Fort Oswego

Located on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario and settled in the 1720s, Fort Oswego played a “brief but ignoble role in British fortunes” during the French and Indian War. As the commander of all British troops in North America (after General Edward Braddock’s death) Massachusetts Royal Governor William Shirley planned to use Fort Oswego as a jumping-off place to capture Fort Niagara, the French stronghold on Lake Ontario’s southwestern coast. Finding Fort Oswego in need of repair, Shirley, a lawyer by profession, postponed his campaign and concentrated on improving the fort’s defenses. In the meantime, General Montcalm and a 3,000-man army left Montreal and headed to Oswego in late July 1756. On August 10, the French arrived at Fort Oswego and quickly placed it under siege, taking the British completely by surprise.

Not only were the British defenders outnumbered three to one, but Oswego’s defenses were incomplete. The original Fort Oswego, which dated from 1727, stood on a low rise beside the bay where the Oswego River emptied into Lake Ontario. Shirley constructed two defensive outworks on the hills on either side of the main fort. To the east stood Fort Ontario, a square palisade with four bastions that garrisoned about 370 men. To the west, a “new” Fort Oswego consisted of an incomplete wooden palisade that could accommodate a garrison of 150 men.

The French focused their first efforts on Fort Ontario, which the British abandoned before the French even completed their siege preparations. Within a day twelve French cannon stared down on Fort Oswego. The British dilemma was worsened by the fact that Fort Oswego’s cannon pointed away from the French position. Although the British reversed their cannon, it left their gunners exposed without a protective parapet. On the morning of August 14, the French opened fire. As French troops advanced from a different direction, a cannon shell struck and beheaded Colonel James Mercer. Mercer’s grisly death so unnerved second-in-command Lt. Colonel John Littlehales that he surrendered the fort within an hour after assuming command.

General Montcalm had achieved his first North American victory (securing a cache of cannon, 9,000 barrels of provisions, several vessels and as many as 1,600 prisoners), but the abrupt British surrender offended the Frenchman’s sensibilities, so he denied the Redcoats the honors of war—departing with their colors and personal possessions. Montcalm also guaranteed the prisoners’ safety—a promise he found difficult to keep. According to one Redcoat, the Indians entered Fort Oswego, got drunk on rum and murdered as many as one hundred soldiers and civilians (numbers vary) before the French restored order.

When Major General Daniel Webb, who was leading British reinforcements to Fort Oswego, learned about the French siege, he returned to Albany—an action that earned him criticism from his superiors and further checked British offensive capability on the northern frontier. 

The Fort Oswego site was used for shore batteries during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, and as a U.S. Army training site during World War I and World War II. Today, Fort Oswego is operated by New York State Parks and Historic Preservation and open to the public.