Death or Victory

by Dan Snow

  The simplicity of the food in Wolfe’s army therefore fitted neatly into a pre-existing culture of patriotic self-denial. Even so the soldiers did try to augment their diets slightly. In Europe they could add to their rations by buying, or pilfering, fresh food from civilians. Soldiers were paid 8d. a day, about the same as an agricultural labourer in one of the poorer counties of England and only a third of what a labourer might make in London. From this there were all sorts of deductions for replacement kit, food, surgeon’s equipment, and a contribution to the Royal Hospital. In some regiments the men found themselves permanently trapped by debt as unscrupulous officers or NCOs contrived ways of stopping the men’s pay for an array of real and imagined reasons. Good officers tried to prevent this happening, knowing full well its corrosive effect on morale. When running a regiment in Scotland in 1750 Wolfe had ordered that ‘no recruit at exercise to be stopped more than six pence per week; this to be a standing order’.75

  In Canada there was less opportunity to augment rations. Not only did men take their lives and their scalps in their hands whenever they left camp but the local farmers and their families were short of food themselves and often unwilling to sell it to men who had arrived to conquer their homeland. Some markets were organized. By the camp at Point Lévis a few Canadians were joined by the swarm of New England ‘sutlers’, men and women who followed the army looking to sell directly to the soldiers. These market days must have given the men a welcome relief from a hard campaign. Despite constant threats from Wolfe, alcohol was readily available and for some Canadians pragmatism trumped patriotism as they realized that the salt meat that the soldiers offered for barter would help them survive a cruel winter. By the end of August one officer noted that ‘the face of the camp at Point Levis [has] entirely changed owing to the great encouragement given to vendors of all kinds’.76

  Knox recorded a comprehensive list of all the items for sale by the sutlers. A pound of beef cost a little more than a day’s pre-stoppages wage at 9d. A reasonable loaf of ‘good soft bread’ came in at 6d. Alcohol is prominent in his reckonings. Madeira was the priciest drink at 36d. (or 3s.) a quart; good New England rum was available at 30d. (2s. 6d.) per quart. Dark, strong beer, known as ‘Porter’ because the men who heaved loads around the docks and streets of eighteenth-century London used it to refresh themselves, cost 12d. (1s.) per quart.77 If all these tipples proved too much for the hard-up redcoat a ‘bad malt drink from Halifax’ came in at 9d. a quart and cheapest of all was New England cider at as little as 6d. a quart.78

  Sutlers were needed to supply the army but their propensity to sell anything to anyone had to be curbed. A lieutenant in Amherst’s army recorded the strict conditions under which they operated. They required official sanction in the form of passes; they had to encamp in one place, while the ‘provost guards shall encamp around them to keep good order’; ‘No lights are suffered at night’ and, most importantly, ‘none of the soldiers are allowed or permitted to be there after the retreats beating’.79 Wolfe was ‘determined to allow no drunkenness or licentiousness in the army’. He ordered that ‘if any sutler has presumption to bring rum on shore in contempt for the general’s regulations, such sutler shall be sent to the provost in irons, and his goods confiscated’. The commanders of the regiments were warned that they ‘were answerable that no rum or spirits of any kind be sold in or near the camp when the soldiers are fatigued with work or wet upon duty’.80

  None of Wolfe’s men starved during the course of the long summer but a diet of dried biscuit and salted meat, replaced occasionally by horse flesh, presented a real challenge. Men grew desperate to supplement their diets, particularly with fresh food. Deserters brought tales of British shortages to the French who listened with glee. Others took matters into their own hands. On 7 August Knox recorded that ‘some sailors and marines strayed today into the country, contrary to repeated orders, to seek for vegetables’; they were attacked ‘by a party of the enemy’ which left three of them ‘killed and scalped’ and another two were slightly wounded.81

  Wolfe did what he could by sending out strong parties of men to forage. On 10 August he sent a detachment of light infantry along with Bragg’s 28th Regiment to leave the camp early and ‘supply themselves with peas and other greens’.82

  Wolfe’s men earned their meagre rations. At any one time it seems like a third of the men were improving the defences of the various camps by building redoubts, widening ditches, and eternally cutting firewood and fascines. During Amherst’s advance north such was the fear of Native American raids that when a working party was ordered into a trench they were told to ‘take their arms with them’. They were even instructed that ‘when they work to the right they will order their arms to the right; and when they work to the left they will lodge their arms to the left’.83 We can be certain that Wolfe’s exposed force, particularly at Montmorency, was similarly cautious.

