Crucible of War

by Fred Anderson

  Another French document, the anonymous Journal tenu à l’armée que commandoit feu Mr. de Montcalm lieutenant general, tells a similar tale. In a supposed council of war, Wolfe is said to have declared his intention to take 150 men ashore, “and the entire army will be prepared to follow. Should this first detachment encounter any resistance on the part of the enemy, I pledge you my word of honor that then, regarding our reputation protected against all sorts of reproach, I will no longer hesitate to reëmbark” (ibid).

  Although the form in which it is reported (as a speech to a council of war) is an obvious fabrication, this sensitivity to reproach in fact rings true for Wolfe, who worried about his reputation for brilliance and who feared losing it rather more than he feared death. In 1755 he had written to his mother that “the consequence [of my reputation] will be very fatal to me in the end, for as I rise in rank people will expect some considerable performances, and I shall be induced, in support of an ill-got reputation, to be lavish of my life, and shall probably meet that fate which is the ordinary effect of such conduct” (letter of 8 Nov. 1755, Willson, Letters of Wolfe, 280).

  17. Knox, Historical Journal, 2:94–102 (including quotation on the weather); Stacey, Quebec, 130–2; Gipson, Victorious Years, 414–16. For a masterful assessment of the British and French positions and their comparative advantages, see W. J. Eccles, “The Battle of Quebec: A Reappraisal,” in id., Essays on New France (Toronto, 1987), 125–33, esp. 129 ff.

  18. Stacey, Quebec, 121, 133–5; Gipson, Victorious Years, 416–17.

  19. Stacey, Quebec, 137 (quotation: Major Malartic to Bourlamaque, 28 Sept. 1759).

  20. Vaudreuil to Bougainville, 13 Sept. 1759 (“At a quarter to seven”), ibid., 135.

  21. M. de Montbeillard, quoted ibid., 145–6.

  22. Willson, Letters of Wolfe, 491–2; Knox, Historical Journal, 2:99. Eighteenth-century infantry commanders generally avoided ordering men to assume prone positions because it could be difficult to get them up from the relative safety of the ground to the much more dangerous standing position. In this case, however, Wolfe’s men were thoroughly disciplined and separated from the enemy by a third of a mile; he had every reason to trust that they would rise to meet the French attack.

  23. Knox, Historical Journal, 2:103, notes that entrenching tools were not brought to the heights until after the battle.

  24. Even if Wolfe did not recite Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard on the night before the battle or exclaim that he would rather have written that poem than take Québec, as the legend maintains, he was clearly attached to it. His fiancée had given him a copy, which he annotated during the voyage from England. He underlined Gray’s famous admonition that “The paths of glory lead but to the grave” but seems to have been more impressed by his observation on the adverse effects of “Chill penury,” in response to which he penned an extended comment. See Beckles Willson, “General Wolfe and Gray’s ‘Elegy,’ ” The Nineteenth Century and After 434 (1913): 862–75.

  25. Pessimism: Stacey, Quebec, 84. Topography and the battle: John Keegan, Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America (New York, 1996), 127–8.

  26. Quotation: Malartic to Bourlamaque [28 Sept. 1759?], in Stacey, Quebec, 147.

  27. Five other battalions were also on the field: the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment and the 15th Foot, deployed at a right angle to the line at the left, against a flanking maneuver; the 35th Foot, arrayed similarly on the right; and Howe’s Light Infantry, in a line to the left and rear of the battlefield, to guard against Indian and Canadian skirmishers as well as to defend against Bougainville’s column, should it make an appearance. See Stacey, Quebec, map 6; also Beattie, “Amherst,” app. 2.

  28. Stacey, Quebec, 147 (“one knee” is from Montbeillard, without citation); Gipson, Victorious Years, 420 n. 72 (“scattering shots” is from the journal of Major “Moncrief ” [Mackellar]). “Musket-shot” range referred to the extreme limit of lethal musket fire, about three hundred yards, not to the much shorter maximum effective range of about eighty yards. Rounds fired at “half-musket-shot” range were only randomly effective. Major George Hanger, a British cavalry officer, later wrote that “a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded . . . at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him . . .” (General Hanger to All Sportsmen . . . [London, 1814], quoted in Anthony D. Darling, Red Coat and Brown Bess [Bloomfield, Ont., 1971], 11).

  29. “This false movement”: Malartic to Bourlamaque, 28 Sept. 1759, quoted in Stacey, Quebec, 147. “Close and heavy discharge”: Knox, Historical Journal, 2:101. This quotation combines one of Knox’s footnotes (from “close and heavy discharge” to “une coup de canon”) with the independent clause that follows the position of the asterisk in his text (from “Hereupon they gave way” to the end).

