Abercrombie's engineer having reported that the works were
unfinished, and might be easily captured if promptly attacked, the
British general gave the order for assault, though his cannon had not
arrived, and indeed were not used at all.
Not satisfied with one futile assault, in which his men were cut down by
hundreds, torn by grape-shot and mangled by cross-fires of musketry,
Abercrombie ordered another and another, until the heroic and desperate
fighting men were entirely exhausted. Never was there a greater display
of courage and senseless devotion to a mistaken sense of duty, than on
that day when the fifteen thousand British and Provincial soldiers tried
vainly to dislodge one-third their number of Frenchmen from their
position at Ticonderoga. And it was all on account of the incapacity of
a British commander, whom the home Government had sent out with
authority, not only over his own regulars, but Colonial officers whose
abilities were vastly in excess of his own. But it was not for these
Colonials to question; only to "do and die," and they did all in their
power, and died by hundreds, merely that an incompetent commander's
whims should be gratified.
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