Amherst himself moved slowly, it being July 21 before the army started northward upon the lake. Bourlamaque, whose sole purpose was to delay the British advance, lay at Ticonderoga with thirty-five hundred men, but on the twenty-sixth he blew up the fort and retreated in good order to Crown Point. On the British approaching that post he again fell back, this time to a strong position at Isle aux Noix, at the outlet of Lake Champlain, where, wrote Bourlamaque to a friend, “we are entrenched to the teeth, and armed with a hundred pieces of cannon.”[36] Amherst now deeming vessels essential, yet lacking ship-carpenters, it was the middle of September before his little navy was ready, and then he thought the season too far advanced for further operations.[37] Amherst’s advance had, however, induced Montcalm to defend Montreal, Lévis having been dispatched thither for this purpose.
Prideaux, advancing up the Mohawk, proceeded to Oswego, where he left half of his men to cover his retreat, and then sailed to Niagara. Slain by accident during the siege, his place was taken by Sir William Johnson, the Indian commander, who pushed the work with vigor. Suddenly confronted by a French force of thirteen hundred rangers and savages from the West, who had been deflected thither from a proposed attack on Pittsburg, with the view of recovering that fort, Johnson completely vanquished them (July 24). The discomfited crew burned their posts in that region and retreated precipitately to Detroit. The following day Niagara surrendered, and thus, with Pittsburg also saved, the West was entirely cut off from Canada, and the upper Ohio Valley was placed in British hands. The work of Stanwix having been accomplished by Johnson, the former, who had been greatly delayed by transport difficulties, advanced as promptly as possible to the Forks of the Ohio, and in the place of the old French works built the modernized stronghold of Fort Pitt.[38]
On August 20, Wolfe fell seriously ill. Both he and the army were discouraged. The casualties had thus far been over eight hundred men, and disease had cut a wide swath through the ranks. Desperate, he at last accepted the counsel of his officers, that a landing be attempted above the town, supplies definitively cut off from Montreal, and Montcalm forced to fight or surrender. From September 3 to 12, Wolfe, arisen from his bed but still weak, quietly withdrew his troops from the Montmorenci camp and transported them in vessels which successfully passed through a heavy cannonading from the fort to safe anchorage in the upper basin. Reinforcements marching along the southern bank, from Point Lévis, soon joined their comrades aboard the ships. For several days this portion of the fleet regularly floated up and down the river above Quebec, with the changing tide, thus wearing out Bougainville’s men, who in great perplexity followed the enemy along the cliff-tops, through a beat of several leagues, until from sheer exhaustion they at last became careless.