Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro (sometimes spelled "Munro") (1700–1757) was a Scots-Irish officer in the British Army. He is best remembered for his unsuccessful defense of Fort William Henry in 1757 during the French and Indian War. After surrendering with full honours of war to French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, he and his troops were attacked by France's Native allies. The events of the siege were made famous by James Fenimore Cooper in his novel The Last of the Mohicans.
Monro was born in Clonfin, County Longford, Ireland, in about 1700. He was the younger son of George Munro, 1st of Auchinbowie, who was famed for his victory at the Battle of Dunkeld in 1689 in Scotland.[1] However, when John Alexander Inglis wrote his history of the Monro of Auchinbowie family in 1911, he had not then identified the younger George Monro as a member of the family.[1]
Monro joined Otway's Regiment, the 35th Regiment of Foot, as a Lieutenant in 1718. He appears to have had an unremarkable military career by rising in the ranks to lieutenant-colonel by 1750.[citation needed]
Hostilities between Britain and France were soon renewed with the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756. The 35th Regiment was deployed to America, where Monro relieved Lieutenant-Colonel William Eyre as commander of Fort William Henry in the Province of New York.[2]: 95 That summer, the French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm led a force of 7,626 French and Native troops in a weeklong Siege of Fort William Henry. Effectively cut off from the main British force, commanded by General Daniel Webb, the 2,327-man British garrison stood little chance of holding the fort once the French began formal siege operations on 3 August. Monro was forced to open negotiations with Montcalm on 9 August.[3]
Monro's tenacious defence of the fort won him generous terms of surrender from Montcalm. The British were accorded the full honours of war by being allowed to keep their colours, muskets and a single symbolic cannon. The garrison would be paroled and allowed to march to the British-held Fort Edward, about 17 miles (27 km) away.
However, it was not to be. As Monro led his garrison from Fort William Henry the next day, the Native American warriors attacked the British soldiers and killed approximately 185 of them. Monro actually survived the massacre, but he died suddenly in Albany just three months later, on 3 November 1757.[4][3]