awrence and the sea. It was vital to control
the route to the West by Lake Ontario, vital to keep the English
from invading Canada by way of Lake Champlain, vital to guard the
St. Lawrence and keep open communications with France. Montcalm first
directed his attention to Lake Ontario. Oswego, lying on the south
shore, was a fort much prized by the English as a base from which they
could attack the French Fort Frontenac on the north side of the lake and
cut off Canada from the West. If the English could do this, they would
redeem the failure of Braddock and possibly turn the Indians from a
French to an English alliance.

The French, in turn, were resolved to capture and destroy Oswego. In the
summer of 1756, they were busy drawing up papers and instructions for
the attack. Montcalm wrote to his wife that he had never before worked
so hard. He kept every one busy, his aide-de-camp, his staff, and his
secretaries. No detail was too minute for his observation. He regulated
the changes of clothes which the officers might carry with them. He
inspected hospitals, stores, and food, and he even ordered an alteration
in the method of making bread. He reorganized the Canadian battalions
and in every quarter stirred up new activity. He was strict about
granting leave of absence. Sometimes his working day endured for twenty
hours--to bed at midnight and up again at four o'clock in the morning.
He went with Levis to Lake Champlain to see with his own eyes what was
going on there. Then he turned back to Montreal. The discipline among
the Canadian troops was poor and he stiffened it, thereby naturally
causing great offense to those who liked slack ways and hated to take
trouble about sanitation and equipment. He held interminable conferences
with his Indian allies. They were astonished to find that the great
soldier of whom they had heard so much was so small in stature, but
they noted the fire in his eye. 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 E