This young Wolfe was evidently
an original military genius, and must be pushed forward. He was immediately
promoted to the rank of Colonel, and was soon to receive still higher
promotion.
The incompetency of the superior officers in the British army had of late
become painfully manifest on both sides of the Atlantic. The American
campaign of 1757 was even more disastrous than were British operations in
Europe. Lord Loudoun, who had been despatched to America in the preceding
year, to direct the campaign against the French, had accomplished nothing,
and the enemy, under Montcalm, were uniformly successful in their
operations. In August occurred the terrible massacre at Fort William Henry.
Other massacres followed, and the colonists were literally panic-stricken.
The border settlements were laid waste, the houses and property of the
inhabitants destroyed, and the colonists themselves scalped and murdered by
the French and their Indian allies. French spies gained early intelligence
of every movement contemplated by the British, and were thus, in many
cases, the means of rendering those movements abortive.
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