A large majority of Americans of today only know the name “Cape Breton” as an island somewhere off the coast of Nova Scotia. The name “Louisburg” means little or nothing except to those whose affairs call them to that still aristocratic section of Boston which lies on Beacon Hill behind the State House, where Louisburg Square can be found. Many are aware that this square takes its name from some achievement of colonial days; few are aware that this achievement was one of the greatest military feats of history. For Louisburg was one of the greatest fortresses in the world, garrisoned by regular soldiers of the foremost military nation of Europe, and it surrendered to the most hopeless, raw, and ill-equipped expeditionary force ever gotten together.
As a matter of national pride one should remember this first siege and capture of Louisburg. It was carried out by less than four thousand of our colonists recruited from every trade and industry, without military training, scantily equipped but fearless and resolute, led by an unmilitary merchant colonel fresh from his store at Kittery Point, and assisted in a rather perfunctory fashion by a British fleet under Commodore Warren. We should remember that this strong fortress was garrisoned by about twenty-five hundred men, one-third of them professional soldiers and marines of France, the remainder Cape Breton militia, hunters and trappers accustomed to arms and accurate shooting. We should remember, too, that this action had far-reaching effects on our history never dreamed of by those who took part in it.
The siege took place in 1745, toward the end of the half century of conflict between England and France for the possession of North America, and within fifteen years of the final expulsion of France from Canada. During the early course of the wars, the French had constructed a huge fortress at Louisburg on the most easterly point of Cape Breton Island. This fortress and the royal battery across the harbor from the city dominated the Cabot Strait, the main gateway to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The protected harbor furnished a base for French naval forces which could deny access to Canada to an invading force from sea. Its capture would be the first step in any effort to invade Canada, for the sea offered the only pathway for such an invasion. The harbor also served as a base for privateers operating against shipping off the New England coast. New Englanders had already built up a large carrying trade and fishing industry so that these privateers caused constant losses to the colonists. Also raiding expeditions on Nova Scotia were being organized at Louisburg and these might easily be extended to New England. The colonists were therefore very anxious to pull this thorn in their sides.
In May, 1744, came the event that brought this desire to active measures. Before the news of another outbreak of war between England and France reached the colonies a body of French troops from Cape Breton Island crossed the narrow strait to Nova Scotia, surprised the small English garrison at Canseau (Canso) and destroyed the fort, fisheries, and other buildings there. They then returned to Louisburg taking eighty men with them as prisoners of war, kept them there through the summer, and then sent them to Boston on parole. It is probable that there was not enough food to support this number of prisoners through the long winter.
As events shaped out it would have been better economy to have held the prisoners. William Shirley, the able governor of Massachusetts, talked with these men and learned from them the bad condition of affairs at Louisburg as well as the low morale of its garrison. This news convinced him that a good opportunity was presented for reducing the fort and capturing the city if operations could be started in the early spring before reënforcements and supplies could be landed. He determined to organize an expedition with such forces and material as could be got together in the colonies, and wrote Commodore Warren, the commander of a British squadron then based at Antigua, asking him for the assistance of his ships. Commodore Warren refused, because no instructions to that effect had been received from England.
This threw the governor back on such resources as were immediately available in the colonies. He gained the consent of his legislature by a majority of one vote and made an appeal to the other colonies for assistance. He then looked about for a man fit to command this expedition. There were plenty of men who had had experience in fighting Indians but in all New England there was not a man who had even taken part in a siege of a fortified town or had laid a piece of artillery for battering purposes. He was therefore forced to find some man who could command sufficient confidence to lead men to a pitched battle with trained white soldiers.
The choice fell on Colonel William Pepperrell, Jr., the colonel in command of all the militia in the “District of Maine” as it was then called, the present state of Maine then being part of the colony of Massachusetts. He had been born at Kittery Point on June 27, 1696, one of eight children. He had been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, surveying, and navigation. For a time he had served as a clerk in his father’s store and on several occasions had helped in fighting off Indian attacks. Pepperrell was one of the wealthy men of the colony whose business was exportation of fish and other commodities to the West Indies. He became counselor of Massachusetts and later chief justice of the colony. At twenty-seven he had married Mary Hirst, the daughter of a rich Boston merchant, and had an unusually small family for the time, four children, of whom only two survived infancy. He contributed £5,000 toward the expenses of the expedition, possibly one of the reasons that influenced the governor to select him for the command.
