1755.] BATTLE OF LAKE GEOKGE. 115 



success, as regards the main object of the enter- 

 prise. Owing to the lateness of the season, and 

 other causes, the troops proceeded no farther than 

 Lake George ; but the attempt was marked by a 

 feat of arms, which, in that day of failures, was 

 greeted, both in England and America, as a signal 

 victory. 



General Johnson, afterwards Sir William John- 

 son, had been charged with the conduct of the 

 Crown Point expedition ; and his little army, a 

 rude assemblage of hunters and farmers from New 

 York and New England, officers and men alike 

 ignorant of war, lay encamped at the southern 

 extremity of Lake George. Here, while they 

 languidly pursued their preparations, their active 

 enemy anticipated them. Baron Dieskau, who, 

 with a body of troops, had reached Quebec in the 

 squadron which sailed from "Brest in the spring, 

 had intended to take forcible possession of the 

 English fort of Oswego, erected upon ground 

 claimed by the French as a part of Canada. 

 Learning Johnson's movements, he changed his 

 plan, crossed Lake Champlain, made a circuit by 

 way of Wood Creek, and gained the rear of the 

 English army, with a force of about two thousand 

 French and Indians. At midnight, on the seventh 

 of September, the tidings reached Johnson that the 

 army of the French baron was but a few miles 

 distant from his camp. A council of war was 

 called, and the resolution formed of detaching a 

 thousand men to reconnoitre. " If they are to be 

 killed," said Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, " they 



