Military History. 259 



Canterbury, Joshua Dunbar, Israel Gilbert, Wm. Holbrook, George 

 Ranclallwining, Thomas Slander, Josiah Tourill, Robert Tower, 

 and Elijah White were already dead in the service, while Jona- 

 than Smith, James Fearing, Wm. Hodge, and Wm. Jones were 

 sick at Albany or elsewhere. 



The men might well be sick, if the accounts of regular British 

 officers of the camps of the New England troops are not exagger- 

 ated. Lieut. -Colonel Burton describes them as dirty beyond de- 

 scription, especially that at Fort William Henry ; he speaks more 

 favorably of the camp at Fort Edward, but says that, generally 

 speaking, there were almost no sanitary arrangements, that 

 kitchens, graves, and places for slaughtering cattle were all 

 mixed, that the cannon and stores were in great confusion, the 

 advance guard was small, and little care taken to provide against 

 surprise. The several chaplains in the camp present a similar 

 moral picture of the army. Meanwhile, on the 14th of August, 

 Oswego surrendered to the French, and all thoughts of the 

 capture of Ticonderoga or Crown Point were, for the time, 

 abandoned. Of the miserable jealousies of the colonies, the dis- 

 graceful failures of a campaign conducted by twelve hundred 

 thousand people against eighty thousand, and the lessons it teaches 

 of the superiority in military matters of an army over a mob, of 

 the trained soldier over the political civilian, only the briefest 

 mention can be made. The summer and autumn of 1756 fur- 

 nishes a striking illustration, and perhaps an unusually pointed 

 one ; for here were men, many of them, used to discipline, and 

 experienced in more than one war, sacrificed to the lack of 

 methods, discipline, and leadership, indispensable in the success- 

 ful conduct of war. The opposite of all this was true in the 

 French camps, and the results were equally different. 



Loudon had ten thousand men posted from Albany to Lake 

 George. Of these about three thousand provincials were at the 

 lake under Winslow, with whom was Gridley and his regiment. 

 Montcalm was at Ticonderoga with an army of about five thou- 

 sand regulars and Canadians. 



On the 19th September, Captain Hodges, of Gridley's command, 

 and fifty men were ambushed a few miles from Fort William 

 Henry by Canadians and Indians, and only six escaped. 



Bougainville, aide-de-camp to Montcalm, who was with the 

 expedition says that out of fifty -three English, all but one were 

 taken or killed; he adds that a mere recital of the cruelties com- 

 mitted on the battle-field by the Indians made him shudder. 

 Among the dead was Captain Hodges, and undoubtedly also Israel 

 Gilbert, Thomas Slander, Elijah White, and Robert Tower; 

 Ensign Jeremiah Lincoln, then apparently a lieutenant, was, with 

 others, captured. These men all belonged to Major Thaxter's 

 company. 



Mr. Lincoln, in the history of the town, says that a man named 

 Lathrop, who also belonged here, was killed at the same time. 



