Montcalm, and the principal French officers, did everything
short of the only effectual step, namely, the ordering up of the French
regular troops to save the English. They ran about among the yelling
Indians, imploring them to desist, but in vain.
Some seven or eight hundred of the English were seized and carried off
by the savages, while some seventy or eighty were massacred on the
spot. The column attempted no resistance. None had ammunition, and, of
the colonial troops, very few were armed with bayonets. Had any
resistance been offered, there can be no doubt all would have been
massacred by the Indians.
Many of the fugitives ran back to the fort, and took refuge there, and
Montcalm recovered from the Indians more than four hundred of those
they had carried off. These were all sent under a strong guard to Fort
Edward. The greater part of the survivors of the column dispersed into
the woods, and made their way in scattered parties to Fort Edward. Here
cannon had been fired at intervals, to serve as a guide to the
fugitives, but many, no doubt, perished in the woods. On the morning
after the massacre the Indians left in a body for Montreal, taking with
them two hundred prisoners, to be tortured and murdered on their return
to their villages.
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