Battle of Petitcodiac

The Battle of Petitcodiac was fought during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) of the French and Indian War. The battle was fought between the British colonial troops and Acadian resistance fighters led by French Officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert on September 4, 1755 at the Acadian village of Village-des-Blanchard on the Petitcodiac River (present-day Hillsborough, New Brunswick, Canada).

Battle of Petitcodiac
Part of the French and Indian War
Date September 4, 1755 Location Village-des-Blanchard, Acadia (near present-day Hillsborough, New Brunswick) Result French, Acadian and Indian victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	France Mi'kmaq militia Acadian militia
Commanders and leaders
Joseph Frye Captain Silvanus Cobb Joseph Gorham (wounded)	Charles Deschamps de Boishebert
Strength
200	300
Casualties and losses
22 killed, six wounded (disputed: French source indicates 42 killed, 45 prisoners)[1][2]	1 killed, 3 wounded

Background

After the capture of Fort Beauséjour in June 1755 by British troops during the Seven Years' War, they began rounding up and deporting the local French population. Using Fort Cumberland as a base, British troops and colonial militia made forays into the surrounding countryside, rounding up Acadians and destroying their settlements. Some of the Acadians surrendered, while others fled from the coastal communities into the interior, where they joined with local Mi'kmaq and Maliseet Indians in resisting the British deportation.

Charles Deschamps de Boishébert was the French militia commander who led Acadian, French, and Mi'kmaq forces.

Charles Deschamps de Boishébert was a French militia commander who became a resistance leader. Based in the Miramichi River valley, he helped Acadians fleeing the British deportation operations escape to Quebec. After the fall of Beausejour, Monckton sent a naval squaldorn to evict him from the satellite fort at the mouth of the Saint John River. Knowing that he could not defend his position, Boishebert destroyed the fort.[3] When he received word that the British were planning an expedition to the Petitcodiac River, he hurried to Chipoudy, where he organized 120 Acadians, Maliseets and Mi'kmaq into a guerrilla fighting force.[4]

During Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755), on August 28, Monckton sent Major Joseph Frye with an expedition of 200 provincial militia from Fort Cumberland in two armed sloops, with instructions to clear Acadians settlements on the Petitcodiac River.[3] After setting the buildings on fire at Shepody, New Brunswick, they began moving up the river, torching settlements and taking prisoners along the way.[3]

Battle

On September 2, the expedition began these clearing operations on settlements in and around the Village-des-Blanchard. While the main body worked on the eastern bank of the river, a detachment of fifty or sixty under John Indicot was despatched to the western bank.[5] When they set fire to the village church, Boishébert and three hundred men attacked.[3] The British retreated behind a dyke and were in a near panic when Frye landed with the remainder of the force and took command. After three hours of spirited fighting, Frye eventually extracted the force to the boats and retreated. Twenty two British were killed and another six were wounded.[6] Ranger Joseph Gorham was wounded in the battle.[7]

Aftermath

The site of the battle is marked by the Battle of Petitcodiac National Historic Site monument.

The battle was a stinging defeat for the British. Abbe Le Guerne wrote that it "made the English tremble more than all the cannons of Beausejour."[8] For many of the provincial fighters this was their first experience with combat and over 50 percent of those who participated became casualties.[9]

The battle was the first bright spot for the Acadians. Boishebert rescued thirty Acadian families and brought off several fields worth of crops and supplies.[10] Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot's created an Acadian refugee camp known as "Camp de l'Espérance", on Beaubears Island near present-day Miramichi, New Brunswick. The Acadians also managed to reach camps Baie des Chaleurs and the Restigouche River.[11] On the Restigouche River, Boishébert refugee camp was at Petit-Rochelle (present-day Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec).[12] Boishebert also led Acadians against the British in the 1759 siege of Quebec.

The British would return three years later to destroy the village again for the final time in the Petitcodiac River Campaign (1758).

The site is now marked by a National Historic Sites and Monument plaque.

See also

• Military history of the Mi'kmaq people
• Military history of the Acadians
• History of New Brunswick

References

• John Faragher. Great and Nobel Scheme. Norton. 2005.
• John Grenier. The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press. 2008.
• Earle Lockerby. The Expulsion of the Acadians from Prince Edward Island. Nimbus Press. 2008.
• Commemoration of Battle
• https://web.archive.org/web/20050313113728/http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/system-reseau/sec9/sites-lieux112_e.asp
• Doughty, Arthur G. (1916). The Acadian Exiles: A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Company.
• Wrong, George. Chronicles of Canada
• Arsenault, Bona, and Alain, Pascal. Histoire des Acadiens
• The Battle of the Petitcodiac, September2nd, 1755 By Brad Shoebottom

Primary Sources

• London Magazine 1755, p. 627

Footnotes

1. Brodhead, John Romeyn (1858). Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York. Vol. 10. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co. p. 358.
2. p. 336
3. Faragher, p. 350
4. Faragher, p. 350; Grenier, p.180
5. Grenier, p. 180. Note: Grenier locates this battle at Chipoudy rather than at Petitcodiac. There is a primary source, however, of a letter written by Major Jedediah Preble which indicates the battle happened in "Shipodia" (See Peter Landry. The Lion and the Lily. Trafford Press. 2007. p. 535)
6. Grenier, p. 180. The French reported that eighty British were killed (see Grenier, p. 180).
7. Pote, William (1896). The Journal of Captain William Pote, Jr., during his Captivity in the French and Indian War from May, 1745, to August, 1747. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 176.
8. Faragher, p. 351
9. Grenier, p. 180
10. Grenier, p. 181
11. Lockerby, 2008, p.17, p.24, p.26, p.56
12. Faragher, p. 414; also see History: Commodore Byron's Conquest. The Canadian Press. July 19, 2008 http://www.acadian.org/La%20Petite-Rochelle.html