  The loss of battalion integrity among Montcalm’s forces did not indicate indiscipline so much as the coexistence within the same force of two different training regimes, only one of which was adapted to open-field battle. The regulars had been trained to do exactly what they did: fire, reload quickly, and advance. The militia, on the other hand, knew how to fight only in the bush and reloaded “according to their custom,” either prone or under cover; thus they fell behind the regulars, breaking the line of battle. After Braddock’s defeat the British had trained regulars in woodland as well as open-field tactics, taking care not to employ provincials in any role that required maneuver. The French regulars also knew how to fight both in the woods and in the open, but Montcalm had not been sufficiently alive to the dangers of diluting their ranks with militiamen trained only in woodland tactics.

  30. Stanley, New France, 232; Stacey, Quebec, 149–50. Probably the most accurate version of Wolfe’s death is Knox’s, in Historical Journal, 2:114. There is little reason to doubt the general tenor, at least, of his last words as Knox reported them (“Now, God be praised, I will die in peace”). The captain interviewed eyewitnesses, and the quotation was quite in keeping with the tormented general’s character. It also, at least in substance, squares with his last words as reported in a letter from Quebec, quoted in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 25 Oct. 1759: “I am satisfied, my Boys.”

  31. Gipson, Victorious Years, 422; Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo (Bloomington, Ind., 1991), 218; Stacey, Quebec, 152–5; Stanley, New France, 231–3; Willson, Letters of Wolfe, 494 n., 495–6; Knox, Historical Journal, 2:102–8.

  32. Stacey, Quebec, 156–8.

  33. Gipson, Victorious Years, 423–4.

  34. Knox, Historical Journal, 2:121–32; Gipson, Victorious Years, 424–6; Stacey, Quebec, 159–61.

  35. Gipson, Victorious Years, 424–6.

  36. On Lévis, see esp. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 4, s.v. “Lévis, François (François-Gaston) de, Duc de Lévis.”

  37. On preparations for winter quarters at Quebec, see Gipson, Victorious Years, 429–30; Monckton to Pitt, 8 Oct. 1759, and Murray to Pitt (abstract), 12 Oct. 1759, in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, ed., Correspondence of William Pitt when Secretary of State with Colonial Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America (1906; reprint, New York, 1969), 2:177–83.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Fall’s Frustrations

  1. Amherst journal, 9 Oct. 1759 [?], quoted in Daniel John Beattie, “General Jeffery Amherst and the Conquest of Canada, 1758–1760” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1976), 180.

  2. Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759, entries dated 9–21 Oct., in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, ed., The Correspondence of William Pitt when Secretary of State with Colonial Governors and Militaryand Naval Commissioners in America (1906; reprint, New York, 1969), 2:198–201.

  3. “Robert Webster’s Journal,” Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum 2 (1931): 146–8 (entries of 26 Oct.–18 Nov. 1759).

  4. Rowena Buell, ed., The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (Boston, 1903), 28–31 (reflections following entries of 26 July and 16 Dec. 1759);
quotations at 31. After completing the mill, Putnam went to Crown Point to work as a master carpenter under “Major Skean” [Philip Skene], who promised him the wage of a dollar a day for returning to Ticonderoga. Skene had commanded the post at Stillwater from which Putnam and the rest of Learned’s company had deserted in Feb. 1758. If Skene recognized Putnam as a deserter, he may have intended to visit some small retribution on him, for a crime he could no longer punish.

  5. B. F. Browne, comp., “Extracts from Gibson Clough’s Journal,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 3 (1861): 104–5 (entries of 26 Sept.–3 Nov. 1759; quotations from 26 and 30 Sept.).

  6. “Made up [his] mind”: Buell, Memoirs of Putnam, 31. “When I get out”: “Extracts from Gibson Clough’s Journal,” 104 (entry of 3d [30] Sept. 1759). For troop disorders among New Englanders and their significance, see Fred Anderson, A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), 167–95; and Harold Selesky, War and Society in Colonial Connecticut (New Haven, Conn., 1990), 187–9.

  7. “The provincials have got home in their heads”: Amherst’s journal, entry of 3 Nov. 1759, quoted in Beattie, “Amherst,” 192. “The Disregard of Orders”: Amherst to Duncan, 6 Dec. 1761, quoted in Douglas Edward Leach, Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677–1763 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), 132.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Celebrations of Empire, Expectations of the Millennium

  1. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Gazette, 24 Jan. 1760. New York: Pennsylvania Gazette, 15 Nov. 1759.

