The Siege of Fort Beauséjour, 1755 by Chris Hand

Author:Chris Hand [Hand, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Canada, General, Pre-Confederation (To 1867), Europe, Great Britain, Military, Wars & Conflicts (Other), Modern, 17th Century
ISBN: 9780864923776
Google: 4WZOPQAACAAJ
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2004-01-15T15:57:32+00:00

Detail from Lewis Parker’s painting, British soldiers at Fort Cumberland (formerly Beauséjour), 1757. The British camp at Fort Lawrence would have looked much like this on the morning of June 4, 1755, as Monckton’s force prepared to march. LP

It took the British approximately four hours to march the six kilometres along the old French road from Fort Lawrence to Pont à Buot, a fairly slow but steady pace. One can walk the same distance today in about an hour and a half. Winslow commented that “progress was slow over the marsh owing to the dikes having been destroyed in places,” ruining the road. This would seem to place the actual route itself in dispute. Many writers assume that the road went along the top of the ridge, roughly where it exists today. The diary of John Thomas, a New Englander, suggests this; he says they did not arrive upon the marsh until around eleven o’clock, when they came in full view of the French redoubt. However, if the road was flooded from broken dikes, then at least part of it had to be at the bottom of the ridge along the edge of the marsh. Some local historians believe that this was in fact the case. They maintain that two roads ran along the base of each side of the Fort Lawrence ridge, since laying a road along the flats involved clearing fewer trees and stumps. According to this interpretation, the British advanced on the eastern side of Fort Lawrence ridge, out of sight of the French, before crossing over the ridge near the Chapman House and moving down towards Pont à Buot across the open marsh. A map drawn by Brewse, a British engineering officer with the expedition, shows just such a route.

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