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A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II

F >> Francis Parkman >> A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II




The village consisted of small, low wooden houses, scattered at intervals
for the distance of a mile and a half, and therefore ill fitted for
defence. The English had the frame of a blockhouse, or, as some say, of
two blockhouses, ready to be set up on their arrival; but as the ground was
hard frozen it was difficult to make a foundation, and the frames were
therefore stored in outbuildings of the village, with the intention of
raising them in the spring. The vessels which had brought them, together
with stores, ammunition, five small cannon, and a good supply of
snow-shoes, had just arrived at the landing-place,--and here, with
incredible fatuity, were allowed to remain, with most of their
indispensable contents still on board. The men, meanwhile, were quartered
in the Acadian houses.

Noble's position was critical, but he was assured that he could not be
reached from Chignecto in such a bitter season; and this he was too ready
to believe, though he himself had just made a march, which, if not so long,
was quite as arduous. Yet he did not neglect every precaution, but kept
out scouting-parties to range the surrounding country, while the rest of
his men took their ease in the Acadian houses, living on the provisions of
the villagers, for which payment was afterwards made. Some of the
inhabitants, who had openly favored Ramesay and his followers, fled to the
woods, in fear of the consequences; but the greater part remained quietly
in the village.

At the head of the Bay of Fundy its waters form a fork, consisting of
Chignecto Bay on the one hand, and Mines Basin on the other. At the head of
Chignecto Bay was the Acadian settlement of Chignecto, or Beaubassin, in
the houses of which Ramesay had quartered his Canadians. Here the neck of
the Acadian peninsula is at its narrowest, the distance across to Baye
Verte, where Ramesay had built a fort, being little more than twelve miles.
Thus he controlled the isthmus,--from which, however, Noble hoped to
dislodge him in the spring.

In the afternoon of the 8th of January an Acadian who had been sent to
Mines by the missionary Germain, came to Beaubassin with the news that two
hundred and twenty English were at Grand Pré, and that more were expected.
[Footnote: Beaujeu, _Journal de la Campagne du Détachement de Canada à
l'Acadie_, in _Le Canada Français_, II. _Documents_, 16.] Ramesay
instantly formed a plan of extraordinary hardihood, and resolved, by a
rapid march and a night attack, to surprise the new-comers. His party was
greatly reduced by disease, and to recruit it he wrote to La Corne,
Récollet missionary at Miramichi, to join him with his Indians; writing at
the same time to Maillard, former colleague of Le Loutre at the mission of
Shubenacadie, and to Girard, priest of Cobequid, to muster Indians, collect
provisions, and gather information concerning the English. Meanwhile his
Canadians busied themselves with making snow-shoes and dog-sledges for the
march.

Ramesay could not command the expedition in person, as an accident to one
of his knees had disabled him from marching. This was less to be regretted,
in view of the quality of his officers, for he had with him the flower of
the warlike Canadian _noblesse_,--Coulon de Villiers, who, seven
years later, defeated Washington at Fort Necessity; Beaujeu, the future
hero of the Monongahela, in appearance a carpet knight, in reality a bold
and determined warrior; the Chevalier de la Corne, a model of bodily and
mental hardihood; Saint-Pierre, Lanaudière, Saint-Ours, Desligneris,
Courtemanche, Repentigny, Boishébert, Gaspé, Colombière, Marin,
Lusignan,--all adepts in the warfare of surprise and sudden onslaught in
which the Canadians excelled.

Coulon de Villiers commanded in Ramesay's place; and on the 21st of January
he and the other officers led their men across the isthmus from Beaubassin
to Baye Verte, where they all encamped in the woods, and where they were
joined by a party of Indians and some Acadians from Beaubassin and Isle St.
Jean. [Footnote: _Mascarene to Shirley, 8 Feb. 1746_ (1747, new
style).] Provisions, ammunition, and other requisites were distributed, and
at noon of the 23d they broke up their camp, marched three leagues, and
bivouacked towards evening. On the next morning they marched again at
daybreak. There was sharp cold, with a storm of snow,--not the large,
moist, lazy flakes that fall peacefully and harmlessly, but those small
crystalline particles that drive spitefully before the wind, and prick the
cheek like needles. It was the kind of snowstorm called in Canada _la
poudrerie_. They had hoped to make a long day's march; but feet and
faces were freezing, and they were forced to stop, at noon, under such
shelter as the thick woods of pine, spruce, and fir could supply. In the
morning they marched again, following the border of the sea, their
dog-teams dragging provisions and baggage over the broken ice of creeks and
inlets, which they sometimes avoided by hewing paths through the forest.
After a day of extreme fatigue they stopped at the small bay where the town
of Wallace now stands. Beaujeu says: "While we were digging out the snow to
make our huts, there came two Acadians with letters from MM. Maillard and
Girard." The two priests sent a mixture of good and evil news. On one hand
the English were more numerous than had been reported; on the other, they
had not set up the blockhouses they had brought with them. Some Acadians
of the neighboring settlement joined the party at this camp, as also did a
few Indians.