  Another third of the army, according to Montresor, was kept busy ‘hauling cannon and carrying stores in the artillery park’. Yet again Montmorency was the scene of the hardest work because here the cannon had to be manhandled ‘from the beach to the encampment about 100 feet from the level of the water’ and ‘the declivity very sudden’.84 Work began early and paused during the hottest hours of the middle of the day when temperatures could regularly break 30°C. Wolfe ordered that ‘men are to begin work at six O’clock in the morning…and continue till ten, then leave off till two (or perhaps three O’clock) in case of excessive heat, and work from that time till six or seven’.85 Years before, when stationed in Scotland, Wolfe had insisted that ’soldiers cannot better employ themselves in the intervals of duty than in some sort of work, and would by all means encourage labour and industry, as the best way to preserve their healths, and enable them to undergo fatigue whenever they shall be called upon’.86

  There was to be no sunbathing or swimming in the St Lawrence for those who were not working. A different grenadier company each day would have the honour of guarding Wolfe himself. Other small groups, headed by a corporal or perhaps a sergeant, would guard stores or patrol the camp keeping an eye on discipline. For the rest of the men if they were not hauling supplies or digging trenches, they drilled. Some days Wolfe ordered just the ‘recruits and awkward men of each company’ to practise.87 At other times whole battalions were ordered to go through their paces. On 6 August ‘the battalions of the Americans [60th Regiment] give no men for work this afternoon, that they may be under arms at 6 O’clock to exercise’. The following day it was the turn of Otway’s 35th to have the morning free from work ‘that they may have leisure to exercise’.88

  There was a brief pause on Sundays when Wolfe ordered ‘divine service will be performed…at 10 O’clock in the forenoon’ for some regiments and ‘at four in the afternoon’ for the others.89 For this church parade and in fact at all times ‘when the soldiers are not employed in work’, the men were to ‘dress and clean themselves, so as to appear under arms and upon all occasions in the most soldierlike fashion’.90

  If the troops worked particularly hard extra provisions were given to them and sometimes an extra ration of rum. Wolfe’s orders stated that he would allow ‘such refreshment as he knows will be of service to them’ and he would ‘reward such as shall particularly distinguish themselves’. ‘On the other hand,’ the orders warned, ‘he will punish any misbehaviour in an exemplary manner.’91

  Throughout July the men sweated by day: harnessed like pack animals to carts, digging trenches, and building redoubts. At night they shivered in their lookout posts, peering over earth ramparts into the black woodland beyond. Fighting flared up around the fringes of the camp and on patrols through the countryside when patriotic Canadians took potshots at British troops. None of this skirmishing brought the British army any closer to the walls of Quebec. Wolfe obstinately stuck to his plan to smash through French defences on the Beauport shore. But on the evening of 18 July a daring action threatened to break the stalemate and presented h
im with several new opportunities.

  At 2230 hours the flood tide was running at its maximum speed. Although the St Lawrence normally swept past Quebec towards the Atlantic for a few hours a day the incoming tide reversed the flow of the river and provided blessed assistance to sailors attempting to make their way upstream. The wind, usually stubbornly south-west, blew from the north-north-east. Conditions were favourable to make the attempt to get past the guns of the town.

  Five British ships heeled over under a good press of canvas as the wind caught them just behind the beam. They were moving fast despite the darkness of the night and the proximity of land. Leading the squadron was the Sutherland with Captain Rous on the quarterdeck. Following his ship were others commanded by some of the finest captains in Saunders’ fleet. Alexander Schomberg in the frigate Diana had won praise the year before at Louisbourg, as had the smaller Squirrel. All three ships had served as a unit the summer before; sailing as close to the shore as possible to pound French positions while Wolfe had led in the amphibious assault. Two armed sloops and two transports carrying a battalion of the Royal Americans completed the little flotilla.

