Death or Victory

by Dan Snow

There was good news, though, from the other fronts. The cautious British had made no attempt to follow up the success at Fort Niagara and advance towards Montreal from the west. On 24 August an Abenaki unit had captured a small party carrying a dispatch from Amherst to Wolfe. The official message was swallowed but lots of letters from officers in Amherst’s army to friends and colleagues in Wolfe’s were taken and they made it clear that Amherst was not going to make a dash for Montreal before the end of this season. He had not heard from Wolfe and for all he knew the latter’s force could have been defeated and he could find himself facing the whole army of Canada at the top of Lake Champlain.

  In Quebec these reports were indistinguishable from rumour. Earlier in the summer Panet notes that people told each other that ‘Louisbourg had been taken back by the French, and that the English fleet was worried and was going to gather and leave’. Récher reports this and adds that a Spanish fleet was blockading Boston, the old king having died and his heir having allied himself with France. Another relentlessly upbeat story circulated which ‘said that the King of Prussia had lost 20,000 men in battle; that the Queen of Hungary was mistress of Silesia and the French of the Hanover electorate’. Now, at the end of August, Quebecers cheered themselves with the entirely false news that ‘we are masters of the large majority of Ireland’. Panet added fervently: ‘I hope that this is so.’112

  Perhaps the rumours grew more optimistic as their position remained deeply uncertain. Despite the lack of British progress it was difficult for the French to celebrate. Supplies seemed to be the biggest French problem. Vaudreuil wrote two affectionate letters to de Lévis in the middle of August in which he tells him how much he, and Madame Vaudreuil, miss him and also describes ‘the pressing want in which we live’. Bigot had told Vaudreuil that by the middle of September ‘we must live on the new flour of this autumn from Montreal’. ‘What a hard situation!’ Vaudreuil groaned. ‘It is an absolute necessity that we plan in advance to cut, beat, and mill Montreal’s autumn wheat. We have no time to lose, as the army will lack totally the means to live if we do not receive the flour in question.’113 Later in the month Vaudreuil wrote again saying ‘we must do everything possible to assure that we do not lose a kernel of wheat because we have basically no other resource other than the harvest of the government of Montreal for the colony to live on until next spring’. He ordered de Lévis to reduce the ration in Montreal, Île aux Noix, and Île aux Galops to one pound of bread. This was necessary because if the army knew there was a different ration to the one they were receiving around Quebec, ‘it would be very unhappy’.114 In reality, Récher wrote, Quebecers often received less than a pound a day as priority was given to the soldiers, who were also bolstered by ‘half a pound of lard and a shot of eau de vie’.115

  Montcalm remained pessimistic. At the end of August he noted in his journal that ‘if we survive this year, the campaign will have been beautiful and glorious’.116 But he clearly regarded that eventuality as unlikely. He wrote a letter near the end of August saying ‘Mr Wolfe (if he understands his business) has nothing to do but bear the first fire—advance fast upon my army—stop at his discharge—my Canadians without discipline at the sound of the drum will get into disorder and fly—such is my deplorable situation.’ Even so, he knew that time was running out for Wolfe and he told his correspondent that ‘the campaign cannot last a month on account of the terrible autumn winds, which are totally against the fleet’. His adversary, he wrote ‘can never succeed as long as he attacks from the other bank’. He knew that something dramatic was required and told his correspondent that ‘Quebec must be taken by a coup de main.’117

  On 31 August Knox reported that ‘General Wolfe appeared in his camp today, for the first time since the late illness.’ Rumours of his recovery had generated the ‘inconceivable joy of the whole army’.118 As Wolfe evaluated the situation he realized he had little choice but to embrace the plans of his subordinates. He wrote Saunders a morose letter in which he admitted that ‘my ill state of health hinders me from executing my own plan; it is of too desperate a nature to order others to execute. The generals seem to think alike as to the operations.’ Reluctantly, ‘I, therefore, join with them, and perhaps we may find some opportunity to strike a blow.’ At times this pessimistic letter descends into gloomy fatalism: he told his naval commander that ‘I am sensible of my own errors in the course of the campaign; see clearly wherein I have been deficient; and think a little more or less blame to a man who must necessarily be ruined, of little consequence.’ As to the future, he knew that ‘Beyond the month of September I conclude our operations cannot go. We can embark the superfluous artillery; and Barré has a list ready for you of quarters for the troops, supposing (as I have very little hope of) they do not quarter here.’119

