Death or Victory
Page 57
Chapter Seven: ‘Trust me, they shall feel us’
1. A. Doughty, An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America: For the Years 1757, 1758, 1759and 1760by Captain John Knox (3 vols., Toronto, 1914-16), I: 415.
2. Williamson to Sackville, 20 September 1759, Quebec, in LAC, MG 18 N 21 and rl A-573.
3. Knox, Journal, I: 415.
4. J.-F. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec en 1759(Quebec, 1959), entry for 12 July 1759.
5. ‘Narrative of the Siege of Quebec, Published by the French [Département de la Guerre]’, in E. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France (15 vols., Albany, NY, 1853-87), X: 998.
6. J. B. N. R. de Ramezay, Mémoire du sieur de Ramezay, commandant à Québec, au sujet de la reddition de cette ville, le 18 septembre 1759(Quebec, 1861).
7. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXX: 242.
8. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec, entry for 13 July 1759.
9. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 242.
10. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), 469.
11. Wolfe to Amherst, 1 May 1759, Halifax, in B. Willson, ed., The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (New York, 1909), 425.
12. Wolfe to Amherst, Battery Overlooking Louisbourg, 1 July 1758, in Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, 379.
13. Wolfe to the Duke of Richmond, 28 July 1758, Isle Royale, in P. L. Carver, ed., Wolfe to the Duke of Richmond: Unpublished Letters (Toronto, 1938), 23.
14. ‘Brigadier Townshend’s Journal of the Voyage to America and Campaign against Quebec, 1759’, in A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901), V: 262.
15. T. Clayton, Tars (London, 2007), 279.
16. Quoted in L. McCulloch, Sons of the Mountain: The Highland Regiments in the French and Indian War, 1756-1767(2 vols., Toronto, 2006), I: 179.
17. Panet’s Journal, 15 July 1759.
18. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec, entry for 15 July 1759.
19. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 245.
20. Panet’s Journal, 17 July 1759.
21. Wolfe’s Journal, 12 July 1759.
22. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 244.
23. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 14.
24. Ibid., 15.
25. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 248.
26. Marguerite Gosselin, quoted inJ.-M. Lebel, 1759Summer under Siege (Quebec, 2001), 15.
27. Logs: Stirling Castle, 23 July 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 308.
28. Siege of Quebec and Conquest of Canada: in 1759. By a Nun of the General Hospital of Quebec (Quebec, 1855), 4-5.
29. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 246-7.
30. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec, entry for 30 July 1759.
31. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 246-7.
32. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers) (Boston, 1759), 4; See also Montresor to Colonel James Montresor, 10 August 1759, Montmorency, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 323; Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec by an Officer of Fraser’s Regiment (Quebec, 1901), 12.
33. Récher, Journal du siège de Québec, entry for 23 July 1759.
34. ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 218.
35. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 250.
36. Panet’s Journal, 8 August 1759.
37. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers), 6.
38. ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anéée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 219.
39. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 24.
40. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 254.
41. Panet’s Journal, 8 August 1759.
42. Knox, Journal, II: 22.
43. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1031; ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 254.
44. Saunders to Pitt, 5 September 1759, PRO, CO 5/51 fol. 40.
45. ‘Genuine Letters from a Volunteer in the British Service at Quebec’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,V: 15.
46. Williamson to Ligonier, 12 August 1759, Point Lévis, in LAC, MG 18 N 21 and rl A-573.
47. ‘Camp at Point Levis 18 August 1759 Expenditure and Remains of Ammunition’, LAC, Monckton Papers, XX, which are on rl C-366. As a result of his calculations Williamson orders that only 15 large shells and 30 ten-inch shells will be fired with 300 shot per day.
48. Wolfe to Monckton, 16 July 1759, Montmorency, in LAC, MG 18 M 1, Monckton Papers, XXII, rl C-336.
49. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army during the Expedition up the River St Lawrence, 1759(Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Fourth Series, Quebec, 1875), 23.
50. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 6-7.
51. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 25.
52. Wolfe’s Journal, 17 July 1759.
53. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers), 3.
54. ‘John Johnson’s Journal’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 97.
55. J. B. N. R. de Ramezay, Mémoire du sieur de Ramezay, commandant à Québec, au sujet de la reddition de cette ville, le 18 septembre 1759, July 1759.
56. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 12-13, 40-1.
57. ‘Diary of Lt William Henshaw’, in C. H. Lincoln, ed., Manuscript Records of the French and Indian War: In the Library of the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA, 1909), 195-6.
58. The sheer volume of orders and threats issued by Wolfe during the summer suggests that the men could not be confined for long periods to the camps. On 6 August he was forced to send an officer and twenty men beyond the fortifications to lie in wait until dusk and ‘take up all soldiers and others straggling beyond their posts’. Later in the month Wolfe ordered that ‘the outposts and guards are to be more careful in the future in stopping all soldiers who are attempting to slip by them’. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 35, 44.
59. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1036.
60. Knox, Journal, I: 413.
61. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 25.
62. Ibid., 19, 26.
63. Ibid., 23.
64. General Monckton’s Order Book, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXIII: 160.
65. General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers (London, 1778), 68.
66. Ibid., 30, 28, 30.
67. Ibid., 15.
68. See V. Bamfield, On the Strength: The Story of the British Army Wife (London, 1974), 45.
69. I am very grateful to Jon Nuttal at the Royal Hospital for this remarkable story.
70. S. Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas: 1755-63(Cambridge, 2002), 124.
71. General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers, 18.
72. LAC, MG 18 M 1, Monckton Papers, XXXII.
73. Knox, Journal, II: 18.
74. Quoted in A. McNairn, Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Montreal,
1997), 5.
75. Issued in Banff, 1750, in General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers, 26; see also A. Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline: Officership and Administration in the British Army 1714-1763(Manchester, 1985), 66 and R. Holmes, Redcoat: The British Solider in the Age of Horse and Musket (London, 2001), 282.
76. Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec by an Officer of Fraser’s Regiment (Quebec, 1901), 29.
77. In 1759 a brewer in Ireland signed a 9,000 year lease on a disused brewery, the St James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin, and started brewing ‘Extra Superior Porter’. His name was Arthur Guinness.
78. Knox, Journal, II: 19. The value of the colonial currency differed from colony to colony but was always slightly less valuable than the British pounds, shillings, and pence. Around 1750 the internationally approved Spanish Silver Dollar was appraised at 4s. 6d. in London, 5s. in Halifax, and 6s. in the New England colonies. Other ingredients included: Gloucester cheese 10d. for a pound, a pound of tobacco 22d. (1s. 10d.), soap, for which there was presumably great need, 10d. per pound.
79. ‘Diary of Lt William Henshaw’, in Lincoln, Manuscript Records of the French and Indian War: In the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, 197.
80. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 19.
81. Knox, Journal, II: 18.
82. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 37.
83. Orderly Book and Journal of Major John Hawks, on the Ticonderoga-Crown Point Campaign, under General Jeffrey Amherst, 1759-1760(New York, 1911), 45.
84. Montresor to Colonel James Montresor, 10 August 1759, Montmorency, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,IV: 322.
85. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 32.
86. General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers, 26.
87. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 40.
88. Ibid., 35.
89. Ibid., 42.
90. General Monckton’s Order Book, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXIII: 157.
91. General Orders in Wolfe’s Army, 20.
92. Wolfe’s Journal, 16 July 1759; Bell’s Journal, 16 July 1759.
93. ‘Journal of Captain Montresor’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, IV: 314-15.
94. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 7-8.
95. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 246.
96. Léger, Le Journal de Montcalm, entry for 18 July 1759, 473.
97. Logs: Sutherland, 19 July 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 317; Squirrel, 19 July 1759, in ibid., 296.
98. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 246; see also ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in ibid., XXVIII, 217.
99. In 1758 one of the classic gunnery duels of the Seven Years War took place in which the Monmouth engaged and eventually defeated the Foudroyant after the two ships had blasted each other at a range of just forty yards. The Monmouth fired 520 12-pound balls and 435 24-pound balls in a battle that lasted over four hours. As British sailors examined their prize they discovered that more than a hundred British cannonballs were lodged in the side and ‘several had gone right through’. In return sixteen shots had passed through the Monmouth’s side, eight of which were below the waterline. In Clayton, Tars, 24, 28, 44.
100. NMM, ADM/L D/106B, 19 July 1759.
101. Captain Schomberg to Admiral Forbes, 5 September 1759, Boston, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 59.
102. Panet’s Journal, 18 July 1759.
103. Captain Schomberg to Admiral Forbes, 5 September 1759, Boston, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V: 59.
104. NMM, ADM/L D/106B, 19 July 1759.
105. Captain Schomberg to Admiral Forbes, 5 September 1759, Boston, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec, V, 59.
106. Logs: Diana, 19 July 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 212.
107. Léger, Le Journal de Montcalm, entry for 18 July 1759, 473.
Chapter Eight: Competing Ideas
1. Bell’s Journal, 19 July 1759.
2. Wolfe’s Journal, 19 July 1759.
3. Wolfe to Monckton, 20 July 1759, although in his agitated state Wolfe dated the note 20 May. It is in LAC, Monckton Papers, XXII, rl/C-336.
4. Samuel Holland to Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, near Quebec, 10 June 1792, in ‘A New Account of the Death of Wolfe’, Canadian Historical Review (1923), 48.
5. Wolfe to Monckton, 20 July 1759, 1300 hours, in LAC, Monckton Papers, XXII, rl/C-336.
6. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection (Ottawa, 1926), XXX: 247.
