Battle of La Prairie

During the summer of 1691, an English and Indian force led by Major Pieter Schuyler, consisting of 120 militiamen from Albany and 146 warriors from the Mohawk and Mohican tribes, attacked French colonial settlements along the Richelieu River south of Montreal. Louis-Hector de Callière, the local French governor, responded by amassing 700-800 French marines, militiamen and Indian allies at Fort Laprairie, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River.

Schuyler's men surprised the much larger French force in a rainstorm just before dawn on August 11, inflicting severe casualties before withdrawing towards the Richelieu River. The Anglo-Indian force might have remained intact but instead was intercepted by a French force of 160 men led by Philippe Clément du Vuault de la Valrennes that had been detached to block the road to Chambly. The two sides fought in vicious hand-to-hand combat for approximately an hour, before Schuyler's men broke through the French and retreated.

The French had suffered the most casualties during Schuyler's initial ambush, but the casualties the Albany force suffered after Valrennes' counterattack meant that they had incurred the greater proportion of loss. Instead of continuing his raids, Schuyler was forced to retreat back to Albany. The battle was also the subject of a 19th-century poem by William Douw Schuyler-Lighthall. In 1921, the site of Valrennes' counterattack was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.[1]

• Eccles, W.J. (1979) [1969]. "Clément du Vuault de Valrennes, Philippe". In Hayne, David (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. II (1701–1740) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
• Pell, John H. G. (1979) [1969]. "Schuyler, Peter(1657-1723/24)". In Hayne, David (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. II (1701–1740) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
• "The Battle of La Prairie", by W.D. Schuyler-Lighthall
• "A Costly Raid Against Montreal". Canadian Military History Gateway. Government of Canada. 1 June 2017.

• Chartrand, René; Canadian Military Heritage Vol. 1: 1000 - 1754; 1993, Art Global, ISBN 2-920718-49-5
• Adams, Arthur G. The Hudson Through the Years Fordham University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8232-1677-2