Battle of Lake George The Battle of Lake George was fought on 8 September 1755 , in the north of the Province of New York . The battle was part of a campaign by the British to expel the French from North America in the French and Indian War . On one side were 1 , 500 French , Canadian , and Indian troops under the command of the Baron de Dieskau and on the other side 1 , 500 colonial troops under William Johnson and 200 Mohawks led by a noted war chief , Hendrick Theyanoguin . Background . William Johnson , who had recently been named the British agent to the Iroquois , arrived at the southern end of " Lac Saint Sacrement " on 28 August 1755 and renamed it Lake George in honor of his sovereign , George II . His intention was to advance via Lakes George and Champlain to attack French - held Fort St . Frédéric at Crown Point , which was a keystone in the defense of Canada . With a view to stopping Johnson ' s advance , Dieskau had already left Crown Point for an encampment situated between the two lakes ( later to be built into Fort Carillon , the precursor of Fort Ticonderoga . ) On 4 September Dieskau decided to launch a raid on Johnson ' s base , the recently constructed Fort Edward ( at the time called Fort Lyman ) on the Hudson River . His aim was to destroy the boats , supplies and artillery that Johnson needed for his campaign . Leaving half his force at Carillon , Dieskau led the rest on an alternate route to the Hudson by landing his men at South Bay and then marching them east of Lake George along Wood Creek . Dieskau arrived near Fort Edward on the evening of 7 September 1755 with 222 French regular grenadiers from the Régiment de la Reine and the Régiment de Languedoc , 600 Canadian militia and 700 Abenaki and Caughnawaga Mohawk allies . Johnson , camped north of Fort Edward at the southern end of Lake George , was alerted by scouts to the presence of the enemy forces to his south , and he dispatched a messenger to warn the 500 - man garrison at Fort Edward . But the messenger was intercepted , and soon afterward a supply train was captured , with the result that the disposition of all of Johnson ' s forces became known to Dieskau . The Indians in the French party , after holding council , declined to assault Fort Edward because they expected it to be defended with cannons ; so in the morning Dieskau gave the order to march north toward the lake . At 9 am on 8 September , Johnson sent Colonel Ephraim Williams south to reinforce Fort Edward with 200 Mohawk allies and 1 , 000 troops from Williams ' Massachusetts Regiment and Colonel Nathan Whiting ' s Connecticut Regiment . Dieskau , warned by a deserter of Williams ' approach , blocked the portage road with his French grenadiers and sent his Canadians and Indians to ambush the Americans from both sides of the road . They lay in wait in a ravine three miles south of the present - day village of Lake George . Battle . " The Bloody Morning Scout " . Williams ' column marched straight into the trap and were engulfed in a blaze of enemy musketry . In an engagement known as " The Bloody Morning Scout " , Williams and Hendrick were killed along with many of their troops . At this point , the French regulars , brought forward by Dieskau , poured volleys into the beleaguered colonial troops . Most of the New Englanders fled toward Johnson ' s camp , while about 100 of their comrades under Whiting and Lt . Col . Seth Pomeroy and most of the surviving Mohawks covered their withdrawal with a fighting retreat . The American rearguard were able to inflict substantial casualties on their overconfident pursuers . Pomeroy noted that his men " killed great numbers of them ; they were seen to drop like pigeons " . One of those killed in this phase of the battle was Jacques Legardeur de Saint - Pierre , the highly respected commander of Dieskau ' s Canadian and Indian forces . His fall caused great dismay , particularly to the French Indians . The assault on Johnson ' s camp . Dieskau ordered his Canadians and Indians to follow up their success with an attack on Johnson ' s camp . However , with their morale already shaken by the loss of their leader , the Caughnawagas " did not wish to attack an entrenched camp , the defenders of which included hundreds of their Mohawk kinsmen . The Abenakis would not go forward without the Caughnawagas , and neither would the Canadians " . Hoping to shame the Indians into attacking , Dieskau formed his 222 French grenadiers into a column , six abreast , and led them in person along the Lake Road into the clearing where Johnson ' s camp was , around which Sir William had hurriedly constructed defensive barricades of " wagons , overturned boats and hewn - down trees " . Once the grenadiers were out in the open ground , the American gunners , crewing Johnson ' s three cannons , loaded up with grapeshot and cut " lanes , streets and alleys " through the French ranks . When Johnson was wounded and forced to retire to his tent for treatment , Gen . Phineas Lyman took over command . When Dieskau went down with a serious wound , the French attack was abandoned . After the French withdrawal , the Americans found about 20 severely wounded Frenchmen who were lying too close to the field of fire of Johnson ' s artillery for their comrades to retrieve them . They included Baron Dieskau , who had paid the price of leading from the front with a shot through the bladder . ( Benjamin West painted a portrait of Johnson saving a French Officer — allegedly Baron Dieskau . ) Bloody Pond . Meanwhile , Col . Joseph Blanchard , commander of Fort Edward , saw the smoke from the battle in the distance and sent out Nathaniel Folsom ' s 80 - strong company of the New Hampshire Provincial Regiment and 40 New York Provincials under Capt . McGennis to investigate . The bodies of the French troops who were killed in this engagement ( actually Canadians and Indians , not French regulars ) were thrown into the pool " which bears to this day the name of Bloody Pond ” . Aftermath . Although the battle itself was inconclusive , and Johnson ' s expedition eventually stopped short of Fort St . Frédéric , the strategic result at Lake George was significant . Johnson was able to advance a considerable distance down the lake and consolidated his gains by building Fort William Henry at its southern end . Historian Fred Anderson writes that had Dieskau succeeded in halting Johnson at Fort Edward , it would have not only ended the threat to Fort St . Frédéric but would also " roll back New York ' s and New England ' s defenses to Albany itself " . The death of Ephraim Williams was commemorated in early versions of the satirical song Yankee Doodle . Casualties . There seem to be as many different versions of the casualties suffered at Lake George as there are accounts of the battle . James P . Millard says : " Peter Palmer states in his history that “ the loss of the English this day was about two hundred and sixteen killed and ninety - six wounded ; of the French the loss was much greater . ” He claims Johnson estimated the French loss at five to six hundred , while stating that another source noted it as “ a little short of eight hundred ” . W . Max Reid says , “ The English loss in killed , wounded , and missing at the battle of Lake George was 262 , and that of the French , by their own account , was 228 ” . Ian K . Steele says of the American losses , " The official returns , corrected , read 154 dead , 103 wounded , and 67 missing . Most of those listed as missing had not deserted into woods full of Canadians and Indians ; most of the missing were later found dead . Pomeroy was preoccupied with the losses , but overlooked the Iroquois casualties , which brought the totals to 223 dead and about 108 wounded " . Of the French losses , Steele says , " The official French journal of the operation probably minimized Indian casualties in a total count of 149 dead , 163 wounded , and 27 taken prisoner . The reported number of those killed , wounded , and captured was remarkably close on both sides , with those fighting for the English losing 331 and the French , 339 . " Steele does not give a reason for his suspicion that the Indian casualties were under - reported . In his 2009 book , " Combattre pour la France en Amérique " , Marcel Fournier diverges considerably from the other sources in reporting the casualties for the Battle of Lac St - Sacrement ( as the French called it ) at 800 killed or wounded for the British and 200 killed or wounded for the French . A letter of 20 October 1755 , from Monsieur Doreil to the Comte d ' Argenson , a senior French commander in North America , confirms that the French grenadiers paid for their assault on Johnson ' s entrenchments with the loss of more than a third of their total strength : the Regiment de la Reine had 21 killed or missing and 30 wounded , while the Regiment de Languedoc had 5 killed and 21 wounded .