John Bradstreet’s Raid 1758: A Riverine Operation of the French and Indian War

Ian McCulloch reexamines the English raid against the French at Fort Frontenac in 1758. Where previous historians have told a story of a daring raid, initiated and led by the incomparable Colonel John Bradstreet, destroying a major French fortress and fleet on Lake Ontario, with only a handful of English casualties, McCulloch finds a self-promoting officer, whose narrative of the events rode roughshod over the truth. While past historians have used Bradstreet’s Impartial Account without hesitation, McCulloch shows it to be an unreliable source. This book revises our understanding of the raid on Fort Frontenac and Bradstreet’s reputation.Bradstreet organized and honed “a Battoe Service,” essential in the conveyance of military materials along and between the rivers and lakes feeding into the Great Lakes (xii). Colonel Bradstreet was an expert logistician, helping to bring troops and supplies to General Abercromby’s attempt on Fort Ticonderoga in 1758. In the aftermath of Abercromby’s dismal failure, Bradstreet suggested attacking Fort Frontenac. First suggested in 1756, the Frontenac raid was dismissed after the French sacked Oswego and the English government picked other strategic goals. The Ticonderoga disaster occurred in the presence of a large, allied Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) force who withdrew to reconsider their support of the English. A quick successful venture was thought necessary to convince them that the English could beat the French and protect the Haudenosaunee territory from French incursion.To maintain secrecy only Bradstreet knew the ultimate goal. The regular and provincial soldiers were told they would build a fort at the portage between Mohawk River and Wood Creek. With over 5,000 men winding their way up the Mohawk, alternative purposes were signaled to the men and anyone watching. Two thousand were left to build the new Fort Stanwix, as the rest headed to Lake Ontario via Wood Creek, Lake George, and the Oswego River.The Haudenosaunee sent representatives from each nation to the English, but fewer in number than Bradstreet expected. He saw this as a sign of potential betrayal. McCulloch suggests this was a clear misreading by Bradstreet of the message being sent by the Haudenosaunee. First, they wanted to see the English be successful before committing a large force again and, second, with representatives from each nation they indicated to other Indigenous people that the Six Nations backed the English and not to harm them (63–64, 134).Fort Frontenac sat on the edge of the Cataraqui River (which runs into Lake Ontario) at its confluence with the St. Lawrence River. To attack, Bradstreet had to lead his 3,600 men in bateaux and whale boats from the portage down to Oswego, along the Lake Ontario shore, and land them close to the French fort. He then had to lay his siege guns and soften up the fort before his troops could attack. The fact that he moved his men from the portage to Fort Frontenac in just days is quite the feat. Bradstreet wrote that the French weren’t aware of his presence until the day before they landed. McCulloch states the First Nations aligned with the French alerted Captain Payen de Noyan of the imminent raid on his fort, before Bradstreet had left the portage (51–52). De Noyan tried to get reinforcements from Governor Vaudreuil, who refused to send any.The English force landed in the evening of August 25. That night a cutting-out attack against two French vessels anchored off the fort was beaten back. This failure did not appear in Bradstreet’s narrative, and so has remained out of previous historical accounts. The French fort was not well positioned or built, seen by the Count d’Argenson as useless, “except for stores” (18). The assault was by an overwhelming force against a “skeletal garrison of invalids . . . commanded by a sexagenarian commandant” (20). The positioning of one of the three English siege batteries overlooked the fort, dominating the French position. The French resistance was noble but extremely brief; surrender was a forgone conclusion.Of the nine French vessels, only two were viable ships in 1785; the others lay rotting in the Cataraqui River. Destruction of these vessels did take the command of the lake away from the French, but it did not hand it to the English, for they had no usable port nor ships on the inland sea. Within eighteen months the French had four new ships on Lake Ontario, the English, none.The French leadership shared responsibility for the defeat and Bradstreet’s unharassed withdrawal. If Vandreuil had responded with reinforcements, they may have countered Bradstreet’s approach or at least attacked the raiders on their way home. McCulloch states that Vandreuil “failed to grasp that the old operating environment on the Lakes had changed significantly,” due to Bradstreet’s riverine capability (75).The raid netted a massive bounty for the English, including a year’s worth of furs. While the fort’s troops and the civilians were sent to Montreal, the English loaded the two floating ships and their boats with everything they could carry and then set fire to the rotting ships and the stone fort’s wooden structures. The two French vessels that carried their bounty across the lake were burned at Oswego. The raid was a success as far as Bradstreet and his superiors were concerned, but the colonel’s role was not rewarded as much as he desired. To offset anyone from taking credit he penned his story and had it published the following year.McCulloch makes excellent use of other accounts of the raid, which stand in opposition to Bradstreet’s claims. Bradstreet failed to mention the health issues that plagued the expedition. Frequent portaging resulted in trench foot among the bateaux men. Drinking river water resulted in intestinal disorders for many of the expedition. Why Bradstreet didn’t carry fresh water, as Indigenous people did along this route, is unknown.Bradstreet stated that only eleven people were injured during the mission. Other sources suggest that more were wounded and a handful killed. The biggest oversight by Bradstreet was his failure to mention the disease and death that ran rampant through his men after returning to Fort Stanwix. Exhaustion from traversing the route to and from the raid, the effort to construct siege batteries, the exposure to the elements, and the poor hygiene conditions in camp led to an outbreak of smallpox and typhus. Over 1,250 men died, not one noted by Bradstreet. Bradstreet left his troops after reaching Fort Stanwix, having “washed his hands of them” (121).Bradstreet presented the raid as a strategic success, threatening all French posts west of Montreal and bringing opposed First Nations into a neutral position. McCulloch shows that it was a one-off raid, outside of the strategic goals held in London, and did not change the course of the war.The illustrations and maps throughout the book help to tell the revised story of the raid. Eleven appendixes provide more detail, covering force size, instructions to Bradstreet’s scouting party, and his orders of landing, among other information. The glossary will assist those new to military history. The notes and bibliography are thorough and will be a source for references on this topic for future historians.This is a well-written, engaging book on the Fort Frontenac raid of 1758. McCulloch’s account is now the place all future work on the topic will have to start. It also has much to say on how military operations were conducted during the French and Indian War. Historians are reminded that an impartial account by a commanding officer is seldom impartial.

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