September 1755: The continental war between the British Empire and France has reached a precarious state for King George II and his colonial interests in North America. After suffering a series of devastating defeats at Fort Necessity and the massacre on the Monongahela, it had come to be that the waters of Lake George were all that lay between Albany and the expansionist desires of New France.
Colonel William Johnson, an Irish born provincial Officer was sent to head off the advancing grenadiers recently arrived from Montreal. Johnson would establish Fort William Henry to accompany Fort Edward at the southern edge of Lake George to counter Fort St Frederic just to the north on Lake Champlain.
The French Commander Baron de Dieskau and Colonel Johnson would engage one another in a game of tactical espionage, trying to gain the upper hand before the two armies finally came to blows. Native spies, kidnappings and interrogations as well as hidden maneuvers are all used in their attempts to gather the intelligence needed to deliver a surprise blow and turn the tide of the war for the British, or open the floodgates for the French to march unabated down through New York to the throat of the British Colonies.
General Braddock’s planned expeditions to repel the French-Canadians from the Ohio Country, New York and New England suffered a shocking implosion before the operation could even get off the ground as Braddock and nearly all of his men were brutally slashed through by the Franco-Native forces that had inhabited Fort Duquesne. With Braddock’s death and defeat, France had discovered documents detailing all of his plans amongst the battlefield dead on the banks of the Monongahela. New France was aware of Johnson’s impending march.
While Johnson may have lost the element of surprise surrounding his Crown Point Expedition, it would be his success or failure that the future of the North American continent hinged upon, and it would be decided in hauntingly bloody fashion…