Battle of Fort Niagara

The Battle of Fort Niagara was one of the final battles in the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War. After a 20-day siege, a British army under Brigadier General John Prideaux forced the surrender of Fort Niagara from the French on July 26, 1759.

The British attack on Fort Niagara was part of a campaign to remove French fortifications from the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions, allowing for a western invasion of New France in conjunction with General Wolfe's invasion to the east. Having secured Fort Oswego the previous month, General Prideaux arrived at Fort Niagara on July 6 with 2,500 men. Captain Pouchot directed a vigorous defence that claimed Prideaux's life several days into the siege. Command of the British army fell to Sir William Johnson, who secured French capitulation on July 26.

Following the loss of Fort Niagara, manpower shortages (General Montcalm had assembled the remnants of New France's military in Quebec City in anticipation of the decisive British blow) compelled the French to withdraw their depleted garrisons from Fort St. Frédéric and even from Fort Carillon, so famously held from the British the previous summer. Although the easy water route to Montreal and the St. Lawrence Valley via Lake Champlain now lay open, French resistance at Niagara and elsewhere had sufficiently delayed the British to prolong the war for another year and to allow the Chevalier de Lévis to fight one last battle for the reclamation of Quebec in 1760.

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