Colonel Pepperrell’s orders were rather remarkable. He was instructed to gather together a force of a hundred vessels and storeships at Boston, load them as soon as possible, and proceed to the Strait of Canseau. He was to build a blockhouse on the shore, set up a battery and hospital there, and leave two companies as a garrison. From there he was to sail with his fleet and transports to Gabarus Bay, a distance of sixty miles. He was to time his movements so as to arrive with all his force at Gabarus Bay just after dark, land his troops under cover of darkness, and commence his attack on the near-by fortress of Louisburg without delay. To carry out these orders involved getting a hundred sailing vessels of various sizes and abilities together and keeping them in touch, getting them to their destination at a precise hour after a sixty-mile trip, entering an uncharted harbor after sundown, landing troops in the dark, and making a night march through four miles of forest and swamp to the objective. With the best-trained forces in the world this would have been a difficult task provided there was no opposition from the enemy. With ship captains unused to sailing together, untrained troops under amateur officers, and enemy opposition to meet, the task became well-nigh impossible. These orders are mentioned as an excellent example as to how orders should not be written and as an illustration of the amateur character of the expedition. Had the commander felt bound to carry them out, disaster would have resulted, if not from the dangers of navigation, certainly from enemy attack while landing and marching through the forest by night.
At this point it is well to consider the nature of the fortress this expedition was ordered to capture. The fortress itself was built of stone after the well-known “Vauban” type, having six flanking bastions, with walls forty feet thick at the base and twenty to thirty feet high. It was surrounded on the land side by a flooded moat eighty feet wide. On page 80 is a photograph of a model of it, showing the general layout. The armament of the fort consisted of 101 cannon, 76 swivels, and 6 mortars. An island battery at the harbor mouth mounted thirty 32-pounders. The royal battery across the harbor mouth was armed with twenty-eight 42-pounders and two 18’s, making a grand total of 243 pieces of artillery of all sorts. As stated before, the garrison consisted of 2,500 men, regular soldiers, marines, and militia.
To capture this fortress Governor Shirley had collected a total of 3,820 men, 18 pieces of light artillery, and 3 mortars. Massachusetts furnished 3,000 men, Connecticut 516, and New Hampshire 304. The Rhode Island contingent failed to arrive at Cape Breton until after the surrender. New York furnished ten pieces of artillery and Pennsylvania some provisions. There was practically no war equipment. Medical and other stores were sadly lacking. It seems today that it must have been the height of folly to pit this ill-equipped force with its few tiny guns against the walls of Louisburg with its huge armament and a garrison but little smaller than the force sent to capture it. The essence of the plan was to start the siege before supplies could reach the garrison in the spring.
With this last idea in mind, the leaders set to work with energy. It speaks well for the shipping resources of New England that the hundred vessels required were assembled in Nantasket Roads in eight weeks. Early in March, 1745, some were detached to cruise off Louisburg and intercept any French supply ships that might try to make port on the first break-up of the ice. On March 24, the Massachusetts troops sailed away for Sheepscot (now Wiscasset, Maine) where they were to anchor for three days.