  2. Boston Evening Post, 22 Oct. 1759; cf. the account in Pennsylvania Gazette, 25 Oct. 1759.

  3. Samuel Langdon, Joy and Gratitude to God for . . . the Conquest of Quebec (Portsmouth, N.H., 1760), 37–8; see also quoted and explicated passages in James West Davidson, The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth-Century New England (New Haven, Conn., 1977), 211.

  4. Samuel Cooper, A Sermon Preached before His Excellency Thomas Pownall, Esq. . . . October 16, 1759. Upon Occasion of the Success of His Majesty’s Arms in the Reduction of Quebec . . . (Boston, 1759), 38–9; see also passage as quoted in Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York, 1986), 251.

  5. Langdon, in Joy and Gratitude, spoke of Québec as “a token of assurance that God would ‘continue his care of the reformed churches, till all the prophecies of the new testament against the mystical Babylon are accomplished,’ ” including Prussia as a leading partner in the “ ‘protestant interest’ ” (Davidson, Millennial Thought, 210). Providentialists had no problem explaining the previous indecisive outcomes of the Anglo-French wars because in these the Protestant British had allied themselves with the Catholic Austrians.

  6. “A mighty empire” and “Methinks I see”: Jonathan Mayhew, Two Discourses Delivered October 25th, 1759. . . . (Boston, 1759), 60–1. On these sermons’ millennialist content, see Davidson, Millennial Thought, 209–10.

  7. Stout, New England Soul, 253; Kerry Trask, In the Pursuit of Shadows: Massachusetts Millennialism and the Seven Years’ War (New York, 1989), 223–86.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Day of Decision: Quiberon Bay

  1. Pitt’s gloom and recovery: Stanley Ayling, The Elder Pitt, Earl of Chatham (New York, 1976), 261–2 (“with reason . . . gives it all over”—Newcastle to Hardwicke, 15 Oct. 1759, quoted 261). Wolfe’s despair: Wolfe to Pitt, 2 Sept. 1759, in C. P. Stacey, Quebec, 1759: The Siege and the Battle (Toronto, 1959), 191 (“at a loss”); Wolfe to Holdernesse, 9 Sept. 1759, in Beckles Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (New York, 1909), 475 (“so far recovered”).

  2. “The incidents”: Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second (London, 1846), 3:219. “Pronounced a kind of funeral oration”: ibid., 229–30.

  3. On the Battle of Minden, 1 Aug. 1759, and its aftermath, see Reginald Savory, His BritannicMajesty’s Army in Germany during the Seven Years’ War (Oxford, 1966), 162–84; also, in general, see Piers Mackesy’s superb account, focusing on the actions of Lord George Sackville [later Germaine], The Coward of Minden (New York, 1979).

  4. Battle of Lagos: Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo (Bloomington, Ind., 1991), 224; Julian S. Corbett, England in the Seven Years’ War: A Study in Combined Strategy, vol. 2 (London, 1918), 31–40. French finances: Walpole, Memoirs of George II, 3:223–4. (“Even their future historians will not be able to parry” such a disgrace, Walpole chortled. “Defeated Armies frequently claim the victory, but no nation ever sung Te Deum upon becoming insolvent” [223].)

  5. Dennis Showalter, The Wars of Frederick the Great (London, 1996), 243–52; Weigley, Age of Battles, 190–1, gives the number of Prussians engaged as 53,000 and their losses as 21,000. Christopher Duffy’s estimate, in The Military Life of Frederick the Great (New York, 1986), 183–92, agrees with Showalter’s.

  6. Naval operations: Weigley, Age of Battles, 225–6; Corbett, Seven Years’ War, 2:48–52; Richard Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years’ War, 1757–1762 (Cambridge, U.K., 1985), 142–3. (The French used Le Havre to stage invasion preparations until a raid in July by Rear Admiral George Romney destroyed many of the invasion craft; thereafter they shifted preparations to other ports on the Brittany coast. By fall most were in the island-studded Quiberon Bay, a hundred miles to the southwest of Brest.) Vulnerability of Britain to invasion: J. R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century: The Story of a Political Issue, 1660–1802 (London, 1965), 162–8, 194 n., et passim. (Parliament, reluctant to arm large numbers of Scots and Irishmen, had created an English—not British—militia, leaving the defense of Scotland and Ireland to regulars, of whom there were too few both to guard against an attack and to suppress the uprising that would inevitably accompany it.)

