Battle of La Belle-Famille

On July 24, 1759, amid the French and Indian War, fighting erupted at La Belle-Famille along the portage trail bordering the Niagara River. A French column under François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery, moving to relieve the besieged garrison at Fort Niagara, marched straight into a trap laid by Eyre Massey's British troops and their Haudenosaunee allies. The clash unfolded as one piece of the wider struggle known as the Battle of Fort Niagara.

Having learned of the French advance with ample time to prepare, the British had raised a barricade across the roadway roughly two miles below the fort. When Lignery's men reached this position, they were caught in the ambush and their formation collapsed into disorder, suffering heavy losses in the process. Le Marchand de Lignery himself received wounds in the fighting that would prove fatal.

Background

For the 1759 season of the French and Indian War, British commander Jeffery Amherst drew up strategy that called for seizing Fort Niagara, an important French stronghold linking Canada to French outposts in the Ohio Country. To carry out this task, Amherst placed Brigadier General John Prideaux in charge, and Sir William Johnson, the British agent responsible for relations with native peoples, joined him leading Haudenosaunee warriors allied to the British. Prideaux reached the fort on July 6 and began siege efforts without delay. Two weeks later, on July 20, a shell fragment from one of his own artillery pieces killed him, leaving Johnson to direct the remainder of the siege.

The fort itself owed much of its design to French officer Captain Pierre Pouchot. Earlier that year, General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm along with Vaudreuil, governor of New France, dispatched Pouchot and roughly 2,500 troops to strengthen the position, adding to about 500 soldiers already stationed there through the winter. Acting on Vaudreuil's instructions, Pouchot sent a substantial portion of these men south toward Fort Machault, later renamed Fort Venango, during mid-June, part of a broader scheme to bolster French positions in the Ohio Country and strike British forces at Fort Pitt. Once British troops appeared on July 6, Pouchot quickly sent word south asking for reinforcements.

At that time, Captain Le Marchand de Lignery was assembling French forces at Fort Machault for the planned assault on Fort Pitt, and Pouchot's plea reached him on July 12. That same day found Lignery attempting to persuade close to a thousand native warriors to commit to the offensive against Fort Pitt. Johnson, meanwhile, had already sent word to Fort Pitt encouraging native groups there to side with the British against French positions, leaving many tribes uncertain about where their loyalties should lie. Still, Lignery managed to gather sufficient backing, and once joined with troops under Charles Philippe Aubry, a sizable force departed Fort Machault bound for Niagara. However, the messengers Lignery sent ahead to inform Pouchot inadvertently revealed the approaching column's plans to the British besiegers, who then readied an ambush.

Prior to the engagement, native allies fighting alongside the British informed their counterparts on the French side that they planned to stay out of the coming fight, and expressed hope that French-allied natives would choose the same neutral stance. This appeal led a considerable number of the French Indian allies to abandon the cause.

Battle

Despite their familiarity with Indian tactics, Lignery and Aubry pushed forward without the usual safeguards against ambush, walking straight into a trap that had already been set for them.

Defending the trail that ran north from Niagara Falls toward Fort Niagara, Lieutenant Colonel Massey of the 46th Foot had 464 British regulars under his command. He placed roughly 130 men from the 46th along the right flank, in the clearing at La Belle Famille, where the portage trail needed covering. Just above the river gorge, pushed forward from this flank, stood the 46th's grenadiers along with a small detachment drawn from the 44th Foot. Positioned to the left of the 46th were combined light infantry companies from the 44th, the 46th, and the 60th Foot's 4th battalion. The far left was held by men from the 44th together with the New York Regiment. Knowing that a substantial force of regulars made up part of the enemy, Massey instructed his soldiers to stay low and fix their bayonets.

When the French emerged from the tree line into open ground, they fired at once and started shifting from column into line. The British held their fire until the French had closed to very short range, at which point Massey gave the order for his men to stand and open fire. Seven volleys came from the 46th before the regiment pushed forward, firing as opportunity allowed. According to Massey's later estimate, each soldier discharged around sixteen rounds during the engagement. At the same time, the grenadier company poured enfilading fire into the French left. As the French wavered under this punishment, the British closed with bayonets fixed. The French line broke entirely in morale, and the Haudenosaunee allied with the British fell upon those who remained.

What followed was a disorderly French flight, with British troops pursuing for as far as 5 miles (8.0 km) by one account. The French suffered heavy losses in the fighting, among them Lignery, who was fatally wounded. Michel Maray de La Chauvignerie fell into British hands as a prisoner during the fighting. Massey himself was wounded in the action.

Aftermath

With the relief force clearly beaten back, Pouchot had little choice but to hand over Fort Niagara, doing so on July 26.

Although absent from the fighting himself, Johnson penned a narrative of events that split the credit evenly between the regular troops and their native allies. This account found its way into the newspapers, a fact that left Massey furious. For his part, the British officer would later insist that the tribesmen had acted "most dastardly," accusing them of killing wounded men and others attempting to give themselves up.