  He was drafting his dispatch to Pitt, his first since arriving in Canada. Sent in the first few days of September it carried the first official account of the campaign to Britain and after it was digested by the official mind it was published in the newspapers to inform the burgeoning political class. On Wednesday, 17 October 1759, The Public Advertiser carried Wolfe’s report. It was crammed onto an inside page, curiously juxtaposed beside an announcement about the latest ‘Eau de Luce’ which, despite the titanic struggle being fought between Britain and France, was ‘just imported from Paris’. Even though they were mortal enemies nobody could deny the Frenchman’s leadership in matters of fashion and modernity.120 In this anodyne setting the British people read Wolfe’s account, without, of course, the paragraph describing the destruction of the farms and settlements of the St Lawrence. This dispatch was only slightly more upbeat than his private letter to Saunders. He began by apologizing that ‘I wish I could, upon this occasion, have the honour of transmitting to you a more favourable account of the progress of his majesty’s arms; but the obstacles we have met with…are much greater than we had reason to expect, or could foresee.’ After a précis of the fighting thus far he ended by saying that his ‘much weakened’ army opposed by ‘almost the whole force of Canada’ meant that he was faced by ‘such a choice of difficulties, that I own myself at a loss how to determine’. He acknowledged that ‘the affairs of Great Britain’ demanded the ‘most vigorous measures’ but he was unwilling to endanger more of his men. ‘The courage of a handful of brave men,’ he wrote, ‘should be exerted only where there is some hope of a favourable event.’ Gone is any expectation that he might take Quebec, instead he suggested that he would be ‘happy if our efforts here can contribute to the success of his majesty’s arms in any other parts of America’.121 When this downbeat missive was published it caused widespread disbelief. Canada was seen as a wasteland of peasant Breton immigrants mixed with its ‘savage’ original inhabitants, infected with idolatrous papist religion. Across British possessions in North America and in Britain itself its fall was believed to be a matter of time. A friend wrote to Sir William Johnson, the ‘Mohawk Baronet’ who had taken Fort Niagara, with the news from New York. As well as informing him that ‘we were very merry on [Johnson’s] success’ and cries of ‘Johnson for ever’ were on people’s lips, he also informed him that ‘General Wolfe and the army were furiously cannonading and bombarding [Quebec] and had burnt the one half of it—the French army entrenched near the walls on the other side of the town, we have not heard of one sally they made, nor any action between the armies whatsoever—we all expect Quebec will fall into our hands.’122

  Wolfe’s miserable report would come as a rude shock to those whose optimism was stoked by the cosy self-congratulation of New York, Bristol, or Edinburgh. His private correspondence was even more alarming. His almost total psychological as well as physical breakdown is confirmed in a letter to his mother written at the end of August. ‘Dear Madam,’ it began, ‘My writing to you will convince you that no personal evils (worse than defeats and disappointments) have fallen upon me.’

  The enemy puts nothing to risk, and I can’t in conscience put the whole army to risk, my antagonist
has wisely shut himself up in inaccessible entrenchments, so that I can’t get at him without spilling a torrent of blood, and that perhaps to little purpose. The Marquis de Montcalm is at the head of a great number of bad soldiers, and I am at the head of a small number of good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight him—but the wary old fellow avoids an action doubtful of the behaviour of his army.

  He repeats his well-practised complaints about the ‘uncommon natural strength of the country’ before making a stark confession. During this miserable campaign, he has hatched a ‘plan of quitting the service which I am determined to do at the first opportunity’.123

  Weakened, depressed, and resigned to failure, Wolfe still had an army to command, for a few more weeks at least. He had endorsed the brigadiers’ plan but he had no enthusiasm for it. His ‘Family Journal’ says that ‘the brigadiers unanimously declined the execution of [Wolfe’s suggested] attack and were of opinion to move the operations above the town, with what view I know not, it was said their intent was to destroy the Upper Country’. It gives us a glimpse of Wolfe’s real feelings, saying, ‘I afterwards heard Mr Wolfe lament his want of health that he could not execute his plan saying it was the only project that had any pith and marrow in it.’124

