55th (Westmorland) Regiment of Foot of Fort Niagara in July 1759. The regiment, as part of General Jeffery Amherst's army, participated in the Battle of Ticonderoga and the capture of Fort Crown Point later that month. In 1760 Colonel James Adolphus Oughton took command of the regiment and led it up the Saint Lawrence River: the regiment witnessed the Siege of Montreal in August 1760. William Gansell became the colonel of the regiment in 1762. In summer 1763, volunteers from the regiment were sent to reinforce the British post at Fort Detroit, which was under siege from neighbouring Native Americans led by Pontiac. The British
Siege of Fort Pitt become by 1763 and how far British officers were willing to go in ignoring their own soldiers' code of warfare. A devastating smallpox epidemic plagued Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes area through 1763 and 1764, but the effectiveness of these instances of efforts to spread smallpox remain unknown. After extensive review of surviving documentary evidence, historian Francis Jennings concluded the attempt at biological warfare was "unquestionably effective at Fort Pitt"; Barbara Mann deduced "it is important to note that the smallpox distribution worked"; Howard Peckham noted the resulting fatal epidemic "certainly affected their vigorous prosecution