7. R. Léger, ed., Le Journal de Montcalm (Montreal, 2007), 474.
8. Logs: Squirrel, 20 July 1759, in W. Wood, ed., The Logs of the Conquest of Canada (Toronto, 1909), 296.
9. ‘Relation du siège de Québec, posé par les Anglois en l’anée 1759’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXVII: 218.
10. Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, PRO, CO 5/51.
11. Murray to Wolfe, 22 July 1759, PRONI, DOD 678 2a-3a.
12. Wolfe to Murray, 22 July 1759, PRONI, DOD 678 3a-5a.
13. Logs: Dublin, 23 July 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 218-19.
14. Logs: Hunter, 23 July 1759, in Wood, The Logs of the Conquest of Canada, 229.
15. Extract from a Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations before Quebec in 1759, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser, the Lt of the 78th (Fraser’s Highlanders) and Serving in that Campaign (Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, 1868), 8.
16. A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence (by a Sgt Major in Hopson’s Grenadiers) (Boston, 1759), 4.
17. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in E. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France (15 vols., Albany, NY, 1853-87), X: 1026.
18. ‘Journal du siège de Québec’, in The Northcliffe Collection, XXX: 249.
19. Wolfe to Pitt, 2 September 1759, PRO, CO 5/51.
20. ‘Narrative of the Siege of Quebec, Published by the French [Département de la Guerre]’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 999.
21. Léger, Le Journal de Montcalm, 475.
22. I am grateful to Sir Christopher Prevost for much of this information about his ancestor.
23. Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, the Capital of all Canada, and of the Retreat of Monsieur de Bourlemaque (Quebec, 1901), 23.
24. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1025-6.
25. Panet’s Journal, 21 July 1759.
26. Ibid., 22 July 1759.
27. ‘Extracts from Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec’, in A. Doughty and G. Parmelee, eds., The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (6 vols., Quebec, 1901-2), V: 173.
28. Panet’s Journal, 25 and 31 July 1759.
29. Major Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759(Quebec, 1901), 15.
30. Vaudreuil to Lévis, 27 July 1759, in H. R. Casgrain, ed., Collection des manuscrits du Maréchal de Lévis (12 vols., Montreal and Quebec, 1889-95), VIII: 70-1.
31. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 8.
32. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 16.
33. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’, PRONI, DOD 162/77 C, 8.
34. Ibid.
35. The figure given by Don Higginbotham is 11,000 in D. Higginbotham, ‘The Early American Way of War: Reconnaissance and Appraisal’, William and Mary Quarterly (Third Series), 44 (1987), 235; there is an excellent discussion of this in S. Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas: 17
55-63 (Cambridge, 2002), 54-87.
36. D. J. Beattie, ‘The Adaptation of the British Army to Wilderness Warfare, 1755-1763’, in M. Ultee, ed., Adapting to Conditions: War and Society in the Eighteenth Century (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1986), 73.
37. A. Doughty, ed., An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America: For the Years 1757, 1758, 1759and 1760by Captain John Knox (3 vols., Toronto, 1914-16), I: 109.
38. Quoted in Beattie, ‘The Adaptation of the British Army to Wilderness Warfare, 1755-1763’, in Ultee, Adapting to Conditions, 72.
39. Ibid., 73.
40. Loudoun Papers, 2421, in S. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America (New Haven, CT, 1933), 299-300.
41. I. McCulloch and T. Todish, eds., Through So Many Dangers: The Memoirs and Adventures of Robert Kirk, Late of the Royal Highland Regiment (Toronto, 2004), 132.
42. Instructions for 20 December 1755, Canterbury, in General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers (London, 1778), 51-2.
43. Knox, Journal, I: 468.
44. Loudoun Papers, 2421, in Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America, 300.
45. Chevalier de Johnstone, A Dialogue in Hades (Literary and Historical Society of Quebec: Historical Documents, Second Series, Quebec, 1868), 27.
46. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 18; Townshend reports, very possibly unfairly, that the situation was so dire that Wolfe returned to camp to turn out his entire force. Townshend gives the credit for saving the day to his fellow brigadier, Murray. None of the other sources makes any reference to this but they all admit to having suffered heavy casualties. ‘Brigadier Townshend’s Journal of the Voyage to America and Campaign against Quebec, 1759’, in Doughty and Parmelee, Siege of Quebec,V: 252.
47. Wolfe’s Journal, 26 July 1759.
48. Thomas Bell’s Journal, 26 July 1759.
49. ‘Extract of a Journal Kept at the Army Commanded by the Late Lt Gen de Montcalm’, in O’Callaghan and Fernow, Documents, X: 1028.
50. Panet’s Journal, 26 July 1759.
51. Léger, Le Journal de Montcalm, 472.
52. Montcalm to de Lévis, 29 July 1759, in Casgrain, Collection des manuscrits du Maréchal de Lévis, VI: 206.
53. Johnstone, A Dialogue in Hades, 27.
54. Moncrief, A Short Account of the Expedition against Quebec Commanded by Major-General Wolfe in the Year 1759, 18.