Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  Canadian militia and Indians laid down fire on the flanks. According to some reports, instead of advancing in a solid line formation, the regular troops in the French center moved forward in a mix of line and column. At 140 yards they let loose a volley of musketry, which at such a long distance had virtually no effect on the British. Once they had fired, the militia and Indians, true to form, fell to the ground to reload. The regulars standing in the center were confused by this maneuver. Their advance became even more jagged.26

  Wolfe stood with his men. He ordered them to load two musket balls at a time and hold their fire. When the French were only forty yards away, officers and NCOs behind the British line ordered "present" and then "fire." Thousands of lead balls tore through the French center. Men fell in windrows. Covered and protected for the moment by a shroud of smoke, the French fell back. The redcoats reloaded and advanced steadily.

  On the right Wolfe stood with the grenadiers. Canadians and Indians hidden in nearby brush fired into their ranks. As he advanced with the grenadiers, a musket ball slammed into his right wrist. Wolfe wrapped the wound and pushed on. The enemy sighted on him again, and this time he took a ball in the stomach and another in the breast. He crumbled to the ground. Lieutenant Browne of the grenadiers, Mr. Henderson, "a volunteer," and an unknown officer of artillery lifted him carefully and carried him to the rear. When asked if he would have a surgeon, Wolfe replied, "It is needless; it is all over with me." One of the officers cried out, "They run, see how they run." "Who runs?" asked Wolfe. "The enemy, Sir; Egad they give way everywhere." Wolfe gave his final order. "Go one of you, my lads, to Colonel Burton; tell him to march Webb's regiment with all speed down to the Charles river, to cut off the retreat of the fugitives from the bridge." Wolfe then turned on his side and said, "Now God be praised, I will die in peace."27 News of the general's fall and then death swept through the British lines. Command passed to Monckton, but he too had been hit and taken to the rear, leaving Townshend to hold the field.

  The death of James Wolfe

  While Wolfe lay dying, the battle continued to rage. On the other side Montcalm rode to the front presenting a perfect target astride his black charger. According to Wolfe's artillery commander, George Williamson, Montcalm was brought down by Williamson's "grape shot from a light six pounder."28 Whatever the case, the marquis was hit several times. Two officers came to his side and held him in his saddle as they turned about and rode through the St. Louis gate to the home of a surgeon named Arnoux. According to an apocryphal story, a crowd of women who saw him struggling in his saddle called out, "My God, my God, the marquis is wounded!" To which he replied, "It is nothing, it is nothing. Do not worry about me. Take care of my good troops." At the surgeon's home he asked Arnoux to "tell the truth like a sincere friend." The doctor told him he would be dead by morning, to which the marquis responded, "Good, I will not see the English in Quebec." His men buried him in the chapel of the Ursuline convent.

  The Marquis de Montcalm astride his black horse on the Plains of Abraham

  Townshend took command of the British forces. On the left the Highlanders pursued the fleeing French with bayonets and claymores. At a wooded escarpment overlooking the St. Charles River a strong detachment of Canadian militia and Indians turned to meet the charging Scots. With a quick volley they tore up their formation. Only after reinforcements arrived did the British manage to drive the enemy from the woods. On the right the grenadiers and the Twenty-eighth Regiment tried to approach the city walls, but they were driven back by heavy cannon fire.

  Finally, as the smoke cleared and the battlefield fell quiet, Bougainville appeared suddenly on the west side. Townshend sent Burton's Forty-eighth, along with additional light infantry and artillery, to drive them away. Bougainville, not fully aware of the shape of the battle, decided to withdraw toward Loriette, preferring to maintain his force rather than risk it in an unknown environment. By noon the Plains of Abraham were quiet, disturbed only by the cries of the wounded and the voices of those coming to help them. The day had cost the French nearly 650 men killed, wounded, and taken prisoner. British losses were estimated to be about the same.

