Twelve hundred troops began arriving in June 1665 and were immediately put into service building Fort Sorel and Fort Ste Anne on Isle la Motte in Lake Champlain, now a part of Vermont. They also constructed Fort St Jean, Fort Ste Therese, and Fort St Louis (later Fort Chambly), all on the Richelieu River.
In January of 1666, the middle of winter, 300 under equipped troops were sent on a fool's mission into enemy territory by the Québec governor. Traveling over a hundred miles, starving and hypothermic, they arrived in the Dutch settlement of Schenectady where the kind farmers fed and sheltered them. They returned to Quebec having learned a brutal lesson that many upstate New Yorkers know too well. Don't go into the north country without the proper equipment in the middle of January!
|Scapulurs worn around one's neck.|
Made by nuns for divine protection of the soldiers.
Displayed at the museum at Fort Chambly
Then in the fall of 1666, there was another expedition to Iroquois country. Traveling form Québec, French soldiers reached their destination in the Mohawk Valley, west of Schenectady in two to three weeks. This time, they were successful destroying several Mohawk villages. Their efforts earned a peace between the Iroquois and French settlers after more than two decades of guerilla war by Iroquois.
After the peace was made in 1667, the regiments were disbanded and returned to France. However, over 400 men choose to remain in Quebec, marry and start families there. We are the descendants of many of these soldiers.
Below is a link to a gorgeously written document of the individual names of soldiers in the Carignan-Salieres Regiments.
Francois Chagnon dit LaRose
Bernard Delpêche dit Bellair
Antoine Emery dit Coderre
Pierre Favreau dit Deslauriers
Julien Lord dit Montagne
Piere Mageau dit Maisonseule
Pierre Mésnard dit Xaintonge
Eustache Prévost dit Lafleur
Nicolas Sylvestre dit Champagne