Lord Howe, with Major Israel Putnam and two hundred rangers, was at the head of the principal column, which was a little in advance of the three others.  Suddenly the challenge, Qui vive! rang sharply from the thickets in front. Francais! was the reply.  Langy’s men were not deceived; they fired out of the bushes.  The shots were returned; a hot skirmish followed; and Lord Howe dropped dead, shot through the breast.  All was confusion.  The dull, vicious reports of musketry in thick woods, at first few and scattering, then in fierce and rapid volleys, reached the troops behind.  They could hear, but see nothing.  Already harassed and perplexed, they became perturbed.  For all they knew, Montcalm’s whole army was upon them.  Nothing prevented a panic but the steadiness of the rangers, who maintained the fight alone till the rest came back to their senses.  Rogers, with his reconnoitring party, and the regiments of Fitch and Lyman, were at no great distance in front.  They all turned on hearing the musketry, and thus the French were caught between two fires.  They fought with desperation.  About fifty of them at length escaped; a hundred and forty-eight were captured, and the rest killed or drowned in trying to cross the rapids.  The loss of the English was small in numbers, but immeasurable in the death of Howe.  “The fall of this noble and brave officer,” says Rogers, “seemed to produce an almost general languor and consternation through the whole army.”  “In Lord Howe,” writes another contemporary, Major Thomas Mante, “the soul of General Abercromby’s army seemed to expire.  From the unhappy moment the General was deprived of his advice, neither order nor discipline was observed, and a strange kind of infatuation usurped the place of resolution.”  The death of one man was the ruin of fifteen thousand.

The evil news was despatched to Albany, and in two or three days the messenger who bore it passed the house of Mrs. Schuyler on the meadows above the town.  “In the afternoon,” says her biographer, “a man was seen coming from the north galloping violently without his hat.  Pedrom, as he was familiarly called, Colonel Schuyler’s only surviving brother, was with her, and ran instantly to inquire, well knowing that he rode express.  The man galloped on, crying out that Lord Howe was killed.  The mind of our good aunt had been so engrossed by her anxiety and fears for the event impending, and so impressed with the merit and magnanimity of her favorite hero, that her wonted firmness sank under the stroke, and she broke out into bitter lamentations.  This had such an effect on her friends and domestics that shrieks and sobs of anguish echoed through every part of the house.”

The effect of the loss was seen at once.  The army was needlessly kept under arms all night in the forest, and in the morning was ordered back to the landing whence it came.[618] Towards noon, however, Bradstreet was sent with a detachment of regulars and provincials to take possession of the saw-mill at the Falls, which Montcalm had abandoned the evening before.  Bradstreet rebuilt the bridges destroyed by the retiring enemy, and sent word to his commander that the way was open; on which Abercromby again put his army in motion, reached the Falls late in the afternoon, and occupied the deserted encampment of the French.