To meet this force and destroy it if he
could, Dieskau took to the French fort at Crown Point, on Lake
Champlain, and southward from there to Ticonderoga at the head of
this lake, some three thousand five hundred men, including his
French regulars, some Canadians and Indians. Johnson's force lay
at Fort George, later Fort William Henry, the most southerly
point on Lake George. The names, given by Johnson himself, show
how the dull Hanoverian kings and their offspring were held in
honor by the Irish diplomat who was looking for favors at court.
The two armies met on the shores of Lake George early in
September and there was an all-day fight. Each side lost some two
hundred men. Among those who perished on the French side was
Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, who had escaped all the perils of the
western wilderness to meet his fate in this border struggle. The
honors of the day seem to have been with Johnson, for the French
were driven off and Dieskau himself, badly wounded, was taken
prisoner. That Johnson had great difficulty in keeping his
savages from burning alive and then boiling and eating Dieskau
and smoking his flesh in their pipes, in revenge for some of
their chiefs killed in the fight, shows what an alliance with
Indians meant.
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