  The death of the Marquis de Montcalm

  That night the remainder of the troops at Beauport left their lines and joined Bougainville and Montcalm's survivors at Loriette, where they tended their wounded and tried to reorganize. The city's commander, Jean-Baptiste de Ramezay, surveyed his unhappy position. Although a French army still existed, it was defeated and demoralized. Quebec was a carcass. After a three-month siege the city was in ruins, men were deserting, and supplies were low. If the British assaulted and took Quebec, it was likely to be a scene of bloody carnage. Some of the British had been at Monongahela and William Henry; those veterans ached for revenge. The whole army remembered what had happened at Montmorency. Rather than risk an assault and the carnage likely to follow, on the fifteenth Ramezay sent a messenger to Townshend to ask for terms.

  Despite the victory on the Plains, Townshend's army was still outside the city. Bougainville was to his rear with a large intact force. Worst of all, winter was on its way. When Saunders came up the hill to pay his respects and congratulate Townshend on the victory, he informed the general that the fleet was anxious to depart. Under the circumstances all that had been gained might well be lost. Townshend's army had to be in the city or else leave with Saunders. They could not spend the winter in an exposed winter encampment. Realizing his predicament, Townshend offered Ramezay generous terms, including the "honors of war." He told the French that "the garrison of the town" would be permitted to "march out with their arms and baggage, drums beating, matches lighted, with two pieces of cannon, and twelve rounds for each piece." He further promised that the prisoners would "be embarked as conveniently as possible . . . to the first port in France."

  Townshend's generous terms were persuasive. Ramezay called a council of war, and his officers voted 13—1 in favor of surrender. At 3 p.m. on September 17 Ramezay ordered a white flag hoisted on the wall. On the eighteenth the final surrender was signed, and the following day, in accordance with the "honors of war," the French marched out of Quebec City as "the Louisbourg grenadiers marched in, preceded by a detachment of the artillery, and one gun, with the British colours hoisted on its carriage." That evening across the river the crew of the Royal William stood to attention as the admiral's barge, bearing the body of James Wolfe, came alongside.29

  (11)

  The Year of Great Victories

  The English hold no more than the ruins of Quebec;

  only four houses remain standing in the town.

  —Gazette de France

  I have an army that can take Canada, and I will do it.

  —Jeffrey Amherst to William Pitt, July 13, 1759

  Inside the walls of Quebec the victorious British walked amid rubble. Their relentless bombardment had demolished at least five hundred buildings and damaged many more. The granaries and storehouses were empty, fires smoldered, and food was scarce. Beyond the walls the French army still existed. The British held "no more than the ruins of Quebec."1

  While the British secured the city, Bougainville moved his defeated force from Loriette to Pointe-aux-Trembles, about twenty-five miles upriver from Quebec, hoping that by taking a position between the British and Montreal he would be able to rendezvous with the relief force that he anticipated was on its way. Vaudreuil was with him, and as usual the impetuous Canadian urged action. He wanted to counterattack and retake the city, but wiser heads urged caution. Lévis soon arrived from Montreal and took command. He had, however, not brought reinforcements. With little hope of retaking Quebec, he posted small garrisons at Pointe-aux-Trembles and at the Jacques Cartier River to maintain a watch over the British, while withdrawing the rest of the army to Montreal to prepare for the spring.2

  It was too late in the season, and the British were too spent, to pursue the French. Although the cost had been extraordinary, Montcalm had held the British long enough at
Quebec to buy Canada another year. Anxious to avoid winter in Canada, most of Wolfe's staff booked passage for more hospitable climes. Townshend, embarrassed by allegations that he had conspired against Wolfe, hurried home to protect his reputation.3 Monckton, still recovering from his wounds, took dispatches to Amherst in New York. Saunders and Holmes bid their farewells. Murray, the only general left, was in command.

  Nations adore military heroes, and none more so than the English, particularly when the idol falls in battle. As the Quebec veterans arrived home, the stories of their triumph grew more grand and romantic with each retelling. Most compelling and popular were the elegiac tales surrounding the death of Wolfe. He fell with his men, dying in the arms of his comrades at the moment of victory. It was drama worthy of Shakespeare, and the public loved it. Tirelessly, writers, poets, sculptors, and painters went to work fashioning monuments to Wolfe in words, stone, and on canvas.4

  Pitt had the best combination a politician could hope for: a glorious victory and a fallen hero. In Parliament he rose to deliver a eulogy to Wolfe and a paean to his victory. The speech was a dense discourse filled with so many classical allusions that Walpole thought it was "the worst harangue he ever uttered."5 As usual, however, Pitt knew better than his critics. The public loved him for his sentimental eloquence as they mourned the fallen Wolfe.

