CHAPTER XXI. 1758. FORT FRONTENAC. JOHN THE ROUTED ARMY. - INDIGNATION AT ABERCROMBIE. CLEAVELAND AND HIS BROTHER CHAPLAINS. - REGULARS AND PROVINCIALS. - PROVINCIAL SURGEONS. FRENCH RAIDS. ROGERS DEFEATS MARIN. THE rashness of Abercrombie before the fight was matched by his poltroonery after it. Such was his terror that on the evening of his defeat he sent an order to Colonel Cummings, commanding at Fort William Henry, to send all the sick and wounded and all the heavy artillery to New York without delay.1 He himself followed so closely upon this disgraceful missive that Cummings had no time to obey it. The defeated and humbled troops proceeded to reoccupy the ground they had left a few days before in the flush of confidence and pride; and young Colonel Williams, of Massachusetts, lost no time in sending the miserable story to his uncle Israel. His letter, which is dated "Lake George (sorrowful 1 Cunningham, aide-de-camp of Abercrombie, to Cummings, 8 July, 1758. situation), July y 11th," ends thus: "I have told facts; you may put the epithets upon them. In one word, what with fatigue, want of sleep, exercise of mind, and leaving the place we went to capture, the best part of the army is unhinged. I have told enough to make you sick, if the relation acts on you as the facts have on me." In the routed army was the sturdy John Cleaveland, minister of Ipswich, and now chaplain of Bagley's Massachusetts regiment, who regarded the retreat with a disgust that was shared by many others. "This day," he writes in his Diary, at the head of Lake George, two days after the battle, 66 wherever I went I found people, officers and soldiers, astonished that we left the French ground, and commenting on the strange conduct in coming off." From this time forth the provincials called their commander Mrs. Nabbycrombie.' He thought of nothing but fortifying himself. "Towards evening," continues the chaplain, "the General, with his Rehoboam counsellors, came over to line out a fort on the rocky hill where our breastwork was last year. Now we begin to think strongly that the grand expedition against Canada is laid aside, and a foundation made totally to impoverish our country." The whole army was soon intrenched. The chaplain of Bagley's, with his brother Ebenezer, chaplain of another regiment, one day walked round the camp 1 Trumbull, Hist. Connecticut, ii. 392. "Nabby" (Abigail) was then a common female name in New England. and carefully inspected it. The tour proved satisfactory to the militant divines, and John Cleaveland reported to his wife: "We have built an extraordinary good breast work, sufficient to defend ourselves against twenty thousand of the enemy, though at present we have not above a third part of that number fit for duty." Many of the troops had been sent to the Mohawk, and others to the Hudson. In the regiment of which Cleaveland was chaplain there was a young surgeon from Danvers, Dr. Caleb Rea, who also kept a copious diary, and, being of a serious turn, listened with edification to the prayers and exhortations to which the yeoman soldiery were daily summoned. In his zeal, he made an inquest among them for singers, and chose the most melodious to form a regimental choir, "the better to carry on the daily service of singing psalms;" insomuch that the New England camp was vocal with rustic harmony, sincere, if somewhat nasal. These seemly observances were not inconsistent with a certain amount of disorder among the more turbulent spirits, who, removed from the repressive influence of tightlaced village communities, sometimes indulged in conduct which grieved the conscientious surgeon. The rural New England of that time, with its narrowness, its prejudices, its oddities, its combative energy, and rugged, unconquerable strength, is among the things of the past, or lingers in remote corners where the whistle of the locomotive is never heard. It has spread itself in swarming millions over half a continent, changing with changing conditions; and even the part of it that clings to the ancestral hive has transformed and continues to transform itself. The provincials were happy in their chaplains, among whom there reigned a marvellous harmony, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists meeting twice a week to hold prayer-meetings together. "A rare instance indeed," says Dr. Rea, "and perhaps scarce ever was an army blessed with such a set of chaplains before." On one occasion, just before the fatal expedition, nine of them, after prayers and breakfast, went together to call upon the general. "He treated us very kindly," says the chaplain of Bagley's, "and told us that he hoped we would teach the people to do their duty and be courageous; and told us a story of a chaplain in Germany, where he was, who just before the action told the soldiers he had not time to say much, and therefore should only say: 'Be courageous; for no cowards go to heaven.' The General treated us to a bowl of punch and a bottle of wine, and then we took our leave of him." 1 When Cleaveland and the more gifted among his brethren preached of a Sunday, officers and men of the regulars, no less than the provincials, came to listen; yet that pious Sabbatarian, Dr. Rea, saw 1 For the use of the Diary of Chaplain Cleaveland, as well as of his letters to his wife, I am indebted to the kindness of Miss Abby E. Cleaveland, his descendant. much to afflict his conscience. "Sad, sad it is to see how the Sabbath is profaned in the camp," above all by "the horrid custom of swearing, more especially among the regulars; and I can't but charge our defeat on this sin." It would have been well had the harmony that prevailed among the chaplains found its counterpart among the men of the sword; but between the British regular officers and those of the provinces there was anything but an equal brotherhood. It is true that Pitt, in the spirit of conciliation which he always showed towards the colonies, had procured a change in the regulations concerning the relative rank of British and provincial officers, thus putting them in a position much nearer equality; but this, while appeasing the provincials, seems to have annoyed the others. Till the campaign was nearly over, not a single provincial colonel had been asked to join in a council of war; and, complains Cleaveland, "they know no more of what is to be done than a sergeant, till the orders come out." Of the British officers, the greater part had seen but little active service. Most of them were men of family, exceedingly prejudiced and insular, whose knowledge of the world was limited to certain classes of their own countrymen, and who looked down on all others, whether domestic or foreign. Towards the provincials their attitude was one of tranquil superiority, though its tranquillity was occasionally disturbed by what they regarded as absurd pretension on the part of the |