General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 James Abercrombie or Abercromby (1706 – April 23, 1781) was a British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 general and commander-in-chief of forces in North America during the French and Indian War

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

, best known for the disastrous British losses in the 1758 Battle of Carillon

Battle of Carillon

The Battle of Carillon, also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, was fought on July 8, 1758, during the French and Indian War...

.
Abercrombie was born in Glassaugh, Banffshire

Banffshire

The County of Banff is a registration county for property, and Banffshire is a Lieutenancy area of Scotland.The County of Banff, also known as Banffshire, was a local government county of Scotland with its own county council between 1890 and 1975. The county town was Banff although the largest...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

  to a wealthy family, and purchased a major's commission to enter the army in 1742. He was promoted to colonel in 1746, and major-general in 1756.
Abercrombie commanded a brigade at Louisbourg in 1757 and became commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America after the departure of John Campbell

John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun

Major-General John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun was a British nobleman and army officer.-Early career:Campbell inherited the peerage on the death of his father in 1731, becoming Lord Loudoun. The earl raised a regiment of infantry that took part in the Jacobite Rising of 1745 on the side of the...

 in March of 1758 (see Commander-in-Chief, North America

Commander-in-Chief, North America

The office of Commander-in-Chief, North America was a military position of the British Army. Established in 1755 in the early years of the Seven Years' War, holders of the post were generally responsible for land-based military personnel and activities in and around those parts of North America...

).

That summer, he led an expedition against Fort Carillon

Fort Carillon

Fort Carillon was constructed by Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, to protect Lake Champlain from a British invasion. The fort was not far from Fort Saint Frédéric. It was built to prevent an attack on Canada and slow the advance of the enemy long enough to send reinforcements...

 (later known as Fort Ticonderoga).