  Nor did Montcalm escape hagiography. Although a tragic figure, the marquis had stood bravely against overwhelming odds. Indeed, Quebec was the only battle Montcalm lost in America, and there were many who claimed that had it not been for the perfidy and corruption of a rotten Canadian bureaucracy, he might have triumphed.

  Indisputably, Montcalm and Wolfe were brave soldiers. Neither, however, were brilliant commanders. Wolfe, for example, stubborn and unwilling to listen to advice, wasted a summer. Only after his generals forced him to abandon another fruitless attack at Beauport did he embrace their option—an attack upriver. Montcalm's fatal error was his decision to abandon the protection of Quebec's walls and commit himself to a set-piece battle where he knew he was at a disadvantage. Whatever their tactical errors, they did act boldly. Jeffrey Amherst did not.

  * * *

  On the day when Wolfe lay dying on the Plains of Abraham, Amherst sat comfortably in his headquarters at Crown Point. As far as the general was concerned, the next year would be soon enough to move north. Although unwilling to risk a major move north, Amherst did at least order a raid in that direction. To gain intelligence about Wolfe's situation, Amherst sent Ensign Thomas Hutchins to Quebec via the Kennebec and Chaudiere on August 7. The next day he sent a second party, led by two regular officers, Captain Kinton Kennedy and Ensign Archibald Hamilton, accompanied by seven Stockbridge Indians, to travel via Missiquoi Bay and the Yamaska River to the Abenaki village of St. Francis. Although they traveled under a flag of truce, claiming to be emissaries to negotiate prisoner exchange, Abenaki guarding the northern end of Lake Champlain intercepted the party, seized the men, and sent them off to Trois-Rivieres. Amherst, furious at this apparent breech of international etiquette, vowed revenge against "the enemy's indian scoundrels."6 On September 12 he summoned Major Robert Rogers and ordered him to attack the Abenaki mission on the St. Francis River, located a few miles upstream from the St. Lawrence. Amherst told Rogers, "Take . . . revenge."7

  Although often referred to as an Abenaki village, St. Francis was a cosmopolitan gathering place where members of several tribes dwelled. Originally founded by the Jesuits on the nearby Chaudiere River, the mission moved to the St. Francis about 1700. A well-established settlement with European-style homes, it was infamous among New Englanders as a staging point from which French and Indian war parties had for generations sortied against their settlements.

  Moving at night, Rogers rowed north with 200 rangers and Indians from Crown Point, hugging the east shore of Lake Champlain. They landed at Missiquoi Bay. For nine days they trudged northeasterly through swamp and brush until they reached the St. Francis River about fifteen miles upstream from their target. Rogers and his men, reduced to 150 because of sickness and accidents, forded the river and made their way quietly along the riverbank toward the village. Late in the afternoon on October 3, Rogers's scouts spotted smoke rising from the village. The men paused, and after dark, Rogers and two other rangers moved closer for a better view. According to the major's account, the Abenaki were "in a high frolic or dance." Rogers returned to his men and issued orders for the attack.8 They would wait for the early morning hour, hoping that the "frolic" would put the Abenaki in a deep slumber. Before dawn the rangers took up positions on the right, left, and center along a line that left the Indians no retreat except into the river. Rogers described the attack to Amherst.