A day of fasting and prayer was especially appointed for the entire colony. The men of this expedition set out piously believing that Christ was their leader. There were many among them who fully believed that a God who
Having the ordering of every weapon in its first produce,
Guiding every shaft that flies,
Leading every bullet to His place of settling,
And weapon to the wound it makes,
would grant them victory. A really marvelous faith, which could hardly have been applied to the munition factories or the ammunition dumps of the nations involved in the World War. They arrived at Canseau, Nova Scotia, on the first of April, 1745. The New Hampshire troops were a few days ahead of them and those from Connecticut arrived ten days later. They all had to wait for the ice to leave the coast before proceeding further. Finally after a month’s delay they got away for Gabarus Bay. Light winds caused them to be twelve hours making the sixty-mile passage. Before their departure a squadron under Commodore Warren arrived from Antigua to the great delight of the colonists, instructions having been received from England to cooperate with Governor Shirley. It can be easily imagined what a relief this must have been to the poorly equipped expedition. On the last day of April, 1745, the hundred New England craft of all sorts sailed into Gabarus Bay on Cape Breton Island, in plain sight of the garrison of Louisburg.
As soon as the anchors of the fleet were down, these brave New Englanders were wild to get ashore and commence operations against this place, now in plain sight. A few French came down to oppose their landing but were quickly put to flight. The next day a detachment of 400 men led by William Vaughan, a New Hampshire volunteer, marched by Louisburg, out of range, giving three cheers as they passed, and took post near the northeast harbor. This so terrified the French who manned the royal battery on the mainland commanding the entrance to the harbor, that they abandoned it, spiked its guns, and fled into the city during the night. Troops from the fort attempted to retake it in the morning but were prevented from landing by a handful of colonists. Major Seth Pomroy, a volunteer gunsmith from Massachusetts, supervised twenty other gunsmiths in drilling out the spikes, thus giving to the attackers twenty-eight 42-pounders and two 18’s, to add to their scanty supply of artillery. These were promptly opened on the fortress using French ammunition.
Thus began this audacious and astonishing siege under the hardest possible conditions for the attackers. They had no tents or shelter of any kind and were compelled to construct huts made of the limbs of trees covered with mud. Nor had they anything which an army usually takes with it on such an expedition. It should also be kept in mind that this was early May in a cold northern latitude where there were no planned encampments, no discipline, and no special respect for officers or orders. The men slept on the cold ground anywhere it pleased them and regulations were nonexistent. When not engaged in fighting they went hunting or fishing, fired at marks, wrestled with each other, or went racing after spent cannon balls fired from the fort. It is a wonder that half of them lived to see the siege through.
At the same time the attack was commenced and carried along in a very businesslike manner. In front of the city was a large swamp, deemed impassable for either men or artillery. It was decided to get some of the fieldpieces across this for closer range, so sledges were constructed from limbs of trees and men harnessed to them. Progress was so slow that it required fourteen nights of wading through icy water and mud up to the hips to drag the guns to the desired positions, where their work was most effective. Meantime Commodore Warren guarded any approach of hostile ships from the sea. An attempt was made to take the island battery which commanded the entrance to the harbor by some volunteers under a leader of their own choosing. A murderous fire swept their boats before they could land and drove them off with a loss of 60 killed and 116 prisoners. With tremendous toil under heavy fire a party, under the direction of one Gridley of Boston, erected a battery on the lighthouse cliff near the north cape of the harbor. This battery fired into the city and on to the island battery.
Meanwhile trenches had been thrown up within two hundred yards of the city and captured guns from the royal battery were now fired upon it. Still no breach could be effected. For six weeks the colonists’ guns poured shot and shell into the doomed city. During this time the British fleet decoyed a large French supply ship named the Vigilant into their midst and captured it. The colonial army was wearing out. Many of the men were barefooted and were clad only in rags. There was much serious illness and practically no medical supplies. It was finally agreed between Commodore Warren and Colonel Pepperrell that when the wind should be favorable the ships should sail into the narrow harbor entrance and bombard the city and that an assault on the land side should be made at the same time by all the troops. The wind never did get into the right quarter, but it was arranged that the plan should get to the French commander of the city, Governor Du Chambon.
Up to this time over 9,000 cannon balls and 600 bombs had been fired into the fort. Many of the barracks had been burned and most of the guns of the work dismounted. Many of the defenders and civilians had been killed and discouragement was rife, as the walls were partly breached. The daily details of this remarkable undertaking are a matter of military history.
