[Footnote 315: _Return of Killed, Wounded, and Missing at the Battle of
Lake George_.]
[Footnote 316: _Doreil au Ministre, 20 Oct. 1755_. Surgeon Williams
gives the English loss as two hundred and sixteen killed, and ninety-six
wounded. Pomeroy thinks that the French lost four or five hundred.
Johnson places their loss at four hundred.]
Johnson did not follow up his success. He says that his men were tired.
Yet five hundred of them had stood still all day, and boats enough for
their transportation were lying on the beach. Ten miles down the lake, a
path led over a gorge of the mountains to South Bay, where Dieskau had
left his canoes and provisions. It needed but a few hours to reach and
destroy them; but no such attempt was made. Nor, till a week after, did
Johnson send out scouts to learn the strength of the enemy at
Ticonderoga. Lyman strongly urged him to make an effort to seize that
important pass; but Johnson thought only of holding his own position. "I
think," he wrote, "we may expect very shortly a more formidable attack."
He made a solid breastwork to defend his camp; and as reinforcements
arrived, set them at building a fort on a rising ground by the lake. It
is true that just after the battle he was deficient in stores, and had
not bateaux enough to move his whole force. It is true, also, that he
was wounded, and that he was too jealous of Lyman to delegate the
command to him; and so the days passed till, within a fortnight, his
nimble enemy were entrenched at Ticonderoga in force enough to defy him.
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