On the next morning, January 27th, the adventurers stopped at the village
of Tatmagouche, where they were again joined by a number of Acadians. After
mending their broken sledges they resumed their march, and at five in the
afternoon reached a place called Bacouel, at the beginning of the portage
that led some twenty-five miles across the country to Cobequid, now Truro,
at the head of Mines Basin. Here they were met by Girard, priest of
Cobequid, from whom Coulon exacted a promise to meet him again at that
village in two days. Girard gave the promise unwillingly, fearing, says
Beaujeu, to embroil himself with the English authorities. He reported that
the force at Grand Pré counted at least four hundred and fifty, or, as some
said, more than five hundred. This startling news ran through the camp; but
the men were not daunted. "The more there are," they said, "the more we
shall kill."

The party spent the 28th in mending their damaged sledges, and in the
afternoon they were joined by more Acadians and Indians. Thus reinforced,
they marched again, and towards evening reached a village on the outskirts
of Cobequid. Here the missionary Maillard joined them,--to the great
satisfaction of Coulon, who relied on him and his brother priest Girard to
procure supplies of provisions. Maillard promised to go himself to Grand
Pré with the Indians of his mission.

The party rested for a day, and set out again on the 1st of February,
stopped at Maillard's house in Cobequid for the provisions he had collected
for them, and then pushed on towards the river Shubenacadie, which runs
from the south into Cobequid Bay, the head of Mines Basin. When they
reached the river they found it impassable from floating ice, which forced
them to seek a passage at some distance above. Coulon was resolved,
however, that at any risk a detachment should cross at once, to stop the
roads to Grand Pré, and prevent the English from being warned of his
approach; for though the Acadians inclined to the French, and were eager to
serve them when the risk was not too great, there were some of them who,
from interest or fear, were ready to make favor with the English by
carrying them intelligence. Boishébert, with ten Canadians, put out from
shore in a canoe, and were near perishing among the drifting ice; but they
gained the farther shore at last, and guarded every path to Grand Pré. The
main body filed on snowshoes up the east bank of the Shubenacadie, where
the forests were choked with snow and encumbered with fallen trees, over
which the sledges were to be dragged, to their great detriment. On this
day, the 3d, they made five leagues; on the next only two, which brought
them within half a league of Le Loutre's Micmac mission. Not far from this
place the river was easily passable on the ice, and they continued their
march westward across the country to the river Kennetcook by ways so
difficult that their Indian guide lost the path, and for a time led them
astray. On the 7th, Boishébert and his party rejoined them, and brought a
reinforcement of sixteen Indians, whom the Acadians had furnished with
arms. Provisions were failing, till on the 8th, as they approached the
village of Pisiquid, now Windsor, the Acadians, with great zeal, brought
them a supply. They told them, too, that the English at Grand Pré were
perfectly secure, suspecting no danger.

On the 9th, in spite of a cold, dry storm of snow, they reached the west
branch of the river Avon. It was but seven French leagues to Grand Pré,
which they hoped to reach before night; but fatigue compelled them to rest
till the 10th. At noon of that day, the storm still continuing, they
marched again, though they could hardly see their way for the driving snow.
They soon came to a small stream, along the frozen surface of which they
drew up in order, and, by command of Coulon, Beaujen divided them all into
ten parties, for simultaneous attacks on as many houses occupied by the
English. Then, marching slowly, lest they should arrive too soon, they
reached the river Gaspereau, which enters Mines Basin at Grand Pré. They
were now but half a league from their destination. Here they stopped an
hour in the storm, shivering and half frozen, waiting for nightfall. When
it grew dark they moved again, and soon came to a number of houses on the
river-bank. Each of the ten parties took possession of one of these, making
great fires to warm themselves and dry their guns.