On June 15, the governor sent a note to Colonel Pepperrell asking him to consider terms of capitulation. Commodore Warren happened to be ashore at that time, and he and the colonel sent a joint note in reply saying that they had just decided on a joint attack but would allow him until eight o’clock the following morning to surrender himself and troops as prisoners of war.
Governor Du Chambon, by this time thoroughly discouraged, agreed to surrender the city, batteries, and fortifications June 17. (How little did any of the attacking forces realize that only thirty years later, the same date would become famous for the battle of Bunker Hill and the beginning of the separation of the colonies from the British Crown.)
The reasons why the governor was discouraged are as follows, and they seem to have been ample. Eleven heavy British ships carrying from forty to sixty guns each were anchored in line off the city just out of gunshot. His island battery was under incessant fire and partially silenced by the colony lighthouse battery; his northeast battery was damaged and so exposed to the fire of the fascine (swamp) batteries that his men could not stand to their guns; his circular battery was ruined and most of the guns dismounted; the west gate was demolished and a breach made in the nearby wall; the west flank of the king’s bastion was nearly ruined; most of the inside houses had been burned; his troops were worn out by forty eight days of incessant siege with little or no chance to sleep. The force around him on sea and land could utterly destroy the fort and everybody in it when the chance came to make a joint attack. Moreover he was far from home with no chance whatever of any help from France.
By the capitulation, 650 veteran troops, 1,310 militiamen, the French naval crew from the Vigilant, and 2,000 inhabitants, a total of 4,130 in all, became prisoners of war. Seventy-six cannon and mortars, an enormous amount of property, and six months’ provisions fell into the hands of these raw colonials and the British commodore. The provincials lost 130 killed but the French had 300 killed inside the walls alone. And all this was accomplished by as mixed a collection of untrained and raw volunteers as ever got together on a war expedition, assisted by a British off-shore fleet which took no active part in any of the fighting but was feared for what it might do, if the wind ever blew from the right direction long enough for it to come into the harbor for a short range bombardment. This is all the more remarkable when the poor quality of the provincial artillery and the small experience of the men who served it, are considered.
These pious attackers agreed that, “God had gone out of the way of his common Providence in a remarkable manner, to incline the hearts of the French to deliver into their hands so formidable a fortress.” Whatever Governor Du Chambon thought about divine influence in the affair does not seem to have been recorded. The surrender of Louisburg produced enormous joy among the American colonies. Celebrations were held, guns fired, church bells rung, and bonfires lighted. It also brought great joy to the British government and people. The French government was both infuriated and ashamed.
The taking of this great fortress was brought about by a combination of circumstances most favorable to the attackers and most unfavorable to the defenders. The six or seven hundred French regulars were far from home and the recreations so dear to the French heart. The same might have been said of the equal number of French sailors and marines. Only a few hundred French women were there and very likely many of the regulars had become “squaw men.” The thousand or more Cape Breton militia no doubt hated the restraint and the whole business. They had just passed through such a winter as only Cape Breton can furnish. Their pay was far behind and doubtless they had not seen any real money for many months. They were disgruntled, discouraged, and on the edge of mutiny. There could have been little or no variety to their food and once the besiegers had surrounded the city their supply of fresh meat was cut off. The sort of dried and smoked commissary stuff supplied to over-sea forces in that day could not have been very inviting. Was it not Napoleon who said that an army fights on its stomach?
On the other hand, the New Englanders enjoyed unusually fine weather during the entire siege. This was most lucky as they had only such shelter as could be improvised out of brush, turf, and mud. Had it rained half of the time many hundreds of them would have died. Their patriotism and enthusiasm, together with their sublime dependence on the Almighty to see them through, did wonders for them. Considering the uncertainty of supplies and ammunition reaching them from the half-organized colonies, they got along remarkably well. Probably they supplied themselves with fresh meat, and plenty of fish.
