For all they knew, Montcalm's
whole army was upon them. Nothing prevented a panic but the steadiness
of the rangers, who maintained the fight alone till the rest came back
to their senses. Rogers, with his reconnoitring party, and the regiments
of Fitch and Lyman, were at no great distance in front. They all turned
on hearing the musketry, and thus the French were caught between two
fires. They fought with desperation. About fifty of them at length
escaped; a hundred and forty-eight were captured, and the rest killed or
drowned in trying to cross the rapids. The loss of the English was small
in numbers, but immeasurable in the death of Howe. "The fall of this
noble and brave officer," says Rogers, "seemed to produce an almost
general languor and consternation through the whole army." "In Lord
Howe," writes another contemporary, Major Thomas Mante, "the soul of
General Abercromby's army seemed to expire. From the unhappy moment the
General was deprived of his advice, neither order nor discipline was
observed, and a strange kind of infatuation usurped the place of
resolution." The death of one man was the ruin of fifteen thousand.
The evil news was despatched to Albany, and in two or three days the
messenger who bore it passed the house of Mrs. Schuyler on the meadows
above the town. "In the afternoon," says her biographer, "a man was seen
coming from the north galloping violently without his hat.
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