The British army begins an unopposed landing…

July 1758 CE

The British army begins an unopposed landing at the north end of Lake George on the morning of July 6.

Abercrombie first lands an advance force to check the area where the forces were to disembark, and finds it recently deserted; some supplies and equipment had been left behind by the French in their hasty departure.

The bulk of the army lands, forms into columns, and attempts to march up the west side of the stream that connects Lake George to Lake Champlain, rather than along the portage trail, whose bridges Montcalm had destroyed.

However, the wood is very thick, and the columns cannot be maintained.

Pitt had wanted George Howe, rather than Abercrombie, in command of the assault on Fort Carilllon, but Abercrombie has more political contacts and seniority, so Howe has been made second-in-command.

Abercrombie's force marches north from the shore of Lake George in four columns.

General Howe leads one of these columns, with the 55th regiment accompanied by a unit of Connecticut militia, with Major Israel Putnam as a scout and guide.

Near the area where Bernetz Brook enters the La Chute, Captain Trépezet and his troop, who are attempting to return to the French lines, encounter Phineas Lyman's Connecticut regiment, sparking a skirmish in the woods.

General Howe's column is near the action, so he leads it in that direction.

A column of Massachusetts provincials, also drawn to the battle, cut off the French patrol's rear.

In desperate fighting, about one hundred and fifty of Trepézet's men are killed, and another one hundred and forty-eight are captured.

Fifty men, including Trepézet, escape by swimming across the La Chute.

Trepézet will die the next day of wounds suffered in the battle.

The British fight well, taking one hundred and forty-eight prisoners, and causing an estimated three hundred enemy casualties with limited losses to their own number, but one of those casualties is General Howe, who, killed almost instantly by a musket ball, dies in Putnam's arms.

Sources disagree on the number of casualties suffered.

William Nester claims British casualties were light, only ten dead and six wounded, while Rene Chartrand claims that there were about one hundred killed and wounded, including the loss of General Howe.

The British, frustrated by the difficult woods, demoralized by Howe's death, and exhausted from the overnight boat ride, camp in the woods, and will return to the landing point early the next morning.

Howe will be widely mourned on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Massachusetts Assembly (or general court) will later vote two hundred and fifty pounds to place a monument in Westminster Abbey, something for which Howe's brothers will express extreme gratitude.