The French and Indian War : deciding the fate of North America

395 Pages·2006·6.98 MB·English

by  Borneman

The
French and
Indian War
DECIDING THE FATE
OF NORTH AMERICA
Walter R. Borneman
For my grandparents,
Walter and Hazel Borneman
Contents
List of Maps • v
Acknowledgments • vii
Chronology • ix
Key Players • xiii
INTRODUCTION
The War That Won a Continent • xvii
BOOK ONE
Colliding Empires (1748–1756)
1 The Bells of Aix-la-Chapelle • 3
2 Beautiful Ohio • 12
3 Albany, 1754 • 25
4 Braddock’s Roads • 40
5 “That I Can Save England” • 60
BOOK TWO
Mr. Pitt’s Global War (1757–1760)
6 Massacre and Stalemate • 79
7 Fortress Atlantis • 98
8 “Till We Meet at Ticonderoga” • 119
9 The Bateau Man • 140
10 Braddock’s Roads Again • 152
iv • CONTENTS
Photographic Insert
11 Caribbean Gambit • 169
12 Falling Dominoes • 187
13 Battle for a Continent—Or Is It? • 204
14 The Making of a Legend • 225
15 Deciding the Fate • 234
BOOK THREE
Prelude to Revolution (1760–1763)
16 Montreal to Michilimackinac • 247
17 Martinique to Manila • 262
18 Scratch of a Pen • 273
19 A Matter Unresolved • 280
20 Prelude to Revolution • 296
Notes • 309
Bibliography • 337
Index • 345
About the Author
Other Books by Walter R. Borneman
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Maps
North America, circa 1754 • xx
Washington’s Marches, 1753–1754 • 22
Braddock’s Defeat, July 1755 • 50
Lake Champlain Frontier, 1756–1757 • 76
Battles for Louisbourg, 1758 • 109
Ticonderoga Campaign, 1758 • 133
Fort Frontenac Raid, 1758 • 146
Forbes’s Road, 1758 • 160
Caribbean Campaigns, 1759–1762 • 179
Siege of Fort Niagara, 1759 • 197
Quebec Campaign, 1759 • 213
Rogers’s Raid on St. Francis, 1759 • 230
Western Europe, circa 1760 • 240
British Colonial Frontier, circa 1760 • 244
North America, circa 1763 • 282

Acknowledgments
My inclination after writing 1812: The War That Forged a Nation
was to look westward—both geographically and chronologically.
Yet as I pondered my next project, I found myself drawn to events
a generation before the American Revolution with the same fasci-
nation that I had just written about events a generation after it.
Here was a period that decided the fate of the entire North Amer-
ican continent—not just between England and France, but among
the Spanish and Native Americans as well. My goal became to
present the triumphs and tragedies of this struggle; place them in
the context of France and Great Britain’s greater global conflict;
essentially the first truly world war; and emphasize that from seeds
of discord sown here grew the American Revolution.
With another book in hand, my high esteem and great appre-
ciation only deepen for my editor, Hugh Van Dusen; and my
agent, Alexander Hoyt. On the research side, it is always a pleas-
ure to work in the Penrose Library of the University of Denver,
and I must also thank the Van Pelt Library of the University of
Pennsylvania, the Norlin Library of the University of Colorado,
and the Denver Public Library. Additionally, I greatly appreciate
the research assistance of Fadra Whyte at the University of Penn-
sylvania and Christopher Fleitas at the University of Notre Dame.
David Lambert at National Geographic Maps contributed his car-
tographic skills.
viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In addition to colonial newspapers—which sometimes must
be taken with a grain of salt—many primary sources from this
period are increasingly available in published form. These include
the personal papers and correspondence of such key figures as
Amherst, Bougainville, Bouquet, Forbes, Franklin, Johnson, Pitt,
Shirley, Wolfe, and of course the young George Washington. In
quoting from contemporary accounts, I have taken the liberty to
edit spelling, grammar, and capitalization, thereby avoiding the
ubiquitous use of sic.
James Fenimore Cooper and Kenneth Roberts aside, there
have been many scholarly histories of the French and Indian War
over the years. Despite their heavy Anglophile biases, Francis
Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe remains a reference point and
Lawrence Henry Gipson’s epic fourteen-volume account of The
British Empire Before the American Revolution an essential building
block. To these long-established icons must be added Fred Ander-
son’s recent Crucible of War, the most informative and best-written
one-volume study of the period.
Other valuable secondary sources include Guy Frégault’s
Canada: The War of the Conquest, telling the story from the Cana-
dian perspective; and Francis Jennings’s Empire of Fortune,empha-
sizing the roles of Native Americans. More recent studies of
Native Americans’ interaction include Timothy Shannon’s Indians
and Colonists at the Crossroads of Empire, Tom Hatley’s The Dividing
Paths, and Matthew Ward’s Breaking the Backcountry. For assis-
tance in placing the North American campaigns in a global con-
text, I found Walter L. Dorn’s Competition for Empire and Alfred
Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History to have
stood the test of time.
My favorite part of writing remains walking the ground where
these events took place. Thus, my wife, Marlene, and I traveled
Braddock’s road, shivered in a cold wind on the ramparts at Fort
Ticonderoga, sought out Rogers Rock, and pondered Pitt’s moves
in the Caribbean. Where to next, Marlene?