the middle one came up Lake George: the largest army ever assembled in North America, rowing north to take the gate into Canada. Then, in the first skirmish, it lost the one man it could not lose.
2The wall of logs
The abatis
Badly outnumbered, Montcalm built a log breastwork fronted by acres of sharpened felled trees. Abercromby, trusting a false report and refusing to bring up his guns, sent flesh against timber, again and again.
3After the wall
The cost
One of the bloodiest British defeats of the war, two thousand men spent in a few hours in front of a wall of logs, the end of one general’s career, and a victory so total it bought New France nothing.