In Spite of Friend and Foe Volume 84

<p>Ironically, one of the most the most complex British campaigns conducted in North America in terms of Native diplomacy, troop movements, and logistical coordination is also the least studied. <i>In Spite of Friend and Foe</i> by Ian Macpherson McCulloch offers the first comprehensive operational analysis of the much-neglected British campaign conducted on Lake Ontario and the Oswego and Niagara Rivers in July 1759.</p> <p>Drawing on extensive research in British, French, Canadian, and US archives, McCulloch takes readers on an in-depth journey of the campaign from its planning stages, through its execution, to its far-reaching consequences. The campaign is best known for the successful British siege of the French stronghold Fort Niagara and the defeat of a French relief force at the Battle of La Belle-Famille, but little notice has been taken of the role played by the Senecas and the rest of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in ensuring the operations were successful.</p> <p>Throughout, McCulloch highlights the crucial roles played in the operation by American provincial forces and Haudenosaunee warriors. He also offers a frank reassessment of British operational commanders John Prideaux, Thomas Gage, John Stanwix, Sir William Johnson, and Amherst, as well as the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor of New France. McCulloch shows that despite poor British synchronization of their operational capabilities, they still managed to achieve operational successes. Or—as Prideaux termed it— "in Spite of Friend & Foe."</p> <p>The British and Haudenosaunee victories at Niagara and during the Lake Ontario campaign may have long been relegated to footnotes in the larger narrative of the British invasion and conquering of Canada. But the campaign's critical role as a turning point in the war would ultimately coincide with a string of British military victories worldwide in 1759, the turning point of the larger Seven Years' War as well.</p>