Death or Victory

by Dan Snow

  Mackellar suspected that Montcalm must have seen something ‘about our camp which gave him a suspicion of the affair, and made him decline the invitation’. The engineer regarded this as fortunate. ‘It was a pretty general opinion,’ he continued, ‘that [Montcalm] might have made an attempt to great advantage at all events.’16 French sources disagree on whether or not Montcalm had let slip yet another opportunity. One journal records that the British deception was too obvious ‘to escape the vigilance of M de Montcalm’, who suspected that ‘some snare was intended’. The author concluded that ‘Montcalm had judged well of their design.’17 Others, however, thought Montcalm should have been more forward. One officer wrote that ‘Montcalm and his principal officers, to try to justify themselves for having lost so fine an opportunity,’ claimed with hindsight to have seen the ‘more than 2,000 men…lying on their faces behind the entrench-ments’.18 Panet’s disgust for the French army grew. He noted with distaste that those families who returned to their homes in the vicinity of the British camp found ‘their village intact, and less damaged than those that are near our soldiers’.19

  When they landed on the south bank the British troops set up camp in the places that their quartermasters had laid out. Only the 2nd/60th Royal Americans and some marines stayed to guard the camp at the tip of the Île d’Orléans under the command of Carleton. The rest all arrived at Point Lévis and, according to Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, ‘encamped in the fields on the back of our batteries’.20 The French cannon in the town fired on these large, new encampments and forced the commanders to resite them further up the slope. Despite this it was a safer environment than the near siege-like conditions at Montmorency.

  Mackellar wrote that Wolfe himself ‘now fixed his head-quarters at Point Lévis’.21 Here he planned the next phase of the operation. Burton would stay at Lévis with one regiment. The rest would march upriver to the Etchemin River where they would board the ships in the upper St Lawrence. That fleet was now, according to its commander, Rear Admiral Holmes, ‘five sail of men of war and about eleven transports’. They had all passed the town, he boasted, ‘in spite of all the fire of their batteries—a thing which they [the French] had thought impossible’.22 On 4 September a fleet of flat-bottomed boats sped past the town on the flood tide. All thirty-two of them were loaded with tents for the soldiers and other pieces of heavy equipment. That day the men in the regiments had been told that they were going above the town and were to travel as light as possible. Monckton ordered that his brigade would sleep ‘one tent to eight men’, while four officers were told to share. They were to take ‘1 Shirt, 1 pair Shoes, 1 pair Stockings and a Blanket per man’. There was one other stern dictate: ‘no women’. He ordered that ‘if the men’s superfluous necessaries can be left in security in their respective camps, they must be left’.23 Even drums were to be left behind to save space. Only two drums per regiment were permitted, although the rest of the drummers, who fulfilled important roles as medical orderlies in battle, were allowed to go if the commanding officer wanted them.

  While Wolfe’s men prepared for the move upriver, news finally arrived from the commander of British forces in North America, Major General Amherst. Mackellar wrote in his journal that ‘an officer and four rangers, brought a confirmation of the taking of Niagara, Carillon and Crown Point’.24 Previously there had only been the jumbled rumours coming from French deserters and prisoners. Getting the message to Wolfe had been a Herculean task. A sergeant in the Louisbourg Grenadiers reports that ‘they were 26 days on their journey’.25 Ensign Benjamin Hutchins had come along the Kennebec River having made his way to Boston from Amherst’s army on 7 August. Another messenger, Captain Quinton Kennedy, had attempted to run straight through to Wolfe along the south shore of the St Lawrence. He was a veteran of frontier fighting and was married to a Native American. It appears that Amherst had wanted Kennedy to test the loyalty of the Native tribes as he went and, if possible, wean them off their attachment to New France. Unfortunately for him that attachment was solid and he was captured. Since he was effectively spying, and was out of uniform, he was not protected by the protocols governing prisoners of war. Montcalm could have hanged him as a spy. As it was he and a fellow officer were roughly treated and their Mohawk companions tortured. Knox heard through a French deserter that ‘two of these Mohawks were roasted to death by the French at Trois Rivières, in the presence of the other two, who were scalped alive, carried to Montréal and hanged in chains’. The officers were clapped in chains and ‘very rigorously treated’.26

