When the capitulation took place, a scene very different from that which had been anticipated was to be viewed. The Indians, excited by the presence of so many captives, as they considered the English prisoners of war, were not to be restrained and, though measures were taken to hold them in rein, fell upon the helpless men and women and butchered them mercilessly. The morning after the massacre soldiers were set to work destroying all that remained of Fort William Henry. The year that followed the massacre--1758--brought the most formidable looking and least effective of all of the attacks against Ticonderoga. The English, thoroughly incensed at the loss of Fort William Henry, had set themselves with determination to destroy Ticonderoga and to this end had raised a great force of regular soldiery, provincial militia and those invaluable irregular border troops of which Roger’s rangers are a good example, and had placed them under the command of General Abercrombie. The whole body lay encamped in June, 1758, at the head of Lake George, within easy striking distance of the terrible French stronghold. It numbered nearly fifteen thousand men, all told. Montcalm’s forces were not one-fourth so numerous and the great French leader was sadly sure of disaster to himself and his men. That disaster did not, indeed, fall upon the French as the outcome of this undertaking on the part of the British is to be ascribed primarily to the unfortunate choice of a leader which they had had made for them and to Providence, which early in the campaign removed from their midst the only military talent which they seem to have possessed. Abercrombie was a political heritage of corrupt powers in England, where the government had undergone a great reconstruction since the horrors of Fort William Henry, and had been kept in authority solely on account of pressure which could be brought to bear at home. Lord Pitt had appointed as second in command of the expedition one of the few military geniuses of his age,--as all of his contemporaries admitted,--the young Lord Howe, elder brother of the more famous Sir William Howe, who later commanded His Majesty’s forces in America against the rebellious colonies. “The noblest Englishman that has appeared in my time and the best soldier in the British army,” said Wolfe, of him. In a minor skirmish at the very first of the reconnoitring around Ticonderoga he was killed by an Indian’s bullet, and the English troops were left to flounder on from one blunder to another. The last part of the march against Ticonderoga was commenced on the morning of July 4 and by July 6 the soldiers were at the head of Lake George and in touch with the enemy in Ticonderoga just over a ridge of woods.