  The senior British commanders were deeply negative in private. Townshend simply longed for home. Mackellar wrote in his journal that ‘there was little or no appearance of making good a landing upon a coast so naturally strong, and so thoroughly fortified and defended by such superior numbers’.125 Saunders’ report to London was downbeat, never mentioning the possibility of capturing Quebec but saying simply that ‘let the event be what it will, we shall remain here as long as the season of the year will permit, in order to prevent their detaching troops from hence against General Amherst’. To help a future campaign he tells the Admiralty that he will ‘have cruisers at the mouth of the river to cut off any supplies that may be sent them, with strict orders to keep that station as long as possible’. Even though the weather required that ‘I shall very soon send home the great ships.’ Although Quebec would remain a possession of the French king, it was no longer the pride of North America; ‘the town of Quebec,’ he wrote, ‘is not habitable, being almost entirely burnt and destroyed’.126 No one, however, was more negative than Wolfe himself, the army’s commander in chief. He wrote to a senior government official at the beginning of September that ‘I am so far recovered as to do business, but my constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of having done any considerable service to the State, or without any prospect of it.’127

  By the end of August Knox recorded in his diary that ‘it blows fresh down the river. Mornings and evenings raw and cold.’128 Canadians had always seen 20 October as the absolute end of navigation on the St Lawrence; traders raced to meet this deadline, getting their furs to the ships that would then depart for Europe. There was just over a month left to decide the fate of the town and the colony. Many believed, on both sides, that Wolfe would slink back down the St Lawrence without making one final attempt to take Quebec. Yet as the French heard from a deserter: ‘notwithstanding’ their weakened general, the British ‘were preparing to make a last throw before returning’.129

  TWELVE

  ‘This man must finish with a great effort, and great thunder’

  THOUSANDS OF MEN were hard at work at Montmorency. The sound of picks striking rock and thumping into earth was audible over the roar of the waterfall. Gangs of cursing soldiers and sailors hauled cannon and oxen bellowed as they were goaded while bearing heavy loads. At first glance the scene was typical of the industry shown by the British soldiers throughout the summer. But a seasoned eye would immediately have noticed something quite different. Rather than strengthening the ramparts, batteries, and strongpoints Wolfe’s men were dismantling them. Rather than hauling more and more artillery up into the camp the guns were now being lowered down the slope, a task requiring as much skill and little less effort. Ditches were being filled in, ramparts flattened, and piles of tent floorboards burnt in heaps along with the superfluous detritus of an evacuating army. Montmorency, the rock on which Wolfe had anchored the flank of his army, the site of countless skirmishes, scalpings, and killings, and the focus of the commander in chief’s strategy all summer, was being abandoned.

  The sick and wounded hobbled and limped down to the St Lawrence at mid-morning on 1 September 1759, helped by the women. These were the first groups to be evacuated, after the camp colourmen and quartermasters who, as always, would go ahead to any new location and mark out where the regiments were to pitch their tents. Wolfe had issued detailed orders to his men. Two transports had been allocated for each regiment. The ‘baggage that will not be absolutely necessary on board the transport appointed for the regiment’ would be taken to Point Lévis separately from the men.1 The women, marines, and wounded, Saunders wrote to Townshend, would be taken off by ‘eight flat bottomed boats’.2 Montresor was in one of the first transports to leave, behind him he watched ‘five hundred men employed in hauling all the heavy artillery to the beach and embarking them in boats’.3

  Wolfe disguised his disappointment well. He had always seen Montmorency as a launch pad for assaults on the French army that did not rely on naval assistance. Now, weak with disease and demoralized by the immovable deadlock of the campaign, he had given in. At the prodding of his brigadiers he had agreed to a joint army-navy operation above the town of Quebec. By abandoning Montmorency he was placing himself in the hands of naval officers who he did not trust and increasingly despised. Wolfe had agreed to the brigadiers’ plan on 31 August in a meeting with the three of them and Saunders. As soon as this decision was made, ‘orders were immediately given out,’ records Townshend’s journal, ‘for all the artillery and stores to be carried away from this camp’.4

  Wolfe attempted to make a virtue of his retreat. The evacuation would be made without any pretence at disguise. Withdrawal was a notoriously risky enterprise; one that left an ever decreasing number of his troops vulnerable to enemy attacks. The last men to leave would be nervous that they would be abandoned while others made good their escape. A planned withdrawal could easily become a rout. Wolfe hoped that Montcalm would seize on this and attack. If his French counterpart did give in to temptation he would walk into a British trap. Wolfe ordered that

  as it is to be hoped that the enemy will attack us in our post, and as every advantage may be expected from such an attack if the troops are alert in getting to their alarm posts. It is Col Hale’s [of Lascelles’ 47th Regiment] orders that neither officer nor soldier put off their shoes, coats, or any part of their clothes while they remain in their camp.