  Ensign Hutchins’ long-awaited message actually clarified very little. To start with the information it provided was a month old. It was also slightly ambiguous. Amherst gave no real timetable for his advance north. Wolfe had no idea how long it would take Amherst to move up Lake Champlain and drive Bourlamaque’s army out of its positions at Île aux Noix. For all he knew Amherst could now be at the outskirts of Montreal. A letter written at around this time gives a fascinating impression of the feeling in the British camp. The soldier author says that ‘various are the opinions concerning Quebec; some think it will fall others it will not’. He describes the town as ‘entirely demolished’ and ‘the produce of the year spoiled’. Everyone was aware of the onset of winter which meant that it was ‘thought the siege will continue six weeks longer if the place don’t surrender’. Above all he is optimistic that ‘Mr Amherst is expected every day and there are great hopes of the place surrendering.’27 Knox reported that Wolfe said in public that ‘he did not yet despair of seeing the commander in chief here before the end of the campaign’.28

  In fact, Amherst was nowhere near Wolfe’s army. Many at the time and since have linked the pedestrian speed of his advance to his weaknesses as a commander. Others go further and accuse him of timidity. But, as usual in North America, any advance was utterly dependent on complicated logistics. There were not enough specialist men or transport rafts, ‘bateaux’, to supply both Amherst’s push and Prideaux’s drive to Niagara simultaneously. Amherst had prioritized Prideaux which meant that he had to use unwilling soldiers to bring up his army’s supplies from Albany. This was unpopular and inefficient. Heavy rain in May had turned the roads to mud. The colonial battalions, all nine of them composed of part-time volunteers, were late to the rendezvous. They were delayed by the roads and their refusal to leave their farms before planting their crops. In London Pitt had seen the presence of the colonials as a vital part of his mission to galvanize all the King’s subjects in a giant war for empire. A war fought not by professional soldiers alone but by ‘the people’ themselves. Pitt always regarded this somewhat nebulous grouping of ‘people’ as his constituency and his power base. Amherst had been deliberately ordered to delay the start of his campaigning until these decidedly second-rate infantrymen arrived.

  Lake Champlain had presented him with yet another challenge. Somewhat incongruously given that he was 150 miles inland from the Atlantic seaboard, Amherst was faced with a naval threat. The French had four small ships mounting, in all, thirty-two cannon on the lake. They were able to smash his flimsy bateaux to match wood, so before any advance could be made up the lake ships had to be built to wrest control of its waters from the French. He simply had to wait until the shipwrights could build and launch a brigantine, a sloop, and a floating gun platform.

  Above all, Amherst was convinced that his priority was to avoid defeat and make any gains sustainable. Braddock and Abercrombie had both been routed and in both cases panic had proved as destructive as enemy musket balls. Their armies had fled back to their starting points having abandoned equipment and supplies, leaving no other option but to go into winter quarters. Amherst made sure that every stage of the modest advance was consolidated. Powerful forts were built in the wake of his army. It was better slowly to strangle Canada over two or three campaigns than try to rush through the nearly impenetrable country in search of a blitzkrieg victory only to be ambushed and sent reeling all the way back to the southern en
d of Lake George. Bourlamaque’s position was a strong one. A French officer reported in his journal that ‘M Bourlamaque assured that the advantageous post he had taken at Île aux Noix, the entrenchments he had had thrown up and the formidable artillery he had mounted there, placed him in a position not to fear the enemy, however numerous they might present themselves.’ As well as artillery it had formidable natural defences: ‘both banks of the river presented only deep swamps covered with timber, a passage across which could not be effected except with extreme difficulty’.29 Above all Amherst had no idea of Wolfe’s progress. With Canada’s efficient internal waterways, Montcalm’s army could move from Quebec to Lake Champlain in a few days. Amherst did not want to find himself facing the entire army of Canada if Wolfe had been forced to break off the siege.