It chanced that in the house where Coulon and his band sought shelter, a
wedding-feast was going on. The guests were much startled at this sudden
irruption of armed men; but to the Canadians and their chief the festival
was a stroke of amazing good luck, for most of the guests were inhabitants
of Grand Pré, who knew perfectly the houses occupied by the English, and
could tell with precision where the officers were quartered. This was a
point of extreme importance. The English were distributed among twenty-four
houses, scattered, as before mentioned, for the distance of a mile and a
half. [Footnote: _Goldthwait to Shirley, 2 March, 1746 (1747)_.
Captain Benjamin Goldthwait was second in command of the English
detachment.] The assailants were too few to attack all these houses at
once; but if those where the chief officers lodged could be surprised and
captured with their inmates, the rest could make little resistance. Hence
it was that Coulon had divided his followers into ten parties, each with
one or more chosen officers; these officers were now called together at the
house of the interrupted festivity, and the late guests having given full
information as to the position of the English quarters and the military
quality of their inmates, a special object of attack was assigned to the
officer of each party, with Acadian guides to conduct him to it. The
principal party, consisting of fifty, or, as another account says, of
seventy-five men, was led by Coulon himself, with Beaujeu, Desligneris,
Mercier, Léry, and Lusignan as his officers. This party was to attack a
stone house near the middle of the village, where the main guard was
stationed,--a building somewhat larger than the rest, and the only one at
all suited for defence. The second party, of forty men, commanded by La
Corne, with Riganville, Lagny, and Villemont, was to attack a neighboring
house, the quarters of Colonel Noble, his brother, Ensign Noble, and
several other officers. The remaining parties, of twenty-five men each
according to Beaujeu, or twenty-eight according to La Corne, were to make a
dash, as nearly as possible at the same time, at other houses which it was
thought most important to secure. All had Acadian guides, whose services in
that capacity were invaluable; though Beaujeu complains that they were of
no use in the attack. He says that the united force was about three hundred
men, while the English Captain Goldthwait puts it, including Acadians and
Indians, at from five to six hundred. That of the English was a little
above five hundred in all. Every arrangement being made, and his part
assigned to each officer, the whole body was drawn up in the storm, and the
chaplain pronounced a general absolution. Then each of the ten parties,
guided by one or more Acadians, took the path for its destination, every
man on snow-shoes, with the lock of his gun well sheltered under his
capote.

The largest party, under Coulon, was, as we have seen, to attack the stone
house in the middle of the village; but their guide went astray, and about
three in the morning they approached a small wooden house not far from
their true object. A guard was posted here, as at all the English
quarters. The night was dark and the snow was still falling, as it had done
without ceasing for the past thirty hours. The English sentinel descried
through the darkness and the storm what seemed the shadows of an advancing
crowd of men. He cried, "Who goes there?" and then shouted, "To arms!" A
door was flung open, and the guard appeared in the entrance. But at that
moment the moving shadows vanished from before the eyes of the sentinel.
The French, one and all, had thrown themselves flat in the soft, light
snow, and nothing was to be seen or heard. The English thought it a false
alarm, and the house was quiet again. Then Coulon and his men rose and
dashed forward. Again, in a loud and startled voice, the sentinel shouted,
"To arms!" A great light, as of a blazing fire, shone through the open
doorway, and men were seen within in hurried movement. Coulon, who was in
the front, said to Beaujeu, who was close at his side, that the house was
not the one they were to attack. Beaujeu replied that it was no time to
change, and Coulon dashed forward again. Beaujeu aimed at the sentinel and
shot him dead. There was the flash and report of muskets from the house,
and Coulon dropped in the snow, severely wounded. The young cadet,
Lusignan, was hit in the shoulder; but he still pushed on, when a second
shot shattered his thigh. "Friends," cried the gallant youth, as he fell by
the side of his commander, "don't let two dead men discourage you." The
Canadians, powdered from head to foot with snow, burst into the house.
Within ten minutes, all resistance was overpowered. Of twenty-four
Englishmen, twenty-one were killed, and three made prisoners. [Footnote:
Beaujeu, _Journal_.]

Meanwhile, La Corne, with his party of forty men, had attacked the house
where were quartered Colonel Noble and his brother, with Captain Howe and
several other officers. Noble had lately transferred the main guard to the
stone house, but had not yet removed thither himself, and the guard in the
house which he occupied was small. The French burst the door with axes, and
rushed in. Colonel Noble, startled from sleep, sprang from his bed,
receiving two musket-balls in the body as he did so. He seems to have had
pistols, for he returned the fire several times. His servant, who was in
the house, testified that the French called to the Colonel through a window
and promised him quarter if he would surrender; but that he refused, on
which they fired again, and a bullet, striking his forehead, killed him
instantly. His brother, Ensign Noble, was also shot down, fighting in his
shirt. Lieutenants Pickering and Lechmere lay in bed dangerously ill, and
were killed there. Lieutenant Jones, after, as the narrator says, "ridding
himself of some of the enemy," tried to break through the rest and escape,
but was run through the heart with a bayonet. Captain Howe was severely
wounded and made prisoner.