  The ships were cleared for action as they approached the town. Deep in the hold of the Sutherland the carpenter prepared plugs of various diameters, ready to thrust them into any jagged holes torn in the hull of the ship by Quebec’s many cannon. Around the magazine decks and bulkheads had been wetted. Damp fabric screens covered the doors to prevent sparks; light trickled in through glass windows from candles in a next-door room. The men who worked in the magazine, surrounded by barrels of gunpowder, crept around without shoes or anything that risked causing a spark. Above their heads the gun deck was cleared of any unnecessary obstruction. Gone were the elaborate wooden bulkheads that usually divided the ship into a warren of little spaces, each occupied according to status and rank. Instead, now there was just a vast open space, centred around the needs of the cannon. The true purpose of the ships was starkly obvious: they were giant floating gun batteries. The starboard side cannon were loaded and run out of the gun ports in anticipation. Beside each of the cannon eight men crouched ready. The only light came from modified lanterns, one per gun crew, which provided a trickle of light, just enough for them to operate the guns. There were also red glowing pin-pricks at regular spaces along the deck where one of the gun crew knelt, facing away from the cannon, blowing gently on a length of slow-match, ready for the gun captain to use it to ignite the powder and fire the weapon. All the other tools needed to aim, reload, clean, and fire the guns were stashed above their heads in iron cradles. Every gun was trained forward as far as possible. Each gun captain crouched, peering along the barrel, his hand covering the priming powder to stop it blowing away, waiting until the Lower Town came into his field of vision. In the middle of the deck beside the gaping hatches that led to the orlop deck below stood red-coated marines, making sure that no one let their terror overcome their sense of duty.

  On the upper deck men huddled around twelve-pound and six-pound guns, lighter than the twenty-fours below them. These sailors would fire the lighter armament if the town came in range but would also carry out running repairs on the rigging. A lucky French shot could carry away a yard or topmast which might slow the ship to a crawl as mangled rigging dragged in the water like a sea anchor. These men had to be ready for anything, to repair or rebuild the rig or chop away debris. Above their heads netting was slung to protect the crew from any blocks or chunks of wood knocked loose.

  On the quarterdeck four helmsmen gripped the large steering wheel while below them men were poised to steer the ship by emergency steering gear near the rudder should the helm be shot away. In front of the helm stood Captain Rous, with his 1st Lieutenant, his Master, and some midshipmen poised to carry his instructions to parts of the ship or signal the other vessels following him. Rous had something to prove. The night before the same group of ships had been ordered above the town and they had not sailed. Wolfe’s journal stated that ‘the wind [was] fair, night seemingly favourable to their wish, but yet Capt. Rous did not go there’. Thomas Bell, Wolfe’s aide-de-camp, went further, saying that despite wind and tide in his favour Rous ‘did not stir’. Bell reports that ‘The Admiral was going to supersede him and sent Capt. Everett on board at 12 to know the reason of his not getting under way. His excuse was that there was not wind enough’, even though, says Bell, ‘it positively blew a hot gale’.92 Yet again Wolfe and his close staff were effectively accusing naval officers of cowardice. Yet again they obviously did not do so entirely behind closed doors and tent flaps. The lowly Montresor heard that the Sutherland was ordered to sail above the town ‘but did not proceed’.93 It was clearly the talk of the army. The ‘Family Journal’ as ever gives a sense of the feeling of Wolfe’s intimate group. It says, ‘Mr Wolfe had long wished to see some of our ships of War above the town…but he found the blood chilled in the naval veins.’ It reports that the captains were ‘deaf to all that he could say to them: eighty pieces of cannon of the enemies’ ramparts towards the river, reasoned with more conviction to their ears than the breath of honour’. It concludes that the ‘operation in the end was saddled on old Rous a man whom they thought was of little consequence what became of’.94 The following night Wolfe had again ordered Rous and his squadron to pass the town. The General had gone to Point Lévis to watch the squadron make the attempt and this time Rous was leading his ships for the narrows without flinching.

  On shore the French sailors manning the batteries rushed to their guns as the ships came into view. One by one the cannon roared as the French desperately sought to slam the door of the upper river shut. The British ships hugged the Point Lévis bank. An hour before the attempt a naval cutter had dropped anchor off Point Lévis in four and a half fathoms, or twenty-six feet, of water. She shone a light to show the ships just how close to the bank they could steer. The town’s cannon fired from about a half a mile away. This was well within their theoretical range but accuracy and effectiveness were difficult at this distance. If any French rounds did find their target the effect could still be hideous. A ball could punch through thirty inches of oak at half a mile. It would kill anyone it hit but just as terrifying were the shower of splinters that could be sent flying from the point of impact. Spinning through the air, these shards of wood caused horrific tearing, ripping injuries that were harder to treat than musket ball wounds. Injured men were taken down below to the orlop deck where the surgeon stood by with newly sharpened saws and knives. Men killed outright were unceremoniously tipped through the opened gun ports.

