The Fortifications Of Le Aux Noix

Given the various phases in the development of Ile aux Noix's defensive role, this document has adopted a chronological division for the order of chapters. Thus, roughly speaking, the first three coincide with the main conflicts in which Ile aux Noix played a preponderant role: the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence and the War of 1812. The three following chapters are more particularly concerned with Fort Lennox, which in a way was the end point of the island's defensive installations. After an assessment of the defensive situation which led to the construction of the fort, a complete chapter is devoted to its detailed technical analysis. Thus, space is given to the technical assessment of the fortification, and the implications for its defensive role are given particular attention. Chapter six analyses the last occasions on which thought was given to Ile aux Noix's defensive purpose and the modifications that this thinking produced.

The 1965-66 excavations of the right redoubt and blockhouse at Fort Lennox National Park, Quebec are described in this report. The structural remains of the blockhouse and the features found in a test of the redoubt rampart and casemates are discussed. The archaeological features are correlated with historical plans and elevation drawings of the redoubt. The artificats, mostly from the debris of the later navy yard period (1813-34), are described and used to confirm the dating of the redoubt and blockhouse structures. The report provides data for comparative studies and may also serve as the basis for the planning of future excavations.

This report describes the 1966 excavations in early French and British fortification ditches at Fort Lennox National Historic Park, Saint-Paul-de-l'Ile-aux-Noix, Quebec. These fortifications were built in 1759 and used until 1819 when they were destroyed to make way for Fort Lennox. Associated artifacts recovered from the ditches and their fill deposits are analysed to provide achaeological dating and to correlate the earthworks with historical maps and other documentation. Ceramic formula dating is utilized in an effort to date the strata in the ditch fill deposits. The location of some early French features on the island is established through archaeological data.

This report presents the results of archaeological research carried out by the National Historic Parks and Sites Branch in 1964 on 11 buildings or areas to the north of Fort Lennox: the 18th-century English fort, the garrison hospital, the hospital cooking house, the garrison bakehouse, the barracks, the gun shed, the ordinance store, the forge and smith's shop, a lime kiln area, a well area, and a possible canteen-root house area. All are of 19th-century date with the exception of the English fort.

'New France' consisted of the area colonized and ruled by France in North America. This title takes a look at the lengthy chain of forts built by the French to guard the frontier in the American northeast, including Sorel, Chambly, St Jean, Carillon (Ticonderoga), Duquesne (Pittsburgh, PA), and Vincennes. These forts were of two types: the major stone forts, and other forts made of wood and earth, all of which varied widely in style from Vauban-type elements to cabins surrounded by a stockade. Some forts, such as Chambly, looked more like medieval castles in their earliest incarnations. René Chartrand examines the different types of forts built by the French, describing the strategic vision that led to their construction, their impact upon the British colonies and the Indian nations of the interior, and the French military technology that went into their construction.

A study of French military engineers at a crucial point in the evolution of modern engineering.

A year after John Bradstreet’s raid of 1758—the first and largest British-American riverine raid mounted during the Seven Years’ War (known in North America as the French and Indian War)—Benjamin Franklin hailed it as one of the great “American” victories of the war. Bradstreet heartily agreed, and soon enough, his own official account was adopted by Francis Parkman and other early historians. In this first comprehensive analysis of Bradstreet’s raid, Ian Macpherson McCulloch uses never-before-seen materials and a new interpretive approach to dispel many of the myths that have grown up around the operation. The result is a closely observed, deeply researched revisionist microhistory—the first unvarnished, balanced account of a critical moment in early American military history. Examined within the context of campaign planning and the friction among commanders in the war’s first three years, the raid looks markedly different than Bradstreet’s heroic portrayal. The operation was carried out principally by American colonial soldiers, and McCulloch lets many of the provincial participants give voice to their own experiences. He consults little-known French documents that give Bradstreet’s opponents’ side of the story, as well as supporting material such as orders of battle, meteorological data, and overviews of captured ships. McCulloch also examines the riverine operational capability that Bradstreet put in place, a new water-borne style of combat that the British-American army would soon successfully deploy in the campaigns of Niagara (1759) and Montreal (1760). McCulloch’s history is the most detailed, thoroughgoing view of Bradstreet’s raid ever produced.