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The New Hampshire Gazette Domestic News September 9, 1757
Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire
Cautionary note: war violence; killing of sick and wounded prisoners
What is this article about?
Letter from a New Hampshire Regiment officer giving a firsthand account of the 1757 siege of Fort William-Henry: the French attack, bombardment, capitulation, and the subsequent stripping, killing of the sick and wounded, and taking of prisoners by Indians.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 99.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 0.0% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 96.78% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss).
- Length vs source
- 99.4% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 95.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 95.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clipping
Full Text
PORTSMOUTH.
The following Account of Fort William-Henry, is from one of the principal Officers of the New Hampshire Regiment, who was there during the whole Siege, and in the Breast Work: being an Extract of a Letter to—
"The first of August we discovered the French Boats by our Scouts landing in North West Bay; saw their Smoaks from our Breast Work, which was about 60 Rods from the Lake, next to Fort Edward, on the Ledge of Rocks to the Right Hand as you go up to the Lake; and on Wednesday Morning as soon as Day Light would serve us we saw a considerable Fleet of Boats lying about two Miles off, upon which Col. Monro sent out a Party of about 140 or 150 men to try to get some fat Cattle into the Breast-Work; but by that Time the Rear of our Men got out of Sight, the Enemy began to Fire upon their Front and Sides, but Capt. Saltonstall who commanded Bravely, fired and was forced to retreat, the Enemy being too numerous for him, and got into the Fort with the Loss I believe of about 20 Men, and one Subaltern; and then the Enemy to the Number of 2000 as I suppose, came round the Breast Work and fired upon us till Afternoon, but our Orders were not to fire till they came pretty close; and we being two deep all round the Breast Work, and keeping our Fire, they durst not come within 30 Rods of us.—In the Afternoon the French sent a Flag of Truce in by a French Officer, demanding the Fort, but being refused, they after a little Space of Time, fell on with their small Arms again, and in short, they diverted us two Days with them, till they got a Battery open on the third Day of nine Guns and some Mortars; next Day opened another Battery of eleven Guns more, and then asked a Surrender of the Fort, but being again denied, they play'd furiously with both Cannon and small Arms all Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when they opened another Ditch within 20 or 40 Rods of the Fort, and was about half a Mile nearer to our Breast-Work than their former; whereupon a Council was called the seventh Day of the Siege, and ninth Day of the Month; the Result of which was, that Col. Young should go with a Flag and ask Capitulation; upon which Montcalm granted that we should march out with all the Honours of War, Drums beating, Colours flying, and a Piece of Cannon, and in short all that we could ask or desire—(had he performed what he promised,) but instead of that we were very vilely treated, every Officer and Soldier stripped of Arms and Cloathing, so that none escaped with more than a Shirt, Breeches, Stockings and Shoes, and some no Breeches; for my Part I had nothing left but my Shirt, Stockings and Shoes, stripped of every Thing I had, and my Papers, which is a very great Loss to me.—There is taken and killed of the New Hampshire Regiment and missing, (which consisted of just 220) 80, which is a third Part; the Reason of which was, we brought up the Rear out of the Breast-Works, and the Indians picked us off more than the Front.—I hope there is a Number carried away that Montcalm will send back again: I am glad there is returned so many as there is, for I really thought when they began to kill the Sick and wounded, and lead others away, that they would Sacrifice the Well next, we being stripped of our Arms and forbid to resist.—As to General Webb's sending Relief, I know it would not have done to have sent less than Five Thousand, for I believe that they kept near 3000 there constantly; and upon their engaging, they would soon have had as many more; and less, with what we had here, would never have drove them out of their Ditches.— I believe the Enemy consisted of twelve or thirteen Thousand at least.— Cols. Monro and Young behaved bravely; our Engineers threw their Bombs many Times to a Hair's Breadth, the Balls went exceeding well, and in short, every Officer and Soldier behaved with Resolution and Courage to the last; and had we known what we should have met with would chose to have kept our Fort till every Man had been slain: the particular Accounts you will have, and so I desist.
Montcalm kept at a Distance about two Miles and half, with the Boats and a great Number of Men, and gave the Signals from thence.
