The Siege of Fort William Henry was a battle of the French and Indian War that occurred in 1757 when the French Marquis Louis-Joseph de Montcalm besieged and captured the British outpost of Fort William Henry in upstate New York.
After the French construction of Fort Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) and the British construction of Fort William Henry along the Hudson River, several battles occurred in the militarized waterway between the two outposts. In 1757, the British general Daniel Webb assumed command of 2,000 regulars from the 35th and 60th Regiments of Foot and 5,000 militia and was instructed to drive on the French stronghold at Louisbourg in preparation for an invasion of Canada. However, the Marquis de Montcalm had assembled his own French-Canadian army, augmented by 1,000 Indians from the remote areas of New France and 800 more from along the St. Lawrence River. This combined army attacked and besieged the British garrison of Fort William Henry, held by Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro, the 35th Regiment of Foot, and militia regiments from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York. The British garrison was poorly supported, and Webb refused to spare any troops from Albany or Fort Edward, the ultimate targets of Montcalm's offensive. The French bombarded the garrison into considering the French terms of surrender, and Montcalm offered generous terms: the British could retreat, with their arms and colors, to Fort Edward. Monro accepted, but Montcalm duplicitously allowed for his Huron ally Magua to lead France's Indian allies against the retreating British, as he had no desire to fight the same enemy as he advanced on Albany. The Indians ambushed the retreating British from the treelines and massacred approximately 200 of them, taking women, children, servants, and slaves as captives and scalping numerous soldiers and civilians; some reports claimed that 1,500 people were massacred. Magua himself killed Monro and cut out his heart in retribution for the deaths of his daughters at the hands of the British and Mohawk earlier in the war. The loss of Fort William Henry, and the outrageous conduct of the French and their Indian allies, resulted in the British refusing the French the honors of war whenever they surrendered; the British also cancelled the release of French prisoners under the terms of the violated surrender.
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