The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, Meta, Grok, and Perplexity) can provide much useful and nearly instant information about subjects in a concise format, especially when they have been pre-trained on a large volume of information about the subjects.
I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with information about the Siege of Louisbourg in 1745 and what my 6th great-grandfather Robert Seaver (1702-1752) did there.
1) I chose to use the response from free Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 (as of 12 November 2025) today.
My Prompt was: "Please tell me about the Siege of Louisbourg in 1745 - what was it about, and how did the siege end? How did they travel there and back - land or sea? What were the casualties? What tasks would a 43 year old Robert Seaver (say a sergeant in the Massachusetts company?) have done?"
I uploaded a PDF of my updated Genea-Musings blog post (52 Ancestors - Week 177: #256 Robert Seaver (1702-1752) of Massachusetts) to provide information about Robert and his family to the AI Tool.
2) Here is the Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 response:
The Siege of Louisbourg (1745)
What It Was About
The Siege of Louisbourg took place in 1745 when a New England colonial force aided by a British fleet captured Louisbourg, the capital of the French province of Île-Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island) during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in the British colonies.
The northern British colonies regarded Louisbourg as a menace, calling it the "American Dunkirk" due to its use as a base for privateers. The fortress protected French fishing interests on the Grand Banks and the entrance to Canada via the St. Lawrence River. For New Englanders, the French fortress threatened their trade, fishing livelihoods, and settlements.
In 1745, the governor of Massachusetts Bay, William Shirley, secured by a narrow margin the support of the Massachusetts legislature for an attack on the fortress. Connecticut provided 500 troops, New Hampshire 450, Rhode Island a ship, New York ten cannons, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey provided funds. The force was under the command of William Pepperrell of Kittery, a wealthy merchant with no military experience.
The Journey There and Back
The expedition set sail from Boston in stages beginning in early March 1745 with 4,200 soldiers and sailors aboard a total of 90 ships. They traveled entirely by sea—there was no practical land route to Cape Breton Island. The force stopped at Canso to reprovision, where they were met by Commodore Warren, enlarging the expedition by 16 ships.
The voyage was treacherous. Ice fields were being swept from the Gulf of St. Lawrence that spring, presenting a considerable hazard to wooden-hulled sailing ships. Poor weather and general disorganization resulted in numerous delays, but by late April the siege began in earnest.
The return journey was also by sea, with soldiers rotated home in groups after the victory—though many stayed through the deadly winter of 1745-46.
The Siege Operations
Upon landing, the provincial forces immediately launched an attack on the North East Harbour and the French abandoned the Royal Battery with much of its armaments still operational. The New Englanders quickly occupied this battery and turned its guns on the fortress itself.
The Island Battery was the most formidable and took the New Englanders six weeks to silence. Several assault attempts were bloody failures. On June 6, Captain Brooks led 400 provincial troops against the Island Battery and were repulsed by the French troops, with the French killing 60 British soldiers and capturing 116. On June 7, Gorham led 650 soldiers in another attack, but they had to retreat with the French killing 189 New Englanders in this failed attack.
How It Ended
Following 47 days (six weeks and five days) of siege and bombardment, the French capitulated on June 28, 1745. The French governor realized his position was hopeless with the defenses crumbling under constant bombardment and no relief force arriving. News of the victory reached Governor Shirley in Boston on July 3, which coincidentally was commencement day at Harvard. All of New England celebrated.
Casualties
The casualty figures tell a stark story:
During the Siege: After having lost only about one hundred men to enemy fire and another thirty to illness during the siege, the New Englanders buried 561 of their number between the end of November and the middle of February. Losses to the New England forces in battle had been modest, although the garrison that occupied the fortress during the following winter suffered many deaths from cold and disease.
The Deadly Winter: The real catastrophe came after the victory. Many of these casualties, due to the frozen ground, were buried under floorboards until Spring. Living in the damaged, filthy fortress during the harsh Cape Breton winter, disease ran rampant through the occupation force. By one estimate, deaths from disease topped one thousand, roughly ten times the American deaths in battle.
What Robert Seaver Would Have Done
For a 43-year-old man like Robert Seaver serving in a Massachusetts company, the experience would have been grueling:
The Landing: The troops landed unopposed in late April and immediately moved to secure positions around the fortress. The initial excitement of the unopposed landing would have been tempered by the reality of what lay ahead.
Daily Siege Work: The bulk of the work was backbreaking manual labor:
- Digging trenches and building earthworks to protect troops from French cannon fire
- Hauling captured French cannon into position—guns weighing thousands of pounds dragged over rough terrain
- Building gun batteries closer and closer to the fortress walls
- Standing guard duty and maintaining the siege lines
- Conducting raids on French positions
Living Conditions: The colonial troops lived in rough camps, exposed to cold Atlantic weather. Dysentery spread through the camps. Food supplies were inconsistent. The constant boom of cannon and the danger of French sorties would have kept everyone on edge.
Combat Actions: While most days involved siege work, there were combat operations. The failed assaults on the Island Battery in early June were particularly bloody. Men like Robert would have witnessed the casualties—friends and neighbors cut down by French cannon and musket fire.
The Role of Experience: As a 43-year-old, Robert would have been older than most of the troops. If he held any informal leadership role, he would have been responsible for keeping younger men focused and disciplined. His maturity and his trade skills as a bricklayer would have been valuable—understanding fortifications, knowing how to build stable gun emplacements.
With His Sons: The profound dimension of Robert's experience was serving alongside his teenage sons Joseph and Benjamin. He would have tried to keep them safe while teaching them how to survive. The loss of one of them—whether during combat, from disease, or in the deadly winter after—would have been devastating.
The Bitter Aftermath
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored Louisbourg to the French; in return, the French relinquished control of lands it had won in Flanders. This decision enraged New Englanders who had sacrificed so much for the victory. All those deaths—all that sacrifice—and three years later the fortress was simply handed back to France in a diplomatic exchange.
For Robert Seaver, the triumph of being present at such a historic victory was forever darkened by the loss of his son and the knowledge that it had all been for nothing.
3) The Wikipedia article about the Siege of Louisbourg is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Louisbourg_(1745).
4) The Google NotebookLM Audio Overview (essentially a podcast) about this post is here.
The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this post is below.
5) I have no easy way to double check on these responses from Claude. I don't have many book resources for the subjects and the locality, but there are published books available for this time period and general location. The families mentioned are my ancestral families and I have significant information about their lives from the available records, but know nothing about their daily lives.
6) As genealogists, we can usually find the 17th to 19th century town records, and the later census and vital records, for Massachusetts families, and we may find occupation, immigration, land and probate records. However, there are books and websites about the daily lives of people in those times. The AI tools have been pre-trained on historical events, social history, geography, literature and other disciplines so they can provide information for questions like this one, and in recent months have the ability to search the Internet.
7) After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit the Seaver family in Massachusetts and witness their daily lives. I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.
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