  The ships swept through the narrows, firing back at the shore as their guns came to bear. To a novice the gun deck would have been a vision of utter havoc. The noise of the guns in the confined space made men’s ears bleed after a few discharges. The bright muzzle flashes blinded the men whose eyes were used to the low flickering light of shielded lanterns. Every time a gun roared it illuminated only a bank of thick smoke, which the north-easterly breeze blew back into the gun deck. The guns sprang backwards three yards after every firing, brought to a halt by thick ropes which went hard as iron as they absorbed the shock. Without this restraint the cannon would not have stopped for fifteen yards. The crew leapt forward to swab the gun down and reload it. When flat out the teams could fire one aimed shot less than every two minutes. The insatiable demand for powder was met by the powder boys, one per gun, who stumbled along the deck to fetch charges of powder from the magazines below. Each charge had to be brought up individually as it was obviously unacceptable to have excess gunpowder sitting near the cannon. The temperature on the gun deck soared. The scalding iron barrels heated the summer air and the men were soon soaked in sweat.

  The Sutherland made it through without serious damage. A French journal suggests that it was ‘unmolested’ because it was not ‘noticed till it was too late to fire upon it’.95 Montcalm wrote in his journal that the French cannon fired ‘without effect’ because it was ‘a very dark night’.96 The Suth
erland’s log reports that the French opened fire late, when the British ships were already ‘abreast of the town’. Perhaps in the dark night they did not see them any sooner. The log claims that all the French shot ‘went over us, except one which struck our wall [hull] about a foot from the water’. The Squirrel also swept through, the most serious damage was a cannonball through her mizzen topsail.97 There was also a good deal of confusion about the British intentions. The French journal records that ‘the alarm became general—the drums beat to arms, and it was believed, that the enemy wasabout to make an attack upon the town’.98 This fear of an assault on the Lower Town meant that although the French had a huge number of cannon, not many of them were perfectly sited to fire on the narrows. Many were positioned so as to pour fire on a force as it attempted to assault the Lower Town or threatened to sail up the St Charles River. The Royal Battery, for example, on the corner of the Lower Town had only perhaps four of its cannon able to engage the British ships as they passed through the narrowest part of the river. With three knots of tide, and a very conservative estimate of three knots of speed through the water, the British ships would have covered the most risky two-mile stretch in only twenty minutes, allowing even a highly skilled crew to fire little more than ten aimed shots.99

  The first few ships had made it through without a scratch but any celebrations were premature. As the people of Quebec and the soldiers on Point Lévis looked on, the Diana and one of the sloops became entangled. A lieutenant’s log from the Diana records that ‘in going abreast of the town a sloop fell athwart us’. The Diana took dramatic evasive action, but in the narrowest part of the river this led to disaster. ‘Endeavouring to get clear of her,’ wrote the Master, ‘[we] got into the eddy of the tide and little wind and unfortunately run on shore.’100 With a terrible shudder the Diana ran aground. Her Captain, Schomberg, wrote later that ‘I could not disengage myself from [the sloop] till I was forced into an eddy tide, which carried me on the rocks.’101 The Diana stuck fast. She was stranded, vulnerable. Quebecers rejoiced; ‘we think that it will not be able to move off,’ wrote Panet in his diary. 102 Luckily for the crew they were just out of range of Quebec’s cannon. But as Schomberg related, the French responded by ‘sending the floating batteries out to insult us’.103 They blasted away at the beached ship, which stubbornly refused to respond to the crew’s attempts to refloat her. As the tide fell more of her hull became exposed. French gunboats beetled out and fired their cannon at the tempting target. A lieutenant on the Diana recorded that they ‘received some damage’.104 Schomberg feared the worst. Later he wrote that ‘had they been more enterprising I think they might at first have destroyed us’.105 Had the Diana been alone the French boats would have edged closer and pounded her to pieces, but she was far from alone; various Royal Naval warships immediately sailed into the narrows to protect one of their own. The Pembroke and the Richmond both crowded on sail and they anchored near the Diana daring the French rafts and gunboats to come closer. Carpenters and spare hands were sent in a flotilla of boats to help the Diana’s crew get the ship off the rocks. Together the sailors ‘did what we could to lighten her’. They threw various bits of rigging over the side, ‘hove 13 guns overboard’, and sent powder, shot, and ballast after it.106