  At half an hour before sun-rise I surprised the town when they were all asleep... which was done with so much alacrity by both the officers and men, that the enemy had not time to recover themselves, or take arms for their own defence, till they were chiefly destroyed, except some few of them who took to the water. About forty of my people pursued them, who destroyed such as attempted to make their escape that way, and sunk both them and their boats. A little after sunrise I set fire to all their houses, except three, that I reserved for use of the party. The fire consumed many of the Indians who had concealed themselves in the cellars and lofts of their houses. About seven o 'clock in the morning the affair was completely over, in which time we had killed at least two hundred Indians, taken twenty of their women and children prisoners.9

  Rogers, never one to underestimate his own role, exaggerated the number of enemy casualties. Most estimates place the number of Indian dead at twenty to thirty. Having accomplished his mission, Rogers and his men faced the much tougher challenge of returning home. Aroused by the attack, French and Abenaki moved quickly to hunt down and kill the retreating rangers. Rogers, who realized the folly of returning by the same route, ordered his men to march east and then south. Their goal was Fort Number 4 on the Connecticut River, more than one hundred miles distant. Rogers's retreat turned into a nightmare. Slowed down by the sick and wounded, his men needed eight days to cover the fifty miles to Lake Ampara Magog, where Rogers divided his command into "small companies of twenties" so that they could move faster and forage more easily.10 As provisions ran out and the men weakened, the wounded and sick fell behind, to be killed and scalped by the fast-approaching enemy. "Being not a season for distinctions,"11 men turned to eating ground nuts and roots. Some roasted their shoes and powder horns. As a last measure, one group of rangers resorted to cannibalism, devouring the bodies of those who had died.12 On the fifth of November, one month after the attack, Rogers reached Fort Number 4. He quickly dispatched supplies upriver, hoping that they might find his starving men. Rogers had lost only one man and had six wounded at St. Francis. However, eighteen rangers were killed on the retreat, and thirty more died of starvation. As one New England balladeer wrote after the attack:

  The rest there fled into the wood

  where they did dyfor want of food

  these men did grieve and mourn and cry

  were in these howling woods must dy.

  few of these men rogers therefore

  conducted safe to numbr four

  the rest behind did their remain

  wheir they with Hungerfirce were slain.13

  Amherst's desire for revenge had come at a very high price and accomplished virtually nothing.

  Through the winter in Montreal Vaudreuil and Lévis pondered their plight. The British were closing in on them from three sides (Quebec, Champlain, and Ontario). In the aftermath of the fall of Quebec, colony officials, including Lévis, Vaudreuil, Bigot, and others, spent hours writing self-serving reports that exculpated themselves from all responsibility for the defeat while laying the blame on the dead.14

  Like his fallen commander, Lévis knew his duty: to hold out as long as possible. He asked Versailles for reinforcements, knowing that there was little chance of any arriving. Lévis hoped for a long winter, uncerta
in what spring might bring.

  Lest the British army overshadow it, the navy too delivered grand news. Under Anson's direction the fleet had maintained a close blockade of the French coast. The navy's vigorous activity, as well as the overzealous behavior of English privateers, thoroughly annoyed the Continent's neutral powers: Spain, Sweden, Holland, and Denmark. English captains had scooped up their ships, offering little regard for the niceties of international law. Pitt and Anson saw neutral complaints and threats of retaliation as a small price to pay for keeping the French in check. Underscoring British naval supremacy were the victories of Boscawen off Lagos and Hawke in Quiberon Bay.15

  Since the middle of May 1759, Boscawen had been patrolling the Mediterranean coast between Marseilles and Toulon. For six weeks he kept his ships in perpetual motion prowling near the shore. The strain on his men and ships was beginning to show. Provisions were running low and the fresh water was turning foul, so the admiral ordered the fleet to Gibraltar for vict­ualing and repair. Wasting no time, the French commander, Admiral Sabran La Clue, sailed from Toulon with ten ships of the line screened by two 50-gun ships and a trio of fast frigates and dashed for the Straits of Gibraltar. Once through the straits, La Clue intended a course for Brest to combine with the fleet awaiting him there. La Clue came south and hugged the Barbary Coast bearing west. As he neared the straits, Boscawen's scouting frigates spotted him and gave chase. In rapid order the main force got under way from Gibraltar and pursued the French toward Cape St. Vincent. On the afternoon of August 18 Boscawen's van led by Culloden came within range of La Clue's rearmost ship, Centaure, and the battle was on. Through the remainder of the day and into the night the English got the better of the exchange. By morning La Clue was running northeast toward neutral Portugal, making for the port of Lagos.