Gratuitous Historickal Posting

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Lake George in 1755, in which a force of about 1500 British Colonial troops under the command of Sir William Johnson defeated a force of 3500 French and Indian allies commanded by Baron Ludwig August Dieskau. Here is a nice summary (with lots of site photos) of the day's fighting which rolled back and forth, eventually ending with the first significant British victory against the French in the struggle for dominion of North America. (Dieskau was seriously wounded in the fight and there is a story that William Johnson himself personally intervened to prevent him from being scalped.)

Johnson received a tremendous amount of fame and notariety in both Colonial and Crown circles as a result of his victory at this battle. Among other things, he was appointed Superintendant of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies in 1756. It was Johnson's intimate relations with the Iroqois, particularly the Mohawks, that largely persuaded them to take the British side against the French and later, during Pontiac's Rebellion, to keep them from turning on their Colonial allies (except the Senecas). Had the Iroqois taken either of these steps, the history of North American colonization by the Brits would have been vastly different and may well not have included the formation of the United States, at least not in a form recognizable today.