The storm raged in full
fury for an hour. The assailants pushed close to the breastwork; but
there they were stopped by the bristling mass of sharpened branches,
which they could not pass under the murderous cross-fires that swept
them from front and flank. At length they fell back, exclaiming that the
works were impregnable. Abercromby, who was at the saw-mill, a mile and
a half in the rear, sent order to attack again, and again they came on
as before.
The scene was frightful: masses of infuriated men who could not go
forward and would not go back; straining for an enemy they could not
reach, and firing on an enemy they could not see; caught in the
entanglement of fallen trees; tripped by briers, stumbling over logs,
tearing through boughs; shouting, yelling, cursing, and pelted all the
while with bullets that killed them by scores, stretched them on the
ground, or hung them on jagged branches in strange attitudes of death.
The provincials supported the regulars with spirit, and some of them
forced their way to the foot of the wooden wall.
The French fought with the intrepid gayety of their nation, and shouts
of _Vive le Roi!_ and _Vive notre General!_ mingled with the din of
musketry. Montcalm, with his coat off, for the day was hot, directed the
defence of the centre, and repaired to any part of the line where the
danger for the time seemed greatest. He is warm in praise of his enemy,
and declares that between one and seven o'clock they attacked him six
successive times.
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