An interesting sidelight is thrown on the surrender of the fort by the fact that Colonel Pepperrell marched his troops into Louisburg the day the capitulation was agreed upon, but before the terms had been officially signed by Governor Du Chambon, Commodore Warren, and the colonel. This was after he had requested Warren to move his ships in and occupy the island battery. This Warren could not do at once as he was dependent on a suitable wind direction to move his vessels. It was of course both irregular and entirely without precedent for Colonel Pepperrell to do this and it gave great umbrage to Commodore Warren, leading to a lengthy and somewhat testy official correspondence between the two commanding officers.
But then, the entire conduct of the enterprise from start to finish had been most irregular, and practically without precedent; as nothing like it had ever before happened in the world. Under such circumstances, what did a few unusual incidents, more or less, matter?
The officers and men of this seemingly hopeless expedition at once became heroes. Colonel Pepperrell was made a baronet, the first colonial to receive that honor, and Commodore Warren was made an admiral. A vast amount of slow over-seas correspondence followed and the colonel did not get home until the following spring. From the time of the surrender until his departure there was an enormous amount of sickness. No less than 561 soldiers were buried by the army and as many as 1,100 were sick at one time. In fact his men were reduced to less than 1,000 fit for duty. During the siege the weather had been fairly good, most fortunately, but after the city fell incessant cold rains set in.
By keeping the French flag flying after the surrender, the British fleet decoyed several rich French prizes into the harbor. One Fletcher, in the colonial Boston Packet, seems to have decoyed an Indiaman into Louisburg with a cargo valued at 800,000 pounds sterling. In those days navies were considerably paid in prize money, while armies received so much a month and no more. Commodore Warren put in a claim for prize money which resulted in one-half of the money accruing from captured material and ships going exclusively to his fleet, and the other half to the Crown. As a bright colonial officer remarked, “The army beat the bush and the navy captured the bird.” After about three years, the participating colonies were reimbursed by the Crown to the extent of about $800,000 which was divided according to the men and material supplied by each.
After eight years of indeterminate conflict, the British and French signed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1753) based mostly on the statu quo ante, wherein, to the enormous indignation of the American colonists, Britain traded Louisburg back to the French in return for Madras, India. Nothing was permanently settled as regarded Canada. Thus all this splendid sacrifice of men and money by the colonies came to nothing.
This, no doubt, added to the growing disgust of the American colonials with the British government and European politics, as they influenced events on this side of the ocean, and must have added a little fuel to the tiny revolutionary fires even then beginning to smolder. It is on record that in 1748, only three years after the siege, an important Swedish traveler named Peter Kahn was told in New York; “That within thirty to fifty years the English colonies in North America may constitute a separate state, independent of Great Britain.” Thirty-two years later the American Revolution was in full progress, and some of the very drums beaten by the attackers before Louisburg in fighting for the British Crown, were beaten at the battle of Bunker Hill by the same men in the first real battle against that august power. Many of the small arms fired at French enemies in Louisburg, were fired by the same men at British enemies at the battle of Bunker Hill.
The capture of Louisburg was a historical event of exceedingly far-reaching consequences. Besides the advantages accruing to the colonies during the eight years before it was restored to France, in making the Atlantic safe for colonial commerce, it was a school of real war for all the New England troops who participated in it. It proved to them that they could successfully fight European regulars, could make proper parallels and trenches, and could aim the kind of artillery they had. It also impressed on the colonists their strength when united.
Doubtless the return of this key fortress to France in 1753 sowed the seed in the colonial mind which germinated into the nation-wide abhorrence of European entanglements, which has survived to this day. It was undoubtedly one of the causes of Washington’s several solemn warnings against the United States ever entering into an alliance with any European power and it supplied some of the inspiration leading to the enunciation of President Monroe’s famous “Doctrine” in 1823. Had we consented to any European nation extending its holdings on this continent we might have been drawn into an alliance with some other foreign power either to help restrain it, or to help drive it out. It is also easy to remember that when we entered the great war, President Wilson never referred to the United States as an ally of any of the nations fighting against Germany, but invariably both spoke and wrote of the forces so arrayed as “The Allied and Associated Powers,” we supplying the “associated” end of it.