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Chapter 10
1755, 1756
Shirley. Border War
The capture of Niagara was to finish the work of the summer. This alone
would have gained for England the control of the valley of the Ohio, and
made Braddock's expedition superfluous. One marvels at the
short-sightedness, the dissensions, the apathy which had left this key
of the interior so long in the hands of France without an effort to
wrest it from her. To master Niagara would be to cut the communications
of Canada with the whole system of French forts and settlements in the
West, and leave them to perish like limbs of a girdled tree.
Major-General Shirley, in the flush of his new martial honors, was to
try his prentice hand at the work. The lawyer-soldier could plan a
campaign boldly and well. It remained to see how he would do his part
towards executing it. In July he arrived at Albany, the starting-point
of his own expedition as well as that of Johnson. This little Dutch city
was an outpost of civilization. The Hudson, descending from the northern
wilderness, connected it with the lakes and streams that formed the
thoroughfare to Canada; while the Mohawk, flowing from the west, was a
liquid pathway to the forest homes of the Five Nations. Before the war
was over, a little girl, Anne MacVicar, daughter of a Highland officer,
was left at Albany by her father, and spent several years there in the
house of Mrs. Schuyler, aunt of General Schuyler of the Revolution.
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