  To trick the French ‘bell tents and drums, except one, are to be sent off this night. Every man is to load with two balls, and to have their arms with them in their tents, taking particular care to keep them dry and prevent accidents.’ ‘The tents of every company,’ Wolfe continued, ‘are to be struck at half an hour after one, and every thing is to be removed that may give an appearance of the regiments being on the ground.’ Then under cover of darkness ‘the grenadiers and battalion companies are to march into the redoubts…carrying their tents, blankets, knapsacks etc with them, and are to keep themselves carefully concealed…The commanding officers of companies will take care that this motion is made with as little noise and as much despatch as possible.’5

  The French did not come the first night. The British troops lay behind redoubts, clutching their muskets as their commanders prayed for French aggression to get the better of their caution. One diarist recorded that ‘our troops there expect an attack from the enemy this night, which is very desirable to all our gentlemen’.6 The stubborn French failed to take the bait and the second night Wolfe redoubled his efforts. He ordered his men ‘to conceal themselves entirely after daylight, so as to try to induce the enemy to attack them…no fires to be made by the men in the alarm posts; all dogs to be sent off with the tents’.7 Townshend recorded in his jour
nal that ‘the light infantry to lay concealed in the camp—great silence was to be observed and not a man to show himself on any account but to lay concealed in their posts to try once more in the enemy would attack us’.8 Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ hoped that the French would be lured ‘into a scrape’. Their ‘curiosity and love of plunder might induce them to explore the camp, supposing us to have stole away during the night’. Sadly for Wolfe, however, yet again ‘the bait did not take’.9

  Montcalm’s men watched, but did not intervene. One French eyewitness commented that ‘they seemed very busy at the English camp at the falls of Montmorency, and we could see them embarking their artillery, their baggage, and a part of their army, which landed at the Point de Lévis’. The next day was just as busy and he watched as they ‘set fire to the épaulements of their batteries and to part of their entrenchments—insomuch, that the next day, nothing was to be seen there but a guard, not very numerous, to occupy the fortified post which still remained near the woods’.10 French artillery blazed away at the flotilla of little boats as it crossed between the north shore and the Île d’Orléans. Knox tells us that ‘they beat one of them to pieces’. A French cannonball scored a direct hit on a boat and six of the seven men in it were drowned.11 The movement of ships and men certainly convinced the defenders of Quebec itself that an amphibious assault was imminent. Panet reports that the barges full of men ‘caused an alert in the town’. He then describes how he, and no doubt many others, prepared himself psychologically for the coming battle: ‘I got myself, after having drunk two shots of liquor, to…the St. Jean gate, and we drank the third while on standby.’12

  On the morning of 3 September a large barn near Townshend’s headquarters was set on fire. It was the signal for the final withdrawal. The last four British battalions made their way to the shore of the St Lawrence. All houses, shacks, and wooden defences were burnt. Bragg’s led the way to the St Lawrence, followed by Anstruther’s, Lascelles’, and then Otway’s. Bringing up the rear were the indispensable light infantry. Townshend wrote that he was ‘obliged to wait one hour after the houses was burnt and the redoubts evacuated as the howitzer and other column was so long marching down’. On the beach the force drew up in line as if willing the French to come and attack them, before embarking in the flat-bottomed boats and crossing the St Lawrence without the loss of a man. Townshend’s lengthy wait with the rearguard had shaken his nerves. He confided to his journal that ‘all the army got down to the boats without the enemy appearing to attack us which they might have done with great advantage’.13 Knox reports that Monckton on Point Lévis thought that he saw two columns of French troops leave their positions along the Beauport shore and head inland to cross the ford and attack these last regiments. As a result he put Kennedy’s 43rd and Fraser’s 78th Highlanders into boats and made several feints along the Beauport shore. Knox reports that ‘we remained near four hours on the water’.14 Once the whole British force had been evacuated, they took a roundabout route to the south shore. Perhaps chastened by the previous day’s direct hit on one of the boats, Townshend recorded that ‘we was obliged to lay 3 hours until the tide made that our boats might row up at a greater distance from the enemy’s batteries’. Even taking this longer route the French artillery ‘kept up a perpetual cannonade at us all the way to Point Lévis’. It was to no avail, though, as the bombardment ‘did not touch one boat’.15