Coulon and Lusignan, disabled by their wounds, were carried back to the
houses on the Gaspereau, where the French surgeon had remained. Coulon's
party, now commanded by Beaujeu, having met and joined the smaller party
under Lotbinière, proceeded to the aid of others who might need their help;
for while they heard a great noise of musketry from far and near, and could
discern bodies of men in motion here and there, they could not see whether
these were friends or foes, or discern which side fortune favored. They
presently met the party of Marin, composed of twenty-five Indians, who had
just been repulsed with loss from the house which they had attacked. By
this time there was a gleam of daylight, and as they plodded wearily over
the snow-drifts, they no longer groped in darkness. The two parties of
Colombière and Boishébert soon joined them, with the agreeable news that
each had captured a house; and the united force now proceeded to make a
successful attack on two buildings where the English had stored the frames
of their blockhouses. Here the assailants captured ten prisoners. It was
now broad day, but they could not see through the falling snow whether the
enterprise, as a whole, had prospered or failed. Therefore Beaujeu sent
Marin to find La Corne, who, in the absence of Coulon, held the chief
command. Marin was gone two hours. At length he returned, and reported that
the English in the houses which had not been attacked, together with such
others as had not been killed or captured, had drawn together at the stone
house in the middle of the village, that La Corne was blockading them
there, and that he ordered Beaujeu and his party to join him at once.

When Beaujeu reached the place he found La Corne posted at the house where
Noble had been killed, and which was within easy musket-shot of the stone
house occupied by the English, against whom a spattering fire was kept up
by the French from the cover of neighboring buildings. Those in the stone
house returned the fire; but no great harm was done on either side, till
the English, now commanded by Captain Goldthwait, attempted to recapture
the house where La Corne and his party were posted. Two companies made a
sally; but they had among them only eighteen pairs of snow-shoes, the rest
having been left on board the two vessels which had brought the stores of
the detachment from Annapolis, and which now lay moored hard by, in the
power of the enemy, at or near the mouth of the Gaspereau. Hence the
sallying party floundered helpless among the drifts, plunging so deep in
the dry snow that they could not use their guns and could scarcely move,
while bullets showered upon them from La Corne's men in the house and
others hovering about them on snow-shoes. The attempt was hopeless, and
after some loss the two companies fell back. The firing continued, as
before, till noon, or, according to Beaujeu, till three in the afternoon,
when a French officer, carrying a flag of truce, came out of La Corne's
house. The occasion of the overture was this.

Captain Howe, who, as before mentioned, had been badly wounded at the
capture of this house, was still there, a prisoner, without surgical aid,
the French surgeon being at the houses on the Gaspereau, in charge of
Coulon and other wounded men. "Though," says Beaujeu, "M. Howe was a firm
man, he begged the Chevalier La Corne not to let him bleed to death for
want of aid, but permit him to send for an English surgeon." To this La
Corne, after consulting with his officers, consented, and Marin went to the
English with a white flag and a note from Howe explaining the situation.
The surgeon was sent, and Howe's wound was dressed, Marin remaining as a
hostage. A suspension of arms took place till the surgeon's return; after
which it was prolonged till nine o'clock of the next morning, at the
instance, according to French accounts, of the English, and, according to
English accounts, of the French. In either case, the truce was welcome to
both sides. The English, who were in the stone house to the number of
nearly three hundred and fifty, crowded to suffocation, had five small
cannon, two of which were four-pounders, and three were swivels; but these
were probably not in position, as it does not appear that any use was made
of them. There was no ammunition except what the men had in their
powder-horns and bullet-pouches, the main stock having been left, with
other necessaries, on board the schooner and sloop now in the hands of the
French. It was found, on examination, that they had ammunition for eight
shots each, and provisions for one day. Water was only to be had by
bringing it from a neighboring brook. As there were snow-shoes for only
about one man in twenty, sorties were out of the question; and the house
was commanded by high ground on three sides.

Though their number was still considerable, their position was growing
desperate. Thus it happened that when the truce expired, Goldthwait, the
English commander, with another officer, who seems to have been Captain
Preble, came with a white flag to the house where La Corne was posted, and
proposed terms of capitulation, Howe, who spoke French, acting as
interpreter. La Corne made proposals on his side, and as neither party was
anxious to continue the fray, they soon came to an understanding.

