He despised their methods of warfare
and notes with a touch of irony that, while every other barbarity
continues, the burning of prisoners at the stake has rather gone
out of fashion, though the savages recently burned an English
woman and her son merely to keep in practice.
Montcalm made his plans secretly and struck suddenly. In the
middle of August, 1756, he surprised and captured Oswego and took
more than sixteen hundred prisoners. Of these, in spite of all
that he could do, his Indians murdered some. The blow was deadly.
The English lost vast stores; and now the French controlled the
whole region of the Great Lakes. The Indians were on the side of
the rising power more heartily than ever, and the unhappy
frontier of the English colonies was so harried that murderous
savages ventured almost to the outskirts of Philadelphia.
Montcalm caused a Te Deum to be sung on the scene of his victory
at Oswego. In August he was back in Montreal where again was sung
another joyous Te Deum. He wrote letters in high praise of some
of his officers, especially of Bourlamaque, Malartic, and La
Pause, the last "un homme divin.
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