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Rare French & Indian War Plan of Fort Ticonderoga -- The Battle of Fort Carillon
This finely executed plan of Fort Ticonderoga (then known as Fort Carillon) and its surroundings is the finest extent record of this important battle during the French & Indian War (Seven Years War).
Mante's plan details the layout of the fortress, its strategic position commanding the river between Lakes George and Champlain, and the troop positions during General James Abercromby's catastrophic frontal assault on French fortifications. Under the command of General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, the French forces were significantly outnumbered, yet the difficult terrain of Ticonderoga allowed only one avenue of attack for the British ground troops. Well-entrenched and protected by a dense abatis constructed by the French to defend the fort, the French repelled multiple advances, inflicting nearly 2,000 casualties on the British regulars and American militia. Along with the defeat of General Braddock’s force on the Monongahela in 1755, this battle was one of the most notable British military failures of the French & Indian War.
Fort Carillon, later known as Fort Ticonderoga, was a strategic stronghold built by the French between 1755 and 1757 during the French & Indian War. Situated on a narrow strip of land at the southern end of Lake Champlain, the fort was designed to control the crucial portage between Lake Champlain and Lake George. Its location was of paramount importance for controlling access to the interior of North America, making it a focal point of military operations during the war. This fortification was originally constructed under the direction of Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, Marquis de Lotbinière.
The Battle of Fort Carillon, fought on July 8, 1758, was a significant engagement in the French & Indian War. British forces, numbering approximately 15,000 men and led by General James Abercromby, launched a direct assault on the fort, which was defended by a much smaller French force of around 3,600 troops under the command of General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. Despite their numerical superiority, the British faced formidable natural and man-made defenses. The French had fortified their position with extensive earthworks and a dense abatis—a barrier of felled trees with sharpened branches pointing outward, making any approach exceedingly difficult.
The British plan hinged on a frontal assault, a tactic that proved disastrous. Abercromby underestimated the strength of the French defenses and overestimated the capabilities of his own troops. The assault began with a heavy artillery bombardment led by Major General John Forbes, but the terrain and fortifications mitigated its effectiveness. As British troops advanced, they encountered fierce resistance from the French, who were well-prepared and strategically positioned. Wave after wave of British soldiers were cut down by musket fire and artillery as they struggled to navigate the abatis and reach the French lines.
The battle was marked by intense combat and heavy casualties. British and American colonial forces suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, while French losses were significantly lower, estimated at around 400. The failure of the British assault was due in part to poor leadership and planning by Abercromby, who failed to adapt to the challenging terrain and the strength of the French defenses. The British retreat was chaotic, and the defeat at Fort Carillon was a significant blow to British morale and military prestige.
In the aftermath of the battle, General Abercromby was replaced by General Jeffrey Amherst, who would later capture Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) on July 26, 1759. The French victory at Fort Carillon bolstered their control over the region and delayed British advances into the interior of North America.
This plan of Fort Ticonderoga, with its detailed depiction of the fortress, troop positions, and surrounding terrain, serves as perhaps the best contemporary printed record of the battle. It provides insight into the strategic considerations and military engagements of the time, offering a glimpse into one of the most significant battles of the French and Indian War.
Rarity
This plan and Mante's The History of the Late War in North-America, and the Islands of the West Indies, are both very rare on the market, with Mante's work considered the best contemporary account of the French and Indian War, celebrated for its cartography and textual content, and one of the great rarities of colonial Americana.
This is the second example of the map we have offered for sale in the past 30+ years (1992-2024).
Thomas Mante (bapt. 1733, d. c. 1802), army officer, historian, and sometime intelligence agent, was baptized Thomas Mant on 3 December 1733 at St Faith’s, Havant, Hampshire. He was the eldest of eight children born to Thomas Mant, an estate manager, and Mary Bingham, daughter of the church historian Joseph Bingham and his wife Dorothea Pococke. Nothing is known of his early education or training, but he began his military career on 25 June 1756 as a senior second lieutenant in the Royal Marines.
During the Seven Years’ War, Mante transferred to the 56th company of Marines in 1759 and participated in the major West Indies campaigns of 1759 and 1762. He served as one of seventeen assistant engineers under the Earl of Albemarle during the siege of Havana in 1762, and by June of that year had obtained a commission as a lieutenant in the 77th Regiment of Foot. That regiment departed Havana for New York in August 1762, but was disbanded the following year as part of postwar reductions. Mante, however, remained in North America: in 1763 he joined Colonel Henry Bouquet’s campaign against the forces of Pontiac, and in 1764 served as brigade major in Colonel John Bradstreet’s expedition to the western Great Lakes.
Placed on half-pay in 1765, Mante spent the next eight years in London. He sought appointments—most ambitiously, as lieutenant-governor of a proposed colony in Detroit—but failed to secure political support. He relied increasingly on borrowed funds and fell out with both John Bradstreet and Sir Charles Gould. During this period, he was employed by John Robinson at the Treasury to provide intelligence in anticipation of a renewed Anglo-French conflict. On 29 June 1769 he married Mary Silver at North Hayling, near his family’s home in Havant.
Mante’s literary career began in this first London period. Between 1770 and 1772 he completed four military works: three translations of treatises on tactics from the French school of Joly de Maizeroy—A Treatise on the Use of Defensive Arms (1770), Elementary Principles of Tactics (1771), and the two-volume System of Tactics (1781)—and his major historical achievement, The History of the Late War in North America (1772). This last work, issued with a suite of folding maps, drew on his own military experience and is still regarded as a valuable contemporary account of the Seven Years’ War. He changed the spelling of his name from “Mant” to “Mante” between 1770 and 1772, and used it consistently thereafter.
In 1773, Mante moved permanently to Dieppe, Normandy, where he had lived intermittently since 1769. He had been recruited by the Jacobite exile Jean-Charles-Adolphe Grant de Blairfindy to provide military intelligence to the French ministry of war. Though on the French payroll for a time, his payments ceased in 1774 amid suspicions that he was a double agent. Nonetheless, he remained in France, serving briefly as an excise officer and then attempting to operate an estate for raising British sheep. This project failed, and in 1778 he was imprisoned for debt. That same year, he published Traité des prairies artificielles, des enclos, et de l’éducation des moutons de race angloise, a treatise on English methods of sheep husbandry, which received formal approval from Louis XVI and was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, then serving as American ambassador in Paris.
Released from prison in early 1781, Mante returned to London in poor health and near destitution. Rejected by his former associates, he found support from the publisher Thomas Hookham, who issued two of his novels, Lucinda and The Siege of Aubigny, in 1781–82. These were paraphrases of French originals. His final project was an ambitious Naval and Military History of the Wars of England, published in multiple volumes between c.1795 and 1807. He personally authored the early volumes and most of volumes five and six, which covered the wars of 1714–1771. Volume seven was only partially completed by him and finished by another hand; volume eight was written posthumously by an anonymous editor. Between 1800 and 1801 he also contributed nineteen essays, titled “Retrospect of the eighteenth century,” to The Gentleman’s Magazine. He died around 1802, still at work on his history.
Substantially based on the ODNB entry.
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