Dieskau had bravely led his men during several hours, but while giving an order to his Indians to move farther to the left, he approached so near the intrenchments that he received, from an American standing behind a tree, his first wound. Ordering the Chevalier de Montreuil to take command, and to order retreat if necessary, then to do his best, and to send men to remove him, Dieskau crawled near a tree and sat with his back against it. One Canadian sent to remove him was picked off by an American, and fell across the baron’s wounded knee. The other went off for assistance; but soon after his disappearance the retreat was sounded. A renegade Frenchman, on the American side, then approached within twelve paces of the German baron, and deliberately shot him, the bullet traversing his hips. Dieskau had received, in all, five wounds. Blodget, a sutler in Johnson’s army, stood like a war-correspondent on the hill near by, watching the fighting. He was thus enabled to make a sketch of the battle, which he published as a cheap print, “with a full though short history,” some weeks afterward, in Boston. Even the wagoners, in the intervals between carrying to Surgeon Williams the wounded who lay on the ground behind the log-house, took their part in fighting; each probably doing as much execution as the average farmer’s boy. For, despite the hot fire so long maintained, the number of killed and wounded on the enemy’s side, except among the French regulars whose white uniform made them easy targets, was not very great. It was not easy to hit men ensconced behind trees or stumps, or occasionally rising in the smoke above the underbrush, while the enemy could, during most of the time, see only here and there a head. The Mohawks in the camp were mostly useless, except to keep up yelling while their white brothers fought beyond the breastworks; and they enjoyed seeing how the pale faces fought. Nevertheless, about forty of their number lost their lives during the day in ambuscade and battle. While this attack of the regulars on the right was progressing, the French Canadians and the Abenaki Indians boldly attempted to flank the left of the camp, many of them even going away round toward the lake, and clustering in a morass where the musketry fire could not well reach them. Fortunately, however, Johnson had posted a field-piece advantageously on the extreme left of his front, which now harassed the squatting Indians, while on those in the marsh the mortars and howitzers were trained. Although the howitzers split and became useless, the mortars did well; and some shells skilfully dropped drove the lurking enemy away, and completely relieved this flank of danger.