Fort Frontenac, located in Canada at the conjunction of the Cataraqui River, the St. Lawrence River, and Lake Ontario (present-day Kingston, Ontario), was a major French supply depot. Through this outpost flowed the trade goods and gifts that sustained the French relations with Native Americans throughout the Great Lakes region and the equipment and food that sustained the French military all the way to Detroit and beyond.

During the French and Indian War (1754-63), after General James Abercromby's disastrous failure at Fort Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) in summer 1758, the British needed a victory to help balance the loss. Abercromby, who generally did not show initiative, agreed to Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet's ambitious plan for a raid on Fort Frontenac. Bradstreet disguised his campaign, which was officially under the command of General John Stanwix, by appearing to simply rebuild a fort at the portage between the Mohawk River and the Lake Ontario watershed. He advanced with 3,100 men beyond the portage to Lake Ontario and then moved on to Sackets Harbor. From there he crossed the lake in bateaux (flat-bottomed riverboats), arriving at Fort Frontenac on August 25, 1758. The siege did not last long since the French had only 110 soldiers in the fort. After the British Americans brought cannon within 150 yards from the walls, a few hours of bombardment on August 27 brought a French surrender. The garrison may have been small, but the storehouses were brimming with goods worth L35,000. What the attackers could not carry away in vessels seized from the French, they destroyed before a French relief force could arrive.

The full impact of the raid would be felt for the rest of the war as other French forts were under-supplied and relations with the Indians deteriorated without gifts and trade goods to facilitate the Franco-Native-American relationship. Upon his return to Albany, Bradstreet wanted to follow up this success with a broader campaign, convinced that the French western posts were all undermanned since General Montcalm had concentrated his forces at Carillon. Abercromby, however, did not want to press his luck and would not permit a further advance in the Great Lakes that year.

Frontenac remained an abandoned site until the British built another a settlement--Kingston--and a fort there in 1783. During the War of 1812 (1812-15), Kingston would be a vital supply center for the British.

Bibliography:

Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York: Knopf, 2000)

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