  7. Corbett, Seven Years’ War, 2:57–60; Weigley, Age of Battles, 227.

  8. On the dead hand of the Fighting Instructions of 1653, see Weigley, Age of Battles, esp. 145–7; Julian S. Corbett, England in the Seven Years’ War: A Study in Combined Strategy, vol. 1 (London, 1918); 116 ff.

  9. Character of the battle and its results: Weigley, Age of Battles, 228–9; Corbett, Seven Years’ War, 2:60–70. Howe: Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Howe, Richard.” “Had we had but two hours”: Hawke’s report to the Admiralty, 24 Nov. 1759, in Corbett, Seven Years’ War, 2:69.

  10. Threats to public credit: Middleton, Bells, 113–18, 136 (in Mar.–May, and again in July, there had been crises of confidence arising from the shortage of money available to meet current government obligations). Economic expansion and security of government finance: ibid., 153; Nancy F. Koehn, The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994), 52–4. Perhaps as much as military victories, the highly atypical experience of prosperity in wartime—for British exports and reexports rose by a third during the war years, trade with the colonies increased to new levels with surges in demand for consumer goods, and the economy in general expanded as in no other military conflict—helped generate the sense of security that underlay this willingness to accept such increases in public indebtedness. No statistical series could testify more eloquently to this mood than the letter the earl of Pembroke wrote to Captain Charles Lee late in 1759. After expatiating on the victories of the year and relating army gossip, he concluded, “It don’t often happen here, or any where else, I believe, but there is certainly at present amongst all here the greatest spirit and unanimity imaginable, and no appearance of want, much debauch and good living, so pray come amongst us soon” (26 Nov. 1759; New-York Historical Society, Collections, Lee Papers 1 [1871]: 23).

  11. Pitt to the governors of Mass., N.H., Conn., R.I., N.Y., and N.J., 7 Jan. 1760; to the governors of Pa., Md., Va., N.C., and S.C., 7 Jan. 1760; to Amherst, 7 Jan. 1760; in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, ed., The Correspondence of William Pitt when Secretary of State with Colon
ial Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America (1906; reprint, New York, 1969), 2:231–42.

  PART VI: CONQUEST COMPLETED, 1760 CHAPTER FORTY: War in Full Career

  1. Amherst to Pitt, 8 Mar. 1760, in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, ed., The Correspondence of William Pitt when Secretary of State with Colonial Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America (1906; reprint, New York, 1969), 2:260–1; Daniel John Beattie, “General Jeffery Amherst and the Conquest of Canada, 1758–1760” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1976), 200.

  2. Lawrence Henry Gipson, The British Empire before the American Revolution, vol. 7, The Great War for the Empire: The Victorious Years, 1758–1760 (New York, 1968), 446–7; Nicholas B. Wainwright, George Croghan, Wilderness Diplomat (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959), 171.

  3. The decision to retain men beyond the standard enlistment term caused great concern in both the House of Representatives and the Council, especially once the dissatisfaction of the men in “the Eastward service”—the Louisbourg garrison—became known. On 24 Apr. 1760, the members of both houses warned Pownall (and, by extension, Amherst) against further altering the enlistment terms of men unwilling to volunteer for further service. Their reasoning, identical to that of Winslow and his officers in 1756, indicates that even in the more cooperative atmosphere fostered by Pitt’s policies, New Englanders had not changed their contractual notions concerning military service.

  What we have to Remark is, That the Time for which these Men inlisted into his Majesty’s Service, is expired; they have a right therefore to a Discharge, and [a right to] Demand it. Their Detention hitherto is justifiable from the Necessity of it; but that Necessity no longer subsists. If they should be any longer detained, it will be not only unjust to them, but greatly lessen the Power of the Government to raise Men for his Majesty’s Service in future. Men will never inlist, when they cannot depend upon the Promise of the Government for their Discharge: Justice therefore demand[s] and good Policy requires that these Men should be discharged. We have plighted our Faith, and your Excellency in your Proclamation, your Promise[,] that they should be discharged. The General’s Acceptance of these Men, was an Acceptance of them with the Condition on which they were raised; namely, that they should be discharged at the Expiration of the Time for which they were inlisted. The General’s Honour is therefore engaged as well as your Excellency’s, and our own to procure the Liberation of these Men . . . ( Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1759–60 [Boston, 1964], 36:333 [Message to His Excellency the Governor, respecting the Detention of the Forces at Nova-Scotia, &c., 24 Apr. 1760]. Hereafter cited as JHRM).