RY OF CAPTAIN M'GINNES.

When baron Dieskau set out from Ticonderoga, his design was only to
surprise and cut off the intrenched camp, now called Fort Edward, at the
Carrying-place, where there were but four or five hundred men. If he
had executed this scheme, our army would have been thrown into great
difficulties; for it could neither have proceeded farther, nor have
subsisted where it was, and he might have found an opportunity to attack
it with great advantage in its retreat. But when he was within four
or five miles of that fort, his people were informed that there were
several cannon there, and none at the camp; upon which they all desired
to be led on to this last, which he the more readily consented to, as he
himself had been told by an English prisoner, who had left this camp
but a few days before, that it was quite defenceless, being without any
lines, and destitute of cannon; which, in effect, was true at that time;
for the cannon did not arrive, nor was the breast-work erected, till
about two days before the engagement. To this misinformation, therefore,
must be imputed this step, which would otherwise be inconsistent with
the general character and abilities of baron Dieskau. A less justifiable
error seems to have been committed by general Johnson, in not detaching
a party to pursue the enemy when they were defeated and fled. Perhaps
he was prevented from so doing by the ill fate of the detachment he had
sent out in the morning under colonel Williams. However that may be, his
neglect in this respect had like to have been fatal the next day to a
detachment sent from Fort Edward, consisting of an hundred and twenty
men of the New Hampshire regiment, under captain M'Ginnes, as a
reinforcement to the army at the camp. This party fell in with between
three and four hundred men of Dieskau's troops, near the spot where
colonel Williams had been defeated the day before; but M'Ginnes, having
timely notice by his scouts of the approach of an enemy, made such a
disposition, that he not only repulsed the assailants, but defeated and
entirely dispersed them, with the loss only of two men killed, eleven
wounded, and five missing. He himself unfortunately died of the wounds
he received in this engagement, a few days after he arrived at the camp
with his party. It was now judged too late in the year to proceed to the
attack of Crown Point, as it would have been necessary, in that case,
to build a strong fort in the place whe