It was agreed that within forty-eight hours the English should march for
Annapolis with the honors of war; that the prisoners taken by the French
should remain in their hands; that the Indians, who had been the only
plunderers, should keep the plunder they had taken; that the English sick
and wounded should be left, till their recovery, at the neighboring
settlement of Rivière-aux-Canards, protected by a French guard, and that
the English engaged in the affair at Grand Pré should not bear arms during
the next six months within the district about the head of the Bay of Fundy,
including Chignecto, Grand Pré, and the neighboring settlements.

Captain Howe was released on parole, with the condition that he should send
back in exchange one Lacroix, a French prisoner at Boston,--"which," says
La Corne, "he faithfully did."

Thus ended one of the most gallant exploits in French-Canadian annals. As
respects the losses on each side, the French and English accounts are
irreconcilable; nor are the statements of either party consistent with
themselves. Mascarene reports to Shirley that seventy English were killed,
and above sixty captured; though he afterwards reduces these numbers,
having, as he says, received farther information. On the French side he
says that four officers and about forty men were killed, and that many
wounded were carried off in carts during the fight. Beaujeu, on the other
hand, sets the English loss at one hundred and thirty killed, fifteen
wounded, and fifty captured; and the French loss at seven killed and
fifteen wounded. As for the numbers engaged, the statements are scarcely
less divergent. It seems clear, however, that when Coulon began his march
from Baye Verte, his party consisted of about three hundred Canadians and
Indians, without reckoning some Acadians who had joined him from Beaubassin
and Isle St. Jean. Others joined him on the way to Grand Pré, counting a
hundred and fifty according to Shirley,--which appears to be much too
large an estimate. The English, by their own showing, numbered five
hundred, or five hundred and twenty-five. Of eleven houses attacked, ten
were surprised and carried, with the help of the darkness and storm and the
skilful management of the assailants.

"No sooner was the capitulation signed," says Beaujeu, "than we became in
appearance the best of friends." La Corne directed military honors to be
rendered to the remains of the brothers Noble; and in all points the
Canadians, both officers and men, treated the English with kindness and
courtesy. "The English commandant," again says Beaujeu, "invited us all to
dine with him and his officers, so that we might have the pleasure of
making acquaintance over a bowl of punch." The repast being served after
such a fashion as circumstances permitted, victors and vanquished sat down
together; when, says Beaujeu, "we received on the part of our hosts many
compliments on our polite manners and our skill in making war." And the
compliments were well deserved.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 14th of February the English filed
out of the stone house, and with arms shouldered, drums beating, and colors
flying, marched between two ranks of the French, and took the road for
Annapolis. The English sick and wounded were sent to the settlement of
Rivière-aux-Canards, where, protected by a French guard and attended by an
English surgeon, they were to remain till able to reach the British fort.

La Corne called a council of war, and in view of the scarcity of food and
other reasons it was resolved to return to Beaubassin. Many of the French
had fallen ill. Some of the sick and wounded were left at Grand Pré, others
at Cobequid, and the Acadians were required to supply means of carrying the
rest. Coulon's party left Grand Pré on the 23d of February, and on the 8th
of March reached Beaubassin. [Footnote: The dates are of the new style,
which the French had adopted, while the English still clung to the old
style.] [Footnote: By far the best account of this French victory at Mines
is that of Beaujeu, in his _Journal de la Campagne du Détachement de
Canada à l'Acadie et aux Mines en 1746-47._ It is preserved in the
Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, and is printed in the documentary
supplement of _Le Canada Français_, Vol. II. It supplies the means of
correcting many errors and much confusion in some recent accounts of the
affair. The report of Chevalier de la Corne, also printed in _Le Canada
Français_, though much shorter, is necessary to a clear understanding of
the matter. Letters of Lusignan fils to the minister Maurepas, 10 Oct.
1747, of Bishop Pontbriand (to Maurepas?), 10 July, 1747, and of Lusignan
père to Maurepas, 10 Oct. 1747, give some additional incidents. The
principal document on the English side is the report of Captain Benjamin
Goldthwait, who succeeded Noble in command. A copy of the original, in the
Public Record Office, is before me. The substance of it is correctly given
in _The Boston Post Boy_ of 2 March, 1747, and in _N. E. Hist. Gen.
Reg._, X. 108. Various letters from Mascarene and Shirley (Public Record
Office) contain accounts derived from returned officers and soldiers. The
_Notice of Colonel Arthur Noble_, by William Goold (_Collections
Maine Historical Soc., 1881_), may also be consulted.]

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