  Amherst’s slow advance was understandable; failing to provide Wolfe with any constructive information, less so. His dispatch provided the latter with nothing of use. Wolfe had to continue as before, assuming that he and he alone would have to defeat Montcalm using only the resources he had available. It was a powerful reminder of the limitations of combined attacks in early modern warfare. A neat plan in Whitehall was proving wildly unrealistic in Canada. Wolfe immediately asked Hutchins to return to Amherst and the ensign gamely agreed. He left on 7 September but within days the information he carried was so out of date it was worthless.

  Amherst’s news was frustrating for Wolfe but was devastating for Townshend. One of the few items of solid information from Amherst was news of the death of Townshend’s 28-year-old younger brother Roger. The keen young Adjutant General had gone forward on a reconnoitre during the brief siege of Fort Carillon. He and his companions had been fired on, but had escaped. Realizing he had dropped his telescope he crept back but was ‘shot from the fort with a cannon ball through the body and lived about a minute’.30 The young man was killed as he was on the threshold of professional fulfilment. He had seen his career blighted by his older brother George’s feud with the Duke of Cumberland and he had been thrilled at the latter’s fall and an offer to serve in the prestigious role of Adjutant General under the commander in chief in North America. In one of his last letters Roger wrote to George Townshend’s wife, Lady Ferrers, he is ebullient; his only ‘real concern’ is ‘not being employed on the same expedition’ as his older brother. He signed off saying that ‘believe me nobody can have a more real regard, affection and friendship for you and your family than your affectionate brother and real friend’.31

  George Townshend was crushed. His brother’s death unleashed a reservoir of vitriol in his letters home about Wolfe’s generalship and the brutal campaign of terror against the Canadian people. He even questioned his decision to rejoin the army. ‘The melancholy news I received the day before yesterday,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘upon my arrival here from the cursed camp of Montmorency of my poor brother’s death has reproved me for not consulting my own nature more, when I asked you to [let me] return to the army.’ He felt guilty for putting his wife through the agony of awaiting his safe return and also worried that his mother, ‘now starts at every knock at the door’.32

  A month later his letters are still dominated by his ‘poor brother’s death’. ‘Accursed be this American tomb,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘so fatal to all those who have too much honour to refuse the service of their country in all climates.’ He did not try to ‘describe how much I feel poor Roger’s loss’ and considered these ‘sufferings are meritorious and glorious, but too severe’. ‘One can never,’ he concluded, ‘be so devoted to ones country but anxiety and death, envy and defamation may attend one.’33

  Roger Townshend was buried in Albany. In the south aisle of the knave of Westminster Abbey in London is a fine monument to him, supported by a pair of life-size Native Americans, correct down to the scalps hanging at their waists. Nearby, just inside the main or ‘Great’ west door is a memorial to another promising, young aristocratic officer, George Augustus, Viscount Howe, the pioneering officer whose death the year before had so upset Abercrombie’s campaign. Both these scions of illustrious families had been killed in operations against Fort Carillon. Both men had siblings now serving under Wolfe and both families would have a greater impact on Anglo-American relations than any others in history.

  As George Townshend grieved for his brother the army continued to redeploy. On 5 and 6 September two waves of troops marched from Point Lévis over six miles along the south coast of the St Lawrence where they were met by the flat-bottomed boats that ferried them aboard the transports above the town.