The following Account of Fort William-Henry, is from one of the principal Officers of the New Hampshire Regiment, who was there during the whole Siege, and in the Breast Work: being an Extract of a Letter to—
"The first of August we discovered the French Boats by our Scouts landing in North West Bay; saw their Smoaks from our Breast Work, which was about 60 Rods from the Lake, next to Fort Edward, on the Ledge of Rocks to the Right Hand as you go up to the Lake; and on Wednesday Morning as soon as Day Light would serve us we saw a considerable Fleet of Boats lying about two Miles off, upon which Col. Monro sent out a Party of about 140 or 150 men to try to get some fat Cattle into the Breast-Work; but by that Time the Rear of our Men got out of Sight, the Enemy began to Fire upon their Front and Sides, but Capt. Saltonstall who commanded Bravely, fired and was forced to retreat, the Enemy being too numerous for him, and got into the Fort with the Loss I believe of about 20 Men, and one Subaltern; and then the Enemy to the Number of 2000 as I suppose, came round the Breast Work and fired upon us till Afternoon, but our Orders were not to fire till they came pretty close; and we being two deep all round the Breast Work, and keeping our Fire, they durst not come within 30 Rods of us.—In the Afternoon the French sent a Flag of Truce in by a French Officer, demanding the Fort, but being refused, they after a little Space of Time, fell on with their small Arms again, and in short, they diverted us two Days with them, till they got a Battery open on the third Day of nine Guns and some Mortars; next Day opened another Battery of eleven Guns more, and then asked a Surrender of the Fort, but being again denied, they play'd furiously with both Cannon and small Arms all Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when they opened another Ditch within 20 or 40 Rods of the Fort, and was about half a Mile nearer to our Breast-Work than their former; whereupon a Council was called the seventh Day of the Siege, and ninth Day of the Month; the Result of which was, that Col. Young should go with a Flag and ask Capitulation; upon which Montcalm granted that we should march out with all the Honours of War, Drums beating, Colours flying, and a Piece of Cannon, and in short all that we could ask or desire—(had he performed what he promised,) but instead of that we were very vilely treated, every Officer and Soldier stripped of Arms and Cloathing, so that none escaped with more than a Shirt, Breeches, Stockings and Shoes, and some no Breeches; for my Part I had nothing left but my Shirt, Stockings and Shoes, stripped of every Thing I had, and my Papers, which is a very great Loss to me.—There is taken and killed of the New Hampshire Regiment and missing, (which consisted of just 220) 80, which is a third Part; the Reason of which was, we brought up the Rear out of the Breast-Works, and the Indians picked us off more than the Front.—I hope there is a Number carried away that Montcalm will send back again: I am glad there is returned so many as there is, for I really thought when they began to kill the Sick and wounded, and lead others away, that they would Sacrifice the Well next, we being stripped of our Arms and forbid to resist.—As to General Webb's sending Relief, I know it would not have done to have sent less than Five Thousand, for I believe that they kept near 3000 there constantly; and upon their engaging, they would soon have had as many more; and less, with what we had here, would never have drove them out of their Ditches.— I believe the Enemy consisted of twelve or thirteen Thousand at least.— Cols. Monro and Young behaved bravely; our Engineers threw their Bombs many Times to a Hair's Breadth, the Balls went exceeding well, and in short, every Officer and Soldier behaved with Resolution and Courage to the last; and had we known what we should have met with would chose to have kept our Fort till every Man had been slain: the particular Accounts you will have, and so I desist.
Montcalm kept at a Distance about two Miles and half, with the Boats and a great Number of Men, and gave the Signals from thence.
What sub-type of article is it?
Military
Death Or Funeral
What keywords are associated?
Fort William Henry Siege
French And Indian War
New Hampshire Regiment
Monro
Montcalm
Surrender
What entities or persons were involved?
Col. Monro
Col. Young
Montcalm
Capt. Saltonstall
General Webb
Where did it happen?
Fort William Henry, Lake George
Domestic News Details
Primary Location
Fort William Henry, Lake George
Event Date
August 1757
Key Persons
Col. Monro
Col. Young
Montcalm
Capt. Saltonstall
General Webb
Outcome
about 80 of the 220-man new hampshire regiment killed, taken, or missing; fort surrendered; prisoners stripped of arms and clothing; sick and wounded killed by indians.