Such was his terror that on the evening of his
defeat he sent an order to Colonel Cummings, commanding at Fort William
Henry, to send all the sick and wounded and all the heavy artillery to
New York without delay.[638] He himself followed so closely upon this
disgraceful missive that Cummings had no time to obey it.
[Footnote 638: _Cunningham, aide-de-camp of Abercromby, to Cummings, 8
July, 1758_.]
The defeated and humbled troops proceeded to reoccupy the ground they
had left a few days before in the flush of confidence and pride; and
young Colonel Williams, of Massachusetts, lost no time in sending the
miserable story to his uncle Israel. His letter, which is dated "Lake
George (sorrowful situation), July ye 11th," ends thus: "I have told
facts; you may put the epithets upon them. In one word, what with
fatigue, want of sleep, exercise of mind, and leaving the place we went
to capture, the best part of the army is unhinged. I have told enough to
make you sick, if the relation acts on you as the facts have on me."
In the routed army was the sturdy John Cleaveland, minister of Ipswich,
and now chaplain of Bagley's Massachusetts regiment, who regarded the
retreat with a disgust that was shared by many others. "This day," he
writes in his Diary, at the head of Lake George, two days after the
battle, "wherever I went I found people, officers and soldiers,
astonished that we left the French ground, and commenting on the strange
conduct in coming off.
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