  There was little way to keep these movements hidden. Every French journal comments on the move, most of them with some trepidation. One French officer commented that ‘this movement put it out of doubt, that the enemy had some design upon the north shore’.34 Panet relates how the British ‘made different marches in the south which have worried us’. He also reports a steady drip of casualties caused by the British gunfire from Point Lévis.35 It was disappointing for some in the French camp who had seen, in the abandonment of Montmorency, a precursor to the total evacuation of the St Lawrence. Montcalm always believed that Wolfe would not abandon the siege without another attack. ‘It would be strange,’ says his journal, ‘if Mr. Wolfe would limit himself to the fires and ravages, and only one attempt, which cost him 400 grenadiers on the 31 July which bore no fruit. This man must finish with a great effort, and great thunder.’36 He became increasingly nervous about the British change of posture. He wrote to Bougainville saying, ‘I always worry that the English will seize a position somewhere to cut our communication. Be on your guard at Jacques Cartier and Deschambault.’37

  One French journal agreed with Montcalm that the withdrawal from Montmorency was ‘not calculated to indicate a retreat, but their seeking elsewhere for a place where they could make good a landing—or possibly, might be a snare in the hope of enticing us to abandon our position at Beauport, where we appeared to them invincible’. It describes the increased watchfulness above the town, ‘detachments were sent from the camp at Beauport to Pointe aux Trembles—small posts were placed in all the most advantageous places from Quebec to where the English fleet was anchored, or could get up the river’. Above all there was Bougainville’s force, ‘formed to follow all the movements of the ships…to move up or down the river, as did the English, and to be at hand to repulse them in case of their attempting a descent’.38 Montcalm reinforced Bougainville as much as he dared. All five companies of grenadiers from his French army regiments were sent plus, according to Bougainville’s journal, ‘three light companies of our regulars, and a few militia light companies, which gave me a corps of fifteen hundred men, in addition to the various posts I had placed along the shore’.39 All the Native Americans were likewise sent above the town. This force was around three thousand men in all and was, in the words of one French officer, ‘the elite of the army’.40 Bougainville based himself at Cap Rouge, which struck one French officer as being the place ‘of the most consequence at this juncture’. This source believed that ‘the north shore is nowhere accessible, especially for an army, but at Cap Rouge, Sillery, St Michel and Le Foulon, where a convenient road was made, wide enough even for carriages’.41 These were the points at which the almost unbroken line of cliffs was penetrated by gullies which allowed access to the heights above from the river. Bougainville posted small detachments in these positions with orders to break up the roads and fortify them as best they could. Montcalm warned Bougainville that ‘the continually embarrassing movements of the enemy may affect the communications, and tend to disperse our forces’; he was to ‘watch sharply’ and ‘always keep ahead of the bateaux and barges with your flying camp’. He had sent him all the troops he could spare; from now on, ‘Good luck is all I have to wish you.’42

  The one huge, and presumably unintended, advantage of Wolfe’s utter irresolution throughout the summer had been totally to befuddle the French commanders. Given that Wolfe had no idea where he was going to strike his
decisive blow, it was too much to expect the French to work it out either. They were simply bewildered by ships moving constantly, hundreds of boats plying to and fro, feints, reconnoitres, and raids too numerous to mention. The letters of the French commanders are dominated by reports of interrogations of both prisoners and deserters. The British mood, intentions, numbers, and health are all the subject of detailed conjecture. Montcalm’s journal illustrates his frustration. It states that ‘three deserters’ arrived in camp at the end of August. They ‘tell stories and contradict themselves in what they are saying to the extent of not being able to conclude anything’.43 Vaudreuil wrote to de Lévis on 4 September saying simply that ‘it is very difficult to discern their plans’.44 He was mainly focused on making sure his army had enough to eat until the middle of October. Ramezay neatly illustrates the French frustration: ‘we saw their Barges sometimes full and sometimes empty. They moved continuously back and forth from shore to shore, in order to tire and confuse the troops observing them.’45 It was near impossible to make a prediction based on ‘observable intelligence’ and ‘human intelligence’ was a worthless avalanche of gossip and hearsay. Besides not even Wolfe knew where exactly the blow was going to fall.