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Thursday, July 12, 2018

Montcalm & Wolfe: Blood Along the St. Lawrence

Situation August 1758
On the banks of the St. Lawrence River at the confluence with the St. Maurice, Wolfe is handed a bloody repulse by Montcalm and his stoic French troops.  While Montcalm suffered heavy losses in the British attack at Trois Rivieres, Wolfe was driven back with very heavy loss.  Wolfe's command lost two regiments of Regulars out of the three regiments present for the battle.  For details on this epic struggle, see Peter's Grid Based Wargaming as he recounts the 17th action in the campaign. 

With the repulse of Wolfe at Trois Rivieres, Montcalm has time to regroup.  Montreal, for now, is in no immediate threat of attack.  Rather than falling back to ready the defenses of Montreal, Montcalm can remain at Trois Rivieres as fall approaches.

As expected in their situation, the French want to attempt more than one action in August and roll on the Command Table.  The outcome results in only one Command Point anyway.  With that one Command Point, Drucour's force to the southwest of Fort Oswego marches on Fort Stanwix.  Having a more effective commander as Contrecoeur lead the attack would have been preferred but that is not to be.  Garrisoned by one regiment of Regulars, Fort Stanwix must hold out against Drucour's superior force of two regiments.  With the 1758 campaigning season drawing to a close, Fort Stanwix in French hands would be a welcome relief in an otherwise, hard year.  

Battle of Fort Stanwix
OB:
British: 1 x 5-6 Regular regiment
French: Drucour (A0D1), 1 x 5-6 Regular regiment, 1 x 4-7 Irregular regiment.

Having fought over this ground before, Drucour is very well familiar with how to most efficiently attack the fort. 

10 comments:

  1. I'm really enjoying this, good stuff!

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  2. Bit of breathing space for the French,but can't be long now.
    Best Iain

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  3. Not going to well for Wolfe is it?

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  4. A good result for the French but will it be enough?

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  5. Down but not out. Should be an interesting outcome

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    Replies
    1. We will see how spirited the defense. I favor the Drucour in this one BUT I have been wrong before.

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