Rogers was too late to accomplish his purpose, and on his way back he fell into an ambush near Fort Ann, about a mile from "Clear River" (or the Half-Way), on August 8th, and was badly defeated by M. Marin and his force of three hundred Regulars, Canadians and Indians. In this fight, Israel Putnam was taken prisoner, but was later released from captivity through the intercession of Col. Schuyler." This massacre was the cause of a permanent guard of about eight hundred men being stationed at 'the " Half-Wiay Brook," which is referred to in the Thompson Diary under date of August 1st, he being one of the eighty out of Col. Nichol's regiment who were ordered on duty at that spot. And from that time until the close of the campaign late in the fall, the road between Lake George and the " Half-Way Brook," and Fort Edward and the same point, was constantly patrolled by detachments from the two forts, practically putting an end to further assaults and surprises. The diaries of those days show that, as yet, the temperance idea half a century or so afterward to arise in this locality, had no place among the hard drinking, hard swearing, and hard fighting men of that period, as these extracts from the Thompson Journal prove : ''August 28, Monday : Certified that Cape Breton was taken, and 63 cannon shot at Fort Edward and small arms. In joy we made

"^ For other and corroboratory original accounts of the attacks of July 20th and 27th see French despatches in Col. Doc. N. Y., Vol. X, pp. 750,816, 817,849,850, and English reports in Watson's Essex, pp. 96, 97; Pouchot's Memoirs, Vol. i, p. 123; Rogers' Journals, p. 117; Putnam's Journals, pp. 72- 7:i; Sewall's Wobum, Mass., pp. 550, 551, 552, 553; Dawson's Hist.